All Together in One Place Read online

  “You wouldn't be so foolish,” Jeremy said. Mazy took in a deep breath to protest, but his upraised palms silenced her. “You do what you want. You always have,” he said

  “I wouldn't be here if I'd done what I wanted,” she said and turned toward the stock.

  Crickets chirped louder than the frogs as she walked. A coyote called. Mazy's shoulders dropped, and she shook her head. When had her mother begun this behavior? Before this journey, had she pressed forward onto trails only the brave or foolhardy traveled? All she'd ever known for years was that house and the sick and needy people her father brought home.

  “Careful now. Light's fading,” Ruth Martin said from out of the darkness. “You're headed somewhere, hard.”

  “Oh! You startled me!” Mazy said. “I'm looking for my mother.”

  “The lady with the dolls?”

  “I'm sure she didn't bring any of them along.”

  “Just what our Jessie calls her.”

  “I'm sorry. I never even asked,” Mazy said. “Is Jessie better? Did Dr. Masters help?”

  Ruth snorted. “Masters is a quack. Said he could bleed her or offer calomel or laudanum. Like most, he probably got his license in a week.” Mazy watched a look of disgust flash across her face in the twilight. “The child's flush seems to come and go. Someone suggested mountain fever, but I dont think so. Maybe its the climate change. At home, Betha used to bathe the children daily, odd as that sounds to some.”

  “I feel better after a bath,” Mazy said.

  “I think it kept them healthy. I'm hoping it's just an ague that'll disappear once we get to higher altitudes. Seems like she'd do better if we took the time to heat water and wash her clean regular.”

  It was the longest speech Mazy had heard Ruth make.

  As though she noticed her exposure too, Ruth changed the subject by asking a question. “Has your mother ever gone off before?”

  Mazy nodded “Not for all night. I don't think she'd want to worry me. She knows I would. There's a moon coming up; at least I'll have some light.”

  “I admire your spirit,” Ruth said. “But you won't do much good looking now.” Her words lacked the clipped cadence of bristle she used when she talked about the doctor. “I think the men are right, much as it galls me. We might start a fire, though, burn it higher. It could offer a beacon to her. I'll go out with you in the morning if she's still not here, if you'd like.”

  Mazy sighed, allowing herself to feel the tiredness that always leaned on her shoulders now.

  They built a fire, and Mazy sat caressing Pig's ears in her lap between adding buffalo chips to the flames. Several others came by to say good night. Even Charles made his way, his hat pushed back on his head, one foot up on their sitting log. He spoke mostly to Ruth about horses and such and offered to move out Ruth's wagon in the morning if she decided to help search for Mazy's mother.

  “He didn't offer to search, though,” Ruth said when he'd left.

  “He'd have to find something in it for himself,” Mazy said. “At least that's my view of Charles.”

  When the moon globed high, Jeremy brought the wedding-ring quilt out and draped it around Mazy's shoulders. He sat beside her for a time, his arm around her.

  “Your mothers on a good mule. Ink hasn't come back without her.”

  “Maybe they're both dead, got in the way of Indians.”

  “More people have died falling off wagons or blowing against black powder than by Indians’ hands out here,” Ruth offered.

  “My mother encountered Indians,” Mazy challenged. “Maybe she went back. Got into trouble this time.”

  “You're not thinking logical,” Jeremy told her. “You're tired.”

  “Why shouldn't I be?” she said. “Day after day of dust.”

  He kissed the soft place at the side of her face then, and she almost relented, almost allowed him to comfort her. His mustache prickled, and she brushed at her face. He stood, wiped at his nose, squeezed her shoulder with his well-tapered nails, then headed back to the wagon.

  “You've been together a while,” Ruth said after he'd left. She held a bridle and rubbed a salvelike substance into the cheek piece. The scent of it tickled Mazy's nose.

  “Little over two years,” Mazy said. “Known him longer. Nursed him back to health. At leasf my father did. Papa was a doctor. My mother did the nursing.”

  Ruth paused. “I meant no offense,” she said, “About what I said earlier, about doctors.”

  “None taken.”

  “She'll know what to do then, if she's had a fall.”

  “Since we began this journey, she's been so much more…oh, unpredictable than I remember her being.”

