Alone on the Oregon Trail

by Vanessa Carvo

  Finally, one day, I wanted to show Mattie that I trusted her and told her that she could ride Bailey alone if she liked. Her little eyes lit up so bright that they looked like shining silver. To my amazement she followed my directions and she came right back to me as well.

  I guess she thought she didn’t want to ruin her chance of being allowed to do it again, because she didn’t run off. I concluded that my bright idea of pulling Bailey into the relationship was a good one and we continued on with our riding lessons.

  I had been living at the Loves’ home for about six months when Grayson took me to the side and told me that he was seeing wonderful progress with Mattie and he thanked me for all my patience. He also said that I was always free to leave if I desired.

  Even for me, then, it sounded tempting but I surprised myself and told him that I had no intention of leaving unless he would ask me to. I explained that I had nowhere else to go and I would like to work some more with Mattie. I had many bridges to cross and wasn’t ready to give up.

  I hadn’t spent much time with Grayson at all by that point and I hardly knew him. I found myself looking at him as he spoke to me that day and it was the first time I ever noticed that he had looks. He was a good looking man and I didn’t even know it.

  My heart had been signed, sealed and delivered to Nathaniel and there was no interest in any man. Looking back now, I realized that this was the first time I ever really looked at Grayson.

  We began having a regular conversation from that day on and it was not always about Mattie either. We found ourselves talking about the crops, the animals, the weather and the beauty of the prairies. Grayson also would have a sneaky habit of talking to me about the Lord and His kindness, and it would quiet me up fairly quickly.

  I hadn’t been finding myself mad at God anymore, but I hadn’t been thinking about Him either. I was not ready to clear God yet in my mind, so I would just get quiet and not respond.

  One Sabbath morning Grayson announced that he would be hitching up the wagon to attend a church service in town and I was welcome to go if I liked. Just as I was about to answer him and take him up on it, little Mattie spoke out that it would not be right for me to go.

  When her father asked her why not, she responded that it would look bad for him to have a single woman accompanying him who was not his wife. She had a fairly serious look upon her face, so I bowed out graciously and said that I hadn’t really felt good that morning and should stay home.

  That satisfied her and left Grayson with a frown on his face. I was fine with it because I didn’t think I was ready for something like that myself and deep inside I was thanking Mattie for that one.

  When they returned from church, there was fried chicken, potatoes and gravy waiting for them and the looks on their faces was a memory for me still today. As little Mattie sat down at her place, she grinned and said, “Wow for a woman who was so sick, she sure healed up quick.”

  I raised one eyebrow and gave her a wink and sat down and watched that child fill her plate twice. This was the beginning of great progress for me and was glad to see the child eat what I had cooked for her.

  This was another bridge I managed to cross over without falling off.

  As time went on, many bridges came and went. Some I managed to cross over gracefully, and others I would fall just like her little song goes, but I would grasp some inner courage and start all over. Our rides with Bailey became quite common and Bailey was enjoying it as much as we were.

  He had been growing to like Mattie himself and very often he would bring his head down to her tiny face and nudge her, waiting for her to rub him. She began pouring out her love on this animal and it was three steps forward each time she would respond to him.

  She, however, still had not given in to showing any affection to the rest of us. For a long while it would only be Bailey who was worthy of her touch, according to her.

  Evening time became interesting and when her moods allowed, she would wander over when I would be reading and lean over my shoulder to see what was keeping me glued to my book. When I would offer to read to her, she would snarl or curl up her nose like she was not interested, but when I would return to my book, she would come back and peek.

  It was trial and error with Mattie and I learned quickly to not take anything personally. If I let myself take things personal I would be in a constant state of hurt. So, I took each day for what it offered and I rolled with her punches.

  Her outbursts were still happening weekly, but I began to notice that she was not having so many each day.

  Meredith, on the other hand, was starting to change. It was not until I saw Meredith roll her eyes even at me, and I realized that I had been giving Mattie all of my attention and as I watched Grayson, he also was paying no attention to Meredith.

  Even though we all knew that Mattie needed extra care, it was becoming quite evident that Meredith was beginning to suffer. So, I began to make plans with Meredith as well. I kept a book beside my bed that I could keep track of progress with Mattie as well as write down ideas that came to mind about Meredith.

  It sat beside my journal that I kept close to me and I would write in my journal each day how I felt about missing Nathaniel and would log memories of our life we had together so that I would not ever forget those moments. I never dreamed that anyone would be so rude to read into my personal life and never felt that I should keep it hidden.

  One evening when I got ready to tuck myself into bed, I noticed that my journal and the other book had switched places. Very calmly I reached onto the night stand and picked up my journal and peeked inside and saw nothing out of sorts.

  When I picked up the other book I found food stuck between the pages, making the pages stick together. I knew immediately who the culprit was and although I felt like running into her room and dealing with it, I chose to sleep on it and face her in the morning.

