The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (14 page)

I tried to stay even. “You’ve seen me in these. I’ve worn them before.”

“Yes,” she answered, “when you were working in the barn.”

“Well then, it’s no great sin if I wear them, is it?”

Mother’s face began to color. “I want you out of them right now.”

“She can have the clothes,” said John from across the room. “She can wear them all the time if that’s what she wants. But she won’t be any sister of mine. I’ll not be laughed at by the whole town.”

My brother was eighteen now, and I could see no trace of the little boy I had once loved, the boy I used to carry on my back and roll with in the grass. And if he fell and scraped his knee, I would run to him with a funny face to make him laugh again. Why had he turned against me? Because I was the oldest? Or was it because Father had taught me to shoot and ride and play the violin, things that other girls were not taught by their fathers?

I hadn’t come back to Basket Creek with the idea of staying in men’s clothes. I hadn’t had time to think about it. But now everyone was telling me what to do, and I didn’t like it. I looked at my mother and dug in my heels. “I’ll dress myself.”

From across the room, the woman who had brought me into this world met my eyes and answered with words as hard as river ice. “Then you can’t stay here.”

I knew that Father wouldn’t let that stand. He loved me and had always told me that no matter how big I got, I would never stop being his little girl. While I was away in Honesdale, my memories of him had been from the past—when he would grab me with his strong arms and throw me into the air as I shrieked with laughter. I remembered peeking at him in the candlelight as he unwrapped his rifle to go out with the farmer’s militia. Mother begged him not to go—men had been killed—but Father said it was the right thing to do. I felt proud of him and wished I could go with him.

I turned to my father and saw a man I hardly knew. I had not let him grow old in my mind, and so now, suddenly, he had aged twenty years. He was not a man on horseback with a rifle strapped to his shoulder; he was a man in a chair holding a pipe in a hand that couldn’t stop its shake.

Father understood that it was for him to speak, so he set aside the pipe and sat forward. “Let’s all just calm down now,” he said, “and come to our senses.” The room was still. He had said the sensible thing, which we all expected. Now he would proclaim the law and say that I could never be cast out of the house. But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything else, and what he had said was meaningless. He might as well have told the sky to stop raining.

I forgave my father—his hearing wasn’t good, and I don’t think he had understood much of what was being said. And even if everyone did calm down, what good would it do? Soon William Patterson would be back from Honesdale with stories about me, for surely he now knew, even if he hadn’t recognized me on Main Street, which most likely he had. And what would Mother or John say once they heard that I had been betrothed, or nearly so, to a young woman in Honesdale? What would anyone say? My daughter would hear her mother taunted and mocked, the fodder for a year’s worth of Reverend Hale sermons. I couldn’t possibly stay. I had nowhere to sleep and no prospects for work—not teaching children, that was now sure. And I wasn’t going to marry Raspy Winthrop. I’d sooner die a long, cold death, but not in Long Eddy, where everyone could watch.

My eyes dropped to the floor. “I’ll go.”

I went out to the woodshed and took my rifle from its hiding place in the rafters. When I returned, Helen was on the far side of the room. She had been in the kitchen with Mary and had heard everything. She knew I was leaving and that she was not. Indeed, no one thought otherwise. I had little money and nowhere to go. And who could say what would become of me? I could sleep under a bridge and not eat for days, but would it be right to do that to Helen? I was the one without a home, not her.

I called to my daughter to come say good-bye. She stayed by the kitchen door, face twisted. She had not forgiven me, and why should she?

My heart fell apart like wet bread. It may have shown, for all at once Helen crossed the room. I went to my knees and gathered her to me.

“Helen, dearest, I have to go away again.”

Her arms tugged at me. “Will you come back, Mommy?”

“Of course I’ll come back,” I said, wanting it to be so. “But if something should happen and I don’t, you must always know that I love you.” I pushed back and met her dark eyes. “Helen—always know that your mother loves you.”

I cried on the road to Long Eddy. I had lost everything and everyone. Helen, Mary, Father, Lydia, and yes, even Mother, Sarah, and John. Without them, what was left of me? And where could I go?

