Impatient With Desire (13 page)

“W
e got through the Wasatch,” I said to myself, as I emptied the slops into a trench behind our shelter.

I tossed some snow into the pail, swirled it around, shook it out, and set the pail near the opening. Frances, Georgia, Eliza, and Uno came out, squinting against the brightness of the sunny day. “Told you the sun would come out again,” I said. Elitha and Leanna dumped blankets and clothes in a pile on the ground. I waved at Jean Baptiste walking toward us across the clearing. I almost shouted: We got through the Wasatch!

Sweet Frances dug and trudged, helping me pack clean snow into bowls and set them by the shelter. After filling one bowl together, Georgia and Eliza stopped to eat snow and play.

Elitha and Leanna shook a damp blanket to air and smooth it out before laying it on the ground. Jean Baptiste, without a word, took Frances’s hand, and they joined the older girls. Each took a corner of the blanket and shook. They’ve done this often before, but today it turned into a lively team game as each side tried to shake the blanket out of the other side’s hands.

Uno rolled in the snow, shaking snow all over, rolling again, Eliza and Georgia laughing at his antics. They were little bundles of dirty, ragged clothes bubbling laughter. Leanna gave a ferocious pull, lost her balance, and in the grabbing and falling, all four ended up falling down, all laughing hard together.

The sun sparkled on the snow. The sky was the bluest you ever saw. I stopped and just looked at the sky. The vastness. The majestic mountains. Sometimes my spirit soars at the boundlessness about us. I lay down in the fresh, clean snow next to Eliza
and Georgia and made an angel like you and I used to do so long ago. Eliza and Georgia plopped down next to me and pumped their little angel arms. Then Frances, Leanna, Elitha, even Jean Baptiste did.

Everyone made angels in the snow.

W
e got through the Wasatch. If I had my oil paints, I’d paint it in crimson. Embroider it on a sampler pillow. We couldn’t follow the Weber Canyon route, Betsey, we had to go through the Wasatch Mountains. With axes, hatchets, and sheer brute strength, we went where no wagon had ever gone before, hacking out a road through a labyrinth of forest, thicket, bramble, and underbrush, around and over boulders, fording the same creek thirteen times, often dragging back the pitifully short road to camp at the same spot as the night before, blistering, bleeding, despairing, panicking, it was only with the utmost difficulty that George kept the company together, and after all that, Betsey, for over two weeks and an advance of thirty-six miles, we came to a gorge that was impenetrable.

Nearby was a frighteningly steep hill. There was no way to ascend it—the wagons would roll backward. George went first. We hitched nearly every team of oxen to our lead wagon, and he began the pull up. One slip, and George, forty oxen, and the wagon would have smashed to death.

The wagon over, he brought back the oxen, and the men hitched them to the next wagon. One by one, with mothers and terrified children inside hanging on to canvas sides, wooden frames, and each other, we pulled every one of our wagons, yard by yard, up, and over that precipitous, seemingly perpendicular hill. It was an impossible feat, and only desperation accomplished it.

Tonight as I write down George’s words, I’m grateful to be able to record something with full hope, grateful for today.

I was out nearly all day long, this morning with the children, this afternoon at Elizabeth’s, then walking by myself until sunset, George’s words buoying me all the more because they pulled me up from despair. When I think upon our nearly eight years of marriage, my husband has always been a kind friend, who has done all in his power to promote my happiness. By and large, he has never asked me to be other than I am or less than I am.

Did I tell you, Betsey, that when we married, I told the minister, “In my vow, you must leave out the word
obey.
” Immediately, in the most annoying way, he turned to George. George never blinked an eye. The minister waited, as if for permission. “Don’t use
obey
in my vow either,” George said.

I think we have achieved, as much as possible in an unequal world, a marriage of equals.

At our campsite on the Trail, under a dazzling, starry sky, George tucks the children in for the night. “There’s nothing like a night under the open stars,” he says to them.

“Why aren’t you and Momma sleeping out here with us?” Frances asks.

