“Then we’ll get corn. You can fix corn pone instead of biscuits. I’ll live.” He lifted her chin and smiled. “You worry overmuch.”
Sometimes she didn’t want a concern she raised to be fixed; she wanted someone to listen to her thoughts spoken out loud without dismissing them because the listener didn’t feel they carried any weight.
Teepees with decorations of feathers and black drawings on hides welcomed them as they approached the fort. The triangle-shaped structures sat like cone hats surrounding the adobe buildings of Fort Laramie. Davey and Letitia arrived with Captain Rigg’s group following another terrible wind and hailstorm that left their Bethel wagon with a split wheel. While Davey sought out the blacksmith, Letitia wandered across the courtyard to the bakery, the scent of fresh-baked bread with poppy seeds watering her mouth. If they stayed three or four days here, she’d look big as when she carried Martha.
But the Hawkinses’ wagon might well catch up too.
The baker hesitated before giving her the bread but must have decided her money was as good as any white person’s. “Ain’t seen many like you.” He handed her the string-wrapped package.
“Ain’t seen many mothers? Our camp full of ’em.”
The baker grinned. “I had that coming.”
She’d save the package wrapping. Maybe Davey would write a letter for her, leave it for the Hawkinses. No, he didn’t write well, he’d said. And she had no one else to ask.
Later she carried her washboard and a basket of clothes on her head to the Laramie River while Martha snuggled at her chest. She heard stories while she ran Davey’s pants against the washboard, her knuckles catching the rough tin now and then. At least they hadn’t lost an ox the way one of the travelers had, the poor animal breaking its neck in the midst of a stampede.
One woman told of trading with the Indians for a beaded purse she planned to send home to her mother in Iowa. Letitia had seen the Indian women carrying their babies in a wood-framed cradle on their backs, and she thought she might go there to see if she could trade for one. But she wasn’t sure what she had to trade except one of Davey’s flannel shirts. She listened as she worked, to stories of escape during a stampede and runaway.
“Captain Barlow yelled for people to drop their wagon tongues to hold them back, but by then it was too late. They overrun us all,” the woman who had escaped told the washing women.
“It’s a wonder any of us lived.” A slender woman snapped an apron, laying it on the shrub beside the river. “I declare I would not have come if it hadn’t meant I’d have stayed in Kentucky alone, that man was so committed to this journey.”
“I heard one company was exposed to measles,” Letitia offered, working up her courage to join in the conversation.
The women turned as one to her. Several frowned.
“Ain’t heard that,” the Kentucky woman said.
“Don’t even mention such a thing, girl. That’s all we’d need way out here.”
“Who’s got a good pie recipe for dried currants?”
A breeze cooled Letitia’s hot face. Martha cried from her sack then and the women returned to their chatter, their voices lower but still carrying across the water. Maybe talking about the terrible things that could happen and putting worries in a bucket to carry around to share wasn’t a good idea. Listening to the women’s laments, Letitia decided she was in a better place than many of them. She had chosen to come with Davey, chosen to make a new life with him.
She spread her wet laundry over the bushes, watched as the sun shimmered against the water, the reflection fluttering the leaves like a mist that never disappeared.
The Kentucky woman carried her basket of wet clothes on her hip, but she stopped and looked at Martha. “She’s adorable. She’ll crush some man’s heart with those long eyelashes flashing.”
“Yes ma’am, she will.” Letitia wiped her daughter’s chin of drool.
The woman moved away, leaving behind a wake of kinship. Letitia would savor those ripples in her sea of uncertainty, reminding herself that she’d made a choice to come.
“We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, with Captain English,” Davey told Letitia as she moved a firkin so she could put the scrub board away. He hoped she wouldn’t resist his decision. “English has but twenty-six wagons including ours and 300 head of cattle. We’ll still be part of Tetherow’s main group under Meek’s guidance but able to move faster. I’ve picked up flour, sugar, salt, tea, coffee, and tobacco. And lead. It’s good we’re here ahead of others.” He pulled up his neck bandana and coughed. “Dang dust here. They’ll run out of sugar sure thing and the hind companies will have to pay twice my eight cents a pound for flour.”
