True Sisters (34 page)

Ella did as she was told, and in a few more pushes, the baby was born. “A girl,” Maud said, and started to hand the tiny thing to Andrew. But she thought better of it and gave the baby to Nannie instead. “Tie the cord; then cover her up. You wouldn’t want her to catch cold her first day on earth.”

Forgetting her own pain, Nannie tied the cord with string that had been set aside, and then she tugged off her petticoat to wrap around the baby. Andrew knelt beside her, and Nannie offered him the bundle. “No, ye hold her. I’ll see to Ella,” he said, sitting down beside his wife. “A wee dochter,” he told Ella, as if the woman didn’t already know she’d given birth to a girl, “with ferntickles like you and Nannie.”

Nannie looked up and exchanged a glance with Maud, for how could Andrew tell what the infant looked like in the poor light, or that she had freckles? It was hard enough to see that she was a girl. “She’s a healthy child, but she ought to be after all she’s been through. She walked a thousand miles before she was born,” Maud said. She finished tending to Ella and sat back, telling the new mother. “You’ve come through fine and ought to have a dozen more.” When Andrew looked up, startled, Maud added, “I mislike she would want them just yet.”

Maud gave instructions about the baby, told Nannie how to care for her instead of telling Ella, and then she and Old Absalom left. “I weren’t needed,” he said.

“You gave comfort. It was needed after what they’ve been through.”

“I never liked a birthing.”

“I like it better than a death.”

After the two were gone and Nannie had relinquished the baby to Ella, Andrew said, “I expected a lad, but right glad I am to see a lass. What will ye name her, Ella?”

“Ye’ll let me choose, then?”

“Aye.”

“I’ve thought on it a good bit, and at first, I thought to call her Miriam for my mother or Sabra for yours. Then I considered whether to name her Florence or Laramie or maybe Cottonwood to mark the journey. But now there’s a better name. I will call her Nancy.”

Nannie jerked up her head at that and stared at Ella, while Andrew nodded and said, “I canna but tell ye I was thinking the same.”

*   *   *

The following day, the Saints met the first group of rescue wagons since Devil’s Gate, and Louisa rejoiced with the others, especially when she assumed that more wagons were close behind. She saw in the faces of the riders the pity and awe as they stared at the emaciated people with their gray, wasted faces, hardly believing they had survived an ordeal that would have killed strong men used to the mountains.

She joined the others who crowded about the wagons as the rescuers handed out flour, dried meat, cheese, dried vegetables, bread, crocks of jam, even coffee and tea. The men distributed blankets and clothing, too—dresses, coats, hoods, sweaters, shoes, and stockings, thick blankets and bright quilts. She took a knitted blanket for her mother and a petticoat for Jessie, to replace the one her friend had torn into bandages.

Flour rations were increased, and for the first time in many weeks, Louisa did not suffer the pangs of hunger that night. She knew she would not reach the valley for many days, but at last, the worst part of their ordeal was over. From then on, she and the other emigrants would be fed and clothed. At last, Thales unloaded the Tanner cart and sent the vehicle careening down a hillside, where it crashed and shattered in a ravine.

The rescuers took charge, building fires and setting up the tents. Although she hoped the worst of the journey was behind them, Louisa knew they would still encounter frozen days, when they would shiver in the wagons and the sick and maimed would agonize over their state. And there would be more deaths, many more.

On November 24, during the last week of the trek, Margaret Chetwin did not wake up. The old woman, who had been too sick to start the journey but who had walked almost the entire way, did not live to see the valley. Louisa’s grief was terrible to see, and Thales feared for her health and that of the baby she carried. “Mother was the most faithful of Saints. How can you explain it?” she asked. She held her mother’s knitting, grasping the needles with such force that the tips punctured her hands. “Why did the Lord let her suffer all this way, then stop her just outside the gates of Zion?”

“She is in paradise now, with your father. Is that not a greater glory?” he replied.

“I would rather she was with me. It was my prayer.”

“But what did
she
want?” Thales asked. “Perhaps it was her prayer to be with your father, and God answered her prayer instead of yours.”

“Do you believe it, Thales?”

“I do.” He did not appear so sure.

