The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [37]
"Are you afraid, Mrs. Newton?"
"Of egg custard?"
But he didn’t laugh this time. I dropped my eyes. I wanted to be precise, and he rubbed his thumb over mine and then looked at me soberly.
I pondered, wanting to answer truthfully, at all costs, but suddenly not knowing exactly what that meant: Are you afraid? Just at that moment, in fact, I was quite serene, possibly because Mr. Graves was so comfortably asleep that he cast a radiance of assurance that covered us, too. On the other hand, I had been afraid the night before and just that morning, with a fear so new and overpowering that it was as if I had never felt fear before. That feeling seemed to be right beside me; I could find myself slipping into it if I didn’t pay attention. I said, "I should be, but I’m not. Just like on the steamboat. You know it could blow up any minute, but it just seems like it won’t. This is wild country, though. The woman sleeping by me last night said she just prayed they didn’t get liquored up and shoot through the floor."
"I thought of that. Compared to Boston, or, in fact, any place I’ve ever been, everyone you meet is armed to the teeth."
I coughed, but Thomas seemed oblivious to the fact that we ourselves carried an arsenal. It occurred to me that Kansas and his own activities there must have until very recently presented themselves in a rather abstract way to Thomas. I said, "How many slaves are there in Kansas Territory?"
"I don’t know."
Mr. Graves turned over in his sleep, as if any discussion at all of the goose question concerned him. I said, "Are you afraid? You’ve been on the sea. You’ve been to the Amazon."
"And to the Indies. And to Cuba. And also to Haiti. And parts of New York City aren’t so friendly, either. But in those places the reasons men have to kill you are simple—they want your money, most of the time, or something else you have. And the reason they have to kill each other is simpler still—family enmity. Here it seems like anything is a reason to kill you—disagreement on the slavery question is one thing, but just how you talk or how you look is another, or, maybe, just how the killer feels at that moment. Killing you might just be boasting by other means."
The night air was undeniably soft and fragrant with some exotic but comforting scent. I said, "My sisters would have it that my father was a handsome gentleman, and he certainly turned himself out that way, to the very last. But he had a great affinity for rough river characters who had something to sell or could be made to buy. Once, when my mother told him how much they frightened her, coming to the house, I heard him say, ’Any man who says he’s killed somebody, or claims he’s going to on the smallest provocation, certainly has not and absolutely will not. I’m safer with a boaster than I am with a silent man who doesn’t drain off his resentment a few words at a time.’ "
"I’ve been thinking of that. But Kansas, here, seems like a new place entirely. We can’t tell if anything we already know is true."
I said, as if my first day in Kansas Territory hadn’t been the strangest of my life, "How bad could it be?"
Now we pulled our blankets to us and spread them as best we could on the long grass and made what seemed to be a comfortable bed, but when we lay down in them, it turned out that our heads were below our feet, a most uncomfortable position. And simply turning in the other direction somehow transformed grass that had been soft and welcoming into tufty bumps. We shifted again, this way and that. I was sleepy, now, and sure Mr. Graves would be up and discoursing at the first light or before. I drifted off, felt a hump under my hip, turned, moved an inch or two, eased onto my back. Suddenly, the prairie made me a perfect bed, formed just for my shape and ease. I opened my eyes to better appreciate the miracle. There was the moon, rising late, and there, against it, was the box of "harness." I turned back to Thomas, intending