True Sisters (30 page)

“What’s it say?” the girl had asked.

“Your name. Emeline,” he’d replied. “Can’t you read it?”

“Can’t read.”

“Then I’ll teach you.” And at each stop, he had written a letter or a simple word, and Emeline had copied it. Once he wrote “love,” and after that, Emeline had written it at each stop.

“That was his way of saying he loves you,” Jessie confided to her.

“The wonder of it, a girl like me.”

Now, the dressing had slipped off Ephraim’s stump, which had begun to heal. It was no longer an angry red. Still, Ephraim was weak, and it was all he could do to walk. They were all in bad shape. Only willpower kept Emeline going, and Jessie did not know how long she herself could continue, but she refused to think about that, because the others would not make it without her.

None of them noticed the rider who stopped beside them until he spoke. “Do you need a hand?”

“A left one,” Ephraim said, indicating the stump.

Jessie smiled. Ephraim had been a good laugher once, and thanks to Emeline, he might be again.

“I beg pardon,” the man said. He might have blushed, but they couldn’t tell because his face was red from the cold.

“It’s all right. Without you rescuers, I might have lost the other one. Or my life. I never saw a sight I liked better in my life than you people riding into camp, Brother…”

“Brother Thomas,” he said.

“Can you hitch your horse to our cart, Brother Thomas?” Jessie asked.

“I can tie my lariat to it and pull it, if you and your daughter will steady it from behind. Your husband and mother can walk.”

“He’s not my husband, but my brother,” Jessie explained. “We thought there would be provisions before now. We were told…” She shrugged. What reason was there to complain about the lack of planning, the lack of food and warm clothing? After all, they were being cared for now.

Thomas dismounted and tied a rope to the crosspiece of the handcart. “It should hold.”

“They are poor built,” Ephraim told him.

“I can see it.” He mounted and walked the horse slowly until the rope was taut. Then Jessie and Emeline put their hands against the back of the cart, and with Ephraim and Maud walking behind, they started off. Thomas pulled the cart until the crosspiece fell off, and then he tried to tie the rope around the shafts, but that didn’t work. “We’re but a mile from the camp. Can you pull the cart on your own?” he asked. “There are others I must help, but I’ll come back.”

“We’ll make it,” Jessie said. Thanks to the horse, which had relieved her from pulling the cart for part of the journey, she felt a little rested.

“I won’t forget you. I’ll make sure you reach the camp,” Thomas said, and rode off.

Jessie took one shaft and Emeline the other, and they plodded along, not stopping until they saw a young man who had collapsed under a sagebrush. The two women left the cart and went over to the Saint, asking if he needed help.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered. “It is too much to get up.”

“If you tarry, you will die,” Jessie told him.

“I will die anyway. I’ve had nothing to eat but the straps of my boots.” The man laid his head in the snow and refused to move.

“Please, it’s not even a mile,” Emeline pleaded, but the man only turned away.

Suddenly, Maud yelled, “Your mother is hunting you. Jump up. You must help her.”

The Saint scrambled to his feet and looked around, but he could not see his parent. “Where?”

“Ahead,” Maud pointed. “Hurry on before it’s too late.” As the lad ran off the others watched, smiling at the way Maud had provoked him. “Running will get his blood flowing, and he will be in the camp before we are,” Maud told them. Jessie and Emeline returned to their cart, and late in the afternoon, they reached Devil’s Gate.

Some eighteen inches of snow lay on the ground there, blown by the wind into drifts as big as hedgerows, but Jessie was used to snow, so that was not what stunned her as she reached the camp. She had expected to help set up her tent, build her own fire from fuel she’d collected on the way. So she was startled by the frenzy of activity at Devil’s Gate, which was a crumbling fort made up of the remains of two walls and seven or eight log buildings. Huge fires blazed, and tents had been erected. Rescuers handed out blankets and coats, shoes, boots, and even handkerchiefs.

The members of the Cooper party pushed into the largest of the old fort’s structures to stand near a fire, but the air was suffocating inside, what with the heat and the steam from the wet clothing, and several women had fainted. So the four found a smaller fire and crowded near it, hoping that finally they would be warm. Jessie tried to think back to the last time she hadn’t been cold and couldn’t remember. Was it Fort Laramie or Florence? Or maybe she’d been cold ever since she left England.

