Part 10 (1/2)
”I thought there were thousands of them.”
Mr. Bisket shrugged.
A bit later, he handed me the reins and slipped down off the wagon seat. He motioned to Frank to join me in the front and then whispered, ”I'm gonna look around. You an't carrying anything suspect, so just ride on into town and go to the hay house.” Then he walked away.
Darkness was coming on; I hustled the two horses up to a trot and shortly came to some Border Ruffians huddled around a fire. I kept on without speeding up, or looking toward them when they shouted. They let me by, but another set stopped the wagon, held Jeremiah by the bridle, and peered at us.
”What's your name?” There were three of them, wearing soft hats, their faces lost in their whiskers. They had on layers and layers of humble clothing against the cold and carried long Kentucky rifles that looked awkward and outmoded by the standards of the Sharps carbine but were nevertheless deadly. I opened my mouth to speak but hesitated just a moment, unsure of what to say. In that moment, Frank said, ”She can't talk. She can't hear nor talk. I go along with her everywhere.”
”Where are you going, then?”
”We're going into town.”
”There's a war in town.”
”Nah!” said Frank, dumbfounded. ”Who's fighting?”
”We're gonna clear out them d- black abolitionist traitors!”
”Well, good,” said Frank.
”What's yer name, boy?”
I shook the reins, and the horses tried to step out, but the Ruffian tightened his grip on the horse's bridle. He said, ”Tell her she can't go nowhere till we get to the bottom of a couple of things.” Frank tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked at him alertly. He made some enthusiastic motions with his hands and face, at which I nodded. Then Frank said, ”I'm Frank Brereton. Who are you?”
One of the others spoke up. ”He's an abolitionist's worst nightmare! Haw!” He spit on the wheel of the wagon.
”We're gonna burn them out down in that hole of abolitionists. We're just waitin' for some stuff! What's her name?”
”She's my cousin Lydia Brereton. We're visiting from-”
”Illinois!” exclaimed one of the men. ”Haw!”
Frank didn't even look nonplussed. He said, ”That's about right.”
”You know Burton Brereton, then?” said the man.
”He was my paw's uncle. He was a killer,” said Frank. I sat stock-still, a blank look on my face, as I struggled to pretend that I couldn't hear this very interesting exchange. ”I never met him,” said Frank, conversationally. ”He died before I was born. But we had them dogs.”
”What dogs?”
”Them dogs that were descended from the b.i.t.c.h that warned Uncle Burton about the killers.”
”I never heard about no dog.”
”Well,” said Frank with some animation, ”that's what happened. The dog snuck away and went to get Uncle Burton, and the killers didn't realize it, and then Uncle Burton, who was raised among the Indians, snuck up and killed those men. He slit their throats.”
This was not the story I'd heard, but I remained impa.s.sive.
”Hunh,” said our interlocutor. ”Well, my paw lived in Edwards County for five year before he come to Missouri, and he always said that a man named Burton Brereton was the death of the meanest and worst criminal who ever lived. So here you are.”
”Here I am,” said Frank, taking credit for the whole thing.
”And she's your cousin.” He pointed to me.
”Yes, she is, but she don't know the story,” said Frank.
”She's a big one,” said one of the men, in an unkind tone of voice. One of the others laughed.
Frank said, ”You don't have to insult her.”
”I thought you said she can't hear nothing.”
Frank didn't quite know how to answer this and fell silent. ”And ugly,” said one of the other men, speculatively, smiling at me. I smiled back at him. ”Ma'am,” he said, still smiling, ”you are about as plain as an old sow.”
I nodded and grinned.
He grinned back at me. ”I bet you are an old maid!” I laughed and tossed my head flirtatiously. All the men guffawed.
”Deaf as dirt from the day she was born,” said Frank.
”I'm cold,” said the man who was holding Jeremiah. ”What are we doing here?”
The man who had known about Burton Brereton said, ”If they want to go to Lawrence, I say let 'em.”
”We gonna check the wagon?”
