Forsaking All Others (7 page)

I slid the band over the third finger of my right hand, surprised to see it stop at the knuckle.

“Still some swelling there too, eh?” He crooked his pinkie at me. “Looks like a last resort. But I wouldn’t worry. There’s more to being married than wearing a ring, isn’t there? You’re just as married whether it’s on the right hand or left hand, or even a ribbon around your neck, aren’t you?”

“I suppose.”

He picked up his rolled bandages and took a few shuffling steps back to the table and dropped them in the bag. “You know,” he addressed the ceiling, “I’ve always wondered if . . . No, no. Never mind.”

Tiresome as his company was, I knew he’d prolong his exit unless I indulged his question.

“Go on,” I said. “Wondered what?”

“Well, if you Mormon women shouldn’t get a new ring with every new wife. Sort of like a prize. Three, uh,
sister wives
, is it? Well, then, three more rings. One on each finger.”

He held up a spindly hand looking like a bare branch growing from the cavernous pot of his sleeve and wiggled his fingers, something dark dancing in his eyes. I narrowed my own.

“Don’t be ignorant, Captain Buckley.”

“But it’s not a bad idea, is it? Think about it. Then everybody would know—”

“Just stop.” For the first time I felt threatened in my safe little room, and I balled my hand into its first real fist, feeling my nails—long after so many days’ growth—digging into my palm. “Thank you for saving as much of my hand as you did; now I suppose you won’t need to visit me as frequently. Or ever.”

He looked genuinely shocked but not at all hurt. Any insult I intended deflected off him like a bullet hitting brass. He snapped his bag shut and hauled it off the table, trying very hard not to stagger at its weight.

“Oh, absolutely, Mrs. Fox. And I daresay I’ll be glad to get back to tending the men, which is what I’m out here to do anyway, isn’t it? I didn’t exactly sign up to spend my time with a . . . Nope, no. Not going to say it.”

This time I allowed his words to go unspoken, and after a fairly civil good-bye, he left. Of all my visitors—including Colonel Brandon and the myriad of shifting guards—he was the only one who continued to latch the door on the other side. I found myself waiting for the sound of that metal bar before allowing my tears to fall. Seeing my hand, the finality of amputation, settled an overwhelming sense of loss. This, then, was all the healing I could expect. What kind of healing could I hope to see for my family? Twice I had done this—run off in pursuit of freedom, only to find myself enslaved. The first time when I was just fifteen years old, lured by the promises of love and adventure in the arms of a handsome boy. And now I was here, trying to escape those promises. For the first time in my life I was utterly alone. Not because of a locked door, but because of a lost life.

“Father God . . .” I buried my face in my hands, cognizant of the new absence. I didn’t know what to speak to him. I simply repeated my cry and waited for an answer. And then I heard a long, wailing sound coming from the yard outside my window.

“. . . aaaaaalllll.”

It was an unfamiliar summoning, and I cocked my ear to hear more clearly. Still unsatisfied, I hopped out of bed and slid a chair next to the wall under the window and climbed upon it. Raised to my tiptoes, I could get my eyes just over the sill. Outside, the men—some bundled in buffalo robes, others braving the cold in just their woolen uniforms—were running from all directions toward a man who stood on a tall wooden box. He held a canvas bag over his shoulder, and once again, cupping his hand to his mouth, he issued the call that was echoed by the crowd that had gathered.

“Mail call!”

I jumped off the chair and ran to my closed, locked door. For the first time in my stay I pounded upon it, demanding that it be opened, and to my surprise and relief it was, immediately, revealing the shocked and somewhat-frightened face of Private Lambert.

“Is anything wrong?”

“I need to speak with Colonel Brandon.”

“He’s probably out at mail call.”

“Go and find him. Send him in to me.” Private Lambert’s eyes fluttered, and I softened. “Please, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Not at all, ma’am.”

We stood for a few minutes as he rocked back and forth on his heels. Finally I backed into my room. There was an odd sense of respect as Private Lambert closed the door between us.

I paced the room during those moments I waited for Colonel Brandon to arrive, and when he did, I nearly pounced upon him.

