Introduction
Near Saint Louis, 1802
The taut string whispered a whine as Momma gentled her finger along the bison sinew. Sometimes I’d put my nose next to the bow string just to breathe in the smell of the sinew, a rich earthy smell no cow leather could match. My older brothers called Momma’s bow Rabbit Cleaver because of our constant supply of rabbit stew. An Indian boy from Momma’s young Ohio days carved the bow’s dark wood with a roaring bear on the upper limb and a snarling wolf on the lower limb. I’d long ago figured out why that boy carved those figures into the stout bow. Before every story about Grampy Jeremiah, Momma would start by saying to me “Abby, you know the Ohio tribes claimed your Grampy was equal parts bear and wolf.”
Had that Indian boy succeeded in his effort to win my Momma’s heart?
Like most things about Momma’s Ohio days, she wouldn’t tell me had I asked her directly.
Momma was still beautiful, people told me that all the time, but I couldn’t paint her in my mind as a sixteen year old like me. Maybe I just didn’t want to. I could never imagine that Indian boy succeeding against the hard iron façade Momma wore against the world.
Momma’s attention moved to her arrows. Holding each arrow like a fiddle, Momma’s fingertip traveled from point to feather. After stowing the arrows in her thick leather quiver, Momma’s eyes narrowed to slits holding the gutting knife up to the window to see how well I’d just cleaned, sharpened, and oiled it. Even in the morning gloom of this stormy day, the well-oiled blade gleamed. On the kitchen table I’d laid out her rifle, powder horn, cartridges and the musket balls she had me and Chloe make last night. As Momma started inspecting everything on that table, she started on me. Her words came out in chunks, her mind wandering to her gun, Reni Poultier’s upcoming birth, and back again to me. “With all this rain, Da and the boys couldn’t have rowed against the Missou all the way to the Mandan’s. They’ll be gone least another week and a half, I’d say more. Since I’m riding far as Reni’s…I’ll stay the course. Especially with Uncle Jonny here keeping an eye on things.” After holstering her gun and putting powder and balls in her large saddlebags, Momma looked up and smiled. “I know your uncle’s already into Da’s brandy. Should be enough for any man at this hour. But after he rode through last night in the storm… Well, he’ll ask for my latest batch soon as I’m gone, cause he pays no mind to my rules at the best of times.” I couldn’t help smiling because while Uncle Jonny broke all Momma’s rules if she wasn’t home, he bent the knee completely when she was. “Abby, you can whiskey him up. Just don’t ask him first and don’t never, never leave him the bottle! Abigail, other than this morning I expect you and him to keep my rules about spirits before dinner in this house. He’ll be happy enough with my ale in the morning.”
The care Momma took checking her weapons was nothing to the silent, methodical inspection she gave the tools of her trade. Her brow furrowed while she carefully inspected every one of her leather bags of herbs, and her many dark bottles of tinctures. She opened and sniffed every last one of her short, wide-mouthed jars, checking the felt gaskets to make sure they sealed tight and kept the salves within pristine. By the time I was five I knew how to make all the salves she put in those heavy brown glass jars she’d imported all the way from Britain. She put everything carefully in a tin box bound with rope, and swaddled it with her apron and the extra shirt and pants she always took with her due to the blood. She set the tin carefully inside her rucksack. Alongside she placed two freshly gutted rabbits wrapped in a weathered Parisian gazette Da bought back from Saint Louis last week with a headline spouting something about Napoleon.
I’d barely woke before Momma had me gutting rabbit. I’d given the heads and necks to the cats and the entrails to the pigs. Our two hounds were with Da and the boys on their voyage up the Missouri River. Momma stuffed in two small towels and then closed the rucksack tightly, setting it next to her stuffed saddlebags. Momma midwifed long before I was born, so I knew her careful routine by heart. Still, I loved watching her get ready for a birth. For probably the millionth time I was wishing that I looked as pretty as her, when Momma’s breathy voice startled me back to our chilly kitchen.
“Abby, I’ve been saying this since you came into this world, but no pestering your uncle. Uncle Jonny’s boned from riding hard from the Poultier’s. Now we all know he has a particularly soft spot for you, but he doesn’t need to become The Colonel and start in on his stories right off …”
A gust crashed into the house, shuddering the beams while rain swarmed against the windows. The wind wormed into our kitchen, chilling my bones. I couldn’t help saying, “I never pester Uncle Jonny, but I do like it when he becomes The Colonel.”
Momma chuckled and then tackled her wind-tousled hair with a comb. While brushing her long blond hair, still not marked by grey, and untangling persnickety knots with deft fingers, Momma started her instructions, “I left a list. Though you should already know what needs done. Laundry soap for one. There’s enough old piss in those pots to make a good couple months of soap.” I made a face and she caught me at it. She knew I hated anything to do with those nasty pots. “I ain’t trading ready coin or beast just for a bit of soap we can make on our own. You hate household chores that much I could take you to the Poultier’s. Keep you from the drudgery. Chloe’s a year younger but attends our farm sprightly. Attends the twins with a solid hand for that matter. She even takes on that seven year old menace Theo, or tries to anyway. You see Chloe grimacing about the facts of things?”
