One more river to cross, p.3
One More River to Cross, page 3
“You can sing these oxen to sleep then tonight with that ‘tender woman’s voice,’” John mocked.
“I’d be happy to stay out with them and Bó. You can prepare our supper.”
“No you won’t. You’ll get the fire going and the stew on. Then—”
“John.” She sighed. “I don’t need you to be my father and mother. We need to be parents to the little boys.” They’d all been orphaned before leaving Iowa and had decided to pursue their parents’ last wishes and continue west. By the grace of God, they’d stumbled onto this party of Irish-Canadian-Missourians who had taken them all in.
“I only meant you have woman’s work to do and I’ve got the wagon and animals to take care of. Tomorrow, we head to the mountain.” He nodded toward a granite rock in the distance. It sat like a castle in a picture book, with timbered foothills dribbling to bare ground, forming a wide swath covered with snow.
Mary knew she was responsible for the younger Sullivans and feeding herself and John. But she also thought she was worthy of more. At home in Quebec, she’d helped with plowing and putting up grass hay, building fences, all sorts of labor often reserved for men. She did it not because she had to but because she wanted to and her father had agreed. Now John acted not like her father but like her keeper. He wasn’t that much older than she was and he certainly couldn’t be any wiser. One day, she’d show him so.
Capt rode a horse on this trip, one he now dismounted, removed the bridle, put on the halter, and tied him to the wagon’s side. He hung the feed bag over his horse’s neck, then put the barley and oats inside while he talked to the gelding. Joe Foster acted as oxman for Capt’s wagons that freighted mostly blacksmithing tools—anvils, bellows, and a shallow cauldron for heating coals. He’d used them all on this journey, but he knew the wagons were heavy, and it concerned him that his wagon might be the cause of future delays. His oxen, like all the rest, were lean and tired. The Montgomery wagons and the Townsend wagon also bore extra weight. With the snow, he wasn’t sure they could make it. Like all the other parties who had attempted it, they might have to abandon the wagons and go overland. But they had so many more women and children than the 1841 Bidwell party.
It was at the evening camp and Capt took out his journal from his saddlebags. He always reread what he’d written. Probably peppered with misspelled words, but no one else would ever see it. He noted that the party had decided to call it Stephens Lake, and he’d lowered his head, embarrassed by the accolade and honored at the same time. Dr. Townsend had scowled. They’d brought the wagons into the upper end of the shoreline, pulled them into a circle, and met for final preparations for assaulting the mountain, which was how Capt saw it. Once they reached the massive rock, he hoped they’d find a pass through it or they’d have to go over it. Somehow. It was what he was thinking as he heard the spit of moisture in the fire and looked through the flames to see the snowflakes fall again.
“Maybe we’ll be lucky and it’ll melt like it did before,” Joe Foster said. He handed Capt a cup of coffee. They still had beans.
“Maybe. But just to be safe, I think I’ll mosey on by the Murphy clan and see if they can put up one of their prayers that has surely gotten us this far.” They’d had no trouble, nothing. No Indian skirmishes, no deaths, no lost animals. And no arguments either. He didn’t want to tempt fate, but it appeared to be a charmed party.
Sarah used the last of her yarn to finish another pair of socks for Allen. Wool was the very best in this damp weather, keeping feet both dry and warm. The click of the wooden needles soothed. Allen was hard on socks, not that he could help how his feet rubbed against his brogans, making holes at his toes. They had abandoned the moccasins Allen had bought at Fort Hall and now wore the boots they’d brought with them. Could his feet have grown? Perhaps. It didn’t matter: wet feet were the very worst thing to happen on such a journey, sore feet bringing a man down faster than a bullet.
“Where are we in the line?” She spoke idly to her husband, who worked the maple on a gunstock. She loved the slow whisper of the rasp across the wood and the scent of the maple being tendered.
“Dr. John has asked for a meeting.” Allen hesitated, then said, “Beth isn’t doing well in this wet and Townsend thinks we should go back, take the other route and head for that bigger lake the way that Truckee told us. We’d get out of snow country sooner.”
