by Harmon, Amy
“Mr. Lowry didn’t even say goodbye to his pa,” Will says, his mouth turned down, his eyes fixed on John Lowry Sr., who watches his son’s progress across the river. The elder John Lowry doesn’t wave, and he doesn’t shout goodbyes. He stands silently, observing, unmoving, until his son and the skiff reach the opposite shore. Then he turns, puts his hat back on his head, and climbs the bank, back toward the main thoroughfare. I cannot see his expression from this distance, but his stride is slow and his back slightly bowed, and I am overcome with sudden sadness, though I’m not sure why.
“Why are you crying, Naomi?” Will asks, concern lacing his voice, and I realize with a start that I am. At twelve, Will is more sensitive than all the other May boys combined, and he notices things the others don’t. Maybe it’s being a middle son of many, but he’s the designated peacekeeper in the family and takes every rift and row personally.
“I’m not sure, Will. I just feel a little melancholy, I guess.”
“Do you miss Daniel?” Will asks, and I feel a flash of guilt that my tears are not for my dead husband but for a stranger I know nothing about.
“Are you scared of crossing the river?” Webb’s interjection saves me from answering Will, whose eyes are narrowed on my face, and I swipe at my cheeks and smile.
“No. Not scared. I just don’t like goodbyes,” I say.
“Pa says once we head out, we ain’t never comin’ back. So I been sayin’ goodbye to everything I see. But I sure am glad I’ll get to see Mr. Lowry’s mules and those jack donkeys a bit more,” Webb chortles.
“Do you want to go back to the camp, Naomi?” Will asks, his brow furrowed.
“No. I’d like to draw for a bit. Would you sit here with me?”
Will nods agreeably, and Wyatt and Webb are more than willing to linger as well. A barge is being filled with livestock that won’t stay put. One mule is herded aboard only to have another bail over the side into the drink, much to the delight of my brothers, who laugh so hard Webb almost wets his pants, and Wyatt has to take him to find a bush where he can relieve himself.
The landing dock is full of people to watch and adventures waiting to happen, but my mind is too full, and my eyes rest on my page while my hand recreates the myriad faces I’ve seen in St. Joe over the past three days, faces I don’t want to forget. I draw until the sun begins to sink, turning the sea of white-topped wagons a rosy pink, and my brothers and I make our way down the hill, back to our family, eager for the morrow.
We wake before dawn and are readied and clopping along toward Duncan’s Ferry before the sun begins to change the color of the sky. Pa has a wagon; my oldest brother, Warren, and his wife, Abigail, have one too. Pa thought about getting a third, there being so many of us, but he didn’t think Wyatt could handle a team every day on his own. Abigail and Warren don’t have any little ones yet, and we decided that between the two wagons, we would make do. The Caldwells have two wagons as well, along with a dozen head of cattle. I imagine there will never be a moment’s silence on the trail with all the bleating and bellowing.
It takes us a little more than an hour to reach the cutoff and the sign for Duncan’s Ferry that points us through a boggy forest so thick and deep we are cast in shadows almost as dark as the predawn. Pa stews and makes a comment about Mr. Lowry’s character and good sense. Mr. Caldwell almost turns back to St. Joe, and his son, Jeb, and my brothers have a dickens of a time keeping the livestock together as we navigate the trees and do our best to avoid the mud.
“We might never come outa these woods, Winifred,” Pa grumbles to Ma. “Perhaps they send unsuspecting travelers into these parts to get them lost and rob them blind.”
Ma doesn’t respond but walks calmly, her arms wrapped around her bulging belly; she was the one to tell Pa about Mr. Lowry’s advice to use the upper ferry, and if she is worried, she doesn’t let on. But within an hour we indeed find ourselves, if a little more weary and wary than when we set out, at Duncan’s Ferry with nary a wagon in front of us. We are able to board both wagons, eight oxen, two mules, two cows, and eight people in a single trip. The Caldwells cross immediately after us with all their cattle and wagons as well. Both crossings are uneventful, much to Webb’s disappointment, and Pa has to take back some of the things he said, though he mutters that he’d rather wait in line for a week than ford that path again. Ma just pats his hand, but we are the first wagons in our company to arrive at the designated clearing at the head of the trail.