I stopped and watched the night’s rain rush down the creek, following a leaf through the riffles, as though it were a boat that could take me to a new place, a place where no lumberman from Long Eddy would find me. And what would I do when I got there?

Suddenly by the creek, it came to me. I’d do what Lydia and I had planned. I’d raise horses.

“P
ULL THE DAMN captain out of the whorehouse!” shouted one man.

“Let’s get on with it!” called another.

We were on the wharf in Davenport, and people were making their opinions known. The object of scorn, the steamboat
War Eagle
, sat before us, two days late in departure. I think the crew on the riverboat found the fuss amusing. They could have come out and told us we would leave that morning, but instead they started feeding the boilers. When the first smoke appeared, a ragged cheer rose up. The mate came on to the upper deck, but he wouldn’t speak until all were quiet. “Listen well,” he said. “We’ll begin loadin’ up the fore plank, but only them with cabin passage. The rest of you’ll wait.” A groan came from those who had pushed to the front. I was at the back, so I didn’t care.

I had come to Iowa by way of Cincinnati, where I had spent the winter washing dishes and mopping floors—guarding my money, not afraid to sleep cold or miss a meal. When the weather turned in March, I traveled to Davenport. There I bought common passage on a steamer that would take me to St. Paul, a graceful side-wheeler that had an upper deck with rooms that rich people could sleep in.

Once the cabin passengers were on and safely tucked away, the rest of us were allowed to board. Up we went, and to watch the crush, you might have thought we were staking claims for gold. But it was berths we were looking for, and when I got inside, I discovered that they were stacked two high with little room between. Most of the bunks had been taken, but I did find a lower one that was empty and no worse than the others. Then a hand grabbed me from behind. “That there would be mine. I seen it first.” I turned to see a heavy man with sores on his mouth. I glanced about for another place.

“No! He was here before you.” The words had come from a strapping young man on the bunk above, a clean-shaven fellow with determined eyes. The heavy man shrugged and went away.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m Joseph Lobdell.”

The young man gave a nod. “Owen Carter. What puts you on the river?”

“Oh, I’m running away.” My foolish candor had invited the next certain question, but Mr. Carter didn’t ask it. He just said something about doing the same and went back to reading what looked like a letter. I stowed my things and glanced about. No cough or snore or anything else was going to be private, and any changing of clothes would be under the covers. Still, I was aboard and would be heading north within the hour.

When the whistle blew, everyone ran outside to watch. The boat shuddered as the great wheels began to dig at the water. Out into the river we went, and soon Davenport passed out of sight, as did all of civilization. A little later, the mate called everyone on the lower deck inside. Once we were all squeezed in, he stepped up on a box so we all could see him.

“All right, you flop-eatin’ wharf rats,” he said, “you’re now citizens of your own little country. Here the captain is God, and I’m the archangel. And so long as we’re out on the river, we don’t have to answer to the bloody governor of Iowa or nobody.” The mate smiled and showed his bad teeth. “Now listen well, ’cause I’ll say this once. If you are so much as seen on the deck above, you’ll wish your mother had never bared her arse to your pa.”

These words were plain enough. Everyone understood that to the Minnesota Packet Company we were no better than cargo. Worse than cargo, because we moved about and had certain needs, whereas cargo remained where it was. When the mate left, a few people said choice things. Then most of us went back outside to look at the swampy woods and the occasional shack with chickens and dirty children—grown men too, doing nothing but sitting on stumps and watching the river.

I walked to the steamer’s back end where I found a dozen bales of burlap stacked against the cabin. I climbed up on one and made a nest for myself. Then I untied my bag and brought out my violin. The instrument had done well for me in Honesdale, but not since then. In Cincinnati, the saloons didn’t take to the fiddle. The same was true in Davenport. And a day earlier, on the wharf, I had stopped an officer of the
War Eagle
and asked if the company might like me to entertain the passengers. The man looked at me like I had mange.

“I’m sure you’d love to get on the cabin deck,” he said, curling his lip. “Love to get your hands in people’s pockets too, I’d bet.”

