1841–1863
A Family
It could have been hours, days, weeks. He knew nothing but visions and sounds that made no sense. He felt as if his thoughts were swimming in thick water. When he tried to make himself think clearly, he would either pass out or fall asleep.
Images.
A moment of intense pain in his left leg and he saw, or thought he saw, an Indian with black braids leaning over him and putting a red-hot iron onto a wound on his leg, and that made him think of the Comanches and that this must be a Comanche burning his leg, and he screamed and screamed and screamed until he passed into blessed oblivion again.
Later, children’s voices, words he did not know, a singsong sound that pushed him down and down into sleep.
Still later, an old woman feeding him some kind of warm broth, and then, embarrassing even in his dream state, the same old woman holding a jar and helping him relieve himself.
For what seemed an endless time, he simply slept, neither saw nor heard anything; until finally, finally, he opened his eyes, and through the slowly dissipating fog of sleep, he could see where he was.
His last memory was of a running horse. And for some reason, kicking his horse to make it run faster. Then more came: the girl, her paint pony—he could remember the horse’s color with surprising vividness—and the wolves, oh yes, the wolves, tearing at the girl.
There were sticks above him, rows of sticks that made no sense. He closed his eyes and opened them again and saw that he wasn’t dead and buried, which he had first thought, but that the sticks were willows laid tightly over log rafters. He was looking up at the ceiling of a sod house.
He moved his head sideways and saw that he was in a single room, lying on a sawn-plank bed on what felt like corn shucks. There was a plank table with two benches in the middle of the room, and a cookstove at one end of the room and a low doorway at the other end. Two window openings about two feet square let in light, and from the angle he guessed it was either early morning or late afternoon. All along the wall facing him were plank shelves covered with jars and sacks and cooking utensils. Next to the bed on another bench was a folded set of clothes. With a start, he realized that he was completely naked under a blanket.
He was alone, for which he was grateful, and without thinking he tried to turn and reach for his pants, but he was torn by a ripping pain from his left leg and nearly passed out.
Ahh. He’d forgotten the wolf bite. Taking breaths in short gasps, he gingerly raised the blanket and looked at his leg. There was a bandage over the upper thigh, a wrapping of clean cotton that looked like feed sack material.
He was profoundly thirsty, his mouth so dry he felt as if he had never had a drink of water in his life. On the other side of the bed from the bench there was a jar of liquid on the floor. Carefully, slowly, to avoid turning his leg, he reached down and brought the jar up to his mouth and was overjoyed to find that it held water. He drank and drank, letting the water roll down his throat, until the jar was empty, and just then the little girl he had saved came into the room.
Her arms were bare and he could see scabs healing where the wolves had bitten her. She came up to the edge of the bed, looked at him for a moment, said something he couldn’t understand, smiled and then ran from the room yelling at the top of her voice.
Several minutes went by, and then a man came into the room with her. He was an Indian, stocky, wearing trousers and a vest. His hair fell in two long black braids down his back. Bass thought he remembered the braids from a dream about Comanches, but this was clearly not a raiding Comanche, and in fact the man was smiling.
“Peter,” he said, coming up to Bass and holding out his hand. “You?”
Bass took the hand. “Bass. Thank you for taking care of me. I would have died sure if …”
Peter was shaking his head. “Too fast. No talk good. Talk slow. Again—Bass?”
“Yes. Does anybody speak English here?”
“Me.” Peter smiled. “Only one. Rest all talk good Creek.” “Creek?”
“Talk from before. From old places. From home. Speak Creek before come here. Speak Creek here.”
Bass was still in a haze. He let his head drop back and sighed. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand very well.”
Peter nodded. “Bad hole in leg. Take time. Take time. You sleep. We bring food later.”
With that, Peter and the little girl turned to leave, but Bass called, “Wait. Peter. What’s the girl’s name?”
Peter fondly touched the girl’s head while he spoke. “White name … Betty.”
“Betty?”
“White name. Indian name …” He thought for a moment. “Be Two Shoes.”
“Betty Two Shoes. Thank you. Thank you.”
He was alone for a time after they left, lost in his thoughts. His eyes closed and he dozed again, not heavy sleep this time, but comfortable. There was a pain in his leg but it was not severe unless he moved, more a reminder than anything else. The room was pleasant. There were bird sounds outside and warm air coming in the window openings, and he half dreamt, half daydreamed about Mammy and how she would take care of him when he was hurt or had the croup. Memory fed on memory and he realized he’d been gone almost a year. He hoped Mammy was all right, and he remembered how she looked working over the stove making corn bread.
Peter came bustling into the room along with Betty Two Shoes, and two women, one very old, one about Peter’s age, as well as a very old man and a boy of about seven.
They all stood in a row at the foot of the bed looking at him, smiling, standing straight.
Peter said, “This is uncle, named Paul.” He pointed to the old man. “And mother, Martha,” the old woman;“wife, Mary,” the younger woman; “son, Luke,” the young boy. Peter’s smile widened. “You know Betty.”
Bass nodded. “Betty Two Shoes. Later, Indian names for others.” He was already patterning his speech like Peter’s. “And yours. When I can think good.”
They all filed out, except for the old woman. Without showing any expression, she handed Bass a different jar and pointed so that he understood he had to relieve himself. He waited, and finally she laughed a low laugh and turned away, and he used the jar by twisting sideways on the bed. After emptying the jar outside, the old woman came back in and fired up the woodstove. She started frying what looked like boiled potatoes and beef.
