Читать книгу The Lieutenant's Lady - Bess Streeter Aldrich - Страница 5

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It was summer now, and Omaha was a whirlpool of movement with its influx of emigrants.

More skeletons of new homes and stores (for saddlers, gunsmiths, whipmakers) were scattered up and down the hill streets. Acres of sunflowers, yellower than newly discovered Montana gold, surrounded the town and wandered through its vacant blocks.

Hammering, sawing, the cracking of blacksnake whips, creaking of covered wagons, steamboat whistling, bawling of cattle—these were the town’s sounds. Freshly cut cottonwood, belching coal smoke, animal offal, fish, green-scummed mud-swamps—these were the smells.

There were days when the sun shone burningly on the hot blistered hills, cracks formed in the parched earth, and a gray velvety dust lay thick on the town. There were days when boiling black clouds swept up the river valley, cracking thunder reverberated through the Missouri hills, and the rain came, so that carriage and Conestoga wagon alike wallowed to the hubs in the black mud.

Far to the west new steel rails glistened in the prairie sun. Forts were planned to go up through the Powder River Country, the Sioux’s best hunting ground, and Red Cloud and his warriors were waiting their day of retaliation.

To the north the Arikara were on the warpath for the Sioux. In the south the Comanches never ceased their raiding. All tribes everywhere milled about that summer, angered at the white man’s encroachment, at the slaughter of the buffalo, at the steel rails pointing west.

But tales of this undercurrent of restlessness, filtering into the river town and hence to the Colsworth household via Uncle Henry and his meal-time monologues, affected the two girls very little. Nor did it worry Uncle Henry himself to any extent.

“Washington and the army will take care of the vermin,” was his decision.

It was as though the order had been given by him personally and with finality, for he had great local events on his mind.

Was the territory of Nebraska to become a state or not? The Union-Republicans had worked for it, the Democrats against it. Uncle Henry had put in long hours behind closed doors with a few choice friends. The pro-state people had won, but with a list of election irregularities to be flung in their faces for decades to come. One precinct’s votes had been thrown out entirely because the judges carted the locked ballotbox off with them to dinner for an hour.

But that was in the past, all smoothed over with subtle explanation by Uncle Henry. The territory of Nebraska had voted to become a state. Now was coming the fight to try and retain the capital at Omaha. All those who had opposed statehood were spitefully throwing their energies toward its removal to the south side of the Platte River, which was more free from Indians and so less exposed to their depredations.

Uncle Henry’s big two-part beard fairly pumped up and down as he related all the ins and outs of the fight to his three womenfolks. But they let it go in one ear and out the other, being far more interested in Cynthia’s letters from Fort Leavenworth and the fact that a new manteau-maker had arrived in town than in the retention of the old white building up on the hill.

For that was the first year in which the young Omaha gave evidence of becoming social-minded. Now it was beginning to do something besides supply the emigrants’ needs and quarrel over local issues.

The wives and daughters of the men who were making money began to give little parties in their homes. The Bachelors’ Mess, where George Hemming and several other eligibles lived, gave a dance at the Hernden House. A group of the business and professional men and their families started holding a monthly dinner with dancing at the near-by towns of Florence and Bellevue. Cynthia and Linnie, with their contrasting coloring and their pretty mushroom dresses, were quite the belles at these functions.

So on this summer afternoon all were making preparations for one of these affairs. Even Aunt Louise, with a new black silk and a gold chain long enough to stake out a horse to grass, thought she was feeling fit to go and look on. Uncle Henry, away with the bays on a short prairie trip, was to meet them in Bellevue, having delegated George Hemming to stop for the three women and deliver them safely to the hotel.

And then it was none other than Polly who had to throw the monkey-wrench into the well-oiled wheels of the plan. As though temperamental over such social goings-on, she drooped, hung her head, and finally flopped down to the cage floor in a spell which would have been called a faint in a human female.

Cynthia picked up her long skirts, tiptoed through the horse-barn and across the alley to get Olga but returned without her, angered that Olga had taken it upon herself to go somewhere. Although Polly got all right shortly, the excitement was too much for Aunt Louise.

“It’s come,” she said resignedly. “Get the hot packs.”

So when George Hemming drove up with his matching roan team and shining harness, Linnie volunteered to be the one to stay.

Aunt Louise made weak little arguments against Linnie’s staying behind when she was company, with Linnie saying bosh, she wasn’t company if she was going to stay all winter. Then she put forth a slightly stronger argument against Cynthia’s going alone with George, betrothed as she was to Lieutenant Stafford, with Cynthia saying she just couldn’t sit around and twiddle her thumbs, and anyway Father would be there at the hotel, for there was no way to get word to him now to stop him.

So, knowing full well that her steadier services would be more effective than the flighty Cynthia’s, and especially since Cynthia was entirely agreeable to the decision, Linnie remained behind. And Cynthia, betrothed or not, went off with George Hemming behind the prancing roans.

Linnie took hot packs back and forth for an hour or more to Aunt Louise in her bedroom with its walnut furniture, wash-bowl and pitcher, and fringed antimacassars. Then she heard the door-bell ring. Some one was turning the bell’s knob frequently and impatiently, so that she hurried down to answer its irritable summons.

