True Sisters (5 page)

The Saints dispersed, but Anne stood by the rail, staring at the spot where her daughter’s body had disappeared, stared at it as the ship moved along, and after a while she could not be sure she was looking at the right place. She stood there a long time, thinking she might see some sign of Emma Lee, a ray of sunshine through the clouds, a dove rising from the ocean, but there was no sun. Nor were there doves in the middle of the sea. At last, John led her back belowdeck, whispering that Joe and Lucy needed her. “Think of your other children,” he said. Anne turned away and could never look at the sea again without seeing her daughter’s body sink into its depths.

*   *   *

Perhaps it was for the best that they were moving to America, Anne thought afterward. She could never go back to London without Emma Lee. A new country, a new life were what they needed to deal with the death of the child. And so she began to look forward to arriving in Boston, to moving ahead instead of going back. She talked to the children about the journey across the prairie, and although Lucy was too young to understand, Joe was thrilled to think he would ride in a covered wagon. Anne promised that he could name the oxen. “I’ll call one Emma Lee—the prettiest one,” he said, and Anne closed her eyes in grief at the tribute to her daughter.

She knew that the other emigrants would travel with handcarts, but not until after they docked in Boston and had begun the train trip to Iowa City did John take her aside and tell her about his decision. “It is not fair for us to journey to the valley in a wagon when others will push the carts,” he began.

Anne looked at him a long time but did not reply.

“The cost of the wagon and teams will pay for a dozen handcarts.”

“What are you saying?”

“I do not believe we can ride to Zion in a wagon like some potentate while our brothers and sisters walk.”

“What have you done, John? Are you telling me that we ought to push a handcart so that we can loan our money to the others?”

John looked away. “Not quite.”

“What, then?”

John took her hands. “I’ve given the money to the elders. They asked for it. We have so much, and the others have nothing.”

“You
what
?” Anne looked at him incredulously.

“You heard what I said.”

“You gave away our money! It wasn’t yours to give. My father left it to us so that we could have a better life.”

“And we will. Wait until we reach the valley.”

“You had no right,” Anne said.

“I have every right. As I have told you, the shop was left to me. If you would only try to understand—”

“Don’t you think I have tried? Don’t you think I’ve asked God why He sent us here, why He took Emma Lee?” Her throat constricted when she said her daughter’s name.

“He’s trying us.”

“You maybe, but not Emma Lee. What right does He have to try Emma Lee?”

“It’s not our place to question.”

Anne looked around at the Saints in the railway car, those placid, happy people who, like John, accepted everything as the will of the Lord. She clenched her hands and thought she would not cry, would not let anyone see her distress. “And how will we return to London?”

John looked at her quizzically.

“You promised that if I didn’t like Utah after a year, we could go back.” When John did not reply, Anne knew he hadn’t meant the promise. “I see,” she said.

“Mama, look at the cows,” Joe said, distracting her. The boy pointed out the door when the train stopped. “Are those like the cows that will pull our wagon?”

Anne turned to John, telling him to explain to their son that they wouldn’t be going in a wagon. “We’ve decided to pull a handcart,” John told Joe. “You and I will pull, and Mama will push, and Lucy will ride on top.”

“We will be the oxen ourselves,” Anne muttered, but John ignored her. “We will walk across America.”

“Can I ride, too, if I get tired?” Joe asked.

“Of course.”

“What about Mama? What if she gets tired?”

John looked at Anne, as if he had not thought about that, and she touched her swollen belly. “There will be wagons for the sick to ride in,” he told her softly.

Anne wanted to reply that she was not sick, only pregnant, but too much bitterness had passed between them. She knew that she had no choice other than to push a handcart to Utah. She was pregnant, the mother of two small children, and their money was gone. She was dependent on John for everything, and she must make the best of it all. She must swallow her anger. “We will manage,” she said.

John took her hand and whispered, “I will make it up to you. I love you, Annie.”

Anne was grateful he did not bring up God’s will again.

