The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (15 page)

We are now eight days on our journey and have covered nearly 120 miles. Within a hundred miles from Independence we were “blooded,” as they say hereabouts, by having to cross the Kansas, or “Ca” (Indian) River. All went smoothly, thanks in the main to a ferry operated by two businesslike Shawnees: Fare—one dollar
per wagon; the horses and loose stock we swam across, losing only a pony of no great value. In the main, the members of our company are honest, stable, God-fearing men—only one of us, the youth I referred to, provides real anxiety. But he is a protégé of Coulter’s, yet in his teens, a swaggering, sneering bully, already well muscled and tried, and given to strutting around ever with a chip on his shoulder, hoping to provoke a row in which he might employ the use of his guns, at which he is said to be precociously adept. Appeals to Coulter have produced only coarse laughter and the propitiatory remark, “He’s full of beans and his tail’s high.” Which, when you come to think of it, solves little or nothing. This odious, pimpled, troublemaker is called Dick McBride, and I fear that before he is done he will have disrupted a poised expedition.

But everything will come right, and Providence will work His miracles to the greater glory of all, and certainly beyond doubt for the enrichment of the undersigned, whose golden re-entry of Louisville (no longer by stealth) will be hailed, I predict, as of historic import comparable to Caesar’s return from Carthage. And by the way, it has been in my mind to donate, as a gesture of good will, a new wing to the Marine Hospital, a ward to which the poor and needy may apply without cost for therapeutics. Unless you feel it bold, I suggest that “the McPheeters-California Public Clinic” might be a fitting honorific. Concurring, would you, my dear Melissa, make representations to Mr. Birdwell, the architect? It would be a refreshment to have the plans waiting and ready upon my arrival (spare no expense). And so, with this joyous consummation in view, I lay down my pen for the nonce, having to go join some of my fellows in the rescue of a wagon that has skidded down an incline and fractured a singletree. With the most devoted salutations to you, my faithful wife, and to my darlings, Hannah and Mary, from,

Your adventurous husband and father
,
S
ARDIUS
M
C
P
HEETERS
(in transit)

There was a meeting at Coulter’s wagon that night to hash out the argument about stopping to rest on Sunday. It was Coulter’s notion, and I submit that all his statements were put forward in an iron-jawed style which riled others besides my father, that lying over on Sunday, resting the oxen, would save us days in the long haul.

But there was a good deal of grumbling. The people at this stage of the trip were anxious to get on and begin taking out the gold. Except for the Kissels, nearly every group had some pet scheme to use the money on, and some others had debts to pay, like my father. He, by the way, now had his head full of the McPheeters-California Public Clinic, the idea having popped up by accident, and he was filling notebooks full of the most elaborate plans, including rooms for “Hot-Water Therapy,” “Isolation,” “Homeopathy,” and I don’t know what all, and I expect there wasn’t enough gold in the universe to take care of it, but he charged right ahead as if he already had the money in his pocket.

And he consulted Kissel, too, in the idiotically sober respectful way he always did, and if the answers he got back were just as woolly-headed as usual, he paid no heed.

“How do you feel about having female nurses in attendance during operations on the male genitalia?”

Kissel thought it over, knocked out his pipe, and replied, “I wouldn’t let it bother me.”

“You’re quite right!” my father cried, smacking one knee. “Once again, you’ve gone right to the heart of the thing. I’d been worried
about it before, but I see it now. Go right ahead, and not be concerned. Many thanks.”

Well, when they’d straightened out that knotty question, we got up and headed for Coulter’s meeting. But we went early, to have a look at the Englishmen with the mule train. The stories about them drifted in every day, and I’ll own up that they deserved it all. The main one’s name was Coe, but it was considerably more complicated than that, being, as they said, “the Honorable Henry T. Coe,” but what the Honorable was for, I hadn’t any idea, unless it was because he didn’t cheat anybody when he bought the mules. The fact was, everybody said, Colonel Ralston had gouged his eyes out, near about, and everything else this Coe did turned out just as hilarious, though sour financially, so I guess that was it.

Anyway, we got up to his camp and sure enough he was sitting there in an overstuffed rocker, wearing white kid gloves, just like they said.

“Doctor Sardius McPheeters, your servant, sir,” said my father in his grandest style, walking forward to introduce himself, with his hand stretched out.