“You are not going to freeze tonight,” Thomas said, coming up to stand beside her. “I’ve been looking for you, Sister. As you can see, I’ve kept my promise to make sure you arrived safe. There’s to be flour handed around and beef, but you must be patient. First we must ensure the fires won’t give out.”

“Will the Lord provide us with firewood?” Jessie asked, then wondered if she had blasphemed and if this man who had been so kind to them would be shocked.

“He will, and He will provide woodcutters to chop it for you.” Thomas left to join other rescuers who were taking axes to the wall of a cabin and chopping it into firewood. Then the men handed out the logs, one to each family.” Jessie and Emeline built a fire with theirs; then the two of them and Maud took off their shoes and stockings to let them dry near the flames, sitting with their bare feet to the fire.

Just then, however, Thomas returned, his hands holding something behind his back. “I’ve brought your supper,” he said, handing a piece of meat to Jessie. “Now don’t quarrel over it like a houseful of wives.”

“We never quarrel among ourselves,” Maud told him. And Jessie wondered if polygamous wives did indeed fight over the best cuts of meat, the cabbage without worms, the milk not yet spoiled. Perhaps in hard times, those who were out of favor received no food at all. But she did not think about such things for long. Instead, barefoot, she went to the cart for the tin plates and forks, while Emeline sharpened a stick and pushed it through the piece of meat, which she held over the fire.

“Brother Thomas, you are welcome to join us, but you must have your own plate. We are poor prepared for guests,” Jessie said.

“It is little enough for four people.” He turned aside to wipe his eyes, saying that a little snow had gotten into them. Then he told Jessie, “These few days are the most melancholy time I have ever passed through. I did not expect to find sharing.” He cleared his throat, perhaps because such emotion was unmanly. “When the fire’s gone out, pitch your tent on the spot. You won’t have to scoop away the snow with a frying pan, and you will sleep warmer than you have in many nights.”

“Without your help, we would surely have died. We owe our lives to you.”

“Oh, damn that,” Thomas replied. “We don’t want any of that. You are welcome. We have come to help you.”

*   *   *

With Lucy wrapped in blankets and riding on top of the cart and Joe and Catherine walking beside them, John and Anne pulled the cart together. Usually, Anne pushed, but the day was so cold and the wind so brutal that she was warmer beside John, and warmth seemed more important than speed. He was silent. The cold made taking a breath like breathing through a hat. Besides, the wind scattered the words. But there was little to say that hadn’t been said the night they arrived at Devil’s Gate. They had talked it out.

“It is too much, too much to ask of us,” he’d said that evening as he dropped the shafts and fell down between them after they reached the camp.

Anne had been every bit as tired, but she’d said nothing about her state. Instead, she told him, “It is a religion that requires sacrifice. We knew it at the outset.”

“Haven’t we sacrificed enough—our shop, our livelihood, everything we owned, our…” He swallowed and added, “Our daughter and son. What more does God expect? Does He want the rest of us, too?”

“We don’t know His purpose. We can only hope He has one.”

“You sound like the missionaries.” There was sarcasm in John’s voice.

Anne shrugged and searched the cart for the tin plates, handing them to Joe and Catherine. The three began to scoop away the snow so that they could set up their tent. The process, Anne knew, might take them an hour. John watched for a moment, then got up, took out his own plate, and joined them.

“They say this is not as bad as it was at Winter Quarters,” Catherine said, shaking her head to rid her old bonnet of the snow that had accumulated on top.

“Damn Winter Quarters! Those there would say that even hell could not be worse,” John replied. “I believe they are poor remembrancers of past times. If Winter Quarters was this bad, the Saints would have perished and there would be no church. I am tired of hearing about Winter Quarters. But I suppose that in a year’s time, those of us who make it to the valley with our handcarts will count ourselves God’s anointed for having survived this ordeal. I’m sure our hardships will be magnified a hundredfold, if that’s possible. Perhaps our experience will count toward the celestial kingdom.”

