Heart of the Country

PART ONE

THE CUCKOO

CHAPTER ONE

In Kansas there is a town called Valley Forge.

Its origins are obscure. It is generally believed that in 1854 a lone farmer en route to California by ox-drawn wagon lost heart for the journey in this place, dug a shallow pit for shelter against the wind, roofed it with planks torn from his vehicle and declared himself the first citizen of what he believed would surely become a thriving township. It is also said the man had a supply of whiskey with him, and on his first night inside the pit, alone with a howling westerly and his bottles, he declared himself mayor in perpetuity. In the slowly unwinding hours before dawn it occurred to the mayor that his projected community should bear a name, and in the whiskey-grip of patriotism he emerged from his hole in the ground to the open and uncaring prairie.

Raising his hands, one still in possession of a near-empty bottle, he turned clumsily until he faced the east with its first flush of light. Intoning the name of George Washington, continuing with a stumbling eulogy to that father of the nation, he conferred upon the featureless grassland the name it would retain until such times as the sun cease to climb into the heavens and water cease to flow and American hearts turn from God. His declaration was borne away on the wind, but remained echoing grandly in his fuddled brain. Vastly pleased with his work, the founder of Valley Forge drained the last mouthful from his bottle and flung it away into the dark with a yell of exultation. Thrown off balance by his impulsive gesture he fell, and returned on hands and knees to his home. There, huddled in blankets against a wall of soil, he slept the deep sleep of accomplishment.

With the return of sobriety some twelve hours later, the mayor gave consideration to his future and that of his creation. That the two were inextricably linked he had no doubt. Emerging for the second time from his dugout he was greeted by the dull bellowing of his oxen; beset by thirst, they awaited relief. The mayor scouted the locality and discovered a creek with a meagre trickle of water meandering nearby. While his oxen drank he scanned the horizon. To eyes now undimmed by whiskey the landscape was drear indeed. Not one tree, not so much as a stunted bush presented itself. The land rolled away with the monotonous dip and swell of a languid ocean. Turning slowly, the mayor experienced a momentary lapse of euphoria as the emptiness, the sheer absence of feature impressed itself upon him. Completing a three-quarter circle, he noted with gratitude a low ridge to the northwest, perhaps two or three miles distant, its welcome, if barely perceptible, prominence graced with the unmistakable darkness of foliage.

Leaving his team to graze, the mayor walked to the ridge, his spirits considerably revived. Here was that rare commodity of the prairie—timber. The ridge ran north to south for almost a mile and was at least forty feet high along its spine. The eastern slope, protected from the prevailing winds, provided shelter for blackjack, elm, ash, cottonwood and box elder—a small cornucopia of lumber with which to build a town. The mayor rubbed his hands in anticipation; God had directed him to the right place. He briefly considered relocating his home in the lee of the ridge, then decided against it. His choice of settlement had been arbitrary, made at dusk when the ridge was an indefinable smudge on the horizon, beyond recognition as natural shelter; if the Lord had wanted him to abandon his trek to California close by the ridge He would have revealed it while daylight allowed. No, it was divine will that had determined the location of the dugout, and as such it was not to be contravened. The ridge was close enough; Valley Forge would expand to enfold it in due time. The mayor was content.

For several days he laboured harder than ever before in his life. A dugout is an inappropriate domicile for one elected to high office; the mayor therefore carefully spaded up blocks of prairie earth and built for himself a pioneer home of sod, raising the walls layer by layer until he could build them no higher without the aid of a stool or ladder. He drove his oxen to the ridge and returned with several choice timbers for use as roof beams; the trimmed branches he wove between the beams in a rough lattice. He removed the canvas from his wagon and tied it into place, a gently billowing ceiling, then covered this with more sod, grass side up, to form a living roof.

The mayor surveyed his home with pride. A log cabin of more substantial mien would follow, but for the moment the dictates of the season required that a crop be sown with all haste. He had come equipped with two sacks of seed, one wheat and one rye, and a plough. With these rudiments of agricultural enterprise the mayor began to farm. The task was arduous and drove him to his earthen bed at night numbed with exhaustion. Before his eyes closed he repeated the name Valley Forge to himself several times, and drew strength and succour from its talismanic intonation.

One morning the mayor awoke to the sound of muted thunder, yet the sky was clear. The invisible storm seemed to originate from the direction of the ridge. Having heard improbable tales of freakish weather in the west, the mayor decided to witness this meteorological marvel, if such it was, for himself. Climbing through the trees to the top of the ridge he found his expectations both rewarded and confounded. Below him, from the base of the ridge there stretched a violently undulating sea of buffalo. The mayor recognised the creatures from newspaper illustrations, yet was awed by their numbers. The earth beneath his boots quaked at the pounding of their million hoofs, the air choked him with the dust of their passing. Their massive tufted humps and domed heads bobbed with frantic, almost comical haste as they thundered by, the furthest reaches of the herd lost along a horizon shrouded in dust and distance. Recovering his senses, the mayor’s first thoughts were for his home. Moving along the ridge to its southernmost point, in which direction the buffalo were travelling with such urgency, he saw that Valley Forge and its environs were to be spared destruction; beyond the ridge’s extremity lay a hitherto unnoticed feature of the landscape, a subsidence of the plain flanked on its eastern boundary by a sloping crescent or secondary ridge which served to channel the edges of the herd away to the south-west. The mayor breathed a hasty prayer of thanks; God surely was looking after His chosen place.

