The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (11 page)

The town itself numbers a thousand souls, in a permanent way, but swelling this population are the swarming hundreds of movables: the traders, trappers, drovers, mule skinners, emigrants and adventurers. Not only is Independence the point of embarkation for the California-Oregon Trail but it also provides the last stop for those taking the southerly Santa Fe route, so that large numbers of Mexicans and half-breed Indians are seen daily lounging over the town. These latter have dusky complexions, are dressed in filthy costumes, and are mounted on raddled mules and horses, presenting altogether as shabby an air as can be imagined. They will beg or steal, being equally insensitive to blows and curses. One Indian, a fine, straight young fellow, several cuts above the others, approached me two days ago, holding out a paper envelope. Suspecting the usual trickery, I made haste to detour around him, but he spoke up in very passable English. “Me Sioux name Che-Tom-W-Ku-Te-A-Ma-Ni, the Hawk that Hunts Walking,” was the crux of his address. I stopped, curious about his next overture, but with a firm clutch on my purse, you may be sure.

“White doctor go with wagons—make trails into California?” I replied that this was indeed the case. “Mr. Reese [he is our local minister] put writing for Hawk to father,—Doctor carry?” For a minute I was nonplussed; then I divined that he was petitioning me to act as mailman. But what a hit-or-miss arrangement!

“Where do I find him? What is his country?” I asked, and he pointed toward the west, with all the accurate fervor of the government mail system; then he said, “Many suns,” opening and closing his fingers several times. Now an Indian’s “sun,” for measurement,
I have learned, is approximately fifty miles, or what the average of them travels in a day, to that I was able to put his “Sioux father” somewhere in the region of South Pass, or far, far out on my journey. And when I asked for his father’s name, in the interest of making delivery, what finally emerged in English, after the usual crackle of Indian syllables, was “Black Poddee.”

To sum up, I tucked the curious dispatch in my coat and promised to hand it over to Mr. Poddee just as soon as I ran across him, and so we parted, the Hawk and I, with much arm-waving of mutual esteem.

I have found cheap lodging at the home of a storekeeper, Mr. Wilson, who with his partner, Clarke, is the principal outfitter here. True to my new vows of temperance and abstention, I am commonly off the streets by sundown, not unhappily so, since they are filled with rowdies, oxen, mules and a general congestion of such clamor that to make one’s way is scarcely feasible. The migrant element among us abides largely in tents, without plumbing, and a lively stench flavors our prairie air which would otherwise be sweet with the scent of larkspur, wild pink, verbena, indigo and lupin. So carefully have I trod in the paths of righteousness that I attended, yesterday, a basket social prepared by the “lady Masons,” and Sunday I was at the forefront for the services of the Reverend Mr. Reese. I must confess that I deemed his sermon badly overstrained in pathos; at its end he consigned us all either to the grave or to perpetual exile, a summary dismissal that I felt to be in bad taste, since many of his listeners were soon to depart under conditions that would make either alternative a strong possibility. To clear our nostrils, we sang some verses to the tune of “Old Rosin the Bow,” and left, having abandoned all hope of salvation.

In my next epistle, I shall relate to you, and to my dear Hannah, the details of my setting out. I must join a “company,” either as member or passenger, in the first case to own a share of the chattels—wagons, oxen (or mules), tools, arms and provisions—and in the second merely to join one group of families, called a “mess,” for an agreed-upon sum of money. In seeking to make these arrangements I have had the most incredible windfall of fortune. And it must be confessed that I owe it all to the benign influence of religion.

On Sunday, following the melancholy accusations of Rev. Reese, I so far broke my rule as to look in on one of the gilded Palaces of Chance, filled with commiseration for the poor misguided creatures there in thrall, and hoping to aid them in some small way. The prevalent game was something called “Sledge,” an importation from the prospecting camps further west, and surely enough, one pale young man, with a look of terrible depression, was losing what I imagined to be his priceless all, a grubstake probably got together by doting family and friends.

