A Many-Splendoured Thing

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘How will you do that?’

  ‘The only way there is. By riding into it.’

  There was a concerted intake of breath as the Major strode grim-faced back towards his horse and mounted it, edging it slowly towards and into the foaming water. Even the Spencer children remained quiet, eyes wide as saucers as they clutched their mother’s skirts. Polly’s nails dug deep in her palms as the stallion stepped carefully into the swirling water. Part of the bank began to crumble and give way and Eliza Cowley turned her head away. Polly’s heart hammered and her eyes were riveted firmly on him as slowly, inch by inch, he moved his horse further out into the torrent.

  The water covered the fetlocks and then rose higher. Dart reined in. The horse’s hindquarters staggered under the weight of water. They were still not mid way. Then, as Susannah Spencer began to pray quietly and Nephi drew in a horrified gasp, Dart slid from the saddle and, keeping hold of the reins, lowered himself into the icy current. The water swirled around his waist, buffetting him, only his hold on the reins and the steadying body of the horse holding him upright. Carefully, step by step, he moved forward until both horse and man were in the centre of the stream. Another step and another. Then they were on their treacherous way back and Dart was calling to Nephi:

  ‘I was right. It’s just over four feet, but damnably strong!’

  Polly felt sick with relief as he emerged soaking wet, his trousers clinging to him like a second skin.

  ‘Will a wagon make it?’ Josiah asked fearfully.

  ‘No reason why it shouldn’t, but not with any occupants save the teamster. If it overbalances there will be little chance of saving anyone.’

  ‘Then how …?’ Nephi began.

  ‘Rope,’ Dart answered curtly. ‘We secure one end round a tree this side and one end the other. Then you and I each take a child across separately, holding on to it. We help the women across in the same manner.’

  Nephi blanched and for the first time in his life said unthinkingly, ‘Good God, man. That would be eleven trips, and there’s also Josiah to help!’

  ‘And a man won’t survive that water temperature for long, so we’d best set to,’ Dart said tersely, his teeth chattering. He marched across to the Spencer wagon and rummaged for a coil of sturdy twine.

  ‘Here, Nephi. Secure this as though your life depended on it, for it does. Susannah, Lucy, Eliza—move all the bedding and all else you can, above the water level.’

  His commands shook them from their stupor of shock.

  ‘I’ll take the first wagon over,’ Dart said, moving to the Spencer wagon.

  Nephi stayed him with his hand, saying softly so that his wife could not hear, ‘I’ll drive it. If the wagon should be lost, it’s you the rest of them will need.’

  Dart didn’t argue. The rope was tied with the other end around Nephi’s waist. It would serve to pull him clear from the icy torrent, if necessary.

  The sturdily-built, home-made wagon had never looked as clumsy and vulnerable as it did when Nephi urged the protesting horses into the icy flood. Within a few feet of the bank it was rocking perilously and Serena Spencer started to cry. Inch by inch Nephi continued, the horses whinnying in fright.

  ‘He’s halfway over,’ Sister Schulster said as Susannah Spencer could no longer bear to look. ‘The water line is receding. He’s coming out of it! He’s made it!’

  ‘A triumphant cry went up as the horses clambered up the far bank, the wagon resembling a giant sea creature, its canvas soaked and an assortment of Sister Spencer’s possessions bobbing merrily downstream.

  ‘Praise the Lord,’ said Josiah fervently.

  Nephi wiped the sweat from his brow and fastened the other end of the rope around the stoutest tree he could find.

  ‘What now?’ he shouted back to Dart.

  Dart did not even look in Josiah Cowley’s direction. The man could not possibly drive through such a strong current.

  ‘You make your way back, using the rope, hand over hand, and we’ll drive the other wagons across.’

  Lydia Lyman whipped her horses and edged towards the bank. ‘I can drive my own team, thank you, Major.’

  Dart’s eyes held hers for a long time.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘If the wagon should go, leap for the rope and hold on.’

  She nodded. Slowly, ponderously, the Lyman wagon entered the flood waters. Every muscle of Dart’s body was flexed and ready for action. Lydia Lyman’s voice could be heart exorting her team. The expression on Nephi’s face changed from one of horror to one of hope and finally to joy as the horses slithered up the far bank and wild shouts of triumph were emitted by the Spencers and Cowleys.

