A Light in the Wilderness (19 page)

“I want a man to witness your words. Doc Hawkins. You say this in front of him, then I rest. If I need, he can be the one to tell if I needs a day in court.”

They stood in the shade of a large cottonwood tree near the fort. Doc Hawkins nodded while Davey declared that he had an agreement with Letitia from the time they left Missouri until his death that if she would help him, care for him and his children and help work his claim, he would put her name on the deed if allowed. Or that when the land was sold, the money would be hers in return for her labor. Davey glared at the ground.

“I can easily write this down for you, Davey. You could sign and Tish could keep it in your Bible.”

Letitia raised pleading eyes toward Davey. “He say it easy to do.”

“My word’s as good as gold and you need to trust that, Tish. Bad enough I agree to have another man involved in our little . . . arrangement.” He held his hands on his hips, elbows out.

It wasn’t such a little arrangement, but she’d pushed him to his limits. He didn’t like others knowing he was beholden to her. She was fortunate he allowed a woman to require him to do anything. She had pushed this for her Martha. Or for any other children they might have, though at the moment she couldn’t imagine coupling with him to have another. It would take time for her to trust him
again, and trust came first before a shared cot. Still, if she did and they had another son or daughter, she had to be certain he wouldn’t—she could barely think it—sell his children the way the father of Jeremiah had. Doc Hawkins’s witness might not prevent that, but it could slow it down. Davey had promised to care for his children and her in front of Doc Hawkins. She’d promised to care for him too, before God, so they had another witness to it all. She’d get no better than that. She’d keep that marriage promise and trust that God would fill the empty spaces that lay between their history and her hope.

Letitia and Nancy pushed the dust beside each other, stitching quilt pieces, patching pants, renewing tender ties. Martha and Maryanne ran ahead to be with other children but stayed within the company, not moving too far away. Martha always came back first, often walked between the two women, carrying Martha in her board for a few steps until her arms tired. In one lull, Letitia told Nancy of the agreement.

“Zach makes a good witness should you ever need it. He’s such a good man.”

“You can witness.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’d allow that. I mean, I can speak to your good character, but anything I didn’t hear myself they’d call hearsay evidence. But Tish, Davey would have to be dead before you’d need a witness for your character or Davey’s words. I’ll pray for long years for the two of you together so no one would even question that he would make such a promise to his family.”

South of Fort Hall on the Raft River, a large group of travelers headed south into California, and Letitia was pleased the Hawkinses didn’t go. They traveled now above a massive river called the Snake, looking down steep bluffs with deep ravines gouged out and peppered with ragged rocks. Eagles perched then plunged below to dive for fish. On August 9, as they camped at Rock Creek,
Letitia and Doc Hawkins helped deliver a twelve-pound baby. And a day or so later, at Salmon Falls, another infant joined the world. Yet right after, Davey’s and Doc Hawkins’s companies made plans to separate again.

“They’re choosing to go with Parker’s party and I’m committed to Captain English. Twenty wagons. He moves faster.” Davey greased the wheels, the smell of oil strong to her nose.

Letitia wrapped the apple saplings in wet burlap, then soaked them. All six were still alive. “Our oxen all beaten up. They need to go slow.”

“You keep their feet good. And we packed light so nothing more to unload. ’Cept your candlesticks.”

She didn’t respond.

“You’ll meet up with Mrs. Hawkins in Oregon.”

That evening she lamented to Nancy of the company’s division.

“Best I tell you my latest secret then.” Nancy leaned into Letitia. “I’m carrying.”

“You is? Lawd woman, you said Nancy Jane be your last.”

Nancy giggled. “I have an available medical man to help deliver.”

“Get him to hep you figure out what cause it and maybe put a stop to it too.”

Nancy laughed, then took a big breath. “It’s helped me, with Laura. Finding new life, new hopes, that’s what heals the wounds. That and believing as I do that God is in all things and wants the best for each of us. I have to keep moving toward the light, even in the darkest days.” She stroked the cloth over her belly. “Besides, it got me the quilt frame. Oh how he hated to leave that anvil.”

In the morning they said their good-byes.

“Zach says we’ll head south of Oregon City to find good land not already being farmed in the Willamette Valley. Goodness. How big can a valley be? We’ll find each other.”

“Yessum, we find Doc Hawkins’s shingle easy.” Letitia held Nancy Jane and now she exchanged her for Baby Martha. Martha played with the baby’s toes. “We see you in Oregon.” Tish ran her hand
over Martha’s hair, smooth as corn silk. “Maybe before if we stall and you catches up.” Her voice caught, but she kept from crying.

