All Together in One Place (59 page)

“Hadn't thought of it that way, but yes. When we love, pure in our hearts, then nobody's home there but him.”

They made good distance the next day. Rain, heavy at times, slowed them but also settled the dust. The trail moved steadily uphill on these traveling days, but the oxen had good grass and water when expected.

This was good, Mazy thought. She knew that, once they reached the deciding place and beyond, they'd face expected miles of barren, burnt earth without water. Night travel, too. Then they would reach the place on the Council Bluffs trail where each would decide whether to go north to Oregon or south to California, the parting of the ways. They should have discussed it earlier, but Mazy put it off and the others let her Maybe they thought they'd never really get this far.

But Mazy knew: Like the desert and the Sierras ahead, it would take all their strength and effort, all their faith together, to get them up and over and then onward to the place where they belonged.

Ruth walked Koda more than rode him, still protecting his foot. She could pull the bar shoe, but it had been nailed well back at Laramie. Laramie. She shivered. Had it been Zane? Had he recognized Koda there? She wished she could shake this feeling of dread, that someone rode with evil intent along the trail beside them.

She walked up on Lura, doubled over in laughter.

“She's got an easy gait/’ Tipton told her. “All mules do. Better than horses It'll help your legs.”

“I've never been a-horseback before,” Lura said. “Just walking and in a wagon or a buggy since I was a little tyke.”

“We're all doing new things now, Ma,” Mariah reminded her. “Come on. You can ride back with Ruth and me.”

They'd made a stirrup of their hands and helped Lura step in, then attempted to flop her onto a Wilson mule The jack stomped. Lura soared. She crumbled into a heap on the other side of the mule, the animal gazing in seeming disgust at her backside.

“Don't get scared now,” Mariah told her, covering her smile.

“You talking to me or the mule?” Lura asked, straightening her bonnet.

“You have one steady mule, Adora,” Ruth told her.

“I told you they were good ones,” Adora said. “The ones you gave away were…” She stopped herself. “If truth be known, they're the”— she looked at Tipton—“the second best thing I got.”

Lura rode to Sinking Creek on the mule and talked Betha, too, into riding a mule off and on, if Adora allowed “Save your shoes,” she told them.

“We look like pumpkins on a rail,” Betha said.

“Speak for yourself,” Lura told her. “My Antone would be proud I learned something new. Well, at least Mattie will be.”

They covered good miles, and then Mazy halted the lead wagon.

“Why you stop?” Zilah asked. She walked beside the oxen, talking to them, and did not often look ahead, her
eyes
accustomed to watching her feet.

“It's almost noon,” Mazy said. “We've got good grass here. And up ahead is the junction to Fort Hall or California. We either head south toward the Humboldt Sink, maybe the Applegate Trail or Sacramento, or we make our way north to Oregon. We can't go farther without a
decision, and I, for one, dont plan to make it by myself.” She heard Sason cry and smiled. “Besides, we've a baby that needs tending.”

Ruth wanted Oregon. That's where her horses were, that's where the Schmidtkes’ cattle were. North, to Fort Hall, then along the Snake River into Oregon and free land. Three hundred and twenty acres. That's what she needed. That, and to be in as a remote a place as possible from Zane. Yet she had to lure him after her, not the rest.

She watched Jessie hold the drinking dipper to Suzanne's lips. The girl was kind. Kind but small and young. She suspected that the California trail, though it crossed a great desert and the Sierras, would be the better route for Jessie and Betha, Sarah and the boys. The relief stations were well established if they had trouble, and opportunities greater in the gold country, in a state already added to the Union. There were posts along the southern route, trails made by the gold seekers, traders willing to supply them. They'd have a better chance to make it south with three wagons. Certainly the occasional people arriving out from the camps with their vegetables and newspapers told her civilization stirred a good stew in the south

They would make it without Ruth.

“So what's your pleasure?” Elizabeth asked as her eyes scanned the wagons. They'd pulled off to the side to allow room for others to pass. The parting of the ways, as it was known, would cut into a dusty, treeless area, and both roads led forlornly from each other, like dance partners separating to opposite sides of the hall. Through sage and dust, the roads disappeared toward different horizons. Here, near water and grass, they would talk.