“Naught but death could bring them together,” Louisa mused in a voice that was plaintive and soft. “You have always spoken God’s truth.”

Thales turned away and did not answer.

*   *   *

That same last week, Levi sought out Nannie. He had been confined to a wagon in the days after Martin’s Ravine, racked with fever, not sure that he would live, but he had recovered, and he came in search of his intended. Andrew had visited Levi, explaining that Nannie herself was too ill to move, and that they feared that if she caught his fever, she would die. And then there was the baby, Nancy, to consider. They would not have wanted Nannie to take Levi’s sickness back to her. Levi had been too feverish to inquire what ailed Nannie. And Nannie, although she knew Levi was ill and that Andrew had seen him, did not ask about him.

Then one evening, Levi, well enough to walk now, searched the camp for Nannie and found her sitting beside a fire, a blanket wrapped around her, her sister’s baby on her lap. Levi smiled at her and said, “Such a pretty picture. Before long, I expect to see you sitting just like that with our own little one. I hope we’ll have many of them to add to the kingdom.”

Nannie was excited to see him, but she was uneasy. “Are ye well now?”

“Aye.” He did not look well. His face was thin and white, and his beard was tangled. Like the other emigrant men, he had not shaved.

“Ye were very sick.”

“That I was, but I will live, and you appear to be all right.”

“I prayed for ye,” Nannie told him.

“And I you.” They were alone, except for the baby, and Levi took Nannie’s hand and kissed her fingers. “We’ll be married as soon as we reach the valley. Think you, it’s only a week.”

Nannie took back her hand and looked away. Her feet pained her as bad as they ever had.

“You haven’t changed your mind?” When Nannie didn’t answer, he added, “No, you would not be so cruel. Maybe you’re upset that I haven’t called on you like a lover should, but surely you knew I was sick almost to death. Didn’t Andrew explain? He saw how it was with me. Not only could I not walk but I couldn’t even stand. As you see, I’m better now, however.” He added slyly, “Well enough to be a husband in every way.”

“And glad I am for that.” Her voice faltered.

Levi searched her face. “You haven’t found another? You aren’t throwing me aside?”

“Nay.”

“Then what’s wrong? I see it in your eyes.”

“’Tis myself.” To her disgust, she groaned from the hurting in her feet.

“Nannie, are you not yet well? You don’t have a fever, do you? That’s not enough to keep us apart.” Levi sat down beside her near the fire. “What is it?” Then he grinned at her. “You are paying me back for not marrying you at home. Is that it? You’re being coy with me? I’ve admitted to the mistake I made. I did not think you yet held it against me.”

“Isnae that.” Nannie shook her head. “Levi, I am not … I … I am maimed.” Her voice broke, and she could not speak further.

Levi studied the girl, confused, and said, “I don’t see it. What do you mean?”

Silently, Nannie slid up her skirt so that Levi could see her legs gleaming pale in the thin light, the stumps, bound up in strips of blanket.

“Lord’s mercy!” Levi exclaimed. He stared at Nannie’s legs and then turned away as if sickened. “How will you walk?”

“Old Absalom says it’s likely I’ll crawl.”

“Crawl!”

“Oh, Levi, I’ll be all right. Think how much worse ’twould be if I’d lost my hands.” Nannie had not thought about such a thing until that moment.

“Dearest girl, I used to watch the way you ran down the road to meeting. You had such an air of hurry about you. Do you remember? You said you had so much to do and not enough time. You walked faster than any girl I ever saw. Why, you could run as fast as a boy. And do you remember our walks, where I told you about the Gospel? I fell in love with you then.”

Nannie let out a sob. “Isnae crawling enough, Levi?”

He looked down at her legs again, and Nannie, feeling she had shown him something obscene, pushed down her skirt. “I’m the same, except for that wee part of me. Ella says ye did not fall in love with my feet.”

Levi seemed relieved not to have to look at the legs. “You are all right otherwise?”

The baby mewled, and Nannie was glad to have a reason to look away for a moment. Then she replied, “In every other way.” She held out her hands so that Levi could see that she had all of her fingers. Then she touched her face, “My nose dinna freeze, either.”

Levi looked at Nannie’s nose and nodded. “I can see that.”

