Instead of smiling back, John groaned. Tabby pulled up the reins, heading toward him.
“I’m not feeling so well, Tabby. I think I’ll walk a bit, lead old Schooner here.”
It will slow us down.
“My stomach aches.” He rubbed his belly. “You’d think I had seasickness the way my head’s swimming.”
“We can’t stop, John.”
“No, I know. We need to keep going. It’s—” He wobbled in his saddle.
“Stay on.”
He jerked, nodded, and gripped the reins.
Tabby turned often after that, the trail too narrow to ride side by side. She considered trailing behind him, but he wasn’t reining Schooner. His horse plodded along, following hers.
“There’s land ahead. I see it. Starboard. Make way. Aye! Make way!”
Schooner startled Tabby’s horse as the animal surged past her. John slid from his mount, staggered, his weight yanking his animal to a stop, his cane falling with him. There John sat, legs out in front of him, while Schooner twisted his head up and down in protest. Tabby pressed her knees, urging Caesar ahead. She leaned over to grab Schooner’s reins. The last thing they needed was that horse galloping off or stomping all over John.
“You have to get back on. John?”
“Ship’s on the right course. No need to sound the alarm.”
“Captain Brown. Listen to me. Get up!” She felt her heart beating at her temples, the scent of troubled horse ripe in her nose.
John squinted. “It’s so nice and warm here in the barn. Can’t you smell the hay?” Delirium. He frowned. “Why are you here, Tabby?”
“You need to get back on your horse, John. Back on Schooner.”
His cane had fallen with him and he pushed at it in the half-frozen ground while Schooner pranced. If that horse chose to bolt and run, there’d be nothing she could do but let loose the reins. She prayed that the horse was too tired to act the scamp.
She fumbled at her saddlebag. “Captain. Drink this.” She leaned over, handed him the canteen, her own hands trembling. Lack of food? He took it, started talking without drinking. “Drink, John.” He looked up at her, dazed, then swallowed, lifting the canteen back to her waiting hands. She stretched to get it, nearly tumbling forward. She hooked it over her saddle horn. It was still half full. “Now, use your cane.” John looked at the object, then back at her. “Give it to me.” His brown eyes held a glassy stare. “Yes. Your cane.” Snow began to fall.
He handed it up and she grabbed for it. If I fall off this horse, I’ll never get back on. John won’t be able to help me. I’m alone in this.
She leaned over farther than she should have but grabbed the cane, then jammed it into the ground beside him. “Take hold. Use it as a climbing stick.”
Miraculously, he understood and, hand over hand, pulled himself to standing, falling, then rising again.
She yanked the cane from the ground, poked it toward him so he’d take it, wishing she had her own walking stick. It was longer. “Now let’s move a little, John. A step at a time. I’ve got Schooner’s rein. He’ll follow. You walk beside us. Hang on to the stirrup.”
Caesar’s ears twitched, but he plodded forward. Schooner sidestepped away, wanted to be behind, not with this man on the ground, unpredictable. John held on to the stirrup. He took a few more steps, then collapsed. Schooner yanked against the rein, his head high, eyes wild. Tabby held firm.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said in a voice to calm both him and herself. Schooner settled. She had to get John back into the saddle. “Give me some guidance here.” She spoke her prayer aloud.
In answer, she noticed a depression in the ground. Maybe a bear wallow. “John. Starboard. I want you to go toward that sinkhole.” John wobbled. “Crawl if you have to.” His eyes held hers, then he started toward the wallow. “Good. Now I’m going to lead Schooner and he will stand in that sink and you’ll be able to step onto the stirrup and get on.”
“I don’t think I—”
“You can and you will, John Brown, or I will personally come there and smack you on the head with your cane.”
The badgering seemed to work, as he watched her rein in Schooner and her own horse into the depression. “Come along.”
John did as he was told, shoulders hunched over like a recalcitrant child. Schooner sidestepped as John reached for the stirrup. John tried again, and on the third try, he grunted, then sat his horse.
