They arrived down at Walls's ranch the next day in the late afternoon. Enkoodabooaoo as planned stayed back in the cabin minding the horses and with the dog for company. He was to take turns with Matunaagd every so often once most of the crop harvest was done. He was too old for that kind of work, he told them, even though everyone knew he did not believe it himself. He wanted to see how it was done alright but simply didn't fancy having to do it himself.
They'd all been somewhat nervous, and years later Walls confessed that as soon as they had left Jeremiah's ranch that day of the picnic, they had started to wonder if they maybe had made a mistake when they invited them all to stay with them and do the harvesting together.
The afternoon had gone so well, that they never even considered the possibility that things could go awry. But no sooner had they left, all they could think of were the horrific stories they had heard about the natives. In all the years, the only first-hand witness account of an encounter with a real-life Indian that wasn't negative, was their own and Jeremiah's encounter with Enkoodabooaoo. Everyone else had described them as either, dim-witted and blood thirsty savages, or shrewd and blood thirsty salvages, but always blood thirsty and always savages. Granted this was not the impression Jeremiah's friends had made on them but nevertheless prejudice was not something that could be wiped out in a few hours over a picnic on a sunny day.
Occasionally Walls had bought one of the bigger newspapers that were brought in from the East. Always already a few weeks or sometimes even months old, they at times portraited a different picture of the natives, which he didn't completely understand or believe in either, but which intrigued him. It made him think and didn't allow him to be entirely blind to the injustice of the fact that he had been allowed to legally buy land that was illegally taken from the Indian tribes.
Walls however, could not fully understand why this land was so important to the Indians, and why they hadn't sold it willingly in the first place or where it was sold, why they now felt it was stolen from them. He did not understand any of it. As far as he could see, they had made no use of it, not properly anyhow, not the way he thought God had told them to make use of it.
There was so much of it. He couldn't understand why they fought them back so vehemently. Did they not bring the word of God and a more advanced and thus much better way of living to the West? 'Why did they not just raise their livestock and grow crops like the rest of the human race. There was no need to follow the buffalo herd around and travel from place to place like a gypsy?' Walls thought.
In his ignorance, Walls believed reservations only existed because the Indians where hostile towards settlers who wanted nothing more than raise their families in peace and make use of the fertile land of which there was more than enough for everyone. Settlers were ordinary farmers like him and knew nothing of soldiering. They were not the ones who were at war with the Indians. They could have happily coexisted and taught the natives better ways if only they'd let them.
He claimed to mourn the fact that the buffalo was gone just as much as the Indians did and blamed those who terminated them on the plight that had now befallen the natives as a people but could not see the relationship with their extinction with him being there.
Walls was steeped in the conviction that he belonged to the good people who meant the natives no harm. He even considered that maybe the buffalo being gone could be seen as a good thing, divine intervention so to speak, showing them that building towns and houses, staying in the one place all year round is a much more practical and healthier way of life.
Of course, he disagreed with them being left to starve, or giving inadequate handouts, and pushed back into infertile lands. He wasn't completely naïve. He didn't understand all of that has happened to them and why and who exactly was to blame, but he understood that there were greedy people at play who did not care, and that the government only pretended to do their bit. He however was a good man, he was ready to share both his knowledge and his table, despite being scared.
This somewhat naïve if not ignorant but at least not entirely hostile conviction was as much as he could manage to keep his heart brave enough to remain open and welcoming that day when the small group of people rode into his ranch, but it was a struggle all the same.
Walls had been wary when he was first introduced to Matunaagd the previous day. The younger man's proud and dignified way, oozed strength, power and a sense of fierceness that made Walls feel the pulsation of his heart in his throat. All he wanted to do was take his family and run. It took a while for him to relax even with Jeremiah and Enkoodabooaoo being there.
On his travel with Enkoodabooaoo when he and the others from the town were still looking for the boy, the old Indian hadn't shared much. Walls was intrigued by him, he trusted him on accounts of him having saved his boy's life and had a sense that behind those quiet old eyes lay the wisdom of friendship despite being different. Nathan had called him a friend but when asked about it had to admit knew nothing about the old Indian either, other than that he had met him a couple times before when Enkoodabooaoo helped Jeremiah bring logs down to his sawmill. And yet there seemed a connection between the three of them that lay beyond their shared disdain of Edwards and his mates, so that at the picnic Walls felt as if he met an old friend which helped immensely in settling his nerves.
