The Memory Weaver Read online

  The vows we spoke had been followed by words of Scripture and I was grateful. We signed that paper folded three ways and while I knew the folding aided in the filing system, I still liked the idea that the Trinity showed up that day. We walked the town and Mr. Warren showed me where he’d worked. I suspect he looked for some of his mates but didn’t find them. I didn’t recognize any of the streets so saw them as though for the first time. I didn’t even remember the boardinghouse where my father and I had stayed during the trial.

  “That’s where I worked on the steamboat.”

  “You build boats?”

  “Just the one.”

  “Must have been quite a great day at the launch.” Men crawled over a hull, hammering.

  “Must have been. They’d let me go. Too many late arrivals, they told me, as if showing up late is a reason to let a man go.” He patted my hand linked within his elbow. “I always stayed long after to finish up what was started.”

  “I’m sure they were sorry later to be without your skills.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sure they were. Let’s stop here.” He opened the door to a mercantile. “Darlin’, what do you think about this?” He held up a golden ring, the twin of my mother’s. “Spare and elegant, just as you are.”

  His voice was a baritone, deep and resonant. He held my hand then, tugged at my gloves, one finger at a time, staring into my eyes as he did. I felt my face grow warm. My hands free of their binding, he slipped it on my finger.

  “We’re bound now, you and me.”

  I hadn’t told him I already had a ring. And secretly, I was pleased I didn’t have to show my mother’s ring to the world. It was something of my mother’s I could cling to privately. Still, I wondered how Mr. Warren could afford such a ring when my father hadn’t afforded one for Rachel. I didn’t ask. “We were bound by the vows and God’s words read aloud.”

  “That’s so.” He pulled me to him. My straw hat, worn for the occasion, brushed his cheek. My face grew hot with his public affection but I stood up straight when two women buying bakery goods looked at us and frowned.

  “You’ll have to forgive my husband,” I said. “We’ve just married.” I held up the back of my palm to show the ring.

  “Oh, well, congratulations.”

  Mr. Warren squeezed my shoulder. “That’s my girl.” His whispers warmed my ear.

  We stayed the night in a hotel built up against rock walls, overlooking the falls. I could see building going on above us on the rocks that rose up from the river like paintings I’d seen of castle walls. This was a burgeoning town and Mr. Warren—Andrew—could find work here easily should the farm and his cattle business not prosper.

  Andrew was a tender husband, kind and patient with his young bride. Godey’s had failed to give me fair warning of both the strangeness and the joy and I had no mother to ask. Once there’d been an article about preparing for one’s wedding night, and the admonition to not wear a short-sleeved dress with long-sleeved underwear. Actually, I knew little of emotional connection either, but that evening I didn’t imagine all the awfuls and terribles I could have. While my husband slept beside me, I remembered Timothy, his stature, the gentleness with which he’d wiped my eyes and ears of tears when he had to tell me he could not bring me home, fear and sorrow like a buffalo robe weighing on my shoulders as he abandoned me. But he’d made a promise that day that I would see my mother again and so I did. All in due time, that’s what he was saying.

  That night I rested in the comfort that I was not alone. I had no nightmares and in the morning I vowed that I would stay with this man I loved through thick and thin and weather the storms any marriage faced. I’d treat my marriage like Rachel’s woodstove, working hard to keep the fire going, not too hot and not too cold, making sure the damper was closed so no outside winds could buffet or send a flame across the floor to burn things up.

  11

  To Make a Bed and Lie in It

  It didn’t take long for me to acknowledge that despite the difficulties, my father had provided well for his family. He set the standard. At Mr. Warren’s home, we too had dishes and bowls and cups, pans aplenty. Hogs and sheep for food and wool and a spinning wheel Andrew’s mother gave me. Venison too. I’d taken needles and thread with me, buttons and a few female necessities; my dresses, underdrawers, and books. Just a few books. But nothing to cook with. For the first weeks, we used the tin pot and ate a lot of rabbit stew, rabbit soup, rabbit chopped and fried on a new wood cookstove Andrew bought me.

