CHAPTER 7
The Reed family, Springfield, Illinois, May 1845
Before we began our journey, we were a very different family. Back then, it seemed to me that we were firmly settled, that Springfield, Illinois, was where we would spend the rest of our lives. It never occurred to me that we might move, or that we would join the ranks of the uprooted, the wanderers, the adventurers.
Then, one morning, Father stayed home instead of going to his office above the hardware store in town, which was unusual for him during any season, but especially during the spring. I remember watching him sitting in the rocking chair on the porch, which was usually Grandy’s spot. He was brooding, whittling a stick with his prized Bowie knife, which was also surprising, because he normally wouldn’t have dulled the blade in such a way. Back then, everyone from hunters and trappers to established landowner wanted a Bowie knife: if not one made by Jim Bowie himself, then one that looked the same.
I lingered near the house, though the eggs needed to be gathered and the cows needed milking. I was twelve years old, and it was my duty to take care of the livestock. Soon, I thought, Mother would call me in to help her start preparing dinner. But on this particular morning, it was as if my mother saw me but didn’t really notice me. Both of my parents were distracted.
At noon, a tall man arrived on horseback. My parents stood to greet him, and by that, I understood that he was important. They rarely acted so formally with our neighbors or other visitors. He was the ugliest man I had ever seen, and at first he scared me.
I sensed a deep melancholy in the man, but as he and my parents settled on the porch, drinking lemonade, the folksy cadence of the stranger’s voice hinted that he was telling some droll story, and indeed, I soon heard laughter. This, too, was unusual. Father rarely laughed, and it seemed that Mother never laughed at all.
I moved closer to the porch, pretending to weed the vegetable garden. Somehow, though the vegetables were withering, the weeds still thrived. When the tone of the conversation grew serious and the adults began speaking in earnest, I dropped all pretense of doing my chores and sat silently on the bottom step to listen.
“I’ve been offered the position of Secretary of the Oregon Territory,” the tall man said. “I have been assured it will eventually lead to the governorship.”
Father said, “They want you out of the way at the statehouse, Abe. They are afraid of you.”
“Perhaps. Still… I must admit I am tempted. Oregon and the West will be the future of our great nation, I think. But it is the ‘far corner of nowhere’ to Mary, and she doesn’t wish to go. So I’ve decided to run for Congress instead. I have assured Mary I have no chance of winning.”
“You have our full support, of course, Abe,” Father assured him. “Anything you need from me, you shall have.”
“I hoped and expected you would say that. I pray you will not mind, James, but I have put forward your name as Oregon Secretary in my place,” said the visitor. “I’ve come to call upon you because I thought you should be informed of the possibility. I must warn you, however: your abolitionist leanings make the appointment unlikely.”
Father looked surprised but pleased. “Thank you, Abe. That you even thought of me is a great honor.”
“As I say, you are an underdog for the position,” Abe said, smiling. “But then, my sympathies and hopes have always been with the underdog, even though he is often the dog that starts all the fuss.”
“Are you not an abolitionist, Mister Lincoln?” my mother asked. She sounded both curious and gently mocking.
“I abhor slavery, Mrs. Reed,” he answered quietly. “But it is clearly allowed by the Constitution.”
“Oregon,” I heard Father say wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to see if it is as beautiful as they say… ”
“May I get you another glass of lemonade, Mister Lincoln?” my mother interjected.
“Thank you most kindly, Mrs. Reed, but I must be moving on.” The visitor stood up, rising ever higher until his head plunked against the roof of the porch. He had a skinny frame that, from where I sat at the bottom of the steps, seemed to stretch into the sky. He looked up, grimaced, then looked down at me and shrugged. “I sometimes think I wasn’t made for this world,” he said ruefully.
The tall man walked down the steps. I stood aside to let him pass, but he suddenly stopped. “Do you see what I see, under yonder nest?” he asked me, and I turned to see that a bird had fallen out of a nest in the dead birch tree and was flopping about in the dry grass.
I ran over to the fallen bird, then hesitated, squeamish about picking it up. Mr. Lincoln followed me with long strides, reached down and took the bird tenderly in his hands, then lifted up the poor, helpless creature and settled it back into its nest.
“Now we will both sleep better tonight, will we not?” he said to me. His eyes were so liquid and deep that I felt myself falling under his spell. Mr. Abraham Lincoln was an almost biblical figure. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would not sound silly or shallow. He smiled sadly and turned away.
“It was an eagle,” I blurted. “I saw it!”
What was I doing? Warning bells were going off in my mind, but something about this man made me want to impress him.
“An eagle?” He frowned.
“Yes,” I continued, determined to go through with it. “I saw an eagle try to snatch the poor birdy.”
“Virginia!” I heard my mother cry in horror. “You know that isn’t true! I’m sorry, Mister Lincoln. Virginia always has to have stories like that for the things that happen.”
He stared down at me gravely for a moment, then smiled. “Nothing wrong with a good story, is there, Virginia? A story does not have to be fact to be true.”
