The following morning, most of their friends pulled up stakes and continued toward The Dalles. Major Jamison and his men proceeded downriver to Umatilla Landing. Thomas, the three widows, William Chapman, and the two girls chose to remain in camp and gather their strength. Late in the morning, rain poured down and the small party sought refuge in a lodge.
The owner of the lodge, an Indian called Stickas, greeted them and served them hot tea. Olga was in heaven sipping the warm brew. They had exhausted their supply of coffee weeks earlier.
“Why are you not making way to The Dalles?” Stickas asked Thomas.
“It is our intention to sell our rigs and ride down the Columbia River in a boat,” Thomas answered, speaking for the group. “Do you know who might buy our wagons?”
“No, there are many settlers around who might want them, but few have any money.”
In the early afternoon the rain abated and two men arrived riding upstream beside the Umatilla River. One rode in a buckboard wagon drawn by two horses while the other rode on horseback. They both wore oiled canvas wrapped around themselves to ward off the remains of the rain.
“Dr. Whitman, I’ve been expecting you.” Stickas greeted the horseback rider.
“Indeed, we are late,” he replied. “We paused to preach the Sabbath service in Umatilla, and then were delayed by the rain.” He then turned toward the band of emigrants. He smiled and Olga imagined that he found their dirty, ragged appearance comical. Dusty and sunburned, they looked more like Indians than Americans. “Hello,” he said, extending his hand to Thomas, “I am Dr. Marcus Whitman. I presume that you were in Major Jamison’s party.” Not pausing for an answer, he continued, “Ah, indeed, Chief Five Crows told me of your arrival.”
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir. I am Thomas Meyer.” Thomas then completed the introductions of Olga and the others, and Dr. Whitman introduced his companion, Joseph Stanfield.
With the arrival of Dr. Whitman, Stickas produced a spread of meat and vegetables for the midday meal. Thomas, Olga, and the others were invited to join. However, as the meal had clearly only been intended for the three men, there was insufficient food. Thus, the emigrants feigned that they had already eaten and watched the others feast.
As they ate, Stickas reported that the measles epidemic was once again among the Indians. “Jo Lewis is making trouble,” he added. “He is telling our people that you and Mr. Spaulding are poisoning the Indians so as to give their country to your own people.” He glanced sheepishly toward Olga and the others. “Of course, I know this not to be true, but many others believe him.”
Marcus Whitman silently mulled the information and then spoke to no one in particular, “Have any of you already been sick with the measles? It is known that you cannot contract it twice and we could use several more hands to help us tend to the sick at our mission.”
“I’ve already had it,” Olga announced. “I’d be happy to help you.” Beth and Catherine had also been afflicted, but Thomas, William, Grace, and Marjorie had not.
“Splendid,” Marcus stated, “we shall be on our way at once and arrive by nightfall.”
Thomas pulled Olga aside and whispered to her, “Please, don’t go. We don’t know these people.” Olga returned a scowl and Thomas elaborated, “I’m not saying that Dr. Whitman is a threat, but we know,” he nodded his head toward Stickas, “that the Indians are upset with the emigrants. This is not a good idea.”
“These Indians have been very good to us. I dare say some of our party might have perished in the Blue Mountains had it not been for the aid from Chief Five Crows. I believe we owe them what help we can give. It is our Christian duty.”
Thomas’s jaw twitched, but he found no effective argument to dissuade her.
Olga kissed him goodbye and took her place next to Beth and Catherine in the buckboard wagon. She watched Thomas as they rode away. Being unable to dissuade her, he stood solemnly staring after them until they were out of sight.
It was after dark when they completed the twenty-five miles to the Whitman Mission. After travelling at the slow pace of the oxen for so long, Olga marveled at the speed with which the horses pulled the small wagon. She tied her bonnet tightly under her chin to keep it from blowing away.
“This is my wife, Narcissa.” Dr. Whitman introduced the large, well-formed woman of fair complexion. She had auburn hair a nose slightly too large for her face, and soft gray eyes. She in turn introduced Perrin, Dr. Whitman’s nephew, Mary Ann Badger, and David Cortez. These last two were nine- and seven-year-old children adopted by the Whitmans.
