Sweet Sarah Ross. Julie Tetel

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СКАЧАТЬ William dotes on me, Mother! I couldn’t bear a man who dotes on me all day long!”

      “Since you don’t seem to be able to inspire in a man any other desire but to dote on you, you will be pleased to accompany us on the journey we must make to join Laurence and Cathy.”

      Sarah had been aghast. “To the Oregon Territory? Me? You must be joking!”

      But her mother hadn’t been joking, and nothing Sarah had said afterward had persuaded either her mother or her father from their unreasonable position. She had left that particular discussion angered by her mother’s gross mis-representation of her character.

      And now, here she was, standing at the edge of a river in the middle of nowhere, recalling her mother’s final words. “Someday, Sarah Ross Harris,” her mother had said on a note of threat. “Someday, you will get what’s coming to you.”

      For one hideous moment, Sarah was seized by the idea that she had been deliberately abandoned by her mother and father to the Sioux, the rattlesnakes, the prairie wolves and the man-beast. But then her reason reasserted itself. She hadn’t imagined the war whoops or the Widower Reynolds’s dead body, and her parents had had other opportunities before now to abandon her along the way. Besides which, they wouldn’t be capable of doing anything so despicably underhanded to her, would they. Would they?

      She returned to the clump of trees, repeating to herself that she hadn’t wanted to come on this journey, no she hadn’t, which was proof enough in her mind that she wasn’t responsible for having brought any of her present misfortune upon herself. And the General? What would he have said about the events of the past day? Why, to be sure, he would have agreed that none of this was of her making, and he would have reminded her to be on her mettle.

      Once within the shelter she noted that the man-beast had finished his breakfast, for the fire was banked, and he was sitting under his tree, his back against the trunk. The pieces of her shawl were wrapped around his feet, but they were no longer bloody. He looked as if he was about to say something to her, but since she was feeling hungry and out of sorts and unable to take one of his disagreeable comments just then, she said, “I’m going to return to the Widower Reynolds’s wagon and see what provisions may be there.”

      “The Sioux would have already taken all of use and value.”

      “They didn’t take his trousers.”

      “They don’t tend to touch dead white men, and they’ve no need for white man’s clothing.”

      “I’ve a mind to go to the wagon anyway.”

      “Before you go, I want to—”

      She held up a hand. “To warn me. I know. Rattlesnakes.”

      He made no further comment. She left the glade, scrambled up the slope, where she discovered that the broken-down wagon had been picked clean, and returned to the shelter of the trees empty-handed. At least the man-beast didn’t annoy her with obvious remarks about having been right.

      Instead, he asked, “How many petticoats are you wearing?”

      She was so surprised by the question that she answered it. “Two.”

      “Give me one.”

      The ensuing discussion roused her indignation, which brought her out of her dejection and partially restored her spirits. It ended with the surrender of one of her petticoats, but she decided to make a virtue of necessity and offered up the white cotton as if it were a magnificent sacrifice. She soon discovered that its fate was even more ignominious than that of her shawl, for the half of it was reduced to long strips that she was told would serve as jackrabbit traps. The other half would be saved for the future.

      She was put to work and obliged to carry out the man-beast’s instructions while he lounged against the tree trunk. She set up the rather ingenious traps, as directed, which were composed of sticks and strips of cloth and clover. She fetched the man-beast water in her shoes. She gathered the plants that he told her to gather. She flipped back the cuffs of her long-sleeved blouse and used the hem of her skirts to wipe the sweat from her brow. She found two stones he told her to find and kept them with her in case she might encounter the prairie wolf. She was not to use the stones as lancing objects. Rather, she was to chip away at one rock with the other. She was told that that was how Indians made arrowheads. She wasn’t expected to actually make an arrowhead, but the chipping sound made animals, like prairie wolves, wary, as wild animals are of anything strange.

      The morning ran quickly into afternoon. The afternoon brought the capture of two jackrabbits. After that, the man-beast was busy with her scissors, skinning the rabbits and cooking them over a fire that gave almost no smoke. Then he set about fashioning the hide.

      At one moment while the man-beast was involved in scraping out the rabbit skin, she was troubled enough to say, “I can’t understand why my family hasn’t returned to look for me. That is, if they escaped, which it seems they did. They should be worried about me, no?”

      “They’re probably thankful you weren’t on hand during the attack yesterday afternoon. If they haven’t come back for you, it’s because they’re not able to come back for you.”

      “Which makes me worried about them, then.”

      “Of course.”

      His response to her concern had been reasonable. No gushing sympathy. No unrealistic assurances of her family’s well-being, either. But he had offered her a kind of fellow understanding nonetheless, and she was inclined to judge the man-beast the better for it. She had too much to do, however, to dwell on her slightly improved opinion of her partner in misfortune.

      In the course of her afternoon’s work, she didn’t encounter any wild animals, so she didn’t have occasion to chip away at her stones, although she was aware at odd times during the day of being watched. However, whenever she looked about her, she saw nothing. No Indians. No prairie wolves. She kept the rocks with her, and when she smoothed them in her palms, her jumping nerves steadied.

      The afternoon was spent, and so were her energies. She went one last time to the river, removed her bonnet and splashed water on her face. Heedless of the fact that her hair was tumbling around her shoulders, hairpins askew, she returned to the glade and plopped down on the ground at the base of her tree. She was happy to empty her mind and stare into the lengthening evening shadows.

      When the faintest twinklings could be seen in the sky through the leafy arches in the trees, the rude, inconsiderate man-beast tossed two rabbit skins into her lap and said, “It’s time to move on.”

       Chapter Three

      Powell rose to his full height, tested his weight first on one sole, then the other. His feet were still torn and sore, but the covering of wet rabbit hide made it easier to stand on them. He flexed his knees and felt the ache of muscles in his calves from the awkward way he had walked trying to spare his feet over the last few days. Still, his condition was no longer bad enough to warrant the risk of playing the role of sitting duck another day.

      The trousers were a definite inconvenience. The Widower Reynolds had evidently been a much shorter man than he, for the pant legs reached only to his midcalf. The suspenders did not adjust and were, therefore, СКАЧАТЬ