Mr. Lincoln got on his black horse, which looked far too small for him; his legs seemed to nearly reach the ground. He tipped his tall hat to Mother and Father and waved to me, then trotted off. A nice man, I thought. At the time, I didn’t think anything more of his visit, but strangely, the vision of his dark eyes often came to me during our trip out West, and it was somehow reassuring.
I went back to my hot, sweaty chores, dreaming of the wild forests of Oregon, where I imagined there were brisk, cool breezes and Indians lurking in the shadows. When I played with my young brothers, Tommy and Jimmy, I became an Indian princess and they my captives.
#
“Oregon,” Father declared that night at the dinner table, after we said grace but before we could start eating. My mother winced as if she knew what was coming. “The future of this country is in the Oregon Territory. I was talking to Abe, and he agrees that the West must be conquered.”
“James,” Mother said, “you must know that Mister Lincoln is overly ambitious under all his melancholy.”
Father made a fist and started to strike the table, but changed his mind at the last moment. The oak table we were eating on had been transported all the way from Pennsylvania and was dinged and stained from use. The whole house had lost the newness I remembered, the fresh whitewash and the smell of freshly hewn wood. The birch tree in the front yard, planted on the day of Patty’s birth, which had shaded the porch for so many years was dead. The sun glared down unimpeded on the weathered white paint of the house.
Everything was drying out, inside and outside our house. The fence posts were cracking and splitting; the banks of the creek, which had widened and flattened and stunk of cow pies from the constant encroachment of the cattle, and the ruts in the road, which I remembered as always being muddy, were crumbling and turning to dust. At night, I would sometimes be awakened by the crack of a tree limb, the thud of a falling fence post, or the creaking of the walls slowly splitting apart.
It seemed as though the more the house creaked, the more Father wanted to leave, to find a new place, a new home, and a new life. I’d been an infant during the family’s last move, yet I remembered being excited, just as this possible new adventure excited me. I always wanted to see what was on the other side of
the hill.
Oregon was a storybook land of lush rains and verdant fields, salmon runs, and virgin forests, so different from the flat, dry plains of the Midwest. The drought in Illinois was in its fourth year, and the crops withered no matter how hard Father worked.
I watched my younger brothers, Jimmy and Tommy, shoveling down their beans and gnawing on their chicken legs. Their eyes were gleaming at the prospect of traveling west. I could almost hear them thinking, Indians! Buffalo! Grizzly bears! Streams filled with leaping salmon!
These boys are never going to be farmers, I thought. Unexpectedly, before their eyes, the possibility was unfolding that a life of drudgery would be transmuted into a grand adventure.
Grandy broke the silence at the table with one of her coughing fits. Mother quickly rose, took one of the linen napkins, and put it to Grandy’s lips. “Here, Mother. Cough into this.” The red blood soaked through the white material like a blooming flower, a terrible, deadly red rose.
The hacking set little Frank to crying in his high chair at the other end of the table. I got up and cradled the infant, tending to him as was my responsibility as the eldest daughter.
“Hush, little baby. All will be fine,” I said.
I felt a tremor pass through the baby, and a chill down my spine mirrored it. I had a foreboding of the future at that moment. It was as if everything had changed in the blink of an eye, though we didn’t know it yet.
#
Later that night, I heard my parents arguing in bed. The house creaked in the wind. Underlying everything was the sound of dust blasting against the windows, the topsoil of our once-fertile farm blowing away. I imagined it blowing all the way to Oregon, waiting for us there.
Over the sound of the wind, I could hear my mother crying.
“Mother is too ill for the journey,” she pleaded. “She will never survive, James.”
Father’s firm voice rumbled through the house despite his low tone. “But Margret, the weather in the West will be idyllic for her! If you don’t favor Oregon, we will go to the Southwest, to California. I’m told that it is a wondrous place for those suffering from consumption.”
“She will not survive.”
“Abe says––”
“‘Abe says! Abe says!’ What is that man’s hold on you, James? He will lead you into disaster with his high-minded ambition.”
“Abe says that the West must and will be developed. He envisions railroads from sea to sea. That’s why he became a lawyer; so he could represent the railroads’ interests. Those who are there first will prosper from this great expansion. Can’t you see, Margret? We would not be Irish immigrants anymore, but the founders of a new state!”
My mother didn’t answer, and I knew she didn’t care if we were founders of a new state: she wanted only to be safe and secure, and comfortable. I also suspected Father was completely unaware of her feelings.
As I drifted off to sleep, the foreboding I’d felt at the dinner table returned.
#
My baby brother, Gershom Francis Reed, dear little Frank, died that night in his crib.
He looked perfectly natural in death, as if he was merely sleeping. I couldn’t bear to see him taken away to be buried, for I was certain that at any moment he would look up at me, his blue eyes shining mischievously.
Mother took to her bed and didn’t come out of her room for weeks. It fell upon me to cook the meals and do the chores she would have done, but I didn’t mind. My brothers even pitched in, which was unusual for them.
Father endured it as he endured all setbacks, with a grim and determined air, a stiff, upright posture, and a headlong dive into activity. The farm almost recovered that spring, but then the weather––which, even with the drought, had always provided a few inadequate sprinkles of rain here and there––suddenly dried up even more, into an absence of all moisture.
