A Light in the Wilderness (24 page)

Later that October, Davey was asked to help build a cabin on a claim south, one taken by the man who’d helped raise their cabin. Letitia brought along a berry pie, egg noodles, fresh bread, and cheese. The day was balmy like spring without the winds, and there’d be people there, some from the wagon train she hadn’t seen for a year, Davey’d told her. She smelled distant burning smoke. As they pulled off the trapper’s trail, she saw children. Then closer she recognized little Martha Hawkins walking with Nancy Jane. Her heart swelled.

“Martha? Is that you, chil’?”

“You know my soon-to-be stepchildren?” Micah Read took the pies from Letitia’s hands.

Nancy Hawkins stepped out of a wagon. “I know that voice.” She opened wide her arms.

Martha ran toward them while Nancy asked, “You live close?” Then to Micah Read, “Why didn’t you tell me who had the claim north of us?”

“You never asked.”

“We’s neighbors.” Letitia couldn’t control the wideness of her grin nor ignore how good it felt to anticipate a neighbor she so loved. “The Lord be good, so very good.”

A month later for her November wedding, Nancy Hawkins readied a dark blue dress borrowed from Sarah Bowman with whom
she’d spent the winter. But the lace she’d stitched to it was a piece she’d worked on while walking across the trail.

“I never expected to fall in love again, ever, but that Thomas Micah Read . . . he prefers to be called Micah,” she whispered to Letitia as Letitia helped her dress. They were in the cabin Micah had built with Davey’s and other men’s help. “He’s been as kind and gentle as any man could be.”

Letitia glimpsed out the window at Coffin Butte, a different angle from the one she and Davey shared, but one she’d come to appreciate and hoped Nancy would too.

“He’s a few years older than me but widowed nearly two years. He said he was ‘waiting for perfection and found it in me.’ Isn’t that sweet?” Nancy pulled her shoes off and wiggled her toes inside white silk stockings. The white leather shoes were borrowed too.

“Nancy,” her mother cautioned. “You’ll pick up slivers. This floor is well adzed but nothing keeps all those splinters out.”

“I’ll put them back on. They make my feet itch.” She rubbed the arch of her foot with her toes. “He has two children, but he’s happy to add my six. Is it all right to still count Laura?”

“’Course. She your little girl always. He make you happy?”

“He does.” She clasped Letitia’s hands, looked into her eyes. “And do you know what he gave me for a wedding present? Guess. Don’t tell her, Mama.”

Nancy’s blue eyes twinkled. She reminded Letitia of a young Sarah Bowman, the woman she’d been given to years before, teasing with her friends. She had only seen Sarah at a mercantile once since she and Davey had arrived in this country the year before. She’d been laughing with friends and didn’t acknowledge Letitia, though her eyes said she recognized her. The incident with the cow still stood between them.

“Come on, Tish. Guess.”

“He give you a razorback pig. They hard to come by. Be a mighty fine present.”

“Oh you. No, he made a brand-new quilting frame for me. One I can hang from the ceiling like I did back home and lower it when friends come to stitch. The first thing I quilted was a wedding ring pattern I’ve already put on our bed. Seemed fitting.” She leaned her head back into Letitia’s stomach as she stood behind her, working Nancy’s hair. “He’s a good man. I think Zach would like him.” She swallowed, her eyes catching Letitia’s in the mirror. “I do miss that man. My best friend . . . I feel like he’s here giving me away on this, my second wedding day.”

“That a good way to feel. A blessing from heaven. Laura be clappin’ her hands too.”

“I like to think so.”

Letitia wished she hadn’t brought up Laura’s death. “Maybe Nancy Jane won’t be your last chil’.”

“Oh, I think I’m finished.”

Nancy’s mother herded the girls out. Samuel and Edward would come to the wedding, but they lived now with Judge, Nancy’s brother, north, across the Columbia River. Letitia wondered how it grieved her having her sons so far away.

In the silence Letitia wove a green plant with red berries into Nancy’s blonde hair. Patches of the pretty stuff grew close to their cabin. Betsy called it
kinnikinnick
.

“Maybe we’ll have children, Micah and I. But I’ll never forget Laura. Or Zach. Nor the baby I lost. But this is a new chapter in my life.”

“You all brand new.”

