Walk by Faith (19 page)

July 8, 1863

“T
hese waters are deeper than our last crossing,” Dawson told his ever-more-weary group of travelers. “I've discussed this with Zeb here. I'll let him tell you what we're going to do.”

They all stood at the edge of the swollen North Platte, nervous about getting to the other side.

“We'll tie guide ropes to each wagon,” Zeb told them, “and take the ropes by horse to the other side where we'll tie them to oxen or draft horses we've taken over first. If a wagon starts to float, the team on the other side will keep the current from taking it away.”

Clarissa rubbed at her aching lower back. Stress from the encounter with Indians, followed by tortuous climbs up ever-steeper hills, had taken a toll on everyone, man and animal alike. Mrs. Krueger was forced to unload a heavy oak headboard her father had made by hand and leave it behind to rot from the elements. She'd cried as though she'd lost a loved one, and Clarissa didn't blame her.

Now they all faced another river crossing, this one more daunting in spite of not being as wide as when they crossed the South Platte. The North Platte was more swollen from spring melt because it was closer to mountains. Several of the travelers had already voiced concerns over the fact that they did not know how to swim. Clarissa was one of them, but she was more afraid for Sophie.

Dawson moved to her side as though sensing her worry. He leaned close to keep his voice from interrupting Zeb's. “I'll take you and Sophie across with me,” he told her. “Lena, too. My gelding is bigger than average and a strong swimmer.”

“Dawson and I will both make special trips with any little ones you want to give us,” Zeb was telling the others. “Dawson will take his wife first so's she can watch the children on the other side as we bring them over. After the kids, the women and the wagons, we'll help get the cattle across.” He looked at Bert Krueger. “Just so's you know, we won't be held accountable for the cattle that panic and drown. Them animals can be pretty unpredictable when they get excited, but we'll do our best.” He directed his attention to the rest of the group. “Each wagon will be hitched to the draft horses or oxen on the other side. We'll also tie a rope to the back of each wagon as we float it across. All you men will hang on to it from this side, gradually releasing it as the wagon is floated over. If we can keep the rope taut both ways, we should be able to hang on to the wagon even if the current grabs it. When the draft horses keep pulling, the wagon will eventually reach shallower waters again and roll up the opposite bank. When all is said and done, the remaining men on this side can ride—or I should say swim across—on my and Dawson's horses and mules. If you can't swim yourselves, just hang on. Horses
can
swim. Just keep kickin' their sides and urgin' them on. This is gonna be an all-day project, folks, and another day of dryin' out on t' other side.”

“I'm not so sure about this.” Sam McCurdy spoke up. He'd been allowed to join them because they all needed to hear Zeb's instructions.

“Well, unless you know how to fly, McCurdy, I wouldn't be sayin' much, 'cause this is the only way we can keep goin'. Thousands of others have crossed here, includin' me more 'n once, so t'ain't as though it's not possible.”

“How many have drowned?” McCurdy asked with obvious mockery.

“Well, now, I don't know the numbers, McCurdy. You'd just better hope you ain't one of the statistics.”

Dawson put an arm around Clarissa's waist. “Let's get this thing started.”

“Now?”

“Now is as good a time as any.” He led Clarissa to his horse, a beautiful black gelding with a broad chest and a steady nature. Dawson had already unloaded everything from the horse but the saddle itself and put his gear as well as his boots into Clarissa's wagon. Now he wore only simple cotton pants and a cotton shirt, with only stockings on his feet.

He grasped the pommel of his saddle and mounted the horse, then reached down for Clarissa, taking his left foot out of the stirrup. Clarissa quickly removed her shoes and handed them to Carolyn. “Wish me luck,” she said with a deep breath.

“You don't need it. Dawson knows what he's doing,” Carolyn assured her.

“Thanks for the confidence,” Dawson told her with a grin. Clarissa got her foot into the stirrup and Dawson took her arm, helping her mount behind him on the horse. “Hang on tight!”

“I'm scared to death!”

“Just hang on to me. I'd never let anything happen to you, Mrs. Clements.”

