“That just ain’t it, Bonnie Sue. I know you better’n I know myself, and it ain’t Indians troublin you. Now, Bonnie Sue, what is it?”
She did not answer.
“Bonnie Sue, please tell me. I want to help you, Sis. Please.”
“You can’t help me,” she said.
“What?” He’d hardly heard her.
“I said you can’t help me, Bobbo.”
“Always been able to help you before,” he said.
“But not now,” she said.
Always had been able to help her, too.
Closer to her than anybody in the whole family. Closest to her in age, and closest to her in temperament, too. Was a time, when they were both just tads, nobody in the family could bust in on one of their conversations. You come upon them talking together, you’d think it was one person talking to himself out loud. Chattered like magpies. Give Bobbo a thrashing, as Pa’d done often enough, Bonnie Sue’d bust out crying. Same the other way around. Ma said when Bonnie Sue wet her pants, it was Bobbo’s you had to change. Inside the family, they got to calling them “Them two.” You said “Them two,” you knew it was Bobbo and Bonnie Sue you were talking about and not Will and Gideon or a pair of mules. Those days, when they were both coming along, Bobbo eighteen months older than his sister, wasn’t anybody in the family could stand up to them. No way to do it. You got into an argument with them two, it was like trying to rassle a pair of bears. One’d give ground only long enough to let the other one get a hold on you, and then he’d swing you around into the grip of the second one. That was then. When they were both just coming along.
Now she was looking more mournful than even Timothy’s wife, and she’d told him he couldn’t help her nohow. He’d have given his life to have helped her. He’d have given that much.
“I’ve never made this trip before except in the company of the military,” Timothy said. “What we did at suppertime, we arranged all the wagons and carts in a rough circle, oh, some fifty to sixty yards in diameter. Pitched our tents inside, hobbled the animals outside to graze.”
It was their first night out of Independence. The men were standing around the fire. Comyns and his two young sons. Willoughby. Bobbo and his father. Timothy there, closest to the fire, the light from it glowing in his red beard, making it look like his chin was aflame. Bobbo liked the man, liked the gentle way he talked to his wife in Indian, liked his sure knowledge of the trail. Hadn’t got a chance to talk to any of the others yet, and didn’t know as he wanted to. There was a fierce look about the carpenter Comyns, and his two sons were a mite young for Bobbo. Willoughby was altogether too mournful a man; spend any time around him, you’d bust into the weeping shivers.
“When it got dark,” Timothy said, “we’d drive the animals inside the circle, and then picket them on long halters. Gave them freedom to forage in the night, and also kept them safe from Indians. Now, I don’t know quite what to do with this party,” Timothy said, and smiled. “This isn’t exactly what you’d call a wagon train, not by any stretch of the imagination, and I’m thinking that however we arrange ourselves, we’re going to be vulnerable somewhere.”
The carpenter Comyns was listening intently. Fifty years old or thereabouts, massive head, mane like an elderly lion’s. Brown eyes fierce as a prophet’s under shaggy white brows. Nose like a wedge, lips thick and purple as calf’s liver. There was something scary about him, reminded Bobbo of when his father messed with his damn snakes, though with Comyns it seemed the usual and not the peculiar. His sons were by his first wife. They resembled their father in every respect save the white hair and brows.
“So what I’d like to do, with your permission,” Timothy said, “is arrange the camp each night with a fire in the center, and a wagon at each of the four compass points. We’ll keep the animals inside, same as the military did, and mount the first guard at nine o’clock.”
“Till when?” Comyns asked.
“Till sunrise.”
“That’s a good nine hours.”
“Yes, and there’re seven of us here,” Timothy said. “I thought we’d relieve every three hours, two men to the watch, each of us having a night off once a week. I can’t see any other way of doing it, not with so small a party.”
“That sounds fair to me,” Comyns said.
“You think we need be so careful, this stage of the journey?” Willoughby asked.
He was a tall thin man with a tanned and weathered face. Dressed in brown the color of earth, he looked altogether like what he was, a farmer plain and simple. The firelight flickered on his hands. He was wringing them as he spoke, kept wringing them as he waited for Timothy’s reply. Made Bobbo nervous, the way he fidgeted all the time.
“Well, there’s not much danger of Indian attack just now,” Timothy said. “But there might be an ambitious brave out there itching to get his hands on some horses, so caution won’t hurt. Besides, it’ll be good practice for later on,” he said, and again smiled.
They moved the wagons and posted the first guard, the two young Comyns boys roaming the perimeter from side to side. The night was still save for the crackle of the fire and the low murmur of the wind. At the fire, Willoughby sat beside Hadley, staring into the flames. He said nothing for the longest time, just kept wringing his hands like he was washing them. Some twenty feet beyond, Minerva stood staring out over the prairie, her arms folded across her waist as protectively as the ring of wagons surrounding the fire. Willoughby sighed at last and nodded to himself, and Hadley knew he’d made a decision about something or other. But he didn’t suppose the man was about to share it with him, and was surprised when he did.
“I’m not sure I want to continue on,” Willoughby said.
It seemed to pain him to say the words. They came from his lips with some effort, as though he were trying to strangle them back. He kept wringing his hands in the light of the fire, but the rest of his body was still as granite. Only the hands moved.
“I’m fearful for the young’un,” he said. “My older daughter and me can endure. But I’m not sure about the young’un.” He nodded again, affirming his decision, strengthening it. “I should’ve waited till next year. I knew the damn wagons’d be gone by now, but I was hopin to catch up. I had to get away from Pennsylvania, you see. My wife passed on not long ago, I had to get away. Did you know my wife had died?”
“Yes,” Hadley said. “I knew that.”
“And you see, I thought to get away. The house there, the farm, it was far too big for just the two girls and me; I needed to get away from it. Start again someplace. But now I’m fearful for the young’un. Your eldest daughter is grand with her, by the way, I’m thankful to you, she relieves the burden. But you see, it’s just... I keep imagining the Indians laying hold of her. Raising her up like their own. I’ve read tales of that, have you not? Wouldn’t recognize her as mine fifteen years from now. Look just like Oates’s squaw there in the wagon,” Willoughby said, gesturing with his head. “And I keep think-in the older one’s none too safe neither, the Indians decide to attack. We’re a small party, that can’t escape their attention if they’re of a mind to come raiding. They’ll have counted the men and the animals, they’ll know for sure we’re vulnerable. Seeing all the young girls — there’re lots of young girls in this party — they might consider it a tempting proposition, as well they might anyway, even without the promise of reward greater than livestock. I’m frankly worried. I’m thinking of turning back.”
“Alone?” Hadley asked.
“Or with as many as’ll come with me. We’re but fifteen miles from Independence, and the Indians behind us are friendly, or so Oates has said. I’m not afraid to risk it alone if I have to. I’m thinking it’s the wisest move.” Willoughby hesitated, and then turned to look into Hadley’s face. “What do you think?”