Ox Cart Angel
By
J.
A. Arnold
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Studio City Media Endeavors on Smashwords
Ox Cart Angel
Copyright © 2011 by Joel Arnold
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
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For my mom and dad, Colleen and Scott Arnold, and for librarians everywhere, without whom the world would be a much duller place.
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Ox Cart Angel
By J. A. Arnold
1
If I had known how much my life was about to change, I would have spent that last day in Pembina differently. I would have said goodbye to my friends and visited the places that reminded me of Mama, especially the elm tree where she was buried. I would have sat at her grave telling her how much I missed her, and that I’d come back someday to visit.
But since I didn’t know any of that, I spent most of that day with Freda Two-Feathers, who was a half-breed like me.
Half-breed.
Papa hated that word.
“You are Métis,” he’d say, pronouncing it may-tee. “You are not half of anything, Claire.”
But I’d gotten so used to hearing that word – half-breed – that it is hard not to use it.
But for this story, I’ll try.
“I’m tired of this mud,” Freda said, lifting her buckskin dress and stepping carefully through the wet, muddy road that skirted the outside of town. “I’m always cold.”
The winter snows had melted, leaving a thick brown stew behind.
“I wish I could move to St. Joseph,” she added. “There’s always something going on there.” Her beaded deerskin boot sank into a deep pool of mud up to her shin. “And the streets aren’t nearly so wet.”
I’d never been to St. Joseph. It was at least a day’s journey away. Pembina was just fine with me. This was where I was born thirteen long years ago, and this was where I would stay.
“It’ll dry up,” I said. The sun had risen only moments ago, and a mist hovered over the ground, hugging the town’s wooden buildings. I smiled as a pair of ducks waddled nearby, their feet smacking the road. They chattered at each other like old women. The smell of river and wood-smoke filled my nostrils. Today was a special day, and I didn’t want Freda’s sulking to ruin it for me.
The town was already awake. People peeked out from their small log homes, pulled coats and shawls tightly about them, and trudged toward the street that ran through the center of town.
I waved as Thomas Bow hurried past. He looked back at us, smiled and tripped, falling on his back in the sloppy mess.
A toe-headed white boy sat on a fence post outside of Joe Roulette’s place, cut hunks off a raw potato with a pocketknife and stuck them in his mouth. He wiped his hand off on his shirt and blew me a kiss. I blushed, feeling my light caramel skin darken.
Today the Métis men, some with their wives and children, but most going alone, were departing on the two-month journey to St. Paul and back, their Red River carts loaded down with piles of buffalo hides. Few days in Pembina matched the excitement of their departure. The only day more exciting was the day of their safe return, when their carts would be loaded with new goods and equipment.
Everyone here knew someone who was leaving in the long train of slow-moving carts. It was a day of goodbyes and good lucks, a day of tears and anticipation. It was a day for celebration. Most everyone in town showed up to see them off.
But as we headed toward the commotion, Freda grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. She pointed toward the fog rising over the twisting Red River. “Look,” she whispered. “His door is open.”
Just before the earth dipped down into the river, there was a small, round hut shrouded in moldering buffalo hides. Elk antlers circled the top like a crown, and hanging from the antlers were grouse feathers dyed a fading red. The old man who lived there was known around town as Toad.
People no longer remembered his real name, but Papa said Toad had made the journey to St. Paul and back probably more times than anyone. Although we’d seen the old man outside of his hut tending to Bone Bag, his retired ox, the inside of his hut was a source of great mystery to the residents of Pembina. The door was always shut, and since it was also made of buffalo hide, it looked as if the hut had no doors at all. People, even many of the whites, thought he practiced magic.
As Freda had pointed out, a rectangle of buffalo hide was thrown back, revealing a dark interior.
“Let’s take a look,” Freda said.
“Are you crazy?”
“Don’t you want to know what’s in there? I’ve heard he’s got two birch boxes full of human heads inside – one for Indians, and one for whites.”
“What about for the Métis?” I asked.
“For Métis,” Freda said, “he only keeps the teeth.”
We laughed. “Come on,” Freda said. “Go peek in old Toad’s hut.”
“Why don’t you?”
“We’ll do it together.”
“Then we say goodbye to the ox-carts,” I said.
Freda nodded. “If we’re still alive.”
2
The old brown ox tied to the oak tree next to Toad’s hut was missing a horn. One of its eyes was a dead, milky white, and jagged scars ran across its back. Its left ear was split down the middle. The children of Pembina called him “Bone Bag” although I’d heard him called other names, such as “Glue” and “Steak” and “Turd Maker.” It was rare to see the beast move, except to slowly bend his massive head down to reach for hay and grass laid out across the trampled mud. Passing children often fed him apples, potatoes, or whatever else they were tired of eating, and the piles of manure behind the creature varied greatly in color and texture.
Mama once told me that when Bone Bag was a young bull, it belonged to a farmer named Ren Charbonneau. But one day, Bone Bag’s stable caught fire. Crazy with fear, the young bull crashed through the flaming stable wall. Splintered, burning wood raked across his back during his frantic escape.
Bone Bag turned crazy, Mama said, so Toad bought him cheap and fixed him, and some say cussed him into becoming a good ox. They made many trips to St. Paul and back, the ox pulling the buffalo hides while Toad walked alongside, cussing and singing and smoking his pipe.
But that was long ago. For as long as I remembered, Bone Bag stood tied to the oak tree, wearing away the bark with its one dull horn.
Now the old beast didn’t even flick its tattered ear as Freda and I approached the hut. We crouched low, trying not to make a sound as we neared the entrance. What if Toad grabbed us and yanked us inside?
We stood on each side of the dark entrance, hardly breathing, staring at each other. The strong odor of boiled potatoes wafted out. Freda raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say, You go first.
I shook my head. You go first.
