Far Away Home (10 page)

Aislynn proudly
produced her father’s revolver. Sage turned to Johnny and said, “Hope you got
better than this.”

Johnny described
his guns and Sage said, “Get her the same.”

“You don’t
honestly think anyone is going to shoot at us?” Her question came in the shape
of a plea.

“Yep.”

“But she doesn’t
know how to shoot,” Johnny interjected.

“Teach her.”

“I don’t have
time before we leave. I’m makin’ changes to the wagon.” He looked at Aislynn.
“I suppose we should buy the guns here, and I’ll teach you en route.”

“You buy the
guns. I’ll come by for supper tomorrow an’ take her out on the prairie. I ain’t
got much to do ‘til the railroad’s money comes through.”

The thought of
being alone on the prairie with him was not to her liking.

“Do you shoot
well, Mr. Sage?” she ventured.

“It’s what I do,
ma’am.”

“What you do?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m
a gun. I’m hired to shoot people who can’t follow them laws I mentioned ‘fore.”

His words took
her breath, “People?” she asked, her hand leaping to her throat.

Sensing her
distress, Johnny chuckled. “Outlaws, Aislynn. He doesn’t kill women and
children.”

Aislynn looked
into Sage’s pale eyes. In his unblinking stare, she saw sorrow. Recognition
passed into curiosity until it stopped at sympathy. Aislynn wondered about
Sage. There seemed to be sadness in the man, something that touched her and
made her trust him.

“I ain’t gonna
hurt you, ma’am.”

Remembering his
advice and counsel, she felt awe in the way that grace is granted. She said,
“Fine, Mr. Sage. I’ll fix you a nice supper.”

Chapter 9

Aislynn trudged
alongside Sage, stumbling painfully in her unfamiliar, uncomfortable boots. The
prairie welcomed them with its green-brown swells of grass and brush against a
sky unbroken with clouds. Pushing up like whitecaps, shards of pale rock broke
the smooth, soft lines of the plains.

Sage set a can
on a stout rock and handed her the tiny pistol. “Shoot,” was all he said.
Aislynn held the gun in front of her, looked away and pulled the trigger. The
pistol jumped from her hand and landed on the ground. Frowning, he asked,
“Ain’t you never seen no one shoot a gun ‘fore?”

“No! I ain’t
never seen no one shoot a gun ‘fore!” she retorted.

“You gotta aim,
for land sakes. Use your eyes.” Sage looked for the gun in the grass. “What
kinda place is this here New York? Ain’t they got no guns?”

“Of course,
people have guns, but they certainly don’t brandish them in public, nor do they
shoot them in my neighborhood. Someone could get hurt.”

“Ain’t that the
idea?” Sage picked up the pistol, slapped it into her hand and said, “This time
look at the target.”

Aislynn tried to
aim with both eyes, but the barrel appeared to double. She closed her left eye,
and the barrel moved to the left. She tried closing her right eye, but found
the barrel moved right. “It keeps moving.”

“Well, hold it
still.”

Puzzled, Aislynn
held the gun in her right hand and aimed with her left eye. She missed the
target, but she held on to the gun.

“Gimme that,”
Sage ordered, shaking his head. Grabbing the weapon from her hand, he reloaded
and said, “Watch. You can’t use your left eye with your right hand.”

Two bullets
burned through the can. Sage pushed two bullets into the barrels and slapped
the pistol back in her hand, “Now you do it just like that.”

Aislynn
stretched her arm, pointed the gun toward the target and pulled the trigger.

“Raise it, aim
it an’ shoot it,” Sage commanded.

Again she tried,
stretching her arm, bringing the gun up to face the can and pulling the
trigger. She hit the ground; she hit the brush, and she hit the rock with the
can. She came near the target but never reached it. “Let’s move on,” he
suggested.

They worked with
the Colt. “Raise it, aim it an’ squeeze it.” Aislynn needed two hands to hold
the gun and the full strength of both arms to keep it steady when she pulled
the trigger. She gripped it with each bang, straining to contain the animated
metal. After an hour of trying to tame the wild bucking beast, Aislynn’s arms
shook with fatigue.

