All Together in One Place Read online

  “Thank you,” Mazy told him, “but we've been well provided for, beyond measure really, if truth be known.”

  “And now you,” Sister Esther said. “Tell us your truths. Weren't you headed to the California gold fields?”

  “I was. I did.” Seth extended his long legs before him as he leaned back against the wheel, scratched his back at the hub. “What I'm doing now is under contract to William H. Nobles of the Shasta City diggings. I was traveling with a train he met up with. Told us all of his new venture. From Minnesota he is, of German stock. He's made a shortcut to the northern mining regions. But it meets up with the trail heading on south, to Sacramento, or you can take an easier route north, along Applegate's Trail on up into Oregon. Uses portions of Lassen's Cutoff.”

  “You took the Lassen?” Lura asked.

  “It was a gamble, but I am a gambling man.” Seth grinned. “We took it, and as luck would have it, we learned later we were the first on Nobles's venture. Shasta residents had raised two thousand dollars to improve the trail and bring a train on in, and there we were, the first to be feted at the principal hotel.”

  “What's feted, Auntie?” Jessie asked.

  “Celebrated,” Ruth said. “Like a big party.”

  “And he's hired you to bring other wagons in?” Mazy asked.

  “So he has. It's a good little town. Timber, pines, oak, meadows along the river. Trinity River country is unparalleled in beauty. Good water. Producing mines. They're needing everything a mining town needs: progress and people. It even has three, no four, bookstores. Just getting ready to open up a school.”

  “We know our letters already,” Jason said.

  “I see you've been working on them.” Seth nodded toward the wagon.

  “You're one we can ask. Why do people want the tacks?” Mazy said. “Several have offered to buy them from us.”

  “Are the letters made up of carpet tacks?” Seth said. “Brass ones?” He stood, walked to take a closer look. “Well, I'll be.”

  “What's the interest?”

  “Of all the things you could have discarded, it's amazing you kept these.” He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Why? What's so unusual?” Mazy said

  “Hanging muslin on the walls is the big craze in mining towns,” Seth said. “All over Northern California. Their nod to civilization. But they've got no tacks to hang it with, no little nails or anything to spare, so they pay their weight for tacks. In gold.”

  “Gold?”

  “You've got a fortune spelled out there,” Seth said.

  “And we didn't even know it,” Adora gasped.

  “I'd like to be feted,” Jessie said and swung her legs as she sat on the wheel. She smiled at Ruth, who winked back.

  “I think you'll have good reason,” Seth said.

  “Soon as we get to California we'll really have something to celebrate,” Adora chirped.

  “Why wait? You're awful close,” Seth told her.

  “We are?” Several spoke at once.

  “You are. Allow me,” he said, “to be the first to officially welcome you. On behalf of William Nobles, I extend this invitation to consider making Shasta City your California home. I'll take you there myself, if you'll allow. And you can celebrate being back in the States, now.”

  “What s the vote?” Jason shouted

  “We have prayer first,” Deborah announced

  “Thank you, Lord, for carpet tacks,” Adora intoned, her hands in the air “Amen”

  “And for good mules and good people and for providing just what we needed when we needed it,” Lura said.

  “I still need to fill my contracts,” Sister Esther told him. “In Sacramento”

  “Direct trail south from Shasta City. I can help you find what you need to know,” Seth offered.

  “There are others of us needing contact with lawyers,” Mazy said.

  “I can get you that, too,” Seth said, his eyebrow raised at the tone of her voice “Almost anything you want we've got at Shasta City, or it s a gateway to it”

  “Except carpet tacks,” Mazy said. “Who would have thought them essential?”

  “They weren't,” Sister Esther said. “They're just the whipped cream on the cake of good eating God always provides”

  “I was just wonderin,” Elizabeth asked him, “if there're any big trees in this Shasta City.” She spread out her arms as though they were an oak or maple swaying in the wind. Fip lurched toward her on his leash and bunted at her skirts.

  Mazy laughed. “Why do you want that?”