Over the shushhhh of the river below, I heard a voice inside. No, not one voice, but two voices!
Freda leaned forward to look inside. But as I recognized one of the voices, I frantically waved at her. She stopped short and looked at me curiously.
What? She mouthed.
My heart fluttered up into my throat. “Run!” I hissed.
“Why?” She hissed back.
Then she heard it, too.
The familiar voice. His loud laughter.
“Papa!” I yelped.
3
We ran through the mud, forgetting to hike up our dresses.
By the time we got to the main street, we breathed hard and fast. We were filthy. But no one noticed as they waited for the ox-carts to arrive.
A man dressed in a faded blue Union uniform called out to the crowd, “Come fight for your country! Fight for the preservation of the Union! Good wages! Adventure! Make your parents proud!” His voice changed tone. “The envy of every young woman.”
The older women in the crowd scowled.
What did the War Between the States have to do with us? It was so far away.
“What was your father doing in Toad’s hut?” Freda asked, catching her breath.
My body was hot from the run. I shrugged without answering. I had no idea. But I was more worried of what Papa might do if he thought we’d been spying. Surely he heard me cry out when I realized he was inside.
A loud, squeaking noise interrupted my thoughts and sent shivers down my back. Heads turned. People whistled and cheered. Freda and I stood on our toes, looking down Main Street.
The squeaking grew louder. A chorus of squeaks. The sound reached deep into every bone of my body. It made the tiny hairs on my arms and neck rise up.
It was the squeak of giant wooden wheels turning on wooden axles.
One by one the Red River carts appeared. They gathered in single file, each cart pulled by an ox, and in each cart sat a Métis man, his face full of anticipation. Some sat with wives and children. Many drove alone.
They called themselves gens de libre. Men of freedom.
While the wheels squeaked, the beds of the carts creaked with the weight of buffalo hides.
They kept coming, the giant wheels flinging up mud behind them. The oxen chewed as they walked, their hooves squishing into the muck. While the first carts stopped to wait for those behind, the drivers jumped from their carts and greeted one another. They slapped each other’s backs, lit pipes, waved and smiled. They chatted with family members and friends whom they wouldn’t see for over two months.
The older Métis who were done with their yearly travels, waved from the open doorways of saloons and yelled out light-hearted warnings about the women of St. Paul.
The line of carts stretched as far as I could see.
A young boy with a bright red cap walked behind us, calling out, “Peanuts! Roasted peanuts!” Bags overflowing with this salty treat filled a box dangling from his neck. My mouth watered.
More carts came. More gens de libres.
They wore brightly colored sashes around their waists. Broad-rimmed hats kept their faces shaded from the sun. Their coats and vests were made of buckskin or black wool. Bright beads decorated their leggings, and many carried the bold red flag of the Métis on their carts.
I’d seen most of them before. Many had their photographs taken in Papa’s studio. They lived in wooden huts and cabins on the edge of town most of the year, but now was the time for travel. It was off to St. Paul to sell and trade their piles of buffalo hides.
Freda and I counted 42 carts.
An old man as wrinkled and ripe as a rotten apple stumbled out of a saloon with a drink in hand to wish the travelers well. Family members of the drivers hugged their loved ones and wouldn’t let go. Faces were wet with tears, some bright with smiles. A woman played a lively tune on a fiddle while a young boy clapped and sang along. More children surrounded her, dancing a Métis jig.
Freda and I walked up and down the boardwalk, waving at the drivers. Joe Chambeaux rode the lead cart. I recognized him from Papa’s studio. He winked at me when I passed. I reached up and gave him the yellow tulip I had tucked in my pocket earlier that morning. He leaned over and kissed my hand.
“The photographer’s daughter,” he said in the Mitchif language.
I blushed. He tucked the stem of the flower in his bright red and orange sash. He turned around and lifted the bold red Métis flag with it’s gold lazy eight in the middle, and waved it back and forth in great arcs to signal the other drivers. He put his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and gave a loud whistle. “Allons!” he shouted. Let’s go!
There was the sound of cracking whips and men shouting “Haw!” to their oxen. The giant wheels – taller than most of the men – began to turn and the great chorus of squeaking started once again. The sound set my teeth on edge, as if I’d bitten a tin plate.
We clapped and cheered and walked alongside the slow moving carts, blowing kisses to the men and laughing at their bad jokes. One of them – Jean Clemente – tossed Freda a shiny silver dime. He winked at us. “For candy and sweets and nothing else!”
Freda and I laughed.
“I’ll share it with you,” Freda promised me.
Mud stirred up by the oxen and by the great wheels coated our skirts, but we didn’t care. When all the commotion was over, we could soak them in the river.
Outside of town, we gave one last wave to the brave travelers, watching the rising sun turning the men and their carts golden. Finally we turned and hurried back to town. We had a dime to spend!
But as we neared Roulette’s Trading Post, a hand clamped on my shoulder and spun me around.
Papa’s steel blue eyes looked me up and down.
“Filthy,” he said, his voice thick with his French Canadian accent. He dismissed Freda with a nod of his head. “Go on ahead. I must talk to this young eavesdropper.”
4
Papa wore a black wool coat over a white shirt and suspenders. He wore buckskin pants pulled down over his leather boots. He held my shoulder. His eyes bore into mine.
“Why were you at Toad’s?” he asked. “To spy on your papa?”
“No,” I said. “Freda and I – ”
“What did you hear? Can I have no secrets?”
“Sorry, Papa, but we saw his door open – ”
“You think that means you can sneak around like a snake and listen to private conversations?”
“No, Papa.” I looked down at my muddy skirt.
He patted my shoulders. His voice softened. “So you heard about our trade?”
I looked up. Papa’s mouth had turned into a smile.
“Trade?” I said. “No, Papa. We heard nothing.”
Papa watched me a moment, then said, “Toad and I – we made a trade.”
