Beyond the Mapped Stars

by Rosalyn Eves

  Trunk thumping behind me, I start moving. Wind whistles up the street, filling my ears and blocking out the bustle from the train station a couple of blocks behind me. Overhead, a cloud scuttles across the sky, blotting the stars and the three-quarters moon. Lamplight flickers behind drawn curtains in the buildings I pass. Occasionally laughter breaks out across the street.

  The buildings give way to houses, the houses to farms.

  I walk into the rising dark.

  chapter thirteen

  Sunday, July 14, 1878

  Outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming

  Fifteen days until eclipse

  It’s late when I arrive outside Rebekka’s home, a small frame house some distance from a tiny community I trudged through. My arms both ache from dragging my trunk, one side at a time. The moon has come out again, lining the road with silver, but there are no lights on in the house before me. Have I come to the right place?

  Silence greets my knock.

  A cool wind whistles around the house, making the planks of the house groan and the willow trees along the nearby creek shake their shaggy limbs.

  I’ve just about settled to sleeping atop my trunk underneath those willows when the door creaks open.

  A round face with tousled blond hair and a shaggy red beard peers around the edge of the door. “Who’s there?”

  I mentally compare this face to the one I remember meeting at Rebekka’s wedding—Ammon Walton was thinner then, and beardless, but I remember the rosy cheeks and clear eyes. I let out a breath of relief. At least I’ve got the right house. “Ammon? It’s Elizabeth Bertelsen, Rebekka’s sister. I’m sorry the train was so late.”

  “Elizabeth!” Ammon flings open the door and scoops me up in a bear hug before I’ve time to do more than squeak in alarm. Ammon’s impulse to embrace the world would terrify me if he weren’t so good-natured.

  “Come in, come in! Rebekka’s asleep and I don’t want to wake her, she sleeps so poorly of late.” He shoos me into the house, then plucks up my trunk from the yard.

  I look around, my eyes adjusting slowly to the gloom. Moonlight filters through some pretty white cambric curtains to show a living area, a pair of chairs facing a table, coals glowing low in the corner stove.

  “You hungry?” Ammon asks, a little doubtfully. “There’s some bread in the cupboard, I think.”

  “I’ve eaten. I’m just tired.”

  Ammon looks relieved, then his eyebrows draw down again. I forgot how transparent he is: every emotion flashing clearly across his face. “We don’t have a bed made up for you. We wasn’t sure when you were coming.”

  “A blanket and a pillow is all I need.” I indicate the rug, a pretty, round thing that looks like Rebekka’s handwork. “This spot will do just fine.”

  All the same, I feel off balance as I accept a blanket and pillow from Ammon. I’ve come all this way and there’s no place for me. If I don’t fit in at home or abroad, where do I fit in?

  * * *

  * * *

  My vague despair of the night gives way the next morning, lifted by rest and sunlight. After a breakfast of burned oats and cream (I make a quiet resolution not to let Ammon cook for me again), Ammon leaves to tend their livestock, and I go to see Rebekka in the bedroom.

  It will be the first time I’ve seen my sister in three years.

  Memories tumble through me. Rebekka, sitting beside me in the guttering light of a lamp, painstakingly teaching me to read, sounding out each letter over and over again until the sense of it burst in my mind like sunrise. Rebekka, laughing when my stitches in the darning Mama had set for me came out crazed, and then redoing them for me so I could slip outside to catch the moonrise. Rebekka, talking Mama down when Far was out late again, courting Aunt Olena.

  Mama’s voice: Why can’t ye be more like Rebekka?

  And then Rebekka left, and all her tasks fell to me.

  I draw a deep breath, knock softly, and push the door open.

  Rebekka’s on her side in a bed set against one wall, piled up with blankets. The curtains are drawn, but morning sun picks out a pattern on a cheerful rug, and a vase of fading pink roses sits beside the bed. If there’s a faint smell of medical ointments in the air, I ignore it and make my way to my sister.

