A chorus of dogs barking in the distance raised Buddy’s head and broke the silence. Albro patted the dog.
Then Tabby said, “I’d feel better though if I could have talked to those fellows myself rather than hearing what they said second ear, so to speak. Not that you’re not a good reporter, Virgil. You are. And you’ve got more at stake than I do, old as I am with no young children. Judson there is my young man to worry over. And Nellie Louise too, for the time being.” The girl grinned. “I’d like to get them to that so-called Promised Land Orus spoke of, sooner rather than later.”
“You boys? What about you?” Virgil asked.
“We’ve talked, but we’ll do whatever you say, Pa.” Clark spoke for his brothers. Judson nodded. John did as well. He’d get no argument from them. If Virgil turned southwest, of course they’d go.
The truth was, Tabby needed to arrive in the Willamette Valley sooner rather than later. Even though she put on a cheery face, her supplies were low and she would not ask the others to resupply them. She didn’t want to ask John for assistance either. She would need whatever she had left to trade for goods once they reached their destination. Her “things” would be as currency, that and what labor she might have to offer, which wouldn’t be much given her age and her “foot.” Oh, she’d prayed and asked for guidance but didn’t see the clarity she would have liked. Some choices were like that. God left her to step into uncertainty. She guessed that’s where faith grew strongest.
“You boys are acting like you don’t care one way or the other. Have opinions.” Tabby nodded to her grandsons.
“It’s a matter of trusting Pa. We can cut limbs out of the way, we’ve got axes. Our oxen are sound.” Clark summarized for his brothers, and Octavius added, “We’ve plenty of grease and we replaced the brakes again. Others have gone ahead to build that Applegate road. Somehow we’re pretty far behind Uncle Orus, but we’re not as far behind as a lot of other folks.”
“That we are.” Virgil chewed on his lip. Tabby wished he’d pray for guidance, but she had and still didn’t have an inkling of an answer. Sometimes you had to jump into the pool and pray it wasn’t too deep.
Virgil wrapped his whip into a loop, the slow process giving him time to think. He took a deep breath. “All right. We go south. We’ll gather up with the others and start following tomorrow.”
“Uncle Orus won’t like it.” Virgilia whispered the words.
Virgil frowned. “We’ll beat him to the valley and he’ll have nothing to say about it. I’ll let Mr. Scott know we’re in. We’ll get an early start in the morning.”
Virgil hadn’t asked Tabby’s opinion—her grandsons had. That was the “polity” of this wagon train: men decided. But the next generation at least considered a woman’s way of seeing. She was grateful for that.
Back at their wagon, Tabby busied herself taking the yarn from Beatrice’s leg and settling her into her cage. The activity gave her time to think, to put aside her niggling fears of what lay ahead on this new cutoff they’d take in the morning. She heard Judson’s laugh coming from the Pringle compound, grateful he was making friends with her grandsons, if not her granddaughter.
“You really are a remarkable woman, Tabitha Moffat Brown.” John sat on the stool, his violin strings having danced beneath his fingers. He set the end pin on his knee, leaned his bearded chin against the scroll.
He looked . . . lovesick. Oh no! She had to keep this conversation philosophical, not let it deteriorate into some romantic pause. She wasn’t prepared to explore anything deeper than a friendship, at least not on the eve of this major change in their plans.
“Fiddlesticks.” She skipped the word into the night.
John raised the bow in salute.
“I mean I’m no more remarkable than any other woman on this trail.” She poured water over her hands, rubbed them with the soap she’d made herself with a hint of citrus from an orange she’d splurged on last Christmas.
“You don’t take compliments well, Tabby, but you should. I watch you be with your grandchildren, your children, and their mates, and you treat everyone as though they’ll make wise choices.”
“They will. They have.” She pulled her knitting needles out to work on socks for Judson.
“But there’s an aura of wisdom in your efforts, in the way you’ve lived your life that acts as a beacon for them, for us all. You have a hopeful spirit.”
