All Together in One Place

  “You dont seem to mind it, Mother.”

  “Learned long ago best way to get through the mud hole is to first admit you're in it, then decide how bad it is you want out and what you got to do to get there. Can always get clear-eyed and courageous about a thing, no matter what your troubles.”

  Get clear-eyed? How could Mazy do that? The effort of moving from place to place, never waking to familiar, tired her. She was impatient to nest. How could she expect to be happy or comfortable without certainty?

  Even her body felt foreign, this carrying of another. A thickening here, a queasiness there—it all worked against her, a woman who liked the expected. Even her chickens protested change—they'd laid almost nothing since they'd left home.

  “Are you coming to sleep, woman? Candle's burning down.”

  “I'll just finish and be in,” she told Jeremy.

  To be without a place ofbebnging is to starve the soul, Mazy wrote. She wondered how Mr. Malarky and his boys were managing their loss. At least she had her husband and her mother and this baby. She circled her stomach with the palm of her hand then wrote: Made eighteen miles today. Saw four graves. At times, we can see the white dots of wagons on the south side of the Pktte while we travel on the north. So many people disrupting their lives. Just days out of Laramie I am impatient to see signs of civilizationy the red, white, and blue flying overhead, to sit at a real table to eat once more, to smell the smelh of a storehouse full. I am an unworthy waiter, impatient. Give me understanding for this changing time of my life. She finished writing, entered the tent pitched beside the wagon, stubbed the wick with her fingers, and took herself to bed.

  Jessie hadn't eaten much, though Betha fried up corn hash and eggs and sprinkled them with dried red peppers. After their fasting break, Jed patted his stomach while his plump little wife motioned that his beard still held breadcrumbs.

  “Such a fine, fine cook you are, Betha,” he said. “Wouldn't you say so, Ruthie?”

  “I would,” Ruth said. “And I'm glad it's you and not me doing the fixing. White tablecloth? And flowers? For breakfast? What's the occasion?

  “You've had your hands full, graining horses and whacking and all, and you don't join us in the evenings much. I could at least rinse out your clothes for you.”

  “I do fine back there. I can wander out and talk to Koda, keep my eye on the other horses. It's not all that bad. Do my laundry on days like today, when we stop.”

  “Jessie isn't a bother to you now, is she?” Betha's eyes looked anxious beneath her flounced cap “We can keep her up with us, you know.”

  “Never a bother.”

  “No, not now,” Betha said, then dropped her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she whispered.

  Jed coughed. “Well, now. Looks like a good day. Not a cloud in the sky. A hill and valley or two, a river to cross and then we sight Fort Laramie not far ahead. Ladies, I do believe we are making progress.”

  “I'm glad to have a day to stop,” Ruth said. They'd just completed a tedious section of trail that had required everyone's shoulders and effort to keep the unbending wagons upright on the steep and uneven prairie. They'd been rewarded for their efforts with a cluster of trees and a stream not mentioned in the guidebook. Here they'd stay a day, resting up the stock on good grass and giving the women time to dry and scrape the diapers and wash their meager wardrobes, bake up a pie or two.

  “Wish Jessie'd eat up a bit more,” Betha said. “Does she look poorly to you?”

  “Just a child, Mother,” Jed told her, pushing against his knees to stand. “Probably running on the newness of the day. Goes back and forth, visiting every wagon, I declare. Doesn't need much food. Come here then, Jessie girl. Let's see if you're approaching a fever state.” He pulled the girl to him, and when Jed's smooth fingers reached around Jessie's wrist, Ruth thought the child's arm looked as thin as a chicken's leg. Jed touched his hand to Jessie's face and frowned.

  “Is she feverish?” Ruth asked him. She set her tin cup of cooling coffee down and stood to feel the girl's forehead herself.

  “Does seem a bit hot.”

  “Why don't you fetch that doctor?” Betha said. “What's his name Masters, in that wagon with the bright green water bucket up ahead there. With the pigs about. Ned, see if you can find him.”

  “Do I gotta?” the boy complained. He and Jason held a handful of marbles. His brow furrowed beneath the center part of his slick, black hair

  “Your sister's ill,” Jed told him. “Needs a doctor.”

