Impatient With Desire

by Gabrielle Burton

  “See how your wrist and forearm are ahead of the lock? That way it can’t get accidentally cocked or discharged. But you can also cradle it, if that’s more comfortable for you. Your mother and Elitha prefer that.”

  My father taught me the cradle because, even when I was 10 years old, the gun was more than half as long as I was tall. Elitha was tall for her age but took to the cradle right away. She’s an expert shot, but hunted only once because the falling pheasant plunged her heart.

  “Now the nice thing about the cradle is that your fingers support the trigger guard bow, and your open hand covers the lock and pan, protecting them.”

  Leanna carefully shifted the rifle to the cradle position.

  “See how the main weight of the rifle’s on your left forearm now,” George said. “Which one feels better?”

  “I want to try both some more,” Leanna said.

  George nodded approval. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to load it, and then we’ll practice shooting.”

  Leanna beamed—she’s younger than Elitha was when she got that privilege—and shifted from one carry to another a dozen more times.

  After so much inactivity, all the movement and talk is thrilling. One more day of preparation, and then Jean Baptiste can fetch Milt.

  At the hearth I crisped strips of hide to carry with us, while Elitha lined our dresses and coats with layers of silk for warmth. Next to her, Frances looked dismayed as a steady drip came through a new place in the ceiling. Elitha put her arm around her. “No, it’s good, Frances. We want the thaw to continue. We’ll be able to leave. Mother and Father told Leanna and me. We have a plan all worked out with Jean Baptiste and Mr. Elliott.”

  Leanna cradled the rifle again and said, “I think the cradle.” She laughed. “Just like a little baby,” she said, and Elitha looked over and laughed. We all laughed.

  The shelter teems with hope.

  15th

  Jean Baptiste, crying, motioned me outside. He had to tell me twice. I couldn’t hear it, couldn’t believe it.

  I came inside, stood there unsteady on my feet in the smoky dimness. Flames cast shadows on the wall. Dante’s Inferno. The only sound was Doris Wolfinger’s sobs. I wrenched her blanket back, shook her by the shoulders. “Stop crying!”

  She instantly stopped crying and stared at me in panic and fear. I stared furiously at her and left.

  “What is it?” George said.

  I didn’t even want to say it aloud. It was terrible to even form the words in a whisper.

  “Milt died.”

  I burst into tears. “Milt died February 9th. Dead all the time we’ve been making our plan. Margret and Virginia weren’t strong enough to bury him. Five days Milt lay dead at the Murphys’. The Breen boys finally went and buried him.” I sobbed while George held me.

  Milford “Milt” Elliott, 28, d. February 9th 1847 at the lake camp.

  The Reeds’ teamster from Springfield. Steadfast and brave.

  It wasn’t until I was recording Milt’s death in the Bible that I registered the terrible disappointment on George’s face.

  15th near midnight

  I came back from Elizabeth’s near twilight, and George was gone.

  I followed his heavy, dragging footprints to just beyond the clearing. His back to me, his gaze was fixed on something in the dim light. He tried to raise his rifle but was too weak. He tried to reposition himself and make another effort.

  “George,” I said softly.

  He turned, hissed. “Quiet. You’ll frighten the deer.”

  My eyes filled with tears.

  He made a third herculean effort, bringing the gun above his shoulder, painstakingly lowering it until he had the deer dead in his sights.

  And then he saw in the crosshairs what I saw: A tree with hacked branches, moving in the wind.

  He turned around, broken. “I’m Hardcoop,” he said. He let the gun drop to the snow and walked away.

  Taking two steps for every one of his, I struggled after him, screaming at his back. “Hardcoop helped me with the children! He cared for Luke as tenderly as if he were his own grandson! Hardcoop did every single thing he could!”

  George stopped, turned. “I’m sorry.”

  Together, tears streaming down our faces, we wrested the gun from the snow.

