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With the sway of the horse’s gait, my mind wandered to other journeys made through this landscape in which so much had changed and yet remained the same. Memories of that last ride with my mother. Memories of Matilda taking me to this place that fall of ’47, taking me to Waiilatpu, that meadow we now came upon. My mouth turned dry and I tried to say something but couldn’t get the words out as we entered the perimeter of what had once been the Whitman Mission. “Place of the Rye Grass.” I spoke it out loud. The grass grew tall against my horse’s withers and it swished against her flesh. It was the only sound I heard as we rode slowly into my past.

There, the adobe mission house stood, transformed by heat and time. Beyond crumbled another such house that emigrants often stayed at, deciding whether to winter with the Whitmans or continue on to The Dalles or race the snow, crossing the mountains into the Willamette Valley. Some had chosen to stay that fateful November and never left this place. I saw charred remains of the grist mill with grass growing through the blackened beams lying like sticks on the ground. Nothing left of the chicken house, smokehouse, or barn. My heart beat in my ears. My father said there were seventy-four people there that November day. Eleven died then; two more of the children later when held as captives. I could hear their cries. My fingers felt cold, sluggish on my reins, slowed by old visions. I could see the chaos, the shallow grave. The sounds were deafening, and I put my hands to my ears, buried my face in the sweet-smelling hair of my child.

Timothy touched my hand still holding a rein. “You are here. It is not then.”

I gasped for breath. Looked up at him. “Yes. I know.”

“Birds sing, there, near the pond. You can hear them?” He moved his horse closer to the water’s edge and Maka followed, taking us with him without my effort, past a lifetime.

“The mill pond,” I whispered.

“It remains.”

“But the mill is gone, burned. How . . . ? I remembered it still standing that day.”

“No. It was taken before you came here that last time. The burning, it was an early sign of trouble. You do not remember it correctly.”

What else did I not
remember correctly?

“Yet it’s part of my memory still intact. How can that be? And the orchard. I thought it was on the other end.” I remembered then a kindness, a Cayuse splitting wood and carrying it for me
to the fireplace, building a fire to warm us.
Were
there other small gifts of compassion?
“Mr. Osborne escaped through there.” I pointed to a falling-down rail fence. “John Sager went for water for us after three days. He was so ill. Shot there.” He’d sacrificed himself for us.

I spoke a silent prayer for him and all the others. The site confused me. It was all so much smaller than I remembered. “The pictures are sharp in my mind but they’re fuzzy here.”

“What we remember is not always a true arrow. Memories fall short or range too far.”

“My mother told me once that the Hebrew word for
sin
could be translated as ‘missed the mark.’ As with an arrow.”

“Your mother taught that grace covers such thoughts, Eliza Spalding Warren. There is no sin in remembering in error.”

But in that moment I felt there was. “Timothy, I’m so sorry. I remembered wrong and blamed you.” How brave he’d been to step into the danger to let us know we were not forgotten. It must have hurt him as much as me to leave. When we cannot offer sustenance to those we care about, especially to a child, the weight of our reliance on faith bears heavy. “Can you forgive me for believing your people had abandoned us, that the Nimíipuu had betrayed me?” At last I used their preferred name, Nimíipuu, as my mother would have.

“It is not mine to forgive.”

“But you didn’t mean to leave me. I . . . I thought you could have taken me away, but I understand that all the choices were horrible ones. You made the ones that kept people alive. The People didn’t send us away; you let us go to the safety of Forest Grove. And I blamed you for that. I’m sorry. So sorry.” I touched his forearm in respect; felt a shifting in my chest.

He put his hand over mine. “Your mother showed us about forgiveness. You must forgive yourself now. It is so.”

“Forgive myself?”

The past swirled back. I saw the priest baptizing the murderers. No, I couldn’t have seen that. It wasn’t done in front of me. We had huddled inside, pushed together into a room awaiting our fate, strangled by the smell of sweat and fear, of moans from those injured whom we could not save. My father told me the priests had done that, baptized the Cayuse who held us.
He
can’t know that.
I breathed faster and Minnie whimpered. I patted her small hand, inhaled the lavender scent of her hair.

