Between Earth & Sky (2 page)

When the woods are broken by a small farm or town, we go to the doors asking to buy fresh milk or eggs or meat, but most everyone lost their animals during the war. We pass large farms where everything—homes, barns, outbuildings—has been burned, the ground slashed with black scars. I gave a whole bag of our flour to a woman with two small children and a grandmother to feed. She could not get her crops in last summer and lived off roots all winter. Her husband, Robert Collins, went to the Academy with our Davey and fought in the Fifth Cavalry.

She cried when she saw the flour. “I lost everyone,” she told me, “except these children and my granny.” The old woman rocked back and forth in a worn rocker on the porch, her eyes lost in a wide hole that had been their barn. “But as long as there are Christians on this earth …” Her tears wet my hands, which she held. She made me see again how lucky I am to have Clayton.

I must get some rest, as I am up before sunrise mixing biscuits and stirring the porridge. We sleep well in our wagon bed—the children between Clayton and me—our feathered nest.

Your Loving Sister,

Abigail

June 25, 1867

Dear Maggie,

Ten long days have passed, and I have finally stolen a few minutes by the lantern to write to you. The men insist on arriving in California no later than November, and unless we use nearly all the daylight to travel, we will get behind schedule.

Josh fell from the wagon. I don't know how it happened, except that he is always wanting to be out running in the dust. I heard his small cry smothered by the creaking of the wagon wheels as I was dressing Amy, jumped down, and thanked God out loud he was not crushed by a wheel. Roger and Sally, who were behind us, had stopped, having seen him fall. I scooped up my baby and insisted he stay put in the bed the rest of the day. Hours later, he still whimpered and cried out when he was jostled and bounced back and forth. I am certain the bone needs to be set, as he has not used the leg in two days, but Clayton insists it is only a sprain and will heal. There is no stopping.

Amy too is full of mischief. She begs to follow the older children to “collect berries” or “pick daisies by the woods,” but gets lost in her own make-believe and lags behind. I am afraid she will wander right off into the wilderness! And already there is talk among us of the Indians. Everyone here is anxious about seeing them, and there is so much fear among some of the women, it is a wonder not more of us have fainted.

Last night shortly after Clayton and I had lain down, the Captain yelled out, “Indians!” and the entire train was thrown into confusion. The men grabbed their guns, and more than a few of them ran into one another while attempting to rush to their posts. A number of women screamed, and most were too frightened to get out of their bedding. I crouched beside our wagon gripping a loaded rifle, which Clayton had taught me to use. Fortunately, it did not discharge itself. We will need more drills before reaching Indian territory.

Hettie Shallot claims the Indians are all savages and after murdering our husbands will strap us to their horses, carry us back to their tribe, and force us to be their wives. She has elaborate plans for extinguishing herself if—I should say when—she hears their yelps and looks up from her sleep to see a painted face staring down at her and a tomahawk swinging above her.

Bea finds all this talk of “savages” amusing and says the Indians “will surely leave Hettie alone if they hear her fierce tongue.” Sally turns away from the campfire when any talk of Indians starts up, and climbs into her wagon, pulling the flaps closed for the night. If the baby is born in Indian territory, the wagon train won't be able to stop, and being a lone wagon somewhere in the middle of the Indian frontier is unthinkable.

Your Loving Sister,

Abigail

July 1, 1867

Dearest Maggie,

Josh still limps when he tries to walk, but he has stopped crying out and so I am hopeful of his recovery. Our journey proceeds slowly but steadily; each day we are closer to the Mississippi. We have crossed two rivers, and both being low, we were able to ford the wagons across. The Conners' milk cow got poisoned by eating jimsonweed and is sorely missed, as it provided many of us with some milk.

Bea Manning and I are becoming fast friends. I know Mother disapproves of her because she is “too outspoken” and more independent “than a lady should be,” but she also has a good deal of common sense and a delightful sense of humor. The “gymnasium costume” she wears, the short wool skirt with full bloomer pants fastening at the knee, is more practical than any of my calico dresses. Yesterday when Hettie complained loudly over having to travel on Sunday, which of course we must do to stay on schedule, Bea turned to me with her hands pressed together in prayer, thanking God in earnest that she would not have to sit through one of Father Davis's sermons, and declared walking itself a kind of worship.

I pulled her to the side of the trail and, when the others had passed us, told her about the paints and canvases I hid in the bottom of the wagon. “Clayton would promptly dump them out if he knew,” I said. “Unnecessary weight. Besides, he doesn't want me spending my time painting when there's baking and sewing and gardening to be done.”

“I brought my favorite books folded up in a towel and stuffed in my pillow case,” she told me. “I've also got my best ink pens under the silverware. They can't expect us to leave everything that is civilized behind.”

What will I do for company once we reach New Mexico? If you and your family did not plan to follow us soon, I would indeed have difficulty leaving the others to go on to California without us. Clayton thinks only of reaching New Mexico in time to investigate the mining opportunities he has been offered. I have implored him to consider staying with the others and settling in California, as you suggested, near San Francisco or San Diego, where Bea says there are schools and churches and roads with shops, but he does not hear me. He claims that land is the same everywhere and that we can farm it in New Mexico as well as we could in California. With the money he insists he will earn mining in New Mexico, he is sure that before long we will be ahead there. But to be without churches and schools, without all these civilizing forces that make a community!

Oh, to be in your arms again, Sister, and hear your soothing advice!

Abigail

July 8, 1867

Dearest Maggie,

Today we crossed the Mississippi, and what a grand river it is, with rich fertile land far as you can see on either side and lovely willows arching towards the water from the bank. We were ferried across and had to take the wagon wheels off and carry everything onto rafts, piling them high with our goods. The rafts were pulled to the other side by a pulley that stretched across the water. The whole operation took most of the day, as we were pulled downstream by the current and had to be towed to the landing before the load could be taken off.

