Dora held out her arm so the surgeon could examine it.
“We were attacked by Indians. Three of our number are dead, one of them a woman. Others were injured, but not as severely as this,” the minister added.
“About average for a train of gold seekers,” the surgeon said. “Some have had it worse, some better.” He untied the bandages that held the spoke in place. “I believe you can dispense with the splint.”
Maggie took the spoke. She would return it to Bessie to put back into her rocker.
“Will I lose my arm?” Dora asked.
“Not unless you don’t want it anymore,” the surgeon said, smiling. “It was set as well as I could have done. It will pain you some, and it will never be as good as new, but it will do. Had you a doctor who attended you?”
“A woman in our train.”
“Are you the wagon train of spinsters, then? I have heard of you. There is much talk of you by those who have passed you on the trail. Many are betting you will not make it to California.”
“Those who have observed us are betting we will,” Caroline told him. “You should have seen us fight against the Indians. I believe we are as competent as any group of men—better cooks, too, and somewhat more polite.”
“That would not be difficult.” The surgeon nodded at Dora, who stood and stretched her back. “You are soon to become a mother,” he said, glancing at Dora’s protruding stomach.
Dora nodded, embarrassed.
The surgeon was not paying attention, however. It was not his job to take care of pregnant women, and he nodded at the next patient to come forward.
Outside, William left them to meet one of the men at the blacksmith’s shop. Some of the oxen needed to be shod, and broken wheels and wagons required repair. The train was already behind schedule, so he wanted to hurry the work. Maggie was sorry to see him go. She knew that Dora had to discuss her condition with the ministers, and Reverend Swain, while he had softened, was still a man with high morals.
“I believe you will heal, and that is a relief. I am told the journey thus far has been easier than that ahead. We would not want to subject a sick woman to the hardships,” Joseph said.
Dora considered his words. “You will let me go on, then?”
“Are you of a mind to return to Chicago?”
“Oh no. I just thought … I mean, the baby…” Her voice trailed off.
“It seems that one of every four women we encounter is expecting a child or has one at her breast,” Caroline said. “I do not believe the trail will be that hard for you, if that is what you are thinking.”
“Then I can stay with you?” Dora asked.
Joseph studied her a moment. “If I had known of your condition at the outset, I would have refused you. But you are one of us now. I have seen how you do what is expected of you, and more. We will not turn you out,” he said.
Later, when Maggie was alone with Caroline, she asked about the decision. “My husband was angry when he learned of Dora’s condition,” Caroline said. Dora had lied to them. She had known the requirements for women making the trip west and had concealed her pregnancy. “We worried that if Dora remained, outsiders might believe we were taking a group of immoral women to California. We would then be compromised.
“Still, I pleaded for her, knowing she was desperate. I have never had a child, to my great regret and that of my husband. Nonetheless, I understand the heartbreak of a woman with a child she does not want. Like you, Sadie had guessed Dora’s condition, and she told me, saying that I knew the alternative. If Dora had been left in Chicago, she likely would have been turned out. That could have meant her death as well as that of the baby. Sadie said that joining our company saved both their lives. I told Sadie she was becoming a Christian, but she replied that she had not gone that far.” Caroline smiled. “Not all Christians are members of a church.
“I relayed all Sadie said to my brother and husband, and I told them that if we forced her to leave us, Dora would be in a worse situation than before.”
“And you swayed them?”
Caroline shrugged. “My husband said we were only being practical by letting Dora continue. He knew that if we turned her away, we would be responsible if anything happened to her. He believed God would judge us.”
“That was a powerful argument,” Maggie said.
“I thought so myself. That is why I made it.”
* * *
FORT LARAMIE WAS bigger and busier than Fort Kearny. The large parade ground was bordered by rows of barracks made from mud and straw, or adobe as it was called. Besides the surgery and the headquarters, there were a blacksmith shop, a sawmill, a public house, and a sutler’s post.
