Harland has been not wearing his coat and has a fever and sniffles so he must stay away from her, and he sneaked away to play with Rudy Willburn and came back burning up feverish and did not eat supper but went right to bed.
December 29, 1881
Just about dusk we stopped by a stream to water, and it was getting dark early because of a new bank of clouds forming. It had stopped raining that morning but looked like it would start heavy any time and sprinkled on and off. Well, I went to the stream to fetch water and was filling up our barrel, and there was some wild blackberry bushes growing there, so I came back again with a pail and began to pick some tender stems and dig for some roots. There are several medicines you can make from blackberry stalk, and besides, if I cut carefully we can carry some to our new home to plant. I followed the little bushes quietly, not wanting to make a commotion. If all those people rushed over here, they’d spoil it all and no one would get any, and maybe they will do us some good. Savannah needs the bark for tea as she is having some bad stomach sickness these days.
Before I knew it I was far away from the wagon, and I reached under a stem and stood up with a start. There I saw a person’s hand laying under the bushes. I peered over the bush and I wish I never did that, for what I saw on the other side would take a river to wash it out of my mind. There was a woman’s body all naked and bloody. It was cut open at the stomach and the eyes were poked out. Her legs and arms were blistered up and red and black from burned marks and her scalp was almost all gone. It was a white woman and ants were in her face and one foot was trimmed off as if by coyotes or wolves, and there were several arrows in her all over.
As I looked on this horror, all I could think of is that Mama and Savannah mustn’t see it. Mama might never come back from yonder in her mind. Savannah might lose the baby. Oh Lord, I thought, if I never do another thing, help me be strong now. So I took my pail of cuttings and put a smile on my face and went right away and found Captain Elliot.
He looked mighty surprised to see me wanting to talk to him, because I have not been at all friendly toward him since he got my books. I had to tell him twice, Captain, there is something I must talk to you about, please come with me. He said Talk here, but I said again, We must go for a walk, please! just as strong as I could for there were other folks around and if anything was stirred up, Mama and Savannah might come to see what it was they were looking at.
I know he thinks I am just a girl but he finally followed me, and when some fellow tried to follow along, I turned to him and said, Please wait for us, the Captain will be right back, in my sternest voice I could manage. The Captain was puzzled for sure, but I took him to the place in the bank and said, It’s over there, and I don’t want my Mama or my sister to know or to see it so it must be kept quiet.
He pushed apart the bushes and looked for just a second. Then he said to me, I will see that this is taken care of and you can put your mind at ease, Miss Prine, just like I was a lady and I had asked him to saddle a horse or something.
He looked at me real queer, like he was sizing me up or something, but I just said back, Thank you, Captain. He touched the edge of his hat and went back to the soldiers quickly and I seen them later with a shovel beyond the bushes, burying that dead woman.
Then, when we were making supper, Savannah hugged me for bringing her the bark, and wanted to share her tea but I could not.
Captain Elliot came up and took off his hat and said hello to everyone, nodding at my Mama. Is everything all right, folks, he says, and although he doesn’t look at me I see his eyes flit this way for a second.
Well, wouldn’t you know Mama would pick this time to come back to us a little, and she asked him to have a cup of coffee and some supper. Savannah has not cooked tonight as she can’t stand the smell of meat cooking right now, but there is rabbit stew and biscuits, and that Captain just sat right down and had some and my Mama refilled his coffee just like he was company. She doesn’t know what a low down man he is, I thought to myself, but I cannot tell her what I know about him so I kept my peace and watched it all and went to do the dishes.
The fire was hissing because little raindrops were hitting the rocks now and then, and he sat there and talked polite like company for some minutes and then said he had to go and he pitched his cold coffee into the darkness and handed me the cup, touched his hat again and was gone. Toobuddy who is named after my first dog Buddy wagged his tail and whimpered when he left like it was his best friend and I told him to hush. Bear just lays there not moving anything he doesn’t have to except his eyes, he is older and tired from the trip.