“Oh, that looks lovely, Tish.” Nancy smiled into the rounded mirror she held. She turned her head back and forth. “A better use for kinnikinnick than mixing it with tobacco. Micah doesn’t smoke, not even a smelly pipe. I think we’re going to get along just fine. Why, do you know he’s already written out a will.” She frowned. “I need to probate Zach’s will. I guess I haven’t wanted to admit that Zach is gone. I keep thinking he’ll walk back into our lives and—but now, I need to get the estate handled.”

“It be good Doc wanted to care for you in the future whether he in it or not. Your Micah too. A will be a good thing.”

“Yes. It is. And your Davey ought to remember that. Maybe I’ll get Micah to urge that action.”

“That be a great gift, Miss Nancy. I supposed to give you a gift.”

“The cheese you brought will be present enough. And your friendship.” She grabbed Letitia’s hand, held it to her cheek. “There’s no greater gift than having a good friend to share a woman’s wedding day.”

Letitia helped Nancy get her shoes on and went out first to join the gatherers. Davey held Martha in his arms, her little bottom hanging below his forearm, her hand patting his head. He looked happy and content. She almost didn’t want to break that mood, almost. She slipped in next to him and said, “Nancy giving me a present on her wedding day.”

“Is she? What’s that?”

“She talking to Micah to tell you to write up a will.” She felt him tense. She whispered, “Micah give her a written promise, wants her not to worry about her future. Don’ you want that for me and Martha?”

“Ain’t the time, Tish,” he whispered back to her. “Not now. I like the way you’re letting the ends of those cornrows flail. Looks like water flowing.”

“Sayin’ pretties won’t keep me from askin’ again.”

Letitia feared it never would be the right time. She kept wishing it didn’t matter. But it did.

They did well with Davey’s proving up ground, planting potatoes, and splitting enough rails that the cows didn’t wander so far. They covered the spring where she cooled the cheese and other promises from summer that she served in winter. Letitia sold butter and cheese to trappers and new settlers, many heading south. She spent time with Nancy, who needed a midwife eleven months after her wedding and again twenty months after that.

Letitia’s days filled with labor bringing purpose to her life. Eggs filled her apron in the morning; pigs grunted greedily at the acorns and potato peels she tossed them. Martha grew happy under the pampering of Betsy and other Kalapuya women who teased Letitia, saying, “Martha a Kalapuya, just like us.
Kloshe.
”

Letitia found rest instead in Davey’s arms. More than once she sat beneath spreading oak trees to listen to a circuit rider preach while even Davey sang the hymns, and neighbors north and south accepted she was there. She was a cared-for sparrow. When she knew she was carrying a child again, she took it as a blessing, a double blessing, to have Davey say, “Sure ’tis a gift” at the birth of Adam. Their son arrived in First Month, as Betsy called it—September by all others—in 1849.

Then Davey made his pronouncement, startling the cowers back. Adam was three weeks old.

“No reason I shouldn’t go to Sutter’s. There’s a ton of gold there, and when word gets out, half the men in the states will head west. I got to go now.”

“We have enough. Herd’s growing. Garden sendin’ up shoots. We selling butter and cheese and beef this year. Can sell bacon and hams too. Why you want to leave all that when you might not find gold? You got a new chil’ to look after. He need his daddy.” She held Adam to her breast. He wasn’t even a month old, October around the corner. She shook her head. No arguing with a restless man.

She thought Davey was pleased with his life. Only one thing bothered her—until Davey said he was planning to leave.

“Truth is I’s worried about that exclusion law.”

“Nothing to worry over, Tish.”

“Nancy say it means anyone of color has to leave Oregon. No Negro or mulatto can stay here. That mean your daughter at risk too. Anyone come and say we got to leave. If you go on to California, what we do if they make us go? What happen to this farm?”

“I tell you, nothing will come of that law. Just a few slavers wanting to puff up their chests in a political way. Anyway, it don’t speak to coloreds already here, just no new ones coming in. What I hear is voters don’t want Oregon to be a slave state when we come into the union. No one thinks they’ll enforce the crazy law.”

“Those slavers have a way with me and Martha and now Adam, too, they puts their mind to it.”

