The scent of smoke drifted in the air as they walked a line with the others, making the flames behave. This first day of the People’s year the wind stood still. A good day for burning. Tar seeds would be charred and women would collect then peel the seeds from the blackened stems and grind those too. With blackberries they’d make a paste that would keep through the winter but would still blacken their gums as they chewed. They had so many baskets full of camas and wild onion and cat’s ears that they might remain in this valley through the coming winter, not make their way north toward the mission. Here, a spring on the side of the hill burbled out like a treasure basket left for them, a sure sign of the Creator’s blessing. She and Little Shoot might even find wapato in the swampy lower land near Soap Creek. The white tubers were tasty, and when many women gathered together wading into the warm water, digging for the roots with their toes and kicking them up like dogs covering their scat, there was always much laughter. One needed laughter. Like one needed fresh spring water close by. Both, every day, allowed the People to survive the disappointments offered along the way. That was why she teased Little Shoot sometimes; why he teased her. The laughter caulked the People, held them together and kept out the heaviness of the rainy season and the uncertainty of the unknown.
“Ayee.” She shouted to her grandson. “Watch that flame. It makes its own way.”
The boy turned from his friends where they huddled over something in one boy’s hand. He looked where she pointed, startled, and sprinted with his shrub, pounding out the errant lick of fire.
“Kloshe. Good.” She waved at him and motioned for him to remain near the fire’s edge. She would have to watch that child. He could let boyish things steal away his judgment, send his mind to lesser things. As a child, the Missionaries had warned her of the same thing when her mind took flight to the empty times of her family perishing instead of her thoughts staying on the full basket the Missionaries promised if she kept her eyes on the Creator or his son. She saw all points of view now: the People, the Others, but most of all her grandson. Teaching him was what kept her alive.
19
What Once We Loved
In what people called the Boise country, a trail led down a gradual incline to the Snake where Hawkins’s party would cross. At the bottom of the canyon, sweet grass and clear water fed the parched animals who yesterday had looked longingly from atop the ridge. Now water was at hand.
“Must you go off hunting with Mr. Hinshaw? You’re a doctor. What if you’re needed here?”
“We can see game on those islands. I haven’t had much chance to hunt.” Zach lifted her chin with warm fingers. “I’ll be fine, Nancy. I can help George bring back his game if nothing else.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, you men. Always with your hunting. Why weren’t we smart and bring along a pig or two so you wouldn’t have to hunt?”
“Food on the table, woman.” He grinned then kissed her hard. “It’s good to see you back, my wife.” His gaze warmed her. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. Go on.” She pushed against his chest. “Bring back something besides venison or bear. How about a good goose?”
Zach saluted her. “Yes, ma’am. Anything for the captain.”
“Go and hurry back.” She gave him a light kiss. Nancy Jane fussed and she set her on fours on a quilt top. The child rocked and moved. She’d be walking before long. Three-year-old Edward waddled past carrying a grass snake. Soon they’d both be a handful to watch.
Davey smelled the acrid scent of the hot springs, a lake they approached at the edge of a large valley surrounded by rounded, tree-lined peaks. The company had rested there and the women washed in the nearly boiling hot water. A party of tall Indians with their wives arrived, bringing fresh vegetables and other items they hoped to trade for. They wanted cows or calves. “Keep close watch on Charity,” Davey told the drovers. He’d be in the hound house for even longer if something happened to Tish’s cow. A lot of things had gone wrong on this trip and he knew his way of handling things was part of that. Tish hadn’t let him curl close to her in a night ever since they’d separated again from the Hawkinses’ party. That’s how she displayed her “mads,” going away while her body was still here. He hoped to overcome those mads before they reached the Columbia River, because he knew she wouldn’t like what he’d be saying to her there.
So he kept up a cheery chatter explaining things as they left the hot springs and rumbled into the Blue Mountains, as they were called, “from the smoke where the Nez Perce and Umatilla Indians burn the underbrush to keep the meadows clear. Burning brings out elk and deer to feed.” Letitia nodded. “Don’t know if the Indians where we’re headed do such things.”
“We wait and sees.”
At least she’s talking to me again.
The journey was demanding but not disabling, and in the four days it took them to traverse the Blues, they were near a stream each night shadowed by dense forests. Evenings drifted cool. Davey played his Irish flute and Tish drummed her hands on a pan to set the rhythm while Martha’s big brown eyes followed her mother’s moves. Davey stayed at the wagon in the evening rather than jawing with others. He played with Martha while Tish cleaned up their tin plates or took care of her fundamentals, as she called her walk into the timber. He was being there for her. He hoped she noticed.
One evening, four children about the same age as the Hawkinses’ Martha wandered over and introduced themselves. They asked to hold Baby Martha. They gentled the child and afterward Letitia asked if they’d like to play “Hot Tater” to pass their time.
“What would that be?” The tallest boy had a New England accent.
Letitia reached for a knitted sock from her sewing basket, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it to the girl.
“It’s a sock.” She frowned.
“It also a hot tater. Quick, quick. Toss it to your brother ’fore it burn your hand.”
