True Sisters (25 page)

The night of October 21 was the worst they had encountered, the longest one, too. Jessie did not rest well, sleeping for a few minutes, then waking, then falling into a fitful sleep again. In the dark, she listened to the Saints cough and moan, some of them praying that they would live until dawn, others praying they would not. She curled into a ball for warmth, but that did not help, and finally she rose to her knees, determined to go outside so that she could jump and flail her arms about to warm herself. As she crawled to the edge of the tent, she touched her brother’s face. She jerked her hand away, then slowly placed her palm on the face and found it cold, as cold as death itself, and she knew he was gone. She stayed there, cradling the face in her hands. She did not tell the others. Let them sleep, she thought. Nor did she cry out loud. The crying would awaken them. Instead, Jessie held her brother in her arms, rocking back and forth with him as if he had been a sick child, and let her tears fall silently, freezing on her cheeks.

She waited until strike of day, until Maud awoke at dawn, or at least Jessie thought it was dawn. She couldn’t tell because the snow blocked out the early light. “My brother’s dead,” she whispered to the old lady.

The words awoke Emeline, who cried out, “Ephraim!”

“No, not Ephraim,” Jessie said. “It’s Sutter. Sutter died in the night.”

“Sutter!” Maud said, as if she could not believe it.

Jessie nodded, then, realizing the old woman could not see her in the gloom, she repeated, “Sutter.”

“What will become of us?”

*   *   *

The morning of October 21, Anne fashioned her second shawl into a sling so that she could carry Samuel across her chest as she pushed the cart. The shawl was a good one, made of the finest silk, and she had brought it along to wear into the valley. She had resisted discarding it the last time the Saints had been ordered to lighten the loads on the wagon. Now she was glad, not because she would appear fashionable when she entered Great Salt Lake City—who cared about that anymore?—but because she could use it to secure Samuel during the cold walk ahead.

“He’s such a tiny thing. He can ride on top with Lucy,” John told Anne, but she shook her head. Even wrapped up against the cold, the baby might freeze to death on the cart. Of course, Lucy could hold him, but at two, she was barely more than a baby herself. The girl might forget her brother or fall asleep and let him roll off. Anne shuddered at the idea of the baby sliding into the snow. What if they didn’t see him fall? He would be crushed by the carts behind them or covered by the falling snow, so that when they went back to search for him, they wouldn’t be able to find him. No, Anne, would keep him warm against her body.

So John, with Joe to help him, pulled the cart, while Anne, the baby strapped to her chest, pushed. Catherine pushed, too, and Anne was grateful for the older woman, grateful for someone of her own sex. Just being together offered comfort. Anne was mindful of the tragedy of the older woman’s life, the loss of her husband only the day before, and she offered words of solace. But Catherine brushed them aside. “We must think about the living.”

Anne had slept little the night before. Her head had pained her, and each time she’d dozed off, she’d awakened to relive the river crossing. She tried not to dwell on the nightmare of seeing her infant sink into the water or her fear that he might have drowned. Instead, she tried to concentrate on the joy of having her baby restored to her, and she reached into the blanket that was wrapped around Samuel to touch his tiny face.

The infant stirred and sent out a weak cry, and Anne held him to her breast, where he could feed, but she had so little milk. The hard journey, her weakness from both childbirth and the cold, and lack of food had kept her milk from coming in as it should, and she had nothing to give the infant in place of it. The Saints had brought along a herd of cows, but many had wandered off. Some had died from snakebite or broken their legs in gopher holes and had to be put down. The cold had taken its toll of the animals, too, and the ones that were left were as dry as Anne. She caught flakes of snow on her finger, let them melt, then put the finger into Samuel’s mouth so that he could have a little liquid. He sucked on the finger, then cried his dissatisfaction, but at last, he went back to sleep.

Now, the baby cried again from hunger. Anne could not hear him over the moaning of the wind and the creaking of the carts, but she knew he was crying, because she felt him move against her in tiny, weak, protesting jerks, no stronger than those of a baby bird. As she pushed the cart beside Catherine, Anne reached into the shawl and touched the little head, stroked the silken threads of his hair. Catherine looked over at the bundle but said nothing. There were no words one could offer to a mother whose baby was starving. Anne tucked Emma Lee’s doll into the baby’s arms, then covered his face against the cold, and in a few minutes, he fell asleep again.

