All Together in One Place Page 23

  “Ay-ee!” Naomi said, pushing Deborah closer to Esther. “Rain sting! Sky burn fire.” White marbles of ice covered the ground around them.

  In a flash of lightning, they watched one of the Schmidtkes’ wagons tip and topple.

  “Sister's God leave?” Deborah asked Esther.

  “He already gone,” Naomi answered.

  Ruth heard the sounds of Koda in distress before she realized her bedroll and clothing were soaked. The hail battered apart the end of her wagons canvas, exposing the dresser that had been her mothers and the trunk that held the baby clothes that had been worn by her twins. Inside was something else, something that had once belonged to Zane. She had wondered why she'd bothered to bring it, but tonight it might prove useful.

  She climbed to the wagon then flung open the trunk. She grabbed up the pair of men's pants with double rows of buttons and the heavy leather boots. Her fingers were cold, and the wet buttons resisted being pushed through the woolen, machine-made holes. She settled for two buttons on each side, stuffed a shirt beneath the wide waistband, pulled on his boots, and pushed the felt hat on her head. She'd packed a rubber slicker of Zane's too, packed way back in Ohio on a hot summer's night when everything that mattered had been stripped from her. The rubber might be hard and brittle now, but against this wind and rain, it could keep her from becoming chilled until she found Betha and the children.

  Ruth jumped down, startled by the urgency of the wind. She splashed mud, her boots sunk almost to the tops. Had it rained that much? Hard enough that water rushed beneath the wagons as though they camped inside a stream? She steadied herself and reached for the lantern, but the wind and rain frustrated the lighting. Ruth so concentrated on finding light that she failed to hear the shifting sounds of oxen groaning from uncomfortable to fretted, working into rushed.

  “Tipton, wake up. Get dressed.” Adoras voice grew frantic. “Right now. Please, get up!”

  “Mother?” The girls voice was dreamy with deep sleep.

  “Can't you hear it? There's a terrible storm. The oxen, they'll push right through this ring of wagons, not a thing to stop them, and you can bet the mules will go with them unless we get out there and hold them back.”

  “It's windy?”

  “What has become of you?” Adora shouted to her. “Where have you gone? Wake up!” Adora shook her daughter's shoulders again.

  “That hurts!” Tipton's head lolled back, and for the first time, Adora let something unknown creep up her neck, enter at the base and tingle at her hair. Dear God, what has happened to this child? She pulled her daughter's soft-doll body to her, then wept for her daughter and for herself.

  Clayton wailed. The buckets on the side of the wagon lifted and pounded against the wooden box with the gusts of wind that swallowed up the air between. Thunder made hearing him almost impossible. “Mommy's here,” Suzanne shouted to him. “I'm here.”

  Thunder! She reached for her son, rubbed his wet arms and drenched nightshirt. His napkins were soaked both inside and out. “Mommy's wet too,” she said, her hands feeling for a blanket that might not be saturated. Finding one, she wrapped the boy in it and laid him on the bed. She stood, raised her arms up over her head, waving them like a palm tree, for the moment unafraid of spiders or wasps or other unsuspected things that might drop from above. She shivered. So cold and so wet. Thunder. A flash? Or did she just remember one went with the other?

  She searched the air with her fingers, seeking information. The canvas was intact though wet, so the soaking rain had to be coming in through the end opening. She felt Clayton moving out of the blanket behind her. He would crawl to the wetter end of their bed unless she stopped him. She tore at the quilt, found the part that was dry and wrapped it around her son again, swaddled him, then held him close.

  “Just a bad storm,” she said, smelling the wetness on his hair, hearing the rain pelt down hard and some odd sound coming from outside.

  Sister Esther prayed. She prayed that the storm would move on. She prayed that the wagons would stand upright. She prayed that death would pass by. And she prayed for courage for herself and for the others. She wanted to dwell on that which was worthy and of the Lord, but the howl of the wind pressed against her like a tree fallen on her chest.

  It was weakness she perspired, feebleness her heart pounded, fear more forceful than her faith she breathed out into the air.

