Ophelia's War

by Alison L. McLennan

  I rode my horse, and the old feather-light Indian woman trailed behind on her mule. She navigated us out of the rock labyrinth to a main trail, which headed north toward Provo. Where the trails converged, she halted. It was as if she were unable to go any farther. I stopped and looked at her. Her eyes had that faraway look I’d grown accustomed to.

  “Go, where the iron horses join. Your fortune, my death.” She nodded and watched me.

  I got off my horse, took the Henry from my saddle holster, and held it out to her. “A gift,” I said.

  She nodded, took the rusty six-shooter from her holster, and held it out to me in exchange.

  SEVENTEEN

  I could have stopped at a Mormon farmhouse and asked for food and shelter. If I were still a Saint, the Mormons would have fed me and turned my idle hands toward industry, even though I couldn’t work in the fields on account of my leg. But Saints don’t trade their virginity for rubies and go around shooting their elders. For all I knew, Brigham Young had already dispatched one of his avenging angels to destroy me.

  I could have given up the jewels. But I didn’t. I kept them. And for what good? Even though I had the jewels, I was still hungry. I couldn’t eat them. The image of the two dead gamblers and my uncle haunted me. They had lain on the cabin floor like butchered animals with that big pool of blood dripping through the wide-gapped floorboards. Those horrible memories turned all my dreams into nightmares.

  Word among Mormons traveled fast, and I was afraid that news of the triple murder and my disappearance had already made its way across the territory. But from what I understood, Gentiles were accustomed to murders, rapes, robberies, and debauchery. They wouldn’t give a hoot about a missing Mormon girl, unless there was a reward, and the settlers of Grafton were too poor to post one. I steered clear of Mormon communities and only stopped in Gentile mining and railroad towns. I wasn’t ready to be found. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready.

  My guilt was so heavy I felt others could see it like an albatross around my neck. I avoided the main trail, favoring the trails through high country to get to the Salt Lake Valley. One night, before I could find shelter, a storm hit, the temperature suddenly plummeted, and it began to snow. No bed of boughs and pine needles could possibly shelter me against the storm’s fury. After a while, my body ached from cold. I could barely keep hold of the reins. All my instincts screamed for warmth. The wind whipped my face and cut through me. I rode on with my head down, barely able to see a foot in front of me. Finally, the faint smell of smoke filled my nostrils. I followed its scent like a hungry wolf until I arrived at a small cabin. I didn’t care what kind of trouble might be waiting inside as long as I could escape the biting cold.

  The trapper had already heard me coming and greeted me with his rifle. But when he opened the door and saw me, he put it down and whisked me inside. My body shook. My fingers and toes had lost all color and feeling. He wrapped me in furs, stoked the fire, and gave me hot broth. Musk and smoke emanated from his beard and large body. At first it was difficult for him to speak. He was advanced in years, at least half a century old, a mountain man who rarely saw, let alone spoke to, another person.

  He was obviously a skilled trapper, as his cabin was filled with skins and furs. Beaver pelts hung from every inch of the walls and ceiling. It felt like we were in the pouch of some giant furry animal. After he found his tongue, a torrent of words poured forth. He spoke of the decline in the beaver trade; how pelts had once fetched a fortune.

  “The snooty womenfolk moved on to some other damn hat—with feathers,” he said. Then he looked shy and excused himself for cussing. He bore a strange resemblance to a beaver: deep-set brown eyes, a chocolate brown beard, and hair poking out from his shirtsleeves that was identical to the beaver pelts. I wondered if he’d always looked this way, or if he had grown to resemble the animals he’d tracked for so long.

  I was too cold to be afraid of his loneliness and desire. If I had to run back out into the cold night, I would surely freeze to death. He asked me how I came to be out there in the high country all alone. I told him my parents had died, and I was on my way to the valley to live with distant relatives. He said there was a more direct route.

  I tried to make up a plausible explanation. I told him I was drawn to the beauty of the mountains and hadn’t thought a snowstorm would come in September. He lectured me on mountain weather, freak snowstorms, bears, wolves, and mountain lions. He told me stories of strong men he had known who’d lost their lives to the elements or Indians. I listened, nodded, and pulled the fur around me.

