True Sisters (24 page)

Ephraim looked at his sister sourly. “Emeline does what she likes. Don’t you?” He turned to the girl.

“I won’t desert you. I’ll stay so long as you do.”

“Then we will all surely freeze to death in this spot,” Sutter said. “Jessie won’t leave without Emeline, and I can’t pull the cart without Jessie. We will none of us reach Zion.”

“It’s a hard way of serving the Lord,” Jessie added. Then looking at her brother, she said, “And a hard way you have of serving us.”

But Ephraim was unmoved, and they stayed where they were, the snow beginning to cover them, until Emeline spoke. “Couldn’t we stop every hour for five minutes? Maybe ten? Then we’ll go on another hour. That way, Ephraim can rest—we’ll all rest—but we’ll still keep going.”

Ephraim only frowned. “How do you know when an hour’s up? The clock was left in Iowa.”

Ephraim did not appear to be making a joke, but Emeline laughed, and in a moment, he smiled a little and clumsily got to his feet. “You won’t let me die in peace, will you?” And Emeline shook her head.

“The girl has the wisdom of Solomon,” Maud muttered.

Or she is in love, Jessie said to herself. That was surely true. As they trudged along, Jessie studied Emeline, who was holding on to Ephraim. The two would marry when they reached the valley, she thought. The girl was young, far too young for marriage, but inside she was as old as Maud. She had seen more of the world than Jessie, more of the evil and cruelty, and she had been saved from it—saved by Thales Tanner, of all people. Emeline would make a good wife. She would save Ephraim from himself, from his bitterness, his self-pity at losing his arm. The two were a good match, the brooding man and the wise little girl who had endured so much before being reborn as a Saint. Emeline had cared for him like a biddy hen, changing the dressings on his arm and giving him part of her food. It was clear she longed to do for him, but she forced him to learn to make do with one arm. And Ephraim, in turn, made the girl forget her ugly life. Emeline had told Jessie a little of it, how she had been sent out by herself to find men on the street, then forced to turn her money over to the man Twiss, who beat her if she did not bring enough. Her only friend was Marianna, a girl her own age. Sometimes, if they were lucky and made more than expected, they would go into a tea shop and pretend they were great ladies, ordering tea and mince tarts. Emeline found a bracelet in the street, which she presented to her friend, who wore it until Twiss wrenched it off her arm and gave it to his favorite. Despite her shabby life, Emeline had as sunny a disposition as any other Saint, and Jessie would not mind her as her brother’s wife.

She had not thought much about her brothers marrying. The three of them had never needed anyone else. She had believed they would find a piece of ground together in Zion and farm it. She knew that someday they would marry, but not yet. Later, when the farm was thriving, when they were older and settled, they would build three houses close together—three, because she would wed, too, wed a man who was as strong and vital as her brothers. Not Thales Tanner, of course! Not any man who practiced polygamy.

Jessie’s shawl had come undone, and the wind swirled it about her. She stopped pulling to wrap the shawl around herself again, and as she did so, the cart slowed, and another passed the Coopers. Jessie recognized the man—Brother Edward Tripp, a cobbler. She had met him at home when she was a girl and had taken her shoe to him to be mended. He had had curly yellow hair and blue eyes, and she had thought him the fairest man she had ever met, had dreamed of him for a husband one day. But she had been very young then, and he was much older. He had listened to her solemnly as she explained how she had ripped the bottom off the shoe, then patted her on the head and offered her a ginger drop. Jessie had been humiliated that he treated her like a child.

Now, as Edward passed by, he glanced at Jessie and gave her a nod of recognition. And was it a look of interest, too? Who could tell through the film of white? He was married. His wife and their children pushed the cart. At home, Jessie would have found such a look pert. But he was a Mormon, and Mormon men might flirt with any unmarried woman. He had gotten pompous and long-winded, if his testimonies at meeting were any indication. She would not like to be even his first wife.

It was foolish to worry about a husband now, although the subject did take Jessie’s mind off the terrible cold. Some of the men she had considered, even those who were young and strong, were likely to die before they reached the valley. She might, too. Jessie hadn’t thought of that before, but now she realized the weather and lack of food had taken a toll on her strength. She was no longer the sturdy young emigrant who had left England. None of them were. Even Sutter had weakened. His breath was raspy, and from time to time, he stumbled. He had been her rock and her fortress, and Jessie felt a cold place in her heart when she realized that the trek had affected that brother, too. Perhaps Sutter did, as well, because he raised his head into the driven snow and mumbled, “God be merciful to us and save us from the grasp of destruction.”

