Chapter 19 #2
She sat on his lap, her fat legs swinging happily back and forth as she sipped greedily.
“Whoa, little lady. Slow down ‘fore you hurt yourself. Sip it daintily.” When he chucked her playfully beneath the chin, my baby giggled and clasped the canteen. Buck helped her raise it to her mouth, but she didn’t drink so much as gnaw on its rim, soothed by the cool metal.
“She’s cutting teeth. If you scared she might dribble in your water, you don’t have—”
“This sweet baby can’t dribble nothing that’ll hurt me.” He made clicking sounds that the oxen obeyed by moving ahead. He chuckled at Hattie’s attempts to mimic those clicks. “Seems like we have a new driver here.”
An odd sensation flashed through me at Buck’s use of “we.”
I’d had a birthday sometime that month. That made me a year older, but yet enslaved.
Wasn’t much worth celebrating. I was thirty with three children but had yet to experience companionship.
I walked alongside the wagon, watching Buck show Hattie how to hold the reins, telling myself it was foolish to put more on it than he meant.
More importantly, I was ashamed to admit that while mourning my sister I was intrigued by the notion of we-ness.
Intrigue seemed to blossom daily as we exited Nebraska and passed through Wyoming.
But I wasn’t certain if Buck’s interest was sincere or a sympathetic response to my being without Lovie.
Despite any caution and uncertainty, Hattie and I found ourselves moving from the rear of the caravan to find Buck and his wagon at some point, daily.
When we did my littlest bit wasn’t satisfied until she was on his lap with the wagon reins in her chubby hands.
Next thing I knew Annabelle, Abigail, Juniper, and the other little bits were tagging along, climbing up and sitting on the buckboard beside Buck listening to the stories he told or chattering his ear off.
Each time it happened I breathed a sigh of relief, not realizing how truly anxious I’d been throughout the journey.
Some nights I had dreams of the children—mine and my sister’s—getting lost or injured.
There were times I didn’t want them off the oxcarts to even stretch their legs.
I did my best to limit their movement and keep them from wandering off to other contingents.
It was difficult herding livestock and keeping watch over them.
I’d soothed myself with the fact that Ella was present, as well as our fellow enslaved from other plantations.
But children were children and could get into things even with the undivided eye of a watchful parent.
The times they rode, “helping Mister Buck drive,” I knew a calm I hadn’t often experienced in life.
Must be Lovie’s spirit.
I was more comfortable crediting my sister for the calmness I felt than Buck’s presence.
Calm visited me, took the edge off my nerves as we climbed into rugged, mountainous terrain.
It aided me when the air felt thin and breathing became a feat.
When scorching daytime heat plunged each night into freezing.
Or when Ella or I were awakened by the sobs of my sister’s oldest two and went to comfort them.
With the aid of my walking stick I struggled through those weeks and that terrain that, in some ways, felt like our hardest yet.
Even so, I made it. All the way to Salt Lake Valley and the kingdom of the Mormons.
Not by virtue of a smile or a song of the heart, but with Lovie’s grace by my side urging me on.
“Mama, we walked all that way for this?”
Atop a plateau, I held my girls’ hands as our caravan descended into the Salt Lake Valley below. Miles. Months. Every element beneath the sun. Long days. Weary nights. Aches and injuries. And the loss of life. We’d endured it all for what?
Abigail added to Annabelle’s opinion. “Looks like a buncha dust and dryness.”
“What if it’s haunted?”
I laughed at my oldest bit. “Annabelle, haints got better things to do than terrorize some pitifulness in the middle of nowhere.” The land was arid. Uninviting. I tried but failed to find anything welcoming or enticing. “Maybe it’ll look like something worthwhile at the settlement.”
Anything’ll be better than this desert.
“No need in bellyaching. Let’s thank the Lord we made it.
” I squeezed their hands affectionately, remembering the day we—hand in hand—left Mississippi.
We’d lost Miss Tandy. Alretha disappeared.
My girls experienced their own trials by rushing water and a fallen Bible.
I’d worked harder, feeling vulnerable and more at risk. Yet grace brought us safely here.
“Mama, can we catch up with Aunt Ella and the others?”
I responded to Abigail with a nod and cautioned my oldest two to be careful on the descent as they headed towards our contingent ahead.
I remained at the precipice a moment gazing down at the long line of wagons snaking their way to our destination. I’d told my girls to be thankful but couldn’t help my own dark thinking.
My sister lost her life for this flat land of nothing?
I closed my eyes and inhaled, telling myself not to misuse grief to dislike this foreign place more than necessary.
I looked over my shoulder when Hattie squirmed and squealed as if impatient to be moving.
“This is it, my littlest bit. Your sisters had plenty to say. What do you think?”
My baby blew spit bubbles before grinning and showing off teeth sprouting from her lower gums like two tiny navy beans.
I smiled without sharing her exuberance before turning my face heavenward. I had clear memories of the day we left Mississippi, as well as my sister’s ever-ready optimism. “We made it, sis. You said God would get us here safely and He did.”
I paused to survey the land below. “I don’t see nothing worth shaking a stick at, but if there’s any good to be had I promise we’ll have it.”