The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (31 page)

“I don’t believe I’ve ever before had a due and meet appreciation of the late Job.”

But in a second he went on briskly. “What they’d say would be, ‘The Indian the rifle
fired.
’ You may take my word for that; I’ll get affidavits if necessary. Now let us consider a sentence in the actual language, in Latin itself. Listen carefully.
Agricola in horto est.
What do you think of that?”

“It’s very nice,” I said. “I like it. I’m surprised they let it die out.”

“Agricola
means farmer,
horto
means garden, and
est
means is. Now put them all together and what do we have? In other words, son, translate the sentence.”

“The garden is in the farmer.”

He didn’t appear to care for the way it was going, because this time he snatched off his hat and threw it on the ground. “Confound it, boy, there must be
something
you can learn. I never saw such a student. An outsider would get the notion you were a complete jackass. Why do you say the
garden
was in the
farmer?
Perhaps you’d care to explain it.”

“I figured it was toward the end of the season and he’d eaten the garden up. It seems perfectly sensible. After going to all the
trouble of planting it, he’d be a fool to let it sit there and rot.”

I could see we had about finished the lesson, because he got up, a little carefully, as if he was in some pain, and rubbed the back of his neck, working his head all around. “I think that ought to wind it up for today, son. I’ve marked out a section here, having to do with the verb ‘to love’—
‘amare’
—no, you needn’t make any comment on it; I’d rather you didn’t. Over the next few days, take a shot at learning the conjugation: ‘Amo,
amas, amat,’
etc. Frankly, I don’t think it will pan out. What we may have to do is get another book and start back a little farther, in English: ‘A’ is for Archer, ‘B’ is for boy, and so on. It’s been a very instructive experience. The only thing about it that bothers me is why I ever paid school taxes in Louisville. It’s a perfect example of municipal larceny. You can come along to supper—S-U-P-P-E-R, to eat, or dine, whenever you’ve washed up.”

I watched him go. Somehow, he seemed to walk a little
older
than usual. But I felt relieved all the same. It had been a very close call. And in case you might have the notion that I wasn’t being helpful, I’ll say now, again, what I’ve believed all along: There isn’t a particle of use in making all that fuss over a language as dead as Latin. If you ask me, I’d saved us
both
some trouble.

When we arrived at Chimney Rock, everybody let down a little. It wasn’t very remarkable when you thought it over. These people had been under a severe strain for weeks. What with Indians, sickness, boggy roads, and the loss of their supplies, which they saved and scrimped and bargained for, and beneath it all an anxiety about the strange new land ahead, they were ground down pretty fine.

About ten miles before reaching the rock, we came across another odd formation, being what they called “the Courthouse,” because of its resemblance to the Capitol at Washington, so they said. If you squinted up your eyes, you could imagine a main building with wings on either side and a big dome on top. It gave you a funny feeling. Particularly so when my father said that all these
formations—the high bluffs on the riverbanks, the Courthouse, and Chimney Rock itself—were all of a soft stone that would crumble away in years to come, and not be there any more. You could believe my father on things like that; when he was sticking to scientific facts, without any need to embroider, he showed an amazing knowledge; I’ve heard several very smart people say the same.

Seeing the Courthouse, I had an urge to explore it, so I went ahead of the train and climbed up part of the outside. It was ghostly: dead chalky white, with places as smooth and finished as the finest building, but other parts ruined and moidering, like some old lost city. I couldn’t stand it very long; every little pinnacle or wall I climbed, I expected somebody to jump out on the other side. Things were too quiet. I thought I heard a clock ticking way down deep, too, and Aunt Kitty once said it was a sign somebody was about to die. I was beginning to get a case of the nervous jimjams, so I turned to scramble out of there in a hurry. But as I half slipped around one of those white-dusty corners, I almost swallowed my heart; I must have come within an inch of fainting. A very old, wrinkled Indian man was standing on a flat place, erect as a tree, arms folded, face entirely stiff, waiting, and at his feet sat a young girl not more than eleven or twelve, eyes cast down in a sort of sadness.

Well, I’d seen enough Indians; I knew what they were like, so I looked around for the others. But these appeared to be alone.

