All Together in One Place Read online

  “I'll prosecute and put an end to any too burned to serve, Ma,” Jason said, his missing front tooth showing, “and consume any evidence of my efforts.”

  Betha laughed. “Just like your father,” she said, the first time she had thought of Jed without tears choking in her chest.

  “I hope the carpet tacks'U do,” Mazy said. Tipton pounded with one of Tyrells hammers. “Here,” Mazy said. “Adora had a few and so did Lura and Betha to add to yours. No nails anywhere to spare.”

  “They should work fine,” Suzanne said, her fingers moving across the brass heads. “I can feel the A” she said. “There's &”

  “What're you doing?” Mariah asked, coming up beside the cluster of women.

  “Putting letters on the side of the wagon, so I can feel them and you children can see them. Deborah and Naomi and Zilah, too,” Suzanne said.

  “Want me to write the words in the sand, too, as we go?” Mariah asked. “If I'm such a child.”

  “No offense meant,” Suzanne said “Just anything to teach the alphabet and the sounds. You can take the word back down the line and the Celestials can spell it out, take little short hikes to the alphabet wagon.”

  “We can do some visitin that way, too,” Elizabeth said. “About something other than our feet and how foods moving through us.”

  “Bryce always wanted me to try Braille dots. I told him I was too old, my fingers too insensitive to pick up something so subtle as little pokes in paper.” She rubbed her fingertips together, and Mazy noticed calluses. “He said if Barbier could teach the French military to use dots for night communicating, I was certainly not too old to acquire similar skills.”

  “Always said life's a lesson,” Elizabeth noted. “We're always in a classroom.”

  “Pig's keeping me in mine.”

  The dog looked up at Suzanne as she spoke, an act that ambushed Mazy's heart.

  Sister Esther smoothed her skirts over her knees, set her writing desk on them, and opened her Bible. She needed some kind of assurance that she was not alone in this paradox of trust and faith and now betrayal. What would she tell the girls, their families? When?

  She sat at the low fire, the others not yet up. She missed the time she used to have with Mazy before the girl stopped writing at the fire after her husband died. Esther opened her Bible to Jeremiah, the prophet, at 29:11 : “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

  She had expected the joy of accomplishment, the satisfaction of service in taking four young girls to California. But one was now dead and two of the contracts had been dissolved. What was peace in that? They were all adrift on this overland sea. She could only trust in the Scripture; all else felt confusing and frail.

  Worthiness, that was the word. Tipton remembered now. It arrived on the twitter of a bird, so loud beside the trail she heard it above the wagon clangs and crunch. Worthiness. That's what they'd been discussing there in that desolate place not long before he had left and then died

  “Living to the utmost of ones powers or ability. That's what being worthy is,” Tyrell had told her “You've been given much, Tip We all have. All we need.” A bird had chirped so loudly they both turned to it. He laughed. “Like that fellow. No worries. Careful, now.”

  He worked on a wheel, Tipton remembered. Whose was it? That Dr Masters, a wheel that helped him desert.

  “Sometimes I think folks are afraid of what they're worth,” Tyrell had told her. “So they hide behind themselves.” He'd looked up at her and smiled. “You're like that, Tip. Such a light you'd shine.”

  “You think so?” She'd been both filled and frightened by his words.

  “Shine as far as you'd let it.” He'd continued to work, sweat glistening off his arms from the effort and the heat of the fire he'd built. The force of his hammer vibrated against her feet. Tipton fanned herself with her handkerchief, not having bothered with a parasol. He slid the flat iron rim onto the wooden wheel, tapped it into place.

  “We're all like the spokes of a wheel, seems to me,” he said then, straightening, looking her in the eye “Rolling along on a journey around a strong and sturdy hub. With a good iron rim acting like a bond to keep it all in place.”

  “Sometimes the spokes break,” she said. “Wheel runs over things, gets hung up on rocks. There are accidents.”

  “Just keep rolling, Tip. Stay attached to the center.” He bent to kiss her nose, right there, for anyone looking to see. “God's the center,” he'd said. “We're all just the spokes in his wheel.”

