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I dismounted and took my brother in my arms. “I’m not abandoning you, I’m not. I’ll be back.” I held him as a puppy clings to comfort.

“It won’t be the same, it won’t. Everything’s changed.” He’d had no part in either the massacre or the hostage stalemate that went on for four weeks and I’d thought him unscathed by the ordeal. But he’d seen my father arrive, feet bloodied, near death; he’d been there when Mr. Cranfield brought the original news of all the Whitmans’ deaths, and my own, in error; he’d been rushed upriver by the Nez Perce, then to Spokane, and then on to Fort Vancouver where they waited while the British negotiated the release of the captives, then overland to Tualatin Plains and finally to Brownsville, disrupted like an acorn bounced along by grazing hogs or cattle. He’d suffered too.

“You’re right, it won’t be the same. But we can make something new between us, new memories that aren’t hurtful and all wrapped up in Mama’s dying and Rachel coming and all that sadness . . . before.” I felt him sob against me, swallowed grief that shook his shoulders. “Shh, shh now, it will be all right.” I held him away, looked into his tear-spilled eyes. “We’ll be all right. All of us. I’ll see to that. You can come and live with us, Mr. Warren and me. Would you like that?” I hadn’t gotten Mr. Warren’s approval for the offer, but I hoped it would bring small comfort to my brother at this moment.

He thumbed his eyes. “He’s all right, I guess. But I’m not sure Father will be all right without you here.”

“Father will do fine.” I said the words to convince myself as much as Henry.

He nodded, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I’d better go back in.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t want the others to come trotting out here. I’d never get off. Lend me your hand, will you?”

My brother formed a cup of his palms and I stepped in as he lifted me upward toward Nellie’s saddle. He stepped back as thunder rumbled.

“I won’t forget you, Henry. I won’t.”

“I’ll close the barn door for you.”

I waved good-bye and pressed the reins against Nellie’s neck. Leaving Henry was the only hesitation I experienced in the questionable move forward I began that night. I was committed. I had to make it work. That’s what I repeated as the first drops of rain began to pelt.

The Diary of Eliza Spalding

1850

Rain falls like sheets of pewter, so hard sometimes I cannot see the oak trees across the yard. I’m grateful my husband and daughter stay in Oregon City and aren’t out riding in this weather. I’m glad Horace is here for company and for the care of my children. The one regret I had of our marriage in Ohio was that none of my family could be there: not Horace, not my five sisters, not my parents. It was good that before we left for the mission field we did travel back as husband and wife then, and my father gave us his blessings and one hundred dollars and a wagon that we took with us all the way to Lapwai. But the wedding was lonely for me. I had committed my life to the Lord and he had provided for me a good man, a reverend who had studied beside me, allowed me to learn Greek and Hebrew with him, and never minded that the languages came more easily to me than to himself. And he was a good husband, writing to my family, asking their permission for our not returning to New York to marry, though I wonder what he would have done if my father had forbade it. I was twenty-five years old when I married, a spinster. But still, I was surprised when he told me he’d written to my parents asking for my hand. I didn’t speak out or up. It was not my place. I lived with people who had taken me under their wing to allow me to be close to my intended with full expression of propriety. And we were proper, always.

Even on our wedding night I was not flummoxed, as my husband is a tender lover, a good man despite his temper, a temper never thrown to me. And I can calm him. I just can’t ever change his mind once he has it set. As with insisting Eliza go to the trial, to be deposed and testify. I wonder what state I’ll find her in and how long it will take for me to have her speak in normal childlike tones again, if ever I’ll hear her voice laced with laughter rather than despair? The nightmares grew more intense when Mr. S began speaking of the trial. I wonder how she fares. It’s not right that she is out of my sight, away from arms I might wrap around her in protection. Mr. S will not coddle her, but I think walking beside a child carrying legitimate fears is not a coddle but a balm, an act of mercy, and are we not compelled to love mercy? Mr. S uses the same Scripture from Micah 6:8 to remind me that “to do justice” comes before loving mercy, and Eliza’s presence at the trial is part of acting justly. But I grieve for the child that was and wonder if I abandon her when I submit to my husband’s will. I entrust her care to you, God—a mother’s constant prayer.

9
Anxiety Shifting

I longed for Mr. Warren’s loving arms to surround me with protection. I knocked on the door but no one came to answer. Wasn’t Mr. Warren staying there, at “our home”? I knocked again. The rain had lessened and a moon promised light enough to capture the beads of moisture on my cape. He must have gone to his parents’ with plans to meet me here in the morning. I shivered.
Have
I
miscalculated?
With Nellie unsaddled and cooled down, I spent the rest of that night alone in the dark cabin, my bedroll enough cover in the morning chill to bring me blessed sleep. It was the first night I’d spent all alone without a sister sharing quilts or a parent in another bed across the room. I awoke in the morning to the face of my soon-to-be husband.

“I guess you’re anxious.” He grinned. I smelled a sweetness on his breath, new to me. His eyes looked fevered.

“It seemed easier to get an early start. I couldn’t sleep. Where were you?”

“I couldn’t sleep either, darlin’.” He paused. “I stayed with my parents, told them of our plans.”

“You warned them not to say anything until after we’re gone?”

He nodded. “They’re happy to have a Spalding in the family. My pa thinks some of your smarts will rub off on me.”

