Sorrows’ Children Sorrows’ Children
Buck intended to take his time returning to the school building thinking perhaps if he waited long enough the Reverend Mother would finish her dinner and retire for the evening. He had wasted a good deal of time pampering the gelding, seeking sanctuary in the solitude and musty corners of the barn but found the building no safer haven than the school itself. Buck’s dark eyes roamed the long wooden tables laid across the dining hall, his hopeful gaze flitting over rows of plainly dressed children and black robed peacekeepers patrolling the perimeter of the room. Resignation settled across his shoulders at the sight of the small figure waiting for him at the outer edge, her hands folded on the knotted pine table top, her dinner untouched. Buck’s hopes for a quiet meal dissipated in a long exhale and he quietly slid down the wall toward his reserved seat. Mother Augustine would have waited for him all night. He should have known better.
Buck stepped a bit awkwardly into the narrow space between the wooden bench and trestle table taking his seat across from the nun, his long legs crowded under the simple table built with a smaller framed occupant in mind. He shifted in his place, searching for a more favorable position, finally giving up realizing it wasn’t so much the cramped quarters but his supper companion that was making him uncomfortable.
“I assume you found what was required for your horse in the barn?” the nun asked.
“Yes. He’s bedded down for the night. Is Daniel all right?”
“He is in Sister Margaret’s capable hands. You need not worry about him tonight. Now, let us enjoy our meal before the gravy turns cold.”
As if responding to a signal, their hands moved at the same moment - Buck’s reaching for his fork, the Reverend Mother’s raised to her forehead then across her shoulders drawing the sign of the Trinity, her interlaced fingers coming to rest on the edge of the table. Although her head was bowed, her disapproving gaze peering from under heavy brows prompted Buck to return the utensil to its place. Feeling like a reprimanded schoolboy, he slowly bowed his head and folded his hands in compliance.
“Heavenly Father,” the nun began. “For what we are about to receive we are truly thankful. Bless this food to our bodies. . .” Mother Augustine paused for a moment, lifting her head just enough for the magnetic pull of her lead gray eyes to draw the gaze of her former student. “. . . and let us not forget your teaching, oh Lord. Amen.”
The small woman crossed herself again and waited expectantly until Buck obediently added his own mumbled “Amen.” Her uncompromising gaze then directed his movements as he reluctantly switched the fork from his favored, but allegedly sinful, left hand to his unnatural, but God-like, right.
Finally satisfied with her pupil, the Reverend Mother began. “What you have done with yourself in the last . . . what has it been? Three years?”
“Four.”
The nun’s brow creased in thought, reconstructing the coming and going of Sorrows’ children. Verifying his answer, she nodded. “Yes . . . it has been four years. And what you have accomplished in that time?”
Since Ike’s death Buck had carefully chosen the subject matter of conversation. There was little danger remarking on the fine skeletal structure of the newly purchased ponies or Teaspoon’s predicted changes in the weather. To his Express family’s surprise, he had even become more vocal around the supper table at the station, commenting on everything from the route changes proposed by the head office to Cody’s recapitulation of the latest J.D. Marcus dime novel. Not that that he was really interested in the meal-time chatter. The meaningless banter simply served as a diversion. Arguing the character flaws of Marcus’ newest “ten cent hero” kept his mind from wandering to places it wasn’t allowed to go. He had let his guard down in the barn earlier. The Reverend Mother’s chosen topic of conversation also bordered on unsafe ground. He could answer her without breaking the self-imposed rule that forbade him to think about Ike. He just had to be careful.
Mother Augustine listened intently as Buck quickly recanted the years since his dismissal from Sorrows, purposely skimming over a good many details he preferred not to remember, ending with his employment with the Express.
“Jacob Evans was a blessing,” she commented after Buck described his first job at Evans Blacksmith and Livery. “It was such a shame about the fire. . . lost everything. We could always depend on him to assist our graduates.”
Buck nodded stiffly although he didn’t completely agree with the Reverend Mother. True, Mr. Evans had given him a job and the old blacksmith was a decent man. But his offer of work had arisen not so much from Christian charity but as a cost saving measure. The shopkeepers in nearby towns knew the penniless sixteen year olds leaving Sorrows could be hired for next to nothing and took advantage of their plight. Still, it had been a job and he had learned to shoe a horse, an unknown practice to the Kiowa, before a misplaced bolt of lightning cut his employment short and set him to wandering.
Buck picked at his supper considering how strange it was that his years since leaving Sorrows could be so summarily described. It was just as well. The time between the blacksmith shop and the day he signed onto the Express was better forgotten. There had been bits of work available – meager pay for a dirty day’s labor. But for the most part they were lean, hungry years spent searching for something of permanence, made bearable only because he had someone to commiserate with. Someone to share body heat and a thin supper on a cold night. Without Ike . . .