  “Don’t suppose you’d like to stay here with me? Become my wife and start a family? I’m not as old as I look. I have a good life. Gets cold here in winter and the food supply thins, but I plan for it and never go hungry.”

  I told him that I’d be honored, but I was already betrothed to a distant cousin, who was expecting me to arrive in the valley. He asked me what kind of man would force me to travel all alone. Said if it was him, he’d escort me. Said if it was him, I’d never go hungry or cold. Said if it was him, I’d never have to knock on a stranger’s door for help. He riled himself up against my imaginary fiancé whom I struggled to defend until the trapper grew suspicious.

  “There’s no cousin, is there? You concocted that story so you wouldn’t hurt my feelings, didn’t you?”

  “There’s a cousin, but I don’t know anything about him, don’t even know his name. They just sent word I should come.”

  “I see,” he said and nodded. The night grew darker and fatigue seemed to settle into him from so much talking. He sat next to me on the bench in front of the fire. I stared vacantly at the dying flames. He slid his hand inside the fur shawl and under my clothes. His hand was as warm as a baked potato and despite what it might lead to, it felt good and warm.

  “Your flesh is as cold as ice, missy. Come, let me warm you.” He guided me to a bed piled high with furs in the corner of the cabin. I melted into the soft fur. He squeezed in next to me and pulled fur blankets over us. Heat radiated from his body as if his insides were on fire. Against him, I finally felt the chill melt.

  Yet his hands reached for my female parts, followed the curves of my body, and pulled me so close I felt his hard member pressing into my buttocks. Tears came and my chills were replaced by sobs.

  He removed his hands from under me, smoothed my skirt down, and stroked my hair. “It’s okay now. I just got carried away.” He rose from the bed, wrapped a fur around his shoulders, and with his back to me, stood wide legged in front of the fire. He became a large dark silhouette in a fur cape. “I’m not a bad man,” he said. “I’m just a man.”

  I heard flesh smacking and then a groan. The fire crackled with his ejaculation. He sighed and returned to bed with no anger, only tenderness and soft apologies, which he cooed into my ear like a lullaby.

  The next morning he fed me breakfast, wrapped me in a small buckskin coat, and waved goodbye.

  By the time I made it to the Salt Lake Valley, my horse was sickly. I couldn’t afford to keep him, so I sold him for three dollars. I found work doing laundry for a Gentile-owned hotel on Whiskey Street and settled down for nearly seven months. I didn’t know how or why my destiny was tied to the completion of the railroad, but the Indian woman’s words stuck with me.

  “Where the iron horses join, your fortune—my death.”

  I was so exhausted from working long hours in the laundry I never wrote in my diary. Even though I doubted the Lord would answer the prayers of a fallen woman, every night I prayed for Ezekiel’s safety. I imagined scenes of a happy reunion with my dear brother until I fell asleep.

  One day in early May, I read this article in a discarded Deseret newspaper. I cut it out and tucked it in my diary:

  PROCEEDINGS SCHEDULED AT PROMONTORY SUMMIT

  “The last tie will be laid; the last rail placed in position, and the last spike driven, which will bind the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with an iron band. An electric flash wil
l bear the tidings to the world!”

  I decided I’d had enough of the Great Salt Lake Valley. I packed my meager belongings and planned to travel north so I could be closer to my destiny. The night before my journey I washed my only dress, careful not to scrub too hard as it was threadbare. Early on the morning of my departure, May 7, 1869, I bathed in the creek so I would be fresh for the long journey ahead.

  I set out on foot with my belongings stuffed into a grain sack and a bedroll tucked under my arm. I didn’t have much, but I still had my knife and the rusty six-shooter, a bedroll and blanket, my diary and my mother’s steel-tipped pen, as well as the buckskin coat the trapper had given me. Most important, I still had Dolly with the ruby necklace stuffed inside her. I was not ready to sell the necklace. Every day I tried to forget about it and resist the temptation to sell it because I was afraid of the curse. The necklace was all I had left of Momma.