Watching this pitiful spectacle, I became aware that the Rev. Reese, together with his Superior, would have wished me to guide this lost sheep out of the field of wolves and into safe pasture. So I took a hand, much against my present instincts, and began to support him in bucking the combination playing against him, for it grieves me to tell you that, as in Louisville, there are those unscrupulous enough to snare any innocent who comes their way. In all, it cost me upwards of forty dollars before I had succeeded in indicating to my pallid friend the true nature of things, upon which he quit abruptly, with, I trust, enough left of his store to reorganize and continue as planned. As for myself, I considered it money spent in the service of the Lord, via Rev. Reese, and I’m sure that you would have been proud, Melissa, to see me thus forcing myself to an enterprise which I now condemn as heartily as yourself.

Moreover, had it not been for a calamitous fall of cards, I stood to make a potful, again in the name of Providence, for I am certain that the Heavenly wisdom would have applauded any clipping of these wolves. But as the book tells us, He moves in strange ways His wonders to perform, and in brief, He saw fit, at a moment of climax, to slip me the jack of spades when any small heart would have provided His humble servant with upwards of three hundred dollars.

So much for that. I feel cleansed and purified at having made this worthy sacrifice for a weak brother-in-need.

And now the stroke of fortune: Before I left, I permitted myself to be stood a very small, or medicinal, draft, or glass, of spirits, following the inviolable custom of the house in providing a “nightcap” to clients whose contributions to the entertainment have not been niggardly. Ranged alongside me at the counter, or bar, were
a rough-hewn pair with hearts of gold, the prototypes of fighting men who have made our great nation what it is. One, a cadaverous, white-maned, rather elderly fellow with piercing black eyes and an inborn sense of piety, informed me that they were raising a company to be called “the Merinos,” and that they would welcome me either as member or passenger. His companion, a bluff, meaty giant with some recently healed scars on his cheek, clapped me resoundingly on the back and cried out that with my capital and their brains we’d “get our share of loot and more.” At first glance, this seemed hardly complimentary, but I later realized that what he meant by “brains” was experience. These honest bravos have the look of competence; they will meet any emergency, I am sure of it. And, Melissa, your sympathy would go out to the patriarch, for as we left, with plans to meet in two days, he sped me on my way with a ringing passage from the Bible—“Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”

Can you imagine better luck than to have fallen in with such selfless benefactors? Wish me Godspeed—things move forward with almost unsettling celerity. But more of that anon; for now I close, to hie myself to the post office in quest of a stamp “for 300 miles or beyond”—price ten cents! Thus the penalty for wayfaring. Bless you all, and be sure to remember in your prayers,

Your devoted husband
,
S
ARDIUS
M
C
P
HEETERS
, M.D.
       (in Systemic Surg.)

I think they might have spared Slater if it hadn’t been for the killing of that hostler. The boy was popular; he cheered folks up and made them laugh, and tempers were pretty high when he got ridden down. Especially when Jennie and I told our stories. We didn’t lay any blame on Joe, but I’ve noticed that lawyers have a sort of wormy way of getting things out of you before you know it. We had to admit, then, that Slater was in with John and Shep, and was along during the murders.

So they threw him into a low, square, red brick building, which was the county jail, and said they would try him the next day and hang him the day after that. “I’m aiming to give him fair play,” stated the sheriff, a man with a belly so fat he probably hadn’t seen his feet in years, as we stood in his office with Mr. Chouteau and some others. “There’s been a lot of loose talk about old Judge Lynch around here, but no man, and I repeat, no man, be he white, black, green or striped, is going to be hung in this county without a trial beforehand.” Then he said they had to hold the trial tomorrow because the circuit judge would be in town that day, but had to make an election speech in St. Charles the day after.

Except for Mr. Chouteau, who I noticed was looking on with a kind of distaste, everybody said this was as fair as anyone could wish, and they said they knew Slater would feel better at the hanging to have had a trial first, with a regular judge, and so on. Then they organized what they called a “posse comitatus” and went tearing all over town, and out in the outlying districts, looking for John and Shep, and they didn’t leave a stone unturned in their
efforts to locate them, but hauled in a number of suspects that were about as likely a bunch of candidates as a party of Eskimos, including a harmless pair of traveling evangelists, several men drunk in a saloon, and a darky that had been sitting on the riverbank fishing. They shot a man in the leg, too, and he wasn’t doing anything more serious than riding along on a white horse without any hat on, which they said tallied with the description and he shouldn’t have answered up so brisk when they told him to dismount and undress.