Nancy grasped her hand. “We’ll pray for that and for safekeeping. It’ll all be better on the other side of these last mountains.” It was every pioneer’s hope.

They would do it as a people, all together. Children would learn to use the flames to move deer into chosen places so they could be brought down more easily, brought down to feed the People. Later, the flames would push farther, taking the low shrubs, clearing the underbrush of trees whose trunks would sometimes blacken but not burn, keeping the oak leaves as shelter for both animals and people. After burning, women and children gathered up grasshoppers in baskets, their crisp forms already cooked and ready for the grinding stone.

“When will we go to the lake, Kasa?”

“You like
wapato
.” Little Shoot nodded. “Or is it the muddy streams your toes miss?”

The boy grinned, making his face round like a moon. She was glad his father had not insisted his head be flattened like so many of the People along Nch-i’-Wana, the big river with the dalles. She didn’t understand that custom, the slow crushing of a baby’s skull until over time, the baby’s forehead sloped like the end of Coffin Butte. Not that she would say. How one does a thing that’s different
does not require comment from another except to prevent injury. She saw no evidence a child was injured with the changing head shape. And she had heard that the sloped heads were considered beautiful and distinguished them as slaveholders rather than slaves. Little Shoot was a handsome boy. When they visited along the river, a Kalapuya boy with a round, handsome head stood out.

The scent of smoke drifted in the air as they walked a line with the others, making the flames behave. This first day of the People’s year the wind stood still. A good day for burning. Tar seeds would be charred and women would collect then peel the seeds from the blackened stems and grind those too. With blackberries they’d make a paste that would keep through the winter but would still blacken their gums as they chewed. They had so many baskets full of camas and wild onion and cat’s ears that they might remain in this valley through the coming winter, not make their way north toward the mission. Here, a spring on the side of the hill burbled out like a treasure basket left for them, a sure sign of the Creator’s blessing. She and Little Shoot might even find
wapato
in the swampy lower land near Soap Creek. The white tubers were tasty, and when many women gathered together wading into the warm water, digging for the roots with their toes and kicking them up like dogs covering their scat, there was always much laughter. One needed laughter. Like one needed fresh spring water close by. Both, every day, allowed the People to survive the disappointments offered along the way. That was why she teased Little Shoot sometimes; why he teased her. The laughter caulked the People, held them together and kept out the heaviness of the rainy season and the uncertainty of the unknown.

“Ayee.” She shouted to her grandson. “Watch that flame. It makes its own way.”

The boy turned from his friends where they huddled over something in one boy’s hand. He looked where she pointed, startled, and sprinted with his shrub, pounding out the errant lick of fire.

“
Kloshe
. Good.” She waved at him and motioned for him to
remain near the fire’s edge. She would have to watch that child. He could let boyish things steal away his judgment, send his mind to lesser things. As a child, the Missionaries had warned her of the same thing when her mind took flight to the empty times of her family perishing instead of her thoughts staying on the full basket the Missionaries promised if she kept her eyes on the Creator or his son. She saw all points of view now: the People, the Others, but most of all her grandson. Teaching him was what kept her alive.

In what people called the Boise country, a trail led down a gradual incline to the Snake where Hawkins’s party would cross. At the bottom of the canyon, sweet grass and clear water fed the parched animals who yesterday had looked longingly from atop the ridge. Now water was at hand.

“Must you go off hunting with Mr. Hinshaw? You’re a doctor. What if you’re needed here?”

“We can see game on those islands. I haven’t had much chance to hunt.” Zach lifted her chin with warm fingers. “I’ll be fine, Nancy. I can help George bring back his game if nothing else.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, you men. Always with your hunting. Why weren’t we smart and bring along a pig or two so you wouldn’t have to hunt?”

“Food on the table, woman.” He grinned then kissed her hard. “It’s good to see you back, my wife.” His gaze warmed her. “I love you, you know.”

“I know. Go on.” She pushed against his chest. “Bring back something besides venison or bear. How about a good goose?”

Zach saluted her. “Yes, ma’am. Anything for the captain.”

“Go and hurry back.” She gave him a light kiss. Nancy Jane fussed and she set her on fours on a quilt top. The child rocked and moved. She’d be walking before long. Three-year-old Edward waddled past carrying a grass snake. Soon they’d both be a handful to watch.

