Nephi didn’t sing, but he whistled. The Major was just the man they needed, with Tom Marriot sick, and Josiah Cowley with one arm in a splint. The frozen wastes ahead of them no longer looked so forbidding. The Major was a man of the plains. They would reach Richardson Point in record time with his help.
Polly flicked her horses into movement with a surge of anger. So they were to have more of the Major’s insolent company, were they? Well, she would have nothing further to do with him. All the same, she was aware of an undercurrent of elation that was caused by more than just the exhilaration of once more setting out on the trail.
Major Richards rode hard. If the fools behind thought they were going to have an easy time of it they had another thing coming. By the time they pitched camp that evening they would be pleading with him to turn around and escort them back to Illinois. A blizzard began to blow with freezing ferocity and he grinned grimly. The worse the weather, the better, as far as he was concerned.
Richardson Point was several days’trek away and he knew that Nephi Spencer, no matter how determined, would never reach it. They had been only one day on the trail. They knew nothing of the realities of the hardships facing them. Today’s trek would show them the impossibility of their task.
The snow blinded them, coating moustaches and seeping down the necks of capes and coats. After two hours’ ride the Major cantered back alongside the four wagons, exhorting them to hurry their teams. They were making good time, considering that a man could not see further than two yards ahead of him for the swirling snow, but he had no intention of informing them of that fact.
Nephi Spencer beamed broadly at him, icicles forming on the corners of his drooping moustache.
‘If you say so, Major,’ he said cheerfully, and whipped his team encouragingly.
Lydia Lyman, hardly distinguishable as a female beneath her father’s cast-off greatcoat and slouch hat, merely shrugged and showed not the least sign of flagging.
As he reined in beside Josiah Cowley he was sorely tempted to dismount and hitch his horse alongside the Cowley wagon and take the reins himself. Only his determination to break their spirit prevented him from doing so. The man was in obvious pain, but gritted his teeth and made no complaint at Dart’s request that he speeded up his oxen. The Major shouted through the billowing canvas to Sister Schulster, asking how she fared.
‘If I’d known this wagon would jolt so, I could have brought my butter churn and furnished us with fresh butter,’ a tart voice replied.
Polly brought up the rear. Her cape was not as heavy as the one Brother Lyman had so thoughtfully passed on to his daughter and Dart could see at a glance that she was frozen to the bone. He crushed any feeling of pity.
‘Get a move on,’ he ordered curtly. ‘You’re lagging behind.’
‘If I drove any faster I’d be sitting in the back of the Cowley wagon with Sister Schulster,’ Polly replied through chattering teeth.
Despite himself he grinned and returned to the head of the column. Damn them to hell, but they were a stubborn lot. Another few hours of cold and damp would mellow them considerably.
It didn’t. By midday the snow had stopped but the cold had intensified. He wanted nothing more than to call a halt and take some drink and dry biscuits for sustenance. For hour after hour he waited for one of the occupants to call out requesting the same luxury. None did. He cursed their hardiness and kept going. A Major was not going to capitulate before women and a band of inexperienced travellers did so.
Polly felt as if she would faint. Without the horse that Jared had taken the team was uneven and a constant strain on her arm muscles to control. Snow had seeped into her boots and melted. She could no longer feel her toes. She presumed blood still flowed in her fingers, for at least they still held the reins. It was the only proof she had that they were not frost-bitten. Serena had tucked herself up, in both Polly’s bedding and her own, and was warm and a great deal more cheerful than she had been the previous day. Lucy Marriot sat at the side of her half-delirious husband and when the heat from the morning’s refill of hot water had cooled, warmed him by holding him close against her own body.
Throughout the day Lucy passed Polly mugs of barley water that were virtually undrinkable because of their temperature, and several large slices of wheaten bread that had hardened before their time in the sub-zero weather.
Once or twice Sister Schulster peeped her wrinkled face from beneath the heavy canvas of the Cowley wagon and winked an eye encouragingly. Polly had managed an answering smile and continued doggedly on.