“There are others worse, so much worse. I am one of the lucky ones. Ella and Andrew say as much. I can cook and sew and care for babies. Have ye no care for me?” She looked down at her hands, embarrassed. She realized that she was pleading with Levi, and it disgusted her. She was still then, and turned her eyes to the top of the baby’s head, wondering as she stared at the fine hair whether she and Levi would ever have a baby of their own.

Levi, too, was silent for a long time, and then he said, “You must realize it is quite a shock to see you like this. I’d thought you might die, like Patricia did. But I never thought…” His voice trailed off.

“Who thought any of us would be maimed like this?”

“Did you wish you had died instead?”

“Nay.”

“I wonder you didn’t.”

“Do
ye
wish I had died?”

“No, of course not. But it makes things … different.”

“You mean you dinna care to marry me? Do ye think I would hae cast ye aside if this had happened to ye?”

“But it didn’t.”

They sat there, not talking, until Ella returned, and Levi stood up, saying he must help with the wagons, that he had work to do to make up for being an invalid. “I’ve overstayed. I will see you again, Nannie. I promise you,” he said, and hurried off.

Ella said nothing, only sat beside Nannie and took the baby and began to nurse.

“I showed him my legs,” Nannie said.

Ella studied her sister’s face. “And?”

“Shocked he was.”

“I suppose that is the way to react when someone ye love’s been hurt.”

“’Tis not what I mean.”

“Nay.”

“Ye are wanting to know if he still intends to marry me.” When Ella did not reply, Nannie continued: “I dinna know. I could see the pity in his face. It’s wondering he was about how he could be tied to a wife who had to crawl beside him, who canna help him in the fields, who canna walk to church with him. He would have to pull me in a cart—or a wheelbarrow.” At that, Nannie covered her face with her hands.

Ella clutched her sister with her free arm. “It won’t be easy, not for Levi and especially not for ye. But ye would make it work. There is much ye can do without standing or walking. Besides, Levi said from the beginning that he expects to take other wives. Ye would be first amongst them. Ye would divide the work so that each wife does what suits best. Ye’ve a sweet disposition, and ye would keep order in Levi’s house. It’s something every Mormon husband hopes for. That is no little thing where many women are concerned. And ye would raise up his children. There is no reason ye wouldn’t hae them yourself.”

But that did not comfort Nannie, who felt so weak and feverish that she wondered if she might yet die.

*   *   *

On November 29, Anne counted the time until they reached the valley in hours, no longer in weeks or days. Although she rode through waist-deep snow, past twenty-foot drifts on the north sides of mountains, she no longer complained of the cold. There was a heightened sense of anticipation. A few of the Saints around her were morose and saw their arrival in Great Salt Lake City not as the entry into paradise as much as their passage from hell. These emigrants were no longer hopeful. They had lost too much, and they despaired of ever being whole again. She thought that some had already made the decision to leave the valley, to apostatize.

The deaths among the members of the Martin Company had been high. More than one in four who had started the journey had not made it, and in the Sully family, the percentage was even higher, two of six. Anne thought there would be few joyous reunions, for the survivors would bring the news of the deaths of loved ones, the details so onerous that no one in the valley would want to believe them. She was not surprised that the emigrants no longer planned a triumphal entry into Great Salt Lake City, did not talk of walking out of Emigration Canyon in their finest clothes, because those clothes were either worn-out or had been discarded along the trail. The dress and silk scarf that Anne had expected to wear for her entrance into the valley had disappeared hundreds of miles back.

John Sully was too restless to ride, so when the wagons stopped, he and Anne and the children got out to walk. “And how do you feel about us Saints now?” he asked his wife, as he had every morning since Catherine died. “Are you sure you want to live amongst us?”

Anne took a deep breath. “Now that we are here, are you wishing not to stay? Are you about to renounce the faith that once made you gladsome?”

He didn’t answer, and Anne knew the question was an intemperate one. The rescuers were zealous in their belief, and although they sympathized with the handcart emigrants over their plight, they did not look kindly on those who questioned the church or were critical of its authorities. More than one of them had announced, “Any who are not for us are against us.”

John didn’t answer his wife’s question; instead, he told her, “If the valley doesn’t suit, we will talk about returning to England.”