Westering Women

by Sandra Dallas

  “No. It was his place to come for me and apologize. I turned my back. Why should I make it easy for him? He should have boarded the boat and taken me away. I cannot think why he did not.” She pouted. “If he loved me as much as he said, why didn’t he go to St. Joseph to win me back? There was other boats for him to take.”

  “But he did not.” The irony of it, Maggie thought. She and Penn were both running away from bad men when Lavinia had purposely left behind a decent one.

  Lavinia shook her head. “Maybe he got there too late. I can’t think of any other reason. Maybe he’ll be waiting in Fort Kearny. Maybe he’s taking a different route.”

  “How would he get there ahead of us?”

  “Oh bosh! We are going so slow, a horse could carry him there and back in the time it takes us to go one way.”

  “Do you want him to be waiting for you?”

  Lavinia turned away. “Well, I don’t care to walk all the way to California now that I know what a beastly trip it is. Why do you have to ask so many questions?”

  “It would be best for all of us if he was there,” Winny interjected. She and the others had been listening to the conversation as they set out the tin plates and forks and filled the cups with coffee that Winny had brewed.

  Lavinia whirled around. “Why do you say that?”

  Maggie stooped and stirred the bacon with a long fork. She held her hand over the beans to see if they were warm yet. She glanced at the other groups of women. They had finished eating and were sitting around the campfires, singing and mending dresses and stockings. A few knitted. Caroline had taken out quilt pieces and was stitching them together. Maggie had brought along her own scraps and thought that perhaps one evening she would join Caroline, and the two would sit side by side piecing their quilts. She longed to relax and stitch with other women. Someone nearby laughed. Penn it was. Maggie had not heard her laugh before.

  When Winny did not answer Lavinia, Mary spoke up. “We are tired of your complaining, of your shirking your duty. You make us pick up your share of work. Do you think we want to drive oxen and cook over a campfire? No, but it is required of us. You force us to do more than our share. Even Maggie, with a child to care for, does not complain. She is doing your portion now. We would not miss you if you left.”

  “That is unkind, Mary,” Maggie said

  “There are others here who are highborn, but they do not complain. Just look at Bessie. It is not our fault Lavinia has enjoyed a soft life,” Mary continued. “I say if you want to eat, Lavinia, you must learn to cook.”

  “No one has ever spoken to me in such a mean way,” Lavinia said. She began to cry.

  “Save your tears for a man. They do no good with women, at least not tears of self-pity.”

  Maggie knew Mary was right, but nonetheless, she tried to make up for her friend’s sternness. She touched Lavinia’s arm. “The cooking is not pleasant, but it is not hard either. I will teach you.” She handed Lavinia the fork and told her to stir the beans. “Tonight, I shall show you how to soak the beans in water so they will soften. You put them over the fire when we stop at the end of the day. We shall look along the trail for greens to give them flavor. We make soda biscuits with flour and water and a pinch of saleratus, or cornbread with cornmeal and salt. It is not hard. On Sundays, when we lay over, there will be time to bake yeast bread. And maybe pie if we can find berries along the way.”

  “I can’t ever make a pie here.”

  “Of course you can.” Maggie herself had made a molasses pie, using a tent post instead of a rolling pin to roll out the dough on a wagon seat. She had thought herself quite clever. “I can show you how to do that. By the time we reach California, you will be a fine cook. Come now. Stir the beans so they do not burn. Stir the bacon, too, and here are the ingredients for biscuits.”

  Lavinia did as she was told, then dished up the supper onto tin plates and handed them around to the women. They did not remark on the fact that both the bacon and the beans were burned and the biscuits were as hard as brickbats.

  * * *

  DESPITE THE HARDSHIP of travel, Maggie loved the freedom of the prairie, the late-day sun glinting off the brown grasses, the sounds of birds, the long vistas. She had never seen so far in her life. She smiled as she watched Clara romp through the prairie grass searching for flowers and pretty rocks. She did not have to worry about the girl because everyone looked after her. Still, Maggie could not bear to let Clara out of her sight, as if her vigilance alone kept the girl safe. Perhaps if she had stayed with Dick, he would have lived. At that very moment he would be running across the prairie with his sister, his hair, as fair as Clara’s, shining in the sunlight. For a few seconds, the thought of Dick playing with his sister, helping with the oxen, gathering wood for the campfire, made her smile.

