Power in the Blood

PART ONE

THE BREAD OF WICKEDNESS

1

It was Zoe who found their mother dead. The boys were still asleep, wrapped in blankets in their corner of the room. Zoe slept alongside her mother in the only bed, and the first light of morning told her Nettie Dugan was dead. She was already cold, so it had happened in the night.

Zoe didn’t want to touch her mother again after that first hesitant poke, just a fingertip against the sharp cheekbone; her finger had jerked away as if burned. Mama’s eyes were open, her bluish lips slightly parted, the familiar gaps of missing teeth visible. It was almost a smile. Zoe hadn’t been so close to death since she’d seen an old man fall down directly in front of her on Union Street last winter, so near to her a coin in his hand had rolled and hit her shoe. She’d picked up the coin before anyone else saw it, and hurried away. Only a nickel, but it was hers. Zoe had considered spending it solely on herself, then reconsidered and presented it to Nettie, who told her she was the goodest girl there ever was.

Drew was stirring. The youngest, he usually woke first. Zoe was three years older, and Clayton was three years older than her, plus a month. Despite this, Zoe knew she was the one in charge whenever Nettie got sick, no matter how Clay might insist he was the boss. Now that Nettie was gone, who would be the leader? It worried Zoe almost as much as her mother’s passing.

Zoe sat up and beckoned Drew over. He slid from beneath the blanket covering himself and Clay and approached the bed, squinting the way he always did when he first got up. The squint pulled his round face into a smile that indicated nothing more than semi-wakefulness. He was already clutching the tip of his penis under the grimy shirt he wore day and night; Drew always needed to pee immediately on rising. He pulled the pot from beneath Zoe’s side of the bed and deposited more urine in it. Today was Clay’s turn to empty it. Zoe assumed her mother’s death wouldn’t change that.

She’s dead …, Zoe whispered.

Huh?

Mama died. Look at her if you don’t believe me.

Drew lowered his shirt and walked around to the bed’s far side. He stared at his mother for some time. No she’s not, he said.

She is, because there’s no breathing. Touch her, I dare you.

Drew’s fingers reached, felt the cold skin and were pulled back. Zoe saw with satisfaction that he believed her now.

Why did she die? Drew asked.

She was sick, Zoe reminded him, and she must’ve gotten sicker, so she died.

The squinting smile on Drew’s face grew inappropriately broader. Zoe knew this meant he was close to tears; everything about Drew was backward, but he was only seven after all. Make her come back, he whispered.

"I can’t, stupid. She’s dead."

Sure enough, tears began rolling down Drew’s face. He was beyond speech, beyond understanding. Zoe felt more sorry for him than for Mama; at least Mama would have understood the fact of her dying, the irreversible nature of it. Drew’s tears were contagious, though, so she found herself crying too, and their combined sobbing finally woke Clay.

Scowling, he came to the bed. What? he said, conveying in one word his authority and annoyance. He appeared not to notice Nettie’s unnatural stillness at all. His sister and brother, now that Clay was awake, allowed themselves to howl unashamedly, irritating him further. What! he demanded. Zoe’s glance at their mother made him look closer at the head on the pillow, and then he knew.

The effort required to keep from crying himself made Clay feel sick. He’d been expecting this thing, this death; Nettie had warned him of its approach and drilled him on what to do when it happened. Clay knew he had to tell Mrs. Smalley down the hall, and that is what he did.

Having been deserted by her own husband, Mrs. Smalley regarded herself and Nettie Dugan as sisters in suffering. They had worked in the same mill for several years, then Mr. Smalley had died and left his wife a small insurance policy, which enabled her to stop working and ease the pain in her failing legs. Nettie had continued at the mill until she became sick.

The death was not unexpected, and Mrs. Smalley resolved to waste no time in unproductive mourning but to concentrate on the problem of burial, and the greater issue of what to do with Nettie’s children.

She could not take them into her own room, not with her drunkard son and his wife there, so she told Clayton to keep his brother and sister inside their mother’s room while she arranged a five-dollar funeral through Schenectady’s lowliest church.

That took two days. She escorted the children to the graveyard and stood behind them as Nettie was lowered into the earth. Heart failure, the death certificate asserted, but Mrs. Smalley knew it was sorrow over no money and no man that had done it. The cheap wooden marker would last no more than a few years, and they’d likely bury some other pauper on top of her then. But that was of less concern than it might have been, for Mrs. Smalley was a planner by inclination, and although her planning had borne no fruit within her own family, she was determined that her talent for organization should benefit the three souls Nettie Dugan had left behind. If all went as intended, the children would be far away before the mound had settled on their mother’s grave.

In answer to prompt inquiries launched by Mrs. Smalley, she was informed by a letter from the Children’s Aid Society in New York City that places had been found for Clayton, Zoe and Drew on the next orphan train, scheduled to depart Albany for points west on May 19. The children would have less than a week to prepare themselves for something Mrs. Smalley convinced them would be an adventure, the answer to their need for family and a place in the sun.

They’ll be children such as yourselves, she assured them, "and with unhappiness the same as you’ve known just recent, or maybe worse. There’s some of ’em been running around in the big town without a mother or father for years, and now you’ll all be taken together to the west, where there’s folks as have had their children took from ’em by sickness, like you’ve had your ma took the same way.

They’re wanting new children in Ohio and Illinois, so you’ll be appreciated by folks out there. You’re the lucky ones, you should know, getting a chance like this to start over, and all because my cousin’s married to a good man on the railroad as knows about these things. A prayer answered is what it is, so now we’ll bow our heads and give thanks for God’s mercy on us all.

