This Road We Traveled

  “Bed warmers. Yes, there’s that. I don’t know, John. I . . .” She tugged at the starched white collar at her throat.

  “I’m not rushing you, Tabby. Truth is, I love taking care of you.”

  She tried to think of how he took care of her. She couldn’t draw on a thing except his traveling to Missouri on her behalf, no small sacrifice. “We share an other-directed, self-sacrificing affection. I believe my dear Clark called that agape love. I do care about you, John, in that very way. Could it be more? I don’t know. But time on the road would tell.”

  Tabby’s heart beat a little faster. He didn’t help all that much; Judson did most of the hard labor, but being “manless” on this journey would appear burdensome to Orus. She was more capable than John, but she knew that her abilities to persevere wouldn’t count. Without John, Orus would insist she remain behind. Again. And Virgil Pringle hadn’t exactly been excited about her hitching her wagon to the tail of his two, either. Stay? Go? Catherine had plenty of help and wouldn’t really relish an old woman hovering. Emptiness formed in her stomach as she thought about remaining. No, the emptiness came from being left behind, being abandoned.

  “It’s my intention to go on. I can’t stay here. But of us, I have to be honest in my uncertainty.” There, she’d said it clear.

  They walked over by the chickens, John a step behind her. In the shed beyond, Virgil and his sons and Orus and Manthano worked on replacing both of Virgil’s wagon tongues. Manthano offered Virgil oak hardwood, so now they’d all have oak. It meant a delay of perhaps three or four days but was worth it if they didn’t have to stop again for that kind of repair. Extra tongues would also be attached on two sides of Virgil’s wagon bed to keep the load balanced. They loaded extra brakes. The best oxen would be given that wagon to pull.

  “The road this far has been tougher than I thought,” John said. “Maybe that’s the Lord’s way of telling me I’ve done my work and seen my last ocean.”

  Was this the Lord’s way of telling her to stay too? A thought entered her head. “I’m not sure young Judson will want to go on without you. Then I will be in a pickle.”

  John looked at her sideways. He removed his hat and ran his hands through his white hair. With the sun behind him, it appeared that he wore a silver halo. Tabby blinked. Would Clark have looked like him if he had lived? “I didn’t think the boy took much notice of me.”

  “He doesn’t take much notice of anyone, much to Virgilia’s chagrin. But I do see him looking to you when you’re unyoking Do and Re, following your lead. He tends to your horse without your having to, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, yes. Now that you say it.” He replaced his hat. “I’ll need to thank him for that, let him know I’m aware.”

  “Yes, you will. And at the campfire, he’s attentive to your sea stories more than to mine, that’s for certain.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “His foster family wasn’t all that kind to him, I’ve learned. We’re a healing family for him, you and me and the rest of the clan. He startles when I tap him—lightly, mind you—on the shoulder with my stick. I’ve stopped doing it, using my voice to get his attention instead. Have you noticed that?”

  “I have not. See, Tabby, I’m getting old. I’m past those little things that might be telling a story below the waterline. Another reason for me to remain right here and float into the Everlasting.”

  Tabby scoffed. “Don’t try to put your foot into a grave before it’s dug.” But what if she did convince him to go and things turned sour? Would he blame her? Would she blame herself? She plunged ahead without an answer. “There are things happening beneath the draft here at Manthano’s, John. Catherine’s being gracious, but she really doesn’t want one or two more old people here, I can tell.”

  “Invitation seemed genuine enough.” A child’s laughter rose, and Tabby saw her grandchildren rolling a hoop and chasing after it before it started down the long driveway.

  “And Manthano, well, he’s pretty opinioned himself. I can say that about my own son, as he comes by it fairly from his mother.” She grinned. “But I could see the two of you butting heads. Me with him as well.” She found a patch of shade and stood in it, leaning against her stick as she watched Beatrice and heard the sounds of men hammering against iron and wood. “And what about Judson?”

  “What about him?”