I didn’t know what to do with that compliment, at least it seemed like one though a backhanded slap at his own son.

“You’re smart enough.” I spread my hand in an arc to take in the room. I noted the bottles were missing. “You have your own home and a place for your wife.”

“And family.”

“Yes. A family.” I swallowed. It was a subject we’d never discussed. “But not right away maybe.”

“Best we be on our way, little lady.” He pulled me up from my pallet, kissed me despite my having no tooth powder with me. He ran his hand up my back. “Hmm, hmm. I’m going to like having this to wake up to every morning.” He bundled up my quilt bag, tied it tightly with the hemp rope, and carried it out to put behind the saddle he’d already put on top of Nellie. “Glad you have your own horse.”

“She’s not really mine.” I stroked the mare’s soft nose, felt the soft bristles. “Millie rides her as much as I do.” My father would miss the horse when he awoke, probably more than me. For a moment I wondered if my father would come riding down the lane to grab Nellie back, if not me. I imagined him doing so; so of course, he wouldn’t.

Mr. Warren helped me mount, then threw his long leg over his own saddle with bedroll already attached. And we set off.

I heard afterward that my father rode through Brownsville shouting, “My daughter is dead to me! My daughter is dead to me!” Had he spoken those anguished words the night of the massacre as he made his way nearly ninety miles from where he’d
been thrown by his horse, traveling by foot to tell my mother what she already knew, that the Whitmans had been attacked, many women and children taken hostage? Mr. Cranfield had preceded my father’s return to Lapwai, so my mother knew and waited only for word of the fate of her husband and her child. Together—if he lived—they’d have to decide whether to seek refuge at the Spokane mission or stay where they were among the Nez Perce.

But while he was riding through town shouting of my demise, news of my disappearance being explained by Mr. Warren’s parents, that I’d willingly gone with him with the intent to take marriage vows, I was happily riding beside my soon-to-be husband welcoming the balmy spring, pleased that our two-day ride to Oregon City would likely take us to a wedding day of May 11, 1854, the middle of a lovely month. It was an outing beneath a honeyed moon—as they call those special times after a marriage. We had our honeyed moon to guide us before the ceremony, without the intimacy of such an occasion. We chatted as friends until Mr. Warren added, “A few of my dock mates will raise a cup with us afterwards. A celebration.”

“They will? How do they know of our wedding?”

“I’ll tell ’em when we have our supper in the inn. They’ll be resting in the saloon side, I’m sure.”

Are those hoofbeats following? Is my father chasing us?
“A part of me wanted him to care enough about me to come after me. “Maybe we should camp early,” I said, ambivalence dancing in my head.

He set the tent beneath oak trees near where a group of Germans worked to construct a town they called Aurora. We’d followed the lazy Pudding River, so we still had the familiar stream to camp by when I watched as Mr. Warren took a flask from his saddlebag and drank.

“Medicinal?”

“Absolutely. Want some?” He offered the flask to me.

I shook my head, didn’t protest his drinking from it, one swallow then two before he put it in the saddle pack. He was clear and calm with me, found dry pine needles, urging the fire to take, and we boiled soup in a tin pot he’d brought. A man was entitled to his medicine. Nothing Mr. Warren handed me could flummox me. Father wasn’t following. I saw myself as one of those brave heroines serialized in
Godey’s Magazine
, women who rose above difficult situations during the Revolutionary War, women who saved their husbands and family after bankruptcy. I’d even read
Jack Tier
, a raucous story of a woman deserted by her husband who followed him to sea, dressed as a man, making her way for years without him realizing she was there, watching out for him. I could do whatever had to be done. I could look out for myself.

“You’re screamin’ loud enough to wake Washington and he’s been dead for years.” Mr. Warren shook me awake. It was the dark before the sunrise.

“I . . . they come sometimes.” I slowed my breathing, swallowed. I hadn’t ever told him of Waiilatpu, but he’d heard the general stories. “I’ll be all right. I . . . I don’t have them often. I’m sorry.” I lifted the damp bun from my neck. Changed the subject. “Are the horses still hobbled?”

“Animals are fine. It’s you I worry over.” His brown eyes looked marble-glassy. “Your screams woke me like a bullet.”

“I’ll be fine. Once we’re married I bet I never have another.”

“What are they about?”

How much do I
tell him, one who has never known of such a
trial?
“Suffocation, mostly.” I turned away. “I can’t breathe and danger lurks in various forms.”

He held me then, asked no more questions, rocking me as though I were a child, using his wide thumb to brush away nightmare-tears.

We could see dawn rising. “Do you want to just get on?”

I nodded and we made an early start, breaking our fast with hardtack and dried apples I’d brought along. The countryside dressed in dawn was awash in dew, full of wild iris, meadows with spring grasses, and in the distance, east, a snowcapped mountain named Hood beckoned. We rode through such verdant country, crossing streams and eventually hearing the roar of a sound-deafening waterfall. “That’ll be Willamette Falls,” Mr. Warren raised his voice. “And beside it Oregon City, capital of the Territory, where we’ll speak our vows.”

And where I’d last visited with my father for the trial.

10
Vows

Mr. Warren and I started up the steps of the courthouse where the trial had been held. A buzzing started in my head. I couldn’t catch my breath. I stopped, grabbed Mr. Warren’s arm. Spots danced before my eyes.