“Old bones,” he says.

He climbs into the wagon and winks at me waiting for him in bed. I hold out my arms. Tanned, strong, smiling, he comes to me.

Betsey, last night I lay next to my dear husband. His breathing was labored, he slept fitfully, unaware that he grimaced and moaned from the pain. I thought of all the things that will never again be, allowed myself to cry without sound, and then I put those memories away in the back of my heart.

“W
e’re on our last hide,” I told George.

I read the word on his lips: “Uno.”

After the children fell asleep, I beckoned to Jean Baptiste waiting at the fireplace. He picked Uno off the end of the children’s platform as gently as lifting a sleeping child.

“Chain up, boys,” George says for the first time in our Springfield driveway. “Chain up!”

“Jump, Uno, jump!” Frances yells.

Leanna boosts Uno, and Frances hauls him into the wagon.

Out on the prairie, the girls and I gallop on horses. We ride astride, passing two women riding sidesaddle, who look askance at us. Frances, her arms wrapped around Leanna, shrieks with ecstasy. Barking wildly, Uno tries to keep up. “Uno thinks he’s a horse!” Frances screams.

Frances eyed her bits of meat in the watery stew and began eating. Georgia and Eliza gulped theirs down, crying throughout.

“But why did Uno run away?” Eliza sobbed again.

“He ran to California,” Frances said, silent tears running down her cheeks.

I
heard Jean Baptiste at the top of the tree yelling and ran out. “I see them, I see them! Mrs. Donner! They’re coming!”

I hurried across the clearing toward the three rescuers on snowshoes. “I am Tamsen Donner,” I said. “We have been expecting you.”

Mr. Reasin Tucker, about 40, introduced himself and the two others. “Where is Mr. James Reed?” I asked.

“We have not seen him,” Mr. Tucker said. “We heard of your distress from William Eddy.”

“The snowshoers got through? Thank God.”

Mr. Tucker fell silent; the others averted their eyes.

“Please tell me,” I said. “How is Mr. Charles Stanton? He was traveling with us. And the other snowshoers?”

Mr. Tucker took my arm and moved with me to the side, lowered his voice.

What he said shook me to my core. When I could speak, I said, “I will get my children ready.”

“It’s difficult and dangerous, Mrs. Donner. We can only take those who can walk by themselves.”

Inside, Doris Wolfinger rushed around frenetically, stuffing things into bundles.

“The snowshoers got through,” I said. “Seven men have come. They cannot take everyone today, but another relief will come soon. Elitha, Leanna, we’re sending you ahead to get things ready for the family.” I pointed to their sisters. Frances was taking
in all the stir; Georgia and Eliza halfheartedly played their card game. “It may be that your sisters will arrive at the settlement without Father or me,” I said. “God willing, we will follow later. Take good care of them and of yourselves, and always stay together.”

I embraced Elitha and Leanna, and they looked at me, their eyes full of tears.

“I don’t want to leave you here, Mother,” Leanna said. “There’s too much work and you’ll only have Jean Baptiste to help.”

“I have to go, Mother,” Elitha said. “I can’t bear to stay here another day hearing my little sisters cry for food.”

“You both must go to prepare a place for us,” I said.

With great effort, George sat in a chair I had padded with blankets. He has so little body fat it’s painful for him to sit. Elitha and Leanna knelt in front of him, tears streaming down their faces. “Always honor your mother, Mary Blue, who gave you life,” George said. “Honor your mother, Tamsen Donner, who loved and raised you as her own. Do your best in life, and keep me in your hearts.” Tears streaming down his face, he embraced them.

All of a sudden, Georgia registered that her big sisters were leaving. She threw herself at Elitha, clinging to her, sobbing, “Don’t go without me.” With the utmost difficulty, Elitha was able to disengage herself, only by repeatedly promising Georgia, “I will bring you bread.” Finally Georgia nodded and, as if she had completely tired herself out, went and climbed onto her rack.