“You done a good job of tradin’.” She lifted the flour barrel cover. “Good to see a full supply. I tries to trade your shirt for one of those cradleboards the Indians use.”
“You went to the Indian camp? So that’s where you were. Brave of you.” He poured himself fresh coffee, the scent rising in the morning air.
“Jus’ curious. Mrs. Meek go with me. Her husband say it safe. She speaks like she from the provinces, north.”
“I ’spect she’s French.”
“A board leaned against the teepee. I shows ’em your shirt but a woman shakes her head no.”
“Those boards are pretty special. Made for an individual child. Probably didn’t want to part with it.”
Then she pressed the point he’d hoped to avoid. “Can we wait? One more day? For the Hawkinses?”
“Now lookee, Letitia.” She could be as persistent as a mosquito once she got something into her head. “We got to keep going.”
“We makin’ good time. Mr. Meek say so.”
“Letitia. I’ve decided.”
But in the morning Davey awoke with swollen eyes, a sore throat, and a persistent cough. Letitia went with him to the fort hospital.
“Measles?”
“Buried a boy from an earlier party and a company just came in has the disease as well,” the fort doctor told them. “Your master could get pretty sick.” He nodded toward Letitia.
“Maybe we stay. I finds out if Nancy with the group of last evenin’. You have treatment?”
“Very little.” The doctor washed his hands in a basin. “Keep the temperature down with cool baths. Keep your baby clear of him. If you can. Blotches will appear in three or four days. They’ll itch. Try not to scratch them. It’ll prolong the disease. I’d recommend staying here until the fever breaks.”
“Yessuh.”
“Lookee here. We got to get going.” Davey let Letitia help him back to the wagon.
“Doc Hawkins treat you if we wait.”
“We ain’t waiting, Tish.” Speaking tired him. “You’ll have to drive. The drovers are so far behind. It might be three days before they catch up. I want out of here now. And don’t say nothing to nobody about measles.”
“Can’t tend you well if I’s drivin’.”
“It’s the end of June and we’re only 650 miles from home. I’ll push through this. May not even be measles.” His breath came short. “You drive.”
“You too weak today.”
He cursed and Letitia startled.
“Sorry.”
She rarely stood up to him. But maybe she was right. “OK. For a day. I don’t like this delaying.”
“You be stronger come mornin’. Maybe somethin’ good come of it.”
He knew she spoke of the Hawkinses or the drovers catching up. Maybe she was right. “We’re only waiting ’cuz the day’s nearly passed.”
Letitia settled Davey in the wagon. In the morning she brought him a thin soup he fed himself while she hitched the oxen. She did it alone but her eyes throbbed with the effort. This would not be an easy journey, and truth was, she wasn’t sure she could handle the teams. She wasn’t that strong and there was Martha needing feeding and rocking if she cried. Her heart beat faster when she remembered the stampedes or quick orders from the captains to “Circle up!” She so h
oped the Hawkinses would catch up. Troubles seemed lighter with someone to share them, even if they couldn’t change the trial.
“Thank ye.”
Letitia knelt back, setting the bowl aside.
He was up on his elbows. “Lookee who’s here.”
Letitia twisted to look. “Nancy?”
She watched instead as an Indian girl and Meek, the guide, approached.
“One advantage thar be of a colored soul is she’s easy to find in a crowd,” Meek said. “Come on out here, Mrs. Carson. Want to say thanks for spending time with my Elizabeth. Missus Meek. She gets lonely. Likes woman talk.”
Letitia scrambled out, stood facing an Indian girl, her eyes red from weeping. The girl held out the cradleboard toward Letitia. She was young, not the older woman who had said no to yesterday’s trade.
“I gets my shirt.”
Meek put his hand up to stop Letitia from leaving. “No trade. Wants you to take it. A gift. She’s Arapaho. They’re a generous people.”