The man in uniform standing there on the stoop was breathing hard as though he had been walking up the long hill street at top speed.

“Why ... Lieutenant Stafford!”

“Cynthia ... is she ... ?” Then, as though suddenly remembering the presence of this other young lady, he broke off and shook hands: “How do you do, Miss Linnie? Cynthia ... is she here?”

“No, she isn’t ... not just now.”

“Where will I find her?”

“She started for Bellevue an hour ago,” adding with needless explanation, “Her father is with her.”

“Bellevue!” he snapped his fingers in exasperation. “Why, we stopped there!”

“I’m so sorry. But won’t you come in?” She was thankful that he could not know how his presence affected her.

He followed her into the front parlor, glanced about the room with hungry eyes as though to call back the sight of Cynthia in its gracious setting, looked searchingly at Linnie as though by some magic means she could produce her.

“Won’t you be seated?”

“No, I’ll have to get back to the boat. I’m sent up the river to keep navigation open. Indians are troublesome again farther up. I tried to get leave to stay over for the next boat, but I must accompany my men. I ran up while it’s being refueled.”

“I’m so sorry,” was all Linnie could repeat, which was no better than Polly could have done.

“I guess I can’t conceal my disappointment. I pictured her here all the way ... in this very room. Someway it never occurred to me she might be gone.”

“I’m so ...” No, she wouldn’t mouth that parrot phrase again. “She’ll be so disappointed.”

“I shouldn’t say all this to you ... things that I had intended for her alone. But I must. It might be weeks before she could hear from me.” He was speaking earnestly, looking down at her in that direct way she remembered so well. “Tell her I’ll write her from the first place I can do so, probably Sioux City; later Fort Randall. And tell her this: if we are to winter at Fort Randall—or near enough for her to join me while the boats are still running—I want her to come to me. I have my superior officer’s good wishes. There will be some officers’ wives there wherever we are. We can be married by a Protestant missionary who winters at the fort ... or the commissioner may come up ... or Father De Smet on his way down the river ... or the commanding officer.”

It went through her mind that Priest or Protestant, military or civil servant, apparently it made no difference. It was Cynthia who counted.

“Make her see all this. I know you can. There’s something about you—substantial, I guess it is. I would know to look in your face that you are a true friend to both of us.”

He was fumbling somewhere under his military coat. “Give her this.” It was a little black case, the two sides joined with a hook and catch. His picture, she thought. “And give her this.” He was bringing forth a small white box. A ring, she could tell.

Linnie stood with the two objects, one in each hand, her fingers closed over them. And then, as though to convey more, much more, through the medium of this substantial person—this girl whose face told him she was a true friend to them both—he put his own hands over Linnie’s tight little fists.

“Tell her I love her ... more than anything in this world. Tell her that. And give her this.” He drew Linnie up to him as though she were Cynthia, kissed her lips warmly, and was gone.

And Linnie stood there in the middle of the parlor, both hands at her throat, still holding the ring and the picture in them so tightly that the skin on their knuckles was white in the dusk.

Fully dressed, she waited up for Cynthia in their room, met her at the head of the stairway to forestall unimportant chatter.

“News, Cynthia.” She was very proud of the casual tone. Well, she had practised it enough. “Your big lieutenant was here.”

“Norman! Not Norman!” Cynthia squealed, partly in genuine surprise, partly that she had been caught in the mischievous act of being away.

“Sh!” Linnie pulled her into the bedroom and shut the door. “Your mother’s probably asleep.”

“Where is he now?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? Well, I must say ...”

“He was only here a few minutes, while the steamboat was refueling. He’s on his way up the river.”

“Up the river? Where?”

“Sioux City and then Fort Randall.”

“How did he look?”

“He looked ... very well.”

“Begin at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

“Well ... he rang the bell and I opened the door like this.” She made foolish motions. “No, I turned the knob the other way ...”

“Oh, you silly! Go on faster.”

“He told me several things to tell you. I’ll deliver them just as exact as I can. He is ordered up the Missouri to keep navigation open. The Indians are troublesome. He doesn’t know just where he is to stay for the winter. But if it turns out to be Fort Randall, as he thinks, he wants you to come.” She was painstaking in picking out the items, telling them off on her fingers. “He said there will be some officers’ wives there. He said there would be a Protestant missionary to marry you or Father De Smet or the commissioner or the commanding officer. He said he had his superior officer’s good wishes. He was very anxious that you should be with him when he is settled for the winter. And he left three things for you.”

She felt in the pocket of her flaring skirt with its galloon braid trimming. “He said to give you this.” She brought out the picture case.

Cynthia opened it and squealed excitedly: “Oh, he is ... yes, he is better looking than George Hemming, isn’t he?”

“And this!” Linnie took from that same pocket the little white ring box.

Cynthia did not squeal this time. “Oh, Linnie, I don’t like it so very well,” she wailed. “I’d rather have one of those with a blue stone ... and wider. What else?” She held out her hand. And when Linnie made no further move she said impatiently: “Go on. I want the other. You told me three things.”

“Did I say three? That was stupid.” She turned the big pocket of her skirt inside out. “See ... that’s all.”

For the third thing was not in her pocket.