The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [254]
And Frank was no doubt dead, too, and it was such a grievous thought that thinking it through was beyond my strength.
And what about Lorna? What in the world had made me think I had anything in the way of strength or quick wits to offer Lorna? Our escape had been a fool’s errand from beginning to end. She had looked to me for aid, and I had let her do so, all the time that it was actually me counting on her. It seemed, looking back, that I couldn’t have fled without her, that the luxury and languor of Papa’s plantation would have inexorably gummed me up, immobilized me, and when Lorna claimed me and insisted I help her, she invested me with the power to move. Everyone felt Lorna’s concentrated force—Helen couldn’t do without her, Bella had had to fight her, Papa had to summon all his faculties to assert himself over her, and after acquaintance of only a week or two, I had accepted her as my reviver, felt the cool, firm sensation of her hand on my neck as a promise. It was hard to see Lorna simply, as another desperate woman powerless against the institution of servitude, against Missouri and Kansas and guns and horses and catchers and dogs and distance and lack of funds and chance, but that’s what she was in the end, wasn’t she? And the ways she would have to pay for her mistake in trusting me I would never get to know and always be tempted and terrified to imagine.
It was all very different from the bills we had pored over in Horace’s store, with their pictures of wide streets, square blocks, libraries, mills, stores, and ladies’ improvement societies everywhere. Now, even though I had been to K.T. and seen the chicanery there firsthand, I still didn’t know if those bills were simply wishes or if they were pure frauds, and if the latter, whether someone else had defrauded us or if we had simply defrauded ourselves.
What K.T. and Missouri really were was talk. People in the west made a big house of words for themselves and then lived inside it, in a small room of deeds. And now that I was silent, that didn’t mean the talk didn’t still surge and storm around me. From the other rooms in the jail, from outside, through my window, open or closed, I heard constant shouting, calling, talking (and shooting), day and night. Everyone loved to talk, to boast, to threaten, to claim, to damn, to preen, to narrate, to lie, to pile word upon word, expression upon expression. That’s how Jim Lane got so big in K.T.—he was the best talker. But after you talked for a while, it seemed, you ended up talking yourself into acting. Didn’t matter what side you were on or what your principles were; if you talked about them long enough, well, you had to act on them. Now that I was in jail, I didn’t know what I thought about principles anymore. It seemed as though the main result of having any was dislocation, injury, pain, and death. But of course, that left out Lorna.
Mrs. Hopewell asked me if I was praying enough and should she get the minister over? She knew a good one, who could make the hardest criminal pray like a child. More talk, I thought. I told her I was praying all I could.
Papa elected to drop charges and to pay my way back to Quincy. When the sheriff came to tell me this himself, relief was evident in his face and his manner. He said, "Ma’am, I booked you passage on this boat the Jack Smith.
"You mean it hasn’t left yet?" This gave me a little smile.
"Leaves tonight. But there wasn’t any ladies who wanted to be in a room with ya, so I had to pay double. That was forty-four dollars. Mr. Day, he paid for it. You got yerself any money to git from St. Louis to Quincy?"
"You took the money in my reticule."
"That shall be returned to you in due time, ma’am."
"Well, how much is there?"
" ’Bout thirty-six dollars, ma’am."
"Well, then."
"Well, then, I guess you are fixed up. One little word from me, miss."
"What’s that?"
"Don’t be comin’ back this way, now. You have used up the goodwill of