“Don’t
think about it, Buck,” he warned himself, putting
an abrupt halt to his meandering trail of thought. “Careful.”
“The Express is a good job . . . we’re more like a family really. I’m doin’ fine,” he concluded hoping his perfunctory answer would satisfy the nun’s kindled interest.
Mother Augustine pushed her finished plate aside and folded her hands on the table. “It appears that you are doing well. Now, what of the McSwain boy? You haven’t mentioned him. Did you part ways at some point?”
Buck scrutinized the question from all angles, examining it closely, composing the safest answer he could. “We signed on to the Express together.”
‘When I learned you were here, I actually expected to see both of you in my office. In all my years of teaching I don’t believe I have ever seen students as close as the two of you were. I remember thinking. . .”
Buck shut his ears and fixed his attention on the enamelware plate before him, focusing intently on the scattered pattern of white speckles against the blue background, until the nun’s words were no more than a low drone that reminded him of hornets. But each memory, each reference to Ike added another hornet to the swarm until the words buzzed around his ears, faster, louder, breaking his concentration.
“. . . so odd to see one of you with out the other. It was as if you . . .”
“Reverend Mother,” Buck blurted out. Grabbing the closest explanation for his rude interruption he added, “I’m sorry . . . it’s just been a long day. Could we talk later?“
“Forgive me,” she said, her startled expression fading. “Of course you are tired. And I have kept you from your meal as well.” Slipping from her seat, she added, “We can discuss your intentions regarding the child in the morning. Perhaps after a night’s rest your thoughts will be more clear.”
Buck slumped forward as she left him, his elbow resting against the table top, his chin dejectedly propped in the cupped palm of his hand. He told himself he really hadn’t done anything wrong – he hadn’t lied to the Reverend Mother. But the green sensation in his belly argued otherwise – he hadn’t told the truth either. A ‘sin of omission’ he supposed. But what did it matter? He would be gone in a few hours anyway. He would decide what to do about Daniel and ride away with no intention of ever coming back.
“Decide what to do about Daniel.” Everything reasonable in him argued that carrying an infant all the way to Rock Creek was a crazy, downright dangerous thought. Even if they did make it home safely there was no assurance he could find a suitable family for the little boy. Recent rumors of the South’s possible secession had the town stirred up. Families, his own included, were already choosing sides. Who would take on the added responsibility and expense of rearing an orphaned child when war loomed just over the Missouri line? Still, how could he in good conscience leave Daniel in this place?
His eyes absently wandered through the emptying dining hall, finally settling on a group of boys lingering at a far table. Their names might have changed but from all other aspects they were the same children he had grown up with. Ragamuffins with uneven hair and ill-fitted clothing. Their appearance would draw stares from children more privileged. The older boys’ uniforms rose high on their arms and legs – too small. In contrast, the smaller ones were dwarfed inside trousers cinched at the waist, their hands partially hidden by dangling shirt sleeves. Nothing at Sorrows ever fit quite right. Which shouldn’t be so surprising Buck decided, watching the boys. They ‘were’ misfits, all of them - himself and Daniel included. Odd lot pieces of patchwork woven together by a common, tragic thread.
“They’re comin’ back for me!” the small red-headed boy cried out from across the room. “You’ll see!”
“No they ain’t!” a larger one taunted. “Your ma and pa are stiff as a board in the ground just like ev’rybody else’s. They already done turned cold and wormy! You ain’t no better’n any of the rest of us, so stop your cryin’, you crybaby!”
“Crybaby! Crybaby!” rang out from the older boys hovering over the small one like a chorus of vultures.
“No, they’re not! They’re not dead! They’re just gone away for a while. That’s what the preacher said,” the younger one sobbed. “I know they’ll be back. I know they will.”
“You’re so stupid!” the boy teased again, hurrying to inflict a final jab before the approaching nun scattered the group of troublemakers.
“So stupid . . . “
Buck tried to turn away, but the pained expression on the small boy’s face held him firm. The memory crept up behind him, hitting him hard while he wasn’t looking.
“You’re so stupid. Hey you! Stupid!”
Buck paid the boy named Albert no attention, merely continued
eating his supper. He didn’t understand
the word anyway. His English vocabulary
was still limited, but because of the heckling tone in Albert’s voice, he knew
the word was an insult of some sort. He doubted it would be included in his English lessons any time
soon. He had learned basic words – ‘shirt’,
‘trousers’, ‘shoes’, were easy enough. ‘Face’, ‘hair’, ‘eyes’ weren’t difficult either. But when it came
to putting the words together in sentences he was still lost in a foreign language.
