Stranded

by Matthew P. Mayo

  There wasn’t much more I could do but watch them leave. There went Papa, thin gray hair trailing out from under his brown felt slouch hat, his neck canted forward, reminding me of a turtle I’d seen years before. I always think of him that way—a turtle-looking sort of man. But as if he were the kindliest turtle who’d ever lived. And he is. The kindliest man I’ve ever known, that is. Not really like a turtle.

  As I watched, I noticed that Thomas and William both hold their heads the same way as Papa. Their necks leaned forward, their hats nudged back on their foreheads. Even their hair has that wispy look, Will’s the color of browned leather, Tom’s darker but not quite black, more like swampy slough water.

  And their shoulders—all three hold them the same way, pulled back but slumped, too, as if they are tugged by strings like on the marionettes I saw at the fair a few years back.

  Seeing their hair waving like that in the sweltering day makes me think of when Mama was alive, cooking for us and singing over the stove. She’d open that oven door and heat from the firebox would rush out and blow the stray strands of her hair. Her cheeks red as fall apples, sweat shining on her forehead, her hazel eyes—Papa says I have the same—bright and kind, her mouth always smiling. Always.

  And then the fever came. Typhus, Papa said. I did not understand then, and in truth I still do not. I am holding a grudge against God and I don’t care who knows it. Papa said it happened for a reason, but I don’t think he believes that any more than I do. Anyways, if there is a reason for it, I’d surely like to know of it. No sign yet, but I am still waiting. I reckon it being God and all that I can wait. Time I’ve got.

  But there it was, one day Mama was gone. Papa didn’t talk on it very much. Still doesn’t. He cried, and right in front of me, too. That surprised me, for I had never seen Papa cry. Had never seen him do much of anything but smile, sweat, grit his teeth, sometimes be a little bit angry with Thomas or the mule, but mostly be my happy, smiling Papa.

  After Mama died he became old. For the better part of two years he stopped smiling all the time, didn’t much laugh anymore, his hair grew long. It turned gray like the feathers of that old goose we had who honked and hissed and not much else, his old feeble wings dragging their tips, his leathery feet squishing through his own greasy leavings. And then he got better, especially after he decided we were to head west. Papa, not the goose.

  The goose ended up stewing on the stove for a full two days, then we ate his stringy old self. He wasn’t any more pleasant between my teeth than he had been honking and flapping at me all over the yard. I am certain there’s a lesson nested in there somewhere, but I don’t have the patience to dig it up.

  As they were leaving this morning, Papa gave me one last smile and a quick wave, sort of sheepish-like. I watched the back of his head, my brothers, too, as they all strode, longlegged, into this hot-as-hell wild place that surrounds us.

  Papa is hoping to scare up a few rabbits. I have my doubts that anything worth eating lives in the Dacotahs, but I smile and wave and set to work on the baking before the day really hots up.

  I would not say so to Papa, but this trip is proving to be a trial.

  THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1849

  * * *

  Once again it is near dark as I write this by the light of the campfire. I have tried to use my own sleepiness and the fire’s scant glow to keep my jottings brief, but I am nothing if not chatty. It is fast becoming obvious to me I will use up all my ink and pencils, to say nothing of my journal pages, long before I run out of events to write about.

  Of course the biggest daily worry—not to mention the oxen going lame or one of us taking ill or stepping on a sleeping snake and getting bit as a thank-you—is running out of burning goods. All day long we are to be on the scout for rare lengths of wood or pats of buffalo dung. The dung, I have come to learn, does not stink when it burns, as I had feared. It also does not throw much smoke, and offers a mild, even heat. When we find dried dung pats, we toss them under the wagon, onto a canvas hung underneath the belly of the wagon like a lazy-day hammock.

