The Memory Weaver

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  Ever your faithful sister,

  Eliza

  While Henry Hart prepares our eggs, three-year-old Millie and five-year-old Martha speak together in a language almost their own, their leaving dolls making a happy family—the dolls made of leftover cloth, a cotton ball for a head, and yarn to mark the sleeves as arms. They appear cheerful, not stricken by all that happened, not scarred as Eliza is. She endured so much. I worry that she is too stalwart, too strong. Even a tree must bend in the wind or it will break, have its roots exposed. I fear her breaking and my not being here to tend to her healing.

  I awaited Horace’s arrival that day with such joy the year before everything happened. I was eager for his companionship. The tensions between us and the other missionaries, the Smiths and the Whitmans, grew ever worse. Dr. Whitman sometimes refused to act as the mission doctor, which was his responsibility. He would not come when I gave birth to Eliza, until it was almost too late. The child nearly died. Other times he told Mr. S what he must and must not do in bringing the faith to our Nimíipuu. He seemed jealous—such a childish emotion—when Timothy, Joseph, and a white man, Connor, asked for baptism. We had not brought the Indians to the faith “in English.” Such a petty thought. We were not forced to learn Greek or Hebrew before we found the faith. We learned in English, our language. Why not teach in Nez Perce?

  Marcus Whitman’s intrusions troubled us and things only got worse with the arrival of the Smiths. Marcus was not trained as a minister of the word. Mr. S was. He felt we should not be teaching in the Nez Perce language, that our Indians should learn English. Yet the Whitmans rejoiced with the printing press and the publication of our primer and the book of Matthew, both in Nez Perce language called Sahaptin. At least outwardly they rejoiced. The Halls did celebrate. They taught Hawaiian at their mission. Like us, they did not require English for their converts and they too were successful in bringing people to experience love. I miss Sarah Hall immensely.

  And what good was English, just to speak to us? We could easily speak their language after a time, even little Eliza. We taught the scriptures to the young men who did know English, and as criers, they taught their people. I drew pictures to describe Noah’s ark and God’s provision and rainbow promise. And they did a splendid job of reteaching the women and children, the braves and the elders. Yes, they may have missed some nuance of the faith but what they needed to know—that Jesus loved them as they were and would greet them in Heaven—they understood. To my thinking, is there a greater message?

  All the missionaries, wives, and children had a meeting at Waiilatpu, all of them, in ’42. I refused to attend. I didn’t want to hear the bickering nor their unkind words about Mr. S—and me, I suppose. My teacher training allowed me to draw, sing, play harmonica music, hymn-sing, and do every handiwork I could imagine, giving experience to words, using head, heart, and hands. Our Nez Perce learned quickly! I drew the Bible stories of the woman with the lost coin, using bones from their stick games for currency—or did I paint dentalia, the small round mollusk shells used as currency? My memory fades. I painted David and Goliath, drawing an Indian boy and man. A river stone and slingshot caught their interest, easily. I painted pictures using inks I made from red berries and black berries and the sunny flowers that sprang forth in spring. All ages loved the colorful stories and I felt useful, as though the talents given me had found a place of investment.

  I think the Whitmans and the Smiths were envious. So I remained at home with the children while the others went off and met in ’42 at Waiilatpu and did the business of sending reports to the Mission Board. I knew something wasn’t right when Mr. S returned early. He claimed it had been a contentious time but they’d resolved hard issues. Later, as we lay side by side on the bird-feather mattress, he whispered what had happened. A letter from the Board awaited him at the meeting. It was full of complaints lodged by other missionaries against us! Because of these unfounded complaints, Mr. S and Dr. Whitman, too, had been dismissed.

  “Dismissed? That can’t be! Why?” I edged up on my elbow, brushed my long braid aside.

  “They say we’ve lost our way, not brought sufficient heathens to the Lord.” It was how they counted success, by numbers rather than by how people changed their lives.

  “Well, maybe not Marcus but you have. We have.”

  He lay with his hands as in prayer across his stomach. “Perhaps we have focused too much on getting the Indians to settle near the mission. We did it for a good reason, to protect them, especially since Marcus invites the immigrants, makes them feel welcome so they’ll stay and we’ll have a state one day. That appeals to him more than saving souls. But maybe we spend too much time in plowing furrows rather than in planting seeds of faith.” In the moonlight I could see him blink rapidly. “I may have failed us, Eliza. I may have failed us.”