“For what?”
His eyes sparkled. “For his ox-cart. And for his ox.”
“Bone Bag?” I asked, disgusted at the idea. “Why?”
Papa stroked my hair. “We are moving,” he said.
“Moving?” I remembered what Freda had talked about only an hour ago. “To St. Joseph?”
Papa laughed. “No, ma chere. We are moving to St. Paul. We will open up a photography studio, eh?”
What? This couldn’t be. “But you already have a studio,” I said. “Business is good.”
“Ah,” Papa said with a wave of his hand. “This town is dying.”
“But it’s our home.”
“We will have a new home.”
“For how long?”
“For good, I suspect.”
“No, Papa!” I could not believe this! How could we leave our home? My home? Mama’s home?
He wiped away the tears from my eyes with a swipe of his thumb.
“There’s nothing for us here. This is not a town for a young lady like you.”
“But I have friends here. And Mama – ”
“Mama would’ve wanted this, too.”
No! Mama was buried here. Our home…
“Papa!”
“I am sorry, Claire. But I have made up my mind. We leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” I was horrified. Why was there no warning? “How can you do this to me?”
“We pack tonight. We must leave most of our things behind, because we only have the cart, the ox, and our backs.”
How could I even think about packing? My mind reeled. I couldn’t breathe. “How could you do this to me?”
“It is for the best,” Papa said.
Fresh tears filled my eyes. “Papa,” I said. “Oh, Papa.”
He hugged me. “We will have a new life. You will make new friends. You will see. It’s what is best for us.”
5
When Mama was alive, we lived in a wood cabin with a sod roof. At night, Papa often clapped and stamped out rhythms on the dirt floor, while Mama played her fiddle and sang songs like Money Musk, Buy a Broom and Old Aunt Sally Put a Bug On Me which she learned from the missionaries who taught her how to read. I sang along and danced, too. Mama also taught me the songs of the Ojibwa – her people – and I sang along with her while Papa listened and smiled and rocked in his rocking chair with his pipe clenched in his teeth.
“You have the best of two peoples,” he often said. “That’s much better than just one, eh?”
Now Papa and I lived in a room we rented above Cleve Lacrue’s tack shop. The room next to ours was Papa’s photography studio. There were many days when his fresh photographs hung to dry on a rope that hung from one side of the room to the next. I’d often have to duck beneath it to get from my bed to the kitchen.
Now I sat on my narrow bed clutching my rag-stuffed pillow. How could I sleep?
I stood, stomping the wood floor with my bare feet. I found a piece of cloth, wet it and dabbed it in a box of baking soda. I rubbed it rapidly over my teeth and gums. My mouth tingled as I rinsed with a dipper of cold water and spat out our window into the dirt alley behind the shop.
“Only one item,” Papa reminded me.
I was allowed to only bring one favorite item plus the clothes I had on my back. The rest of the cart was to be used for his photography equipment and the other supplies necessary for the long journey ahead.
I groaned. How could I choose?
“We will catch up to them,” Papa said, growing more excited with each passing minute. “Then we shall travel with them side by side. It will be fun, no? An adventure!”
“How will we catch up with Bone Bag leading us?” I asked.
“Bone Bag still has much life in him,” Papa said.
“But he’s blind.”
“In only one eye.”
“He’s so old.”
“And so wise,” Papa said. “He knows the trails by heart.”
“But the others are a whole day ahead of us.”
“That is nothing on a journey like this. And with so many of them, there are bound to be problems slowing them down – carts needing repair, oxen getting sick.”
I threw up my arms in defeat. “I hope you didn’t pay much for that beast,” I said.
Papa looked away.
“Papa?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
He turned back at me, the excitement gone from his features. He smiled wearily. “I traded what I could. It will be worth it in the long run.”
“What did you trade?” I asked.
He patted my knee. “It is for the best.”
“Papa? What did you trade?”
“Come, Claire. We must pack.”
6
The summer I was born, the Red River flooded its banks and seeped into Pembina, rising over steps and doorjambs and leaving a layer of mud on the floors and boardwalks of the town. It flooded again eight years after that, and I remember Papa’s excitement at the opportunities it gave him to take interesting photographs, but the floodwater leaked into his chemicals and ruined everything. By the time he got more chemicals, the waters had receded and the streets had dried up. He went back to photographing people posed in the cramped studio he rented over Cleve Lacrue’s tack shop.
How many times had Papa’s excitement turned into disappointment? I prayed to Mama’s spirit that it would not happen again.
“One thing? Impossible!” I said.
The sun had not yet come up, and Papa already had water boiling over the fire for tea. “What do you value the most?” Papa asked.
“I don’t know. This place. This town,” I said.
What could I possibly leave behind? The bead bracelet Freda made for me? Mama’s silver mirror? How could I leave that behind? And what about the doll Papa made for me out of raccoon skin and willow branches? Surely, I couldn’t leave that! There was the small chair and table on which I did my schoolwork, and on which I had carved the Ojibwa name Mama gave to me. How could I part with that? And what about my bed? I couldn’t imagine sleeping on anything else. And what of my books? I’d read each of them many times, and to think I’d never see them again…
As I looked around, I wanted to take the walls. And what about the way the floor creaked? Could I take that creaking noise with me? How else would I remember it?
Papa said, “Come now. You must decide.”
“I can’t, Papa. I can’t leave anything behind.”
“Then leave it all behind,” Papa said. “We must go.”
Then I remembered. How could I have forgotten it? Something that was kept in a long, flat box beneath my bed. “I know,” I said.
I got on my knees, and reached beneath my bed, brushing aside cobwebs and balls of dust. My fingers found the wooden box, and I grabbed hold and pulled. It scraped over the rough pine floor. I lifted it up on its end.
Papa stared at it a moment, as if lost in memory. But he shook his head. “Too big,” he said.