John was bitter, and Anne and Catherine exchanged looks because the words were blasphemous and John could be censored in meeting. But Anne knew Catherine would never repeat them, and no one else could hear them with the wind howling. Nonetheless, Catherine said, “I myself do not believe it is wrong to question the church. That is how we learn. But it would be better if ye didn’t voice your criticisms in such a loud voice.”

“You’re right. That old zealot who spoke out so strongly in favor of continuing this trip from Florence might make me sorry,” John said sourly. “I’ve not heard the leaders pontificate much of late.”

“Ye are distressed, like so many, wondering how the Lord can bring such hardship to His people, but as Sister Anne says, He has a reason. The hand of the Lord is with us yet. We would not be here if we dinna believe that.”

“Where else would we be? Do you think we could turn back? That would be certain death,” John said.

Catherine stopped scooping for a moment, glancing down at the red drops of blood in the snow. They had come from her hands, which were raw from the cold and ice. “There is no place for an apostate to go in this storm, and few enough places even for a believer,” she agreed. “But ye are not an apostate. Ye are a man who has been sorely tried, and ye want to know for what purpose. The Lord asks much of His people, but He brings us miracles, too.” John started to say something, but Catherine held up her plate, as if she knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. “The rescuers. There’s a miracle. It’s said that after another day, the express riders would hae turned back. But they found us. Can any question that was God’s will?”

“
Are
you an apostate?” Anne asked her husband. She knew John questioned, but she did not believe he had gone that far.

“No. Oh, no. But I believe the Lord owes us an explanation, especially to you, Anne. Why must you sacrifice when this is not even your religion?”

Anne looked at her husband for a long time, for he was not one to apologize.

When Anne didn’t reply, Catherine asked, “Isn’t it? Isn’t it her faith, too?”

John looked at the woman sharply. “You know as much. Anne is not a Saint.”

Catherine didn’t reply, but instead, she turned to Anne.

“I have not been baptized,” Anne said.

“Would you be willing?” John asked.

“No one would be willing to be baptized in this snow.”

John narrowed his eyes at his wife. “You have toyed with me these past days. Say aloud what you believe.”

“I am not sure what I believe.”

“Could you become a Mormon after all that’s happened?”

Anne thought that over. “Perhaps I would not join your church, but I have joined your people. I don’t believe I could accept these hardships if I did not admire the faith of those who experienced them. I will stay with you here, in your Zion.”

John looked at his wife for a long time. “It is enough. I think I should get down on my knees and thank God, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to get up. Besides, I believe you would rather I scoop away snow than pray.”

“Did the Lord speak to ye?” Catherine asked.

Anne turned back to the snow with her plate and scraped away part of a drift. “I’m not for sure knowing what it was. I’ve never seen such goodness, such sacrifice. The Saints’ kindness to me knows no bounds.”

“And the doctrine?” John asked. “Do you still question it?”

Lucy crept up to her mother then, and to the little girl’s delight, Anne drew a face in the snow. The girl destroyed it with her hand, pushing her mitten back and forth across the face until nothing remained of it. Then she drew a clumsy face of her own. Anne added a body to it, a girl in a skirt, and the two of them laughed.

“The doctrine,” John reminded his wife.

“I cannot accept it yet, cannot accept the deaths of Emma Lee and Samuel. God knows I will never accept that.” She turned to look at her husband. “But I believe the Lord loves your people, that if you prove worthy, He will bless you.”

“And if ye are wrong?” Catherine asked.

“Then you are wrong, and John is wrong. And so is everyone here. And we will all perish, the unbelievers included.”

Joe, who had been shoveling snow beside them, listening, turned to Anne. “Mama, does that mean you are a Mormon now?”

“Not quite.”

“Then I’ll hope for it so you won’t go to hell.” He thought a moment and added, “Papa can take Sister Catherine for his second wife.”

They all laughed at that. But even if John had considered such a preposterous idea, it was not to be. Later that evening, as they ate a meal of flour cooked with a little water and a beef bone, Catherine complained of a discomfort in her chest. Anne made a bed for her under the cart, where she would be protected from the snow. But that did no good. In an hour, the old woman was dead. There was no good-bye from her, no final word. Only when Anne went to Catherine to see if she needed anything did she discover that her friend had crossed over.