Tabby breathed a sigh of gratitude. “All right, now look at me. You hang on to the mane and the saddle. Just keep yourself on that horse. I’ll lead him and we’ll go forward. All right? John! All right?”
He nodded, his face as pale as the snowflakes now collecting on his coat.
The horses’ hooves grabbed at the dirt on the sides of the sink, surging them out. She wouldn’t let herself think of what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten him back on the horse. She should have made him drink from the canteen sooner. She’d do that when they rested ahead. Maybe the combination of starvation and exhaustion without consuming water had turned the man toward confusion. If so, she could find herself there without even knowing. She stopped a moment and drank, offered him another swallow.
They rode through the afternoon light, Tabby leading. Ahead, another timber-shrouded mountain loomed, cold air settling around them. This journey was like life, all mountains and valleys and challenge. But if one persisted, they’d be led to green pastures, beside clear water, their souls restored. She hoped.
“We’ll have to go into the timber. It’s where the trail leads.” John nodded. “Are you up to taking the bridle reins yourself?” He nodded again. She reined her horse back toward him, had him drink again from the canteen. “Rainwater is good for something.” He nodded. “Are you ready?”
“Aye.” He trembled as he handed back the water. “I’m better.”
They rode in silence up the mountainside, patchy with bare spots, then dotted with clusters of oaks and farther up, fir trees. A late-afternoon wind picked up, carrying rain that misted the distant hills. Once over, a valley opened up. A solitary place. No cattle or sheep in sight. They were alone.
Poor me! Perhaps this staying alive was the greatest challenge of her life, the one she hoped to write down when she finished her memoir. If she lived to finish it.
Hunger created images of puddings and creams and steaming roasts and peach cobblers and—she stopped herself. They pressed on, seeing where three mountain spurs met together. Shrubs and rocks broke their path, acting as sentries to the ravines they had to meander through, racing the dark now, dusk having appeared like fatigue, unnoticed until it overtook a soul. With the steady rain, signs of tracks disappeared. As long as she had a next step, they could keep going.
“Here, John.” She told him to dismount and hang on to Schooner, but he stared at her. “We’ll spend the night here.” She slid from her horse at the edge of a meadow, her knees a jolt of pain. Steadying herself, she loosened the cinch, pulled the saddle, and tied Caesar to a tree. Then she grabbed the wagon sheet from beneath the saddle blanket and hobbled over to a low-hanging branch. The canvas billowed out like laundry on a bush.
“What are you doing?”
“Making camp for the night.”
John groaned and slid from his horse. Tabby tied and unsaddled his horse, then hobbling, dragged the tack and blankets under the cover, motioning John farther back under the tarp, his cane beside him.
“Whose barn is this?”
She frowned. “It’s ours. For the night.” She covered him with the saddle blanket and wrapped the bedroll around her shoulders. His eyes glazed again. His breathing changed. “Try to rest, John.”
He leaned into her and she motioned for him to put his head on her lap. Hunger clutched at her. Leather and horse scents assaulted her nose, but none could mask the smell of the valley of the shadow of death.
23
Grief and Guilt
Pherne feared they’d call the man “Rolling Pin
Roberts” ever after because he argued so hard about giving up the rolling pin that had been his mother’s. Since her mother and John had gone, the way had gotten worse, and each was being asked to lighten their loads further. Ahead, shovel handles broke and wagons behind them split apart. Animals died from exertion. People sat beside their wagons and cried when they were told to leave more beside this god-forsaken road. And it did feel god-forsaken. In the evening when word of road progress came back with everyone being told to go through their things one more time and discard any nonessentials, Pherne had cried. She’d thought she couldn’t cry any more. She vowed to keep her mother’s memoir she’d worked on and that little book of sermons that had been her father’s. Judson had gone back down for both of those. But when even forks weren’t essential anymore—there being no food to eat—they would probably have to go too. And no one should hoard a bar of soap either. “Every ounce counts,” they were all told. A tall man with clothes hanging from his shoulders like a threadbare quilt over a rack exclaimed so much that he could not leave yet another thing and prayed that lightning would strike him dead on that spot rather than be forced to disgorge yet more of his few possessions.