She hadn’t realized Beth was worse. She loved that woman like a second mother.
“Can the wagons go that way? The trees march right down to the edge in places, Capt said. Horses could make it but not a wagon.”
“We’d have to cut a trail, I imagine. But we could. Dr. John seems to think it’s possible.”
“Dr. John didn’t explore that route, only the one we’re on. Here’s your sock.” She rolled it into a ball and tossed it to him. “Catch.”
He ducked. “Sarah. I’m working here.”
“I see that. You’re so serious.” He’d been willing to joke with Ellen.
“This rifle with this stock smoothed to a sheen—with no gouges caused by a wayward wife tossing a sock—will bring twenty-five dollars or more. Your socks—”
“Are worth their weight in gold. You mark my words.” She pointed with her knitting needles. “Having a good pair of socks is more valuable than a smooth-as-satin rifle stock.” She put her needles aside. “I’m going to see Beth.”
“If you go over there, don’t talk to her about the alternate route. No need to upset her,” Allen said. “Nothing’s been decided.”
“We women can carry on a conversation without getting into fits about it. It’s you men who start circling like bulls when there isn’t a clear answer but each of you has a high opinion of his own.”
“We discuss.” The rasping continued.
She’d heard them “discuss” how much flour each family should carry, whether buying bacon at a certain price was good or bad. It wasn’t always cordial, though she admitted that Capt Stephens had a quiet way about him that ultimately resolved disputes without fists. So far.
“If Doc does recommend that route, would the rest of us follow?”
“I doubt Stephens will want to split the group.”
Sarah donned her wool shawl. She had warm socks inside her own boots that she had insisted Allen buy at Fort Hall and was grateful now indeed. She wore moccasins at night in their bedroll where she’d pressed her feet against her husband’s, and Allen had said, “At last, my wife has warm feet.” She’d thought the captain’s instructions—when the Indian footwear was new, to wet them, then put them on to shape them to her feet—was a strange way to contour a pair of slippers. But it had worked. They fit like a second skin.
She tied the lace on her boots and moved to the back of the wagon. “I won’t be long.”
“Remember. Don’t talk about the route.”
She smiled at him. She liked the smell of gun oil that permeated their wagon. She waved her gloved fingers at him. “You take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine.”
“Sarah . . .”
“Allen . . .”
He turned away and shook his head, and she continued on her own way.
“And that’s the end of the story of ‘The Two Wanderers,’” Mary said. She closed the book of Grimm’s Household Tales her mother had packed when they left Montreal. She turned the lamp down to save on oil, changing the shadows in their wagon.
“That shoemaker was very mean,” Robert said. “He kept getting the tailor into trouble.”
“And did you hear the moral of the tale?” Mary kept the book on her lap.
“What’s a ‘more-all’?” Robert asked. Both boys needed a haircut. Mary just hadn’t had the interest to do it. Robert’s face had thinned in the months on the trail. He looked tired.
“It’s the lesson,” Michael told him, sounding the wise ten-year-old. “I think it’s to stay happy and you’ll outsmart bad people. Oh, and take extra bread when you don’t know how many days you’ll be traveling.” Mary thought about the part of the story where the two wanderers had to decide which route to take. Just as this party’s leadership had decided more than once on this journey at junctures. Michael added, “Bringing extra bread will mean you worked harder than you needed to in carryin’, but at least you won’t grow hungry and have to bargain with a greedy man to fill your stomach along the way.”
“I’d rather be the tailor,” Robert said. “He was happy all the time.”
Their mother had read these stories to her when she was a child. But maybe she shouldn’t have asked the question of the lesson. In the story of “Two Wanderers,” it was the part about the stork delivering the baby to the king that had created the most vivid image in Mary’s mind. She smiled at the belief she’d held as a child about where babies came from. But in this reading, she found something more. “Those are possible lessons.”
“What do you think the more-all is, Mary?” Robert asked.