“I need to
rest,” she pleaded.

A piece of rock
offered them a seat. Aislynn opened a basket holding a jar of lemonade and a
leftover piece of cake. She shook the jar and filled two tin cups. He smiled
when she handed him the cake and the cup. “Tell me ‘bout this New York that’s
such a peaceful place nobody’s shootin’ it up.”

Aislynn threw
her head back to the endless blue sky and took a breath. “Well, the streets are
straight and paved with gray cobble stones stretching north and south and they
intersect with other streets stretching east and west. The streets are lined
with sidewalks of brick or stone.” She held her hands together and spread them
wider and wider apart as she spoke. “Lining the sidewalks are buildings: brick
buildings, stone buildings, wooden buildings of all shapes and sizes. Some are
huge buildings covering an entire block and rise five or six stories.”
Aislynn’s hands went up over her head and came down again. “Some are low and
narrow, and some are tiny and a hundred years old. Some look like castles and
fortresses. There are even tenements with a hundred people crammed inside.”

“How’d they all
get in?” Sage asked, incredulous.

“They walk
through a door.” Aislynn laughed. Her tone changed as she continued, “But
inside, they’re terrible, dirty, dark, and cramped. Some people have no choice
but to live there. The poor just can’t afford anything else. It’s live there or
in the streets.”

“Can’t they make
a camp?”

“There isn’t any
space; it’s all streets, buildings and lots of people. And the people, why
there are all different types of people: brown people, black people, yellow
people, and white people all from different parts of the world. They speak all
kinds of languages. Sounds like gibberish sometimes with so many sounds, but
they understand each other. You can pass a building and smell cooking from the
far corners of Europe and from the deepest, darkest places in Africa. Some
people cook right on the streets and sell what they cook. Then there are the
stores. Why you can buy anything you’ve ever wanted in New York City.”

Aislynn
straightened, her eyes grew wide, and she waved her hands in excitement. “Oh
and once, we went to the ocean. Mr. Sage, you should see the ocean. If I ever
return to New York, I’ll take you with me and show you the ocean. It’s so vast,
wider than the prairie. It never ends. It’s alive, in constant motion.” She
swayed like the waves. “When the surf rolls into the shore, it rises. Then, as
it crashes in a roar of thunder, and it bursts into white foam that rushes
along the entire beach.” Her arms stretched wide. “It only lives a short time
because the sand swallows it. But you don’t miss it because just as one dies,
another rises right behind it, and the whole drama repeats on a stage as big as
the sky.” Sage seemed to enjoy her presentation, until she said, “Tim took me
to see it once. It was wonderful.”

His face turned
hard and he took a breath, “What’s Johnny think of this Tim?”

“He admires
him.”

“Not as much as
you, I’d wager.”

Sensing his
disapproval, Aislynn twisted her face into a pout.

“You seem mighty
partial to him.”

She stiffened
under his accusation and defended herself, “I am fond of him.”

Sage’s eyes bore
into hers. She pressed on, “I try to be good to Johnny, but I can’t help what I
feel.” She felt sorry for her admission the minute it fell from her mouth.
Guilt ate at her; she had wanted to confess her feelings to somebody and, in a
fashion, gain expiation. She thought Sage, old and scarred, could carry the
burden of her secret.

“Yep, you can.
It’s all in how you choose to look at someone. Sometimes younguns get ideas an’
they get bigger than what’s real.” He shook his head at her, “Jes be careful.
Mistakes can’t always be corrected.”

Aislynn chewed
her lip and Sage said, “You think on it.” He handed her the cup and picked up
the Winchester rifle. “Let’s go.”

Aislynn followed
his instructions and held the cumbersome piece against her shoulder. When she
pulled the trigger, the buck sent her stumbling backwards. Tripping in her
boots, she fell on her buttocks. Sage laughed and said, “That’s God tryin’ to
knock some sense into you.”

