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Mr. S says the convicted Indians were visited by two Catholic priests who baptized and confirmed them before their deaths by hanging. S should have offered that forgiveness, especially if they claim to be sacrificial lambs to those actually committing the crimes. Does not our Lord promise redemption for every soul no matter how dark? S tells me he and my Eliza stayed for this “carrying out of justice.” Hanging. Oh how I disagreed with him! Both that he announces that justice was served and that he brought my child to witness such. Has she not seen enough death? Where is the Reverend Spalding I fell in love with, the compassionate man who understood humanity, our vileness and yet our ability to be turned around? God forgive S that he seems to gloat in this tragic outcome where death begets more death and the Catholic priests are there to offer comfort while my husband rails against them as new enemies.

I must find a way to comfort Eliza. Maybe Horace can. I’ve failed so greatly in the protection of her spirit.

I must seek forgiveness for my admonishment of my husband in this entry. A wife must defer to her husband except when physical pain is obvious. S has never hurt me—though my mind and heart at times are wounded. Our lives were blessed with friends and good work and a joy in each other. His ordination was a day of celebration and we applied for the Osage mission field shortly after. Our life’s pursuit moving forward as Presbyterian missionaries. I wonder what might have happened if we had gone to work among the Osage instead of the Nez Perce. But I was with child and the Osage option went to other missionaries. Then, I lost the child, and Marcus Whitman found S and within the year we were on our way to the Nez Perce, a choice that changed everything. God gave us the greatest blessings and brought us to the greatest despair. But perhaps that is what change entails, the lofty and the low of living.

12
A Full House

Everything changed the afternoon Andrew came home and told me he sold Maka.

“Why? She’s a good horse. Sure-footed. She doesn’t startle at birds or flying debris. Why would you—”

“You ride off too often. You’re needed here.”

“You’re gone half the time.”

“I’m making a life for us.”

He was doing that. I shouldn’t complain. There was ample supply of meat. The garden had produced well, and I’d dried fruit and strung up beans, and he’d even brought me a box of apples from the Aurora colonists just north. The apples were smallish, but I sliced them and dried them and they’d be good in pies this winter. I’d hoped I might be with child by now, but I wasn’t, a good year and a half into our marriage. One of the joys I had was riding Maka. And he’d just taken that from me.

“If I promise not to ride without your permission, could I
please keep her? I miss Nellie and you were so good to buy her for me in the first place.”

“I won her. Then lost her.”

“You . . . won her? At cards?”

“What else? You think I know how to play your Indian stick games?”

When had I even mentioned the stick games to him? Maybe when I talked of the early years at Lapwai, before The People let my family down. Maybe I spoke too often and too freely of those times watching the games, riding on fast horses, letting my hair blow free in the wind. My childhood had begun and ended there among The People. But I hadn’t imagined Andrew would find resentment in those comments. I’d thought with the smell of liquor no longer on his breath, all was well. Yes, there was another sweet smell but not whiskey.

“But cards? Gambling, with the gift you gave me?”

“It was that or one of my good beef cows, and frankly, those are more valuable than your horse. I’ll get you another. Maybe even win her back. What’s for supper?”

He was so cavalier about it, so abrasive in his ability to simply say, this is how things will be. Was that what happened in a marriage? That men set all tones and women must either play their tune or the instrument of their partnering would be taken away?

“Can there be no discussion of this? I could perhaps sew in exchange for what you owe for the horse. Or trade some of my dried vegetables and fruit; agree to make pies each week for the winner.”

“No one cares about that kind of trade. He wants the horse. It’s what I put up, and now, a man of my word, I’ll deliver. We’ll talk no more of it.” He patted the dog and I had a moment’s ire burn like a too-hot stove. He might have offered the
dog. For what he’d paid for the cattle dog, the horse would still be mine.

Andrew wanted no part of the proposal I gave to him the day after he lost Maka.

“But I could teach school then, earn extra money.”

“We’re fine, I tell you, just fine. No, you need to be here.” He kissed me. “A married woman go to the Academy? Of course not.”

“My mother attended college after she was married. She sat beside my father. You could go too. We could sell the farm and you could become a businessman, a lawyer maybe. One day a judge.”

He pulled me to him. “And one day, hopefully before too long, we’ll have a child. I wouldn’t want you working so hard you’re too tired for tryin’.”

I let him hold me. Truth was I liked the quiet talking that followed our intimate time, especially when he shared his plans with me, his hopes, just as he had when we’d first met, about doing something big one day. He still wanted that ranch, but I thought of other things for him. He was a smart man, and up until this gambling away my horse, I’d always thought him wise with his money.

But I had hopes and dreams too. If I wouldn’t be allowed to go to school as my mother had always hoped for, then I had another plan. It was what I wanted more than schooling; I’d offered the Academy up first as a diversion, a chance for Andrew to say no, making it more likely he might later say yes.

“If not being trained to teach school, if that’s not going to be permitted, then I want to bring my sisters to live with us.”

“What? Where did that come from?” He held me at arm’s length. I was tall enough I almost looked directly into his eyes.