  After the bleak streets of Chicago and her early impression of the prairie, Maggie enjoyed the vast rolling land that stretched into eternity, the occasional copses of willow and oak and cottonwood, the flowers that studded the grasses like bright bits of glass. She found morning glories and wild roses and giant yellow flowers that had no name. Each step took her farther from Chicago and made her feel safer. Most of all, she loved the women, talking to them as they walked along, listening to their fears of the trail and hopes for California. As a dressmaker, she had discovered that her clients often confided in her. She was a good listener, and they trusted her with their secrets. The women on the Overland Trail confided in her, too, and Maggie came to care about them. As Reverend Parnell had said, many were running away, but others were running to something. Winny was one of them.

  As the two walked together, Winny claimed that the trail was preferable to the hard work she had done as a servant in Chicago. She was older than Maggie had thought—twenty-four, she said—and had a joyous nature, although she had had a hard life. “Me and Davy’s all that’s left,” she said. “The rest, they died—of starvation mostly. The least ones went first. I found the baby cold as river ice, his little hands curled up and hard as walnuts,” she said, looking away.

  “Then the two-year-old, and after him, the one who was five. Six of them and then Ma and Pa. Ma surely died of the starvation, because she would not eat a crumb and gave her portion to the rest of us. When only me and Davy was left, Davy says we have to leave Ireland and go to America. ‘I cannot lose you, Win,’ he says. ‘If we stay, we will die, too.’ So we found us passage on a boat and made our way to Chicago. Davy got a job building houses, and I went into service. We saved our money so we could buy a farm one day, saved two hundred dollars.”

  “You have two hundred dollars?” Maggie asked.

  “Davy took it. We used to meet on Sunday, my day off. One day he told me he was of a mind to go to California. ‘Where?’ I asks because I never heard of it.

  “‘It is a far-off place by the sea,’ he says.

  “‘By Ireland?’

  “‘No, Win, the other way.’

  “I ask why we would go there, and he tells me, ‘Not we, Win. Me. It is not a place for a woman.’

  “‘You would leave me, Davy?’ I asks. He says it is only for a little while, until he gets rich. He says when he comes back, we will buy a farm, and I will never have to be in service again. He even promised me my own hired girl. Then he says, ‘I would have to take our money. There is a company forming, and I need the two hundred to join. It is our stake, girl. I promise to come back with a hundred times more, a thousand times.’”

  “But he did not come back,” Maggie said. It was a statement, not a question.

  Winny shook her head. She and Maggie had been walking beside the wagon, and Winny cried out and looked at her foot. She was barefoot because she’d brought only one pair of shoes and wanted to save them. A burr was stuck to the bottom of her toe. She pulled it out, then stared at a drop of blood. Winny wet her finger and placed it over where the burr had pricked her.

  “He did not come back?” This time Maggie asked a question.

  Winny
shook her head. “He wrote me two times. He said he would write every month, but I only got two letters. I guess maybe he had no paper.”

  “Perhaps the letters got lost,” Maggie said, although she was thinking that perhaps Davy had forgotten his sister—or died. What a blow it would be to that sweet girl to arrive in California and discover her brother had not given her a second thought.

  Winny frowned for a moment, then looked up. “Or maybe they got throwed away. Mrs. Fletcher, the lady I worked for, was always saying she hoped I would not ever leave. Maybe the letters came, and she was afraid I would take out after Davy. What do you think?”

  Maggie shrugged. “How would I know?”

  “Because you—” Winny stopped suddenly. “I’m just asking.”