“Seems like we could use a prayer, maybe,” Tipton said.

“Who'd like to offer one?” Lura said.

“I would,” Ned said. He spit on his hand, slicked his hair back, then offered up, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”

“Well said,” Sister Esther said, and she smiled.

Mazy hadn't often seen the woman smile. “Suzanne, would you like to summarize for us?” Mazy asked. “Keep us on track if we get off?”

“If Sason doesn't keep me too distracted.”

Clayton poked a finger toward his little brother, but Zilah's hand gently touched the toddler's finger to her own. The boy looked up, and Zilah kissed his pudgy hand.

Wispy clouds like angel's hair wafted across the sky. Few natural sounds could be heard, though Mazy thought she recognized the high-pitched cry of a hawk lifting in the distance, smelled something dry yet fragrant from the grass. She adjusted her bonnet and looked at the women settled like colored squash in the shade of the wagons. Her mother fanned herself with her hand.

“Let's see if we have any agreement,” she said. “If you're Oregon bound, raise your hand.”

Ruth and Adora raised their hands. Lura did too.

“Does that mean the rest are for California?” Ned asked. “This voting thing is chirk.”

“Not if it goes against you,” Betha said. “Just wait.”

“Who voted?” Suzanne asked.

“Three. Ruth, Lura, and Adora. Oh, four. Tipton just raised hers. Oh. And Betha, too. No? Yes. So, California then?” Mazy asked.

Sister Esther raised her hand as did Deborah, though so timidly Mazy almost missed it. Naomi and Zilah raised theirs. Elizabeth's hand went up for California as well.

“Really, Mother?” Mazy asked. “I thought you wanted the land claim?”

“Not strong either way,” Elizabeth said. “Just thought when you didn't vote for Oregon, I…”

“No. Lets each vote our hearts.” She gave the totals to Suzanne.

“Lots of people didn't raise their hands, Mommy,” Jessie said. “They're not paying ‘tention, are they?”

“No, they aren't,” Betha said.

“It doesn't matter to me,” Mariah said. “Pa said we could get into Oregon by way of California and wouldn't be nearly so rough a trail. Avoid the Columbia that way. Mattie might've gone that way to Oregon City” Both Ned and Jason nodded in agreement “Suzanne?” Mazy asked.

“I…no.” Suzanne swallowed. “I would like to go to California, but I anticipate needing help.”

“There is way I help?” Zilah's voice carried desire across the landscape in a way none had heard before.

Sister Esther clasped her hands before her apron smudged with bacon grease and dirt. “You are committed,” she said. Zilah dropped her almond-shaped eyes. “The contracts ” She cleared her throat “There is a problem. Of course, Cynthia's must be redeemed, and now there is another unwilling to accept his bride. I have not shared this earlier. He will want his payment back. I do not know who or why. I have no way to know until we reach Sacramento to make the matches, or somewhere I can contact the Agency. But I know I must go into California. There is no choice for me in that”

For the first time, Esther realized she needed the Celestials. If they changed their minds and went another way, she would be spending her life finding a way to redeem their contracts. Worse, living with failure and loss, all alone.

“But you may not need to,” Suzanne said, her voice high with infrequent joy. “If Zilah wishes to go with me, I'll pay her contract, send the money back to her family and she'll have worthy employment.”

“She was contracted to a worthy man,” Sister Esther said. “That is what our agency does, and she may still be expected.”

“But only two are needed now,” Mazy said. “From what you say.”

“Yes. Only two”

“The bees?” Deborah asked, her voice faint.

“I do not know,” Sister Esther told her, her palms to the air. “I am so sorry, but I do not know.”

“I leave,” Zilah said. “Or I go with Missy Suzie. I not go to husband.”

“But why not?” Esther turned her body stiffly toward the young woman.

“I know this not time,” Zilah said, “but I have truth. I not send photograph to new husband. I send cousins, a woman of beauty.”

“Good grief,” Lura said. “You're lovely. Dont know any man who wouldn't find your face attractive, even if it isn't of the daguerreotype you sent.”