The Misadventures of Maude March Read online

  “You can't expect to make it to Independence without one.”

  “I'll travel light,” she said. “Maybe someone will offer me a ride.”

  Maude was not a stupid girl, but for the first time I wondered if she could make it to Independence without me. “You said it yourself, Maude, you're going west, where Reverend Peasley didn't think Uncle Arlen stood chance enough to make it ninety miles.”

  Maude rattled off a variety of arguments, each one weaker than the one before. “If you stay, Sallie, you'll be fine here. Losing the house is no bother to you. And the Peasleys will keep you. They'll practically have to.”

  “Maude, take me with you. I don't want to stay here.”

  “I don't even have a plan,” Maude said on a low, plaintive note.

  “Let me do the planning,” I said to her as I reached for the candle.

  Which is how we came to be standing in the barn when the moon was high, our carpetbags once more filled to bursting. But this time we'd left our dresses behind. My high-top boots too.

  Moving silently through the darkness in my nightgown, I'd raided the collection for the poor, hunting up some boys' clothes. Maude and I were outfitted in rough pants, flannel shirts, and lined jackets. We had a change of clothing, should we need it, and even some long underwear—they had holes but I knew I had washed them thoroughly.

  I had put on a pair of lace-up boots, the kind farm boys wore. And I'd made a real find of an old pair of riding boots with hard, pointy toes. The leather hadn't cracked open anywhere, and they looked likely to fit Maude.

  I tried for felt hats, the kind with a brim like a shed roof, which I knew was a necessary. There were only two, one more battered than the other, but both of them fell so low as to cover the tip of my nose. I figured one of them might work out for Maude. We had cold-weather gear, if we didn't mind holes in the fingertips of our gloves, and if we could bear the scratchiness of scarves that were given away because they'd shrunk to pure ugliness.

  While I was busy, Maude had rolled up the quilts and blankets we had brought with us from home and tied them with whatever she could find, from bootlaces to the curtain ties. I didn't mention the quilts we had to leave behind, and neither did Maude. As we dressed, I said, “We have to cut our hair, so we'll look like boys.”

  Maude wouldn't allow it until I reminded her that she'd told me it wasn't safe for girls. “We won't look like girls,” I told her and, making good use of Aunt Ruthie's scissors, hacked my own hair off first.

  Maude proved to be more talented in this direction. She smoothed out my edges just right and showed me how to do hers. While I cut her hair, Maude said, “It's good we have such deep voices.”

  I didn't reply. Such careful work demanded that I keep my tongue clenched between my teeth.

  “You can't remember Momma's singing voice,” Maude said wistfully. “So clear and high. It always saddened me that neither of us got it.”

  “Deep voices are what we need now.” This was a great deal to say, and it caused me to make a poor cut. But it was at the back, and Maude wouldn't see it.

  “There, you're done,” I said, and shrugged my shoulders to ease a crick in my neck.

  Maude insisted on sweeping the hair into a sack and shoving it under the mattress, in hopes that no one would guess how different we might look. Once the Peasley household was cleared of us, it would be some time before anyone looked under a mattress.

  She put our twenty-eight dollars into her pants pocket. “You don't mind if I carry all of it, do you?” Maude asked me, maybe because I was watching. “Half of it is rightfully yours.”

  “Fine by me,” I said, because she had not raised a stink about making space for my dimers. I couldn't take them all, but I took the seven newer ones that Mr. Wilburn had given me, and three old favorites.

  Next we looked through the larder. We emptied burlap sacks of potatoes and rutabaga and filled them with a side of bacon, the makings for flapjacks, oatmeal, two dressed-out chickens, a salted ham, and two loaves of Maude's bread before Maude got anxious. I had to find a minute when she wasn't looking to cut off a wedge of cheese. This led to wanting an apple pie.

  I couldn't figure out how I'd carry the pie until it struck me to set two of them top to top and wrap them up tight in a tablecloth. They might not be pretty when we ate them, but I could shove them into the potato sack that way and expect they wouldn't spill all over.