Once she had escorted Dora back to the wagons, Maggie took Clara with her to the post to purchase fabric for sunbonnets. Many of the women from the train were there, although they merely wanted to look, not buy.
The selection of goods at the post was sparse, Maggie thought, turning her attention to the mountain men in their fringed buckskin suits decorated with beads. They smelled of campfires and animal skins. The trappers lounged about the room, smoking or chewing and talking of beaver they had trapped and buffalo they had slaughtered to any who would listen. They spoke of Indians they had slaughtered, too, and narrow escapes from savages and wild animals, and they lamented that their way of life was disappearing. “Too many pilgrims,” one remarked, referring to the emigrants. They blamed the influx of travelers, but in truth, they had overtrapped the beaver. Besides, as Maggie knew from her days as a dressmaker, styles had changed, and beaver hats were no longer in demand. Now the men tried to sell themselves as guides on the Overland Trail.
Maggie studied the array of merchandise. The bolts of calico and rolls of ribbon, bonnets and hairpins, and packets of pins made her a little homesick.
“I wonder if I shall ever use my china plates again,” Bessie said, coming to stand beside Maggie.
“You packed them in one of the flour barrels. They ain’t going to break,” Evaline told her.
“You must say ‘are not’ instead of ‘ain’t,’” Bessie corrected her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Evaline said. Maggie knew that in the beginning, some of the women had thought Evaline uppity because of her fine talk.
Both women studied the merchandise on the shelves—the china, the bolts of fabric, the discards from the trail, and the liquor. Maggie remarked that she was glad they were abstainers since whiskey was five dollars a gallon. Bessie called the sutler over and asked him to take down the muslin and cut off three yards. She also purchased two yards of flannel.
“What do you need that for?” Maggie asked.
“A baby needs napkins, does it not? And shirts?”
“Miss Dora?” Evaline asked.
“Who else?”
“I did not think it was you having a baby.”
Maggie frowned at Evaline’s presumption in talking to her mistress that way, but Bessie only laughed and told the girl to mind her manners.
“You are nicer than you let on,” Evaline said.
The sutler handed the purchased items to Evaline, who tucked them under her arm and waited with Bessie while Maggie chose the fabrics for the sunbonnets—green for Dora, red for Penn, and blue for the others. Then she purchased a length of yellow—yellow like the sun—since Clara had asked for a sunbonnet, although the little girl still dressed as a boy. The cap she had worn had been lost on the prairie.
None of them noticed a man staring at them until he approached.
“That’s a right nice little gal you got there, ma’am,” he said to Bessie. He pointed at Evaline.
Maggie was handing coins to the sutler and paid no attention to the man until she heard Bessie say, “Sir.” Then Maggie turned and frowned. She did not like his looks. Or his smell.
The man removed his hat. “I could use such a woman, you know, make up my bed, wash my clothes, cook my supper. She cooks, does she?”
Bessie took a step backward. “She does
not.”
“Well, I ain’t so particular about that.”
Evaline stared at the man, fear in her eyes, and stepped close to her mistress. “What does he want?” she whispered. Bessie put her arm around Evaline. Maggie, alarmed, grasped Clara and moved closer to the two others. Clara took Evaline’s hand.
The man smiled at Evaline, showing a mouth that held only half a dozen teeth. “Like I say, I’m looking for a gal to help me, warm my backside of a night.” He turned back to Bessie. “I’d give a good price for her. I’m a buffalo hunter and make a fine living. How much do you want?”
Shocked, Maggie gasped, and Evaline crumpled against Bessie. Maggie knew little about slavery, had not thought much about the plight of those who were considered chattel. Now the idea that the beautiful young woman who had been so kind to Clara might be no more than an animal to be bought and sold sickened her.
Bessie looked the hunter in the eye. “She is not a slave, sir. She is not for sale.”
“Well, I’ll give you a little something anyway.” He turned to Evaline. “How about it, girl? It don’t bother me none that you’re a darkie, and I’ll treat you real good, buy you anything in this store.”