  “I’m paying him to take us. He’d be without work and be set adrift if we both stayed, and that might be what I’d have to do if you don’t come along. Is that how you want to treat that poor boy?”

  “No. No, that’s not what I want.”

  Tabby wiggled her mouth, twitching it when she influenced in a disingenuous way. “How is he going to build up his character without you showing him how to make his way. Besides, he needs someone to look after. We all do.”

  “And who are you looking after, Tabby?”

  “You. And that boy. My grandkids. Even my sons and daughter when they let me. A body just needs to have another body in their lives that matters. We take ourselves too seriously without that.”

  John fanned himself with his hat. His hair was matted like an old goat’s.

  “You promise me a safe trip if I go along, Sister Brown?”

  “No, but I promise an eventful one. Well, the good Lord promises that, every day. And any trouble we run into, we won’t be handling alone. Doesn’t the unknown excite you even a little bit?”

  “I’m not the kind of man who seeks uncertainty.”

  “Isn’t that all there is with the oceans?”

  He held up his palm to silence her. “Let me think.”

  Tabby knew when to keep quiet, though she sometimes didn’t pay attention to the signs. This time, she did.

  John tapped his fingers on the top of his ivory-topped cane. “I guess I’m still young enough to change. My bottom will have calluses upon calluses when I arrive in Oregon. Not exactly the change I had in mind, but there is that boy to consider. And you. Clark would want me to look after you.”

  “I’ll trade you now and then and ride your horse, if you’d like. You can sit on my throne, as Sarelia calls it. It doesn’t leave calluses.”

  Tabby watched John walk toward where the men worked on the wagon tongues. She thought about what she’d said to him, wondering at the truth in it and her own manipulation of his emotions. She could do that with people, she knew that. Was that why she’d pushed her way along on this western adventure and would now turn down Manthano’s invitation? It was true; she did believe that people needed a cause to care about outside of themselves. But if that was the only goal in life, she could stay with Manthano. She could convince herself that Catherine needed looking after, that she could lend wisdom in getting to know her grandchildren. She watched Judson as he lent a hand to the men.

  Was it wrong to admit that it wasn’t only family that drew her to move on west, to push John to it? It was the adventure of it, the idea that she wasn’t so old she couldn’t still learn new things about herself, her family, her world, and even about her faith. Clark always said that what we know about God is but a grain of sand on the world’s shores and living meant being open to the new beaches he’d show us. Tabby didn’t always like the lessons—loss being a great challenge—but she didn’t want to be deceived by not accepting it.

  At supper Tabby watched the faces of her grandchildren. She would likely never see Manthano again. Who knew what sort of future each of them faced, what lessons they’d learn. What wisdom she might miss from not sharing time with these children raised in luxury. Manthano’s eyebrows had lifted ever so slightly earlier that evening when she’d told him she wasn’t staying. They were in his office, an official-looking room. Books surrounded them, and for a moment she wavered. I could spend the end of my days reading.

  “Your invitation is sweet and warm, but you’ve no need of extra people to upset the wagon of your ways here. John’s heading with me.”

  “Don’t go because you think we can’t in
corporate you, Mother. Leave only because you wish it above all else.”

  “Yes. Well. I choose to go.”

  “You’re leaving me this time, Mother. So we’re even. No more letters about how I left you and family behind in St. Charles.” He shook his finger at her. “But I knew you wouldn’t stay. You’ve always had a special place for Phernie. She’s your favorite. Then Orus and then me. I’m glad Phernie will have her mother with her.”

  Tabby gaped. She tapped her walking stick. “That’s fiddlesticks. I love each of you equally. That you would suggest otherwise grieves me, Manthano Brown. I have my own wagon. I’m hitching up with no one. Virgil has his crew. Orus has other duties to tend to, like keeping us following the correct path. But that I love you children like rungs of a ladder with one higher than the other, well, I never—”

  “‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”

  “You quote Hamlet to your old mother?”

