Joey wouldn’t have cared about noise, because he hadn’t awakened. When we stopped for the day, I went to the Schmidt wagon and asked if I could sit with him. Mrs. Schmidt had stopped crying and was sitting beside her son, stone-faced. She didn’t say a word but handed me a bowl of water and a square of cloth she had used to wipe Joey’s brow. Then she climbed out of the wagon.
“Hi, Joey. It’s me, Emmy Blue—and Barebones,” I said. My dog had climbed into the wagon and lain down near Joey.
Joey moaned and muttered words that I didn’t understand. For a time he thrashed around, but I held him with my hands, and he was still. I dipped the cloth in water and washed his face, because he was sweating. Barebones licked Joey’s face, too. Joey was hot and had a fever. Once he called out, “Papa!” and another time, “Pretzel,” which he’d told me was the name of the mutt he’d left behind.
I sat there for a long time until Mr. Schmidt relieved me, saying, “Thank you, little girl. You are Joey’s friend. When we’re in Denver, I’ll bake a cake for you.”
“For me—and Joey,” I said, and Mr. Schmidt patted my head.
As soon as I got out of the wagon, I saw Ma standing with Mrs. Schmidt. I’d forgotten all about doing chores, and I thought she would be annoyed with me. Instead, she said, “You gave comfort, Emmy Blue.”
Ma held a tin plate of biscuits. I noticed other women with food in their hands. At home, when a neighbor was hurt or sick, the women baked cakes and pies. They brought them, along with stews and vegetables and fruit from their orchards, to the family in need. That was what they were doing now. They couldn’t bake or make custards or jellies, but they shared what they had. Even Mrs. Bonner came with a plate of food, and I wondered if it was her own supper. I doubted that her husband would have shared his food with anyone.
Mrs. Schmidt didn’t seem to notice the women, but Mr. Schmidt shook the hands of each woman and thanked her.
“How is Joey?” Ma asked me.
I shrugged. I’d never been around a snake-bit person before. “He was acting crazy. He cried and carried on, but he didn’t wake up.”
“That’s called delirium,” Ma explained.
“Oh, Ma, is he going to be all right?” I put my head against her and started to cry. I’d held back the tears all day, trying to be brave, not wanting to sound like Mrs. Schmidt, but now I couldn’t help myself.
Ma put her arms around me. “He’s still fighting. That’s a good sign.”
“If something happened to him, I don’t know what I’d do. He’s the only friend besides Barebones I’ve made on this whole trip.”
“We will hope for the best. And pray. Buttermilk John is as good a doctor as we could have on the trail.”
“If only—”
“Hush, we cannot change what has happened.” She put her arm around me.
We watched while Pa and Mr. Potts lifted Joey out of the wagon and laid him on the ground. “He’ll be cooler there,” Ma explained. “They want to keep the fever down. Let’s get fresh water and help sponge him off.”
We went to our wagon where Ma dipped water into a washbasin, which I carried back to Mr. Schmidt. He was sitting beside Joey, and he smiled when I began to wipe Joey’s face.
“He’s better, don’t you think so, Emmy Blue?” he asked.
I didn’t want to hurt Mr. Schmidt, so I thought it was all right to tell a lie. “Much better.” But I couldn’t see any difference.
After a while, Pa told me it was time to go to our wagon. The women would take turns looking after Joey during the night. I should sleep so that I could sit with him again the next day, Pa told me. He would be better then.
But when daylight came, the only difference I could see was that Mrs. Schmidt had stopped crying, although she still blamed Mr. Schmidt for Joey’s condition. She sat on the wagon seat while I crouched inside the wagon beside Joey, and she muttered at Mr. Schmidt, who was walking beside the oxen.
Inside, Joey murmured in his sleep, gibberish mostly, although once I thought he said, “Emmy Blue.” I sang to him in a low voice, the way I sang to Ulysses Potts, and that seemed to calm him a little.
Joey was delirious for two days. The third morning, I was lifting his head to get him to drink a little water, when he opened his eyes and said, “My leg. It burns like fire.”
I realized that he had come out of his delirium. “Mrs. Schmidt!” I called. “Come quick!”
Both of the Schmidts heard me. Mr. Schmidt tapped the lead ox on the head and called, “Whoa.” Then they climbed into the wagon.
