Westering Women

by Sandra Dallas

  “Why did you change it?” Sadie asked.

  “I fear…,” Maggie said, then caught herself. She stared open-mouthed at Sadie.

  Sadie thought that over and nodded. “Most likely you fear your dead husband’s family and are not wanting them to know you gone west. It was smart of you to pick another name.” She laughed. “I expect I should’ve done the same.” She took the chisel from Maggie and tapped it against the granite. When she was finished, Maggie’s initials were M.K.H.

  She handed the chisel back to Maggie. “What about Clara?” she asked. “You ought to make a record she’s been here.”

  Maggie thought that over, then walked back to Mary’s name, and under it she chiseled “C. Hale.” She held up Clara so that the girl could touch the name. “There you are, Clara. You will be remembered here for a thousand years.”

  Maggie watched as Sadie carved her initials, then handed the implement to Penn, who scratched an X in the rock. When she saw the others watching, she reddened. “I can’t write,” she said.

  “Then I shall write it for you,” Mary said and chiseled “Penn House” on the rock. When she was finished, she frowned. “Are you afraid Asa’s brothers will see it? If you want me to, I can scratch it out.”

  Penn laughed. “Even if they see it, it won’t mean nothing to them. They can’t read neither.”

  “You are still frightened of them?” Mary asked.

  “Every single day. I know they are going to catch up with us.”

  Maggie feared that Penn was right. Just a few days before, they had exchanged pleasantries with a group of men who passed them on the trail. One mentioned that the soldiers at Fort Kearny had discovered the body of a traveler who had been buried where the wagons camped. When Joseph asked for particulars, the man replied that it had been the best bit of luck that the man’s own family had arrived a day or two later and identified him. “Everybody is talking of it, because it was so bold, burying a man like that right where the wagons was.”

  “Was it robbery?” Joseph asked.

  “Hard to tell. They found a sack of gold coins on him, but a brother of his says something was stole from him.”

  “What was it?” Joseph asked.

  The man narrowed his eyes as if Joseph were too curious and shrugged. Then he asked, “Your women ain’t been making white cake, have they? I’d give my right ox for a taste of white cake.”

  Joseph replied, “Not unless you can give them a dozen eggs. We have not seen an egg since the Missouri.” He did not press the man further about the dead body.

  * * *

  “WHAT ABOUT YOU, Reverend Parnell? Do you not want to inscribe your name on the rock?” Maggie asked, handing him the chisel.

  He took the implement but did not use it. “I know I was here. I do not feel the need for others to know of it,” he replied. He wandered off from the group then, the chisel still in his hand.

  The day was pleasant, and Reverend Parnell had already announced they would be camping at the site, so Maggie felt there was no need to return to the wagons. Clara was running her hands over the names, stopping when she saw an animal chiseled in the stone. “Come on, Mama,” she called.

  Maggie felt carefree. “Come, let us walk all the way around the rock,” she told Bessie.

  Bessie looked to where Evaline was sitting on the ground, drawing in her sketchbook. “One day, someone will appreciate her record of the trip,” Bessie said. “Before we left Chicago, we inquired of the editor of a newspaper whether he would like to publish her sketches. He said he would, then asked if I would write about the journey for him. When I suggested that Evaline do so, he said, ‘Oh, does she read and write, then?’ I am used to ignorant people believing that because she is a Negro, she is illiterate, but I would not have expected such an assumption from a learned man.” Bessie shook her head. “I had hoped for a better life for Evaline in California, but…” She shook her head. “Perhaps California is no better than anyplace else.”

  Bessie invited Evaline to walk with them, but Evaline shook her head. “I shall be fine, Mrs. Whitney.” Bessie looked around to make sure that Evaline was not alone and nodded. Then she linked her arm through Maggie’s, and the two followed Clara around the rock. Up ahead, they saw that Reverend Parnell had stopped. He had told them he did not care to carve his name in the granite, but it was clear to the two that he was doing just that. They waited, afraid that they had intruded on something secret, and both began examining the wall, as if looking for names. There were fewer of them now, since this was on the far side of the trail. After a time, the minister finished what he was doing and walked on. The women waited until he was out of sight. Then they continued their walk until they reached the place where Reverend Parnell had stopped.

