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“We would finish your cabin. If you would seek this.”

Mr. Warren didn’t say anything at all. I nudged him.

“My father helped build Father Spalding’s house,” Timothy continued.

“That was a very large building.” I remembered it. “Eighteen by forty-eight feet. Mother taught school at one end and sometimes she had two hundred students. Father held church at the other end.”

“We studied outside often.”

“Mr. Warren, will you accept the offer of his help?”

“Yeah? Well, sure. Having extra hands to build would be a good thing. Especially if your father’s coming. I want a separate house.”

And so as with my parents, the Nez Perce people worked to construct our home along another river. The logs they dragged from the copses of trees that dotted the rounded hills, and the work was made so much easier with their many hands. One day two other pairs of hands arrived to assist. The O’Donnell brothers, James and John, with their Irish accents and a “bit of the thirst” they thought needed quenching. I recognized them. They were Mr. Warren’s gaming friends.

“So I’m not the only one who sent invitations.”

“I didn’t think they’d come.” Mr. Warren dropped his eyes, found his boot toe needed concentration. Later that evening he added, “They wouldn’t help with the cattle drive, so I figured . . .” I felt him shrug his shoulders as we curled beneath the light blanket in the tent. Tomorrow we’d set the ridge line on the cabin. Adobe built the fireplace, though I still hoped for that stove that Mr. Warren had promised.

“You made a promise, you said. Not to me, you said.”

“I didn’t take their offer to imbibe, did I?” He turned away from me.

I pressed my hand against his shirtless back. “No. You didn’t. And I’m grateful. And I’ll treat them as your friends. After all, they brought you home one night and probably saved your leg.”

Quick as a snake strike he turned to me. “Don’t bring up old things, ’Liza. It does no good and it angers me.”

I pulled away, startled by the intensity.

“I . . . I was only saying I’d treat them well. As I hope you’ll treat my family when they arrive.”

“Good. Just do what you’re going to do without telling me about all my past sins and omissions, all right?”

“Yes. All right.”

I lay awake long after I heard his heavy sleep-filled breathing. I wasn’t sure I knew how to have a conversation with my husband that wasn’t laced with the poisonous past. I’d worn that path so soundly I didn’t see there were other trails that I could take. With both him and my father I needed to make some change or I’d be doing what I’d always done, and that hadn’t taken me where I wanted to go.

What did I want then? To be full again, as I had been when I was ten before I lost all semblance of a normal life. To be safe. I didn’t want to imagine disasters or whine. I wanted a happy marriage. I wanted my children to know their father and enjoy his company. I wanted to see my father bounce his granddaughters on his knees. I even wanted to have a different life with Rachel, to stop comparing her to my mother. And I wanted my mother’s legacy to be remembered. Not only of her love for us but for her life’s work cut short. I could see how the Nez Perce still loved her and the stories. And The People loved me too. If I could forgive what I thought had happened, I might let their kindnesses fill up my hollow place.

Late August and the heat sweltered as I tugged at garden weeds. I could smell the fish baking at the low fires and knew we’d have a feast that night. The salmon run, as they called it, had reached the Walla Walla and the Touchet River too. We’d have slabs of dried fish to feed us through the winter.

“Mama, look!” America Jane pointed at a slender man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He looked familiar and I recognized his walk. Joy rose up.

“Henry Hart, what are you doing here? I thought you were freighting somewhere.” My brother hugged me, his back carrying no fat beneath my fingers.

“I was. Still am in a way. I’ve a place, on the Snake River. I supply travelers and work with the army to bring food to the new reservations.”

“But how did you know we were here?”

“Word travels on Indian smoke.” He grinned. He was tall and bronzed as an Indian, handsome, my little brother. “And these are my nieces.” He held each girl. I wondered if there was a woman in his life and asked. “Nope. Still a bachelor and that’s all right. I’d like to have something to offer a wife and at present I’m still pretty . . . well, let’s just say I’m glad the Yakima wars are over and they’re letting some folks come this way looking for gold. Things should pick up then.”

“Are the strikes near here?”

“North,” he said. “They’re prospecting and a few nuggets have been found. Word will get out and then I’ll be in better shape. I’ll freight into the mines.” I hoped Mr. Warren wouldn’t take it in his head to search for gold.

“You’re here now and I couldn’t be happier. Guess who else is here?” We walked toward the tipis and my brother clasped the forearm of Timothy, a sign of respectful greeting between friends.

My father arrived shortly after. About twenty head of cattle, their long horns glistening in the sun, came shrouded in dust. “Stay away, America Jane. They’re not friendly like our milk cows. Let your grandfather push them along.”

But it wasn’t my father pushing them at all, it was Millie and Martha Jane, both girls riding astride. My father drove the wagon drawn by two fine-looking mules. Another man sat beside him. I’d hoped it might be Little Shoot but it wasn’t.
I could see that from a distance, as the man was shorter. My sisters shouted and waved ropes over their heads keeping the cattle moving away from the cabin area and where the Indians camped. Several Nez Perce mounted bareback horses and kept the herd in check until they fanned out beyond us into the tall grasses turning brown away from the water. We hadn’t had any rain since the day we’d arrived.

Behind the herd and in front of my father’s wagon came two shoats. I hadn’t seen the pigs in the cattle dust. No sheep, but pigs. And there were chickens in cages hung along the wagon side. He was definitely here to stay.

