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 were talking, their heads bent together. Jealousy struck Kate’s heart, sharp as a claw. She, not Susan, had worked with Olivia on the farm. Together they’d wrenched their backs and blistered their hands.
James turned the knobs on his banjo and picked out a tune.
* * *
ZACHARY Willis rode ahead all day and slept out in the open. He did his share of the work and more, and as grass became scarcer, they relied on him to scout it out. When the other men’s hair grew long, they asked the women to cut it, but he didn’t bother. From the back, he might have been an Indian.
Hannah Spruill turned sixteen. A long-legged tomboy when they’d started, she had grown womanly. Laughing, she twined daisies into a chain and slipped it over Zachary’s head. Ten years older, he protested but gave her a smile.
They made Fort Bridger and forged northwest into the Idaho territory, pausing at hot springs, where the burning water tasted like metal and did not slake thirst. Nearly everyone contracted a miserable fever, with sore throat and aching muscles. When Kate felt better, she craved sausage and fried apples, but there weren’t any. The gristly ox meat had spoiled. They picked worms out of their bacon and rationed the rice, beans, and hardtack.
Kate and Martin no longer sought each other out for lovemaking. She felt too filthy and tired, and Martin fell asleep without reaching for her. What might be going on in the other wagons was a mystery. She felt empty inside, as if she’d been in the Rocky Mountains forever.
The oxen struggled up the steep, stony paths. Mr. Spruill complained of stomachache. As it worsened, his moans reached every ear. When night fell, Kate took a lantern to the Spruills’ wagon and offered to sit up with him. Mrs. Spruill burrowed into the wagon and soon was snoring. Hannah and Zachary joined Kate, Hannah’s eyes huge with fear, and they kept vigil through the night. Kate listened to Hannah tell Zachary about the food she would cook when they reached Oregon.
“Blueberry muffins,” Hannah said. “Would you like that?”
“I sure would,” Zachary said.
“I can make chicken pie. Ma taught me. Do you like chicken pie?”
“I sure do.”
In the morning, Mr. Spruill was well enough to sit up and drink tea, and they gave him the last of the sugar. In a stretch of well-watered country, Martin shot an antelope, and the fresh meat heartened them. As if drawn by the savory smell, a group of Iowans appeared, and Kate’s party offered to share. The guests contributed dried pears and cherry wine, and the food was passed from hand to hand in a welcome respite. They camped together that night. In the morning, the Iowans pushed off early. Some fear nagged at Kate, a sense her group had taken a risk, but the visitors had looked healthy, even robust, without contagion or infirmity.
Soon they would reach Fort Hall, the junction with the California Trail, where the Edmistons would leave them. Kate looked into her heart and asked herself if she could stop loving James. He was a mirage, like clouds that promised rain but were only dust.
When they stopped at noon, Olivia summoned Kate and Mrs. Spruill.
“Susan’s baby is coming,” Olivia said.
Susan labored for eighteen hours, until, just before daybreak, she delivered a little boy. Mrs. Spruill washed and swaddled him.
“Someday,” Olivia said, “we’ll tell him he was born on the Oregon Trail.”
Kate felt as tired as if she’d had a baby herself.
“I’ll go find James and tell him he has a son,” she said, but a pain in her stomach drove her to her knees.
It was cholera. For days, she lay delirious, barely aware of others offering water, her fever dreams haunted by the jolly supper with strangers. She must have drunk the water, because she began to revive. Recovery brought bitter revelations. Mr. Spruill, Hannah, and Susan’s infant had all died. Martin was sick. Kate held a cup of water to his lips and waited a long moment before he opened his eyes and drank. She kissed his forehead and thanked God it was cool.
Andrew, James, and Zachary buried the dead. They weren’t strong enough to dig deep graves, so they hacked into the trail. Wheels would pack the earth and keep animals from digging up the bodies. They left no markers, not even rocks.
* * *
THERE was no remedy for the time they had lost except to push on. Everyone had lost weight, and their clothes hung off them, but no one looked worse than James and Susan. His eyes were sunken, her face was puffy, and her breasts leaked pitifully through her dress.