  “I can’t thank you enough for this laying hen,” I told Nancy. She’d made her way to our small farmstead two weeks after our wedding. I’d told Henry Hart I’d be back within the week, but we hadn’t made it yet. I wasn’t looking forward to facing my father again.

  “Your dad’s still pretty upset.” She handed me the cage with a hen and a rooster too. I’d have to keep them in the barn, let them out each morning, until Andrew fixed up a chicken yard where the hawks wouldn’t swoop down and get them or any chicks, and the raccoons could be discouraged.

  “So I’ve heard. He came and got Nellie.”

  “Do you have any sassafras tea?” Her red hair glistened in the sun that also brought out her freckles. We walked back from the barn.

  “I do. Let’s drink it on the porch where it’s cool and we can see the meadow. I love this view, so long and wide, and not broken up by trees.”

  I’d let her change the subject from my father, but I wanted someone to tell. “He got here late afternoon and had Millie with him. She was sure happy to see me but acted a little mad too. Wanted to know when I was coming home. I told her I’d come visit as soon as Father invited me.”

  “What did your dad say?” Nancy sat beside me on the porch steps, the hen cackling beside us in her cage.

  “Nothing. He acted as though I wasn’t even there. Then, just before he mounted up he said, ‘When things get tough with the drunk you married, don’t look at me for any invitation. You are dead to me.’”

  “He said that in town too.” She reached for my hand, patted it. “How awful for you. Was Andrew here?”

  “I expected worse. And no, Mr. Warren was out back still planting. We got behind with our wedding trip to Oregon City.” I sipped my tea.

  “I’ve only been there once. Did you take a meal near those falls?”

  I needed to tell her about my father’s visit and she kept going off on another trail. “My father accused me of stealing the horse.”

  “That’s just silly. You only borrowed it.”

  I nodded. “Here was the worst, for me anyway. He said, ‘I’ve put a lot of time and money into you and this is how you repay me?’ Not a word about what I’d done for him without payment of any kind. Not one word about all the ‘love’ he hadn’t put into me, I guess. At least he wasn’t claiming he’d wasted his love on me.”

  “Maybe he meant his love would always be there.”

  I shook my head. “If you could have seen his eyes, heard the tone of his voice. There was spittle at the corners of his mouth and his face was all red. His hands were fists. And then he said again, ‘You are dead to me.’”

  “I’m so sorry. We don’t have to talk about this.”

  “Millie started to cry at his loud voice, and in truth, Nancy, I felt myself get sleepy! Can you imagine? I just wanted to go inside, lie down, and sleep. Like when . . . well, you know.”

  “I never could understand how in a time of fright you could fall asleep.” She tugged at her red curls. “But maybe that’s God’s way of giving you strength. You weren’t going to change your father’s mind and his words pelted like hail, I suspect.”

  “You think so?” What had discomfited me was that I’d imagined my father’s outrage and assumed by doing so it wouldn’t happen. It didn’t happen as I imagined: it had been worse, his visit leaving a hollow place in my stomach.

  “I just get all persnickety when I’m frightened now.” She took a drink of her tea.

  “I wasn’t
frightened, just mad, I think.”

  “Oh? Well, I get scared just like I did when we hid under the floor and heard the Cayuse stomping and howling. I just have to get everything in place, not let one little dish be out of order in the cabinet. Takes so much time sometimes I barely get supper on for us. We’re always late for church with me straightening this or that.”

  “Frightened? That’s not it exactly.” I tried to grasp the feeling. “I think when my father railed against me, I just knew that he was wrong and I felt righteous in disagreeing. But then I got so sleepy and went inside. I didn’t even hug Millie good-bye.”

  Nancy spent the afternoon and we picked wild strawberries, cutting them up to dry in the sun. Afterward, we worked on a log cabin quilt, the pieces meant to be jumbled up.

  “I think a quilt is almost human.” Nancy held the material to her face, as I was prone to do with my apron, and inhaled.