  The eggs were the biggest challenge. There were more than a dozen set aside for the next day's use. I finally settled on wrapping them in mismatched socks from the poor collection. I didn't feel bad about taking the food. Most of the eggs came from our chickens. It could be argued that what little food we took with us probably came from Aunt Ruthie's pantry.

  The more I packed, and the more I thought about it, the better I could understand Uncle Arlen starting off without enough to take him where he was going. He'd have needed a wagon to carry enough food to get to Independence.

  Maude balked at the horses too.

  We had to be long gone before anybody was up and around. There was no time to be nice about this. I pointed at the tied-up potato sacks and our carpetbags. “Who did you think was going to carry all this?” I asked her, mean with impatience.

  I tossed around the bedrolls and gave them a few kicks. “I should have known better than to take you with me,” I said, as if the whole idea had been my own. “You've always been a careful type, Maude, no gumption in you at all.”

  Maude and the milk cow wore the same indifferent expressions; I could see I was making no progress with bullying Maude. I settled down and spoke more quietly. It was the only way to get anywhere with her.

  “I figure we're owed the buggy pony and the plow horse,” I told her. “The one is gassy and the other is so old it would have died soon anyway of overwork. Aunt Ruthie's cow is worth more than the two of them put together.”

  This was only too true. I'd have happily ridden our cow if she could be counted on to run when I dug my heels in. She could be counted on in every other way that mattered, but she wasn't built to run.

  I glanced over and noticed the buggy pony was blanketed. Reverend Peasley called her Goldie. A pretty name for a pretty horse, if you didn't get downwind of her. He came out here himself every day to curry and comb that shiny black hide to beat the drum. It was plain to see who was the favorite in this barn.

  “Besides, the congregation will help him get another horse to get around with,” I said. His new horse might not be such a looker as Goldie, but I figured it would get him where he needed to go.

  “You can't know they'll replace his horse,” Maude said. Her opinion of the congregation had slid some downward.

  “The ladies will feel guilty about talking behind her back when Mrs. Peasley starts buying bread again.”

  “They hang horse thieves, Sallie,” Maude whispered, like maybe God would hear.

  “They hang them when they catch them,” I said.

  Maude looked at my ruined head, then touched her own brush of hair. We'd come too far to turn back now, even she could see that. “Let's hurry up, then.”

  “You better ride old Flora,” I told her, thinking Goldie might be skittish. I figured if one of us was to get thrown, I weighed less and wouldn't fall so hard.

  I threw the mule saddle over the plow horse. It wasn't a true saddle but a set of four canvas saddlebags. Maude could slide her legs between the bags forward and the ones back. We put the flour and meal in there and all else we couldn't let get wetted down. The rest of it we tied down with thick, hairy twine that pricked our fingers but was plentiful enough in the barn.

  With each additional bit of weight, I kept worrying that Flora would balk. Flora didn't budge, not even when Maude boarded her. Then I had to worry would she move at all.

  I draped a lead rope over Goldie's head, and got her halter on her, then the bridle, and soon got her to take the bit in her mouth, sweet-talking her the whole time. “You're riding bareback?” Maude asked in
astonishment as I coaxed Goldie closer to the stall fencing.

  I didn't see another saddle anywhere, and I figured there was a good reason for that. I said, “This buggy pony is used to pulling, not carrying. She won't tolerate it.” To tell the strictest truth, I wasn't yet sure Goldie would tolerate me.

  I stood on a rail, got a grip on her mane, and threw a leg over.

  There were a few dicey moments when she circled and circled in the same spot. I was just about to give up on her, hoping the old plow horse could stand to carry double. Then she settled down with a suddenness that took me by surprise. It was like Goldie said to herself, this is different, but it ain't worse. And she took the lead moving out of the barn. That horse did like to be in front.

  “Close the barn door?” Maude whispered to me.

  “Never mind,” I said. “They're going to know we're gone the minute they wake up and wonder why you didn't get downstairs to start the coffee and biscuits.”