  “You've got a lot more faith in those quacks than I do,” Ruth said.

  Ned squinted at Jessie. “She's just funning ya so she don't have to wash clothes.”

  “That is not the way we respond to our mother's request, now is it, Ned? You—”

  “I'll go,” Ruth said, a lump of worry growing in her throat.

  What Tipton wanted was time with Tyrell. He'd shimmed wheel rims and checked ox hooves and hardly had a moment to rest on this day set aside for it.

  “You might find some interests of your own,” he told her when she pouted over his devotion to the forge.

  “I have my drawing,” she said.

  “Then best you get to it,” he said. “Waste a lot of energy trying to change my activities. You cant change folks, Tip. Only yourself.”

  “My parents are certainly changing me,” she said. She flicked at a yellow jacket that tried to light on her bare arm.

  “They want the best for you.”

  “We should be married,” she said. “That would be best for me.”

  “You'd still be pouting about my working. And I'd still be telling you to occupy yourself with something worthwhile, like helping your mama today.”

  What Tipton wanted was assurance that, when they met the southern cutoff road, her father would have a change of heart. What she wanted was to be married so she wouldn't have to do the things her parents said. What she wanted was a child of her own so she would always have someone to love her, no matter what.

  The air here felt too still, and she could not catch her breath. She needed to be doing something, making something happen. She could feel herself start to breathe with quick gasps.

  “You need to be your own person, Tip,” Tyrell said, patting the hand she rubbed against her elbow.

  “Like that Ruth Martin, I suppose,” she said. “What?”

  Tyrell looked past her, his eyes attracted somewhere else.

  Tipton turned.

  Ruth Martin walked toward them. The woman caught Tyrell's gaze, then strode past, wordless

  8

  riding the horse named loss

  Mazy'd always been drawn to wounded things, as though shed been born with salve enough to spread around for healing. Suzanne would have drawn her, whether Pig had noticed her or not. Maybe it was a gift she'd been given, so she could heal her own hurts through comforting the sorrows of others Sister Esther said everyone had endowments.

  “The talent of exhortation is one of the highest,” the somber woman told Mazy as they hung washed clothes onto ropes they'd strung between their wagons.

  “That might be yours,” Mazy said. “But I doubt it's mine.” She snapped her husband's wet shirt and laid it across the line. “Men get ready-made. We women have to sew our own.”

  “A benefit of war,” Sister Esther announced, “men's clothing.” They continued to work side by side. “We never know for sure,” she said, “until we face a challenge what our gifts truly are. A great opportunity of life”

  Mazy'd already faced her greatest challenge, leaving roots and home behind. She'd chosen her husband and the unknown he offered.

  “Your women, how are they enduring the trip?” Mazy asked.

  “They are committed,” Esther said. “They are fine laundresses though they cannot reach these ropes. Their frames are diminished, and a tragedy has been afflicted on Deborah's feet, to make them so small. Their clothes are laid on bushes. Sun-dried,” she said, the S s of her words zinging in the air.
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  Mazy looked over at the Celestials. One of the group in slender, narrow dresses darned socks, the yarn lacing in her lap. She looked pale, and sweat beaded on her forehead. The other three laid out dusk-colored dresses over blooming bushes. Mazy heard a low humming sound, frowned.

  “Bees,” Esther said in explanation. “Deborah sets out the six chests at dusk. Just every other week. As we've rested today, they are allowed to go out to get nectar to make honey for their queens. You've noticed?” Mazy nodded. “The bees are a part of her dowry.” She leaned closer to Mazy. “She also brings special plans to enable her to gather honey without destroying the hives.”

  “I didn't think that was possible,” Mazy said. She snapped her mother's butternut-colored wrapper and draped it over the line.

  “It will be, if these colonies and the drawings survive The plans are worth a fortune—and her future”

  “Don't the girls like us? We never see them much, nor your broth-ers.