As she walked behind the cart, Anne pondered the incident in the river. Why had her own baby been saved when others had been allowed to drown or die of cold? They were all Saints, while she was a Gentile—a heathen, in some minds. If Mormonism was the true faith, why would God save her child? Perhaps it was because John was a Mormon. But if God protected the Mormons, why had He let Peter Dunford drown? After all, Peter was among the most faithful. Why would He take her darling Emma Lee but not Samuel? It made no more sense to Anne than the other parts of this strange religion.

Or was it still strange to her? Was she getting used to the beliefs of the Latter-day Saints? Was she even beginning to accept them? Certainly not everything. She would never accept polygamy, although she had to admit that it had been practiced by the patriarchs of the Bible. And could she ever believe that after he was crucified and resurrected, Jesus had visited among the Indians, as the Book of Mormon told? The idea had struck her as ludicrous at first, but now she found herself asking why it could not be so. Was it any more absurd than Jesus being born in Bethlehem and living as a Jew? Why shouldn’t He appear in the ancient Americas? It was possible, of course. He could roam the surface of the moon, if God wanted Him to.

She had asked God repeatedly to tell her if Mormonism was the true religion, and perhaps He had answered her by saving Samuel. She would like to talk that over with Catherine, who had never pressed Anne to join the church, had not chided her for her lack of belief. But talking took too much energy, and with the wind howling, they would have to yell to be heard. Besides, Catherine would consider it a poor bargain that her husband had died just so that Anne could become one of the chosen people.

They had gone a mile or two when John stopped the cart and told Anne that Lucy must walk. “It’s too cold, and the snow is too deep,” Anne protested.

“If she sits any longer, she’ll freeze. Catherine can hold her hand,” he added, for the old woman appeared done with and no longer able to push. “When Lucy tires, she can ride again.” He lifted the little girl to the ground, and they watched her make her way through the snow that had been beaten down by the carts. The little girl picked up a handful of snow in her mittened hand and pressed it to her mouth. Then she lifted her face to the sky and laughed as the snowflakes tickled her face.

They kept a slow pace after that and were passed by other carts and then one of the provision wagons. “I’m going to ride,” Joe announced, and before his parents could stop him, he ran up to the wagon.

“Well, my boy, you want to ride, do you?” asked the driver.

“Please, sir, I’m tired.”

“Take my hand, then.” The driver reached down and held on to the boy and lifted him into the wagon.

“Without him, you’ll have to pull the cart by yourself,” Anne said.

“He wasn’t much help.” John looked off into the distance to where the wagon had disappeared. “Would that we could all ride. We would if I hadn’t given away the money.”

“It’s over and done with. I’ve forgotten it.”

“Have you?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does when I consider what you’ve gone through. You’ve been the one to sacrifice.”

“And given you a pretty bit of grief over it. But you’ve sacrificed, too, John. You’ve not had an easy time of it. We both lost Emma Lee.” Anne shifted the baby’s weight against her chest because the sling had caused a hurting in her back.

“But it was my decision to come to America. It is
my
church, after all, not yours. You didn’t choose this way.”

“But I chose you.” She put her hand against the cart, ready to push, her way of telling John that she did not want to discuss the matter further. She had much thinking to do.

Of course, it was not just
his
church, because there were hundreds of other Mormons in the company. But that was not what Anne was pondering. Was it
her
church, too? Had she come to accept this strange Gospel? And was it because of what had happened in the river? She considered the event and decided that no, Samuel’s rescue was not the reason to accept the Latter-day Saints’ religion. Perhaps she could believe because of the people. She had come to love these Mormons who had befriended her despite her scorn for their religion. She’d been moved by their care, by their faith, by their strength under the worst of circumstances. She did not hate them. She did not hate their religion. Perhaps she could one day join them—but not today, she thought, her cracked lips breaking into a smile. Not today, for she did not care to be baptized in a river in the snow, but after she reached the valley, maybe.