Rather than attend class with children his own age he spent the day with
the youngest of Sorrows’ students learning words through picture books.
The sight of the gangly limbed Indian sitting amongst four and five year
olds was a source of great amusement to the older boys.
In two months at the school he had learned a good many
things about the white world. They prayed
to a man hanging on a cross in the small room called a “chapel” on the first
floor of the school. The women looked
upon the man with the same adoration he had seen on the faces of the Kiowa elders
when the Tai’me was presented at the annual sun dance. The man frightened him a bit – thorns wrapped
around his head, hanging there captured and helpless – not at all like the powerful
gods of his Kiowa religion. The cross
looked like the one the important woman wore around her neck and he wondered
what it meant that she had given him that name. Rather than the soft hide of animals they wore
binding, uncomfortable clothing. Buttoned
to his chin, the collar of his shirt fit snugly around his neck and even his
repeated tugging would not stretch the fabric. Twig thin, but long legged, the
only trousers that were small enough to stay up on his narrow hips were inches
too short in length and revealed a strip of brown flesh between the hem and
the tops of his rock-hard brogan shoes. He didn’t understand at all why the teachers smacked his hand with
the wooden stick and made him hold his fork differently. But the stick hurt and he was careful to use
the other hand while they were watching, even though it felt strange.
There were many different kinds of children at the school.
Some were quiet and took no notice of him – younger ones mostly. They
were the ones that cried at night. Although
the smaller boys slept on the other side of the big room with beds their sobs
carried across the open space making it hard for him to fall asleep.
Others, like Albert and his friends - the ones who laughed at him for
going to class with the small children - were loud and demanded attention. And then there was the “owl boy”. Buck had never seen anyone so strange and made
a point to stay away from him.
Buck wondered if perhaps the bald headed boy was one
of the children the old Kiowa storyteller had talked about. “Sometimes,” the old man said, “children are
stolen from their families by wild animals and killed.” He went on to explain that the spirit of the
animal enters the dead child’s body and lives in it. Its outward appearance is human, but its thoughts and actions are
still that of the animal. Watching the
owl boy at the next table, Buck decided that must be the answer. For no reason that he could see, the boy suddenly
flashed wild eyes at a group of children sitting nearby and jumped to his feet.
With his knees bent, his back rounded he swooped around them, his hands clawing
at the air, his arms waving furiously like wings. His strange actions scattered the children
closest to him but drew an audience of others far enough away to consider themselves
safe.
“Don’t let him touch you!” one of them cried out. “You’ll be like him if he touches you!”
The panic his theatrics caused seemed to please him and
he circled again sending children scurrying under tables and behind the closest
black dressed woman for safety. The
boy pulled his upper lip into a sneer and gnashed his teeth for good measure
before the women grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the room.
The incident over, Albert and his friends turned their
attention back to the Indian. Walking
behind Buck to return to their places, one of them swung his elbow out and hit
the seated boy in the back of the head just as Buck was lifting a tin cup of
milk to his lips. The sudden lurch forward
sent the milk splashing down his shirt front and into his lap, soaking the front
his trousers.
“What’s the matter, Injun? Did you have an accident?”
“Yeah, stupid,” Albert joined in. “Did the baby spill his milk? Maybe you need a bottle.”
Buck sat the empty cup on the table and brushed off his
wet shirt, his face heated in embarrassment. He didn’t need to speak their language to know they wanted a response.
He knew their kind. In the village he
wouldn’t have let such an incident pass without a fight, but the school was
different. Fighting in the village would earn him a stern lecture from Red Bear,
but his brother would never send him away. Buck feared the small women in black might
turn him out as quickly as she had taken him in if he caused trouble. Rather
than acknowledge the boys he continued his meal.
Because the use of his right hand was unnatural he was
somewhat clumsy and had to use his fingers to push the food onto the fork.
“Look at him, Dutch!” Albert exclaimed to his friend
and took a seat on the bench beside Buck. “He
don’t even know how to eat right!”
Dutch circled the table, taking a seat on the opposite
side. “That’s ‘cause Injuns don’t eat
reg’lar food. They eat dogs. Roast ‘em whole, hair ‘n all. Then they snap off a leg and gnaw the meat
right off the bone,” he said drawing the stare of a younger tow-headed boy seated
further down the bench. “That yeller
bitch in the barn turns up missin’, we’ll know what happened to her.”
“Dogs?” the smaller one asked. “He eats dogs?”
“Nah,” Albert countered. “They got a taste for white folks is what I hear. If an Injun catches ya… first he’ll scalp ya
and scoop the brains right outa your head while you’re still breathin’. Then…” he paused for a moment making sure he
had his audience’s rapt attention. “Then
he’ll chop off your privates and boil ‘em for stew.”