“We can’t leave it behind.”
“It won’t fit in the cart. I’m sorry.”
I let the box drop to the floor with a bang. Dust flew everywhere, filling my nose and making me blink. “Then leave me here,” I said. “Go by yourself, and you’ll have plenty of room.”
“Stop it!”
I spat on the floor. “Set up your shop in St. Paul and leave all of your memories behind.”
“Claire!” Papa’s face turned bright red.
“It’s true.”
He grabbed my arm. “Come and look. See how little room there is.”
He pulled me roughly down the stairs and out into the cool morning air. The cart was there, with Bone Bag hooked up to it, his chilled breath puffing out from his fuzzy, wet nostrils. The cart was truly full, a buffalo hide covering the items beneath. The sharp feet of Papa’s tripod poked out from beneath the hide. Even Bone Bag carried sacks on his back. I lifted the buffalo hide and looked at the piles of food and equipment. I looked at the ground, suddenly ashamed. “I won’t take anything,” I said.
“Claire – ”
“No. I don’t need anything. Except a book. I’ll bring a book.”
Papa nodded. “Okay. We’ll have some tea and go then, yes?”
“Yes.”
But while father poured tea and sat at the table beneath which I’d carved words and pictures of faces and animals, beneath which I had once played at my mother’s feet, I slipped into the bedroom, and quietly opened the thin wooden box that had spent so many years forgotten beneath my bed. I stared at the thing inside, and then quietly took it out. Papa said he had gotten it in a trade from a man who lived out east. It smelled of wet leaves and dust.
It smelled of Mama.
There was a way, I thought, that I could take this without Papa knowing. Not the box, but what lay within the box. I peeked across the room to where Papa sat. His back was turned to me as he sipped his tea. I had to be quick. I could keep it hidden. For a little while, at least – until we were far enough away for it to be impossible to bring it back.
I quickly and quietly slipped out of my clothes, hoping that Papa would not turn around.
7
It is said that when Papa first arrived in the Dakota territories to photograph my mother’s people, some of them thought he was trying to steal their spirits with his magic box. Luckily, my mother let him photograph her, and they were soon married. After that, I was born. Although Papa had only meant to stay for a few weeks, he ended up staying for almost thirteen years, until Mama died.
The cart had only two wheels, but they were as tall as Papa, connected to each other by a warped wooden axle. The rims of the wheels were wider than my hands, even with my fingers spread apart, and they were covered with buffalo hide. Papa said they made travel easy over prairie grass, mud and swamp. For some strange reason, one wheel’s spokes were painted red, while the spokes on the other wheel were black. Moldy deer hide lined a small driver’s seat. It was full of small scorch marks, probably from the hot spilled ashes of Toad’s pipe.
A bed of wooden planks rested over the cart’s axle. This is where the traders loaded their tower of furs. This is where Papa had carefully placed his camera equipment and other supplies.
I still didn’t know what Papa had traded for this cart and big dumb ox. We had little to begin with, and I couldn’t figure out what was missing.
Papa pulled in front of Toad’s hut one last time. The stars were still out, and I could sense the dawn somewhere below the horizon, waiting to rise and flood the sky. Smoke rose from the hut in thin wisps. Its smell made my nose wrinkle. It wasn’t the usual smell of wood smoke, but something different. My eyes were heavy, as well as my heart, and I thought nothing of it until father came out carrying a piece of paper.
“Toad drew us a map of the trail. It should be easy travel.”
“What is he cooking in there?” I asked.
“Ah,” Papa said. He said nothing more. He patted the ox and pulled himself up beside me on the driver’s seat. Packed on either side of us were coarse wool blankets.
Another wisp of smoke curled down to my nose. I winced. What was he cooking?
Papa yanked Bone Bag’s reins and gave the animal a flick of his switch. The beast looked back at him as if questioning his judgment about leaving so soon after the snows melted. But with a shudder that shook the whole cart, Bone Bag leaned forward and began to walk.
An awful thought hit me. I turned in my seat, looking back at the hut, dark in the predawn shadows. I felt ill.
“Papa?” I asked.
He wouldn’t look at me.
“What is he burning, Papa?”
“What’s done is done,” he said, and gave the ox an extra flick of the switch.
Could it be? Would he dare?
“Oh Papa. How could you? You traded them for this?” Tears flooded my eyes.
“We’ll make new ones,” Papa said. “You’ll see. We’ll have so many we won’t know what to do with them all.”
“No!” I yelled. The cart began to pick up speed. I stood. The ground rolled beneath me. I jumped.
“Claire!” Papa yelled as I raced toward Toad’s hut. I heard him yell, “Whoa!” to the ox, but by then I’d already lifted the buffalo hide flap to Toad’s small dwelling.
The smell almost knocked me over. I shut my eyes tight against the thick smoke. I heard Toad laugh as I blinked away tears.
“Girl, you come to watch the spirits be free, no?”
I squinted into the smoke, saw the old man’s hunched form as he stood over a small fire in the middle of his hut, dropping one photograph after another into the fire. “See?” he said, as another picture burned, the image curling into blackness. “Another one free. And here’s another.” He tossed it in. I recognized the image of Father Goddard, one of the missionaries who taught Mama how to read.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Those are mine!”
Another picture, this one of the trading post’s baker, Sourdough Pete, curled into dust.
A sharp voice came from behind. “Claire!” Papa’s hand clutched my shoulder. He spun me around. “They are his, now.”
“You traded our lives, our memories for that stupid beast out there? For that old squeaking cart?”
Toad chuckled behind me. “It is a good thing your father does. Now these spirits can be free.”
“Papa, how can you listen to this crazy old man?”
“We had nothing else to give.”
“My clothes!” I said. “You could’ve given him my clothes. What about our home?”
