Westering Women

by Sandra Dallas

  “No!” Caroline said sharply. “God has ordained you to care for these women. He has chosen Maggie and me to administer to Lavinia. I shall not allow you to stay with us.”

  “You would defy me?”

  “If I have to.” He started to protest, but she put up her hand. “Do not ask it of me. Maybe it is God’s will.”

  Joseph thought that over. “I have learned that God speaks to you, perhaps even more than He does to me. I shall pray for you. For Mrs. Hale and Miss Mercer, too.” He glanced over to where Clara slept. “And for the little girl. She should not be deprived of her mother.”

  “Mary…,” Maggie pleaded.

  The big woman nodded. “I shall care for Clara as if she were my own.” Then she added firmly, “Until you return to us.”

  Joseph stretched out his hand to his wife, but she did not take it. “I shall tell William that Miss Mercer has cholera. We will keep the train moving. I shall leave one of the horses so that you can catch up with us … when the disease has run its course.”

  “Will they be safe, two women alone?” Sadie asked. She had awakened and approached Reverend Swain.

  “Except for the cholera. What traveler—or Indian, for that matter—will come near two women exposed to such a deadly disease?”

  “If anyone approaches, we shall cry out, ‘Unclean!’ as if we were lepers,” Caroline said, adding a little levity to the situation.

  Lavinia screamed then, and her cries woke the rest of the camp. “Tell the others what has happened. Tell them to stay away from us,” Maggie told Mary.

  Dora prepared breakfast and left two tin plates of it for Maggie and Caroline. “We will wait an hour, perhaps two, in case…” She did not finish, and Maggie knew she meant in case Lavinia died.

  But Lavinia did not die then, and after a time, William shouted, “Move out!” The women waved or held their hands in prayer. “God will protect you,” they shouted, and “Trust in the Lord.”

  Maggie watched as Mary and Clara disappeared in the distance, Clara turning once to wave. Then Maggie returned to Lavinia, who was crying in pain, cursing, demanding that someone help her. Caroline forced her to swallow water, but she only threw it back up. The woman was delirious, and she called out the name of the man to whom she had been betrothed. She cursed him, too. Maggie dipped a rag in water and placed it on Lavinia’s head, but the woman flung it off.

  In the afternoon, Lavinia’s cries stopped. She moaned in pain and had the strength to speak only a little. The two women could do nothing but sit beside her, shading her from the sun and running water-soaked rags over her blackened body. Maggie saw that Reverend Parnell had left a shovel beside Lavinia. She would wait until Lavinia was dead before digging her grave.

  * * *

  AS EVENING CAME on, Lavinia breathed her last. “She is gone,” Caroline told Maggie.

  “It is over,” Maggie responded. She had not liked Lavinia much. The woman had caused trouble. Still, Maggie mourned her death. No woman should have died in such agony. She wondered why it had been Lavinia. Why did she catch the cholera and not Penn or Caroline or herself? Or Clara? There was no order to it. Fate seemed to select its victims at random, just as it had once chosen Dick. One moment Lavinia had been as healthy as the rest of them, and then, within hours, she was dead.

  She and Caroline washed Lavinia’s body, then dressed her. Because, as Caroline said, there was no sacred ground in a hundred miles, they buried her on the prairie. They took turns digging a grave in the hard soil, then wrapped Lavinia in a quilt as a shroud and placed her body in the earth. The grave was shallow, and they covered it with rocks to keep out the scavengers. No Bible had been left for them, so Caroline recited verses from memory. Maggie said a prayer. “It is done. She is with God,” Caroline said.

  The two women washed themselves and changed into dresses that had been left behind for them. They burned Lavinia’s belongings and their own soiled clothing.

  They waited a day to make sure neither one of them had caught the cholera from Lavinia. Then they mounted the horse Joseph had left for them and hurried to catch up with the wagon train.

  “She died in the evening,” Maggie said after she and Caroline reached the others and Caroline’s husband helped them off the horse.

  “God have mercy on her,” Dora said.