  Oh, how she missed him! She took the silver combs from her hair, pulled off the clumps of brittle blond she found there. She walked up beside the alphabet wagon next to Suzanne and Pig and wiped her eyes with the back of her palm.

  “Tipton? You always smell so good. Pick a word,” Suzanne said. “One to ask Mariah to take back to the others.”

  “Light,” Tipton said. “I'm trying to think on worthy things.”

  It surprised Mazy, all the traffic. People passing them from behind; trappers heading to Fort Laramie; Californians heading back east. It wouldn't have been so strange if they'd stayed on the trail back to Wisconsin. She would never have gotten the letter then, there was always that. And she wouldn't be experiencing this odd fleeting feeling of wondering what lay ahead not with dread, but with a prickle of anticipation.

  More than once they met traders with pack animals heading east who declared they'd be returning to California or Salt Lake. Most tried to buy up their mules and extra oxen.

  “Aren't worth much mor'n a nickel in California,” a bearded man with a grease-stained shirt added. “Take your carpet tacks for ya, too,” he said, pointing with his bearded chin toward the green and yellow wagon that wore the alphabet on its side.

  He moved on to other camps, and Mazy noticed in the morning that he rode southwest with a string of thin mules just purchased.

  “Maybe we should do that,” Elizabeth said. “It'd help Adora out with her cash if she got rid of the mules. They aren't likely to make it anyway.”

  “If they survive they may be more valuable than anything else,” Mazy told her. “Might be her starting fund. No, something about his offer sounded less like hospitality and more like hunger.”

  “His interest in the carpet tacks, that's strange, I ponder that,” Elizabeth said.

  “I'm too tired to ponder anything,” Mazy said.

  “A lie if I ever heard it,” her mother said and smiled

  Perhaps the most important message from the traders, trappers, and eastbound travelers was that if they headed south instead of north toward Oregon, they'd find trading posts and people faster and friendlier, have less risk of being caught in the early severe weather.

  “Still got mountains and all, but it's like the Lord himself has placed help for you, to get just what you need when you need it,” one man told them. “To get to California, you just got to commit to the trail.”

  Just commit. Mazy thought while she milked Mavis, avoiding the cow's tail as it swished. She did seem to have trouble with that notion. Each time the opportunity appeared, she reconsidered, chastised herself: We could have gone back; We should have gone back. I should have. And soon there'd be another big decision. And they had yet to cross the big mountain.

  The road leading toward the rocky crag crossed the river several times. In between, they drove through stretches of road littered with pounds of bacon now gutted by flies and yellow jackets, tins of jam, carpets, trunks, and sometimes whole wagons, discarded. Often they'd seen a carcass first, fallen amid blue lupines, followed by die signs of hard choices, later made.

  “The good thing about crossing so many rivers,” Ruth told Betha, “is that the wheels tighten good with the swollen wood.” Betha rode in the wagon, clutching the sides. All she could see was the drop toward the swirling water, the swiftness of branches that bobbed and dipped in the stream, the shimmer of rocks and hidden holes beneath the s
urface.

  “Look toward where you're going, not down,” Ruth told her.

  Betha remembered Suzanne's accident back at Kanesville. The crossings since terrified her, even on that little ferry at the fort, with just the women, the horse, Koda, and her one faithful ox aboard. She almost envied Suzanne who never had to see uncertainty.

  “I think its the same with this whole journey,” she told the group in their necessary circle that evening, their backs to each other while one woman squatted, protected, inside. Bethas truth had been of her fear of water; her lie that she didn't like to eat chicken. “Every day starts out with sweaty hands and my heart pounds. Then we get on the road. I hear people talking and chattering, and my legs work and my feet keep going even when I wake up so tired I dont think they can.”

  “Is that a truth or lie?” Lura asked.

  “Just fact.”

  “You too?” Elizabeth said

  “I didnt know that starting out was troublesome for you, Mother,” Mazy said. She stood next to her mother in the circle. They shared the same view of an imposing mountain, one they'd soon be overcoming.