  I WISHED WE COULD HAVE JUST STRUCK OUT FOR THE countryside when we left the Peasleys' barn. At the rate we were going, we wouldn't be properly on our way till morning light was coming on.

  I hated like the dickens to ride through town. But we had to stop at our house for some things we couldn't rightly take from the Peasleys. We took a shortcut, easing our way between buildings and through backyards whenever we could be sure there were no dogs about.

  We had one near misfortune. Goldie had no sooner set her foot into the open road than we heard another rider making his way by moonlight. But he was in a sight more of a hurry than we were, and he galloped past us none the wiser, as our horses stood in shadow. Just as well, because even boys would have to answer for riding out of town in the middle of the night with horses that didn't properly belong to them.

  The one good thing I learned, as that rider came at us like a howler wind and disappeared nearly that fast again, Goldie wasn't nervous. She stood her ground. Maude's horse was equally well behaved, but in the plow horse's case, this was no surprise.

  “I'm never going in there again,” Maude said when we reached the house. “I'll watch the horses.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, and went in through the back door. We'd left it unlocked the last time we were here and so, apparently, had the reverend.

  I took a pot for oatmeal and a frying pan, table forks and teaspoons, a long-handled spoon, and a flat turner. I took every good strong kitchen knife we had. I took the ladle from the drinking-water bucket, and after a moment's thought, took the bucket. I padded everything with dishtowels and a tablecloth that must've been too worn to catch Mrs. Peasley's notice. We wouldn't clatter like a peddler as we rode away from town.

  I took the medical kit Aunt Ruthie kept in the pantry. This last wasn't planning. The shelves were so bare I couldn't miss it. The reverend had picked up nearly every useful item that would have been there, save two poor candles. I took the coffee pot. I didn't care for coffee, but at that moment I was in the mood to claim that pot.

  The picnic basket already held a set of tin plates and forks. I packed it tight with as many of the small items as I thought we could use. The can opener and a potholder were chief among those.

  I tried to see the shelves filled again in my mind's eye, to reach for whatever might have been found. A minute of hard thinking sent me after one of the paper parcels Aunt Ruthie had been carrying when she was shot. Inside it were two lengths of clothesline and a box of white-tipped matches.

  I took the rifle and the shotgun that mostly Aunt Ruthie had used. She had turned into a fine shot with the rifle, mainly because she hated picking shotgun pellets out of her game. She taught Maude, and Maude was supposed to teach me.

  But Maude hated shooting at anything with legs, and she couldn't tolerate skinning in the least. Shooting lessons tended to turn into fishing trips, if we were expected to bring home something for dinner.

  So I could load a gun, and I could shoot it, but I couldn't hit much other than the side of a barn. I hoped we weren't going to need the rifles for anything more than popping a rabbit. I hoped Maude could still pop a rabbit. I hoped I could skin it. Or we were going to get mighty hungry when the food ran out.

  I remembered the packet of envelopes in Aunt Ruthie's desk. I didn't have enough light to find out whether the letters were a worthwhile thing to have, but I slipped them down the inside of a sack. I figured if Uncle Arlen turned out to be a dead end, we might at least find ourselves a place with an old friend of Aunt Ruthie's we hadn't known about.

  Then I searched for the one piece of equipment I didn't believe we could do without. I found the pocket compass Aunt Ruthie once told me belonged to my father. I remembered exactly what she said: “The man had a terrible sense of direction. He could get lost on a trip to the outhouse.”

  The sad truth was, I didn't do a whole lot better. I'd read about watching the sun to figure out direction. I had tried to do it when we rode out into the countryside for picnics and such. But it seemed to me the sun had two places to be, on the horizon or high in the sky. Now our lives depended on being able to strike a true path west.

  I had already written myself into a dimer in my mind, even to the point of seeing my face painted on the cover. It was a story of being lost in the wilderness, a story of courage and wits tested against the brute force of nature. And it would be me, Sallie March, Range Rider, who knew the way.

