Rodzina (10 page)

I ran from him. The night was growing darker and colder. Delicious smells came through the open door of a tavern near Canal Street, and I stopped to sniff. "Pretty lady," whispered one man loitering outside the tavern, "come home with me and I will feed you roasts and chocolate cakes." Another grabbed my arm and shouted, "Wrap those long legs around mine, dearie, and I will buy you beer." And he turned into Mr. Clench.

I was wide awake now. I feared I was in a fix. I lay there scared and worried all night and never did go back to sleep.

The next day it rained. Mr. Clench hung around the dugout, watching me and getting in everyone's way. I ignored him best I could. I took care of Mrs. Clench and cleaned her chamber pot again. I showed Myra Jane and Sarah Dew how to mix up some cough syrup for her from onions and sugar, the way my mama showed me. "Didn't nobody ever teach you this?" I asked them.

"Papa said we should every once in a while tie a piece of peppered meat on Mama's chest, but we ain't often got meat to spare," Myra Jane answered. "And we won't have to worry about that when she's gone and you're our new mama."

A terrible fix!

I took to hiding behind Clench's children as much as I could, to keep away from him. I changed Grace's diaper, told stories to Lily and Loretta, and helped Myra Jane cook up a pot of beans. Big Bob took to me like ants to a picnic. Every chance he got, he climbed on my lap, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and went right to sleep. Because of my brothers, I've always been partial to little boys, their dirty little hands and the sweaty smell of their hair. I sat a long while with Big Bob in my lap and smelled his hair.

Right before supper Clench grabbed me. "Let's go for a little walk, you and me," he said. I gave him the stink face, but he just laughed and pinched my cheek. "Now, none of that ornery stuff. You better learn to like me. You're gonna be here a long time."

"Leave me alone!" I shouted. "I'm too young for this. I'm only twelve!" Clench laughed again and hugged me. "Don't touch me! Go away!" The children stood around us, looking mighty pleased at the thought of a new mama.

Who was there to help me way out here?
Mama! Help me, Mama!

"Elgin, leave that child alone!" I thought for a minute Mama had actually heard me and was coming from Heaven to help. "You ain't gonna ruin another girl's life like you ruined mine." It was Mrs. Clench, who had pulled herself to her feet. "Why, she ain't hardly older than your own daughters. Take her back to town and find yourself someone who is old enough and willing to be a mama to my children, or I swear I will haunt you from the grave."

Mr. Clench let go of me. I think like the rest of us he was shocked to see Mrs. Clench standing up and not just lying there like she was dead already. He stalked outside and never came back all that night. I sat on the bed, huddled against Mrs. Clench, until morning, when Clench came stomping in. "Git your suitcase and git in the wagon," he said to me. "I don't want to waste any more time on this trip than I have to."

Was he really going to take me back? I looked at Mrs. Clench. She nodded. "Go on," she said, "and find someone to boil Easter eggs for you."

I grabbed my suitcase and climbed up out of the dugout and into the wagon. We started off. The last I saw of the Clench youngsters, they were sitting in that poor patch of dirt they called a garden, breaking up dirt clods with sticks, knives, and their bare hands. Big Bob was crying. Only Sarah Dew waved goodbye.

The whole way back to Cheyenne I sat stiff, my suitcase on my lap, ready to jump down and run if Mr. Clench seemed liable to grab me again. He didn't. He didn't look at me and he didn't say a word. That was just fine with me. I kept searching the distance, straining to see the first lights of Cheyenne shine out across that lonely prairie.

By nightfall I was again at the hotel. The desk clerk took me into the parlor, where Miss Doctor was drinking a cup of tea and Mr. Szprot a beer, just as we orphans had suspected.

"He didn't want a daughter," I told Miss Doctor, who shielded me from the Szprot's fury. "He just wants a new wife for when the old one goes."

"I'm sure you're mistaken," she said to me as she led me from the parlor and up the stairs. "Certainly he could see you're much too young to be someone's wife."

I looked her in the eyes but said nothing for long minutes. Finally her face grew red. Maybe she was beginning to believe me. "The old coot," she said. "I'm sorry we got you into that. I never thought that ... Well, I never thought. He'll never get his hands on another orphan, I promise you." I nodded at her to let her know she was forgiven and that I trusted her to keep her promise. "Now get into bed with Lacey. We will figure out what to do with you tomorrow."