The mayor estimated the herd at tens of thousands. After watching it pass with unabated speed and volume for half an hour he revised this figure to hundreds of thousands. He awaited the end of the herd. When it had not arrived after another half hour he abandoned estimates in favour of practical action; he ran to the sod house, checked the load in his cap and ball rifle and staggered back to the ridge, lungs afire with the effort, legs trembling. He need not have hurried; the herd continued to slide past as before. Surely, he thought, they exist in their millions! He aimed, fired, but no buffalo fell. He reloaded, took careful aim, squeezed the trigger in the approved manner. The detonation of cap and powder was lost in the general tumult, and so, it seemed, was the ball, for the target merely swerved fractionally and kept on. Realising his small bore weapon was useless against adult animals, he chose for his third attempt a gangling calf, and succeeded in bringing it down. It lay in a splay-legged heap at the base of the ridge, occasionally trampled upon by its seniors. While he waited patiently to collect his supper the mayor pondered on the possible causes of this titanic stampede—wolves, perhaps, or some thunderstorm too far away to be seen or heard from Valley Forge. No lesser thing could have served to frighten so great a number; there were enough buffalo to encircle the globe.

Around noon the herd dwindled and died away to a scant few beasts, footsore and dazed, rag-tag tail-enders limping forlornly after their speedier fellows. While the mayor descended from the ridge and sank his knife inexpertly into the calf’s belly, the answer to his idle question was some fifteen miles away, performing the same task with considerably greater skill.

That night the mayor feasted royally. He celebrated his acquisition of fresh meat with the broaching of a bottle, his first since the founding of the community. He slept soundly, belly rumbling with contentment, the interior of the sod house gradually succumbing to an effluvium of flatus.

In the morning he opened his door to be confronted by a dozen or so Indians. The illustrated newspapers had prepared the mayor for such an encounter, but the raw physicality of their presence sent an uncomfortable flutter through his already strained bowels. Their hair was so long and black, their skin so brown, so greasy, their seminakedness so utterly alien to anything the mayor had known in the east. They squatted before him like idols, their ponies grazing unconcernedly behind. He matched their basilisk stares, knowing that to reveal fear would bring them to their feet in an instant, hatchets poised to crush his skull. The mayor stood his ground and considered his chances. Should he step backwards into the sod house and return with rifle in hand? Perhaps he should simply close the door and wait for them to depart.

One of the Indians stood. The mayor’s bowels churned with alarm. He knew the choice that lay before him: to die with clean breeches or to die befouled. A God-fearing man could not present himself to St. Peter bow-legged and beshat. He strode away from his home, away from the Indians, head high, buttocks clenched. The Indians watched with interest as the mayor unhitched his suspenders, squatted and found instant relief. His action provoked a brief conversation among them. He returned and presented himself at arm’s reach from the standing Indian, hands on hips, chest thrust forward defiantly. Now they could kill him; purged of supper and self doubt, the mayor awaited his tragic yet manly demise. The Indian raised a hand, his fingers curved. He threw back his head and produced a gargling sound. This was not the bloodcurdling war cry the mayor had read of. The Indian repeated his action and the mayor understood at last. Whiskey! His guests wanted whiskey! He hastened to satisfy their need. Presented with a bottle, the Indian grasped it without a smile and tipped a prodigious quantity into his throat. His companions rose and accepted the liquor in turn. The mayor noticed for the first time that three of their number were women, and felt overwhelming embarrassment at having defecated within sight of them. He consoled himself with the thought that among these children of nature the bodily functions were perhaps not surrounded by the conventions of privacy. The women did not drink. The emptied bottle dropped to the prairie with a forlorn thud. The Indians waited patiently for another. Divining their need, the mayor provided.

Halfway through this second bottle the drinkers began to reel and utter hearty whoops of approval. Their leader clasped his benefactor warmly by the shoulders in a gesture of appreciation and friendship before sliding gently to the ground, where several of the others had already taken their ease. The squaws sat stoically by their ponies. One gave suck to an infant. When the third bottle was broached the mayor became uneasy. Who knew what crimes Indians under the influence might commit? They would almost certainly develop violent tendencies. He strolled into the sod house, loaded his rifle in readiness then hid it under a blanket. He returned to the drinkers and wished them gone; his land required attention and already much of the morning had been wasted. The Indians continued to drink, then fell asleep, snoring without restraint. The mayor sat by his doorway and smoked his pipe, damning the intrusion. He dared not leave them, for he had heard Indians were notorious thieves. The squaws shared dried meat from a buckskin bag among themselves. None was offered to the mayor.

The slanting rays of a westering sun revived the men. Their leader demanded yet more whiskey. The mayor handed over his last two bottles and retired for the night. A mayor ought not to be a drinking man anyway; it eroded public confidence in his ability. He watched between the planks of his door as the Indians built a fire and became raucously drunk all over again. He sat facing the door with the loaded rifle across his knees, waiting for the inevitable attack. Fear kept him awake until the small hours before dawn, when the threat of aggression seemed unlikely; communal snoring came to him on the night air, soothing as a lullaby.

Awakened in mid morning by the rifle sliding from his lap, the mayor stepped cautiously outside. Indians and ponies, all were gone. Five empty bottles and a pile of cold ashes graced what he liked to imagine was his front yard. He rounded a corner of the sod house to ensure his oxen had not been stolen or butchered. They stared back at him with bovine placidity, chewing their everlasting cud. A squaw sat with her back to the sod wall, watching him. He looked around for her pony. There was none. Had they abandoned her? This new development was disquieting. The mayor wanted no involvement with redskins, yet here was one squatting by his home with no apparent intention of leaving. His hospitality had been sorely abused by Indian overindulgence, and now this squaw had been left behind to plague him! The mayor swore, surprising himself with profanity he would not normally have used before men, let alone a woman. He pointed emphatically at the horizon and told her to be gone. The squaw ignored him. He came closer and inspected her. He did not find her attractive. The nature of Indian gratitude slowly wormed its way behind his anger, and the mayor’s jaw dropped with comprehension. Whiskey had bought him a wife! He stared at the sky and wondered how best to cope with the gift that had been so unexpectedly thrust upon him.