  Were it not for the dung pats, some of them still not firm in the middle, and I blame Thomas for gathering those, I would be tempted to ride in that swaying hammock. Along about the middle of these hot afternoons, when the sun is pinned high and cooking everything like a grasshopper on a hot coal, that looks like a most comfortable spot. But then I commence to thinking of poor Bub and Bib and how hard they are working to lug all our possessions. Why, it’s all I can do to not beg Papa to turn them loose and hitch me and the boys in the harnesses for a spell.

  Of course I know that’s foolishness, but it will do my heart good to see Oregon, for a lot of reasons, one of them so the oxen can recover from this journey. I cannot imagine being born into life as a beast of burden.

  If we can’t lay a hand on much of anything that might feed a fire during the day, then that night we are reliant on our store of wood and dried dung, but using those scant stocks is a slippery slope. For if we go too many days without adding to the stores, we eat hardtack and jerky. When we are in an area with little to offer in the way of burning goods, we make our fires small and kept alive only as long as the food requires warming.

  We were cautious, but somehow the jerked, smoked venison stores depleted more rapidly than Papa had expected, such that they were nearly gone by the time we reached the Dacotahs. And the reason for it still makes me shake my head. Here is what happened. . . .

  Once in a great moon, I have seen Papa exhausted, his patience sorely tested, his jaw muscles bunched so tight I bet he could crack butternuts between his teeth. But nothing like that day, not long since, when he caught Thomas with his hand in the jerky pouch. It’s a leather affair lined with oilcloth, two brass buckles holding it closed. It rides tucked inside the rearmost of the wagon, back at the tailgate where we keep goods we use most frequently, namely the cooking setup. I knew we were about to see something none of us had ever witnessed. It was Thomas who received the full brunt of Papa’s unexpected rage.

  Papa’s timing could not have been more perfect, nor could Thomas’s be any worse. By the way he had gone about squirreling his way into the pouch, tucked away out of sight as it was, it was obvious Thomas had been filching the jerky for some time.

  “You!” Papa’s voice boomed, startling even the oxen, a mighty task in itself.

  Thomas tried to jerk his hand away—I saw it all as I was handling the lines, steering the oxen. We do this while walking beside them. We all walk, for the most part, as the wagon has but a thin seat and Bib and Bub have enough to do without hauling our sorry hides, along with everything else.

  That being said, Papa asks that I ride now and again. He insists it is so the oxen will not forget the importance of being driven by a proper seated driver. He is full of beans, of course, and being kind to me as the only girl. I pretend to take offense to this, but secretly my feet enjoy the rest. I ride now and again for a few minutes to humor him. I expect Thomas wouldn’t mind a ride now and again, though. And to that I say, “Ha ha.” Working the lines takes little effort, as the oxen are not particularly clever, but they are solid and will keep on churning long after a draft horse has quit its task. Papa says the only thing worth more is a brace of mules. That’s neither here nor there, especially as we have no mules.

  I was alongside the head of the wagon, a position I was quite familiar with. It was the middle of the afternoon, after I’d swapped with Thomas. That must have been when he indulged each day. No one saw him because he was lagging behind as he usually did, or so we thought.

  We had been warned by Papa and his many guidebooks that layabouts and thieves on the trail could not be tolerated and if captured should be dealt hard justice. From the number of such mentions, it sounded as if shirking and thievery are ways of life once one takes to the westward trail. In truth, I think it is because of the slow-witted ways of so many folks.

  I have heard tell of people, mostly children, who tumbled from their wagon
s or snagged on the brake lever and got themselves run over for their careless ways. I also read of others who were foolish enough to allow their families to get so far ahead they were beyond shouting distance, and so they were soon forgotten and lost on the trail!

  What happened to them has only been guessed on, but that is the worst of it, I think. The mind—at least mine does—plays the game of terror. I think up such foul circumstances for those lost laggards. And since it is only in my mind, and now on this page, I say to them, “You ought to have stepped livelier!”

  And then, in my mind, snakes and wolves and lions and redskinned Indians all set upon the lost souls in their various evil ways. I could go on but it is a gruesome occupation and I have other things to tell.