“I’ll read the sentence that I think, but your ideas are excellent.” Both boys lowered their heads and smiled at each other. In their family, compliments were as babies, rare and joyous. Mary read, “‘He who trusts in God and his own fortune will never go amiss.’”
“What’s my own fortune?” Robert asked. His little eight-year-old brown eyes stared up at her.
“It’s the gathering of all that God has given you, your smiles, your warm hearts, the riches you have of shelter and clothes and food in your stomach. Your special . . . interests. Michael, you love growing things, and Robert, you and animals come together. Those are part of your fortune too that God will weave into your future, so long as you are willing to share your fortune with others.”
“Huh,” Michael said, adding, “Is there enough bread for another bite tonight? I’m hungry.”
“It is your good fortune that I indeed have a bit of hardtack to share.”
“Thank you, Mama.” Robert looked away. “I’m sorry I said that.”
She hugged her youngest brother to her side. “No need. Mama would understand.”
“She’d want you to use your fortune to read stories to us.” Michael grinned. “Though we can read ourselves.”
“Yes, Robert, I believe she would. Now let me get that bread for you.”
When they reached Alta California, she’d find a school for the boys, to keep their minds pushing their dreams. That too was part of her duty, but some women’s duties were less drudgery than this truly worthy work.
4
Judging
Ellen Murphy wiped her eyes. She hated it when her father berated her in front of her brothers and sisters. Daniel, especially. Her father rarely raised his voice at any of his offspring. They were all heading west because of the children, he’d said. His piercing blue eyes told her more than his measured words that he was angry. They circled the fire, snow falling on her brother Daniel’s shoulders as he stood just beyond the tarp. Men just want to look tough. She thought him silly; he should come in out of the falling snow.
“I’m disappointed, Ellen.”
Worse than anger. “I’ve done nothing wrong.” Ellen whispered her defense. She didn’t want people in the other wagons to hear her; hear them upset with her. Is that Allen Montgomery coming across the circle? Dr. John intercepted him. They headed toward the horse corral. She could hear the muted sounds of women soothing their children, getting them ready for the night.
“You are not a good model for your sisters.”
“I am! Don’t I dutifully prepare meals and tend to the mending and washing and pray the rosary, sometimes two or three times a day.” She grasped the beads her mother had handed to her on her deathbed only weeks before, the wood smoothed by her fingers. They’d left on this questionable expedition because a priest they hardly even knew advised them but didn’t join them to support their souls. “And I pray with them, don’t I, Johanna?” Her thirty-year-old sister—the only flaxen-haired among the auburns—nodded her head in agreement. How am I supposed to be a model for my older sisters?
“She does, Papa. Prays. I hear her,” Johanna added.
Her father’s eyes softened as he looked at his youngest daughter, and for a moment Ellen thought she’d be set free from this inquisition. She tried a change of subject.
“I’ve bacon to fry,” Ellen said. “May I be excused, Da?”
“No, you may not.”
Daniel grinned. Ellen felt her face grow hot at his pleasure with her discomfort. It was like having two fathers, with Daniel the more self-righteous.
“Your brothers’ wives are embarrassed by your behavior. As a married woman, I expected more from you.”
“I’m not married now. I’m a widow.” She lowered her eyes. “I accept help from Joe Foster, who is kind to me, nothing else. That I laugh with the ox men—all who are single—should be no concern to anyone. I’m right where everyone can see me, all the time except in the wagon.” She lifted her half-gloved hand to the green-sided vehicle with its canvas, still as the falling snow. “Have I not suffered enough with the death of my husband? Am I not allowed to smile and laugh? Surely the Lord does not intend for us to grieve loved ones forever.”
“It’s not even been a year,” Daniel reminded her. Her father’s favorite, he was allowed all sorts of leeway in judging others.
“And I wear black.”
Daniel scoffed. “You wear your hair down like—”
“It’s too thick to pile up each day. Mere boys don’t understand.” Unruly curls didn’t fit well under a bonnet and were impossible to braid.
