Now, I promised to skip the tedious bits, so I’ll say only of the prairie trek in general that it takes more weeks than I can remember, is damnably dull, and falls into two distinct parts in my memory – the first bit, when you haven’t reached the Arkansas River, and just trudge on, fifteen miles a day or thereabouts, over a sea of grass and bushes and prairie weeds, and the second bit, when you have reached the Arkansas, and trudge on exactly as before, the only difference being that now you have one of the ugliest rivers in the world on your left flank, broad and muddy and sluggish. Mind you, it’s a welcome sight, in a dry summer, and you’re thankful to stay close by it; thirst and hunger have probably killed more emigrants than any other cause.
There’s little to enliven the journey, though. River-crossings are said to be the worst part, but with the water low in the creeks we had little trouble; apart from that we sighted occasional Indian bands, and a few of them approached us in search of whatever they could mooch; there were a couple of scares when they tried to run off our beasts, but Grattan’s fellows shot a couple of them – Pawnees, according to Wootton – and I began to feel that perhaps my earlier fears were groundless. Once the mailcoach passed us, bound for Santa Fe, and a troop of dragoons came by from Fort Mann, which was being built at that time; for the rest, the most interesting thing was the litter of gear from trains that had passed ahead of us – it was like all the left-luggage offices in the world strewn out for hundreds of miles. Broken wagons, traces, wheels, bones of dead beasts, household gear and empty bottles were the least of it; I also remember a printing-press, a ship’s figurehead of a crowned mermaid, a grand piano (that was the one stuck on a mudbank at the Middle Crossings, which Susie played to the delight of the company, who held an impromptu barn-dance on the bank), a kilt, and twelve identical plaster statues of the Venus de Milo. You think I’m making it up? – check the diaries and journals of the folk who crossed the Plains, and you’ll see that this isn’t the half of it.
But it was always too hot or too wet or too dusty or too cold (especially at nights), and before long I was heartily sick of it. I rode a good deal of the time, but often I would sit in the carriage with Susie, and her chatter drove me to distraction. Not that she moped, or was ill-tempered; in fact, the old trot was too damned bright and breezy for me, and I longed for Sacramento and goodbye, my dear. And in one respect, she didn’t travel well; we beat the mattress regularly as far as Council Grove and a bit beyond, but after that her appetite for Adam’s Arsenal seemed to jade a trifle; nothing was said, but what she didn’t demand she didn’t get, and when I took to sleeping outside – for the coach could be damned stuffy – she raised no objection, and that became my general rule. I gave her a gallop every so often, to keep her in trim, but as you will readily believe, my thoughts had long since turned elsewhere – viz., to the splendid selection of fresh black batter that was going to waste on our two lead wagons. Indeed, I’d thought of little else since we left Orleans; the question was how to come at it.
You’ve learned enough of our travel arrangements to see how difficult it was; indeed, if I had to choose the most inconvenient place I’ve ever struck for conducting an illicit amour in privacy and comfort, a prairie wagon-train would come second on my list, no question. An elephant howdah during a tiger-hunt is middling tough; centre stage during amateur theatricals would probably strike you as out of court altogether, in Gloucestershire, anyway, but it’s astonishing what you can do in a pantomime horse. No, the one that licked me was a lifeboat – after a shipwreck, that is. But a wagon-train ain’t easy; however, when you’ve committed the capital act, as I have, in the middle of a battle with Borneo head-hunters, you learn to have faith in your star, and persevere until you win through.
My first chance came by pure luck, somewhere between Council Grove and the Little Arkansas. We’d made an evening halt and laagered, as usual, and I had wandered out a little piece for a smoke in the dusk, when who should come tripping across the meadow but Aphrodite, humming to herself, as usual – she was the big shiny black one who’d spotted me that day back in New Orleans; I’d thought then that she was one of those to whom business is always a pleasure, and I was right. What she was doing so far from the wagons unchaperoned by one of her sisters in shame, I didn’t inquire; you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, or a gift mare, either.
She stopped short at sight of me, and I saw the eyes widen in that fine ebony face; she glanced quickly towards the distant wagons, where the fires were flickering, and then stood head down, shooting me little glances sidelong, scared at first, and then smoky, as she realised that, however terrible Susie might be, it might be no bad thing to satisfy the lovelight in Massa’s eye. I nodded to a dry buffalo wallow under some nearby bushes, and without a word she began to undo her bonnet strings, very slow, biting her lip and shaking her hair. Then she sauntered down into the wallow, and when I came ravening after her, pushed me off, playful-like, murmuring: ‘Wait, Mistah Beachy; jus’ you wait, now.’ So I did, while she slipped off her dress and stood there naked, hands on hips, turning this way and that, and pouting over her shoulder. She was well-named Aphrodite, with those long black, tapering legs and rounded rump and lissom waist, and when she turned to face me, wriggling her torso – well, I’ve never looked at a pumpkin since without thinking: buffalo wallow. Pretty teeth she had, too, gleaming in that dusky face – and she knew how to use them. I drew her down and we went to work sidestroke-like, while she nibbled and bit at my ears and chin and lips, gasping and shuddering like the expert trollop she was; I remember thinking, as she gave her final practised heave and sob, Susie was right: with another nineteen like this we’ll be able to buy California after a year or two; maybe I’ll stay about for a while.
She was too much the whore for me, though; once was enough, and although she shot me a few soulful-sullen looks in the weeks that followed, I didn’t use her again. I’m not just an indiscriminate rake, you see; I like to be interested in a woman in a way that is not merely carnal, to find out new fascinations in her with each encounter, those enchanting, mysterious, indefinable qualities, like the shape of her tits. And having studied the other nineteen, as opportunity served, weighing this attraction against that, considering such vital matters as which ones would be liable to run squealing to Susie, and which were probably the randiest, I found my mind and eye returning invariably to the same delectable person. There wasn’t one among ’em that wouldn’t have turned the head of the most jaded roué – trust Susie for that – but there was one who could have brought me back for a twentieth helping, and that was Cleonie.
For one thing, she had style, in the way that Montez and Alice Keppel and Ko Dali’s daughter and Cassy and Lakshmibai, and perhaps three others that I could name, had it – it’s the thing which, allied with ambition and sense, can give a woman dominion over kings and countries. (Thank God my Elspeth never had the latter qualities; she’d not have married me, for one thing. But Elspeth is different, and always will be.)
Also Cleonie was a lady – and if you think a whore can’t be that, you’re wrong. She was educated – convent-bred, possibly – and spoke perfect English and better French, her manners were impeccable, and she was as beautiful as only a high-bred octoroon fancy can be, with a figurehead like St Cecilia and a body that would have brought a stone idol howling off its pedestal. Altogether fetching – and intelligent enough to be persuadable, in case she had any doubts about accommodating de massa wid de muffstash on his face. But I would have to go to work subtly and delicately; Spring’s pal Agag would have nothing on me.
So I bided my time, and established a habit of occasionally talking, offhand, to various of the tarts, in full view of everyone, so that if I were seen having a few words with Cleonie, no one would think it out of the way. I did it pretty stiff and formal, very much the Master, and even remarked to Susie how this one or that was looking, and how Claudia would be the better of a tonic, or Eugenie was eating too much. She didn’t seem to mind; in fact, I gathered she was pleased that I was taking a proprietorial interest in the livestock. Then I waited until one noon halt, when Cleonie went down