Ophelia's War

by Alison L. McLennan

  “I’m laughing at the way you yowled. They probably heard you all the way in Grafton.”

  He snorted. “Hmm, was it that loud? I lost my abandon.”

  I got up and gathered my clothes.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Over to the creek to wash myself.”

  “Alone?” He started to get up.

  “Just relax a spell. I’ll be all right.” I grabbed the Henry rifle I’d used to shoot Uncle Luther and headed for the creek.

  When I got back from the creek Samuel had dressed and was preparing the horses. “We ought to keep riding,” he said. “Be easier on the horses, if we rode at night and rested during the heat of the day.”

  We followed the faint trail, never losing sight of the creek for too long. Unaccustomed to long journeys on horseback, I became saddle sore, but I didn’t complain. Samuel looked like he was born in the saddle and could ride for days without rest. When dawn broke, the sun illuminated the pink and orange rock. The sage seemed to open and wave while birds chattered and sang. I had fought off fatigue a few hours before, when the air had finally cooled and my shivering body ached for sleep and warmth. The beginning of a new day renewed my spirit, and I felt I could keep riding till noon.

  Samuel tore a piece of jerky from his mouth and offered it to me. I rode up alongside him, took it, and chewed off a piece. I had to rip it with my teeth and shake my head as an animal would. He squinted and surveyed the land. “You know where we’re headed, Ophea? You ever come this far before?”

  “Oh, sure,” I lied. “This’ll take us where we need to go. Don’t you worry.”

  At noon when the sun reached its zenith and the air shimmered with heat, we bedded down in the shade of a rock overhang. It was about seven feet deep, four feet high, and twenty feet wide. Black bat feces hung petrified in the far corners, but a nice layer of sand covered the rock. Samuel spread out a bedroll. His sideways gait showed weariness and fatigue. Without hesitation he removed his holster and placed one of his six-shooters on the corner of the blanket. He stripped off his shirt, stretched out on the makeshift bed, and used the shirt for a pillow. I took off Zeke’s old heavy clothes, spread my bedroll out, and lay next to him in my bloomers. Within minutes I heard his snoring, and I soon joined him in the land of nod.

  TWELVE

  Cool air chilled me awake. The sun had dropped out of sight and a strong wind created a constant high-pitched whistle. Under the rock ledge we were mostly protected, but when I stepped away from it, sand whipped up and scratched at my eyes.

  Samuel must have felt the disturbance too, for he was awake and buttoning his shirt before I could turn around. We ate some hard tack and dried apricots while we packed our things. We unhitched the horses from a log near the river where we had left them to rest and drink. With the speed and efficiency of seasoned gypsies, we left our temporary encampment and continued riding down the trail.

  We rode until we reached a place where the rock walls met and created a small slot. Only a thin slice of sunlight remained on the western horizon. The slot was too narrow for our horses. Without the horse, I could just barely squeeze through the rocks straight on, and Samuel had to position himself sideways. We puzzled over why the trail went straight through this small rock slot. He looked at me, the horses, and the slot with a perplexed smile. “Who would travel this country without horses?” he pondered aloud.

  “Paiute?” I answered, worried now that I had truly lost the way.

  “Ophea, you been living on that homestead too long. These days even the Paiute have horses. Don’t you know anything, girl?”

  The way he said “girl” was like a slap, or a blow to the stomach, because he sounded like Uncle Luther, and for the first time I doubted my actions. I doubted Samuel, and myself, and everything I’d done. I’d put my life and soul in jeopardy. I’d gone against everything I’d believed in and everything my parents had believed in, but it was too late for second thoughts.

  It was a dead end. We had to turn around. We rode back in the direction we had come, back past the place where we’d slept, and followed the trail by thin starlight. At least we wouldn’t starve. We could always eat cottontails. As we rode along, they scurried in and out of sagebrush and formed a startled procession. The horse’s rhythmic movement mesmerized me. I stopped thinking about my sore backside.