Sutter rarely made such pronouncements, and Jessie shivered—and not from the cold this time. If something happens to Sutter … She did not let herself finish the thought. Instead, she announced that an hour had passed and it was time to a rest. “Why, I never saw time pass so fast,” Ephraim joked. He would be all right, Jessie decided. It was Sutter she worried about now. Without him to pull the cart, they would all die. Something had to be done to preserve his strength. Jessie wished she could give him a cracker or a pancake, but they had eaten their rations the night before and would have nothing more to sustain them until the evening. She wondered if Maud had some restorative among her herbs, although she doubted it, because Maud’s reserve was nearly depleted. Besides, it would be too much effort to unpack the cart to look for the scanty supply that was left. She looked at Sutter, then glanced back at Ephraim. Both of her brothers were sorely tried. She thought about the valley, about her cousin Rebecca, and wondered if she had received the letter Jessie had written to say they were coming. Perhaps Sutter and Ephraim could be taken into her home to heal.

Others passed the Cooper cart as the group huddled together against the cold. The Saints, their heads bowed against the wind, were too absorbed in their own misery to notice those who had fallen along the wayside. Jessie did not blame them, because she herself had paid small attention to any who were stopped, knowing it was all she could do to keep her own little band moving. She watched the emigrants, most poorly clad, one or two whose feet were wrapped in strips of canvas or sacking because their shoes had fallen away, moving like defeated men under the weight of the carts. She recognized some of the Saints, but she paid them no more attention than they did her.

Then she saw the Tanner cart, her friend Louisa, and Louisa’s sister, Huldah, and their mother, Margaret, emerging like ghosts through a veil of white. A little boy plodded along beside them, and Jessie remembered that his brother had drowned in the North Platte. Had it been only the day before? The last days ran together in her mind. Jessie reached out to Huldah, who recognized her and stopped. “I am so sorry, Sister Huldah,” Jessie said, wishing her mind was not deadened and that she could think of something more comforting to say.

“It was the Lord’s will,” Huldah replied dully.

“No,” said the boy, but the mother hushed him.

“He’s lost both brother and grandfather. It’s not easy for him.”

“Or for you,” Jessie said, and Huldah nodded.

“I wish I understood the Lord’s mysterious ways,” the bereaved woman said.

“We must have faith,” Jessie told her, thinking her words mawkish. She wondered how much faith Huldah put in the Lord now or how much she herself did, for that matter. How little comfort it must be to the woman to be told that God’s purpose was greater than her son’s life. Her discouragement must be profound. Huldah looked at Jessie dumbly.

“We knew the journey would not be easy,” Louisa said. She held her shawl close to her face with hands that had once been plump and smooth but now were red and bleeding.

“Uncle Thales—” the boy said, but his mother told him again to be still.

At that, Thales came over to the women, and recognizing Jessie, he said, “You have stayed strong, Sister.”

She nodded, although she knew her strength had ebbed. “I am well enough, but I’m afraid for my brother Ephraim. We tried to find him a place on the wagon, but…” She shrugged and did not finish.

“He is better off walking. It keeps the blood going. Those in the wagon could freeze to death.”

“Not everyone who’s denied a place can walk. Some have to crawl. Isn’t that as sure a way of death as freezing?” Jessie asked.

She had expected Thales to tell her to have faith, that lack of faith had caused their troubles. But instead, he shrugged. “I do not know.”

“Not know?” Jessie was disappointed. She had expected encouragement, words of scorn, even, that he would say Ephraim was not worthy of Zion, something to anger her enough to keep her going. “I do not know” was not the response of the Brother Tanner she knew.

“My faith is not what it was,” Thales said.

“You?” Jessie asked. “You who are so sure? You who’ve chided the rest of us for our sins, you who are the ruination of many? How the mighty have fallen.”

“Jessie, don’t do harm you cannot mend,” Louisa pleaded. She reached out with a pale hand, the fingers like claws, and her shawl fell away from her face. She did not replace it, letting the snow fall onto her bare head instead.