  “They feel self-conscious with their English,” Esther said. “My brothers and I instruct a small class for them A few of the children join us. They're learning My brothers are good men.” She reached for a goad stick to bolster the line sagging with heavy clothes. “That white-collared man came by too, once.” Her lips pursed as though sewn with tight thread. “He has a good ear for language and spoke some of their phrases. It pleased them. One of his gifts. I suspect he did not intend for God to use it in this way, but God does work in mystery.”

  Mazy said, “I never see him.”

  “God is seen in the everyday, by those who seek him, child.”

  Mazy smiled. “No, I mean Mr. Forrester.”

  “Yes. He stayed behind to work,’ he said, at Kanesville and then moved forward on his own. Crossed back over at Fort Kearney. We moved too slowly for him and his mules, I suspect, and our little gathering lacked ample coinage for such a man's…work.” After a pause she said, “I should not judge. His is a warm though wounded heart. One worth winning over with patience, before the devil takes his true gifts and gives him worldly riches.”

  Elizabeth knew that laundry was important, but so was what she planned. And if she didn't do it now, they'd have traveled too far to go back. She studied her position in relation to the wagons, before she dropped down over a rise. A pair of hawks dipped and screeched above her. Her fingers rubbed the elk's teeth clasped at her throat. It amazed her how, faster than a ferret's run, she could feel alone. It would take most of the day, but the sun set so late, she could still see the river in a hazy light near ten o'clock at night. She wanted to find the Indian woman Silver Bells again, give her salve for the blisters and scabs, leave laudanum, maybe trade for meat or moccasins for Mazy s blistering feet. The train's hunters hadn't had too much luck. Even Charles had missed a deer, she heard, though he claimed to be quite a shot.

  She'd taken the medicine, a meal of dried beef, a handful of hazelnuts, and a canteen of water and couldn't imagine she'd need any more. She thought of that later, of how little she'd taken, when she appeared over a rise and stared at the sight she faced down below.

  Mazy said later her mother's absence began the change for her. Up until then the journey had been tiring, dusty, and hot, unwanted. But not fearful. Before, waves of disappointment, unsettling rootlessness, and insecurity washed over her but not this heart-eclipsing woe.

  Elizabeth's absence at nooning had not distressed Mazy either until Adoras clucking tongue began flapping. “She should be here with the rest of us, tending to laundry, if truth be known, taking care of you, with that arm of yours not fully healed and feeling poorly yourself. Hows your side, anyway?”

  “Mama likes to venture out,” was all Mazy said as she scratched at Pig's neck, dabbed at her perspiring brow. A part of her agreed with Adora jabbing her finger in the air; another part of her wished to defend her mothers carefree ways even though she didn't understand them.

  When she asked around later in the day, spending a few minutes in conversation with some women from a neighboring train scrubbing wool at rocks, one or two remembered seeing a woman in a blue felt hat disappear over a grassy knoll, riding a black mule At least she'd ridden Ink, the surefooted mule. That was good.

  During the day, the women decided to cook up a big stew with potatoes and beef. Mazy added what remained of the roots Elizabeth had shown them how to dig They'd thicken it with buckwheat to be dippered over wild rice. One or two agreed to fix bread in Dutch ovens, enough for breaking open at the next day's stops.

  “More of this sharing'd be good,” Lura Schmidtke suggested. Mazy wondered if she still wore a corset beneath what looked like newly dyed wool. “Such a nice time to chat and plan together all day, too.”

  Mazy didn't join in the head nods of agreement. Now even family meals were being threatened as a place of refuge?

  With Tipton's help, Mazy lifted the water bucket, and they carried it to the sinkhole Jeremy'd dug beside the Platte, dipping warm water from the hole into it. The girl looked thinner to Mazy, the fine squarish bones of her face sharp instead of striking. Tiny women's bodies had little room to absorb change, Mazy decided. She had that advantage, anyway.

  Tipton stayed quiet, which suited Mazy fine.

  Mazy gazed into the stream. It ran clearer as they'd had no recent rains. She wondered if river water rather than the water that leached up in the sinkholes would be better to drink even though Jeremy said not. She braided her wet fingers over the back of her neck, watched the reflection of a tired woman behind her, strain and dirt streaked across her face. She looked up to see who it was, winced with recognition.