I sat on the back of the
War Eagle
and began to play the violin. I would entertain myself and the common folk. A few of those nearby leaned back and closed their eyes as though the music were bringing them to another place. It did the same for me, the place being the glass factory on Dyberry Creek.

I had not seen Lydia in eight months, yet all through the winter I had thought of her. I wanted to write. I wanted to speak my heart and make my apology. But I knew that I should not—I shouldn’t appear in her life again in any form, so she could go forward with the fewest reminders of my deceit. I was a deceiver and a liar. I couldn’t deny it.

But one part of that burden I no longer carried. I didn’t struggle any more with what it all meant. Whether I had loved Lydia as a man loves a woman or if I was just an oddity of nature—none of it mattered. I was not looking for a husband, nor was I looking for a wife. I could not imagine loving anyone other than Lydia. Women who were not Lydia held no more interest for me than men did. For whatever reason, I had loved her. Now she was gone.

And gone also was any love-fevered notion of having become a man. I hadn’t become a man and didn’t want to. What I wanted were the freedoms that came with being a man. I wanted to work for pay and come and go as I pleased—those privileges and others that came to me so long as I was wearing britches and addressed as Mr. Lobdell. And in that disguise, I sat on the back of the
War Eagle
and played a dozen songs. Then a young man in ship’s uniform appeared.

“Please come with me,” he said. With some dread, I put my violin in my bag and followed him up the stairs to where I had been told not to go. I didn’t think they were going to hang me from the yardarm, but I did think I was to be taken to task for playing music without the mate’s permission. But when we got topside, the young man showed me to a chair in the forward parlor and told me that if I were to play the violin, I could eat my dinner with those on the cabin deck.

How had this come about? Perhaps some passengers above had inquired as to why those below were being entertained while they who had paid more were not. I thought it best not to ask and instead offered my hand. “Joseph Lobdell.”

The young man took it grudgingly. “Mickey Harrelson.”

“And what’s your position?” I asked, seeking to be polite.

“Mud clerk.”

I couldn’t tell from his manner if this were a real position or if he was just having fun with me. “Forgive my ignorance,” I said, “but what is a mud clerk?”

Mr. Harrelson shrugged as if to say it was not a position of importance. “I check everything that comes on or off the boat. Match it with the bills of lading.”

“And you like working on the river?”

“Yes, I want to be a captain someday.” Mr. Harrelson’s eyes drifted out to the gray water. “Of course, when I was a boy, all I dreamt about was being a pilot. He is higher than the captain, you know.”

“But that’s not your dream now?”

The young man shook his head. “And it wouldn’t be yours neither. You recall that girl in school who could spell every word, no matter how long it was?”

“I do,” I said, holding back a smile. “Well, to be a pilot you need a memory better than that, ’cause you need to know every snag and wreck for a thousand miles of river, see in the dark, and talk to God too.”

Just then there was some shouting down below. Mr. Harrelson frowned. “It’s like this every year. The first trip upriver is ugly. When they lower the plank in St. Paul, there’ll be a crush worse than at Davenport, as though they think they’re going to race to the Suland and claim the best piece for themselves. What’s your business in Minnesota?”

I gave the mud clerk a big grin. “I’m racing to the Suland.”

“Whatever for?” he asked, as if there could be no world beyond the river.

“I want to raise horses.”

This was the first time those words had passed my lips, and I felt the thrill of it. Mr. Harrelson gave a slow nod that I took as cautious approval.

* * *

A little after the noon hour, the
War Eagle
tied up to a flatboat filled with cut wood. The mate blew a whistle, and half a dozen men appeared, among them Owen Carter, the young man who bunked above me. Their job was to carry wood onto the steamer. They did this in return for rights to the grub pile, a disgusting mound of leftovers set out for the crew.

The mate yelled and cursed at the men to work faster, though none that I could see was being lazy. Then, out of nowhere, he gave Owen a shove. Owen stumbled and almost dropped his wood. He righted himself and looked hard at the mate. The mate’s smile became wide, as though inviting him to do something. Owen paused but then turned and continued on with the wood. The mate was called away, and that was the end of it.