All Together in One Place (45 page)

Bacon sizzled, the coffee perked in the old pot. Everyone gathered around the fire and commented on the glorious morning, the eerie music of the coyotes that had serenaded them in the night They enjoyed light talk and chatter. Pig chased the boys and barked until
Betha urged them to stop. She shook her head when Sarah gave her tin plate to the dog to lick. Fip s bell tinkled as he ripped at the stiff grass. Then a silence cloaked the group, and Mazy knew it was time to answer the question put to her the night before—in some ways, to answer the very question she had put to Tipton too.

“Shall we bow our heads?” Mazy asked.

“I'll say a prayer,” Mariah said. Mazy tried to organize what she'd be saying and didn't listen, but Elizabeth said it was “so loverly” that several asked Mariah to repeat it.

“’Tis a gift to be simple,
’Tis a gift to be free,
’Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves
In the place that's right
’Twill be in the valley
Of love and delight.”

Mazy inhaled a deep breath, the phrase “find ourselves where we ought to be” still ringing in her head. Longing overwhelmed Mazy in an instant. She wanted to go back, more than anything, to what was, to what had been. But it was not there. It no longer existed.

“I said I'd go back, even if no one else wanted to. But some new dream,” Mazy said, “digging into some new plot of life rather than attempting to retill the old one, I think that's what we're all wanting. I saw the brightness in your eyes last night when you talked. A kind of passion filled your face, Mother. It washed away that blank and empty look that's clouded our eyes like an old dog's. Maybe it's what we need to wash away the tedium of greasing the wheels or ease our aching arms and backs from cracking whips. Maybe it's the inspiration of going toward something, of doing something that seems right regardless of how it comes out, that's what'll keep the ache in our hearts at bay.”

If she told them no, that she wouldn't go west with them, would
they all turn back with her? Was she prepared to deprive them? She liked these women. They were good people, enduring. And they'd been kind to her. She wanted to please them, hoped it would also please herself.

She took a deep breath. “I can plant a garden in Oregon or California,” she said. “Or places in between, I'd guess. I never wanted to come at all, not ever; and what would please me most would be to have what I left at home, do what I wanted back there with the husband I loved. But that's gone. It will never be.”

Her stomach hurt, and she wished Jeremy were there beside her so she could tell him of the trap she'd closed over her soul, blame him for what was. But he wasn't, and blame wasn't hers to deliver. It was a lesson she was coming to learn. Blaming just got in the way of her seeking what she wanted.

“So you'll go west with us?” Mariah asked.

“Yes,” Mazy said, “I'll go. I'm sorry it isn't with more joy, but I'll do everything I can to get us all there together. So we'll find that place for all of us that's a valley of love and delight.”

17
being guided

Sister Esther had insisted that her brothers come with her, badgered them both into submission. They'd obliged, the younger following their elders’ lead, done as she bid, until dead. Now she stood alone, staring at the place that marked her second brother's grave. After two days of travel the women were back where they'd started, back by the stream where her brother, Jeremy, Antone, Hathaway, and Tyrell were buried.

The boy Clayton giggled and chased that antelope near Jeremy's grave. Sarah and her brothers followed close behind. Had they no respect for the dead? There was something incongruous in laughter beside these lonely graves. Yet what was disrespectful about loving life, celebrating the end of earthly disappointment and betrayal? Esther watched Mazy standing beside her husband's marker of stones. Mazy motioned to the child as he passed Jeremy's grave, called out his name. He waddled toward her, and she swung him upward and around, then pulled him to her breast It looked as though she wept on the child's blond head.

Esther shook her head, unclasped her hands. Grieving. Done in so many different ways. She took long strides back toward her wagon, her skirts swishing limp around her aching knees. She wished she knew for certain, when bad things happened, whether it was part of God's guidance or just a consequence of one's own will.