*   *   *

Anne’s decision to keep her anger in check had been sorely tried in the days that followed. When they reached Iowa City, they discovered the carts were not ready and that the men had to make them from green wood, a job that put off their departure for three weeks. Anne was vexed, because the delay meant there was no chance they would arrive in the valley before the baby was born. She would not have even the privacy of a wagon, but would have to deliver the child on the prairie, in the shade of a handcart. She had already seen the prairie, so different from the lushness of England.

Just as disappointing was the order that emigrants would be allowed to take no more than seventeen pounds of possessions with them. So she discarded the rug that had been her mother’s and sold the sewing machine they had brought for their home in Great Salt Lake City, both items that could have fit into a wagon but not a handcart. Then she abandoned a trunk of clothing, curtains, her books, the Delft plates, and a crystal castor. When that was not enough, she put aside Emma Lee’s toys, because she knew there was no room in the cart for sentiment. Her two living children came first, and she must use the small amount of space for their necessities. She had hoped to save Emma Lee’s wooden doll, the girl’s prized possession. She and John had bought it for the Christmas Emma Lee turned five, and Anne had stitched clothes for it—a ball gown, a traveling dress. Emma Lee herself had made the apron and put it on the doll for the ocean voyage.

On the day before they left Iowa City, Anne, her hands shaking, set the last remembrance of her beloved daughter on a pile of clothing, hoping that some little girl would find it and love it as much as Emma Lee had. Catherine came up beside Anne to place her own discards on the pile. “It was Emma Lee’s,” Anne explained, her voice breaking. “I’ve packed and repacked the cart, but there is no place for it.”

“What a pity.”

“It’s only a toy.” But no, she thought. It was so much more than a toy.

Catherine bent and picked up the doll, examining the exquisite stitching in the dress, the crude stitches in the apron. “Such a lovely doll. What is her name?”

“Clara.”

“Well, I believe I can find a place for Clara in my cart. Your other daughter shall have her when we get to the valley.” Anne looked at her friend wordlessly, for she was too distraught to speak, and Catherine turned away.

Anne stared at the heap of discarded items for a long time. Then her eyes focused on the tiny book of poems that Catherine had placed there, and Anne picked it up and put it into her own pocket.

The following day, Anne spotted Catherine among the Saints waiting to begin the trek, and her heart filled with gratitude for this new friend. She felt her spirits rise a little as she thought of the kindness of other Saints. They might not be her people, but they were her husband’s, and, like it or not, she had thrown in with them. She let herself feel a tiny thrill of wonder as the carts began to move forward and the people called out their praise. And when a woman she had seen on the ship, a woman who had cared for Emma Lee that last day, called out to her, Anne replied, “We’re off to the Salt Lake indeed!” And then she thought how foolish she sounded. Of course, they were off to Salt Lake—the Mormon Zion. Where else would they be going?

Chapter 2

August 18, 1856

The hard rain that had plagued the Saints throughout the day, turning the prairie into ankle-deep mud, seemed to be stopping. At least Louisa Tanner hoped it was, because she was wet and chill and had the beginnings of a cold in her chest. She arched her back in hopes of relieving the soreness, as she and her father, Hall Chetwin, waded through the brown muck that stuck to the wheels of their cart. The bed of the cart was heavy with clothing, blankets, and cooking utensils. Louisa’s sister, Huldah, pushed it, while their mother, Margaret, shuffled behind, shivering under her soaked shawl, the knitting she worked as she walked along shoved into her pocket now. All of them were drenched by the cold rain and exhausted from pushing the cart through the mud and sand that sucked at the wheels. Thales Tanner, Louisa’s husband, who had gone on ahead, turned to scrutinize the little group.

Louisa, her yellow hair plastered to her tiny face by the lashing rain, caught his eye and sent a mute plea for help. Instead, he gave her a nod and a tight-lipped smile of encouragement. She knew he had responsibilities beyond his wife and her people. He had told her so. Others in his hundred needed him more than the family, who would have to harden themselves if they expected to reach the valley, he’d said. Louisa had bowed her head in acceptance. She wished Thales was more understanding, but nonetheless, she was proud to be the wife of such a man of God.