  It took a moment for them to find what they were looking for. Maggie spotted it and pointed: “Anne & William Parnell, 1849.” The names were weathered, and lichen spotted them. Maggie went closer, then saw a newly etched cross in the rock below the names. “Look,” she told Bessie.

  Bessie went to the wall and touched the cross. She drew in her breath, then said, “Reverend Parnell never told us he was married. I had thought him a bachelor. Surely he does not now have a wife in California.”

  “No. I believe the cross means that she is dead.”

  “Perhaps her death has something to do with this journey,” Bessie said.

  “He once said of us that we were all running away from something. I believe he is, too.”

  Bessie stared in the direction the minister had gone. “That poor man,” she muttered. “No wonder he is so lonely.”

  Maggie studied her friend for a moment, then smiled to herself. Bessie could be a very determined woman. Perhaps she had decided on her third husband. Maggie started along the trail, then stopped and turned back when she realized her friend was not with her. Bessie still stood with her hand on Reverend Parnell’s name.

  Thirteen

  July 25, 1852

  The Mormon Trail

  The rain started at midday on a Sunday. The wagon train still stopped on the Sabbath, not so much for religious reasons now as to let the animals rest and the company make repairs. William had found a good site near the Green River that had been occupied by others just a day or so earlier. That train had lightened its load and left behind hub hoops, wagon wheels, and harnesses. A window sash lay on the ground along with a clothes basket, a leather portmanteau, and a rag carpet. And there were ashes from what had been beans and bacon that the men of that train had set afire so that no one else could eat them. A pile of bricks lay nearby, which made the travelers laugh. How could anyone be so foolish as to transport bricks that far? Maggie held up a sad iron and asked, “What woman would want to come all this way just to iron clothes?”

  That morning, Mary went with the men in search of six oxen that had wandered off overnight. Maggie watched her ride away into a glorious sunrise of pink and orange and lavender, the colors of a silk dress she had once made. The sunrise was followed by a brilliant blue sky, but it turned cloudy as the day wore on, and then the rain came. The land was still flat and brown, but it had grown prettier the farther they went from Fort Laramie, with hills and canyons, with bachelor’s buttons and marigolds and asters—and berry bushes loaded with fruit. Maggie had been thrilled to find both black and yellow currants as well as wild strawberries and raspberries along the trail. Penn had discovered ice, too, ice that was perfectly clear and good, at a place called Ice Slough. None could understand how ice formed just a few inches below the surface of the grass. Clara put her bare toes on the ice and laughed. Penn dug up a quantity, and that night Maggie made a dessert with it, adding milk and sugar and strawberries. She gave her portion to Clara, who consumed it with delight and demanded, “More strawberry ice cream, please, Mama.”

  In camp, before the rain, Bessie and Sadie baked bread, using saleratus from a nearby spring in place of soda, and Dora made a crust for a pie. She would fill it with the wild fruit. Others aired bedding an
d washed clothes, scrubbing them on rocks and spreading them over bushes to dry, then sat in the shade of their wagons with their mending.

  Maggie took out calico quilt pieces that she had picked up from a pile of discards and began stitching them together. Sewing again gave her pleasure. She did not know if that was because she was turning discarded scraps into something useful or because selecting the colors and shapes to be made into a pattern made her feel like an artist creating a picture.

  “What do you call the pattern?” Winny asked. She was mending Mary’s petticoat, which had been torn when it was caught on a bush, and doing a poor job of it.

  “I do not know. I am making it up.”

  “Is the quilt for Dora?”

  “What a wonderful idea.” Maggie glanced at Winny’s big stitches. “Give it to me. I shall repair the petticoat. There is plenty of time to make a quilt for Dora’s baby.” She took the petticoat and ripped out Winny’s crude stitches, wrapping the thread around her finger to save it. She was especially careful of her needle because she had brought only three with her.