  Maggie knew then that Winny had recognized her—perhaps on the boat or in St. Joseph, or maybe even as early as the church. She would have realized that Maggie had changed her name and that she might have something to hide. The girl must have thought it over and decided not to reveal she knew who Maggie was. But she’d slipped just then. “Because I sewed for her, is that it?” Maggie asked.

  “Oh, did you?” Winny asked, pretending she had not known.

  “You know who I am.” Suddenly Maggie grasped Winny’s hand. “You were kind to me. I never thanked you for it.”

  “Your little boy?”

  “He died. I tried to find ice for him, as you suggested…” Maggie did not continue. She could not tell Winny that Dick had passed on while she was searching for the ice. It still brought too much pain to know she was not there when he died.

  “I am sorry. I know how it hurts. I lost too many brothers and sisters.” Winny studied Maggie for a long time. Then she said, “I expect your husband died, too.”

  “Of course,” Maggie replied. “I cannot talk about it.”

  “I shall not talk about it neither,” Winny told her. Then she grinned. “I am glad you came along. You are always so cheerful and ready to help everybody. You and Mary, I am thinking we might not make it without you.”

  Maggie was startled. She did not consider herself indispensable. She knew Mary was necessary to the company, however. In just a few days, Mary had become the acknowledged leader of the women. They asked her advice, and Mary took their concerns to the ministers. In turn, the two men consulted Mary about the women. It was strange, Maggie thought. At home, she had seen how Mary was an oddity, but on the trail, Mary was admired and even loved by the women. Maggie wondered if her friend was aware of that. She thought again of what Winny had said about Maggie herself. Maybe the others, too, thought she was a worthy addition to the group.

  * * *

  ONE EVENING, JUST as they stopped for camp, Penn complained of a headache. A few minutes later she began vomiting. A wagon train had overtaken them earlier that day, and Penn had thought she’d seen Asa among the men. The fear of Asa finding her and dragging her away never left her. She had hidden herself in a wagon, and when she peered out, she realized she had been wrong. But the incident had been stressful, and when she tried to eat, she retched.

  “Most likely it is her fear that causes her to be ill,” Caroline told Maggie, who understood. There were times that Jesse’s threats had caused her to be sick to her stomach, too. The two women helped Penn lie down on a quilt on the grass.

  Lavinia was standing near the water bucket, and Caroline asked, “Would you bring her a dipper of water? She may have a fever.”

  Lavinia stared at Caroline, then said, “I will not do it! I will not go near her. Send her away. She has the cholera!”

  Maggie, shocked, looked around for Clara. If Penn did indeed have cholera, Maggie must keep her daughter as far away as possible. She spotted Clara playing a game with Evaline and thought her safe for a time.

  Cholera, she knew, was the scourge of the trail, more deadly than Indians or accidents, weather or starvation. Reverend Parnell had told her so after they passed a corpse that had turned black.

  “Stay away,” he had said. “It could be the cholera.”

  “Cholera?” Maggie had asked.

  “It starts with diarrhea and vomiting, and in minutes, a thirst you cannot quench and terrible pain. The victim turns gray-blue, and death is not far away. I have seen men left to die alone because their companions will not go near them for fear of catching the disease. It is a wretched, lonely death.”

  Maggie was horrified to think that Penn might have contracted the disease. “Is it cholera?” she asked.

  “We know no such thing,” Caroline said.

  “You may know no such thing, but it is as clear as daylight to me that she has it,” Lavinia said. “She must have brought it with her from St. Joseph, from that man she lived with, and now she’ll infect the rest of us. Leave her behind, I say.” She repeated in an even louder voice, “Get her away from us before she kills us.”

  The anger in Lavinia’s voice shocked Maggie. What was more, she realized then, even if Lavinia did not, that they were a group of women banded together. If they did not help each other, no matter the cost, they would not make it to California. “I shall get the water,” she said.

  She started for the water bucket, but Mary stepped in front of her and took the dipper. “You have Clara to think about,” she said. She took a dipperful of water to Penn, who drank a little. Mary put the dipper aside so that no one else would touch it. Then she picked up Penn. “She will be more comfortable under the wagon, out of the sun. When the tents are set up, I shall put her in one.”