Clay was not ungrateful for Mrs. Smalley’s help. He knew that in the west everyone rode a horse and carried a gun to shoot wolves and Indians and buffalo. That sounded all right to Clay; he just hoped the places Mrs. Smalley mentioned were far enough west. It would suit Drew as well, and they would find someone to marry Zoe so she could be happy too. Her husband would stand by Zoe and be good to her. That was definite. Clay wasn’t going to let his sister suffer as his mother had. Zoe’s husband wouldn’t run off and leave her the way Mama’s had done, or Clay would go after him and kill him. He’d be sure and make that point before the wedding ceremony, just so everyone knew how matters stood.

Drew appeared content to believe Clay’s promises, but Zoe demurred; as usual, Clay was running things to please himself. Zoe was troubled by an apparent lack of sadness among all three children since the burial. Somehow they seemed to have put Mama behind them too soon. Zoe herself was guilty of this, yet she knew she had loved their mother. The boys’ talk of ponies and pistols was annoying, and so she was not disposed to reward Clay for his self-serving plans by appearing interested, or even anxious to be away from Schenectady, a place she’d despised all her short life. In the days remaining until they entrained for the west, Zoe kept herself to herself, and was dismayed that the boys accepted her aloofness without comment.

Mrs. Smalley organized the hiring of a cart to take them to the station at Albany, and stood with them on the platform. An hour before noon, an unruly herd of children, at least fifty of them, crowded into the station. They had marched in ragged file from the riverfront, having been brought up the Hudson from New York City by overnight steamer. In charge were a rather stern young woman and a one-armed man who, despite this disadvantage, carried a large wicker basket on his back.

Mrs. Smalley had been expecting fewer children under broader adult supervision. She introduced herself and her charges to the custodians, who in turn gave their name as Canby, Mr. and Mrs. Then it was time for stilted good-byes.

These nice people will take care of you till you find a home. You be sure and heed them, and be good always, promise me now.

Yes, said Zoe.

The boys simply nodded, their attention on the newcomers flocking around. Clay was already testing with his eyes the resolution of anyone who cared to match his gaze. He liked the idea of being top dog of this so-called orphan train, even though it was obvious from all the grown-up passengers milling around that orphans would constitute only a small portion of the payload.

Tall for his age, Clay was disappointed to note at least a half dozen boys older and bigger than himself; he hadn’t thought there might be such things as orphans over the age of thirteen, and felt a fool for it. The trip was not shaping up as he’d anticipated, so he scowled and said as little as possible to Mrs. Smalley, wishing he could blame her somehow for his displeasure. While she lectured on good behavior and obedience, he stared at the soot-encrusted walls round about, allowing her voice to be drowned by the station’s din.

Clay had heard that in the west there was no soot, at least not enough to accumulate on streets and buildings. A clean place, he told himself; new and clean. He had heard that less than two weeks ago the nation was linked by a continuous set of rails built simultaneously from east and west; they had met and been joined by a golden spike somewhere in Utah Territory. What was to prevent the Dugans from riding all the way to the Pacific? he asked himself. All they had to do was refuse the entreaties of anyone wishing to adopt them along the way. It would be easy.

The orphans had a car entirely to themselves, the oldest and least comfortable available, the seats little more than narrow wooden benches set close together. The most seats for the littlest money, Drew heard the man with one arm say, but the man didn’t sound pleased that they had the most seats.

Leading the first wave of boarders, Clay shoved Zoe and Drew against a window and sat beside them. That boy! Mrs. Canby cried, pointing at him. There will be no pushing and shoving, do you hear! Clay loathed her instantly. There is room for all! she called over her shoulder. Once seated, remain there, all of you! We will not hold up departure of this train through rowdiness!

Several boys who had sneaked away to admire the snorting locomotive were rounded up by railroad staff and brought to the car for inclusion among the swarm already aboard.

Settle down! roared Mr. Canby, and the effect was immediate; all unnecessary movement among the seats was stilled. Clay admired the man’s ability to control so many with just his voice.

Despite relative calm inside the car and a full complement of orphans, the train did not leave for a further twenty minutes. Zoe, crammed against a window, could see Mrs. Smalley on the platform, clearly unwilling to call a halt to duty until the train was gone. Zoe remained invisible behind the grimy pane. She pointed out Mrs. Smalley to Drew, but he was more interested in a knee-bumping contest with the boy seated opposite him.

Clay refused to look out the window; Schenectady already belonged to the past. He stared at the back of Mrs. Canby’s tightly bunned and bonneted head further down the cramped aisle and willed the train to begin moving. When finally the whistle blew and the cars lurched forward in a rattle of couplings, he found he’d been holding his breath.

Within a very few minutes, the station and Mrs. Smalley, the edge of the town itself, all were gone, left behind. Clay resolved to remember his life up until this moment only in the broadest terms. There had been too much unhappiness in that place receding behind the red caboose, too much hunger and desperation, too little laughter. When he recalled their lives in Schenectady without sentiment, he saw there had been no real hope for them at all.

2

During the day and night it took to leave New York State and enter Pennsylvania, Zoe learned that Mrs. Canby was without humor or warmth, and seemed in fact not to like children. She had made sure the newcomers knew her rules soon after the train left Albany. Remain seated at all times. Hold up your hand if you require attention. Do not leave the car without permission. Do not make unnecessary noise or create disturbances among your fellow travelers.

Her husband, the one-armed man, was more approachable. He would tell anyone who asked him how his arm was lost at Shiloh. Zoe had heard the story several times already. Mr. Canby didn’t change so much as a word of it each time, so it must be true. The part about the rebel ball that shattered the bone was interesting, but best of all was his description of the hospital tent, with arms and legs stacked outside.

And then the surgeon picked up the saw, said Mr. Canby, and he started in on me with just a stick between my teeth and not even a shot of good whiskey inside me for the pain of it, and he didn’t quit sawing till that arm was off and the flapping piece of flesh they left all nicely tucked and stitched over it. Then came the hot pitch—slapped on the stump like a mud pie it was—and didn’t I howl, you bet I did, howled like a pup. But you know what the strange part was? Everyone did by then, but his audience leaned forward anyway. I still felt the arm, Mr. Canby said in hushed tones, felt it joined to my shoulder, just like the other one, with the fingers wriggling all alive still, even if the whole thing was gone. A phantom arm … It never failed to produce an intake of breath.

