Fire of the Covenant

by Gerald N. Lund

  Just then the bugle sounded, calling everyone to their handcarts. Eric turned and looked, then turned back. “I must go. If you need help, send word.”

  “We won’t,” Mary Bathgate smiled.

  He laughed and trotted away.

  “What a fine young man he is!” Sister Park said, watching him go. “I wish he could find some wonderful young girl in this company and set his eye on her.”

  “He already has,” Sister Bathgate said primly.

  “He has?”

  “Yes. I asked Olaf the other day if there was someone.”

  “Who is it?”

  “His English teacher.”

  “The Scottish girl?”

  “Yes.”

  Sister Park slowly nodded, obviously approving. “Does she know?”

  “Oh, heavens no, Isabella. Our Eric? As shy as he is?”

  “Then perhaps, Mary, you and I had better take a hand and give this a little push.”

  She looked shocked. “Eric would not be happy if he knew.”

  Isabella clapped her hands. “I know. Isn’t it just perfect?”

  II

  Friday, 22 August 1856

  On this, the twenty-sixth day of their march since leaving Iowa City, the fifth handcart company, directed by Captain Edward Martin, rolled out sharply at eight A.M. Two hours later the company crested the top of what had once been known as Council Bluffs. There below them, like a dark brown ribbon stitched against a brilliant green cloth, was the Missouri River. A great collective sigh ran up and down the column. The first leg of the journey was complete.

  As the handcart pulled by Aaron and Elizabeth Jackson and pushed by Hannah McKensie and Ingrid Christensen came up beside the others, Hannah ran forward. “Is that it? Is that the Missouri River?” she cried.

  Aaron nodded and smiled. “Yes, Hannah. And that’s Florence on the far side.”

  “Oh, Ingrid,” she cried, clasping her friend’s hands together. “We’re finally here. Now we can see if Mama and Maggie and Robbie are still in Florence.”

  “Yes,” Ingrid exclaimed. As on every other day since leaving Iowa City, Ingrid’s shoes hung around her neck, the laces tied together. As had become her habit whenever Ingrid stopped, her arm came up and she began to absently wipe the dust from the shoes with the sleeve of her dress. “It’s beautiful,” she said in awe.

  Hannah laughed, feeling a great rush of love for her friend. The young girl from Denmark—blond and blue eyed, with her upturned nose and a smile that started even the hardest of hearts melting—was still there, but she was hidden under sunburnt skin, peeled nose, and cracked lips.

  Not that Hannah was any better. She grabbed Ingrid’s other shoe and wiped it off for her. Ingrid had been true to her word. Whenever they stopped to rest, she would take the shoes from around her neck and set them carefully on the ground, but she never once put them into the handcart, not even at night when they were camped. That was Ingrid. Quiet, shy, so quick to smile—and stubborn as a piece of knotted oak.

  Hannah grabbed her companion by the shoulders and shook her gently. “It’s Florence, Ingrid. Florence. My family could be just across the river there.”

  Elizabeth Jackson watched them, then gave her husband a questioning look. For a moment he wasn’t sure what she meant, but then he understood and nodded. Elizabeth looked at the two girls. “It’s all downhill to the river,” she said. “Aaron and I can manage the cart. Why don’t you two run ahead and see what you can find out?”

  Hannah’s mouth opened in pleased surprise. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, go!”

  “Thank you.” She grabbed Ingrid’s hand and off they raced, the shoes around Ingrid’s neck bouncing wildly as they careened down the hill toward the river.

  •••

  When they reached the river ten minutes later, the ferry was just setting off from the other side, coming toward them. Too excited to sit still, they paced back and forth, their eyes darting to measure its progress every few seconds. When the boat was still twenty or thirty yards away, Hannah could bear it no longer. “Sir?”

  There were two men hauling on the rope and one man helping steer with a long pole. They all looked up. The one with the pole answered. “Now, where did you two fine young ladies come from?” Then his eyes lifted to the bluffs where the line of carts and wagons was making its way down the trail. “Ah, you’re with the next handcart company.”

