The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [144]
"Oh, nothing. No one knows what really happened down there. The Missouri press says massacre, of course, but you can’t believe them—they lie routinely. My own feeling is that it was a local dispute, and whiskey and Indians got into it somehow. You can’t pay attention to every act of violence that happens among the southerners, as they are prone to that sort of thing."
Louisa didn’t even think it was interesting enough to talk about anymore, and it was true, we had other things that were more pressing than what the Pottawatomie affair had become, a bit of unpleasant gossip that folks preferred to keep mum about. Frank, it turned out, had bought himself a horse. He was keeping it in the yard where Charles kept his animals. "He had the money," said Louisa. "It must have been fifty dollars. Anyway, I must say, he’s been around hardly at all since then."
"Can’t you keep him around? I worry about him."
"Lidie, dear, you couldn’t keep him around when he was on foot! I certainly can’t keep track of a young man who owns his own horse and has his own money, especially in my condition. I hardly get out of our rooms."
She said this to me as we were walking briskly down Massachusetts Street, but I took it as it was meant, an acknowledgment not that she couldn’t watch over Frank but that she wouldn’t. I said nothing, as I did not feel I was in a position to press her. Perhaps, indeed, she could not. I said, "I’ll have to send him back to Quincy, then."
"How foolish of you to think so! Open your eyes, Lydia! The boy is grown up and out of your control. He was the same last fall, and you were making the same noises you’re making now. No doubt he’s running about with one of those little bands that are raiding the Missourians from time to time. It’s all boys that are doing that."
"What bands?"
"Well, you know. Since the attack, the boys have been wild! You can’t control them at all. They all have horses and guns, Sharps carbines if they can get them. They live in camps and ride around here and there. I’m sure it’s ninety percent a game, but if they come into something good, then they take advantage of it." Her tone was light, and I let myself be lulled by that. It was summer. I imagined a kind of elaborate freedom—hunting, camping, doing a bit of mischief. When I thought about it, I decided that Frank could probably take care of himself—he was a good shot. But I decided I wouldn’t write to Harriet about it just yet. Anyway, Frank had turned up at Louisa’s just two nights before, in the company of Roger Lacey. The boys had bedded down in the shop, slept for a long time, and woken up hungry. They looked healthy and happy. Louisa said, "He knows where to come if he gets in trouble—he’s got friends all over town, and he can go to your claim, too. He’s far better off than some of these boys, not a year or two older than he is, who come here as strangers and have to make their way. He’s an enterprising boy, and he helps Charles, too."
Well, I was uneasy, but I put that away. Louisa gave me some wool and a knitting lesson, but I didn’t say why I sought one. She looked blooming and pink of cheek. We drank tea and knitted all afternoon, while Thomas went around with Charles and saw the rebuilding and repairs.
Of course, there was other news. Governor Robinson was still detained, and his life had been threatened more than once; we Kansas rebels were still in bad odor with the proslave administration in Washington; but