“A pleasure,” said Coe, without rising, and taking the hand as a king might accept a gift from some cannibals out of his provinces. That is, he grasped it limply, put it aside, and reached for a silken kerchief, as if to brush off any contamination. Besides the gloves, he was wearing a pair of gray striped trousers and a black coat.

My father coughed, being taken down a little, and introduced Kissel, Brice and me; then he went on to state that he’d taken his medical degree at the University of Edinburgh, so that he thought he should pay a visit of “British solidarity.”

At this, Coe thawed slightly and even called to a negro youth, who went by the name of Othello, and said to fetch some ginger beer.

So it was true, then. They’d told it all around that this Coe was traveling to California with twenty-six cases of ginger beer, and he had it here stashed away in his wagon—I sidled over and peeped
under the canvas. It tasted good, too; he wasn’t due to get much farther with it, but I’m jumping too far ahead.

Sitting down, they had a talk about the exaggerated hardships of traveling to California, and this Coe said he was keeping a journal and meant to write a book, to be called,
An Amble over the Rockies and a Stroll through the Diggings.
When Brice remarked that the title might prove to be a little breezy, considering other accounts of the ride yet before us, Coe waved with disdain and said:

“Oh, these fellows told me I was a bit of an ass to wear kid gloves and carry ginger beer, but it’s necessary to keep up appearances. I make no doubt they’ll have the desired effect upon the natives.”

It seemed to me he was the greatest fool I’d ever met, and I go to this trouble to show him because we saw a good deal of him later. He had his mule skinner, Othello, standing at an iron pot cooking what he called a “leveret,” which was nothing more than a young jackass rabbit, and the Honorable Coe called him over to demonstrate him.

“Othello, how do we discipline a balky mule?”

He was a solid, shiny fellow with a head like a bullet, and he said, “Sah?”

“How do you gentle a mule?”

“I take and butts ’em, sah.”

“Show these gentlemen. Pick out the worst one, say Gnasher. Pretend to pack-saddle Gnasher.”

The negro took up one of the heavy wooden packs and approached the mule, which switched around suddenly and lashed out with both heels. But the boy was an artist for nimbleness. While we sucked in our breath, he backed off a few feet to charge in like a shot out of a cannon. What kept his neck from breaking, I have no idea, but his head hit the mule’s side with a thud like a bass drum. The animal just stood there and quivered. It wasn’t happy at all. And it didn’t make a move a moment afterward when Othello threw the saddle over its back.

“That’ll do,” said the Honorable Coe. “See to the leveret. You know,” he went on, “that noisy villain, Coulter, gave me a foolish method of subduing these beasts, and I rather think he did it on purpose. He told me to throw Cayenne pepper in their eyes and push them into the river.”

“Did you try it?” asked my father.

“Tried it on Parliament—that’s the slow one.”

“With good results, I trust?”

“The bounder bit a hole through the third finger of my right hand.”

Everybody sympathized with him and said how ornery a mule could be, no matter how well you treated him, and then we went on over to Coulter’s, because it was time for the meeting to start. The Honorable Coe tagged along, after telling Othello to look in once in a while on Vilmer, which was his valet, he said, but had taken down sick owing to the wretchedness of the food.

“I’ll be happy to attend him, as a courtesy,” said my father, brightening up at the prospect of occupying the limelight for a while.

“Why, that’s good of you,” said Coe, “but a Doctor Merton had a look at him only this morning. He reported that all hepatic action had ceased and gave him some morphine and senna leaves. He said if he didn’t rally in a couple of days, not to count too much on having a valet for the trip.”

“Singular diagnosis,” muttered my father, and we made our way through the oval of wagons. Coulter and most of the men were grouped around his campfire, with Coulter standing up and his side-kick, McBride, not far away. Coulter was a big fellow, about the size of Shep but not red-faced that way. He was dark tan and black-haired and always looked blue around the chin, as though he needed a shave, though mostly he didn’t—he shaved every day. He had on a buckskin shirt with a fringe, and a pair of coarse linsey-woolsey pants that narrowed down into boots, and a very beat-up hat with a broad brim and a thong underneath, so as to keep the sarcastic look on his face from being blocked off, I reckon.

