All Together in One Place (19 page)

“It stay good in sleeve, Missy,” the girl told her. “I keep good care.” She showed Esther how the parchment folded into a square and slipped inside the sleeve pocket.

Esther pursed her lips, fingered the cross at her neck. “Very well,” she said. “Be very careful We would not want your dowry lost or damaged. Then you'd have nothing to give.”

Tipton talked about Fort Laramie, of the adobe walls that harbored fresh cheese and a chance to feast at the “eating houses” well provisioned for both the soldiers and the overlanders by the sutler.

“I want a bath in a steamed tub,” Tipton told Tyrell. “And dancing underneath a roof to real musicians and not just Mr. Cullver, who fancies himself a fiddler ” She imagined a time when no one needed to be walking great distances or stepping away from the roll of the wagon or complaining about breakdowns or the dry weather shrinking wheels. People would nod and smile at the fort when they met her instead of wearing that scowl of hot faces with sweat streaks that Tipton thought contagious.

“I'll be pleased to have a hot forge to make some real repairs.”

“Not a soul complains about your repairing, Tyrellie. I think they feel luxurious to have a farrier along.” She cracked a walnut and dug the meat out for him, as his hands were occupied with a whip and dirty with grime She looked up at his bearded face, popped the walnut meat into his mouth, his dry lips grazing her fingers.

“Then they'll be doubly pleased when I have real tools to do my work.”

“It would be dreadful to be in a train without someone like you,” she said. She brushed nutmeat from his beard. “I wonder if Papa has really thought this through, going on to California.” Tip…

“Oh, never you mind me. I'm just dazed from lack of a copper tub to lounge in. Mama says it'll cost, but be worth it after all we've been through.”

“The folks crossing the South Platte have the dibs on tubs and complaints. We've been on a picnic by comparison.”

“They have Ash Hollow to rest in, according to Mr. Bacon's guidebook They say it's heaven there, all that lush grass and shade trees and pure water. Real trees to burn there, too, not those wretched buffalo chips we're stuck with.”

“Better buffalo chips than a cold supper,” Tyrell told her.

“Oh, Tyrellie. You're always seeing that things could be more foul.”

“Like the chickens not laying eggs? Now that's foul.”

She poked his shoulder. “That's a pun.”

“A poor one, at that.” The crunch of wheels scraping rocks and the jangle of harness, of chain against tongue, filled the silence as they walked.

“I like to imagine the tidiness and orderliness of the fort,” Tip ton went on. “All the uniformed men with polished buckles and boots.”

“They don't appeal to me at all,” Tyrell said.

“Well, I should hope not,” Tipton said. “Say, can't a major or someone like that act as an official, for court things and all?”

“You thinking of litigation?”

She pressed her head into his shoulder. “Weddings are official without being litigation”

“Tip, I don't think your father—”

“You always say I should think on pleasant things.”

Patience
, Mazy wrote the word in tiny script.
God is a bving sovereign who waits He waits for his children God waits for us to listen He waits for me I thank you for your patience and I seek it in my life. Amen.
She thought, tapping the pencil, then added,
Just dont give me too many opportunities to practice, please Amen

She had taken to writing each day about a quality of God's character, to express gratitude for it, to consider the trait and its meanings, then ask forgiveness for its lacking in her life. Then throughout the following day, she visited that quality, nurturing it the way she had gentled her planting, prodding the soil, staking when needed, seeking the bloom it would bring.

Patience. This journey proved she lacked it. The vistas could not make up for the pervasive insects, the stifling heat, the dust ground into all the food. The doctor's loose shoats snorted and rummaged at anything in sight, and no amount of promised bacon by their owners made
up for the disruption. Her tomato plant had taken on a dusty whiteness to its leaves that resembled a mold. Tiny stickers from plants she could not name attacked her bare toes and required patience to extract, despite Pigs effort to lick the stickers free. Even Jeremy's gnawing at her about her bloomers tried her patience. It was such a small exertion of independence.

“What difference does it make how I clothe myself?” Mazy told him as she picked at stickers after the cows were milked, the oxen fed, supper dishes wiped clean and stored

“You tell him. I knew you was an adventurous one,” Elizabeth said. The older woman sat, sewing a clamshell button onto one of Mazy's wrappers.

“Just draws attention to you,” he said. “Gaudy.”

“And having three animals of an unusual breed with strange markings and horns that arc up instead of out, that isn't drawing attention?”

“They weight the horns to get them like that. Did you know that? We'll have to do that too.”

“Don't change the subject,” Mazy said.

“You're not riding, you're walking Skirts work as well as pants, and they define your dignity.”

“I don't see no men wearing them,” Elizabeth said.

“Actually, Scottish men do wear skirts, for the most dignified of occasions”

“Kilts,” Mazy said. “You'd prefer I wear those instead of bloomers?”

He looked at her over the top of his glasses.