  “And on us,” Caroline added.

  Maggie bowed her head at that. Lavinia was the first of them to die. How many more would not complete the journey to California?

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS after Lavinia’s death, as the women nooned, a troop of dragoons stopped at the camp. They were on their way to Fort Kearny.

  “So you are the wagonload of spinsters we heard about in St. Joe,” the lieutenant who commanded the company said. “We have been on the watch for you.”

  “Indeed. Are we such a curiosity?” Mary asked.

  “To some, perhaps. We have never heard of women crossing the country by themselves.”

  “We have a dozen men with us, but we are sharing their work,” Maggie replied. “I do not believe we should be considered oddities.”

  The soldier blushed. “No, ma’am. We are not here out of curiosity but because a man with us is searching for one of your number.”

  Maggie felt a chill go through her. Had she been followed? She looked for Jesse among the soldiers, but he was not there. She glanced around the camp for Penn but could not see her and thought that the girl had hidden herself. Maggie hoped the soldiers did not insist on searching the wagons. “A soldier?” she asked.

  “A civilian. He joined a wagon train behind you but begged to ride with us because we travel faster.” Maggie searched the men until she spotted one who was not wearing a uniform. She felt a sense of relief. He was small and looked something like a dandy, not at all like Penn’s Asa. Surely such a man would not be searching for her.

  “I believe this is the group you have been seeking, sir.”

  The man rode forward and spoke to Maggie. “My fiancé is among you. I have come all this way to beg her to return to Chicago with me.”

  Maggie shuddered as she looked off into the distance, realizing who the man was. The sun shone on the prairie, turning it as gold as a wedding ring. It should have been a happy day, but she was gripped by sadness as she turned back to the man. “Her name, sir?”

  “Lavinia Mercer. I know she left with you. I saw her board the boat in Chicago, although I do not see her now. It may be she is in a wagon, hiding from me. I mean to convince her to return east as my wife. Perhaps one of the ministers with you will officiate. We would have been wed long since. The wedding was planned, we had engaged the church, and Lavinia had already made her wedding dress. But we quarreled. I broke the engagement. I hoped to teach her a lesson by turning my back. I thought if she knew I was willing to let her go, she would become more docile. As you can see, it did not work. Now I will admit to her my error and apologize. I love her dearly, and I believe she loves me, and I will do all in my power to make her happy.”

  Just then, Caroline came up to them, and Maggie said with a catch in her throat, “This is Lavinia’s fiancé, come to fetch her back home.”

  The man dismounted and removed his hat. “If she will have me,” he said. “Will you explain to her that I am here?”

  “She…,” Maggie began but could not go on. She tried to blink back the tears, then turned away, and because she had no handkerchief, she wiped her face with her sleeve.

  Caroline stared at the man, wringing her hands in her apron. “Oh, that you had come just a week ago.”

  The man frowned. “What do you mean? Do you say she has gone off with another?”

  “Only God,” Caroline told him. “Arthur? That is your name, is it not?”

  “She has mentioned me, then?” He looked hopeful.

  Maggie nodded. “She would indeed have married you. She told me so.”

  He shook his head in confusion.

  “She is with the Lord now,” Caroline said. Whe
n the man still did not understand, she added, “Lavinia is dead.”

  “Dead?” Arthur stared at Caroline, then turned to Maggie. “How can she be dead? Did she tell you to say that because she does not want to see me?” He gave a hopeful smile. “She does love to play silly games.”

  “She died of the cholera,” Caroline told him.

  He gasped and put his hand to his cheek. “Did she suffer? Tell me she did not suffer.”

  Caroline turned away, and Maggie, knowing lying would distress Caroline, answered for her. “Only a little.” She stepped forward and took Arthur’s hands. “She hoped you would be at Fort Kearny. It is what she told me.”

  “She would have come home with me, then?”

  “Oh yes.”

  For a moment the man wept, rubbing his eyes with his fists. Maggie wept, too.

