Liberty, page 15
Caleb felt so weak he thought he would fall to the floor. No one said a word. After a minute or so, without looking around, he muttered, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
But Joseph was there by then. He gripped Caleb’s shoulders. “No. You did the right thing. I know that you would never take Sam’s life. But he needed to feel your righteous anger. There are times when God grants us a power beyond our own. It wasn’t your words that made Sam back down. It was the honesty of your indignation.”
Caleb was greatly relieved by Joseph’s faith in him. But he still wondered what Tillery’s—and Sheriff Hadley’s—next move would be.
Chapter 14
It was February 10, and Emma had been traveling across Missouri for three days. The violent snowstorm she’d traveled in had now let up, but a nasty cold had set in. Stephen Markham was leading a train of a few wagons—mostly rough lumber wagons without springs—and he had assigned Jonathan Holman, a quiet man, to drive Emma’s wagon. As she rode, she held little Alexander against her body to keep him warm. She had been forced to leave her belongings behind, but she didn’t care about that. The few things that mattered to her had already been stolen.
Alexander was eight months old now and usually liked to be crawling about, but he had stopped squirming and was clinging to Emma. She knew the cold had reached deeply into him, dulling his senses, and she was worried. Over the years, in other forced migrations, she had known of the deaths of many babies, especially when exposed to the kind of bitter winds they were facing now. The trip was a distance of 170 miles or so, and Brother Markham tried to get thirty miles behind the company each day, but that meant continuing the trek on winter afternoons after the sun had already set.
So far, Emma had slept in the wagon under all the blankets she had carried with her—she and her four children, with Major nuzzled between them. But now she wondered whether Alexander could make it through another night.
When Brother Markham slowed his horse next to Emma’s wagon and asked how she was doing, Emma said, “My baby isn’t doing well. Is there any way to get the children inside tonight?”
Brother Markham seemed to consider before saying, “We could ask at a farmhouse along this road, but we’d be taking a chance. Some people are against us, even this far from Far West. They might tell us to move on—and of course, we can live with that—but you know how vicious others have been.”
“I don’t think anyone would harm us just for asking.”
He nodded, then hesitated again. “I suspect you’re right.”
“But I think you’re cautious about asking for me and not for those in the other wagons.”
“Well . . . yes.”
“I understand. No one could take in all of us.”
Brother Markham nodded, but then said, “It appears little Alexander is suffering more than the children in the other wagons. I think everyone will understand.”
“Will they think it’s only because I’m Joseph’s wife, or that I’m not strong enough—”
“No. People know you better than that. Let’s see if we can find a place. I’ll explain to everyone.”
So the horses trudged on through the crusted snow, hooves cracking the surface with each step and the big wagon rocking and vaulting. There was a bit of moonlight, but it was diffused through a thin layer of clouds, and the night was dark enough that it was hard to see ahead. Brother Holman, driving first in the line of wagons, obviously struggled at times not to stray from the road. Eventually, lantern light from a house appeared, and as the wagon neared, Emma could see smoke rising from a chimney. “Oh, please,” she prayed, “open the hearts of these people.”
Brother Markham told Jonathan to halt the wagon near a lane that led to the farmhouse, then walked back to the other wagons. Emma was sure he was explaining the situation to all the families. The crunch of his steps in the frozen snow had set off a dog barking, and then two or three more added to the ruckus. Major responded with a yelp of his own.
“Will those dogs bite Brother Markham?” Joey asked. He loved Old Major and kept him close in the wagon, but he had always been nervous around angry dogs.
Little Frederick, who was almost three, awoke, having fallen asleep against his mother’s side. “Dogs,” he said, as though explaining something to himself. “Dogs bite.”
“No, no,” Julia told him, and she tucked her arm around him. “Dogs won’t bite you.”
“They could bite,” Joey said.
“No. We won’t let them.”
After a couple of minutes, Brother Markham returned and said, “Everyone understands your situation. I’ll go knock on the door. The people may not take you in, but I’m not afraid to ask.”
As Brother Markham walked toward the house, the sound of the dogs increased, and Emma hoped that they wouldn’t attack him. She couldn’t imagine that a house with such angry dogs could be very welcoming. But Stephen didn’t return quickly, and she wondered whether that meant he had at least been able to negotiate with the people who lived there. She hoped he wouldn’t offer anything to barter, since money and supplies were more than scarce.
She heard footsteps after a time and the dogs barked again, but with less wildness, as Brother Markham stepped to the wagon.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get all of you down from the wagon. Bring your blankets. They only have a floor for you to sleep on, but it’s warm inside.”
“Do they know who we are?”
“Yes. When I told them we’d traveled almost a hundred miles in the cold, they guessed who we had to be, and the man said, ‘It’s a shame what’s been done to you people.’ He even said we can bring in the small children from all our wagons and the mothers with their nursing babies. It’ll be crowded, but it will give the little ones a respite from the weather. I’ll take Major, and he can sleep with my son and me. Hannah can take our younger children inside with you.”
So Brother Markham held Alexander while Emma got down from the wagon, and then she and Julia helped the two little boys down. Emma carried the baby to the house, her children beside her. The dogs, it seemed, were out in back somewhere, and they had calmed. Maybe the farmer had put them in his barn.