Our captors forced us outside then, demanded we carry on, feed chickens, milk cows, make bags for the dead. With Matilda Sager—who was younger than me—we two tugged at the weight on sheets we’d stitched, ignoring blood stains, dragging bodies to a shallow place in the ground. She cried throughout. I moved stiff as a hatchet. Stack after stack of white bags held those we’d loved. My arms and legs ached and still they goaded us to continue. Here in Waiilatpu, years later, my palms sweat. My fingers twitched in memory. “Matilda Sager lived with us for a time but I could not talk to her. To anyone. When I saw her I saw the sheets of bodies and the needles we used to sew them up. She cried so when they came to take her from my parents’ home in Forest Grove.” I felt a sob well up. “I sent her from my family. I abandoned her.”

“Your mother was ill, Eliza. It was better for that child to be where you did not remind her of this place and she did not remind you.”

Maybe that was so, but it was also cruel of me to want her gone, unforgiveable.

A raven circled overhead and in his call I heard the cries of Lorinda Bewley, begging me to tell the hostage takers—pleading—to let her be. “She was a beautiful girl,” I said out loud. “Lorinda. I failed her too.”

Timothy shook his head. “You could not keep her here when Five Crows sent for her. Just as I could not take you with me when I came. You did what you could. She did what she could. We must forgive ourselves the rest.”

Had I done all I
could?

Timothy led us toward a structure, weeds grabbing like old fingers at its side, roots growing through adobe. “In that building or where that building stood we cooked for them,” I said. “And they made me taste all the food first in case we’d poisoned it. There was little food for us.”
Is that true?
“No, after the first few days there was plenty of food on tables. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t eat.” I gasped, a memory clutched my throat. “The priests told the Cayuse to kill the two wounded men we’d been caring for. I . . . Could they have said that? Did I get it wrong when I interpreted their words? The Cayuse made me tell them what the priests had told me.” Minnie fussed. “Shu-shu.” I calmed her as I tried to calm myself.

“You cannot know. You saw through a child’s eyes, remembered through a child’s heart.”

“Lorinda’s brother and Mr. Sails died because of my words.” I heard the panic in my own voice. “Did I misunderstand, did I translate it wrong? Oh Timothy!” I turned to him. “I caused their deaths!”

“Your words did not carry the clubs that killed them.” He dismounted and lifted Minnie from my arms but stood close; I could still feel their presence. The grass waved chest deep. It tickled Minnie’s feet as he held her and she giggled, a glorious sound. “Are you certain you and the priests shared the room?”

Hadn’t I been asked to translate their commands? My father said that’s how it happened, but he wasn’t ever there. All I remember was that the Indians came and killed the men we’d been tending, saying in Cayuse that all who suffered from the
pox would live if these men died, that the priests had told them this and I had confirmed it. None of the priests spoke the language; only I did. “I watched the men die and they would not let us bury them for three days. That’s what I remember.” It was my father’s telling of the story of the baptisms that mixed like tangled nightmares. Did I even see the baptisms of the murderers? Did I hear that at the trial? My father claimed that the baptisms legitimized the killings in the Cayuse eyes so the slaughter could continue. Is that why he so hated the priests? But he hadn’t been there. Had I told him this? Had someone else?

Some of what I remembered was not my own story. It was twisted like tobacco strands, tangled with a dozen other memories of people who were here and others who were not even a part of the terror.

“Tashe, my own horse that Father had been riding, was in the hands of a Umatilla man who said he was sent for Lorinda to be the wife of Five Crows. My own horse! I remember that.”

Timothy smiled. “You would remember that white mount with dark dribbles across its back. You rode as one together in the wind.”

“My father claimed he had left that horse and others behind with the priest when Father escaped, and he blamed the priest for sending that particular animal—so that I would recognize it—and believe my father dead. But . . . it was a roan, with frost on its back, I’m sure.” Hadn’t I always remembered it as Father’s horse? That was how I knew he had died. I was confused, still.

