Boone's Lick

Marcy woke from a nap. She didn't see Ma, so she raised a wail.

"Good Lord, you even brought the baby?" Pa said.

"Yes, the child you've never seen," Ma said. "You understood me, didn't you, Dick? We're quits."

A

115

"We're quits? That seems hasty, Mary Margaret," he said.

That must have been the wrong thing to say, because Ma colored up and gave him a roundhouse slap that would have floored any man less tall and stout than Pa.

"Not hasty, tardy--tardy by sixteen years!" Ma said.

Then she got back in the wagon, took the reins from Uncle Seth, and drove us into Fort Phil Kearny, leaving Pa standing by himself, rubbing his sore jaw.

9M A never explained why she did what she did that cold evening in Wyoming-- for it was nearly dark when we reached the fort. The bright moon, not quite full, came up not much later.

To Ma, I guess, the matter spoke for itself. She had pulled us out of our lives and traveled hundreds of miles across the west, to tell Pa she was quitting him. She seemed to feel it was something she owed him. She did what she came to do, and that was that.

It shocked Pa, and it shocked Uncle Seth, who didn't seem to be particularly out of sorts with his brother--but Ma quitting Pa didn't really make much difference to the rest of the family. Marcy was too young to notice, Neva was trying to get the woodchoppers to arrange a dance, or at least some fiddle music, and as soon as we got in the fort, Pa's Indian wife, who had two toddlers besides the one in her belly, presented G.T. with a little brown puppy, which started to lick his face.

The puppy soon attached himself to G.T. like a leech. G.T. was too taken with the puppy to give much thought to what happened between Pa and Ma.

I think Pa's little Indian wife--he called her Sweetbreads--probably saw that we were tired and hungry and gave us the puppy to eat; but G.T. took to it so that after five minutes no one would have dared to try and eat it.

I was the only one, it seemed, who took much note of what had just happened between Pa and Ma. Had she really brought us all this way just to tell him she was quitting him?

I believe the same question occurred to Uncle Seth. As we were finding a spot to park our wagon, inside the stockade, he looked at Ma kind of fu

Ma looked a little exasperated by that comment--she hadn't completely cooled down.

"No, Seth--I didn't send you because I'm keeping you!" she said. "Or would you rather just live out here and run wild, like your brother?"

"Not me," Uncle Seth said at once. "Not me. I'm so used to you now I wouldn't know what to do without you."

"That's right, you wouldn't!" Ma said sharply.

116

"I believe I will just go see Dick for a minute, though," Uncle Seth said. "I'd like to find out if the business is prospering."

"Go--Sherman can stable these mules," Ma said.

I did stable the mules, with the help of G.T. and a couple of friendly young soldiers, who seemed fairly nervous--there had been rumors of an Indian attack, they said. Colonel Carrington, who was in charge of the fort, had never fought Indians in his life, which, in the soldiers'

opinion, meant that he wasn't taking the threat seriously enough.

I knew nothing about the matter, of course--I wasn't too worried about Indians yet, probably because I still had the business of Pa and Ma on my mind. I was begi

Though that moment--the moment when Ma slapped Pa, first with words and then with her hand--lodged in my mind for years, I didn't get to puzzle it over much at the time because we had barely got the mules unhitched and settled for the night before Ma had a set-to with that rude Colonel Fetterman, whom we had met in Fort Laramie. The set-to occurred just as the flag was being lowered for the evening, and resulted in our getting expelled from the fort for the night.

I don't know how the quarrel started--by the time I heard voices rising and turned around to see Colonel Fetterman, in a pitch of rage, pointing his finger at Ma, the battle was on.

"Get out! Get out! Get this damn woman out of the fort!" he yelled, addressing himself to the little detail of soldiers who were lowering the flag.

The soldiers were stu

"Colonel Fetterman, what is the problem?" one of the young lieutenants stammered out.

"You dare to talk to me like that! . . . Military matters!" Colonel Fetterman yelled. He was pointing his finger at Ma, despite the fact that he had on white gloves.

"Stop that, sir! Don't you know it's rude to point?" Ma said.

"I will not have a treasonous woman in this fort--get 'em out! Get 'em out!" Colonel Fetterman said. "We'll cage our Indians any way we want to, and your opinion be damned!"

Then he stomped off.

117

The young officer looked deeply embarrassed. "I don't know what to say, ma'am," he said. "I fear you'd best leave."

"What? Is that fool the boss of this fort?" Ma asked.

"No--Colonel Carrington's in charge--I suppose you could appeal to him,"

the young man said.

There was a silence.

"You don't seem to think I should appeal to Car-rington, though," Ma said. "Is that correct?"

"Colonel Carrington dislikes trouble of any kind," the young soldier said. "In fact, he dislikes being disturbed at all, when it's this late in the evening."

"Does he dislike Colonel Fetterman?" Ma asked.

The young lieutenant looked even more embarrassed.

"Now you've put me on the spot, ma'am," he said.

The string bean of a corporal who was folding up the flag wasn't as timid as the lieutenant.

"No, Carrington don't like Fetterman--nobody likes Fetterman. He has abused me more than once," the corporal said. "But if I were you I'd just go camp outside tonight--the air's fresher, anyway. There's a passel of smelly old people in this fort, I can tell you."

"Good advice--get the mules, Sherman," Ma said. "G.T., give Marcy that puppy and help your brother pack up. I believe I'd feel cramped in here anyway, just from knowing Colonel Fetterman is around."

Luckily we hadn't unpacked much gear. The soldiers, all of them disappointed that we were leaving so soon, were quick to help rehitch the mules.

When we rolled out of the stockade Pa and Uncle Seth were sitting on the back end of one of the wagons, talking. If Pa was still disturbed by what had occurred, he didn't show it.

"Hell, you just went in and now you're coming out," Pa said, hopping off the wagon. "Didn't you like our nice little fort?"