Davey smelled the acrid scent of the hot springs, a lake they approached at the edge of a large valley surrounded by rounded, tree-lined peaks. The company had rested there and the women washed in the nearly boiling hot water. A party of tall Indians with their wives arrived, bringing fresh vegetables and other items they hoped to trade for. They wanted cows or calves. “Keep close watch on Charity,” Davey told the drovers. He’d be in the hound house for even longer if something happened to Tish’s cow. A lot of things had gone wrong on this trip and he knew his way of handling things was part of that. Tish hadn’t let him curl close to her in a night ever since they’d separated again from the Hawkinses’ party. That’s how she displayed her “mads,” going away while her body was still here. He hoped to overcome those mads before they reached the Columbia River, because he knew she wouldn’t like what he’d be saying to her there.

So he kept up a cheery chatter explaining things as they left the hot springs and rumbled into the Blue Mountains, as they were called, “from the smoke where the Nez Perce and Umatilla Indians burn the underbrush to keep the meadows clear. Burning brings out elk and deer to feed.” Letitia nodded. “Don’t know if the Indians where we’re headed do such things.”

“We wait and sees.”

At least she’s talking to
me again.

The journey was demanding but not disabling, and in the four
days it took them to traverse the Blues, they were near a stream each night shadowed by dense forests. Evenings drifted cool. Davey played his Irish flute and Tish drummed her hands on a pan to set the rhythm while Martha’s big brown eyes followed her mother’s moves. Davey stayed at the wagon in the evening rather than jawing with others. He played with Martha while Tish cleaned up their tin plates or took care of her fundamentals, as she called her walk into the timber. He was being there for her. He hoped she noticed.

One evening, four children about the same age as the Hawkinses’ Martha wandered over and introduced themselves. They asked to hold Baby Martha. They gentled the child and afterward Letitia asked if they’d like to play “Hot Tater” to pass their time.

“What would that be?” The ta
llest boy had a New England accent.

Letitia reached for a knitted sock from her sewing basket, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it to the girl.

“It’s a sock.” She frowned.

“It also a hot tater. Quick, quick. Toss it to your brother ’fore it burn your hand.”

He picked up the game and sent the sphere spiraling to a different girl. “Ginny, careful it’s sizzling.”

Ginny jumped up and down as though the sock burned her palm and her feet, then tossed it to Letitia, who blew on it to “cool” it before sending it to a shorter boy across the circle that had formed. The children laughed and spoke of the “potato” that was “blistering” and “searing” their fingers. “See how long you keep it goin’ with just your mind turnin’ it into something fun, takin’ that old sock to a new place. Your mind too.”

Baby Martha laughed at the action and even Davey left the fire to watch. Rothwell howled his approval.

After the children left, Davey said, “You’re good with wee ones. I didn’t know.”

“They gives me a pleasure.”

“You’re pretty inventive too, taking a sock to new heights. You
have a good imagination, Tish.” He put his arm around her shoulder, kissed her. She allowed it.

“Didn’t know that what it called, lettin’ a mind take us to faraway places, movin’ our hearts at the same time. Imagination. A good word.”

At one point they met an Indian agent named Doc White heading east with a small party guided by a Negro named Moses “Black” Harris. Davey remembered that Harris had left Missouri with National Ford’s company the year before. Letitia stared at the fine specimen of a man while he shared information their company could use, his voice deep and well-spoken as a learned man. Davey felt a flicker of something, he wasn’t sure what, but after watching Letitia’s attention to Harris, how she listened with her eyes on the man, he was happy to see the rear of that party as they continued on. Letitia said nothing about Harris, but it must have pleased her to see her own kind at least once on this journey. “You notice, Tish? No one asked for that man’s papers.”

She nodded.

“Coming to this country’s a good thing.”

“He lookin’ like a good man.”

“Does he?” He ought not be grumpy about her interest but rather see if he could target those admiring looks his way instead.

They passed graves, and grasses already grown up beneath discards of dressers still holding china that had made it that far but no farther.

“We’re fortunate, wouldn’t you say, Tish?”

She asked him to stop at a marked grave site. He’d let another wagon pass them because she seemed not to want to leave that lonely spot, though they had no idea who was buried there.

“Best we be going, Tish.”

“Always good to give honor to those passed on.”

“Yes, well, I ’spect so.”

