“That can’t be!”
“Yep. Deader than yesterday’s beer.”
That floored me. “That’s a low-down, rotten, dirty piece of luck!” I said.
“How’s that?”
“I mean it’s rotten luck that ... I ain’t never seen him dead, him being a famous outlaw and all. You seen him surely?”
“He’s stinking to high heaven right now, the nigger-stealing thief. I seen him hit at the bank and fall into the Marais des Cygnes myself. I would’a run down there and chopped his head off myself but”—he cleared his throat—“me and Randy had to run ’round to protect the flank. Plus there was a hardware store on the back end of town that needed cleaning out, if you get my drift, being that them Free Staters won’t be needin’ this stuff ...”
I knowed he was wrong about the Old Man’s whereabouts then, and I was relieved. But I had to take care of myself too, so I said, “I am so glad he is gone, for this territory is now safe for good white folks to live free and clear.”
“But you ain’t white.”
“Half-white. Plus we got to take care of the coloreds here, for they needs us. Right, Bob?”
Bob looked away. I knowed he was mad.
I reckoned Chase decided I was close enough to white for him, for Bob’s manner sullied him. “You’s a sour-faced coon,” he muttered, “and I ought to bust you ’cross the jibs for attitude.” He turned to me. “What kind of work you seeking in Lawrence that you carry ’round such a sour nigger?”
“Trim’s my business,” I said proudly, for I could cut hair.
He perked up. “Trim?”
Now, having growed up with whores and squaws at Dutch’s, I should’a knowed what that word “trim” meant. But the truth is, I didn’t.
“I sell the best trim a man can get. Can do two or three men in an hour.”
“That many?”
“Surely.”
“Ain’t you a little young to be selling trim?”
“Why, I’m twelve near as I can tell it, and can sell trims just as good as the next person,” I said.
His manner changed altogether. He polited up, wiping his face clean with his neckerchief, fluffing his clothes, and straightening out his ragged shirt. “Wouldn’t you rather have a job waiting or washing?”
“Why wash dishes when you can do ten men in an hour?”
Chase’s face got ripe red. He reached in his sack and drawed out a whiskey bottle. He sipped it and passed it to Randy. “That must be some kind of record,” he said. He looked at me out the corner of his eye. “You want to do me one?”
“Out here? On the trail? It’s better to be in a warm tavern, with a stove cooking and heating your victuals, while you enjoys a toot and a tear. Plus I can clip your toenails and soak your corns at the same time. Feet’s my specialty.”
“Ooh, that stirs my britches,” he said. “Listen, I know a place there that’s perfect for you. I know a lady who’ll give you a job. It’s in Pikesville, not Lawrence.”
“That ain’t in our direction.”
For the first time, Randy opened his talking hole. “Sure it is,” he said. “Unless you playing us for a fool. You all could be lying. ’Cause you ain’t showed us no papers—’bout you or him.”
He looked rough enough to scratch a match off his face. I didn’t have no choice, really, for he had called me out so I said, “You is not a gentleman, sir, to accuse a young lady of my background of lying. But, being that it’s dangerous on this trail for a girl like myself, I reckon Pikesville is as good a place to go as any. And if I can make money there selling trims as you claims, why not?”
They ordered Bob to help unload their horses and mules, then spotted some knickknacks among the stolen goods the Old Man’s sons had left about. They jumped off their horses to gather that stuff.
The moment they was out of earshot, Bob leaned over from the driver’s seat and hissed, “Aim your lies in a different direction.”
“What I done?”
“Trim means ‘tail,’ Henry. Birds and the bees. All that.”
When they come back I seen the glint in their eyes, and I was tied in a knot. I’d have gived anything to see Owen’s sour face come charging, but he didn’t come. They tied their beasts to ours, throwed what they gathered up in the wagon, and we rolled off.
11.
Pie
We followed the trail half a day northeast, dead into Missouri slave territory. I sat behind Bob in the wagon while Chase and Randy followed on horseback. On the trail, Chase did all the talking. He talked about his Ma. Talked about his Pa. Talked about his kids. His wife was half cousin to his Pa and he talked about that. There weren’t nothing about himself he didn’t seem to want to talk about, which gived me another lesson on being a girl. Men will spill their guts about horses and their new boots and their dreams to a woman. But if you put ’em in a room and turn ’em loose on themselves, it’s all guns, spit, and tobacco. And don’t let ’em get started on their Ma. Chase wouldn’t stop stretching his mouth about her and all the great things she done.
I let him go on, for I was more concerned with the subject of trim, and what my doings was gonna be in that department. After a while them two climbed in the back of the wagon and opened a bottle of rye, which helped commence me to singing right away, just to keep them two off the subject. There ain’t nothing a rebel loves more than a good old song, and I knowed several from my days at Dutch’s. They rode happily back there, sipping moral suasion while I sang “Maryland, My Maryland,” “Please, Ma, I Ain’t Coming Home,” and “Grandpa, Your Horse Is in My Barn.” That cooled them for a while, but dark was coming. Thankfully, just before true night swallowed the big prairie sky, the rolling plains and mosquitoes gived way to log cabins and squatters’ homes, and we hit Pikesville.
Pikesville was rude business back in them days, just a collection of run-down cabins, shacks, and hen coops. The streets were mud, with rocks, tree stumps, and gullies lying about the main road. Pigs roamed the alleyways. Ox, mules, and horses strained to pull carts full of junk. Piles of freight sat about uncollected. Most of the cabins was unfinished, some without roofs. Others looked like they were on the verge of collapse altogether, with rattlesnake skins, buffalo hide, and animal skins drying out nearby. There were three grog houses in town, built one on top of the other practically, and every porch railing on ’em was thick with tobacco spit. That town was altogether a mess. Still, it was the grandest town I’d ever seen to that point.
We hit the town to a great hubbub, for they’d heard rumors about the big gunfight at Osawatomie. No sooner had we pulled up than the wagon was surrounded. An old feller asked Chase, “Is it true? Is Old John Brown dead?”
“Yes, sir,” Chase crowed.
“You killed him?”
“Why, I throwed every bullet I had at him sure as you standing there—”
“Hoorah!” they hollered. He was pulled off the wagon and clapped and pounded on the back. Randy got sullen and didn’t say a word. I reckon he was wanted and there was a reward for him somewhere, for the minute they pulled Chase off the wagon howling, Randy slipped on his horse, grabbed his pack mule, and slipped off. I never seen him again. But Chase was riding high. They drug him to the nearest grog house, sat him down, pumped him full of whiskey, and surrounded him, drunks, jackals, gamblers, and pickpockets, shouting, “How’d you do it?”
“Tell us the whole thing.”
“Who shot first?”
Chase cleared his throat. “Like I said, there was a lotta shooting—”
“Course there was! He was a murdering fool!”
“A jackal!”
“Horse thief, too! Yellow Yank!”