  She blinks awake at my approach, her pale cheek curving in a smile. Her lips have scarcely any color, but her red-gold hair, braided down her back, is just as vivid as I remember. I bend down to brush a kiss across her temple, and she reaches out a fragile hand to take mine.

  Blue veins stand out against her white skin, and I swallow my alarm. She’s so thin. Surely a woman near term should be fat and rosy?

  “You look well,” Rebekka says, patting the coverlet beside her for me to sit. “I’m glad you’ve made it. We were worried when we got your telegram. But tell me of your travel, of everyone back home. It’s so lovely to have you here—like a bit of home with me.”

  Her warmth melts my diffidence. I tell Rebekka of all our siblings back home, of Far and Mama, of baby Albert, whom she’s never met. I describe the journey by rail. She laughs at our midnight encounter with the elk and gasps at the right places when I tell her about Texas Jack.

  I don’t tell her about the robbery or the memory of cool metal kissing my temple.

  I don’t tell her about Rachel’s near drowning.

  I don’t tell her about Samuel Willard either.

  While we’re talking, Ammon comes back in. “How’re you feeling today? Do you need me to stay home from church?”

  Rebekka shakes her head. “Elizabeth is here. You should go to the meeting—you can tell me all about it afterward. It’ll do us both good.”

  Ammon exchanges his work hat for a nicer derby and shrugs into a coat. “I’ll have Sister McPherson call after church, to see how you’re getting on.”

  “There’s been no spotting today,” Rebekka says. “But bring her, if it will soothe you.”

  “The baby is moving?” Ammon has made no motion toward the door.

  “Sleeping now, I’d say, but moved a bit earlier.” Rebekka smiles up at her husband. “I am well, truly.”

  Ammon turns his hat around in his hands a few times, watching Rebekka as though the entire world turns in her face. I wonder what it would be like to have someone watch me like that—if it would feel like sanctuary or suffocation. I do not wonder what it would be like to have Samuel look at me like that.

  Finally, he stuffs the hat onto his head, kisses his wife, and leaves.

  A long sigh leaks from my sister. “Ammon is a good man,” she says. “He’ll be a good father.”

  I’m not sure how to answer her, but it turns out it doesn’t matter. Rebekka is already asleep, exhausted by two short conversations. Unease pricks my gut as silence shrouds the small house.

  I tiptoe out of the bedroom and survey the kitchen and sitting room. The place is a mess: papers stacked randomly across the table, dishes drying crusted in a tub, clothes (I cannot tell if they are clean or not) piled in a corner, dust drifting from every flat surface.

  When Rebekka lived at home, our house was always spotless, even when Mama had her spells. If the house has gotten like this, then Rebekka has been sicker than I supposed.

  No spotting today. Mama said Rebekka has lost babies before. Will she lose this one?

  And what if the baby comes today, while Ammon and the others are at church? I have no idea where to go for help. I’ve been at Mama’s births, for Henry and Rachel and Albert, but I only fetched and carried. That knowledge seems a fragile net to hold the weight of Rebekka and her baby’s health.

  I should have asked Ammon before he left.

  Pushing aside my misgiving, I tidy up the little house as best I can and inspect the cupboard shelves near the stove for ideas of food, should Rebekka wake hungry. Rebekka has a new issue of the Woman’s Expone
nt on a round table in the sitting room, but I only pick it up to swipe a dust rag beneath it. Rachel’s near drowning hangs in my thoughts like a ghost—I’m afraid to fail at any duty now, as if Rebekka’s life and that of her baby depend on my obedience.

  Sister McPherson, the midwife, follows Ammon home from church. A middle-aged woman with a stout waist and large, squarish hands, she looks just like the sort of woman a heavenly mother would call as a midwife. She tuts over Rebekka but announces there’s been no real change. After she leaves, Rebekka rouses herself to come to the table for dinner—soup and cold bread—but even such little effort tires her and she goes to bed without eating much. Ammon and I eat the rest of our meal in silence. His unusual quiet unnerves me almost as much as Rebekka’s exhaustion.

