Leaving Independence

by Leanne W. Smith

  For the past three mornings Abigail had found ice crusting the top of the wash tin. But the days were getting warmer, and the sun was staying out longer in the evenings. Abigail had an internal debate going in her head—was sunrise or sunset her favorite? Funny how she’d paid so little attention to either event in Marston. But out here, where they were living like Israelites wandering the wilderness, the sunrise and sunset wrapped a person inside them. You were part of the experience—standing in the center of it—feeling your hope rise in the mornings, and your peace float back down at the end of the day.

  Never had she witnessed anything to equal it—never had she spent so much time looking heavenward. But now, every day—from her midmorning rides, like the one she was taking now with Lina, to her afternoon walks looking for wildflowers with Melinda, and into the deepening blues of evening, which arrived as they finished eating—she found her gaze rising upward to see what kind of masterpiece God had painted that day. The sky was always changing. It was always beautiful.

  Mimi would have loved these skies. If Corrine could capture a good likeness with her paints, they would have to send one home to show her. Corrine was a gifted artist, but there was no way anyone could brushstroke the bigness of the sky, or depict the thrill it shot through the back of one’s spine, on a single sheet of parchment.

  Was Robert seeing these same skies where he was?

  In some ways, Mimi, this journey has proven harder than I expected. We have bugs in the sugar sack, my feet are covered in blisters, I can’t seem to master cooking, and we’ve managed to alienate the largest family in camp thanks to Rascal. A woman named Irene McConnelly dislikes me, too, but I don’t know what I’ve done to her.

  In other ways the journey has proven easier than expected. Not one of the children has complained. Corrine has fussed about my biscuits, but that isn’t really complaining. In fact, they are all thriving under the influence of the open air, the morning and afternoon chores, the evenings spent playing games or singing songs with fellow travelers. How can I complain about blisters or bugs when we are surrounded by such good, hardworking people?

  And this land . . . these skies . . . the stars scattered so thick against the black back of evening. If Robert hadn’t come west, we never would have known it was here waiting for us.

  Hoke watched as James hoisted Lina onto his saddle one day. Little peals of laughter floated back toward the wagons.

  The next day, when Hoke hoisted her up, she went to sleep.

  When he brought Lina back to Abigail, with Lina’s head lolling on his arm, Abigail looked up at him accusingly.

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothin’. Rode out and showed her a den of baby foxes in that stand of trees yonder. She fell asleep on the way back.”

  Abigail reached for her.

  Hoke nudged the stallion away. “Mind if I keep her till we stop?”

  He was afraid she was going to say no.

  “That’s fine. Are you sure you don’t mind? I can take her on the dun with me.”

  He looked down at Lina’s soft curls. She was the nearest thing to an angel child he had ever seen. “I don’t mind.”

  He had already turned the stallion when she said, “The dun’s saddled and I was about to ride. Mind if I join you?”

  “I don’t mind,” he said again.

  Abigail ran to unhitch the dun from the back of the boys’ wagon. “Lina still takes a nap every afternoon,” she explained when she rode back to meet him. “But it’s usually not until after we stop.”

  “Will it hurt anything if she keeps sleepin’?” Hoke had never been around children much.

  “Not at all.” Abigail smiled. “I try to feed them when they’re hungry and let them sleep when they’re tired.”

  Hoke smiled back. He had noted what a good mother she was. Not like that Vandergelden woman who nagged her boy to pieces, or the Schroeders who let their children run wild. Abigail was relaxed but watchful. He figured that must work because she had good kids.

  “Why are those so rare?” asked Abigail.

  “What?”

  “Your smiles. You bestow them rather sparingly.” Then she added, “Your laughter is even more rare. I’ve only ever heard it one time.”

  “I guess I haven’t had a whole lot to smile or laugh about.”

  Bridgette Schroeder, in the wagon column nearest to them, stirred the air with her stout arms as she rode by. “Nice day, ain’t it?” she called to them.

  Abigail nodded and waved.