  The two sat quietly for a time, and Maggie remembered how she had loved sitting in the sun on the steps of the Chicago building in which she had lived. She had sewn while Dick played beside her with the little dog and Clara napped, her head in Maggie’s lap. Those were her happiest days, when the children were small and Jesse had gone away. She missed Dick—she would always miss Dick—but she still had Clara, and that was some comfort. Maggie glanced down at the little girl beside her, who was arranging the quilt scraps by color.

  * * *

  IT BEGAN TO rain then, and the women gathered their sewing and went to their wagons and tents. Dora, whose pie was not yet done, stood over the campfire with a gutta-percha cloth over her head to keep the rain from splashing on the pastry. Maggie put Clara into a wagon, and those who had done washing collected the laundry from the bushes where it had been drying.

  By the time Mary and the men returned with the missing oxen, they were soaked. Mary climbed into her wagon, stripped off her dress, and put on her dry one. The rain beat on the canvas wagon covers. The wind blew the drops inside, wetting quilts and blankets that were stored too close to the opening. Mary had discarded her feather bed at Fort Kearny but said she would keep the pillow even if she had to carry it on her head. Now she wrinkled her nose at the disagreeable smell of the feathers. “I had hoped to fish,” she told Maggie. “I would have liked a dinner of fried fish, but I am afraid I would be washed down the river if I went near the bank.”

  Maggie would not have minded a light rain to settle the dust, but western rains were cold and heavy. And this one seemed as if it would last forever. The sky reminded her of the days in Chicago when coal smoke colored it a gray as dark as slate. The women strung their damp laundry inside the wagons and tents, which added to the wetness in the air. The rain depressed Maggie because it would not stop. She ate a cold supper that included Dora’s watery pie, its crust the texture of soaked cardboard.

  The rain saturated the ground, and William said he was afraid that if they left the campsite, the wagons would get stuck in the mud, which by morning would be as thick as pudding. The tents filled with water, and those who had slept in them crowded into the wagons to wait out the storm. Maggie hunched her shoulders and wrapped herself in a quilt when it was her turn to do chores or check on the animals, then hurried back to the shelter of the wagon. A few women tried to keep the campfires going but gave up, and for the second day they ate cold food.

  Clara fussed about being cooped up in the wagon. She complained of the damp bedding and whined when Maggie gave her a slice of cornbread and cold beans for her dinner. “I want soup,” she said. “I want ice cream.”

  “We have no fire to make soup, and the ice cream is gone,” Maggie told her.

  “I want strawberry ice cream,” Clara continued.

  “Oh, do be quiet,” Maggie chided her. Maggie’s nerves were frayed from the dampness, and she feared she was coming down with a cold. She had no patience for Clara. When she turned her back, Clara jumped out of the wagon and dropped into the mud.

  Maggie climbed out after her, and the two tussled. Maggie hauled her up as Clara kicked, spraying mud over their clothes. “I want out,” Clara screamed.

  “Oh, Clara, how could you! Do not act like a baby. You are four years old,” Maggie said. “Be still!”

  A woman in the next wagon shook her head at Maggie, as if telling her to make her child behave.

  “She is always so good. It is the rain,” Maggie said, but the woman only frowned. Maggie held Clara tight and said she would tell her a story, but Clara put her fingers in her ears.

  “I will take her,” Mary said. “I am restless at being cooped up, too, and want to walk to the river to see how much it has risen. She is already wet, and I will keep a tight hold on her.”

  “I want to go,” Clara insisted, pulling away from her mother.

  “Do not cause trouble,” Maggie warned.

  “You cause trouble,” Clara responded.

  Maggie shrugged. “Oh, do take her,” she said to Mary. She tied the yellow sunbonnet under Clara’s chin, hoping it would keep the rain off her daughter’s head. She watched from the wagon until Mary, Clara on her shoulders, disappeared, a sense of guilt for her relief at having a bit of peace. When the two returned, Clara was soaked, and Maggie was brusque with Mary for letting the child get so wet.