While he pondered, he ploughed. Perhaps if he paid her no attention the squaw would wander off. He went nowhere near the house all day. In the evening, his irritation fuelled by hunger, he returned to find her cooking remnants of buffalo calf over a fire of dried buffalo dung. He ate in silence. The squaw waited until he had finished before feeding herself. The mayor lit an oil lamp and studied her. She was plump, with no discernible waist. Her face was without expression or pleasing contour, a flat face with black, unblinking eyes. She stared back. He would have preferred that she lower her gaze to indicate maidenly modesty, but the concept was apparently foreign to her.

The mayor lit his pipe. A woman to tend his needs was not an unappealing prospect. True, she was not the girl of his dreams, but she appeared to be young. He squinted through the dim lamplight at her shapeless deerhide smock; her breasts appeared to be full and the mayor cheered up somewhat. He was not a man of wide experience with women, but was sufficiently acquainted with the delights to be had from the female body to regard this interloper with a less jaundiced eye than before. His loins reacted to this train of thought, causing him to shift and squirm uncomfortably. He smiled for the first time at his new-found companion and bedfellow. The smile was not returned, but the mayor was by now in a state of pleasant anticipation and took no offence. He introduced himself, pointing to his chest, then pointed to the squaw. She tapped herself between the breasts and spoke a name unintelligible to the mayor’s ears. This would not do; her name henceforth would be Millie. He impressed this fact upon her by repetition. She mastered the word with surprising ease, despite a tendency to stress the second syllable. The mayor congratulated himself on his ability to instruct a simple heathen. He regarded her with the benevolence a man would bestow upon a favourite hound, pride of ownership reflected in his smile.

CHAPTER TWO

In time other settlers joined the mayor at Valley Forge. Timber was taken from the ridge, homes built, farms established. Sensing the imminent fruition of his plans, the mayor took it upon himself to survey a townsite. With infinite care he set aside an area of land as yet unclaimed by the ploughs of his neighbours and laid out a grid ten blocks square with streets wide enough to turn a wagon. His ready tongue convinced all that Valley Forge should be the name of this yet-to-be-realised community. The mayor was looked upon with some indulgence. Respect was owed him as the first man to set down roots in the area but he was, after all, a squaw-man. Behind his back they called him the King of Nowhere County and the Mayor of Mudville, and smiled.

They allowed him to pace off the town blocks and knock stakes into the soil; someone had to do it, and he performed his self-appointed task well. He raised the first building on a street in Valley Forge and declared it a general store, then rode to the nearest town, some seventy miles distant, to place an order for supplies. Four months later, in the bitter cold of winter, the goods arrived. By now the town boasted a blacksmith, a livery stable and a saloon, and was included in not one, but two stage routes. The mayor began to feel he lived at the hub of the earth. He applied to the territorial government for permission to open a post office at the store. Permission was granted, one more step taken toward the realisation of his dream of elected office.

His aspirations were no secret. A gregarious man, he lectured anyone within hearing on the need to consolidate the foothold the people of Valley Forge had established in the wilderness, to grow streets and buildings as they had grown grain and cattle on the land, to build and populate with all haste, to create a cluster of humanity that would one day achieve the size necessary for official recognition as a township. When the great day arrived work would begin on that hallowed edifice, a town hall. This crowning glory raised its walls in the mayor’s imagination even while Valley Forge consisted of half a dozen ramshackle dwellings. The hall would be of quarried stone, not lumber, and the mayoral office would be panelled with polished walnut. Old Glory would stand beside a desk of solid teak, and His Honour the Mayor would conduct municipal business from the comfort of a stuffed leather throne. Stained glass windows depicting the march of progress westward across the plains would cast a mellow light across the features of he whose dream had become reality, the founding father of the community, the man in whose honour a statue was erected in the town square, hands firmly grasping bronze lapels, the personification of manifest destiny.

This vision lay behind the mayor’s eyes through every waking moment; it haunted the hours spent on his farm and while he managed the store and post office; it dictated glowing eulogies to Valley Forge for publication in eastern newspapers, extravagant phrases worthy of this land of milk and honey that wanted only people, more people, to realise its potential as harbinger of civilisation in the glorious territory of Kansas. And for the future? Would not a town, guided by the wisest head, eventually become a city? City Hall! The notion left him breathless, left him quivering with purpose, straining to summon the world to his door.

Reality, like a leaden weight, will bring the grandest vision to earth. A neighbour finally took pity on the mayor and defined its shape; no citizen, no matter how civic minded, no matter how suited by temperament and ability, could ever hope to achieve recognition in public office while sharing his home with a squaw. It was that simple. Even if the mayor chose to sanctify his union with Millie by way of a Christian marriage the result would be the same: defeat at the polls. The neighbour advised an early solution to the problem, now, while Valley Forge was still the merest hamlet. Newcomers were arriving almost every week to swell the population; the fewer who were acquainted with the mayor’s unfortunate choice of domestic partner the greater his chances of election on that distant but fast approaching day.

The mayor saw sense in this line of reasoning, yet was loath to act upon it. The presence of Millie in his life and home had become an accepted fact. His meals were prepared promptly, the fare monotonous but filling, his house swept free of dust each day. The memory of Millie’s first encounter with a broom and its function brought a smile to his face. True, their conversation on any day seldom exceeded the dozen or so words of English she had mastered, but there had been no real need to teach her more; the entire community was available to the mayor for lengthy discussion on weighty matters. Not least to be taken into consideration was her willingness to engage in coitus. Her body, plump and warm and yielding, afforded him a measure of delight beyond his expectations. Through the winter she had shielded him from the melancholy that will descend on a man snowbound and alone. She did not often smile, but not once had he seen her frown. She was not prone to sulking or laziness. He could not be sure of her contentment, but she appeared not to begrudge her lot. In all, she had brought to him a quiet happiness, a sense of well-being on which to base his grandiose schemes. But with her by his side he would not be elected mayor.

