The Widow's War (20 page)

“Where do we sleep?” one of the men in Carrie’s party asks.

Mr. Trout exhales a stream of smoke and thinks this over. “Everybody sleeps upstairs.”

“Separate rooms?”

“No, sir, just one big one. Ladies and children got a curtain for decency.”

“Do you have actual beds, Mr. Trout?”

“One or two.”

To Carrie’s surprise, none of the abolitionists complain about these accommodations. Retrieving blankets and pillows from the wagons, they climb a steep flight of stairs and settle in for the night: women on one side of the curtain, men on the other. There are two beds in the women’s section. Mrs. Hulett gets one; Mrs. Crane the other. Everyone else sleeps on the floor. All in all, Carrie thinks, Mr. Trout’s hotel is very much like a hotel in the Amazon minus the hammocks.

It is still punishingly hot. Unable to sleep, she goes back downstairs hoping to find Mr. Trout alone so she can draw him aside and ask him about William, but once again privacy is in short supply. As she steps out on the porch, she hears Mrs. Newberry and Mrs. Crane’s voices. They, too, have come downstairs to get out of the heat.

“Mrs. Newberry and I were just about to walk out to look at the stars,” Mrs. Crane says. “Do come with us, Miss Vinton.” Linking her arm in Carrie’s, Mrs. Crane draws her down the steps and they walk away from the hotel, following a trail that leads toward the creek. When they stop to look up, Carrie sees the Milky Way dividing the night sky in a wide, glittering band.

“I’ve never seen the stars so brilliant,” Mrs. Crane says. “I can see my own shadow by the light of them.”

“They’re the glory of God,” Mrs. Newberry says. They fall silent. After a while, Mrs. Newberry speaks again. “Trout saw us,” she says. “And he didn’t see us.”

“I don’t take your meaning,” says Mrs. Crane.

“He saw the color of my skin and that of my sons and their wives and children, and he didn’t say a word.”

“What would he say, Mrs. Newberry?”

“Well, he could have said: ‘Sleep outside with the stock,’ or ‘Get out of this hotel before I shoot you.’ There are numerous possibilities, Mrs. Crane, but Mr. Trout pursued none of them.” Mrs. Newberry looks up at the stars and then stares across the open prairie. “I think I’m going to like Kansas if the pro-slavers don’t get hold of me.”

They fall silent again. Everything is so still it seems to be encased in black glass. After a while, Mrs. Crane clears her throat. “I regret to move from the sublime to the mundane, but I need to pay a visit to the necessary. What if I encounter a bear?”

“I doubt you will be eaten by a bear in the necessary,” Mrs. Newberry says, “but on the off chance one has decided to hibernate there, I will accompany you.”

Mrs. Crane and Mrs. Newberry walk off, leaving Carrie alone to stare at the stars. She picks out Pegasus and Cassiopeia before she hears the sound of men’s voices. Somewhere, not far off, a horse whinnies.

“Excuse me, miss.”

Startled, she turns around and almost collides with Mr. Trout, who has come up silently behind her. “Hiram says you’re lookin’ fer someone. He thought it might be yer brother or maybe yer father or perhaps some fellah who done run off and left you.”

“Hiram?”

“The teamster who drove yer wagon. Good man, but he has a hard time keepin’ his tongue in his head. Given to imagin’ things. A romantic, Hiram is. Reads them Penny Dreadfuls the way other men drink. If you ain’t lookin’ fer no one, just say the word, and I’ll ske daddle.”

“No, Mr. Trout. Please don’t go. Hiram was right. I am looking for someone. His name’s William Saylor. He’s about six feet tall, black eyes, brown hair.”

“You lookin’ to claim the reward the bushwhackers are offerin’ for him?”

“No, I need to find him for another reason.”

“And what egzactly would that be?”

“You want a blunt answer or a ladylike one?”

Trout takes a cigar out of his shirt pocket, lights it, and inhales. “Try the blunt one out on me.”

“I’ve run away from my husband.”

“That don’t surprise me none.” Trout inhales again, and the tip of his cigar glows in the darkness. “Womenfolk are in short supply in these parts. There’s many a wife who runs off from the old and finds the new. So is this fellah you’re lookin’ for the husband you done run from or the one yer runnin’ to?”

“The one I’m running to.”