  I focused on the trail and occasionally looked up at the stars, or the rock walls surrounding us. Fatigue and hunger muddled my mind. Dawn broke and we decided to rest. We dismounted and walked to a rock overhang like the one we had slept under the previous day. We looked closer. Hoofprints and footprints covered the ground. The sand was matted down as if someone had slept there. The last stars were fading. Dawn was breaking as it had the day before.

  How many days had we been riding? I could have sworn it was only one. Someone had been in this very same spot not long ago. As the sun came up, we realized it was us. We stood and looked down at the spot where we had slept the day before. Or was it the day before that? All the events blurred together, and I couldn’t separate day from night. It seemed like an eternity ago that we had tried to squeeze through the slot.

  As he gazed in utter disbelief at the place where we had slept, the smile disappeared from Samuel’s face. For the first time he seemed angry. When he turned toward me, I saw in his eyes fear and revulsion mixed with wonderment. He looked at me the way you might a witch or a leper. A raven announced its arrival, its caws echoing in the otherwise silent morning. The raven landed on the bed of sand where we had slept, and looked from Samuel to me as if he were a judge who had arrived to settle our dispute. Yet the raven’s arrival seemed to confirm some suspicion inside Samuel—some suspicion about me.

  “You brought me bad luck, girl.”

  He had called me girl again. Fear turned my stomach into one hard knot. Girl—girl—I was nothing but a girl to him—a girl who had brought bad luck.

  “I never lost at cards before. They even called me Lucky Sam. But I see you there by the river with your red hair glowing in the sunlight. You entice me into the water. Then we’re kissing and next thing you know, I got some old fart pointing a gun at me. After that, I lose at cards. And you kill three men! Now, I’m an outlaw, a desperado—lost in the desert, surrounded by rock walls in a place that can only be the devil’s playground because it’s so hot my flesh could just about melt off my bones.” He took his hat off and wiped the sweat from his brow, then looked at me hard and sad before he looked to the horizon and shook his head. “You’re a beautiful girl, Ophea. My eyes—upon seeing you—were revived from a long, dreamless sleep. But you brought me bad luck, and I have a terrible suspicion that you are cursed.” He stared absently at the raven who sat on the rock with his head cocked as if he were listening. The raven cawed, squawked, and flew to the safety of a tree. Yet he was still there, looking down on us.

  Sam’s accusation scared me. Both of my parents dead, my brother gone, I’d traded my chastity for the cursed ruby necklace. I had been taught to believe in the will of God. But Samuel didn’t speak of God. He spoke of luck and curses. Had I enticed him into the river? Had I been too forward? Three men were dead because of me, and only one of them had deserved it. Had I incurred the wrath of God? I didn’t believe the Heavenly Father wanted me to end up in the hands of a devil like Uncle Luther. Yet he had given man dominion over all things, over the land, and the beasts—even woman.

  I spoke in a hushed mother’s tone, “Samuel, we were tired and we took a wrong turn somewhere. We probably got mixed up when we stopped at the creek and let the horses drink.” He was silent and his mouth formed a hard thin line. I tried to alleviate his foul mood with a chipper response. “Think about it this way, if anyone is trying to track us they’ll be as vexed as we are.” He stared at me, squinted, and waited.

  I dismounted from my horse and pointed at a big rock mesa. “Look, I will just scurry up on top of that rock there and see where we lost our way. Don’t fret. We’ll be back o
n the main trail in no time.”

  He looked at the rock mesa with skepticism. “That’s a fine idea, but how do you propose to get up there, Ophea?”

  “Easy, I’ll climb.”

  “Climb?”

  I pointed to the rock mesa, which rose up next to another rock formation. “See how those two rocks form a chimney? I can climb up there and squeeze myself in till I get higher. Then the angle eases off, and I can just creep catlike to the top. From there I’ll get a bird’s-eye view of this rock maze.”

  Samuel shook his head and looked at the tall rocks. He’d been shifting his body in the saddle but now he was dead still. “I don’t like it,” he said. “What if you fall? What then?”

  I laughed. “My brother, Zeke, and I have been climbing rocks like these for years. I’m sure-footed as a mountain goat. Don’t worry. I won’t fall.”