Drew was fascinated by the openness of the countryside. During the hours of daylight he stared through the window at an endless series of neat farms and tiny hill towns. Sometimes the train would stop to let passengers off from the other cars, and new passengers would step aboard to be drawn westward through the long afternoon and evening.

He talked occasionally with the boy seated opposite him, Kerwin (who pronounced it Care-win), but found conversation difficult because of Kerwin’s peculiar big-city accent. Eeeehh, fuck yez, Kerwin eventually said, when it became clear he was not understood, so Drew returned to watching the world roll effortlessly by.

He’d been unprepared for so many trees, so great an expanse of sky, and they’d only just started. Clay said everyone would be on the train for days, getting west. It was a shame Mama couldn’t be there to enjoy the newness of it all with them. Mama would have sat with the bonnet lady and talked with her like she’d always sat and talked with Mrs. Smalley back home, back in that place none of them would ever see again; even Mama, who’d stayed there, would never see it again. Drew wept silently, then fell asleep, and woke up to find still more countryside sliding by, late afternoon sunlight lengthening the shadows of the trees. He was terribly hungry.

At sundown the orphan car was detached from the train for transfer to a string of boxcars behind another locomotive, which would continue hauling westward through the night. While the car was switched onto a siding, the children were ordered to stand in an orderly fashion along the station platform to receive their first food since breakfast. Mr. Canby opened the wicker basket he’d wrestled with literal single-handedness from the car, and his wife dispensed a meal of bread generously spread with lard. This was followed by two dried apricots for each child. It became clear the basket was not intended to feed so many for very long.

What’s needed here, said Mr. Canby with a grin, is a miracle of the loaves and fishes, maybe. Mrs. Canby frowned darkly, and he stopped grinning.

The new train having been shunted onto the main line, the orphans’ journey resumed. Reinvigorated by food, they could not fall asleep as ordered by Mrs. Canby. The distraction of a passing landscape no longer available to them, the children found renewed interest in one another, and the car soon was filled with a continuous babble of young voices raised to their highest pitch to overcome the grumble and clatter of rolling wheels and the more immediate din of their neighbors.

Cease! cried Mrs. Canby. You must be quiet!

Zoe wished it were possible to change seats temporarily, just so she could talk to some of the other girls, or even some of the boys. It was wearisome to be forever in the same place, looking at the same faces arranged opposite her, not one of which she liked. It had been interesting at first to listen as Kerwin held whispered swearing contests with the boy beside him, an Irish youth named McIlwray, who could not, despite coaching from Kerwin, learn how to pronounce fuck correctly. It became a laughing matter in the immediate vicinity of the swearers, and McIlwray grew irritated. Fock yew, he said with genuine feeling, and Kerwin responded in kind.

But that sport had become boring through repetition, and Zoe chafed at her immobility. Occasional rearrangements of seating were made by Mrs. Canby, usually to terminate cases of harassment, verbal or otherwise, conducted by boys against girls. Mrs. Canby even threatened to separate the sexes, girls on one side of the aisle, boys on the other, if such despicable behavior did not cease upon the instant. The threat was not carried out, to Zoe’s relief. For all that she wanted to sample friendship throughout the car, she would have felt lost without her brothers on either side. Mr. Canby slept throughout the worst of this crisis, his snores the object of much stifled giggling.

Migration among seats being forbidden, the one place anyone could visit, after raising a hand, was the crude privy built onto the car’s rear platform. In daylight it had been exciting to watch the crossties flashing past under the hole in the plank; it caused a delicious shiver to imagine oneself falling through, to be cut in half by the wheels. After nightfall some of the girls preferred using the privy in twos, comforting each other beneath the inadequate light of a swaying oil lamp while they relieved themselves onto a roadbed made invisible by darkness.

Sleep was difficult on the unyielding benches. The children sat as they had throughout the day, the next shoulder along providing a bony pillow as the night lengthened. Girls used each other’s soft laps, but the boys were denied this comfort, with the instinctive rejection of physical closeness among their kind. Drew was just young enough to avail himself of Zoe’s thighs without embarrassment. Zoe in turn leaned against sturdy Clay, upright as ever despite his closed eyes, behind which he slipped in and out of dreams that showed him Mama beckoning him further west, further west, until he came to a place where the sun lay like a molten ball of gold, a brilliant puddle on a desolate plain, and Mama was nowhere to be seen. Waking, he allowed himself a brief moment awash with tears that went unobserved in the dim car, now quiet as it swayed along rails into the Pennsylvanian night.

Breakfast came from the same wicker basket: bread and chicken fat, plus two dried apricots apiece. Mr. Canby, a large man despite his incompleteness, was seen to stare at his portion for some time before eating it, his expression doleful. Lunch saw no change other than the Canbys’ having to reach deeper into the basket. Mealtimes had already become less rowdy, almost sullen occasions.

In the evening, when the train reached Pittsburgh, there was a treat for all—dinner in the station restaurant. The menu was lengthy, but everyone had soup, Mrs. Canby having protested at the exorbitant price of every meat dish. Mr. Canby spooned soup under his mustache, his face darkened by unknown forces within. Glaring at his emptied bowl, he insisted there be a dessert. Over his wife’s objections, he ordered pie, and then pie again, not one belly having truly been filled. Mrs. Canby refused to look in his direction as they herded their charges back to the car, now hitched onto yet another train. The benches seemed less uncomfortable, an advantage of repletion, which Mr. Canby referred to as intestinal fulfillment, like a live human’s supposed to feel at least once every twenty-four hours for good health.