They toiled with
the rifle until Aislynn complained of being tired, hungry and nearly blind.
Sage took the gun from her hands and placed it on the ground. “Set down,” he
commanded, motioning toward the rock. They faced the western sky where the land
seemed to be swallowing the sun. Storm clouds suffocated the peak on Sherman
Summit. The wind, so welcome while the sun burned, turned cold as the sky
darkened. He eased his bulk down next to her, and Aislynn waited impatiently
for a lecture on her poor target practice.

“You gotta good
man.”

“Yes, he’s a
good man.”

“You should
‘preciate what you got.”

Aislynn sat
quietly looking west. The sun tipped over the edge of the earth and left the
sky orange, pink and purple, as a reminder of its power. Facing Sage, she tried
to think of something to say, something to justify her feelings. She took a
breath with the intention of explaining herself.

“I was married
once,” Sage said. The revelation shocked Aislynn. Sage seemed almost superhuman
to her, like a character in a dime novel, out of place in a domestic scene. “A
girl come into Fort Laramie ‘bout fourteen years back. She was a green-eyed
thing, blonde, like my Ma. My Ma was daughter to the first missionaries. They
come out here to convert Injuns: Cheyenne, Sioux, Osage. They’d preach to any
who’d listen. They was all gone when I come along, my Pa included. Ma did
laundry an’ cookin’ at the fort ‘til she died. I was young, four, five maybe.
Soldiers took me in.”

Sage’s gray eyes
never wavered from the horizon. His face fell expressionless, blank and remote.
“So, one day this gal pulled into Laramie with a train. Her family stayed four
days to rest an’ supply. When it come time to go, I wouldn’t let her leave; I
just held on to her. Her folks left. After a time, she had a child.”

He stopped
speaking. Aislynn knew the child and its mother were dead. Death was the end of
many stories she had heard about the West. He sat stone still, his long blond
hair blowing under his hat in the stiff wind. He unclenched his teeth and
continued, “The baby looked like an Injun. Black hair, black eyes, deep skin.
She swore ‘twas mine, but I couldn’t make no sense of it, neither could no one
else. There was plenty of Injuns about the fort, on the trail. I’d left her
alone some to go scoutin’, huntin’, but she seemed such a good gal. I just
couldn’t believe she’d done it, but there it was atauntin’ me. I coulda took
‘em an’ left, just gone into the mountains, made the best of it but ‘stead I
believed the worst, told her to go. She took that baby, walked out onto that
prairie an’ did never look back.”

Aislynn’s heart
hurt. She watched him staring; he was looking for them. Searching for some way
to comfort him, she looked at his hard face and raised her hand to touch his
arm. It seemed he had stopped breathing, then he inhaled and continued. “A few
years later, an old Osage woman come into the fort with a bunch of Injuns. She
heard my name an’ said ‘Your pa was my brother. He took a white wife an’ that
Christian name.’ Ain’t no one never told me I was half-breed, no one ‘cept that
ol’ woman… an’ that baby.” He spit the last words from his mouth and did not
utter another sound. Aislynn hugged his arm as tears streamed from her eyes.
She noticed the sky was a dark navy; the stars were becoming faintly visible
when she felt him release the rigid tension he held inside. 

“Sage?” she
ventured.

He looked down
at her as though he had just discovered her sitting there. She placed her free
hand on his stubbled cheek and said, “I think tomorrow is more important than
yesterday.”

In the darkness, she could feel
his intense, penetrating eyes. “Well, gal, you got lots of tomorrows.”

Chapter 10

The bugle
sounded a wake-up call with the first hint of light. They were granted an hour
to eat and break camp. The sun showed full on the eastern horizon when Captain
Morton yelled, “Ho for Utah!”   

Johnny shook the
reins, the mules leaned northward and the wooden wheels turned. They were
traveling the Black Hills/Cheyenne Road. At Fort Laramie, they would reach the
Overland Trail and put the east at their backs to drive west toward the sunset.

The Mormon train
formed around four, wide supply wagons. They stood more than three times the
size of Aislynn’s wagon, packed with wares to sell in Salt Lake City. The four
lugubrious schooners lumbered like white elephants leading the pack. A scout
road ahead and another outrider trailed behind.