  I reminded him of Young Timothy coming to the Lord. Of Joseph, seeking baptism, giving up the ways of the medicine doctors and the strange spirits. How could he speak of failure? “Are we abandoned here, then? All our work we’re to forget ever happened? And go where? How? We have nothing but the clothes on our backs. Or is even my nightdress the property of the Mission Board?” I felt a panic new to me, greater than when I almost died coming here across the continent. Was it shame, a fear of failure? Anger at whom? I inhaled, slowed my heartbeat, resolved to remind myself we were in God’s hands. I kept my voice calm. I could see Mr. S was distressed beyond words. “Who lodged these complaints?”

  “Smiths, I imagine. Maybe the Eells.”

  I rose from our bed. The moon shone full through the single window casting a square shadow onto the puncheon floor. I paced. I knew Narcissa and Marcus still grieved the drowning of their little Alice, born not long before our Eliza. Perhaps that’s what brought on all the chaos, the complaints. Grief is a shape shifter. Narcissa could be demanding and they complained that they were not well treated by their Cayuse Indians. When they came here, they could see that we had friends among The People. Matilda and I laughed together as sisters, shared stories in a language Narcissa didn’t understand. We saw the Nez Perce as people, not just heathens needing our Savior. We were willing to let them teach us things about them, about living here. At that time, it seemed to me the Whitmans had abandoned their efforts to bring the Book of Heaven to their Indians, whom they dismissed as stubborn, demanding money for the use of their land. Instead the Whitmans focused on the emigrants who came, more each year. The Whitmans prepared for settlement, for the arrival of new pioneers who would take even more prime land from the Indians, and spent their time selling goods to those on wagon trains while we spent our love on the Nez Perce and their souls.

  I heard Narcissa say once she had no interest in teaching the Cayuse, that they were too “hardheaded” to be taught. I did not find that so. But she would not have complained to the Board. Marcus had been dismissed too in the letter campaign.

  To this day I remain confused. I heard later that everyone agreed that “our” differences had been settled, that complaints against various families would cease (meaning Mr. Smith would stop sending his letters of concern to the Board) and I was relieved. But then Mr. S let it slip that part of what made things settle was Marcus chose to head east to plead our case to the Board and explain the difficulties with Asa Smith and his haughty ways (God forgive my using unkind thoughts about that man) and that Mr. Smith would head to Hawaii. Oh the poor Halls will have to deal with him now!

  And then the blow that night, as the moon cast glitter over the Clearwater River. Mr. S told me he agreed that we would stop teaching in Sahaptin, use only English.

  The very thing that made our work thrive he agreed to throw out, to have my students repeat things in English by rote, words they neither understood nor took into their hearts. I was ready to write a letter of complaint to the Board myself for the foolishness of men!

  6

  Cookstove Wisdom

  Men can be so foolish! Why would my father marry a woman who knew nothing o
f cooking and couldn’t even boil eggs? It became my duty to teach her. “Dry kindling starts the fire in the fireplace. Then we bring in green wood because dry wood burns too quickly. We need at least an hour to make coals.”

  “You just burn it up?”

  “Coals. We cook over coals, not open fire. Did you never watch anyone cook?”

  “We had coal stoves in Boston.” She smiled. “Perhaps I’ll ask your father to have one shipped here.”

  “Can you cook on it? I’d support the expenditure.”

  “I can’t cook on it, but you could.” She had a little-girl voice when she was caught in an insufficiency. “Maybe you could teach me.”

  “When the coals are just right, died down a bit, we start adding wood, to maintain the temperature we need.” I showed her how to swing the bar that held the iron S, how to use the tongs to lift the bale on the smaller cast-iron pots to hang them on the S, then swing it back over the coals. “If the stew gets too hot, you can swing it out and stir.” I handed her the tongs so she could try, and to her credit, she did all right. I imagined her getting burned and knew she’d be alarmed at my treatment: layering on the scrapings of a raw potato instead of medicine. “Careful you don’t burn yourself.”

  “Oh, honey, let’s not talk about possible problems.” She patted my hand. “That’s what brings them on.”

  Her comment was so foreign to how I controlled my world that I stood speechless.

  I finished my instruction, cutting pieces of venison into the stew, giving her dried carrots to slip into the water. I don’t remember much of what else I told her that morning. Rachel had handed me a pondering that sent me walking. I spent my days conjuring up concerns, believing that would keep them from happening; poor Rachel seemed to think such thoughts just gave trouble an invitation.