  “I guess we're all a little different in unfamiliar places,” Ruth said.

  “She helped my father every day, and as a child she worked in the tobacco fields, she tells me. And as a cook in a Southern home.”

  “Maybe she sees this trip as a…pleasantry.”

  “One of the few who do, if that s so. Not very agreeable when the child has to worry over the adult.” Mazy threw a broken piece of dried buffalo chip into the flames. “Turned around, I'd say.”

  “Your mothers an independent sort,” Ruth said. “They sometimes get mistaken for being self-centered.”

  Ruth set the bridle to the side and began oiling the reins. A coyote barked in the distance, answered by several more. Pig gave a low gruff, gruff but didn't move from his place at Mazy s feet. The air chilled a bit, and Mazy pulled the quilt around her, gazing out at the moonlight reflecting against the cattle's horns like white dashes written on a dark slate.

  “If you want to heat the water,” Ruth offered, “I'd pitcher it over your hair. Always makes me feel better.”

  “I wouldn't want to be a bother.”

  “Wouldn't be. Pass the time.”

  The warm water felt good over Mazy's head. Ruth had strong hands and used something sweet-smelling with the henna she rubbed into Mazy's hair. Later, Mazy stood, her head bent to the fire, the heat and breeze brushing it dry.

  “Can I return the favor?”

  “Washed mine this morning, but thanks,” Ruth said.

  “I appreciate the company,” Mazy said, surprised that she said it. “Think I'll get my book and write some. Maybe I can sleep. You should too.

  “Never much got into writing,” Ruth told her. She sipped a hot liquid. “Do most of my communicating with horses. Taught them lots but not how to read yet.”

  In a while, Mazy walked back to her wagon where she found a sleeping husband. She retrieved her writing book and returned to stare into the fire, smelling the oil Ruth's hand rubbed into leather. Through the evening as the moon rose and then set, the women disclosed a hope or two, expressed a worry, offered solace, just being there together giving comfort. It was how they fed the night.

  “Would you like a large family?” Tipton asked. Tyrell hung the heavy braces across the oxen's neck while dark still brushed against dawn. Tipton stood beside him, snatching up precious moments of his time. “A dozen or more?”

  “Not so many,” he said. “One or two would be fine.”

  “Boys or girls?”

  “Not something we have a say about.”

  “A man always wants a son to carry on his name. That's what Charles tells me. To keep me in my place, I'd guess.”

  “Probably feels a bit uncertain of where he fits in your father's eyes,” Tyrell said.

  “Why should he? He's the oldest. The boy. He'll inherit whatever my father has. Charles'll be taken care of. And he knows how to take care of himself, I'd say.”

  “So will you,” Tyrell said. “It's a father's job until his daughter marries. Then it's her husband's responsibility.” He paused to lift her chin. “I'm not afraid ofthat task.” He brushed her nose with his finger, then kissed it.

  “You aren't?” She pressed her fingers on his arm, feeling the tensed muscles through the homespun shirt.

  “But you need to eat better, Tip. A stro
ng wind'll think you're a kite.” Tyrell touched her hand as if patting a small child before lifting it from his arm, turning back to the yoke.

  Tipton allowed her lower lip to pout out. She felt a desperation inside her, a clutching after clues of ways to make sure she and Tyrell were together, no matter where her family ended up. It took up so much of her thinking, she had no time to eat. She just nibbled at her bread and wouldn't touch the beans, ever, not with how they made her stomach feel, so large and protruding. Her hair felt brittle when she pulled it straight back from her face, and little clumps stayed in her combs when she removed them at night. Mrs. Mueller said it came from “poor feed,” but it didn't matter. Some plans took great diligence before they ever met fruition

  At dawn, Ruth and Mazy saddled two of Ruths mounts and prepared to look for Elizabeth and Inks tracks. Antone said the wagons would have to move on. “We spend one day now, resting, so we need to go, yah. Even your husband thinks that.”

  “Your mother will likely ride in before long,” Jeremy told her.

  “The women should not go alone,” Antone persisted. “We are not seeking a little child lost here but a grown-up woman. Only men should look for her if there be trouble.”