  ‘Now me,’ Polly said tentatively. He turned on her with a savagery that took her breath away.

  ‘No!’

  Her eyes flashed in uncomprehending fury, her voice shaking as she said, ‘You allowed Lydia!’

  ‘You’re not Lydia Lyman,’ he rasped, and turned his back to her.

  ‘Hand over hand,’ he called to Nephi.

  Polly’s face flamed. She was just as capable a teamster as Lydia Lyman. Was she to be treated like Eliza Cowley, who had been city-bred? Or the children or the two old ladies?

  ‘Damn,’ she said furiously as Nephi made his arduous way back to them. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

  Little Jamie Spencer listened with interest. It was a word he had never heard before.

  ‘Damn,’ he said happily as he ran back to his mother. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’ Susannah’s concern for her husband made her deaf to her son’s profanities. His father emerged from what so easily could have been an icy grave and Jamie ran up to him, circling his father’s soaked boots with chubby arms.

  ‘Damn,’ he said with a broad grin on his face as Nephi hugged him tightly.

  ‘What next?’ he said to Dart.

  Dart had heard Jamie’s new word and had a good idea where it had come from. Despite himself he felt a flicker of amusement.

  ‘The children next. I’ll go first with Jamie.’

  Susannah stifled a cry as Dart hoisted Jamie on to his back.

  ‘Hold tight, but don’t choke me.’

  ‘Damn,’ Jamie said cheerfully, and had to be screamed at by his mother not to wave goodbye as Dart descended into the swirling waters.

  For one terrifying moment, Dart lost his footing, staggered and grabbed the taut rope. This time, to Polly’s eyes, the water was higher, submerging Jamie’s booted feet as he clung, piggy-back fashion, to Dart. The hat with its gold tassel had been dispensed with, as had his jacket. Blue-black hair grew thickly away from his forehead, hanging glossily low in the nape of his neck. His saturated shirt might just as well have been invisible. The powerful arm and shoulder muscles flexed and strained.

  ‘He doesn’t look like an American, does he Pa?’ Serena Spencer commented as they watched Dart traverse the twenty-foot width.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Susannah Spencer said briskly, her eyes never leaving her son’s back and fat, water-soaked legs.

  Polly’s eyes were on Dart. He didn’t look like an American. Not the Americans of Kirtland or Quincy or Nauvoo. Beside Dart, all the male inhabitants of the towns Polly had previously lived in paled into insignificance. They had none of the unleashed power that she was aware of when she was with him. None of his animal-like grace. None of the mystery caused by features so unlike those she met daily. Who else had slanting black eyes and high cheekbones, a strong nose and a jawline that would deter the hardiest fist fighter? Or skin that made her ache to touch it. Or a mouth so finely chiselled that her eyes never tired of studying it? She had never before met a man like Major Dart Richards and neither had anyone else in their little wagon train.

  Jamie Spencer was deposited on the far side with Lydia Lyman. As Dart began to make the gruelling return crossing, Nephi hitched his youngest on his back and Susannah secured him tightly with her shawl. A nod from Dart indicated that it was all right for Nephi to take the plunge. They crossed mid-stream and wh
en Dart finally emerged, saturated and shivering from the water, Susannah Spencer immediately hoisted Thomas on to his back and with Eliza Cowley’s shawl, anchored her son more securely.

  Polly watched aghast. There was Sister Fielding and Sister Schulster to ferry across and they would not be as easy as the children. And Josiah, who had only one usable arm. Already she could see that both men were on the point of exhaustion, the icy water cutting into them like knives as Thomas joined his brothers in safety.

  ‘You have a choice,’ Sister Schulster said with unconcealed delight when he returned. ‘I either walk holding on to that rope or you carry me like you did the children.’

  Dart glanced at Sister Schulster’s gnarled hands. ‘You’d never hold on. The rope is drenched and freezing.’

  ‘Then someone had better give me a leg up,’ Sister Schulster said unwaveringly.

  Susannah and Eliza exchanged appalled glances. ‘She’s right,’ Dart said, ‘it’s the only way.’