On their left-hand side the ice cracked and broke into floats on the river. After the Fox they would follow the banks of the river Platte. Nephi had told her that the traditional trail West lay on the Platte’s south bank, but that Brother Brigham was none too happy at the prospect of encountering hostile travellers and so was forging his own passage west. Polly hoped that Brother Brigham knew what he was doing. It seemed to her that no one could possibly have travelled this way before them, so desolate were their surroundings. She remembered the camp Major Richards had told her had been formed at Richardson Point and regained her optimism. Brother Brigham was a natural leader who had held the Saints together through the dark days after Joseph Smith’s death. If he said this was the way, then it was. Even Major Richards had sounded grudgingly respectful when he told them of how Brigham Young was making plans for the establishment of a semi-permanent camp on the banks of the Missouri at Council Bluffs.
The intended camp had already been given the name of ‘Winter Quarters’. All along the length of the Missouri wild-pea vines grew throughout the winter and so would provide an ample supply of food for the livestock of following church members.
The Major had wondered if the burly Mormon leader had ever been an army man. Certainly the way he had outlined his plans for the construction of a semipermanent camp for the following winter showed that he was a man of vision. Log houses were to be built and a stockade. A meeting-house for worship and a school for the children. Workshops were to be erected and a water-powered gristmill for grinding the corn harvested the previous summer. All along the trail, come the spring, Brother Brigham intended sowing crops for those behind to reap. It was a plan of survival that not even Major Richards could argue with.
Those that followed would find the way prepared. Dart had been puzzled by Polly’s declaration that there were only a few to follow from Nauvoo in the spring. So puzzled that he had overcome his irritability with Nephi and travelled alongside him apace.
‘The preparations Brigham Young intends making at Council Bluffs are those of a man expecting thousands to follow this way. Yet Miss Kirkham tells me that Nauvoo is virtually a ghost town.’
Nephi had chipped the icicles off his moustache and blown hard on his mittened hands. ‘Those that follow us to the Promised Land will come from Indiana and Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State. Some from even further afield. Brother Pratt has preached the Gospel in England and found much success. Hundreds will travel across the sea and then across our great continent to our final resting place.’
Major Richards had shaken his head in disbelief and ridden away. It was as he thought. They were all completely mad.
He knew from talking to Brigham Young that the Mormon leader still had no idea of their final destination. That he believed thousands should follow him blindly into an uncharted wilderness was either megalomania or idiocy. Major Richards was accustomed to sizing up men. Neither megalomania nor idiocy were the right epithets for the man he had met at Richardson Point. Stern-faced when necessary, he could roar with laughter at the slightest provocation, and, for a religious leader, took great delight in music and singing and dancing. Dart shook his head in bewilderment. Lydia Lyman had spoken the truth when she had said they were a peculiar people.
Eliza Cowley had nervously replaced her husband at the reins. Josiah lay weakly against the canvas of the jolting wagon, his face haggard and drawn. There would be no opposition from that quart
er when he ordered a return the next day.
In the Spencer wagon the youngest children, Thomas and Adam and baby Ruth, clustered around the shoulders of their parents, their earlier grins and waves turning to whines and complaints that stretched even Susannah Spencer’s almost inexhaustible patience.
Several times Dart was tempted to reconnoitre to the last wagon, but did not do so. She was still keeping up and was only yards behind the Cowleys. He knew that her arm muscles must be hurting excrutiatingly by now, but he determined to offer no help. If they were to realise the foolishness of their venture and return to Illinois, they must suffer, and that included the women and children as well.
Religious fervour was the spur that drove the others on. Polly Kirkham lacked their faith. What drove her on in such deprivation and hardship? Fear of loneliness in Nauvoo? She had not said as much but he had guessed. He knew all about loneliness.
He had never intended to kiss her, but in the sharp clarity of day was glad he had enjoyed the experience. It had been a sweet kiss. He could never remember one sweeter. What had been more remarkable was the spontaneous passion he had felt beneath the surface as she had struggled so correctly in his embrace. Miss Polly Kirkham was a young woman who only needed the right man in order to gain both unimaginable pleasure, and to give it. But the man would have to be experienced in the handling of women: gentle and sensitive in the early stages to overcome her innocence. Later, passion could be given and returned without restraint.