  “And we should just what, sit and wait?” Ruth said.

  Jeremy started to agree, but his words stopped with the set jaw and piercing look that flashed across Mazy s face.

  “All right,” Antone said. “All right, then. We wait and start a litde late.”

  “I'll ride a piece with you,” Charles said. “Hunt some along the way. Well head back by noon?”

  “Agreed, Mazy?” Jeremy asked. Mazy nodded. “Stay within sight of me,” Jeremy directed, and for once Mazy didn't protest his command.

  They fanned out and rode over the first dip of land with pink light spilling onto the grasses and a rock formation in the far distance. Mazy tried not to think of the worst, of stumbling across her mother facedown in the grass; of seeing her injured, snakebitten perhaps, unable to move, maybe even captured, the victim of some dispute between warring factions. She might even have become ill. Elizabeth had described what sounded like measles scabs on the Indian woman's hands. Perhaps her mother had gotten their disease.

  “Don't think about it,” Jeremy said, riding closer to her on one of the mules. Mazy raised her eyebrows in question. “You're biting your lip. That's how I can tell,” he said.

  “You dont listen to my words, but you read my chewed lips,” Mazy said and smiled but for a moment.

  Pig ambled back and forth in front of them. Purple hills filled the distance. A herd of deer Charles pursued kicked up dust. The riders saw no signs of Mazy s mother. Time raced, and Mazy knew Jeremy would soon mention turning back, when Pigs short little ears alerted and he barked his low gruff, gruff ‘warning.

  “What is it, Pig?”

  The dog stood planted, staring ahead. Mazy peered into the distance. Before long she saw a rider, maybe two, coming over a rise Her heart pounded. Something didnt look right. There wasn't a second rider, but something being dragged and snubbed up tight to the mount. Mazy put her hand to her mouth.

  “Let's take this slow,” Jeremy said, pulling up next to her, “It's essential that we don't signal something that we don't intend.”

  “Why have we stopped?” Tipton asked as Tyrell pulled at the lead oxen. The grinding and clattering of the wheels ceased. The wagons—minus the searchers—had moved out late and slow. They'd only gone five miles.

  “Cullvers have stopped,” Tyrell told her as he moved the wagons side by side. The oxen stood swishing tails at the flies. A pale and drawn Bryce Cullver crouched beside the nigh ox and grabbed at his stomach, beads of sweat dotted his face.

  “Something you ate, man?” Tyrell asked.

  Bryce shook his head. His felt hat shoved low toward his eyes made his whole face look square and squashed. An acrid, wary scent seeped from his skin.

  “I …you'll have to go around me. Feeling…need to head out for a bit. Suzanne Jane,” he called back over his shoulder. “You got to watch Clayton.” He turned toward Tyrell then, and Tipton caught her breath with the look of agony that crossed his face Not waiting for his wife to answer, Bryce stood half-stooped and, still clutching his stomach, made toward the cover of the tall grass not far from the Platte where he collapsed on his knees.

  “I'll check on Mrs. Cullver and the boy,” Tyrell said to Tipton. “You run on ahead and fetch Dr. Masters. Get someone to tell Antone to pull up.”

  “I'll check on Mrs. Cullver,” Tipton argued. “No need for you to.”

  “Tip.” Tyrell had already lifted himself into their wagon. “I've got to see to Bryce next. He's not good. Go now. Do as you're told.”

  Tipton folded her arms across her breast and stared ahead When Tyrell failed to plead, and instead stuck his head inside the canvas, Tipton thought better of it. She grabbed at her skirts and began to run.

  “Mercy,” she heard him say behind her. “Got two more sick ones in here.”

  Something in the rider's pitch backwards in the saddle nudged at Mazy as she watched them approach.

  “That's mother,” Mazy said and lifted her arm above her head, brushing her bonnet back away from her face as she did. Pig started to bark and ran toward the rider, causing what moved beside the mule to jerk outward, then back to the withers of the animal as though a yo-yo on a rope.

  Mazy's heart pounded as she kicked her mule forward.

  “Wait,” Jeremy said.

  Mazy saw the rider wave in return; but she couldn't tell what was being dragged.

