A Many-Splendoured Thing

by Margaret Pemberton

  Dart shrugged and mounted his horse. Silently the Saints made way for him as he cantered out into the night. The last sound he heard was Polly’s uncontrolled weeping as she helped carry Jared into the family wagon.

  For Polly the next few days were a haze of misery. Jared, despite swollen eyes and a cut lip, was cock-a-hoop that he had driven the ‘damned’Major from their midst. The Spencers, Cowleys and even the Marriots turned away whenever she approached, blaming her for the hideousness of the fight, for setting one man against another. Jared’s elation only died when Polly steadfastly refused to marry him. His perplexity was pathetic, but Polly could say nothing to enlighten him. She could not bear to speak Dart’s name. It hurt too much.

  As she had helped Lucy sponge Jared’s face of blood, and heal his cuts, Jared had spoken wildly of his confrontation with Dart.

  Of how he had told him Polly was his betrothed. Of how he would let no man insult his future wife.

  Mechanically doing her daily chores, Polly knew only too well what Dart had believed and why he had left. She did not know how the fight had originated, but she could guess. If Dart had knocked Jared senseless, it had been for Jared’s own good. Knowing did not ease the pain, because knowing did not bring him back. She could not set off on her own in search of him. He might have returned to St Louis or continued on to his camp at Fort Leavenworth: or he might have ridden West towards California. At night she cried herself to sleep and Jared’s bewilderment turned to impatience. He gave vent to his feelings with Emily, who at least had the sense to see him as the hero who had rid their camp of an evil malignancy.

  The story of the fight had spread, coloured by the telling. Polly found herself increasingly isolated, only Lydia Lyman behaving as if nothing had happened.

  Brigham Young and a small party set off to forge the way ahead and only Jared’s hope that Polly would change her mind and marry him, kept him from joining them. As the days passed, and it became apparent that no marriage ceremony would take place at Richardson Point, he spoke with increasing fervour to Nephi of the advantages of being amongst Brother Brigham’s band. Their present camp site seemed overrun with chattering women and noisy children. Nephi, too, was regretting not having the courage to have been among Brother Brigham’s company.

  ‘We know they were going to make their first camp on the Chariton. We could catch them up easily,’ Jared urged.

  ‘Seems like we’re always catching people up,’ Nephi observed drily.

  All the same, he was tempted. He spoke to Josiah, but Josiah was not of the same mind. Neither were the elder Marriots. Lydia Lyman, overhearing their conversation one evening, said casually that if they demurred to set off on their own, she would join them. Neither man demur-red. They knew by now that Sister Lyman was a help in a crisis, not a hindrance.

  To Emily’s anguish her own parents were steadfastly opposed to journeying further until the last of the snows had melted and the flooded rivers had subsided. Tom and Lucy did not argue when Jared said he was accompanying Sister Lyman and the Spencers and joining up with Brother Brigham. They had had enough of life on the trail for quite a while, and the settled camp at Richardson was relatively comfortable.

  It was still dawn when the two wagons bravely set out, Susannah Spencer sitting beside her husband, the children in the back. Sister Schulster was remaining with friends at Richardson, as was Sister Fielding. Lydia Lyman followed them, Jared at the reins.

  ‘Wait!’ The voice was so faint it was a wonder Lydia heard it.

  ‘Hold the horses, Jared. It’s Polly,’ she said, as a dark-caped figure ran breathlessly after them.

  ‘I couldn’t stay,’ she gasped as Lydia helped her up into the wagon. ‘Eliza Cowley has not spoken a word to me for days and neither have the rest of the women. Without you I would be completely friendless.’

  Jared grinned, not understanding the reason for her ostracism.

  ‘Let’s hit the trail,’ he called joyfully. Lydia’s hand squeezed Polly’s and Polly was deeply grateful. One person, at least, understood.

  Instead of snow, their wagons were lashed by incessant rain and they made only three miles the first day. Time after time Polly and Jared had to jump to the saturated ground and in mud up to their ankles push the rear of the wagon as Lydia urged the horses onward and tried to free mud-bound wheels.

  ‘My sense of adventure is rapidly dying,’ Polly said wearily to Lydia as they heaved the wagon free once more of the quagmire.

