All Together in One Place (30 page)

There. She'd said it and the world had not stopped turning, but her compass needle had.

“I never wanted to be here,” Mazy continued. “I want to go back to Wisconsin, to what's familiar, to what I know. It's what I want my child to know, the things I knew first, the breeze off the bluffs.”

“You learned that later, Mazy,” Elizabeth reminded her. Mazy scowled at her. “Just want to keep this discussion honest. You met those bluffs after you stepped out in a new life with your husband. This is a new life he wanted for you too. And another waits in Oregon.”

“But it won't be his life, will it, Mother? And it won't be one I chose. He won't be there to bring me to it So I've got to tend to my own life, my own way. I never wanted to be here. I have a choice now, and I'm going to make it for me and my child. You can come along, or you can head on and hope someone takes pity on you and helps you through. Me, I'm going home.”

Mazy heard her own heart beat with the sureness of what she wanted She wondered if she would turn back all alone if no one chose to go back with her. Well, she decided, she could. Silence cloaked the group.

“I don't have much say in all of this,” Suzanne said, breaking the silence first. “But if you want to know about being trapped where you don't want to be, ask me. No wolverine caught could feel more violated for all the good it does her. So I guess I need to ask you, Naomi, since you're doing the driving of my oxen. Which way are you heading? East or west?”

“She'll go where I decide,” Sister Esther said.

Naomi continued to rub at the big ox's shoulder, calming the animal as she did. She talked low to Breeze, scratching the animal behind his ears, avoiding the long horns that extended out toward the sides. Mazy watched her. She seemed disinterested in the conversation, so Mazy found herself surprised with the girl's insightful response. “Plants grow best in same soil. Grow close, offer—safe house—from winds. They are of same place, grow best not alone.”

“Trees seldom grow alone,” Elizabeth said.

“Meaning?” Suzanne said

“Whatever we do, we should do it as one,” Betha said.

“All together, in one place,” Mazy said. “Exactly.”

“But we have obligations,” Sister Esther protested. “People waiting for us in California.”

“What's the likelihood you'll be able to deliver?” Mazy said. “You'd be better off to turn back, find new drivers or bull-whackers and start again next year. You have three other lives you're responsible for, and even with two men, you were taking a chance going overland.”

Sister Esther sank to the chair she had not yet loaded back onto her wagon. “But to have come so far already and turn back.

“There is strength together, Missy Esther,” Deborah said, patting the woman's bony shoulder. “The bees make way. Know duty.”

“To take care of the queen, isn't it?” Charles said.

It startled Mazy to hear him enter this women's circle.

“A group of drones looking after a queen,” Charles continued. “Fortunately, Mrs. Bacon has excluded the men from this discussion. But then, I wasn't planning to be in one place with any of you for long.”

“Charles!” Adora gasped. “What are you thinking of? You've got to drive us, me! You can't leave us!”

“I've got to do nothing, woman Mrs. Bacon's right on that one thing: It's a choice. You made yours when you made Father follow Tipton. See what it got him? I'm sure you two'll do well together as you always have. If I were you, I'd head back. They know you there, and someone's likely to take pity on you until you can find a suitable benefactor for dear Tipton.”

He finished his speech and slipped inside the wagon. Adora stood, her mouth open. When he stepped back out and onto his horse, she grabbed at his gartered sleeve He leaned across her, as though to snap at Tipton inside the wagon. “What've you got in your vest?” Adora asked, reaching to touch his pocket.

“None of your business,” he said, grabbing her wrist, tossing it back to her hard enough to make her stumble.

“Charles!” Mazy said, “Your own mother—-”

“Can take care of herself.” He jerked the reins, and the horse stepped back, twisting. He gouged the animal with the sunburst spurs, the horse barely missing Adora as man and animal shot past.

“Mama?” Tipton stuck her head out of the wagon back.

“He's leaving us ” Adora chewed her lower lip, rubbed at her temples.

“But, Charles, we're your family,” Tipton said, her words slurred.

Charles pulled the reins and turned back. “You never gave me anything I'd want to claim as mine.”

“Just Papa's good money,” Tipton said, cutting through her fog. “You'd take that with no hard feelings.”

The vein in Charles's neck became suddenly thick and pulsating. His hazel eyes hardened to ice. “I earned every eagle putting up with you, sister,” he said “I've paid my dues Paid them well and with interest ”.
He started to turn his mount “Something more you should know before you get too high on your horse, little sister.” Spittle gathered at his mouth again. “Your intended had other plans than marrying you. He told me so the day he died. Said he'd had enough with sniveling females and that he was glad as glad could be he'd be heading north to Oregon while all the Wilson clan went south.”

“That's not true,” she gasped. “He would have told me if he'd changed his mind.”

“Why tell you?” Charles said. “He didn't have to. Once we hit Casper country, you'd be out of sight, out of mind. Just as you are now for him. Just as you're going to be for me.”

He pressed the reins to the horse's neck then and gave the animal a sharp kick with Tyrell's spurs that sent it into a trot.

Birds twittered into the silence. Tipton looked as though she'd just awoken, her hair and clothes disheveled, like someone drifting into distance.

Grief is as singukr as a snowflake
, Mazy thought,
and just as algid

“I think Mazy's right, Ruthie ” They all turned at once to Betha. “I know this'll be hard for you to hear, dear, but I want to go back to Jed's grave. Couldn't we? I could decide better about what to do there, I could Talk it over with him. You could go on without me.”