In many ways, she already was one of them, she realized as she glanced at the women pushing the carts. She certainly was one in enduring hardships. For her and for others, the march had become one of almost unbearable difficulty. Anne’s long skirts were wet with slush and snow, and they wrapped around her legs, making her stumble. At least she had on sturdy boots. Before they had left England, John had bought them good wool cloaks and coats, heavy shoes and boots. Anne had scoffed at such apparel, saying she did not want to arrive in the valley looking like a drayman. But now she was grateful for John’s foresight. Many of the other emigrants wore threadbare clothing, their shoes were worn through, and a few had no shoes at all. Anne saw their bloody footprints in the snow. Her own feet were cold, but at least her boots kept out the moisture. She wished her skirts did the same, because the hem of her wet petticoat slapped at her legs, rubbing them raw.

She wondered if Lucy’s legs were cold, too, and then she saw the child fall in the snow and begin to cry. “Carry me, Mama,” she begged in a thin wail. Anne leaned over to pick up the child, but with Samuel strapped to her chest, she could not lift the girl.

“Stand, and I will hand her to you,” Catherine said. “Then I’ll take my turn pushing while you walk with your little ones.”

Anne could barely carry the two children. Her back protested the load. But she had no choice. She would have to carry them until John said it was safe to set Lucy back on top of the cart. So she struggled through the snow with the two, falling back a little from the cart. She was not the only Saint who could not keep up. Many of the sick and elderly stopped to rest, while their carts continued. In the past few days, Anne had seen them limping into camp hours after the carts arrived. She knew some had not made it at all, and she wondered if she might soon be one of them. If she lagged far behind, would John come back for her and find her with the two children, all of them frozen to death, torn apart by wolves?

With such fears, she redoubled her efforts to move along. She put Lucy on her shoulders, but the child slid off into the snow. She told the girl to stand on a rock so that she could pick her up. She wondered if Lucy might hold Samuel and spare her the burden of carrying the baby against her chest, but the girl could not be expected to hold the infant when her own hands were stiff with cold. So Anne settled Lucy on her hip and hurried after the cart. She saw that John had stopped and was waiting for her, and when she reached him, he put the little girl on his shoulders. “You have enough with the baby,” he said.

Anne was too exhausted to argue or even to thank him. She tightened the sling that held Samuel and took her place with Catherine behind the cart. At least Joe was safe, she thought. But if she and John didn’t make it, what would happen to him? Surely some Mormon would take him in. They were kind people, but they were all weak and starving.

She had seen a motherless child in the camp the night before, whimpering from the cold and the death of his father. He had asked another boy for a piece of his griddle cake, but the boy had cried, “I cannot do it. I want it myself.” Anne had been moved by the orphan’s plight, but she had not gone to him, instead letting another emigrant take responsibility for him. If something happened to John and her, Joe might survive, but not Lucy, and never Samuel. No mother in the train had enough milk for her own infant, let alone the baby of another woman. She and John must be strong if the children were to survive.

They didn’t talk, she and John and Catherine. They did not want to make the effort. Besides, their mouths seemed frozen shut. Instead, they pushed on in silence. From time to time, Anne paused to adjust the sling that held the sleeping baby, to touch the downy head and coo to the infant, but after a while, she stopped. She kept her thoughts to herself then, speaking to neither John nor Catherine. She no longer kept track of time or distance, just pushed the cart in a kind of daze, her mind as much a blur as the snow that fell. She was glad then for the cold that numbed her. Somewhere she heard a woman beg, “Get up, Davy, oh, do get up.” And another time, she passed a woman who was beating her husband with a stick and crying, “Get up and go on, or we will all die,” but she paid little attention, so inured was she to others’ misery. They pushed on, the third mile, the fourth, and then the fifth. Anne felt no elation when they reached the camp.

John found a spot for the cart and said he would collect their provisions and search for Joe. She could start the fire with a piece of wood that John had picked up just before they reached the campsite. It was a fine piece of luck finding the branch, he said, his spirits rising. She could use sage for kindling and have the fire going by the time he returned with Joe. Dinner might be sparse, but they would be warm. He picked up Lucy and put her on his shoulders, saying to Anne, “Well, Mother, we have made it through another day, wet and hungry, I’ll admit, but still here.” Anne did not respond.