  Jeremy signaled Charles with a shot from his cap-and-ball pistol, and Ruth and Charles moved toward them. Pig and Mazy reached her first with Ruth close behind “A welcoming party,” Elizabeth said. “How thoughtful!” She sat astride Ink and looked fine.

  “Mother! How could you?”

  “Easy,” she said. “Well, not so easy. Didn't have enough to eat to be out all night. But then I hadn't planned to sleep on rocks. Time just scattered Almost as much as these antelope when they got my scent. You should have seen ‘em! Must have been two hundred. But I got me one. Walked right up to it lying there in the grass. Shivered when I touched him Now it thinks I'm his mother!”

  “We thought you'd been lost,” Jeremy said, his words clipped.

  “I knew where I was. Kept that rock in sight and figured I'd catch up with you by evening.”

  “But what's the point, Mother?” Mazy asked. “Why spend a night out to bring back a what, an antelope?”

  Elizabeth looked wounded, as if she were a child who'd offered up her precious drawing only to have an adult comment on how it might be improved. “Kids need a plaything,” Elizabeth said. “Something to surprise their days. That little Jessie's one.” Elizabeth nodded to Ruth. “She'll have a good time petting and tending it. All the kids will.”

  “A pet. You have chosen to delay us over a pet,” Jeremy said. Pig sniffed at the antelope, circled around it.

  “I don't see that I've dawdled anyone,” Elizabeth said. “You were all washing and such. Calm down. I went to bring medicine to Silver Bells and get some moccasins for your wife's feet

  “You might have spoken of it before departing,” Jeremy said.

  “People don't always say what they're planning now, do they?” Elizabeth said.

  Mazy felt her face burn “I sat up all night, worrying over you, imagining the worst kind of fate. And now we've been riding for hours and have more time yet to get back.”

  Elizabeth turned to her. “Sad you did, but I didn't ask it.”

  “We're responsible for what we do that affects others,” Mazy insisted. “You cant just ride in with an antelope at your side and expect everyone to cheer because you invited kindness but worry arrived.”

  “She's right,” Ruth offered

  “See,” Mazy said.

  “Elizabeth is. We made our own decision about staying up and riding out. Just as Elizabeth did.”

  “I wouldn'
t wish anyone to spend time in worrying, but I haven't caused anyone to do anything. I didn't bother anyone who didn't want to be bothered”

  “You're not alone now, Mother. You are part of…us—this awkward dance we're doing with a dozen partners. And what you do does affect the rest of us.” Her face felt hot, and she wondered if she felt embarrassment for her mother's lack of contrition or her own feeling of foolishness for worrying, for not trusting a simple answer. She'd wallowed in unpleasant places. “I'd be grateful if before you have another escapade you let the rest of us know about it in advance,” Mazy said. “Some of us actually care about other people's feelings.” She straightened her bonnet, yanked at the strings beneath her chin

  “Fair enough,” Elizabeth said. “But it spoils the surprise.”

  At that moment, the small pronghorn jerked her arm and pulled Elizabeth from her mule. The woman landed on her bottom with a whoop, the rope still gripped in her hand. The small animal, not much bigger than Pig, nudged at her, made no attempt to run off. “See what fun 11 it'll be?” she said, smiling up at them.

  The Schmidtkes’ teamster, Joe Pepin, rode up to meet the returning group, eyeing the antelope that trailed behind Elizabeth like a dog. “Several cases of illness,” he reported, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down “One death. Antone says we're holding up. Glad you made your way back then, Mrs. Mueller.” He tipped his hat at Elizabeth. “Who died?” Mazy asked.

  Ruth kicked Koda past them, not waiting for an answer, not wanting to be told, in truth, who had passed on.

  Ruth headed first toward her brothers wagon. Cattle ripped at low grass, and she noted that the land look ravaged of good pasture. Signs of people already passed dotted the area: cold cooking circles, human excrement not far from the water, empty tins of alum and salt. Were a dirty lot, Ruth thought.

  “Hows Jessie?” She said, jumping off Koda and tying him to the side of the wagon as she spoke.

  “Fine,” Betha said. “She's doing fine.” Betha pulled at her fingers, each one at a time “One of the Celestials is down with something, though. And you might ask over your brother.”