Clarissa realized Chad had never told her something like that. She'd never had to trust her life to him, and she imagined he would have thought of his own life first. Something told her Dawson would
give
his own life for hers, if necessary. She clung tightly around his middle, thinking what a solid man he was.

“You'll get mighty wet,” he yelled to her. “Thank goodness it's plenty warm today.” He rode into the river, and in moments they were in cold water that grew ever deeper until Clarissa could feel the horse was no longer touching ground. She squeezed her eyes shut and hung on for dear life as Dawson leaned forward and gave gentle commands to his horse. Soon the water reached nearly to Clarissa's shoulders. She wanted to scream from terror, but a voice inside told her not to be so afraid.

This was Dawson. If she floated away he would swim after her. She began to wonder how she could have made this trip without him, and she pressed her face against his strong, muscled back, praying they would reach the other side quickly. After several long minutes in the strong, cold current, she could tell the horse's hooves were touching ground again. Gradually they made their way up and out of the water, both of them drenched.

Clarissa breathed a sigh of relief. “We made it!”

“I told you we would.” Dawson turned slightly, reaching around and pulling her partway in front of him and kissing her lightly. With one hand to her neck he held her fast, kissing her again. His touch made her shiver, but she blamed it on her wet clothes. He moved his lips across her cheek—

“Dawson, you have children and more women to bring across,” Clarissa reminded him.

“I'm just celebrating that I got
you
across all right.”

She searched his eyes. “Be careful. I hate to see you do this all day long.”

“I'd rather be doing this than taking shrapnel in the leg fighting Confederate rebels,” he answered with a grin. He kept an arm around her to catch her under the arms as he helped her slide down from the horse. “I'll try to get a blanket over here to you if I can keep it dry,” he told her as he turned his horse and headed back across the river.

She watched him go back into the water to fetch Sophie. Zeb was already coming across with John and Rosemarie's little daughter, Tess, who was the same age as Sophie. Then began the arduous task of bringing over the rest of the children, then the women, except for Wanda Krueger, who insisted on riding across in her wagon. She claimed that if the wagon and more of its precious contents of handmade furniture and other items from the Old Country were going to be lost, she would just as soon go with them. She still mourned the loss of that headboard like the loss of a child.

Next came Michael's draft horses and several oxen, to which ropes would be tied that would be attached to each wagon as it came across. Clarissa did not doubt that the wagons would be the most difficult item to bring over, and she was right. Nearly every wagon started to float away with the current, so that it was amazingly difficult for the huge draft horses and the oxen to keep pulling to get each wagon up to the other side.

Things went relatively smoothly until they began pulling Eric Buettner's wagon across. Filled with supplies to open a small trading store in Montana, the wagon was heavier than the others. Buettner had refused to dump some of those supplies when climbing the lower mountains, and he'd lost two of his eight oxen to exhaustion. He'd also refused Dawson's order to take a horse across and chose instead to stay with his wagon, thinking to keep an eye on the contents to make sure something didn't come loose and float away. He'd spent last night and most of the morning securing every single item, but now the weight of the wagon made it sink lower than the others when it reached the middle of the river.

“It's not going to make it,” Clarissa commented to Carolyn. She grabbed Carolyn's hand, and the two women began praying, but the current took over, and the weight of the wagon caused the tie ropes to snap. The wagon began breaking up, parts of it flowing away with the current. Buettner foolishly tried to swim after some of them, then sank from sight.

Dawson rode into the water, then dived off his horse to search. At almost the same time, Sam McCurdy rode a horse into the water from the other side. It was hard to tell if he intended to swim across or try to rescue Eric Buettner, but it appeared as if Sam panicked when his horse started swimming. In seconds he slipped off the horse and disappeared. Susan McCurdy began screaming her husband's name and running up and down the north bank, and Clarissa put a hand to her stomach when Dawson did not reappear right away.

Finally Dawson's head popped up out of the water, then he dived down again, apparently still looking for Eric Buettner. Clarissa wondered if he even knew Sam McCurdy had also gone under.

“I think they're both gone,” Michael muttered. “I just hope Dawson doesn't join them.”