  For provisions on the journey to Ogden, I packed a stash of saltwater taffy, six strips of dried elk, and a box of hard tack. For a couple of years after the Civil War ended, you couldn’t give away a box of hard tack. But times were tough and it was hard to come by anything.

  People from every walk of life—from the lower classes to ladies and gentlemen sporting finery—crowded the road north toward Ogden. There were horse-drawn carriages, mule and ox teams pulling wagons and carts, single riders; a few brave souls had even ventured forth on bicycles. I saw Chinese donning their traditional lampshade hats, miners, bullwhackers, mule skinners, gamblers, pimps, clergy, soldiers, simple farm people, and whores.

  The Mormon Church was in favor of economic progress, yet they feared that the influx of despots and nonbelievers would taint the purity of Zion. The Saints had been warned not to socialize with Gentiles and only to deal with them for purposes of commerce. Yet Mormon families had still set out in hopes of seeing the famous locomotive and witnessing the final laying and driving of the famed golden spike, which would join the union and its territories from East to West by rail. It was a momentous event, and I felt like I was witnessing history.

  I walked beside the rutted wagon trail in the willow grass alongside others who were trying to hitch a ride. It was difficult for me. The gentry held their heads high, and turned from me as if I were nothing but a foul stench. The hard-up miners and dirty railway laborers, themselves sorely in need of a bath, preferred the painted ladies to a scrawny lice-ridden girl. Whores piled on to stopping wagons. Their bulging bosoms bounced as they swigged whiskey and let men feel them for a penny. I had not stooped that low yet.

  But the words of Doc Perkins haunted me. When I had first arrived in the Great Salt Lake Territory, I went to see a Gentile doctor on Whiskey Street about my injured leg. After he looked at my leg, he examined my head and warned me that my skull had the same characteristics as a prostitute. He gave me a lesson in what he called birth control, genital hygiene, and disease prevention. I had never known that birth could be controlled. I assumed, depending on your circumstances, that it was either a gift or a punishment from God. He told me stories and showed me drawings of people stricken by cupid’s curses. The images were so gruesome I thought I’d be cured of sexual feelings forever.

  Doc Perkins took a liking to me and said he’d give me money for a room and a weekly bath, if I’d come to see him every Friday. I took the money and absconded to the north end of the valley where, after several weeks of begging and sleeping in the bushes, I found a bed at a charity station in the basement of Saint Mark’s. The nuns helped me find employment as a laundress. They never even asked if I was Catholic.

  Each day I feared I’d be arrested for my crime in Grafton. I kept to myself and didn’t speak to anyone, just nodded or shook my head pretending to be mute. Christmas day passed without my family or a special meal to mark the day. Work in the laundry hardly paid anything. I’d inhaled so much lye it hurt just to breathe. Momma and I had always done our laundry outside where the fumes weren’t so bad. Although I had a bed, it was infested with bugs and after waking up with bites I finally gave up and slept on the floor. I was so sad and miserable I often wondered if I should have taken Doc Perkins’ offer.

  Although I’d been raised in a desolate place, I’d never felt as lonely as I did in the Great Salt Lake Valley surrounded by people. All I had to show for months of honest labor was a torn threadbare dress. I did enjoy regular nourishment. And thanks to that I’d gained weight and my menstrual cycle had returned. Still, I had worked twelve to sixteen hours a day, six days a week and couldn’t even afford to replace my worn shoes.

  On that May morning, I’d started my journey to the driving of the golden spike ceremony with high hopes, considering I didn’t know what I was going to do, or where I would end up. The weather was fine, not too hot or cold, perfect for traveling. After two hours of walking, my feet hurt. I fought the desire to take off my shoes and go barefoot, since wearing shoes, even ill-fitted shoes with holes, gave a better impression than hoofing it like a child.

  The early morning rush of wagons and carriages slowed. All my hopes were dashed after three hours passed and I still hadn’t managed to hitch a ride. I doubted I’d make my destination in time for the Saturday ceremony. I gave up on my goal of Promontory Point, figuring Ogden was close enough and that I’d be lucky just to make it there. The sky blackened, the temperature suddenly dipped to about forty degrees, and the wind came to life. I cinched my bonnet tight so it wouldn’t blow off. Foreboding storm clouds brewed and swelled with darkness. They swept across the sky faster than any clouds I’d ever seen.

