All Together in One Place (11 page)

Tipton turned over. If she didn't respond, Mrs. Mueller would eventually silence herself and fall back to sleep, which the woman soon did.

For Tipton, everything felt a muddle. She'd pretend she was composed, not left bereft by her parents’ arrival It felt good to hold them and yet she felt babied, stripped, and exposed. And Charles. Why had he come, wearing his usual dark and brooding face? Just to torment her, of course.

She couldn't tell anyone how she felt, not even Tyrell, who had tipped his hat early to say good night and then taken his bedroll to the fenced areas where the other teamsters slept. She longed to find a quiet place to talk with him, even though she knew that it was never wise to say out loud what made one worrisome or sad, never good to let people come too close. People took advantage. Tipton had found that out early.

What she felt for Tyrell at first surprised her. His very presence caused her to flutter and behave in jittery ways, but she kept her eye to the wheel hub. She thought of arms as thick as dock pilings, his chest that expanded as he worked beside the hot coals of the forge, and legs so powerful folks said he could outwalk a sturdy mule. Yet he was kind and
quiet and kept kittens on an old pillow in a corner where he hung repaired harnesses It was what had drawn her in at first, the sound of kittens mewing behind the wide opening of his shop

He had not been in Cassville long, had planned to ride through and north, on to Prairie du Chien, then stayed. She sensed the safety of him, in the size of his arms and the breadth of his heart. And he extended that strength to her. It was the only time she felt powerful and truly safe. Tyrell made her more than what she was.

When he said he was heading west, she'd almost fainted. She'd taken huge breaths, couldn't get her air, her nose tingled at the tip, and she felt her hand go numb for the first time. She'd turned from him and saw tiny dots of light flicker before her eyes, but she hadn't fainted. He'd stepped behind her, had her drop her head and rubbed the back of her neck while he spoke in soothing tones, her ears hearing his words and the cries of the kittens. No one had seen the intimate exchange; she wouldn't have cared if they had.

As her breathing eased, he'd pressed her gently to his chest. In time, he declared himself to her. It was then that she'd made her plan. She would go with him, whatever it took, whatever the cost. He was the hub of her heart.

Mazy woke early, feeling nauseous. Maybe it was the Kanesville water. It tasted strong, not like the spring water they'd had in the barrels most of the journey so far. She slipped out of bed and found a basket with ash pone in it. She brushed the ashes from the corn meal and bit off a tiny portion to quell the bile building in her stomach. She'd never been sickly before All the activity, the people and strangeness, it was probably that. And the longing to go home. She picked up her lead pencil and paper and small book of Scripture and slipped out of the wagon, darkness fanning a chill.

She wrote in the mornings, organized the feelings that didn't make sense in any other way Sometimes she wrote about what she'd seen or heard, a phrase or two; sometimes of her feelings, the emptiness and longing; she wrote now of how Scripture nurtured in a distinctive way. Whatever it was, the very writing of a thing calmed her, gave her direction Not feeling well had interfered with her writing of late. Perhaps the coarse corn bread would help.

She checked the tomato plant as she walked by, pressing her fingers into the earth at its base. At the sitting log beside the fire, she pulled her shawl around her and inhaled the morning. She looked up. The sky threatened rain once again. She began to write.
Met folk from Missouri yesterday, Suzanne Cullver and Bryce Woman has no sight. Pig took a liking to hen licking at her fingers.
Mazy felt a little envy, remembering how the dog left her side to nudge the woman's hand stretched out into the air in front of her. The woman drew back with a start at the dog's brush of fur and said something with a snarl about “loose animals being kept at bay” Mazy'd felt her face turn pink and called the dog. He'd come reluctantly, apparently not sensing as Mazy had that the woman disliked his presence.

“I'm so sorry,” Mazy told her, noting that she said those words often lately.

She began to write ofthat incident, of apologizing, when a soft light caught her eye. A shadow moved behind the canvas in a wagon. Another early riser. The light centered in front of the form, eased out of the wagon, then hesitated. It headed straight toward Mazy's low fire and became the woman Sister Esther. In her other hand, she carried an oak lap desk by its handle

“You would probably prefer your time uninterrupted,” the woman said, approaching “Diary-keeping of this grand journey is a noble task. Others will read of our bringing these United States west.”

“Nothing so grand as that,” Mazy said, folding her paper. “Just ideas and impressions I have. And the mileage we make. I take it from the
odometer.” She nodded toward the gear wheel that counted the revolutions

“I did not hear you out here or I would have chosen another path,” the woman said. “It is not my intent to intrude.”

“The night captures sound.”

“So it does. You are the woman who suggested we wait to vote?”

Mazy hoped the heat of her face didn't show. “It's always good to have time to consider.”

“Do you wish to avoid choosing a leader or traveling alone?”

“I think a captain's valuable if for nothing else than to settle disputes,” Mazy said.

The woman nodded. She set down the lantern and then the writing desk. “A reason why the Israelites demanded judges—for when they failed to settle things among themselves.”

“I wonder what difference there'd be now if God hadn't allowed that,” Mazy said. “If the Israelites had been forced to learn to compromise, not to become dependent on a judge, but to work together toward a solution. Maybe we'd be better at that now, too.”

“I have not thought of it that way,” Esther said.