Doubt entered his mind though as soon as they had left, and when he saw the proud warrior and the boy beside him ride into his ranch without Enkoodabooaoo, he got worried all over again.
Riding on Numees' horse, beside Matunaagd, instead of sitting on the wagon with Jeremiah and Numees, with his bow and quiver tied to his back, and wearing the new clothes that Numees had fashioned for him from deerskin and beautifully ornated with coloured beads and porcupine quills, his head held high, everyone could see that John's arrival at Walls' ranch was very different this time around. He looked proud and confident, just like Matunaagd beside him.
At least on the outside he did.
For on the inside, John was just as nervous as everyone else if not more so. He tried to focus on his feeling of pride and belonging. He tried to be brave, truly brave, not just hiding his fear, truly believing he was going to be okay one way or another despite the threat, so that fear would lose all its power. He knew he was strong because he was no longer alone, he was part of something bigger.
There was of course also the thing that Jeremiah had said about Walls boys and John wanted to give them a clear message with his stance, 'don't be messin' with me lads! I'm an Indian!"
And it certainly had the desired effect. Carl and Bert, and even Alfred a little, looked up at John in curious awe, if not jealousy, which in itself was a little amusing, Jeremiah felt. He had been worried that Walls' children would look down on John and would judge his outfit as ridiculous, that they might snigger at him. God knows that children don't always hold back on how they perceive things to be, especially if their perception is clouded by the judgements of the adults around them. But the children didn't seem to mind, it was the adults that looked somewhat perplexed. Walls' eyes were full of worry, which made Jeremiah wish he hadn't changed his clothes. It wouldn't make the boy stand out so much.
On Jeremiah's last trip to the city, he had felt uncomfortably gawked at. Not that he minded all that much, but it was a sign that times were changing quickly. There weren't many men like him left in these mountains, which probably wasn't a bad thing considering how they had ransacked it.
For years living in the mountains more or less on his own, Jeremiah had been wearing clothes made from deerskin not quite as beautifully ornated but similar to the ones John was wearing now. He had traded them for some furs of an old Indian woman married to the owner of one of the last fort trading posts in the area, he had visited on occasions. She had poked fun at the pitiful state of the rudimentary clothes he had managed to make himself after his old army uniform had quickly started to fall apart.
The old woman's clothes had lasted him for years and only occasionally needed a little repair. They had given him great protection against the elements and the occasional run in with predators, human and animal alike. He had felt no need to replace them until his last stay in the city, where he had bought a few shirts and two trousers, but never even put them on until the previous night. He had been just too comfortable in the leather clothing and once back at his cabin was no longer even sure why he had felt the need to invest in new clothes in the first place, so that when Numees had started to work on a pair of trousers and a shirt for John a while back, because John's clothing had become too small and had more holes than a Swiss cheese, Jeremiah had welcomed it. He hadn't thought of them coming off their mountain any time soon.
He hadn't thought anything of it at all in fact, but after John's assertion the previous night, where the boy declared he wanted to be an Indian, he started to wonder if it was that good an idea. It's one thing to go along with such a notion, it's another one to encourage it. He didn't dare to say it to Numees though, she had put too much time and effort into it and had worked through most of the night to get the trousers and shirt finished for the boy before morning. She wanted their boy, as she had started to call John, to look good. Who could argue with that, Jeremiah mused.
It still worried him though. The valley was slowly getting crowded, and people could be narrow minded. He saw Walls' eyes scrutinise the boy and wasn't so sure if what he had told the boy the previous night was really true. Was Walls really one of the good guys or did he just want him to be that way? Was he tolerant enough for them to spend the long winter with? In a way he was glad that Matunaagd had insisted he would return to their ranch after the fall and would spend the winter there with Enkoodabooaoo. He wished he could do the same.