  At first, rain spat down in cool gentle drops, but then the sky opened and water came down in buckets. Until that day, the spring had been mild. The valley had greened and the orchards filled with delicate pink and white blossoms. The hummingbirds had returned. Their high-pitched trill and sudden frantic appearance always filled my heart with joy. I had not prepared for the return of freezing rain and snow, but I knew it often happened. Even down south in Grafton, a fine spring or summer day could fill with fury and spew angry hail or snow upon seedlings just starting to grow.

  Several carriages passed without even slowing. The rutted trail had turned to mud and the wagon wheels splashed muck onto my face and dress. Despair and fear overtook me. No shelter could be found on the open road, not even a cottonwood that might break the heavy violent rate with which the rain soaked my dress. I put on my buckskin coat, but it didn’t help much. I was on the verge of throwing myself under the hooves of the next passing team, when a mule-drawn, covered wagon pulled up and stopped.

  A man and his wife sat in front. Rain dripped from the brim of the man’s wide hat. White-blond hair poked out from under a wool blanket, which the wife pulled over her head. The man smiled in a friendly manner, but the woman looked skeptical and concerned. I knew right off they were Mormons, and I was scared they’d ask me where I was from. But the man spoke to me in broken, heavily accented English, the awkward singsong of a Swede. “Swere roo hoin lahs?” Before I could answer he said, “Huhee rop on!”

  I scurried to the back of the covered wagon and hoisted myself up and inside. Six small faces framed by the same color of white-blond hair as the mother’s stared at me. The children barely had room to move. One sister picked up a small girl to clear a spot. I sat cross-legged, and the sister placed the little one on my lap.

  All six children were barefoot. The bottoms of their feet were hardened and brown like leather. Their huddled bodies provided warmth. We bounced along the trail. The children shifted to avoid getting dripped on by leaks in the wagon cover. They stared at me as if I was from the moon. The little girl on my lap fingered the buttons of my dress and sucked the water from my rain-drenched hair. I felt a pang of love for her, the other children, and their parents. The closeness of that family facing life’s trials together made me ache for my own lost family.

  They had so little, yet they had stopped to help me. I wanted to give them something in return. I pulled out my precious cache of saltwa
ter taffy and handed each child a piece. Their faces went from blank inquisition to excited happiness. They unwrapped their taffy and gazed upon me with gratitude. I reluctantly took Dolly from the grain sack and handed her to the girl on my lap, hoping she would understand the doll wasn’t to keep.

  The children chewed the taffy like cows. Smacking and sucking sounds filled the wagon. The little girl on my lap, whose teeth were not yet formed, seemed to enjoy the taffy. But she kept removing it from her mouth and handing it to me.

  I had guessed the family wasn’t on a leisure trip to see the driving of the golden spike, and I was right. At the fork of the Weber and Ogden rivers, the wagon stopped. The father came around, pointed eastward, and chortled something I couldn’t understand. But I knew what he meant. I pointed north and removed the girl from my lap. As I feared, she was reluctant to relinquish Dolly and gave a scream of protest when I reached for her. Her older sister lightly slapped the tiny girl’s arm. I quickly took Dolly and shoved her into my sack. I jumped down from the wagon. The ground was wet and muddy, but at least the rain had stopped. I waved to the children and went to thank the mother for her kindness.

  “Thank you,” I said and smiled.

  She nodded, her eyes betraying fear and concern for me. I sensed her relief at my departure.

  EIGHTEEN

  I had saved enough money for one or two days’ lodging, but as it turned out there was a shortage of beds in Ogden. The only beds left were being sold at triple the regular rate, and I couldn’t afford one. The proprietors of the rooming houses told me even the bathtubs were sold out. I wondered if they refused me because of my disheveled state. But surely men from the mines and railways were filthier than I. Yet the innkeepers preferred them to me, as dirty men from the mines could have pockets lined with silver and gold. As one place after another turned me away, I thought of Dolly and my secret riches and held my head high despite my dejection.