  Nov 1st 1846

  While Elitha and I consoled Georgia and Eliza, Shhh you’re okay, the teamsters righted the wagon and hurriedly repacked it. The snowflakes whirling about us, George and Jacob were hastily repairing the broken axle when suddenly Jacob’s chisel slipped and gashed George’s hand, red blood spurting on white snow. Jacob was beside himself. Oh my God, George, I’m sorry, I’m—I ran to get bandages, and George made light of it, consoling his distraught brother, just for an instant his eyes meeting mine over the deep cut that went diagonally from his wrist across his hand to his little finger, before we cast them down to see the stain spread across the snow.

  Truckee Meadows, October 1846 Sister

  That is the letter to you I found in the Bible. I can think of many things that would have interrupted me, but not what I intended to tell you.

  A salutation when I wrote it, now it looks like a call for help.

  Feb 17th 1847

  The prairie grass rolls and undulates, rolls and undulates. Elitha looks up from her book and says, “It looks like waves, Mother.” “Soon you’ll see real ocean waves,” I say. The prairie grass turns into ocean waves, bigger and bigger waves, spectacular ocean waves turn into waves of blowing snow, blowing higher, higher, until the waves are massive tidal waves just about to drown us all, George goes under first, I reach for Frances, for Eliza, Georgia slips away, I frantically grab Elitha, Leanna’s gone, there’s no way I can save them all—

  “Tamsen, Tamsen,” George calls. I open my eyes, stare at him in fright. “What were you dreaming?” he asks. “Nothing,” I say. I look at him. “I believed it would be advantageous for them.” “Of course. Of course,” he says, holding my shaking body the rest of the night.

  I never went back to sleep. I was afraid to go back to sleep, even shutting my eyes, I saw those terrible waves, the children slipping under, the white, icy fingers of my uncle reaching out to embrace me. I was more tired today than I have ever been, I could hardly force myself to move. Bathing George’s wound, my hands shook. Drip. No matter how many holes we stuff, Betsey, we always miss some or new ones appear. Drip. The single persistent drip hit like a metronome, it pounded in my head. Jean Baptiste and I strung a rope across the shelter to hang the children’s clothes on. We stretched out damp clothes on every available surface. I lay stockings across logs by the fireplace. Drip. Frances watched the drip with a little smile on her face. No one has told her the plan is off. George’s wound has spread farther up his arm. I felt a scream rise up in me and tried to stifle it. Drip. I looked up at George, his sad eyes watching me closely.

  “The children have not had one dry garment on in more than a week, and I don’t know what to do about it. George. We must hold on for the children!”

  George reached across the table with his other hand and took mine. “We got through the Wasatch.”

  I looked into his calm, sad eyes and felt the stillness, the steadiness, at the center of his being flow into me.

  “We got through the Wasatch,” I said to myself, as I emptied the slops into a trench behind our shelter.

  I tossed some snow into the pail, swirled it around, shook it out, and set the pail near the opening. Frances, Georgia, Eliza, and Uno came out, squinting against the brightness of the sunny day. “Told you the sun would come out again,” I said. Elitha and Leanna dumped blankets and clothes in a pile on the ground. I waved at Jean Baptiste walking toward us across the clearing. I almost shouted: We got through the Wasatch!

  Sweet Frances dug and trudged, helping me pack clean snow into bowls and set them by the shelter. After filling one bowl together, Georgia and Eliza stopped to eat snow and play.

  Elitha and Leanna shook
a damp blanket to air and smooth it out before laying it on the ground. Jean Baptiste, without a word, took Frances’s hand, and they joined the older girls. Each took a corner of the blanket and shook. They’ve done this often before, but today it turned into a lively team game as each side tried to shake the blanket out of the other side’s hands.

  Uno rolled in the snow, shaking snow all over, rolling again, Eliza and Georgia laughing at his antics. They were little bundles of dirty, ragged clothes bubbling laughter. Leanna gave a ferocious pull, lost her balance, and in the grabbing and falling, all four ended up falling down, all laughing hard together.

