She swung around. “Shhh!” she urged. “There
is
someone out there.”
There were soft gasps, and a choked sob from one of the women. There were about six women and perhaps eighteen or twenty children crowded in the little cabin. The scene was the same in half a dozen other cabins in the Colesville settlement. Earlier that afternoon, all able-bodied men—all but three old men, too frail to be of assistance—had left the village in search of wagons and carriages sufficient to move their families and belongings from the county. The women had banded together in small groups, no one wanting to be alone once darkness came. Now they waited anxiously for their men to return.
“Jessica!”
The faint cry spun her back around and she stared at the shuttered window.
“Jessica Roundy Steed.”
“Who is it?” one of the sisters whispered.
Jessica straightened slowly. “It’s my father.”
“I’m telling you, Jessica, you’ve got to get you and little Rachel out of here.”
Jessica hugged herself against the bitter cold. She had grabbed only a shawl to wrap around her shoulders before walking out of the cabin, and had nothing more on her feet than a thin pair of moccasins. The clouds had temporarily blown away from the face of the moon, and the night was filled with a soft, silvery glow, so she could see her father’s face clearly. There was no mistaking the fear she saw in his eyes.
“Joshua can’t hold them back much longer,” he went on when she didn’t answer. “Supposedly he’s in command of this company, but they’re headstrong and thirsting for blood.”
“What are you saying, Pa? That I can’t expect Joshua to do anything to protect his own daughter and wife?”
“Former wife,” he corrected without thinking.
“And former daughter?” she said bitterly.
He shook his head, unable to cope with this kind of feminine stubbornness. “Jess, I’m tellin’ you that Joshua can’t stop them. They nearly mutinied when he told them I was comin’ in to check things out.”
“How many are there?” She had never felt so bleak in her entire life.
“Close to a hundred men. All of them armed.”
She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and scream, “But the Missourians promised us ten days to get our things together and leave.” But she didn’t. The two days following the so-called treaty had been filled with one depredation after another.
She shook her head. “Pa, there are no men here. They’ve all gone after wagons. There’s only women and children.”
“You think that will stop them!” he asked incredulously. “Their orders are to drive the Mormons from the county. All Mormons!”
“I’m a Mormon,” she cried. “Is that what you want?”
He took a step forward, his face twisted with pain. “You don’t have to be, Jess. Get little Rachel and come with me now, before it’s too late.”
“And deny all that I believe in?”
He shook his head in frustration. “No, just say you don’t believe Joe Smith. That’s what’s got ’em all riled up. You can believe in Jesus and all that stuff if you want.”
Her head came up slowly. “I can’t do that, Pa.” Her shoulders lifted and fell. “Tell Joshua I’m grateful that he would care enough to try.”
He flung an arm outward. “Did you hear what I said?” he shouted. “These men don’t care about women and children. You’re in danger. You’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
Suddenly there was a sound behind them, off to the east. Clinton Roundy jerked around, his eyes wide. Across the prairie, from a dark mass of trees, a line of horsemen was thundering toward them in a hard run.
“Oh no!” Roundy breathed. “Here they come!” He whirled back to her. “Run, Jess, run!”
The next few minutes would ever remain a nightmarish blur of horror in Jessica’s mind. She darted back toward the cabin as her father ran for his horse. Inside it was utter chaos—women screaming in terror; children shrieking and running blindly in the darkness; infants, torn from sleep, wailing and howling; people bursting out of the cabin into the night, some with enough presence of mind to grab a coat or pull on shoes, but most bolting madly, like fawns before a charging grizzly.
She found Rachel still sitting on the bed with little Martha Lewis, both of them screaming hysterically. Someone knocked against Jessica, groping wildly in the darkness. “Martha! Martha!” It was the voice of young Jeremy Lewis.
She reached out and grabbed his arm. “Jeremy, it’s me, Jessica. Martha’s right here.” She guided his hand and heard him sob in relief. “I’ve got Rachel. You get Martha.”
She felt him reach out and sweep the three-year-old up in his arms. Jessica did the same with Rachel, then leaned down to yell in Jeremy’s ear. “Where’s your mother?”
He started to cry. “I don’t know. She had baby Ellen. She told me to get Martha.”
The sound of horses was deafening now, and she knew that their time was gone. “Hold on to my dress, Jeremy. Don’t let go!” She leaped for the square of light that was the open door, hesitated only a moment when she thought she heard Joshua’s voice, then slipped outside and started to run.
