True Sisters (14 page)

“Can’t we do something?” Jessie asked Maud as the eastern sky turned gray with the dawn.

Maud shook her head, and the three, the two women and the girl, knelt in prayer until, just as the sun came up, Sophia died. She was buried next to Addison, following a hasty service, because the carts had to move out and departure could be delayed for neither birth nor death.

As the men shoveled dirt onto the blanket-wrapped body, Emeline began to wail. She had been dry-eyed during her father’s burial. But now as the body of her mother was put into the earth, the finality of her parents’ deaths weighed on her, and she threw herself onto the ground and sobbed. Jessie put her arms around the orphan, raising her to her feet, then leading her to the Gray cart. “We must move on,” Jessie said, “but know the Lord is with you in your sorrow. And so are Sister Maud and I.”

Prime had already thrown Sophia’s things onto the ground, and he was anxious to move along. “She can push,” he said, jerking with his thumb at Emeline. “I guess she’s my responsibility now.”

Neither Jessie nor Maud liked the looks of the man and did not want Emeline to share a cart with him. “P’raps I should move my things to the cart so’s I could stay with the girl,” Maud muttered, watching as Emeline shrank away from Prime, pleading, “Don’t make me go with him.”

“You’ll do what you’re told,” he said.

Ephraim spoke up. “She’ll travel with us. Put your things on our cart, Sister Emeline.” Both Maud and Jessie looked at him in surprise, while Emeline gazed at him as her savior.

Prime glared at Ephraim, then at Sutter, but when the two men stood firm, Prime picked up the girl’s clothes and thrust them at her. Emeline didn’t take them, however. Instead, she turned to Maud. “Even though the church owns it, it’s my cart, ain’t it? It was give to Mama and Papa, so it’s mine now, ain’t it?”

“You can’t push it by yourself,” Maud told her.

“No, I can’t, but if I’m to go with you and Sister Jessie, I can trade it to you for your cart, can’t I? Ours is better made, and the axle ain’t broke like yours, is it?”

“Your mother give it to me,” the man insisted. “It’s mine to keep.”

“No, it’s Emeline’s,” Ephraim said, and the others gathered behind him. They unpacked their handcart, and the man reluctantly removed his things from the Gray cart.

When they were finished, Emeline went through her mother’s clothes, which were lying on the ground, where Prime had thrown them. She picked up her mother’s small purse, then asked, “Where’s Mama’s wedding ring?” She stared hard at the man.

He shrugged. “You must have buried her with it.”

“No, her hands got so thin, she feared she’d lose it, so she sewed it in the pocket of her extra dress. Here’s the dress, and look, the thread’s broke.”

The man turned away and began packing his things on the Cooper cart.

“Indeed, sir! I believe you have the ring,” Ephraim said, looming over Prime.

“I believe you can mind your own business.”

“The girl is our business. You’ve no right to her mother’s ring. Do you want to hand it to her, or shall I search you?” Although Ephraim was weak and feverish, his voice was like flint.

“Oh, well, I didn’t think anybody wanted it. I figured it was mine for my troubles.” He reached into a pocket and took out a thin gold band with garnets and pearls embedded in it. Emeline snatched it up.

“Aren’t you ashamed to steal something on the way to Zion? And a dead woman’s wedding ring at that!” Ephraim said, his voice loud enough for other Saints to hear. “If there’s a thing missing again, we’ll know where to look.”

Maud, Emeline, and the Coopers watched as Prime took up his cart and hurried off. Then Sutter picked up the crosspiece of the Gray cart, and Jessie and Maud positioned themselves at the back to push. Ephraim reached for a stout stick that his brother had given him and, wincing, began to hobble down the trail. But Emeline touched his arm and said, “Brother Ephraim, you ride. I’ll push. I’m near full grown and as strong as a boy.” Ephraim protested, but the others insisted, and Emeline, true to her word, pushed the cart Zionward.