“I must say I like being heard in the deciding of a thing, though,” Mazy said after a moment.

“A part of human nature,” the woman said, finally unclasping her hands to brush at her dark skirts. She looked down at Mazy. “That is part of what I try to teach my charges.” She nodded toward the wagon. “The importance of finding agreeable ways to live in close proximity. It is important that they remain clean and with the highest morals, to avoid sickness when there are so many people as we are here.”

“Who do you travel with?”

“I am employed by the Caroline Fry Marriage Association. We bring young women to be joined in wedlock to deserving young men. Two of my brothers are with me, acting as teamsters. We'll deliver the young women to their new husbands in California.”

“What after that?”

“Why, we'll head back for more.”

“You'll return? People do that?”

“Many forty-niners came back, of course. Some in but two months’ time—they claim—motivated by greed and the need to tell all of their exploits. But my brothers and I will return in an orderly, planned fashion.”

“It would be so…dangerous, traveling back alone.”

“Indeed. The newspapers do not mention the dangers of returning. They do not want to discuss the difficulties that would make souls turn around. But the fact is many do. How else would we have such guidebooks as your husband spoke of?” She lifted her eyes upward. “Others simply have a change of heart—the very meaning of conversion.”

“I'd wager those are folks who didn't want to go in the first place,” Mazy said. She tapped her pencil against her wool skirt.

Sister Esther looked at Mazy. “Perhaps something changed their mind.” The woman's black eyes pierced like an eagle's. Mazy felt invaded. But the woman must have guessed that about herself as she turned away, looked as though to find a place to sit, then pushed with her foot at the end of the log feeding the fire.

“I didn't want to come,” Mazy said, the thought of turning back gnawing “So it's no change of heart that makes me think of going home again.”

“That's what you pray for?” Sister Esther nodded to the Bible that rested on the log beside Mazy.

“For my husband to
want
to go back, before we go any farther,” Mazy said, her words tentative, not accustomed to sharing intimacies with a stranger. “There's nothing waiting for us there except…uncertainty. We had this most wonderful farm in Wisconsin, along the Mississippi. Bluffs above a quiet valley. A pond lured ducks, thousands in the fall. Wildflowers everywhere, morel mushrooms. Good, rich soil. There was no place like it anywhere. I would have lived there forever.”

“We are not yet where we will be,” Sister Esther told her. “And not where we departed from, so all is strange. But we are not alone. The Psalm tells us nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

“I know that verse.” Mazy reached for a stick and poked at the fire. “I just can't believe God wanted me to leave home in the first place. That's what bothers me.”

“He does not reveal all he has in store,” Sister Esther said. She had a front tooth missing a piece and so her
S s
whistled when she spoke. “But he's with us.” She tapped at her heart. “Ofthat I am certain.”

“Once I woke up with this phrase in my mind: Wisdom wears a dog's face, certainty, a cat's.’ Strange, isn't it? I mean, I like dogs, their acceptance no matter what. Cats are so…”

“Self-centered, I find them,” Esther said. “But being unwavering is appealing”

“But not always a sign of wisdom,” Mazy said.

“Perhaps. I tell my little Celestials that we are never far from home as long as we have God in our hearts. This I believe is both certain and wise.”

“Celestials? You call them Celestials.”

“It's what their families name those who leave their homes to come to this continent as earthly angels, to rescue them. I suspect my future brides miss their homes too, though they have willingly come. They've already sent a portion of their contract money back to their families, so it is a matter of honor that they make their husbands happy A new life they seek with a way to help their old.”

“A little like slavery, I'll wager, with not even love to justify it.”

“Certainly not!”

“But once they say the vows, do they understand what they've committed to?”

“The men they marry are worthy. There is a detective agency who helps us ensure that.” She lowered her voice, became a teacher. “It is not unlike their own customs, where children are betrothed at birth. These
young women had small dowries, and so their chance for marrying well at home proved limited. A path is always opened if one has faith, though it appear narrow indeed.”

“You make it sound like a garden, all orderly and laid out,” Mazy said, “but the seeds can get mussed up.” She thought about Tiptons turn of fate with her mothers arrival and her own life now shattered and separated as old silk. “I wonder sometimes just how much of a say in her own future any woman ever really has.”

“Oh, one always has ones outlook,” Sister Esther said, deciding to sit at last. “That's certain wisdom. We can always control that.”

Tipton lay stiff as a bed slat, staring at the iron hoop that held the arcing canvas. California! They were taking her to California, all of them, Charles, too, while the Bacons and Tyrell headed north. How could her parents make a decision to follow her that quickly? Faster than a rabbit burrowing at an eagles shadow. “To see the fashions of Sacramento,” her mother ci said. “To try something new before my knees go,” her father told her. “My cousins been begging me since ‘49.1 decided to listen. Be good for us, a family together.” New clothes, new ideas. In California! Tears welled up in her eyes. She wiped at them, then stopped her hand midair: Coins clinked outside the wagon. Charles and the ca-chunk, ca-chunk of silver in the hands of a volatile man.

5
abiding

Their argument, spoken in hissed whispers to keep others from hearing, only brought Elizabeth closer to the wagon, a mother both curious and concerned.

“He's signed a contract with me,” Jeremy told Mazy. “Nothings changed with Hathaway s arrival except the girl will be needed to help her family now instead of us.”