Laura Abbot

by Into the Wilderness

  His pent-up anger threatened to explode. It hadn’t ended well. That cad Adams had terrified her.

  With a deep sigh, Lily faced him. “When we see my sister and father, I would ask you not to dramatize the situation. Rose doesn’t need undue worry. As for Papa, he already suffers guilt for bringing us here with him. I fear he might never forgive himself.”

  “Eventually the facts must be told and Adams held accountable. But I will permit you the telling of the tale.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Caleb?” he asked hopefully.

  For the first time in their conversation, she mustered a half smile. “Caleb. You were more than a friend today. You were my rescuer.”

  “I’m thankful I was here to help.”

  They stood a foot apart, their gazes locked, until a clap of thunder caused them to start. Caleb took Lily’s arm and they dashed through raindrops to the Kellogg home.

  Rose must’ve seen them coming. She flung open the door and hugged her sister. “We’ve been worried about you. Were you caught in the storm?”

  Ezra Kellogg stood behind Rose, his eyebrows knit with concern. Never taking his eyes off Lily, he acknowledged Caleb with a curt “Captain.”

  Caleb squeezed Lily’s arm gently before relinquishing his grasp. “Your daughter had a bit of a fright—”

  “But I’m quite fine now, thanks to Captain Montgomery.”

  “Please come in, Captain.” Rose took Lily’s damp cloak and stood aside. “We all need a cup of tea. Lily, sit down and collect yourself and then do tell us what has happened.”

  Ezra directed Caleb to a chair by the fire and settled Lily on a small sofa. While Rose brought in the tea, Ezra wrapped Lily in a wool afghan, then sat down beside her, pulling her close. She rested her head on his shoulder. “Now,” he said, “what’s this all about?”

  When Lily didn’t respond, Ezra turned to Caleb. “You, sir. We’re awaiting an explanation.”

  “Papa, there is little to explain.” Lily raised her head and looked at them one by one. “I had started home when the storm broke. When it raged all about me, I sought temporary refuge in a storeroom and then made a dash for headquarters. There Captain Montgomery was kind enough to ease my fears.”

  Caleb sent her a questioning glance. She couldn’t let it go at that. “Lily?” he said by way of encouragement, then inwardly reproached himself for taking the liberty of using her first name in this setting.

  She glared at him, defying him to correct her version of events. While he hoped the matter of Adams could be taken care of discreetly, Ezra Kellogg deserved a fuller answer. Caleb suspected in a more intimate setting with her sister, Lily would confide the truth, but perhaps the incident was still too raw for her to discuss with her father.

  Ezra turned to Lily. “Daughter, I recommend you take a tonic when you finish your tea. Then after supper it would be best for you to retire for the evening. You have had a trying experience, but rest should restore you.” He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You are safe now, for which I thank God.”

  She touched her father’s cheek. “And Captain Montgomery.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  Rose stepped forward and gathered Lily, afghan and all, and led her from the room.

  After the women had departed, Caleb stood and prepared to leave. The surgeon crossed to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, might I have a word with you in private?” Ezra Kellogg was no fool. The look on his face revealed his suspicion that Lily had withheld information. “Follow me.”

  The surgeon ushered Caleb to his office in the hospital, closed the door behind him and leaned against his desk, arms folded across his chest. “There is more to the story, am I correct, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir.” Although Caleb felt uncomfortable telling the part of the tale that Lily had chosen to omit, her father needed to know.

  Ezra gestured to the wooden chair against the wall. “I’m listening.”

  Caleb lowered himself into the seat, then fixed his eyes on the doctor. “One of our enlisted men attempted to assault Lily.”

  Ezra raked his fingers through his graying hair. “I’ve been afraid of something like this.”

  “Fortunately Lily was able to escape his grasp and run away from him before anything more serious happened. When I first saw her from headquarters, she was running lickety-split across the parade ground, pursued by the cad, who fell back when I stepped outside. I did what I could to calm her and assure her she was safe.”