The morning of the third day revealed Ohio, and now there was real excitement in the car. This was the first state in which it was possible to be selected for adoption. Orphans wondered, silently or aloud, at their chances. Clay was scornful; he told Zoe and Drew they had to hold out for more westerly regions. Ohio’s just not far enough, he said.

In the afternoon it happened. The car was detached from the train and shunted onto a siding at the edge of a sizable town. A council representative approached smilingly to speak with the Canbys and suggested bringing all orphans to the town hall, where a crowd had already gathered in anticipation.

The Children’s Aid Society was in its fifteenth year of good work, having begun in 1854, and a larger than usual turnout of prospective foster parents had assembled to survey the spring crop of adoptees. A diphtheria epidemic of unprecedented virulence the previous winter had sharpened interest in the children.

Plenty of families lost their little ones just recent, the councilman whispered, keeping his voice from the straggling line of painfully hushed orphans following behind. These here’ll be snapped up in double-quick time, I guarantee. Folks have come in from a hundred miles around, farmers mostly. They’ll be eager for the younguns, all right.

Inside the town hall, arranged on a long bench covered by cloth, without a single chair to impede access, a feast was waiting—a communal celebration of the orphans’ arrival. Anxious adult faces were everywhere, yet these were thrust into the background by the endless table of food, real food, present in variety and abundance. There were cold meats and cakes; fresh bread and pies; an assortment of dried fruit, notably apricots (these would be ignored); jars of preserves with their melted paraffin seals dug out; butter molded into rough blocks of tantalizing yellow; crocks of milk still smelling of the udder. Not a feast—a banquet.

Fall to and take your share, commanded the councilman, and not an orphan hesitated. Surrounded by questing eyes and subtly pointing fingers, they attacked the fruits of central Ohio and set about gorging themselves. The councilman, a student of human nature, gently pushed the Canbys toward the food. Have at it, one and all, he urged.

Mr. Canby held back several seconds more for propriety’s sake, then joined in under the guise of supervisor. You, boy! Take less of a handful than that! Manners! One mouthful at a time there, laddie. Don’t be eating too fast now, or the cramps’ll follow … No need to shove! Plenty for everyone! Pass me a slice of that ham, missie … thank you kindly.

His wife resisted in agonized decorum for several minutes more, then slid among the tempting array, sampling here, ingesting there, all dignity set aside in pursuit of sustenance. This was her third trip west with orphans, and the Society, despite its fifteen years’ experience, still had not properly victualed the party, obliging Mr. Canby and herself to abandon decency before an audience of strangers. It was an unforgivable oversight, and she was determined, as prune pie overwhelmed her soul, to insist on adequate provender should she and Mr. Canby be selected for a fourth sojourn. Next time it would be different, or she would know the reason why.

Bellies filled, the children became aware of the scrutiny that had attended their meal. As the last of the food disappeared, self-consciousness took hold, and they began studying the ground. Some of the older boys glared at the surrounding faces, daring them, whether to select or ignore them the boys themselves could not have said. The business of the day was at hand, and everyone inside the town hall knew it.

The process had no formal beginning; men and their wives simply began moving among the orphans, as wary of what needed to be done as were the children they sought.

Often the topic of introduction was the food that had been consumed during the time of silent appraisal that now was ended. That peach cobbler, my missus made it. You kin have more, you come home with us. Be good to you. Lost our own girl, and we need another’n for the family. There’s a sister an’ two brothers for you to be with.

Or it might be a dare: You strong? Look purty strong to me. Got work for a strong back. Figure you’re up to that, boy? Welcome to climb in the wagon and come on home. Decent home. Christian.

Or cajolery: There’s a swing in the chinaberry tree. My husband here made it special for a special someone. Could that be you? I been wanting a nice little girl since ours got took. The Lord taketh. Did he bring you? I suspect he did. You think he might’ve done that, brung you to us? We’re Sullivanses, from around here. Biggest chinaberry tree in the county. Mr. Sullivan’s grampa, he planted it. Got the swing all set, and there’s dresses, real pretty dresses. You’ll grow into ’em right soon. What’s your name?

Or painfully casual: Plan on going further west, boy? It don’t get no better than around here, that’s a fact. That’s why they stopped here and give you a chance to stay. First choice is best choice, they say. Had my eye on you, me and my wife. She’s sayin’ she likes the look of you, and I won’t say no if that’s what you’d like, to come with us. You think about it and don’t rush or nothin’. We weren’t lookin’ at no one else, I’ll tell you. Whereabouts you from, son?

The answers came quickly, or not at all; a smile and nod were often enough for yes, a nervous sideways glance or lengthy boot-studying as good as no. There was little coercion, no real bribery other than the promise of good food and hand-me-down clothing kept like holy shrouds in the closets of the dead, awaiting resurrection. The smiles behind beards or hidden in the shadows of calico bonnets were genuine.

Sometimes an orphan didn’t know for sure if the people stooping down for an answer were indeed the right ones, but agreed to go with them through instinct, or a calculated loathing of the railroad car’s harsh benches. Some thought Ohio must be pretty far west already, so why go further? Deals were struck with a look, a wink and a smile, an awkward handshake between man and boy, the placing of a woman’s hand on some girl’s narrow shoulder.

Clay kept his family close by him, flanked himself with sister and brother. His knowledge of geography was scanty, but he knew Ohio was below Lake Erie, and that was nowhere near far enough west. He held Zoe and Drew beside himself and challenged them all, the farmers and townspeople in their Sunday best, with unmistakable sullenness.

