All Together in One Place Read online

  “A woman without a teamster ought not to place others in jeopardy,” one man said.

  “You have a breakdown and it will slow the rest of us, not having any man to help you right away like,” Antone told her.

  Even Jed had shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “What can I do?”

  Well, what could he do or should he do? Nothing, she decided. She would keep to her own fire at night from here on in. She would cook for herself and not depend on Betha to feed her. She would handle the stock and harness and, yes, make repairs as well. She would be alone in her spirit. She needed no one. She'd already learned that by giving away all that she'd loved. She could even defend herself if necessary, though she doubted the attacks would come from Indians. That she had learned too.

  Relief fluttered at Tipton's edges. That Martin woman had been told to bring up drag. Every day she'd bite the dust of others. The men assured the woman that they would not let any harm come to her, but they didn't want Ruth in the middle where her broken wheels or split tongue or lame animal would hold them up while they tried to find someone to make repairs.

  “Got to hit Laramie by June 15. Can't afford delays.” That's what they always said. “Can't afford delays” as though speed were a commodity, something you could purchase at her father's Cass-ville store.

  Ruth Martin in the back, isolated. That would keep that full smile of hers polished with dirt stuck between her teeth. It put one potential problem in its place, leaving Tipton free to work on the larger one: convincing her father of their need to head to Oregon since Tyrell was going there, or convincing Tyrell to head south—without the Bacons.

  The men had determined Ruth could run her stock in with theirs. “That's only right,” her brother defended. “She got this far with them. I'll call ‘em mine if need be, ‘til we get to Oregon. Horses are hers, though. If we have losses, stampedes and such, she can't gather up her own. Got to help each other when it comes to that. We'd do it for anyone.”

  Ruth hated accepting anything from them. But Jed was right. She wouldn't be able to herd them alone and bring the wagon too, and she needed the wagon for the grain. The horses couldn't make it without the grain. Mules, yes; fine horses, no.

  Still, while she ate the dust of all the other emigrants, she wasn't far from the horses. Horses gave back what they got. Horses, like children, were just.

  “At least you don't have to pretend anymore,” Betha told her. “Don't have to keep my mouth shut or fib about you having a teamster waiting in Laramie.”

  “Right,” Ruth said.

  The wagon right in front of her today held the Marriage Association wives-to-be The Associations wagons would choke on others’ dust too. At the same meeting, Sister Esther had raised a ruckus about the Sabbath policy and their not stopping.

  “Any who challenge tradition 11 pay a price,” Jed told her.

  “Tradition! You call a group of total strangers making things up as they go tradition? It isn't as though we were a town. Not even a group. Where do they get their authority?”

  “It's the way it is,” Jed said, “and the sooner folks accept what is, well, the sooner we can solve problems.”

  Ruth cracked her whip over the head of the oxen—two-colored beasts, four strong—and forced herself to think of positive things.

  A tiny-framed woman with almond eyes stared at her from the back of the wagon ahead of her. The girl kneeled, never changing the expression on her somber face though she shifted left to right with the road, her knees barely moving. She didn't seem at all a happy bride-to-be. More wisdom than age.

  “Does that doll talk to people?” Jessie asked. The child walked beside Ruth.

  “That's a girl, a woman actually,” Ruth told her.

  “Looks like a doll. One of Lisbeth's.”

  “Who's Lisbeth, one of your new friends?”

  “She's big but she has a little girl named Mazy, and she still likes dolls Like that one in the wagon. She says the doll in that wagon talks to bees, but she ain't ever talked to people.”

  The girl did look like a porcelain doll, perfect olive skin, high cheekbones, and dark eyes. Her hair was cut short against the nape of her neck, and beside her lay a pointy straw hat.

  “Bees?” Ruth said.

  “So would she talk?” Jessie asked.

  “I don't know. You'll have to pay attention, and when we stop, if she looks willing, you might ask her.”