“Well, I do have that. But hope doesn’t mean everything will go as planned, you know. But I try to encourage others that they’ll endure. Why don’t you play a tune there instead of gabbing?”
“You set your sights on a purpose that matters, and even if there are floods, you wade through them.”
“I suspect everyone on this journey, you included, does exactly the same thing.”
“They don’t though. They get despairing or cynical. Some even turn back. You step over those boulders and keep going. Look at your foot.”
Tabby lifted her skirt, raised her lame foot, and wiggled it as best she could.
“Yes, that foot. It’s your symbol of that indomitable spirit.”
“Oh no, that would be my walking stick. I lean on that and it also humbles me. I know I need others to get me through and I need the Lord’s guidance. That’s what keeps me from falling into despair.”
“Whatever it is, it is a shining light in the darkness. I’m pleased to be sitting for a time in your reflected light.”
“Oh pshaw.” She dismissed his words but let them warm her, too, as he picked the violin back up and played a quiet tune.
When he finished, he said, “I’ll teach you, if you’d like. It’s something I can do.”
“To play the violin? At my age?” Then, “I’d like that,” Tabby said. “We’re none of us too old to learn new tunes.”
17
A Fork in the Road
August 10 was a Monday. It was the day they took the fork in the road. Pherne made herself think of it that way, not as a new challenge. She refused to stain the future. At the nooning time, they said good-bye to the wagon groups heading on to Oregon. Applegate and ten men had gone ahead, and his man would lead several wagons southwest toward the California route. Her family and others would then branch north onto the new cutoff. At least they weren’t alone in their folly, and that’s what Pherne thought it was. No, she must not call it a folly. A fork in the road to Oregon. The presence of others did give Pherne cold comfort, though noting that added to her sense of disloyalty to her husband. Wasn’t his good judgment comfort enough? No. It wasn’t.
At least the first many miles would be well-worn by others who had headed to California before. She’d heard chatter that land wasn’t free in California as it was supposed to be in Oregon, so that might have kept some from taking that route and heading on to Oregon down the Columbia. She’d also heard that California had declared independence from Mexico but that US soldiers now occupied it, so it wasn’t independent after all. Wouldn’t that be something if they arrived in Oregon country and all the rumors about free land weren’t true. She chastised herself. “You’re getting cynical.”
“Did you say something, Mama?” Eight-year-old Emma tugged on her apron. Pherne had forgotten the child walked beside her.
“Talking to myself.” Pherne smiled.
“No you’re not.”
“I’m not?”
“You’re talking to me.” Emma tapped her small chest when she said “me,” her dimpled cheeks showing a higher pink when the child grinned so wide.
“Let’s get some glycerin on those cheeks of yours. Have you been taking your bonnet off? I thought so. You mustn’t, not when the sun is out. You’ll get berry cheeks.” She touched her child’s face. “Why, your cheeks are soft.”
“Nellie has a potion.”
“A potion or a lotion?”
Emma shrugged.
“I’ll have to see what’s in it.”
The day they started on the California route, Virgil wrote “1439 miles??
? as their current separation from home. Home. He didn’t want her to bring up home or how much she missed it. And he didn’t want her speculating about the potential problems that lay ahead. He wanted her to fix his meals, tend his children, warm his bed, and agree with him. Well, that’s what she wanted from him too. The agreement part. They were taking an unnecessary risk. She’d been afraid of that. She didn’t really mind that the bed had been “frosty,” as Virgil had said. The temperature in the air was too hot for intimacy anyway. It was a fork in the road, all right—and their relationship.
The child was in tears. It was the first day after the parting and Nellie Louise cried while Virgilia patted her back at Tabby’s wagon. “Gramo, she can’t find her family. We’ve looked all day, walked on ahead as far as we dared and checked behind us too.”
“A few wagons moved out early yesterday. Could your family have gone with that group?” Tabby found a handkerchief and handed it to the girl.