  “Yes, under the direction of Captain Edward Martin, sir. And can you tell me if the company under the direction of Captain Willie is still camped in Florence?”

  They were close enough for the man to see the eagerness on their faces. He hesitated, then shook his head. “No, lass. I’m sorry to say that the Willie Company left for points west a week ago tomorrow. They’re long gone by now, I’m afraid.”

  For several seconds Hannah just stared at him, as if he had spoken to her in a foreign tongue. Then she turned away, her eyes burning. “We’re too late, Ingrid,” she whispered. “I knew it. We are too late.”

  III

  Wednesday, 27 August 1856

  “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

  Jens Nielson shouted the warning over his shoulder as he threw his full six-foot-two frame against the crossbar of their handcart and lunged forward. Eric and Olaf were together at the back of the cart, arms outstretched, bodies bent, legs digging into the soft sand beneath their feet as they pushed against the tailgate. With all of that, the wheels sunk deeper and the cart came to a shuddering halt.

  Eric dropped to his knees, his head down, his chest heaving. As he watched, sweat began to drip off his nose and chin and make tiny dark spots in the sand. Beside him, Olaf turned slowly, then sank down, leaning his back against the one wheel. If the sand—hot enough to burn the skin—bothered him through his trousers, he gave no sign. Like Eric, he seemed totally consumed with trying to get enough air to stop from fainting.

  Eric saw the cart move slightly and raised his head. “Jens. Hold up. Let us rest a minute.” Then he saw that Jens had only lifted the crossbar enough to slip out from beneath it; then he lowered the cart to the ground.

  “Coming through,” called a voice.

  Turning, Eric watched with envy as a family with five older children came up the hill toward them. The two oldest boys had rope harnesses over their shoulders. These had been tied to the shafts so that they could pull on the cart from out ahead of those in the pulling box. The husband and wife were in what was known as the “pulling box,” that area at the front of the cart framed by the two side shafts and the front crossbar. Three other children were pushing at the back of the cart. With that kind of manpower they moved steadily through the heavy sand. They swung out around the Nielson/ Pederson cart, calling out encouragement as they passed. “Only about fifty yards more to the top,” the man said cheerfully.

  “Yeah,” Olaf muttered beneath his breath, “and then we get to start on the next hill after that, and the next one after that.” Though he and Eric now usually spoke in English when they were alone, they always spoke Danish with the Nielsons.

  Eric watched them go by, not even trying to disguise his envy. “Why don’t we let them take our hundred pounds of flour if they are finding it so easy?” he muttered.

  The sack that they had been given at Florence, and which now sat directly over the wheels, had made a notable difference that they felt every hour of every day when they were pulling. Unfortunately, with Jens Nielson being as tall and strong as he was, and with having the Pederson brothers—two young “huskies,” as Elder Ahmanson noted—they had not yet been allowed to dip into their sack. The sacks of flour from carts pulled by those deemed as weaker cart teams were being used first. When they were emptied, only then would the company start on the others.

  Eric blew out his breath, somewhat mollified to see that behind them most of the rest of the company had bogged down and collapsed as well.

  “Elsie?”

  Elsie Nielson was walking off the trail a littl
e, six-year-old Jens on one side, and Bodil Mortensen, the nine-year-old girl they were bringing to America with them, walking beside her on the other. Seeing them stopped, she was already coming toward them. “Yes, Jens?”

  “Where’s the bacon? We’ve got to grease the hubs some more. Pulling through this deep sand is bad enough, but the wheels are binding up again. We need some grease.”

  Elsie came up beside him, her four-foot-eleven-inch height making her look like a child beside her husband. “I’m sorry, Jens. There is no more bacon.”

  Eric could have told him that. He had taken the last piece of bacon this morning—fat, lean meat, and all—and greased the hubs as best he could. What little axle grease they had been able to obtain in Florence was gone by the fourth day. Now, when they needed lubricants more desperately than at any time since leaving Iowa City, there was none to be had.

  Their captains had warned them that this was one of the most dreaded parts of the trail. They were one hundred thirty-five miles west of Florence and moving up the Loup Fork of the Platte River. The river bottoms were too marshy or choked with underbrush to allow passage, so they had to take to the higher ground where there was hill after rolling hill of sand dunes.