Mr. Canby noted the look. There was one like this boy on every trip, resentful and proud and difficult, made that way by reasons Mr. Canby didn’t really want to know. He hadn’t informed himself of any orphan’s circumstances since the first trip, when the stories, told with matter-of-fact directness, had made him weep after dark. The boy holding on to his own was defying kindness, hedging against selection, building a wall with his eyes. Mr. Canby had seen it all before, and knew who the last orphan on the train would be; the fact was stamped right there on his young brow like the mark of Cain. But Mr. Canby said nothing, offered no advice, knowing this was not the time or place. He would talk with the boy later. Mr. Canby turned away, bit into the last pastry and licked the flyaway crumbs from his mustache.

They drifted by, those needy couples, and more than once cast interested eyes on the Dugans, but three mouths to feed were many, and above the purely practical considerations of investment in food and clothing and bed space there was the knowledge that three children linked by blood would never be wholly assimilated into a new family. No, they would have to be separated, one from another, to be made dependent upon their benefactors, especially the tall boy with the eyes that dared anyone to come closer and make an offer. No one did.

3

His wicker basket was replenished by the town, but Mr. Canby found his charges uninterested in food that night. Their car coupled onto the rear of a new train, the orphans found their number whittled by fully half; there was room for the remainder to sprawl as they wished. Ohio always got the most winsome; those less pleasing in appearance continued west.

The hundred or so miles after that first stop in Ohio passed quietly, as the unselected asked themselves why it was that they were still on board the train. Even if they had chosen to avoid adoption for some reason, they felt the implicit shame of having passed through that first sieve, the net that gently snared. They felt, with undeserved passion, that they were rejects of one kind or another.

Most, Mr. Canby knew, would brood over their feelings and submit to whoever invited them home at the very next stop. It would happen on this trip as it had happened before, and the sadness of it made him despair in ways he could never communicate to his wife, whose opinion was that orphans couldn’t afford to be choosy. Mr. Canby felt toward the leftovers the same kind of commiseration he used to feel for himself over the loss of his arm. It made no sense, but that was how he felt.

When Clay came out of the privy he found Mr. Canby smoking his pipe on the moonlit car platform. Behind them the rails formed a gleaming set of parallel lines receding into darkness and infinity. Nice night, offered Mr. Canby, before Clay could escape.

Yes.

Fresh air. Shame to cloud it like I do, but nicotine’s a powerful habit. Don’t you be taking it up.

All right, said Clay.

Did your sister and brother tell you how they feel?

No. Clay thought he meant how they felt about tobacco.

They disappointed about not getting picked back there?

Now Clay understood. No, he said.

In my experience, the chances of all three of you getting taken up by a family are pretty hopeless, but I guess you already thought of that. You can hold out forever like you did today, but we only go as far as Missouri, and not even all the way across. Sometimes we don’t even get that far, everyone getting picked before we get there. Don’t be hoping to hold off what has to come, boy. It won’t work. I’ve traveled this line before and seen the direction these things take. Sooner or later you’ll have to tell your brother and sister good-bye. I’m telling you as the oldest, and you need to be passing it on, so they’ll know and be prepared when the time comes. None of my business, you’re thinking, but it is. You think about it now, and tell them tomorrow.

Mr. Canby knocked out his pipe against the platform rail and went inside. Clay remained staring into the night, hating the friendly man who’d spoken the very thoughts that had filled him since the car resumed rolling. He stayed on the chilly platform until a girl came out to use the privy; she wouldn’t do so until Clay went away.

I don’t want to, said Drew.

He says we have to, Clay told him.

He can say it all he wants, Zoe stated, but he can’t make us do it.

Mr. Canby’s advice had been passed on next morning, and rejected.

Go tell him, Zoe said.

Clay didn’t want to but as the eldest, had little choice. He stood and moved along the car.

Mr. Canby, sir?

Yes?

Uh … we don’t want to. We decided.

You won’t split up?

Nossir.

You’re sure?

Clay nodded, not trusting his voice. He hadn’t gone against the wishes of an adult male since before his father left Schenectady, four years earlier. His defiance then had earned him a badly wrenched shoulder and lacerations from a heavy belt buckle. He couldn’t remember the exact nature of the offense, but its punishment was probably Clay’s most indelible memory.

I guess I can’t make you, said Mr. Canby. He knew someone who could.

Clay returned to his seat. I told him.

What did he say? Zoe asked.

He said he can’t make us if we don’t want to.

There, I told you! Zoe felt vindicated. We just have to stay together and someone will take all of us.

Clay wasn’t so sure anymore. Mr. Canby had experience in the orphan business, and if he said it wasn’t wise to stick together, it was probably true. Clay didn’t know if he liked Mr. Canby or not, but he didn’t think the man was a liar. It was disturbing to consider any option other than that which they wanted, terrifying to think they might have to.

He kept the fear to himself. Zoe and Drew had recovered their spirits immediately; it would be a shame to make them sad again by talking out loud. Clay made Drew surrender the window seat so he could stare at the countryside instead of at his sister and brother; that way he could pretend he was by himself, which would certainly have made life a lot simpler were it so.

Andrew?

Mrs. Canby was hovering over them in the aisle. She was smiling, a rare and unsettling sight. Andrew? she said again, revealing even more gray teeth.

We call him Drew, corrected Zoe.

Drew, then. Would you come with me, Drew?

Where? Drew asked. There was nowhere to go but the privy out on the platform, and his mama had quit taking him on trips of that kind a long time ago.

Just to share a seat with me, said Mrs. Canby. We’ll just be a minute, she told the other two.

Drew went with her.

She’ll try and change his mind, Zoe predicted.

Well, he won’t listen.

They craned their necks but could see and hear nothing of what transpired on the Canbys’ bench. Mr. Canby, curiously enough, had gone out to the platform, presumably to smoke his pipe. The fact that the man was prepared to walk away and leave the business of persuasion to his wife was shocking, so unexpected it unnerved Clay completely; he simply didn’t know what to make of it, and was not surprised when Drew returned in tears.

Zoe ignored his distress. Well? What happened?