Abby, the kelpie dog we’d acquired, barked outside, and he stepped out to see what bothered her. Apparently he couldn’t see anything so he stepped back in, bringing the dog by her collar with him. “Your sisters?”

“Henry Hart’s gone and Rachel, well, you know about her abilities. My sisters miss me, and if they were here, my father and Rachel could travel together more easily. And there’d be fewer people for him to look after. It would assist.”

“I wonder if he sees it that way.”

“I’m not sure. But I’d like to talk with him about it. If he’ll talk to me.” I might still be dead to him. “He surely wouldn’t allow it unless he knew that you approved.” It had struck me somewhere along these marriage months that my father, while still hostile to me, acted pleasant toward my husband. He’d forgiven him. Not me.

He shrugged then. “That Millie takes a lot of chances. Runs everywhere.”

“She falls down a lot, it’s true. But she gets back up. That latter, by the way, is a Spalding trait.”

He harrumphed. “They’ll have to go back home when school’s in session. Too far to take them every day.”

“Maybe by next term there’ll be a new teacher at the north end.”

I had to walk south through North Brownsville, across the covered bridge, and then a mile or so farther southeast to my father’s home. I decided not to rile the girls with my offer before my father consented. He’d be angry if I went around him, but I hoped he’d see the practicality of it.

He worked at the small table in the front of the church/school, his Bible open and foolscap paper filled with notes beside him.
It looked as though he wrote a letter. Probably to the Mission Board. He was nothing if not persistent. He looked up when I came in, then put his head back down. I could hear Millie and Martha talking briefly on the back steps.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” I said. “I did not die, though you would have me so. Am I so horrid a person because I chose a man to marry you find unworthy?”

A long silence followed. I let it. Flies buzzed. I swatted at them. Finally, into the months of distance, he spoke. “I had hopes for you. One day you’d teach with me, as your mother did. We’d go back to the Nez Perce. The Board will succumb eventually. How can they deny the work we did? After all we did, Eliza.”

He
is speaking to my mother.

“Father.”

He turned back to me with eyes glistening. “We worked so hard. She had so much grief. Losing the baby. And then a second and then you almost dying that first month. You were so sick and Marcus so long in coming to bring medicines. So frail.”

“There were other babies?”

“You were so weak, couldn’t hold down your mother’s milk. We thought you’d die, but you lived and with such promise.” He lowered his head to his hands. “And then you married.”

“It didn’t remove my promise, Papa.” I knelt beside him, looked up at him. “I’m still capable.”

“But not to travel with me to do the Lord’s work.”

“Rachel supports you.”

He sighed. “She does as best she can, but not what you accomplished with me.”

“Perhaps if I had the little girls with me, she could be of more assistance.”

He looked at me then. “What?” Would he be affronted or
see it as a gift?
So unpredictable. So like Andrew
. “You would do that? Take them?”

“If you’d allow.” Anticipation like a butterfly lifted my spirit.

“Warren, he is . . .”

I didn’t end his sentence but repeated its beginning. “He is . . .”

“Stable?”

“I see no evidence of drink.” I didn’t mention the gambling.

My father tapped his cheek with his finger. “Then yes, it would be of great help for you to take the girls with you. I’m certain they would like that. But I’ll miss them, both of them. Henry’s gone to school.”

“I know.”

“You could have gone too.”

“When?” I bristled.
Don’t ruin this.

“If only your mother hadn’t died.”

“Yes, our lives would have been greatly different if Mother hadn’t died.”

But she had died, her last days as vivid in my mind as the sounds of the sheep bleating in the distance. Her hands so cold, her eyes growing glassy, breathing rattling like wind against a broken gate. I’d prayed that she’d be well, prayed aloud. Then to myself, prayed that she’d die, be at peace. She clasped my hand, lifted a finger to answer my childish pleas, tapped it gently. “It will be well,” she said. “All will be well.” I claimed it as a promise yet unfulfilled. Perhaps my father’s permission for me to have my sisters near was the beginning of all being well.

The girls were with me when I discovered a few months later that I was pregnant. It was February 1856. I’d gone into Brownsville to see the new doctor there. I knew already from the stoppage of my monthlies I must be with child. I wasn’t
frightened, though learning that my mother had a stillborn baby while they lived in Ohio and then lost another on the journey overland to Lapwai did cause me pause.

“You’re going to have a niece or nephew,” I told my sisters. They were close enough in age and stature they reminded me of twins. Miraculously, Andrew had acquired Maka back again, so the girls had a horse to ride and so did I. He’d purchased a buggy too, and we discovered Maka was trained to the harness. I’d driven with the two girls as we traveled along the frozen, snowless road into town. Upon leaving the doctor’s, Millie begged to go on to Father’s, to see if he was there. They saw him each Sunday, Rachel as well, but I could tell they missed them. When Father was at home and feeling tender, he often read them stories, Rachel having convinced him of a novel’s merits, and was his old self, the way he’d been sometimes with me and Henry before everything changed.