out to help her climb down. What would it be like to be so pretty?
“Don’t you think you should stay here until the baby comes?” Kate asked.
“James wants to keep going,” Susan said.
Babies were being born all along the trail. Mothers would brandish a newborn and yell out its date of arrival. Other women were sick in the backs of their wagons or dead in childbirth. The trail belonged to men. Wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers were tugged along like the Spruills’ cow.
Olivia and Susan posted letters while Kate shopped at the fort’s store. At the counter, a woman ducked her head, trying to hide the purple bulges around her eyes.
Why were some beaten and others treated as queens?
Feeling bold, Kate met the soldiers’ gaze as she passed them in the streets. They numbered about six hundred under General Harney. Everyone knew their mission was to wipe out the Indians.
* * *
WHEN they left the fort, Kate rode backwards in the wagon, holding paper and pencils on her lap and teaching Constance and Ella Spruill how to draw, a bumpy endeavor. Just past a grain mill, a dot appeared and grew until it became a man running toward them. He was covered in flour, and he kept looking over his shoulder. Kate couldn’t help but laugh. She read his face and found nothing to fear.
“Come on up,” she said. “Is somebody chasing you?”
“My boss, but I think he gave up.”
He swung himself on board. His name was Hank Charles. He helped with the animals and paid for a ferry crossing, and as they moved deeper into Indian country, where the natives wanted guns, he pacified them with wire and gunpowder.
One day, several Sioux blocked the trail and pointed to Susan Edmiston.
“They like your hair,” Hank said. “They want it.”
Susan untied her ribbons and offered them. The Indians held up a knife. James stepped in front of her.
Hank spoke to the Indians and said to James, “Bring out the whiskey, quick.”
Peace was maintained, and later, Susan joked if her hair was going to be that troublesome, she should cut it off. She trembled as Olivia braided it. Kate’s own hair was light brown, long and shiny, but nobody would ever crave it as a trophy. That was one advantage to being plain.
One morning, Hank spotted a wagon train in the distance. “Think I’ll run up ahead.”
“You’re in a hurry, aren’t you?” Kate was sorry to see him go.
“Reckon so.” He jumped off, and that was goodbye.
* * *
THEY traveled through long hours of summer light, stopped at noon, and moved again until day’s end. Sharp stubs of dry grass irritated the feet of the oxen and the cow. Mr. Spruill cleansed the wounds and applied ointment, and the party lay by for three days so they could improve. Kate felt overwhelmed with anxiety. She tried to talk to Olivia, but she was silent and withdrawn, exhausted, Kate figured. She was glad when they set out again.
A towering landmark became visible at the horizon. For days, it beckoned, seeming to float above the flat earth. This was Chimney Rock, 250 miles past Fort Kearny. When they finally reached it, they joined other travelers milling around in hushed awe. A single pyramidal hill rose from scoured earth, topped by a three-hundred-foot rock pillar.
“Pointing to heaven,” Martin said. Kate was surprised. He rarely spoke of God.
“The Indians call it the elk’s cock,” James said.
After they left, they kept looking back. The youngest Spruill children cried when they couldn’t see it anymore.
* * *
One evening when Kate and Olivia were fixing supper, a woman approached, her face flaring into the firelight. Gray hair snagged at her shoulders.
“I lost ’em,” she said, “them I was with.”
“Eat,” Kate offered, “and come with us tomorrow. We’re bound to catch up with them.”
“I’ll just stretch out a while.”
The woman lay on her back. The toes of her boots made black peaks against the sunset. Kate set a bowl of beans near her, and biscuits with honey. They were using all their supplies now. In the morning, the woman and the food were gone.
“If she can’t find them,” Kate said, “what’ll she do?”
“You can’t worry about everybody,” Olivia said.
When had the glory seeped out of the days? Beneath the endless sky, Kate felt like a mouse hunted by hawks.
* * *
THE land soared as they entered the Laramie Range. Dust caked their mouths, eyes, and noses. The horned skulls of cattle and buffalo littered the cracked earth. Farther on, they passed Independence Rock, which looked like a giant stone turtle. At Devil’s Gate Canyon, where the Sweetwater River flowed, they drank and filled their casks. Next was the South Pass. A steep descent followed. The oxen slipped on the rocks, and everyone was out and walking.
“Only eight hundred miles to go,” Martin said.
On a level stretch, the oxen broke into a run. The horses and mules ran too, and the cow, until they reached a shallow pond.
“Don’t let them drink,” James yelled.
The men kicked and spurred their mounts so they’d run around the water, but there was no stopping the oxen. They plowed into the pond, dragging the wagons with them. The cow plunged in, and they drank their fill while the men shouted and lashed with whips.
Within an hour, the cow strained at the rope that tethered her to the Spruills’ wagon, broke away, and ran. Zachary Willis gave chase but returned without her. James called an early halt, and the men searched in vain for good water.
In the morning, two of the oxen were dead. Thanks to the spare pair, there were still enough to pull the four wagons. In the searing sunlight, Kate looked at a map and felt sick.
“Should we turn back?” she asked Martin. “Can we?”
“No. We’ve come too far.”
When they stopped at midday, two more oxen sank down. The Sibleys would all have to share a wagon. To make room, Olivia and Kate discarded cooking things and furniture, but it would still be crowded. The couples would take turns sleeping in the wagon and underneath it, on a rubber mat.
One moment, Olivia was beside her, frying bread in bacon grease, and the next she was gone, and so was James. Kate blinked. Did no one else notice? Didn’t Andrew?
“Should we butcher them?” Martin asked, pointing to the two oxen, now dead.
“We need the meat,” said James, who was nearby after all.
Olivia and Susan