The girl pushed the baby board toward Letitia again. “Take.”
“She wants you to have that thar Indian cradle for your little papoose. Came looking for you. Scared half the camp walking in.”
“Her baby’s?”
“It were.”
“I gives something.”
“You give when you take that thar gift,” Meek said. “You pass the gift-giving on. Maybe not that thar board but something else what’s treasured. The way it works here. Her baby died and she gives everything away so the papoose travels to the spirit world with nothing to hold it back. Frame’s wild rose. Moss for the pillow thar and beneath that little baby bottom.” He fingered the greenish fuzz sticking out from the soft leather patch that covered it. “We head out promptly now. You takin’ it?”
“Yessuh.” She clutched the cradleboard to her breast and wanted to touch the woman, to thank her with motion. She opened her arm then and the girl walked inside the one-arm hug. She leaned into Letitia though she was taller. Letitia felt her grief, no different from her own when Nathan died an infant, nor Nancy’s mourning over Laura. Tending and mending used threads of many colors.
Letitia found she could lift the heavy oxen yokes to hitch the wagon, run the reins through the rings and attach them. It was awkward and tiring, but she could do it and the success pleased her. She could set the team of four oxen off with a flick of the reins and her words “Go, A; go, B.” They’d plod out. Sometimes she’d hop off and walk beside the steady beasts as they followed the wagon ahead. The wagon seat brought no comfort to her back even though the sun warmed it. She hadn’t thought having to sit on it for long hours driving would be so miserable. She had new appreciation for Davey’s part of this trip.
If she kept the baby outside in the fresh air, she’d have a better chance of avoiding whatever Davey had. But if Davey was exposed enough to get measles, she could get it too and then dear Martha. She wondered why they hadn’t yet. She ran her hands over his hot forehead. He had no little pocks on his face. Maybe it wasn’t measles. She’d prayed it wasn’t.
“Easy now.” Davey groaned from inside the wagon.
Easy? Not with the rocks and riddled trail no more than a hardpacked track. Every little bump must hurt him. But there was nothing she could do except proceed. She would allow others to pass. He wanted to keep going, but she doubted he’d complain about the slower pace today. While the oxen behaved, they could continue with the company he’d chosen to go with, though they’d be in the hind group.
The third morning G.B. Smith approached. “You can use a hand.”
They’d somehow caught up to him, of all people. G.B. had his vest buttoned up like he was going to a gambling hall. She hadn’t heard him approach as he wasn’t riding his big horse. Rothwell came out from under the wagon and barked. A little late. G.B. brushed his boot toward the hound and the dog scurried back under the wagon, his big head resting on his paws, eyes focused on the man, pointy ears laid back. He growled low.
“I manage.” Yes, she could use a hand with the yokes—but not from him. Milking Charity morning and night along with everything else tired her. Even giving milk away or trading it for dough risings and eggs proved a chore. But at least women traded with her even if they didn’t carry on a conversation. Bathing Davey when his fever grew; fixing a weak meat soup. She had to eat and keep her strength up too, for Martha, so preparing a meal of jerked buffalo and hardtack was all the energy she had left.
“Don’t be stupid. I saw you struggling. Carson!” He shouted toward the wagon bed.
Davey came to the opening, still fevered but no blotches. She began to think the fort doctor was wrong.
“Sure and it’s me.”
“Your girl here resists my services.” He rolled the word girl around his tongue like he was chewing poison. “Tell her she needs help.”
“Tish, let him.”
“There, you see? Your employer wants you to be a wise woman. You can pay me back sometime.” He raised one eyebrow, then moved in close enough she could smell his tooth powder.
“I’s able. I sign on to work.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. Carson’s extra driver. And other things.”
“Tish, let him help.”
Pride goeth before a fall. She could be right or happy.
Together they lifted the yoke, the one she’d been lifting on her own all these days. She never looked at G.B. She made certain her hands never touched his, though he moved his body closer to her than necessary. He made no move to touch her. Maybe he was just trying to keep the company moving.