  This had been Papa’s concern, I have no doubt, when he looked back and didn’t happen to see Thomas walking along behind, grudgingly stretching his legs mile after mile. I saw Papa drop back from his usual spot alongside Bub, the left ox. It was not odd for him to do so, and we rolled slowly onward, that right-front wheel hub still squawking as though it is a bairn in need of mother’s milk. Papa continues to grease it, but he told us we had best get used to it, as there is little more he can do.

  Next thing, I heard his shouting, louder than that squawking hub. I yarned on the lines and halted those beasts as quick as they are able. It takes a while for the words “Whoa, now!” to travel from my mouth to their brains, which I suspect are the size of dried peas. That may be mean of me, but a fact is still a fact.

  William and I looked at each other, our eyebrows high, in that blink of time before you find out what something means. All we knew was that Papa was shouting, which hardly ever happens, and he was out of sight, and so was Thomas. As I mentioned, Papa had been preaching to us all along the trail about how people are run over by their own wagon wheels with more frequency than you might imagine.

  I set the brake and by the time I had looped the lines, then pulled these ragged skirts of mine to step lively, Will was already back there. He has always run like a startled rabbit. Though I suspect Thomas is getting faster.

  Even if I had been riding in the wagon, I would not have seen through because I had washing and blankets hung inside every which way, hoping to get them dry enough to take down before we got back into a dusty stretch.

  And there was Papa. He is a tall man, and his long finger poked down less than an inch from Thomas’s face. Thomas was backed up real good, there being nowhere else for him to go. He’d shrunk himself up into his clothing like a turtle skinnying into his shell.

  But it didn’t do any good, because Papa leaned right into him. As soon as Will and I got there, we saw why Papa was riled. Thomas was pinned by Papa in such a way that his guilty hand was still jammed right into that satchel of venison. He couldn’t have moved it if he wanted to. And I bet he wanted to.

  None of us had ever seen Papa so worked up, not since Mama passed, anyway. And then it was grief, not so much anger. Though when someone dies, you are most certainly angry, now that I reflect on that. But who can tell me who it is you should be angry with? Is it God? That doesn’t feel like the right answer, at least the Bible thumpers would not have it so. But if not God, then who?

  That is something I can mull over later. As I was saying, Papa repeated his word, as if for our benefit, though I doubt he was aware Will and I were standing next to him. The veins in his sunburnt neck stuck right out and reached all the way up the side of his face under his hat. His eyes were narrowed and fiery and his jaw set tight, trembling. He shouted that one word again: “You!”

  Will put a hand out to touch Papa’s sleeve, but I stayed it. It was too soon, and as I had not seen Papa in such a state I was a little afraid of him, I will admit, though he had never given any of us cause to feel that way.

  Will pulled back as if he agreed with me. Then slowly Papa’s jaw muscles softened, those veins throbbed less on his neck. Finally his long leathery arm, so muscled it looked wrapped in rope, slowly lowered, his pointing finger curling inward.

  No one made a sound. Up front, one of the oxen shook his head at a blowfly and his dull neck bell clunked.

  Papa turned, pulled in a deep, long breath, and ran his hands down his face as if he was washing. Then he let out his breath like it was a long, slow release of pent-up steam. Without turning, he spoke in a voice that sounded as if his throat was sore. “We cannot stand greed on this trip, Thomas. It brings harm to us all.”

  Thomas shifted, and in a whisper said, “Yes, Papa. I’m . . .” But Papa held up a big knuckled hand and Thomas kept his peace. Thomas is prone to go on and on if allowed. I am one to talk. I have used up too many precious diary pages already relating this incident. But I will say one more thing. Papa stood like that for some time, doing something he has been doing more and more lately on our journey.