Ruth stared at her.

“Well, I don't suppose you could.” Betha looked away. “I need to go back, though. I do. Go with me. Please.”

“Esther, do you wish to do the same? We could pray again over Harold's grave. And Cynthia's,” Mazy said.

The woman nodded. “Just for a short good-bye.”

Ruth sighed, resigned. “How about if Matt and Joe take the cattle and the horses on, pack some of my grain. They'd find better grazing west without us. The rest of you could head west while I take Betha back Collect ourselves.”

“We all stick together,” Adora said. “I can't imagine going on without you and Mazy both.”

“For the children's sake. I just want to take a little time to mourn at the grave,” Betha said.

“Matt?” Lura asked her son. “What s your pleasure?”

“I been thinking while you all been talking, that we should do that. Take your cow brute too, if you want, Mrs. Bacon. Meet up at Laramie or keep going. Applegate s route goes south, then on into Oregon on the California Pack Trail. If we drive your horses north there, Miss Martin, you wont have to worry over the Columbia River crossing.”

“Oh, well be caught up with you long before then,” Ruth said. “You want your brute to go, Mazy?”

Mazy didn t want that; but if it meant the others would turn back with her, it would be worth the loss of the brute. What did she care about it anyway? She had the cows. And if they turned back all together, if only on the pretense of stopping a day or two at the graves, it would be worth it Turning around was the hard part. Longing for home would keep them facing east.

“Take the brute,” Mazy said. “We'll go back, rest at the graves.”

“Yes, rest,” Lura said “That sounds so good.”

“I go back with Missy Esther,” Naomi said. “Take Missy Sue— Suzanne.”

“And you…others traveling with Sister Esther?” Mazy realized she did not know one of them, had only heard Naomi's name because Suzanne used it.

“They'll do as I bid them,” Sister Esther.

Mazy didn't think Esther noticed the looks the Asian girls exchanged.

“To get our rhythm and rest ourselves is a good idea,” Elizabeth said. “Practice helping each other through.”

Mazy didn't know when she'd been more grateful to her mother.

A silence followed, broken when Mazy said, “It's decided, then. We turn east. All together.”

“For now,” Ruth said. “All together for now.”

Before they left, Matt showed his mother and Mariah how to lift the heavy yokes off their oxen and where to place them beside the wheels.

“You set ‘em the same place every night, you'll know where to find ‘em in the morning,” he told them. “Got to watch and make sure Boo is always on the left, smaller means left. Minnie on the right. Hitch up Minnie first, otherwise she thinks she's being left behind and gets unruly. Same goes for your team, Mariah. Baxter left, Cow Chip right.”

“Cow Chip. On the right. Yes. I'll remember,” Mariah said. She hugged her brother good-bye.

“I'll see you in a few days,” he said.

Lura hugged him tight. The boy stepped back and thumbed his eyes. He put his hat on and scanned the circle of wagons and women. He looked as though he might propose another plan, consider staying with them. Lura could see the confusion, the compassion in his young face, that streak of white hair yellowed by the sun. She started to speak, but Mariah said it for her.

You go on, Mattie. We're Schmidtkes too, remember? We'll keep going where we're pointed, and we'll meet up again.”

“Lord willing,” he said. Then he mounted up, and he and Joe Pepin headed west.

Mazy noticed the ache, how her shoulders, breast, and breathing pressed against her heart as heavily as stone. Her arm throbbed from the constant cracking of the whip, of pushing with her shoulder against the oxen when they moved too far right or left, of bending to check the wagon tongues and heavy iron chains that held the animals to the wagon. She hadn't realized how diligent one needed to be to keep them heading the right direction. Had Jeremy ever complained of it? But she
couldn't let the knowledge penetrate her senses, scratch against the surface of her skin.

“Least we ain't got the sun in our
eyes
in the afternoon,” Elizabeth said. “Feel sorry for them boys having to head back into it.”

“We haven't come all that far today,” Mazy said. She checked the odometer on the wheel. “Only ten point five miles once we got turned around. We'll do better tomorrow.”

“Assuming we don't have a tongue break or lose an ox,” Elizabeth said. “And we find decent grazing.”

That first night headed east, they'd circled the wagons not for protection from any kind of threat but to contain the oxen, the Bacons’ cows, the one or two riding stock they trailed, and the Wilsons’ mules. The antelope trailed around bumping its nose without invitation into pots until Pig barked at it, sending it scurrying under a wagon.

“You just tie him up,” Adora told Elizabeth from across the circle. “He's worse than a dog.”

“We don't have enough dogs,” Elizabeth said. “Can't have enough. Good for guarding, good for fun.”

“If food is ever short, I do suppose they can be eaten,” Adora said. She bent back to lift the water bucket off the side of the wagon. Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment Adora spilled the bucket of water down the front of her dress.

“Oh no,” Adora wailed. “Now we'll have to drink that alkali tasting stuff. This was such good water too.”

Something about her wet dress, the fatigue of the day, the strain of Hathaway's death, all the deaths, even Tipton's empty distance—all of it came together, flooding her as the bucket had surely soaked her dress. She looked down at her feet. They were drenched too, her last pair of shoes without holes in them. It was too much, all too much Adora leaned her head against the wagon and wept.

Elizabeth waited a moment for Tipton to hear her mother crying, to go and comfort her. When she didn't, Elizabeth finished tying Fip to the
wheel and walked over to Adora. She touched her back. “These first days are always tough.”