“I don’t mean to insult you. Yer a fine-lookin’ woman, but what makes you think he wants you to find him?”

“We were engaged to be married.”

“Do tell. But I take it you ain’t now, you being a runaway wife and all. So let me ask you again, what makes you think this fellah wants you trackin’ him down, particularly given there’s a price on his head?”

“He does. I’m sure of it.”

“How long’s it been since you seen him?”

“Over a year.”

“Lot can happen in a year. Man with a price on his head can just disappear. Get himself a new name, cross the border into Mexico, court himself a señorita, get married, and start a new life. But that hundred-and-fifty-dollar reward makes him worth lookin’ for, don’t it?”

Carrie starts to speak, but Trout holds up his hand. “Whoa, there. Before you start tellin’ me how you wouldn’t take money for turnin’ him in if you wuz starvin’, I got to know yer tellin’ me the truth. Let’s start with yer name.”

“Carolyn Vinton. Or rather that was my name before I married. It’s Carolyn Vinton Presgrove now. Mr. Trout, if you know anything about William, please . . .”

“You an abolitionist or a slaver?”

“Abolitionist.”

“Well that makes sense. Yer travelin’ with a whole passel of ‘em. What if I was to tell you that I was a dyed-in-the-wool slaver, would that change yer tune?”

“No.”

“I’m likin’ you better already. I ain’t no slaver.” Trout taps the ash off his cigar and stares at her. “But I still ain’t sure about you, so let’s jest suppose sumpthin. Let’s suppose some fellah once came into my place, ordered hisself up one drink too many, and ended up telling me a story about a girl he’d been engaged to who’d died tragically in a furrin land. Now where do you reckon that poor girl might have passed away?”

“Rio de Janeiro.”

“Nope.”

“Brazil.”

“Well, well. I’m not sayin’ that’s the right answer, but I’m not sayin’ it’s not neither. Now let’s suppose this same fellah, in his cups and thus unreliable, claimed that besides bein’ sweet and kind-hearted, his greatly mourned beloved weren’t like other girls due to the fact that she could shoot a gun better than Kit Carson, Daniel Boone, and Davy Crockett combined. What would you say to that?”

“I’d say William greatly exaggerated my talents.”

“So you can’t shoot a gun?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m a good shot.”

“But how good? That’s the question, ain’t it? You got the name, but I still ain’t sure you got the game.” Trout drops his cigar, grinds it out with the toe of his boot, and lights himself another.

“I tell you what, you show me you can do some fancy sharpshootin’, and if I know anything about William Saylor—and I still ain’t sayin’ I do—I might tell it to you. If it were day, I could just toss a dollar in the air and you could try to plug it, or I could set you to shooting at a playing card. I once knew a feller who could drill out the eye of a one-eyed jack from ninety paces. But it bein’ night, I reckon we’re gonna have to do with snuffing candles. So if you’ll jest excuse me a minute—”

“Wait,” Carrie says. “You don’t have to go get a candle. I can shoot at your cigar.”

“Whoa, Nellie!” Trout jerks his cigar out of his mouth and backs away from her so fast he nearly trips. “I don’t fancy an encounter with an armed woman. Last time I made that mistake, I had to spend most of a summer eating my grub off the mantelpiece. Of course, the circumstances was different. The lady in question was riled because I was not being properly forthcomin’ on the subject of marriage and—are you armed, miss? Do you have a gun concealed about you some-wheres? One of them little ladylike derringers?”

“No. I was going to ask to borrow one of your revolvers. I wasn’t proposing to shoot your cigar out of your mouth, Mr. Trout. I thought you might toss it up in the air and let me try to hit it.”

Trout stares at her for a minute, then removes one of his revolvers from its holster and hands it to her grip first. “On the count of three,” he says, putting his cigar back between his lips. He draws on it until the end glows. “One, two, three!”

Up goes the cigar into the air. Carrie aims, pulls the trigger, and blows it to pieces.

