Jessie

by Judy Alter

  "I left them," I said, "because I thought you needed me."

  "Needed you? Jessie, I always need you." He reached for my hand, pulled me beside him, and kissed me hard and long. "See?" he asked. But then, more seriously, "But do you mean this leg? It's fine. Look."

  He got up and did an awkward little hop, like a child showing off for his mother.

  "Fine?" I asked skeptically.

  "Well, almost," he admitted. "It will be maybe another five days or so before I'm really ready to leave. But Dr. Ebers says I'm making, and I quote, 'remarkable progress.' " Dr. Ebers was the homeopathic physician treating him by keeping him in bed with his legs raised to uproot the inflammation.

  "John," I said seriously, "you don't have to go on this expedition. You can come back to Washington, we'll go to California—"

  "No!" His exclamation interrupted me. "I have to find that pass for the railroad, Jessie. It's what my career has been about."

  "And if the price is too high?" I asked.

  He shrugged, and I remembered his conversation about what I should do if he did not return.

  Resolutely I spent the week being a cheerful companion, and the nights a good lover—John's leg did not seem to hamper his activities in bed, and his appetite was strong, perhaps fueled by the thought that we now both tried to ignore: he might never come back from this expedition.

  Several times as I lay panting in his arms, exhausted by his needs and my own, I prayed to God that I would not emerge from this week-long late honeymoon pregnant again. I was, I think, fearful of bearing another child only to lose it. But I was fearful, too, of losing my husband if I did not respond to his passion. And truth be known—though I'd never have told my mother—the nights meant as much to me as to John.

  "Are you not ready for bed yet?" I would ask, far too early in the evening, when I thought no one else could hear me.

  "Are you in a hurry, Jessie?" he'd whisper, and when I nodded my head in the affirmative, we would both fall all over ourselves making excuses to my cousin. My standard excuse was that John's leg required rest, but I noticed that she raised one eyebrow the third time I said that, and so I offered it no more as an excuse. By the end of the week we simply excused ourselves from the dining table and headed for our bedchamber. From time to time I thought my behavior shameful for a grown woman, the mother of two, but John's kisses and his insistent hands banished all such thoughts from my mind.

  The week ended, as all such idylls must—we could not bear it, I'm sure, if such rare experiences lasted much longer. And perhaps even idylls would become boring. John departed for Westport Landing, from where he would ride hard to catch the group in the Smokey Hills. At least he took Dr. Ebers with him, and I was grateful for both the man's company and his medical expertise.

  I returned to Washington—why did the train seem to travel so much faster headed east, and away from John, than it had when I was headed west, toward him? And then began once again a winter of discontent, of waiting and fearing and hoping and praying, while outwardly I busied myself with the children, sharing the care for Mother with Mathilde and Sophie, copying Father's speeches and doing his research.

  Ominous dark clouds gathered on the political horizon, and it was not hard for me to become almost totally engrossed in political matters. When we had returned from England, I found that everyone was talking about a new book, Uncle Tom's Cabin by a Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. It had been made into a stage play, and together the book and the play converted hundreds to abolitionism. But Father said direly they were "quick converts" who might not have stomach for the battle ahead. Even schoolchildren were quoting the poem penned by Henry Longfellow in his concern over his country, "Thou, too, Sail on, O Ship of State!" Everywhere there was concern, anger, and fear.

  The controversy over slavery built toward battle like an angry boil working toward eruption. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois—"a little man," as Father described him, and I never knew if he meant physical stature or soul—proposed that Kansas and Nebraska be allowed to vote as to whether they would be slave or free states, in spite of the fact that both lay north of the line set by the Missouri Compromise.

  Father was indignant. "The little runt just wants to placate the southerners so he can be elected again." When Douglas and the tall, imposing William Seward, an ardent abolitionist, tangled on the floor of the Senate, Father said it was "the long and the short of it." But when President Franklin Pierce, also anxious to placate the South, endorsed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Father shook his head and said sadly, "The slaveholders are in the ascendancy."

  Still, Father preached every chance he got that slavery must not be extended into new territories and states. And now he had a new theme: the Union must be protected against shock and disruption.

  When Father's old friend, Francis Blair, and some other Free-Soil Whigs began to talk about a new party whose platform would be the opposition of slavery, Father was dismayed. "That's just the kind of divisiveness we can't stand," he told me.

  These matters absorbed my waking thoughts as I worked in Father's library, but at night as I lay alone in my bed, I wondered about John. In part, I wanted him near me so that I could pour out all my worry over the nation's crisis. And, of course, I wanted to touch him, to feel him next to me, to have him wake me in the middle of the night with that whispered "Jessie?" followed by kisses at first gentle and then passionate. But most of all, I wanted to know that he was safe and well.

  Chapter 13

  By midwinter I was convinced that John was starving to death. It was a hard winter in the capital, and reports from the far West were of heavier snows than usual, colder temperatures. To myself I repeated that old refrain—why did John always have to go in the dead of winter? And why did he have an uncanny knack for picking the worst winters? Try as I might, I could not rid myself of the conviction that he was near death, and that he was alone when he needed me. Quite unconsciously I dismissed the small army of men with him, because I knew John needed me.