When Drew could finally talk, he said, Mama’s watching from heaven, and we shouldn’t do what Clay says or she’ll be sad up there.… He wiped snot onto his already grievously soiled cuff and looked at Clay and Zoe for consolation, or acceptance, guidance of any kind.

Don’t you listen to what she says, Clay told him. She doesn’t know a goddamn thing, that lady.

She said … Drew wiped more snot onto himself. She said for you to go see her too, Zoe.

Well, I won’t! I don’t have to!

"She said. You’ll get in trouble."

She’ll only come and get you, advised Clay. Go and listen and nod your head, then she’ll leave us alone.

"I’m not going near her. I won’t."

She went anyway, and returned with a face like wood. The boys waited, but Zoe wouldn’t speak. Mr. Canby came back from the platform then, and Clay wondered how he’d known exactly when to do so. Probably he’d been watching through the rear door window, like a sneaking spy. Clay was suddenly bitter; the man had disappointed him badly, letting Mrs. Canby do what she’d done to Zoe and Drew.

There were forces conspiring to separate them, Clay saw it now, and in the deepest part of himself—the part that recognized truth without pressing it through the filter of emotion—he knew that the plans being made by the Canbys would succeed, and the Dugans’ defiant scheme would stand no chance, as Mr. Canby had foretold last night on the platform. Any hope of staying together had vanished right there, been borne away on the night wind. The Dugans were wishing wishes, dreaming dreams, but the physical world would tear these apart.

Staring out the window again, ignoring Zoe as a punishment for her silence, Clay drove all thought from his mind. To think, to use the brain, was an act that somehow had no effect on what was bound to happen. There existed an inner world, one without actual substance, and over it there towered the outer world, consisting of everything that was not Clay himself. Both places, the small and the large, seemed to exist independently of each other, but it was clear the physical world, the one you could touch and see and hear things in, was more powerful. People like the Canbys ran that place, and people like himself and Zoe and Drew were no match for them, probably because adults had been in the place too long, and knew exactly how it worked. Of course, Mama had been an adult, but it seemed she had never learned the secret of manipulating the real world to her advantage; maybe Mama had been flawed in some way. The helplessness of the young was cruel, unfair, but there was no getting around it, and Clay saw for the first time just why it was that orphans were the weakest of the weak: they had no grown-up person to protect them and steer them gradually into the real place where strength and power lay.

Clay realized he had experienced a revelation of a kind, but it didn’t make him feel any better. It was the lowly wisdom of the clam, the learning of rocks and stones that had been revealed, and he was not at all sure it should be valued.

Halfway across Indiana, in a river town, Zoe surrendered. She took Clay aside and told him, Someone has to be first. It can’t be Drew, he’s too young, and it won’t be you because you’re too stubborn, so it has to be me. That’s them over there, the ones next to the wagon. They seem like nice people. I have to go with them, or with someone. You and Drew have to as well. Remember the name of this place, and the place Drew gets picked in, because he’ll be next, and someday you have to come back for us.

You don’t have to go with them! You don’t.…

I do. Mrs. Canby said if we didn’t let ourselves get picked, we’d just be left in the middle of nowhere, and we’d starve right there.

She’s a liar! They wouldn’t do that. Mr. Canby wouldn’t let her.

She told me he would. We have to be made examples of, she said. I hate her. I want to get off the train. I can’t look at her anymore.

Clay felt his anger slide into despair. Zoe would do it, he could tell. He was no longer in charge, eldest or not. Zoe had done the thing that should have been up to Clay; she’d made a decision, a choice, and had proved herself stronger than him. He was ashamed.

They went to find Drew, who had drifted from Clay’s side. When he was found, Clay stood back and said nothing as his sister talked to and comforted and hugged the boy. Drew was still crying as Zoe announced her choice to the Canbys, then left the station yard with the man and woman who wanted her, perched between them on their high wagon seat.

Clay felt a humming inside his head. The main street of Wister’s Landing became leached of color and substance. Clay had to sit down on the plank sidewalk, from which position it was easy to hang his head and weep more tears than he had shed even for his mother.

Why’d she do it? Drew sobbed.

She told you, didn’t she? We all have to. There’s no other way—now quit making so much noise!

In Illinois Clay tried offering himself along with Drew in several towns, hoping against hope there was a significant difference between three and two, but there was not, and so he told Drew to stand away from him at the next town, and to come tell him if some people he liked the look of offered him a home. Drew didn’t want to, but Clay told him all over again why it had to be that way, and finally Drew agreed.

Separated from his brother at the next stop, Drew, with his look of disconsolation and loss, held such appeal he became surrounded within minutes. He came to Clay for approval of what he perceived as the nicest people. To Clay they were indistinguishable from the rest of the child-seekers he’d seen, but he told Drew he had chosen wisely, then went to inform Mr. Canby, having waited until his wife was elsewhere.

Good, said Mr. Canby, and strolled over to talk briefly with the couple.

Clay took Drew aside. Listen, he said, I’ll come back here as soon as I can to get you, then we’ll go back and fetch Zoe, too, and be together again, all right?

Drew nodded. It didn’t sound like anything that might really happen, but he appreciated Clay’s saying it. Then he began crying. Clay had to guide Drew over to the people he had selected.

He’s my brother, he explained.

We’ll look after him, said the woman.

Depend on it, her husband added.

Clay watched another wagon take a part of himself away.

Mr. Canby knew very well what Clayton Dugan was up to. The number of orphans had been reduced to seven, not enough to warrant the hiring of an entire car for themselves, so they occupied several seats along with regular passengers. Then six of those seven also found homes. One had been selected by a woman riding the train.

That left Clay, and Clay didn’t want to be chosen by anyone. He made that clear when they stopped at the first big town across the Missouri line. At least a dozen couples were on hand to claim the last orphan, but the boy was pretending he found them unacceptable. He refused them all, politely but pointedly, looking at the Canbys while he did it, letting them know his performance of rejection was for their benefit.