It was my first night ever in a hotel. The mattress was thin and lumpy, but the room didn't rattle-rattle-rattle all night, no one snorted or snored, I wasn't going to be anyone's new mama, and the bedbugs were just regular size.

Lacey pressed herself up against my side. I could see her smile in the moonlight. "I was lonesome when you went," she said. "I don't like to be lonesome."

"Seems to me there's a mighty lot of things you don't like," I said. "You don't like to be lonesome; you don't like to be scared. What
do
you like to be?"

She thought for a minute, her face all scrunched up, and then she smiled even bigger. "Full of pie," she said.

W
E SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM
at the depot, kicking our feet against our suitcases while Miss Doctor and Mr. Szprot sent and received telegrams. Once in a while I scratched my knees. Nobody said anything. The unclaimed orphans—Sammy, Joe, Lacey, and I—were being sent back to Chicago, to a workhouse, where we would work for our keep. Mr. Szprot was grumbling about having to take us all the long way back to Chicago. Sammy, Joe, and Lacey weren't any too happy about it either. Me, I didn't think a workhouse sounded very good, but no worse than being sold to some farmer. Or married to Mr. Clench. I was feeling awfully low. Was there no place for me, safe and a bit cheery, with a family who wanted a daughter and had plenty to eat?

I wondered how the rest of us were, those orphans who had been taken by families. Were they merely servants washing dirty laundry and digging in the fields? Or were some of them happy with their new families? Did they have soft beds and porch swings and kisses good night? I hoped Nellie did. And Chester, Spud, and Mickey Dooley. I missed Mickey Dooley. I could have used a joke right about then.

We sat kicking our suitcases until Miss Doctor and the Szprot came over leading a big fellow, wide as a door, in overalls and leather boots the color of dried blood. "This gentleman," said Mr. Szprot, "has agreed to take our Sammy and give him a good home. Come forward, fortunate boy."

Sammy jumped up and tried to run, but the fellow grabbed him and smacked him on the head. Sammy skidded across the floor, right into the woodstove. We all jumped to our feet, but no one said a word. There was an awful silence, like the whole world was waiting to see what would happen next.

Mr. Szprot chewed on his cigar a time or two, then hauled off and punched the man so hard in the nose I thought his overalls would fly off. The big man hit the ground. "These kids is in my charge," Szprot said. "
I
smack them when they need smacking." Then he grabbed the leather boots and dragged the man outside, without disturbing his cigar one whit. He dusted off his hands, pointed to us, and said "Sit!" You can bet we sat.

Szprot and Miss Doctor went back into the telegraph office, where they shouted at each other, waving their arms around furiously as if shooing invisible pigeons away. Finally we saw him tip his hat to her and leave the depot.

We waited a long while. I got tired of kicking my suitcase and got up to read the notices posted on the walls:

J. W
HITE AND
C
OMPANY.
27 Prairie Street. Photographs 25 cents.
N
EW METHODS
. N
O HOLDING LONG POSES
.
This establishment has the best
arranged light in the Territory.
Up one flight of stairs only.

K
NOW
T
HYSELF!
H
EATHCLIFF
M. P
IDDLEMAN,
Professor of Phrenology,
will examine the 37 organs of your brain
and indicate your character and talent.
RECEIVE A WRITTEN RECORD OF YOUR EXAM.

T
HE LATEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL
REMEDY FOR CONSUMPTION, COUGHS
,
AND COLDS
—W
ILBOR'S
C
OMPOUND
OF
C
OD
-L
IVER
O
IL AND
L
IME
.

T
HE
W
ESTERN
P
ALACE
T
HEATER
,
* 8 PM this evening *
the IRVING BRIGGS Company of Thespians
will perform a new play in two acts,
MAID OR WIFE?
O
R,
THE DECEIVER DECEIVED.
The principal characters will be played by
Mr. Briggs, Mr. Loblolly, Miss Hartley,
and Miss Copeland. Overture Composed
and Conducted by Mr. Briggs.