  Father tried to reassure me. John was, he reminded me again and again, the most experienced explorer, the one who had survived impossible situations. Nothing would happen to him.

  His comforting words fell on deaf ears. I had told myself the same things a thousand times. Yet I was so sure that John was starving—perhaps already dead—that I could neither eat nor sleep, though I hid these weaknesses from my family as best I could. My desperation seemed to pale before the national turmoil, Father's own political troubles, and Mother's weakened state.

  Lily guessed, and she would stare at me with those large, concerned eyes that reminded me of John. Her looks only made me the more sad, but I hastened always to reassure her that I was fine and her father would be home soon. I don't think she believed me, any more than I believed Father.

  One blessing that winter was my renewed acquaintance with Susie, my youngest sister. She had been but a young child when I married, and in my early stays at the house on C Street, I had always been preoccupied with John. Now she was grown, and I had time—albeit nervous time—to spend with her. Susie was a great pianist, and Lily loved to hear her play. Sometimes the three of us would share a sing-along.

  But it was in the evenings that Susie and I became close again. She often would come to my chambers late, when everyone else was asleep, and we would talk—of the young men she thought interesting, her hopes for the future, her fears for our parents. She asked about John and about marriage, with the guilelessness of a young girl. And gradually, we became confidantes.

  One cold evening she had been to a party and brought home with her two friends. The three of them crept to my room to report on the evening's festivities. I found their giggling happiness a welcome distraction from my usual nighttime anxieties, though I repeatedly had to hush them lest they wake Mother, who slept fitfully at best and who was always frightened to lie awake at night.

  But the night drew on, and the girls showed no signs of tiring. "I'll just put another log on the fire," I sai
d, stepping into the dressing room to fetch it. As I knelt to pick up the log—a hefty one that required some force from me—I could have sworn I felt a gentle touch. Startled, for I knew no one was there, I turned quickly. Nothing. I was alone in the small chamber. But then I heard, plain as day, John's voice, saying my name. Just "Jessie," nothing more. Briefly I fooled myself into thinking John had once again surprised me with his return, as he had from the second expedition. Faintly I asked, "John?" But there was no more. Bewildered, I tried to martial my thoughts. I had always scoffed at the idea of supernatural experiences, yet even though I knew John was thousands of miles away from me, I had just heard him speak my name clearly. There could be no other explanation. John had spoken to me in spirit... and I had heard him.

  Far from being alarmed, I was comforted. All my fears and anxiety seemed to drain away in an instant, because I knew that John was alive and would be home safely.

  As I knelt there, clutching that piece of wood, with tears of relief running down my cheeks, the disembodied voice spoke again: "Just let me surprise Susie." Susie had long been smitten with John, in the way of young girls, and he had often loved to frighten her just to hear her prolonged, high-pitched scream. The next thing I knew, I heard that scream.

  Dropping the wood, I ran back into the room to find Susie rolling on the floor, screaming hysterically. "John! John!" she cried. I finally had to take a robe and put it over her head to stop the screaming, lest she wake the entire household.

  "She's overwrought," I said solemnly to her guests. "Too much excitement at the party, I guess."

  At length I got them all settled into beds. Susie had calmed down, though she was still somewhat shaky. As I tucked her into her bed, however, she said, "John is all right, isn't he?"

  "Yes," I said, "he is." I was too weary with relief to try to explain supernatural experiences to Susie.

  The next day I told Lily the whole story. Some may say it was too frightening an experience to share with a child her age, but she had lived through much fear, and I felt she had a right to the reassurance. After that, whenever anyone expressed concern for John or curiosity about his return, Lily would give me a knowing look as though to say that we shared a secret.

  John did not return until early summer, and we had no direct word from him until then. He had sent a telegram from New York, but as sometimes happened, it was delayed, and he was his own messenger.

  After the joy of reunion, we told each other our stories of the winter past, and then, like lightning, my experience of that February night came crystal clear.

  "There was a time, Jessie," he said haltingly, "when I thought I was dying. It was like nothing that has ever happened to me before."

  It had been from the beginning a journey more perilous than the others. To catch up with his men after he was delayed by the inflammation in his leg, he had ridden over forty miles of burned and burning prairie, the effects of a wild prairie fire. The expedition had been encircled by fire, gradually retreating to a river, by the side of which they piled their supplies, ready to submerge them. Yet they would not leave the area, for fear John would have no way of finding them.

  After John finally found the group, some of the animals were stolen by marauding Cheyenne, though thankfully recovered shortly thereafter. "If we hadn't gotten them back," he said, "we'd have been afoot in Comanche and Paiute country—not good for anyone's scalp." He gave a bitter laugh.

  Finally reaching Bent's Fort—John's oasis before the Rockies—they discovered that it had been looted and burned by Indians. Mr. Bent had saved very few supplies, so they were unable to replenish sugar, flour, coffee—all these essentials. Without adequate supplies they headed into the mountains, to be met by snow so deep that forage was impossible to find.