  “I was with her at the end,” Maggie said. “She thought of you till the last. That final day, in her suffering, she called out your name.” Maggie did not add that the name was followed by curses. “Your name was on her lips when she died. ‘Artie’ was the last word she spoke in this life.”

  “And I was not there to comfort her,” he cried.

  Maggie took his hand. “I believe the thought of you brought her comfort. Mrs. Swain and I granted her last wish.”

  Arthur waited. “Her last wish?”

  “We buried her in her wedding dress.”

  Seven

  Lavinia’s fiancé left that day with a group of men returning east. The dragoons, too, prepared to go on, but before they left, they warned William to be on the alert for Indians. In fact, the soldiers had been charged with watching for the hostiles on their way to Fort Kearny.

  “We have not seen any since we left St. Joseph,” William said.

  “You can presume they have seen you every day,” the lieutenant told him.

  “Are they dangerous?” Maggie asked. She remembered the drunken Indians she had seen in St. Joseph and thought that if the rest of their tribesmen were like them, they posed little problem. Still, there had been stories among the emigrants they encountered of Indian attacks and depredations, of men hacked to death, of women ravished and children stolen away. She glanced at Clara, making sure the girl was near the wagons.

  “They can be,” the lieutenant replied. “With the cholera, most Indians are staying away from the trains just now. Cholera is as deadly for them as for you. Still, it is best to be prepared. If they are painted and are riding without their women and little ones, they may be warriors. They are a noble race who are defending their way of life. Still, they are vicious fighters and give no quarter to women and children. If you see them, you must corral your wagons at once and be prepared to fight. If they are accompanied by their families, they are most likely beggars. You would be wise to keep them as far away as possible, for they are thieves, the women the worst. You cannot blame them, of course. We have taken much away from them. Give them a few biscuits and a trinket or two, then send them on their way. Guard your belongings and your children, if you have them among you. If they attack, you must shoot to kill.”

  Maggie knew she was not the only one who was alarmed. “I could not kill a person, even an Indian,” one woman said.

  “You had best do so,” the lieutenant told her. “What an Indian will do to a woman … well, to tell of it is not fitting. If you had the choice of putting a bullet through your head or being ravished by a red man, do not think twice.”

  “I mean I do not know how to shoot a gun,” the woman said.

  “We taught the women to handle the animals and build fires and load and unload the wagons. We did not feel it necessary, what with the men accompanying us and a few women already familiar with firearms, that the others learn to handle guns,” William said.

  “Besides, it is unwomanly,” Joseph added.

  “And you think dying at the hands of a savage is womanly? You must teach them now, before you go farther,” the lieutenant said. He turned to the women gathered around him. “Which of you knows how to handle a gun?”

  Mary and several other women raised their hands. The rest shook their heads.

  The soldier looked at the dragoons. “I believe we can wait for morning to leave.” He turned to Joseph. “I advise you to let us teach these women to protect themselves.”

  “The commandments say thou shalt not kill,” Joseph told him.

  “Do the commandments tell you to watch while your women are raped and mutilated, while your children’s heads are bashed in?” the soldier asked. “Do the commandments say stand idle while the Indians hack off your manhood? If so, then by all means, do not let your women learn how to shoot a gun.”

  Joseph blanched, but William spoke up. “We should be grateful for your instruction.”

  Maggie did not know how to shoot. She lined up with the others in front of the wagons so that the dragoons as well as the men who were members of the company could show them how to load and fire the pistols, rifles, and shotguns they had brought with them.

  After what the lieutenant had said about rape, the women were anxious to learn how to handle guns and were apt students, although not all of them. “You ain’t never going to learn to shoot, miss,” a soldier informed Dora after he instructed her how to aim at a bush. She’d shot through a wagon sheet instead. “If a Indian comes riding by, you just throw the gun at him.”

  Several of the dragoons were amused at the women and treated them like children. “I already know how to shoot a gun,” Penn told a soldier who had taken her arm. She removed the pistol from her pocket.