“Get out of our way,” Bessie ordered.
“Now don’t be talking that way. I made you an honest proposition.” He put his hand on Evaline’s arm, and she screamed. “Don’t be doing that, girl.” He tightened his hand and moved it slowly up her arm, his other hand on the counter.
“Let go of her,” Bessie ordered.
The post was crowded and noisy, and no one seemed to be paying attention.
“Let her go,” Maggie repeated.
“Kill your own snakes,” he snarled. “Whereat I come from, a white man’s got the right to a colored girl like this. I expect she’ll go with me. Ain’t that right?” He grinned at Evaline, who turned her head aside at the foul breath. “Come on now.”
Bessie tried to pull Evaline away, but the trapper held her fast. Bessie looked around for a weapon, but it was Maggie who spotted the hammer lying on the counter next to the man’s free hand. “Get away from her!” she ordered.
“Mind your business,” he growled.
Maggie picked up the hammer and slammed it down on the man’s fingers. He let go of Evaline and howled, screaming that his hand was broken.
As the hunter put his hand between his knees, whimpering and swearing, Bessie sent Maggie a look of triumph. “Well done,’” she said.
* * *
MAGGIE HAD HEARD of the rock mound ever since St. Joseph. Independence Rock was one of the most famous landmarks on the Overland Trail, and nearly all the travelers carved their names in it. However, she was unimpressed. The granite hump was only a hundred and thirty feet tall. Bessie, who had lived in New England, said it reminded her of a whale—a huge whale, of course, because the rock was nearly two thousand feet long and half as wide.
They arrived at midday on July 7, three days late, according to William’s calculations. Wagon trains hoped to pass the rock by Independence Day. That way they were almost sure of making it to California before snow fell in the mountains, he explained. Still, William was pleased by their progress. They had made up much of the time they had spent at Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie. He would make sure the women did not tarry on the rest of the trip.
William said he would have preferred that they not waste the time visiting Independence Rock, but he knew that was impossible. For days, the women had talked of going there and carving their names in the granite dome, which they knew had become a kind of directory for those headed west. So William stopped the lead team near the rock, and the company made camp close to other trains that were gathered at the site.
“Take a chisel or a hammer and nails to inscribe your names,” William instructed, after the company had unhitched the teams and herded them into the wagon enclosure. “Or axle grease or tar,” he added, although the women ignored the last suggestions. Tar and grease would wear off over time. They wanted their names chiseled into the rock for eternity.
The men stayed to guard the wagons. They would go later. William led the women through the sage toward the gray dome.
“It looks like a giant lump of bread dough,” Bessie observed.
“Unrisen, like my dough,” Sadie said.
“More like spilled oatmeal,” Mary told them. She took Clara from Maggie and set the little girl on her shoulders. Clara played with Mary’s hair as if it were reins on a mule team. “Move out!” she called.
“Someday you will have a little girl like that,” Maggie told her.
Maggie knew she was not the only one who appreciated Mary, who confided in her and sought her advice. She had seen how Mary was no longer the oddity she had been at home. On the trail she was the leader of the women. She laughed when the others spoke about the men they would find in California. In the evenings, she and Maggie gathered with them around the campfires while Evaline played her violin, another emigrant a mouth organ. Mary sang the hymns in a clear voice, although she did not dance as the others did. When the fires died down and the ministers read from the Bible or prayed, Mary seemed content, her heart full.
“The men will line up for you, Mary. You will have more suitors than any of the rest of us,” Sadie told her.
“Who’ll look at a puny thing like me when they can have someone as strong as you?” Winny asked. “Oh, you will have your pick, Mary. What will you look for?”
Mary blushed and shook her head, and Maggie realized later that she had not answered.
“I want someone who works hard,” a woman said.
“Not a rich man?” Sadie asked.
The woman shook her head, and Dora added, “Me neither.”