At that very moment he dropped to his knees. Dead.
They delayed roadwork for his burial, fatigued from digging yet another grave and the sadness of watching the poor widow and seven children grieve.
“Did that man cause his death, Mama?” Virgilia stumbled beside her when they started in the morning.
“In a way. He let himself get so worked up, his heart couldn’t take it, and over what? A little of this or that? Only things.” She reached for her missing locket, a habit not yet replaced. “In the end, things don’t really matter. We think they do, but they don’t. What matters is keeping those we love alive.”
“That’s what Gramo always said.”
“Says. She’ll say it again.”
She wished she could have brought that school bell, but they never found it in the wreckage. It had likely bounced or pitched on down as far as the creek and that’s where it would stay.
They plodded along, taking refuge inside the wagons while the men double-teamed to pull a forward wagon through the muck and mud. She tried to busy herself with knitting or mending, but her mind kept going to her mother’s fate and Uncle John’s and when, if ever, they’d see them again. Even though she told Virgil not to visit the past, she was doing that. Again. Should they have sent them ahead? At least they had bacon. A slice a day and strong tea would get them through to the cattle herders and, hopefully, a relief party. And there was nothing for them here.
She took out her lead. She still had that. She began to draw what she could see out the wagon opening while listening to Virgilia make up stories for the children. At least someone was able to do something good.
“Mama, she broke it!”
“Broke what, Virgilia?”
“My icing knife. Look at it. Snapped in two.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Emma dropped her eyes.
“Why did you even have it?” Virgilia accused.
“I couldn’t find a spoon and I was trying to dig out a pretty rock.”
“A rock. How stupid.”
“Virgilia, that’s no way to speak to your sister. Give me the pieces. I’ll see if they can be soldered when we arrive.”
“I’ll take both pieces, Mama. If it had broken at the handle, it could be resoldered but not snapped in the middle.”
“Clean it with kerosene and maybe you’ll still be able to use the longest piece.”
“Don’t tell Gramo. She’ll think I didn’t take good care of a gift she gave me.”
Broken things littered their lives. Oliver’s little face came to Pherne. She’d been given the gift of a child and she had not taken good care of him; that was the core of her guilt and her grief. It had never been so clear.
Virgilia’s papa had wished out loud that he could take the spare parts from her gramo’s wagon and even the harp-back chair and somehow bring them along. She was glad he still spoke of the future. “Maybe we’ll come back this way one day, Papa, and pick up the pieces.”
“I can’t imagine it, Child. Once we’re out of here, I hope to never return. These canyons, ravines, raging rivers. I’ve never experienced anything like this before and never hope to again.” The speech tired him. Whiskers like moth-eaten cloth covered his chin. So frail.
In the morning Virgilia watched Nellie and Judson with their heads bent close to each other under a wagon cover. Sadness tugged at her heart. Those two had become best friends and Virgilia was once again alone. This trip sure hadn’t turned out as she thought it would. She had met a few other boys at the dances during early days of the journey, but none had caught her eye. The more time she spent with Judson, the younger he seemed, and she even wondered what had made her heart pitter-patter when she’d seen him at church. Nellie had brought him out of his shell. And he brought comfort to her. She guessed she was grateful that she had a family when neither Judson nor Nellie did right now. What Virgilia had were younger sisters who broke her things. Her brothers were like men already, working as hard as Papa. She’d thought maybe a place of trial would bring people closer together. It happened that way in novels she read.
Sarelia stepped up beside her in the second wagon where Virgilia sat alone. Emma followed.
“I’ve got Gramo’s mem-o-are. Want to see it?” Sarelia held the leather-bound book out.