  “Not that, just that I wonder if my hip'll work. Always a moment of gratitude when I can bear my own weight.”

  “Is nights for me,” Deborah said. “I lay wake, legs twitch, then sleep chase.”

  “Because you kneel all day,” Adora told her. “You girls need to start doing things the American way, not hang on to old habits so much.”

  “We're not in the States here, though, are we?” It was Mariah speaking.

  “Not until we reach Oregon Territory. Or California,” Sister Esther answered, “though the latter is the only actual state out west.”

  “Where's the ladder Sister Esther always talks about?” Sarah whispered to her mother. Several heard and chuckled. The child blushed.

  “Mornings trouble me the most,” Lura said. She stood and stretched stiffly, tapped Suzanne on the shoulder, took Clayton's hand as he stood beside Zilah. “Just step straight back, dear,” she said over her shoulder. “I kept hoping that once we knew for sure we were heading west, that it wouldn't be so—”

  “I can't picture it real clear, where we're headed, even yet,” Betha said.

  “Do we ever know that?” Esther asked “Even when we think we know our destination, change arrives. We are shaken up again.”

  Mazy heard something she hadn't noticed before in Sister Esther's words. Or was she reading in her own discomfort, living in that place where indecision reigned?

  “What are we to count on, then?” Tipton asked.

  At first, no one responded, then Sister Esther said, “We're told in Scripture ‘not to worry’ not to be afraid, and still we are We do things out of fear we ought not do. But we also endure fearful things, if we can believe God walks through them with us”

  “I worry my faith isn't strong enough,” Lura said.

  “Worrying's what a mother's supposed to do,” Adora said. “What would we do if we weren't doing that?”

  “Laughing and having fiin,” Elizabeth told her.

  Adora scoffed and swatted at mosquitoes buzzing about her ears. Mazy could hear the slaps of women's hands against their necks, the futility of trying to kill the insects off.

  “I think faith polishes us,” Betha continued. “Just shines us up. We have to be rubbed a bit, a little spit and vinegar put to the cleaning cloth so all the heavy dirt we pick up in living every day can be taken off Suppose that's what happens when I make it across those rivers without throwing up my supper A little polish's been applied. It leaves behind a shiny treasure with all the nicks and dents that make us…special,” she said.

  “Stretched maybe,” Suzanne said. “Into risky things.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I'm stretched all right. Everyone else seems to be dropping weight while I'm picking it up.” She patted her stomach.

  “We've all been drawn out,” Mazy said, more to herself than anyone in particular. “Moved further than we thought we'd ever have to go.”

  “Perhaps so we can find the boundaries of more pleasant places,” Esther said.

  Mazy stared at her and wondered if Esther had somehow eavesdropped on the journal she used to write in.

  “You've got to throw things out,” Mazy told Adora. “Leave that chest of drawers We've got a very long and steep mountain to go, and you'll likely lose another mule unless you lighten up. This mule didn't have to die.”

  “I could leave out that big table,” Lura said. Her voice quivered as she stared at the mule.

  “So those traders or that ferryman can come by here after we've gone and get it for themselves? I've got the mules, we'll use them.”

  “This delays us, Mother,” Tipton told her.

  “Leave that big anvil of Tyrell's if you want to lighten the load.”

  Tipton rubbed at her arm. “I suppose I—”

  “For now,” Ruth said, leading a mule forward, “we've got to unharness a dead animal, get it out of the road, and then get these others around it. That's going to take us a good bit of time, even working together.”

  Naomi put her strong back to the effort of unharnessing the mate to the dead mule and then the dead creature itself. The trail narrowed here. Their faces dripped in sweat, those who had pushed and pulled; the rest wore anxious looks as they lumbered past the dead animal.

  “Maybe we should butcher it, dry the meat before we go,” Mazy said. She wiped at her face with her apron. She'd taken to wearing her wrapper again as it was easier in the necessary circle

  “Pretty thin,” Ruth said. “The wolves'll eat it. We need to move on.” Her felt hat shaded her face from the hot sun, but she still rubbed at her eyes with her hand. “Eyes hurt,” she said to Mazy s look of concern. “All the sun.”