  The life-changing storm when she was eight—this was like that one. They waited beside the squash and beets in her family's storm cellar, waited for the howling winds to pass. If their faith had been enough, wouldn't they have stayed inside the comfort of their beds, confident the Lord would protect? She tried to explore this thinking with her father, but he had silenced her, said she ought to pray, that was what they did inside the cellar, offered prayers of thanksgiving and praise.

  But Esther defied her father that night—in the silence of her heart she prayed for safety, prayed that the storm would pass them without harm.

  One of the huge trees uprooted and crashed across the cellar. It was her grandmother who had reached out to her, brought her close until the wind had stopped and the driving rain no longer pounded against the door. When the winds had hushed, they pushed against the wooden brace and the door opened to a crack large enough for Esther to crawl through, the branches of the fallen tree entombing the others with the potatoes.

  Full of scratches and scrapes, Esther took in the devastation and destruction of the wind. Their house, gone; the roof of the barn, curled up at one end, exposing the rafters inside; trees now just circles of tangled roots.

  “Run, get Brother Conrad,” her father shouted through the crack. “Tell him to bring rope and mules to move the tree. Go now!”

  And she had gone, racing through the dawn hours, slipping on the wet mud, crying as she ran the two or more miles to the Conrad farm. She brought back help and freed her family from the cellar, and she should have been so glad for what she'd done. But her disobedience, her prayers said not for praise and glory but for safety, spoken out of selfishness instead of faith, they had caused her grandmothers last breaths

  Even now, as a wiser adult, the storm brought fresh regret. She was still not perfected in her faith, still harbored fear, and still prayed from that selfish place in her heart. Who knew what devastation she could bring?

  Cattle bellowed and shifted. Suzanne's skin tingled though she could neither see nor touch them. But she heard them, felt their hooves move against the soggy ground. She smelled their fear. They thumped against the wagon tongue, bumped it, jerking it sideways. The wagon shifted. A throbbing came up through the floor, through her feet. The dampness smelled of mud and rain, manure. She thought again that she saw light. A terrible crack of thunder followed, another change in the darkness of her eyes, and then a low and thundering beat.

  Oh, no, please, no! Should she leave, take Clayton…where? Get behind the heavy sewing machine? Bryce's camera? If it fell on them, what then? The harp, the boudrah drum, the violin? How could she protect them? No, think. Got to think. Stay inside or get out, get under?

  Suzanne heard the dog bark, then felt his bulk enter the back of the wagon that shifted, not forward and back, but rocking on two wheels. “Pig, no,” she said.

  The dog didn't tug at her or push until she moved toward the opening to leave. Then she felt his body against her knees, his head pushing her back. She smelled his wetness. He almost tripped her—with his insistence that she stay.

  She shouted, but he stood his ground in the narrow wagon, taking up space. Suzanne eased back toward the bed, holding Clayton close, wishing her body were smaller, her pregnancy not so prominent.

  Another clap of thunder and blast of wind, this one knocking her onto the bed. She cried out, felt the dog's body roll against her as vibration shook the wagon and it teetered on two wheels. This time it tipped.

  Suzanne felt herself falling, the dog slipping beneath her, her arms wrapped around a blanket that held her living son, her body
big and bulky falling, falling forward. Then her face splattered into cold, wet mud.

  Ruth thought it couldn't have lasted longer than eight minutes. In that time, forty or so oxen, the mules, the Bacons’ cows, all seeking in their confusion to be outside the confines of the circle, rushed and rumbled through wagons, jumping on and over tongues, driving against ropes once set to keep them from the eating areas. They'd butted their way through, as frightened in their movement as Ruth had been just watching, catching flashes of their growing agitation each time the lightning sliced across the sky to reveal horns and driving rain and hail on the backs of animals.

  She'd run to Betha, found her safe beneath the farthest wagon, the children huddled. She ran back, swung a leg over Koda, held the horse firm with her knees, his body shivering. She held Jumper by a rope, the animal pulling until she had him snubbed up close to Koda. She thought to sing. She knew the wranglers did that, sang to quiet cattle, but the animals would never hear her against the storm. If she yelled or slapped her hat, snapped the whip, could she turn them into themselves if they started to stampede? She'd heard that could be done.