He could see Walls' eyes relax a little when he greeted him and Numees, and remained softened even when his eyes wandered back to Matunaagd. Maybe Matunaagd unwittingly had softened the German a bit by wearing Jeremiah's other set of clothing he had bought in the city or maybe the man was just as good an actor as the boy, Jeremiah thought. He had seen the fear in Walls eyes only moments ago and doubted it was completely gone, and his wife didn't look all that relaxed either.
Matunaagd still looked powerful and impressive with the head gear that framed his long black hair, his earrings and necklaces made of porcupine quills that covered his chest, his armbands that decorated his tanned muscular lower arm which stuck out from the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, the way he sat on his horse in a proud posture and still refused to use a white man' saddle. He still wore his bow and quiver tied to his back, and his tomahawk and knife in his belt, and Jeremiah was glad that after the bath, Matunaagd had told him he fancied a change, and at least had accepted the clothes. He was even more glad it covered the man's chest and thighs that he had left bare all during the hot summer. Walls might not have noticed but he and Sally did see how Anna, their teenage daughter had looked at the younger man, even so Matunaagd seemed to have paid no attention to her.
"Why not?" Numees had replied to him when he asked her to talk to her twin brother about how inappropriate this would be, "there is much less of an age gap between her and him, than between you and me," she teased which of course was true. It was hardly the same though Jeremiah told her in all earnest. Numees was young, almost twenty years his junior, but not a child. She had been married with children before. He did not remind her of that though. It always made her sad.
Matunaagd had insisted on giving Jeremiah a beautifully ornated knife sheath in return for the clothes. The man never took a present without giving one back, and Jeremiah always left with the guilty feeling that he had gotten the better deal, even if Matunaagd wouldn't hear of it. In Jeremiah's world gifts were given without the need to repay in kind. In Matunaagd's it was dishonourable to receive a gift without returning the favour. He used to have the same problem with Enkoodabooaoo in the beginning of their friendship. Among friends or people you cared not to insult, it seemed when gifting both parties had to have the feeling, they gave something of equal value. In this case Jeremiah knew though that his item was a lot more meaningful to Matunaagd than the clothes had been to Jeremiah. Matunaagd had always carried it with him. It was the difference between knowing an item's worth as opposed to its price, but he knew better than to barter with the man.
After the initial settling in, where it was decided that Numees and Jeremiah were to sleep in Anna's room, who moved in with her younger sisters, while Alfred was to share his room with Matunaagd, which raised his status amongst his siblings manyfold, and John was told he was to bunk with the younger brothers again, which annoyed John to no end even though he managed to not let on, they settled down for their evening meal. It was then that Jeremiah's faith in Walls' ability to learn the real meaning of tolerance was reinstated, when on seeing Numees and Matunaagd being every bit as skilled with the use of knife and fork as anyone else at the table, Walls' younger son Carl asked his father in a disappointed voice if he was still allowed to eat with his hands as previously agreed, even though their guests weren't. Much to the amusement of Jeremiah, Walls looked exceedingly embarrassed, "I wasn't sure, so I told them it might be a good idea to eat with our hands tonight. I didn't want them to feel they had to do things differently than what they used to unless they wanted to."
Matunaagd just nodded respectfully, and Numees smiled good naturedly, which told Jeremiah they understood the gesture in the way it was meant, a clumsy way of trying to make his guests feel welcomed based on a wrong assumption. Not that big a deal amongst people who were genuinely trying to become friends.
After that evening everything went surprisingly smooth. There was the occasional mishap of course that was based on cultural misunderstandings but by and large the two families got on well enough right from the start. Granted a lot had to do with the fact that they started the harvesting the next day, and other than Sundays did not take any breaks from it for another eight full days. Each night they were exhausted. Too exhausted to move, think or even talk. Matunaagd and Jeremiah confessed to each other that neither had ever worked that hard before. Sure enough, they had experienced hardship and physical exhaustion, when they were out hunting or in Jeremiah's case had been fighting during the war, but neither of those activities were in such a way gruelling and monotonous as the work they did that summer. Those activities were exhilarating and energising, they gave the body a sense of alertness despite being tired, that only caught up on you after a few days of it. In the case of hunting, they were fulfilling and not a drag. They wholeheartedly agreed with John who had told them before they even had started that Walls had been lying, the only thing that was satisfying about harvest time was the bed at the end of the day.