  “Only because there’s no need to explain. If you leave annoyed with me, it will perhaps make your leaving easier. But I will still miss you.” He rose then and came from behind his desk and lifted her in a bear hug, the scent of his cologne heavy and distinctive.

  “And I will miss you, my son. I will.” She felt a fullness in her heart at the same time that tears threatened to empty it. Tears for the time she hadn’t had with her son; tears for the unknown future that they would never share—because she chose not to.

  It was perhaps the last time they would all be together as a family. They’d once rallied each other in a time of great loss. Together they had begun a journey from the East to Missouri. Now one peeled away, for good. She watched her children and their offspring laughing and sharing a meal together. John sat next to Judson where Virgilia had just brought those two biscuits slobbered in dandelion jelly. Were the boy’s shoulders less hunched, his smile rising a bit higher to his eyes? He spoke to John as Virgilia sashayed away. John let out a belly laugh. Phernie leaned her head to listen to something Catherine told her. Tabby caught Orus looking at her and he winked. He’d know what she was thinking. My family. She hated the severing that would come tomorrow. Tonight she would savor these children feasting together. Oh, the lessons they’d learn on this journey, lessons of leaving, of family, and of love. She just didn’t know who the teachers really were: those who had grown into their years, or those still making their way?

  14

  What Friends We Make

  The wagons got fixed and her gramo had a tight-lipped good-bye with her son and grandchildren and Catherine too. Virgilia wondered why her gramo didn’t stay. But the time she had with her grandmother was all the more precious in this uncertain place they all traveled in now. It had surprised her that Uncle John had changed his mind, as he’d already told Virgilia’s father that he was remaining. Something changed.

  Virgilia held back as her gramo and mother and uncle said their last good-byes to her uncle Manthano. Aside from little Oliver, whom she’d known only a few short months, she’d never had to say good-bye to anyone who really mattered. Her chest ached imagining what it must be like for her gramo. She’d have to be extra caring of her this evening when they made that first camp. Just because a person chose a thing didn’t relieve them of pain. She could see that in her gramo’s eyes.

  The wagons pulled out from her uncle’s on May 2, 1846. Her father wrote that in his diary. In Virgilia’s diary she scribbled, “Judson liked the cake I baked. He even said I could walk beside him some now that he was more accustomed to Do and Re. At supper, he practiced with the whip that Gramo bought for him and that Uncle Orus showed him how to use. I hope he doesn’t have to. A goading stick is less painful. They are good oxen so maybe he can cajole them to keep them in line.”

  She wondered how much of how she felt about this sojourn she should write about; maybe just keep to facts, about how the days wore into routine once they crossed the Missouri. Or how the skies carried wispy clouds that hawks sliced with their wings. Balmy weather, ample grass, and birdsong blessed their road by day; fiddle music often serenaded their evenings. She wrote of that.

  And she did walk beside Judson, often, in the days ahead, the lazy journey following the Platte, giving ample time for conversation.

  “Where’re your people from?” Virgilia practiced getting people to talk about themselves. Gramo said that always helped a friendship.

  Judson shrugged. “I guess Missouri. I don’t know before that. Didn’t matter.”

  “Oh, I think it does matter. The stories people tell about my grandfather or grandmother, they tell me how I might be one day. They’re like a little map I can call up to help me in the unfamiliar places. It makes me less frightened to think that Uncle Orus has already gone this way to Oregon. Doesn’t it help you to know someone already walked this road we’re on?”

  Judson shook his head, rubbed at his freckled nose. “I haven’t thought about such things.”

  “I think about that sort of thing all the time.”

  “Why?”

  It was one of the longest conversations she’d ever had with Judson. “Why? Because . . . well, what do you think about as you’re walking along?”

  “I count steps. And I think about a deer I shot once. Maybe how I might improve upon that shot if I had the chance back.”

  Like her mother, he spent time in the past.

  “Do you read books?”

  Virgilia watched those freckles form into a solid block of pink across his nose and cheeks, making his blue eyes look even more like sky.

