“For now,” Ruth said. “All together for now.”
Before they left, Matt showed his mother and Mariah how to lift the heavy yokes off their oxen and where to place them beside the wheels.
“You set ‘em the same place every night, you'll know where to find ‘em in the morning,” he told them. “Got to watch and make sure Boo is always on the left, smaller means left. Minnie on the right. Hitch up Minnie first, otherwise she thinks she's being left behind and gets unruly. Same goes for your team, Mariah. Baxter left, Cow Chip right.”
“Cow Chip. On the right. Yes. I'll remember,” Mariah said. She hugged her brother good-bye.
“I'll see you in a few days,” he said.
Lura hugged him tight. The boy stepped back and thumbed his eyes. He put his hat on and scanned the circle of wagons and women. He looked as though he might propose another plan, consider staying with them. Lura could see the confusion, the compassion in his young face, that streak of white hair yellowed by the sun. She started to speak, but Mariah said it for her.
You go on, Mattie. We're Schmidtkes too, remember? We'll keep going where we're pointed, and we'll meet up again.”
“Lord willing,” he said. Then he mounted up, and he and Joe Pepin headed west.
Mazy noticed the ache, how her shoulders, breast, and breathing pressed against her heart as heavily as stone. Her arm throbbed from the constant cracking of the whip, of pushing with her shoulder against the oxen when they moved too far right or left, of bending to check the wagon tongues and heavy iron chains that held the animals to the wagon. She hadn't realized how diligent one needed to be to keep them heading the right direction. Had Jeremy ever complained of it? But she couldn't let the knowledge penetrate her senses, scratch against the surface of her skin.
“Least we ain't got the sun in our eyes in the afternoon,” Elizabeth said. “Feel sorry for them boys having to head back into it.”
“We haven't come all that far today,” Mazy said. She checked the odometer on the wheel. “Only ten point five miles once we got turned around. We'll do better tomorrow.”
“Assuming we don't have a tongue break or lose an ox,” Elizabeth said. “And we find decent grazing.”
That first night headed east, they'd circled the wagons not for protection from any kind of threat but to contain the oxen, the Bacons’ cows, the one or two riding stock they trailed, and the Wilsons’ mules. The antelope trailed around bumping its nose without invitation into pots until Pig barked at it, sending it scurrying under a wagon.
“You just tie him up,” Adora told Elizabeth from across the circle. “He's worse than a dog.”
“We don't have enough dogs,” Elizabeth said. “Can't have enough. Good for guarding, good for fun.”
“If food is ever short, I do suppose they can be eaten,” Adora said. She bent back to lift the water bucket off the side of the wagon. Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment Adora spilled the bucket of water down the front of her dress.
“Oh no,” Adora wailed. “Now we'll have to drink that alkali tasting stuff. This was such good water too.”
Something about her wet dress, the fatigue of the day, the strain of Hathaway's death, all the deaths, even Tipton's empty distance—all of it came together, flooding her as the bucket had surely soaked her dress. She looked down at her feet. They were drenched too, her last pair of shoes without holes in them. It was too much, all too much Adora leaned her head against the wagon and wept.
Elizabeth waited a moment for Tipton to hear her mother crying, to go and comfort her. When she didn't, Elizabeth finished tying Fip to the wheel and walked over to Adora. She touched her back. “These first days are always tough.”
Adora turned to the comfort offered and sobbed, the cries of a woman lost, a woman coming to terms with herself as a widow.
“Its like my arms been cut off, a side of my heart ripped out.” Adora dried her face on her apron, touched its wetness, and let it drop. “I must have thought of him fifty times today, wondering what he wanted for supper, had he tightened that hitch he said needed it, how far did he think we'd come. Each time stopping myself. He's gone. Hathaway is gone.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Not that I listened to him all the time. No, I surely did not. But I needed to hear what he said to know what I wanted.”
She shook her head, wiped her eyes. Elizabeth patted her back.