  “Then get the soap,” Jens said wearily. He removed his hat and wiped at his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. It came away dark with sweat. It was barely noticeable because the front and back of his shirt were likewise wet.

  “But, Jens—”

  “I know, Elsie,” he said, “but we can wash in water alone if we have to. If our wheels freeze on us, we’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll get it,” Olaf said. “I know where it is.” He stood and moved to the back of the cart and began to fumble beneath the canvas. In a moment he held up a square bar of soap. It was thick and almost as solid as a rock, the product of animal fat and lye that was strong enough, as Elder Ahmanson put it, to take the freckles off your cheeks.

  Jens took the soap from Olaf and moved around to the first wheel. He reached in and began to rub the soap on the axle with short, even strokes. As he did so, he kicked at the base of the tire that was buried six inches deep in the sand. “Would you look at that?” he groused. “Is there no end to how deep it is?”

  “Watch this,” Olaf said. The sand hills they were traversing were covered with sparse clumps of prairie grass, or what the captains called “prairie wheat.” It grew a long stalk that came to a head somewhat resembling mature wheat. Olaf bent down and broke off a stalk, then moved off the road a few feet where no wheels had broken up the sand. The stalk was no thicker than a string and quite fragile. He stuck it thick end first into the sand, then began to push it in deeper and deeper, as though it were a needle and the soil the softest of cloth. They watched in surprise as it went deeper and deeper—four inches, six inches, nine inches. Finally at about ten inches straight down, it would go no farther.

  Olaf looked up and shrugged. This wasn’t a railroad spike he had driven into the ground. It was nothing but a piece of straw, and it went ten inches down without a strain. It was little wonder that the wheels were buried up to the spokes.

  Jens finished and moved around the cart to the other wheel. “Elsie,” he said as he began soaping that one, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to have your help to get started again.” He looked at his foster daughter. “Bodil, you take little Jens and walk alongside until we reach the top of the hill. Then Mama can help you both again.”

  “Yes, Brother Nielson.” She reached out and took the boy’s hand and moved off to the side so that she would not be in their path.

  “We’ll look for lizards, Papa,” little Jens said.

  That brought Elsie around with a jerk. “Watch closely for snakes, Bodil. Brother Willie said the sand hills were a bad place for rattlesnakes.”

  Eric shook off a little chill. He hated snakes of any size, shape, or species. He moved up to the front of the cart. “I’ll get in the shafts with you, Brother Nielson. Sister Nielson and Olaf can push.”

  Jens nodded and they lifted the cart together and slipped inside the pulling box.

  Olaf stood and put his back against the cart, swishing his feet back and forth until they were buried in the sand deep enough to give him more solid footing. Then he leaned into it, as though he were going to lift the back of the cart off the ground. Elsie moved up beside him.

  “Ready when you are,” Olaf called.

  Jens looked at Eric, who nodded. “All right. One. Two. Three. Heave!”

  It was like pulling a heifer out of a mud bog, but as their feet dug down and the veins on their foreheads bulged, the wheels finally began to lift and then started to roll slowly forward. “Don’t stop!” Jens Nielson shouted. “Don’t stop!”

  •••

  “Why are we stopping?” Olaf, now in the traces with Eric, was peering ahead. One by one the carts ahead of them had come to a stop, and people were sitting down to rest or leaning heavily against their carts.

  “Did the bugle blow for nooning?” Elsie Nielson asked.

  “No,” her husband answered from behind where he had taken his turn at pushing. “It’s too early for the noon stop.”

  Then Eric’s head came up as he saw a figure racing back down the line toward them, bonnet in one hand, her dark hair flying. He jerked forward. It was Maggie McKensie!

  “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Wait here.” He slipped under the shaft, leaving the cart for Olaf to steady, then broke into a run toward her.

  “Eric, come quickly.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “One of the walkers was bitten by a rattlesnake.”

  He faltered a little. “A walker?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t see for sure. People were crowding around. But I saw that woman you call your grandmother sitting on the ground.”

  His heart jumped. “Sister Bathgate?”