  If Rebekka is so weak already, how will she survive childbirth?

  Just before dark, a single rider comes up the road, bearing a message from Alice on pretty, scented paper.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  As predicted, Will turned up about midnight, none the worse for his adventure. In fact, he recommended that I try walking the trestle at the soonest opportunity. No, thank you! I admit I’m of two minds about his return. Obviously, I’m glad he’s safe, and glad he’s come so that we can return home. But I would not have minded if something small had happened to punish him—maybe he turned his ankle on reboarding the train—something to remind himself that he is not, in fact, a cat with nine lives, and that his hare-brained decisions affect people other than himself. Alas, no such salutary lesson has occurred. I’m penning this just before we’re to head to the station. When next I write, I shall be home.

  I hope you and your sister are well.

  Your friend,

  Alice Stevens

  I look up from the letter, smiling, to find Ammon watching me. “Who’s the letter from? I didn’t know you knew anyone around here.” Ammon isn’t a fool—this letter wasn’t delivered by the US mail or a telegram.

  I fold the letter up and stick it in the pocket of my apron. “An acquaintance I met on the train. A lady and her brother. They were kind to me.” That adventure has begun to feel like something that happened to a different girl, in a different lifetime.

  Ammon only grunts in response.

  * * *

  * * *

  We retire early that night. Outside, the summer evening is still full of light. At least my bed is a trifle better: Ammon borrowed a feather mattress from someone at church, so I don’t have to sleep on the floor.

  It’s a long time before I fall asleep.

  * * *

  * * *

  Monday, I tackle the wash.

  At home, Mama takes care to always have our wash done on Monday—even on her bad days. The waving flags of clean laundry on the line signal a careful housekeeper, and whatever might happen privately at our home, our public face is always clean and tidy.

  I suspect Rebekka feels the same.

  I wash everything: the baby’s small clothes, the bedsheets, my own clothes, dusty from weeks of travel. I heat the water for the laundry in a big tub on a fire before the house, coughing at the smoke that billows up when I prod the logs too vigorously. After adding the soap and a bit of lye to the water, I scrub the fabric against the washboard before rinsing in a separate bucket and wringing out. When the clothes are clean, I hang them on a wash line stretched between two willows.

  The sun scorches my face and arms.

  By the time I am finished, my hands are red and raw and my back aches. I don’t feel Mama’s satisfaction at a job well done, but I’m glad to have spared Rebekka this. I set some of Sunday’s soup on the stove to heat, then go back outside.

  A couple of rosebushes wilt alongside the wall of the house. I fetch some water from the nearby well and drizzle it over the bushes, watching the water spill across the shriveled leaves, soaking instantly into the cracked ground. Roses are rare in Monroe—the first rosebushes had to be carried as seedlings across the plains, and subsequent bushes were grown from carefully transplanted cuts. Ammon likely fetched these at a pretty price for Rebekka, who always loved them.

  A sharp cry from the house startles me, and I drop the knife I brought from the kitchen, intending to cut a few blooms for Rebekka to replace the dying flowers by her bedside. My left hand grazes a thorn, and I stick my finger in my mouth as I hurry into the house. The blood is sharp and salty against my tongue.

  Rebekka writhes on her bed, the sheets tangled around her.

  “Rebekka?”

  “I think the baby’s coming,” she says, then clutches her stomach, groaning.

  “Are the pains coming regular?”

  She nods, lips pressed tight. “Regular enough. Tell Ammon…” For a long moment she can’t speak. “Fetch Sister…McPherson.” She ends on a gasp.

  Tell Ammon. I start to run from the room, then wheel back around. “Where is he?”

  “North field.”

  I race outside. The fields simmer in the July heat. Sweat drips into my eyes, and I swipe it away. It takes longer than I like to find Ammon. “The baby’s coming,” I say. He drops the hoe he’s been using, takes half a dozen strides to the horse grazing in nearby shade, and mounts.