  “That woman will kill you. Neither she nor your dad seem capable of seeing how hard you work.” Mr. Warren and I rode our horses side by side up the Territorial Road north of Brownsville in the fall after Rachel’s arrival. I’d removed my shoes that hung on either side of Nellie’s neck, let the air cool my toes. Our rides happened infrequently, as Mr. Warren worked to raise money for his herd.

  “No, I shouldn’t complain to you so much. She’s really all right. Just so unlike my mother, from her bulk to her sense of fashion to her lack of skills. My mother could do anything and she did it with a gracious heart.”

  “And so can you.” He leaned across the space between us and put his hand over mine.

  “I’m not so sure about that gracious heart part,” I said.

  I rode bareback on Nellie, my dress pulled up above my calves to reveal bare feet and a touch more skin than was really proper for a young lady. His hand felt like warm butter, quelling the small uncertainty I sometimes felt around him. He would appear out of nowhere while I hung pumpkin slices to dry in the barn rafters, or while I strung beans in the shade at the side of the house. Like a slow sunrise he’d be there, sometimes not even coming near the house, but close enough for me to see him staring. The uneasiness of surprise lessened when we rode together.

  “Rachel’s good with the little ones. Martha loves looking at Godey’s with her, and she plays dolls with Millie—”

  “While you’re stitching up your father’s pants, I suspect.”

  He was right about that.

  “They love to have her read to them. She’s reading Washington Irving’s Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Millie loves adventures.” I enjoyed the stories too, while I stirred the stews that would feed us. I missed reading to the girls.

  “I read a Washington Irving book once.”

  “Rip Van Winkle?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. That’s a short story. I read Astoria! It’s about settling this country. I brought it with me from Missouri. I’ll lend it to you, if you like.”

  “I would like that.” His sweet offer surprised me, as did his knowledge of a short story versus a book. “I wasn’t aware that you liked to read so much, Mr. Warren.”

  “I figured reading is something that matters to you. I bet your father has never asked you what you like to read, now has he?”

  “No. It’s a given that I do read and inform my mind and study Scripture.”

  “But reading’s a pleasure and you deserve such, Eliza. You really do.” His voice was honey to a bitter tea. After a pause, he changed the subject. “I’ve been listening to your father. In church, I have.” I raised my eyebrows at this news. “He doesn’t speak much of getting what we deserve except for the disasters that befall us.” He inhaled as though speaking out of turn. “I interpret the Scripture he reads differently. Isn’t it sayin’ that we’re all worthy just by being loved by God? Even though we mess up?”

  Good enough just by being born? That hardly seemed likely but it was an intriguing thought, made more so coming from Mr. Warren.

  We’d ridden north, skirting Brown and Blakely’s where my father postmastered. Rachel thought me out bringing in the cows, but since she had no idea of how long it took to round them up or milk our two, I took the chance when Mr. Warren rode out of the shade of the oak looking like a man who saw me as beautiful despite the darkness that dwelled inside. We dismounted. I spread the blanket I’d rolled in front of me. We lay back beneath the trees, me with arms crossed over my chest, he up on his elbow, his other arm stroking my wrists. The scent of horse from the blanket tickled my nose and I sneezed.

  “I’m ready to commit,” he said. “I’ll let your father pray upon my head and say whatever words he wants of me, to show you that I love you with all my heart.”

  I swallowed. “It’s not me you’re to love with all your heart.” But oh, I so wanted him to love me fully, even though I knew it was a greater love that would bind us if it was meant to be. I had conjured a terrible life with him, his drinking being something serious, his kindness to me a ploy to get me to give myself to him, heart and soul and body. I imagined him injured by a runaway horse and being an invalid I’d need to care for. These thoughts contained my world, made it livable especially when chaos threatened as it did with Mr. Warren’s breath blushed sweet against my neck. My own breathing shortened, his whiskers rough against my chin. I imagined my father being outraged at our marriage. I imagined Mr. Warren’s drinking—if the rumors were true—interfering with our happiness. I imagined I could never please him. Yet my heartbeat quickened.

  “If I do, will you marry me?”

  “Oh, Mr. Warren, yes.”

  “When?” He was so close I could see the pores in his skin where whiskers threatened.

  “December, next year.” I breathed fast. “After I turn seventeen. Rachel will have learned enough by then to keep my father and his children fed. Christmas is a lovely time to wed.” I searched his eyes. Is he serious, truly?

  “It is. But must we wait until a year and a half?”

  “Where will we live?” A sudden practicality raised its head.