  “Yes. I thought you’d want to know.”

  Without thinking, he grabbed her hand. “Come on,” he said, breaking into a run.

  The cluster of people was out ahead of the lead handcarts. This was no surprise. The walkers always liked to take the lead. That kept them out of the dust and gave them the firmest footing. As Maggie and Eric approached, someone said something to the group. Suddenly Isabella Park was there, waving frantically at them. “Eric! Eric! Come quickly!”

  The crowd parted a little to let Eric and Maggie through. Eric felt his stomach plummet. Sister Mary Bathgate was lying on the ground, her face twisted with pain. He dropped to one knee beside her. “Mary?”

  She tried to smile, but winced instead. Eric’s eyes dropped to where her skirts were pulled up around one ankle. Her leg was turned to the side, so he could see the back of it, just above the ankle bone. He grimaced. There were four puncture marks there, each oozing dark drops of blood. What little flesh he could see was already red and puffy.

  “Stupid me,” she said between clenched teeth. Her face was white as a sheet. “I was being so careful. Then Isabella and I started talking.” She shook her head in disgust. “I didn’t hear him rattle until just a second or two before he struck.”

  Eric took her hand and squeezed it tightly. “Him?” he said, chiding her a little. “How do you know it was a male? Maybe it was a girl snake.”

  She squeezed back and laughed, grateful that he could tease her at this moment. “Because he didn’t stay to apologize,” she shot back. “Definitely a male.”

  Eric laughed and put an arm around her back, steadying her. He looked up at the anxious faces surrounding them. “Has someone gone for Elder Willie?”

  “Yes,” Isabella said. “We sent one of the young girls as soon as it happened.”

  “Did you kill it?” a boy in his teens asked eagerly.

  Sister Bathgate gave him a look that would have melted solid stone. “No, I didn’t kill it. Seemed more sensible to sit down and stop the poison from pumping through my body than to get even with that miserable descendant of the serpent who caused Eve to fall.�
��

  Maggie dropped into a crouch beside Eric and Sister Bathgate. “Are you feeling faint?”

  She nodded. “And sick to my stomach.” She bent down and lifted her skirts for a moment. On the upper part of the leg a garter had been tightly tied, biting deep into the flesh. “I stopped it off,” she said to Maggie. “My ankle hurts like the devil, but the poison hasn’t gotten too far yet, I think.”

  “Here’s Captain Willie,” someone shouted. Again the crowd parted as the captain and Elder John Chislett, the captain of the hundred to which the footmen were assigned, came running up. Chislett had a small bottle of olive oil in one hand. Captain Willie had his pocketknife out. He glanced at Sister Bathgate’s face, took a quick breath, then went down on his knees beside her foot. Gently he picked it up and pressed against the flesh.

  She gasped, and her fingers dug into the flesh of Eric’s arm.

  “He got you good,” Captain Willie said.

  Sister Bathgate glared at Eric. “See? I’m not the only one who thinks it was a male.”

  Maggie just shook her head, amazed that she could joke at a time like this.

  Willie laid her foot back down and opened up the blade on the knife. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut it open, Sister Bathgate, and get that bad blood out.”

  “Thought you would,” she answered. The grim tightness around her mouth belied the forced cheerfulness in her voice. “And I’m glad to see you brought the oil,” she said, looking up at Elder Chislett. “There’s power in the priesthood and I know it.”

  “Hold her tight,” Willie said to Eric.

  Eric looked up, motioning to Maggie with his head. She came around and took Sister Bathgate’s other arm. “Close your eyes,” Eric said gently. “Won’t do no good to watch.”

  She obeyed. Sister Park came around and knelt down behind her, bracing her back. “I’m here, Mary.”

  “Be done with it,” Sister Bathgate said to Elder Willie. “I’m ready.”

  Willie wiped the blade of the knife on the sleeve of his shirt, then gripped her ankle firmly with his left hand. He bent over. He made one quick but deep slash between two of the puncture wounds. Under the pressure of the tourniquet, the blood spurted outward. Mary screamed, stiffening against Eric’s and Maggie’s grip, her body trembling.