  It did bother me though that she felt like she had the right to enter my room and go through my personal things. This was just rude and it had to be stopped. Before I lay my head down to sleep, I decided that I would at least let Grayson know about it, so he would know beforehand why I was speaking to Mattie about such a thing.

  I knew he would understand that it would have to be dealt with. I laid my head down on my pillow, whispered a good night to my sleeping Nathaniel and nodded off to a peaceful sleep myself. Morning would come early enough and the chance to set Mattie straight about my room and my belongings would be there when I woke up.

  Morning did come, indeed, and it came with hollers ringing across the prairie. Meredith had awaken and found that Mattie was nowhere to be found. After searching the house she took it upon herself to go outside and search for her.

  Looking all over the barn and the back pastures, she found nothing. Poor Meredith had such a sweet and caring heart that she was all stirred up because she could not find her younger sister, while Mattie at times acted as if she hated her with passion.

  As I jumped up, throwing on my riding clothes, the thought came to me that perhaps Mattie had ran off because she knew I must had seen my journals by now and she was running from consequences.

  If that was the case, then I might just find her where we would have our picnic lunches when we would ride together. I ran to the barn and saddled up Bailey and jumped on, taking off in a canter as quickly as I brought up my right leg.

  Finding her was not the problem, the problem was getting her to go back home with me. I found her just where I knew she would be, sitting under the large Oak tree where we enjoyed our picnic lunches.

  She was picking at tiny tree limbs that she had pulled from the tree and she was stripping them down to tiny shreds. She never lifted her head to meet my eyes, but she certainly knew I was there. I just hopped off Bailey and let him loose to graze while I walked on over and sat down on the leaf covered ground beside her.

  Taking one of her twigs from her, I began stripping it down as she had been doing and she belted out a laugh at me,
saying, “Geesh, you cannot do anything right Brooklyn, no wonder your bridges are always falling down.”

  This irritated me to the core because after all I had just rode out that far to bring a little spoiled girl back home that had been sneaking into my things that are personal, and she had run off to get out of facing the consequences. This gave me the opportunity to speak to Mattie with a stern voice and I was about to make myself known that I too had a moody side.

  When the first word was out of my mouth she cut in and said “So, I guess I am your new project now, kind of like I am your pet and you are trying to train me. Is that it?”

  “No Mattie, you are not kind of like my subject, nor are you my little pet that I feel I need to train. You are a young child that is living with a world of hurt inside her body and I am trying to help you release that pain. That guilt you are carrying is not yours to carry.”

  I should have known I had said too much and this set her on fire. I had found that you cannot speak to her for long, and especially about her. She cannot handle talking about her or her feelings.

  “You are a liar, because I read it right there that I am like a little bunny at times and lost my ability to hunt for my own food, and so on…tell me that I am not like a pet to you!”

  “Oh Mattie, that’s just a figure of speech. I--”

  “Figure of speech? Yes, that is right. It is a figure of speech, it is the written word, your own words.”

  “Yes, but what I mean is that I compare you to a little helpless bunny that needs help along the way because he has lost his mommy…”

  “Don’t you ever talk about my mommy!”

  “Sweetheart, maybe we should talk about…”

  “No! We should not. You are so stupid, just like one of our stupid pigs. My mommy did not get lost from me -- she is dead, and she’s dead because I killed her!”

  “Oh darling, you did not kill your mommy.”

  “Get your hands off of me!”

  I had reached over lightly and touched her arm and this went against her own rules, so I pulled my hand back to give her space and lowered my head as if I had something to be ashamed of by showing some love to the dear child. When I looked back up, she had walked over to Bailey and had the reins in her hand and was about to hop on him.

  I quickly went over to her and gently took the reins from her hand saying “Mattie, Bailey is my horse and you cannot just take things that are not yours. Now, if you like you can ride behind me and we will go back home.”

  “No thank you!” she screamed as her body shook and she began running towards home. There was not much else I could do, as I knew she would never hop on with me, so I jumped upon Bailey and we slowly began trotting to the house.

  By the time Mattie got back to the house, I had unsaddled Bailey and turned him loose in the pasture to graze and as I took a look back, I saw Mattie as she came up over the tiny hill just beyond the house. Shaking her head and cursing up a storm, here she came, as mad as a wet hen.

  I chose to not make eye contact and went on in the house, warning Meredith that Mattie had been found and was boiling mad. At the sound of that Meredith went into her room and closed the door.

  She knew too well what kind of mood Mattie would be in when she entered the house. I followed her advice and did the same. I had to think that this was one more bridge to cross and I considered this to be one where Brooklyn fell from.

  Chapter Eight

  (Down In The Valley)

  After the initial screaming I received from Mattie, things began to calm down. So much so that there was total silence and this about drove me insane. It had become “down in the valley” around here for sure.

  Everyone fell into a secret and quiet stillness and at any point and time you could hear the doves as they cooed in the trees. One day as I was sitting under our special tree with Bailey, I heard a lonesome dove whisper just above my head.