  “Don’t have time for such.”

  “If you’d like, I could loan you a few.”

  “I’m pretty tired at day’s end. I’ve got the animals and Captain John and your grandmother to look after. Not much time for reading. Or talking, either.”

  Virgilia had kept pace with him, feeling the vibration of the heavy oxen plodding along and hearing the chain clink-clink as the animals pulled their cargo west. Silence wasn’t such a bad thing, especially if it was the only option. Now and then, she included more about Judson in her diary and the changes that walking beside another along an unfamiliar road could bring.

  Virgilia’s father loaded flour purchased at good prices at Blue Mills, a cluster of cabins more than a town. Super-fine flour cost $2.00 and just plain fine was $1.75. This was wheat flour and not the interminable corn. Her father was pleased with the prices.

  Other wagons joined them daily, catching up or arriving from the south. The first accident of the journey occurred for one such party newly arrived. Their wagon overturned on a river crossing and the lady of the family was injured. They had the same last name as her uncle and Gramo—Brown—but weren’t related. Eventually the wagons, now sixteen strong with new recruits, left the Santa Fe road. The larger group stopped to choose captains and divide up under two separate leaders. Orus was chosen as pilot for both groups. That was no surprise. Her uncle took over a room, so of course he’d take over a wagon train.

  The groups crossed rivers by driving oxen through the waters or took ferries set up by enterprising settlers. Virgilia told her mother that ferries meant others had gone before them and done well. She hoped it gave her mother reassurance. Some days they lost cattle or sheep, mules skittered at a rabbit on the trail and took off, making the rest of the train wait until they were under control and the torn harnesses repaired. Men shouted and grumbled about delays, her father one of them. One day they came to a stream with a high bank, and the first double-teaming occurred to manage the heavy loaded wagons, but at least there’d been no order of leaving things behind. Yet. Virgilia hadn’t taken much with her, but what she had she didn’t want to give up anytime soon—her pewter knife and her blue aster porcelain thimble the most important.

  Sometimes Virgilia felt her steps light as she plodded behind her sisters, stitching quilt pieces. She wore a pincushion on her bodice with different needles threaded with color. She’d already broken one needle and would have to be careful not to lose any. Whe
re would they ever get replacements? She could lift her eyes now and then to her sisters and the skyline, but then focus on the tiny stitches that brought her quilt block together. She felt safe surrounded by family, even though the landscape often threatened. But men helped each other; strangers became friends working together to hitch and unhitch, to bring a wagon from one point to another. They weren’t alone in the trials, and that kept her hope stepping high as Uncle John’s spirited horse. Most days the promise of the future seemed so palpable, she could touch it in the air.

  Other times she carried trepidation about what lay ahead. It wasn’t only the uncertainty of this trail but in her life. Her gramo said “nobody knows” what to expect. What would happen to her in Oregon? Or on this road? Who would she meet to marry and what if she never met anyone? Would she be relegated to looking after her sisters’ families or her mother and father as they aged, having “friends” instead of potential mates? Maybe she’d end her life looking after Great-Uncle John and Gramo once they reached Oregon. Caring for Uncle John was like crawling through a fog sometimes, because he often rode too far ahead and then someone had to ride halfway back with him to find Gramo’s wagon. She couldn’t imagine him as a ship’s captain. He repeated himself often. Schooner, his horse, acted prancy, and she worried that her uncle might not be able to handle him.

  Virgilia lived in the future and it was both an adventure and a very scary place.

  The girl walked right up to Virgilia, stepped into her reverie, and put her hand out like a man would. “Hi. I’m Nellie Louise Blodgett and I’m sixteen years old and I want to be your friend.” Nellie Louise was shorter, rounder, and a year younger than Virgilia. She had hair the color of Buddy’s nose, black and shiny, and she was round as a biscuit, but she could still touch the ground with the flat of her hands without bending her knees. Which she did.

  Virgilia dropped her mouth open like a baby bird waiting to be fed. “I can’t do that.”