“He’s awake!” I cried. “He talked to me!” I was as happy as if it was my birthday.
The Schmidts pushed past me, and I climbed down the wheel and hurried to our wagon, shouting, “Ma! Ma!” I ran so fast I had to catch my breath before I could say, “Joey talked. He’s going to be all right.”
“Oh, Emmy Blue, thank God.” Ma took a deep breath while I looked toward the wagon behind us. Mr. Bonner was scowling, as he always did, but Mrs. Bonner and Celia, who was walking beside her, clasped their hands together and lowered their heads. I knew they were thanking God for making Joey better.
That night, a Saturday, there was singing, and Buttermilk John danced a jig with Celia. Buttermilk John told us it would be several days before Joey could walk, and then he’d have to use a stick because he couldn’t put pressure on the leg. It might be weeks before he would be back to normal. He was still a sick boy, but he was going to be okay. We were all relieved, and Mr. Potts found a straight branch, stripped it of bark, and carved it, which he presented to Joey as a walking stick.
“I feel as if we’ve all come out of a dark place together,” Ma said.
We were happy that Joey was better, although Mrs. Schmidt didn’t stop complaining. We heard her continue to yell at her husband, blaming him because Joey had almost died. I heard Joey plead, “Mama, I’m okay.”
“You are okay? How do you know? This is what happens to us when we leave our home.”
The guards didn’t need to pound on a dishpan to wake the camp that morning, as they usually did, because Mrs. Schmidt had already awakened us. She cursed her husband and then she began to throw his baking pans and mixing spoons out of the wagon.”
“No, Mother,” Mr. Schmidt begged.
“We must go back,” she yelled.
“Please, Ma,” Joey pleaded. “I want to go to Denver with Pa.”
“No. I do not go a step farther. Go ahead if you want to, but I am not going with you!”
Mr. Schmidt stepped out of their wagon and walked past ours to where Buttermilk John was helping someone yoke a stubborn ox. “I talk to you,” Mr. Schmidt said. His shoulders were slumped, and he didn’t look Buttermilk John in the eye.
Buttermilk John seemed to understand what was going on. “Going back, are ye?”
Mr. Schmidt nodded. “I don’t have the choice. You heard her. We got to go on back. She says bad luck comes in twos. If we go on, who knows what happens.”
“Could be bad luck going back, too. Alone like that, ye’ll be easy prey for Indians or anybody that ain’t up to good. What if ye break your leg or the oxen take sick? Ye’d be on your own.”
“I tell her that, but she won’t listen.” Mr. Schmidt looked at the ground, and I could see the sadness on his face. “I never wanted to get rich. I thought Colorado would be a nice place for Joey to grow up. She doesn’t understand.”
He started back toward his wagon, and when he passed us, Pa said, “Schmidt, good luck.”
“Ya, you, too, Hatchett,” Mr. Schmidt replied.
“I’ll help you hitch your oxen,” Pa said.
I followed behind and stopped at the wagon when I saw Joey peering out the back. “Your pa says you’re leaving,” I told him.
“If I hadn’t stepped on that snake, we wouldn’t have to.” There were tears on his cheeks. I didn’t know if they were there because he was in pain or if he was disappointed about turning back. “Darn snake!” he said.
�
��I’ll miss you,” I said, feeling shy.
“Me, too.” He turned and reached into a pocket in the wagon cover. “I got something for you.” He held out his hand. Inside was a rock that was the color of a pigeon’s egg. When we’d spotted it, we thought it was a snake’s egg. I’d wanted it, but Joey’d seen it first, so it was his.
“That’s your egg-rock,” I said. “It’s your favorite thing.”
“Take it for good luck,” Joey said. “Besides, I want something of mine to get to Denver. I want you to remember me, to remember me as something besides a go-back.”
I took the rock, feeling sorry I didn’t have anything to give him in return. But as I put the treasure into my pocket, I felt something and pulled out the quilt square I had finished the day before Joey was bitten. I hadn’t worked on my piecing since then and had forgotten it was in my pocket. It was wadded up, and I ironed it between my hands. “Here.” I held it out.
“Your quilt square? How can you make a quilt without it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care. I want you to remember me, too.”
Ma came up to the wagon then, and I got down. Then we stood back as the Schmidts turned their team around and started east.