Narcissa ushered her husband up the stairs to the sick room while a young, but mature for her age Mary Ann toured them through the mission house. After so many months along the trail, Olga found the warm fireplace, stuffed chairs, genuine cooking stove, and enclosed privy to be unbelievable luxuries. Mary Ann explained that she and David were half Indian who spoke fluently in both the Cayuse and English languages. She warmed some food for the weary travelers. Following their light meal, the women went to the upstairs sickroom to relieve Dr. and Mrs. Whitman in tending to the sick children.
Without rest, they attended the stricken children through the night. One Indian child died, but most of the others had significantly improved by morning.
With the rising sun, Olga stepped outside for some fresh air. It was a cold, foggy morning, but she could see the expanse of the mission grounds. She admired the cows as they munched the bright green grass of the pasture bordered by dark green trees. As she had read in the pamphlets, Oregon was a slice of heaven on earth.
This is the Oregon that I was promised.
Mary Ann prepared breakfast, but most everyone was either too tired or too sick to eat.
Dr. Whitman carried the body of the dead Indian child outside, and Olga followed for a short distance. She watched the brief burial service in the graveyard. Looking around, she watched men operate the grist mill. Between the Mission House and the Mill, Mr. Stanfield was butchering a cow beside another house. A large number of Indians were gathered under the trees beside the millpond.
“There is trouble here,” Beth spoke softly beside her. “There is a feeling of evil hanging about the place and I cannot shake the feeling from my mind.” Olga met her eyes as she continued, “Thomas was right—we should not have come.”
Dr. Whitman returned from the funeral and joined them in the main room. He began giving assignments for the various medicines to be taken up to the sickroom. Narcissa walked through to the kitchen to retrieve some milk.
“Eek!” she screamed.
Through the open door, Olga saw several Indians surround Narcissa. As they advanced, Narcissa fled back into the main room. As one boisterous Indian attempted to follow, she slammed the door in his face and bolted it. Immediately, the Indians began pounding on the door, demanding to speak with Dr. Whitman.
“I’ll go and see what they want,” he said, opening the door. “Bolt the door behind me.”
Narcissa bolted the door a second time. She and Olga listened, but could not discern the conversation in the kitchen.
An explosive gunshot startled them. Stumbling backward, the two women fell to the floor. Leaping up, Narcissa ordered the children upstairs.
“Oh, the Indians! The Indians have killed my husband and I am a widow,” she cried to Olga.
Mary Ann had been in the kitchen, cleaning, but at the beginning of the violence she had fled outdoors. Having run around the outside of the house, she entered the main room.
“What has happened?” Olga asked the deathly white young girl.
“Father is dead,” she blurted out.
Several emigrants followed Mary Ann through the door into the main room.
Narcissa locked the outside door. Then hearing nothing from the adjoining kitchen, she unbolted that door. Finding the room devoid of Indians, she and Olga brought Marcus’s body into the main room.
Looking out the window, Narcissa exclaimed, “It’s that retche
d Jo Lewis. He is doing it all.” She pointed to an Indian running across the grounds, chasing down an emigrant.
With a nearly constant roar of gunfire, the women watched helplessly as Indians murdered the emigrants camped around the mission. One man, running from his attackers, rushed to the door and Narcissa let him inside. He had a broken arm and a deep gash in his scalp.
“Mrs. Whitman, the Indians are killing us all!” he shouted.
A bullet flew through the window and struck Narcissa in the shoulder. Clasping her wound, she shrieked in pain. As she fell to the floor, Olga tried to help her up.
“Save yourselves,” she said to Olga. “Get to the children upstairs. Lord, save the little ones,” she prayed.
The wounded man pushed the women to the stairway. He handed a child to Olga. Holding it tightly in her arms, she ran up the stairs. Jo Lewis broke down the door and fired a volley of gunshots, killing Narcissa and the wounded man.
Olga hid in the upstairs room with the other women and the children. They listened as the Indians ransacked the lower rooms. Taking control of the lower level, they imprisoned the women in the upper room.
