The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [184]
It was late in the day, almost suppertime, and I was hungry, but there were quite a few men around the office and I wanted to mingle with them in spite of my low spirits. There was the chance someone might mention Samson and Chaney, but in addition to that, there was the news from K.T. I should say that I had my days in Kansas City right at the end of July, and so, while much was brewing that would boil over two or three weeks later, just at that time folks were more occupied with threats than they were with actual fighting. The threats always gave you the feeling that fighting could commence at any moment, so for a certain sort of fellow, there was always, in that humid air, the invigorating tingle that comes of anticipation. Men kept their weapons right beside them, loaded. They took their pistols into their hands, looked at them, cocked them, gave themselves up to the thought of shooting them off, or did shoot them—out the window, into the sky. I hadn’t seen this sort of behavior in Lawrence, and I recognized how my old friends like Mrs. Bush would nod their heads knowingly: just the sort of thing she would expect of the Ruffians. The noise of these shots, which punctuated the otherwise noisy passage of the day like random strikings of a town clock, made everyone both irritable and exhilarated. "Haw, ya missed!" someone would shout, or "Save it for them abolitionists!" or just "Hey!" If the shot was close at hand, well, you had to recoil, but sometimes, if you were engrossed in something, you would just know that there had been a shot, but you wouldn’t yourself have heard it. In short, we got habituated to it but were stirred up all the same. However, Mr. Morton didn’t like anyone shooting off his pistols in the office, because it hindered the concentration of the typesetters and made them drop their forms.
All the talk in the office was of Jim Lane and his army. There had been much discussion of this army back in Lawrence, too, and we had known for sure that it was a significant force—four or five hundred men, well armed and well trained and all for the Free State cause. There were even said to be some regular West Point officers ("only one or two, but that can make a difference," Charles had said) attached to this army somehow ("not exactly in an official capacity"), and folks in Lawrence had felt particular reassurance in this, as if these men were going to take over the leadership of Lawrence now that Governor Robinson and nearly everyone else we had depended upon was gone or taken. I was so certain of these particulars that I still distinctly recollect the first rumor I heard in the offices of the Freeman that challenged them. I was sitting in my former seat by the cold stove, arranging myself in an attitude of manly repose, when behind me I heard a voice scoff, "Well, they an’t much, that’s what them boys said. Half of ’em are sick with a fever and half of ’em are women and young ’uns. Some army, haw!"
"There was a boy I knew back in Indiana who knew Lane. Haw! He was the same then! All talk! And his pa, too. The two of them, they could look at two scrawny heifers in a field and call ’em a herd of milk cows!"
I sat up.
"Anyway, some boys from Lawrence went out and rode up there and parleyed with Lane and said he couldn’t bring his army—haw—into Kansas—"
"Too humiliatin’!"
"So—listen to this—he bawled!"
"Naw!"
"Yessir! He bawled like a baby and said that if the folks of K.T. didn’t want him, then he would take his services elsewhere. What do you think of that?"
The two men couldn’t stop laughing. Another man came over, chuck-ling, and said, "Yep. And now he’s gone! Left his army—haw—in Nebraska and run off!" Now there was general laughter. I managed a big grin, just to keep in with them, but I found this news unaccountably alarming. The laughter grated on my sensibility