Fire of the Covenant

by Gerald N. Lund

  “I shall. Do you think a week is too soon to be proper?”

  “I think a week is much too long, but if you insist . . .” She put her arms around him and clung to him for a long time, growing very quiet now. “In a week, we’ll know, Eric. We’ll know what’s going to happen. Yes, a week is fine.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” he started to protest, but she cut him off.

  “You must promise me one thing, Eric.”

  “What?”

  He started to pull back, but she wouldn’t let him. “Promise me!”

  “I promise.”

  “If I . . .” She couldn’t say it. Not now when the happiness inside her was like a glowing ball of light. “If something happens, I expect you to remarry, Eric. I expect—”

  “No, Maggie!”

  “Just listen to me,” she said softly, her heart so filled with love now that she could hardly speak. “I don’t care if you remarry. I want you to. But promise me, Eric. Promise me that when you get to Salt Lake you will be sealed to me in the new Endowment House. You can be sealed to more than one woman. Just promise me that I will have you forever.”

  “You are not—”

  “Promise me, Eric. Please!”

  He clung to her, burying his face against her again. “I promise.”

  Suddenly she was all matter-of-fact. “Good. Now there is one more thing.”

  He straightened. “What?”

  “I have just discovered the most wonderful medicine for my sickness, Eric.”

  “What?”

  She laughed in soft delight, and tapped her finger to her lips. “I’m not sure what they call it, but it needs to be applied right here at least twice a day.”

  II

  Wednesday, 15 October 1856

  When Maggie stepped outside her tent the next morning, Eric was there talking to her mother. She had heard him come, and they were close enough to the tent that she had heard the debate over whether she would have to ride in the wagons or if they could carry her again in the handcart. So she had finished dressing quickly, then stepped outside.

  They both turned as she came out. Eric’s mouth dropped open at the sight of her. He couldn’t believe the transformation. Her head was high and she was smiling radiantly. Her dark hair was pulled back in a French braid—Sarah’s doing, Eric guessed—and she walked with a visible bounce in her step. Her skin was still pale, and he could see the shadows around her eyes, but the eyes themselves were literally dancing with life.

  “My goodness,” Mary McKensie said. “Is that you, Maggie?”

  Sarah James came out of the tent right behind her. She was smiling broadly. “No, this is some other young woman who has just joined our company. Let me introduce you.”

  Maggie laughed merrily and came over and gave her mother a hug.

  “You look so much better, Maggie.”

  “I am so much better.” She looked over her mother’s shoulder at Eric. “I found some medicine that really made a difference.”

  Sarah hooted aloud and Eric blushed deeply, suspecting that Maggie had told her friend everything.

  “Mother,” Maggie said, taking a step back.

  “Yes?”

  “Eric asked me to marry him yesterday afternoon.”

  Behind her, Emma James leaped to her feet and squealed aloud. “Really?”

  “Ah,” Mary said with deep satisfaction. “So that is the medicine.”

  “Kind of.” Maggie reached out her hand and Eric stepped forward and took it.

  William James was staring. Sister James had one hand to her mouth, shaking her head with joy, tears springing to her eyes. “Oh, Maggie. How wonderful!”

  Robbie was up and bouncing as if he were on a spring. “Really, Eric? Really? You’re going to be my brother?”

  “Well, I must ask your mother first if it is all right.”

  “You don’t have to ask.” Mary was crying now, her face filled with happiness. “You know the answer to that.”

  “When? When?” Emma was darting around, hurling the question first at Maggie and then at Eric. Reuben James was smiling and pounding Robbie on the back.

  Eric turned to Maggie’s mother. “I just begin courtship. If this were a normal life, I would ask for maybe one month or two. But out here?” He shrugged. “Would a week be too soon, Sister McKensie?”

  She stepped to him and put her arms around him. “A week is fine. If you two decided you wanted to do it today, I would say yes to that too.”