For several days he agonised. Unable to perform the act of love, he convinced himself he no longer found her desirable. The ample weight of her body beside him, silent, compliant, irritated him. How could a man sleep without room to stretch? He ordered her to sleep on the floor. Given the least opportunity, expedience will bend morality and principle to its will. Mere selfishness will accomplish radical changes in perception; against political ambition Millie stood no chance. His decision made, the mayor purchased a ticket for her on a stage route south. There, the government had set aside land deemed suitable for the Indian population ousted from Kansas and other territories by the influx of white settlers. The mayor did not know to which tribe Millie belonged, nor did he know which tribes were to be found herded together on the government reservation. Millie was an Indian and would be with her own kind. It was only fitting and just, he assured himself.

He drove her to the stage depot. Millie proved to be the only passenger departing from Valley Forge that day. The depot clerk, divining the mayor’s plan, respecting the delicacy of his emotions, spoke to him only of the weather and the prospect of a fine crop this year. The mayor was grateful for this display of tact, and made a mental note to elevate the clerk to a position of municipal authority at some future date. The stagecoach from the north pulled in, trailing a plume of dust. The passengers climbed stiffly down to stretch their legs while a fresh team was put into harness. Proudly wearing a new calico dress she did not realise was a parting gift, Millie admired the horses. The mayor looked at the street, at the sky, anywhere but at Millie. The call to board came. Believing the mayor was taking her on a journey, Millie entered the coach with mild excitement. She had in her hand a small tote bag, also new and containing ten dollars. Settling herself among the other passengers, she waited for the mayor to join her.

The driver’s whip cracked, the team leaned into their collars and the stage began to move. Puzzled, Millie put her head through the open window and saw the man who had been hers for as many moons as there were fingers on her hand walking away from the depot, back straight, head high. She was not alarmed, for every seat was occupied; her man would have to follow in his wagon. But if that were so, she asked herself, why had he placed her in the stagecoach at all? Why did they not travel together in the wagon, as husband and wife should? Peering through the window again, she could see no wagon following behind. Doubt took root inside her and grew into a knot that tightened with the passing of every mile. The passengers talked among themselves and stared at her with unfriendly eyes. Alone among strangers, Millie knew fear.

When Valley Forge at last disappeared behind a low rise the driver halted the stage and stepped down. He informed Millie her proper place was not inside, but on top with the baggage. Realising she did not understand, he opened the door and beckoned her out. Millie stood in the road, confused. Was she to wait here for her man to arrive? Losing patience, the driver pointed to the roof. Millie climbed awkwardly from the wheel up to the driver’s box, and was assisted on to the roof by another passenger travelling beside the driver. She sat crosslegged among the tied-down valises and chests, facing the rear of the coach; perhaps her man would come into sight at any moment. Both men found her position amusing, and agreed that Indians were contrary animals at the best of times. The stage began to roll.

Millie watched the empty road unwind, two ruts worn into the prairie sod, straight as the horizon. Swaying left and right, secured to her perch only by the strength of her fingers, she felt the cold wind of betrayal whisper through her veins. Rides-Two-Horses had left her with the white man as punishment for her failure to conceive sons; even the curse of daughters had not been placed in her belly. Empty Pot, he had called her, and traded her for the drink that makes men fall down. Her new man had treated her kindly, had not laughed scornfully in her face nor been rough with her body. She had known happiness in his house of earth. As her contentment had grown, so, too, had a bud of flesh in her womb. A small voice came from the cradle of her hips, a male voice, and Millie’s heart had sung to the tiny swelling maleness within her, encouraging him, building strength in his limbs.

When the sickness of new life came upon her she crept from the sod house early each morning to vomit; her son needed much room inside her, and with the insistence of a man pushed the food of yesterday from her mouth as he grew. The father of her son must not witness these moments of filth and pain. In time he would see how her belly fattened and would link his joy with hers. He would know pride when a man child dropped from her loins, and would hold her gift in his arms.

But he had not noticed the change in her, for as she ate to feed her son her own body grew big, hiding him behind swathes of flesh. Her neck and face expanded, her very fingers became plump. She attempted to share the secret with her man by pointing to her belly. He poured a measure of bad tasting fluid down her throat which made her bowels flow. She did not risk repeating this unpleasantness; when her son made his appearance into the light of the world her man’s surprise would double his joy and pride. Millie nursed her secret and smiled inwardly, waiting for the great moment of birth. That time grew nearer and still her man knew nothing. He knew nothing when he drove her to town in his wagon and gave her to strangers. Like Rides-Two-Horses he believed her to be empty. Had he known the truth he would not have done this bad thing. Like all men he was without patience, and had removed her from his home.

Millie did not associate the ticket in her bag with any destination. She believed herself the property of the man holding the reins, the one who had ordered her on to the roof to be near him; a careful man kept that which he owned close by. She did not want to be his, for he had shown no respect, laughing at her as she levered her bulk up on to the roof. She wished to be back with the father of her son, to make him see how he had wronged her. He would take her back once he knew, of that she was certain. When the coach stopped she would get down and walk home. Bounced and buffeted, covered with dust, Millie hung on grimly to the baggage.

Late in the afternoon the first way-station on the road south was reached, a sod house standing in isolation on the prairie. A lone cow munched feed along with a dozen horses in the corral. While the lathered team was changed the passengers entered the station for coffee and week-old biscuits, or sought relief over a trench screened from view by a sod wall. A hollow-ribbed dog lifted its leg by the stage and splashed a rear wheel. The driver disappeared to share a drink with the station manager. The ostlers paid Millie no attention. Now was the time for her to descend and begin walking.