“How come Mrs. Schmidt acted the way she did?” I asked Ma. “You didn’t want to go west either, but you never complained like that.”
Ma patted my arm. “I believe we have to look on the good side of things.”
Buttermilk John told us it was time to line up, and the men pulled their wagons into place. But I stood where I was, watching the Schmidt wagon get smaller and smaller. Joey waved from the back, framed in the puckered oval made by the wagon cover. Every now and then, Mr. Schmidt raised his whip hand in a farewell gesture. Mrs. Schmidt never turned around, I noticed. I watched them until I couldn’t see them anymore. Then I turned and hurried to catch up with our wagon.
“Does bad luck really come in twos?” I asked Pa as the two of us walked beside the oxen. “That’s what Mrs. Schmidt thinks. Maybe the Indians will get them.”
“I doubt there’s an Indian on the prairie who’d want to get between Mrs. Schmidt and her tongue,” Pa said with a chuckle. Then he said. “Maybe if she complained less, her luck would improve. Luck is what you make it.”
I pondered that as we walked, and decided that Pa might be right. But later I wondered if maybe the wagon train, not the Schmidts, had bad luck.
Mr. Potts had always been careful with his rifle, putting it out of reach of Honor and Bert. As young as they were, the two of them knew they’d be punished if they touched it. Mr. Potts carried the gun carefully, pointing it at the ground, aiming the barrel away when he set it down. He kept it loaded all the time. If a snake or a mad dog was about to strike or if Indians attacked, a rifle wasn’t much good if it wasn’t loaded.
So the accident didn’t make any sense. Mr. Potts might have been spooked by a dog or by the sudden movement of an ox. All we know was something caused the gun to go off. It wasn’t unusual to hear a shot far off, but it was the middle of the day, and we had just stopped for the nooning. The shot had come from the camp. I thought somebody must have aimed at a snake, because after Joey was bitten, everybody was worried about rattlers.
We turned in the direction of the Potts’s wagon but didn’t see anything at first. Then we heard Celia scream and saw her husband fall to the ground. “Help! Jimmy’s been shot!” she called.
Pa rushed to the Potts’s wagon, with Ma and me close behind him. By the time we arrived, others were already there. They had stretched Mr. Potts out on the ground. Ma reached for my arm to stop me, but I brushed past her and stared down at Mr. Potts. His shirt was bloody, and I heard a man say, “Poor fool shot hisself in the belly.”
“Is it bad?” someone asked.
“Gut-shot is as bad as it gets.”
Ma reached for my arm again and tried to pull me away, but Pa stopped her. “Emmy Blue’s old enough to see what a gun can do,” he said.
I wasn’t sure that was true, but I couldn’t keep myself from looking. Ma held me tight as we watched Buttermilk John kneel down and try to stop the bleeding with a wadded up shirt. He shook his head and stood up. “Nothing this child can do. I’m sorry, missus.”
Celia knelt beside her husband. “Jimmy. Oh, please wake up, Jimmy,” she cried.
He moved his hand a little, and she grasped it. Then he turned his head to the side and I could see him take one deep breath. It was his last.
It happened so fast. I was too surprised to cry. One minute Mr. Potts was standing by his wagon, and the next he was gone.
“It’s over,” Ma said, kneeling beside Celia. And then Ma helped her to stand.
“But Jimmy …,” Celia said.
“The men will take care of him. We will plan a service.”
Celia tried to pull away, but Ma held her. “You must tell me Jimmy’s favorite hymns,” she said gently. “And you must paint a marker for him, paint it with your roses on it.”
I was in a daze, but I knew I had to do something. I went to the Potts’s wagon to get the children. Aunt Catherine and I took Ulysses, along with Honor and Bert, to our wagon to play. Pa and Uncle Will and some of the other men went to find shovels to dig a grave. Buttermilk John said we’d stop for the rest of the day, and everyone agreed, even Mr. Bonner.
Late in the afternoon, we laid Mr. Potts to rest. He was put in the grave wrapped just in a quilt, because there was no extra wood to make a coffin. We sang “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” and “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” while one man played the pump organ and another a fiddle. Then Uncle Will read from the Bible. Mrs. Bonner gave a prayer. Ma tried to lead Celia away as the men covered up her husband’s body with dirt, but she insisted on staying. When the men were finished, they collected rocks and laid them on top of the grave to keep the wolves from digging it up. Then Celia placed a marker on the grave between two large rocks. She had made the marker from her breadboard and decorated it with roses. Across the top she’d painted, “James Potts, 1837-1864, Beloved Husband and Father. Good-bye, Jimmy. We’ll meet in heaven.”