“How, colai” said the old man in a voice that almost croaked, as though he hadn’t used it lately. He held up one arm.

I trotted out what I remembered of Pawnee, to ask what he wanted, hoping it was peaceable. Then, with a rapid-fire flourish of signs, and a lot of words I mostly didn’t know, he managed to indicate that the girl was for sale. He wanted to barter her off, cheap, but I couldn’t get the details or even figure out the price.

As best as I could, I said we weren’t in the market for any marked-down Indians, male or female, and I’d thank him to stand aside and let me pass on back to the train. But he had the persistence of a dog that’s too hungry to be driven off, and followed
right along, towing the girl on the end of a line. It was ridiculous: I’d go a few feet, stop, look back, and shout at him to leave; then take up the march, half climbing and slipping, and do it all over when we came onto more level ground. There wasn’t any way to shake him; I never ran across such an old donkey.

So the best thing was to continue on down toward the train, which was winding up the plain almost even with us. It looked bedraggled, I noticed, not so white and smart as when we left. In a minute, I made up my mind not to palaver any further with the old man—it wasn’t dignified—but would join up and leave him slide. But my father and Buck Coulter were walking ahead a ways, having a talk, and they were set back when they saw me.

“My boy, you’ve got company,” said my father.

As might be expected, Coulter’s two cents’ worth wasn’t quite so genteel.

“Arapahoe,” he said, with a sniff; then, raising his voice, “Skee-daddle.”

The old man came right on, then pitched into the same tirade he’d given me, pointing at the girl, who stood aside, waiting, as if she’d done it often before. Altogether, I guess, he unloaded about ten thousand words. But first he took out of his shirt a short flagstaff and unfurled a flag with an eagle and “E Pluribus Unum” on it. And after this he handed over a letter written by a French fur trader, vouching for his friendliness.

Coulter’s comment on the last was, “Very pretty, I’m sure. Maybe I’d better take and hit him over the head with a pistol butt.”

“I hope not, Mr. Coulter. It doesn’t seem courteous, somehow. What exactly is he after?”

“He wants to get rid of the girl.” Coulter asked a question, seeming at home in the language, and when the answer came, said, “She’s a Sac and Fox, from up towards Wisconsin.”

After another exchange, he said, “She was taken by Sioux when a baby and since then been with Cheyennes and Arapahoes.”

A third passage, and, “His family’s wiped out, says he can’t afford
to keep her any longer. He wants to trade her for a red blanket.”

“What an extraordinary wish,” said my father.

“Most of it’s lies, I reckon, but the last part’s true. These skunks will do anything for a red blanket. They’ll rent you their daughter, then stand by and watch. It amounts to a disease.”

My father asked her name; I thought it an odd question. And when Coulter turned toward the old man, he said, “No, ask the child herself.”

She raised her head to look Coulter steadily in the eye—there wasn’t anything hang-dog about her—and spoke in a very low voice.

“Po-Povi—Water Flower,” Coulter translated. “She says the Cheyennes gave it to her.”

“Poor, miserable, neglected child,” said my father. “What will become of her, if he hasn’t any luck with us?”

Coulter grinned. “A bunch of bucks—Sioux, or Crows, or Shoshones—will chip in and keep her for sport. Till she wears out. Then they’ll pass her along to the Diggers and the Utes.”

My father straightened up with an air of decision. “Then that settles it. Mr. Coulter, I’ve decided to buy the child. Up to now, Jaimie and I have depended on the bounty of Jennie and the self-sacrificing Mrs. Kissel. This child can help with the chores from now on; she looks strong and competent.”

“And when the job’s done, and we’ve lit in California—what then?”

“If she’s the good, decent girl she appears, I’ll see she has the best upbringing possible.”

I almost exploded. This was the most idiotic notion my father ever struck, and he was kind of genius for foolishness. Here I’d told him all, or nearly all, about the trickery of that Pawnee girl they called Pretty Walker, and now he was trying to take on another exactly the same: both were young and pretty, both had been captured, and, as likely as not, both had a disposition as black as the ace of spades. It was more than I could stand, and I told him so.

“Son,” he said, putting an arm over my shoulder, “I don’t often go contrary to your wishes, now, do I?”

