All Together in One Place (52 page)

The ferryman stared, moved a plug of tobacco from one cheek to the other, waiting while the group of them congregated at the Green River. He spit. Betha cringed. Such filth, they were surrounded by filth.

They d come a good distance, crossing the streams that meandered, over and back again as though they had not gotten it right the first time and were forced into repetition. Here at the Green River, Betha just wished Adora would make up her mind.

“I wont pay that,” Adora said, arms crossed over her chest. “Six dollars a wagon is too much! Only paid fifty cents to cross the Desmoines.”

“Its either pay or find our own way, “ Elizabeth told her. “He's already come down a dollar.” There were shouts from other wagons yelling about “holdups.”

The ferryman smiled a tobacco-stained smile. “I got lots of time, ladies,” he said, “but you ain't. Winter's coming.”

Adora dropped her arms. “I haven't any money,” she said in a whisper. “We never found the purse.”

“Tipton! Your mother needs you,” Betha called to the girl, gazing at the swirling water.

“Could you have left it in Laramie?” Lura asked. “I'm just terrible myself about misplacing things.”

“No, I had to borrow money for laudanum and whiskey, and—”

“I didn't know you bought lauda—”

“I couldn't find my purse, remember?” Adora snapped at her approaching daughter.

“When did you have it last?” Betha asked. “Let's go back to that.”

Tipton rolled her eyes. Adora turned to Lura. “I guess when your Matt and Joe left.”

“We were both giving out money that day,” Lura said. “Charles was there, too.”

“I doubt it has anything to do with Charles,” Adora said. She turned to Lura and glared.

“You surely can't think my Matt had anything to do with it. Not Joe either. They're good boys. Don't point your finger at them.”

Such a dirty finger it was, too, Betha thought, dirt all caked beneath the nails She looked at her own. She could plant a garden in the dirt residing there.

“That leaves just one explanation for your lost wealth, Mother,” Tipton said.

Adora frowned, replaced her arms across her chest. “I do believe you're right, if truth be known.” She took one step forward and pressed her long finger against the chest of a very startled Zilah

“Aiee, no!” Zilah said. Her eyes were huge, and she backed up, her bare feet catching on the shredded hem of her dress She pushed Clayton to her side, safe behind her.

They had to find a way past this, Betha thought. She knew that small bites of distrust not spit out would starve them of all they needed to complete this journey. Where was Mazy?

“What's happening?” Suzanne asked. Pig pressed against the woman's leg.

“My mother thinks Zilah took her money,” Tipton said. “It's easier to believe than that her son betrayed her.”

“And we're crossing the Green,” Mazy said, arriving from the back of the line

“On the ferry?” Betha asked hopefully, looking at Adora
“On the ferry only if Adora—or someone—pays the ferriage,” Mazy announced “Adora, I don't believe Jeremy ever repaid you the Tipton-watching money, so I'm doing that now, beginning with the six-dollar ferriage. Agreed?”

“Charles wouldn't. I know him,” Adora whined. “Zilah had time. Tipton wasn't watching—”

“Adora? Will you take the money or not?” Mazy said.

“What? Oh yes, I suppose.”

“We can attend to your charge against Zilah later,” Mazy added, pulling coins from her own purse to get their party moving.

“My money would certainly set her up nicely in California,” Adora mumbled as the wagons rolled onto the ferry.

Mazy realized she shouldn't have offered the money to Adora, now that she suspected that the “extra” Jeremy left did not belong to her or to her mother, either.

Too much time to think. That's what the monotony of dusty travel offered up. War had its monotony, that's what Mazy's father once told her, after the glorying turned morbid and real. They were in a war to survive, to endure. But they lacked a rallying force to spur them. Mazy's mouth tasted of grit. Should she endure it or rinse with the putrid water? She questioned everything, even something so basic. After the letter, she questioned most of all what she knew of her husband.

The official-looking missive from the lawyer said he represented Jeremy's brother and his wife. She didn't know Jeremy even had a brother. How could she not have known? It spoke of money, money sent Jeremy to purchase cattle for “their operation.” So Marvel the cow brute might not even belong to her, nor the cows. How had she lived in such a fog beside this man who claimed to love her? Was she blind in what mattered between people? Was she just safer with dogs? Perhaps
this was why she didn't form friendships; she misread people. Mazy shook her head Perhaps Tipton was the wisest of them all, just slipping away. Perhaps that was why in her dreams Mazy felt choked and blinded by bees.