Chapter 4

October 1, 1856

That day had been the hardest yet for Nannie Macintosh. She had pulled the cart for ten hours, for fifteen miles, while Andrew and Ella had barely pushed, because Andrew was sickly and Ella’s labor pains had come on the night before. Nannie had called Sister Maud, who’d prepared a foul-tasting concoction of herbs for Ella to drink, and the pains had subsided. But there was still a danger that the baby would be born early. Sister Maud had said Ella ought to be put to bed to keep the labor from coming on again, but they might as well ask for a string of gold nuggets as for a bed in the middle of that awful prairie. And even if there were a bed, someone would have to push it.

Nannie wanted her sister to ride on top of the cart, but Ella refused, knowing the extra weight would be too much for Nannie. Besides, Ella added, she was so tired of pregnancy that she wouldn’t mind the baby being born that day. “I’d rather carry it in my arms than in my belly,” she jested, although the women knew that a baby arriving so early would have a hard time of it.

Before they set off that morning, Nannie had stepped inside the shafts and picked them up. Neither Ella nor Andrew had objected. In fact, both were too weak to push much, so Nannie had had to call on all of her strength to keep the cart moving, for she was too proud to ask for help. The trek that day would have been hard even if Andrew had been fit enough to pull, because they were not traveling over hardpan, but making their way through sand that sucked at the wheels, holding them down. Then it had begun to rain, not the cleansing summer mist of a Scottish day that Nannie had loved, but a hard, cold American rain that turned the road into muck that clung to the wheels, heavy as sadirons.

As she strained with the cart, Nannie prayed to God for the strength to go on. And as if given an answer of sorts, she found her mind diverted from her burden to thoughts of the Edinburgh hotel where she had worked. This time of day, the maids would be gossiping in the servants’ dining room over leftover pastries and tea, some of them adding a purloined drop of sherry or whiskey to their cups. She had loved working in the hotel, the perfume the guests left behind on the towels she gathered up each morning and sent to the laundry, the sharp crack of the starched sheets as she spread them on the beds.

The job had paid well enough, and on her afternoons off, Nannie had walked through the old streets, looking at the goods displayed in the windows, sometimes entering the shops to purchase a bonnet or a scarf or the silver brooch in the shape of a thistle that she had brought with her to America, pinned to her chemise. When she’d grown tired, she’d stopped at a tea shop for a Sally Lunn with jam and a cup of tea. If she were caught in the rain, Nannie would dash back to the hotel, because she did not want her clothes to get wet. Now she glanced down at her soaked skirt, its hem thick with mud, and tightened the wet shawl over her wet hair. The dress had once been blue gingham, but the color was faded, the white dingy. What would the other maids think if they could see her now?

Hers had been a pleasant life. It would be yet if she had not joined the Latter-day Saints, but the Gospel offered far more than a good time. It offered a return to the church as it was in the days of the apostles, the true church, and a chance to make something of herself. And that was worth tramping across half of a continent in the rain. Thinking of her blessings renewed Nannie’s strength, and she pushed harder, picking up the words of “Come, Come, Ye Saints” that others had begun to sing. Nothing, not the rain nor the strain on her body, could weaken her belief.

Her back, however, was not as strong as her faith, and she wondered how much farther she could pull. She asked God to give her strength, and just then, Old Absalom, the man who had spoken out in Florence against continuing the trip, came up beside her. “Ye needing help?” he asked. He did not look as if he could walk the distance, let alone pull a handcart, and Nannie thought to turn him down. As if he understood Nannie’s mind, Absalom said, “I may look like a skeleton, but these old bones are plenty strong. I can match my strength against that of any man. You let me pull, Sister, and you push.” Nannie relinquished the shafts, and in a moment, they were moving along as quickly as she had when she’d started out.

The dark was closing in by the time they made it to camp, Old Absalom disappearing as soon as the cart was still. Nannie insisted that Ella and Andrew find room in the tent to keep warm and take a resting spell while she fixed their supper. It would be a poor supper, she knew, and not just because of the weather. Rations were running low. The elders had believed the Saints would travel faster, and although on some days they made nearly twenty miles, they were still behind schedule. Their food would run out if they did not cut back on what they ate. Since there were no supplies waiting along the first part of the route, rations had been cut from a pound of flour a day for each adult to three-quarters of a pound, with children getting even less. That was barely enough to keep the Saints going, and Nannie suffered more than others, since she gave a portion of her porridge to Ella to build up her strength.