Toad placed another picture onto the fire – one I had no time to see before its image turned black.
“It’s not our home to give, Claire. You know that.”
“Papa!” Again, tears threatened to blind me, and I wiped them away. I twisted out of Papa’s grip and reached into the pile of remaining pictures, grabbing a handful and stepping away from Toad and his awful fire. Papa reached out, but I jumped back, flipping quickly through the remaining pictures.
Here was Mrs. Hample, my grammar school teacher. Here was the horse mother used to ride. Here was Freda. Here was me.
Oh Papa, how could you?
As I looked through the pictures, I dropped them one by one onto the ground. I sensed Papa and Toad at my feet, gathering them up quietly.
Here was the baby bird I found abandoned in the dirt. I spent an entire summer nursing her back to health.
Here was my father, a photograph I had taken.
“Here.” I threw it at Toad. “Burn this one.”
But here…
Here.
My heart skipped a beat.
Here was the photograph I wanted. Here was the photograph I could not bare to see destroyed.
It was Mama – the photograph taken before she and Papa were married.
I held it out to Papa. “How could you?” I cried.
I clutched the photo tightly to my chest. Papa stared at me, his face etched with guilt. Toad reached out to me, his hand scarred and wrinkled.
“Here, child.” He smiled. “Let me free her, too.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Papa give this all up? So much of his life was in these photographs! So much of my life!
“No!” I shouted. Before anyone could stop me, I raced out of Toad’s dark hut, out of the suffocating smoke.
I wanted to keep running. Run through the town, run to the woods and hide. Climb up a tree. Jump in the river. I wanted to get away, far away from Toad and Papa. Far away from that awful smell.
Instead, I stopped at the old, squeaky ox-cart. Bone Bag eyed me with his good eye.
I swatted its rump hard. “You ugly beast!” I spat. The old ox didn’t move.
I tucked the photograph against my chest, beneath the other item I had smuggled from our house, the other item Papa had wanted me to leave behind – the other item I’d put on when father hadn’t been looking.
Bunched up beneath my long wool coat instead of my buckskin dress, was Mama’s white, scratchy wool wedding dress.
I got up onto the ox-cart and wiped my remaining tears away. “You’re safe now, Mama,” I whispered, patting my chest where the picture rested. “You’re safe.”
8
I sat on the seat with my arms folded across my chest. My face burned. My head throbbed. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to speak. The lumbering ox’s rear fouled the air with disgusting odors. The cold morning air hurt my ears. I couldn’t get warm.
Why was Papa doing this? Why didn’t he tell me sooner?
Papa said nothing when he climbed back on board. He wouldn’t look at me. Smoke continued to swirl from Toad’s hut in painful wisps.
Papa picked up the reins and gave them a flick. “Haw.”
Bone Bag looked back at him with dumb eyes.
Papa tried again. “Move.”
The ox did nothing.
“Move!” Papa said, this time using the wooden switch.
I smiled inside. Perhaps Bone Bag would never move and we’d be stuck here for good.
Papa jumped down from the cart and jogged up to Bone Bag’s head. “It is time to go now,” Papa said to the ox. “Yes? Time to go.” Papa grabbed Bone Bag’s one horn and pulled. Bone Bag bellowed stupidly, ducking and bobbing his head, forcing Papa to let go.
“Please,” Papa said. “We have a long journey, and we must catch up with the others. Your friends!” Papa said. “If we go now, you can see your brothers and sisters and travel with them side by side.”
Didn’t Papa realize Bone Bag was so old that all of his friends, all of his brothers and sisters, were dead by now?
“Come,” Papa said, rubbing Bone Bag’s muddy muzzle. “We go now, yes?”
“Papa,” I said, cold and tired. Although it was fine with me if we were stuck here for good, I couldn’t stand Papa’s ignorance. I jumped off the cart. “You must speak as if you’re its master.”
Papa looked at me, his brow furrowing.
Frustrated, I stood at Bone Bag’s flank. “Like this,” I said. I slapped the ox’s side as hard as I could, and shouted like I’d heard the other Métis shout. “Haw!”
Bone Bag snorted, leaned forward, and began to walk.
As the cart passed by me, I grabbed hold and pulled myself up. I sat on the moldy seat and pulled a blanket over my body, my arms folded across my chest underneath.
“Ah,” Papa said. “Very good.” He jogged to the side of Bone Bag’s head, grabbed the reins and turned him out onto the road.
The light of dawn spread slowly behind us as we left Pembina and the muddy road. Papa led Bone Bag onto a trail whose deeply rutted surface disappeared into the surrounding marshland.
“We are going west,” I said, disgusted. “St. Paul is east.”
Papa said, “We go west first to reach higher ground, then turn south, and then east again. Besides, there are fewer mosquitoes this way. Fewer sloughs. The rivers are less trouble. It’s the way the others go.”
“What if we get lost?” I asked.
“We won’t get lost. Besides, when we catch up to the rest of the caravan, we will all travel as one.”
I sighed. It would be nice to see Joe Chambeaux again. Maybe I could ride with him instead of Papa.
“How long will it take to get to St. Paul?” I asked.
Papa shrugged. “Thirty days. Maybe more.” His high, leather boots sank ankle deep into the wet ground, but the cart traveled easily, rocking and bumping over the plants and grasses. The wheels squeaked tirelessly.
“Close your eyes,” Papa said. “Go to sleep. When you wake up, the sun will be bright and you will be warm.”
How long would it take for Papa to notice that I wore Mama’s wedding dress beneath my coat? Luckily it was cut short and hung just below my knees. But it was a yellowish white, and edges of the collar and sleeves poked out. It was bulky, too. I must’ve looked fat in my coat. And when I looked back at the full cart, I saw a piece of underclothing poking out from where I’d squeezed it between the camera and the side of the cart. My buckskin dress was stuffed beneath that.