  Ezra spoke in a steely tone. “Do we know the identity of this scoundrel?”

  “I do. Corporal Adams. I will be ordering him held in the stockade as soon as I leave here.”

  Ezra rounded his desk and slumped into the chair, burying his face in his hands. “I should never have brought my family here. I knew what rough-and-tumble places military forts are. I permitted my own needs and desires to override my common sense.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Most of the men are good souls who respect women.”

  As if he hadn’t heard, Ezra said, “I’ll never forgive myself. What have I done to my daughter?”

  Caleb realized he needed to get the man’s attention. “Sir, listen to me. This was not your fault. It was the result of one man’s actions, a man who needs to be drummed out of the army in disgrace.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Lily begged me not to tell you about this. I think she was afraid you’d react just as you have. In no way does she regard any of this as your fault. Furthermore, she seemed to recover well. She is brave and resilient. She will worry about you if she thinks she has been a cause of your increased concern.”

  “Have you ever had a child, Captain?”

  “No.”

  “Then you cannot know how strong is a father’s instinct to protect his children. It is a grave responsibility, which I have failed.”

  “Even the best father cannot foresee and prevent all circumstances. Let Lily guide you. She loves you very much and wanted only to spare you pain.”

  Ezra scraped his hands across his face, then looked at Caleb. “I fear I have forgotten myself. My daughter called you her rescuer, and for that I am most grateful. I know that for every scoundrel and hooligan, there are fine, conscientious men like you, Captain.” He stood then and offered his hand across the desk. “Thank you, sir. I am in your debt for your service to Lily.”

  Caleb grasped the man’s hand and said, “Rest assured justice will be done in this matter, sooner than later. I will attend to it directly.”

  “I would expect no less.”

  Exiting the hospital, Caleb strode across the parade ground to the enlisted men’s barracks. Inside, some men were playing cards or writing letters, but in the back corner a tight group clustered around a dice game, Adams among them, the visor of his cap pulled low as if to make himself invisible. The minute the duty sergeant saw Caleb, he shouted, “Attention!” The men rose to their feet, braced for what might follow and saluted.

  Caleb let his eyes rove over the assembly, before closing in on Corporal Adams. Then he called him out. “Adams, front and center. You are summarily ordered to the stockade, pending investigation of a charge of assault.”

  No one looked at the culprit as he slunk through the stony silence toward Caleb, his shifty eyes darting about as if soliciting sympathy. Caleb waited until the man stood in front of him. “Do you understand the charge?”

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” Corporal Adams whined.

  “That is for your superior officers to determine. Thank your lucky stars it isn’t solely up to me. Consider yourself officially on report. Come along.”

  Caleb saluted the sergeant and, accompanied by the unrepentant corporal, strode from the room, holding on to his temper by only the shortest tether.

  * * *

  In the days that followed, Lily tried to forget the afternoon of the storm. She couldn’t bear to think what might have happened had she not escaped the leering corp
oral, nor did she want to remember how protected she had felt in Caleb’s arms. It had been bewildering to go from the clutches of one man to the welcome embrace of another. Rather than dwell on either sensation, she threw herself into her work at the hospital, even though her father had expressed reservations. “Are you sure this isn’t too much for you?”

  From Ezra’s obvious concern, Lily suspected that Caleb had told her father exactly what had happened. The captain had sought her out the day after the attack to assure her that Corporal Adams was locked in the stockade awaiting a hearing.

  Even so, Lily was now more cautious as she moved among the men, no longer innocent concerning the occasional one who eyed her just a trifle too long or smirked when he thought she wasn’t looking. But mostly the soldiers were embarrassingly solicitous of her. Whatever hopes she had entertained of keeping the affair quiet had been disappointed. A military hearing could hardly be kept secret, but thankfully justice had been swift. Adams would remain under guard pending transfer to Fort Riley.