  If the beekeeper didn't talk much, it would add to her mystique, Ruth thought. Her silence already endeared her. Womens talk usually irritated Ruth. She'd heard Betha and that Wilson woman twitter and chatter over “Asians” and “savages.” A silly waste, jabbering about subjects they knew nothing of. They spoke of rattlesnakes and rumors of cholera and musket accidents, but it was the talk of Indians that most incensed Ruth.

  “Have you ever seen an Indian?” Ruth asked Adora once when the woman stopped talking long enough to take a breath

  “Indeed I have.”

  Several others hadn't, and the woman whispered tales that fed fears they'd be taken all the way to Cow Town. Ruth walked away, disgusted. Even Jessie acted scared when they saw a roll of dust off in the distance.

  “Indians?” Jessie asked, eyes big as biscuits.

  “No. The wind. Something you see every day just in a different way.”

  “Only new things re scary, huh, Auntie?”

  Ruth considered the question as she watched the child smooth her little apron along her butternut-colored skirt, adjusting it at her hips. She'd seen Betha do that, often. Something in the gesture sent a sweet ache into Ruth's soul

  “Sometimes even what we're used to can be frightening, I guess, if it changes and isn't what it once was.”

  “Huh?” Jessie asked.

  Ruth ran a gloved hand down the girl's bouncing sausage curls as they walked. “Fear just tells us that something is different. To deal with it, we just have to apply what we know, do our best in that new place.”

  “If that dust was a Indian, Papa might have to shoot him, huh?”

  “Not you too, Jessie,” Ruth moaned.

  “What if they come and shooted at us and took Mommy away and—”

  “It's a dust devil, just the wind making the dirt rise up like that. Don't get your imagination all worked up over nothing.”

  “What's magination?”

  “Something you have in your mind, something you play like. A dream, sort of.”

  Jessie walked in silence. “But I'm awake, Auntie. I'm not sleeping.”

  “Strange thinking doesn't require sleeping, Jessie.”

  “Lisbeth says to dream all the time, so I know what to reach for when I'm big.”

  “That's more like hoping, having something to look forward to, to hang on to when you're…mixed up, when you're uncertain. So you have something to remind you of where you're going.”

  “Yup,” Jessie said as though she understood completely.

  Ruth cracked the whip over the ox's head to divert a shift to the left

  “Mommy says they'll steal food from us, the Indians will. Take your horses, too, she said.”

  “If you were hungry and someone had a picnic in your yard, wouldn't you want to join them?”

  “We're in their yard?” Her brown eyes stared at Ruth in wonder, her face holding the awe of new insight. 1 d say so.

  “Wait ‘til I tell Jason He don't know they're coming to a picnic. Tell Lisbeth, too. I'm gonna tell ‘em right away.”

  “Jason's pretty far ahead. Several wagons. You won't get lost?”

  “I'm really fast.” She started to bolt ahead.

  “Wait a minute,” Ruth said. The girl's skirt and apron billowed up around her like an upside-down tulip as she jumped up and down in her excitement to go. Her toes left small impressions in the soft dust.

  Ruth looked behind her to see how closely the cattle and horses followed. She'd heard of accidents, wagons rolling over children, and didn't think she could live if something that dreadful
happened to Jessie. Not Jessie. One lost child was enough.

  “I believe the Bacons would release you from the contract if they could find another teamster at Laramie to take your place,” Tipton suggested. She blinked her eyelashes. She gazed at Tyrell walking in the wagons shadow.

  “Not the point, Tip,” Tyrell said. “I signed on to help the Bacons. They still need me.”

  “Maybe we should talk with my father about me heading on with them, then. I'll tell them that I'll follow the Bacons’ wagon anyway if they don't agree. I threatened to do that before, and it got them to let me come here.”

  “Got them here too, Tip.”

  Her parasol shaded her eyes as she looked up at him. “Which means they know I'd make good on my threat.”

  “I wouldn't let you. Be too dangerous. The Bacons would send you back, and I'd honor that, you know I would. No, better we accept our disappointment and face what is. Set our sights on staying in touch so when you turn seventeen I'll know where to come in California to find you for my bride.”