How could Papa not know? Was he blind? I just hoped we were too far away when he noticed it to turn around and take it back.
I swatted at a hungry family of mosquitoes and stretched out on top of the buffalo hide. Boxes and crates and heavy burlap bags poked my back. I tried to get comfortable, but it wasn’t easy. How could I sleep with all this jerking and swaying? How could I sleep with the noise of the wheels? I was cold, miserable and angry.
But once I closed my eyes, sleep came quickly.
9
I awoke to a bright sun and a sore back. I quickly threw aside the wool blanket that covered me and tucked the edges of Mama’s wedding dress back beneath my black coat. Between the various squeaks and squawks of the wheels, I heard the deep booming of prairie chickens. They strutted among the plants and grasses, their tails fanned out and wings spread. Mosquitoes darted about my head. I waved them away, but they kept coming back.
My stomach growled with hunger. And the wheels – how could they not drive a person crazy? Their squeaks came in a series of high and low pitches, loud then soft then loud again. And with each turn of the wheels, the song started over. Relief only came when we stopped. But stopping meant no movement, no getting anywhere. Although I didn’t wish to go to St. Paul, I also didn’t want to be stuck out here forever.
I turned and looked behind us. Maybe if I saw how far we’d traveled…
My heart sank. We’d been traveling almost two hours, yet I could still make out the top of the old fort walls in Pembina. Could this ox not move any faster? How would we ever catch up to the rest of the caravan?
Papa walked alongside the cart, his boots splashing in the marshy water.
“Ah,” Papa said, noticing I was awake. “Bonjour.”
“Bonjour,” I said, my throat scratchy.
“We made this trip once when you were only two years old,” Papa said. “Do you remember? You rode with the camera in back.”
“No,” I said.
“There were a hundred of these carts, lined up in single file. Whenever we’d arrive at a village or a home, the people would be out waiting for us, because they could hear the cry of our wheels from miles away.”
I didn’t doubt it. I rubbed my forehead, wondering if I could stuff my ears with pieces cut from my coat.
Papa whistled, looking out over the back of the ox, at the slowly climbing sun. It sparkled brightly on the wet, green grass.
“One hundred carts,” Papa repeated.
It was hard to listen to him without being angry. I wanted to bury myself back in my brown wool blanket, but it was much too hot. I tried to ignore Papa and the wheels, and listen only to the sparrows and mosquitoes and the shush of the wind through the wet Indian grass.
Bone Bag walked steadily, stopping every once in a while to munch on tufts of grass and slurp up water with his fat, wide tongue. Between the squeaks of the wheels, he made himself known with long, noisy farts. The smell brought tears to my eyes, and I pressed my face into the buffalo hide to escape the nasty odor.
Papa sat beside me, staring at the land ahead. Every so often we passed young poplar trees huddled together like a small island in the sea. They were a welcome sight, and I understood why they kept so close together; if one lived alone in this wilderness, it would soon die of boredom.
“What should we name him?” Papa asked.
What was he babbling about now? I ignored him.
“He needs a name, no?”
I snapped at him. “What are you talking about? His name is Bone Bag.”
He nodded at the ox. “But he is new to us, so we should give him a new name, no?”
“He stinks,” I said.
“Should we name him Stinky, then?”
I said nothing.
“How about Smelly?”
I was in no mood for this.
“Odoria?”
I looked away.
“How about Fartina?”
“Stop it!” I said.
Papa nodded. “Okay. We stick with Bone Bag.” He patted my knee, but I turned away, horrified at the thought that he might feel the puffy material of Mama’s dress beneath my coat.
“I think I’ll change your name to Stubbornita,” Papa said.
As the sun reached its highest point in the sky, we saw oak trees growing out of the marsh in the distance. We soon heard the bright sound of moving water.
“Ah,” Papa said, looking at the map Toad had drawn for him. “The Tongue River.”
“Must we cross it?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to get wet. Or to take off my coat.
“No, ma chere,” Papa said. “Not here. But we will follow it awhile and see where it takes us.”
Bone Bag pulled the cart slowly into the cover of the large trees. The branches stretched from one tree to the next, providing a welcome shade. Papa walked alongside the ox, leading him through the cool grove. The ground was drier here, but the wheels still squeaked and groaned. Squirrels squawked and chattered at us as we passed. The mud that covered Papa’s legs began to flake off as he walked.
As the cart bumped and jerked along, I rummaged through a box of food, finding some biscuits and a large bag of pemmican. I scraped some out with my fingers and bit into it. Mama’s pemmican was much better than this. She mixed blueberries and sunflower seeds into the dried buffalo meat, adding just the right amount of spices. Whoever made this could’ve used a few tips from her. But it was edible, and with the mood I was in, perhaps nothing would’ve tasted good.
Bone Bag stopped to munch on some tender shoots of fresh muhly grass. Papa gulped down a biscuit and checked the wheels and the axle. “She’s holding up well,” he said.
I wondered what Papa would do if the cart stopped holding up so well. He was no handyman. But Papa was sure we’d catch up to the Métis caravan soon enough, and they’d be able to help us out of any trouble we might encounter.
But what if we didn’t catch up?
I looked at our surroundings. Look how large the land was! Look how small we were!
What if we never caught up? What if we had to make the entire trip by ourselves? What then?
Papa was no adventurer. He was a photographer. Already, I noticed blisters forming on his soft hands from holding Bone Bag’s rope. There were scratches on his neck and face from the branches that snapped at him as he passed.
I was suddenly afraid. We had to catch up to that caravan!
“Papa,” I said as he scooped up water and splashed it on his face. “We need to move faster.”
He stood and looked around. “Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re wasting too much time. We must catch up to the rest.”
He wiped his hands on his dirty trousers. “Ah, oui.” He tugged on Bone Bag’s rope. “Come on, then. Allons!”