  Rose had been tender with her the night of the incident, finally coaxing the story out of her. Lily had confessed to the fear that had clotted her throat when the corporal dragged her into the storeroom and laid his hands on her. Even now the rasp of his coarse fingers on her skin and the smell of his sour tobacco breath lingered in her memory. Rose had wiped away her tears and rocked her in an embrace. “There, there,” she had said. “Try to concentrate instead on your good fortune that Captain Montgomery saw Adams and protected you.”

  Every day since, warm spring winds howled and dust flew in the air and choked the throat. Restlessness unlike any Lily had ever known surged within her. No place—not the hospital, the library or the cemetery—brought her peace. Even thinking about St. Louis made her dejected—it seemed a distant goal. She felt as if the flame of her soul had been snuffed out.

  Near the end of April a few wagon trains appeared. Camped near the fort to avail themselves of both protection and the opportunity to restock provisions, the settlers brought with them stories of previous hardships as well as their idealized hopes for the future. The women, in particular, gazed fondly at the fort, perhaps wishing they could stay rather than launch into the dangerous, unknown sea of prairie grass.

  Lily had seen Caleb going about his duties, and once or twice they’d been together in the library. However, others were present so no further literary discussions had ensued. Lily fretted in a limbo of frustration.

  Late one night a few days later, she was awakened by frantic knocking on their door, followed by her father’s commanding voice. “Take her into the hospital and I will get my daughters to assist.”

  Closing the door, he called to them. “Girls, are you awake? Come quickly to the hospital to assist with a delivery. Bring plenty of towels.”

  Rose, dressed first, fetched clean towels. Lily slipped into a shift, and both donned clean white aprons before extinguishing the candles and hurrying next door.

  Behind the curtain drawn around one bed came the sound of a woman bawling in pain. Lily moved to the head of the bed where the woman lay, her skin ashen, her cracked lips caked with the salt of her tears. Rose had gone to boil water, and her father stood at his patient’s side palpating her abdomen, his face grave. “She has been in labor since yesterday evening,” he said quietly. “I fear both she and the child are in distress. Daughter, can you determine how the baby is presenting?”

  Lily dipped her hands in hot water, scrubbed them with soap and moved to the foot of the bed. What she saw upon examination was not reassuring. When her father raised his eyebrows in question, Lily shook her head in the negative.

  As another contraction racked the whimpering woman, the surgeon made his decision. “I fear mother will not last long. We must take the infant.”

  While he went to inform the father, Lily and Rose prepared the instruments and changed the bed linens. The woman watched them with large, sad eyes. “Save my baby,” she whispered. Then she added in the howl of a wounded animal, “I told Jacob I never wanted to come west.” Her tone hardened. “Never.”

  Lily knew that many women died in childbirth on the trail. That, along with cholera and typhus, posed an enormous threat, not to mention possible attacks by hostile Indians. Yet so many of these wives had no choice; they were tied to their husbands and lacked alternatives. Lily vowed under her breath that she would never submit to such grim realities. If only she could wait in God’s time for deliverance from this wilderness.

  Ezra reentered the room, and after that, all extraneous thoughts fled in the intensity of the procedure. Her father’s deft movements were swift, and soon he had extracted a tiny, wrinkled infant who, with Rose’s ministrations, finally managed a feeble cry. While Rose cleaned and swaddled the baby, Lily and her father worked frantically to stem the woman’s bleeding and close the incision. Lily sutured while her father listened to the mother’s heartbeat and took her pulse. “Thready” was all he said. A knowing glance passed between the two. They had done what they could, but the mother’s life hung in precarious balance.

  Lily’s nimble fingers tied the last knot and she stood back, flexing her hands. Ezra seemed preoccupied. “We’ve done all we can,” he finally said. “I’ll fetch her husband.”

  In her father’s absence, Lily gave the woman a drink of water and gently wiped her feverish face with a cool cloth. The woman’s eyes fluttered briefly. “My baby?”

  “A boy.”

  The woman’s features relaxed and she closed her eyes, her breath now coming in irregular rasps.

  After a few moments, Ezra led the father into the room, followed by Rose carrying the newborn. The father rushed to his wife’s side. “Good news, Patience. We have a son.”