Mr. Chouteau took us out to his house, which was a stone mansion grander than anything I ever saw in Louisville, and on the way told us about my father’s visit and how they had gone to all that trouble to find me. I felt bad that I’d caused my father the grief, because he had enough worries without adding me to the list, but I was glad they missed me, too. So I explained some about my adventures, but I didn’t exactly put it all in, especially about the gold, for I’ve observed that the less jawing a person does about his money, the longer he’s apt to hang onto it. Which was the perfect opposite of my father. If he found a million dollars’ worth of diamonds, he’d collar the first ten people he saw on the street and tell them all about it, and maybe give them each a handful to make them believe it. But that’s the way he was—he wanted everybody around him to be in on whatever he did.

Mr. Chouteau introduced us to his family, a middling-large group with several children, and he told the ladies, who were very nice and kind, with shiny black hair in coils, and the laciest kind of clothes, what a hard ordeal Jennie had been through. So they put her to bed, with servants, as gentle and considerate as if she’d been a duchess, and waited on her, and gave her broth to drink, and I noticed when they took me up to see her the color had come back in her cheeks; she looked pretty.

I felt a little stiff, not knowing what to say as I stood beside the big high bed, canopied over with ruffles and silk, there being two of the Chouteau women in the room, watching, but by and by she smiled and put out her hand and took mine. “You’re a good,
brave boy. Jaimie.” she said, being probably a little out of her head. “I’ll look after you till you find your pa.”

We talked awhile, then, and agreed that I should visit Slater in jail, to see if we could make things easier for him. “He was an honest man once,” she said. “I’m sure of it,” Before I went out of the room, they got up a letter to my mother, telling how I’d been found, but leaving out the awful parts, and I added a paragraph saying I was homesick but not suffering, to make them feel good, and wound up by hoping that the children in school were learning as much as I was, but doubted it. I was itching to inquire if Professor Yandell had any courses about how to swim out of the Mississippi River in May and, maybe by use of Mental Arithmetic, make his way to St. Louis with a group of murderers, but I fought it down. I had yet to see anybody gain anything by being smart-alecky with my mother; somehow it didn’t pay.

The cooks in the kitchen fixed a box of fried chicken and deviled eggs and cake and things like that, and Mr. Chouteau slipped in two bottles of wine. Then in the evening I was taken to the jail and they let me in Joe’s cell. He was sitting on a bench playing solitaire, and seemed in neither lower nor higher spirits than usual, but that’s the way he was—his face hadn’t any more expression than a ham.

“Well, boy,” he said when he saw me. “You’ve hauled us all down, but if it hadn’t been you I expect it would have been something else. The odds were against us.”

“I’ve brought you a box of food and wine.”

“It might surprise you, but the prospect of being hanged has taken my appetite. Still, I’m obliged to you—have an egg?”

I gulped and said no, I’d already eaten my supper.

“Warden!”
he cried, and slapped on the wall. Presently a shiftless-looking fellow wearing very dirty clothes slouched up to the bars and said, “Here, here, what’s all the racket?”

“A piece of fried chicken for a cigar—fair exchange.”

“Don’t try any of your murdering tricks with me,” said the
turnkey, but I noticed that he looked hungrily at the chicken, all the same.

“Oh, come along, don’t be shy,” said Slater. “Say two pieces, with an egg thrown in.”

The man disappeared and came back in a minute with three long, black, sort of twisted-up cigars that were thinner than any I’d seen, and he said, “Put the food through the bars first.” Eyeing the other two, Slater offered to play cards for them, against the rest of the lunch, and after some haggling he dealt out two hands of showdown poker, one on the inside of the cell and the other through the bars on a hat. But not with his own cards; the turnkey got a deck from the sheriff’s office. I’d never known Slater to be so happy and outgoing. He acted more like a man about to have a monument unveiled to him, and I had to shake myself to remember that all the merriment was because he was in danger of being hung.