A round little woman with graying hair and a face reddened from too many such winters greeted Emma and her children. Her husband didn’t fuss over the children the way his wife did, but he kept shaking his head and saying, “It ain’t right what people done to you folks.”
The fire was warm, but the man’s words were equally comforting. “You’re so kind,” Emma told him.
“I wouldn’t want you to leave thinking everyone in our state could be so wicked.”
“I never have thought that,” Emma said. “Many people have been kind to us. It’s just that some folks get angry and they do things they normally wouldn’t do.”
“I think it’s so,” the woman said, her voice tender but filtered through a brittleness that age and exposure had surely brought upon her. “We have a little dried beef and some potatoes and carrots stored over from last fall. I’ll put together some stew and see if we can’t bring a little brightness to the eyes of all these children.”
Joey’s eyes lit up immediately, and that made Emma’s own eyes fill with tears. “Oh, that would be so wonderful.” By then, more of the women and children were coming through the door. “But can you spare that much food?”
“I believe we can. There’s just two of us here now, and we get by all right through the winter months.” She smiled, showing tattered teeth. “And I must say, this here is the most excitement we’ve had for two, three months. You’re a joy to look at, all you pretty people.”
“Oh my . . . we’re not pretty,” Hannah Markham said. “We’re wrapped up in all the worn-out coats and blankets we could find to bring with us.”
Hannah was thirty-five or so, Emma thought, and even though the last year had been hard on her, she was a pretty woman, and spirited.
“Tell me your name,” Hannah said.
“Margaret Wright. My husband here is named Franklyn. Y’all gather up around the fire, and Frank will add a few more sticks of wood. I’ll see about cooking something. If the warmth makes you fall asleep, that’s just fine. It’ll take a while to get a stew going, and then I’ll wake you up.”
So Emma spread a double layer of blankets on the floor and sat close to the fire, but she left space for others to do the same. Joey, calmed by the warmth, did fall asleep with his head on her leg. Alexander was still docile and satisfied to stay close to his mother, but he had revived a little in the warmth and light. When Freddie tried to find a place somewhere near his mother, Julia pulled him close to her, and he was soon asleep as well.
Emma loved to see how tender Julia was with her brothers. For a seven-year-old, she had had little time to play with friends all this last year. She needed time to be a child, and Emma had no idea when that would happen. But Julia looked up at Emma, seemingly pleased to be warm and probably also to be of comfort to Freddie.
Emma took in the pleasure for a few minutes, and then she remembered what she needed to do. “Lord, I thank thee,” she whispered.
After a night of rest, warm food, and friendly treatment, the next three days were easier. But the little wagon train had arrived at the Mississippi now and the river looked ominously wide. It was frozen, as it usually was that time of year, but Brother Markham had spoken with Jonathan Holman, and the two were cautious.
Brother Markham told Emma, “I’m going to put Charlie in front and hitch him to the tongue of the wagon. Brother Holman can walk with him, and I can guide the wagon by moving the tongue back and forth. I’ll tie up ol’ Jim on the back to keep the wagon and the horses spread out a little more.”
“Are you that worried about the ice breaking through?” Emma asked.
“Well . . . no. I just want to be careful. I’m going to ask you and the children to walk, not ride, and to stay back thirty or forty feet from the wagon. That will spread the weight even more.”
Emma smiled. “I’m quite thin after what we’ve been through this winter. I don’t think I weigh so much as a wagon.”
He laughed. “I’m not saying that. But if the ice did break, and the wagon went under, I don’t want it to pull you and your children in with it.”
“What about you?”
“I told you, the ice will hold. I’m just being overly vigilant.”
Emma hoped he meant the “overly” part. She had heard too many stories of people falling through ice during river crossings. “What about the other wagons?” she asked, aware that she may have seemed worried only about herself.
“After you make it across, I’ll walk back and help everyone else. We’ll just have to spread the wagons far apart.”
“Oh, but it’s such a long walk.”
“It’s only a mile or so.”
Emma understood that, and normally a walk of a mile wouldn’t have concerned her, but she pictured the waters, deep and frigid, moving under the ice. Still, she didn’t mention her fears when she talked to her children.
“The ice is frozen hard,” she told them. “Brother Markham will take the wagon forward, and we’ll follow.”
“Why can’t we ride in the wagon?” Joey asked.
“We could, of course, but poor old Charlie and Jim are tired from all the pulling they’ve done. We want to give them some rest, don’t we?”
Joey looked dubious about that. “Will the ice break?” he asked.
“No. Don’t worry about that. The ice is thick.”
Emma could see that he was worried. She wondered whether he had heard some of what she and Brother Markham had been saying.
So Emma waited until the wagon was well out onto the river to begin the walk, Alexander in one arm and Frederick in the other. Freddie was heavy to carry, but she knew it would be a long walk for him and she wanted to keep him close. Joey walked on one side of her and Julia the other. From the way they were clinging to her skirt, she knew that they were frightened. Joey’s breath sounded strained, as though he were hiding his concerns. He often told Emma—especially after his father had blessed him to be courageous and strong—that he was no longer a little boy. But Emma wished he didn’t have to feel such responsibility.