  “A pepperbox like that ain’t going to cause much damage, ’less you hold it right up next to a Indian’s head,” the soldier replied. “Guns and womens don’t mix is my way of thinking. It’s a good thing you’re going to California to find you a husband to protect you.” He handed her a rifle and told her to aim for a tree.

  “Which branch?” Penn asked.

  The soldier laughed at her. “The one with the crow on it.” He turned and winked at another soldier.

  “I reckon I’ll get the crow in the eye.” Penn held the rifle steady and sighted on the bird, then slowly squeezed the trigger. The crow toppled off the branch in a shower of feathers. “I guess maybe I ain’t needing a husband to protect me in California,” she said.

  Another dragoon came along the line looking the women over and stopped beside Maggie. “You know anything about guns?”

  “No.”

  He grinned at her. “Come over here behind the wagon so’s you won’t hurt nobody. You stand out here with a gun, you’re liable to shoot one of them preachers.”

  Maggie didn’t like the looks of the man and thought to tell him no, but she wanted to learn to shoot. He led her past several wagons until they were beyond view of the others and showed her how to load a shotgun and aim it. He stood behind her and held his hand over hers to explain how to pull the trigger. Suddenly he placed his hand on her breast.

  Maggie drew back in horror, too shocked to say anything more than “Sir! Keep your hands off me.”

  “Oh, don’t be high and mighty with me, miss. I know you.”

  Did he know about Jesse? Had Jesse followed her? Maggie began to shake and wanted to cry out, but she could not because she was afraid that he indeed did know about her. “I have never met you,” she insisted.

  “Maybe not, but I knowed all about you. I knowed you womens got a reason for joining the wagon train. You’re running away. You behave, or I’ll tell them ministers about you.”

  Did he really know something, or was he bluffing? Maggie wasn’t sure, and she didn’t dare risk the chance he might be telling the truth. “You don’t know me,” she insisted.

  “Oh, you reckon not? I seen you in St. Joe. I been expecting to meet up with you. You’re a whore.”

  Maggie stared at the man. Had he mixed her up with Sadie?

  “Ain’t no better than a whore. Myself, I can tell. You got something to hide. You ain’t no old maid going to California
for a husband. I seen you right off when we got here, and I says to myself, ‘Wilson, she is going to give you a good time.’”

  Maggie was sickened by the man’s words. “Let me go or I’ll scream,” she said. Her voice was high and tight and too shaky to sound convincing. Besides, she had waited too long to protest. The soldier surely knew she was hiding something.

  “You do that, and I’ll tell them preachers who you are. They’ll turn you out at Kearny.” He threw back her skirt and tore at her petticoat. Then he added, “You whore!”

  What would Clara think if she heard her mother called such a horrible name? Maggie wondered. But if she allowed the soldier to touch her, she was no better than what he had called her. “Take your hands off me,” she screamed. She drew back her hand and slapped the soldier hard across the face.

  “You bitch! Look what you done now!” he cried.

  The others heard the commotion, and the preachers, Caroline with them, hurried to Maggie. “What is this?” William demanded.

  “I was trying to learn her to shoot, and she turned crazy on me,” he said.

  “You were teaching her to shoot by ripping her dress?”

  The soldier grinned. “She done that herself, said if I didn’t kiss her, she’d holler.”

  The other women had reached them and looked at the man in disgust. No one would want to kiss the filthy, bearded dragoon.

  “Mrs. Hale?” William asked Maggie.

  “He tore my dress. He put his hands on me and demanded—”

  “Soldier!” The lieutenant came up to the man. “Explain this.”

  The grin left the dragoon’s face, and he looked frightened. “It ain’t my fault, sir. She’s a cat. She come up to me and asked for money, said she’d fix me if I didn’t give it to her.”

  By now the entire company of women as well as the soldiers had surrounded Maggie and the dragoon. Maggie clutched at her torn dress. Ever since she had signed up for the trek west, she had been afraid the women would discover she had tried to kill her husband. Now she wondered if they believed the man when he claimed she was a prostitute. They stared silently at her as Caroline stepped forward and took her hands.