While I held Ulysses, Celia took the hands of her two other children and stared at the grave, until Ma put an arm around her. Ma told her that Pa would collect her oxen in the morning when he gathered ours. “Emmy Blue will come with you to help with the children. She knows how to drive oxen, too,” Ma said.
Pa did indeed bring in the Potts’s oxen the following morning. He left them with Celia and returned to our campfire for breakfast. Then the two of us went to the Potts’s wagon to make sure everything was in order to move out. I was proud that Ma and Pa thought I could drive the oxen by myself.
When we got there, Paul and Charlie Pitkin, two bachelor brothers who were going to Colorado Territory to farm, were helping Celia and the children into the wagon. The Pitkins were steady men, always willing to do their share of work, Pa said. He’d told me once that the Pitkins weren’t a lot of fun, but you’d sure want them with you in time of trouble.
“Your girl’s a mite young to be in charge of the oxen,” Charlie Pitkin told Pa. “Being as there’s two of us, we thought we could help Mrs. Potts drive her team.”
His brother nodded. “Least we can do to help a neighbor.”
I looked up at Celia, who was sitting on the wagon seat, holding Ulysses. She sat very still, as if she were a jumping jack that had been broken and couldn’t fling its arms and legs around anymore. “I’ll come tend Ulysses later,” I told her.
She barely moved her lips to say, “Thank you.”
Ma looked surprised when Pa and I returned. “Emmy Blue isn’t driving the oxen?” she asked.
“The Pitkin boys,” Pa told her.
Ma nodded. “They are good men.”
Chapter Sixteen
INDIANS!
I missed Joey. I had plenty to do, tending Celia’s three children when she needed me. I helped Ma even more with the cooking and laundry, because the journey had sapped her strength. She rode in th
e wagon much of the time now.
The other children in the train were either younger or older than I was, so there was nobody for me to play with. There was Waxy to keep me company, but she had to stay in the wagon, because the hot sun would melt her, and after Joey, she wasn’t as much of a companion as she had been before I met him. There was Barebones, of course, but except for him, I was by myself much of the time. I wandered out onto the plains, but it wasn’t any fun lying on the ground with just my dog and finding images in the clouds. I couldn’t point them out to him. And gathering buffalo chips had become just one more chore. Even Barebones let me down after a while. He liked to go with Pa when Pa hunted antelope. So I didn’t always have him with me when I explored the prairie.
I still looked for rocks and feathers, dried leaves and snake skins, but there was nobody to share my treasures with. Sometimes I’d just find a place to sit down and think about Joey, about the trip west, and whether we, too, ought to have gone back home.
I didn’t want to, of course. I decided Ma didn’t either. She said she was beginning to like the prairie, even though it was nearing summertime now, and getting very hot. We had come a long way, and soon we’d see the tips of mountains. Every day I searched the horizon, but I hadn’t spotted them yet. We’d crossed the Mississippi and the Missouri. We’d seen Indians and death. My friend had turned back, but I’d found a new one in Barebones. I’d grown up, too. Ma said that I’d been a little girl when we left Quincy but had become almost a young woman over the last months.
“Our girl is growing up. I’m proud of her,” Pa said, then laughed. “I sure hope that after all this work we went to raise her, she doesn’t get snatched up by an Indian.”
I’d worried about Indians ever since Pa announced we were going west. The first thing Abigail had said after I told her we were moving to Golden was, “Be careful you don’t get shot dead with an arrow.”
We’d seen Indians in St. Joe, of course, but they were beggars, and not like the Indians who came near our camp on the prairie. We could always spot them riding far off or sitting on their ponies, watching the wagons pass. A few times they came closer, and wandered into our camp. Buttermilk John said they wouldn’t hurt us. If they were warriors, he told us, they wouldn’t have brought their wives and children with them. But he did say they might rob us. “Ye’d be wise to keep a sharp watch. But it wouldn’t hurt to share your food with them,” he told us.
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