  He doesn’t even look at me as he rides away.

  I run back to the house.

  Rebekka’s room is dark after the brilliance outside. I blink, then sit by Rebekka. Her fingers lock around my wrist.

  “I’m scared,” she whispers.

  My mouth dries out. Growing up, it was always Rebekka who comforted us when we were scared, Rebekka who always knew what to say. I don’t know how to play that role for her.

  But I put my other hand over hers, and maybe that’s enough, because her grip relaxes.

  She stares up at the ceiling. “I get lonely here, sometimes.” A pain grips her—her whole body seems to tighten—and she doesn’t speak till it’s past. “I know I shouldn’t. I’m where God wants me to be. But it’s hard. I miss you. I miss everybody back home.”

  “We miss you too,” I say, though the words feel horribly inadequate. I want to say: I don’t know how to do what God wants me to do either.

  I hold Rebekka’s hand through another pain. Then she says, “When I started spotting, I thought this baby had died, like all the others. And for a moment I was glad—glad!—that I would not have to go through a full birth, that I wouldn’t have someone so small and helpless depending on me when I am still so weak.” She pauses, and I think maybe it’s another pain, but her face is smooth, a single tear streaking down her cheek. “Does that make me wicked?”

  I grip her hand. “No.” I don’t think Rebekka could be wicked if she tried.

  “I want this baby now,” she whispers. “But maybe I don’t deserve her. Or him.”

  “If God only doled out babies to folks who were deserving, there’d be a sight less babies in the world,” I say tartly, letting Mama’s cadences fall into my voice.

  Rebekka smiles weakly.

  “You’ll be a good mama,” I say firmly. I add, my voice wobbling a little, “You were always a good mama to me.”

  We don’t talk much after that. Rebekka grips my hand when her pains come, and I try to count them. Five minutes or so between most, sometimes less.

  I’m mighty glad to see Ammon return with the midwife. She’s brought a couple of other women with her from the ward.

  Sister McPherson looks at Ammon. “Where do you keep your oil?”

  “Mama sent some with me for a blessing,” I say, then run to fetch the oil from my carpetbag, the glass smooth and cool to my touch, and bring it to Sister McPherson.

  The midwife then sends Ammon from the room, telling him this is women’s business. She and the other women settle around Rebekka’s bed, preparing to bless her, as is common in childbirth.

  Sister McPherson turns to me. �
��Will you say the blessing?”

  Surprise and pleasure jolt through me. I’ve never done this before—it’s always been the task of older women. More faithful women.

  I remember my failed prayers over Rachel and hesitate.

  But Sister McPherson smiles at me. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll show you how, if you’d like.”

  “Please, Elizabeth,” Rebekka says. “It’ll be a bit like having Mama here, since you carry her name.” Elisa. Elizabeth.

  We help Rebekka into a loose-fitting shift, and I let the midwife show me everything: we wash her belly first, then drop a bit of oil on it, smoothing it across the hot, tight flesh. Sister McPherson shows me how to bless her.

  My voice unsteady, I echo, “We bless your stomach, that it might hold your babe securely, and release the child safely when the time comes.” The women circled around me set their hands on Rebekka and murmur, Amen.

  Repeating each action in turn—wash, anoint, pray—we bless her head and neck, her breasts, her legs, asking that each part of her body perform its appointed function in the safe delivery of her baby.

  When we are finished, Rebekka grips my hand tight and cries, but she is smiling too, so I know I’ve done the right thing. What Mama would have done. What Aunt Elisa would have. I think of the chain of women I’ve suddenly become part of, all of us linked by faith and hope on the cusp of life (and sometimes death), and a dormant sense of wonder stirs in me. I thought I’d mastered the trick of looking at my life aslant, like the starlit sky, to make the lights seem brighter. But maybe I haven’t been looking at it right at all, because all I’ve seen of my mother’s life—of my future life—is the hard work. I’ve missed entirely this sense of being part of something bigger than yourself.