  It sounded like his little heart had been broken and I watched as he stirred about in his nest above me. As I studied him, I decided that it must have been a female dove and she may have lost the chicks from her nest. The nest sat empty but she kept turning in it, repositioning herself over and over, and then she would lean her head over the edges of the nest and coo.

  She seemed so lonely and heartbroken and I thought perhaps her little ones may have fallen from the nest and were now gone from her life, kind of like Nathaniel left my life in one day. I felt sorry for the soft, gray dove and I began humming lightly a song that I remembered humming before. The words “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…” and before long I was singing out the song in a soft pitch that seemed to soothe the sad little bird.

  I was grateful that something could ease her pain, if only for a short time, and I found myself falling asleep under the shade of my familiar old oak. When I woke up noon had passed on and it was coming evening upon the horizon.

  Along with it looked to be a possible storm as well and this shot me up as quickly as I saw it there. Grayson had left for town that morning and was not expected to return until night fall. Now with this storm coming in, I not only had to worry about the girls and me, but for him as well.

  Grabbing Bailey’s reins I jumped up on him and took off as fast as he could go and got to the house in time to see a funnel cloud that had shot down, swirling itself into the shape of a cone.

  Knowing exactly what this was and hurrying inside I began screaming at the top of my lungs at the girls to come out to me and they both, to my grateful heart, came running out to me and I grabbed them both by the hand and took off running to the cellar.

  As I was passing by the gate I saw Bailey standing there. This broke me into a panic of choices and I chose first to get the girls into the cellar and then I ran back out to Bailey. I knew there was nothing I could do to save his life and I jerked his bridle off and saddle off and I screamed at him to run for safety.

  Then I ran back to the cellar with the girls. Crying out to God to save Bailey and to save Grayson, wherever he was; I realized that I had not forgotten my God in times of stress and I cried out even harder, asking for mercy upon me and to forgive me for wandering so far from Him.

  We sat in the cellar and listened to the howling that rang throughout the land and we heard tree limbs snapping and wondered how big the trees were that were being ripped from their roots.

  I found myself thinking on my favorite old oak, praying it to be spared and my thoughts then stayed on Bailey. I sat and thought about places he might have ran to, hoping he had made his way out of the path of the devil storm that was tearing our place apart. I could tell that buildings were being torn to shreds and all I could think of was the house and would it be standing when we climbed from our safe cellar?

  We all had plenty of time to think on these things and I could hear both girls whimpering and praying and their heads were tucked down under my arms, and for once this small Mattie child was allowing me to touch her and again we had received pity from the good Lord.

  When the storm finally ended and the sounds of darkness had come to a still, we climbed slowly from the cellar to find our land absolutely ravaged. The house was gone. All that stood in its place was the remainder of the outside walls and the amount of destruction was soon realized.

  We helped each other crawl out and as their little heads turned this way and that way, you could see their tears roll down the sides of their faces. Immediately Mattie screamed out in pain and I thought somehow she had been hurt, but she was screaming about Bailey.

  “My God, where is Bailey?” I screamed back and I ran to the barn to see it standing so tall and strong. It was a horrible scene to see the house completely gone and yet the barn stood erect.

  Thinking Bailey must be in the barn, we all took off towards it and getting inside, we could not find Bailey at all and our hearts sunk. As we all sat there is sobs that screamed out pain, we could not shake it. Then in a moments time, little Mattie mentioned the old oak tree and that Bailey
might have went there.

  In my mind I was thinking the old oak is probably gone because of how old it was, but it was worth going to check. Hand in hand we all ran out over the hill to see if we could be so blessed to see Bailey standing under it and just as our hearts had cried for, there he stood, under the old oak, swishing his tail back and forth.

  He heard our cries of happiness and turned to look our way and began trotting over to us. When he came to us we all three wrapped our arms around his neck and we stood there for a good half hour loving him and finally loving each other.

  A twister had struck through our lives, taking our home, leaving the barn; taking only a selected few trees and leaving one special oak tree that stood as strong as ever, covering the most precious friend we had.

  Now, it was time to worry about Grayson and we all ran back to the barn waiting for him to return. It was coming upon nightfall and he should be arriving anytime and just as he had said he came pulling up in his wagon that was filled with supplies, food and special surprises for all.

  As he came up, he was frantic because he’d seen the funnel head in our direction and what he must have felt when he saw us running out to greet him -- our eyes fully opened wide, our house completely gone and a barn that would, for the time, be our new home.

  The morning had started out to be very solemn, and yet by evening time disaster had struck, but the good Lord reached down his mighty arm and protected what was His, and we all were so grateful.

  Down in the valley quickly turned into lifting our voices and praises to God for His mercy upon us all as that ruthless twister came crashing down taking everything in the path that God would allow it to take.

  We were looking at lives spared, a horse spared, and a barn that would fill our needs for shelter. What more can a glorious God do for those He loves?