Darkness fell and the cries of the wounded abated as they died. In the morning, the Christian Indians gained permission from Jo Lewis to bury the dead.
Captivity
Without food or water Olga and the others huddled together, listening to the terrifying sounds of the Indians in the house below them. Hours passed with agonizing slowness. Then Olga heard footsteps climbing the stairs. Holding her breath, she awaited her fate.
Please, dear God, let death come quickly!
Several Indians appeared. One was Jo Lewis. He spoke several sentences in his native tongue and Mary Ann interpreted.
“He says that we will not be hurt. He is going to take us to Fort Walla Walla.” She held her lips close to Olga’s ear and whispered, “But he is lying. I heard them talking earlier, and they have nothing but treachery on their minds.”
Nonetheless, Olga nodded agreement to Jo Lewis and he left, leaving three Indians behind. One of these spoke and Mary Ann interpreted, “They want you two,” she motioned to Olga and Beth, “to go downstairs. They say there is food there for you to cook and feed everyone.” She swallowed hard. “They say Dr. Whitman’s poison has killed their wives and now you must be their wives. The one speaking is Tamsucky. He is one of the worst of the Indians and you should not make him angry.”
Compassion won out over fear. Unable to endure the cries of the sick, hungry, thirsty children any longer, Olga tugged on Beth’s sleeve. “Let’s go,” she said. “We must save the children. What else can they do to us?” Fearful that she knew exactly what evil they could perpetrate upon them, she held Beth’s hand and followed Tamsucky to the kitchen.
The lower rooms were an indiscriminate mass of broken furniture, feathers, ash, straw, and blood. Olga and Beth gasped, and pushed as much of the debris as they could out of the kitchen.
The Indians did not interfere as the two women prepared the meal. Olga suspected that they were afraid that the food had been poisoned when they insisted that the children eat first. However, she was grateful for the opportunity to give them a full measure of food before the Indians devoured it.
After Olga and Beth cleaned the kitchen, they spread mattresses on the floor of the main room. The Indians took possession of the beds, but would not allow the two women to return to the upstairs room. Lying in the warmth beside the stove, they sought sleep. In the middle of the night, Beth kicked Olga to awaken her. Springing up, she saw Tamsucky hovering over Beth. His hands savagely fondled her body and pushed up her skirt.
“No! No!” Beth cried as she struggled to free herself from his grasp.
Olga kicked him in the stomach. He released Beth and swung a fist toward Olga. Twisting away, she protected her face, and took the blow on her shoulder. Beth took advantage of the moment to slip past him. She ran outside screaming for help.
Tamsucky pursued her.
The other two Indians were awakened by the struggle and they held Olga, preventing her from further assisting her friend. Tamsucky put his hand over Beth’s mouth to squelch her screams and tried to throw her across his pony. Beth climbed up and over the horse. Tumbling to the ground, she slipped free. As she ran screaming for help, Tamsucky regained his hold upon her and wrestled her to the ground. Olga watched helplessly as the Indian had his way with Beth. When he finished, he carried her back to the house and released her. Olga helped the sobbing young woman up the stairs and held her until she fell asleep.
In the morning, Chief Five Crows arrived.
"Oh! You fools!” he shouted at the other Indians. “Have you no brains? You have killed the best friends the Indians will ever have. This will bring a war with the Americans. Mark my words." After sending Tamsucky away, he spoke to Beth, “You must come with me. Tamsucky intends to have you for his wife, but I can protect you if you come and live in my lodge.”
Beth began to softly cry. “What should I do?” she asked of Olga.
“Chief Five Crows has not deceived us. He has been kind and never displayed any reason to distrust him.”
Beth reluctantly agreed to leave the mission with Five Crows. Pretending to take her captive, he bound her wrists and tied her to a pony before leading her away.
With extreme sadness in her heart, Olga prayed that she would see her friend once again.
Through the next day Olga and Catherine did their best to follow the treatment plan laid out by Dr. Whitman as they cared for the sick children. The Indians did not interfere and by the end of the next day the children were well on the road to recovery.
