The Work and the Glory (565 page)

It was five minutes later, as the wagons began passing them on the nearby road, that Jessica straightened and lifted a hand to shade her eyes. “Is that Mark?” she asked.

Solomon scanned the group of wagons, then nodded in surprise. About halfway back in the group there was Mark, rifle over his shoulder, striding along with some other men. Even as Solomon spotted him, he saw them and waved. He said something to the men, then broke off and trotted up and around the fence and then directly toward them.

When he reached them, Solomon spoke. “You’re back early. No luck?”

Mark set the rifle down carefully against the rail fence and leaned against it. “They shot two deer. I shot at a squirrel”—there was a look of disgust—“but I missed him clean.”

“Well, maybe some other—”

“Pa,” he cut in, “there’s news.”

“Oh?”

“What?” Jessica said, coming over to join them now.

“We’re at war with Mexico.”

For a moment, that didn’t register. “Who’s at war with Mexico?” he asked.

“The United States. Those people just coming in said it’s all over the papers back home. President Polk has declared war against Mexico. He’s calling for troops to march to Texas and drive the Mexicans out.”

Jessica turned to Solomon, her mouth twisting a little at the corners with anxiety. “Isn’t where we are going supposed to be part of Mexico?” she asked.

Mark’s eyes widened perceptibly. “Are we going to war, Papa?”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

“So what does it mean, Solomon?” Jessica asked.

“Well, the United States drove us out,” he said after a moment, still considering the implications of the news. “Maybe Mexico will be glad to take us in.”

Peter Ingalls stood beneath the huge oak tree, hat in hand, feeling the hot south wind pull at his hair and parch his face. No wonder the locals called it Kansas, he thought. Technically, this was somewhere between Indian Territory and that vast tract of land noted on the maps as “Unclaimed Territory.” Indian Territory was that portion of land beyond the western borders of the United States that the U.S. government had designated for resettlement of the various eastern Indian tribes back in 1825. Over thirty tribes had eventually been brought here. It was a bewildering roll call of names—Chippewa, Omaha, Delaware, Fox, Iowa, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Shawnee, Sauk, Wyandot. They had all come to occupy the lands of the Kansa, or Kaw, tribe, who were native to the area. Someone in Independence had told Peter that the word Kansa meant “people of the south wind.” After a week of moving across their territory, he believed it.

He turned his head, looking westward across the vast sea of sunflowers that bobbed in the wind like children playing “Mother, May I.” He could see the faint line of trees that marked the winding Big Blue River and the circle of wagons waiting to cross the swollen stream. They had been stalled here for three days while they waited for the water to go down and the men constructed a ferry to take them across. They couldn’t afford to delay much longer.

Peter felt momentary guilt. Was he more concerned about moving on than he was about old Mrs. Keyes? But then he shook it off. No. He was truly sorry to see Mrs. Reed’s mother die. She had always been wonderful to him and Kathryn, and her passing would leave a void in the company. Patty, the Reeds’ eight-year-old daughter, was especially devastated. She had been very close to her grandmother and had a deep fear that the Indians would dig up her body. But Peter also knew that the past few days had been one long agony for Mrs. Keyes, every jolt of the wagon adding to her growing pain and draining the last of her reserves. It was a blessing that she had finally succumbed early this morning.

He looked around. Mr. Reed had chosen the site for the burial of his mother-in-law well. They had dug the grave at the foot of a large upland burr oak tree near the bank of a small creek. This morning Baylis Williams, another of Mr. Reed’s hired men, carved an inscription in its bark, and thus the tree also became the headboard. Once the services were over and the grave filled in again, they cut sod and laid over it. They also placed a stone at one end, which read simply, “Mrs. Sarah Keyes, Died May 29, 1846: Aged 70.” The children gathered huge clusters of sunflowers to lay at their grandmother’s last resting place. Kathryn, who due to her handicap rode in the wagon with Mrs. Keyes every day and who had grown quite close to her, had asked Peter to dig up some wildflowers and replant them around the tree. Reed had even found some young cedar trees somewhere and had them replanted nearby as well.