“Really?” the young boy squeaked, his eyes open wide,
his hands dropped protectively to his lap.
“That’s the God’s honest truth,” Albert said confidently.
“They like the young uns best. Tender.”
He didn’t understand the conversation, but their laughter
and look of morbid fascination on the small boy’s face required no translation.
Buck pushed himself away from the table and returned his plate to the
kitchen but Albert and his friends followed at his heels.
“Where ya goin’ Injun? Hey look!” Dutch said pointing to the wet spot on the front of Buck’s
trousers. “I think the Injun wet his
pants!”
The remark was loud enough to be heard by a group of
girls about Buck’s age congregated at the door to the dining hall. They readily joined in the fun, pointing out
the ‘accident’ to each other, giggling. The
flush on Buck’s face deepened as he walked past them into the front hallway
toward the staircase.
He hoped perhaps the group of girls the boys had been
intent on impressing would be more interesting than he was, but the click of
heels on the wooden floor behind him indicated their fun was not over.
“What’s the matter, Injun? Where ya goin’? Gonna go look at your little baby picture books?”
“He’s such a baby,” Dutch added with a wide, toothy grin.
“Maybe he needs a diaper!”
Their laughter stung like needles in his back as he continued
his retreat. Buck tightened his jaw,
clenched his hands into tight fists and continued walking. With every step, he reminded himself that
he needed this school, he was learning to be white, he couldn’t afford to get
in trouble. The need to defend himself
screamed for release, but he willed it to be quiet.
Impressed with their wit, the boys slapped each other
on the back, roaring with laughter. When
the Indian offered no response, Albert grabbed at Buck’s arm, spinning him around
quickly. “Hey stupid, I’m talkin’ to
you!”
The fire in the Indian’s eyes startled the group of boys
for a moment, but bolstered by their number they continued taunting, closing
Buck in on three sides, pushing and prodding him further backward. Unaware of
the boy crouched on his hands and knees behind him, Buck’s step met with resistance
and he toppled over the obstacle, landing hard on his back against the wooden
floor.
The impact with the floor stunned him momentarily, loosening
the tight grip he held on his anger. Before
Buck could gain his footing and defend himself - perhaps regain a bit of dignity
- the boys swarmed over him. He lashed
out, kicking and swinging at his attackers but they held him so tightly there
was little force behind his blows. His struggling only served to amuse the boys and those holding him
simply clamped down tighter while the leaders of the bunch punched and kicked
at will.
Buck had taken beatings before from the boys in the village.
It was nothing new. But his Kiowa tormentors always had a stopping
point. A certain amount of fighting
could be passed off as young warriors establishing dominance - too much would
draw the wrath of the half-breed’s brother. Although the war chief had turned a blind eye
to much of his younger brother’s suffering, Buck knew Red Bear had been his
source of protection, by his position in the tribe if not by his actions. These white boys couldn’t care less if his
brother was a war chief and seemed to have no intention of stopping. Maybe it wasn’t a crime to kill someone in
the white world. For a frightening moment,
Buck wondered if he might die right there on the cold, wood floor.
Buck gathered all the strength he could muster into a
well placed kick to Albert’s shin, sending the gang leader hopping backward
on one foot, cursing like a seasoned sailor.
The boy’s string of profanity startled the others enough for Buck to
sense his opportunity. He had nearly
squirmed free from their hold when a swift kick to his middle forced the air
out of his lungs and his supper from his stomach. Refusing to be further humiliated, Buck clenched his teeth and choked
back the burning bile rising into his throat.
Thoughts of retaliation turning to survival, he managed
to roll onto his side and drew his knees up into a somewhat protective position.
It was then Buck caught a glimpse of him standing in front of the staircase. The owl boy – the bad omen, the foreteller of doom. Buck’s fate was sealed.
But rather than scratch at the air and twist his face
as he had done earlier, the boy stood perfectly still as if he was afraid to
move. His arms were wrapped tightly
– almost defensively - across his chest and he flinched noticeably along with
Buck at each blow. The wild glint in
his eyes was gone, replaced now with a look of empathy.
He looked as if he wanted to speak but his voice seemed to be locked
from inside.
The sound of rapidly approaching feet scattered the boys
leaving the battered young Indian curled in a tight ball, panting hard, questioning
why he had been spared. The hem of a
black robe swirled before his eyes and an unseen hand plucked him up by the
collar, pushing him, stumbling and doubled over, in the direction of the Reverend
Mother’s office. Buck looked back toward
the staircase, but the bad omen was gone. It puzzled him. If the owl
was a bad sign, why did the boy seem to feel his pain? Why did he seem to understand?