We missed the window the previous spring. Daniel’s death took the wind out of all our sails. So we waited and planned. Then Ma got pregnant, and it seemed as if maybe the journey would have to be postponed once more. We hoped the baby would come before the trek began, but it hasn’t, and the wagon company won’t wait. The baby could come anytime—Ma thinks she still has a week or two—but Ma insists we stick to the plan. And Pa always listens to Ma.
We wait all day for the wagons in our company to assemble. John Lowry is at the meeting site, along with our wagon master, Mr. Grant Abbott, a man who has been back and forth across the prairie “more times than he can remember,” though I suspect he could recall exactly how many if he wanted to. He worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Rocky Mountains for a season but says he prefers people to the fur trade, and he comes highly recommended as a guide. Forty families have signed on with him for this journey, paying him to see them through to California as painlessly as possible, and he seems very proud of that fact. He is amiable enough, with a woolly gray mustache and hair that skims his shoulders. His tunic and leggings are fringed like those of a mountain man, and he wears beaded moccasins on his feet and a rifle slung across his back. He seems to know John Lowry well and introduces him as his nephew.
“John’s mother, Jennie, is my little sister. John will be with us until we reach Fort Kearny on the Platte,” Mr. Abbott says. “He speaks Injun too, in case we have any trouble with the Pawnee. The area along the Platte is Pawnee country. It’s Kanzas country too, though we’ll see more Kanzas in the Blue River valley. I don’t suspect we’ll have any trouble with any of ’em. They usually just want to trade . . . or beg. They like tobacco and cloth and anything shiny.”
It doesn’t make much sense to me, John Lowry’s mother being Grant Abbott’s sister. Grant Abbott may wear buckskin, but he’s as white and ruddy as Pa. I’ve seen John Lowry Sr. He’s white too, but the resemblance between them is there. Still, a resemblance doesn’t account for the way John Lowry looks. He’s tall like his father, with rangy shoulders and a long gait, but his skin is sun colored, and his hair is the color of black coffee. He keeps it mostly hidden beneath the brim of his gray felt hat, but I can see the inky edges that hug his neck and touch the tops of his ears. His features are cut from stone, hard lips and an uneven nose, sharp cheekbones and a squared-off chin, granite eyes and the straightest black brows I’ve ever seen. I can’t tell how old he is. He has a worn look around his eyes, but it’s not time, I don’t think. He’s a few years—or a decade—older than I am. Impossible to know. But I like looking at him. He has a face I’m going to draw.
Webb trots after him, asking to be introduced to his mules and the jack donkeys, and Will and Wyatt are quick to follow. He doesn’t seem to mind the company and answers all their questions and listens to their commentary. I want to join them, but there is work to do, and Ma is trying to do it, ignoring Pa when he insists she rest while she can.
Wagons start to arrive at the staging area near the trading post. Some folks have painted their names, slogans, or the places from which they hail on their canvas covers. Oregon or Bust; California Bound; Born in Boston, Bound for Oregon. The Weavers; The Farleys; The Clarkes; The Hughes. Pa decides we should paint our name too, and he writes May in dripping red letters along the sides. Ma isn’t happy with his handiwork.
“Good heavens, William. It looks like we’ve marked our wagons so the angel of death will pass us over.”
Every wagon is packed to the brim with supplies—beans and
bacon and flour and lard. Barrels are strapped to the sides, and false bottoms are built into the main body of the wagon—the wagon box—to stow tools and possessions not needed during everyday travel. Pa has extra wheels and enough rope and chains to stretch cross country, along with saws and iron pulleys and a dozen other things I can’t name and don’t know how to use. Ma has her china stowed below, packed in straw and prayed over. We eat on tin—cups, plates, saucers—with iron spoons because they don’t break.
One woman has a table and chairs and a chest of drawers in the back of her wagon. She claims the furniture has been in her family for generations, and it made it across oceans, so why not across the plains? Some people have far more than they can use, far more than they need, and some don’t have nearly enough; some don’t even have shoes. It’s a motley assortment of fortune hunters and families, young and old. Like St. Joe, except most everyone is white. Everyone but John Lowry, but I’m not exactly sure what he is.