  “You touched her,” Lavinia cried. “Now you’ll get it, too. Stay away from our campfire.”

  Maggie gripped Lavinia’s arm. “You do not speak for the rest of us. Keep your distance if you will, but do not tell Mary what to do.”

  Lavinia gave her a furious look, then grabbed her quilts and found a place for herself away from the others. “If that woman isn’t dead by morning, we’ll leave her behind,” she said.

  Maggie and the others were solemn as they ate their supper. Maggie was afraid for the fate of the young woman. It would not be right that she had put her old life behind only to die after barely starting on the new one. Maggie knew some of the women might not make it to California. The ministers had told them that at the meeting at the church. Now she was faced with the possibility that one of the women she loved best would die so soon after leaving St. Joseph.

  * * *

  BECAUSE THE EVENING was pleasant, with no wind and no sign of rain, the women did not set up tents but spread their quilts inside the wagon circle. From time to time, Mary checked on Penn, asking if she needed water or a cool cloth on her forehead.

  Penn was asleep and seemed to be resting well when the others turned in. In the night, Maggie heard someone vomiting, and then there were cries of pain. She started to get up, but Mary murmured, “Stay. I will see to her.” She returned in a moment and said, “There is no fever. Penn is sleeping soundly.”

  “Help me,” a voice cried.

  “This time, I shall see what is wrong,” Maggie said, rising from her quilt.

  “Help me,” the voice repeated. The plea was cut off by the sound of retching.

  “Who is it?” Caroline called. The cries had awakened her, too.

  “I believe it is Lavinia,” Maggie said. “Do not trouble yourself.” She crept to Lavinia, who had arranged her bed apart from the others. “Are you ill?” she asked.

  “Can’t you see I’m soaked, and my bowels…” Lavinia began to shake. “Such pain. I cannot stand it. Do something!” she said.

  Maggie went to the campfire and lit a fagot in the coals, then held it over Lavinia’s face, which was twisted in pain and had turned a dark color. The woman smelled of bile and excrement. Maggie dropped the flame.

  “What is it?” Caroline had gotten up and put a handkerchief over her nose because of the stench. Now she put her hand on Lavinia’s head.

  “I believe it is the cholera. Stay back. I shall tend her since I am already contaminated,” Maggie said. “I
think there is nothing we can do for her except to make her as comfortable as possible.”

  Penn, who had awakened, rose and crept near the women. “I will get water for her.”

  “No, you keep away. It would not do for someone else to contract the illness and spread it to the rest of the camp.”

  “But you can come down with it, too. You have a little girl.”

  Maggie thought about that for a moment. She had been injudicious in going to Lavinia’s aid, but she had risen half-asleep when she heard her, as if Clara had been the one who had cried out. Now she dared not go to Clara for fear of carrying the disease to her. “I have already been close to Lavinia. I shall tend her. You can pray,” Maggie said.

  “I never done so.”

  “We shall all pray,” Caroline said. She told Penn, “It is easily done. You just ask the Lord for what you want, then thank Him for it.”

  “You mean He gives it to you.”

  “Not always, but He answers in the way He believes best.”

  The talking awakened Joseph, who came to Caroline’s side. “And you, dear husband,” Caroline said. “You must keep a distance. The women need you more than they do me.”

  “It is not the Lord’s way to turn our backs on those in distress,” he said.

  Maggie looked at him strangely. Until now, he had not seemed a brave man or even a sympathetic one. “It is the cholera,” she said, thinking Reverend Swain might not have understood.

  “As I said, I shall attend her, too. She should not be moved. It would do no good and would only bring her pain,” he told them.

  “No, Maggie and I are already exposed. You have responsibilities elsewhere. We will stop the train until she is well,” Caroline told him.

  Joseph shook his head. “We cannot delay our journey. The rest of you will go on, and I shall stay with her. If she recovers, I will bring her along. If not, I will bury her. It is my duty as a minister.”