“Did I tell you that once he told me he thought we should hire someone to make up women's clothes to sell, the way we had men's available in the mercantile. I told him no woman would want to come into a store and buy something not made just for her. A ridiculous thing. I talked him out of it. I didn't even have an opinion about it until he brought up his.” She hiccuped from the crying and gathering air.
“I'm sure he knew that about you,” Elizabeth offered. “Loved you for it.”
“It wasn't endearing to him, I'm sure of that.” She took in a deep breath, looked at Elizabeth now. “I feel like a paddlewheel hitting a rock and stopping every time it turns.”
“Hard to make progress with that kind of bumping.”
“Isn't it.”
“You're movin through it.”
“Moving but not well, if truth be known. Hathaway didn't want to come, you know? He liked the mercantile. He had plans for Charles there, he did. Charles was so impatient, always. Troubling, if truth be known. Charles was right to be fussed with me.” She wiped at her nose with the edge of her apron again. “Oh, this thing is all wet. I'm getting you all wet!” She dropped her hands and stepped back as though burned, looked at the wet stain against Elizabeths apron. The observation began a new wail of tears, her hands pressed against her temples. “I can't seem to do anything that doesn't hurt someone else. Maybe if we had put our foot down with Tipton earlier, she wouldn't have turned so headstrong. Maybe she wouldn't have run off after all. But I knew she planned to. That wasn't just a threat. Do you think it was?”
“Your daughter is a strong-willed one.”
“Not a bad quality, though,” she defended. “My family has it. But if she'd been a little less so, maybe we wouldn't have come, Hathaway wouldn't have…nor Charles. Could we have avoided it all, Elizabeth? You knew Hathaway some, and you know my Tipton. Did I tell you that people often thought of us as sisters? Sisters! Oh, that child. What am I to do?”
“I don't know, Adora.”
Elizabeth knew it would be useless to try to tell her what to do. The best consolation came from faith and friends, but only when one was ready to let that loving in. Once opened up for healing, a person could mine the past until the rich, sustaining ore was found. All in good time. Tonight, Elizabeth simply listened to the telling of the stories that would unearth where Adora had been, tell who she might become.
Elizabeth held her, let her cry, gave her the food of being present, the sustenance of love.
12
coming to their senses
She should eat but she wasn't hungry. Mazy couldn't remember if lack of appetite was a sign of cholera, or if Jeremy's first sign had been fatigue. Had he drunk something he shouldn't have? Eaten something? Was it in the air floating and settling on them like the ever-present dust? They had no protection except to get out of its way. That's what they were doing, heading back, away
“Sarah complained some of stomach cramps today,” Ruth told her as they set in for the night. “She's some better this evening.”
“Claytons recovered too,” Mazy said. “Children are more resilient than their elders. And so few women have died. The grave markers we've seen with names are mostly men, a few babies. Losing a baby would be even harder way out here.”
“Wouldn't it,” Ruth said. She had a tone in her voice that raised a question in Mazy's mind, but Ruth walked on, and the moment to wonder passed.
Mazy pulled a high-back chair from its side board hook. She sat, lifted her feet, rested them on the wooden spokes of the wagon. The position took the pressure off her legs. She would sit here for a time, then
milk the cows and turn in. She would go to bed without Jeremy, again, turn over and feel the cool, empty space beside her. She shook her head to toss away the image A surge of air cooled her hot face.
“I fixed us some dried beef and beans,” her mother said, coming up behind her “Best you keep your energy up. Here. Brought some bread, too.
Mazy took the wooden bowl handed her, too tired to resist. She soaked the bread in the juice and sucked at it. She ate more for the baby than because hunger called She hadnt been hungry since Jeremy became ill. Had that only been two days before? How could so much happen in so short a time?
“Have you seen Pig?” Mazy asked, looking about. “I know he was here earlier.”
“Off with Suzanne, “ Elizabeth said. She nodded with her firm, square chin toward the Cullver wagon. “Seems to have taken a liking to her.”
“I'm to travel on alone, it seems.”
“Dog has your eye for the needy,” she said. “Besides, you got lots of human company,” Elizabeth said, “if you want it.” Her mother squeezed Mazy's shoulder, and she winced.