Louisa knew her husband was someone of standing among the 625 emigrants who had departed from Iowa City on the journey west. Not all who had left England on the ship
Horizon
were continuing on to Great Salt Lake City. Others assigned to the handcarts had stayed behind, too sick to continue or frightened that the company’s late start would mean traveling in foul weather, and they had remained in the East. A few had deserted in Iowa. Some had even abandoned the Saints on the trail. Good riddance to them—to all the deserters, Thales had told Louisa. The dropouts were too weak, too worldly to reach Zion. Only those who truly believed would be blessed with the Promised Land. The others deserved to be cast by the wayside. Although Louisa sympathized with those who pleaded age or sickness, Thales was unmoved. “The honest of heart will be assembled and the tares left in the field,” he told her. She was glad that none of those who’d turned their backs on the church was a Saint whom her husband personally had converted during his mission in England. All of Thales Tanner’s converts stood firm, including Louisa’s family, although they might have wavered without his guidance.

Louisa knew, of course, that Thales would help any who needed him, but those assigned to him were his especial responsibility. The Mormons were divided into groups of one hundred, with each hundred under the direction of a captain. She was proud that Thales, as one of the missionaries who had come from the valley, had been asked to captain one of the hundreds. He was charged not only with enforcing rules that governed the company but with looking after the elderly and sick, overseeing the tents and provisions that were in the wagon assigned to his group, settling disagreements and quarrels, and helping those whose carts broke down along the trail. Only two weeks out from Iowa City, the carts were beginning to fall apart. As the green wood dried, it shrank, causing wheels to break, axles to come loose. These people, these converts who had worked in factories and mills, Thales told Louisa, knew nothing about repairing carts, and they needed his assistance.

They were ill-prepared in other ways, she knew. So many were from slums and had worked in the dank factories, and they had no experience of the outdoors, had never slept on the ground, were not used to walking long distances. Some were old and in ill health, their lungs congested from years of living in the damp and smoke of Europe’s cities. They would have had a hard time of it even if they’d been in wagons. Now, they were expected to walk thirteen hundred miles, pushing the laden carts, and some could not keep up. Louisa had passed them on the trail. Already, there were those who did not arrive in camp until after evening prayers. Even without Thales telling her so, she suspected that not all of the converts would live to reach Zion.

Louisa and her father stopped their cart beside Thales, who had paused to help an old man whose conveyance was stuck in the wet sand. “You pull. I’ll push,” Thales told Robert Amos, taking his place with the wife, Maud, and a young couple behind the cart. When the vehicle was free, Robert said, “We asked God for help, and you came along. Truly, He listens to our prayers.”

Louisa’s heart swelled when Maud took Thales’s hands and asked, “Is it true you knew Joseph?”

“I did,” Thales said, affecting the attitude of humility he showed whenever he was asked the question. Louisa knew the truth was that her husband had not really
known
the prophet. He had been only sixteen when Joseph Smith was murdered, but he had seen Joseph in town, in church, had doffed his hat to the prophet and in return had been greeted by name. Well, actually, it was his brother’s name, Thales once admitted to Louisa, but many others got the two mixed up, too.

Louisa never ceased to be thrilled when her husband told the story of the Tanners’ early conversion, how they had followed Joseph from place to place until they ended up in Nauvoo, Illinois, where Thales’s father was a stonemason working on the temple. After Joseph’s death, Thales’s father and others labored to finish the temple so that the Mormons could use it to perform the sacred rituals they called “endowments,” before they were driven west across the Mississippi. At a meeting to select Joseph’s successor, the elder Tanner spoke up for Brigham Young, and later, the Tanner family had camped with the new leader at Winter Quarters in Iowa, where the Saints waited before the push to the Great Salt Lake. If the elder Tanner was anything like his son, Louisa thought, his voice would have sounded like the prophets of old.

She was proud to learn that in 1847, Thales, then twenty, had been among those select few chosen to accompany Brother Brigham on that first trip into the Salt Lake Valley. Even the converts in the handcart company knew Thales’s family was Mormon royalty, and Thales himself a crown prince. After all, Brother Brigham had once given him a blessing that foretold Thales would rise to the highest level of the kingdom.