  Rose placed the baby in his mother’s arms. She opened her eyes and gazed at the child, her limp fingers caressing his face, his hair, his tiny hands. A tear traced its way down her sunken cheek. “Beautiful,” she murmured.

  Lily turned away.

  The husband knelt at his wife’s side, cradling her and his son. His body language conveyed knowledge of the end, but his words spoke denial. “My love, our boy will grow into a fine young man.” He kissed her forehead.

  Once more the mother examined the baby. As her son studied her in return, his little hand curled around her finger. “Alas.” The word came with an effort. “I shall not see that day, Jacob.”

  His expression wild with questions, the husband looked around the room, seeking reassurance. In honesty, neither Lily, nor Rose nor Ezra could offer any. Then a strangled “No!” rose from his chest. When he looked back down at the bed, the baby kicked weakly against the lifeless body of his mother.

  Lily bowed her head, struck, as always, by the random quality of death, whether it claimed her brother, her mother or this hapless woman. God, in Your mercy, bless this dear soul, her motherless baby and her grieving husband. She bit her lip and then added, And help me to accept what is so difficult to understand.

  After Ezra led the father away, Lily washed and prepared the corpse while Rose went in search of a wet nurse among the women of the wagon train. This poor soul! One more poignant example of the risks women took in the isolated country they traversed.

  When Lily finally left the hospital, the eastern sky was streaked with pale light. Too disturbed to go home, she instead sought refuge in the cemetery. Better than anyone, her mother would understand her tears of helplessness.

  As she crossed the parade ground near the officers’ quarters, she noticed a man sitting in the shadows of the porch. Caleb. She couldn’t think about him right now. Yet standing beside her mother’s grave a few moments later, he was the person she thought of.

  He, too, was a son whose mother had died in childbirth. How had that loss affected the young boy and influenced the man he had become?

  Tonight’s was the first birth she’d attended that didn’t have a happy outcome, and she could not have foreseen how deeply it would affect her. She wept for the mother and father and
for their baby. She wept for herself. And she wept for the motherless eight-year-old Caleb.

  * * *

  Caleb stood at the edge of the cemetery, not daring to interrupt what seemed to be a sacred moment. In recent days, he had rarely spoken to Lily privately. When she had emerged so early from the hospital and walked toward the cemetery, lost in her thoughts, some impulse that she not be alone seized him and he’d followed her at a distance. Yet drawn to her as he was, he hesitated, trapped in self-doubt.

  He watched as she touched the headstone, much as one might dip fingers into holy water, and then, head down, walked toward him. Fearful of startling her, he spoke softly. “Miss Kellogg?”

  She looked up and upon recognizing him, halted. In her piteous glance he read both exhaustion and sorrow. “Captain?”

  He hastened to answer her unasked question. “I saw you walking across the parade ground at this unusually early hour. You looked sad, and I wanted to be of assistance...comfort...” He struggled to find the right note. “It is not my intent to intrude, but...”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “No harm. You are right, I am overwhelmed with grief, frustration—and questions.”

  Confused by her answer, he tucked her hand in both of his. “Pray what has happened to cause you such distress?”

  She shook her head as if dispersing cobwebs. “I shall not burden you with my concerns.”

  “Let us walk together.” He took her elbow and they started slowly toward the hospital. “You could never burden me. If you want to speak of whatever has happened, I will gladly listen.”

  Then, more to herself than in dialogue with him, she told of the senseless death of the settler’s wife despite efforts to save her. She bit her lip in the effort, he guessed, to keep from crying when she told him about the precious little boy, now motherless. As if coming out of reverie into the harsh light of reality, she vented. “I can’t bear thinking about the travails of women, subject to the whims or ambitions of their husbands, who risk their lives and the lives of their children, for what? For some distant paradise gained only by crossing vast miles of unknown land where death waits at every turn of the trail?” She stopped again, sweeping one arm in a gesture encompassing the empty horizon. “Who leads them? God or ruthless ambition?”