  The sun sparkled on the snow. The sky was the bluest you ever saw. I stopped and just looked at the sky. The vastness. The majestic mountains. Sometimes my spirit soars at the boundlessness about us. I lay down in the fresh, clean snow next to Eliza and Georgia and made an angel like you and I used to do so long ago. Eliza and Georgia plopped down next to me and pumped their little angel arms. Then Frances, Leanna, Elitha, even Jean Baptiste did.

  Everyone made angels in the snow.

  Night

  We got through the Wasatch. If I had my oil paints, I’d paint it in crimson. Embroider it on a sampler pillow. We couldn’t follow the Weber Canyon route, Betsey, we had to go through the Wasatch Mountains. With axes, hatchets, and sheer brute strength, we went where no wagon had ever gone before, hacking out a road through a labyrinth of forest, thicket, bramble, and underbrush, around and over boulders, fording the same creek thirteen times, often dragging back the pitifully short road to camp at the same spot as the night before, blistering, bleeding, despairing, panicking, it was only with the utmost difficulty that George kept the company together, and after all that, Betsey, for over two weeks and an advance of thirty-six miles, we came to a gorge that was impenetrable.

  Nearby was a frighteningly steep hill. There was no way to ascend it—the wagons would roll backward. George went first. We hitched nearly every team of oxen to our lead wagon, and he began the pull up. One slip, and George, forty oxen, and the wagon would have smashed to death.

  The wagon over, he brought back the oxen, and the men hitched them to the next wagon. One by one, with mothers and terrified children inside hanging on to canvas sides, wooden frames, and each other, we pulled every one of our wagons, yard by yard, up, and over that precipitous, seemingly perpendicular hill. It was an impossible feat, and only desperation accomplished it.

  Tonight as I write down George’s words, I’m grateful to be able to record something with full hope, grateful for today.

  I was out nearly all day long, this morning with the children, this afternoon at Elizabeth’s, then walking by myself until sunset, George’s words buoying me all the more because they pulled me up from despair. When I think upon our nearly eight years of marriage, my husband has always been a kind friend, who has done all in his power to promote my happiness. By and large, he has never asked me to be other than I am or less than I am.

  Did I tell you, Betsey, that when we married, I told the minister, “In my vow, you must leave out the word obey.” Immediately, in the most annoying way, he turned to George. George never blinked an eye. The minister waited, as if for permission. “Don’t use obey in my vow either,” George said.

  I think we have achieved, as much as possible in an unequal world, a marriage of equals.

  June 1846

  At our campsite on the Trail, under a dazzling, starry sky, George tucks the children in for the night. “There’s nothing like a night under the open stars,” he says to them.

  “Why aren’t you and Momma sleeping out here with us?” Frances asks.

  “Old bones,” he says.

  He climbs into the wagon and winks at me waiting for him in bed. I hold out my arms. Tanned, strong, smiling, he comes to me.

  Betsey, last night I lay next to my dear husband. His breathing was labored, he slept fitfully, unaware that he grimaced and moaned from the pain. I thought of all the things that will never again be, allowed myself to cry without sound, and then I put those memories away in the back of my heart.

  Feb 18th 1847

  “We’re on our last hide,” I told George.

  I read the word on his lips: “Uno.”

  After the children fell asleep, I beckoned to Jean Baptiste waiting at the fireplace. He picked Uno off the end of the children’s platform as gently as lifting a sleeping child.

  “Chain up, boys,” George says for the first time in our Springfield driveway. “Chain up!”

  “Jump, Uno, jump!” Frances yells.

  Leanna boosts Uno, and Frances hauls him into the wagon.

  Out on the prairie, the girls and I gallop on horses. We ride astride, passing two women riding sidesaddle, who look askance at us. Frances, her arms wrapped around Leanna, shrieks with ecstasy. Barking wildly, Uno tries to keep up. “Uno thinks he’s a horse!” Frances screams.

  Frances eyed her bits of meat in the watery stew and began eating. Georgia and Eliza gulped theirs down, crying throughout.

  “But why did Uno run away?” Eliza sobbed again.

  “He ran to California,” Frances said, silent tears running down her cheeks.