Mr. Canby didn’t like that at all, even found himself beginning to dislike the boy. He knew what Clay planned—a fruitless continuation of the journey west, just himself and the Canbys, and at every town he would find the people wanting him unsuitable. The Society couldn’t afford any wasteful extension of the trip, not so much as an extra mile beyond what was required.

The gathering of prospective foster parents was in confusion, each couple believing itself in competition with the rest for the boy in their midst. None of them found his murmured regrets convincing, and so thought he simply couldn’t make up his mind, probably because the poor lad was unused to being the center of attention.

Folks, Mr. Canby announced, holding up his arm, our young friend here is having a hard time picking out a ma and pa from among so many that’s suited for it, so I’ll just be talking to him for a minute alone, if you don’t mind. Thank you kindly, one and all.

He beckoned Clay to him. Now you listen, he said, his voice low. I’ll just say it once. I know your plan, and it won’t happen like you want it to, because I don’t aim to let it happen that way, see? You get back there among those good people and you pick someone, I don’t care who, it’s your choice, but you make it right quick or by God I’ll wring your scrawny neck. You understand me, boy?

Yes …

Go do what I said. I’ll be watching. I was you, I’d take the feller with the shaved face and his wife, she’s wearing blue. They look like righteous folk to me, but like I say, it’s up to you. Don’t be making fools of good people that’s suffered enough already from their loss. You’re no better than any of them here, and that’s a fact. Now go.

Clay wandered hopelessly back among the smiling faces. He’d intended making the Canbys take him still further west, then he’d jump from the train one night and make his own way to the Mississippi and get work on the riverboats. He knew now it wouldn’t happen. Mr. Canby had outsmarted him.

It seemed easiest, considering his inner turmoil, to take the advice of the man who had proved himself smarter, and go with the couple suggested. Their look of surprise and relief as he approached them was pitiful.

Clay gave them a lopsided grimace and was embraced.

4

He usually tried to surprise her in the barn, while she gathered eggs hidden there by the hens. The eggs were always in the same place, and so was Hassenplug. Got ’em all? he’d say, and Zoe would nod, the basket held between herself and her foster father. Both knew that broken eggs would be questioned by Mrs. Hassenplug, so the basket was Zoe’s only defense.

It had started when her breasts came. They were not particularly evident beneath her blouse, but they were there, and Hassenplug’s interest in her had escalated overnight, it seemed. First he’d pressed his hands over them in so casual a fashion Zoe thought it natural. They have to be kept warm to grow, he’d said, massaging the shallow mounds. This made sense to Zoe, who had often placed her own hands over her developing breasts in exactly the same way whenever they were sore, but Hassenplug’s smile alerted her to the incident’s unnatural overtones. After that first time, she backed away whenever his hands reached for her. It happened only when his wife was nowhere around; this made Zoe aware that her breasts (and presumably the monthly bleeding that had accompanied their arrival) had not only changed her, they had altered Hassenplug beyond all understanding.

As a farm girl, Zoe knew that male creatures were equipped with a rod of flesh for the penetration of female creatures, and the principle applied also to humans. Until now, she had assumed the difference between animals and people lay in the state of matrimony that existed only in the latter, but Hassenplug was married to Mrs. Hassenplug, not to Zoe, so why did he want her to lift her skirts for him every time she gathered eggs? Wasn’t he able to lift Mrs. Hassenplug’s skirts? It was mystifying, and she hated going to the barn, previously one of her more enjoyable chores. Her father had spoiled the quiet business of egg gathering for Zoe, and it was for this, as well as the confusion his actions aroused in her, that she began to resent his existence.

Zoe liked her mother well enough, although Mrs. Hassenplug had never paid much attention to her new daughter-beyond teaching her those things that needed to be taught—needlework; cooking; putting up preserves; yardwork; cleaning house, and so forth. It was Zoe’s impression that Mrs. Hassenplug wanted a boy, if only to please her husband, but had accepted her foster daughter as a useful substitute.

He’s still wanting a boy to pass the place on to, her mother told Zoe. Still trying, he is, she lamented. It was some time before Zoe realized that Hassenplug’s trying meant mounting Mrs. Hassenplug and penetrating her private parts with his rod of flesh. Zoe knew that a son was considered superior to a daughter, in that property could be passed along down the male line, whereas a daughter was simply a burden to be employed domestically, until such time as she could be married off to some young man who wished to use her for the purpose of siring a son to whom he could pass along his property. It was the cycle of human affairs, as such things were understood in Indiana.

Zoe’s breasts had placed her already precarious position within the household in jeopardy. She knew her mother would not approve of Hassenplug’s gropings in the barn, since Zoe wasn’t married to him. What if someday he should actually force her to lift her skirts, and she had a son! Would she then be considered married to her father in the same way that Mrs. Hassenplug was, in the manner of the Mormons? It seemed an unlikely arrangement this far from Utah, and anyway, the Hassenplugs were Presbyterians, even if they never attended church meetings. Having the son for Hassenplug that his wife seemed unable to provide would not result in any new arrangement of benefit to Zoe, that much was obvious, and so she held the egg-laden basket before her like an armored breastplate, to ward off the man beneath whose roof she lived.

In the first year, she had waited for Clay to ride up the road to the farm. He would be mounted on a fine pony, and carrying a pistol. She would know him even from a distance, because he was her brother. When he was close enough, he would smile and say, Sorry I took so long. Pack your things; we have to go fetch Drew now.