Outside, the three rescuers lined up Elitha, Doris Wolfinger, my nephews, William Hook, and George, and Noah James. “Where’s Leanna?” I asked. “She’s saying good-bye to Aunt Elizabeth,” Elitha said.

Jean Baptiste was distraught. “Why can’t I go?” he demanded. “Noah James is going.”

Mr. Tucker shook his head no. “Noah’s only 16. You have to stay. You’re the only able-bodied man left.”

Jean Baptiste turned to me. “Please, Mrs. Donner. Let me go with them. I should be allowed to save myself.”

“Speak with Mr. Donner,” I said.

He raced inside the shelter.

Leanna came across the clearing, her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, Mother,” she said. Her skin was a peculiar sallow color, dry and cold when I touched her cheek. Her once abundant black, wavy hair was coarse and thin. Her body sagged alarmingly as she turned to join the group.

Mr. Tucker parceled out food for those of us staying behind: a teacup of flour, two small biscuits, and thin pieces of jerked beef. I watched with disbelief as he painstakingly measured out the jerked beef, the pieces long as his little finger and half as wide. Each adult ration was as many pieces as he could encircle with his first finger and thumb brought together.

“We’re eating our last hide, Mr. Tucker.”

“Our supplies were rifled by bears, Mrs. Donner. This is all we can spare.”

“If we don’t find our cattle in the snow in a day or two, Mr. Tucker…we must commence on the dead.”

Distress and revulsion crossed all the rescuers’ faces.

My voice continued to shake, but I looked them square in the eye. “As long as breath stays in me, I will keep my children alive.”

The men looked down at the ground.

They left quickly. Leanna was last in line and almost immediately couldn’t keep up. Staggering along in the others’ footprints, she fell farther behind. It was as if after holding herself together all these months, she suddenly succumbed to hunger and exhaustion. I had been worrying about the wrong child, I realized. I stood
watching her, torn, wanting to run and help her, caught here. Then Elitha turned around, came back, and took Leanna’s arm. Leanna leaned heavily upon her, and the two of them made their way together. “They will take care of each other,” I whispered. “They will be all right.”

Inside, Jean Baptiste, on the brink of tears, said to George, “I lied, Mr. Donner. I’m not twenty-one. I’m only sixteen, just like Noah.”

George laid his hand on Jean Baptiste’s shoulder. “You must be a man, Jean Baptiste, and do your duty. Care for my children until the next relief comes, and you shall make your home with us forever.”

Jean Baptiste snuffled and nodded assent. Silently I let out my breath. I could not have managed without him.

I sat next to George’s bed, shaving fat off the pieces of jerked beef. “Elitha, Leanna, Doris Wolfinger, from here. Elizabeth could have gone, but there weren’t enough rescuers to carry her children. She sent William Hook and little George. Solomon wanted to go and was furious when Mr. Tucker told him he had to help his mother with the four younger children. Elizabeth said, ‘It’s William’s turn, Solomon.’ Jean Baptiste will go over to the lake camp tomorrow to find out who went from there.”

George was in his own thoughts, dismayed. “I should have told Elitha and Leanna that sometimes your best is not enough, but you have to do it anyway.”

“I think they know that,” I said, hoping that they wouldn’t have to discover it.

By the fire, Eliza nibbled an inch-long piece of dried beef.

“You’ll be sorry if you eat yours all up tonight,” Frances warned.

Georgia shook her head. “Elitha’s bringing us bread.”

“Time to get just a little warm before going to bed,” Jean Bap
tiste said. He raked the coals together as he does many nights, covered them with ashes, and put a large kettle over like a drum.

Georgia and Eliza spread their hands over the kettle. Frances opened her hand, and two gold earrings glittered on her palm. “Mrs. Wolfinger gave them to me when she left,” she said.

I looked closely at them. “Real gold,” I said. “Tie them in your little kerchief. You may need them someday.” I gave the earrings back to Frances, took the pan of beef trimmings, and set it outside to harden into tallow.

Altogether from both camps, the rescuers took six adults and seventeen children.