Emma and the children were wrapped in lots of clothes—all they had been able to bring with them. This was a way of transporting the clothing and, of course, an attempt to stay warm, but it made for extra weight now. What the children didn’t know was that she had strapped a waistband under her skirt and buttoned it around her. From the waistband hung two cotton bags, each containing Joseph’s papers. Most important was Joseph’s inspired translation of the Bible, which enemies would certainly love to confiscate. She had been keeping Joseph’s writings for months, sometimes hiding them away from her house, and finally, devising this protection under her skirt. She had become accustomed to the extra burden, but she hadn’t carried the papers with babies in her arms and children clinging to her. She hadn’t made it very far onto the ice before she realized how strenuous all that would become before she made the full trek across the river.
A wind was coming down the river, across the ice, stinging her cheeks and icing her nose. She knew that Joey, on her windy side, was also freezing, his coat, hat, and muffler hardly enough to protect him. But he didn’t complain about the cold—probably because the fear of the ice breaking was occupying his thoughts.
Emma held her head down to keep the wind from her face, but also to help her think as little as possible about how far she had to go. Each time she glanced up she had the feeling she hadn’t made any headway at all. The wagon was moving steadily ahead, no faster than she could walk, but the distance to the far bank seemed to stretch as she trudged ahead. She thought of handing Freddie to Julia, but he was too heavy for her to carry very far. He clung instead to Emma, his arms around her neck. She needed to put him down and let him walk for a while, but she couldn’t bring herself to break him away from her. Gradually, the ache in her arms turned to numbness.
Emma kept taking steps, kept asking the Lord for strength, kept saying to herself that no matter the pain, no matter the fear, she would go on as long as she possibly could. She vowed, silently, “I’ll take one hundred more steps and then I’ll sit down and rest for a few minutes,” but by the time she counted the hundred steps, the thought of sitting on the ice seemed worse than walking, and she hated to extend the time the crossing would take. So she counted another hundred steps, and then another, and another.
She kept up her pace, and her distress turned into a dazed sense beyond pain. The journey never became tolerable, not exactly, but she continued to stride ahead by sheer will—and constant prayer.
When she finally reached the bank, with the wagon and horses just ahead of her, she allowed herself to sink into the snow. But she knew she couldn’t do that for long. Julia took Frederick from her arms and talked to him about being a big boy before she set him on his feet. Emma struggled to get up with Alexander in her arms, but when she did, she made her way to a log on the ground, well back from the river. She sat down and waited for Brother Markham, who was working with Brother Holman to harness the horses onto the wagon. Once that task was completed, Brother Markham drove the wagon away from the river toward a bluff out of the wind. Then he came back and walked Emma to the wagon, carrying the baby for her.
“Get in and stay as warm as you can,” he told her. “Cover up with all your blankets and I’ll head back across the river. I need to get all our people across, and then we’ll look for a place to stay tonight.”
But those words troubled Emma. She knew their location was somewhere in the vicinity of Quincy, Illinois, and she knew that some of the Saints had traveled there earlier. But she didn’t know whether they were camped outside in wagon boxes and tents or whether they had found places where they could get inside. Everything was so unsettled. She was glad to be across the river, glad to have some of the ache in her arms and legs at an end, but at least while she was crossing, she had been able to concentrate completely on surviving that ordeal. Now what? A much longer nightmare might be ahead. She and the Saints had escaped the constant threat of death in western Missouri, but now they had no Zion, no place to gather, no idea what their next course would be.
Emma finally let herself consider her other fear. Joseph was two hundred miles away, still held in jail and unlikely to be acquitted by courts that were against him. He had told her that he would survive and return to her, but she wondered whether he was only saying what she wanted to hear. The fact was, she knew—and had known for a long time—that he could easily be murdered, and she would be left to raise her children alone. She prayed again, asked for help for Joseph and for all the Saints. She had learned to live with constant uncertainty, but she longed for peace, a house to live in, and her husband at her side.
Chapter 15
Sam Tillery did not return with his chains. In fact, he did not return at all. Other jailers brought food—which the men were allowed to eat upstairs—but after each meal, the jailers commanded the prisoners to climb into the dungeon. The guards allowed no visitors and offered no candles. As one day followed another, a deadness settled into Caleb’s body and mind. His only solace was to give up on hope, even thought, and he slept as much as he could. The men talked very little as they lay in the straw. Everything, it seemed, had been said. No topics for discussion, no questions, not even any words came to Caleb any longer.
But there was one matter Caleb couldn’t force from his mind: he hadn’t heard from his family, and he had no idea whether Nancy and his children had left Far West. He kept envisioning all his daughters, especially the little ones, out in the cold, and it was that mental picture that haunted him. He also saw an image of the lovely young woman he had met in Cleveland so long ago: refined, accomplished, and certainly capable of marrying a better provider than he had been. Nancy had seemed delicate then, slender and neatly dressed. Now she was most likely slogging through snow and mud like a work horse, all the while loaded down with fear for her children.