The dream sustained her well into the second year, then died. No one came riding up the road but an occasional neighbor. Hassenplug never took his wife or Zoe to town, just twelve miles away. You want something, you tell me and I’ll get it, he said. He hadn’t considered buying a dress that fit Zoe properly until his wife mentioned how foolish the girl looked in clothing too small for her. When two new dresses of the least expensive kind finally were brought home, they were several sizes too big. She can grow into ’em gradual, explained Hassenplug, so we don’t get no more of this whining about clothes that’s too small. Using the brain, see? He tapped the side of his narrow head and grinned. Zoe tried on the dresses and wept. He had done it deliberately, to humiliate her, and she couldn’t guess why.

By the time the new dresses fit, she no longer thought of rescue by Clay, scarcely thought of him at all, except in dreams of Schenectady. And when the dresses that were too large eventually became tight across her expanding chest, her father’s disposition changed so abruptly she was caught by surprise—in the barn, with the eggs.

He tried bribery when direct requests for the lifting of her skirts were ignored. Dresses seemed an appropriate commodity for barter. Just a little piece of loving was all he wanted in exchange for stitched cloth. Zoe could choose the pattern, the style, even try the dress on beforehand to make sure it was exactly right for her. He would take her to town for a fitting.

You take me there, she said, and I’ll think about it.

Her nerve amazed Zoe, flabbergasted Hassenplug. His little orphan girl was turning into a wily vixen. He laughed and said he’d do the thinking. For a week he gave no sign, then offered her a ride to Wister’s Landing with him on the monthly trip for supplies.

Mrs. Hassenplug was outraged. Why her and not me! she demanded. Her husband thought about it, then smacked her once across the face with force enough to send her reeling into the kitchen corner. Because I say so, he said.

The trip to town was still three days distant, but the slap that preceded it spelled the end of the casual relationship between Zoe and her foster mother. Mrs. Hassenplug, long since reconciled to being the mate of a churl, would have accepted the slap (it was not the first) if the reason for it had not been Zoe. Her man intended carrying this young female in his wagon a distance of twelve miles to town, and another twelve miles home again, just so she could get a dress that fit right. That privilege hadn’t been granted Mrs. Hassenplug since the early years of the marriage, in fact she suspected her husband enjoyed the time spent away from her, actually experienced greater happiness in her absence. Mrs. Hassenplug remembered very well the things she’d been required to do back then in exchange for a trip to town, so it was natural for her to assume the same quid pro quo applied to Zoe.

Hassenplug’s wife had endured much in pursuit of male progeny. Hassenplug had forced himself on her times beyond number for just that purpose, and she had no choice but to submit, that being her duty; the cornerstone of any marriage was the transfer of property to a son. But her suspicions had been nudged when Hassenplug chose from among the orphan train offerings of 1869 a girl instead of a boy. She had seen him approach several boys, it was true, but these had panicked when he described for them his need of a strong back and willing hands to work the finest little farm in the county. They’d be city boys, his wife warned him, but he insisted on presenting himself as some kind of slave driver, and every boy had shaken his head.

Then he’d gone to the girl, an unremarkable female to be sure, but at least she’d be able to assist his wife. Mrs. Hassenplug had thought her husband was being generous at the time, getting her someone to help out around the house. Four years later, she saw that the unremarkable female had been an investment, not a gift. It was a grievous insult. No woman who had endured as she had should have to fight against something as ubiquitous, as callow, as younger flesh. Mrs. Hassenplug had attempted to halt the course of events by protest and been slapped silly for her trouble. Now what would happen would happen. Mrs. Hassenplug hadn’t been driven to church since her wedding day, but she knew the situation was in God’s hands. No one could have greater need of His help than herself.

The day of the trip to town dawned fair and warm. Zoe had not heard a civil word from the lips of her mother since Hassenplug announced he would take her with him in the wagon. Zoe was afraid, and already ashamed; she had encouraged the man by saying she would think about his offer, and now that he had followed through with an invitation to town that didn’t even include the presence of his wife, Zoe felt she’d stepped off a cliff, and in so doing made an enemy of the woman who’d been reasonably good to her for a long time.

She considered reneging on the arrangement, simply staying home, but that option smacked of weakness. Only fourteen, she had a quotient of the Dugan blood that had been strong enough to survive desertion and poverty (Nettie’s blood, that was, not the craven stuff that flowed in the veins of Zoe’s true father, the coward who’d left them nothing but his name). No, she’d go to town and choose a dress, and the devil take what happened. She was careful, though, to slip a small paring knife into her sleeve before joining Hassenplug on the wagon seat.

Mrs. Hassenplug refused to come out into the yard to witness their departure. As the wagon crept away she raged at her helplessness, her inability to change anything in her life, but before long her anger turned to tears, as it always did. Now she took up the long and bitter weeping of the irredeemable victim, knowing that by the time her husband accomplished what it was he planned, her face would be dry, set like stone with the salt of her misery.

Surprisingly, Zoe remembered some of the landscape from her passage in the same wagon four years before, on the long drive from town with her new parents. She was now a different person, and didn’t feel at all that she was moving back into her own past. The station where she had said good-bye to her brothers would still be there, but her brothers would not. That was the saddest thought for Zoe, sadder than knowing the man beside her had plans no father should have.

Not saying much, Hassenplug commented.

She looked at him, at the smile beneath his mustache. He imagined things would go the way he wanted, but Zoe knew they would not. Her plans did not extend beyond hiding the knife, but as she looked at Hassenplug’s mouth, an alternative to stabbing him flashed into Zoe’s head. The knife would not be necessary after all.

I don’t have much to say, she said, and turned her face to the road again.

Hassenplug laughed. That deal we made, that what you’re thinking about? Remember the deal?

Yes. I said I’d think about it when I got a dress.

That ain’t the way I recall it. Straight trade, that’s how it’ll be. You get what you want after I get what I want.

That isn’t what you said.

Don’t get a notion to wriggle out of it, not after you made a deal. Anyone makes a deal with me, they stick to it.

His voice had turned ugly, the smile had soured. Zoe glanced at him, then away. She saw he meant