She eased her cramped legs from beneath her and was instantly struck by pain. It began in her belly and lanced through her heart. She attempted to crawl backwards to the driver’s box but could not move for the wrenching agony it provoked. Sweat flooded her body; she panted for breath, then tried again. This time the pain punished her severely. Her vision swam, her brain turned inside her skull, bees droned in her ears. The smell of horse sweat and dung brought bile to her throat, plugging the scream that fought to escape. She held herself still, controlling her body, then slowly, with infinite care, eased herself back into her former position. The pain subsided to a dull aching deep within her. She sat for fifteen minutes, breathing steadily, reassuring her son he would come to no harm.

The passengers resumed their seats. Jokes were made about the fat squaw on the roof and the possibility of her crashing through if the road become any rougher. The driver whipped up his fresh team and the way-station dwindled to insignificance. Millie felt panic crawl down her spine; every turn of the wheels took her further from the place she wished to be. She must get off before the distance to be walked grew too great. She turned her head; the driver and passenger beside him were watching the road, talking loudly above the din of hoofs and squealing wood and leather and iron. Grasping the baggage ropes, she hauled herself forward on to her knees. The pain flared briefly in protest, then settled. She edged toward the canvas slope of the luggage boot at the rear and turned to ease her legs down its thrumming surface. Her feet found the tailgate while her hands still held the roof rail. She paused to gain strength, belly throbbing, sweat drenching her sides. The road unrolled six feet below her shoes. She could move neither up nor down. A whimper of despair rose in Millie’s throat. She released her grip on the rail. The tarpaulin offered no hold; her bulk slid back and forth across it with every lurching movement of the stage for half a mile before the wheels on the left side rolled into a deeper than usual rut. The entire vehicle tilted, and Millie slid from canvas to air. Her impact with the ground drove breath and consciousness from her body. The window blinds had been drawn down against dust and heat. No one saw her fall.

Millie lay on her side in the road while the afternoon sun lowered itself toward the horizon and bled its light across the plains. Her eyes opened. Her hand swam into view, the two outer fingers scraped and raw, bent backwards. She asked her son if he lived but received no reply; perhaps he slept to shield himself from the pain surrounding him. She ordered her limbs to raise her from the ground. Her belly burned with a fierce, insistent fire. Millie lifted her shoulders with trembling arms, gathered her legs beneath her and forced herself to stand. The scream that burst from her sent prairie dogs scuttling to their holes. Blood thundered in her ears, the red and gold sky reeled. Millie swayed ponderously, made her quivering legs turn in the direction of Valley Forge. She began to walk. Each halting step taken fanned the dark flame inside her, little by little consuming her strength.

Dusk gathered around Millie as she walked, chiding herself for her pain. Her brothers had plunged their arms into beehives to prove their manhood and endured the agony that followed without flinching. For her son she would do the same. Her pain, coiling and clenching around his bed of flesh, would make him strong. From her suffering would come a man for whom suffering was a gentle rain to be shrugged off and forgotten, a man whose face would reveal no hurt to the world, man of fire-hardened wood, warrior of stone.

The stage ruts ran before her, dark and straight and never-ending, the surrounding prairie washed in moonlight. A shadow marched at Millie’s feet. She came within sight of a lamp burning in the waystation’s window. Should she beg for help, make them understand her pain? No, her pride would not allow it. She would be remembered as the fat one on top of the coach; they would mock her. She left the road to circle around the building and corral, fearing the dog would scent her. The pain had settled into rhythm with Millie’s footsteps. She walked with arms folded tightly across her belly, the little tote-bag swinging at her wrist, broken fingers throbbing in unison with the greater pain within.

Her shadow shifted with the rising moon as Millie trudged north, her pace gradually slowing. She no longer thought of her man at Valley Forge and the great mistake he had made. Even her son was edged from her mind by the weariness that fought for attention against the pain. Millie’s eyes began to play cunning tricks; the road, which she knew to be straight, would suddenly veer sideways, trying to deceive her feet into losing their way. Twice she had to walk in a circle to find the ruts again. Finally the road tired of supporting her weight and guiding her way; before Millie’s eyes it sank into the prairie, simply vanished from sight, as if white men with their wheels had never crossed the land and left the scars of their passing. She walked on, her head growing heavy. Now the moon played mischievous games, turning in ever-widening circles above her. Earth and sky conspired to keep Millie from her objective, yet on she walked with jaw set firm, determined that no magic should defeat her.

The prairie rose up to meet her knees, then her belly and face. Millie grunted with surprise, issued a command to her body and rolled slowly on to her back. The tiny campfires of the sky people glimmered and shone above her, as many as there were blades of grass in all the world. They would not see her, for she had no fire. The moon lay somewhere behind her head, tired of its spinning. Millie watched the campfires closely, allowing them to draw her away from the agony of her flesh. The sky people carried fire upon their heads as they moved across their limitless black plain, searching, always searching for the sky buffalo. Millie knew the greatest number were gathered in a herd that stretched across all the sky, for most of the fires were there also. Pain drove Millie into the sky to join them, but no matter how high she flew the fires remained far away. Millie dreamed of shining people who carried fire in bowls atop their shining faces. A shining one approached her. Millie recognised the face of her mother and smiled. Her mother drove the fire into her belly.

Millie screamed, but no sound would come. The sky above her was blue. Her body convulsed; her son of stone fought to be free of her. His limbs flexed and thrashed. Millie’s thighs flooded with blood and water. A monstrous horned and bearded head lowered itself to her face, its shaggy brow casting a cool shadow across her eyes. Mucus-slimed nostrils huffed and dilated at the scent of blood; a thick purple tongue snaked out to lick the salt sweat from her brow. A massive hump bulked at the edge of her vision as a second buffalo nuzzled her legs. Millie breathed the rank animal smell, her face and neck spattered with saliva. She was not afraid. The sky buffalo had come to be with her, to lend their strength. They crowded around her in their hundreds, their thousands, mighty heads lowered to graze.

