The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [158]
The reader may here express some skepticism at my judgment and my state of mind as I made these plans. I can only attempt to delineate both as clearly as I remember them. I seemed to myself to be thinking very clearly—as clearly and with as much focus as I had ever done. The connection between that boy in the fall and that boy in the spring seemed ironclad to me. And, I also felt, I had waited around for the citizens of Lawrence, who had been full of vengeance at the funeral, long enough. Nothing was being done. Indeed, I quickly saw that there was no one to do it: our leaders were still scattered or imprisoned, and Thomas had not been so important to our cause that avenging his death was an immediate necessity. The federal authorities, in the persons of Colonel Sumner’s dragoons, were invariably slow to press Free State claims, invariably quick to press claims against Free Staters. There was no other machinery of a policing sort in K.T. Thomas’s blood on the prairie was surely crying out for justice, but as far as I could see, it was crying out in vain. All the same, I didn’t hold these things against my friends and fellow citizens. Thomas’s death was my business. I was a good shot and a good horsewoman, a strong girl with no children and no ties that held me to my proper place. Taking care of these Missourians was my business, and I welcomed it. Frank, I thought, would have helped me, but I was eager to leave, and he couldn’t be found. I held that against him.
As for my friends, they thought I was bearing up very well and accepting my loss with becoming strength and resolution. Those who heard about my plan to visit Thomas’s mother applauded it. But, to be sure, K.T was not the States in many ways, and in this way above all others: a woman’s activities and conversations were not overseen as carefully as they were in the States; folks didn’t take such an interest in one—they had too much to think of of their own,, so there was a lot of room for even a woman to make her private way.
And so I visited Thomas’s grave one last time. I expected, somehow, to make contact with him, perhaps in one of Louisa’s disembodied realms, but looking down upon his grave, I felt only a simple and flat sadness, tedious and exhausting and endless. I could not say so, but I didn’t mind leaving his grave behind. I couldn’t be with him there any more than I could be with him anywhere else.
To my dismay, Mr. Graves had other passengers with him when he came to get my things—a man and a girl of about twelve. The man was sitting on the wagon seat, smoking a seegar, and the girl had found a seat on a pile of empty sacks in the rear. The man watched me get in, and made neither any conversation nor any attempt to relinquish the wagon seat to me. Mr. Graves gave me a sheepish glance, then said, "This here, ma’am, is my cousin, also David B. Graves. And this is his daughter, Davida, or Vida. You ought to give the lady your seat, David B."
"I seen too much of that," was all the cousin said. He was a fat man, and I would not say he was much under Mr. Graves’s influence.
Louisa, Charles, and Mrs. Bush, who had turned out to see me off, exchanged a glance. Louisa said, "Charles would be happy to take you, Lydia."
"I want to," said Charles. "I’ll take you right to the wharf, and stay with you there until you find a passage, and load on your things for you! You won’t have to lift a finger!"
"I have perfect faith in Mr. Graves, Charles. We have a lot to discuss."
"Oh, darling!" exclaimed Louisa, putting her hands first to her belly, then to her face. "I thought it was going to be different!" She reached out for my hand and squeezed it. Mrs. Bush was shaking her head. "Perhaps when you return, my dear, these—" But she didn’t go on, for fear