  He looked eastward, toward where we had come from, and though I did not want to disturb him, I looked at his eyes and saw things that I have yet to experience and hope I never do. I may be bold and foolish in my guesses, but I fancy I saw regret and guilt and sadness and worry and fear all at once in those eyes. It wasn’t until that very moment that I began to understand what Papa was thinking, the load on his two wide shoulders has to be so much more than we know.

  TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1849

  * * *

  I vowed early on in this endeavor that if I had little more to say in these clean pages of paper than to tally the day’s chores and travails (often one and the same), I would leave off writing here. And that is what I have done, at least until I have something of note to tell. Today is not one of those days.

  And judging from the slow, dusty progress we are making, it is unlikely that tomorrow, or any day on the horizon, will offer much worth relating. This is not a complaint (well, perhaps a little of it is), so much as it is a fact.

  And so we roll slowly toward Oregon and what Papa is certain are its farming splendors. I hope it proves greener than this worrying, hot, and dusty land we find ourselves trapped in.

  With that said, I doubt I shall write again here for some time to come. It occurred to me that I should use these pages more wisely, spend them like hard-earned pennies instead of treating them as if they numbered as many as snowflakes that fall in a midwinter storm. It is hot enough here, somewhere in the Dacotahs, that I tempt myself with thoughts of the cooling snows of winter. And still I fill the pages! Will I never learn?

  MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1849

  * * *

  As I promised myself in this book close to a month back, I have kept from writing here until I have something to say. Today is that day, as we caught sight of far-off peaks, those of the Great Rocky Mountains. Long have I read about them, and when we spied them I turned away, pretended the dust was too much in my eyes lest Thomas poke fun of me.

  Gripped by whimsy, Papa smiled and said, “Won’t be long now, my dears. We are within spitting distance!”

  Whereupon Thomas promptly up and spit, paying no heed to the stiff breeze that had accompanied us all the day long. His spittle whipped back and caught him in the eye. Even William shook his head. I fancy he smiled, too. I know I did.

  The notion of those majestic peaks has abided so long in my mind I had grown fearful that on seeing them they would somehow appear as diminished versions of those I think about. But no, even from this great distance—Papa says we are the better part of a week from them—what I can see of them speaks of boldness. So much so they made me weep.

  I will admit that here, but nowhere else. And now, as that bit of foolishness has passed, I will mention it no more. The Territory of Oregon may well be our destination, but it is the Great Rocky Mountain chain for which my heart sings.

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1849

  * * *

  On reading my last entry, I decided to keep from writing for a spell, as I would offer more of the same frippery, waxing about the mountains. So I forced myself to leave off until we grew close enough to the mountains that I might relate my hones
t impression of them.

  And so I shall, for we are here, at the ver y foot of the mountains I so longed to see. With that arrival, in as pretty a little grassed valley as you could ever imagine in all your days, came a sudden stretch of work, accounting for my inattention to these pages.

  Papa says we will be here but three days. He minced no words in telling us he fears staying put longer, though the spot is pretty. He says the winters here in the mountains come early and stay late. He could not help but look quickly at me when he said this, and I take that to mean he knows I am aware of what he speaks.

  This is true, as we have both read the same guidebooks (William cares not for reading and Thomas is too flighty in the head to settle down with a book). More than one of those guides warned against lingering too long on this side of the great mountains in the latter days of September and into October.

  This is something I worry about more and more as we roll westward. I spoke with Papa about it once, some weeks ago, and he was oddly gruff, telling me we would have ample time to make our escape. Then he excused himself from the fire, attended to his evening duties off in the sage somewhere, and retired to his bedroll.

  The truth is, I believe I was correct. It pains me to say it because if he were ever to read this I would be mortified. But we should have left Missouri sooner than the middle of June. We also should have traveled faster, and with other wagons. But as we are now here, and as Oregon, near as I can figure, is to the west of these mountains, I am confident we will be fine.

  Papa says he and William and Thomas will spend one day hunting buffalo not far from here. He says we would be foolish to neglect the opportunity to replenish our food stocks while we can.