“I picked this place way far from the government. No one even wanders down this trail ’cept trappers and they’re leaving the country or coming back and show no political interest as far as I can tell. Most are British anyway. Those that buy your butter and your cheese, why would they object to you? You’re one of the country.” He finished putting a chunk of cheese in his pack. “Sure wish you’d make that faster-eatin’ cheese like you did that one time.”

“If you stay home from California, I make it every week for you.”

“Bribery, woman, will get you nowhere.” He leaned across his pack laying on the bed and kissed her nose.

“I’s not so easily smoothed.” She crossed her arms. She could smell the coconut oil scent heightened by the perspiration at her forehead. “You write your will or our agreement, Davey Carson, before you leave or maybe we not here when you get back.”

“You wouldn’t leave, would you? Now lookee here, this is a great chance for us. I’ll be back in a few months.” He came around to her. “It’s a law, but it don’t mean anything. No one has the time to act on it.”

“I hears of a black man who went north he so worried about that earlier exclusion law. Oregon keeps repeatin’ that rule like they never get it right the first time.”

“See, no one made him go. They rescinded the one passed in 1844. And the one in 1845. This 1849 one, it’ll go by the wayside too. It’s just some people with nothing to do coming up with this latest one. No one will enforce it. Where’s that faith you say you have?”

When she spent time with Betsy, she calmed, the light of kindness shining through the woman reminding her that she had all she needed
to survive. Thrive, even. Learning the Kalapuya ways reminded her to “remember the sparrow” and not worry about whether she could be taken care of if something happened to Davey. But still . . .

“I not promising I be here when you get back.”

“Well, I know you ain’t going far, with two wee ones. No, you’ll stay close to Nancy or Frances Gage.”

“Both those women have husbands at home helpin’ with work and their chillun. Nancy got a new girl, Theresa, and her boy Perry. You think Mr. Read leave her by herself? Mr. Read running an inn so he able to be around to help his wife and chillun. But you leave me with a new baby and no papers?”

He patted her hand. “I’ll come home with gold and we’ll be able to influence any who might want to act on that exclusion law. No, you don’t worry.”

As she watched him ride away with the pack animal trailing behind him, she tried to sort out if his unwillingness to put her safety in writing was a lack of trust in God’s provision or a constant nudge to trust that his care for her was sufficient. If he loved her, would he not do a simple thing that could make her happy and ease her future worries? Wasn’t that part of what love was all about?

He left. That was her answer.

Micah Read stopped by each week to check on her. She paid the man in cheese when he would take it. Little Shoot rode the Carsons’ horses with the ease that young men often had and helped with the cattle. Letitia thanked both man and boy for checking rails and repairing them. When it came time to dig potatoes, Little Shoot dug beside Letitia while Betsy sat on a quilt and played with Martha, giving her a tule-dressed doll stuffed with goose down and singing to Adam.

“More fun to get
wapato
,” the boy said.

Letitia and Martha had gone with them once to a murky swamp area and stepped into the water, feeling for the potato-like
wapato
with their toes. Even Roth got in the effort, burying his nose in the water and coming up with a tuber. But Letitia liked the garden potatoes too.

By the time snow fell and water in the tin bowl wore an edge of frost, Davey had still not returned. She didn’t want to admit it, but a part of her liked being in charge of things. She was alone but not lonely; she’d been left behind but wasn’t abandoned. In some ways, this described her life of faith as well.

She thought it was either Little Shoot or Micah one morning when two horsemen rode up. One wore a new red vest she could see leering out from behind his store-bought coat.

“Well, look who’s here,” Greenberry Smith said.

Letitia stood in the doorway, out of the slow, cold rain. She did not invite them in. “It’s Davey Carson’s wench. Where’s that brat of yours?” He stretched his neck to look behind her and she felt the bile rise up within her, her palms sweating though the air was cold.

“What you want?”

“Why, I’m Greenberry Smith, in case you’ve forgotten. This here’s my brother Alexander. We’re helping the sheriff out, and wondering where that Davey Carson is?”

“He around.” The lie was a small one and didn’t ease the pounding in her ears.

“Is he? Well, maybe you’ll ask him to come on out.”

“Nothing you need here. You best be goin’.”

“You challenging me, girl?”

Rothwell started to bark his hound sound and pushed in front of her. He stood in the doorway, hair on the back of his neck raised and ruffled, his tail up and stiff.