Dawson finally reappeared several yards farther downriver, then swam for an outcropping of rocks, where he pulled himself up.

Clarissa grabbed a blanket and hurried down to where he made it to shore, dripping wet and out of breath. “Sam McCurdy rode into the water and then went under!” she told him.

Dawson ran his hands through his hair and looked out over the river, then bent over to catch his breath. “There's nothing more I can do,” he panted.

Clarissa put the blanket around his shoulders. “I didn't mean that you should. I just wanted you to know.”

“Go get him!” Susan McCurdy screamed, surprising them both by charging up to Dawson in a rage. “You went after Eric Buettner, but you don't care what happens to my husband, do you? Let the drunken Sam McCurdy drown! Is that it? Let him drown?” She landed into Dawson, pummeling him with her fists so that Dawson had to grasp her wrists to stop her. Then she started kicking him. Her brother-in-law ran over and shouted for her to stop, then grabbed her away kicking and screaming.

Dawson closed his eyes and turned away. “I didn't even know he'd gone in,” he told Clarissa, as if having to explain.

“Everyone knows that. It's all right, Dawson. He did a stupid thing, and you were already trying to save another man.”

“You don't understand. There's something—one last thing you don't know about me.” He shivered into the blanket, still watching out over the water.

Clarissa frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He rubbed the blanket over his face and hair. “Something I never told—” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Never mind.” He looked at her, deep pain in his eyes. “It's not like what she said,” he told her. “You know that, don't you? I would never deliberately let a man drown.”

“Of course you wouldn't.”

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, as though that one gesture would rebury something. “Let's go. I have to form a search party while some of the others bring over the rest of the cattle. We should at least ride down current and see if the bodies wash up somewhere so they can be decently buried.” He looked her over as though to appraise her condition. “You okay?”

“I'm more concerned about you. At least change into some dry clothes and get your boots on before you start a search.” She put a hand to his arm and gave him a tug. “Come on. Get changed.”

They walked back to the wagons, which all sat drying in the late-afternoon sun. Women were spreading out blankets and clothing over the canvas tops, wagon tongues, wagon gates, bushes and trees. Sue McCurdy sat near her wagon sobbing and carrying on as though someone were skinning her alive.

July 13, 1863

S
he added other casualties—six cattle and two calves, and several oxen, one of them hers and two Michael's, as well as, sadly, her own precious milk cow and its calf.

It was cold tonight, as they'd climbed foothills the past few days into ever higher elevations. She set aside her pen and rubbed her hands together for warmth, feeling a little guilty for still not entering anything in her diary about marrying Dawson Clements. How could she explain such a thing in a way that her children and grandchildren would understand why she'd done so? And because she continued to refuse a consummated marriage, in her eyes her marriage of convenience wasn't a marriage at all. Until she knew in her heart she was totally in love with Dawson Clements, and until she trusted him implicitly in every way, she could not bring herself to try to explain their marriage in a document that for all she knew could be preserved forever. And if they parted ways when they reached Montana, she'd rather the marriage was never mentioned at all.

She sat writing by lamplight next to where Sophie slept. Setting her diary aside, she moved to the front of the wagon, sat in the seat and looked up into a black sky alive with stars. She wished she could sleep, needed it desperately, but she couldn't help wondering what Dawson meant when he said she didn't know everything about him. Whatever it was, she hoped he would tell Michael about it and finish ridding himself of the ghosts from his past that made it so hard for him to enjoy the present. He'd changed so much after several talks with Michael, but the look in his eyes when Sue McCurdy lashed out at him told her he still had at least one more demon to wrestle down before he could be truly happy.

Wolves howling in the distance pulled her from her thoughts, and a chill ran down her spine when she thought she heard growling not far away. She looked into the darkness beyond the circle of wagons, then jumped when she heard a barrage of vicious growls, along with outrageous squawking that was surely loud enough to wake the dead.

Almost instantly the chickens in the crate at the side of her wagon raised a ruckus of their own, and men and women alike began pouring out from their wagons yelling, “What's that?” “It's wolves!” “Get my gun!” At almost the same time a strange screaming sound came from where the cattle were bedded down.