  She was relieved the next morning when the sun came out. The trees and bushes shimmered with drops of rain; the mountains smoked as the dampness steamed off them in the hot sun. Maggie was anxious to be under way and chafed that Reverend Parnell insisted they wait until late morning, after the sun had had a chance to bake the earth. “If the wagons get mired, we will have to double-team to pull them out. Better to get a late start after the ground is more solid,” he said. Maggie rolled her eyes.

  The women spread their bedding and damp laundry on bushes again, but they were packed and ready to leave, with the teams harnessed, long before the minister called “Move out!” They jockeyed for places in line then, forgetting their order of three days before. The oxen, rested, moved at a fast pace.

  “Maybe the rain was not so bad,” Winny told Maggie as they walked beside their wagon.

  “Maybe, if I can ever get Clara’s clothes clean again,” Maggie replied, then glanced down. “And look at my hem. It is covered in mud.” She still felt out of sorts.

  The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, without a single cloud, and the grass, which had been brown from overgrazing by the trains ahead of them, had turned bright green and sparkled with wildflowers. “A day the Lord has made,” Caroline exclaimed.

  Maggie wondered how Caroline could always be so cheerful.

  “The Lord makes each day,” her husband put in.

  “Yes, of course, but on some days, like me, He is not in such a good mood,” Maggie told him.

  She wondered if he would reprimand her, but to her surprise, Reverend Swain laughed.

  They traveled all day beside the Green River. They had crossed rivers many times already, some of them fast and dangerous like the Platte could be in places. Others were mere streams, so shallow that, instead of riding across in the wagons, the women had removed their shoes, hiked up their skirts, and waded through them. The Green, normally more placid, was too deep and too cold for that. It was swollen from the rain and brown with dirt that had been washed off the riverbanks—and it looked treacherous. “The water is so muddy that it appears bottom side up,” Mary observed.

  “I believe you would need a spoon to drink it,” Maggie said. She did not look forward to fording it.

  By midafternoon the train had reached the crossing. William and Joseph stood on the bank of the river and stared at the water. “It is awfully fast. Should we wait to cross?” Joseph asked Edwin, who had traveled the Green before.

  “Hard to say. I have never seen the water so high. The Green is usually more placid, but today it is as t
urbulent as the Platte. Without the rain of the last day, it would be much lower. There used to be a ferry here, but I see no sign of it.”

  “I believe we should do it,” William said. “Due to our late start, we are well behind schedule. We could be here for days waiting for the river to go down. Besides, the oxen are rested and should have no trouble swimming across.” He paused. “It could rain again, too. I hope that, unlike Jesus, the river does not rise.”

  He glanced at Joseph to see if his brother-in-law was offended, but Joseph ignored the remark and said, “I do not like it.”

  “You are too cautious. At this rate, we will not reach the Sierras before snowfall. The snow is far more dangerous than a river.” When Joseph did not respond, William added, “I have traveled this route, too, Joe. If Edwin thinks we can cross, then I am of a mind to do so.”

  Joseph looked at the swirling river that foamed and whirled as it tried to escape the banks. “I pray you are right.”

  “Pray all you like,” William said. “But you might also want to help us get the wagons across.”

  “I think we should wait,” Caroline said, as two dead oxen swept past them in the raging water. “This is the worst river we have encountered, and I believe the women would be willing to camp a day or two until it subsides.”

  “I had not known you had selected such cowards to go to California,” William told her in a waspish voice.

  Caroline looked stung and said, “Thy will be done.”

  “William knows best,” Joseph reprimanded her.

  William turned to Edwin and asked, “How do you suggest we cross?”

  Edwin walked to the willows lining the bank and studied the river for a long time. He returned and said, “I advise we wait until morning, when the water has gone down. Besides, it will take us a full day to cross. If we start this late in the day, only a few wagons will reach the other side, and it would not be safe to divide the women.”