by Judy Alter
Randolph was, of course, away with John—strange that I did not worry about him as I did about John—but Sarah and Susie occupied much of my attention and concern. They were young enough not to know that other children had mothers who did not lie abed all day, mothers who were up and about, taking part in their households. Those two darling young girls were missing the only kind of mother they knew... and they were devastated.
"Why doesn't Mama hug me anymore, Jessie?" Susan asked, while Sarah, being slightly the older, said with quavering authority, "She is sick, Susan."
"Will she ever get better?"
I knew then why Father told me white lies about Mother and his reaction to her illness. "Of course she'll get better, my darling," I lied.
Through all those long days I wrote faithfully to John, letters that I doubted he would ever see but by their very writing gave me the comfort of his company. Without fear of censure I wrote of my doubts about Mother, my insight into Father's reaction, my anger at Liza, my worry over the younger children... and from those unanswered pages, always faithfully sent west by post, I received a reply full of John's love. Or at least I thought I sensed the reply he never sent.
By mid-October, when Father returned, I was exhausted, thin as a rail except for the watermelon that seemed to protrude from my middle. The day after his return Father looked closely at me and exclaimed with absolute amazement, "Jessie! You are too pale... and too thin for a woman in your delicate condition. Are you all right?"
It was as though a dam had burst. All it took was one word of concern, and all my fatigue and despair poured out. I was tired, desperately tired, from caring for Mother and translating what bits of the Diaz manuscript I could while Mathilde took the watch. And I was frantic that I had heard not one word from John. Of late, when I lay alone in my bed, I could no longer conjure up John's comforting presence and the reassurance of his love brought on by those sharp kicks in my belly. Instead, I imagined all kinds of threats and perils, from landslides and fearsome storms to hostile Indians and treacherous scouts. I became convinced I would never see John again, that he would never return to greet his son.
When Father asked his simple question, I dissolved into tears and soon found myself wrapped in his arms. My father held me in his tentative embrace and made the most comforting noises he could, muttering, "There, there, it will be all right."
He saw to it that I was put to bed, and I stayed there for four days, waited on hand and foot and fed that same damn broth Mother was getting. But I returned to my duties refreshed, and Father announced it was time to assign a servant to Mother's full-time care so that I could be relieved. After that I visited her two or three times daily but no longer took responsibility for her care... and my own health improved greatly.
"Jessie, you are looking well." Maria Crittendon had come to call, the first visit she'd dared since my marriage. Father had, of course, forbidden her presence in the house, and she had not come while he was away—out of a sense of honor, she said. She would not violate his wishes behind his back. I declined to point out to her that she had already done that a year ago and such nicety on her part was too late from Father's point of view.
It was kind of her to say that I looked well, when I knew indeed that I looked as if I had swallowed a watermelon seed that had come to fruit. My pregnancy was so obvious that I could no longer appear in public and was confined to the house—not that I had been out in public much in recent months, anyway. Still, there is something about knowing that you can go if you want... and now propriety forbade my venturing forth.
I also knew that once one looked beyond my belly—as I did every day when I looked in the mirror—there were dark circles under my eyes and a paleness to my face that did not speak of radiant health. I had seen some women—I even remembered Mother's appearance when Susan was expected—who seemed to grow prettier with pregnancy. I was not one of them.
Worst of all, I had once again developed the red rash at the corner of my mouth. I called it my King George's mark, remembering the story about my great-grandmother. I looked, I sometimes thought, a little like an Indian captive who had been tattooed before being rescued. I was so conscious of the red, raw mark that I frequently talked with my hand over my mouth—disconcerting, I am sure, for those who tried to converse with me.
"Your father sent for me," Maria said. "He said you need your friends, and he hoped I would be the first among them."
We had, of course, exchanged notes and letters over the months, but I had not seen Maria, because of Father's anger, since John and I had returned to the house on C Street.
"Maria, you are good to come. I am fine... though I have had a difficult summer."