“It’s a memoir, not mem-o-are. Why do you have it?”
“See where she writes about her and Grandfather leaving a church they’d loved and then becoming newspaper publishers.”
“Let me see.” Virgilia read to herself. “Gramo set type and wrote stories.”
“What’s type?” Emma leaned over, squinting.
The script was tiny and a couple of lines were smudged from the wet, making it hard for Virgilia to decipher.
“Type is little pieces of iron or lead shaped like letters of the alphabet. They put them in boxes and then run ink over them and then they press the paper onto the wet pieces.” Virgilia motioned with her hands. “When the paper pulls off, there are words printed onto the paper.” Emma scowled. “As in a book,” Virgilia clarified. Then to her sister’s confusion, “It doesn’t matter.” Her grandmother had written for a newspaper. Maybe Virgilia could get a job like that in Oregon.
“Gramo always writes there is a really big challenge she’ll tell me about, but she hasn’t yet.”
“Tell you about? Why not all of us?”
“She wrote it for me. She reads it out loud to me. You’re always too busy.”
“I’m never busy,” Emma said.
“She writes for everyone. It’s not just for you.” Why Sarelia’s possessiveness annoyed Virgilia she couldn’t say.
“My name is right in there, see?” Sarelia pointed.
“Only because you pestered her to do it and she agreed so you wouldn’t bother her anymore.”
“That’s not true.” Sarelia crossed her arms, thought again, then reached for the book.
Virgilia held it above her head.
“But the rest of us want to know what happened to her too,” Emma said. “Did she write about her foot? I always wondered about that.”
Sarelia grabbed the leather book from Virgilia’s hand and clasped it to her chest. “I’m taking care of it.”
“You share!” Emma said.
“Girls! I can hear you all the way in the other wagon. Everyone’s nerves are on edge. Please.” Her mother rubbed her temple, leaving a smudge of lead on her forehead.
“Sarelia is hoarding Gramo’s memoir.”
Her mother sighed. “Give it to me. I’ll keep it.”
“Noooooo.”
“Go put Beatrice out to peck,” her mother told Sarelia as she took the book. “Maybe we’ll have an egg for our supper.”
“I get to eat it if we do.” Sarelia pouted.
“It’s my turn!”
Virgilia shook
her head. This journey could never bring her friends and family closer together. All they did was bicker and try to quell their growing hunger.
Wolves howled in the distance. Tabby heard the horses move about, restless outside the makeshift tent. Had there been wolves before? John’s breathing turned shallow. “I may well be alone here in the morning, Lord. Except for your presence. ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’ I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid.” She lied to herself, for she was frightened, perhaps for the first time in her life.
She had tried to build a fire but couldn’t, rain and spitting snow seeping through even deep piles of leaves, keeping dry duff from her flint. Her fingers felt stiff and thick as sticks. John’s breathing rattled, slow and heavy. She pulled the blanket over him, stroked his cheek, his earlobe. They’d argued on this road west. She’d gotten irritated with his stubbornness; he with her bossiness, as he’d called it. Both of them were strong-willed people, but at this moment, she was the stronger. Whether she could stay that way without food, as each day brought them no closer to a destination, that was the mystery.
She remembered those first days after Clark’s death. She had called upon Providence and God had answered. Friends helped. She’d taught school to keep them alive. She’d taken in laundry for extras until they had enough and her sons had decided to go off to the sea, under John’s influence.
“I’m sorry I got you into this, I am.” She stroked John’s cheek. Other-directed, self-sacrificing affection, that’s what she felt for him. It wasn’t enough for a marriage, she knew that now.
Tabby dozed. Her legs grew numb with John’s head resting on them, her cold bones ached with the weight. She didn’t want to move him. Animal sounds startled the night. The sky was as black as her Dutch oven. Yet at the darkest of the morning chill, she moved slightly and witnessed through the tent opening a spattering of stars, giving reassurance that the heavens still ruled.