“I’ll find a man that don’t beat me,” Penn said, blushing because she knew that although the women were aware she had run away from Asa because of his brutality, some thought it unseemly to admit such a thing.
Most of them murmured words of sympathy, however, and Mary said, “If your husband lays a hand on you, he will do it only once. I shall see to that.”
* * *
“COME ALONG. WE must not dawdle,” William called. He led the way to the rock, which up close was more impressive because of the names on it. Other emigrants were ahead of them, and Maggie heard the sounds of hammers as the travelers left their marks in the granite. One boy scrambled up the smooth surface of the rock, and with a nail he scratched his name high above the rest. Others used sharp rocks, chisels, even a hoe to record that they had been there.
Maggie walked along the rock, reading the names of emigrants, trappers, and explorers, a few chiseled into the stone more than twenty years before, lichen obscuring some of them. There were initials and names, dates and places. “Rich. York London Eng.,” read one. Another was “E.E. MORRIS NEW YORK CITY.” A third was simply “b.r. 1850.” Someone had scratched a crude drawing of a wagon, and scrawled not far away was “Clara.” “Look, Clara, there is your name,” Maggie said, pointing to it. Clara did not know her letters, however, and the scrawl meant nothing to her. She was more interested in the drawing of an animal and said, “See, Mama, a dog, just like Dick’s dog.” Maggie remembered how Dick had made a friend of a stray that roamed the streets. The dog waited for him by the front door of the tenement each morning for the breakfast scraps Dick brought him. Then one day, he did not come. Dick found him lying in the street, run over by a hack. “Evaline says I can have a dog in California,” Clara said.
“And you will,” Maggie told her.
Several of the women in the party searched for familiar names and cried out when they found them. Maggie stopped at a name that read, “Susan Talman, 1849.” “I wonder who she is,” Maggie said to Winny. “Did she make it to California? Maybe she was killed by Indians or died of cholera. Perhaps she reached the gold camps and struck it rich. Or maybe she got disgusted and went back east. We could have passed her on the trail or seen her at Fort Laramie.”
“Do you think someone will read our
names and wonder about us?” Winny asked. “Maybe a hundred years from now they will read ‘Winny Rupe’ and ask who she was.”
“More likely they will say, ‘Winny Rupe. Oh, you know of her. She went to California and found a million dollars in gold. She married a rich man who became president of America,’” Maggie told her.
“What do I care about a million dollars. I just want to find my brother.” Winny looked over the hundreds of names on the rock, then said in a small voice, “I did not know so many men went to California. How will I find Davy there?” They had walked partway around the rock by then, Winny searching for her brother’s name. “I will read every mark if I have to. If Davy made it this far, for sure he would have left his name.”
She lagged behind the others, reading each inscription, and when they were almost out of sight, they heard Winny yell. Maggie hurried back, and Winny pointed to a name scratched deep in the rock—“D. Rupe Chi.”
“You found him!” Maggie cried. “All these names, and you found your brother’s!”
Winny placed her hand over the name and grinned. “He made it this far. I know he got to California. He must have wrote me, but Mrs. Fletcher threw out the letters.” She began to cry, and Maggie put an arm around her friend. “I feared I was the only one left, but now I know he is in California. Oh, Maggie, I will find him.” Winny dried her eyes, then took out a nail and scratched “Winny. Sis.”
* * *
“I INTEND TO let them read my name,” Mary said. Standing on tiptoe and finding a vacant spot, she chiseled her name in huge letters: “MARY MADRID. ILL. 1852.”
She handed the chisel and hammer to Maggie, who inscribed her initials, M.K. She realized too late that she had enlisted in the company under the name Maggie Hale.
Sadie stared at the initials.
“I have changed my name,” Maggie admitted. “I would be grateful if you would keep it to yourself.” She chided herself for putting even her initials on the rock. What if someone who had heard about her saw them? The chances of that were slight, of course. Still, she had been foolish.
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