Mazy sighed. “I'll put them away once we reach the fort.” It would cause too much commotion. And as she gained weight with the baby, the wrapper'd be more practical anyway, expanding with her. Meanwhile, why couldn't Jeremy just adjust?

Patience is understanding, being willing to sit beside another where they are without trying to push them this way or that Calm endurance

She'd been writing at night, after everyone was settled down, since
the mornings now filled with gathering up, with getting on the way according to Antone Schmidtke's schedule. Traveling in this group meant adjusting, day in and day out, to the timing and events set by vote.

“I hate change,” she complained, “but Im not fond of this dust routine either.”

“You just dont like other people choosing for you,” Jeremy said.

“Human nature to resist change,” her mother said, then she bit off the end of the thread. She folded the garment, stretched, and yawned.

“You dont seem to mind it, Mother.”

“Learned long ago best way to get through the mud hole is to first admit you're in it, then decide how bad it is you want out and what you got to do to get there. Can always get clear-eyed and courageous about a thing, no matter what your troubles.”

Get clear-eyed? How could Mazy do that? The effort of moving from place to place, never waking to familiar, tired her. She was impatient to nest. How could she expect to be happy or comfortable without certainty?

Even her body felt foreign, this carrying of another. A thickening here, a queasiness there—it all worked against her, a woman who liked the expected. Even her chickens protested change—they'd laid almost nothing since they'd left home.

“Are you coming to sleep, woman? Candle's burning down.”

“I'll just finish and be in,” she told Jeremy.

To be without a place ofbebnging is to starve the soul
, Mazy wrote. She wondered how Mr. Malarky and his boys were managing their loss. At least she had her husband and her mother and this baby. She circled her stomach with the palm of her hand then wrote:
Made eighteen miles today. Saw four graves. At times, we can see the white dots of wagons on the south side of the Pktte while we travel on the north. So many people disrupting their lives. Just days out of Laramie I am impatient to see signs of civilizationy the red, white, and blue flying overhead, to sit at a real table to
eat once more, to smell the smelh of a storehouse full. I am an unworthy waiter, impatient. Give me understanding for this changing time of my life.
She finished writing, entered the tent pitched beside the wagon, stubbed the wick with her fingers, and took herself to bed.

Jessie hadn't eaten much, though Betha fried up corn hash and eggs and sprinkled them with dried red peppers. After their fasting break, Jed patted his stomach while his plump little wife motioned that his beard still held breadcrumbs.

“Such a fine, fine cook you are, Betha,” he said. “Wouldn't you say so, Ruthie?”

“I would,” Ruth said. “And I'm glad it's you and not me doing the fixing. White tablecloth? And flowers? For breakfast? What's the occasion?

“You've had your hands full, graining horses and whacking and all, and you don't join us in the evenings much. I could at least rinse out your clothes for you.”

“I do fine back there. I can wander out and talk to Koda, keep my eye on the other horses. It's not all that bad. Do my laundry on days like today, when we stop.”

“Jessie isn't a bother to you now, is she?” Betha's eyes looked anxious beneath her flounced cap “We can keep her up with us, you know.”

“Never a bother.”

“No, not now,” Betha said, then dropped her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she whispered.

Jed coughed. “Well, now. Looks like a good day. Not a cloud in the sky. A hill and valley or two, a river to cross and then we sight Fort Laramie not far ahead. Ladies, I do believe we are making progress.”

“I'm glad to have a day to stop,” Ruth said. They'd just completed a tedious section of trail that had required everyone's shoulders and effort
to keep the unbending wagons upright on the steep and uneven prairie. They'd been rewarded for their efforts with a cluster of trees and a stream not mentioned in the guidebook. Here they'd stay a day, resting up the stock on good grass and giving the women time to dry and scrape the diapers and wash their meager wardrobes, bake up a pie or two.

“Wish Jessie'd eat up a bit more,” Betha said. “Does she look poorly to you?”

“Just a child, Mother,” Jed told her, pushing against his knees to stand. “Probably running on the newness of the day. Goes back and forth, visiting every wagon, I declare. Doesn't need much food. Come here then, Jessie girl. Let's see if you're approaching a fever state.” He pulled the girl to him, and when Jed's smooth fingers reached around Jessie's wrist, Ruth thought the child's arm looked as thin as a chicken's leg. Jed touched his hand to Jessie's face and frowned.

“Is she feverish?” Ruth asked him. She set her tin cup of cooling coffee down and stood to feel the girl's forehead herself.

“Does seem a bit hot.”

“Why don't you fetch that doctor?” Betha said. “What's his name Masters, in that wagon with the bright green water bucket up ahead there. With the pigs about. Ned, see if you can find him.”

“Do I gotta?” the boy complained. He and Jason held a handful of marbles. His brow furrowed beneath the center part of his slick, black hair

“Your sister's ill,” Jed told him. “Needs a doctor.”

“You've got a lot more faith in those quacks than I do,” Ruth said.

Ned squinted at Jessie. “She's just funning ya so she don't have to wash clothes.”