On the fourth day through the Blues, coming out of the timber they saw the snow-capped mountains rise up from the valley floor
in the distance. He could almost feel Oregon. “Lookee, Tish. Ain’t they beautiful?”

“Yessuh. They’s beautiful.” She corrected herself. “The mountains are pretty as a painting.”

He grinned, his hands still holding the reins but patting her thigh as she sat beside him. He’d said something to her about listening to how other women spoke, putting words down different, and she’d been learning. On her own. Another sign of her intelligence. And she’d chosen him. He had to remember that. And he’d chosen her.

After descending a long and treacherous hill where trees grew in small clumps, leaving much of the landscape bare, they reached a rolling plain. As they traveled beside a good-sized river, Dr. Whitman, the missionary, and his pretty wife came out from his mission and met their party. “I’ll guide your wagons through hostile Cayuse and Walla Walla Indian territory,” the doctor said. He drove a wagon full of small potatoes, meal, and unbolted flour. Their company accepted his offer and at the mission they resupplied.

Davey filled the flour barrel. “Eight dollars for one hundred pounds.” The price galled him, but the flour pleased Tish; at least she thanked him. He wondered if he’d always be reminded of Tish’s lost papers and his part in it whenever he looked at flour.

“I’d suggest you leave your milk cows here.” Dr. Whitman spoke to the group. “Getting them over Mount Hood will be a challenge as weakened as they are. You can buy more at Fort Vancouver.”

“He has a point,” Davey told Tish that evening. “The last part of the journey over the Cascades could be the worst, they say.”

“Charity is mine and that’s how we build our life. That what you always sayin’. We got twenty cattle comin’ behind. Already lost too many. Not likely neat milk cows where we goin’. Charity has to come.”

He let her think she’d convinced him, but Davey agreed. At Fort Vancouver he guessed there’d be few neat cows to buy for milking. Nor would the British be willing to sell them. Besides, he had no
plans to go that far north, would head south into that lush valley as soon as they arrived. If they left their milk cows here, they’d be stuck with the wild cows he’d heard had been driven up from California with their long horns and dastardly ways.

“We’ll hang on to Charity, Tish, and her heifer and the cows and oxen teams.”

Their company crossed rolling hills, sometimes camping above high basalt cliffs with no wood for cooking fires. Davey was getting tired of hardtack and dried patties Tish had formed of the cricket meal weeks before. “I said these would last longer than a year because I wouldn’t eat ’em, but here I am.” He bit and chewed. “Only Martha there has the best meals.”

With each new river crossing there were always challenges. The muddy banks of the John Day grabbed at the wagon wheels and the steep incline on the other side tested the tired oxen. The fierce current of the Deschutes stole away some of the company’s weaker cattle, but Charity and their other cows made it. They dealt with Indians who stole horses or demanded calico shirts in return for taking people across in their canoes. With each success Davey reminded Tish of their good fortune. They’d met all the trouble rocks that had to be crossed over or gone around. Mount Hood stood before them now. Maybe he hadn’t made so many bad choices. “The Good Lord is blessing us, Tish.” He kissed his daughter’s forehead. “We’re going to be all right, have a good long life ahead of us. Together.” She didn’t disagree.

Nancy heard ducks and birdsong and the mournful call of geese flying overhead, circling before settling down on the shoreline. When night fell and Zach hadn’t come back, she’d sent Samuel to find Isaac Hinshaw, George’s brother, to see if George had returned. He hadn’t and that raised the alarm. It wasn’t like Zach to worry her like this. Maybe George had fallen and hurt himself and Zach had stayed, planning to come back in the morning. Maybe Zach
had shot himself. He wasn’t all that familiar with guns.
Oh goodness, that’s it. He
hunts so rarely. George has a wound that’s kept
them there. They’ll show up in the morning.

They hadn’t. So Isaac and three other men crossed to the island to look. Now it was noon and they were back. With George’s body. “He died shortly after we found him.” Nancy heard the words but they made no sense. “There’s no sign of . . . Doc Hawkins.”

“But Zach . . .”

“We found evidence of him . . . some blood.”

Nancy’s mother stood beside her, a woman widowed herself years before.

“We followed, but the trail let off at some rocks and we never did pick it up though we tried.” Isaac turned his hat brim in his hands, knuckles white from the telling, his eyes red with his own grief.

Nancy focused on the white knuckles, couldn’t bear to look into the depth of sadness in the man’s eyes. “Can’t you look more? Maybe he’s waiting for rescue. Please.”