  “That’s what a good friend is too, like a quilt, as comforting as a mother’s arms.”

  “Especially one who has been through the trials with you. No one else can truly understand, right, Eliza?”

  I nodded. Things got better with Nancy around. I’d need to keep her close at hand.

  Andrew and I got through those first months. I discovered that we had money, though he proved very strict about how I spent any coins and reticent whenever I asked where it came from. My father had given me much more responsibility for buying our supplies than Andrew did. Within a few months Andrew brought a nice horse home after an evening in town. He’d gotten a good price on it. She was a trim little grey mare with black spots on her rump like the Nez Perce horses. Her coloring reminded me of spring snow, when the dark ground thaws up through the white. I called her Maka, the Nez Perce word for snow, wishing I had someone to speak Sahaptin with and then caught myself for the wish. The Nez Perce—Timothy especially—had failed us, despite my father’s defense of them.

  Andrew finished the rope bed and I filled the tick with straw. He could tease and be loving, then sometimes in a flash his eyes would narrow, his mouth firm up, and his fists clench on either side of his waist. He did that one day when I returned home on Maka, late.

  “What did I tell you about visiting your family? I want you here.”

  “You were gone, off until who knows when? I tended the chickens and the hog, weeded, milked the cow. I had time and the weather promised to be good.”

  “You weren’t here when I got back.”

  “You came home unexpected.”

  “Unexpected was I? Your husband, unexpected?”

  I removed my straw hat while he talked, began supper preparations. “I had every intention of being here for you. I always am. You changed your plans.” I smiled, to lighten the moment that had become as hot as an untended woodstove fed too much green fuel.

  “Don’t sass me, Eliza.”

  I turned to him, spoon in hand. “I had no intention of it. Just speaking my words and trying to calm yours.”

  “I don’t need calming, I need someone who listens and does what I tell her to do.”

  I didn’t add fuel to his fire but instead returned to stirring the biscuits. I licked a bit of the batter from my fingers.

  It had been the first trip I’d made back to my father’s, uninvited. Rachel had opened the door to me and hugged me before stepping outside. The little ones had rushed to me shouting how they missed me. Martha Jane cried and asked, “When are you coming back? I stepped on my dress hem and see, it drags.” I looked around for needle and thread and saw that my set had not been replaced by Father. I told her I’d bring needles for her and show her how to do it herself. Then Henry started out from the field when he saw the strange horse. I walked out to meet him, little girls on either side of me. They left me, heading toward Yaka, who barked near the split-rail fence.

  He smiled, facing me. “I’m leaving for Tualatin Academy later this month.”

  I felt a pang of envy, of wishing my father had made such a provision for me.

  “You’ll like it.” I only vaguely remembered Forest Grove. I wondered if he did.

  “It’ll be fun.” Henry straightened a split rail.

  “Fun, well, I’m not so sure about studies being fun, but what a great change it will be. Rachel’s learned to cook then?” Rachel sat in the sunshine on a bench at the side of the house, fanning herself, out of earshot.

  “Not well. But Father does it and he seems to enjoy it. We’ve all gone on his forays to Spencer Butte where he started that church. Then sometimes it’s just us here, without him, and Martha fixes the fried potatoes. We eat a lot of stew. Father says he’ll come back for Sunday service here twice a month. And he’s still trying to get the mission in Lapwai back.”

  I shook my head at the futility of his efforts. “I can’t see that ever happening.” Yaka bumped my hand then. “I missed you too, you little bear.” I scratched his head. “Andrew doesn’t want dogs around, at least ones not trained to work with cattle.” He’d heard about a kelpie, from New Zealand, a breed that worked with sheep, and hoped it would train to herd cattle. We had a herd of thirty head and a ready beef market to people headed south into California looking for gold. “We’re supposed to get a special breed of dog off a ship before long. I’m looking forward to that. Give me someone to talk with when Mr. Warren is off doing what he does.”