The family
wagons now counted six with the addition of Zach’s. Each man signed an
agreement to accept Brother Morton as their captain and to follow his rules and
directions. Aislynn thought him crude and low class, with a critical eye toward
everything. He made her uncomfortable; she did not trust him. 

Once they
started to roll, dust engulfed their wagon. Aislynn and Johnny pulled their
bandanas over their faces. Sage had warned them about dust so full of alkali
powder it could sear human skin. He had given Aislynn an old buckskin shirt. It
hung down to her knees but the dust did not penetrate its leather. Under the
shirt, she clung to her wide-skirted dress, shunning the pantaloons some women
adopted for the trip. Aislynn felt the skirt would afford more privacy when a
lady needed to relieve herself on the barren plain. She maintained convention
with her corset, underwaists, camisole, chemise and petticoats. A sunbonnet
drooped to her shoulders topping the cumbersome costume.

The wagons
jolted and jumped at every small rock and rut. Aislynn’s body wobbled with each
bump. Johnny’s weight tilted the seat and despite her efforts to stay on her
side, she slid along the rough wood until they were hip to hip. Aislynn tried
bracing herself on the footboards in the front of the wagon, but the rope brake
lay there, and each time Johnny pushed on it, she would have to snatch her feet
up or get tangled in it. Without her feet on the floor, she nearly bounced out
of the wagon. Johnny grabbed her and held her to his side saying, “Just stay
here and hold on to me.”

At first glance,
the prairie seemed monotonous to Aislynn with its endless brownish-green
landscape. Hours of staring brought the view into clearer focus. As she studied
it like a piece of art, she discovered the colors were intense. The green-brown
waves were frozen in an endless variety of contours. Frequently, the waves were
sliced, revealing striated earth in delicate tones ranging from brown to white.
As the wagon rolled and their perspectives changed, so did the shapes and the
colors of the protuberances. Indiscernible distances obscured proportion. Light
varied with the hour, changing the picture. Within the composition, everything
seemed to be moving toward the horizon. Silvery-green brush huddled in small
troops. Along the banks of the streams, stunted trees marched shoulder to
shoulder. Where it appeared barren, prickled plants and tiny yellow flowers
charged out of the ground.

The sky seemed
higher here than in New York. Devoid of clouds, the relentless blue encircled
them. As the day wore on, they witnessed wisps of light blue become white and
grow into clouds.

With an amazing
twenty-three miles behind them, they halted for the night. Lying in bed,
Aislynn decided nature was noisy, loud and strange. Sage had said, “Look,
listen, smell an’ feel. That’ll keep you alive.” She focused all her senses and
felt anxiety pluming in her belly.

Aislynn lay
alone. Johnny stood the first watch from nine o’clock to midnight. Sage had
warned Johnny to stay close to her. He had explained most western men were
respectful to women, but like anywhere else, there were some who could not be
trusted. “She don’t git water, pick flowers or take a shit without you an’ your
gun.” Sage had a few words for her when they parted as well, “An’ you don’t go
doin’ nothin’ stupid. You do what you’re told.” She listened to his harsh
words, but she heard the concern in his voice. Remembering how her father and
the Nolans obliquely express their love, she said, “You must have some Irish in
you. I’m going to miss you, too.” And she kissed the top of his head.

On the second
day, Aislynn’s buttocks were too sore for wagoning. She opted to walk through morning.
Her boots were overlarge and rubbed her feet sore. Trying to avoid the puddles
and flop left on the trail by the animals, she stumbled through the sage and
new grass. Maybelle jumped down to join her and attempted to make conversation.
Aislynn only returned silence, but Maybelle continued to try to explain her
behavior.

After they
nooned, Aislynn joined Johnny in the wagon. They bumped along until the trail
met Chugwater Creek, their first water crossing. As they descended the bank,
the wagon groaned forward and nearly ran up the mules’ rumps. Johnny stood on
the brake to hold their load back and maneuvered into the water. Aislynn’s
insides churned. She did not know how to swim, and she did not like watching
the water swirl under the wagon through the wheels. Johnny pointed out it was
shallow enough for her to stand, but she felt relieved when they climbed out of
the creek and emerged safely on the other side.