Harland says, Sarah what are you so mad about? but I told him to hush, too.
December 30, 1881
I have done the worst thing I ever thought I’d do and I wonder if this is how a fancy woman feels when she is thinking about her sinful life. I cannot believe I let myself fall into this like a wanton or a harlot. I cannot face Savannah and Mama and the others, and I claim that I have a sick headache, but in truth I just cannot look them in the eye.
Before bedding down last night I checked to see that there was no water running in on the books. The tree bundles could go outside and be watered so I would have a little more room, so I set them all around my wagon, making a little shelter for the dogs underneath, where it would stay pretty dry. In the night the rain continued, thunder and lightning, lightning and thunder cracking like the sky is opening up. After a while it was raining harder and harder. I don’t know how late it was but it felt darker than midnight when I finally fell asleep.
I woke up suddenly knowing my wagon and I were on fire. If it was from the lightning or from an Indian arrow I didn’t know, but I knew it would burn with me in it. All my books, all my life, everything gone, I was on fire and the smell of smoke was everywhere and I screamed for my life.
Suddenly there was a shape of a man in the open flap, and it was a huge shape, wet and shiny in the lightning flash and smoke coming from it. I picked up a pistol and aimed and the man tore it out of my hands. I saw a soldier’s uniform coming for me and I began to scream and he grabbed me and I felt a huge hand on my mouth.
Don’t, he says, don’t cry. It is only me, and I was stupid, I stopped under your wagon to have a smoke before I changed the watch, his voice says, and in a second I see it is Captain Elliot. He threw his cigar out into the night and held me as I was still struggling against his hands. You’ll wake everyone, and your sister is sick, don’t scream, please, he says, but I stumbled and the wagon swayed and we fell down on the plankbed.
Then I don’t know why but I started to cry, and I felt myself get limp as I cried and cried. I told him I thought I was on fire, and I didn’t want to burn to death, and I was so tired of fighting Indians, and traveling, and dying children.
I’m sorry, he says, I didn’t think about the smoke, and then he loosened up his hold on me but I couldn’t stop sobbing. I didn’t even realize it at the time, but as I began to shiver all over and weep like a baby, he wrapped his arms around me and stroked my hair.
As I cried I told him about little Clover and the rattlesnake and about Papa, then I told him about poor Mrs. Lawrence, and then I told him about dear Ulyssa and how I killed those men, and I never thought I could kill a person except I was so stricken at what was happening, and how the Indian man gave me back Rose from the horses, and how we struggled and lost everything. I told him how Mama lost her mind, and how Ernest lost his leg and I had to help hold him down while his blood gushed all over everyone, and how he squeezed my hand so hard it hurt for a week afterward but it wasn’t anything because my hand was still there and his leg wasn’t. I told how I saw Mr. Hoover get shot in the throat and look down surprised and pulled the arrow out of himself and with it came pieces of his innards before he fell to the ground, and how horrible it all was.
I cried into his chest and he held me while I cried and told me I was brave and strong. And then I cried more and told him I was not brave at all I was a craven coward and begg
ed him not to let me end up like that woman I found. Please, I said, don’t let them get me, please.
He kept saying how brave I was, and how he wished he had soldiers as strong, and patting my shoulder real soft. And the next thing I knew, it was morning.
I have slept with a soldier all night, laying on top of him like he was a pile of blankets. Not just any one, either, but that Captain Jack Elliot who has my books and now he has my shame.
He shook me a little bit and said, Miss Sarah, I have to get out of here before folks wake up, and when I saw what had happened my mouth fell open like I was stunned. He put back on his slicker and I didn’t even know he had it off, and picked up his hat and shaped it a little from being squashed, then he turned back toward me and picked up my blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders.