  ‘It’s to our advantage,’ Lydia replied composedly. ‘With rains like this, Brother Brigham will still be encamped at the Chariton. We will be with them in a few days.’

  The thought gave Polly no elation. She had no further desire to be with Brother Brigham or anybody else. She desired only to be with Dart and he believed her to be a flirt—a faithless-hearted girl who had toyed with his affections in the absence of the man she was to marry.

  Suddenly Nephi’s horrified voice shouted, ‘Indians!’

  At first Lydia and Polly expected to see only the friendly Indians they had been used to in Illinois. One glance at the furiously galloping party racing towards them through sleeting hail, disabused them.

  ‘It’s a war party,’ Lydia said, paling.

  Nephi had already slithered his team to a halt. ‘Have the children lie on the wagon floor,’ he shouted to Susannah, ‘And keep loading those rifles!’

  Jared swerved alongside of him. There was no question of being able to outdistance the approaching red-men.

  ‘Get down behind the seat and keep on firing!’ he yelled as Lydia nearly fell over herself in her haste to reach the rifles and ammunition.

  ‘Lord have mercy on us,’ Lydia prayed fervently, as the blood-curdling cries drew nearer and they could see the hideous paint-daubed faces.

  The two wagons were each surrounded by galloping horsemen; one arrow and then another struck the Spencer wagon.

  ‘Let them have it!’ Nephi cried, and blasted at the nearest rider with his rifle.

  Polly had no time to feel afraid. Lydia was loading the rifles as fast as she knew how and lying beside Jared behind the teamster’s seat, Polly fired and fired again.

  Her rifle was knocked sharply upwards as an arrow hit Jared and he rose with a cry of pain, trying to pull it free. As he did so he toppled sideways and down on to the ground, an easy target for the shrieking attackers.

  ‘Oh God!’ Polly heard herself call and then, disregarding Lydia’s clawing hand on her cloak, she was stumbling over the seat and leaping to the ground.

  ‘They’re toying with us!’ Nephi cried to his wife. ‘They could have killed every last one of us by now if they’d wanted to.’

  Jared stumbled against Polly and Lydia’s hands reached down to them, hardly aware that the hail of arrows had halted. The Indians rode nearer and nearer, circling them only yards away, grotesque painted faces grinning gloatingly. Polly shrank back against the wagon as Jared was hauled inside by Lydia.

  As Jared fell finally on to the floor of the wagon, and as Nephi was beginning to feel a growing confidence that their lives were not seriously at risk, a wheeling horse almost trampled Polly underfoot. Lydia’s hand was within inches of hers, stretching out to help her.

  With a cry of terror Polly felt herself lifted off her feet. Vainly she reached for Lydia’s hands, but they were no longer within reach. There was a grip on her waist like steel as she was pinioned against the throbbing flank of the horse. She could see Jared struggling for his rifle and heard Nephi fire vainly, and then the horse wheeled around and she could see nothing but a blurring landscape and the ground speeding dizzily beneath her kicking feet.

  With whoops and cries the raiding party headed off in the direction they had come from. No one in the two wagons, apart from Jared, had been injured. Within minutes the plain was as empty and as silent as before.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Lydia Lyman whispered, sinking to her knees, her smoking rifle still in her hands. She
had remained firing after the retreating figures long after it was possible even to see them clearly.

  Susannah sat huddled on the floor of her wagon, white-faced and trembling, her crying children gathered around her, shielded by her protecting arms.

  Nephi stood, a dazed expression on his face, staring into the empty distance. Jared was the first to come out of shock. There was no boyish charm on his countenance now, only rank fear. In two minutes he had aged twenty years.

  ‘We must go after them, give chase!’ His voice was trembling, his hands shaking as he fumbled while trying to release one of the horses from the team.

  Nephi stopped him, breathing deeply, struggling for control and command of the situation.

  ‘T’would be useless. One man in search of a war party, no doubt already amongst a larger encampment? And where? How? The plains and the hills have been the Indians’home for centuries. It would take an army to find them.’

  ‘But we can’t just leave her!’ Jared’s voice broke on a sob that indicated how near he was to losing complete self-possession.