I looked away so she wouldn’t see how much I hated my sister Chloe at that moment. Why did Chloe get Momma’s looks, and that perfect smile? Seemed like fate spilled magic into her life, while deciding mine should be dull and drab. Another gust hit the house and I shivered just thinking about riding all that way in such weather.
Momma patted my shoulder. “This is Reni’s first birth. Girl small as her, married to a man sized like Big Red Poultier, she’ll need a couple times before she comes to it regular. I figure if she has false labor now, it could be a week maybe two afore she comes to it. And t’will be a trial for sure. I expect more blood than usual. You come along today you won’t let a man near you.” She smiled widely at my discomfort and then looked like she was sizing me for a dress. “You sure got the necessaries, just my size too.” I squirmed, wondering if somehow she knew what I’d almost done on Sunday. Momma added thoughtfully, “On the other tit, you really should see the worst for yourself to help you make up your mind.”
“Momma! You promised that I didn’t have to go!” The words just came out, and I let Momma think what she wanted to. But Mr. Poultier had seen me last Sunday with that fool of a boy Jean Caldera. It was Mr. Poultier’s shaming stare kept me proper in the end. I couldn’t stand to be shamed again.
Momma fixed me with those startlingly green eyes, so unlike my brown ones. “Midwifing’s better coin than most men make. All your own too, out here where the law’s thin.”
How many times had she spoken those exact words? My head felt like exploding until Momma’s face screwed up and she laughed in great gasping heaves. After a couple of hoarse coughs, Momma rasped, “I say again, give your Uncle a moment’s pause before demanding a story.” Momma slung her rucksack over her shoulders and then fixed her brown woolen riding cloak tight over it. “Abby, one day I’ll tell you why my dear Jonny needs to become The Colonel to tell his stories.” She pulled on her long blue leather gloves and grabbed her saddlebags and gun. At the door she turned and pronounced, “Make an extraordinary amount of food. Jonny’s regular requirements seem enormous, but whenever he becomes The Colonel, your uncle tucks into a plate like an eighteen year old!”
Soon I heard Ohio, Momma’s big thundercloud brown mare, charging down the trail. Then the mare’s deep cry resounded, an explosion of joy cutting through the rain and wind. Da always said Momma could ride faster than any man before Ohio befriended her, and faster than the wind after.
Uncle Jonny, our tall, heroic Colonel, lay exhausted from six hard hours riding from the Poultiers’ wilderness outpost to our Saint Louis farm. I figured Momma and Ohio, even in such nasty weather, would do it in four.
The late autumn winds rose off the prairie, sweeping through the thin crust of the leafless forest surrounding our farm. I could hear each gust miles off building to a roar before crashing against the house, pelting raindrops against the windows. With every gust, the wood sizzled and crackled in the Franklin stove that Father bought to cozy Momma’s library. He’d journeyed three months to get the stove from Pittsburgh to Saint Louis, coming back with a beard near down to his chest that Momma made him cut off before she’d kiss him.
Da’s prized clock, an ornate oaken thing that Momma thought hideous but somehow allowed in her library, complained from the mantle. Each loud tick of the second hand tormented me, shrieking “Work! Work! Work!” I should have fetched water for washing the twins - who wore dried mud from playing outside. With Uncle Jonny having devoured an enormous amount of ham, beans, and biscuits at dinner, we had nothing for supper and I needed to find that cagey old hen Irene. That hen knew enough to hide from the axe so I had no illusions about finding her easy. But she hadn’t laid an egg in more than a few weeks and killing her was right there on Momma’s list. Having to cook once more today would leave that much less time for everything else that needed done, and each tick of that clock reminded me of that.
But I didn’t care.
I didn’t care that Momma’s list sprawled out longer than my arm.
All those chores could wait. But if I stayed reading on our cozy couch in the warm library, I’d soon be napping. I most definitely did not want to sleep.
“Uncle?”
Uncle Jonny harrumphed. His legs stretched from father’s comfy chair to the ottoman that seemed five feet away, while his long coal black hair lay about his shoulders like a blanket holding back the October chill, “I’m thinking over a case.”
“Your book’s lying on your chest, besides spilling brandy on Ma’s rug, and snorin’ like a pirate.”
Uncle Jonny grumped, “Musical, I bet.” His startlingly grey mustache twitched as he slouched up, threw back the remains of his brandy, and without opening his eyes put the brandy glass on the table so hard I thought both glass and wooden table might break. He fell back down from the effort. “One issue less for you, young woman, to mind herself with.”
“Uncle?”