  “I hear rumors, Sister.” Henry looked at me. “He—”

  “Don’t tell me.” I raised my hand up in protest. “He’s good to me, I’m provided for, and for the first time in my life I’m putting on a little weight because he does the heavy work and I’m not racing after you all.” I punched him in the shoulder with affection.

  “Maybe you’re . . . with child.”

  My face grew warm. “I’m not. No, I’m just happy, though I miss you, Martha and Millie and Yaka.” I tapped an invisible head with each name. “And Father too, though he doesn’t care one way or the other.”

  “He thinks you’ve lied to yourself about Andrew.”

  “Well, he’s wrong. And I didn’t come here to defend myself or my husband. I came to say hello. I’ve done that so I’ll go.” The little girls returned, clung to me, begged me to stay, and my leaving proved difficult. I could see their powerlessness, knew what that was.

  When I got back home, I found myself defending my having gone at all. Andrew’s upset took away the small joy I’d found in seeing my brother and sisters again. I placed the biscuits on the sheet and stuck it in the oven. This marriage and family had its challenges but I’d chosen it. I’d have to shape it as I could.

  We did attend my father’s church the August after we married. I didn’t know whether to tell my father ahead of time or just appear. We decided on the latter. We joined the throng carrying baskets and tying up buggies and patting horses twitching their muscles at flies. I looked for my family who lived next door and didn’t have to ride anywhere. I didn’t see them. I waved at Nancy Osborne toward the front as we entered the cooler room. Andrew removed his hat, stomped his boots on the step, knocking off any wayward dirt, and we took a seat near the entrance.

  My father’s back was turned, and by the time he faced forward, the benches in front of us were filled and I don’t think he saw us. Andrew’s dark hair was slicked down and had that little indentation formed from wearing a hat.

  He fidgeted and I leaned over. “Are you nervous? We don’t have to do this.”

  He shook his head. “I’m ready.”

  I was so proud of him, asking about baptism and belief. A part of me understood as I never had before how my mother must have felt bringing someone to that peace. I hadn’t pressed him after we married. After all, I was the one who rushed us, the one who worried about what my father would say and truly, that he might forbid our marriage. But he didn’t and we were husband and wife now.

  My father began to sing—he had a fine voice—and we joined in, familiar words to me sung from memory, as there were few hymnals. I noticed Andrew didn’t raise his
voice. My father preached then, going on for over two hours. The room grew warm, and around noon, bees worked their way through open doors. Mr. Osborne, Nancy’s father, fell off his bench near the front, but no one spoke. It was a common occurrence, and it proved enough for my father to actually look out at the condition of his congregation fanning ourselves with hankies and gloves, our backs and bottoms sore from the hard benches. It was when he scanned the crowd that he saw me. I watched his face pale. But then he seemed to see Andrew too, and a small frown formed on his forehead. “We will sing ‘Rock of Ages’ and then we’ll take a respite for lunch, resuming after.” I thought it strange he would pick a Methodist hymn, and people around looked a little befuddled, but we all knew the words, just hadn’t sung them for a long time.

  “Wait up, Warren,” my father boomed.

  We waited for others to leave as my father strode up the short aisle.

  “What are you doing here?” My father’s scowl announced a storm approaching.

  “Attending church.” I spoke for us, though he had asked Andrew. “There aren’t many churches around and I’ve heard there is a fine preacher at this one.”

  He harrumphed. “You are here to . . . ?” He lifted his palms out, directed his words at Andrew.

  “He wants to be baptized.” I blurted it, fearful that Andrew might change his mind, might not say it.

  “He can speak for himself. He certainly does in town.”

  I opened my mouth to ask about that when Andrew spoke. “Sir. I’ve come to repent of my ways and ask forgiveness.”

  “I’m not a priest.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t grant forgiveness. God does. Just ask and it shall be granted.”

  “And you’ll sprinkle me then?”

  “After some instruction. It’s not magical, you understand. This is a serious undertaking, one that says you’re committed to a new way, the only way. And consequences are greater to backsliders than to those who never choose the faith.”

  Was he trying to talk Andrew out of it? And what was it my husband wanted to confess?