“What's wrong, Madison?”
“Just sore,” she said. “I'm fine. I'll be fine.”
Mazy lowered her face to her mother's callused fingers still resting on her shoulder. The roughness felt good against her aching skin. Elizabeth stroked her daughter's face as though she were a baby.
“I'm tired enough tonight that nothing matters,” Mazy said, breaking her vow to not complain.
“Suspect it's not the journey,” Elizabeth told her. “Being wore out seems to fester in the missing places. It's temporary, though.”
Without interruption from Mazy, her mother chattered on about the mosquitoes and what they fed on when people and stock didn't wander by. She commented on the pink of the sunset and how fortunate they were to find fuel for the fires without having to walk far for it. Mazy wondered where her mother got her verve, her curiosity about things, her appetite for gratitude dressed in the ordinary life.
“Don't you miss him?” Mazy asked.
Elizabeth stopped midsentence. “Of course I miss the man,” she said. “The others too, but Jeremy for sure. He was kin, after all.”
“You seem so…accepting of everything that's happened.”
“Can't do much else.”
“You could grieve his going.”
Elizabeth was thoughtful. “Yes,” she said. “And I am. I'll remember his ways, what he wanted for you and his child, his letting me come along, letting me be closer to you and that grandbaby. But I'm a sober soul and won't pretend to feel what I don't. Jeremy didn't easily warm to people. He was more practical than that, I'd say. Always worried me a bit about the two of you.”
“Jeremy loved me,” Mazy said.
“Not protesting that. Just always thought you was needing someone who was more cherishing, who'd bring out the passion and kindness of your heart, someone who'd make you feel at home no matter where you was. A friend, kind of.”
“We were close, Mother.”
Elizabeth sucked on her piece of bread and stared at her daughter for a time before saying anything more. “Hate to see you be one of them people who in death pretends everything was dandy in life when it wasn't. Wouldn't take away from the person to be honest with yourself,” she said
“Aren't you always saying people grieve in their own way?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Some folks get mad, or go mad; others go so deep inside we never see ‘em again. Don't go to those places, Mazy, please. For me, I just try to keep the person in a corner of my heart and make them comfortable there, call on them now and then. Try to be honest with them in death as I was in livin. Doesn't mean I don't mourn them. Sorrow doesn't look the same to everyone.”
Elizabeth had taken bites in between her words, and now her bowl, too, was empty. Mazy looked at the lines in her mother's face, the tiny crow's-feet that flowed out from her eyes, the deeper impressions that bordered her mouth. Where had she acquired that warmth and composure? Wisdom wears a dogs face, she thought. One of acceptance, selfless generosity. What had happened to make her mother, like the surface of the lake on a quiet summer afternoon, carry that calmness that ran deep and threatened no great turmoil beneath?
“Why don't you just take some time tonight to write in your book?” Elizabeth suggested. “Might soothe you.”
“I doubt I'll be doing that anytime soon.”
“You always got enthusiasm from your writing,” Elizabeth said, surprise in her voice.
“I'm done with that,” Mazy said
“Now that does grieve me,” Elizabeth said. “That you've chosen not to let your gift and faith feed your soul. Let grieving change you in a good way. It's—”
“What's he barking about?” Mazy asked, turning to the sound of the dog “I don't see him half the day, and then he shows up troubled.”
Her eyes found Pig, nose pointed beneath the Cullver wagon where Clayton sat. The child wailed, and Pig's tail stood up in warning.
Away from the activities of the women, Ruth brushed Koda. Hand over hand, she brushed, the rhythm familiar and comforting. Here at least with the smell of hay, manure, and cooling horse, her life made sense.
Everything else did not Matt Schmidtke was young and inexperienced even with Joe Pepin riding beside him. They were honest enough, but Charles was a question. It'd be like him to lay back, join up with them. He didn't seem the kind to want to be too far from places where he could take advantage. She wished she'd gone with them. Why hadn't she pushed Betha harder to go forward? You couldn't ever put the past behind if you kept turning back to it. Ruth knew about that; her life was written in afflicted ink.