"You have not heard from John?"
"No, but I am sure it is impossible for him to write." Actually I was not sure about that at all, and it had begun to occur to me that surely, by now, he could have found a scout or a trapper who was going somewhere near civilization and who would post a letter for him. My worry was turning to anger at John, but I was not ready to share that, even with Maria.
October dragged on, a seemingly endless month. I thought that nothing would ever get better—Mother's health would never improve, John Charles II might take up permanent residence in my belly and never test the outside world, and, worst of all, John would never come home.
Then, magically, when October was almost gone, John did come home, appearing at the doorstep one morning at six in the morning, unshaven, wrinkled, smelling like a barnyard, and thoroughly triumphant.
"I have done it, Jessie," he cried, swinging me off my feet and into the air. "I have been to the Rocky Mountains, and I have planted a flag on the highest peak. That mountain will forever after be Frémont's Peak." He was jubilant, indeed nearly incoherent with the excitement of telling it all to me.
I said nothing but grabbed his head and drew his mouth to mine, greeting him with a kiss that spoke of all my longing and loneliness and need of the past few months.
Suddenly he seemed to see me for the first time. "You are going to have a child!" he exclaimed wonderingly.
"Yes," I said, "almost any day now."
"Why didn't you tell me before I went away... or in all those wonderful letters?"
I bowed my head. "I wasn't sure at first," I lied, "and then... I didn't want you to worry."
"Oh, my brave Jessie!" he said, clasping me to him.
But then the subject changed, and he was off into tales of the expedition, overwhelmed by his anxiety to tell me every detail within five minutes. "It's not desert, Jessie," he crowed. "It's green... grass and rivers like you've never seen....We had a scout... you'll never believe my fortune... the best scout in the West... name is Kit Carson."
"Kit Carson!" I exploded, laughing because I thought it sounded a made-up name.
For just a second John was offended. Then he was off again, telling me the wonders of Kit Carson, who had lived his life on the frontier and was already, by his early thirties, a guide, hunter, and trapper of legend. "He has covered the whole West," John exclaimed, "lived with the Nez Perce, wintered with Jim Bridger on the Yellowstone, been down Mary's River, and knows the Three Forks country of the upper Missouri....He is the most capable westerner I know."
In conversation it came out that this paragon of virtue described by my husband could neither read nor write and that his speech was at best unlettered, a mixture of the Scottish-Irish tongue of Tennessee, where he had been born, and the patois of the West, where he had lived all his life and carved out his reputation.
"I am sure he was helpful to you...," I began lamely. "It is fortunate you met him." I could not fathom John's attraction to such a wild man.
"Fortunate?" John exclaimed. "Without him there would have been no expedition. And there will not be another without him. I trust him absolutely."
I reserved judgment, it being beyond my comprehension to imagine my lettered and cultured John having such faith in a mountain man. The only name I recognized in all of John's
long exposition was that of Jim Bridger, the trapper who had become famous even in the East. The rest of it, geography that was familiar to John, was a blur in my mind, and I made a vow, then and there, to memorize the rivers and valleys of the West.
"Tell me about Frémont's Peak," I said, and he launched into a description of that mountain—since proved not nearly the highest in the Rockies—and of their ascent of it, a climb that brought them face-to-face with sheer granite walls and compelled them to climb from crevice to crevice.
"It was nothing," John said, "not at all dangerous. But when I finally reached the summit, I realized that another step would have precipitated me into an immense snowfield some five hundred feet below."
I shuddered to think how close he had come to catastrophe. And I shuddered more when he described their trip down the Platte River. "I had determined to chart its course," he said, "but I underestimated the river. It took our rubber rafts and our instruments—guns, ammunition, the sextant, the telescope, and much of our food—but we were able to save all the men, even those who could not swim."
