All Together in One Place (61 page)

They waved at Ruth until they could no longer see her, Mazy staring the longest. Ruth said she'd parallel the trail, not go where all the rest would, just for safety, her being a woman alone
A woman ahne.
Mazy thought. But only by choice.

They decided to camp there, worn out by deciding and Ruths having left. Nearby, a puddle of standing water flirted with dirt, and a splash of tall grass promised comfort to the stock. That night as she heard Pig turning before dropping to sleep, Mazy wondered where Ruth laid her head.

In the morning, they yoked up to the music of meadowlarks. Mazy would remember that later, the contrast of pause without premonition.

Zilah helped Suzanne, made the offer to assist Betha. Cicero, Betha's ox, wandered farther from the other stock, stood beyond the dirty water in the tall grass.

“I'll get him,” Betha said, “then gladly take your help.”

Sister Esther stood, shading her eyes with her hand, watching as Betha waddled off toward her ox, her hands waving at mosquitoes.

Suddenly, Betha was consumed by a black rush and a hum of buzzing insects. Not mosquitoes, something larger, rising up from the grass, circling her skirt, covering her apron, her bodice, her face.

“Yellow jackets!” Betha screamed. “Stay away!”

Mazy and Elizabeth rushed toward her. Esther ran toward the wagons.

She shouted at Suzanne still in the wagon. “The lantern!” Esther said. “Hand me the kerosene lantern.”

Suzanne swung her arms around, grabbed at the straight chimney of glass.

“That's it!” Esther shouted. “Quickly! Quickly!”

They could hear Betha crying and slapping, screaming as the insects feasted and stung
Esther ripped the lantern from Suzanne's fingers with such force that Suzanne fell. “Go,” she said “I'm all right.”

Esther looked in, hesitated, thought she saw something wet near her writing desk, then turned and ran toward Betha, pulled the chimney and threw the liquid on the woman's hair while the others slapped at the wasps still clinging.

But it was too late. Betha's face swelled, her breathing collapsed, and within minutes she died, held closely in Esther's wide arms.

22
dance of the turnaround women

Ruth had made a dry camp in a dip behind bunch grass and sage. She'd slept uneasily, dreaming of footsteps and small children's cries. She awoke, saw the stars and wondered if she should have left, turned away from the light in her life.
Willi ever be sure of anything!
She said a prayer for guidance, then fell back asleep. She awoke with a start just at daylight.

A sound. Her eyes sought out Koda, hobbled nearby and still. Jumper slept, standing. She whispered Koda's name, and the horse moved to her, nuzzled her bedroll, nickered low. A wagon train? No, someone riding, that's what she heard, the thump of hooves against earth. On her belly, she eased her way toward the sound, her heart pounding. She was alone, no one else to turn to, no one else to help. Her hand shook as she pushed aside the sage. A rider trailing a pack animal rode beyond her, wearing white. She pressed her hand against Koda's nose to keep him from whinnying. Without looking, she patted the ground for her whip.

As Mazy rode out on Ink, she focused her grief on the task at hand— finding Ruth and bringing her back. Mazy had to bring her back.

“Not good, your going out alone,” her mother said.

“You tend to the children, bury Betha, then head out. It'll give pur-
pose. If I dont find Ruth by tomorrow, I'll turn back. You may be at the turning place by the time we head back.”

“Seems like we should wait,” Adora said. “Grieve here.”

Mazy shook her head. “Need to keep moving. I'll catch up with Ruth, I know it. She needs us and the children. She just doesn't know it.”

Mazy's eyes watched the earth. The sandy soil promised tracks if she could just find some sign that she hadn't ridden past Ruth, that she paralleled north and not south. She had to bring her back, should have worked harder at keeping her with them.
It wouldn't have prevented what happened, but we weather life's storms better together.

Her eyes hurt from straining to watch the trail. She rode back and forth as though on a switchback, a prayer on her breath. Then she found what she needed: the track of the bar shoe still on Koda's foot!

