One night an Indian family came to our campfire. The father pointed to his mouth and said, “Beeskit, ko-fee.” Ma, who had just taken a pan of biscuits out of the skillet, held it out to him. The Indian man ate them all, making Ma frown.
The man pointed to his mouth and said, “More, more.” Ma set the rest of the biscuits on the plate, but this time, she set the plate in front of the woman and children. “They can eat their fill before I give another bite to that greedy man,” Ma said. I hoped the Indian man didn’t understand English.
After the family had eaten, the woman took a pair of beaded moccasins from her dress pocket and held them out for Ma to see. Then the woman pointed to me.
“She wants to trade,” Buttermilk John explained. He took the moccasins and studied them. “Fine work, this.”
“Emmy Blue could use moccasins. I don’t like her stepping barefoot on rocks and thorns,” Ma said. “What does she want for them?”
“I reckon a handful or two of flour.”
“That’s little enough,” Ma said.
The woman held out a buckskin sack, and Ma filled it. Then as the woman touched her children to move them along, Ma said, “Wait.” She went to the wagon and came back with a large scrap of the bright red fabric that Aunt Catherine had bought for her in St. Joseph. Putting one hand over her heart, she gestured to the Indian woman with the material. “For you.”
The woman stared at Ma but didn’t speak or even smile. She took the fabric, rubbing it between her fingers, then showed it to her children as she said something in her native language. The little girl touched the cloth, and then smiled at me.
“She likes it. That was nice, Ma.” I said.
“I can’t imagine there’s a woman, white or red, who can resist pinching a bit of yard goods between her fingers,” Ma said.
I went to sleep that night and dreamed about living on the plains like the family that came to our campfire, galloping on my own horse across the prairie.
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The heat often made me tired, and when we’d pass shady areas, I would sometimes stop to rest with my quilt squares. I still didn’t care much for quilting, but I liked it better now that I had the hang of it, and especially now that the squares were almost done. It surprised me how much I could sew just walking along. It would be nice if Waxy had a coverlet, I decided the next morning, since Honor Potts had borrowed the one Abigail had given me for her rag doll and I hadn’t wanted to ask for it back.
Thinking about my Log Cabin quilt, I removed a square from my pocket, my last one. I had walked out in front of the wagons, so I had time to sit and work on the quilt square before the train passed by. Pa had warned me not to lose sight of the wagons, but ours was a long train and slow, so I had plenty of time. There was a ravine lined with rocks, and after checking for rattlesnakes, I sat down on one of the rocks in the sun and set the pieces next to me. There were four left to attach to that square, and I spread them out in order before I began stitching. If I hurried, I figured, I could get all four of them attached before the train moved beyond me.
The sun was hot, and my fingers perspired, making the needle damp. It squeaked as I pushed it through the fabric. I finished the first strip, then the second. As I worked on the third, the wagon train finished passing me. Finally, I started on the fourth strip, pinning it to the square and taking tiny, neat stitches, the way Ma had taught me. At last, I was finished! All I had left to do was sew the squares together. Now I was truly happy I’d made the quilt.
I folded the square and placed it in my pocket, thinking I ought to find our wagon. But I decided to sit a bit longer. It was so hot. I tried fanning myself with my hand, but that didn’t help, so I leaned back against the rocks and turned my head to the side, out of the sun, to rest for just a moment. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.
I didn’t know how long I slept. When I awoke, the trail was dusty in both directions, and I tried to remember which way the wagons had been headed. I thought I heard chains clanking in the distance, but I wasn’t sure. I knew we followed the sun, but the sky had clouded over while I slept. A coyote ran past in the sagebrush. I’d heard coyotes howling at night and had seen them slinking along behind the wagons, their yellow teeth like saw blades.