Bone Bag looked at Papa and continued chewing grass.
I picked up the switch and swatted Bone Bag’s flank. “Haw!” I shouted. “Haw!”
10
We left the shade of the oak trees and rolled our way through the flat country of the marsh. I could see for miles around. Miles of nothing. How could the earth be so empty? There was only grass and brush and loneliness. The sky was pale blue and the sun looked like Bone Bag’s blind, milky eye. Once again the flies and mosquitoes attacked me. I swatted them away from my face and ears, but they kept coming back. They coated Bone Bag’s muzzle, too, but he didn’t seem bothered by them. They drove me mad. When it became unbearable, I ducked under the buffalo hide. But there it was too hot, so out I’d come again to face the heartless bugs.
As we rolled onward, Papa asked, “Why do you no longer sing for me? I miss your beautiful songs.”
The question sucked the breath from my lungs. “They were Mama’s songs,” I said.
“I know. But it would be good to hear Mama’s songs on this long trip.”
“Then you sing them.”
“Don’t be like that. Besides, you know my singing voice makes the dead beg for cotton to stuff in their ears.” Papa laughed at his joke, but I pretended not to hear.
The truth was I did sing Mama’s songs, but only when I was alone. I sang them quietly, with my eyes closed, imagining Mama to be there with me, singing along. It made me sad to sing them, because they reminded me how lonely it was without her. And now, I didn’t even have my friends.
Papa said, “People live on in different ways. Sometimes through a certain smell you remember, sometimes through a song…”
“Sometimes through pictures,” I muttered.
“Ah,” Papa said. “Through pictures, yes. But we are so much more than a particular pose on a particular day.”
“But it’s something,” I said. “You remember Emily Bonet?”
“The name is familiar.”
“I realized only last month that I no longer remember the details of her face. We’d been such good friends, but I don’t remember if her eyes were brown or blue. I don’t remember the arrangement of her freckles. And maybe her nose was a little crooked, but I’m no longer sure. How nice it would be to have a photograph of her so that I could remember these things.”
“You’re afraid you’ll forget Mama’s face? Is that it?”
I didn’t answer.
“A mind remembers what it needs to,” Papa said. He produced a pipe from his pocket, checked its bowl, and lit what was left inside.
By the time the smoke reached my nostrils, it no longer smelled as sweet as it once had.
The cart bumped and rocked squeakily over the marsh. We came to a narrow stream that branched off of the Tongue. It was shallow enough to see the sandy bottom. Bone Bag leaned down, his nose sniffing the water, and snorted. An army of flies leapt off in surprise. Then, with what seemed like a sigh of reluctance, he stepped cautiously into the cold water. He stopped.
“Allons!” Papa said to the beast. “Haw!” He walked into the stream in front of Bone Bag, holding the ox’s reins. He tugged. “Haw!”
Bone Bag bellowed and pulled his head back, trying to take the rope with him.
“Look,” Papa said. He walked easily across the shallow stream. “Nothing to it, no?”
“Maybe you should pull the cart,” I said. “Bone Bag can ride in here with me.”
Papa yanked on the reins again. “Haw! Haw! Move, you dumb beast.” He walked behind it and swatted its flank. “Haw!”
Bone Bag looked back and snorted. He took one step forward, then another. He bent down to sip from the stream.
Papa shook his head.
“A wise old beast,” I reminded Papa.
Papa glared. “It will come back to him. He will remember.”
We waited, swatting at the flies and mosquitoes while Bone Bag drank and farted. Eventually, with much cussing from Papa, the old ox crossed the stream and gave a triumphant snort on the other side. We squeaked once again into the world of endless marsh and merciless mosquitoes.
How wonderful it would be to grease the cart’s axle! But Papa once told me that grease would merely attract dirt and grass and make the going even slower.
To imagine it had been only yesterday that the sound of the wheels thrilled me! The Métis lining up in the street with their carts, the entire town gathering to bid them farewell…
I would be fine without ever hearing that noise again.
11
By evening, my body was sore from lying across the hard crates and supplies, and from the bumping and jerking of the cart. My head ached, and Mama’s dress was hot and scratchy. I was sure that my skin had turned bright red with rash.
Papa walked with his head down, watching his feet. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and his trousers were damp with marsh water. How many times had our wheels gotten stuck in ditches and sinkholes? Each time, Papa jumped into the hole, grabbed onto the spokes, and with much pushing and pulling, forced the wheels to turn while Bone Bag struggled to pull the cart free.
It was after pulling free of one of these holes that Papa pointed west and said, “Look!”
I peeked out from beneath my broad brimmed hat. In the distance stretched a line of hills to the north and south as far as the eye could see.
“Tomorrow we make it to the hills,” Papa said excitedly, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his wet, white shirt. “It will be drier there. Easier going. We shall catch up with the others soon, eh? A day or two at most.”
A day or two?
How could we possibly make it until then?
We found a small grove of poplar trees rising out of the marsh. Papa decided it was dry enough here to sleep for the night. He unhitched Bone Bag and tied him to one of the young trees. The wind grew cold.
I gathered branches and dry tufts of grass for a small fire. Papa boiled water and tealeaves in a tin pail over the fire, and we sipped the hot mixture from wooden cups.
Papa stared at me for a long while. “Claire,” he finally said. “Why don’t you take off Mama’s dress? It does not fit well beneath your coat, and it hurts me to see you suffer so much.”
I turned away, my face burning with embarrassment. How long had he known?
Papa said, “I am sorry. I know this is hard for you.”
I looked up at the stars, not wanting to cry. “Can’t we go back?” I nodded quickly, fighting back the tears. “In the morning! Yes! Follow our tracks back to Pembina – it would be easy.”
“Claire,” Papa said again, but stopped. The trees creaked in the wind. The branches rustled and clicked like brittle bones. I couldn’t get warm. Papa lay down on his side and turned away.