Her body began to split. Her son was a buffalo calf gouging at her with his horns, scrabbling with sharp hoofs toward the light. She was gutted with an axe, her belly was turned inside out and raked with thorns, her spine bent like a bow until it snapped. Her horned son pushed his swollen head from her thighs and bellowed. Startled, the buffalo retreated, heads swaying with alarm, leaving Millie and her child in a perfect circle of clear ground. The sound dwindled to a hacking wail that spiralled into the cloudless sky and was lost. The herd lowered its collective head to resume grazing. Millie felt the warm and wet lump of flesh plastered to her thighs, felt its quivering cries travel through the cord binding them together, up into her tortured belly and into her heart, which shattered into a thousand shards of stone. Delivered of her son, attended by beasts, Millie surrendered herself to death.

All morning and into the afternoon the herd slowly grazed its way past the body in the calico dress. Flies gathered to feast on the bloody afterbirth. They crawled over the small membranous creature with its tightly shut eyes and open mouth and twitching, kicking limbs. Its frenetic wailing ceased as the sun’s heat penetrated the cloth. The last few buffalo meandered past, and on a low rise overlooking the tail end of the herd two horsemen appeared. One dismounted, drew a rifle from its scabbard and rested it across the saddle. A shot boomed, a buffalo staggered and fell. The rifleman remounted and the two men, a relief driver and an ostler from the way-station, ambled toward their kill, in no particular hurry to begin the dirty work of skinning and gutting.

They saw Millie’s body and rode closer, believing the darkened heap to be a dead calf. Dismounting, they walked to the fly-infested mass and stared. A boot nudged Millie’s thigh. A cloud of flies rose at the intrusion and a thin wail came from beneath the dusty calico. The cloth was pulled back with a rifle barrel. The two men looked at Millie’s son and at each other. The ostler knelt and drew his knife, severed the flyblown cord and lifted the child.

Shouldn’t be alive, said the driver. Take a look in her purse. Millie’s ticket and ten dollars were found.

The following day a feed wagon rolled into Valley Forge and stopped by the stage depot. Millie’s blanket-wrapped body lay in the wagon bed, accompanied by a shovel. The ostler told his story. The depot clerk stared at the blanket and at the baby swaddled in a rawhide jacket on the driver’s seat, then sent a boy to fetch the mayor from his store. By the time he arrived at least twenty people, most of the permanent population of Valley Forge, were gathered around the wagon. The blanket was drawn from Millie’s face. The baby howled. The mayor swayed on his feet with shock, encircled by eyes. The silence of the townspeople pressed against him, heavy with accusation.

I didn’t know.… He floundered for escape. She said she wanted to leave.…

How’d she do that? asked a woman. She never spoke but a handful of words.

There was no sign of a child.… I didn’t know.… The words strangled him. The crowd waited for more, disbelieving. The ostler noted their reaction; these people were primed for a verdict of guilty, had already condemned the little man in their midst. Stammering his excuses, searching for a sympathetic face, he would never be allowed to live this down, even if the dead woman was only an Indian. The ostler enjoyed the novelty of watching a man drown in air; they would eat up this story back at the way-station. Boys, he’d say, today I saw a man strung up without a rope.

The mayor’s shoulders slumped. The stony faces around him bore down on his dreams of elected office and crushed them to dust. He saw they had been waiting for this, the chance to let him know they considered him nothing but a strutting rooster, crowing for the dawn as though he alone had created it.

Best get her buried, said the ostler, taking charge. The crowd, he knew, would stand there till kingdom come, just staring at the little squaw-man and cutting him to pieces with their eyes, enjoying themselves. He climbed on to the feed wagon and took up the reins. Which way’s your place, mister? The mayor looked up. Pity in the ostler’s eyes drew him on to the wagon seat beside the baby.

The mayor stared straight ahead as they left Valley Forge. His hands lay in his lap like rag dolls, his jaw hung slack. The ostler studied him from the corner of his eye. Lucky for you we got a cow at the station. We gave the kid some milk and he took to it. I brung some along. He reached below the seat and hauled up two whiskey-bottles by their necks, incongruously white, stoppered with cloth teats. You better find a wet nurse pretty fast, though. The mayor nodded dumbly, the demon of humiliation howling in his ears.

They reached the mayor’s sod house and stopped. The mayor spoke, his voice toneless, distant. She should be in the shade.… He pointed to the ridge and the wagon moved on, bumping across the prairie.

Millie was laid to rest under a cottonwood tree. The ostler maintained it was only fair he should keep the ten dollars from Millie’s purse; he’d gone to a power of trouble over mother and baby both. The mayor made no reply and was left at the ridge, alone with his son and his thoughts beneath the noon sky.

It was finished. All his aspirations had been dashed to pieces by this one error of judgement, the taking into his home of a squaw. The people of Valley Forge had tolerated the arrangement only because they needed him to organise for them, to plan the townsite and petition the government, to be the humming, driving catalyst who had created around himself a community with which to define and complement his existence. Now, having barely begun, the dream was over. The mayor could not mistake the look on those faces. He had fallen. A man who drove his woman out to give birth and die on the prairie could never hold his head up again, not here.

He smothered the guilt for his inadvertent crime, pushed it away from him, thought of the future. He was still young; there were other towns struggling for existence in the west, needing him. He would seek a place already established, far from Valley Forge, a hamlet waiting only for a man of his abilities to speed its progress. He would first return home to Indiana and borrow money from his brother, then start for the new territories to begin again. He would marry a respectable woman, someone chaste, demure, worthy of him. The marriage, already an accomplished event in his mind, would be a firm base on which to build a career. He would become a family man, a solid citizen. His sons would enjoy all the advantages his position could provide. He must not allow his confidence to be undermined by this unfortunate episode. Having cast himself as victim of fate in the first act of his personal drama, the mayor prepared for his entrance upon a new and unsullied stage before an audience eagerly awaiting his performance. He would not disappoint them, whoever they were. He must leave immediately; a shrewd man cut his losses and built anew with all haste.

