The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [167]
"Oh, my land o’ mercy. I will!" she exclaimed. "Have you seen these drops? I got them from a wonderful man, three-quarters pure Indian, knows all the Indian secrets! Everyone here in Kansas City swears by him. His name is John Red Dog. I can’t do without these drops!" And she put a bit on her tongue, then climbed into the upper berth. Sure enough, by the time it was fully dark, she was snoring, long, deep, ruffling snores, as regular as the ticking of a clock.
I sat up and removed my shawl from my bag, at the same time making sure that the curtain of our cabin was completely closed. Then I stood up and looked, smiling in case she awakened, at Miss Carter. She was far gone in slumber, undoubtedly thanks to the drops. Her workbasket sat at the foot of her bed, and I opened it and took out her scissors, which were of only moderate size but large enough. Then I laid out my shawl and, kneeling, bent my head over it and cut off my hair. It fell in dark hanks, rather surprising me with its length and weight. But I felt no grief at cutting off my only beauty, merely a lightness and relief. Somehow, my hair had become Thomas’s, and now he was requiring me to cut it. It would grow back. I wrapped it in my shawl and laid the shawl aside.
The next part was more difficult. What I was engaged in now I had not planned, though I had brought along a few of Thomas’s things for remembrance—two or three books, a pair of trousers, and a coat, but, of course, no hat, no shoes. I think that I had vaguely thought that if I should end up in Boston, I would give these articles to Thomas’s mother, or father, or a brother. The trousers and the coat would now come in handy, but I had given his hat to Charles, and I had given his boots and other effects to a dealer in secondhand clothing, not three days after the killing. This man had offered me some money, but at the time I was simply horrified at taking money for them, and so I’d turned it down. Well, there was nothing for it, then, but to make the best of what I had. I cut the skirt off my cream-colored dress, below the waist, so there would be a tail, then I put Thomas’s trousers on over the bodice as if it were a shirt, with his braces holding them up as best as I could fix it. Finally, I shrugged into the jacket, which fit much more loosely than the trousers. One thing I had saved and used, which now came in very handy, was his pocket watch. I opened the crystal and felt the hands in the darkness—ten—thirty—and slipped it into the pocket of his coat. I pushed my rolled-up shawl out of the way and slipped into my berth to wait for a favorable hour.
There was no going to sleep. I neither wanted to nor could afford to. I had no idea, for one thing, of how long Miss Carter’s drops would remain effective. And I judged midnight or shortly thereafter to be the best time for departing the Missouri Rose. I knew that if I fell asleep, I would sleep through until morning and lose my chance. Lying in my berth in Thomas’s clothes made me very sad. They had been folded tightly away for many weeks—they were not what he’d been wearing upon being shot, but I had retrieved them from the cabin—and beneath their woolly, musty scent was another, fleeting and almost undetectable, which I recognized as familiar. I was eager to think that it was Thomas’s scent, that something of him still lingered around me, but when I focused my attention on it, it seemed to disappear, so that I could not say that it was really there. When I thought of Thomas, though,