John had done it before and although tired and worn out at the end of each day, seemed to take it in his stride. Right from the start, he let them know that he wanted to be working alongside Jeremiah and Matunaagd, and not the women and children. The men were in awe of John' stamina but didn't let him. They wanted him to take more breaks and do work that was less harsh on his young body. Regularly Walls had to insist on John taking his breaks alongside his children and eventually started to get impatient with him, until Jeremiah had enough one afternoon and scolded John severely, telling him he needed to do as he was told and should be glad, he was given easier tasks and was allowed to take more breaks than the adults. "He'd gladly swap if he could," Jeremiah concluded his rebuke.
John took it with an uncharacteristically meek 'yes sir' and lowered head, but later on got his own back when he slagged Jeremiah and Matunaagd off in front of everyone when they sat down for their evening meal, groaning due to the pain that ran through every single muscle in their bodies. Walls was going easy on them, he declared. The farmer he had worked for the summer before would have sacked anyone that had been as slow as they were, he quipped which had the two men embarrassed somewhat but still laughing with John. Walls was less amused and looked at John with disapproval. If any of his children had made such a remark, he would have probably punished them. He was just about to say something when John added in a less jovial tone that neither was there a difference been made between the children and the adults. He had to work just as hard and would have been whipped and got no extra breaks on accounts of being 'only a child' neither. Walls being saddened by this then asked him how many children that farmer had working for him, and John then finally killed the mood completely by saying, "just the one, sir!" with a sad shrug of his shoulders.
In general, they found that this was what John was like in those days. All in all, he seemed to do much better than expected. He was well able for the work, and seemed generally content, polite and well behaved, even cheerful some of the time. He went to bed before they even had a chance to send him up for the night with the other children. Often, he was up in the morning to help milk the cows and had breakfast with the men well before the other children even stirred in their beds. He never back talked, never argued or let them know his malcontent the way he used to. He made his bed without being asked, he washed his hands and had clean nails before coming to the table. He said, 'yes sir' and 'no sir', and 'yes ma'am' and 'no ma'am' and 'please' and 'thank you', at the right time, politely or contritely whatever the mood demanded.
All the little things that Jeremiah normally had to argue with him over, he did now without having to be told. Walls congratulated Jeremiah on his success, and Jeremiah just put it down to the boy having matured a lot over the past few weeks since he was given the news of his mother's death. He gave credit to the other members of his family for that but also suggested that maybe all the boy had needed was an opportunity to reinvent himself. He'd been in the habit of being argumentative and that was all it was, a habit that was now broken, because he was shown a better way and had taken the opportunity by its horn. And maybe Walls' children were a good influence on him too. Who knows?
At one point Jeremiah asked John about it because Numees and Sally did not quite agree, they felt the boy was too well behaved, they didn't trust this sudden change in attitude and felt there was an air of sadness around him. With a shrug of his shoulders, John told Jermiah that he had been right, the rules in Walls' house really were not all that different to the ones Jeremiah had in his. He had just decided to follow them without giving him any grief, since Jeremiah would make him follow them anyway, he told him. It was just easier that way, he said. An assertion that pleased as much as amused Jeremiah but never made him ponder why. He thought it was a good thing that John had taken it to heart when he was told he was expected to be on his best, and not his worst behaviour.
But Numees and Sally still did not agree. They were worried about the boy and suspected that he was struggling, with what they could not tell, but no amount of fuzzing over him seemed to help, in fact it only seemed to be making things worse. Whenever he could, he rebuffed them in as polite a way as he possibly could. But they could see that John became less and less playful and started to withdraw away from the other children and more and more into himself.
And they had called it right. John was struggling. Every time John looked at Sally and her husband with their kids, the affection they had for them and each other, the way they cared for their children, taught them, kept them safe, warm and well, especially the younger ones, all he could see was something he never had. Something he had always known to have missed but never knew just how much. His Ma tried her best, he knew that, but she never quite succeeded in making him feel that way, wanted, safe and secure. It always felt they went from one crisis to the next, they were always firefighting, and so much of it laid on his shoulders. All he was good for was carrying some of that burden, never was he the one that was carried, or at least he couldn't remember it.
