All Together in One Place

  The wedding ceremony itself on April 5, 1850, was a quiet one followed by a small gathering of friends with food and music but no high-stepping in their parlor Her father lived to give his blessing. On the day they buried him, three weeks later, Jeremy learned of his own uncle's passing and that a farm in Grant County now belonged to him.

  Mazy had thought they'd sell the land and head east.

  “We'll live there,” he said instead. He'd given her no reason except to say that improving the farm would be a good investment and that a change from working at the docks right then had become essential They'd said good-bye to her mother, traveled several days west through dipping, rolling lands, and arrived in a green profusion of June. A stream pushed through it low, toward the Mississippi. Clamshells littered the shore. Mazy had christened the place by swimming in the river.

  Now here she was, forced into another move driven by her husband.

  “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised,” she told Pig, who lifted her loose hand with his head as she considered and churned She patted the silky fur and laced the dog's ear between her fingers. “It does seem to be the way he decides things—on his own, without counsel.” She was left only to react. She remembered the simple interchange with Seth Forrester and felt a longing for a man who would respect her and share in her desires.

  “It doesn't have to be this way,” she told the dog. Something needed to change—and soon. She called for Tipton to finish up the churning if she would, rinsed her hands in the water basin, then went in search of her husband.

  “Come on ahead, man!” the ferrymaster shouted. Ruth Martin flicked the whip, and the heavy oxen team moved forward with a jolt. The wheels groaned, and the ferry lowered itself in the water with the weight Once surrounded on three sides by the river as dark as Boston baked beans, Ruth had a temporary loss of direction, a feeling so strange she closed her eyes and shook her head then stared, attached to a point of land showing between the big oxen's ears.

  A mist began dropping from a sky as gray as her broodmare. Oh, fine Just what we need Rain on top of dirty water. Well, she'd always liked a challenge. She took a deep breath and gripped the whip.

  She'd wrapped her hair up high, stuffed it under the hat that had been her husband's, then pulled the felt down tighter toward her ears, the touch bringing back the memory and with it piercing pain. She shook her head, but she couldn't shake the feeling.

  “Are you frightened?” Betha asked her from the seat above her.

  Ruth shook her head and must have scowled because Betha said, “That's right—I'm not supposed to ask you questions.”

  “No one seems to care,” Ruth said in a soft, low voice She wore a pair of men's blue pants and boots and her brother's shirt with a ban-danna at her neck she could pull up around her face to look more like a drover warding off dust. She stood hunched over to look wider and stockier She didn't like being deceptive, though flouting convention by wearing a dress at the crossing hadn't seemed wise, either.

  Jed's wagon rolled onto the ferry behind them. Ruth felt the water lift the ferry, which now began to turn downstream

  Her nieces squealed in the back. “Sit down!” Betha said, then to Ruth, “I think they're having fun, though I don't see ho-o-o-w!” Her words rang out as the ferry lifted on a push of wave, hesitated, then plunged, taking on splashing water over the oxen's wide feet.

  Water lapped hard against the side of the flat-bottomed boat, sending another muddy splash over the side. Ruth swallowed She didn't easily get seasick, but the rush of water and the twisting in the current threatened.

  “Almost to the first island, kids. Hang on! Can you see your dad back there?”

  “He's there, Mama,” Jessie shouted. “Got's white eyes!”

  “I'll bet he has! If he lives through this, I'll kill him,” Betha said, “but don't you tell him.” Ruth heard the girls giggle.

  Beau, the right ox, bigger and less sure, bawled and raised the nose chain with a toss of his thick neck. The motion caused the wagon to roll back against the chock, and Jessie fell with a thump Ruth heard Jed from behind them shout, “Whoa, now!” followed by the ferryman's orders

  “Keep ‘em clear of each other! Keep ‘em clear! Get ‘em under control!”

  “As though we had control,” Ruth told Betha before she remembered to hold her own tongue.