  “Why, to build a tree house in,” Elizabeth said. “Ponder that.”

  She gathered up the troubadours harp then and handed it to Suzanne. Jason fished his tin whistle from his pocket, and the two began to play.

  Seth bowed low, offering his hand to Mazy. She hesitated, then took it. He stood taller than she, and it surprised her as it always did to be looking up to someone.

  “Hey!” Ned said. “Everybody didn't vote So are we going to Shasta City or not?”

  Suzanne stopped playing. “Mazy? Its up to you,” she said.

  “We're going all together; all together,” Mazy said. “Some questions though, Mr. Forrester: Will cattle thrive there? Will my garden give a bountiful harvest?”

  “Yes to the first; no doubt to the second. Its a good little town, with orchards already planted. I plan to stay awhile myself. Not a better gamble in all of California”

  “Well, get the bucket,” Mazy told Ned as she dropped Seth's hand to make his dancing offer available to someone else.

  “You going to milk the cow now?” Ruth asked. “I don't think she's got any milk to give”

  “Nope I'm ready to plant Mrs. Malarkys seeds. One of them's a maple tree. Might as well start it so we can transplant it for your tree house, Mother, soon as we find a home.”

  They decided to rest for the day and let Seth lead them on in the morning The big man cooed over Sason, holding the child cradled in the cup of his elbow. The baby stared up at him, sucked on the man's little finger

  “Careful now,” Lura told him. “My mother said men holding babies was catching as a cold.”

  Seth laughed. “A man could catch worse things.”

  He handed the baby back, and the Celestials circled him and spelled out English words to his deep-voiced praise. He stood, his hands smoothing the silk neck scarf that hung down his chest while he chattered with the boys. Ned slapped his cap on his knees to brush away dust the way Mazy'd seen Seth just do it. Jason stood smoothing a red neckerchief that had been his dad's Mazy'd never seen him wear it before. She blinked back tears. How those boys must miss their dad. Now their mother, too

  Seth brought a blush to Lura as he offered to dance with her. Adora and Elizabeth acted as each other s partner. Ruth stood off to the side, her arm draped over Sarahs shoulder. Mazy caught her eye and the woman smiled. A burst of laughter and both women turned to see Mariah helping Jessie onto a defenseless Fip, whom Ned tried to hold with a halter. Clayton, who perched on Tiptons hip, reached out, saying, “Me, now. I ride now. Me!”

  Jessie lasted only a second, sliding west as the antelope jerked east. She landed laughing in the dirt. The children acted, at long last, just like children.

  Mazy clapped and tapped her toes and watched the women, these turnaround souls, her friends worthy of celebration.

  Deborah stepped out of the wagon, carrying a box of bees. Five colonies made it. That was a miracle in itself, though one more box was quiet, and Deborah told her, eyes cast down, that the queen inside had died

  “You took such good care of them, Deborah. Such good care,” Mazy said. “Its all any can ask for.”

  In the other boxes, the tiny insects hovered around the opening Deborah made for them to go about their work in the dusk. They moved in a pattern back and forth, this way and that as though memorizing where they'd been before leaving, seeking and searching the area for the nourishment they needed to bring back to the queen. They danc
ed as they darted.

  When they were sure they knew their way back home, the bees dotted into the distance.

  “Another dance?” Seth asked, offering his hand.

  Mazy shook her head. “But youre welcome to rest your feet,” she said. “And sit beside me while I work.”

  “Work?” he said, his chin lifted in question. “What is it that youre doing?” He squatted down beside her, watching her face.

  “Helping Deborah.”

  “I ask one more thing,” the girl said. “You call me Mei-Ling?”

  “Of course,” Mazy said. “I didn't know.”

  “Does it have a meaning, in English?” Seth asked.

  She blushed. “Beautiful. My mother say so.”

  “As do all mothers, I suspect, Mei-Ling, as do they all.”

  Mei-Ling step-stepped away, and Seth turned back to Mazy. “Are you still helping? Looks like you're resting to me.”