“All set.” He tipped his hat to her as though she was a lady. “Glad I could assist, Carson.” He sauntered off, leaving behind the scent of caution.
When Davey asked for a pie a day later she knew they’d passed the rough edge of his ailing. The next morning she rolled the dough out on the smooth wagon seat, filled it with the berries she managed to pick the evening before, trading a cup of them for an egg. She rolled the extra dough over for the top crust and put it in the reflector oven and let the pie cook as they rolled along. At least he must be getting better if he was hungry for pie.
They approached Independence Rock, which Davey said reminded him of a picture of a whale he’d seen once. It was covered with names of emigrants who had passed by. Letitia wondered if Sarah Bowman’s name from the 1844 journey was there or if Polly Holmes signed it. Did Polly make her mark to stand out, or like Letitia was she too hoping to fit in? She was too exhausted to climb up and see.
But as she waited for Davey to make the climb, someone began to sing “America” and others joined in, their voices filtering back across the plains, settling onto the travelers as they stepped back up onto their wagon seats or began walking beside.
Letitia broke out the next song. “I want Jesus to walk with me.” Voices joined hers, and Letitia was aware of a warmth growing within her both for the prayer of the words and the comfort of being a part of others making this trek.
It wasn’t the same without Letitia to walk with, Nancy decided. Oh, she treasured her sister and mother and she enjoyed chatting with other women from parts of the states she’d never been to. But there’d been an ease with Letitia. They could walk for hours and rarely speak and other times chatter through an entire meal-preparing. Letitia laughed when they were together and seemed more confident, less afraid to share her thoughts than when she was part of the large Hawkins family gatherings. Goodness, she’d even sung one evening and Nancy heard that low, clear voice and was comforted by it. Knowing she’d lost a child helped her feel less alone, the way she felt now.
She and Zach didn’t talk about Laura. He assumed she had “moved on,” as her mother-in-law said she must. But she couldn’t move past that place where Laura lay nestled in her heart.
“Do you think we’ll meet up with the Carsons again?” she asked Zach that evening. Maryanne had taken over fixing suppers under Nancy’s direction. Martha needed more of her time. The child had lost more w
eight than the rest of the family, picked at her buffalo meat even when it was fresh. She ought to have let poor Martha go with the Carsons. That way they’d have been certain they’d meet up again and poor Martha would have her namesake around, someone to feel responsible for and earn her confidence back.
“Maybe when we get to Oregon. Carson spoke of settling south of Oregon City. He’d heard much of the good land was already taken by the French Canadians and their Indian wives.”
“Maybe they’ll leave a message for us at Laramie. Or Fort Hall. Didn’t you say those were major stopping points?”
“I did. Might even pick up something along the way. A bunch of trappers heading back brought messages for some. None for us, though.”
The disappointment at not hearing news was almost as sharp as the thoughts of Laura that pierced her when she least expected it. She longed to find comfort in the future, even with Laura in it only as memory.
Most of all, if Letitia walked beside her, Nancy would have someone to confide that she believed she was carrying another child. Her feelings rose like a boat on a lake. Sometimes she found smooth sailing in the hope. Other days the guilt over feeling joy while her family had been eclipsed kept her bobbing on rough seas. She didn’t want Zach to hear her crying. She wished she could ask Letitia to tell her again that one day the pain would end.
17
What Matters After All
On the Fourth of July the English company Davey joined celebrated with fireworks and gunshots. Men made room for fireworks but women had to leave their good dishes behind. Letitia had no one to tell that opinion to, not even Missus Meek who kept up on horseback with her husband now. They crossed streams and rivers and moved through red bluffs where stands of timber offered shade and shelter for her lonely “fundamentals.” Several members suffered from a fever and bone aches, and Letitia worried it was measles, but it must have been the same fever Davey had recovered from.
“Dengue fever,” she overheard Captain English tell Davey. “We’re staying here a few days, hope to give relief.”