I started in the direction of the noise. Pa wouldn’t like it that I’d dawdled. I couldn’t have been asleep that long, maybe only a few minutes, I thought. But as fast as I ran, I couldn’t seem to see where the wagons were. I stopped and listened, but I didn’t hear anything now. What if I were going in the wrong direction? That worry gave me an idea, and I crouched down to see if I could make out animal prints. That would tell me the direction the wagon train had taken, I decided. But the wind had come up, and I couldn’t make out the prints. I wandered off the trail a little, hoping to spot boot prints in the sand.
And then I heard something, a horse, and I looked up to see a rider coming toward me in the distance. Maybe Ma had missed me and had sent someone to find me! I stood on the trail and waved my arms, jumping up and down to attract the man’s attention. Maybe it was Pa, and he’d borrowed a horse. Or it might have been Buttermilk John. But as the horse drew nearer, I saw it was an Indian man on the horse, and I froze in fear. When I could make my legs work, I began to run. Maybe he hadn’t seen me, I thought, and I could hide in the rocks until he passed by. But before I had gone ten steps, the Indian was right beside me. He reached down and pulled me up in front of him onto his horse. He held me so tightly that I couldn’t move, and the terrible stories I’d heard about Indians filled my mind. He would either kidnap or kill me, I was certain.
I jerked to one side, ready to jump off the horse, but the man held me tight.
“Let me go,” I shouted. “Pa’ll come looking for me, Pa and the other men. They have guns.”
The man didn’t even look at me, and I wondered if he understood English. He kicked his horse into a trot as I said, “Take me to the wagon, you.”
He only grunted, and when I tried to kick him, he slapped my leg.
“I’ll give this to you if you’ll let me go,” I said, digging the quilt square out of my pocket and holding it up. Ma had said men didn’t care about quilts, but I knew Indian men liked bits of fabric. I’d seen it woven into their braids or stitched to their shirts. Besides, it was the only thing I had to offer. But the Indian only glanced at it, as if he didn’t want it any more than I had when I’d opened Grandma Mouse’s present. I wished I had a knife or a ball of string to offer.
I struggled to get loose again, but the Indian held me with one arm. He pointed with his chin, saying, “Look.”
I raised my head and could barely make out two men running toward us—Pa and Uncle Will, with Barebones barking beside them. I tried to wave, but my arms were pinned to my side. So I yelled as loud as I could, “Here I am, Pa!”
The Indian stopped the horse then and waited for Pa and Uncle Will to reach him. I wondered if he would try to sell me. But he set me down on the ground and watched as I ran toward Pa.
“He was going to steal me,” I said as Pa put his arms around me and patted me on the back. I wanted to cry, but I wouldn’t let the Indian man know how he had frightened me, so I held back my tears.
Pa shrugged. “If he was going to steal you, he wouldn’t be riding toward the wagons.”
The man seemed to understand Pa, and nodded his head once.
Pa went to the Indian and held out his hand, but the man didn’t know what to do with it. Then the Indian held out his hand, palm up, and Pa said, “I believe he expects a little something for rescuing you, Emmy Blue.”
Pa gestured toward the wagon train, and we all made our way toward it—Pa, Uncle Will, and me walking, and the Indian man riding his horse.
Ma saw us approach and stopped our wagon. When she saw the Indian man, she asked, “What is happening, Thomas?”
“This man found Emmy Blue, and it appears he was bringing her to us. I believe we owe him something.”
Ma hugged me tigh
t. “What do we have that he could possibly want? Surely he isn’t interested in nails and a hammer.”
“I’ll give him my penknife, but he ought to have something more.”
While Pa took out his knife and showed the Indian man how to open and close it, Ma took down her kettle with the bail handle and filled it with flour and pieces of sugar cone. She put her hand on the Indian’s arm and smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said, handing him the pot.
The man seemed pleased with the gifts. He nodded solemnly at Ma and Pa, and then he touched me on the head. I looked up, as the Indian held out his hand.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“You must give him something,” Pa said, and I thrust out both my hands, palms up, and shrugged, to show him I didn’t have anything for him. What if he wanted Waxy or Bare bones? No! They were the only friends I had left.