  I dropped the compass into my pocket. I still had a case of tetchiness over the matter of taking the horses and had no intention of letting Maude see that I needed help to find the way. Just as I was fixing to leave, I remembered something more. I dashed back to the parlor and stuffed my pockets with the peppermint candies Aunt Ruthie kept for a little treat now and then.

  I didn't blame Maude for staying on her horse. There was something sad and final about raiding the house. It angered me to see how much of it had been emptied by the reverend with less good reason. I left the house filled with fresh resolve.

  Goldie went through the circling thing again, now fighting the notion of carrying a bucket and a picnic basket tied together at the handles and hung over her back. She didn't care, either, for the weight of a couple of loaded potato sacks. It took a little longer but she eased into the idea again. We were begun.

  Maude fell behind once in a while, because Flora liked a slower pace. But Goldie cured her of that, passing wind the way she would every half hour or so. Flora would get a whiff and pull ahead right smartly, holding her speed for maybe twenty minutes or so—till she forgot why it was she was taxing herself that way.

  I had never felt so lonely as I did during those first few hours of darkness on our stolen horses. Even with Maude right there next to me, I felt like we'd left all the rest of humanity behind. I wondered how Wild Woolly stood it, lost out there in the Yukon.

  THE PINK STREAK THAT OPENED THE SKY TO MORNING was never so welcome a sight.

  Once I could see her in daylight, Maude looked very fine as a boy. Her thin frame and flat chest had looked a little unfinished for a girl. “If I look half as convincing as you do,” I said, “no one will take us for girls.”

  Maude narrowed her eyes at me. If looks could raise hives, I'd've been itching for days.

  “I'm only saying, we'll be able to pass,” I told her, but she was not in a forgiving mood.

  “Are we going west?” Maude asked grumpily. Probably she believed I'd gotten us lost already.

  “I'm trying to stay away from the wagon roads, just in case. But we're headed in the right direction.”

  “They might not have looked for us at all if we hadn't stolen these horses,” Maude said. If Maude's heart was honest and true, she made it a point to be kind and good, but she could be sullen too. Sullen was the mood for the day.

  “If we didn't have these horses to ride, they wouldn't have had to look for us. They'd have found us stranded at the Peasleys' gate with all we're carrying.”

  “And whose idea was all this stuff?”

  “Mine,” I said, and I
was proud of it. “We have enough to eat for maybe a week if we stretch it. We may get hungry sometimes, but we have rifles to pop a rabbit and matches to light a fire and blankets against the cold, hard ground.”

  I could have gone on and told her that leaving on such short notice hadn't been my idea, but I thought better of it. Maude wasn't the sort to trifle with when she thought she was in the right, and I had to be satisfied with getting in the last word, even if it wasn't the only word. We rode that first day mostly in silence, probably because we were tired.

  Sure enough I was tired. We hadn't stopped for more than minutes at a time, and throughout the day our legs grew stiff from sitting the horses. And still we rode. We didn't push the horses hard for speed, but for distance.

  “How long do you think this trip will take, Maude?” “Reverend Peasley said at least three hundred miles to Independence. So let's say we make a hundred miles a week. Does that sound about right?”

  I tried to remember anything I'd ever read about making distance on a horse. Nothing came to mind. I thought of Wild Woolly's frozen beard. But I was warm enough so far, so I put on a confident face and said, “I believe we can do it.”

  Around noon, Maude tore a dishtowel in half to fashion bandannas for our faces, which were already burned red from the wind. The felt hats both fit Maude but were too large for me. A few hours later, I consented to wearing the worst one and peering at the land through a hole where the brim had torn away from the top.

  We were of one mind on the subject of short hair: Boys have it good.

  Even if we had tied it back, pieces of long hair would have come loose and whipped our faces and stung our eyes. This way, we wouldn't even have to brush it.

  Except, of course, that Maude said we did have to. “You can't go around looking like you're wearing a bird's nest, even if I am the only person who sees you.”

  Our one piece of luck was to find a spring where the water ran fast and clean. There was plenty of graze for the horses. We stopped there for our meal, saying a grateful prayer for the cheese and the bread.