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“You’ll see us again, God willing. The exact words your mother said to her parents when we left New York!” He shook his head in wonder.

I saw tears on my father’s cheeks and turned north to our new beginning.

20
Heading Backward

Our first evening stop developed our routines. We’d packed grain for the oxen and mules to supplement grasses that grew beside the road. We didn’t want them wandering off onto people’s property, something overland emigrants didn’t have to worry over. Everything was still free range in the eastern part of the territory. That’s what had appealed to Mr. Warren. After Charles built a fire and Little Shoot set up tents, the Kalapuya and Hannah picked berries into a twine basket Little Shoot brought with him. Later he washed up the dishes and I commented on his doing women’s work.

“Work does not know who does it. It just wants to be done.”

I smiled. “Someone taught you how to do what is typical of women’s work, though.”

“My grandmother. She feared I would not find a woman to accept my ugly face so made certain I could feed myself.”

“A wise woman. I’ll remember that if I ever have a son.” I
surprised myself by thinking I might want another child with Mr. Warren. My annoyance and anger at him was waning even then.

Despite my trepidation at going it without my husband, I found myself sleeping deeply, waking to the sunrise and the sweet smells of summer.

Our third night north, we heard wolves howl and we huddled the sheep close to our wagons. I was pleased for my helpers even more. In the morning, the trail took us near the Aurora community, so the Ruckers asked if they could stop at the
gross haus
where their leader and several families lived, to let them know they’d hired out for a time. As it was a Sunday and we’d stopped for the Sabbath, I agreed. We heard music coming from the long two-story house with a wide veranda, and Charles explained that worship began on Saturday afternoon and ended at Sunday noon, followed by music and food and “talking. It is when girls and boys can be together.”

“Otherwise women do what women do and men what they do,” Hannah added, “unless it is time to butcher or stack hay or pick hops. We do all together, those.”

Little Shoot and the girls and I remained with the wagon, but we could hear the festivities and I wondered if the Ruckers might change their minds about going with us. I thought of what I’d do if they did. Turn back and wait until I found others to go with us? But they returned and my imaginations once again resulted in the fears not coming forward. Perhaps making the commitment brought on the peace not found in all the ruminating about whether to go or stay.

We headed north toward Oregon City the following morning and the Ruckers commented on how many more houses there were. “Coming across the trail we saw not so many people. It grows fast here.”

“Imagine if you will how much it’s changed since when I was young,” I said.

“You came across when?”

“I never did. I was the first white child to live born west of the Shining Mountains.”

“Aaahh,” Little Shoot said. “You are long time here.”

“Not so long as your people.”

We had our evening rest not far from the Willamette Falls.

“You are grandma, a
kasa
?” Little Shoot grinned. “You tell stories of your growing.”

“Not old as a grandma, but when I was little we lived in Lapwai on the Clearwater River, and every year dozens of white people came our way when I was old enough to remember. I haven’t been back. I imagine it’s changed greatly.” I didn’t say I had no desire to return.

“Where my people dug roots and hunted deer, already people live there, make it different.”

“I imagine they do.” All our Lapwai buildings had been built on someone else’s land, not even “owned” land, as my mother explained to me. The Nez Perce didn’t see the hills and rivers as belonging to anyone. It was there for use, given by the Creator, in order for all his people to survive and thrive. Everyone was charged with caring for it, being wise.

“Grateful I am that Dr. Kiel purchased the acres our colony has,” Charles said.

“From Kalapuya?” Little Shoot asked.

“No. Others already claimed it. A man named White.”

Little Shoot nodded as though that made perfect sense. Charles looked away. The Cayuse claim that the Whitmans had stolen their land came to mind. Could the violence really have been about that? About who had the power to give and take what they so desperately loved? Who is to say what made them
do it? Taking back power could be a vehement thing. Was that why our Lord had encouraged us to do things a different way, grant forgiveness?

Lizzie fussed and I moved away from the wagon end where Hannah had placed hardtack and beef jerky for our light supper. The Ruckers had brought back sausage with a perfect blend of spices. I fed my baby and listened to Charles play his harmonica while I tucked America Jane into her bedroll in the wagon, knelt beside her to hear her simple prayers, then crawled in and spoke my own. I wasn’t certain what forgiveness really was, but it had come to me in the context of the Cayuse. I asked for clarity in my prayers that night, direction.
Grateful I am.
I echoed Charles’s words. I hoped that by the time we reached Touchet country I might have found a better way to look at what had happened to me not far from there and forgive my husband for taking me to a place of memory fraught with harm.

We passed through Oregon City quickly. I didn’t need to go anywhere near the scaffoldings, though surely they’d been torn down. People had lost their taste for hangings and a jail had been built after the trial. But I could still see the faces of the men: Tiloukaikt. Tomahas. Kiamasumpkin. Isiaachsheluckas. Clokomas. The Cayuse (and the Umatilla people too) had claimed at the trial that their actions were required as revenge on medicine men who gave poor medicine. Dr. Whitman had not cured their measles and many had died. His medicine was no good and justice meant he must die too. But the jury disagreed. More than Dr. Whitman died, they said. Some women and children too. And all were not killed in the heat of that one horrible day. Several were slaughtered over a week later. I’d forgotten that until I heard it at the trial. Perhaps to keep us hostages meek
and frightened and willing to do whatever they said. I remember watching little Mary Marsh knit a long stocking for one of the Cayuse who grabbed her chicken-leg arm, pinched it into pain, and told her to “Knit” or he would kill her. I had to translate but his ferocious face told her as much. He boxed her ears when she failed to knit fast enough for her captor. They kept water scarce as a baby’s whiskers. They decided when we would drink. One Sager boy died trying to get us water. They shot him with the canteen in his hands, two days after the initial assault.