  February 19th 1847 Three months and eighteen days trapped in the mountains

  I heard Jean Baptiste at the top of the tree yelling and ran out. “I see them, I see them! Mrs. Donner! They’re coming!”

  I hurried across the clearing toward the three rescuers on snowshoes. “I am Tamsen Donner,” I said. “We have been expecting you.”

  Mr. Reasin Tucker, about 40, introduced himself and the two others. “Where is Mr. James Reed?” I asked.

  “We have not seen him,” Mr. Tucker said. “We heard of your distress from William Eddy.”

  “The snowshoers got through? Thank God.”

  Mr. Tucker fell silent; the others averted their eyes.

  “Please tell me,” I said. “How is Mr. Charles Stanton? He was traveling with us. And the other snowshoers?”

  Mr. Tucker took my arm and moved with me to the side, lowered his voice.

  What he said shook me to my core. When I could speak, I said, “I will get my children ready.”

  “It’s difficult and dangerous, Mrs. Donner. We can only take those who can walk by themselves.”

  Inside, Doris Wolfinger rushed around frenetically, stuffing things into bundles.

  “The snowshoers got through,” I said. “Seven men have come. They cannot take everyone today, but another relief will come soon. Elitha, Leanna, we’re sending you ahead to get things ready for the family.” I pointed to their sisters. Frances was taking in all the stir; Georgia and Eliza halfheartedly played their card game. “It may be that your sisters will arrive at the settlement without Father or me,” I said. “God willing, we will follow later. Take good care of them and of yourselves, and always stay together.”

  I embraced Elitha and Leanna, and they looked at me, their eyes full of tears.

  “I don’t want to leave you here, Mother,” Leanna said. “There’s too much work and you’ll only have Jean Baptiste to help.”

  “I have to go, Mother,” Elitha said. “I can’t bear to stay here another day hearing my little sisters cry for food.”

  “You both must go to prepare a place for us,” I said.

  With great effort, George sat in a chair I had padded with blankets. He has so little body fat it’s painful for him to sit. Elitha and Leanna knelt in front of him, tears streaming down their faces. “Always honor your mother, Mary Blue, who gave you life,” George said. “Honor your mother, Tamsen Donner, who loved and raised you as her own. Do your best in life, and keep me in your hearts.” Tears streaming down his face, he embraced them.

  All of a sudden, Georgia registered that her big sisters were leaving. She threw herself at Elitha, clinging to her, sobbing, “Don’t go without me.” With the utmost difficulty, Elitha was able to disengage herself, only by repeatedly promising Georgia, “I will bring you bread.” Finally Georgia nodd
ed and, as if she had completely tired herself out, went and climbed onto her rack.

  Outside, the three rescuers lined up Elitha, Doris Wolfinger, my nephews, William Hook, and George, and Noah James. “Where’s Leanna?” I asked. “She’s saying good-bye to Aunt Elizabeth,” Elitha said.

  Jean Baptiste was distraught. “Why can’t I go?” he demanded. “Noah James is going.”

  Mr. Tucker shook his head no. “Noah’s only 16. You have to stay. You’re the only able-bodied man left.”

  Jean Baptiste turned to me. “Please, Mrs. Donner. Let me go with them. I should be allowed to save myself.”

  “Speak with Mr. Donner,” I said.

  He raced inside the shelter.

  Leanna came across the clearing, her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, Mother,” she said. Her skin was a peculiar sallow color, dry and cold when I touched her cheek. Her once abundant black, wavy hair was coarse and thin. Her body sagged alarmingly as she turned to join the group.

  Mr. Tucker parceled out food for those of us staying behind: a teacup of flour, two small biscuits, and thin pieces of jerked beef. I watched with disbelief as he painstakingly measured out the jerked beef, the pieces long as his little finger and half as wide. Each adult ration was as many pieces as he could encircle with his first finger and thumb brought together.

  “We’re eating our last hide, Mr. Tucker.”

  “Our supplies were rifled by bears, Mrs. Donner. This is all we can spare.”

  “If we don’t find our cattle in the snow in a day or two, Mr. Tucker…we must commence on the dead.”