  They hit the island a few feet beyond where they'd expected. Another ferry waited on the far side to take them across the second fork if the wagons didn't sink too deep into the rain-soaked island soil. Ruth felt the jolt of the bow square against the land, signaling their arrival The low gate dropped open. Six or seven men, some on horseback, shouted orders.

  “Come ahead, then. Come on!”

  Ruth cracked her whip above the oxen's heads, and the heavy animals lumbered forward, the yellowed wooden yokes about their necks revealing the calluses caused by the endless scraping of the oak.

  “You kids doing all right?” Betha asked

  “Just chirk, Mommy,” seven-year-old Sarah said, her eyes as big as cow pies.

  Ruth tipped her hat with her leather-gloved hand as they passed by the ferryman who was too occupied with unloading to notice the smooth face of the bullwhacker.

  She talked to the nigh oxen as they rolled across the strip of ground that marked the critical halfway point of the crossing. The ferry would head back, end up downstream from the crossing, and be towed by cable back up for another load. It was a long and tedious process.

  When this was over, she'd rejoice Then she'd have to stand and wait while wranglers drove her horses across She would have preferred to be with them, but she had no other way to get her wagon here except to drive it. The horses were all branded and would be separated at the end so others could move them; but she was her own teamster when it came to the wagon.

  Ruth just didn't want to bog down now, didn't want to make a mistake here or at the second boarding.

  When the back wheel sank in almost to the hub, Ruth groaned. She shouted to the team, slapped their backs with her hands, snapped the air above their ears, all the while thinking maybe she should have taken the wheels off and paid the men to pull it with the ropes at the downriver crossing. Maybe she should have asked that Roman-looking man with the flawed ear who danced with her for help. Maybe she should have been where the oxen could swim instead of face this ferry contraption. She shook her head clear of the thoughts. Why did she always doubt herself halfway through a thing? It was her curse—one among many

  “Are we stuck, Auntie?”

  Ruth caught her breath and followed the trail to the second ferry. “We can do it,” Ruth said.

  The children bounced happily in the back As Ruth stared out at the even wider rush of water and what looked to her to be a much less sturdy craft they'd have to board, she wondered at the exuberance of children. What lay ahead felt more of faith than of assurance.

  Tipton churned the milk, standing beside the Bacons’ wagon, grateful for the task. She'd awoken with the heaviest of feelings in her stomach, and only when she heard her mother's singsong voice chatting with Elizabeth outside the wagon did she remember what had happened and how her life had abruptly changed.

  Over the morning breaking of their fast, her father told of how they'd make this something grand, this going west. “I expect we can always head back next year if need be.”

  “Back to nothing,” Charles said. He picked at his chin, pulling at the few hairs that threatened to require shaving.

  “Now, Charles, you'll be tended to,” her mother said. “Tipton, dear, tell me how you've spent your days? You're looking slender as a goose's neck. You've not been ill, have you?”

  Charles glared, but not at his mother.

  “Will I be—?”

  “Going to California with us? I should say so,” Adora answered.

  “Remaining in the Bacons’ wagon, is what I meant to say. Miz Bacon needs me.”

  “Why, after the crossing, when we make a few adjustments, your fa
ther and Charles plan to sleep beneath the tent, and you and I will share a bed of cornhusks.”

  “We can't sleep in the wagon?”

  “Charles brought his photographic equipment with him, dear. It—”

  “I had to get something out of this,” Charles said. She expected to have words with Charles the first time they were alone. Fire had always flashed between them; and with him here against his will, he'd be slinging cutting words, and maybe more, straight in her direction.

  “It just takes up a heap of room,” Adora smoothed. “Mules are strong, of course, so we have an extra tent. What matters is that we're together now.” She nuzzled her nose in her daughters hair.

  Later, before leaving to help with the crossings, Tyrell tried to settle her as they walked to the Bacons’ wagon. “No need to be worrying,” he said. “Your family came just to look after you, not to keep us from marrying.”

  “But I liked being with the Bacons.”

  “Don't always get what we like. Sometimes we got to like what we get.

  “Didn't you like our times together, without someone hovering close?”

  “Any time with you is pleasing,” Tyrell told her. “We'll still have time together.”