  Lura and her daughter Mariah, a noodle of a girl, walked toward them

  “Going to the necessary circle,” Lura said. “Join us?

  “I'll take the bucket back,” Tipton said. She nodded toward the circle forming and wrinkled up her straight-boned nose.

  “I know what you mean,” Mazy said. “But it is a natural thing.”

  “Truth be known, a nice grove of private trees would be a welcome sight,” Adora said, setting the water bucket down as she approached. “But a woman makes do.”

  Mazy and the others stood not far from the sinkhole, hoping to catch breezes from the river. They were joined by two other women from wagons that had chosen the same grassy area to rest up their stock. The small cluster formed a now familiar circle, their backs to each other, their fingertips holding out their skirts wide to the wind. Mazy let herself be comforted by the gende chatter about recipes and remedies, family and fate.

  “If my mother were here, she'd have some story to make us laugh,” Mazy said to murmurs of agreement.

  “Aren't you worried?” Adora asked in a voice hungry for gossip.

  “Not really,” Mazy lied.

  Finished, Mariah took her place in the circle of dark dresses tipped with white aprons while another woman squatted in the flattened grass inside the ring. Prairie breezes blew against the fabric fort, a protection all their own.

  “I was just sure I saw your mama a bit ago,” Lura said as she squatted behind her. Mazy could smell tobacco on Lura's clothes when she eased back into the circle. “You sure she's still adrift?”

  “What's she look like?” asked one of the newer arrivals.

  “Ample, darkish hair, going to gray,” Adora said.

  “A strong chin,” Mazy said. “People say I have her nose.” The breeze dried her sweaty face, and she felt refreshed just standing.

  “Pulls her skirts up when she's riding. Imagine that,” Adora said.

  “Not the bloomer lady we've heard about?” This from a newcomer.

  Mazy laughed. “That's me, I suspect, but I've had to give them up and wear this wrapper since I've been feeling poorly.”

  “When I carried my Ben,” another began, a woman with a Kentucky lilt, “I couldn't fit a thing. Even my wrapper stretched tight. I just pooched out like a pumpkin. Babe was born big enough to vote.” She called then to the tall toddler who wandered among the grasses, his head
a fluff of yellow against fading green. She signaled him to stay close. “When'll your baby arrive?”

  “In the new year,” Mazy said. “When we're in our new place.” The statement felt right, certain.

  The conversation continued in a patter as gentle as spring rain against canvas until each woman had taken her turn behind the skirts. Mazy wondered about Suzanne and vowed to check on her, see how she managed her necessary time. Finished, they wandered back, not anxious to return to the work of washing and resettling supplies.

  Mariah, her long braids dropping to the grasses, stooped to pick blue wildflowers. She stuck a blossom in her hair behind her ear and did a little dance. Sarah with the stiff braids and Jessie with the dimples joined her. The women applauded; the girls bowed low before all returned to their tasks of rudiment and routine.

  By dusk, after the stew had been heated and thickened well past its prime and each family had consumed as much as they wished, Mazy s mother had still not returned.

  It was then they discussed forming a search party.

  Antone vetoed it. “Lose a bunch more in the dark night to snakes and stumbles too,” he said. “We wait until morning, yah. That's the best way to work this. She may be back. She likes to wander?”

  “She does that,” Adora Wilson piped in. “An irresponsible sort.” Mazy stared at her. “Well, she is, for her age.”

  “That's it, then,” Antone said.

  Lura, Antone's little wife, chewed her pipe, shrugged her shoulders at Mazy when her husband announced his decision. Her handsome children looked the other way as though accustomed to nonnegotiable pronouncements by their father.

  “He's quite right, Maze,” Jeremy said, lifting the bucket of milk from the stream to separate for cream. “Usually its the children who wander off. If she'd stayed to help, this wouldn't have happened.”

  “I'm going to look for her,” Mazy said, needing to take some action.

  “Your mother's got a sound head. May well have decided to spend the night when she got so far out,” Jeremy said.

  “But she could be hurt, out there alone. You'd look for me, wouldn't you? Not just let me wander”