And yet being among Walls family also reminded him of the family that was taken from him in a good way. How much he missed them and what they meant to him. The way they loved him just the way he was. His brothers and his Ma never made him feel like a stupid little kid that needed to be told what to do and how to behave. The opposite in fact, they counted on him to know what to do and knew they could do so. They relied on him to protect them and provide for them. They mightn't have had the concept of a warrior or brave but that's what he was to them, not a child.
John missed the cabin, where he wasn't reminded of it all the time. He missed the cabin and Enkoodabooaoo, the dog and Jeremiah and Matunaagd and Numees, because there they actually had time for him and did not expect him to stay out of their way and play with the children so they could get on with their grown-up stuff that he no longer was privy to. The cabin where he felt he belonged and didn't have to hide his feelings all the time. Up there Jeremiah nagged and prodded him, made him do things differently, insisted on his ways because after all he was the boss. But at least there, Jeremiah accepted the fact that it didn't come easy to him. At least he was allowed to not like it.
At Walls', a roll of the eye, a word of defiance, back talk, the question why in itself suddenly was seen as sass and rude. It hurt enough being constantly told you are doing things wrong, your manners are lacking, your behaviour not good enough but to be told in front of others was doubly painful and being then told you are wrong for defending your ways on top of that added insult to injury. So, all John felt he could do was surrender, or at least pretend to do so. He didn't quite give it all up though but held onto one final act of defiance. Eavesdropping.
So, night after night, as soon as Carl and Bert had fallen asleep in their beds, he crept back out and sat on the landing, and listened to the adults' conversations below. Most of the times it wasn't even that interesting, it was the adults planning for the next days ahead, what needed to be done, by who, how and when.
That way John had expected it when Jeremiah asked him to change into some clothes that Sally had given him for John because the neighbour who had lend Walls some extra sickles, scythes and flails, and a few 'friends' of his were going to come around. John just nodded and answered, 'no problem', without the slightest hesitation. So surprised was Jeremiah at John's acceptance of this that he kept apologising and expanding his explanation, nevertheless. Word got around and the neighbours had heard about the Indians on Walls' ranch and the barn they were building, Jeremiah told him. They weren't sure if they believed them that an extraordinary winter was ahead, but either way, they were curious and it wouldn't do any good, him walking around in Indian clothes, that's all, Jeremiah explained. There were enough people in the valley that were only looking for an excuse to cause trouble, and they didn't want to hand them one on a golden platter, but of course John knew that already and having had a chance to sleep over it, kind of agreed. All too well, he remembered Edwards and especially his friend Clayton standing in their yard below his window at the cabin.
There were times when he was sitting on the cold landing in front of the boys' bedroom, where listening to the adults downstairs was not boring at all. When they at last started to talk about their different experiences like friends, comparing their worlds and telling stories from their pasts. He liked those evenings the best. It reminded him of sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace in the cabin listening to Matunaagd or Enkoodabooaoo telling their stories or Jeremiah teaching him about history or painting pictures of the places he had visited with his words.
But then there were times where what he heard upset him and kept him awake late into the night. Where John felt wronged because what they talked about concerned him more than anyone else. Where they discussed him. And even though they had nothing but good things to say about him, John was angered and felt they had him all wrong. He had not changed, and he was not a child. It wasn't right that they talked about him behind his back like this and it certainly wasn't right that they openly talked about the content of the rest of that letter that Jeremiah's friend, Tom had sent. He didn't like that Jeremiah told everyone, that his mother's friend Ingrid never liked his Da and that she presumed him to be still alive, when John himself knew nothing about this. John was furious that Jeremiah shared this with Matunaagd and Numees and even Walls and his wife, but not him. It was none of their business, John felt.
Although Jeremiah had said he was going to tell John as soon as there was an opportunity, John understandably was still mad at Jeremiah that he told the other adults first, when Jeremiah one evening told them that he received yet another letter from his friend with more information about John's father. Apparently, the story had checked out. There really was a drowning on the Missouri River not far from Helena and that indeed a Johnathan Finnegan, having successfully rescued a man called Simon Taylor, did die there trying to safe Mr Taylor's friend also, a man called Oscar Lawlor. According to Tom, the story was collaborated not only by Taylor and his wife, who was the one who later wrote the letter to John's mother but also Finnegan's friend as well, a Mr Seamus Hanratty, who due to not being able to swim had to watch helplessly from the riverbank as his best friend drowned.