But now it was over. The company had returned to camp, about a mile away. Even the rest of their immediate party—the two Donner brothers and their wives, Baylis and his half sister, Eliza, some of the other hired help—had gone back, the men talking about needing to continue their work on the ferry. James Reed caught Peter’s eye and nodded. He had seen Peter looking toward the river. He knew exactly what he was thinking and he agreed. This had been their first death and it cast a pall over the whole train. But everyone knew it wouldn’t be the last. On the trail, death was part of life. On the trail, grief was expected and honored, but it was not waited on. There was work to do.

Reed turned to his wife. “Margret, we have to go.”

She straightened slowly, her eyes red, her face haggard and drawn. When they had started from Springfield, Mrs. Reed had not been in wonderful health herself, but she had thrived on the regimen of the trek. Now the death of her mother had set her back visibly. She leaned heavily on his arm as they started back toward the wagon.

Peter turned to Kathryn. She sniffed, wiping at her eyes with the back of one hand, then bent down and laid a small bouquet of wildflowers on the mound. They were already withered and dying in the heat. “Good-bye, dear Mrs. Keyes,” she whispered. “I shall miss you. And when we get to California, I shall plant flowers around the house for you as I promised.”

She straightened and reached out for her crutches. Peter handed them to her. “She so wanted to see California,” she mourned.

“I know, but now she can rest.”

To his surprise, Kathryn let him take her arm as they started away, falling in behind the Reeds. When they reached the wagon, Peter saw Kathryn up safely inside, then went immediately to the oxen. They turned their heads at the sound of his voice. “Hello, Bully Boy,” he said to the nearest of the wheel team, a brindled two-year-old that was his favorite. He scratched him behind the ear. “Did you think I’d forgotten you?” He reached across his back. “Hey, Dan, I know you’re thirsty, old boy, but we’ll be back to the river shortly. You’ll have to be careful, though. You can’t be drinking too fast in this heat.”

From her seat in the wagon, Kathryn watched him move alongside the four yoke. It amazed her to see the affection he had developed for them. To her they were but brute animals, valued because they kept the wagon moving, but all the same in temperament and looks. To him they were individual children, to be encouraged and praised, wheedled and coaxed, and occasionally scolded. Once, when old Bully, as he called him, had eaten something that left him lowing painfully throughout the night, Peter had sat beside him and stroked his neck until morning.

Mr. Reed appeared beside her. He gestured toward his wife, who was lying down nearby. “Margret is resting, Kathryn. I’m going to ride ahead and help the others. If there are any problems, have Peter fire one shot with the rifle and I’ll come back.”

“Yes, Mr. Reed.”

He walked to the side entrance, hopped down, and walked to where his horse was tied. “All right, Peter. Let’s move ’em out.”

The ferry was completed the following day, Saturday, and the company christened it the Blue River Rover. But they were able to get only eight or nine wagons across the river by the end of the day, and so they would have to spend all their time Sunday getting the rest over. The wagons belonging to the Donner and Reed families were among those that would have to be ferried across tomorrow.

When Peter came back from watering the oxen and then hobbling them for the night, the Reed family were all together in the wagon and the flaps were drawn. He could see their shadows on the canvas as they moved about and talked quietly. He stopped, seeing if he could distinguish a shadow with crutches, but he could not. About fifteen yards away, behind the Reeds’ lead wagon, the two supply wagons were parked side by side. There was a blazing fire in front of them, and Peter could see Eliza Williams, the hired woman, sitting beside her half brother, Baylis. Eliza was very nearly deaf, and Baylis had his head close to hers and was talking loudly to her. But Kathryn was not there either.

Peter moved to the back of the family wagon and prepared to knock and ask Mr. Reed if Kathryn was inside, but as he came around the wagon, he saw her there before their own cook fire, which was now low and nearly gone, sitting on a log by herself.

He stopped for a moment, watching her and smiling to himself. She was staring into the embers, the profile of her face etched in the faint light of the glowing coals. As he had so many times before, he marveled that he, Peter Ingalls, bumbling, unlearned factory worker from Preston, England, had been lucky enough to have this winsome Irish lass agree to be his bride. Smiling more broadly, he stepped forward. “Hi.”

She turned, her face instantly breaking into a joyous smile of her own. “Hello, Peter.”

He moved over and sat down beside her.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“Yep. They’re settled for the night.”

“And no guard duty?”

“Not tonight.”

“Wonderful.”

He put an arm around her. “What were you thinking about? You looked very contemplative.”