She hadn't thought that six years ago. She was happier than she believed possible then, happier than she deserved. She brushed Koda, remembering how the horses had nurtured her then, too. She should have known it wouldn't last. Happiness flitted into her life like a hummingbird, startling and bright and tasting of succulence just before it flew away. Her two-year engagement to a young banker originally from Indiana was about to end—joyously, with the wedding of the summer.
They'd met while Ruth worked as a lithographer at the Columbus paper, taking the drawings the men brought in of fires and celebrations and such, and engraving them backwards onto the limestone plates with detail so precise her skills were often asked for, so the designs could be printed perfectly against the paper. It was a gift not many had, and she took pride in the accomplishment, though in the West she'd never use it. It would make her too easy for Zane to find, even with her last name now changed. And he must never find her.
Tipton lay on her mother's bed, her eyes staring at the canvas canopy overhead. What had awoken her? She tried to judge the time, how long she'd been inside this cluttered space. Her mother must have saved everything from carpet tacks to balls of string to crock jars full of buttons. Her collection of “things” left little room to even stand. What had awoken her?
Maybe she'd heard Zilah about outside. Tipton thought herself a genius for soliciting the Celestial to drive her wagon. It was true the Asian had been sick, but she looked recovered. And she spent her days kneeling in the Sister's wagon in that way they all had, or quickstepping beside it with no real purpose that Tipton could see. Oh, they held the strings on the chickens’ legs, let them pluck at bugs for a time each day before placing them back in their cages, but that was a mindless task, one that took little effort.
Someone shouted again, but it sounded far away Tipton thought it a fine bargain she'd struck, if she could just remember what she'd promised the girl for handling the mules Something to do with making her a pandowdy, that was it! It was reassuring that the girl could be gotten to through her stomach.
Tipton turned to her side The effort of remembering made her head ache. It throbbed at her temples and she itched. She could smell herself. Not pleasant. The wheels had hit a hundred rocks during the day, each one thumping her head into the board. Her head throbbed now, though the wagon wasn't mov
ing. Any minute she would rouse herself, use the chamber pot and slop it. Yes, any minute As soon as the dog stopped barking, that would be her sign. Or she heard a child laugh, yes, that would be the signal to stir—unless she could get that girl to slop the pot. Perhaps offer her walnuts.
The thought of food made Tipton wonder when she'd eaten last. Was she hungry for one of Bethas pies? No, no craving for food. It would make her fat, the food would She must not get fat, but she couldn't remember why Something gnawed inside her, something just below her heart
She shivered and rolled over, her hand slipping under the pillow to pull it to her face, to muffle the longing and the canyon of ache. Her fingers touched the cool bottle. She pulled them back as though burned. No, she needed to save it for when they were ill, when any of them were sick She rolled back over, her hands knotted like a crones over her stomach. She stared up at the mottled canvas arched over her. Her breathing shifted, she had trouble taking in air. She heard the cool of the laudanum calling her name, and she answered.
Ruth finished with Koda, hobbled him, then began brushing Jumper. The stallion nickered. “Yes, you're my friend,” she said. “Horses are more reliable than men.” Men like Z. D Randolph had taught her that Back in Ohio, he'd breezed through the door, ducking his head as he came through, the bell jingling above the jamb, black cape and cane swinging out from his vested black suit. A sweet scent of his cologne drifted into the cavernous space known for its odor of oil, wet paper, and ink. Somehow, he filled the room, made everything else fade away.
She'd looked up from her work, to see what the freshness was and the cause of the bell and the breeze swirling the scents, and stared into the brown eyes of the man she would marry.
“I am in awe,” he said, “to find great beauty in such an unlikely place.” Ruth blushed. “I'm seeking a lithographer to characterize Columbus,” he said. “I've people in St. Louis I'm wishing to send it to. Do you know of someone?”
“I have family there,” Ruth said “And I do lithograph work ” He cocked his head to the side and wore a half grin that made his sculpted face all the more intriguing.