  Sister Schulster grinned and circled his neck. ‘A leg up, if you please, Sister Spencer,’ she said demurely.

  ‘You’ll have to lift your skirts high out of reach of the water,’ Dart said as Sister Spencer reluctantly complied.

  ‘No problem,’ Sister Schulster said equably and, gathering her skirts, she lifted them high and tucked them down her waistband.

  Susannah and Eliza could not bear to look at such immodesty in a lady of her years and both privately determined that no matter what the danger, they would not be subjected to a similar indignity. Sister Fielding watched with a jutting chin. Sister Schulster would live for years on the story of how she crossed the creek on Major Richards’back. She gritted her teeth. Sister Schulster was not going to outdo her.

  ‘Nephi!’ she commanded as Dart deposited a cackling Sister Schulster with Lydia and the children. ‘A carry, if you please.’

  ‘But Sister Fielding …’

  ‘A carry,’ Sister Fielding demanded, her skirts already hitched out of the way.

  Neither Susannah nor Eliza showed any sign of helping with this new foolhardiness. Polly linked her fingers and made a step for Sister Fielding, hoisting her up on to Nephi’s back.

  ‘Away we go,’ Sister Fielding cried defiantly, and closed her eyes.

  ‘It’s rising,’ Nephi said to Dart when they were once more on the same bank. Dart nodded. Time was fast running out and their strength was rapidly waning. There was blood on Nephi’s hands and his own felt like raw meat.

  ‘Your wife next,’ he said. ‘If we do get separated into two parties she needs to be with the children.’

  Susannah was crying, adamantly refusing her husband’s offer to carry her. Instead, with Nephi only inches behind her, coaxing and encouraging, she began the long crossing, gripping the rope hard, stumbling on the uneven bed of the creek, breathless with the unbelievable cold.

  ‘Surely we could risk a wagon?’ Josiah asked. ‘My wife will never manage it. She’s of a nervous nature.’

  ‘You can see how strong the current is. If the wagon overturned …’

  ‘Please.’ Eliza Cowley was clinging to her husband. ‘Please let me drive across in a wagon. Please!’

  Dart hesitated and then said with an authority that brooked no argument, ‘No, into the water, Sister Cowley. I shall be with you.’

  It was harder guiding Eliza Cowley to safety than it had been with all the others. Halfway across she became hysterical and everyone watched horrified as Dart first shook her viciously with his free hand and then slapped her sharply across her face. It was the first time Eliza Cowley had ever been struck. Weeping and half-senseless, she was finally pushed ashore to Lydia Lyman who was waiting with warm blankets.

  ‘He’ll answer for that,’ Josiah was saying, white-faced.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, man. He’s just saved her life,’ Nephi retorted curtly.

  Only Nephi, Josiah, Polly and the Marriots remained. Each crossing took longer, the fatigue becoming more apparent. Nephi had to literally haul Dart out of the water on his return to them.

  ‘The Cowley wagon,’ Dart gasped. ‘Can you drive it across?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Neither man allowed their glance to fall to their own or each others’bloodied hands.

  ‘If you ever want an army career,’ Dart said as Nephi took the Cowley reins, ‘come to me and I’ll rate you a Captain on your first day!’

  Nephi grinned and goaded the reluctant oxen into the water.

  Polly’s anger at not being able to drive her own team as Lydia had, had long since vanished. She watched fearfully as Nephi struggled with the reins, and then screamed as the oxen plunged wildly and the wagon teetered, crashing into the bed of the river. Dart leapt into the swirling torrent, ignoring the rope, ignoring everything but the fact that Nephi was trapped between wagon and oxen, and was not surfacing.

  The children were crying. Pans, blankets, Bibles floated free of the wagon, but both men had now disappeared. Polly rushed down to the bank and into the water. She was just about to plunge in and begin swimming when first one head and then another appeared. Waist-deep in water she watched, sobbing with relief, as both men grabbed the rope, hanging over it as they fought for breath. Then she could see Dart order Nephi to the far bank.

  Stumbling and falling, with Josiah reaching down to help her, she clambered back to the bank.

  ‘What the devil did you think you were doing?’ he asked, struggling ashore like a beached fish.

