Reverend Lee’s Indians were but few and not fierce at all, simply surviving from the diseases he said were brought by the British on their ships. I thought then a man’s mind was surely different from a woman’s. Did they not know that at any moment that fake battle might not have been sham? That we might be the real dead whose scalps were taken? And for a child to witness this! I shiver. Thank God nothing bad came of it. Still, it was but five years later our Eliza did witness such atrocities. I wonder if she remembers that sham battle now that she is almost thirteen.
Almost thirteen. And she will become that young woman who must care for her brother and sisters and her father most of all, after I am gone. I must speak to her of duty. We women are required to recognize and keep to our commitments. I did. I did more than I imagined I could do, endured the isolation, the worry over my husband and children when they traveled far, the inexplicable acts of my husband at times. I wrestled with my questioning but found the Lord could withstand my inquiries. And while I didn’t always get answers, I got peace. That was enough. I might never have sought or found it in that way if I hadn’t had those times of danger. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13. That’s the message I must give my children.
And that the Lord goes with them, into whatever darkness or light they walk, especially if they go in reply to his call. And he does call them to amazing things if they allow. I think S has taught me that, living out his dreams, bigger than either of us. He didn’t convert everyone as he once proposed in those years we were at school, but he brought more than six hundred Nimíipuu to the Lord. Imagine! And the Mission Board whisked it all away. My heart aches to go back to Lapwai.
17
The Choice
“I never want to go back to Waiilatpu, ever. Or to Lapwai. Or your Touchet dream. I want to stay right here in Brownsville, where Mama is buried. Do you hear that, Mr. Warren?” That familiar “Andrew” would not fall across my tongue again. He’d be Mr. Warren, the “man of the house.” He Who Decides, as the Nez Perce might put it. And he would father no more children, at least not with me.
“I hear you, darlin’. And you don’t have to go. Stay rooted if you want. I’ve got a plan to do and be something bigger. I thought you’d like to be a part of it, keep your family together, but it’s your doin’.” We sat at the table. He picked at candle wax drippings I’d failed to scrape up.
“You say I can’t go alone with the children through the mountains. You’d need to take us.”
He’d stood, taken a bun from the warming oven of the stove. “You’ve had plenty of time to prepare, ’Liza.” He downed a large glass of milk, wiped his mustache of the foam. “If you’d made up your mind earlier I would have helped, but I’ve got drovers lined up and we need to head over the Cascades while the weather is good.” Warren Creek rose, marking snowmelt in the mountains. I heard it gurgle.
“Why can’t I take the wagon and just follow you? If we were to go, I mean.”
“For the tenth time, because there is no route through the mountains for wagons.” He brushed bread crumbs from his duck pants.
“Barlow built a road where people said none could go.”
“We’re going straight east from here, ‘Liza, across the Cascades, then up through the high desert, making our own trail. Daniel Waldo says there’s an Indian route to follow, that he’s taken it. No one believes him except Wiley and me. Wiley says he’s crossed it, but he’ll say anything to get investors to make a road.”
“You invested in a road?”
“I also put $100 toward the mill plans here.”
“Did you?” A change of subject. “Then we should stay here, look over your investment.”
He shook his head, a smile that said he knew what I was doing. “’Liza, I’m going.” He’d finished his milk and now a fly buzzed around him. He swatted at it, and when it landed he whisked his hand and caught it and grinned. It wasn’t the first time. I marveled at his swiftness. “I want you along, but if you won’t go, that’s your choice.” He softened. “I need to do this. I . . . I don’t want to live an ordinary life, ’Liza, where every day’s predictable and I have no challenges to see how I’ll wrangle my way through. I . . . I owe it . . . to others, to you and my children to live a good life but to live it with, I don’t know the word. Gusto? Abundance, maybe? That’s a word in Scripture, right?”
I sensed that he laid bare his soul in those few words, perhaps more insight into who he was than I’d ever heard before. I might have envied a bit that clarity of passion.
“Look, ’Liza. You always said you missed the stories of overland travel in a wagon the way so many others came west, like Nancy Osborne and my family. Your parents. This is a way to get a . . . feel for it, something you were deprived of, you being born in Oregon Country. Think of it as an adventure.”
“I didn’t think I’d have to experience it alone!”
“I can’t wait for you. The passes won’t be open for long. We’ll meet up at the Columbia River, near The Dalles and head east together from there. That is, if you decide to come.”
“My mother took a wagon where they said none could go. She and my father. And the Whitmans. I bet we could get a wagon over the Cascades.”
He sighed. “They didn’t have much of a wagon left though, did they? And they traveled with a trapping party for a good part of that way so they weren’t alone. You cannot follow me and the herd. If you’re coming, you could take Barlow’s trail or head farther north to Portland and take the river route. Either way, meet me in The Dalles. But I won’t wait for you. I’ll have to keep the stock moving.”
“It’s inhumane to leave without these things settled,” I wailed. “What kind of husband and father would do such a thing?”
