Coffin To Lie On (7 page)

“
Dey are
prairie chickens I dink,” he said. “Keep vatching. Maybe you vill
see dem.”

A shorter patch of grass
was ahead of them. Perhaps grazed short by buffalo. Miranda watched
as they grew near. Sure enough she saw some brown speckled birds
that reminded of her of black and white Dominick hens.

The real show was the
reddish gold males, doing a ritual dance. After the birds sang
their woo-ooo song, they stomped their left foot. The birds
pounding the dry ground made a resounding noise which was what
Miranda heard before.

The birds repeated stomps
with their right feet. The pace of the stomps sped up until the
sounds came fast like drum roll beats. Suddenly, males leaped into
the air, twisted and turned. When they landed, they kept stomping
with their tail and neck feathers fluffed up.

They bowed to the females
while they pumped air into the leathery orange sacks on each side
of their neck. Their breasts swelled double in size.

The show continued as the
wagons rolled past. The prairie chickens were oblivious about the
train as the males tried to get the hens to pay attention. Miranda
leaned over to look back. From what she'd heard about Indian
rituals, she wondered if the braves had copied their war dances
from the birds.

What she wasn't so crazy
about was the dirt mounds the wagon bounced over, and the stupid,
noisy prairie dogs that dug them.

Several of the animals kept
watch when the wagons came close. They made loud barks to warned
the others to scamper into their dens and hide until the wagons
rolled by.

Piping plovers were thick
in the tall grass. The birds didn't like their quiet space
disturbed. While the slow moving wagons traveled close to them,
they continually complained with their bell like
whistles.

One day, the scout reported
a large herd of buffalo was in front of them. Jim Coopersmith rode
along the wagons to announce there wouldn't be any walking until
the buffalo moved over. He ordered to keep the younguns in the
wagons and be quiet. He didn't want shouting or loud noises to
stampede the herd.

Now that was quite a sight
to see. Buffalo surrounded the wagons, meandering along as if the
herd was used to wagon trains. Miranda was pretty sure they just
didn't understand what was happening around them.

After a hour of traveling
with the train, something spooked the buffalo. With snorts and deep
bawls, the herd took off and managed to avoid running into the
wagons.

When the buffalo herd was a
safe distance away, the wagon master sent men out to kill a few for
meat.

The plant growth was
sparse they rolled along.
Miranda
surmised,
Anselm was right. Not any decent
wood to make a coffin out of here. Houses would be built out of sod
blocks if people tried to live in this desolate
land
.

Few trees struggled to live
in the thick, tall grass. Most were grease wood. The largest amount
of plants were prickly pear cactus with large yellow blooms and a
great number of tumbleweeds.

In the middle of one night,
Miranda woke up to a clucking sound. It reminded her of a turkey
call. She raised up on an elbow to look, fearing a creepy crawler
had finally found their bed. When she couldn't see what was making
the noise, she woke up Anselm.

“
Vat iss
de matter?” He mumbled sluggishly.

“
I hear
something. What is that noise?” Miranda
whispered.

Anselm listened intently.
“It iss just a flicker tail. De are thick on de prairie. He won't
hurt you.”

“
What is
a flicker tail?” Miranda hissed, watching for any movement in the
dark.

“
You
watch for dem tomorrow. Dey are a small light brown animal vit a
dark strip down their back and bushy tail. Dere right name is
chipmunks.”

“
Is that
all?” Miranda declared, feeling safer.

“
Dat iss
all. He iss just looking for a girl-friend. If you lay real still
and let me go back to sleep, he might not try to get friendly vit
you,” Anselm said, chuckling.

“
Very
funny,” Miranda hissed as she flatted and covered up. She tucked
the bedding under her just in case.

When the train arrived at
Platte River, the bank on the far side looked far away. Some
guessed the distance was about a mile. As the wagons crossed the
water, they found it little more than an inch deep. The current
wasn't strong enough to carry away the red clay mud riled up by the
many wagon wheels.

After the train was safely
across the river, the ground went dry fast. The dust, kicked up by
the wheels, was so thick everyone wore kerchiefs over their faces.
A white coating adhered to their skin and clothes. Even the animals
were dust covered.

When the train camped for
the night, it was hard to cook and eat food without getting it
layered in flying dust.

The wind was so strong the
lantern attached to Anselm's wagon cast circles of light on their
camp. The dizzying effect of the wobbling light was enough to make
Miranda queasy. At least, she thought that was what made her sick
at her stomach. Was it motion sickness or her pregnancy?

Chapter 8

In that arid land, the oxen
pulled the wagon over large rocks. Miranda held on to her seat as
the wagon leaned one way then the other and lurched off the
rocks.

She wondered if there was
anything else ahead that could be worse than all the country they
had traveled in. The mud mired trail in Kansas and the potholes and
gopher mounds in Nebraska were rough going. The chocking desert
dust had been terrible. With such low visibility, Miranda couldn't
see the scenery. Now she thought her eye teeth would be jarred
loose by the wagon's jolt over boulders.

The days all became alike.
Until one dreadful afternoon when tragedy struck. Little Bobby Lee
fell out of the Mast wagon. Sarie Lee screamed for Wilbur to stop.
He tried, but it was too late. A front wagon wheel ran over the
middle of the four year old.

Anselm stopped their wagon,
and the men behind them did the same. Everyone came running to see
if they could help. Wilbur leap-ed off the wagon and went down on
his knees. He scooped Bobby Lee in his arms. Sarie Lee sobbed, and
Jefferson Davis was crying.

Miranda saw an indention
and dusty imprint of the wheel across the lifeless, little boy's
midsection. Blood was oozing out of his nose, mouth and
ears.