Mr. Lorenzo Hastings wears a three-piece suit with a watch chain and a neatly knotted tie. His wife, Priscilla, has a lace parasol and sits primly in a buggy pulled by a pair of white horses. They also have a huge Conestoga wagon pulled by eight mules and driven by two hired men. Wyatt got a look inside, and he claims it has a feather bed in the back. Mrs. Hastings has two middle-aged sisters serving as her “companions”; they are traveling to California to join their brother. The sisters introduce themselves to me and Ma as Miss Betsy Kline and Miss Margaret Kline, but we don’t visit long. Mrs. Hastings keeps them running for this and that, scrambling to make camp. I overhear Mr. Abbott telling Pa that the Hastingses won’t last a week, and it’ll be better for everyone if they don’t. Every train has its share of “go-backs,” he says. I hope for the two sisters’ sake that they don’t.
Regardless of their possessions or their position, it seems everyone has the same dream. They all want something different than what they have now. Land. Luck. Life. Even love. Everyone chatters about what we’re going to find when we get there. I’m no different, I suppose, though I’m more worried about what we’re going to find along the way. Some people have so many belongings wedged into their wagons it’s a wonder their teams can pull them, but pull them they do, and the next morning, following a breakfast of mush and bacon, the long train rolls out, everyone jostling for position.
They call it a road, and I suppose it is, the ruts and the wear of thousands of travelers creating a path that stretches for two thousand miles over plains and creeks and hills and hollows from a dozen points along the Missouri to the verdant valleys of places most of us have never been.
With so many wagons in the train, the travelers are either stretched out across the trail, following the ruts of the wagons that have gone before, or lined up like waddling white ducks, one wagon behind the other, bumping over the terrain. Mr. Caldwell insists on being at the front near Mr. Abbott, and he manages to spur his family and his animals to lead the pack. We happily fall back to the end of the line, which looks more like a sloppy triangle formation than a tidy row. Ma needs a slower pace, and it’s a great deal more pleasant to walk without another wagon nipping at one’s heels. The distance from the Caldwells is good. I won’t see Elmeda Caldwell’s mournful glances or be put to work looking after Daniel’s family. I will barely be able to keep up with my own.
The constant jostling of the wagon bouncing along the ruts and rolling plain makes us sick when we try to ride in back; I imagine it’s like being tossed on the waves of the sea, and most of us choose to walk. Even Ma walks, though her great belly protrudes out in front of her, drawing the eyes of other travelers. She says little about her discomfort, but I see it in her face, and I am alarmed by it. Pa sees it too and begs her to ride.
“If I sit on that gyrating schooner, this baby will fall out, and I’d prefer it stay in a week or two more,” she says. Pa isn’t the only one who listens to Ma. The baby listens as well, and it stays put.
There is little to see—not because it isn’t beautiful but because we move so slowly that the eye consumes everything in one fell swoop, growing accustomed to the sights within the first hours of morning. Spring wildflowers dot the swales, and streams and creeks bisect the trail. Every mile or so, a wagon sinks to the hubs in mud, and ropes and muscle are employed to pull it out just in time for the next wagon to fall prey to the same thing.
The slow monotony makes us drowsy, especially in the afternoons, and more than once someone in the train has tumbled from their wagon, lulled to sleep by the endless motion. The oxen don’t have reins or drivers like the wagons pulled by mule teams. They are simply yoked in, two by two, with someone walking alongside them, prodding at them with a stick and a quirt when they need a little encouragement to move along. Pa and Warren and Wyatt take turns, rotating between the two wagons, and within a couple of days, Will has the hang of it too.
The clatter wears on me. Not the walking, not the work, not the vastness or the mud. It is the noise. The jangle and bump of the wagon, the endless cacophony of screeching wheels, harnesses, and cowbells. Everything squeaks and rumbles and lurches and groans. The motion is good for something, though; we put cow milk in the churn and set it in the wagon in the morning. By the time the day is done, we have butter, with no effort whatsoever. Making bread takes a little more doing. When the train stops in the evening, we are too hungry to wait for the dough to rise and the loaves to cook, and the fires aren’t the right mix of coals and ash.
