by Sharon Sala
“Letty… damn it!”
She bit her lip then opened her mouth. Even though she knew she was talking, she couldn’t hear herself saying the words.
“Smallpox. That woman had smallpox.”
Eulis grunted as if he’d been sucker-punched. He looked down at his hands and then back up at Letty.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“Then don’t touch me,” he said.
“It’s too late,” Letty said. “Besides, I’ve had it.”
Eulis went weak with relief. “Thank God,” he said, and before he thought, he hugged her.
Eulis’s arms were around Letty for only a few moments, but it felt like forever. She could smell the scent of tobacco on his coat, and the wood smoke from their morning fire, as well as the cold. She’d never noticed that cold had its own particular scent until now, and inhaled it deeply, intent on remembering this moment for as long as she lived. It was ironic that the most horrifying moment of her life might also be the moment she knew that she’d fallen in love.
Seconds later, Eulis turned loose of her, looking as uncomfortable as she felt.
“Well, then,” he said shortly. “Maybe it’ll be all right. I didn’t hold her long and it’s really cold.”
“Yeah,” Letty said. “That’s right. It wasn’t for long. But we’d better get back to camp. I’m going hunting for that buck while you start chopping down some trees. It won’t take long to fix us up some kind of lean-to. We’ll make it just fine. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, that’s right. We can do anything if we stick together, can’t we?”
Letty’s chin trembled, but she wouldn’t let go of her terror.
“Let’s get moving,” she said.
He clucked to the team and the wagon wheels began to roll. Less than five minutes later, they came upon some Arapaho walking toward the city. Letty recognized the woman she’d helped in the woods. The woman who called herself Little Bird.
“Eulis, wait!” she said, and jumped out of the wagon before he could stop her.
She ran toward the group and then stopped a few feet away.
“Go back!” she cried, and motioned for them to retrace their steps.
They stopped, startled by her aggressive behavior, while one of the warriors with the women reached for his knife.
“No, no… I’m not trying to harm you,” Letty said, and then slapped her legs in frustration.
Eulis started to get down and come to her aid, but she held up her hand.
“No! Don’t!” she said. “If you’re contagious…”
He looked as if she’d slapped him across the face and then sat back down.
Letty turned back to the Arapaho, fixing her attention solely on Little Bird.
“You speak English… yes?”
Little Bird glanced at the warrior who was holding the knife, then nodded at Letty.
“There is sickness in the city. White man’s sickness.”
Little Bird gasped, and then spoke to the others in her native tongue.
“Smallpox,” Letty said. “Tell them it is smallpox. Tell them to pack up your tents and leave now. Don’t talk or touch anyone who’s been down in the town.”
Little Bird’s eyes widened with horror as she translated what Letty just said.
Immediately, the group turned around and began running back through the trees. It wasn’t the first time that the white man’s sickness had come into their world. Back then they’d buried hundreds of their own, and the knowledge that it had returned struck fear in their hearts.
But Little Bird stayed. She saw the empty wagon, the cold on their faces, and the fear in their eyes, and knew they faced worse problems than a sickness.
“You have no home,” Little Bird said.
Letty’s shoulders sagged.
“That’s the understatement of the week,” Letty muttered.
Little Bird frowned. “I not know your words.”
Letty sighed. “You are right. We have no home.”
“I know place,” Little Bird said. “You pack up. I come to you.”
Within seconds she was gone, leaving Letty standing in the ever-deepening snow.
“Letty!”
She turned and ran for the wagon.
“Head for camp,” she said. “We’ve got to pack.”
“Pack? And go where? It’s too late to get out of the mountains, and without supplies, we’d never make it back to Fort Dodge.”
“Little Bird says she knows where we can winter.”
“Little Bird? How do you know her name?”
“It’s a long story,” Letty said. “Just hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Within the hour they were at their camp and loading up their meager belongings. Eulis was folding up the tent when Rosy lifted her head and brayed.
He turned around just as an Arapaho man and woman rode into camp.
“Letty!”
She looked up then waved.
“You come now,” Little Bird said.
They tossed the last of their things into the back of the wagon, and then crawled up into the seat. Within the hour, the snow had covered up every trace of their presence. It was as if they’d never been there.
***
Less than an hour later, the snow stopped falling, but not before every trace of a road had been covered with a good six inches of powder. By late afternoon, the mules were exhausted and had faltered twice, as if too weary to go on. The third time it happened, Eulis got down from the wagon, walked to the front of the team and began leading them, trying desperately to stay up with the Arapahos on horseback in front of them.
More than once it occurred to Eulis that they might be following the Arapaho to their death. He had no reason to trust them, and no earthly idea of where they were going. He certainly didn’t understand the bond that seemed to be between Letty and the woman who she called Little Bird. But Letty was convinced it was safe, and so they went, farther up the mountain, trusting their lives to savages.
***
It was nearing sundown when Little Bird suddenly stopped her pony and then motioned for Letty to come. Letty got down from the wagon and slogged her way through the snow while wondering if she’d ever be warm again.
“What?” she asked.
Little Bird pointed.
“There. You go there.”