Miranda put her arms around
Sarie Lee and hugged her and Jefferson Davis.

Coopersmith brusquely told
Sarie Lee to prepare the boy for burial while men dug a grave near
the trail. Miranda had the feeling he wanted to rush the family so
the train wouldn't lose much time.

Miranda held her arms out
to take the limp child. Wilbur handed his son over to Miranda. She
laid him on the wagon tailgate and washed the dirt and blood off
him. Next she dressed the child in what Sarie Lee called his Sunday
go to meeting clothes and wrap him gently in the blanket Sarie Lee
wanted used for a shroud. Sarie Lee sat down on the ground and
Miranda handed her Bobby Lee while they waited for the grave to be
dug.

Miranda hated the thought
of burying that sweet boy, not much more than a baby, in a blanket.
She walked over to the grave site to talk to Anselm. He was
resting, leaning on his shovel handle, after he had taken his turn
at digging in the hard, rocky earth.

She whispered, “Anselm, can
we give the coffin to the Masts for Bobby Lee?”

Anselm squeezed her hand.
“Na, you haf it full of your dings. We shouldn't unpack dem. Your
china would be sure to get broken. De Masts knew de dangers of
traveling in a wagon train and vat happens when someone dies out
here in de vilderness.”

When everyone from the
train gathered around the grave, Preacher Claymore read the twenty
third psalm from the bible and prayed, “May the Lord bless you and
keep you. May the Lord shine his face upon you and be gracious unto
you now that you are in Heaven. May the Lord lift his countenance
upon you and give you peace Bobby Lee Mast. Amen.”

After the funeral, Jim
Coopersmith pulled aside men with wagons behind the Mast wagon. He
told them when the train started moving he wanted them to drive
their wagon wheels across the fresh grave. He rode to the front and
blew on his bugle.

With a grim face and tight
lips, Anselm headed his oxen for the dirt mound.

Miranda squeezed his arm as
she cried, “What are you doing?”

“
Ve got
to run over de grave and flatten it down,” Anselm said
flatly.

Miranda's face went pale.
“Oh, how dreadful. Why?”

“
Mr.
Coopersmith said we shouldn't leave a trace of a grave. Wild
animals would dig de boy up. Indians might, too, looking or
valuables to trade or a white man's scalp for their scalp
belts.”

Miranda wrapped her arms
around herself and closed her eyes as they drove over the dirt
mound. “Poor Sarie Lee. If she sees this, I don't know how she can
stand it. It must feel like her poor little boy is getting run over
all over again. She sure needs a hug right now.”

That first night after
Bobby Lee died, women made their meals, using the buffalo chips
children gathered for the fires. While the women cooked, children
gathered more buffalo chips to store under the wagon bellies in
hammocks for the time the chips might be hard to find.

Some of the women cooked
extra and carried the food to the Mast wagon, knowing Sarie Lee
didn't feel like cooking.

That was one of the few
evenings the travelers didn't gather to listen to music and visit.
The whole camp was in mourning with the Mast family.

The routine when they made
camp for the night was always the same. Some of the men watered and
fed the horses and watered the oxen. Others guarded the cattle.
Miranda always knew when the cattle settled down for the night. She
heard the men singing as they rode around the softly lowing
herd.

That night Anselm had to
take his turn riding around the cattle to keep them from wandering
off or Indians from stealing some of them.

Miranda hated the nights he
wasn't close to her. She didn't sleep much those nights. Every
noise seemed twice as loud. A coughing spell in one wagon, and a
baby crying in another.

What she hated to hear
worse was coyotes yipping as they ran after a jack rabbit or wolves
howling at the moon. At least, she hoped what she heard was wild
animals. Maybe it was Indians waiting to attack again.

She refused to sleep under
the lean-to by herself. She rested on the coffin in the wagon. That
didn't help her disposition any, but nothing comforted her at that
moment in this God forsaken land full of wild beasts and
savages.

It was a dangerous land
that took the life of a little boy she was very fond of. She wanted
out of this part of the country as fast as they could travel across
it. Heaven help them if Oregon was as difficult to live in as this
land.

There were times, they
could see puffs of dust off in the distance. The men thought it was
Shoshone Indians watching the train pass.

Through the desert, Miranda
saw furniture and other items thrown off wagons to lighten the load
so the teams would make it. Her heart ached for women who gave up
items so dear to them.

Finally, the men decided
any of the cattle that couldn't keep up should be left behind and
any newly born calves. They had to make it to Oregon with the
strongest cattle if the farmers were to have herds. Besides, the
Indians might be satisfied with the strays and leave the wagon
train alone.

It was gruesome to see the
skeletons of horses and hides of cattle that met their death from
starvation and thirst. Even worse was when they traveled by fresh
graves that served as a warning for future wagon trains.

On one wooden cross was the
name Sid Jones, kicked in the head by his mule. Everyone had heard
the same alarming tales of death from mule and horse kicks. The
crosses with the word cholera burnt on them was what spread fear
through wagon trains.

Dust devils whirled around
them, making the women clamp their hand on their bonnets and the
men hang on to their hats. The wagons drove through shimmering heat
waves and over ground divided by large cracks.

People kept their faces
covered from the dust. It was hard to make out their eyes, nose and
mouth sometimes, but there wasn't enough water to waste washing
their faces and hands. The water was for drinking and to water the
oxen.

Everyone despaired about
their outcome when the train passed by a wet weather spring that
had dried up. What a relief when the scout came to a spring with
plenty of water. The train arrived at Barrel Springs the last of
July. A very apt name for a hole of sweet water people dipped out
by the barrel fulls as had every other traveler that made it that
far.