  Mazy said, “We might wait for help.”

  “Or just decide,” Ruth said. “Lets move. They look to you for answers, Mazy.”

  “I don't believe that's true,” she said.

  “You don't do any of us any favors pretending to be less than what you are,” Ruth said as she dismounted and pulled on the mule.

  “You're not eating?” Lura asked. “Oh, looks like half your food's been eaten. But no beans?”

  Tipton shook her head. “They make me…well, you know ” Tipton felt her face get hot. “And I'm gaining weight.” She patted her swollen stomach. “We need to lighten the loads, according to Mazy.”

  Lura lowered her voice. “Not my beans, girl. I cook ‘em in vinegar. You can join the circle and not worry a bit when you eat from my pot.”

  Tipton blushed, her cheeks the color of snapdragons.

  “Looks like you're getting skimpier, to me,” Lura said. “Hair even looks…brittle. You got to keep your strength up if you're going to survive. My Antone said we got to eat.”

  “But my stomach,” Tipton told her.

  Lura squinted at the girl's abdomen. “Reminds me of a child I saw once back in New York. Abandoned by his family, living in a rat-infested barn, surviving on grain ‘til they found him. Almost starved to death, all limbs and bones and a fat belly. The only thing that kept him alive was the will to live and finding someone else who wanted him to. Sure you dont want my beans? I sure want you around to try them.”

  At the evening gathering on that early August day, Mazy said, “Tomorrow we make the mountain. We'll be taking one wagon at a time with double the teams. Each has to be pulled up with eight animals then unharnessed and the wagons lowered over the other side with ropes. You'll see trees up there.” She pointed. “They have marks around the trunk that're from the ropes that hold the wagon as it's lowered down, at least that's what the book says The oxen pull us up then they're put to work easing the wagons down over the side. They serve as both momentum and brakes.”

  The women sat like schoolchildren, intent and staring at their teacher.

  “Then we'll have to drive the loose stock around the side. The first question is, Are we ready?”

  “Sister,” Sarah
whispered. “Ain't you gonna pray first?”

  Esther looked at Mazy, who nodded.

  At the joint “amen,” Adora spoke “We're ready.”

  “Are we really? Some of us still have too much weight.”

  “Don't point your finger at me, Mazy Bacon,” Adora said “I don't have any more'n the rest of you, if truth be known.”

  “Truth is, you do,” Mazy said. “I think we all have to go back and see what else we can discard from our wagons.”

  “That'll trouble me,” Ned said, kicking at a hard clump of dirt.

  “Wish I had someone to take Bryce's clothes,” Suzanne said. “The scent…” She swallowed.

  Tipton said, “I'm not sure I can throw out any more. What's left is all I have of Tyrell.”

  “I agree,” Adora said. “Good thinking, daughter”

  “No, it isn't,” Mazy said. “I'm sorry, but that's what all those beds and barrels we've seen dumped out along the way have been saying to us We've got to give ‘things’ up if we want to have our hopes met, if we truly want to get there, all of us together. We've got to decide what it is that matters and make room for that and only that. The more we hang on to, the less room we have for what will see us through.”

  “We've fared well,” Sister Esther said “Since we agreed to head west again and pared down to four wagons, we've had no illness, lost only a few animals. Do you really feel we should eliminate more?”

  “We haven't crossed the first big mountain yet,” Mazy reminded her. “That's the test. Maybe someone else should look at our things. Strip us. It might be easier having someone else point at my…bucket of dirt from Wisconsin, for example, and ask me if it's really needed.” Mazy sighed “If we carry only what we must, I believe the mountain will be ours.”

  “We've never done this before,” Lura said “It's the first mountain. I used to celebrate my ‘first times,’ first parties.”

  “Virginal, are we?” Elizabeth said, and the group laughed, even Esther.

  Ruth said, “I read an unusual definition once, of a virgin.”