Mr. Warren may not have welcomed my father with open arms but the Nez Perce did. Tears filled my eyes as I saw my father grow taller in their company, wrapped in their praises. Their happy chatter was a music chime. And then real music rose up, old hymns my mother had taught them in Sahaptin and English, sung with vigor. They all remembered the words and I did too. Even my brother stumbled through some of the Nez Perce versions. “I was never as good at languages as you, Eliza.” If I didn’t think about the language, in the music, it just came, like grace, without me doing anything to make it happen. They repeated the song in English and I so wished my mother could have been there to hear it all, to see that much remained after we left our life at Lapwai.

At the evening feast prepared in my father’s honor, my sisters and I danced with Timothy’s wife and the other women, toe-heel, toe-heel in a circle while the drums pounded. For a brief moment I heard the drums at Waiilatpu, but I made myself stay safely with my sisters, dancing beside the Touchet River. Mr. Welch, the driver who’d come with my father, let himself
be pulled up into the throng while giggling Nez Perce women showed him how to circle dance. He laughed. Soon my brother joined them, his lean body as tall as Timothy’s. He smiled into the eyes of a Nez Perce girl. I looked over at Mr. Warren standing beside the cabin, thinking I’d invite him to dance, too, but he wasn’t smiling.

“Join us,” I said, walking toward him.

“Welch has two left feet and I’d have two right feet.” He scuffed the dirt with his boot, the brim of his hat hid his eyes. “Your brother’s pretty light on his toes, though.” He pulled me to him then, kissed the top of my head as he put his arm over my shoulder. He wore a sheepish grin, so he hadn’t been upset, just feeling awkward.

“But see, it’s just a simple step repeated. You’ll get the hang of it.” He made no move to join me so I stood beside him, watching.

“They love my father. And look at him. He’s smiling in ways I’ve never seen, at least not since that day when I returned from Waiilatpu. I’d forgotten how happy he can look.”

“He’d be a lot happier if you hadn’t married me.”

I refused to pick up his bait. “But I did marry you.” I kissed his cheek. “And I have no regrets.”

“You don’t?”

“Do you?”

“You can be a hard woman to please, Eliza. But no, I’ve no regrets. And I’m glad you came along.” He turned to me then. “I’m a difficult man. I’ve made mistakes. But this cattle thing, I think we’re set with this.”

“They look to thrive.”

“And so will we. I guess your father’s coming with a few head more won’t make much difference. And he brought pigs.”

“Yes. Ham and bacon for Christmas, assuming that shoat’s pregnant.”

“But his bringing cattle means he sees the merit in this too. My own pa didn’t. He thought I was crazy. Like you did, I suspect.”

“Not crazy. Just a dreamer. I guess I’d lost my dreaming ways when Mama died.”

“I know you wanted to go to school.”

I shrugged, but his sensitivity to that loss of mine was warm water soothing my soul. “I did. But I’ve good books to read. And I can teach my girls. And more people will come here, when they see how fruitful the land is. The Whitmans did pick a beautiful country. If only they hadn’t chosen a field the Cayuse claimed as sacred.”

“What’s done is done.”

“Yes. And we are here ready to start a new life.”

But then every day is a day that starts a new life, that requires knitting and going back to pick up lost stitches.

24
Picking Up Lost Stitches

I greeted the O’Donnell brothers respectfully, fed them, watched as my husband joined in their banter, each of them drinking only my grain coffee. But the brothers weren’t here to stay. “We’re seekin’ a sheep herding job, don’t ye know.”

“We have two sheep,” Mr. Warren said.

“Aye, but they’re herded by the Kelpie. No need of us.”

I packed a lunch for them, patted the saddlebag as I pulled the leather down. It surprised me that resentment seemed to leave with them.

Henry made ready to leave, too, but saying good-bye didn’t seem as final as when I’d last seen him at the Academy.

“You left without ever telling me,” I said. “It seemed forever before Father told me where you’d gone.”

“I didn’t see a future in Brownsville. Father and Rachel were settled and there I was with them, the girls having moved in
with you.” He shrugged. “And maybe I was still a little mad at you that you didn’t find a way to go to school.”

“And then there was that incident with the ring, your taking the blame.”

He frowned. “Oh, pshaw, I’d forgotten about that. You should too. Do you still have it?” I nodded. “Maybe it’s time to give it back to Father.”

I shook my head. “No, Mother wouldn’t have wanted him to marry again as he did. She wouldn’t want that ring on Rachel’s finger.”

“You can’t be certain.”

“A daughter knows those sorts of things without being told.”

“Huh. That intuition thing is beyond me.”

“At least now you’re within a week’s ride of us.”

“If you ever need anything, send word.”

“By . . . ?”

“The Indians, of course. They travel here and there and everywhere, even ones supposed to be on reservations. They’ll help you, too, if you treat them square.” We hugged and then went out to talk with our father, working in my garden. Together they walked over to Timothy’s camp.

My father and sisters had other plans too. They had no intention of remaining with us, or at least my father didn’t want to stay. Millie would have joined us. Even Martha mellowed.

“You have a roof over your head and a fireplace,” Martha said. “We’ve got a leaky tent.”

Father approached as she whined.

“You have a cookstove,” I pointed out, wishing my father had brought mine. Mr. Warren had not kept that promise, at least not yet.

“But when it rains—”

“With Nimíipuu hands we’ll have our own cabin before snow flies.”

Mr. Welch, my father’s driver, had moved on before my father’s cabin was even built, seeking work at a settlement growing upriver they now called Walla Walla.