  ‘I … I …’ She had been going to save him. Her foolishness rendered her speechless. He shook the water from his eyes and glared at her.

  ‘You stay exactly where you are until I tell you differently. Do you understand?’

  There was no warmth or kindness in his voice.

  She nodded, blinking back tears, watching as he plunged into the water yet again, this time behind Josiah. Josiah’s courage and stamina saw to it that Dart’s remaining strength was not overtaxed. Nephi was intent on returning for the Marriots and Polly and Dart exhaustedly denied him permission.

  Tom and Lucy had withdrawn from the rest of the little group. Tom had only just recovered from a fever. It seemed impossible to Lucy that he could survive the icy waters and she knew instinctively that she could not. Years younger than Sister Fielding and Sister Schulster, she did not have their strength. Breathing painfully, saturated and freezing, Dart recrossed the creek and walked the twenty yards down the bank to where they stood, hand in hand.

  ‘We cannot do it,’ Tom Marriot said simply. ‘My wife has a sickness and as for myself …’

  ‘We’ll go in the wagon,’ Dart said. ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘But you would not allow the others, and look what happened to the Cowley’s wagon.’

  ‘The others could survive by crossing in a different manner. I know that you cannot. The Cowley wagon overturned, but the other two didn’t. I want you to sit very, very still. Is that understood?’

  They nodded acquiescence. Alone, Polly watched as Dart helped them into the wagon. Both Tom and Lucy had aged in the last few days. No one spoke as the wagon began to teeter perilously into the depths. Polly knew that Dart’s stamina was almost exhausted. Once he had struggled with the Marriot’s team, she alone remained. She was young and strong. With the aid of the rope she could cross alone.

  She hitched up her skirts, took a deep breath and plunged into the torturously cold water, gripping hold of the rope.

  One step: another step. The cold was crucifying. It was hard to keep her balance. One step: another. Dear Lord, how had he managed to cross so many times? The cold was unbearable. It numbed the limbs until movement was almost impossible. One step: another. The water surged around her breasts. How tall was she? Surely she was five foot three. The water should never reach her chin. Another step.

  He was coming towards her and then there was such a scream that Polly lost her footing and felt her skirts trailing out in the current, pulling her off her feet. She fought for balance. Susannah�
�s mouth was a gaping hole as she screamed and continued screaming, her eyes on the far bank. Polly gasped, spluttered water, and turned her head. Serena Spencer had emerged from the tree she had been hiding behind and was howling pitifully.

  Polly paused. Dart was near to collapse. It would be far easier for her to retrace her steps for the girl. She began to move back, hand over hand, towards the bank she had just left. She was aware of a shout of protest from Dart, and Nephi and Lydia plunging into the water and dragging him forcibly ashore. If Nephi judged him to be at the end of his strength, then her judgment had been correct.

  Behind her pandemonium was breaking out, but she could not turn her head to see, nor break her concentration to hear. One step, another. The water slid down over her breasts, her waist, her dripping skirts.

  ‘Come,’ she said through chattering teeth to Serena. ‘Hold the rope tightly and move one hand and then another.’

  Serena’s terror at the reality of being left behind was greater than her terror of the crossing. She did exactly as Polly told her. The water reached Polly’s waist and Serena’s chest.

  ‘Let your feet and legs float,’ Polly gasped to the girl. ‘Keep hold of the rope. Keep moving one hand and then another.’ She was aware that from the far bank help was coming. The child obeyed, but the rush of water was too strong. With a cry she let go and instinctively Polly struck out after her.

  She was holding Serena’s chin, but the child was struggling. Water closed over her head, she was sinking, dragged down by the weight of her skirts and the struggling child. Serena slid from her grasp and no matter how hard she tried she could not reach the surface. Then, as she clawed vainly, strong hands gripped hold of her, pulling her upwards.

  ‘You bloody fool!’

  ‘Serena,’ she gasped, coughing up water, choking for air.

  ‘Nephi has her.’

  The flood water swirled around them, one arm released her, striking out for the rope, the other holding on to her. As his hand gripped hold of it she could see, blurred and unfocussed, the blood oozing from the cuts, dropping into the water, staining it an ugly red.