  At first, I’d felt confident. But the mention of falling made me tremble with dread and panic. I’d never been afraid of heights before. Zeke and I had often climbed rocks just like that. Once we’d even stolen eggs from a redtail’s nest and had to get back to solid ground while trying to avoid her angry attacks.

  I rolled up my tattered pant legs and tightened the laces of my boots. I noticed again that my right boot was coming apart at the seams. Before I started climbing, I removed my bonnet and placed it on a rock. I rubbed my hands together and wiped them on my trousers for good luck. I smiled at Sam, and wished he’d show a little encouragement, maybe just a nod to condone my actions. I longed to see the white of his polished-bone teeth. But he just stared at me—his smile gone.

  Fear cast a nervous shadow on each little movement and my palms sweated, making it difficult to grip the rock. As I climbed higher, my heart thumped louder. Finally, I reached the top just in time to see a beautiful sunrise. From there, Samuel looked small. The air moved and I felt free. Giant rock walls formed mazes and spread as far as I could see. I could not figure how to navigate us out of the rock labyrinth and back to a beaten trail. I wanted to stay on top of the rock, where I felt above all my trouble. Samuel looked up at me and I waved to him. “I can see!” I called. “To the northeast the trail opens up, it’s not far!”

  “Ophea,” he called back, “git down from there before you fall!”

  I wished he’d quit saying the word fall. Sometimes just talking about something too much could make it so. With all his superstition, he should know that. But I had made it to the top when he was too scared even to dismount from his horse. I had probably made him feel like a coward. My actions were unladylike. I did not seem to have the sort of disposition that a man admired. I’d been told more than once that I was too headstrong to make a good wife, and that my red hair would lead to nothing but trouble.

  I started lowering myself back down the rock chimney, careful where I put each foot and hand. I tapped and shook every bit of rock to make sure it was attached. One section had been a little tricky to ascend. I’d had to hoist myself up and match one of my feet to where my hand was in order to make progress.

  I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to come back down. I lowered myself from the ledge and scrambled my feet around for something to step on. But my feet didn’t find the rock, and because the rock protruded at my chest I couldn’t even see them. As the strength drained from my arms, panic filled every muscle and nerve. I wondered how much longer I could hold on. My forearms and chin were flush with the ledge, while my feet flailed beneath me. I looked to my side but it was no use. I couldn’t see what was below. In a moment of faith and desperation, I extended my arms and held the ledge with my hands. Luckily my foot found the rock, and I lowered myself down to the next ledge. In that moment of relief, my other foot slipped on some sand.

  I plummeted down the rock chimney. The most overwhelming terror and pain overcame me as I heard my body smack onto each rock ledge. Unable to grasp anything to stop myself, I kept tumbling. More than death and injury, I feared Samuel and how angry he’d be with me because I’d fallen.

  THIRTEEN

  I lay at the base of the cliff. So many parts of my body screamed in pain that I could not tell exactly where I was most broken. My right cheek pressed against the sand. As everything else throbbed, I tried to take comfort in that one soft spot under my right cheek. Unable to keep my eyes open against the agony, I squeezed them shut. A scream exploded in my mind, but I did not have the breath or courage to make it heard. The pain turned into a thousand points of flashing light. Something inside my head leaked as if a cool trickle of water ran through it. That trickle released me from my agony.

  I opened my eyes. Samuel’s serious unsmiling countenance hovered over me. Each whisker and speck of dirt on his face looked enormous. His eyes flicked and roamed the length of my body, finally resting in horror and disgust on my lower half. I tried to catch his eye. I tried to speak. But the pain swallowed me into darkness again.

  The next time I opened my eyes again, I saw the ceiling of the rock overhang. I turned my head and found Dolly’s black button eyes staring at me. Memories of the exodus out of Winter Quarters and the long trek to Zion flooded my mind. Dolly no longer provided comfort. I couldn’t hug her for reassurance. I had the ruby necklace sewn inside her, and yet in the desert wilderness, it didn’t do me a lick of good.