How many times had Mama pointed the stars out to me? “There’s the great bear,” she’d say. “There’s the brave hunter.” I looked for them now, but there were so many stars out, and the night grew so cold. I shivered beneath the blanket. Although the wedding dress scratched my skin raw, I could not take it off. What if Papa made me leave it behind?
The flames of the fire soon died, and the coals glowed like tiny fireflies through the black soot. Mama once told me that when she was a little girl, she’d spit into the ashes and pretend that the sound was the earth whispering secrets to her. Although I was no longer a little girl, I spit into the fire until my mouth grew dry. I lay down, thinking of her. As the stars moved from one side of the sky to the other, I forced myself to remember every part of her, every detail. What if I lost her picture? Would it be the same as it had been with Emily Bonet? I started with Mama’s straight black hair, remembering the way thin wisps of it sprang out as if trying to escape. I traveled down her face in my mind, her body, inch by inch as if I was studying a map. By the time I finished at the soles of her feet, recalling how they were a dark pink after she washed them clean, I could no longer think. I was too tired. I fell asleep.
12
Early the next morning, Papa chipped the dirt off his boots. A layer of frost made the tall prairie grass bow beneath its weight. A dozen black flies hovered about Bone Bag’s steaming face and ears.
I caught the ox looking at me while I adjusted Mama’s wedding dress beneath my coat. “Have you known this whole time, too?” I asked.
Bone Bag licked his nostrils with his long pink tongue and farted.
Papa secured the buffalo hide over the contents of the cart and swatted the ox. “Allons!” he said. “Haw! Haw!”
We left the dry island of poplar trees as the wheels of the cart began their tuneless song.
We rolled west, up into the hills. Soon, we found a well-worn trail, rutted deeply from the wide ox-cart wheels that traveled here before us. Farther west, as far as I could see, stretched endless prairie.
Bone Bag stopped and sniffed at a small pile of charred wood and ash. Papa squatted over it and held his hands over the ashes.
He smiled. “Still warm.” He stood and squinted into the distance. “They are not far ahead.”
“Can you see them?” I asked, able to see nothing but grass and trail in that direction.
“Not yet,” Papa said. He rubbed his hands together. “But we will see them soon, eh?”
A short distance later, Papa found the broken spoke of a wheel. “Another present left for us. Maybe we even catch them by the end of the day.”
I pictured Joe Chambeaux and his bright smile. My heart wanted to fly out of my chest. If we could catch up to the caravan, maybe the trip would be better. Maybe surrounded with all the others I’d seen and talked to in Pembina, it wouldn’t feel like we’d completely left our old life behind.
We would no longer be so alone!
Did Joe still have the flower I gave him? Did it make him think of me while he traveled these endless miles? The thought made my skin warm.
Papa turned and pointed east. “See, Claire? Those trees?”
I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun. Far in the distance was an endless band of trees stretching parallel to the hills we stood on.
“Yes,” I said.
“That is where the Red River runs.”
The Red River. Another reminder of home! Perhaps that would help, too – knowing that same river flowed north right next to Pembina! If I ever needed to be reminded of home, I could just look east at the wall of trees, knowing that just beyond lay the Red River.
Next to us, however, flowed the smaller Tongue River. It curved south and the trail followed alongside it. Beyond, the entire world had been swallowed by thick, tall grass. The Métis often talked about how the prairie looked like the sea, and although I’d never seen the sea, the prairie did bow to the wind like waves of water. At times, when the sun hit it in the right spots, the grass looked blue. Here and there, flowers peeked up through the grass. White prairie orchids. Blue coneflowers. Every once in a while, a huge boulder rose above the grass like a ship. How did they get there? What giant beast could’ve placed them there?
I gathered up bunches of wildflowers that bloomed near the trail and placed them on the cart. I attached them to the wheels, and stuck the stems between Bone Bag’s hide and his harness. Soon, everything was covered in flowers. I made a bouquet for myself and walked behind Bone Bag when Papa wasn’t looking, pretending to be a bride walking down the aisle. At least I no longer had to cover Mama’s dress with my coat.
But the dress itched so badly. I was afraid to look at my body, afraid to see rows of red welts and scratches from the stiff old material on my skin. Was it like this when Mama got married? What if it grew into my skin and I would never be able to take it off?
The Tongue River veered west, and Papa and I left its banks to continue south. Now we, too, became swallowed in the thick, tall grass. It rose as high as Papa, as high as the massive flower-covered wheels of the cart. Sometimes, the large boulders we’d seen earlier blocked our path. We circled around them, and sometimes I climbed on top of them, watching the prairie spread out below for miles.
I’d never seen so much grass.
I looked south, trying to follow the trail with my eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Métis caravan, but there was nothing. Nobody.
Just Papa, Bone Bag and me.
“Shouldn’t we see them by now?” I asked.
“Soon,” Papa said. “Soon.”
Some of the giant rocks had clumps of buffalo hair stuck to the sides.
“A good place for the buffalo to scratch,” Papa explained.
Some of the rocks also had bright red handprints on them. I placed my hands over them to compare. They were much bigger than mine.
Papa nodded at the marks. “The Sioux.”
“What do they mean?” I asked.
Papa shrugged. “It means, ‘We are here.’”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Ah, Claire,” Papa said, looking up into the sky. Clouds tumbled in, thickening like tufts of cotton dropped in water. “The real danger comes from above.”
13
The rain came quickly. It bent the grass and sounded like sizzling grease when it hit the stalks. Bone Bag wagged his huge head back and forth as if enjoying the shower, but Papa and I huddled beneath our blankets, peaking out every so often to let in fresh air and to watch the progress of the clouds. In the distance, lightning flashed. Papa watched it carefully, counting to himself between the flash and the sound of thunder.