The morning was nearly gone when Miss Doctor came back. "I telegraphed a friend of mine from Chicago who now lives in Ogden, Utah Territory," she said, "where she and her husband run a hotel. And I have received her answer. She thinks some folks there would be willing to take in orphans. So you will not be going back to Chicago. We will go on to Utah." Joe and Sammy and Lacey gave a big cheer, but I was too worried about who would want me and for what. "You must behave yourselves and be agreeable and not trouble me. Do you understand?"

We all nodded. "Can we say goodbye to Mr. Szprot?" I asked her. I never liked the old sourface much, and he sure didn't seem to like me, but he had been with us since Chicago, and he had stood up for Sammy when it counted. I thought he deserved at least a goodbye. But Miss Doctor said he was already on his way back to Chicago for another bunch of orphans.

"Here," she said, handing us some bread and apples, "go and eat while we wait for the train."

Although it was bitter cold outside, the sun was shining. I could see what looked like storm clouds in the distance. "Is there a thunderstorm out there?" I asked a man loitering on the platform.

He looked to where I pointed. "Why, missy, those are mountains. The Rocky Mountains."

I could not imagine hills stretching so far into the sky, farther even than the grain elevators on Chicago's River Street. But it didn't surprise me. I had seen so many strange things on this trip across this big country that very little would surprise me anymore.

"Those clouds are the Rocky Mountains," I told Sammy and Joe and Lacey when I joined them. Sammy had taken off his cap. He wiped his head with his handkerchief, spread the handkerchief on his lap, and put his bread and apple there.

"Watch out!" shouted Joe, but too late. A rat near the size of an alley cat ran up and grabbed Sammy's cap. Well, Sammy took out after that rat while we all laughed like to fall right off the platform. The rat ran north and south, Sammy ran north and south, the rat ran back and forth, Sammy ran back and forth. Finally the rat dropped the cap off the end of the platform into the dirty snow. While Sammy climbed down to get it, the rat doubled back, picked the hunk of bread off Sammy's handkerchief, and ran the other way.

Why, that rat knew just what he wanted and figured out how to get it. I found myself admiring him, and things got to be real bad for a body to admire a rat.

Finally we stopped laughing, and Sammy stopped fuming and sputtering. Lacey shared her bread with him and we all ate.

"That rat sure outsmarted dumb old Sammy," Joe said. "But I won't tell no one. It'll be my secret."

Sammy frowned at him. "You ain't one that ought to make jokes about secrets."

Joe jumped up, his hands balled into fists.

"I think animals
are
smarter than people sometimes," I said, anxious to avoid another fight. "Papa told me about a mule at the stockyards. That mule knew exactly how many wagon loads he should pull from the killing shed to the yard in one day, and when that number was pulled, be it noon or nine, he would pull no more. And never would he pull a load on a Sunday."

Sammy nodded. "Lions in Africa attack only men, never women and children."

"That ain't so," said Joe.

"It is."

"How do you know?"

"Just know, that's all."

"Birds who live on the side of a hill lay square eggs so they don't roll away," I said.

"That sounds like hogwash to me," said Sammy.

I looked up from my apple and saw, on the far end of the platform, my first Indians. Such a sight to remember and tell to ... well, I had no one to tell, but it was a sight anyway. Real Indians, in faded pants and blankets, calico skirts, some with beads and feathers in their hair. For sure I wasn't in Chicago anymore.

Slowly the station grew crowded. High-booted, shaggy-haired men in overcoats made of woolen blankets or wagon rugs, wrapped around with ammunition belts, washed themselves under the pump. Faded, worn, anxious women bounced chubby children in their arms. There were men in spectacles, women with lunch baskets, pretty girls and wailing babies.

"Lookit all them guns," said Joe. He was right. Seemed like everyone but the babies had guns.

"That's because of Big Nose George," Sammy said.

"Who's he?" Lacey asked.

"You don't know about Big Nose George? Why, he's the most fearsome train bandit riding the rails today. Robbed some four hundred trains and got away each time. Killed three men in Texas for looking at his nose. Threw an old lady off a train in—"

Lacey started to cry. "Oh, rubbish," I said. "It's only a story of Sammy's. If Big Nose George were real, I would have seen a wanted poster for him, familiar as I am with the notices hung in train stations, and I have not."