A cry from his son scattered the comforting vision. He looked at the creature lying naked and fretful at his side and frowned. A nameless half-breed bastard had no place in the life the mayor planned. He found himself wishing it had died along with its mother, and guiltily expunged the thought. Without taking the baby in his arms he tilted a whiskey-bottle, plugged the squalling mouth with a rag teat and welcomed the silence.

By the following noon the mayor’s arrangements had been made. For an absurdly low price he sold his store and farm to Lucius Croft, the neighbour who had advised ridding himself of Millie. The irony did not escape him, but Croft was the only man in town who could afford even this meagre sum. He drove his wagon with a single chest of possessions, his son and a gallon of milk along the main street, heading east. No one raised a hand in farewell or asked his destination. The townspeople watched with satisfaction as the mayor passed from their lives.

CHAPTER THREE

Dr. Cobden’s sole moment of relaxation on any day was to stroll through the streets of St. Louis at twilight. He generally restricted his regimen to the area around his home on DeWitte Street. The houses here were grand, the brick sidewalks overshadowed by splendid trees. He took particular pleasure in the soft lamplight flowing from windows as he passed, in the muted sounds of domestic clatter and discord reaching the street through curtains opened to catch the evening breeze. He walked slowly, savouring the air, appreciating the last flush of gold in the sky. The doctor’s constitutional was of long standing; neighbours knew to within minutes when his tall figure would pass by, the elegant cane idly swinging, the tip of his cigar a reassuring beacon in the gathering dusk.

The doctor and his wife, regarded by all as exemplars of virtue, if not of rectitude, set the standard by which the neighbourhood measured its respectability. His profile of intimidatingly noble proportions aroused in the breasts of local wives a disturbing flutter, yet their husbands did not complain, and certainly were not jealous when their womenfolk visited the doctor’s surgery for relief from all manner of minor complaints, usually to do with their female physicality. The husbands were bankers, successful merchants, men of commerce. They knew the doctor well, attended the same clubs and trusted him implicitly. He did not relish the telling of lewd stories and would walk away from anyone so doing. He was a man of learning and principle. No taint of scandal or breach of professional ethics had ever been associated with his name, nor were such expected. Dr. Cobden was a gentleman.

He paused in his stride to observe the rising moon, its fullness provoking a similar state in the doctor’s chest. He was familiar with the sensation and its attendant emotion; unless checked it would degenerate into mild melancholia, for the doctor was not a happy man. Of late he had noted a tendency in himself to indulge in whimsical poesy; the darkness falling around him, for example, became a descending cloak of Cimmerian gloom, the full moon a lambent orb. Inspecting the ample bust of a patient this morning he had almost spoken aloud the word Junoesque. He interpreted these literary indulgences as a mental flight from the reality of the present. While a student in Boston he had occasionally penned verses of a satirical nature for distribution among his friends; the more romantic or pastoral efforts he reserved for his own eyes. This re-emergence of poetical inclination, so long suppressed, obviously represented an unhealthy regression to the fecklessness of youth. Did this mean he was afraid of the advancing years? He was thirty-seven, firmly established in his practice, a much respected member of the community. Surely he was not dissatisfied with his lot.

The one identifiable thorn of discontent in his side was his wife’s barrenness. Fourteen years of marriage had produced nothing but tears of apology from Emilia and constant reassurances of his love from the doctor. He had long since accepted the sterility of their union. Although a churchgoing Christian, he did not ascribe his wife’s condition to God’s will; a man of science, he knew that somewhere within Emilia a malformation, a twistedness, a lack of proper physical configuration prevented his relentlessly planted seed from taking root. This unfortunate circumstance bore on its reverse side an advantage the doctor admitted only to himself; he could engage in sexual intercourse with his wife whenever the urge came upon him without fear of ruining her slender figure. His passion for her remained strong and secret; Emilia believed his nightly mountings to be prompted by the desire for offspring, never by desire for its own priapic sake. Had she known, Emilia would have been profoundly shocked. She took no pleasure in the act herself, regarded it as her sacred duty, nothing more. Poetry and procreation, mused the doctor, and walked on.

His steps took him by the Episcopal church and he paused again to witness a flight of bats emerging from its steeple. Bats in the belfry, another phrase reminiscent of his youth, brought a smile to the doctor’s lips. He decided he would succumb completely to morbid introspection this evening, opened the iron gate and strolled through to the cemetery. He selected a relatively new headstone free of grime and sat upon it. His occupation precluded superstitious fear of the dead; nevertheless, he extinguished his cigar out of respect. An elm whispered and rustled in the night air above his head. A twig fell on to his hat. Dr. Cobden removed his handsome stovepipe, whether to check if the twig had left an unsightly mark or as another sign of respect for the departed he could not decide.

The breeze brushed his scalp with gratifying coolness. He laid the hat on his knee and allowed random memories to crowd and coalesce in his mind, inwardly wincing at painful moments from yesteryear, recalling other, happier times with relish. Oddly, the least enjoyable of his recollections provoked a sharper reaction than the rest. He found he could summon sweat to his armpits and a knot to his stomach in exact replication of the agony he had suffered at the age of nineteen, when his father had made him stand before the entire family and confess to idleness and profligacy at college, resulting in abysmal examination grades. The ordeal had prompted him to mend his ways, yet the excruciating humiliation endured in memory, ready at the least provocation to reinvade his body, hot and palpitating. Compared to this, the resurrected wooing and winning of Emilia, a delightful experience at the time, prompted no more than a tepid warmth within him. Disconcerted, Dr. Cobden squirmed restlessly on the headstone and wondered, not for the first time, if he was possessed of a hopelessly melancholic disposition. One day, he assured himself, medical science would extend its knowledge beyond the merely physical and explore the teeming jungles of the brain.

