Journey of Hope: A Novel of Triumph and Heartbreak on the Oregon Trail in 1852 (7 page)

Dismayed, Emily looked at the woman who had been more mother to her than her own mother had. She saw the sympathy in Nellie’s eyes despite her sharp words.

“I can’t do this, Nellie. I’m tired and dirty.” Her voice broke. “I want to go home!” Nellie felt compassion for this girl who was like a daughter to her, but she knew she had to be firm. She knelt in front of Emily and looked into her eyes.

“Your home is with your husband now. Where he goes, you must go. Whatever you’ve written in that letter, it had better not be crying over something that can’t be helped. Think about your father. He’s already worried sick about you. Do you want to cause him more grief?”

Emily sniffed loudly. She hadn’t thought of it that way. She found her handkerchief in her sleeve and blew her nose loudly.

“No, I don’t want to worry Daddy.” Her voice was almost a whisper. She sighed loudly. “You’re right, Nellie. It will do no good to complain.” Her shoulders slumped dejectedly. She belonged to Ernest—for better or for worse, and she had promised to love, honor, and obey him. Those vows spoken at her wedding held a bitter taste in her mouth. The married life she had pictured looked nothing like this. In a way, she felt betrayed.

“That’s my girl. Things may look bleak right now, but remember, every cloud has a silver lining.” Nellie patted Emily’s shoulder and left the tent to finish the evening chores. Emily looked down at the letter in her lap. She thought of her father reading it at his large oak desk in the study. Slowly she tore the letter into small pieces. Maybe Nellie was right. Maybe things would get better.

That night the travelers had time to gather around one of the campfires and talk about the day. Some of the men from the fort joined them. They were familiar with the trail, and a few had traveled it more than once. Many people wanted to know what to expect in the days ahead.

“Will all the river crossings be as easy as this one?” James Cardell asked. He was transporting fruit trees to Oregon to start an orchard.

“Will there be trouble with the Indians?” Thomas Benson inquired.

“Will we be able to restock supplies at the other forts?” Michael Flannigan asked. Many people had read accounts that had been written about the overland journey. There was a lot of discussion and speculation.

Later there was music and some of the women and girls danced. The mood was light. Emily joined in the singing and her voice was clear and strong until someone started singing “Where Home Is.” Then she was reminded of her family and the beautiful farm she had left when she married Ernest. Her melancholy returned, and she left the circle of people and retired to the tent.

As she crawled between the blankets and closed her eyes waiting for sleep, her last thought was that conditions couldn’t get any worse. Buster curled up next to her and licked the chin of the sleepy young woman. Emily resolved to look on the bright side. Tomorrow would be a better day.

The next morning it began to rain.

The Dream

Chapter Six

Mile 427

Michael Flannigan looked across the campfire at his wife. Kate was bent over the pan of water, cleaning up the dishes they had used for dinner. Her riotous dark hair was tied in a bun at the nape of her neck, but a few strands had worked free and corkscrewed over her forehead. He noted the dark circles under her eyes. This journey was taking its toll on her. The everyday tasks for a woman of packing up in the mornings, unpacking in the evenings, cooking, washing, gathering firewood or buffalo chips, building fires, and carrying water were hard enough in the best of conditions, but it had rained for a week and this evening’s was the first fire they had been able to build. The rain had been steady and everything was dripping wet or damp. His fingers deftly worked on the harness that needed repairing, and his thoughts drifted far away, back to Ireland seven years earlier
.

It had been a cool, wet summer in 1845. That fall the potato crop had failed throughout the whole country. Wet rot, they called it, and few farms had been spared. He remembered having to sell his livestock to pay his rent and buy food for the family. A few months earlier, the British prime minister had resigned. Then the new man in charge had ordered the closing of government food depots to prevent the Irish from becoming “habitually dependent.” Michael’s face contorted as he remembered his county, with every farm and family destitute. His neighbors and friends had sold all they had to buy the Indian corn the British government had been selling for a penny a pound, but soon there was mass starvation when there were no pennies left. He sighed deeply, remembering all the people who had been evicted by their landlords when they had no money to pay their rents.

He watched Kate methodically doing her evening chores. She looked worn out. All the travelers were bone tired from struggling to keep the wagons moving over muddy and rutted trails. Sometimes the mud was like sucking quicksand, and it had been hard to keep shoes on feet. His thoughts returned to Ireland—to his neighbor Maggie Donahue and her two small children
.

He found them one morning standing in the rutted road wet to the skin from the rain, their feet up to their ankles in mud. Her husband had recently been imprisoned because he couldn’t pay the back rent, and the landlord had evicted Maggie and her children. Michael and Kate took them in, even though they had barely enough food for their own family.

Michael shook his head sadly, remembering how they had been so hopeful the summer of ’46 that the fall’s harvest would be a good one after the devastation of the year before. He remembered his deep disappointment that September when the new crop succumbed to the blight.

He held the rotten black potato in his hand that he had pulled from the ground, and for the first time in his life, he could not think of what to do. They had nothing left: no money and no food. He knew it was only a matter of time before they would be evicted. He stared at the rotten potato for a long time, unseeing. Kate had been calling his name, but all he could hear was a roaring in his ears like the sound of a train. Then Kate had come up to him and angrily taken the potato from his hand, throwing it as far as she could. She looked at him fiercely, her eyes flashing.

“We’re done here, Michael. We’re going to my sister’s in Dublin, and then we’ll decide what to do.” She didn’t wait for a reply but turned on her heel and packed up their few belongings. Soon they were on the road to Dublin with hundreds of other displaced families.

Michael worked oil into the leather harness, carefully covering both sides. The wagon train hadn’t been making good time in the persistent rain. One day they traveled over a particularly mucky stretch of the trail and barely made five miles. Everyone was either pushing the wagons from behind or pulling them from the front. Michael could see the discouragement on the faces of many of the travelers. He knew they were concerned about the possibility of early snow if they didn’t get to the Blue Mountains in good time. His brow furrowed when he was reminded of the journey his family had made to Dublin six years earlier.