Ducking inside her wagon, she dampened a handkerchief with
warm water and dabbed it on the back of her neck. Rested, she stepped out into the sunlight looking back toward the graves. What she witnessed soothed her aging eyes. Adora walked with Tipton. Mariah bent to her mother s head, too. And there stood Zilah, the sunlight fading the depressions on her cheeks so that her face looked almost smooth. She leaned over the area where Ferrel would have lain. When she walked away, wildflowers bobbed inside a mint green vase. Esther recognized it as one of the Asian girls few possessions.

“First real grieving you've had,” Mazy told Tipton later. They stood alone at the pile of rocks. She rubbed circles with her palm on Tipton's shoulder, talked as though soothing a child The two leaned into each other. “It's easier to go away, I know, but it keeps coming back unless we look it in the face.”

“Are you?” Tipton asked between shuddered breaths.

“Facing things? I turned west. My life has changed. Me, who likes everything to stay the same.” She sighed. “Like Suzanne said, life as we knew it ended. All we have left are the things we choose to remember.”

“Yeah,” Tipton said, pulling away. “And the misery of learning to accept what is.”

Life moved into routine, the physical movements of milking the cows, hitching the oxen, bringing the mules to harness became familiar as pulling water from a well at home. Who did what at dawn, which oxen snubbed behind which wagon at noon, who hobbled the horses at night, all became expected.

Pig walked beside Suzanne, who gripped hard leather that stood up like an upside-down letter £/from his harness. Deborah rubbed honey
onto Suzanne's burned legs once when they stopped. Mazy even heard Suzanne say “thanks” and saw her touch the girls arm with tenderness. Over the sounds of the mules and oxen, she heard Adoras voice rise as if meant to rouse her daughter, who rode, eyes glazed, beside her. Mazy tried to memorize the landscape and in her mind imagined a grassy mound made in the shape of a bird over Jeremy s grave.

The routine fed their need for familiar in a foreign land.

And while the patterns gave them confidence, recognition of their bent, they also gifted them with time: time to think and remember, reevaluate and wonder. Time to live with the loss birthed by long hours of lament.

They were a few days out of Laramie—again—by Mazy s calculations when they pulled up earlier than usual for the evening. Deborah made her way in her quick-quick steps to the wagon Mazy walked beside.

“Clover good for stopping,” she said. “For bees. It is time”

“I'd forgotten,” Mazy said. “I'm sorry.”

“No need,” the tiny woman said. “Twice each moon enough, but they have changed their songs. One colony very quiet. The queen dead, maybe. Bees dance out. They bring harmony back for others.”

The women circled the wagons up, and Deborah and Naomi set out the six boxes of bees a few feet away. The buzzing picked up so that even to Mazy's untrained ear, she could hear the change.

The two small women donned mesh draped from their hats and over their faces. Then they pulled back the tin that gave the insects ventilation but kept them securely inside. Once released, the tiny black dots lighted on the girls’ jade-colored dresses, then rose and fluttered, almost dancing, lifting amidst a soft humming song.

“What are they doing?” Betha asked. She'd come by and stood beside Sister Esther a good distance away.

“I am told that they are cleansing themselves,” Sister Esther said.

“Tidying up?” Betha asked. “Well, I'll be.”

“Perhaps. They clean their hives this way. They will seek out nectar and pollen of plants and what else they need to make honey. And when the night cools, they will return. This is an experiment, taking larvae and queens across the land, as we are.”

Betha fanned herself. “Feels pretty hot to me. I hope it cools down before it gets too dark for them. What keeps them coming back?”

Deborah approached the women and answered Betha. “The queen remains. She is what they live for They see nothing else, just one thing.”

“Just feed and protect. Seems a dull life.”

“It is a rewarded life,” Deborah insisted. “They are certain of what is needed and they do these things. It is a remembrance for me.”

“A reminder,” Sister Esther corrected. “I believe the word you wish is
reminderI’

Deborah bowed her head, accepting the correction. “A reminder,” she said “I make duty good, day fill with sweet honey.”

Mazy actually looked forward to the necessary circle in the evening when the chores were finished, before they quieted their thoughts and slipped under their tents for the night.