  “No, Mother,” Maggie blurted, a little alarmed. “A week. That will give us time to see if—” As if on perfect cue, she doubled over as another coughing fit struck. Eric stepped to her quickly and held her tightly, his eyes darkening as he heard the deep rasping sound she made. When it passed, she straightened, looking suddenly more vulnerable. “That will give us time to see what is happening,” she finished weakly.

  Eric shot her a warning glance, which she ignored. She turned as Emma, Sarah, Sister James, and the younger girls swarmed in to throw their arms around her and give their congratulations.

  After a moment, Eric called to her. “Maggie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Before we march this morning, we must tell Sister Bathgate and Sister Park. After all, they think they are responsible.”

  “Of course.” Then she had a thought. “No, you go, Eric. I’m going to write a note to Hannah.”

  “To Hannah?” Emma blurted. “How will you get a note to Hannah?”

  “I’m going to put it on a stick. If someone is going east and sees it they can take it to her. If not, then they are only a week or two behind us. Elder Willie says people do that all the time.”

  “Oh, yes,” Mary McKensie said. “Hannah would never forgive you if you didn’t tell her as soon as you knew. You write the letter and I’ll go ask Elder Willie where the best place is to leave it for her.”

  III

  Sunday, 19 October 1856

  There was no longer any question about stopping to rest for the Sabbath. The race against time and weather had reached the crisis stage. The sky was leaden and lowering. The wind was coming out of the northwest strongly enough to whip the canvas covers on the carts and fill the air with dust and particles of sand. It was their coldest day so far, and the air had that familiar feel that Eric had come to know so well in Norway. They would see their first real snow before the day was out, perhaps even before they stopped to noon. They had seen a few flurries before now but nothing that had even stuck to the ground. And while it was the Sabbath day, the captains had decided that the Lord would not stay the weather simply to give the emigrants a chance to pause for worship.

  Eric stamped his feet up and down as he walked along beside Jens Nielson, leaning into the crossbar to keep the handcart moving forward. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself to try and keep warm, and for a moment he felt an intense regret that he had traded away his mother’s sweater. If he had that under his coat, then . . . He shook it off. There was nothing to be gained down that path. He felt the cold most in his feet. His right boot had a hole in the sole about an inch in diameter. The left sole was paper-thin in a couple of spots but hadn’t broken through yet. Two days before, Maggie had found a small piece of stiff cloth for him, which he slipped inside the right boot. That helped him walk more comfortably but didn’t do much for the cold.

  He thought back to this morning’s meeting around the supply wagons, and shook his head. There was a brief report on those who had died and on the general health of the company. In earlier days, that alone would have been devastating. There had been another death in the night—the sixth since leaving Devil’s Gate. The one yesterday had been a Scotsman, one of Maggie’s hundred. He was twenty-seven years old! Four of those riding in the wagons were diagnosed as so far gone that they would likely not make it alive to camp tonight. If that was correct, that would mean ten deaths in four days. Now, in addition to morning prayers, each day’s ritual included a morning burial.

  He shuddered, re
membering Maggie’s feelings that she was going to die “before our journey’s through,” as the hymn put it. It had frightened him deeply. Eric lifted his eyes, searching the line ahead. When he finally picked Maggie out, he was relieved to see that she was still in the shafts of her cart, pulling beside her mother. That was good. He knew that she was stubborn enough to try to pull even if she was too weak, but her mother had promised Eric that she wouldn’t let that happen. Most encouraging to Eric, Maggie had not mentioned death again since that afternoon in her tent. The deep cough was still of great concern, but she swore that even that was not as painful now as it had been at first.

  He felt an overwhelming rush of thanks for the power of prayer and the priesthood. And love. It still astounded him what the promise of marriage had done for her.

  Then his countenance fell again. What would this morning’s announcement do to her now? The news of the deaths was bad enough, but when they were dividing out the daily rations and the last flour bag was emptied without everyone’s getting even their full allotment, it was as though a death knell had sounded.