I had known all along that John's glorious adventure was dangerous, and I'd worried about Indians and rivers and storms, but a deep part of me never believed that anything could happen to him. It was written, I believed, that he would come home a hero at the age of twenty-nine. Hearing how close he had come to disaster shocked me to the core. I could only hold him close and thank God for bringing him back to me. Would I ever let him leave again? I knew I had no choice. In my glee to have him home I barely noticed that we didn't that day talk anymore about the baby.
If I was blissful to have my husband home every day—and in my bed every night—Father was beyond himself with pride. All his anger about our marriage and his resentment of John faded before the accomplishment of mapping the route to the South Pass and the Wind River Range of mountains. "It is a great thing you have done for this country, son," he said, and I nearly fell off my chair hearing him call John "son."
"Thank you, sir," John said deferentially, and I delighted that he was so politic. "Everywhere I went I heard about western expansion—the Mormon community in Nauvoo, Illinois, the trouble in settlements in Arkansas and Missouri where there have been lynchings, the growth of Chicago and its harbor and lake trade. The West is alive, there's no doubt about it."
"Yes, yes," Father agreed, "and the biggest issue is Oregon. I hear more and more curiosity about that country."
"Yes, sir," John said. "I hope to go there next."
"I'll see to it, yes I will," Father said enthusiastically.
In his first days at home John never once mentioned his son and heir, whose arrival was expected momentarily. As I twisted and turned uncomfortably in my chair, listening while they talked incessantly about the West, I grew more than a little jealous, especially when John Charles II, presumably now a healthy-sized infant, made his presence known by sharp kicks, which caused me to gasp in momentary pain.
"Jessie? You all right?" John would say, and when I nodded, he'd be off about the West again, the baby already dismissed.
John was cavalier about Mother, giving her a warm hug and declaring how delighted he was to see her looking so well. To me he said, "My God, Jessie, she looks awful!"
"You should have seen her three months ago," I replied somewhat bitterly. "She is much improved."
"I cannot believe it. You have had a hard summer, my darling," he said, kissing me on the forehead. But then it was back to the Wind River Range and an elaboration of the talents of the wonderful Kit Carson.
Some nights I sneaked away, leaving John and Father deep in conversation while I sought out the comfort of bed for my weary body and confused mind. Neither John nor Father seemed to notice that I had left, and I found that John would come to bed much later, giving me only a brief kiss on the forehead before he dropped off to sleep. There could, of course, be no physical passion between us, given my enlarged condition—it would have been the awkward mating of an elephant and a giraffe—but I would so have welcomed loving strokes and intimate conversation. I got neither, and I learned to feign sleep when he came to bed.
I had expected my brother, Randolph, to return jubilant because of his adventure, yet immediately subdued by his mother's illness. None of that happened. He was sullen and angry that a trip that had started out as a glorious adventure ended, for him, as a boring confinement at Fort Laramie.
"Left me behind, Jessie, that's what he did! Left me at Fort Laramie, along with another lad about my age. We would have been every bit as good as that Kit Carson...."
"I doubt that, Randolph," I said in a placating manner. "Why were you left behind?"
"Indian trouble," he scoffed. "That Jim Bridger, whoever he is, told John that some Indians—Sioux, Blackfeet, and some other tribe..."
"The Crow," I supplied, having already learned my lessons well.
"Yeah, the Crow—what does it matter? They're all the same, aren't they? Anyway, all these tribes were on the warpath, so John made me stay behind with Henry Brant. Turned out they didn't have no trouble—"
"Didn't have any trouble," I corrected.
"Yeah, well, you know what I mean. They never saw a mean Indian the whole time, and there I was cooling my heels at that dumb fort."
He had no comment about his mother's illness, except a casual shrug, which intimated that it made little difference in his life. At fifteen Randolph was bored with everything, and I was as concerned about him as Father was. He should, to my mind, have been ecstatic about his opportunities. Instead, like the pessimist who can see only what he does not have, he complained constantly and even whined to Father, who told him sharply to grow up. I applauded silently, even as I feared trouble ahead with Randolph.