“Your father, for one. Things weren’t all that settled before they left to come west, as I recall him saying more than once in his preaching, reminding us all that God’s in control. They ‘happened’ onto the last steamship heading upriver. They ‘happened’ onto that trapping party. ‘The Lord was with us.’ So he’ll be with you too. Things don’t always get settled in your good timing, Eliza. You can’t control the stream. And—” He lifted my chin, his brown eyes soft and loving. “You don’t have to go.”
His words stunned me. I’d been trying to make him do things. Make him stay. Make him let us take the wagon and follow him. I liked him better when he accommodated because of his guilt. He wasn’t feeling guilty now, and was much surer of himself. Whether I followed him or not was of less concern than that he be on his way as soon as the mountain thaws happened. He really would go without us.
“Touchet will be a new start for us.” His warm fingers pushed errant hair from my damp forehead. “Better grazing for the cattle, wider vistas, fewer people encroaching, less harping about cows getting through fences. And no state bearing down saying ‘do this or that.’ No taxes in Touchet.”
“It’s two-sea.”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“The pronunciation. It’s not French.”
He shook his head, a smile on his face, then pulled me to him. Though my arms were stiff beside my body, he still held me, his voice like low strains on a violin. “I want you with me, you and the girls. I want you there. But I’m going. Has to be this way. It’s a better life for us. And who is to say this isn’t the Lord working his way in our lives. I haven’t had a drop to drink since I told you about Jeremiah and claimed the land.”
“You won the land in a card game.”
“No, I didn’t, Eliza. My cattle business has been successful. In Touchet—two-sea—I’ll be free of ‘bad friends,’ as you call them. We’ll start over. I’ll keep my promise not to drink.”
“I didn’t hear that promise.”
“It wasn’t made to you.”
I cried then, hiccuping sobs. He patted my back. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want you to go. There’s no one there I can count on. I’ll be alone with the children. My sisters, left here.
Nancy . . .” I understood for the first time how Matilda Sager must have felt when my parents sent her away but a few months after the massacre she’d survived with me. She was just a child and she had cried so hard, begged to stay with us. Her tears brought nothing, no change to my father’s mind about her leaving. My tears had no effect on Mr. Warren either.
“And then there’s the closeness to Waiilatpu, to all that . . . what happened. I can’t go back there.”
“Maybe this is the Lord’s way of helping you put all that behind you. Behind us.”
Could that be? I felt myself lean into him, soften my stiff bed-board resistance.
“Life is uncertain. You can’t line it up the way Nancy does.”
“I know.”
“And memories aren’t real, ’Liza. We mix them with who we are now.” He held me away from him, hands on my shoulders, his brown eyes gazing into mine, that shock of dark hair pulling forward as he spoke with kindness laced with resolution. “You can do this, Eliza. You’re strong, smart, enterprising. You’ve been good for me. You’ve helped your sisters, your dad. Use some of that stashed cash you’ve got and buy a solid wagon. Our oxen are seasoned.”
“You know about my stash?”
“My mama didn’t raise no dumb kids.” He grinned.
Can I do this? He believed I could. A zest surged through me. A possibility. “I might need you to sweeten the pot with a little cash,” I said. “I’ll have to find someone willing to abandon ship here and head east with me.”
“Now you’re talking. Leave the stove here, though. Too heavy to cart. I’ll get one brought for you. If you get an offer on the farm that sounds good, take it.” He wiped my eyes with his thumbs, his calloused hands warm against my chin. “You always said you wished you had stories to tell of coming along the trail, overland. Here’s your chance. Our chance.”
“Only I’m going in the opposite direction of your coming from Missouri.”
“You’re doing it the Spalding way. Contrary.”
I actually laughed at that. I blew my nose. Was that what I was being? I didn’t want stubborn to be the legacy I gave my girls or my sisters. I wanted them to see strength in their heritage, to learn that they could grow from challenges they faced. Yes, I could tell a travel story, of my escape from terrible harm. But was that the only story I wanted to be remembered for? No, I wanted them to remember their grandmother’s courage, and see a bit of that inside of me and themselves. This time I had the option of choosing to go. And we weren’t running from an uprising, worrying even as we hostages were taken downriver with our British rescuer, abandoned by the Nez Perce. Rain pummeled our shake roof. I disappeared back . . .
Tap-tap. Is it gunfire? No, hail dropping against the tent canvas covering our bateau. We’re huddled together, we hostages. I startle at each unfamiliar sound. For more than four weeks we wondered day by day if we would see the next. One of the children, I can’t remember who, swings her arms like a windmill and stands up, clawing for air, pushes her face out, lifting the bateau cover. Along the shore, Indians ride! Someone shouts, “Heathens!” Captain Ogden orders, “Get your head down!” I know then we aren’t yet safe, might still die at the hands of angry Indians chasing after, the Columbia River be our wet grave. I burrow beneath the Hudson’s Bay blanket, covet safety as I shiver.
“Eliza? You all right?” Mr. Warren squeezed my shoulders, took a stumbled step to hold me, a residual from his injury.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“You went away again.” He kept one hand on me while he reached for a jug of water, giving me a drink. “Maybe you’ll do that less when we’re in Touchet.” He took the handkerchief from my hands and dabbed at the edge of my eyes. “Take what you need from my purse,” he said then. “You’ll be fair about it. Get the best wagon you can and load. I’ll see you in a few months.” He kissed me hard then, almost skipped out the door.