  Hoke angled his horse away from the wagons. “She’s got a voice that travels,” he muttered, gingerly moving Lina’s head to his other arm. Her hair was slick against his forearm where the tan buckskin of his sleeve was rolled up.

  “Did she pull her bonnet off again?”

  “It’s in the back saddlebag.”

  “She doesn’t like it. Her head gets hot.” Abigail laughed. “One of the sweetest smells on earth to me is the top of Lina’s sweaty head. That probably sounds strange to you. When she gets too old to sit in my lap, I’ll miss it.”

  Hoke leaned down to smell Lina’s head and tried not to make a face. Maybe you had to be a mother to appreciate it.

  “I used to wonder why people came out here,” said Abigail, “pulling up stakes and carting all their belongings with them to start over in the West. Some of the men were talking last night about Mormons who walk this whole trail on foot with nothing but a handcart.” Abigail shook her head. “I don’t wonder anymore.”

  Lina moaned and Hoke tried to reposition her again. “Say,” he said, “should she be this hot?”

  Abigail dismounted and came to feel her daughter’s forehead. Her face fell and she snatched Lina from his arms. “She’s burning up with fever. Get Doc Isaacs!”

  For four days Abigail rode in the back of the wagon, sponging off Lina’s hot body. She rode in there all day and never left Lina’s side, not even when they made camp in the evenings. Hoke felt as helpless as when he’d been a kid and watched his mother die.

  One day he took the reins of his and James’s wagon, so he’d only be one wagon over and could get to Abigail quick, in case anything happened . . . in case she needed him. But he couldn’t stand the confinement of it, so the next day he put Jacob in the seat. It helped to keep the other Baldwyns occupied, anyway. The children said little, but worry creased their foreheads and their eyes all shot a dozen times an hour to the wagon that carried Lina’s feverish body in it.

  Corrine, who was a quiet thinker by nature, grew quieter still. She slept in the boys’ wagon at night. Emma Austelle stayed with her so she wouldn’t be alone while the boys slept below it on the ground, the dog between them. Corrine prepared breakfast and supper each day, with James lending a hand and taking a break from his usual teasing.

  Meals were eaten in hushed tones.

  On day two, Hoke rode back through the wagons of Company C, stopping to ask Charlie, “How is she?” Charlie looked back into the wagon at his mother, who was bending over Lina’s body, and Hoke’s stomach tightened at the boy’s subtle wince.

  “No change.”

  “And your mother? She still won’t eat?”

  “No, sir.”

  Long after the camp had gone quiet that night, after Corrine and Emma’s voices had silenced and Hoke could hear steady breathing coming from underneath the boys’ wagon, he stood next to Abigail’s box garden and listened. He could hear the sound of water being squeezed through a rag and what he guessed were whispered prayers.

  Doc Isaacs slipped in and out of the wagon every morning and afternoon. He was the only one Abigail would let in.

  “Don’t come in here!” Hoke heard her scold Charlie on the third day when the train stopped for the midday rest. Charlie had opened the canvas to set a fresh water bucket inside. “We don’t need anyone else getting sick.”

  “What about you, Ma?” Charlie asked her. “We don’t need you getting sick.”

  “I won’t get sick.” />
  “You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping.”

  “I won’t get sick. Now go away. Don’t come in here.”

  Charlie turned to go.

  “Charlie!” she called. The boy turned back toward the wagon. “I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked and the sound ripped a slice through Hoke’s midsection.

  “For what?” asked Charlie.

  “For losing the house. For bringing us out here. For running your father off in the first place. For not . . . for not being able to fix everything.”

  “Ma.” Charlie started to climb the steps.

  “No! Don’t come in here, Charlie. I couldn’t bear it if any of the rest of you were to get sick. Thank you for the water. Now go.”

  That night as he stood outside her wagon, Hoke heard her curse Robert Baldwyn, call out for someone named Mimi, and plead to God not to take her miracle baby.