  On the verge of weeping, something the company had never seen him do, Elder Willie announced that there was now nothing left in their stores except for the four hundred pounds of hard biscuits purchased at Fort Laramie—barely one pound per person—a few pounds of sugar, a partial bag of dried apples, and a quarter of a sack of rice. “This is it, brothers and sisters,” he said, his voice torn with anguish. “The flour you now have in your hands has to last until the supply wagons reach us.”

  Eric shook his head. South Pass was still at least three days away. In their weakened condition, more likely four or five. Desperate measures were already being taken. Last night two boys in Eric’s hundred had experimented with the hides taken from the two butchered cattle. They held the skins right in the flames to scorch off all the hair. Then they cut off long strips, roasted them until they were crisp, and sprinkled a little sugar on them. They claimed it made an acceptable supper. Even worse, two nights ago, Sarah James had taken her father’s knife and cut off the tatters—the ragged pieces—from her shoes and added them to the soup she was making.

  Hunger was an endless presence with Eric now, but he wasn’t ready to go quite that far yet. He had passed on both the roasted hides and “tatters soup.”

  “That must be the Ice Springs.”

  Eric turned to look where Jens was pointing. They were crossing an endless emptiness, where even the artemisia, or sagebrush, was barely three or four inches high and sparsely scattered at that. They hadn’t seen trees, other than along the Sweetwater, for two days now. Just ahead of where they were, the handcarts were crossing a low depression in the ground. Meandering through the low spot was a swatch of greener, thicker vegetation, looking almost swampy. Off to the left about a hundred yards, there was a circle of dark green, marking the source of the actual spring.

  “Is there any ice left now?” Olaf asked from behind them. He was taking his turn pushing the cart at the moment.

  “I don’t think so,” Jens answered. “Elder Ahmanson said that so many emigrants have dug down to find the ice over the years that it’s all gone now.”

  Bodil Mortensen, the nine-year-old whom the Nielsons were bringing with them for another family, heard that and moved closer. “Was there really ice here, Uncle Jens?”

  “That’s what they claim. They said that if you dug down through the sod about a foot and a half there by the spring, you would find large slabs of ice. Evidently the water below ground froze in the winter, and then the sod acted like the sawdust in an icehouse and kept it frozen even in the middle of July and August. That’s why they called it Ice Springs.”

  Elsie Nielson was walking alongside the cart, watching little Jens out of the corner of her eye. At the moment he was huddled in a blanket atop the load and seemed almost in a stupor. Elsie had on a thin coat and a shawl over that. Rags wound around her hands served as her mittens. Beneath her summer bonnet, her nose and cheeks were red. “All they need to do,” she said, “is leave it open to the air today and they’ll have ice here again.”

  “That’s for sure,” Olaf said.

  Up ahead there was a shout and they saw Elder Willie waving his arms.

  “Looks like we’re stopping to noon,” Jens said. He immediately began to slow. Eric did the same and they let the cart come to a stop. Then they carefully lowered the shafts, not wanting to wake little Jens, and stepped to one side.

  Eric looked up as a tiny spot of white fluttered past his face. “Here it comes,” he said.

  The others looked up as well. Here and there the first snowflakes were slanting in on the cold wind.

  “I’m going up with Maggie until it’s time to move out again.”

  Jens and Elsie sank down to the ground beside the cart, grateful to be off their feet. They waved a hand, acknowledging that they had heard.

  Eric glanced at Olaf. He was leaning heavily against the cart. “Do you want to come?”

  Olaf just shook his head.

  As Eric started forward, the snowflakes began to thicken. By the time he had covered the fifty or so yards to where the James and McKensie families were resting beside their carts, it had begun to snow in earnest. As he took off his gloves and dropped down beside Maggie, he turned his back to the wind and took her hand. Even through the layer of her mittens, he could feel how cold her hands were. The flakes were starting to stick to her coat, and he reached up absently and brushed them off her shoulders. “How are you doing?”