Apparently, the two parties who did not know each other, were waiting to board the steamboat to Fort Benton, and Taylor and his friend had decided to take a little swim beforehand. The Taylors owned a small farm just outside Fort Benton, while Seamus Hanratty was going there to take possession of a saloon, he had won in a poker game only days before the incident. John Finnegan was to be Hanratty's barman according to Tom's report. And according to Hanratty, who still owned the saloon in Fort Benton all these years later, John Finnegan had meant to send for his wife to follow him once they were settled, but he never spoke about her having been pregnant when he had left her. Had he known, Hanratty claimed, he would have made it his business to look out for them.
This laid to rest John's own musings about his father. Whether he had abandoned him and his mother or whether he was still alive. Because just like Ingrid, from the way his mother spoke about his father, he also thought it unlikely that his father would have risked his life to rescue another's. Musings that he had always kept to himself and now felt guilty about.
It had been hard not to blow his cover and charge downstairs to let Jeremiah have a piece of his mind for telling everyone else first. Not even when Jeremiah told everyone that come next summer, he would go and bring John up there to meet his father's friend and the man whose life he had saved, did John feel any better. John wasn't even sure if he wanted to meet the man that lived because his father died? Nor the man that stood helplessly by when his best friend drowned? What sort of a man did that anyway? What sort of a man could not even swim? He wondered irrationally as he tried to get some sleep later on when he laid angrily in his bed? He knew he wasn't going to be asked anyway. Jeremiah had already decided, because as John also learnt that night, Jeremiah's brother Elias had also written to him, letting him know that Elias' father-in-law owned a large ranch in that area, and had suggested they could all meet up there in the summer. For it was indeed the Coronel that Jeremiah had met in the military hospital all those many years ago, and like a lot of rich ranch owners, he wasn't actually running the ranch himself and therefore had the luxury to spend the unpleasant winter months in his hometown back East and spend the warmer months on the ranch.
Jeremiah was very pleased about the prospect of seeing his brother again, and introducing his family to him, but John was miserable after that night for days. He felt betrayed. And he could not even talk to anyone about it, because he knew he'd be in severe trouble if it came out that he had been listening in on them without them knowing. And he would have to stop doing it as well which he wasn't prepared to do, since he felt more than justified doing it. How else was he expected to always keep his cool. It was much easier to act unphased and all cooperative, when you knew in advance what was about to hit you.
So when Jeremiah told him that Numees was expecting a baby, John was able to say the same thing to him that Walls had said a few nights previous. "Congratulations. That's great news, when is she due?" he asked without showing any emotions and almost turned back to his chore of peeling the potatoes before Jeremiah could give him the reply. John was under no illusion that this meant they would soon part ways, even though Jeremiah had told him and everyone else that this would change nothing for him, other than the fact that he was going to be a big brother again. But John knew better. He was always considered a bad influence on others, he was removed from his last placement because of this, even his Ma had told him at times not to lead his little brothers astray, and Sally always watched him like a hawk when he played with her children, why should it be any different with this kid. Jeremiah's child was going to grow up knowing all those things that Jeremiah wanted John to know. He would pick this shit up naturally, John mused, like Walls' kids had. They wouldn't need someone like him spoiling that for them. But knowing it in advance helped.
Just as it helped to know that Matunaagd was planning to go back to the reservation up North, after the planting season and as soon as his sister had the baby. Walls felt he should stay longer, a full year in fact a farmer's work was more than just planting and harvesting, he told him, but Matunaagd felt his people needed him. He had seen enough and needed to share it. They never told John about this either, he knew they would wait until it was closer to the time, but John felt knowing it now was better. He might as well get used to it and was wondering if maybe he should ask Matunaagd if he could come with him, but he imagined that Matunaagd would probably say No to him, John thought. Matunaagd still kept calling him Mukki and made it clear he saw him as a child, and Matunaagd like everyone else had no need for a child. Matunaagd, he imagined, needed more braves.