She laughed. “Contemplative? You ought to be a writer, Peter. Maybe work for a newspaper or something.”

Her comment struck a tender chord and his face sobered. “That would be nice again.”

She snuggled against him. “It will come, Peter. You heard what Will and Alice said in their letter. The Brooklyn is carrying a printing press. They’ll bring it to California and then on to wherever the Saints settle. That’s how strongly President Young feels about having our own newspaper.”

“Yes, I know. It seems like it will never happen, but someday we will find a home and then . . .” He sighed, then remembered his news. “Guess what.”

“What?”

“You know that group that caught up with us this afternoon and joined us?”

“Yes.”

“I told you about the two brothers-in-law—Pike and Foster—who are traveling with their mother-in-law, who is a widow.”

She was puzzled now. “Yes?”

“Guess who the mother-in-law is.”

She shook her head. “Someone we know?”

“Yes! Sister Murphy. Sister Levinah Murphy.”

For a moment she was blank; then it hit her. “Sister Murphy from Tennessee, who was in Nauvoo for a time?”

“The very same. Can you believe it? Foster and Pike married her daughters. I thought their names sounded familiar when they introduced themselves today. I’m pretty sure she mentioned them to me in one of her letters. But it didn’t all click in my mind until I had a chance to talk with them. The Pikes, along with Sister Murphy and her unmarried children, got an outfit together in Tennessee, then headed to Missouri and met the Fosters in St. Louis. When they all got to Independence they heard that Colonel Russell’s big wagon train had already left and so they hurried along to join it, just like we did.”

Now, there was a coincidence, Kathryn thought. It had been Sister Murphy who, in a letter, had first planted the thought in Peter’s mind about going west with someone else so that he and Kathryn wouldn’t have to try to outfit themselves.

“They took me to see her. It was her, all right. She was as flabbergasted as I was.”

“So, are Pike and Foster members of the Church too?”

“I didn’t dare ask. I don’t think so. Sister Murphy didn’t even mention the Church, and so I didn’t either.”

He sat back now. “It’s not much to make a difference, but at least we won’t be the only Latter-day Saints going west with this group.”

Kathryn nodded. It was a strange coincidence. And she had been a little worried about being in the same company as ex-Governor Boggs and other Jackson County mobocrats, who had joined up with the Russell train a few days before the Donners and Reeds had. Not that one widowed woman would make a lot of difference if the Missourians decided to make trouble.

So far, fortunately, she and Peter had had little to do with Lilburn W. Boggs and his group, and that was just fine with her. There had been a recent incident, however, that had left an impression on her mind. The other night, while many members of the company were sitting around a central campfire, one of the men mentioned hearing that groups of Mormons were heading west on the trail this season. Kathryn had glanced at Boggs at that moment, and she could see that he had become visibly nervous at the man’s comment. It reminded her of what she once heard Joseph Smith say: “Those who have done wrong always have that wrong gnawing them.” It was apparent to her that what Boggs had done to the Latter-day Saints back in Missouri gave him the face of a guilty man whenever he heard the word Mormons.

Peter seemed to sense the direction her thoughts were going. He leaned over and kissed her lightly. “Well, I see the Reeds have already started preparing for bed. Are you ready?”

She nodded. “I was just waiting for you.”

“I’m glad.” He stood up, holding out his hand.

She pushed it aside. “Watch, Peter. I want to show you something.” Her crutches were propped on the log beside her. She picked them up, but only to toss them away from her. Then she straightened, bracing her hands on the log on which she was sitting.

To his amazement, after a moment she pushed herself up, her body straightening slowly. He could see that she trembled a little, but she was steady and there was no danger of her falling. In a moment she was fully erect and looking at him triumphantly.

“Bravo,” he said softly and started toward her.

“No, no,” she cried. “Stay there.”

He stepped back again.

Biting her lip, concentrating fiercely, she lifted one foot and moved it ahead. Now he tensed, suddenly anxious that she might fall. But he willed himself to remain where he was. She shifted her body weight to that foot, steadied herself, then came forward five or six inches. Now her other foot was lifted slowly and placed ahead. Again there was the momentary steadying of herself, and then she stepped forward. Laughing quietly, she repeated it one more time. This time she started to wobble, and Peter took one step forward and let her fall into his arms. He was astonished. “You walked, Kathryn! Without your crutches!”