“You’re a trial and a mercy Abby. Leave me napping.”
“Uncle Jonny…”
“Colonel, you upstart.”
“Well, Colonel, you’ve eaten everything we had. And drunk a gallon of Da’s best brandy. Which I know he doles out careful. Even to you. The least you could do to earn a nap would be to tell us a story Momma wouldn’t approve of.”
Uncle Jonny’s blue eyes opened. Uncle’s face seemed so young except for his grey mustache. But in close the lines about the eyes told the truth. He grumped, “Least I could do? After riding six damn-hard hours from Poultier’s at night and through a bitter storm? Anybits, you’ve heard my tales by now.”
“You know what I mean, the ones when Momma shushes you, and you quiet up like a church mouse during Sunday service. But I know for a fact you’ve told Jake and Zachary more’n Momma would want you to. I’m not even two years younger n’ Jacob.”
“Oh come on darling.” I could hear the edges of The Colonel come into his voice so I hurried on, “The twins only heard but some of the usuals. But…that ain’t what I mean.” Uncle Jonny’s eyes turned cold. “Abby I told you before there’re some things shouldn’t be told, ’specially to girls young as you.”
“Afore I was a young woman now I’m a girl? I’m sixteen and grown in every direction according to Momma’s most recent assessment. I’ve killed and hunted with those loafy boys we call brothers, can handle this farm right as Momma too!” Uncle’s eyebrows raised and he looked to the clock. “When I have a mind to,” I said quickly. “I’ve been to births with Ma that would put you off your feed for days. Reni’s turned sixteen a few days ago, meaning she was but fifteen when she learned about the business first hand. Chloe’s already turned fifteen!” Uncle smiled at me, which made me hopeful but nearly discombobulated me completely. “Second, second… Ma’s told us what you’ve done.”
Uncle snorted, “Not half of it and I wasn’t talking about hunting, women or animals.”
I felt my face begin to flush. Why had I been so foolish to let Jean kiss me so? I thought Uncle could somehow see my mind churning away so I burbled “None of it would scare us. And though Momma told us tales of those Ohio days, oh, I just love the way you tell things.”
I held my breath. I saw Chloe’s eyes widen because of my bold lie. Momma hardly told anything about her Ohio days, and certainly nothing at all about what really turned Uncle Jonny into The Colonel. One time Momma told me, “He’d tell those yarns because The Colonel loves an audience. Best my dear Jonny forgets those times.” Her sad tone me want to hear Uncle Jonny’s secret tales even more. Why he loved being The Colonel, what made his eyes so sad at odd moments, what made him sigh whenever he looked at the rising sun, and what made him live all alone, but stay with us so often that he had his own room? The answers were in those tales and I needed to know his secrets.
I expected Chloe to tattle about my lying, but she just continued mending Leo’s torn pants. The chore list lay on the floor beside her, and I could see that mending Leo’s pants were right there on Momma’s darn list penned in her careful block letter command.
Uncle sighed and looked to the ceiling. Chloe turned to me and winked one of her green eyes, so disturbingly like Momma’s. She turned back to her work for a moment and then pleaded “Please!” Uncle Jonny turned toward her beautiful smile and those enormous green eyes. Everyone agreed Chloe’s face, her angular jaw and high cheekbones on her always clear face, was ‘just as beautiful as Momma’s when she was young.’ And Chloe wielded her visage like a finely-honed knife.
Uncle Jonny melted, as he always did, and murmured, “Go back that far I might never stop.”
Chloe purred “We’ll take that chance.” before dropping her eyes back to her needlework.
Uncle got up and it took him just a stride to get to the window. As he looked out at the dimly known west, I imagined Uncle Jonny thinking about one last adventure in the savage Rockies. He always talked of seeing the mighty Pacific.
For a moment his shoulders sagged with a deep sigh and I wondered if I should have listened to Momma.
But I didn’t say anything.
Uncle Jonny rubbed his temples, breathed in deeply and then squared his shoulders. He began silently pacing to a steady military thrum, growing younger, straighter, and if possible even taller. The twins were wrestling on the floor but our uncle easily stepped over the wrestling twins on each pass. Theo and Leo were making nearly as much noise as the wind, laughing, screaming, and winding round and round like snakes, but I knew they loved The Colonel’s stories, the war ones anyway. Seven years ago they’d come into the world wound round each other. Theo tried emerging from Momma first, but both Leo’s hands gripped his ankles like a vise. Despite the midwife’s best efforts to disentangle the boys, they just cascaded out in one bloody, wailing mess. They’d been wound around each other since.
It took about two passes before Theo noticed The Colonel’s pacing. Theo nudged Leo in the ribs, pointed to the couch, where the twins flung themselves. They wormed in on each side of me, waiting and watching as The Colonel’s boots hit the floor like a drum. We stayed quiet, nearly breathless, because our story would only begin when our uncle had completely become The Colonel.