With Johnny’s
night watch scheduled between midnight and 3:00 AM, they settled in early. The
Mormons chose to sleep in tents and erected them in the center of the corralled
wagons each night. The children caused plenty of commotion as they packed into
their cots. While they quieted, one of the men played a harmonica and another
fiddled. The Mormons loved music and danced freely. Aislynn and Johnny were not
asked to join, nor did they presume they would be welcome, as the Mormons
seemed to shun their company. They tried to sleep through the racket and were
grateful for the peace when it came.

In her sleep,
Aislynn heard the popping of bullets. She felt Johnny dragging her under the
wagon cover and over the wooden sidewall. She tumbled into his arms. When she
hit the ground, Johnny handed her the Colts. He pulled the two metal milk cans
he had filled with extra feed and water for the mules off the side of the wagon
and threw them down. They dove behind them. The captain ordered, “Shoot at
anyone you see.” Aislynn raised a gun, aimed into the dark and squeezed the
trigger. After several volleys were exchanged, the attackers’ guns quieted.

A voice rose
over the wagons saying, “We come for them Gentile women.”

Aislynn looked
around the corral. The women, two who were huge with pregnancy, gathered their
children in their arms, and crouched beside their tents. Her eyes caught
someone standing; it was Maybelle. Aislynn heard her cry, “Clem!” and
everything became clear.

“I’m comin’!”
Maybelle called with excitement. She scampered to her wagon and collected her
things. When Zach recovered from his shock, he pleaded with her to stay. She
turned on him, “Trash. You ain’t got nothin’ to offer me.”

Aislynn and
Johnny rose to their feet and watched the pitiful exchange. When Maybelle
finished with Zach, she turned to Aislynn, “Ain’t this romantic?”

The captain shouted,
“She’s comin, an’ you can have her.”

Another voice
rang out, “We want both women.”

Maybelle flushed
with excitement, “Oh, Aislynn, come on.”

Aislynn looked
at the cowering Mormon women and children. She raised her hand, and it fell
sharply on Maybelle’s face. The taller woman rocked back two steps. Redness
bloomed on Maybelle’s cheek as she spat at Aislynn, who jumped out of the way.

“I’m comin’
alone,” she shouted.

Some loud
discussion ensued among the outlaws as Maybelle exited the corral. Johnny was
watching Zach. When he raised his gun, Johnny took a swipe at Zach’s arm. The
shot exploded in the air. An uncommon coldness rose in Johnny’s voice, “She’s
not worth the bullet.”

Aislynn found
the medicinal whiskey. The three of them sat by a low fire while Johnny and
Zach pulled on the bottle. Zach insisted on rescuing Maybelle. Johnny tried to
convince him his pride was talking, not his common sense. Nevertheless, Zach
chose to leave in the morning.

Johnny sat his
watch from the wagon seat. Aislynn lay trying to quietly cry out her fears. She
had heard tales of women who been kidnapped, abused and murdered by outlaws.
Johnny leaned through the puckerstring, “I would never have let them take you.”

“What could you
have done?”

“There’s no
reason to even think about it, Angel. They won’t be back.”

Aislynn closed
her eyes and squeezed out her remaining tears.

Fort Laramie sat
on a stark, treeless plain in a curve of the Laramie River. The fort, devoid of
palisades, exposed on all sides, looked more like a town than a military post.
Approaching from the south, they encountered a small city of Indian teepees
standing pristine white against the golden-brown terrain.

Aislynn had read
about Chief Red Cloud and the war he was waging to retain the Sioux’s sacred
hunting grounds. Since the early 1860s, wagons of overlanders traveled the
Bozeman Trail, which cut through hallowed hills, and spurred attacks on
settlers and soldiers. The Sioux chief refused to participate in a peace
conference or consider moving to reservations until all the forts along the
trail were abandoned. In April of 1868, the government agreed to close the
forts, and the Sioux contemplated a restricted life. However, when Red Cloud
entered negotiations to end the war, he discovered deceit; their sacred hunting
grounds had been excluded from the proposed reservation. While their chief
worked out a compromise, the Sioux waited peacefully at Fort Laramie.