”Nah. Nah. It's too cold for that.” The men stepped back, I waited, and then Frank nudged me. I shook the reins until the horses were trotting briskly through the dark. In a moment, my teeth were chattering, and there were a hundred things I wanted to say to Frank, but I kept as silent as I would have if those men were perched on the back of our wagon, waiting to hear me speak.
Lawrence was busy with warlike preparations. When we came along Ma.s.sachusetts Street, we could see groups of men lit by long wood fires. Some had shovels and were digging and mounding up fortifications, while others had guns and were watching over the guns of those who were digging. As I noticed this, Frank crawled into the back of the wagon and brought out our guns, my Sharps rifle and the rifle his father had given him. I tried to discern the figure of Thomas, but there were so many men and they were so busy and ill lit that I couldn't make him out. I wondered, with a pang, when I might see him. When we were driving along with Mr. Bisket, it seemed a matter of course that I would see my husband practically as soon as I arrived in Lawrence, but now I saw the real state of things, and I had misgivings about leaving our claim-at least if I were there he would know where to find me. The horses were tired, but I urged them more quickly to the hay house, eager though I was to see my husband. This was the first thing I learned about war-that it makes the briefest parting almost too painful to bear.
The hay house was considerably deteriorated. The thatching that had looked so neat in the summer was now partially fallen out and patchily replaced with hay, sticks, cloths. One end of the house had slumped. My misgivings about leaving our claim swelled, and then swelled again with the revelation that in fact, in K.T., there was no place of refuge now. And then I called out, and Mrs. Bush came bustling out of the house with a light, and she looked excited and happy!
”My dear!” she said. ”I've been looking for you all evening! Thomas was here for his supper, and he was most anxious for your arrival-we hear Ruffians from Lecompton were all along the road to the north, and I so feared you'd be turned back, or worse! And Frank-”
Frank jumped down. ”I told them she was deaf and dumb, and then I lied about everything else, too. Is supper over?”
I said, ”He talked their ears off, till they were too cold to listen and let us go on. But we lost Mr. Bisket....”
Frank took the horses and wagon down the street, where Mrs. Bush said Thomas had found a place for the horses to be fed and the wagon goods to be stowed for the time being.
Inside, sitting around the stove with Mrs. Bush, were some new people-the hay house was never too ramshackle to hold a good set of visitors, and these were the famous Laceys from Ma.s.sachusetts. Mrs. Lacey was a round, fresh-faced woman of maybe thirty-five, I guessed, from the size of her sons, who were fourteen, twelve, and eleven, and all big, stocky boys, still dressed in their New England clothes. Consciousness of our women's gossip about the Laceys had rendered me both disapproving of Mr. Lacey and a little ashamed of how we discussed him. I said, ”You've waited so long to come, and now there's a war-”
”But I wouldn't have missed it!” ”Oh, my land of mercy,” said Mrs. Bush. ”I am happy to miss any war going, but now that they've carried it to us, well, then, we must see it through! But I am all for Dr. Robinson. Tonight, at the Free State Hotel, he said to the men that if the Ruffians attack us, then all of the north will rise up in a rage; and if they go off without attacking, then they'll be simply a laughingstock; and so we can't lose, if you ask me, but of course the poor men are out there in the cold, drilling and digging-”
”And we have to sleep with our rifles on our pillows!” said Mrs. Lacey, apparently invigorated by it all.
I said, ”Do you really think all of the north would rise up in a rage? They seem so far away and intent on their own business.”
”You may mark my words, my dear,” said Mrs. Bush happily, ”the slave power is driving them into our arms one by one, every day. If you lived in Lawrence, you would see it. People come here from those soft, careless places like Indiana or Ohio, and they don't care one way or the other about slavery or about the Negro, and then they feel the resolve of the slave power, and they can't help but resist. Mr. Bush and I are far more sanguine than we were even a few months ago. Look at General Lane. He didn't care one way or the other about slavery till he came here, and now he is with us all the way.”