That summer, Abraham Lincoln won the seat of the Illinois Seventh Congressional District in the Thirtieth Congress. My father never brought up his name again, and I wondered if he thought the tall man’s visit had been a harbinger of ill. Still, Father did not stop speaking of the West.
On the first hot day of summer, my mother came slowly down the stairs, dressed all in black, her hair carefully coiled, her eyes dark and somber. She was much thinner, and her lips turned downward at the corners, whereas I remembered them being a prim, straight line across her face.
She sat at the head of the table while I served dinner. The entire family was quiet, even the boys, as we waited for her to speak. Finally, she looked directly into Father’s eyes and said, “I want to leave this place. I want to leave as soon as we possibly can.”
Father stood up and nodded. “We are going to California.”
Then, in a rush of commands, Father established the roles we were to play during our long trek west. Even though he was only five years old himself, Jimmy was given the task of watching over three-year-old Tommy. The eldest daughter at twelve, I should have been Mother’s helper, but more often, I found myself helping Father. That left Patty to assume the responsibilities I should have had.
“Virginia, help me harness the horses,” Father said. “I’m going into town to see if Mister Hopkins still wants to buy this place. We’ll drop by the Browns’ house and ask them to start building us a wagon. Jimmy, you need to look after Tommy. Patty, you help your mother.”
#
To my father’s great frustration, it was not until the next season that we were finally able to sell our house, have our wagons built, and gather supplies––but the decision to go West was made that day.
CHAPTER 8
The Reed family, Oregon Trail, 1846
After Grandy’s death, I decided not to ride my little pony anymore. Most of the emigrants walked beside the wagons instead of riding gaily ahead of them. Father seemed surprised, but I think he also approved.
The terrain was so flat that we could see the few houses that had sprung up along the trail miles before we reached them. There was always brisk business being done at these solitary homesteads: eggs and chickens, beef and pork, bread, pies and produce of all sorts were being sold for many times the going rate back in Springfield. There was also commerce among the inevitable wagons camped nearby. I often wondered why we didn’t stop at one of these homesteads and make our fortune by catering to the settlers headed west.
I remember the heat, but there were also days of pouring rain, when we had to keep the wagons moving for fear of getting stuck in the mud. On those days, we were forced to stop well before dusk if we found firm ground to camp on. Each river crossing became more difficult than the last. We slowed down, and at times it seemed as if we were the only humans in this vast land. I pictured all the wagon trains ahead of us entering Oregon and California while we sat in the middle of the great desert. Behind us, I imagined emptiness.
We traveled 450 miles that first month, which put us behind schedule with the most difficult parts of the trail still ahead. I wasn’t yet aware that we were falling behind, though in hindsight I remember my parents talking in worried tones late at night. Still, I remember this part of the journey as being mostly a happy and peaceful time.
Because of the unpredictable rains, the covers of the wagons were left on most of the time, and it got hot and musty inside. Mother and Patty got motion sickness from the wagon’s constant swaying, but I did not mind it.
A week into this leg of the journey, I climbed up onto our third wagon and stood on the buckboard across from Bayliss. Though we were the third wagon in line, the dust was already almost unbearable. I could only imagine what it was like for the smaller wagons bringing up the rear.
Bayliss was wearing a red bandana over his nose and mouth, but I could still see him scowl. I was sure he didn’t like me, and I was determined to change that.
“Well, are you going to move over for me or not?” I demanded. I stared at him until he shrugged and removed his canteen and leftover lunch from the seat next to him. I clambered into it.
“Why, what can I do for you, miss?” His words were polite, but his tone wasn’t.
“It’s time for me to learn how to drive one of these wagons.”
“You want to take my job?” He sounded aggrieved.
“Oh, no, I assure you! I merely thought that with such a long journey… that… ” I trailed off as I noticed that his eyes were crinkled up at the corners and realized he was teasing.
Then I could sense the smile under the bandana disappearing. “Mister Reed would horsewhip me if I let you near these oxen,” he said.
“Oh, he’s not so bad as that,” I said.
He just stared at me.
“He is a fair man,” I said stoutly. “He was a colonel in the Black Hawk War, you know.” I cringed as I said it, wondering, as always, why I felt the need to exaggerate. Father had been a volunteer in the war, and an enlisted man.
Bayliss snorted and called out to the four oxen with a series of whistles and trills. They responded by pulling harder. We’d fallen a few yards behind while conversationally dueling, but we quickly caught up.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Nothing to it, really,” he said. “These brutes follow whatever is in front of them. Indeed, it can be a more difficult task to stop them. The hardest part of my job is harnessing them in the mornings and taking care of them at night. I imagine you’ll be wanting to do that, too?”
I did not answer him. He was probably well aware that I had my own duties during those times.
I was surprised when he handed me the reins. We awkwardly changed places, and he showed me the rudiments. I could hear the men in the wagon behind us, who’d been observing all this, laughing at the idea of a woman driving oxen.
Led to the Slaughter Page 4