  “Mother'll watch us like children.” She turned to see Charles staring at them. “Charles could've had the store to work in for his life. Now he has nothing but uncertainty.”

  “Everything except eternity's uncertain. Charles could strike out on his own. He could have stayed there in town. I know lots of young men who've lived without their parents by the time they turned seventeen. Charles is already what, twenty-two, -three?”

  “Twenty-five,” she said. “An only child until he was ten.”

  “Your papa needed him. Being needed is a good thing, he'll come to find.”

  She kicked at a rock in the path with her slippered foot. She stopped and spoke to Tyrell's face. “What if my parents've changed their minds about allowing us to marry? Maybe they really intend to turn around. They didn't actually say they weren't going to turn back.”

  “Maybe, maybe.” He drew his hand along the square line of her jaw. “Maybe they just wanted to be sure the folks they loved were all together in one place. Might have been willing to sacrifice what they had for that. You're climbing mountains of your own making, Tipton.”

  “When we get to the turnoff to California, what will you do? Go with the Bacons as you've contracted or with us to California?”

  “I keep my word, Tipton.”

  He hadn't said to whom.

  Tipton felt her fingers tingle. Tyrell bent to kiss her cheek. “I'll see you later. I've got work to do.”

  Her arm was numb by the time he was out of her sight.

  She stood now, churning the Bacons’ cream. She lifted and dropped the paddle, plunging the cream into butter, wondering when he'd be back. The rhythm of lifting and plunging, lifting and plunging, soothed her.

  Matt Schmidtke interrupted the cadence. He rode beneath the fluff of cottonwood seeds drifting from the trees. Tipton watched the boy with that odd white streak in his hair ride over on a big sorrel horse, lean his arms across the pommel, and tip his hat to her.

  “Guess you heard that this group of wagons won't be crossing until at least Thursday. Someone tried to cross on their own hook and failed. Caused some animals to bolt on the ferry. Now a wagon's hung up halfway on and halfway off, twisting around with the animals all unhashed. Quite a mess. But you girls'll have a few more days for churning and washing and such if the weather holds.”

  “And what will you boys be doing?”

  “Tending stock's what I do, and well.” He touched his finger to his hat and left.

  He stopped at the Wilson wagon, and Tipton saw her mother stick her head out the oval puckered canvas. Adora nodded as she twisted a single long braid over her shoulder. Spying Tipton, she shouted, “I'll join you, baby.”

  “No need to hurry, Mother,” Tipton sighed, her eyes still seeking Tyrell.

  Mazy found Jeremy cleaning his Pennsylvania rifle not far from the river. He had a view of the Missouri, of water and wagons and scud clouds and sand. She thought he'd be with the others, helping push wheels at the ferry crossings, using what he saw and what others said as a way of gauging how many more days it would take for them to cross. But he had chosen a solitary spot, and she took it as God's working.

  “You're not going to start up with me, are you?” he asked. His blue-striped shirt had smudges of mud on it, as did the cuffs of his yellowed pants.

  “I came to see if you had things you wanted me to wash,” Mazy said.

  “Did you?” He gazed at her and she dropped her eyes.

  “No, I didn't.” She took a deep breath and sat beside him on the log, settling the wide skirts of her wrapper in a clump of cloth she stuffed down between her legs. Pig sniffed around at squirrels holding themselves still, then shifting their eyes in that quick way they had “I came to talk, Jeremy.”

  “Lately, that means arguing.”

  She nodded in agreement. “What's happened between us…leaves more distance than I'm wanting.” He turned his head to her but didn't stop the rifle barrel moving in the cloth he held in his hand. “Mostly my fault,” she said. “I was just feeling so…betrayed.”

  “We've discussed this, Maze,” Jeremy said. His voice held warning.

  “I know, but not to decidedness. At least not to mine. I left so much behind.”

  “Took essentials with you. All one needs.”