The first day out, I tried to make it in the morning, but there wasn’t sufficient time for the bread to cook and the dutch oven to cool, and Will and I ended up carrying the heavy pot with a broomstick shoved through the handle until it cooled down enough to tuck it away without burning a hole in the wagon. With so much to do and Ma needing her rest, I decide that making it once a week, even if I’m baking bread all night, is the most I can manage.
We end up eating stew made of bacon and beans for supper three nights in a row. Pa promises there will be fresh meat when we can kill it, but the trail from St. Joe is remarkably devoid of big game—mosquitoes, butterflies, and all manner of birds and crawling things, but no herds. Webb looks for signs of the buffalo each day through the spyglass, but Mr. Abbott says the buffalo herds are greatly diminished, and we’re more likely to see them when we reach the Platte.
The mornings and evenings are the hardest part of the day, with the constant loading and unloading, reorganizing and reconfiguring, but I dread mornings the most. Maybe it’s because the day stretches ahead, long and arduous, and leaving is always more work than arriving. Setting camp, breaking camp—it’s all a mad scramble to move when sitting still would be so sweet. After breakfast, coffee and mush and a bit of bacon, we take down the tents and fold the blankets, packing the kettle and the pots and pans, washing the breakfast dishes the way we washed them after supper the night before, rinsing the remains with water that leaves behind a bit of silt we always have to wipe free when we use them again.
In some ways, life is simpler. All our duties and chores have been narrowed to the path before us, the steps we take each day, the rumble of wagons, and the plodding of weary travelers with nothing to do but move forward. Sometimes, when I’m not walking with Ma, I ride Trick, one of the mules Pa bought from Mr. Lowry, my sketchbook propped against the saddle horn while I draw. Pa is keeping a diary on our journey, but I’ve always been better at pictures than words. Ma says I made pictures in the mud before I could even say my own name. Drawing is the only time I have to myself. Every other waking moment is spent walking or working.
We all have responsibilities. Pa and Warren see to the animals and pitch the tents; Webb, Will, and Wyatt are kept busy gathering wood for the fire, hauling water, and unloading the wagon; and Ma and I do most everything else. Warren’s wife, Abigail, tries to help me and Ma, but she is weak and pale, and the smells of camp make her retch and feel faint. I suspect she’s in a family way too, though not far along. Warren seems to think so as well and tries to make life as e
asy as possible for his wife, but there is no easy to be found. Ma and Abigail aren’t the only pregnant women in the train. A young couple by the name of Bingham pulls their wagon just ahead of ours the first few days. Elsie Bingham isn’t as big as Ma, but her swollen abdomen is well defined beneath her dress. She seems cheerful enough, her husband too, and isn’t bothered by the bumping and bouncing of riding in the wagon like the rest of us.
Cleanliness is impossible, and the boys don’t seem to mind so much, but I can’t abide the filth. I see folks getting their water from the banks and the shallow pools created after a hard rain, even when there’s a dead animal carcass abandoned nearby. John Lowry insists the boys haul it from the waters upstream of camp each night, and he often helps them, but even then, I worry. It seems to me if everyone tried a little harder to keep clean, fewer people would be sick. Rumors of cholera on the trail are already starting to spread.
The fourth day out, we start seeing graves by the roadside, most of them marked only with a bit of wood with a lettered inscription burned in. I remark on it the first few times, my arm linked through Ma’s as we walk past, but Ma refuses to acknowledge any of them after we see the fresh grave of a two-month-old baby girl.
“I don’t have to see death to know it exists, Naomi,” Ma says. “I gotta keep my mind right. I don’t have any strength for fear or sadness right now, so I’m just gonna walk on by, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell me what you see.”
I tighten my arm in hers, and she pats my hand.
“Are you afraid, Ma?” My voice is low, and what I’m really telling her is that I’m afraid. Ma might be keeping her mind right, but my mind is full of awful scenarios.
“Not for myself. I know what to do. But I don’t want to lose another child, and I don’t want to think of that poor mother who had to bury her baby back there.”
Ma has given birth to five healthy children, but she’s lost a few too—babies that didn’t make it more than a day or two and a baby girl that was born as still as a china doll. I can’t help but think she might be better off without a newborn to care for on the trail, but I know better than to say as much.