  “Will you, though? Or maybe just choose another woman to share your life with in Oregon? Someone like Ruth Martin maybe.” She twirled the parasol, the fringe flying almost horizontal.

  “Tipton,” he said.

  “You never say,” she said. “You never tell me really how you feel about that woman.”

  “There's nothing to tell. No reason to be jealous over her or any others.”

  “There are others?”

  Tyrell shook his head.

  “You never say you care most for me, you don't.”

  “I've said it so much the words start to sound hollow A person can't make another person believe something. Either you trust it or you don't, Tip. It hasn't anything to do with me. It has to do with you, believing I could care for you, that you're worth caring for. Some things are taken on faith. I can't pour certainty into you.”

  “You could if you wanted, but you don't.”

  “Doubts a poison taken from a snake, Tip. No call for it between us.

  She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was irritated, so she stomped off, rubbing her arm as she did. She hoped he'd make her come back, but he didn't.

  Alone, she breathed in short, quick gasps, the knoll she chose to climb higher than it looked from the wagons. Her hand tingled. Everything swirled, made her lightheaded.

  She walked faster, her skirts catching on her legs. She could see the lines of wagons fanning out toward the west Far behind moved the stock, grazing and allowed to meander rather than push. It seemed to her that they would be farther and farther behind that way, but so far they'd always caught up to the wagons by dusk.

  The Bacons’ brute and cows tugged behind their wagons; the spots of dogs sniffed in and out A cluster of children leaned over some treasure that hovered in the shadow of emerald grass White tabs of aprons ran down the front of little girls’ dresses fluttering in the wind as the girls jumped back from something a boy said or were startled by the mouse they watched. Maybe she should sketch it. Her hand fumbled for the sewn-in pocket. She'd try to capture the smells of the grasses, the light on the knoll, the feel of the dust on the faces of children.

  But her hands shook, and her fingers ached and tingled to numb.

  7

  patience

  They made good progress, crossing the Platte no less than three times as it meandered and flattened out like an old brown snake. In places, it promised solid soil but didn't deliver. Maybe if it stopped flooding and flowing over its banks, if it ever stayed in a recognized channel, maybe then they'd see more solid ground, Elizabeth thought Still these western expanses made her eyes sparkle with wonder beneath white clouds that fluffed against the sky like fresh feathers.

  She'd met her limit of day-after-dayness. Antone telling everyone who'd be able to avoid the dust by being first in line—after him; who had to come last; his reminding everyone of the leaving time, no matter that they'd made twenty miles or only ten the day before. He wanted animals yoked, coffee downed, and morning fires out by an hour after sunrise. Dr. Masters always needed goading, Elizabeth noticed, not presenting the best side of a doctor's essential attention to detail. He was nothing like her husband.

  Elizabeth bent and reached for her skirt hem between her legs, pulling the material up and tucking it into her belt in the front. She untied the reins and swung up onto her mule, Ink. Wouldn't Adora and Sister Esther have a calf if they saw her now? Let the ladies gasp if they must. Folks who farmed or lacked the luxury of carriages understood— sidesaddling just didn't work.

  Everyone talked about getting to Oregon or California, getting somewhere they weren't, and all the while missing out on where they were. She pressed the reins against the mules neck. Waiting until they arrived at their destination to experience joy was simply too long. The human spirit could not be so patient, could not hold on to the memory of happy moments as the only nurture. It needed feeding daily.

  It was like the black pot she fixed the stew in: she could take venison and beans to feed a dozen, but unless she kept adding potatoes and onions and beef stock back, she'd eventually come up dry. No, to keep the stew always available with enough to give away, she had to keep adding to it. It was the same with merriment: better than a dose of laudanum, without the side effects.

  She wished they'd traveled on the south side of the Platte so she could have seen the Mullalys’ sod house that folks said served as a way station. She might like to run such a place someday. It would give her a chance to rub elbows with a whole range of personalities as people stepped off stagecoaches rolling from here to there. Her husbands habit of bringing people home for occasional recuperation had met a need she had, to be exposed to new and different. After he died and Mazy married and moved away, she'd missed that. The journey west pinched a flush back into her cheeks.