  At first, Abigail tried to keep count of all the offers for help she heard whispered through the canvas. People were being so kind to them; she must remember to thank them. And yet something in her pushed against that kindness. She didn’t want people feeling sorry for them—she felt sorry enough for herself without anyone else tiptoeing around her, reminding her of her losses.

  She was vaguely aware of Charlie, Corrine, and Jacob—she heard Hoke ask Jacob to drive his team. She almost poked her head through the canvas to protest—Jacob had never handled a team of oxen!—but she didn’t. Hoke wouldn’t put Jacob on a task and then not hover close by to see if he could really handle it. She’d been around him long enough now to know that.

  Besides, she didn’t want to talk to Hoke. Abigail was angry with him, even though she could hear him watering her box gardens every afternoon and could see it was his strong hands handing in most of the fresh buckets of water. He hadn’t caused Lina’s fever, but if the forearms he’d wrapped around her daughter hadn’t been so strong . . . so inviting . . . Abigail might have noticed how flushed Lina’s cheeks were and taken action sooner.

  She had been almost jealous of Lina as she’d been held by him.

  What kind of woman was she to let herself think such thoughts? And while her daughter was burning with fever in his arms! Of course, she hadn’t known that then, but it still shamed her to think about it.

  Each time her fears about the trip started to lessen, something else happened. She should have known things were going too well. Why hadn’t she listened to the fears . . . to the warnings?

  “When Arlon came to the house to get Mimi—after she’d made plans to come with us—I should have taken it as a sign that none of us were supposed to come,” she moaned to Doc Isaacs on the third afternoon of Lina’s illness.

  “Who is Arlon?”

  “It’s not important. What’s important is that I plowed stubbornly ahead. And I had another chance to back out in Independence when our money was stolen.”

  “Your money was stolen? I didn’t know that.”

  “And I still came!” Abigail hung her head. “That’s how foolish I am.”

  “Abigail, you are not foolish.”

  When Abigail closed her eyes she could still see Mimi riding off in Arlon’s wagon. Mimi . . . if only Mimi were here!

  “Tell me she’s going to make it,” begged Abigail, not caring to hide the desperation in her voice. She kept picturing Mrs. Helton at the graveyard back in Independence. Who gets married and who has children . . . who loses children. And she kept picturing those fresh yellow flowers on the graves—the same flowers she had planted around the headstone by the springhouse. Surely the flowers at the cemetery had been a sign, and she had been too blind to see it.

  Doc laid his hand on her shoulder. “Ned Vandergelden pulled through just fine and I never even tended to him.”

  Abigail lifted her head and searched the doc’s eyes. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “It should. Lina’s getting better care. But I’m not God, Abigail. I can’t make promises about life or death.”

  “I lost one baby.” Abigail was surprised to find herself telling him this. But there was something about Doc Isaacs. Hoke had Seth’s way with horses, but Marc Isaacs had her brother’s mischievous inner spirit and calm outward demeanor. “During pregnancy. Before Lina. I had gone to my father’s. They had new horses and Seth wanted me to ride with him. Two days later I lost the baby. Robert never came right out and said it was my fault, but . . . that’s when things started to fall apart.”

  Doc Isaacs took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “I didn’t mean to burden you with that, it’s just that . . .” She hung her head again. “I can’t lose another one. I can’t put another child in the ground, then leave her. Not Lina. She has been the presence of the Lord to me every day of her life. I couldn’t bear to live without her.”

  “Why don’t you let me give you something?” Doc Isaacs said. “Are you sleeping at all?”

  Abigail shook her head. How could she sleep when constant prayer was needed? Others in the group claimed to be praying for Lina, but no one else was going to say the things she would. No one loved Lina more than she did. No one else would be so shattered to lose her.

  No one else had brought Lina on this trip. Abigail had. Abigail was responsible.

  Melinda’s voice, calling her children to supper, drifted through the canvas.

  “Let me go get you a plate of food,” said Doc.