  She didn't do it. Instead, she stayed on the edge when the next crack of thunder and the flash of lightning so close began the racing of the heavy animals, the flesh of her cheeks vibrating as they thundered by.

  The rain still fell like pitchered water and the wind howled, but light seeped through the morning and with it came a modicum of hope. Daylight shed itself on five wagons still standing, though with gaps of shredded canvas, bent tongues, twisted braces, rims separated from wheel hubs. The other six wagons lay on their sides, some dragged by the disappearing stock, others crashed together, spewing out their trunks and barrels, petticoats and pans, slick and blackened, given up to gushing water.

  Elizabeth knelt in the mud beside her wagon, crying.

  Betha, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and over her head, made her way to the woman kneeling beside her daughter, who was lying silent, her lips faintly blue.

  “She's not movin,” Elizabeth said, looking up, rain streaking down her face. “I've got to get her out of all this wet.”

  Betha held the blanket out like the wings of an eagle, out and over Elizabeth, over Mazy and herself. “Bring her to ours. Ned and I've got the tent canvas pulled over the torn parts. It's partial dry in there.”

  Together the two tried to pick Mazy up, but the slickness of her skin and her weight and wet clothing foiled them.

  “We need help here,” Elizabeth shouted, bringing Zilah from where she tended Sister Esther's bruised head. Naomi followed when Esther motioned she was fine. The four working together lifted Mazy, gentling her onto a blanket they held at each corner, carrying her like a cradle to what was left of Betha's wagon.

  “Check on the others, Betha,” Elizabeth said. “See how many more we got that's hurtin bad. Haven't seen anything of Lura or Adoras clan.” She turned back to Mazy, wiping her daughter's face with her rain-soaked skirt. “I'm here, child. I'm here.”

  Elizabeth could hear the cries of others, some muffled, others clear. But it was Mazy's cry she longed for. She couldn't tell for all the mud and the rain, but she thought blood had oozed from beneath Mazy when they'd picked her up.

  Inside the wagon, she unbuttoned her daughter's wrapper, loosened the collar, stripped her of the wet.

  Ruth appeared at the Barnard wagon greeted by the wide eyes of children huddled in the corner, silently watching Elizabeth tend Mazy.

  “You rub Mazy's legs,” Ruth told Jessie and Sarah. “You'll keep yourselves warmer that way too.”

  The girls scrambled forward on hands and knees. Each stared at a leg and Mazy's ankles, narrow and white, sticking out from the blanket. “Don't be embarrassed,” Ruth told them. “Rub.”

  “What about us?” Ned asked. He and Jason sat still huddled.

  “Come with me,” Ruth said. “I'll see if I can set a lean-to up, with one of the dumped wagons. Get a fire started. We're all going to need warmth and hot food.”

  “Is anyone else hurt?” Elizabeth asked.

  Ruth stepped back out, and the boys leaped out behind her. “Sister Esther's at the Cullver wagon now. I don't see Suzanne or Clayton yet, nor the Wilsons or the Schmidtkes. All the oxen are gone. Guess you know that. Mules too. I believe the Asians have survived without a scratch. Tough little things. I'll find out about Tipton,” she added. “We'll make a final assessment. You look after Mazy. Oh, look, here comes your dog.”

  Pig limped toward the Barnard wagon, a large gouge of flesh hanging in a flap from his shoulder. He stood, tongue hanging out.

  “The inside of his mouths white,” Ruth said, touching the dogs mouth.

  “Lift him up if he'll let you. They can warm each other,” Elizabeth said, slapping her knee to urge the dog upward. The boys pulled on the dog, and he allowed it. He panted inside the wagon, and his wet body brought one more scent to the already rain-drenched odors permeating the space inside. Elizabeth slapped the bed, looked up seeking permission from Betha's eyes.

  The squatty woman shrugged her shoulders and said, “It'll wash,” as Pig jumped up, turned around once, then dropped to Mazy s side.

  Elizabeth swallowed a sob. Mazy hadn't even moaned.