  More people would be heading west Something about the land lured, offered a promise that thrived in open spaces. People running as well as seeking came, and they all brought along their stories. She guessed that was what she'd missed most of all, living alone in the house after her husband died, no one to bring home a story and none to listen to hers.

  Today, she was riding for stories, to see if one could be found where it looked like nothing could live. If she located mule deer or antelope for supper, she'd have added to the pot in more ways than one.

  “Pig! Stop barking,” Mazy told the dog. His big head bunted at her, and he made slobbery noises “Mother's right. You even sound like a pig. Mother?” Now where had she gone off to? Pig barked, steady and high-pitched until she followed, finding herself shortly beside the Cullver wagon.

  “I'm sorry,” Mazy said. “The dog.

  “Were pleased,” Bryce told her. Suzanne sat atop the wagon, Clayton bouncing on her lap. Bryce wiped his dusty face of sweat, and talked to the oxen as they walked. He had bushy eyebrows the color of cashews, and Mazy could see that Clayton had his blue eyes. “Aren't we glad to have a visitor? Suzanne, it's Mrs. Bacon.”

  “I heard the dog,” Suzanne said “Come to see how a blind woman raises a baby, have you?”

  “Suzanne! “ He spread his palms in surrender.

  “In fact,” Mazy said, “I've lain awake wondering how you do it. I can see, and I've got the jitters just thinking about how I'll manage.”

  “You're…?” Bryce asked.

  Mazy nodded, then remembered Suzanne's limitations. “Haven't told many.”

  “Mrs. Bacon's…”

  “Well, won't that be peachy, to have someone to trade baby stories with.” Suzanne threw the words out, pelting each one against the air like hail “We'll just all be one big happy family talking of napkins and messy bottoms.”

  “I'm sorry if this is a bad time. I hadn't planned to intrude,” Mazy said, “but my dog likes you. And now that I'm here, I could take away some of Clayton's diapers, if youxi like. Scrape them when we stop.”

  Suzanne grunted, turned her head away.

  “You're very
kind. If you wouldn't mind,” Bryce said “I suspect his diaper rash grows from my poor handling of it.”

  “Oh, Bryce, please,” Suzanne said. “Is there nothing you won't talk about?”

  Before he could respond, Pig leaped into the wagon box, nudging Suzanne, who slapped at him. The dog merely moved beyond her reach, sat, and panted.

  “He's never done that before, not even with my mother.”

  “Well, get him down.”

  “Come, Pig.” Mazy slapped at her thigh. The dog whined but didn't move. Mazy stepped up onto the wagon to pull at him. As she did, she noticed a sewing machine in the wagon. It was a Howell, a luxury few had.

  “Oh, you sew?” Mazy asked.

  “Blindfolded,” Suzanne answered, pushing at Pig. “About as well as you train dogs.”

  Elizabeth rode over a hill and spied a triangular shelter the color of faded mustard settled among waving grasses. It looked deserted, so she dismounted. Arriving around it, she startled a lone man. Indian! He turned and the sunlight glinted against the knife he held in his hand This was more than a story.

  “Quite ridiculous of him to write to you,” Jeremy said, peering over his wife's shoulder. “Hardly necessary.”

  Mazy held the envelope delivered by some good-hearted soul heading west at a faster pace than the Bacons. She imagined it was meant to greet her at Fort Laramie, but the westbound rider had helped several letters find their way to the eager hands of those traveling with the Schmidtke train.

  “He says his wife had begun the letter, to tell me how the lilacs bloomed, how the garden grew and all. How thoughtful,” Mazy said. The script ran at diagonals over lines written one way with one persons pen then written across the lines by another's.

  “Should have kept it to himself. Its past. Done.” Jeremy checked the water bucket on the side of their wagon. “Saltbox is near empty. Cant get to Laramie soon enough,” he said.