“You have mail.”

He looked confused and moved a hand to his breast pocket. “How did you—?”

“I heard the call outside. How is it you have mail delivered in the middle of winter?”

“Oh,” he said, his voice a mixture of understanding and relief. “Yes, of course. We have our own delivery system.”

“So you’ll be sending a post out?”

“This isn’t something I need to discuss with you.”

“I need to send a letter.”

“Mrs. Fox, I don’t think—”

“I need to send a letter home. Back home, to my parents. I need them to know the truth. Where I am and why I’m here.”

I’d worked myself into quite a state by then, and Colonel Brandon gripped my shoulders. “Of course you can write your letter, and I’ll send it back with our carrier. I’ll give it my personal seal, so there’ll be no delay.”

“Thank you.” I felt calmer now. “In fact, would you be so good as to write the letter on my behalf?”

“I could.” He stepped away, his gaze dropping to my mutilated hand. At some unspoken request, I lifted it for him to see, and he encircled his fingers around my wrist, turning my hand at all angles for his inspection. “I’m so sorry. But I’m sure in time you’ll learn to write with the other.”

Embarrassed, I snatched my hand away. “Oh no, that’s not the reason. You see, I’ve been writing to my parents for years—twice a year, actually, since leaving home. And they return my letters. Unopened.”

“I see. Wait here.”

He was gone for just a moment before returning with several sheets of paper and a small black box. In a gesture I’d just recently begun to recognize, he held one of the chairs out for me, and I took what had at some point become
my
place while he sat opposite. The little black box contained a bottle of ink and a pen, and the paper turned out to be good, thick stationery with his own name emblazoned across the top in fine calligraphy flanked by two waving flags.

“Look official enough?”

“Indeed.”

I scooted my chair closer and propped my elbows on the table as he dipped the pen’s nib in the ink, touched it to a piece of blotting paper attached to the underside of the box lid and then to the paper, where he wrote the date in an elegant hand:
January 30, 1858.

“Your parents’ names?”

“Deardon. Arlen and Ruth.” I couldn’t remember the last time I said their names aloud, and I repeated them again, just to double the familiarity.

Colonel Brandon narrated as he wrote, telling my parents that he was writing on behalf of their daughter, Camilla, who was in excellent health and currently under the protection of the United States Army.

“Wait,” I interrupted. “If you say that, they’ll think I’m in some kind of danger.”

“It’s my belief that you are.” He lifted the paper and blew across the ink before continuing.

“Please tell them that I have two daughters—Melissa and Lottie.”

“They don’t know?”

I shook my head. “They’ve never opened my letters. Once, I even sent a lock of Lottie’s hair so they could see how very much it is like mine. ‘Straight as a plank’ is what my mother used to say. And almost the same color.”

He didn’t share my smile. Instead, he looked right past me, and I imagined his mind was miles away from this little room.

“Do you have children, Colonel Brandon?”

“Yes,” he said, shifting his gaze back to me. “A son. Robert. He’ll be twelve years old this spring.”

“It must be hard to be separated from him. I know I miss my little girls terribly. But at least you know . . . I mean, I assume your wife is a good Christian woman.”

“She was, yes.”

That word,
was
, lingered between us, leaving nothing more to be said except “I’m so sorry.”

“Well—” he pushed the ink bottle and paper across the table and held out the pen—“I think it best you continue from here. They might be more reassured seeing the rest of the letter in your hand. I’ll leave an addressed envelope with Private Lambert.”

Having made this decision, he stood, and if I had any objection, I was given no opportunity to voice it. But I didn’t. Instead, I faced this empty page like I had so many others, from the first letter I wrote telling them I had become Mrs. Nathan Fox, to the last one with its words blurred with tears as I wrote about the death of my tiny son. What was I going to tell them now? It seemed somehow pointless to tell them every detail of the life I’d lived since I last saw them. There wasn’t enough room on the page, not enough ink in the bottle, not enough strength in my hand or heart to wrap it all in words.