The man reached down and put his hand into my apron pocket. Then he turned his horse around and galloped off.
“He took your quilt square,” Ma said.
“I told him he could have it if he took me back to the wagons,” I said. “But I didn’t think he understood.”
Pa shook his head. “What in the world will he do with it?”
Ma smiled. “Why, he’ll do what any man would do. He’ll give it to his wife.”
We all laughed, but then I wailed, “Now with the block I gave to Joey and the one the Indian took, I’m two squares short. What if I’ve done all this work and can’t finish the quilt?”
“This will help.” Ma took her sewing basket out of the wagon and reached inside. Then she handed me a perfect Log Cabin square. “I made it for you after you gave the square to Joey. But there were only enough of the different colors to make one square. You’ll have to do what quilters have always done when they run out. You’ll make do.” She reached into her scraps and removed the bright red piece from St. Joseph and cut it the same size as a finished Log Cabin square. You can use this.”
“But Waxy’s quilt will be spoiled. I made thirteen squares. You made one, and now I have to come up with another.”
Ma only smiled. “You’ll have an exciting story to tell your own little girl when she’s ten years old.”
Chapter Seventeen
HELLO, TOMMY
That night, Ma, Aunt Catherine, and I spread out my finished Log Cabin squares on top of our cutting board. Ma reminded me that the quilt squares themselves contained a pattern and the way the squares were arranged with their dark and light sides formed a second pattern. As she arranged them, she told me their names.
I moved the squares to form the different patterns she’d shown me, but each time I tried to use the red square in place of the missing block—in a corner or along the side—I had trouble. “I don’t know where to put it,” I said.
“Maybe you should hide it in plain sight,” Aunt Catherine suggested.
That gave me an idea. I set the red square in the center of the cutting board and spread the blocks around it. That was just the way the strips of each square went around the red center.
Aunt Catherine clapped her hands. “The red square is the heart of this quilt. You’ve come up with an entirely new design, Emmy Blue. What will you call it?”
I shook my head. “I’ll have to think of something.”
“How about Red Square in the Middle,” Pa said, looking over our shoulders at the board.
“Too obvious,” Aunt Catherine said. “Maybe Emmy Blue’s Cabin.”
I shook my head. That sounded silly.
“I know what to call it,” Ma said.
“What?” I asked her.
“Indian Rescue.”
I couldn’t have thought of a more perfect name for my quilt.
Walking in the June sun made us more tired than usual, especially Ma. “This infernal heat!” she said when we stopped to rest. “Thank goodness we’re not still wearing all those dresses. How many more miles before we reach Golden?”
“Not so many, I think,” Aunt Catherine replied.
I was surprised that I missed having a quilt square in my pocket to work on. I’d grown to like my quilt walks—not that I would tell Ma, because she might come up with another quilt for me to work on.
“Time to go on,” Aunt Catherine said, and we plodded after the wagons. By the time we caught up with Pa and Uncle Will, the train was stopped for the evening. Aunt Catherine told Ma to sit in the shade of the wagon while she and I prepared supper.
I had learned to mix biscuit dough, and I took out the flour and leavening and butter. Each morning, Ma bought cream from a family traveling with a cow and put it into a bucket that she hung from our wagon, just like the woman we’d met at our first river crossing had done. The movement of the bucket as it swung back and forth all day churned the cream into butter, leaving a little pool of buttermilk. I added the buttermilk to the flour mixture, stirred it with a fork, and pinched off large bits of dough. I dropped the dough into the skillet and put on the lid. When I was finished, Aunt Catherine set the pan on the coals of the fire.
“Is Ma sick?” I asked as I got out bones for my dog.
Aunt Catherine picked up the kettle and poured hot water over tea leaves in Ma’s cup. She put down the kettle and studied me for a moment. “Your ma is fine.”