  "One day," John recounted, "I was going up a slope, breaking my way through the snow, when suddenly I felt the life leaving me. I could not move, and I could not cry out—no sound came. A curious sense of vacancy overcame me, and I thought 'So this is death!' I truly believed I would die, Jessie, right there on that spot."

  I could scarcely breathe, listening to this tale of horror. "And?" I gasped.

  "It passed." He shrugged. "I was able to get up and go on in a bit, and no one seemed the wiser... except me."

  "That's it," I said excitedly. "That's why I began to worry so!"

  He looked curiously at me.

  "In late January or early February," I explained, "I could not shake the notion that you were dying. I was convinced... and I could not talk myself out of it. When... when did you know you were safe?"

  "When we reached Parawon, the Mormon settlement," he said. "We got there on the ninth of February, and Jessie, they treated me like a hero...."

  "The ninth of February?" I nearly shouted. "That was it, that was the night you spoke to me." My voice was shrill with excitement.

  "Jessie! For heaven's sake, what are you talking about?"

  I recounted the story of Susie's visit to my rooms and his ghostly visit to both of us. Suddenly John's face paled.

  "What time of night was it?"

  I told him, and he began to sob silently, his shoulders shaking. "I wrote to you that night. Once all my men had been warmed and fed, my next thought was that I must let you know that I was alive and well. I never expected the message to reach you for months. But if I wrote at eleven or so, and it was after one in the morning when you thought you heard me..."

  "I know I heard you," I said firmly. "There was an instant communication."

  Stunned, we simply sat and stared at each other, unsure how to digest this amazing happening. What it meant to me was that there was a bond strong as life itself between John and me, and whatever happened to us, we would always be together. More than our marriage or the birth of our children, this was the most spiritual moment of my life.

  John, however, was almost embarrassed. "We best go to bed," he said somewhat gruffly.

  He was a shy, uncertain lover that night, almost as if that mystical experience had given me some power he didn't understand, something that frightened him. John never liked to feel out of control, and this incident, so reassuring to me, was terrifying to him, though it took me some time to figure that out.

  There was to be no written report of this expedition, and so I did not relive it with him as I had the earlier ones. In bits and pieces I heard of his adventures, but they never came glowingly alive like the others. Over and over John repeated that he had found the way to build the railroad. He had gone to the spot where the fourth expedition had gone astray, and, determining that there was no pass near, he had turned south, following the information given him by trappers and Indians. He had found good passes all the way, in a straight line between thirty-eight and thirty-nine degrees latitude. "The railroad must go that way," he said with passion. "It will make the United States the link between Europe and Asia. It must be built!"

  By August, John was ready to leave again for California. "I must go," he said. "I... I have to return to you, Jessie, to refresh myself. But I cannot stay here...."

  "Here?" I asked. "You cannot stay with me... or the children... or is it this city?"

  "It's this city," he cried vehemently. "I've known too many changes in fortune here. My life is in California....I must see to Las Mariposas so that we can have our home there. I would take you and the children..."

  I shook my head regretfully. "I cannot leave my mother," I said, and though I hated having him go off alone again, I would have made no other decision. Women sometimes have to choose between the old life and the new. I recognized the conflict and accepted it.

  "You are my wife," he said, his voice just ever so slightly petulant. "You should be with me."

  "John," I began, only to be interrupted by his laughter.

  "I know, I know. I am only feeling sorry for myself. Your trouble, Jessie, is that you are my strength... and you are your father's strength. We both need you desperately." All laughter was gone as he added, "But my need is physical as w
ell as emotional, you must never forget that."

  I did not forget it the two months that John was home that summer, for he refreshed himself physically as well as mentally. It crossed my mind that John gained some kind of strength from our physical union, for he was tireless and—it pained me to admit it—demanding. It was as though my physical response gave him some needed reassurance.

  I responded with all my heart, because I desperately loved this man, with his strange mix of strength and weakness. But my body, sometimes less eager to respond, betrayed my fear of another pregnancy. Some nights I willed myself to be passionate, moving my hands over his body in ways that I thought would please him, moaning when I thought it expected... but always playacting.

  "Jessie," he whispered one night, "you are not with me. What troubles you? Is it your mother?"

  How could I blame my coldness on that poor woman, whose burdens were already too heavy? Or on my father, or even on concern for the children? "No, John," I said, "I am afraid of another pregnancy. I don't think I could bear to lose another child."

  Silent, he withdrew from me and turned his back, and then I was consumed by guilt, for I had rejected the man who could least stand rejection. I reached a tentative hand for him, only to have him shake it off.

  "No," he said.

  "I... I only told the truth. It has nothing to do with my love for you," I said.

  "It has everything to do," he muttered.

  "John, I would risk anything for you... and for your love. I will quiet my fears." My hands began to stroke the length of his back, wandering down onto his thighs, and finally pressing between his legs. He stirred, then his entire body stiffened as though determined to ignore me. I kept up my gentle campaign until at last, with a groan, he turned to me.

  My response was apparently ardent enough to convince him. As he lay panting next to me, John said the only words I ever wanted to hear from him: "Jessie, I love you."