Letty moved past their horses and found herself looking down into a small, sheltered valley. In the distance, she could see a cabin that had been built up against the back wall of the mountain, and less than a hundred yards away, a small waterfall shot out of a crevice in the rocks about halfway down from the top.
“Oh. Oh, my,” she whispered and then looked up at Little Bird.
“Man die… two, maybe three winters ago. Plenty grass, plenty game. Good water. You go.”
Letty knew that their lives had just been saved.
“Little Bird. Thank you. Thank you.”
The little Indian woman shrugged. “You help me. I help you. We go now.”
Letty stepped aside.
The Arapaho warrior who was with Little Bird eyed Letty curiously. She wondered if Little Bird had told him what she’d done, and then knew that it didn’t matter. The tribe was safe from the smallpox, and she and Eulis had found sanctuary. Now if God was vigilant on their behalf and Eulis was saved from the disease, their lives would be perfect.
Refusing to accept that Eulis had been exposed, she ran back to the wagon and climbed in.
“What did she say?” Eulis asked.
Letty pointed to the break in the trees.
“That way,” she said. “You’ll see.”
And they did.
The valley below was blanketed by both a layer of snow and natural grasses that would provide all the winter fodder their animals would need. As Eulis remarked upon the cabin and the water, Letty watched a herd of elk moving slowly across the valley.
“Unbelievable,” Eulis said. “But what about the owner of that
cabin?”
“Little Bird said he’s dead. Let’s go, Eulis. The cabin is bound to need cleaning and it’s getting late.”
“As long as it’s got a roof and four walls, it’s gonna satisfy me,” Eulis said, and clucked to the mules.
He wouldn’t let himself think about getting sick, or dying down here in this valley and leaving Letty all alone to try and find her way out come spring. For now, their dilemma had been solved. He was too cold and weary to worry about tomorrow.
RAISING LAZARUS
Letty named the place Eden.
Eulis thought it was a bit too fancy for a one-roomed cabin that smelled faintly of polecat and dust, but after they had unpacked their belongings and started a fire, he could almost believe she’d been right. The relief of knowing they had shelter for the winter did seem like a gift from above.
The fireplace smoked some, and Eulis figured some birds had probably built a nest up in the flue, but if it didn’t burn itself clean by morning, he would climb up on the roof and dig out the clog.
To Letty’s delight, she found two tin plates, a couple of spoons, and one large cooking pot in a box beneath the bed. Added to the few pots and pans they’d brought with them, she could now lay claim to a good assortment of cookware. The oversized bed near the fireplace was a surprise and a blessing, although the leather strapping that had been strung between the bedposts to serve as a mattress was stiff and dry. A couple of the strips had even come undone. One of the braces holding the footboard together had come loose, leaving the bed angled slightly toward the floor, but to Letty, who hadn’t slept in a bed since their night at Four Mile Inn, it looked magnificent.
While Eulis gathered firewood from the dead fall around the cabin, Letty pounded a loose wooden peg back into the bed, and re-threaded the leather strapping on the bed. By the time Eulis had built the fire, Letty had their bedrolls made up on the bed, and was trying to wipe away the worst of the dust from the floor. When Eulis found a hand-made broom in the corner behind the fireplace, Letty clapped her hands and laughed.
Eulis grinned.
“Dang, Letty, it don’t take much to make you happy.”
Surprised by the pure truth of Eulis’s words, she paused to look down at her hands. They were red and numb from the cold as they curled around the broom handle, but she hadn’t given them much thought. She looked up at Eulis. Snow had frozen in his hair and on his partially bearded face, and there were red patches on his skin, which she knew probably mirrored her own. They’d come close to frostbite more than once, and yet the simplicity of finding a much-needed broom had brought her joy.
“You know something, Eulis, you’re right.”
His grin widened.
“Course I’m right.”
This time when she laughed, she swung at him with the broom.
He ducked and sidestepped, then pointed at her playfully.
“Woman, you watch out now. You don’t want to put me out of commission when we ain’t got a damn thing to eat except some jerky and beans.”
“You’ve got a point,” Letty said, and resumed sweeping, cleaning the floor of everything from dirt, leaves and mouse turds, to the bones of some small animal, most likely rabbit.
Within a couple of hours, the cabin had taken on a homey feel. The warmth from the fire had taken the chill out of the air, and Eulis had fastened their tent over the cabin door, blocking out the cold air that kept blowing through the cracks.
“I’ll fix those cracks in the door tomorrow,” Letty said, as she dished up the re-heated beans they’d carried from the low camp.
“And I’ll go for an elk at first light.”
Having stated an immediate plan for the future, they settled down to their beans and jerky, taking comfort in the shelter from the cold and the dark.
And when it came time to rest, they lay side by side on the bed without thought for propriety or sex. For now, they were two people who, despite the odds against them, had not only survived, but thrived.
Long after Eulis had fallen asleep and begun to snore, Letty watched the silhouette of his face highlighted against the glowing embers from the fire, and prayed to God that he would not succumb to disease. She knew all too well how few survived, and living without Eulis seemed obscene.