“Maybe. I spent the night with the Pringles. I’ve done that before and my mama has said it was fine. This morning we got up early and Virgilia and I finished our letters and then we talked and walked. I figured I’d catch up with them at noon, but I didn’t. And now, it’s almost suppertime and we’ve walked the wagons pretty far.”
“We’ll find them. You’re sure they took the new route?”
“That’s what they said.”
Tabby didn’t think there were that many wagons involved, but she might have been mistaken.
“Well, for now you sup with us. I’ve got corn pone and there were a few blackberries, so I made a little spread to cut the crumbly taste of mine. I’m no baker like Virgilia is.”
“She can join us, Gramo,” Virgilia offered. “And maybe my brothers will help her look.”
“I can too. After supper. If you won’t need me, Mrs. Brown.” This from Judson, volunteering.
Tabby nodded. “I hate to see you so distressed, Nellie. I’m sure they’re here somewhere.”
“I was certain then they’d be ahead. The wagon rotations really can confuse.”
Her family might have been struggling and chattering about what to do same as the Pringle/Brown clan had. Maybe Nellie didn’t hear the final word.
“We’ve quite a few miles to make before folks head into California, Nellie Louise, at least that’s what Mr. Pringle said.” Judson’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I bet they’ll wait to let you catch up. We’ll find your family before then. Maybe Captain John can ride ahead tomorrow, ask around.”
“Well, that’s quite a long speech for you, Judson,” Tabby said. “Why don’t the two of you talk with John? He’s putting Schooner in the rope corral—if that mount will behave, that is.” A mule hee-hawed from the same direction. “We might have been better off with a mule or two.”
Judson’s offer seemed to settle Nellie, and Virgilia and Judson walked away with the girl. Tabby hated to see a child distressed. And even though Nellie was sixteen, she was still a child. Didn’t matter how old you were, really. When your mama and daddy weren’t where you expected them to be, it was like swirling in circles in a wooden boat without a paddle to get you slowed or righted.
She did wonder why she was so moved by children’s distresses. Her own childhood had been charmed, all but for the ankle episode. Her father lived to see her second son born. And she’d had her mother with her all the way to Missouri, living with them while Tabby continued to raise her three in a new place. They’d buried her mother three years before, right next to Oliver’s little grave. There were a number of generations on this road, babies adding to it, old folks passing on.
“We’re literally a little town right here on wheels,” Tabby told Beatrice as she carried the bird back to her wagon and cuddled her for a time, stroking the smooth feathers right out to the tail. Maybe with her own children grown and them responsible for their offspring, she migrated to bereft children. “Well, Dear Clark, you put that care into my soul. I guess I’ll always be looking after changelings.”
That night she dreamed of when they’d had a newspaper, The Vermont Precursor. Typeface rattled across her dream, chaos and confusion woke her with a start. Clark had left the ministry to write words, to publish the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and even the farewell address of dear George Washington, a friend of her mother’s. The dream had words and looks of shame from people saying they were foolish to leave ministry.
She untangled the covers, her bad foot aching.
It hadn’t been a mistake all those years before, even though others thought it was. It had started a new life for them. Clark preached at independent places, his sermons requested over and over. She hated to see him traveling so much, but their choice had confirmed God’s presence. Sometimes one had to take a leap and trust, not let other voices be louder than the Lord’s.
She had worried overmuch about money and how they would support three children. But Clark admonished her to trust and that so long as a heart is not alienated from God, well, then, there is naught to worry over. Maybe the dream was a reminder of that wisdom she once knew. She’d write about the dream in her memoir, let it comfort if old worries pushed away faith.
Nellie acted like she didn’t care what happened to her, no matter how much Virgilia comforted. Her friend had gone from crying almost nonstop to sitting in a stupor as a second and then a third day passed. Though Uncle John rode forward that first day, he did not find Nellie’s parents either, nor was there any word sent back along the line. Her father told her uncle not to tire his horse. “He’ll need all his strength to finish this race.”
“All my things are in my parents’ wagon. I haven’t even—” she halted, making sure none of the boys were around—“got my monthly rags. How could they abandon me and my things like that?”