If I joined him, left familiar fields and streams, I’d be alone often in Touchet while he rode with the cattle. If I didn’t join him, my marriage would be over. I remembered my mother speaking of the times when she’d be left behind with four children, for days, while my father was off at meetings or arranging for shipments at the fort. I have only two to contend with, but my youngest is a baby only four months old. Little Lizzie. America Jane won’t be three for months, each needing tending while I work. How would I manage walking beside an ox team celebrating my fifth anniversary alone with two babies? I shivered. I wasn’t skilled enough to take them safely to Touchet nor stable enough to make sure my mind didn’t drift leaving them in danger and alone.
Mr. Warren left that morning, and watching him ride away I felt as I did when Timothy of the Nez Perce abandoned me and I feared I’d never see my mother again. I shouted after Mr. Warren, running out onto the porch, seeing him as he rode from around the barn to the lane. “Don’t you want to know my decision?”
He brought up the horse, twisted in the saddle. “I’ll see you soon.” He whooped and twirled his hat, upsetting his horse, which pranced, switched its tail, then took Mr. Warren away.
How did he know that watching him disappear brought on a compulsion to pack and follow, to seek the safety of my life with him and not as a woman left behind? I’d be taking a different route to join him but hadn’t I always? God willing, I would find him, his cattle, and his dream. Maybe I’d find myself. The fear lifted.
“Let’s get started,” I told Millie. “We have a journey to make!”
I missed my sister Martha as I packed. She was fun to have around, made me laugh as she tossed flour on my nose and with Millie would insist we ride bareback in the hills behind the house. She reminded me that I’m not a matron with two children but a girl still, at twenty-one. “You never outgrow the need for adventure,” she told me once, a twinkle in her eye. “Without it, how will you fill your heart?”
“My heart is full with my children. I have the Scriptures to sustain me.”
“And your children will draw from you so you must find ways to keep the well filled. Yes, the Scriptures. But even they speak of music and dancing and laughter. Papa doesn’t preach much on those sections, but they are there. I’ve read them. And if it were written in our time they would have added riding on fast horses with the wind in your face.” She spoke with that certainty I was seeing as a Spalding trait. And I had thwarted that by betraying her attempt to fill her heart with Bill Wigle. So had my father.
I placed the mirror and pedestal in the trunk, catching a glimpse of myself: a drawn look with hollow cheeks and a straight ink line for lips. I ought to smile more.
“Look at baby Lizzie.” America Jane pointed at a different mirror she sat at with her sister. “She sees herself.”
I snatched my daughter, turned her baby face into my chest, my hand pushing her head into me. “What’s wrong, Mama?”
“Nothing. Let’s just get things ready so we can follow Papo.” I didn’t know why I’d swept my infant from the mirror. Something my mother once told me?
“Mr. Warren might have waited, helped a little,” I said to the children.
“At least you have me,” Millie said. She entered from the chicken house, brought in eggs she’d fix for our breakfast. She placed her hands on her low back, sighed. She’d already carried in a heavy bucket of water we’d use to wash with when we finished packing.
The sun had been up for hours and I needed good strength to tell my father we were leaving. After breakfast, I harnessed the horse to the wagon, put the girls in. Millie held Lizzie steady while Maka pulled our rig, trotting us toward what I knew would be disaster. It would happen even though I anticipated it. This time I wasn’t wrong.
My father paced around, waving his arms as though preaching. “I forbid it! You cannot take your children to that country. You cannot.”
“Mr. Warren and I will decide for me and our family, Father.”
“You never should have married him. He’s unpredictable, lacks common sense, and this move is but another
example.”
I remained calm, as my mother would have done.
“You’re disappointed, Father. But a wife is duty-bound to go with her husband. As my mother did, even resisting your telling her that long trip from New York would be too hard with her illness. But she came anyway.”
“Yes. She came anyway because she felt God telling her to come with me and I agreed. After a time. Thank goodness. Whatever would I have done without her?” His eyes got that faraway look that consumed him when my mother’s memory was invoked. I was glad Rachel was out in the washhouse, though what she did there I couldn’t imagine. Millie had gone out to assist her, so she wasn’t there to hear what my father said next. “You will do what you will. You always did. But you will not take Amelia, and Martha Jane has no will to be with you.”
“She’d be far from Bill Wigle.”
“I’ll monitor that. They are my responsibility and I will not allow them to go there among the Indians that are not our Nimíipuu. They are the only Indians I trust. I can’t believe Warren is taking you so close to the Cayuse. And with the Yakima Wars just ended.”
“Why you trust the Nez Perce I don’t understand. They forced me to stay at Waiilatpu. They held you and Mama hostage, then sent us all away and—”
“They sustained us, Eliza. They kept us alive.”
I shook my head. His memory was twisted as a rope.
“It was the Mission Board that insisted we all leave.”
“That’s not what Mama thought. Timothy, the Nez Perce, they failed us, can’t you see? They invited you to come, then sent you away.” My stomach clenched, inviting a subject change. “The land is good that Mr. Warren claims.”