Josh and Amy were lit with the excitement of it. I had to grasp each one firmly by the hand, or they would have been off into the deep, cool water and down the wide Mississippi heading for New Orleans, but we had no casualties and did not lose any of the stock, which they took across by tying the ropes to the horns of the oxen and around the necks of the mules and horses. This westward crossing is not as dangerous as we feared!

I know Mother could not possibly comprehend how we women accomplish the daily chores of life here on the trail, but I hope, Sister, that you will try. Not only do we do our own cooking, but we must manage it without a stove. Tonight I baked a skillet of corn bread over hot rocks to have as a treat from our regular fare of beans and coffee. Some afternoons I work dough in my hands as I walk. In the evenings we women cook beans over the open fire; sometimes a little biscuit is made to go with them. Clean-up consists of finding a stream. You would not believe the expense of everyday staples we take for granted in Virginia. Milk costs twenty-five cents for a quart bottle, so we only give it to the children. Eggs and chickens are just as expensive.

Last night shortly before dawn, we heard a weak war whoop, followed by the cry of “Indians!” We soon learned it was a false alarm given by Mr. Tanner, who delights in all kinds of practical jokes, such as roping together the legs of a friend's oxen. A number of shotguns were lifted and two were fired. There was a woman who fainted. When the excitement was ended, several of the men went off into the woods led by Mr. Tanner, convinced, I think, that if they searched hard enough a real Indian might turn up.

The rest of us readied the wagons for an early start, and I am sure Clayton and I were not the only ones who had visions of stringing up our humorous companion for depriving us of even a little of our much-needed sleep. Tomorrow is Sunday, and we will have a day of rest before we head out across Arkansas, but I will need to spend it washing dust from our clothing with the water we've saved in rain barrels. All of our clothes will require plenty of scrubbing.

As we get closer to the frontier, Clayton claims he is tired of the wooded countryside and boasts he will welcome the wide, open frontier of the southwest, but I fear I will miss the gentle dogwoods and the shade the oak trees give us from the heat. I cannot imagine a land empty of them.

Your Sister,

Abigail

July 16, 1867

My Dearest Sister,

We are now crossing Arkansas. The trail is rockier and the woods are a dense mass of greens and browns. Very little of the land here has been cultivated, and the trees and brush seem to grow whichever tangled way they want. I look into the distance and watch a hawk, wings spread wide, dip and sway across the trees and know this is a place that has not been tamed. Each night there is talk around the campfire of wildcats and bears as we stare out into the thick trees and listen for the snapping of twigs and branches.

During the days it has been so hot that Josh and Amy cry most of the time. Bedding them down to ride in the wagon just makes them hotter, as there is not enough air and the sun turns the wagon into an oven. When I dip rags in water and wipe the dust off them, Clayton tells me not to waste the water. I know he is right, but it's just a little I put on the rag. We are all tanned and sunburned, even the ladies, despite the bonnets we wear. Amy has pulled the doll you made into shreds, carrying it with her all day as she walks, refusing to leave it in the wagon. I intend to sew the pieces together once we are stopped long enough for me to dig out my needles and thread.

Yesterday evening when the wagons had circled, Roger came for me. I climbed into his wagon, everything going dark the way it does after you have walked under the bright, bright sky all day, so that I had to follow the lines of the wagon—the cloth sides, the wooden box packed with dishes and clothing, the blankets folded across the bed—to find Sally's curled shape. She was holding the cloth pillow cover I had watched her embroider sitting on Mama's porch shortly after her marriage.

I sat down on the wagon bed. Her face was hot as a coal from the campfire. She opened her eyes, narrow slits of whiteness, saw that I was there, and closed them again. “Go get more help,” I said to Roger, who stood at the end of the wagon, his mouth wide open with me ordering him.

The blood had soaked through the quilt Sally's mama had sewn. “The baby's not moving,” she whispered as I tried to prop her up against the side of the wagon. “I was afraid to tell Roger. They can't stop the whole train for one woman having a baby.”

It was after midnight before the baby was born. If Anna's mother had not been there, we would have lost Sally, that baby turned wrong and it taking every bit of strength Mrs. Vernon had to pull it out right. Even with Mrs. Vernon there, I thought for a good while we would lose Sally, her life running out, soaking the mattress. I kept remembering when we were girls, the three of us climbing that oak tree beside her house, the sound our dresses made, ripping.

“Heart-friends cannot be parted,” she said to me once. Next to you, whom I miss more than I can write, she is my oldest and dearest friend. The thought of losing her on the trail before we reached New Mexico was one I could not bear.

The baby is a boy, with a head full of hair dark as Sally's. He has not cried above a whimper. Sally cannot stand yet. I stayed in the wagon with her most of the morning. She winced each time the wagon bumped or jolted, and bit her lip to keep from crying out. Bea says our lot is harder than a man's, because war or no war, we have to face childbirth. I suppose she is right.

Your Loving Sister,

Abigail

July 18, 1867

Dear Maggie,

Sally's baby boy died this morning. We buried it beside the trail but left no marker, so that the Indians would not find it. They say the Indians dig up the dead for their clothing and jewelry, sometimes taking their scalps. Sally was too weak to leave the wagon, so I helped Roger place the poor little thing in a rough box he had fashioned the night before when he saw it was dying.

Sally wanted the baby dressed in the christening gown and cap she had brought from home. When I carried the baby to her before we laid it in the box, I started to set him in her lap, but she reached up and touched the fine lace on the christening gown, smoothing it between her fingers. Finally, she dropped her hand and turned her head towards the sky, which showed a deep blue already through the opening of the wagon. “I would give anything for a picture of him that I could keep,” she said to that brightness.