***
Within the week, there were two elk carcasses hanging in the shed, and enough firewood to last through most of the winter. The crack in the door had been fixed with a mixture of mud, grass, and some clay Letty had found near the waterfall, which had hardened like brick. She had used the rest of it to patch the chinking between the logs and let the fire in the chimney die back so that she could run a long branch up the flue. Her digging quickly knocked down a half-dozen charred and smoking bird nests from the chimney. She rebuilt the fire, taking great satisfaction that smoke no longer backed up into the room.
Rosy and Blackie had plenty of grazing and water. All they had to do was dig down past the snow to the dry grass beneath. Each night, Eulis brought them in from the meadow and put them in a small lean-to on the south side of the cabin. It wasn’t much in the way of shelter, but their proximity to the cabin deterred the occasional bear or cougar from attacking, although every night Letty heard wolves howling out in the valley. Even more daunting was the trail of footprints circling the cabin that the pack left behind each night.
Each day, Eulis taught Letty one thing new. He’d showed her the best way to fell trees, using the mules to drag them to the cabin, and then showed her how to split them for firewood. Yesterday it had been setting snares for rabbits. Today he’d showed her how to clean green skins for tanning. There was water to be had, and food to be cooked. She knew enough to take care of herself until spring, and she knew the way out of the valley. For Eulis, who figured he was living each day on borrowed time, it was all he thought about. He’d gotten her into this mess by dragging her to the gold fields, and if it was the last thing he did, he was going to make sure she got out alive.
Letty stayed so busy, and there was so much to learn, that she put the smallpox scare into the back of her mind. She’d laughed more since coming to this valley than she ever had in her life, and she slept sounder lying beside Eulis than she’d ever slept before. They’d earned their right to happiness. Surely God wouldn’t let any more tragedies befall them.
On the eighth day, morning dawned on a clear sky. The sun was so bright on the snow that looking upon the valley was painful to the eyes. By mid-morning, Letty had an elk roast cooking over the fireplace, and was out by the lean-to, scraping the same elk’s skin that Eulis had stretched for her. She’d never made anything from the skin of an animal, but figured there was a first time for everything.
Despite the sun, the air was cold, leaving a bite to the skin. Blackie was grazing nearby, while Eulis had taken Rosy with him to fell trees. Already, they’d dragged two large dead pines to the cabin to be cut up later for firewood.
Letty glanced toward the trees periodically as she worked, taking note of the time that Eulis and Rosy had been gone. She was just beginning to be concerned when she saw them coming out of the trees again. Only this time Eulis wasn’t leading Rosy as he’d done both times before. He was riding her bareback. She watched for a moment and then gasped when Eulis swayed. She laid down her knife and grabbed a handful of snow to clean her hands without looking away.
Rosy kept walking.
Eulis was still astraddle the black mule.
Everything was fine. She told herself that he was just tired. After all, it was their third trip. Taking a ride didn’t have to mean anything was wrong.
She walked a few steps away from the house, kicking snow as she went. Her shoes were wet. Her feet were numb. She ignored both.
Blackie stopped grazing and looked up, braying when he saw Rosy coming.
Letty waved.
Eulis slumped forward, then as if in slow motion, slid off the mule into the snow.
“No,” Letty moaned, and started running.
Blackie shied a
nd then brayed, kicking as Letty dashed past. The snow was wet and halfway to her knees. For Letty, who was scared half out of her mind, it felt as if she was trying to run through a lake of mud. The weight of the snow sucked at her shoes, more than once threatening to pull them off her feet, and yet she kept moving, afraid that if she stopped, then so would her heart.
Finally, she reached him and began pulling at Eulis’s coat in a desperate attempt to get his face out of the snow, afraid that she was too late and that he’d suffocated. She rolled him over and began digging snow from his mouth and nose, then slapping at his cheek in an effort to wake him. The first thing she felt was the heat of his skin beneath her palms, and when she did, she rocked back on her heels and screamed.
Once at fate for dealing them one more blow.
Once at God for letting it happen.
And once for herself, knowing full well what still lay ahead.
Then she dragged herself up, slid her hands beneath Eulis’s arms, and started yelling at him as she pulled.
“Get up!” she shouted. “Open your eyes and get up!”
Eulis could hear Letty’s voice, and although he couldn’t quite focus on the words, recognized the panic in her voice.
“I’m sick,” he mumbled.
Letty moaned, tugging even harder.
“I know you’re sick, but you’ve got to help me or you’re damn sure gonna die. Stand up, Eulis. Stand up long enough for me to get you back on Rosy.”
He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t work, and there was something wrong with the sky. It was spinning around his head like a top.
“Letty?”
“I’m here,” Letty said. “I need you to get up.”
“Can’t,” Eulis said. “Gonna die.”
“Not if I can help it,” she muttered, then saw the rope dragging behind the mule and grabbed it.
When she tried to put it around Eulis’s chest, he began struggling against her intent.
“Don’t,” Letty begged, pushing at his hands as he pulled at the rope. “Quit it, Eulis. You can’t get up and I’ve got to get you to the cabin.”