He picked up the game and sent the sphere spiraling to a different girl. “Ginny, careful it’s sizzling.”
Ginny jumped up and down as though the sock burned her palm and her feet, then tossed it to Letitia, who blew on it to “cool” it before sending it to a shorter boy across the circle that had formed. The children laughed and spoke of the “potato” that was “blistering” and “searing” their fingers. “See how long you keep it goin’ with just your mind turnin’ it into something fun, takin’ that old sock to a new place. Your mind too.”
Baby Martha laughed at the action and even Davey left the fire to watch. Rothwell howled his approval.
After the children left, Davey said, “You’re good with wee ones. I didn’t know.”
“They gives me a pleasure.”
“You’re pretty inventive too, taking a sock to new heights. You have a good imagination, Tish.” He put his arm around her shoulder, kissed her. She allowed it.
“Didn’t know that what it called, lettin’ a mind take us to faraway places, movin’ our hearts at the same time. Imagination. A good word.”
At one point they met an Indian agent named Doc White heading east with a small party guided by a Negro named Moses “Black” Harris. Davey remembered that Harris had left Missouri with National Ford’s company the year before. Letitia stared at the fine specimen of a man while he shared information their company could use, his voice deep and well-spoken as a learned man. Davey felt a flicker of something, he wasn’t sure what, but after watching Letitia’s attention to Harris, how she listened with her eyes on the man, he was happy to see the rear of that party as they continued on. Letitia said nothing about Harris, but it must have pleased her to see her own kind at least once on this journey. “You notice, Tish? No one asked for that man’s papers.”
She nodded.
“Coming to this country’s a good thing.”
“He lookin’ like a good man.”
“Does he?” He ought not be grumpy about her interest but rather see if he could target those admiring looks his way instead.
They passed graves, and grasses already grown up beneath discards of dressers still holding china that had made it that far but no farther.
“We’re fortunate, wouldn’t you say, Tish?”
She asked him to stop at a marked grave site. He’d let another wagon pass them because she seemed not to want to leave that lonely spot, though they had no idea who was buried there.
“Best we be going, Tish.”
“Always good to give honor to those passed on.”
“Yes, well, I ’spect so.”
On the fourth day through the Blues, coming out of the timber they saw the snow-capped mountains rise up from the valley floor in the distance. He could almost feel Oregon. “Lookee, Tish. Ain’t they beautiful?”
“Yessuh. They’s beautiful.” She corrected herself. “The mountains are pretty as a painting.”
He grinned, his hands still holding the reins but patting her thigh as she sat beside him. He’d said something to her about listening to how other women spoke, putting words down different, and she’d been learning. On her own. Another sign of her intelligence. And she’d chosen him. He had to remember that. And he’d chosen her.
After descending a long and treacherous hill where trees grew in small clumps, leaving much of the landscape bare, they reached a rolling plain. As they traveled beside a good-sized river, Dr. Whitman, the missionary, and his pretty wife came out from his mission and met their party. “I’ll guide your wagons through hostile Cayuse and Walla Walla Indian territory,” the doctor said. He drove a wagon full of small potatoes, meal, and unbolted flour. Their company accepted his offer and at the mission they resupplied.
Davey filled the flour barrel. “Eight dollars for one hundred pounds.” The price galled him, but the flour pleased Tish; at least she thanked him. He wondered if he’d always be reminded of Tish’s lost papers and his part in it whenever he looked at flour.
“I’d suggest you leave your milk cows here.” Dr. Whitman spoke to the group. “Getting them over Mount Hood will be a challenge as weakened as they are. You can buy more at Fort Vancouver.”
“He has a point,” Davey told Tish that evening. “The last part of the journey over the Cascades could be the worst, they say.”
“Charity is mine and that’s how we build our life. That what you always sayin’. We got twenty cattle comin’ behind. Already lost too many. Not likely neat milk cows where we goin’. Charity has to come.”
He let her think she’d convinced him, but Davey agreed. At Fort Vancouver he guessed there’d be few neat cows to buy for milking. Nor would the British be willing to sell them. Besides, he had no plans to go that far north, would head south into that lush valley as soon as they arrived. If they left their milk cows here, they’d be stuck with the wild cows he’d heard had been driven up from California with their long horns and dastardly ways.
“We’ll hang on to Charity, Tish, and her heifer and the cows and oxen teams.”
Their company crossed rolling hills, sometimes camping above high basalt cliffs with no wood for cooking fires. Davey was getting tired of hardtack and dried patties Tish had formed of the cricket meal weeks before. “I said these would last longer than a year because I wouldn’t eat ’em, but here I am.” He bit and chewed. “Only Martha there has the best meals.”
With each new river crossing there were always challenges. The muddy banks of the John Day grabbed at the wagon wheels and the steep incline on the other side tested the tired oxen. The fierce current of the Deschutes stole away some of the company’s weaker cattle, but Charity and their other cows made it. They dealt with Indians who stole horses or demanded calico shirts in return for taking people across in their canoes. With each success Davey reminded Tish of their good fortune. They’d met all the trouble rocks that had to be crossed over or gone around. Mount Hood stood before them now. Maybe he hadn’t made so many bad choices. “The Good Lord is blessing us, Tish.” He kissed his daughter’s forehead. “We’re going to be all right, have a good long life ahead of us. Together.” She didn’t disagree.