And then the second half of the letter—she hadn't even told her mother about that. There was a child, it said. Jeremy's child. Now residing in Oregon.

“If you can't stand something, you'll pass out,” her mother'd once said. Mazy was getting ready to pass out.

Suzanne made her way beside the wagon, the first in the short line. Still the dust billowed up, and their neckerchiefs muffled their words. Wild roses and the last of tiny pink carnations grew as though fed by reddish rocks. Pig walked in service with Suzanne's fingers gripping his harness. Mazy stepped back to check the chickens’ cage. No eggs. When she turned back, the oxen had stalled. She walked to the front to confront a fat rattler. It was bigger than those in Wisconsin, and by now Mazy knew the thing to do was to let it pass, not try to kill it but let it make its way.

“What's the holdup?” Suzanne asked, Pig keeping her back by the chickens.

“Just a snake,” Mazy said. “Take a breath. He's moving on and so will we.”

“I'd feel useful doing it,” Suzanne said when they'd resumed. “Are you listening?”

“We're all so tired,” Mazy said, turning her face toward Suzanne.

“Zilah, Deborah, they all liked it before.”

“You got to speak up so I can hear you over these ox tails swatting at flies,” Elizabeth shouted coming up from behind. “Liked what?”

“The English classes,” Suzanne told her. “I want to resume them, as
we walk along. It would destroy the monotony of this trail, if nothing else, and give their fiancés English-speaking wives.”

“Like the classes Sister Esther and her brothers taught with that white-collared man,” Elizabeth said. “Seth something. I remember. What ever happened to him?”

“Went on to Oregon, didn't he?” Mazy said. “Or was it California?”

“South, I suspect. Greater gambles to be had down there,” Elizabeth said.

“We could do it while we walked,” Suzanne said. “Just take a few nails and a little time.”

“Maybe after we cross over this next mountain,” Mazy answered. “Until then, I think we need to conserve everything we have for that big push.”

“A good challenge has a way of removing tiredness,” Suzanne said. Her mouth turned upward into a smile, revealing dimples Mazy hadnt seen before.

“Only if its met,” Mazy added.

In the evening Jessie begged for cookies, and the boys aided and abetted, as Betha called it, as they made camp in a wide grassy area. Several others heading west had chosen the spot to camp at as well. “You dig the hole and gather up the firewood by the river bank there, I'll see what we can rustle up,” Betha told them. In a day or two, they'd begin the heavy crossing up two miles of steep hill. They needed something homey to nurture them.

“Put your stitching down and help,” Ned told Sarah.

“You don't have to be mean,” Sarah said.

Betha took out her brass matchbox with a boxer dog on the lid. “Go ahead, Sarah,” she said.

Sarah laid her stitchery down, and Betha wondered how she
grieved, whether the aching legs the girl complained of in the evenings were somehow related. She'd never complained before her fathers death.

Betha set the fire, and while it burned she gathered up her last eggs from her flour barrel, handling them like fine porcelain. She cracked the eggs into a bowl and forked them, then fluffed them with Mazy s butter. She added sugar and stuck her finger in. “The milk gave it a strong taste,” Betha said quietly so as not to sound complaining.

“Probably all the alkaline water,” Ruth told her. “They may not give much more milk until we reach good grass and water country. Best we enjoy this while we can.”

Flour, dried apples, and raisins went into the batch. The pan set over the trench the boys had dug to be just the right width. Ruth shoved a rifle ramrod into the dirt at an angle. When she pulled it out, the empty shaft formed a natural draft. Just the scent of baked goods drifting over them brought smiles to the bonnet-shaded faces.

Should do more of this, bung a little flavor of the usual to the journey
, Betha thought.

The cookie aroma drifted in the breeze.

“I'll prosecute and put an end to any too burned to serve, Ma,” Jason said, his missing front tooth showing, “and consume any evidence of my efforts.”

Betha laughed. “Just like your father,” she said, the first time she had thought of Jed without tears choking in her chest.