When the smell of the food drifted over to the bed, Bass became so hungry he almost growled. She brought him a tin plate heaped with meat and potatoes, and two thick pieces of dark bread spread with bacon grease.
He tried to have manners, but Mammy would have thumped him if she’d seen him wolf down the food, barely chewing it. He ate so fast that the woman had hardly gone back to the stove before he was done and had wiped the plate with the last piece of bread.
“Thank you,” he said when she took the plate. “That was …” He couldn’t think of a word rich enough. “Good. Very good.”
She asked him something, then went to the stove, got a cup, and pointed at an old enamel coffeepot.
“Please.”
She brought him a cup and he took a sip. It was bitter, but it cut the grease of the food in a good way, so he drank the whole thing.
Then he thanked her again and lay back, closing his eyes, listening to the familiar sounds of somebody working in a kitchen. Homey sounds, gentle sounds.
He had just spent a long winter and most of a year in hard camps where he’d found a certain satisfaction, almost joy, in becoming part of nature so that he could see and hear and smell the world as it was meant to be. Now he was immensely surprised to find that he’d missed home terribly.
He had become a man—standing six feet two inches, pushing 190 pounds—but he found himself acting like a little boy, choking up when he heard the sounds of home.
Martha had her back to him, and he turned his face away to get control of his emotions. When he turned back, she was there, smiling, with another cup of coffee and another piece of the dark bread, this time covered with molasses.
“Thank you,” he said, sipping the hot coffee and eating the bread. “Thank you, Ma—” He had nearly said Mammy. “Martha.”
But she had turned away and seemed to be making a stew.
His dozing turned to deep sleep again.
The next morning he awakened to the sun and an urgent need to find an outhouse. He was alone. Moving very slowly, he swung his legs ever so gently over the side of the bed and eased his feet down to the floor.
The pain in his thigh was sharp, but not as intense as the day before. Holding to the end of the bed, he stood on his one good leg. He was still naked, and he did not fool himself into thinking he could pull his pants on yet, so he wrapped the blanket around his body. Hopping along the wall, now and then touching his left foot to the floor, he made his way to the door, a simple plank hung on leather hinges. When he pushed it open, he was hit with a blast of sunlight. The heat felt good. He squinted at the brightness and saw a low barn in front of him, made of logs and mud, and a neatly built rail corral that held several horses and mules, his Roman nose and the little mule among them. They looked sleek and well watered.
He saw no people, but off to the left was the outhouse, so he skip-hopped over. If he’d had a cane or crutch, he’d have done all right.
The outhouse was equipped with a sack of corncobs, which was new to him, but he quickly figured out how the corncobs worked.
After hopping back to the house, he was exhausted and lay back down. He wasn’t sleepy. It was just that his leg needed rest. He was pleased when Peter came in. Bass’s clothes had been next to the bed on a bench, but he had noticed that his revolver and rifle were not there. Peter was carrying them and put them down next to the bed.
“You fought us.”
“What? I fought you? When?”
“You … riding with Betty. Come very fast. We see wolves and try to take Betty from you. Try to help. You … crazy. Call us Comanche. Scream and fight. We take guns. Now all right to have guns. Here.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t remember any of it. Did I hurt anybody?”
Peter laughed. “Only self … swing so hard, fall from horse. We bring you here. I heat iron and close cut.”
“I remember that. I thought I was dreaming.…”
“You have dream songs. Sang about mother … called for her many times. Mammy, Mammy. Sang about fighting man … sounds like bad man. Sang about Comanches. Bad. Comanches bad … bad for all people. Sometimes Comanches even bad for Comanches.”
Bass thought of the Garnett girls. For a time both men sat in silence; then Peter moved the clothes over and sat down on the bench next to Bass’s bed. He clearly wanted to say something and was searching for a way to begin.
“Is something wrong?” Bass asked.
“You … sing in sleep. Fight song. Dream song. Is all right. But … you talk, too. Talk of slave … runaway slave. You … slave. You … run.”
Bass was silent. There was not much he could say. There was a price on his head. If they wanted the money, all they had to do was turn him in. He couldn’t run now.
Peter touched Bass gently on the shoulder. “We know of slaves. Uncle from South … march on Trail of Tears. Saw many slaves in South. Bad.”
Bass nodded, still not sure where this was going. “Yes. Bad to own another person.”
“You … kept Betty from wolves. Hurt self.”
“You don’t owe me anything for helping Betty.”
Peter shook his head, frowning. “Not owe. You … save Betty. Betty … now sister. You … me … brothers … family now.” Peter cupped his hands as if he was holding a ball.“All one, all same.”
“Like I said, you don’t have to thank me. You saved me. If you hadn’t fixed my leg, I would have bled out.”
Peter shook his head. ”You, me, Betty, uncle, Mary, Martha. All one.”
“Thank you.”
“More.”Again Peter cupped his hands.“All in here. You want … go, you go. All right, good. You stay, stay. Live here. All together. If you want … we want.”
Bass stared at him, understanding, truly understanding, and knew then that it was what he wanted. A place, a place to be safe, to be with people he could know and care for, a place to be free.
“Please,” Peter said. “You stay … please. We want … please.” Peter held out his hand.
“I would like that,” Bass said, and he took Peter’s hand. “I would like that very much.”