Nancy heard ducks and birdsong and the mournful call of geese flying overhead, circling before settling down on the shoreline. When night fell and Zach hadn’t come back, she’d sent Samuel to find Isaac Hinshaw, George’s brother, to see if George had returned. He hadn’t and that raised the alarm. It wasn’t like Zach to worry her like this. Maybe George had fallen and hurt himself and Zach had stayed, planning to come back in the morning. Maybe Zach had shot himself. He wasn’t all that familiar with guns. Oh goodness, that’s it. He hunts so rarely. George has a wound that’s kept them there. They’ll show up in the morning.
They hadn’t. So Isaac and three other men crossed to the island to look. Now it was noon and they were back. With George’s body. “He died shortly after we found him.” Nancy heard the words but they made no sense. “There’s no sign of . . . Doc Hawkins.”
“But Zach . . .”
“We found evidence of him . . . some blood.”
Nancy’s mother stood beside her, a woman widowed herself years before.
“We followed, but the trail let off at some rocks and we never did pick it up though we tried.” Isaac turned his hat brim in his hands, knuckles white from the telling, his eyes red with his own grief.
Nancy focused on the white knuckles, couldn’t bear to look into the depth of sadness in the man’s eyes. “Can’t you look more? Maybe he’s waiting for rescue. Please.”
The captain stood beside Isaac and he turned to the leader now. “We’ll bury George, but then we got to move on.”
“But . . . a few more hours of searching . . .”
Zach’s parents came to be beside her, holding her up it seemed, the three in shared grief like windblown trees not allowing the others to reach the ground.
“It’s not just delaying further because of the season, Mrs. Hawkins. It’ll risk the entire company to remain. We don’t know how many Indians are around, but we know they aren’t friendly from the . . . condition of George’s body. We need to move out.”
“Condition of the body?”
“Not fit for the sensibilities of a lady,” Isaac said. “I’m so sorry, missus.”
“I know you are. Your brother. Gone.” She turned to her in-laws. “I’m so sorry. Your son . . .” She was tending to everyone’s grief, delaying her own.
Nancy’s brother-in-law said he’d help drive the wagon, but Samuel said he could do it. He’d done it before, he told the men. “All right then, we head out right after we put George in the ground.”
Leave her husband? No body? He might be there still, waiting for them to bring him back. How could she lose Laura and now Zach? No, it wasn’t possible. There had to be a mistake.
“Samuel, take me across. Let me look.”
The boy’s eyes were large as rocks. “No, Ma. It’s not safe for you.” He paused. “I could go.”
“No!” Judge White, Nancy’s brother, overheard them. “You must accept what is, Nancy, not risk my nephew.” He placed his hands on the boy’s shoulder. Edward stared up at his older brother.
Nancy didn’t want to lose Samuel either, and resentment like fire flared, but she pleaded, her voice scaring Nancy Jane, Martha, and Maryanne. “Would you let me go?” She paced, walked back. “We can’t leave. I have to see him, touch him one last time.” Her fingers pressed against her lips. “How awful for him to think we’d left him behind!”
“You don’t need to see him.” Zach’s father took in a deep breath. “George’s body was mutilated almost beyond recognition, Nancy. He’d been tortured. Scalped. His fingernails were cut to the quick with sticks driven under them and then set afire. My son has met the same fate. He’s dead and probably prayed thanks that it came as soon as it did.”
She collapsed against Zach’s mother then, just before she felt the stabbing pain in her belly. Zach’s last child.
Then her world went black.
20
One More Crossing
Letiti
a ate dried salmon at the river’s edge, the thump and roar of the water blocked out all other sounds, even the soft cooing of Martha whose mouth opened and closed in silence like a fresh-caught fish. The water surged against the rocks making the ground tremble against Letitia’s thin-soled leather shoes. No more bare feet. It was the first of many changes she’d now face. The thundering noise that covered all noise at these dalles allowed her to consider what Davey offered—or ordered as they walked to where they could talk.
“You and Martha got to go on the Columbia. We’ll meet up again at Linnton. I’ve secured a Hudson’s Bay craft to take you and Martha and the wagon. Thirty dollars for the wagon and five dollars for each of you.” They drank weak coffee in the chilled morning air. By noon it would be hot as a Kentucky summer if the day before was any indication. September was apparently not a cooling-off month in these parts except at night.
“We goes with you.”
“It’ll be too hard on a woman with a child. Lookee. I’m taking the ‘walk-up trail’ with the cattle. Knighton and Martin are coming along. It’s too dangerous for you, and if we get an early snow, you won’t survive it; Martha neither. It’s my good money managing—and your careful tending of supplies too—that gives us cash so we can pay your passage. Besides, someone’s got to make sure my goods get to that valley. And that wagon will be worth gold.”
“Where we meet up?”
“I’ll come out at Oregon City, cross over and find you.”
A Light in the Wilderness Page 18