  “Not the same. I have to grieve what isn't, before I can accept what is What isn't anymore for me is having what we had before. We don't have the farm or furniture. But most of all, we don't have each other. It's the friendship and comfort I miss more than the bluffs, more than anything, I'd say. And I wonder if you miss it too?”

  He continued to rub, pushing his fingers into a circle now, against the bluing. She could smell the oil of the cloth.

  “You don't have to be afraid to say one way or the other. I just need to know, to help me decide how to make this work or not.”

  “We haven't been beyond this much,” he said.

  “I know.” She waited, wondering, aware of the throbbing in her throat, the breeze off the bluffs washing down on them. A red-tailed hawk cried in the distance.

  Jeremy laid the gun down, braced it barrel up against the tree stump. He lifted her hand, kissed the palm. “I miss you,” he said. “I'd give most anything to burn the thorns between us, but I won't change my mind about going. I don't want to talk further if that's where this is leaning.”

  “I've come to a conclusion,” she said, “that if I'm ever to live again in some pleasant place, then being there with you would make it more so than lakes or trees or bluffs. I'd want my friends there. You're my best friend, Jeremy, or always were.”

  “You'll be able to go on without, holding the hammer over my head?”

  “I believe I'm ready. I won't be all agreeable about the decisions we have to make along the way, but I've committed to the most important one and that's to be with you in a way that's…good. I could have stayed and I didn't. Maybe gotten a job as a day lady or something.” He raised an eyebrow. “I could have. And I could turn back now, but I won't. I felt like a ¨casualty, until I realized that what mattered was you and being with you.”

  The dog stopped sniffing, turned to the shouts at the river some distance beyond. His ears pricked forward, and he barked once, low and short

  “I want that too,” Jeremy said. He laid the rag down and pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head as his hand rubbed her shoulder. They stared out at the scene before them, of lives in a whirl as much as the water, of hopes borne on wheels so easily shattered. “A little less warring, a little more balance. I'd like that.”

  They sat there a long time, staring out at the river and the far side of the island, where the second ferry ventured out. Pig barked low again then stood and faced the Missouri.

  “They haven't moved many wagons w
hile IVe been watching,” Jeremy said, his eyes following the dogs stare.

  “Maybe some sort of congestion.”

  Pig barked, a more insistent sound, his tail straight up and still.

  “They'll work it out,” Jeremy said and lifted her chin to him and kissed her, a warm and welcoming touch. More than the kiss of a friend.

  Pig deserted them. He pushed past Mazy, knocking her over. “Hey!” she said as she caught herself, her fingers sinking into the dirt behind her. Pig barked a warning as his black paws grabbed at the hoof-hardened earth. He headed toward the river.

  “What's startled him?” Jeremy said, helping Mazy up. “Must have gotten the scent of a rabbit or something.”

  “He's so purposeful,” Mazy said. She watched the dog plunge into the swirling river, the brown wash bobbing him like a cottonwood branch. “Oh, Jeremy, he'll drown!”

  “Not likely. Strong as an ox, that dog. Current's swift though. He'll end up at the low end of the island.”

  The dog's dark head bobbed like a burl before making its way toward the strip of land that sliced the river. Once there, a dash Mazy recognized as Pig sped toward the first ferry, weaving through the legs of oxen and horses and the arc of wagon wheels before disappearing into willows.

  6

  the pace of progress

  Jeremy shaded his eyes. “Makes no sense, him rushing off like that.” He reached a hand for Mazy, his rifle gripped in the other. “Crazy dog. Hope he doesn't frighten someone's team now.” He shook his head. “More trouble than he's worth.”

  “Don't ever say that, not even in funning,” Mazy said. People had gathered along the banks, pointing and stretching their necks to see through distant trees.

  “Some wagon groups have a rule about dogs, that they be put down, so they don't alert Indians or upset the stock.” Jeremy blew his nose.

  “I've seen a greyhound and one of those pug dogs around. We'd leave any train that makes that rule,” Mazy said. “Wouldn't you?

  “Faster than a ferret,” Jeremy said.

  “I do believe that is the nicest thing you've ever said about Pig. It's reassuring to know you'd never let them vote that way.”