For a few seconds Trout stares at the place where the cigar met its fate. Then he grins and tips his hat. “Miz Carolyn Vinton,” he says, “it’s a pleasure to meet up with you. For the past month, William Saylor has been livin’ in Lawrence. I reckon if you saw that wanted poster, you know what he’s been doin’. Fact is, he’s doin’ it again tonight. We expected him to pass through here earlier with his ‘freight,’ but he appears to have been delayed. On the other hand, he could have already arrived. While you was busy blowin’ my cigar to bits, I heard the sound of riders comin’ down the California Road. Of course there’s a big wagon train making up in Independence, so it might just be some fellahs headed over there to—”

Carrie doesn’t wait for him to finish. Thrusting his revolver into his hand, she turns and begins to run back toward the hotel. When she comes out into the open, she sees that while she and Trout have been talking, four men on horseback have arrived and are now preparing to leave.

“Stop!” she yells. “Wait!”

The men rein in their horses and look toward her. She examines their faces eagerly, but they’re all strangers.

“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” one of them says. “Is there some-thin’ amiss?”

“No. I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

The one who appears to be their leader tips his hat. “Well then,” he says, “we bid you good night.”

Disappointed, she sits down on the front steps and watches the men ride off. Somewhere in the distance she hears an owl hoot.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a voice behind her says, “could you move over a bit? We need to pass by.”

She realizes she is blocking the steps. Sliding sideways, she watches two pairs of boots tramp past her. As the men walk away, she stares at their backs. One is short and heavyset; the other tall and lanky. There is something familiar about the way the taller man walks. She stands up.

“William?” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

W
hen he hears her voice, he turns around and sees a woman standing on the hotel steps wearing a white dress with a muddy hem. The lantern above her is swaying and shadows are passing over her face like swift, gray birds. Her hair is wound around her head in a braid, but small strands are escaping, shining in the lamplight like a halo. The woman looks so much like Carrie that for an instant he manages to convince himself that it’s really her standing there. But of course it can’t be.

Since she died, he’s dreamed of her repeatedly, run toward her and watched her dissolve, reached for her and seen his hand pass through her body. He’s even touched her hair, but when he buried his face in it, it gave off no scent. That’s how he knew for certain he was dreaming. When the dead visit you in dreams, they never come back whole.

Awake, he has seen her at least two dozen times in the faces of women who looked almost nothing like her and heard her voice in places where there was nothing to hear but wind. A few days before he left for Kansas, he even followed a strange woman because she was swinging her parasol the way Carrie always did when she was feeling happy. He knew the woman wasn’t Carrie; but from the back, he was able to imagine she was. When the woman turned into her own gate and two small children ran out to greet her, he felt ashamed of himself.

Try to forget her
, Charlie Howard had advised. Up at Fort Leavenworth, before he came down to settle in abolitionist Lawrence, the advice had been cruder and more practical.
Buy yourself a whore, Saylor. Or if you’re too much a prig for that, go back east and court yourself a wife.
But he doesn’t want a wife or a whore. He wants Carrie so much that sometimes he thinks he’s not quite sane.

“William,” the woman on the porch says again. He can’t risk responding to his name, not here, not under the circumstances. He needs to turn around and walk away from her, but—

Suddenly, she’s running down the steps, coming toward him with her arms outstretched, repeating his name, and as the lantern light catches her face, he sees—No. Impossible! Carrie’s face, Carrie’s eyes, Carrie’s hair. Carrie taking him in her arms, Carrie pulling him to her and kissing him, Carrie solid and alive. The familiar scent of her skin and hair, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, her body warm against his.

“My God!” he cries, “you’re real!” And all at once, she’s laughing and crying and kissing him again and telling him that, yes, she’s real, that she didn’t die, and his head is spinning and his knees are buckling; and before he knows it, he’s sitting on the hotel steps with his head between his knees the way they taught him to do in medical school; and when he lifts his head and opens his eyes, Carrie, who he loves more than anything in this life or the next, is still there: laughing and crying and very much alive.

T
he wind has risen and died, risen again and died again; and near Trout’s Hotel, in the tall grass under a buffalo robe, Carrie and William are sleeping side by side.

The prairie that surrounds them seems peaceful, but the calm is deceptive. Kansas is about to explode into a violence that will shock the world. In Chicago and Albany, abolitionists are holding mass rallies urging free-soilers to arm themselves, go to Kansas, and vote in the plebiscite. In Missouri, a group that calls itself the Platte County Self-Defensive Association has recruited five hundred men to repel the coming army of “Yankee slave-stealers,” and the slave owners who grow the hemp that binds up bales of Southern cotton are wearing hangmen’s nooses in their lapels.