I looked down under it and I was only wearing some long drawers and my old camisole, the one that is bursting full of me on the top and had come untied in the bargain, and what a fine sight I was, freezing cold and my hair all around my shoulders, and I started to cry again. I am ruined.
Sh-sh, he says. There’s no wrong done in a good cry, and I was beginning to wonder if you ever did. I would never hurt you, he says. And as long as no one knows, no one is ruined. Besides, it would be much more of a shame to be ruined by a rumor than by truth, and then he slipped out of my wagon and away in the foggy morning.
He is a puzzlement, for sure, and I don’t think he was laughing at me, but then I remember how coarse he is and I feel ruined.
January 5, 1882
It is Harland’s birthday and he is ten years old. He is a big boy and didn’t want me to hug him, but he didn’t mind at all if I made him a little sweet cake at dinner tonight.
For three days we have seen no sign of Indians, and no further attacks, not even a pat of butter stolen. Perhaps we are past their territory and they no longer intend to make war with us. There is a soldier who took a ball in the arm just like Papa, and I expected him to die only he got well just fine. A man from three wagons back, Mr. Raalle, who has an accent from a far away country called Norway, said that when a wound bleeds good, sometimes that washes dirt out of it and it heals better. I will think of that, since I remember Papa’s arm never did bleed and I’m sure that there is always plenty of dirt on the trail.
On top of everything else we have all been taken with the flux and some folks are sick unto death from it. I don’t feel terribly bad, but it is embarrassing.
January 6, 1882
Mama asked me to read from the Bible and I said fine but she wanted me to read starting in Joshua 2, and it is the story of Rahab the Harlot and how she saved Joshua and the spies and helped them hide in the walls of her house in Jericho and how forty thousand Children of Israel marched and blew trumpets and knocked down the walls but saved Rahab for her goodness. Well, I just could not stop my face from beaming red and every time I came to the word harlot it stuck in my throat like a bur, and Mama looked at me and said What ails you, Sarah? twice. So I added a lie to my sins and said it is just the flux making me run hot and cold and I went to bed early to wait for the Lord to smite me down and crumble my bones like the stones of Jericho.
January 7, 1882
We all seem to be better. Thank goodness for the blackberry bark. Poor Savannah was stricken first and has become well first, but she still is weak and dizzy often. Sergeant Miller, who is the man who almost killed Rose, says try boiling all your water before you drink or wash your face, it was what his Ma used to do, and the very next day after we started boiling water we began to get well. Some folks are doctoring their water with red chili sauce and some with herbs or tonics. All are trying their own way but this seems to work well.
Also, Rose is much better and seems agreeable to be ridden today. I’m very pleased.
January 8, 1882
I have much to read and have discovered a peculiar box, packed underneath other boxes at the bottom in a corner of the wagon. It had a slick piece of something white and shiny and shaped like a long necked bird on the lid, and a tiny little hook and eyebolt to close it, and when I opened it I found some wonderous things. I was not sure what to make of the things at first, then I opened one little glass bottle, and smelled it to see if it was medicine, and lo and behold, I believe it is perfume. It is strong and sickly sweet, and I looked harder at the other things with a different understanding. One little jar has red chalky stuff inside and I touched it with my fingers and it stuck on but didn’t smell like much. There is a little paper wrapped bundle of sticks which break easy and leave marks on everything.
I have never seen the likes and so have put the things away. The perfume makes me suspicious and afraid I have gotten the wagon of a nasty woman. But, it doesn’t seem likely that a harlot would read so many books nor have studies of sermons, nor a Dictionary, which you say as dikshun-nerry. Maybe those things were given to a traveling preacher by a repentant dandywoman, as a sign she had given up her horrid life. At any rate, I can’t throw the things out, for someone else in the wagon train will pick it up from curiosity, and words will get back about who threw it out.
