The Mercy Seat by Rilla Askew Read Free Book Online Page B

everything different. Because if Uncle Fay had not caught up to us, we would have kept on straight west and never turned south into those mountains. Because it was always those mountains, I believe that, and how they affected my mama. How they rose up around us and closed when we entered, jagged and hard-edged toward heaven, tree-glutted, rock-bound, blocking the light.
    Uncle Fay and Aunt Jessie had not lost any of their animals. They had lost nothing because they didn’t come through the ice storm but stayed by the river until it was finished, all finished, and then they came across the flat land melted and running warm with spring behind Uncle Fay’s swift horses. I understood they were force of family that could not be got away from, and it was expected in my heart that they would swoop up from behind without loss. I was only surprised that all that while without me knowing it, Papa had been the one in front. I tried not to think the next thought, which was what it had cost us.
    But they came and wrapped around us, and right away it was as if we’d never been separated, except for the way Aunt Jessie shared eggs with us, so wide and smiling it made you want to be sick. They had no milk either, never had had because they never brought their cow with them, but Aunt Jessie made smiling sure to share their measly brown eggs. And right away, too, Uncle Fay started in upon Papa.
    He had a plan to go south and come in to Eye Tee through the mountains. He talked it low at night, jabbing at the fire, darting his eyes around outside the light, more restless than ever. He said it was too dangerous to go in at Fort Smith, said the Law was crawling all over the place there. He said the whole country knew Hanging Judge Parker would as soon hang a thief as look at him, no telling what might happen. And for many nights when we camped, he went on like that. Papa acted like he did not hear him, except the one time he said, looking hard at Uncle Fay in the camplight, “They ain’t going to hang a man for breaking a damn patent. Are they?”
    Uncle Fay’s eyes went sideways. “I don’t know, Son. I couldn’t say. Couldn’t say for sure, now. You aim to find out?”
    And Papa said, soft, just under his breath then, “Don’t make a lick of sense to go west by heading south.”
    Fayette whispered, “That’s a hellhole, Son, that jail there, you ever heard about it? A man might just as druther be dead.”
    Papa didn’t answer. He did not say another word, either then or later, but Uncle Fay kept on and kept on, every night, about turning south to get to Eye Tee. Even I knew Eye Tee was west, because we had been traveling toward sunset for weeks then. I didn’t even know he was talking about Indian Territory, for he never called it anything but Eye Tee, the way my mind saw it, and I believed Eye Tee was its name. Uncle Fay spoke the sound like the name stood for Heaven, and I guess I believed it must be so.
    Every day we went on, but we went slower, which I marked but thought it on account of Mama, for every day she looked paler and weaker and her hand now almost never left that shut tight place at her chest, and we were gradually turning, which I did not mark somehow, watching Mama, until the dawn we were facing directly toward the mountains, close then, rising up snail-like before us, and the rising sun back over our left. Then I knew Uncle Fayette had won.
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    The road wound around and up, and behind us I could see the valley falling away pale green below, and it frightened me, the earth falling away and disappearing, and so I quit watching behind us and looked only at the back of the wagon—for we were walking then, all of us, even Mama, to ease the weight—or I would walk up front beside Papa and keep my eyes to the rocky earth rolling beneath the mules’ feet. The sides of the hills were hardscrabble. Uncle Fay said the road had been looked out