Chapter 6: Crossing the Kaw

 

Tuesday, April 20th—Camped on the Kaw. The river rages from spring run-off, its water muddy as the pigpen back home. A hundred or more wagons waiting to cross.

 

Jenny’s hand shook as she looked up from her notebook and gazed at the river. They had traveled three days since the Wakarusa and now waited in line at the Kaw ferry.

The journey thus far had been slow. Jenny had bounced in the wagon until her bones ached or walked through tall grass that caught in her skirt. She amused herself for hours watching a solitary tree on the horizon, imagining what animal it resembled until she drew near enough to see individual leaves.

Now she faced the tedium of waiting. The Kaw ferry was nothing more than two dugout canoes covered with a log platform. It carried just one wagon at a time, rocking as the current pushed at the canoes.

Men shouted as they pulled each wagon onto the ferry with ropes. Then two Indians at the stern dug into the river with long, thick hickory poles to push the craft across the river. Two more Indians pulled on a guide rope tied to both shores to keep the ferry from floating downstream.

Jenny had seen Indians in Missouri, but these men were wilder. They wore beads and feathers with mismatched plaid shirts and trousers and spoke only broken English.

“One dollar a wagon,” the ferry master shouted. “Pay me when your wagon gets in line.”

“Dollar here, dollar there,” Samuel Abercrombie griped. “If I had so many dollars I wouldn’t be going to Oregon. Ain’t there another way?”

“There’s a ford a few miles upstream,” Captain Pershing said. “But no telling ’bout the spring currents. River bottom could be scoured deep.”

The Pershing company opted for the ferry, but several men decided to swim their teams across, rather than pay the ten cent per head fee.

“The ferry doesn’t look very steady,” Jenny said to Mac.

He smiled down at her. He was so tall. “Why are you so afraid of the water?”

Mon oncle,” she said. “Mama’s younger brother. He threw me in the bayou when I was small. I was choking before Papa pulled me out.”

Jenny lay awake most of the night. The crowds waiting to cross never quieted down. The sun was high before their turn came. The ferry master ordered them into line, marking his notebook as each paid.

Allons-y,” he cried. “Vite! Vite! Move quickly!”

Jenny stared. “Vous parlez français!”

Oui,” the man replied. “Joseph Papin, mademoiselle, à votre service.”

“I’m not French,” Jenny said. “But my mama is. From Louisiana.”

“And I, mademoiselle, am French Canadian,” Papin said. “Come. I help you myself. For you, café with my wife in my home.” He led Jenny toward the ferry. Mac followed, frowning.

“Who are you, monsieur?” Papin asked.

“Her husband,” Mac replied.

“Such a young girl, married. Tant pis.”

“I need to stay with my wagon,” Mac said. “Will she be safe?”

“As if she were my daughter. I will escort her myself.”

Papin helped Jenny onto the log ferry and sat her on a barrel with a formal bow. “Do not worry, ma petite. Very safe. No one drowned this year.” Papin untied the boat and shoved it off. “Take her to Josette,” he told the Indian ferryman.

Jenny clutched the barrel tightly as water swirled against the dugouts underneath. The Indian polemen levered the boat toward the landing on the far side.

Oxen, cattle, and mules swam beside the ferry, churning the muddy water into a roiling froth. Her stomach lurched at the smell of rotting plants and manure. A calf squealed and went under, kicked by the hooves of larger animals.

One edge of the ferry platform dipped beneath the water. Jenny screamed when waves washed toward her feet. The Indians thrust all their weight against their poles to level the boat. As the platform righted, water sloshed back into the river between the logs.

“Do the poles ever break?” Jenny’s voice quavered.

One Indian flashed a smile of white teeth against dark skin. She wondered whether he understood or merely reacted to her fear.

When they reached the north side of the Kaw, another Indian lifted Jenny off the logs. She pulled away, frightened by his rough grasp, but without his help her shoes slipped and squelched as she tried to walk up the slimy bank.

The ferryman shouted at a woman with light brown skin on the shore, “Josette, Joseph say give girl coffee.”

The woman beckoned. “Come,” she said. “It is quieter in the house.” She led Jenny to a low wood-framed building. Inside, she motioned Jenny to sit at a small table, then put a pot on the stove to boil. “I am Josette Papin,” she said, in French-accented English.

“Geneviève . . . McDougall. Do you speak English or French?”

“Both,” Mrs. Papin said. “I am French Canadian and Kansa Indian, but I speak English.”

Jenny stared. A squaw! But Mrs. Papin was dressed like anyone else—calico dress, hair pulled back in a large black bun. And the house looked like many in Missouri.

“Isn’t it . . .” Jenny searched for the word. Did Indians think like she did? “Isn’t it wild here?”

“We are on Kansa land. My home. How can it be wild?”

A baby cried from a cradle across the room. Mrs. Papin smiled. “My son. You will have a son, too, I think.”

“Why do you say that?” Jenny asked.

The woman laughed. “Every mother wants a son to care for her when she is old.”

Jenny hadn’t considered whether her baby would be a boy or a girl. She tried not to think about it at all, and refused to contemplate raising a child by herself.

Mrs. Papin handed her son to Jenny and turned to pour coffee.

The infant was dressed only in a long shirt. Jenny held him awkwardly. She had never held a baby before. His dark eyes stared back at her solemnly. She lifted him to her shoulder. He smelled of milk and moss, and his hair was damp with sweat. “He’s beautiful,” she said.

“Of course.” Mrs. Papin smiled, then rummaged in a cupboard. “Here,” she said, holding out a piece of soft leather. “For your child’s first moccasins.”

“Thank you,” Jenny said.

After drinking coffee with Mrs. Papin, Jenny left the house and watched the other wagons in the Pershing company cross on the ferry. Three men on horseback plunged after a lost barrel that rolled out of one wagon. Men worked feverishly to rehitch teams and move the wagons away from the riverbank.

It took until late afternoon to reassemble wagons, animals, and provisions on the north shore of the Kaw. As the last wagon climbed away from the river, Mac came to get Jenny. She thanked Mrs. Papin and caressed the baby’s cheek as she left. She hoped her child would be so sweet.

“Move out,” Captain Pershing shouted. “Next company needs the space.”

They plodded two miles along the Kaw through grassy bottomland. Mac trudged beside the lead oxen through deepening shadows. He stumbled over a rock and swore softly. He was so muscular that Jenny thought he could never tire, but he must be weary now.

She climbed down from the wagon. “I’ll walk by the team,” she said. “You rest.”