There came more growling followed by shouts and several gunshots and the squealing and cries of what sounded like wounded wolves.

“Mommy!” Sophie whined, sitting up.

Dawson suddenly appeared at Clarissa's wagon brandishing a rifle. “Tell Sophie everything is fine.” He hurried to the center of the circle of wagons. “Everybody who has wood bundled to their wagons or a good supply of buffalo chips, build up your campfires even though you're through cooking for the night,” he ordered. “There are a lot of wolves out there. We need bigger fires!”

Clarissa told Sophie to stay put and climbed down to rebuild her own campfire.

“What about the cattle and oxen?” John Clay asked.

“Stuart Clymer will help watch them the rest of the night, then ride in his folks' wagon and sleep tomorrow while Bert Krueger takes over.” Dawson walked up close to where Clarissa still sat on the wagon seat. “I need you to give up something.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Your chickens.”

“My
chickens!
”

“The wolves got your rooster. Wolves run in packs that can roam for up to a hundred miles, and now they've got the smell and taste of your chickens in their nostrils and on their tongues. I'm hoping that if we leave the chickens behind tomorrow morning, the wolves will become preoccupied with them and won't follow us. The smell of those chickens will be gone.”

“Oh, Dawson, I can't leave those poor things behind to be helplessly slaughtered.”

“They're
chickens.
If you didn't have them for laying eggs, you'd slaughter them yourself for meat. You can get more when we reach Montana. In the meantime, you could help save everybody on this wagon train from having to chase off wolves every night.”

“But they attacked the cattle, too. What about them?”

“They got two of Bert's steers. We might find it was more than that come morning. A steer is a whole lot bigger than a chicken. What they killed will keep them busy for a while. With the chickens left behind to keep them busy even longer, we can put a lot of miles between them and us by tomorrow night.”

Clare hated the thought of it. “There are wolves
everywhere.
It might just happen again.”

“Sure it might, but we'd have a lot less bait for them with those chickens gone.”

Tears filled her eyes. “They're like pets to Sophie. She helps me feed them.”

“We'll tell her a story about how the chickens like it better right here and don't want to go on with us. I'll make her believe it.”

Clarissa wiped at her tears. “I think I'd rather leave some of my belongings behind than those chickens.”

“Think of it as for the good of everybody along. I'm sorry, but the few cattle Bert Krueger has left are worth a lot more than those chickens. Cattle will be his livelihood when he reaches Montana.”

She watched his eyes by the light of growing fires. “Will gold be
your
livelihood?”

“You've got to trust me on that, Clare. You're worth more to me than all the gold in Montana.”

She took a deep breath, feeling silly for crying over chickens. “Well, I suppose people have left behind things much more precious than chickens, and one knows it's better than having to leave behind a child's grave.” She nodded. “All right. You can leave them for the wolves. You'll have to be the one to make up a story for Sophie, though. I can't do it.”

He reached up and took her hand. “I'm sorry. So far we've had more losses than I expected. I'm just doing what I can to keep things at a minimum.”

“I know that.”

He started to leave, but Clarissa squeezed his hand. “Dawson, if this is going to work—between you and me, I mean—we have to be completely honest with each other.” She searched his eyes for answers. “You've never told me what you meant back at the river crossing, about not understanding something about you.”

He let go of her hand and turned away. “The right time will come.”

Sophie called to him, then. “Hi, Dawson!”

Dawson turned to see the girl peeking around the canvas from near the wagon seat. He walked back and lifted Sophie into his arms, giving her a solid kiss on the cheek. “Guess what?”

“What?” the girl squealed.

“The chickens get to stay here.”

“They do? Why?”

“Well, I had a talk with them, and they said they were tired and didn't want to go any farther.”

“But who will feed them?”

“God will feed them, Sophie. He feeds everybody, even the wolves.”

Clare wanted to cry—over the chickens, and with secret joy at hearing a man like Dawson Clements talk about God. If only he would feel free to tell her whatever was left that kept him from realizing God's true grace and from feeling whole again.