Aislynn, a fan
of dime novels, feared and distrusted Indians. When she shopped at the sutler’s
store, she watched the Sioux women and their wide-eyed, shy children. She was
surprised to find them so similar to whites. Although she knew female tribal
elders were involved in decisions and even included in treaty negotiations,
Aislynn decided the men were responsible for all the violence against settlers
and railroad workers. Women were not to be feared; it was the men who were
dangerous.

Johnny puzzled
over the Indian problem and said, “With so much land, why do we keep bumpin’
into each other?”

“Once they’re
restricted to a reservation, we will all be safer,” Aislynn asserted.

“I’m not sure
that’s fair; even the newspaper says they were more sinned against than
sinners.”

Aislynn frowned
at him. “They want to be left alone. We’re giving them land where they can be
alone.” 

“I wonder if
they’ll be left alone,” Johnny pondered.

“I don’t care,”
Aislynn dismissed his concern, “as long as they leave us alone.”

Just north of
Fort Laramie, they met the Overland Trail. The prairie stretched behind them
and the mountains lay ahead. The stark white ruts cut into the solid rock
promised a rougher road and increased grades. Their wagon pitched along the
trail, and Aislynn complained about her discomfort and nausea.

“Why don’t you
take a nap?” Johnny suggested.

“I’m not tired.”

Johnny shook his
head, “You’re certainly out of sorts.”

“I am not,” she
said shortly. “Why don’t you just stop finding fault?”

He looked her
over and asked, “Are you like this every month?”

Furious at his
intimate question, Aislynn slapped his arm, “I am going to take a nap just so I
can get away from you.”

While Johnny
enjoyed their close quarters, Aislynn chafed at the lack of privacy the wagon afforded.
Thinking on it, she had to admit he was very considerate of her, but this was
one of the things she wanted to keep hidden. It was her private business.

That is what
Sean had said the day he came home and found her sobbing on her bed. She had
returned from school and discovered the blood staining her underdrawers. When
she could not stem the flow, she knew she was dying. Aislynn took to her bed,
and Sean found her there, terrified and tearful. He explained it was her body’s
way of preparing her for having babies.

This information
was not a relief. “I can’t have a baby! I’m twelve.”

He pulled her
into his arms and stroked her hair and said, “You’re just getting ready. It’ll
take years.”

“Then what?” she
asked.

Sean looked
bewildered, “Then what?”

“How do I get a
baby?”

Sean pulled his
head back and looked down at her, “Damn, doesn’t anyone talk to you girls?”

“We’d get
slapped for asking at school.”

“Tim?” he
pleaded. “Your Da?”

Aislynn shook
her head.

“Well, that’s
something your husband will explain.”

Aislynn started
to cry again, “It’s so awful you can’t tell me?”

“It’s not my
place.”

“Why can you
know?”

“You see; that’s
why no one tells you girls anything. You ask too many damn questions.” Aislynn
pouted on her bed. Sean stood up and leaned over her, “Listen, just don’t lay
naked with a man ‘til you’re married.”

She crinkled her
nose, “Why would I want to?”

“Just don’t no
matter who asks. Understand?”

“No.”

“Well, remember
your body is your own personal business. You don’t have to share it with anyone.
Now, stuff a rag in your underdrawers and start dinner.”

As Aislynn lay
on the featherbed, her feelings wavered between anger and guilt. However, she
decided she did not have to apologize to Johnny; he was prying. When the wagon
corralled for the night, the noise and activity woke Aislynn. She cooked dinner
in silence, hanging on to her exasperation. For Johnny’s dessert, she opened a
jar of cherry preserves and prepared a small pie. At Laramie, Aislynn had
purchased some milk and skimmed off the cream. She knew he liked it poured over
his pie. With the remainder, she flavored his coffee.