“It might have been the only animal the priests had, sent not to do you harm or, what you say, kindle a fire.”

“I thought my father was dead when I saw that Indian pony.”

“I hear the story that the girl Five Crows took claimed the horse was gentle, she could stay on despite her hands tied and the biting cold. The horse brought comfort to her.”

“That must have been Tashe, then.” Confusion settled into calm. “Father’s horse was high strung with a nervous step. So Tashe comforted her.” There were good things that happened, sewn through the bad. Tears pooled in my eyes.

Timothy lifted a fussing baby up to me. “You were strong and saved your life. People called to you to explain the Indian words and you did this, as a comfort for them. You tasted food so all could eat. If there were misunderstandings, there is no fault. No blame. You were a child.”

In that moment I saw that frightened young child among the rye grasses and wished beyond measure to put my arms around her stiff shoulders, to pull her to me in a comforting embrace. I’d tell her that the future would be fruitful; that she had done good deeds at this place, in surviving in that time. She had cared as she could, spoke words to help others. She had shown mercy. She would grow to be a tender mother, a faithful wife. She could forgive herself.

With the back of my hand I wiped tears from my cheeks, held my baby close.

“You became a hollow vessel inside in order to make room for what must be done. It served you, this hollowness. But now, you do not need it. It takes you away.”

Maka shifted her weight, rested on the other hip as horses do.

“It is the thought that harms you now, not what happened. Live with what is here. A good baby. Kind children. A husband you follow and who looks after you. A father who could not protect you as I could not but who loves you. We did what we could. This is all we are asked to do. All we are asked to do. Mercy is granted to everyone.”

“And I blamed everyone.”

“You are forgiven for being young and frightened and not able to do what you might have done at another time or place.”

I saw then that my father’s vehemence when he spoke about those days, when he included in his letters and preaching the story of Lorinda’s terrifying testimony of being sent to Five Crows each night, when he railed against the priests and all Indians except the Nez Perce, when he admonished me for nearly every choice I’d made. These were acts to fill his hollow places, not to blame me for them. He had thought
himself
a failure, where he was powerless to change what had happened, and so he tried to change each of us. None of us could change the past. We could only transform how we reacted to what life presented, and even then, any guarantee of certain results was as elusive as morning river mist.

I never dismounted that day, liking the safety of the place atop Maka, viewing at that height what had happened, seeing from a distance instead of in the center of the sounds and smells as when I was ten. I held Minnie, and my mare followed Timothy, who walked on foot toward the orchard as he nearly swam through the tall grasses, pushing with his arms, his long hair swinging against his back. His horse was well trained and tore at grasses that looked to be spring-fed as they still wore green.

Then we were at the stream bank where Alice Whitman had drowned. I never knew her but I remember my mother praying for Mrs. Whitman and the other missionaries and “Dear Alice,” every morning between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., their maternal hour. I was doing that with my sisters, but I could expand to Nancy Osborne. Matilda Sager. Even Rachel, give to my girls the same prayer mornings my mother had once shared with me. Maybe I could even take a different route home, to see how Matilda Sager lived her life now, tell her I was sorry. At a future Independence Day picnic or an Old Pioneer celebration we’d stand in front of bunting and tell our stories. We wouldn’t need to retell these Waiilatpu tragedies except to
straighten them out. But no, the stories and my own life would always be tangled not only with my mother’s diaries, but with my memories of her and how much I missed her in my life, and with my father’s stories and a child’s memory wrapped in wounds. No matter how much I tried to control my world, no matter how much Nancy attempted to line hers up, we could not command the future nor undo the past. But we could let God set us free to weave new fabrics. I suspected each of us who survived had found a way to hold ourselves together, and those ways had worked but also taken their toll. Mine nearly cost me my husband’s devotion and my sister’s love and my father’s affection. We could find new ways.

“It’s a place of quiet rest,” I said.

“It is so.”

“Thank you for bringing me. And for granting me forgiveness. We can go now.” I’d already begun picking up lost stitches of memories that might knit over my hollow places rather than make them wider.