“Call off your dog. We’re here doing the law’s work,” the brother said.

Greenberry looked at Letitia. “You’re in Oregon Territory now, woman. There are laws, a fact you might be ignorant of. And you’re violating one of the Territory laws by being here, you being a Negro and your brats being mulatto. You got to leave.”

Her throat was dry as a corn husk. “Where are your papers sayin’ I gots to leave? That law only for newcomers.”

“Ooh, she is something asking for
your
papers, G.B.” The brother grinned, his hands resting on the pommel like he was passing the time of day.

The dog continued barking, jumping forward, then back, his tail rigid as a scythe. Smith raised his pistol and aimed.

“Roth! No. Come!” She croaked the words, grabbed at his collar.

“That’s better. OK now. You need to git.” G.B. Smith growled out the words, revealing the space between his two front teeth. His horse began to dance around and he yanked at the reins. He held his pistol out. Rothwell growled low, tugged against her hold. “Take those brats and leave. That’s the law.”

“We in a county now.” Her voice shook. “I knows that. I wants to see the county sheriff. Not his . . . patrollers.”

She stepped back, heart pounding, and lifted the pistol from a shelf above the door, both hands pointing as steady as she could. “Roth, inside.” The dog complied but still stood beside her, growling low at her skirt.

“Ain’t no wench gonna pull a gun on me and not feel the pain of it.”

G.B. leapt from his horse then. Rothwell barked, barked, jabbed toward him, then bit his leg. He struck the dog with the grip of his pistol, lurched toward Letitia, jamming her arms into her chest as he pinned her up against the door. Spittle formed at the edge of his thin lips. He smelled of sweat as he wrenched the pistol from her hand.

Martha cried, “Mama. Mama.” Adam gasped a hiccoughed sob.

G.B. hit Letitia on the cheek with the butt of his pistol, shoved her backward, and she tripped over Rothwell, fell against the table. “Don’t you ever defy me, girl. You know your place and it is not to challenge a white man. Ever. Now you get out of this state.”

She heard a horse from a distance.

“Let’s ride,” G.B.’s brother shouted.

Greenberry Smith hesitated, then mounted and the two rode off with Rothwell moaning, her children crying, and Letitia shaking as they fled.

“I’m still so mad at Davey Carson for leaving you, I could spit.” Nancy put a cold press on Letitia’s cheek. “That needs to be stitched up.” They were at the Reads. Micah had helped Letitia and her children mount a horse and then laid Rothwell across his pommel. It was pure chance Micah had happened by when he did.

“They coulda done more harms than they did. Left Martha and Adam alone. And I think Roth gonna be all right. You think so, Mr. Micah?”

He didn’t look her in the eye.

Nancy got out her sewing needle. Letitia flinched but allowed the stitching. “This’ll still leave a scar.”

“You know who they were?” Micah asked.

It will do no
good to tell him
. Maybe he didn’t know, being from New Hampshire, that the word of a black woman accusing a white man would only bring her trouble.

“I needs to get back, tend to the stock. Little Shoot might not come ’til later. Cows need brought up to milk.” She patted Martha on her lap, who reached up with feather fingers to linger at the stitching. The throb pushed at her cheek. Adam slept swaddled on the Read daybed.

“You shouldn’t be alone there, not with the exclusion law in place. I can’t believe they passed such a despicable act.”

“My tongue got loose, maybe egg him on.”

“You are not at fault here, Letitia. Goodness. Not one bit.”

“They can’t make me go, can they? Don’t they needs the sheriff?”

“If they’d been deputized, they would have said so. It’s winter coming on and men need things to keep ’em busy instead of riding around enforcing laws without a license,” Micah said.

She hated bringing her children up into a world where just being
alive caused her to be in trouble with the law. Only written words of white men seemed to matter. “Would you . . . would you write up a paper that Davey sign when he get back saying I work for him, have since ’45. Maybe they see I his employee they be less willing to send us away.”

She could feel the sting of tears in her nose. Pitiful, that’s what she was. Pitiful and chained by something she could never change.

“He hasn’t written out a will?” Nancy turned from putting her scissors back.

“Not sure it do any good now, but maybe I get his property in the state if something happen, even if I is colored.”

“There is something in that law that honors contracts between the races, isn’t there?” Nancy asked.