He bowed his head against the bitter north wind. He doubted young Jared Marriot was the man to accomplish such a pleasant task. Not only did the Mormons believe in keeping their women chaste, but their men also. Dart had roared with laughter at being told this principle by a church elder and then, realising that the man was speaking the truth, had leaned against the trees and watched them as they prepared to camp in conditions that would have deterred even his own, hardened soldiers. They were men all right, tough and hardy, yet with principles he had never encountered before. Principles he could not even begin to understand.
There was an ominous creak and a female shout of exasperation. Dart looked back to see the last wagon listing heavily at one corner and Polly urging the horses with little success. Her back right wheel had rolled into a hidden pit in the ground and the strength of the horses alone was not enough to haul it clear.
Nephi heard the cry too, and as Dart galloped towards her, reined in and ran back through the deep snow towards the Marriots’ wagon.
‘She’s stuck fast,’ Polly said unnecessarily.
Blue circles darkened her eyes and in the long hours since they had broken camp the rosy bloom of her cheeks had been replaced by a ghastly white pallor.
Dart cursed himself for not having come to her aid before, and cursed her for having put him in such a position. If only they would return. Two, three days driving and they would be back in civilisation. Every mile they took was a mile that would eventually have to be retraced.
He jumped from his horse and together with Nephi pushed hard at the offending corner as Polly whipped the horses and vocally urged them to move on. There was an imperceptible movement and then another. Then, with a suddenness that sent both men to their hands and knees, the wagon rolled free.
Nephi grinned. Dusk was approaching. Dart had not allowed them to stop once. Brother Spencer was supposed to be now on the point of capitulation.
‘Not a bad little hitch for one day,’ he said cheerfully and waded off back to his own horses.
Dart dusted the snow from his knees and gloves and swore.
When he remounted he walked his horse alongside the Marriot wagon. Polly’s profile faced determinedly ahead. He noted the pert, straight nose and stubborn chin. She was no nearer capitulation than the defiant Nephi.
He said sourly, ‘It’s time we made camp, or dark will be upon us.’
‘So it will, Major,’ rejoined Polly, not trusting herself to look at him. ‘I had noted that fact myself some while ago and wondered when it would occur to you. Lighting a camp fire in the dark is a difficult business.’
A corner of his mouth twitched. ‘One I am sure you could accomplish, Miss Kirkham.’
‘I can accomplish most things, Major Richards,’ Polly agreed, aware that her nerves had begun to throb at his continued nearness. She was almost grateful for the fact. She had thought she would never feel sensation of any kind again, she was so cold.
‘Even persuade your fellow travellers that to continue is an impossibility and they must return and wait until the spring?’
She turned and faced him defiantly. ‘We go on,’ she said, using the words that had become a litany.
The amusement she aroused in him vanished and his temper snapped.
‘What would have happened if I had not been here? Who would have helped Nephi push your wagon free?’
‘I would,’ Polly retorted. ‘And Susannah Spencer and Lydia Lyman!’
They glared furiously at each other. Polly refused to be the first to avert her eyes. It cost her every last amount of strength she had not to turn her head away. His brows had flown together until they met. Sister Kimball used to say that one of the Anson boys was as handsome as Satan. Her husband had chided her for using such an expression and Polly had never been able to see the truth of it. She could understand it now, where Major Richards was concerned.
‘You’re a damned nuisance,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I should be in St Louis now, enjoying the comforts of a tavern and a soft bed, not shepherding a flock of women, children, horses, goats, oxen and hens through snow and ice!’
‘Then leave us, Major,’ Polly retorted hotly. ‘I assure you that we are not dependent upon you for our safety!’
‘Oh yes you are,’ he said, and in the half light she saw that his face was taut with anger, his eyes blazing. ‘If I wasn’t certain of that I would never have given up my pleasures to act as nursemaid today!’