  14

  turnaround women

  For several hours, Mazy moved in and out of being present. She recalled sounds and smells and voices and tried to enter into conversation, but then she'd disappear again, slither down a rock slide of the mind, puddle at the bottom. She heard people speak of water, that what gushed down the ravine lessened. She thought she heard Ruths low voice, something about her boots being soaked, and her mother saying she'd paw through the trunk of her own tumbled wagon to find dry moccasins.

  Still later, she heard Lura tell Ruth, “Be careful.”

  Mariah had spoken into the veil of sensation that was Mazy s foggy life, said something about herself and Ruth riding off to see what, if any, hope they had of rounding up the stock. She thought at one point she heard Lura come in, talk about her hair being soaked and flattened on her head. She'd brought dry blankets, said their wagon's canvas had endured

  It was nearly noon when Mazy made a sound. She heard it herself and knew it not to be a dream but the croaking of her voice. The sound brought with it something so sharp and scorching, a pain so piercing it forced her back to arch. In an instant she knew. The baby! She'd lost her baby!

  Was it the tightness of the blankets wrapped close around her? Maybe it was the dog pressed to her side. Her body hurt so. No, the baby's leaving had forced this new and wrenching grieving.

  “What is it, child? Where does it hurt?”

  “I just—” Mazy thrashed her arms, sending Pig to the floor. She twisted, gulping for breath. In between, she panted, but the pain like a poker seared through her skin. Something deep and precious pressed against her heart. “Mama?” she said as she felt a wetness where it shouldn't be.

  “Shush, now. I know, I know,” Elizabeth said, her voice choking. “But you're still with us, that's what matters. You're still here. We're all still together.”

  “No more, Mama. No more.”

  Elizabeth drew her fingers across her daughter's forehead, pulled tendrils of hair behind Mazy's ears. Mazy could feel the tears pool there, deafening the sounds of rain and gushing water. For the first time, she felt that she was truly letting go of all that she had lost.

  “I'm so sorry,” Mazy said, her voice a whisper. “So very sorry.”

  “Hush, now. Nothing for you to be sorry over. Just rest. When the rain stops, we'll fill you in on what we've got and take a gander at what's to be. It's the Sabbath, and Sister Esther says it's best we send up words of thanks, and I agree.”

  “Laudanum?” Adora said, sticking her head inside the Barnard wagon. “Does anyone have laudanum?”

  “You need it for yourself?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Tipton. She's hurting bad,” Adora said. “A cut, on her arm. Skin's like parchment. She's
so fragile, truth be known.” Adora dropped her eyes and fussed with the parasol handle.

  “Need some to sew the dog up, too,” Elizabeth said, “if you find any.”

  The last thing Mazy remembered before falling back into her fitful sleep was Bethas apron, white as snow, leaning over her. How did she keep it so clean and tidy when all about her chaos dyed everything with ever-darkening smears?

  It was late afternoon when Mazy learned how Suzanne fared The widow with the striking face entered the Barnard wagon. Zilah had Clayton in tow, bells ringing behind her

  “Your dogs responsible for saving me again,” she told Mazy. “Why, I don't know. This time he helped Clayton, too. I don't know what to say.” Mazy didn't hear complaint in Suzanne's voice this time. She wasn't angry with Pig—grateful, it sounded like Maybe she understood that she was all her young son had. And accepting that gave her a reason to live.

  Clayton played with a wooden top painted with stripes of burgundy and black. He rolled it along the bed covers to Mazy, who used the pads of her fingers to roll it back to him. The boy smiled, grabbed the top, and waved it toward his mother

  Mazy stroked the dog, who lay as close to her as she allowed. His sides showed thick white threads stitched by Lura's hand.

  “I wasn't sure what to do in the storm, whether to leave the wagon or stay. I. it¨1 thought the cattle might be rushed by the wind and the hail,” Suzanne said

  “Could a warned us,” Elizabeth said.

  Suzanne actually laughed. “I predict nothing,” she said “But Pig seems to have that ability When the wagon tipped, your dog was there. I landed on him. My shoulder too, but he broke my fall. He must have. Is he wounded bad?”

  “We've stitched a good flap of skin back together, much as he'd let us. Looked for laudanum, but can't seem to find enough to even help out Mazy. You got any?” Elizabeth asked