  “I'm talking her bees back home.”

  Home! Her face lit up. That was the word Mazy had been unable to read in her dream, the word the bees had kept her from seeing! They'd almost suffocated her in the dream because she didn't stand out, wasn't unique, wasn't at home in her own heart.

  Mazy laughed, but didn't explain it to Seth—how could she? This journey had been like the bees, a dance to remember, readying her soul to live at home, not in the past or the future but here, where she was.

  “We played a game, to distract ourselves from the miseries getting here,” she told him then. “Of guessing a truth and a lie. It entertained us in our necessary circles. Revealing at times too. I'll share one with you, see if you can guess.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” Seth said

  “I wish I'd never left Wisconsin That's one. And I'll always be at home when I'm truthful with myself.”

  Seth sat thoughtful. “I hope the lie is that you wished you'd never left Wisconsin because the other, to be truthful to yourself, that's a truth worth leaving home for.”

  Mazy nodded. “To be true to yourself—and to love your neighbor as yourself. I never realized what that meant before.” She ran her hands through her hair, rubbed at the back of her neck. “The lie is that I wished I'd never left Cassville. I never would have believed that, I so hated to leave. But if I hadn't or we hadn't turned back around, I never would have known…this.” She nodded toward the people dancing before her.

  “They say in Europe that vintage wines give up the taste of their origins,” Seth said, “that a discriminating palate tastes the place the vines were first nurtured. Just a sip prompts memories of the terraces of grapes under a hot sun, then moves from their tongue to their taste buds to their memory and mind. I think people are like that, some of us. The vintage ones who bring that first sense of place with them no matter where they go.”

  Mazy stared at him. “Bringing it with us, from the earth itself.”

  Sarah approached her with a sampler in hand. “I finished it, Mazy. See?” The girl held it up, and Mazy read the verse from Acts, the second chapter that she'd stitched across the plains. “They were all together in one pkce” Blue columbines and birds surrounded the words.

  “It's beautiful,” Mazy said. “Your mother would have been proud.”

  Sarah left to share her treasure with another, and Mazy said, “That verse—it's from the day of Pentecost, when people from different places came together, waiting to obey. Wind and fire followed, but it was those together that made the difference, became a community of faith. Just as we're doing, risking being known and yet remaining together. The best kind of friendship, wouldn't you say?” Seth nodded. “I might never have known that, nor the joy of the Psalm, either, that the Lord maintains my lot, how he makes the boundaries fall on pleasant places. If I hadn't left home I'd have read them but never believed them as I do now. I'd never let it live in my heart if I hadn't left my familiar place.”

  “Quite a truth,” Seth said. “Some folks live a lifetime and never find it. They die fearing the future more than anything else, never feel the joy of what's now.”

  They watched the women swinging, their faces reflecting life's challenge and change. Pig bounded over and nuzzled beneath Mazy's hand. “Oh, you remember me now, with Sason to compete with.” She buried her face in his fur. He made his growling, slobbery sounds, pushing his big head into her, tugging at her wrist, his tail wagging. “You're a good friend, Pig,” Mazy said, “and always will be, even if you do go off and look after another.” She smiled up at Seth, who reached out to scratch the dog s neck.

  Who knew what tomorrow would bring? But, more, did it matter? They had mountains to cross, new places and people to meet, the loss of the past to put down, replace with hopes woven inside. What mattered was that they were all together in one place at this moment. The Lord knew their lot.

  Mazy trusted that. And herself. And she knew in her heart, that as long as her soul was filled, she'd always be safely at home

  AUTHOR'S NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “I am a part of all I have read,” wrote John Kieran, and so am I.

  All Together in One Place began when I was a child reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and Caddie Woodlawn. Then Willa Cather, diarists, compilers, historical society documents and psychological speculations, and the stories of women I came to know and write about, all nurtured this story through the years. The responsibility, however, for what's been woven—with its errors and speculations—remains all mine.