“I’m not a mere boy. I’m a—”
“Jesus would have wept at such unkindness between loving children,” her father said.
“Jesus also danced and enjoyed food with his friends and—” Ellen’s voice broke.
“Don’t even think about comparing yourself to our Lord!”
“Daniel.”
At last, Papa chastises him as well as me.
“We must all compare ourselves, to live more like him.”
“It’s Allen Montgomery we’re concerned about.” Daniel came in under the tarp, removed his hat, and ran his hands through his red hair. They could almost be twins, she and Daniel, with those freckles and bushy red eyebrows, their “chaos of curls.”
“Has Sarah expressed concern? We’re friends.” A stab of guilt pierced Ellen’s chest. “I will apologize if she thinks I’ve done something wrong. I am so sorry, Papa, I am only finding joy again.”
“It is Dr. Townsend who has expressed concern. After all, Matthew was not just your husband, he was Dr. Townsend’s brother.” Her father added, “It grieves him to see you acting like a filly.”
Dr. John. She should have known.
“Then I will apologize to Dr. John and explain that I do not intend to besmirch his brother’s memory. Matthew loved livin’ then, didn’t he? He would want me to enjoy meself.” She knew that last was a lie. Matthew did love life all right, but he cared little whether Ellen enjoyed hers, did what he could to make sure she didn’t.
“I think that would be wise.” Her father’s eyes softened. “The good doctor has held his tongue this entire journey but came to me after watching you . . . teasing Mr. Montgomery, as he described it.”
“And acting the filly,” Daniel added, arms crossed over his chest.
“Daniel. It is not ours to continue to judge once a contrition has been noted, a mediation found.”
Daniel lowered his eyes. He no longer held the smile.
Escape, that’s what Ellen needed. Escape from her judgmental brother, her pious father, the wagging tongues of her sisters-in-law, the needs of her siblings, her nattering brother-in-law. She could hardly wait to get to Alta California, where she’d be able to start a life and not be hovered over by Daniel, who used her to build up his good graces with her father. Dr. John might have been concerned, but she was pretty certain it was Daniel who drew his attention to her happy moments. Would a woman ever have a life of her own?
“I’ll apologize at once,” Ellen said. “Express my deepest regrets to me friend Sarah and to the good doctor as well.” She wanted to add, Does that suit you all, my captors, my inquisitors? She looked at her sisters—old maids, they were called. What tragedy lay ahead for them simply because they were born girls instead of boys. Instead, in silence she lifted her skirts to push through the ever-increasing snow. No one called her back.
Mary Sullivan tucked her brothers in for the night, wondering if she could follow her brother John to the Murphy wagon chosen for the discussion. It would be nice to hear the facts and evidence firsthand instead of it being filtered for her by her brother. She thought they ought to move forward toward the mountain despite the snow. It would only get deeper. What was Capt waiting for?
“Mama! Mama!” Robert called out. Another nightmare.
“It’s all right. Ye aren’t alone.” She sat beside him, brushed his dark hair from his frightened eyes. No, her place was here now.
She unwound her circular braids, brushed hair that came to her waist. Then she wound it back into a single braid. She curled up beside her brother, who mindlessly rubbed the end of her braid between his fingers. John would be back soon. Whatever the decision, she would have to wait to hear it. A woman’s lot.
“’Tis all right to join ye?”
Sarah opened the cords of the canvas. “Ellen. Please. Come in.”
Sarah helped her inside the Townsend wagon, then made room in the narrow space between the barrels and crates and stacks of colored bolts of material. Beth lay on a cot, looking as pale as the snow outside pushing up against the wagon wheels.
“I’ve come to apologize to you, Beth—and Sarah. My father and Daniel seem to think I have misbehaved by laughing with you all.” She took a deep breath. “With Allen especially. I meant no ill, truly.”
Sarah could see Ellen’s discomfort. She’s been crying. Reddish blotches dotted her freckled cheeks. Even distraught, Ellen was beautiful.