While they were cleaning up the remains of the evening meal, Tamsucky returned.
“He says that his wife has died and he insists that he have the red-haired woman,” Mary Ann interpreted. “He means Mrs. Howe,” she needlessly added.
Tamsucky searched the house. Not finding Beth, he grabbed Olga and forced her into the main room. She ran for the door, but two Indians blocked her path and pushed her into a chair. Tamsucky began talking in his native tongue, but Olga needed no interpretation to understand his nefarious meaning. She knew exactly what he meant.
“Go upstairs with the others,” she told Mary Ann and Catherine. Olga saw no reason for the children to witness what the evil Tamsucky intended to do to her.
The other two Indians watched as Tamsucky was surprisingly gentle with her. He danced for her. He spoke softly to her. She was reminded of the mating dance the Pawnee had performed the day Thomas had taken her to the Indian village. Despite Tamsucky’s best efforts to charm her into submission, she continued to refuse him. Following Thomas’s advice from months ago, she steeled her face and displayed no fear.
“Get away from me!” She slapped his hands away every time he touched her. Tamsucky eventually tired of the contest. Gathering her hands in one of his, he brutally pinned her wrists behind her back and used his free hand to grope her breasts through her clothing. He reached for the hem of her skirt.
Kicking and screaming, Olga fought with him as best she could, but her actions merely assisted him as he pulled her skirt up to expose her legs.
He growled unintelligible words.
Pushing her to the ground, he snapped a strip of leather like a whip and began to thrash the backs of her legs. Olga screamed for the other Indians to help, but they would not interfere. Tamsucky raised her skirt and laid several blazing red stripes across her bare buttocks.
Whimpering in agony, Olga stopped her struggles and lay silent.
Tamsucky rolled her onto her back. Standing over her, he began to open his trousers and expose his manhood. Olga kicked her leg up. With all her might, she drove her shoe squarely into his crotch. She had remembered Thomas’s warning that a man’s ball sack was extra sensitive.
The Indian’s face instantly morphed into a ghoulish silent scream. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Struggling to breathe, his body shook with the pain.
The other two Indians broke into laughter. One stood beside Olga, holding her down, while the other bent over Tamsucky in an attempt to ease his pain.
A fourth Indian entered through the door, but he showed no interest in the proceedings. While taller than the other Indians, he was hunched over with a blanket covering his head and shoulders. Limping like an old man, he walked to the fireplace and began to warm himself. After a moment, the Indian standing beside Olga approached him. The newcomer ignored the Indian when he spoke.
Abruptly, the tall man tossed off the blanket and Olga saw the flashing glimmer of polished steel as he thrust a knife into the Indian.
“Thomas!” she cried out. She instantly recognized her lover dressed in his buckskin suit.
Withdrawing his Bowie knife, Thomas’s eyes briefly met hers. He grinned.
As the Indian crouching beside Tamsucky stood, Thomas lunged and drove the big knife deep into the center of his chest. Thomas paused for a moment, bending over Tamsucky. Then, with one quick slash, he slit Tamsucky’s throat. After wiping the blade of the big knife clean on Tamsucky’s shirt, Thomas turned to Olga.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me.” She assumed that it was not the whipping that troubled him most.
He lifted her face to his and tenderly kissed her lips. “Are you sure?” His concerned eyes peered deeply into hers.
“They didn’t hurt me,” she repeated. She kissed him again, more deeply.
He wrapped her in his blanket and scooped her up in his strong arms. As he carried her to the door, Olga complained, “The children, we can’t leave them.”
“They’ll be fine. We’ll be back. I promise,” he said, and rushed out the doorway.
Holding her close, Thomas ran across the grassy meadow to the fence line. Several Indians spotted them and began to chase them. Upon reaching the fence, several men leapt up. Olga recognized William Chapman and Joseph Stanfield among them. Aiming their rifles, the men began firing at the Indians.
“Stay here.” Thomas gently lowered her to the ground. Then he fired his Hawken rifle into the mêlée of Indians.
South Pass Brides Page 16