“Mrs. Warren. You are ill?” Little Shoot spoke to me, his hand shaking the guiding stick keeping the oxen on their path. I walked beside him. “You do not answer me.”

“What? No, I’m fine.” My heartbeat slowed. This day, I heard the thundering falls as falls and not the hooves of horses from my past. I stayed with my children, here.

We camped the next day outside Portland, and I took Charles with me to the Oregon Steam Navigation company to secure passage on the middle river to The Dalles. Gold discovered in the Washington Territory the previous year spurred new craft-building, so I hoped we’d find a ship. Lizzie rode with me, her not being able to be far from her food source, and I didn’t know how long our negotiations would take. America Jane was content with Hannah and didn’t pout when I left her—a good sign, I thought. I had no fear of leaving her behind.

We had little trouble finding a vessel but were told we’d have to wait a day, miners paying to go first. There were stories of Paiute raids on miners who ignored their rights to the land, searching for gold in some “blue bucket” mine an immigrant claimed to have left behind. Danger lurked there on my husband’s journey.

How long Mr. Warren’s crossing would take was an unknown. But I felt a pressure to be on that steamship, as I’d
taken so long to decide. We hurried back to bring the others and camped near the Company to load first thing in the morning.

The sway of the craft on the water reminded me that I did not like boat travel. America Jane stood beside Little Shoot, smiling while I lost my breakfast despite my panting like a dog and found myself shaking as Hannah took Lizzie from my arms. “I watch her,
ja.
” Lizzie didn’t protest and I was grateful, as my stomach did. Even when the water was smooth, the chug of the engines, the smell of the wood that fired them, the sounds of water pouring over the wheels, all worked to keep me off balance even when I focused on the timbered horizon.

The constant wind in my face tired my eyes, irritated the girls. We reached a rapids and a falls and had to portage east around it and board another boat. I welcomed the walking respite. When we reached The Dalles, we disembarked again and this time we took the wagons on our own.

I remembered this little town from when I’d been so ill after Father, Henry Hart, and I traveled to the ocean. I’d gotten sick on a boat then too. But here I’d had some other ailment that didn’t want to let me go. I remember feeling weak and frail, barely hearing conversations between my father and Mr. Walker and Mr. Brewer, both missionaries to the round-faced Indians who fished there. The falls thundered like the Willamette’s and perhaps the noise kept me from hearing as well.

“I have been to this place,” Little Shoot said. “My
kasa
takes me long years ago.”

“Those men look different, Mama,” America Jane said. I shushed her, though she was right. The Indians who fished here were rounder and not just on their faces. I didn’t see many horses tearing at grass either. The town smelled of fish and bustled with river traffic and a mercantile and even a hotel with the name Umatilla House across the front. Every business stood ready to
sell goods to the trains of wagons arriving from the east later in the year and to miners heading east. Dragoons in uniform stood in small clusters away from their fort for the day, reminding us that we were only a year beyond the latest Indian Wars.

Arriving toward evening as we did, I took a room at the Umatilla House, leaving my wagon with Little Shoot, who would not have been given a room even if I’d rented it for him. He said he’d tend the two sheep too. The Ruckers stayed with the wagons as well, though I offered them a place. “We take cost of rooms as add-on to contract,
ja
. We stay with goods.”

In the morning I sought to find out whether my husband had arrived. Surely someone appearing from the south with three hundred head would be remembered. If not, then I could assume he had yet to appear.

“Nothing like that’s been this way.” This answer from the hotel manager named Graves when I questioned him. “Sure we’d hear about it, though he wouldn’t come into town I wouldn’t guess. Where’s he headed with them? I might buy one or two from him.”

“Touchet River, in Walla Walla country.”

“What’s there? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Grass and missing fences. And a drier climate than in Brownsville.”

“It’s that, all right. Well, if I hear anything I’ll send word.”

The old worries began. Might Mr. Warren simply bypass this landing and cross upriver and I never know? Would he believe that I had come and send word? Maybe he’d think me contrary and decide I’d remained behind. What if something had happened and he wasn’t even alive? Had I lived weeks as a widow and didn’t even know?

“Mama, when’s
Papo
coming?”

“I don’t know, America. We just have to be patient.”

“What’s a patient?”

“Not what is a patient, but we have to be patient, to keep our thoughts calm, find things to occupy ourselves until we receive what we’re waiting for.”

“Are you a patient?”

“Am I patient? I’m trying to be. I miss your
papo
too. Let’s walk out to the wagons and see how Hannah and Mr. Rucker and Little Shoot fare.”

“I’m a good patient,” she chirped.

I didn’t correct her word usage a second time and for a moment did wonder if all my imaginings of the worst did make me a kind of “patient,” ill in my thinking while my body was sound. I shook myself and sent up a prayer for advice about how to proceed, something I ought to do more of. It’s what my mother would have done.

Back at the hotel Mr. Graves said, “I’ve been thinking about you heading east. Going the wrong way with those wagons. Everyone else is heading west.”

“We’ve been there,” I said. “Been east, too, but going back that way.”

“How far? Virginia? New York?”

I shook my head. “Back to the beginning.” He puzzled at that and I let him. I walked near the water, waiting. I was without my husband and who knew for how long?