All white. Zane had always worn black, but she was sure Tipton described him, sure he trailed behind them—or perhaps he'd already passed her by. She watched. This rider sat his horse more forward. It wasn't Zane. Maybe he was still behind them and would head to California anyway, her sacrifice at going on alone now worth nothing. As the rider faded away, Ruth's heart stopped pounding in her head, her breaths slowed, she stopped gripping the whip. She crawled back into her bedroll and lay staring up at the cloudless sky. So frightened she'd been, over nothing, no one. All because of Zane. The man controlled her life, her very breath—and she hadn't seen him in years. It was crazy. It hadn't been this hard in the presence of the others.

Morning light washed over the landscape, and she rose, fixed a fire, drank some hot coffee, ate one of Betha's biscuits, chewed a chunk of Esther's dried beef She thought of them, the women and children, and felt tears press behind her nose. But for Zane she could be with them instead of about to turn north, alone.

Koda nuzzled her. “It isn't Zane that pushes at me, is it? It's my own
doing, being afraid and thinking that if I lean on Betha and the others I'm weak.” She thumbed her eyes. “This is weak,” she decided. “Being myself
with
the others, that's what takes strength.”

She'd get her family to California, settle them in and then head north for her horses. Yes, she'd choose differently, not let Zane decide her course. Then maybe what she got from her life would change too She blew her nose on a white handkerchief. “Let's go back,” she told Koda. “I'm tired of being alone.”

Mazy watched the rider approaching and knew at once that it was Ruth.

“Whither thou goest,” Mazy said when she was within earshot. Ruth looked confused, and Mazy smiled a wistful smile. “I've got sad news for you,” she said “But you've made it easier to tell with your turning back.” She spoke then of Betha's passing and that the women followed hoping she'd be found by Mazy, sure they would fare better all together as one.

They met the wagons by the evening circling, their reunion tempered by the shadow of their loss. Ruth held the children, exchanged glances with the others. “It'll be all right,” she said. “We've got each other.”

They headed south. “Some of those little stones I piled at Mama's grave I brought with me all the way from home,” Ned said.

“She'll like that,” Ruth told him.

Elizabeth had planted a columbine seed, she said, and Mazy told again the story of its meaning, “I will never give thee up.”

Ruth left a different marker at the turning place when they reached
it the next day. On it she wrote: “To Zane Randolph. Your family headed to Oregon.” It was her lie, but she knew he could read and hoped he'd stay out of California.

They walked as they had the weeks before, and in the travel, they grieved Betha's passing, remembered the others, how their lives and loss had stretched each woman's heart. But the dreariness lessened, at least for Mazy. A new goal led them: to get to California, settle legal issues, contract matters, find new beginnings. A smile even crept across her face as she kicked at dust The pain in her side eased. She still ached inside when she thought of Jeremy, gone; felt a rush of blood at the memory of his betrayal. But leaves of forgiveness grew too. Forgiving him would let her forgive herself; or perhaps as her mother implied, if she was kind to herself, she'd have more to give away.

Time healed, and so could looking forward. Who would have guessed that she, Mazy Bacon, would someday not only accept the unknown but find excitement, a hope, wrapped within?

The women now knew they would settle close to each other, be together. They already resided in that place of friendship fired by difficulty, in the shelter of faith and each other. But to be physically near each other, to share the work of washing or the chatter of their days, where they could continue to nourish the broken clods of each other's spirits into ready soil, that would be a miracle. Another one of many, if truth be known, as Adora might say, as Sister Esther would surely agree was certain.

Sister Esther held the writing desk, a black splotch of ink staining the oak.

“What happened?” Mazy asked her. It was morning, a time for writing.

“I don't know for certain. Deborah?”

Deborah came on her quick, quick steps.

“Do you know anything of this?” Esther held the desk to her, shaking it like a shaming finger.

“No,” the girl told her. “I not see before.”

Her protests drew Ruth, then Lura, Pig, and Suzanne. And when Suzanne asked, Esther described the stain. “Its recent,” she said, her fingers touching the grain raised from the wet. Then remembering, she caught her breath. “Oh, I am so sorry to accuse you, any of you,” Esther said. “The day that Betha died. I reached too sharply for the lantern in Suzanne's hand. The ink bottle…1 did it myself.”