“To get things started,” he said, looking around, amused, “I understand there’s been some beefing about my orders to hole up Sundays.”

A nice-looking elderly man in very decent clothing, a Mr. Kennedy, with a party from Missouri, spoke up to say in a polite tone, “Not beefing, Mr. Coulter. More properly, you might say a difference of opinion.”

“What’s yourn based on?” inquired Coulter. “You made the trip often?”

Kennedy reddened up and stammered something about common sense and ordinary judgment, but Coulter paid him no attention. “When I signed on as nursemaid to this bunch of milksops, I did it with the understanding that I was to be boss. But if you insist on committing suicide, you’re entirely free to do so. However, I ain’t planning to be in on it. I resign, and you can keep my salary—a hundred dollars and found. Dick and I’ll be riding back in the morning. You’re on your own.”

I noticed the Honorable Coe sort of looking down his nose, as if somebody had hauled some garbage into camp; now he said, “Your judgment may be sound, but your manners could stand improvement, Coulter. In England, impertinence like yours would be answered with a day or two in stocks.”

There was a general gasp of shock, and some tittering from one or two men in the rear, hidden in the shadows. I couldn’t believe my ears—here was this Honorable Coe, dressed up like a dandy, with a sprig of artemisia in his buttonhole and usually giving out the sissiest kind of speech—and he spoke up to this roughneck as if he was dressing down a groom.

But the biggest effect it had was on McBride, who wheeled around, white-faced, and demanded in a gritty kind of tone, “
What did you say?”

“You can call off your whippersnapper, too, Coulter,” said Coe, taking no notice. “I don’t recall ever seeing an upstart so badly in need of a birching.”

Stripping off one of his gloves, which he wore like a gunfighter,
McBride moved forward two quick paces and slapped at Coe’s face, but my father stepped between them and took the blow on his shoulder.

“Go on!
Draw!” McBride half screamed, adding a few choice curses. “I’m going to make you sorry you opened your dirty mouth.”

My father and one or two other gentlemen said some soothing things, and held him off, for he would have shot Coe sure, and then Coulter came over and jerked the boy away, saying, “Get in your tent.”

With a good deal of boldness, I thought, Kennedy spoke up to complain, “In addition to the Sunday delay, Mr. Coulter, not a few of us are sick and tired of being bulldozed by that bad-tempered young ruffian. We refuse to put up with it much longer.”

Coulter amazed us all by breaking into a grin and saying, “To tell you the truth, I’m a little sick of him myself. Now I propose that we keep our heads and talk this out. My reasons for the Sunday rest are perfectly simple. I’ve never been over this route, as I acknowledged candid and frank when I hired out, but I’ve done trail riding in other directions, including the Santa Fe, and I’ve yet to see a wagon train that didn’t profit by a day-a-week layover. The oxen are refreshed, the equipment can be patched up, and folks just seem to get back their strength generally. Several of you set such a store by Ware and his guidebook, I’m surprised you haven’t taken his word. He says, and I think I remember it right, ‘Never travel on the Sabbath; we will guarantee that if you lay by on the Sabbath, and rest yourselves and teams, that you will get to California 20 days sooner than those who travel seven days a week.’ ”

Well, this seemed to impress most of them; they shook their heads and said maybe they’d been a little hasty, that they must have read Ware’s comment but had likely forgot it.

“That’s all fine and good,” said one man, “but what about this squirt, McBride? He’s pining to gun somebody. We’re about wore out on it; speaking for myself, I’ve got saddle sores.”

“I’ll make you a promise. If he hasn’t changed his tune in a week, I’ll ship him out. He’s the son of an old friend, and I vowed to take care of him.”

“That sounds fair enough,” said my father, and a few joined in to agree, but I noticed that some still looked unconvinced. They looked worse when Coulter said, in his old raspy voice, “If you’ve had your say, I suggest you drift back to camp. The dew’s coming up and you may catch a cold.”

He was hard to figure out. Sometimes he seemed sensible and almost human; other times he was as irritating as sand in your porridge. Neither did it make him more popular, as we left, when he took a swig from a bottle he carried on his hip and cried out, like a mother putting some half-witted children to bed, “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.” We heard his hoarse laugh back in the darkness as we made our way to the wagons.