  She nodded, too weary to answer. Then she turned her face to the northwest, directly into the wind. She half closed her eyes, letting the snow hit against her cheeks. “This is the day we have not been waiting for,” she murmured. After a moment, she turned again, facing directly west, scanning the endless horizon. Now her eyes were wide and filled with fear. “Oh, Eric. Where are those wagons?”

  According to Elder Willie, South Pass and the hoped-for relief were at least three days away, and that was assuming the wagons were there. He didn’t have the heart, though, to remind her of that. He just shook his head as he took her hand and held it tightly. After a moment, she hunched over and began to cough, hugging her chest to ease the pain a little. Eric watched her with anxious eyes, rubbing her back softly while she fought to clear her chest again.

  Chapter Notes

  With the company and its animals failing rapidly now, the news that they could not expect to find the supply wagons before South Pass came as a terrible blow to the Willie Company. Though the letter from Elder Franklin D. Richards is not mentioned in the company journal, John Chislett says it arrived on 14 October, while they were camped between Independence Rock and Devil’s Gate in what is now central Wyoming (see Remember, p. 64).

  Based on what we know now, they were down to no more than a week’s supply of food, and that is taking into consideration the reduced rations and the fact that the increasing frequency of death provided the macabre “blessing” of having fewer mouths to feed. In their weakened state, it would take them at least ten days to reach South Pass. It was that grim arithmetic which, on 14 October as they were camped near Independence Rock, led the company to vote unanimously to reduce their rations even more (see journal entries in Remember, pp. 5–6).

  Though she does not give a specific date, it would have been about this time that Sarah James came up with an idea that she would later describe thus: “I even decided to cook the tatters of my shoes and make soup of them. It brought a smile to my father’s sad face when I made the suggestion, but mother was a bit impatient with me and told me that I’d have to eat the muddy things myself” (in Carol Cornwall Madsen, Journey to Zion, p. 628).

  George Cunningham, who was a fifteen-year-old boy when he came with his family in the Willie Company, later said this: “Every particle [of the cattle] that could be used was taken, even the hide was rationed and after scorching the hair off, we would roast it a little over the coals and cut it in small pieces and it made what w
e considered a delicious supper” (in Carol Cornwall Madsen, Journey to Zion, p. 638).

  Patience Loader, sister-in-law to John Jaques and a member of the Martin Company, wrote about the inadequacy of the food and how they turned to the Lord for help. Speaking of a time when they had obtained a soup bone and used it to make a meager broth, she wrote: “We did not get but very little meat as the bone had been picked the night before and we did not have only the half of asmall biscute as we only was having four oz. of flour aday. This we devided into portians so we could have asmall peice three times aday. This we eat with thankfull hearts and we allways as[k] God to bless to our use and that it would strengthen our bodys day by day so that we could performe our dutys. And I can testefie that our heavenly Father heard and answerd our prayers and we was blessed with health and strength day by day to endure the severe trials we had to pass through on that terrable journey before we got to Salt Lake City. We know that if God had not been with us that our strength would have failed us. . . . I can say we put our trust in God and he heard and answerd our prayers and brought us through to the valleys” (in Godfrey and others, Women’s Voices, p. 238).

  On the eighteenth/nineteenth of October, the Willie Company camped at the Fifth Crossing of the Sweetwater River. The 19 October entry in the company journal records five deaths. In John Chislett’s narrative he records that the last of the flour was distributed equally among the camp that morning. Those two sources, as well as Levi Savage’s journal, all note that it was bitterly cold and that sometime before noon the first snowstorm of the season descended upon the company. Savage notes that “the poorly clad women and children suffered much” (see Remember, pp. 7–8).

  Chapter 20

  Deer Creek

  To

  Last Crossing

  I

  Friday, 17 October 1856

  When the fifth handcart company reached Deer Creek campground, Captain Edward Martin called a halt, even though they had come only five miles that morning. Hannah McKensie assumed they were stopping only to let the teams drink from the stream and to rest for a short time. She and Ingrid, with Sister Jackson pushing from behind, went forward another five or six rods, found a place close to the creek, and set the handcart down.