Within a week Father had sent him to Virginia to stay with the McDowells, but I feared all the good that would do would be to teach him to drink bourbon like some of his Virginia cousins. James McDowell and I never had gotten along, and I'd heard that he'd said of my marriage that I was headstrong and probably got what I deserved. I'd vowed to show him the greater glory that would be mine, but I didn't relish him as a companion for Randolph. Still, I had more pressing problems on my mind and couldn't devote a lot of time to worrying about Randolph. Perhaps that was what was wrong with the boy—he was not the first item on anybody's list.
"John? Wake up. The baby... I think your son is on his way into this world." It was early on the morning of November 15, 1842.
"What? Oh, Jessie... are you sure?" Foggily, he rose on his elbows and stared at me.
Impatiently, I said, "If the strength of the pain I just felt is any indication, yes, I'm sure. You must call Mathilde... and send for the midwife. But don't wake Father."
The classic story of the about-to-be-father who loses all sense did not apply to John. He was neither excited nor hurried, pulling his pants on slowly and looking for all the world as though he would fall back asleep if I didn't prod him.
"John! Can't you move faster?"
"Is there a hurry?" he asked, and I had to admit that no, there was no hurry. But as another severe pain tore through my belly, I badly wanted the comfort of another woman.
The pain alarmed John, making the whole situation more real to him than it had been as long as I sat there calmly giving him directions. "Jessie! Oh, my poor Jessie! Are you... will you be all right? I'll hurry!" And he bolted out the door without waiting for my answer, then ran back in to wrap me in his arms, kiss me tenderly, and whisper, "I love you very much."
Completely happy, I lay back on the bed, only to be wrenched again with pain in a few minutes. By then Mathilde was at my side, wiping my brow with a cool, damp cloth.
"Here, Miss Jessie, take just a sip of this," she coaxed.
I stuck my tongue into straight whiskey and nearly choked on it but managed to get down two or three drops.
"There, there," Mathilde soothed, "that will ease the pain. You be surprised, honey."
Soon I was in a fog, unaware of much around
me save the waves of pain that swept over me. The midwife arrived and fashioned rope handles, tied to the bedposts, for me to pull against when the pain was most severe. And she gave me a piece of leather to bite down upon, lest I cry out and, as she put it, "alarm the mister out there."
Vaguely I remember Mathilde telling me that Father and John were waiting just outside the chamber and that Mother had not been told. "No use botherin' Mrs. Benton," she said. "Only upset her that she can't be here to help you."
I wasn't sure Mother would even understand, but I was not capable at that moment of dealing with philosophical speculations about my mother's mental condition.
The pains went on until evening, and with each passing hour I felt myself growing more remote, as though removed from what was happening around me and concentrating only on the pain. I heard the words of the midwife—"You're doin' just fine, Mrs. Frémont, just fine"—and felt the comforting hands of Mathilde on my brow, but it almost seemed to be happening to someone else.
Around eight in the evening—so they told me later—the baby thrust its way into the world with a pain so incredibly strong that I fainted. Moments later I revived to the scent of smelling salts only to hear Mathilde say with great pride, "It's a beautiful little girl, Miss Jessie, a beautiful girl child!"
A girl! The baby that was to have been John's son and heir was a girl! All those months I'd been so sure, and now... I'd given him a daughter, just as my mother had given Father a daughter when he wanted a son. I turned my head away, lest Mathilde see my tears of frustration.
"Oh, Miss Jessie," she said, "I know's you're happy. Them's tears of joy. Come, take this child in your arms."
I reached out for the bundle that was handed to me. Barely visible beneath all the wrappings was a tiny, perfectly shaped face with blue eyes—no one told me all babies have blue eyes, and I was sure these were the brilliant blue of the child's father—and a soft fuzz of blond hair on her head. She was, as Mathilde assured me, beautiful... but what would John say?