  Abigail shook her head again. “I don’t have any appetite.” The very mention of food made her ill. “What is that you’re giving her? Are you sure it’s the proper dose? It doesn’t seem to be helping her fever come down.”

  He smiled at her patiently. Abigail wondered if this was something he’d learned in medical college. But his patience was making her anxious.

  “You don’t have to stay.” She brushed his hand away from hers. “I know you have other folks to see to.” Abigail knew that Nora Jasper, a young married woman from east Tennessee, had also fallen ill, as had one of the Schroeders.

  By the fourth afternoon Abigail was exhausted. Her whole life had become a chain of constant motion: combing Lina’s silken hair back on the pillow, brushing her red cheeks with a cloth, dipping the rag—hot from Lina’s fever—into the bucket to cool it down, twisting it out, sponging it back over her arms and legs, laying her head over Lina’s chest in order to hear the beating of her heart and feel the breath coming out of her mouth, then forcing some liquids down Lina’s throat, and finally combing her silken hair back again.

  Feeling dazed, she raised her head off the bed. The wagon had stopped. She must have fallen asleep. Sounds of evening camp trickled through the canvas. She groggily stroked Lina’s forehead.

  It was cold.

  “No!” she wailed, fully awake now, her heart leaping.

  She heard the sound of feet running. The wagon flap was torn back and Hoke looked inside as she hugged Lina to her breast.

  Abigail smiled at him through her tears. “I was wrong,” she whispered. “Her fever broke.”

  Then Doc was there, climbing into the wagon with his stethoscope. Lina watched everyone with large eyes.

  “Why are you crying, Mama?” she asked.

  Abigail laughed. “Because I get to keep you, sweetheart.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Burrowing her toes into the grass

  One evening the men congregated on one side of the camp to talk about how far the wagon train had come and plan rotations for guard duty. Josephine Jenkins had the children singing on the opposite side. Lina, now recovered, sat in Christine Dotson’s lap.

  The children’s sweet voices sang Oh, say can you see . . . and a deep voice floated in to join them on the words . . . by the dawn’s early light.

  It was James. The men had finished their meeting and were coming over.

  April 30, 1866

  Each evening as the supper dishes are cleared, Josephine Jenkins calls out, “Who’s going to sing with me? Hannah Sutler? Cooper Austelle? I bet you kids kno
w this one!” Fast-paced spiritual hymns are her favorites. They fit her personality.

  The men start bringing extra benches over and the women lay out quilts as children circle around her. “Here We Are but Straying Pilgrims” has become a regular. Mrs. Jo says it perfectly captures the essence of our journey.

  Hoke spied Abigail working on the seat of her rocker off to one side of the circle, away from the others, weaving colored fabrics into the twine as she worked. It looked like she was nearly done. A small group of children who weren’t singing with Josephine were watching her, fascinated.

  “How did you know to do that?” Prissy Schroeder asked Abigail, her green eyes squinting under brown hair that always looked uncombed.

  “I just had the idea and thought it would be pretty.” Abigail smiled at her.

  “Ma’s always making things pretty,” said Jacob.

  “Who knew you could sing?” called Tam to James.

  “He can play, too,” offered Hoke.

  “Play what?” Tam demanded.

  “Oh, I have a guitar,” said James demurely.

  Josephine heard him say it and hopped up. “You have a guitar and you haven’t said anything about it! Why, Mr. Parker!” she scolded. “Go get it!”

  Hoke saw Tam watching Nora Jasper, who looked at her husband, Nichodemus. The Jaspers were one of the poorest families on the train.

  “Anybody else sittin’ on an instrument they ain’t told about?” Tam looked hard at Nora.

  “Nichodemus has a hog fiddle,” Nora admitted.

  “What’s a hog fiddle?” asked Prissy. No one answered her.

  “What’s a hog fiddle?” she asked again, louder. It was impossible to ignore Prissy Schroeder for long, although several in the group had tried.

  “It’s a dulcimer,” said Abigail.