  I don’t know how long I was unconscious. I squinted toward the creek and saw Samuel with his horse. Sunlight reflected off the water and cast points of flashing light so bright I could barely focus on him. I struggled to keep my eyes open. The midday air shimmered and buzzed with insects. Samuel’s horse lapped water from the stream. From the way his horse was saddled, I could tell he was about to leave.

  I tried to scream to him, “Wait! Don’t leave me here!” He didn’t even turn his head in my direction. My throat was so dry and hoarse from my effort to yell that I wasn’t sure if any sound had escaped me. I tried to scream his name over and over until my throat burned. He mounted his horse and began to ride away. I was finally able to produce sound. His name echoed off the canyon walls. He stopped. He turned a quick, sad glance over his shoulder then began to ride again. With tremendous effort I pushed myself up on one arm. I tried to crawl after him, but the pain was too great and I collapsed.

  When he was gone from sight, my body convulsed with sobs, fear, and terror so intense I felt like I would split open. All my dreams of romance, of chivalry, and knights in shining armor, died that day as I watched Samuel ride off and realized no one was going to save me.

  FOURTEEN

  Maybe he’d gone for help, I thought. After all, he’d placed me on a bedroll, put Dolly beside me, and pulled a blanket over me. A canteen of water lay beside my head and Pa’s Henry lay to the right. The sight of Pa’s Henry filled my heart with hope. Maybe I wouldn’t die after all. Bedding, a canteen full of water, and a gun—what else did I need to survive? My horse was tied to a branch near the creek. I wondered if I could get on him and ride after Samuel. My leg had no sensation. I had to gather my courage and assess my injuries. My head throbbed when I sat up. I slowly removed the blanket. “Mother of God!” I screamed and re-covered the horrific sight of my mangled and twisted leg.

  Where could Samuel go for help? Even in Grafton, there was no doctor. My hopes for survival were ruined by the misshapen mess under the blanket that had once been my leg.

  I’d complained to God about so much, the death of my parents, my brother’s exile, Uncle Luther—but I’d never once thanked him for working legs, my health, food, and water. I’d never once thanked him for my life; for the absence of bodily pain; for the sweet breath that I drew from the sacred air in each and every moment. I had never thanked him for any of these things. I’d had so much and never realized it. Now I’d lost everything, even the things I’d taken for granted.

  Worse than broken, I was alone. The loss of Samuel stung more than the pain in my leg, which had subsided and remained tolerable as long as I was absolutely still. I’d believed Samuel to be an angel of light and earthly perfec
tion. Never had I seen such physical beauty in a man, and I thought he was as handsome as the Prophet Joseph Smith must have been before they lynched him. I believed that my feelings for Samuel were sanctioned by the Heavenly Father. I had sealed myself to him in the union of our flesh, and that union had transported me to a higher celestial body. It had meant everything to me.

  Yet our union had meant nothing to Samuel, and, therefore, it was born of our lust. In truth, I was no better than a woman of convenience, a soiled dove, a harlot, a painted lady—a strumpet. I was a whore who had traded her virginity for jewels, and the Lord had struck me down.

  The next morning I opened my eyes and saw the soft pink morning light. I lay and watched the color change as the sun rose. Turkey vultures circled high in the sky like dark angels descending to earth. They flew lower and lower in a beautiful spiral. Rays of light illuminated their wings, and I marveled at their magnificence.

  Soon, realization that these dark angels could eat me replaced my wonder and filled me with dread. If I died, they would nibble on my corpse for months—call their brethren and have a feast with me as the main course.

  I decided to live, that I’d do everything I could to survive. I wanted to taste peach pie again, and try an ice-cream cone. I wanted to sing and dance, and one day swim in the ocean. But most of all, I didn’t want a flock of turkey vultures feasting on my flesh. I’d transgressed against the Lord, and my chances of salvation were gone. I wanted to live before I died and was cast into eternal darkness.

  I survived for two days on hard tack and jerky. Dolly’s stuffing couldn’t sustain me as it had on the Pioneer Trail. I had to figure out how to kill an animal with the Henry, or a way to set traps. As soon as the last drops of water slid out of the canteen and down my throat, I knew I was in trouble. My throat burned as I peered into the empty canteen. I could survive for a while without food but not water.