The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [89]
"I’ve been wondering about General Lane," said one of the younger women.
The others laughed.
"General Lane," said Mrs. Brown, "talks like he has twenty kegs of powder in his cellar, but he’s the same in everything. When the time comes, he’ll borrow freely of the men closest at hand."
"And abuse them into the bargain," said one of the women who hadn’t yet dressed. We all laughed, but our laugh reminded us of the fix we were in.
"Someone must tell Governor Robinson how low supplies are," said Mrs. Wood. So now he had become Governor Robinson.
"Tell Mrs. Robinson. She can tell him."
We all agreed that this was a good plan, but it didn’t solve the problem.
"You know," said Mrs. Bush, "there’s powder and lead, both, out on the Santa Fe Trail, if someone could go get it. Does anyone know Mr. Graves?"
"I do." I spoke up, not having said anything before.
"He’s settled now, in a cabin out by that little crick out there—Patter— son Crick they call it."
"And there’s two other caches," said Mrs. Brown. "My cousin’s brother has at least a twenty-five-pound keg. He had two in the summer."
"But who’ll go get them!" exclaimed the woman who’d been counting the cartridges, despair in her voice.
"I will," said Mrs. Brown and I in unison.
I said, "My nephew Frank and I got through just last night. But we need more than money to trade with Mr. Graves. He knows we aren’t sound on the goose." We talked for a moment about this. Of course, there were doubters—Mrs.Bush felt responsible for me and said to me in a low voice, "What will I tell Thomas when he comes in for his supper?"
"We’ll be back by then."
"Who is ’we’?"
"Frank won’t let me go without him!"
Mrs. Wood—who was, along with her husband, always eager to make the Missourians uncomfortable—Mrs. Brown, and I huddled together. The two of them would take Mrs. Wood’s buggy and her fast mare. Frank and I would take Jeremiah and borrow a light buggy from another of the ladies. Mr. Graves, it was said, had his place some five miles out, along the Santa Fe road. I explained to the women that I needed to be supplied with a certain liquid commodity over and above the money I would be taking with me. The women hesitated, but then one of them went away. She came back half an hour later, muttering, "It’s on the seat of the buggy, wrapped in a quilt."
Mrs. Brown’s cousin was not quite as far as Mr. Graves, and her other friend was near to him but off the road a ways. With two buggies, we all agreed, there was more of a chance that one or the other would get through.
"Getting back will be the trick," said Mrs. Wood. "A keg of powder looks like a keg of powder."
"We’ll think of something," said Mrs. Brown. "Don’t we always?’’ They were very self-assured, these New England dames.
I met Frank lounging along Vermont Street, watching the drilling. He told me that one of our men, Pomeroy, had been taken and another man shot, named Barbour, who was riding his horse south to his claim to see his family after days in Lawrence. He was unarmed.
"We’ll take that as our lesson," I said.
Frank perked up.
We had Jeremiah hitched to the buggy in a few minutes and then went back to the Wood cabin to get the money they had gathered. Mr. Graves, of course, was known, at least by repute, to everyone, and my mission was considered less probable of success than that of Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Wood. As we drove south along Massachusetts Street, Frank practiced gesturing to me as if I couldn’t hear a word. But though there were roving bands of Missourians all along the way, and though I knew we would be relieved of our keg of highly rectified whiskey should any of them stop us, we saw only two or three, from a distance, and no one obstructed us in any way. This was, perhaps, more disconcerting. I couldn’t shake the conviction that they were there, hidden in the brush, behind trees, down in the bottoms of the Wakarusa River, which