“I can’t bear it,” Olivia said.
Kate took their father’s gun and managed to shoot a groundhog. She put it in the stewpot and was glad for the meat. Occasionally, in the spring and the sweltering summer, Mr. Spruill came over with his son Billy, who was thirteen, and they helped hoe the weeds. Those days were easier.
Kate tended the beehives her father had established. One day she and Olivia woke to a great buzzing. A dark mass tapped the windowpanes. The bees were swarming. The sisters gathered tin pots and spoons and rushed outside, making a racket, hoping the noise would cause the bees to return to the hives. Instead, they flew away.
“No getting them back,” Olivia said.
* * *
THE harvest was scant, with corn so tough only the mule could eat it. Neighbors left a ham and sacks of meal on the porch. At Christmastime, two young men appeared at church—Andrew and Martin Sibley from Henrico County.
“We’re heading west,” said Martin, with a smile for Kate. “Plenty of free land in Oregon.”
“And gold in California,” Andrew said.
“Nobody gets rich in a gold rush except the people who sell things,” Martin said, and Kate saw that even though he was the younger brother, he had the cooler head, and they’d likely talked about this before. “We’ll be better off farming in the Willamette Valley.”
Yet Sunday after Sunday, they showed up. They had found work with Mr. Cole, and they promised to help the sisters at planting time. Kate prayed her thanks to God. When Andrew walked Olivia home from church, it was only natural that Martin would fall into step with Kate. When Andrew and Olivia vanished into the brush, Martin drew Kate into his arms.
“Why shouldn’t we?” He kissed her.
Later, when the brothers were gone, Kate faced her sister on their porch. Courtship was flattering, and the blue-eyed men were as handsome as princes. Olivia had high cheekbones and dark, winged eyebrows, but Kate was plain as a biscuit, and uneasy.
“He’s better-looking than I am,” she said. “Is it us they want, or the farm?”
“Who’d want this?” Olivia swept her arm toward their bleak acres.
It was a double wedding. The Sibley brothers fidgeted at the altar as the sisters stepped into church, wearing their best dresses. After the ceremony, neighbors wished them health and long life. Mrs. Spruill had baked a cake, and everyone had a slice, along with blackberry cordial.
That night, Kate led Martin to the room she’d had since childhood. She felt shy, although they’d been together those times in the woods.
“Are you mine?” he said.
His embrace was as warm as a rug. She fell in love with him at that moment.
* * *
RIGHT away, Andrew started saying, “It’s not enough land.”
“I like it here,” Martin said.
Andrew pulled out maps and reminded Martin about the thousands of acres out west, free for the taking. Kate was terrified by the fate that had befallen white settlers. Everyone knew about Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, missionaries whose Oregon compound was attacked by Cayuses.
“The Cayuses was hung,” Andrew said, “and the army’ll send out more soldiers.”
“I won’t go,” said Olivia, her face like stone.
One raw spring day, Mr. Cole came over. He stood on the porch in his long black coat and made an offer to the four of them. Kate looked to Olivia, who hesitated.
“You used to talk about going west,” he said to the brothers.
“We’ll think about it,” said Martin.
“We’ll take it,” said Andrew.
Olivia went into the house and banged the door behind her. Kate’s heart beat like wings. This was what change felt like. Mr. Cole counted out money into Andrew’s palm. The porch needed paint, and winter snow had warped the railing. Why notice these things now, when the place was passing out of her hands?
“I’ll live here,” Mr. Cole said. “I like it better than my house. Will you leave the beehives, Kate?”
She read his solemn eyes and straight mouth. If she’d waited, he’d have asked her to marry him. The realization filled her with regret. It would have been all right. At her parents’ funeral, she’d been afraid he would ask, when she should have been encouraging him. She should have gone to him the day the bees swarmed.
“Oh, yes,” she said, as she might have replied to a proposal. The passion she was finding in the nights with Martin—would she have found it with Mr. Cole? Maybe not, but still there’d have been children, and she wouldn’t have had to leave.
“We can’t take beehives in the wagons anyway,” Martin said. He put his arm around her.
“Good luck to all of you.” Mr. Cole went down the porch steps.
“Look after the barn cats,” Kate said.
He turned with his hand on the railing. “I will.”
* * *
ANDREW and Martin used the money to buy oxen and extra-strong wagons made of cypress, with hickory bows and waterproofed canvas covers.
“It’s April. We’ve got to hurry,” Andrew said.
Kate and Olivia bundled clothing into trunks. They packed cooking supplies and food.
“I wish I hadn’t married him,” Olivia said. She was crying. “Aren’t you sorry?”
“No.” Kate loved Martin too much to believe the brothers had plotted to get their farm and sell it, but she also believed that in marriage, some sort of bargain was struck. “It’ll be fine. We’ll all be together.”
* * *
THE Spruills went with them, the farmer and his wife and their five children, Hannah, Billy, George, Constance, and Ella. At the last minute, a taciturn carpenter named Zachary Willis joined the group. By the time they reached St. Joseph, Missouri, Kate felt they had traveled as far as the moon. St. Joseph teemed with emigrants. Most were from Illinois, Ohio, and Arkansas, but they came from all over, even England, Ireland, and Scandinavia.
A young couple from Kentucky, James and Susan Edmiston, asked to travel with them. The Edmistons were headed to northern California, and they would take the Oregon Trail until it divided into two main routes. Susan was beautiful, and Kate felt a dart of envy. James Edmiston had a banjo, and Kate was glad there’d be music.
The first company to set out for the Oregon Trail, back in 1843, had consisted of a thousand people. Now that the trails were well worn, groups of any size could go. Theirs was only four wagons, each hauled by four oxen, with a spare pair of oxen, a few horses and mules, and a cow.
They caught up with others as they traveled, and Kate loved swapping treats. For the first time, she ate pickled cauliflower, duck sausage, and Swedish almond cookies. There was talk of President Pierce and slavery. Everyone expected there’d be a war back East. There’d been very few blacks in Augusta County. Kate didn’t think slavery would long be a part of the world, nor should be.
The first time she saw an Indian, dark-skinned in leather breeches, her throat closed in fear, but her curiosity was stronger. He knew a little English, and the others they encountered—Arapaho, Crow, Pawnee, and Assiniboine—only wanted food and tobacco. Scarred by smallpox, they hung around campsites. Mrs. Spruill doled out bread and glass jars, which they prized.
Occasionally the party met a go-back.
“I’m wore out,” the person might say. “I miss my home folks. You’ll go back, too.”
Some emigrants