I stared at Colonel Brandon’s writing, decisive and strong. He’d written
your daughter, Camilla,
in such a way that all the letters of my name were tucked inside the
C
. Protective even in penmanship. I wished I could bring my girls here. To this place. Surely the three of us could live in this tiny room for a while. Until spring. But I knew Nathan would never stand for such a thing, and though I missed them, I had to remind myself that the girls were safe and warm and loved. But what of their faith? What of their hearts?

Much as I tried to recall my father’s voice speaking to me in any kind of warmth or love, only one sound followed me from the home he provided for me to the home I made with Nathan: his shouting about the Mormons.
“Those blaspheming, whoring heathens.”
I know now that he was afraid of them, of what they would do to me. What they would mean to me. He was terrified that I’d join my life to them, the charm of their teachers blinding me to the falseness of their teaching. And now, here I was, scared of the same thing for my children.

I hadn’t added a single word to Colonel Brandon’s. The pain of all my returned letters stilled my hand, and I knew my words alone wouldn’t break through the wall built between my parents and me. What would I say? That my father was right? I couldn’t justify the bile behind my father’s words. Would I simply say that I had left my husband? Certainly I wasn’t the first woman to feel cheated and disillusioned, and I couldn’t bear to tell them about Nathan’s taking a second wife. I didn’t want to be tainted by his sin. I needed them not only to welcome me home, but to forgive me, and how could I ever pour my repentance through a pen?

Words flitted through my head, each emptier than the last, and almost without thinking, I reached across the table and found my Bible. What question could I possibly have that wouldn’t be answered here? Since I couldn’t rely on my own voice, I turned to the voice of my Savior, because he’d told my story in the parable of the lost son. I read the story over and over, seeing myself in the young son who abandoned his father and home. That final sight of my father on the riverbank, gun and torch in hand, gave me little hope that he would be waiting for me with open arms at our farm’s gate. I looked around my cozy little room, hardly seeing it as the vile pigsty the vain young man encountered, and not long ago my life with Nathan had been full of love and children and joy.

But then, there had come the night—that first night when he brought Amanda to the house. I don’t think I ever really believed he would take a second wife. It didn’t seem real until the day he brought her into our home. More so the night he took her into our bed. That’s when I found myself perishing.

Unwilling to face the memories, I faced the words on the page.

“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father.”

That was it. Finally I had come to myself. Free from the tide of Nathan’s affections, free from the never-ending needs of my daughters, free from the relentless pressures of the Saints to join myself more ardently to their faith. I was in the same place I’d been before leaving home almost eight years ago. Alone in a room, Nathan out there somewhere, an undecided part of my future. But while he had pulled me into his life all those years ago on the riverbank, he could not touch me now.

Gripping the pen, I wrote:

Mama, Papa—I write now in my own hand. I have come to myself. I have sinned against you, my parents, and I have sinned against God. I pray that you will welcome me home. Look for me at the gate come spring.

Truly, I had no idea how that reunion would come to be, but I would not think past that moment of reconciliation. After signing the letter,
Your repentant daughter, Camilla
, I blew gently across the page and, satisfied the words were solidly attached, folded the paper and took it out to Private Lambert, who stood and fumbled with an envelope.

“I’m instructed to take this directly to Colonel Brandon, ma’am?”

“Yes, please.”

He handled my letter as if it were glass. “Not sure when the next post’ll be out.”

“Don’t tell me when it does.”

“Ma’am?” The catch in his voice gave the word three syllables.

“If it’s tomorrow or three weeks from now, I don’t want to know. I’m going to assume, Private, that by placing it in your hands, it’s as good as sent.”

“Yes, ma’am.” But he didn’t seem any less confused.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the few lines in that letter brought to light the depth of my sin and my urgent need for grace. He didn’t seem to be strong enough to carry such a burden, and I didn’t want to spend the ensuing months with my ear turned toward the window, listening for mail call. Anticipating an answer, waiting for grace. For I would stay here as long as Colonel Brandon and his troops would extend their hospitality. Come spring I would make the journey home alone, and I would need this time to gather my courage and my strength, because one look, one touch from Nathan Fox, and both would melt like snow.