After a moment, I said, “No, I guess not.”

“You will doubtless recall the spankings I adminstered with
The Turf Regster?”

I nodded, feeling sheepish, because he
was
as good a father as you could have, and the most fun, too, if you came right down to it.

“Jennie’s getting married tomorrow. And Mrs. Kissel doesn’t look well, according to my doctor’s view. And in the further cause of common humanity, let’s give this unhappy waif a home and the attention of some goodhearted people. Now what do you say?”

I couldn’t do any more than nod again.

“You may be making a mistake, doctor,” said Coulter. “An Indian’s ways ain’t necessarily your ways. Even a kid this age.”

“I’ll take the chance,” said my father stoutly.

Coulter turned to the old man and asked one more question. “Well, that much is all right. She hasn’t been used yet. The old villain says she’s still a maid, and he’ll up-end her and prove it if necessary. If you ask me, I’d let him do it. You can’t be too sure.”

I wasn’t entirely clear what he meant, but my father turned a bright red; then he stammered, “Surely, Mr. Coulter, you aren’t suggesting that I, that this child—”

“Doctor,” said Coulter, “I’ve lived rough and I think rough. I don’t know what limits a gentleman like yourself might set on a purchase of this kind. It’s up to you”—he grinned again—“and time.”

“Absolutely outrageous!” my father burst out, fuming, and we went down the train to get the old Indian his red blanket.

Sunday we had the wedding, and it turned out fine, but not quite the way Jennie planned it. Still, it was a very pretty wedding—everybody thought so—and if the bridegroom didn’t exactly know what was going on, that could be laid to medical reasons and wasn’t any reflection on the bride.

As I said in the last chapter, people let down a little when we got to Chimney Rock, but my father, for the first time since we left home, let down so far they couldn’t get him back up. It was an embarrassment; he felt very bad about it, as I’ll tell in a minute. But first I want to put down, from his Journals, what he wrote about this Chimney Rock, because it shows that weak or not now and then, he was strong on a whopping variety of subjects. Maybe that’s what made him so unsure. It takes a very smart man to realize how many things there are he will never know.

He wrote that “this circumambient rock has long since largely melted away, the argillaceous part to fill in the river, the sandy part to add to the plains,” and spoke of a “serrated wall of freestone.” And then he said that there are “four high elevations of architectural configuration, one of which could represent a distant view of the Athenian Acropolis; another the crumbling remains of an Egyptian temple; a third, a Mexican pyramid; the fourth, the mausoleum of one of the Titans.” And he wound up by setting down that “the illusion is so perfect the viewer can imagine himself encamped amongst the ruins of some vast city erected by a race of giants, contemporaries of the Megatherii and the Ichthyosaurii.”

I don’t mind taking pride in those words. Some of them couldn’t
be pronounced by the smartest professor, and as for spelling them, I doubt if you could have got it done in one college out of five. Any man with that much reading behind him deserves to drink pretty well what he pleases.

But I’d better keep moving, and not maunder, because a neighbor with a very good education, and a piece of sheepskin scribbled over with Latin to prove it, was reading these pages the other day, and said I wasted too much time on “irrelevancies” and should “get right on with the action.”

So we set up camp in the shadow of Chimney Rock, toward the middle of Saturday afternoon, and the people knocked off to visit. The Honorable Coe came down to our wagons and sat around, talking to my father about Britain, and they agreed that the weather at that moment, which was misty, would be called a “dawkie” on the Scottish coast. This curious fellow had become friendly with us, in his thawing-icicle way. As well as he could, he was trying to work himself out of the clammy, strangulated, nose-tilted outlook of Englishmen and be one of the group. They’re a funny race; I’ve heard my father admit it. He said when you first meet them, they draw off as though you’re trying to borrow money from them, but when you get better acquainted, they generally borrow money from you. Anyhow, Coe sat down on an upturned keg, and he had a bottle of sherry he said he’d “been saving for a propitious moment.” But could he open it himself? Oh, no. That might be letting the bars down, you see. Othello, the bullet-headed darky, came along, dressed in the idiotic costume of the late Vilmer, and drew the cork with as much flourish as if we’d been at Buckington Palace.