Virgilia looked to her mother, who walked beside the lead Pringle wagon. She pleaded with her eyes until her mother spoke. “I’m certain they didn’t intend that, Nellie. This is a set of unfortunate circumstances put into motion by the chaos of these last few days. Once they discovered you weren’t with them, they probably could not turn around. Those captains don’t allow it.”
“Seems like a horrible rule, Mama.”
“A lone wagon is vulnerable and might lead others with ill intentions to attack not only them but other wagons too. We don’t make the rules. The men do and we have to decide whether to follow them or not. You’ll stay with us, Nellie, our wagon or my mother’s. I have lots of crinoline left to rip up for what you need if you’re still separated from your things by that time. And we’ll put the word out when we reach Oregon. I’m sure someone will know your Blodgett family name and we can find them.”
“At least you don’t have a name like Brown or Smith that are as common as corn.” Nellie didn’t even smile at Virgilia’s efforts. “Gramo says we have to find the secret door God puts inside every problem.”
“I don’t want a secret door,” Nellie said. “I want one that opens into my mother’s arms.” Her lower lip trembled.
Virgilia had to do something. “Look. We’re going a lot slower, I can tell. There’s a river we’ll be nooning at, Papa says. The Humboldt. There’ll be a little time there, so if we fall behind the wagons, we can keep them in sight and still catch up. Let’s you and me put our bare feet in the water, keeping our ankles covered, of course, Mama. Modesty is everything.” She tickled her friend’s rib cage and Nellie clamped her arms down to stop her but moved her lips into a smile as limp as an elm leaf after a late-summer storm. “Won’t that be fun?”
“I guess.”
This last passage had been brutal, the oxen pulling through an area the men called Hot Spring Valley, with a steaming spring awaiting them at dusk. The women washed clothes in the naturally heated pool, though the water was too hot to stick a foot into. Still, after buckets of water cooled enough, they could wash hair and scrape foot dirt off, and they crawled clean onto their mats, exhausted. Tabby wrote in her memoir and had remained awake long after. John s
lept under the wagon, his snores like baby snorts punctuating the quiet night. Once she thought she heard Virgil and Pherne with raised voices but only for a moment. How she wished she had Dear Clark to spar with. She missed that almost as much as his tender touch. Was John a suitable replacement? That wasn’t a good way to think of him. No man wants to be a spare wheel, they want to be a new version taking a wife forward.
They headed back out in the morning, and as the sun reached its zenith, she noticed Virgilia and Nellie whispering, then watched as they slipped away through the willows. Curiosity made her follow.
“What are you girls up to?” Both girls squealed in surprise. “We’re getting our feet wet, Gramo. Come join us.”
The girls splashed their slender limbs in what folks said was Mary’s River. They often stopped midday to give the animals a rest and nap themselves. Leaving at 5:00 a.m. made for a long day. Now here they splashed their feet in cool waters, away from the others.
“Get my feet wet?” Tabby harrumphed. “Let’s go full bore, as the men would say. Strip down to our chemise and underdrawers and get a real cool bath.”
“Gramo!”
“Oh, don’t be a prude now, Virgilia.” Tabby checked around for snakes. They liked cool mud too. John had warned her about snakes seeking shade beneath wagons. All clear, Tabby used her walking stick to work hand over hand down until she sat on the grassy bank. She began untying the moccasins she’d purchased back at Fort Laramie. The leather formed to her bad foot and left her feet smelling like wood smoke from the tanned leather. Once in Oregon she hoped to trade for necessities with knitted socks. She didn’t mind going barefoot as the girls did sometimes, but she preferred to keep her deformed foot under socks.
Moccasins off, she removed her apron, then her wrapper, then her madder-red linsey-woolsey dress and her four petticoats, leaving her standing with pantaloons and a chemise. Her bonnet she tossed on the ground, leaving her white doily pinned on her head. The girls stared with open mouths. “What? Why carry the extra weight of a corset?”