Before she fixed the supper, Nannie would have to find fuel. She had not picked it up along the way because she hadn’t wanted to add to the weight of the cart. So now, she was forced to search for broken brush or dried buffalo chips, those round disks of dung that the pioneers used for fuel. Even if Nannie found enough of them for a fire, they would be wet and hard to light. But she had no choice, so she drew her shawl over her head and held it close under her chin while she went in search of the animal droppings. The rain beat down on her, and she wished that she had picked up the umbrella she’d seen Thales Tanner’s sister-in-law discarding in Florence.
That
was a little bit of weight she would not have minded pulling.

There was no fuel to be found near the camp, of course, since the Saints who had arrived earlier had already collected it. So Nannie wandered far out onto the prairie in her search, picking up the circles of wet dung, which stank like a backhouse. She did not realize how far she’d walked until she turned and glanced back toward the camp, which was little more than dots of campfire under the darkening sky. She had gone such a distance and the wind blew so hard that she could not even hear the din. But that meant she would not be able to hear the blasted cornet calling her to prayers, either, and Nannie found herself smiling. The Lord moved in mysterious ways, and that was His blessing for her. She wondered if the unpleasantness she had encountered that day was a blessing, too. Perhaps God was testing her with the burden He put on her shoulders. Certainly the trip was not as easy as she’d expected when she’d agreed to go to America. There had to be a purpose to the hardships. Perhaps when the elders said that God wanted only the strong to go to Zion, they meant those who were strong in body as well as faith. Well, she was strong in both, and she would pull the cart by herself all the way to Great Salt Lake City if she had to. Nannie Macintosh would not be found wanting. She would follow the fortunes of the Latter-day faith. She brightened then, knowing it could be worse.

Then she knew it was. A man loomed out of the darkling prairie, a blanket wrapped around him—an Indian—and she shivered as she watched him make his way toward her. The Mormons had encountered Indians on the trip, men mostly, who came into the camps to trade for the little the Mormons had to offer. Some of the Saints hired Indians to kill buffalo, since they had been admonished to leave the animals alone, for fear of angering the Indians and giving them cause to attack the handcarts. The prohibition against hunting was not such an inconvenience as it might have been, because few of the emigrants—and Andrew was among these—had guns, and even fewer of them knew how to shoot a buffalo. So instead, the Saints traded trinkets and articles of clothing to the Indians for meat. It was cheap. Nannie gave a handkerchief for enough meat for a stew that lasted three days. Another Mormon she knew paid just a nickel for half a side of buffalo.

Knowing the Indians were outnumbered and had no reason to attack the train, Nannie had not been afraid of them, but instead, she had looked at them with wonderment, the men all but naked under the paint they smeared on their bodies, the few women stolid, solemn, as curious about the white people as the emigrants were about the savages. The Indian men had been fascinated by the carts, and she’d seen one or two even push them for the emigrants, although they quickly tired of the work.

Of course, the Mormons had been warned not to stray far from the main body of brethren when they traveled through Indian country, and with good reason. The leaders told stories of wagon trains that had been attacked by Indians, the travelers murdered and mutilated in a most foul manner.

Now Nannie watched with fear as the man in the blanket came toward her. She thought to run, but how could she, weighted down with her wet, muddy skirts? He would catch her in two steps. So instead, she stood quietly and prayed.

“Don’t be alarmed.”

Nannie realized with a start that the man was not an Indian, but one of the emigrants, who was wrapped in a blanket to protect himself from the rain.

“I saw you leave and followed you, thinking you might need help.”

The voice was warm and familiar, and Nannie thanked the Lord that he had come to her aid. “I am obliged. I’m hunting fuel.”

The man came close to her then and removed the blanket from his head. “I thought you might be, Sister Nan. It’s dark as Egypt out here, and I wouldn’t want you to be lost.”

“Och!” Nannie murmured, as chilled as she had been when she had mistaken him for an Indian. She almost wished he were, because of all men in the train, Levi Kirkwood was the last she wanted to see. “Ye had no right to follow me.”

“Surely you know I couldn’t let you go off onto the prairie by yourself, not after you were hard-worked all day. I saw you pulling your cart. That’s why I came to help.”