  All Together in One Phce as a novel began in 1994 while researching A Sweetness to the Soul A friend loaned me a copy of Ezra Meeker s Ox Team Days on the Oregon Trail originally published in 1912. In it, Meeker related his encounter in 1852 with eleven wagons heading east, all driven by women, their men having died and been buried on the trail. “What happened?” became the question that formed this story of triumph and tragedy, of community and connection, of kinship and faith.

  Aside from Meeker s account, no record exists of eleven women turning back, though there are numerous accounts of turnarounds, people heading east instead of west, congestion on the trail because of directional change. These women may have dispersed back in the States; they may have turned west again and gone into California, as none are recorded as having entered into Oregon as part of a group of eleven women. Eleven women together are not recorded at Fort Laramie or Kearney or in Oregon as having arrived that year either, though registrations are said to have dropped off in certain years. Ezra Meeker may not have remembered well; 1852 was his first journey. He was a young married man accompanied by his wife and six-week-old child. The weight of the choices that faced him may well have affected his counting of wagons and women.

  I am especially grateful to the westward diarists themselves, the women who recorded their days on the Oregon Trail, and most of all to Eliza Ann McAuley's recordings from 1852. To historians (and fellow Wrangler Award Winners) Merrill Mattes, author of The Great Pktte River Road, and John Unruh, Jr., author of The Plains Across, I owe much. I am indebted as well to Jim Tompkins, historian, Portland State University, and consultant to the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, Clackamas County Historical Society, for his e-mail messages to me, his commentary on this incident, and his exceptional research on diarists writing at the same time and as part of the same company as Ezra Meeker.

  Caroline Fry did indeed begin a Marriage Association in 1852. Langsforth did patent the design in bee hives in 1852. The French military did introduce night communication through Braille-like dots. The Cholera Years by Charles Rosenberg proved useful for medical information on the nature of disease in 1852 and the commonly held disparaging view of some physicians. The 1937 edition of Old California, & book by Stewart Edward White, both provided lithographic information and told the true story of mining camps and carpet tacks. William Emerson's work The Applegate Trail of 1846 offered sound maps as well as data about what people carried and the inner workings of wagons. Christina Mays book Pioneer Clothing on the Oregon Trail and Keith Mays conversations with m
e from their vast knowledge and passion about the trail provided valuable details about everyday life. Discovering the Oregon Trail, a publication of the Nebraska Historical Society, and the PBS series The West were invaluable resources, as was the Oregon-California Trails Association, composed of people who are passionate about the stories of the West and willing to share them.

  Susan Butruilles collections of women's voices gave depth, I hope, to mine. Sociologist Lillian Schlissels book, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, provided my first image of what I came to call the “necessary circle” among other insights My own circle of women spent hours in speculation about what might have happened and how these women might have responded, who they might have met, what help was offered and accepted, and at what point would they have known that life as they knew it had ended. The value of these women in my life as nurture and protection from self-doubt cannot be counted; from them I accept the wages of care

  The series Covered Wagon Women, Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1852, The California Trail, Volume 4, edited by Kenneth L Holmes, proved especially helpful Unique features of the 1852 crossings are noted there by Ball State University history professor and author Glenda Riley. These factors helped set the stage for this community of care Among them are these: encounters with native peoples in 1852 lacked the hostilities of earlier—and later—years; the bloomer costume made its debut; cholera continued to leave graves in its wake; and more women and families crossed that year than any year previous.

  The effect of more women on the trail, according to Dr. Glenda Riley, was significant. Their relationship with other women, the social and cultural mores that rode with them, gave meaning and purpose to their journey. Many women heading west did not wish to go at all and chose to make the trek only to preserve their families; more rare were those making the trip by themselves, a sign of independence

  The year 1852 is notable also for the entrepreneurs wanting to lead emigrants onto newly developed trails and for those providing relief parties when needed. The Shasta City story of raising money and celebrating new arrivals is based on fact, as is the Nobles Trail information, both from John Unruhs book.