‘Then act nursemaid in St Louis, Major, for you are not wanted here!’ She blinked hard, determined not to let him see the weary tears that were so near to the surface.
‘I will, never fear!’ Furiously he dug his heels in and galloped away to the Spencer wagon. Her rage vanished, to be replaced by sweeping desolation. What pleasures awaited him in St Louis. A lady? Ladies? Major Richards was not the kind of man to live without feminine company. He was worldly and bad-mannered and ill-tempered, but he could be nice when he tried.
He had spent long hours alongside the Spencer wagon, telling the Spencer children hair-raising tales of Sioux and Navajo. Not many men would have given up their time to entertain children and take their minds off their discomfort. As the stories were relayed to her by young Jamie, who hopped from one wagon to another with monkey-like ease, she noticed the absence of any stories of Pawnees. It was a strange omission for a man who declared he was an expert on that particular tribe of red-men. If he could be nice to the Spencer children, why then could he not be nice to her? In a gentleman-like way. Not in the insolent, free and easy way of the previous evening. Then he had treated her as though she were a woman of easy virtue. Her cheeks stung with shame and anger. She wished Jared would return with the Merrills; that Tom Marriot would regain his strength. The prospect of another day’s unceasing driving was daunting.
Nephi had halted. The Cowleys and Lydia Lyman’s wagon were pulling around. Numbly she followed suit. Now, from somewhere, she would have to find the strength to make camp and cook a meal.
‘Is Tom any better?’ she asked Lucy as the horses came to a grateful halt.
Lucy shook her head, her eyes frightened. ‘He’s shaking something terrible, Polly. Go ask Brother Nephi to give him a blessing.’
Hampered by knee-deep snow, Polly trudged to the centre wagon and passed on the message. The Major was still seated on his horse looking as fresh and alert as he had done when they started out. Polly shot him a look of pure hatred and then went for a shovel and began to help Lydia Lyman clear a patch of ground so that a
fire could be kindled within the tiny encampment of the four wagons. Both Sister Fielding and Sister Schulster insisted on sitting with them by the camp fire.
Instead of the despair that Dart had depended upon, within the hour the Mormons were laughing and chattering as if they were on a Sunday afternoon picnic. Polly and Lydia had made a nourishing meal of bacon and beans and when the tin plates were cleared away, more brushwood from the back of Josiah Cowley’s wagon was tossed on to the roaring blaze.
Nephi tucked his fiddle beneath his chin and Susannah sang Irish ballads taught her by her mother while her children indulged in snowball fights on the periphery of the camp. With child-like glee, Sister Fielding withdrew a bag of chestnuts from beneath her cloak and they began to roast them, shrieking and giggling as they tried to retrieve them with sticks from the burning embers. After Susannah had exhausted her repertoire Polly sang ‘Greensleeves’ in a perfectly-pitched voice that Dart found immensely appealing. He was amazed at the intensity of his disappointment when she refused to sing again. He juggled chestnuts and laughed with Josiah and didn’t even mind when Sister Schulster’s quavering voice broke out into ‘Praise to the Lord’. Even Sister Cowley had regained her good spirits and though she could not sing, heated barley water and kept refilling their mugs and ensuring that the children did not stray out of earshot.
‘How about a bit of dancing, wife?’ Nephi asked.
Susannah cuffed him affectionately. ‘You are the only one who can play the fiddle, Nephi. How can we dance with no music?’
‘Why, the others will sing for us, of course,’ replied Nephi, and seizing her in his arms, he began to polka around the circle of the fire while the others, Dart included, whistled, sang and clapped.
‘Nothing gets the blood going like dancing,’ Nephi said breathlessly when he returned to the drum of wheat that served as his seat. ‘Now for the rest of you,’ and he picked up his fiddle and played ‘Susie, Little Susie’to his wife’s secret delight.
Brother Cowley, hampered by his splints, executed a rather less energetic polka with his wife, and Sister Schulster, to Dart’s horror, tottered to her feet and said ‘Right, young man. Let’s see your paces.’
A Many-Splendoured Thing Page 5