  ‘Of course not. We must return. Seek help.’

  ‘From who?’ The full horror of the situation had permeated Jared’s numbed brain. ‘The men at Richardson know no more about this country than we do. They cannot leave their womenfolk to fend for themselves in this weather. We would get no help there!’

  ‘Then at the Chariton. Brother Brigham has plenty of men with him.’

  Jared leaned against the horse. The Chariton. How long would it take them to reach it? How long to make the Saints understand and form a search party? How long to rescue Polly? And in the meantime? What would her fate be in the hands of the vermillion-painted red-men? He was violently, convulsively sick. Lydia Lyman threw his cloak around his shoulders.

  ‘It may not be too bad,’ she said, reading his thoughts all too clearly. ‘I believe the red-men take women for extra work. To cook and fetch water.’

  Even her strong voice lacked conviction. Jared looked at her with agonised eyes.

  ‘Not Polly. They will …’ He leaned over the side of the wagon and vomited once more.

  ‘To the Chariton!’ Nephi called. ‘We have no time to lose.’ Lydia didn’t need to be told twice. While Jared clambered beside her, his face the colour of a dead man, she whipped her horses to the utmost.

  Women taken by the Indians did not return to their family and friends alive. Nor, in Lydia’s opinion, would they have wanted to. The sooner an arrow was put through Polly’s heart, the better. Every hour alive would only be an hour of unspeakable suffering and humiliation. She kept her thoughts to herself, her lips tight and her eyes on the galloping horses before her. The Chariton. Pray God they made it soon.

  ‘We can go no further,’ Nephi called out at last. ‘The horses will drop without rest and water.’

  Dusk had fallen. In the distance came the lone cry of a wolf.

  ‘One horse, just one, to let me ride ahead,’ Jared pleaded.

  Nephi shook his head. ‘The horse would drop dead beneath you. Give them rest and then ride on ahead.’

  Susannah and Lydia exchanged quick glances and lowered their eyes, remaining silent. Two women, five children and one man alone on the plains. If the Indians had attacked once they might very well do so again. Yet how could they delay Jared in his fevered, desperate ride for help?

  Lydia slept as best she could, but it was precious little. If only Polly had been killed at their feet. If only her fate wasn’t so unknown … so unthinkable.

  At three in the morning Jared saddled the best of the horses.

  ‘May the Lord go with you,’ Nephi said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  Jared did not reply. He was already digging in his heels, riding westwards into the all-encompassing darkness.

  Lydia called softly, ‘Nephi?’

  He walked across to her wagon. She clutched her cloak tightly beneath her chin.

  ‘I calculated it to be a three-day journey from Richardson Point to the Chariton when we set out. Riding alone Jared will make Chariton tomorrow.’

  ‘To what good?’ Lydia asked bleakly. ‘There can be no saving Polly now.’

  ‘No.’

  Lydia could not see, but knew that tears were coursing down Nephi’s cheeks.

  ‘But we cannot deny the boy his hope, Sister Lyman. Try and sleep. We must be off at first light.’

  Jared rode as if all the hounds of hell were at his heels. It was his fault. Everything was his fault. He had been the one to suggest they set out in an undefended party of two wagons, to catch up with Brigham Young. It was because of him that Polly had insisted on joining them. And then the attack. The grotesque figures galloping down on them through the sleeting rain, naked except for breech cloths and beads and ochre and scarlet painted faces and bodies. He had been the one foolish enough to have been hit. He could barely feel the pain in his arm. Sister Lyman had removed the arrow, cleansed the wound and bound it tight. The pain was nothing. It was infinitesimal compared with the agony he felt at Polly’s fate.

  If he hadn’t been fool enough to have leapt to his feet when he had been hit, and thus toppled to the ground, Polly would still be safe. Nephi had already called out that the Indians were playing with them. There had been twenty or thirty braves. If they had wanted to kill them, they could have done so easily. To both Nephi and Jareds’chagrin, no dead Indians had been left behind. Their rifle shots had been futile.

  He took no food, no water, no rest. When, late the next afternoon, he rode into Chariton camp and slid from his sweating horse, he was immediately surrounded by helping hands and questions.