Had a dream last night of a good and bad feeling and thought someone’s arms were around my shoulders as I slept but woke and found nothing. I wondered if I am a fallen woman and have found that perfume as a sign. But then I think of all Mama’s sayings and Bible stories, and I think if I were that kind of woman I would have been glad to find the perfume and the little jar of rouge which I looked up in the Dictionary book and I know is face paint. No, I ’spose I am not that kind, but then why did I like the feeling of dreaming about those arms?
January 10, 1882
Two children, ages nine and eleven, died in one family of the flux. Their Mama is real poorly and will probably join them, but we are not stopping so she will not be buried near them and she is very sad at that. They are the Raalle family, whose Papa I talked to before. We are scared this is cholera but Sergeant Miller said no, he’s seen cholera and it is much worse. This is trail fever.
January 11, 1882
No one it seems has any idea about what I did that rainy night. I am glad. At least Captain Elliot has remained gentlemanly and not spread word around. That other fool soldier who thinks he is partners with Doc Holliday came around again and I told him if he didn’t leave me alone I was going to throw boiling water on him, and give the stew that made to my dog to eat. Bear got to his feet and growled just as if I had asked him to, and he won’t be back, I’m sure. Bear is a black dog big enough to pick his teeth with the likes of that boy.
Every morning for the last week I have found our two pails full of oats and the scraps of a sheaf of hay near my horses. And Rose looks all brushed and shiny. There are comb marks on her thick winter coat. It’s like someone is feeding them and tending Rose specially, but I don’t know who. I asked Albert did he get around early and tend my stock for me but he said no, and Ernest doesn’t get up before me regular. It is a puzzle but it makes my morning easy.
El Paso is in our sights and we will lay over in the town for two days and put up dry goods. Harland was pestering me today and wants to ride Rose, so I told him all right. He rode right alongside my wagon for a while and asked me the silliest questions. All about does Mama miss Papa, and is that why she is so addled, and did I think she loved Papa? Then he wanted to know would she marry again, and if she had someone to take Papa’s place maybe would she be right again and happy?
Well, I told him I don’t know, maybe if a fellow came along who was real good to her, she might. This made me feel sad, and I never thought about all that before. Sure Mama loved Papa, weren’t they always together, taking care of us?
Then he asked me a whole bunch of questions about how a fellow went courting, and what should he do, and what should he say, and what if the lady didn’t like him, what should he do then?
Well, I don’t know those things but I tried to tell him to just wash his face and hands and comb his hair, be an honest man and a good sport and kind heart
ed to her feelings, and if she doesn’t like him he has got to go slow, and bring her some flowers and such and tip his hat.
He wants to know does a fellow have to be real old, older than the lady, old as Albert, and how old was Mama and how old was Papa, and I said I didn’t know for sure, and he asked again but I can’t figure it. He got real quiet and thoughtful, and then after a while he rode off and I didn’t see him until we stopped for supper that evening. I ’spose he has found a little girl to spark and there will be no prairie flowers in Texas after this winter.
January 13, 1882
We are stuck here near El Paso and I am tired of this town and glad we will be pulling out tomorrow. Daytimes are pretty but the nights here are dreadful cold.
All the China folks’ names start with Sing which I think is nice and it is like their little bird talk. I have tried to get a handle on the words they say but when I do they laugh and I get embarrassed.
January 14, 1882
Well, I never saw the like. That rascal Harland has upset the applecart for sure. Tonight he came up before we stopped and said, Mama, can I invite a friend to supper, and will you ask Sarah to make a sweet cake again for company, and she just nodded like she does. Well, he took that for her answer, and made a big fuss about me hurrying and making a cake, which is a task in a campfire oven, and he like to drove Mama to distraction getting her to put on a different dress. Then he went and washed his own face without being told.
I could hardly wait to see the little girl in braids he would bring to our fireside. He kept saying Is it done, yet, is it done? Until we were about to scold him. Well, he runs off into the circle of wagons and pretty soon it is getting dark, and I was never so shocked in my life, here he comes back again pulling by the hand, Captain Jack Elliot.