“Let her be, Louisa,” Thales said. “I am guilty of many sins, the worst of them pride.”

“Yes, you have always been proud. Self-righteous, too,” Jessie told him. “Do you admit to that?” Thales did not answer, and Jessie felt anger rise up inside her. She and her brothers had made this trek because of him. He owed her an answer. She did not care if the death of Huldah’s son had affected him. There had been talk that Thales had forced the little boy into the water. She did not pity Thales for the guilt he carried. Besides, the Brother Tanner she knew would have blamed anyone before he blamed himself. “Answer,” she demanded.

“You must stop, both of you,” Louisa said. “Thales has endured much. He does not need your scorn, Jessie.”

“And you, Huldah, do you agree that Thales suffers?” Jessie asked.

Huldah, straining under the weight of both shock and the cold, looked up, her eyes dull, as if she had been hollowed out. She said nothing.

“What you call self-righteousness, Jessie, I call a sureness of faith,” Louisa said.

Jessie could not help but be touched then by her friend’s belief in her husband, misplaced though it might be. After all she and her family had been through, Louisa still believed that Thales spoke for God. Jessie did not know whether it was love or stupidity that inspired Louisa, but it was not Jessie’s place to question her. So she took Louisa’s hand and said, “You have a trusting heart. Perhaps you are right, Louisa. I misspoke.” She did not apologize to Thales, however, and when she glanced at him, she knew he did not expect her to.

“We must move on,” Thales said to Louisa. “Your mother suffers from the cold.” Indeed, the old woman’s hands were so chilled that she no longer knit as she walked.

“And our five minutes are up,” Jessie announced. Nonetheless, she waited until the Tanner cart was out of sight before she and Sutter picked up the shafts of their vehicle.

They did not make many miles that day, perhaps four or five, before Jessie, Sutter, and Maud stumbled into camp. They had left Ephraim and Emeline behind. He had fallen in the snow and could not take even one more step, so they decided that the three would push the cart to the camp, then return with the emptied cart for Ephraim. Emeline refused to leave him alone, so the others went on without her, pulling the cart another mile to the campsite. Maud remained there to hunt for fuel and start the supper while Jessie and Sutter returned for their brother. Ephraim had not moved. He sat beside the trail, covered with snow, and his brother and sister might not have recognized him, might even have thought him a log, if they had not seen Emeline jumping up and down and waving her arms about to keep warm.

“He’s given up,” she said. “I think he could walk if only he’d try, but he doesn’t want to.”

“We’ll put him into the cart,” Jessie said. She and Sutter lifted their brother to his feet; then, with one of them on each side, they pushed him into the cart and returned to the campsite.

Maud was gone. She had managed to build a fire from wet sagebrush and had mixed up a scone cake that baked in the kettle, the top already brown. The old woman had gone off to help someone who was sick, Jessie realized as she spread a blanket on the snow for Ephraim. Emeline lay beside him, warming his body with hers, while Sutter threw himself onto the ground, saying he was almost too tired to eat. Rest, Jessie told him. They would eat when Maud returned. Then she and Sutter set up a shelter, Sutter working awkwardly, because he had frozen his hand while pulling the cart, and it had swelled when he put it by the fire. When the shelter was ready, the four of them crawled inside.

The old woman found them like that, all of them sleeping despite the cold and the wind, and she woke them lest they freeze to death. She lifted the kettle off the fire, which had gone out, but the scone cake was nicely browned, and Maud reached into the pot for it. But the cake broke apart as she lifted it out, and the old woman discovered that someone had come by while the others slept and hollowed out the cake. All that was left for the five of them was the browned crust.

Jessie saw the dilemma and began to laugh, not a humorous laugh but a wild, uncontrolled one, and she said, “The Saints have their own thieves and hypocrites. We are no better than anyone else.”

“We must forgive them. They are in the dark of their minds,” Maud replied.

“But so are we.”

The five of them had to make do with only a mouthful of crust apiece. They chewed slowly to make the supper last, all but Sutter, who tossed his portion into the fire, saying if that was all God provided him with, God could take it back. Then they found room in the tent and lay down, huddled against one another for warmth.