  ‘Brigham Young,’ he gasped, as his horse was led away to be rubbed down. ‘Brigham Young.’

  ‘I’m here, boy. What brings you in such distress. Is Richardson safe?’

  The gathering crowd around Jared parted to allow their white-maned leader through.

  ‘Aye,’ Jared said, lights dancing before his eyes, blackness pressing in on him. He must not faint now. He must not delay Polly’s rescue by so much as a second. He was conscious of many hands holding and supporting him. Of the sweat rolling into his eyes, of his painfully cracked lips. Magnetic blue eyes bored into his.

  ‘One of our women has been taken by Indians,’ he managed at last, and was aware of uproar around him.

  ‘From Richardson?’

  ‘No, sir.’ The noise subsided.

  ‘We set out two days ago to catch you up. Sister Lyman and Brother and Sister Spencer.’

  ‘Sister Spencer has been taken by Indians.’ The word went quickly from mouth to mouth. Brigham Young remained silent, waiting, listening.

  ‘A day’s ride from Richardson a war party surrounded us and began to attack.’ His strength left him, his knees sagged and he sank to the ground.

  ‘Sister Kirkham, Polly Kirkham, has been taken.’

  ‘The orphan child the Marriots took in,’ someone said to Brigham Young.

  ‘She’s no child,’ another voice said. ‘She’s a woman, full-grown. Eighteen last month.

  ‘We must form a party at once.’ Jared’s words were barely coherent. ‘We must find her, rescue her.’

  The Mormon leader’s face was grim. ‘The boy is exhausted. Help him to my tent.’

  The way was ankle-deep in mud. Brushwood and limbs of trees had been thrown on the ground in the tent in order to keep the bedding and provisions free of the mire. A water cask served as the Mormon leader’s desk. He stared at the map that rested on it.

  ‘How long had you been travelling from Richardson when the Indians attacked?’

  ‘A day.’ Jared could scarcely keep his patience. Why did they not do something? Why were their horses not being saddled? Men being called?

  A formidable finger made a circling motion on the map in front of him, a jutting jaw even more pronounced as he thought deeply.

  ‘We must go!’ Jared cried despairingly. ‘Now! Immediately!’

  Slowly the Mormon leader shook his g
reat head. ‘No, brother. We would be riding off without directions, and even if, guided by the Lord, we found the Indian camp, we would stand no chance of rescuing Sister Kirkham.’

  ‘You’re going to leave her?’ Jared asked incredulously. ‘You’re going to stay here, safe and secure, while one of our sisters is … Is …’

  A strong arm circled his shoulders. ‘No, brother. I am not going to leave any sister in the hands of Indians without moving heaven and earth to free her. Neither am I going to act incautiously and to no avail. Sit, drink the water Brother Kimball is offering you, and listen.’

  ‘But …’ Jared glanced around him wildly. They could not sit talking, while Polly, smiling-faced Polly with her merry blue eyes and bobbing ringlets, was helpless in the hands of savages.

  At the pressure on his shoulder, he sat. Brother Brigham drew up a box of provisions and sat opposite him.

  ‘The Indians you spoke of must have been Pawnees.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Jared felt that he was losing control of his senses. ‘They were Indians …’

  ‘Listen.’

  At the authority in the deep-sounding voice, Jared did as he was bid.

  ‘I had the pleasure of meeting with a Major of the United States Army a week or so back. He warned me specifically of raiding parties of Pawnees. Two of their women were taken by trappers and treated shamefully before being left to die, their throats slit from ear to ear. The Major warned me that because of this infamous incident, which reflects great shame on our race, the Pawnees were striking with unusual frequency and ferocity.’

  Jared felt the blood in his veins turn to water, colder by far than that which ran in the Chariton River.

  ‘Brother Spencer was right. He said the Indians were toying with us … That they had no intention of killing us. They wanted revenge. Two white women for the squaws that were killed.’

  ‘Yet they took only one of your party?’

  ‘Sister Lyman does not look like a woman in her father’s greatcoat and Sister Spencer was in the Spencer wagon, loading rifles for Nephi and pacifying the children. So they took Polly.’