The churchyard gate squealed. The doctor looked up apprehensively; if the church warden should find him seated on a gravesite his reputation would suffer. He stood hastily and attempted to identify the figure approaching the church door. The man, whoever he was, did not conduct himself with assurance; his clothing appeared rough, his manner furtive. The moonlight revealed a nondescript bundle in his arms. Intrigued, the doctor watched as the bundle was deposited carefully by the door. The man looked around briefly, failed to notice the doctor hidden in the darkness beneath the elm and hurried back to the gate. It squealed again, and his footsteps faded.

Dr. Cobden realised he had witnessed a scene worthy of the most mawkish theatrical melodrama. Before taking his first step toward the bundle he knew what it would contain. He knelt and examined the small sleeping face, plucked the expected note from a fold in the blanket and read the usual message: This child is without a father and must now be without a mother. In the name of God I beg you to find for him a home of repute. May a sinning girl be forgiven. This was an interesting variation on a hackneyed theme; the man was apparently so ashamed of his action he sought to disguise his sex in accordance with the dictates of convention. A sinning girl, indeed. The doctor found himself chuckling at the absurdity. He amused himself with the notion of chasing after the fellow, tapping him on the shoulder, saying Pardon me, miss, I believe you dropped something.

Sobered by his own levity in the face of what was undeniably a tragedy despite its ridiculous trappings, he gently lifted the foundling and considered the options available to him. The church would no doubt send the infant to an orphanage where, unlike its stage counterpart, it would not grow up to discover it was the kidnapped offspring of wealthy parents, the victim of a dastardly plot to cheat it of its inheritance. Wrong would not be righted by final curtain; there would be no future reprieve for this abandoned scrap of humanity. The child’s eyes opened and stared into his. Doctor and infant regarded each other in silence for some time. The doctor experienced a sensation of warmth and sadness. He identified it as pity. Without having made a conscious decision, he turned from the church and carried the bundle home.

Entering quietly by the back door, he placed the child on the kitchen table and unwrapped the grubby blanket. A boy, apparently sound. It kicked feebly at the air and ungraciously passed wind. The doctor noted its black hair and swarthy skin—a half-breed. Now he understood the man’s charade.

A Negress of middle age entered the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of a baby among the crockery. Where’d that come from?

The doctor laughed. Where all babies come from, Hattie. Get some hot water started and fetch clean linen. He needs a bath.

You just deliver this’n?

Delivered him from a sorry fate.

That child’s got Indian blood in him, Doctor. You can see it right off.

I know that, Hattie. Half the colour’s probably dirt. You fix him up.

He passed through the house to the drawing room. Emilia was seated in her usual chair, crocheting. The doctor was eager to spring his surprise; from the moment Hattie entered the kitchen and consolidated the child’s presence he had known the course he would take.

Emilia, we have a visitor, he smiled.

A visitor?

Before I introduce you, I have a question. If the opportunity for motherhood presented itself, would you take it?

William, please do not make a joke of our misfortune.

The question is seriously put. Would you?

You know I would, if God so wills.

Circumstance, rather than God, has been at work this evening, or perhaps fate. He placed an arm under hers. Come with me.

Is this a game, William? I find it in poor taste.

Wait until you see what I have to show you.

He escorted her to the kitchen. The stove crackled; Hattie had departed for the linen closet upstairs. Emilia stared at the twitching, mewling bundle on the table, colour draining from her face. The doctor lifted his prize expertly and brought it to her. A healthy-looking young fellow, don’t you think?

William, please explain yourself.

I found him by the church. Someone left him there, abandoned him. He produced the note. Emilia scanned it briefly, thrust it from her. I do not understand. Her voice was cold.

The child requires a home. We require a child. Was ever there a more obvious solution?

A small gasp escaped Emilia’s compressed lips. Surely you’ve taken leave of your senses. The child is not white.

Half-white. Around three weeks old, I’d say.

William, please think before you say more. The charitable thing to do is place it with an institution.

You have no understanding of such places or of the people who manage them. I would not willingly deliver a dog into their custody.

I will not have an Indian child in my home. This is madness.

Her resolution irked him. If his skin was white, would you reconsider?

Perhaps. If I knew the circumstances.

Emilia, please allow a little kindness into your heart. This boy has no home, no family, no future. He has nothing but this one chance.

The greatest kindness you can do for him is what I have suggested. We cannot raise an Indian. Consider the difficulties.

I have.

He had not. Quite simply, he wished the child to be his. It felt as no other baby had in his arms. He could not have explained his dogged determination to possess, to cosset, to nourish the small life held against his waistcoat. Scores of babies had passed through his professional life, each one a personal challenge to his abilities. Some had lived, some had not; all received his utmost dedication, all were precious, yet none belonged to Dr. Cobden. Children of various hues were born and deserted every day in the poorer quarters of St. Louis, the unwanted result of casual liaisons, liquor and ignorance. He had never contemplated rescuing even one such from its fate among the slum dwellers. Perhaps it was the unique manner of this child’s insinuation into his life that triggered so profound a reaction, perhaps years of frustrated parental yearning, or merely a masculine resolve to have his own way in his own home.

The doctor glared at his wife. She knew his mood had hardened, had become firm conviction; he would not be swayed. Reluctant to surrender, she lowered her eyes. We will discuss this matter more fully, William.

"I think not. He will remain with us, Emilia."

Will you not take into consideration my feelings?

Your feelings, my dear, are suspect. I am disappointed to find such lack of compassion in my own wife.