  “I’ve found a place. A donation land claim the owner wants to sell. It’s up in the hills a little ways. Lots of trees we can cut and take to the mill. Some meadow land for the small herd I’ve accumulated. There’s already a cabin. Want to see it?”

  I did. But I also didn’t want to leave this place of safety, lying beneath the trees, the sound of the Calapooia River gurgling, Mr. Warren’s warmth beside me. Could this be God’s blessing, this pleasant respite from my fears? His breath sweet upon me. Despite what Rachel subscribed to, I must not let myself think of happier things, for surely then they’d disappear like birds flying into sunset. Thoughts beset the future.

  I told him I didn’t want to see the cabin. Yet.

  “I asked Mrs. Brown how she made such good coffee and she said she added an egg.” Rachel leaned over the coffeepot on the stove my father had purchased for her that fall. We were learning together how to cook on it. I still preferred placing the pot inside the fireplace coals, but we were being “modern” with Rachel the kitchen head.

  “I thi
nk they meant to crack the egg and put it in raw.”

  “Oh, do you think so?” With a long-handled spoon she reached into the grounds, pulling out a stained, shell-intact egg.

  I shook my head. How could one woman be so ignorant? That was uncharitable of me, but these incidents occurred several times a week. She lacked common sense, as Nancy called it—everyday wisdom. I tried to be kind, I really did, but her efforts always meant more work for me until I decided it was better if I just did it myself, leaving her the more pleasurable task of reading to the girls. She would be “teacher” and tell stories of her privileged life in Boston where paid maids and cooks provided the common in her common sense.

  She was even worse with the cookstove. I still had Henry cut green wood as well as dried wood, but now he had to chop to fit the firebox on the stove. It was easier for me to simply start the fire with coals from the fireplace, so that meant we kept two fires going. Rachel liked the extra heat while the rest of us sweat cracklings. Our stove had six eyes with handles, six places for pots to boil, eggs to fry on, coffee to bubble up even with a whole egg plopped inside. The stove needed watching, but Rachel would start a pan and then wander away much like Martha did but she was only seven. I expected her to have a flighty mind; not Rachel.

  And my father. He tolerated all sorts of uncommon sense from Rachel, things he’d have raised his voice about if I had done it. She left the gate to the garden open and the hogs rooted their way in. During butchering she fainted, actually swooned into a heap of crinoline-covered linens when my father made his first cut into the abdomen of the hog whose leg she held. The limb flopped onto the back of my father’s neck, splattering blood on him, on her. She sank away and that day I . . . I disappeared too.

  I’m at Waiilatpu again. Blood streaks across the face of Dr. Whitman, who falls victim to a hatchet, then a gun. I jerk at the sounds. Frank Sager had run away days before, but he is back, then shot by the Indian Joe Lewis. He falls dead at my feet. We’re in the house. My limbs feel cold and numb. I hear the Indians’ muffled calls to Mrs. Whitman, promising they will harm her no more. Mr. Rogers, our beloved teacher, holds her by the elbow as they come into this room and I see that she’s been shot; his arm hangs loose with blood pouring. The smell suffocates. She sees her husband dead and falls, nearly pulls Mr. Rogers down. I cannot move. A Cayuse, maybe one who shot her, lifts then walks her to the chaise lounge. So strange—to aid the one you’ve injured. Then another raises his hatchet against our teacher, who shouts out, “Oh God, no!” Mr. Rogers falls. Blood arcs onto his murderer’s face as the man turns toward me. A dozen others whooping like cranes singing of their victory rush past him, pulling him toward others who have come from the barns to see what the noise is about. The smell is thick in my throat. The sounds deafening yet muffled like I am underwater. The curious are struck down in seconds; the chunk of blade to bone, a sound so fiercely final. I pull my apron starched with bluing over my face, inhale the scent wet with blood. I push away the sounds, and stand frozen while all around me I hear the heart-cries of death. We children from the school stay silent, await our end. I hear horses, more shouts, then in a language I can understand, Chinookan mixed with Cayuse and Sahaptin, we are told to “Go! There!” I turn to the children, tell them to move, and like cattle we are herded to a room with immigrants, poor people merely stopping on their way west. It’s cold, evening now, as we huddle. A man shot in the belly groans, begs to be finished. He dies in the night but I do not remember that. Nor did I hear Mr. Canfield, wounded, slip away toward Lapwai. I sleep, blessed sleep protecting me, as later imagining all the awfuls in the world would become a way to contain the uncertainties in my life.