“You can tell me, Aunt Catherine. I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“You sure aren’t a little girl anymore. You’ve walked hundreds of miles, and you’ve done your share of work. I’m telling you the truth. There’s nothing wrong with your ma that a little time won’t take care of. She’s tired from walking. She’s not used to it. Of course, none of us have ever done this much walking. But your ma …” She stopped and checked the tea.
“My ma what?” I asked when Aunt Catherine didn’t continue.
“Some women are just better made for walking, I guess. Don’t worry about her.”
Still, I did worry. “I told Pa once that she was doing poorly, but I don’t think he noticed.”
“Oh, he noticed.” Aunt Catherine smiled a little.
I lifted the lid off the skillet to see if the biscuits were browning, and as I did, the wind picked up, blowing dirt over the big pan.
“They say you have to eat a peck of dirt before you stop being a tenderfoot,” Aunt Catherine said, changing the subject. “Well, I expect I stopped being a tenderfoot by the time we crossed the Missouri.” Aunt Catherine rose from the fire with Ma’s cup of tea, and we said no more about Ma’s health.
At supper, Ma was too tired to eat the biscuits or anything else. Aunt Catherine fussed over her, telling her she had to keep up her strength, but Ma said food made her sick. When she saw I’d overheard that, she said, “It’s the heat, Emmy Blue. You know eating in hot weather gives me the stomachache.”
I knew no such thing, but I figured they weren’t going to tell me what was ailing Ma no matter what I said, so there was no point in my trying to find out.
Ma went to sleep after that, but I could tell she didn’t sleep well. She muttered and tossed off the blanket. I awoke in the night and heard her moaning. Pa and Aunt Catherine and Uncle Will were crowded around her, and Mrs. Bonner knelt in the dirt at her side. I got up, too, but Pa said Ma had had a bad dream and they were trying to quiet her.
When I woke up the next time, I knew something was wrong. The sun was shining and we should have moved out at daylight. I sat up and saw that the other wagons were gone. Our wagon and Uncle Will’s sat alone on the prairie.
“Why are we still here? Did the oxen run off?” I asked.
Pa was standing by the campfire, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked tired.
“Did we reach Golden?” But even as I asked, I knew that couldn’t be. There were no mountains. Besides, we hadn’t gone anywhere during the night.
“Golden’s nearly a hundred miles yet,” Pa said. “We’ll catch up with the other wagons before nightfall. We were just waiting for you to wake up. There’s a surprise for you.”
I looked
around until I spotted Ma, who was lying under a quilt in the shade of the wagon. “I don’t understand. Is Ma bad sick?”
“No, not sick at all. She’s fine. Come and see what she has.” Pa took my hand and led me to the wagon, while Aunt Catherine and Uncle Will smiled at me.
Ma’s quilt lay spread over the rubber blanket, with another quilt on top of her. She moved the coverlet a little, and I saw the tip of a tiny head covered with black hair. At first, I thought Pa had found another dog, but in a second I knew I was wrong. “A baby?” I asked.
Ma nodded. She moved the quilt so that I could see the little face, eyes closed.
“Whose baby?” I asked.
“Why he’s ours. He was born last night,” Ma said.
“We have a baby?” I couldn’t have been more surprised if Pa had said we were turning around and going back to Quincy. I’d given up hoping we’d ever have another baby. I stared at the tiny head, my eyes wide. I blinked back tears. Then I knelt down beside Ma and put my arms around her.
“This is your brother,” Ma said. She held out the infant, who was wrapped in one of Pa’s soft shirts. “Do you want to hold him?”
“Put your arm under his neck,” Pa said, but I knew that already. I was good with babies. After all, I’d taken care of Ulysses.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“I favor Tommy, for your father,” Ma told me.
“Hello, Tommy,” I said, cradling him in my arms, smiling at the red, wrinkled face. His wiry hair reminded me of a coconut I’d once seen in a store. “Hi, Coconut Head,” I whispered.
The Quilt Walk Page 11