Dawn came quickly that morning. The clouds had moved east during the night and left the sky crystal clear. Once first light pierced the eastern horizon, the landscape quickly began to lighten and reveal the pitiful column strung out across more than a half mile of prairie. There were nearly a hundred and fifty women and children plodding along, heads down, spirits broken. The crying and the whimpering had long since ceased—it took energy to protest, and energy was too precious to be wasted now. Behind the column, two men slowly rode escort, one on either side. Their bullwhips were now looped around their saddle horns, and the men sat silent and low in their saddles, huddled in their warm woolen coats and scarves. But earlier those whips had cracked like pistol shots over their heads as the men herded the refugees into a line and pointed them toward the northeast and the Missouri River. That had been somewhere around nine o’clock the previous night. Now it was just past six o’clock in the morning.
Jessica swung Rachel down, grimacing as the pain in her back shot through her like fire. “Rachel, I’m sorry, you’ve got to walk, just for a minute, so Mama’s arms can rest.”
Rachel clung to Jessica’s arms, refusing to put her feet down. “No, no! Mama!”
Jessica groaned with the pain. “Just for a minute.” She forced Rachel’s hands from her arms and set her down, the wailing cry of her daughter as painful to her as the ache in her body.
Rachel dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands. “Mama, no! Mama!”
Behind them, Jeremy Lewis was coming with Martha. His eyes were open, but it was as though he saw nothing. He almost bumped into them before he blinked and something registered. Without a word, he swung Martha down beside Rachel. She didn’t even look up, just collapsed into a heap and started to cry softly.
Jeremy sank to his knees slowly, his arms hanging at his sides like wooden stumps. In the last nine hours this twelve-year-old had passed from boyhood to manhood. He had run out of the cabin without shoes. Sometime early in the night, Jessica had torn her shawl into two pieces and wrapped them as best she could around his feet. Now, in the light, she could see that the cloth was wet and filthy and shredded in places. The prairie grass, stiffened by the thin sheet of frozen sleet, had ripped at their feet all during the night. As she looked closer, she could see that Jeremy’s ankles were a mass of scratches and cuts. The bottoms of his pant legs were dark with blood.
Jessica sat down beside him and reached out to touch his face, tears welling up in her eyes. “How are your feet?” she asked softly.
His eyes came open and he looked down. He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied with simple honesty. “I don’t feel much down there right now.”
She nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. Everything below the knees was a dull, fiery pain, but it had long since taken second place to the exhaustion and the pain of carrying Rachel. But her eyes dropped now to her own feet. In spite of what she expected, she gasped, shocked by what the morning light exposed. Her moccasins had long since split open, and her feet were a mass of raw, bleeding flesh.
As they sat there in the snow—Rachel now barely whimpering, Martha curled up on the icy prairie grass—they looked at each other. Jeremy’s eyes were grave. Finally, he gestured with his head behind them, down the trail where they had come. Most of the prairie glistened under its covering of ice, but a broad path marked where the column had broken through as they walked along. Soon the sun would be up and melt the ice, and their trail would disappear. But there was one thing that would not disappear. Here and there, clearly seen against the light brown of the prairie sod, were spots and streaks of bright red. They would darken quickly in the cold air, but they would not go away.
Jeremy smiled sadly. “I don’t think Pa and the other men will have much trouble following us,” he said.
Joshua Lewis was shaking his head even before he was fully inside the makeshift home, which was part tepee, part tent, part lean-to. His hair and beard glistened with drops of water. It had been raining steadily all day and the water still came down in a dreary drizzle. His clothes were wet, and his cheeks red with the cold.
His wife looked up in alarm. “What?”
“The ferryman will not take us over unless we have the fare.”
Jessica did not look up. It was exactly what she had been told, in no uncertain terms, by the same man. She had not expected anything less.
“But the Missourians are threatening to whip anyone left on this side of the river,” Sister Lewis blurted out, her voice strained to the breaking point. “We can’t stay here another night.”
“It’s fifty cents, or there’ll be no crossing,” Brother Lewis said flatly. He moved to the boxes that were serving as their table and chairs, and sat down heavily. He leaned forward, putting his head in his hands.
Jessica watched the two of them for a moment, her heart heavy. They had done so much for her. If she had owned one thing of earthly value, she would gladly give it to them now, but she did not. They did not. That’s why they were facing a crisis with no solution in sight.
Jessica glanced over to the blanket in the corner where Rachel’s dark hair shone dimly in the candlelight. The little girl’s chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, so Jessica stood up. “I’m just going to step outside for a moment. If Rachel wakes up, call me.”
“It’s raining,” Brother Lewis mumbled, not looking up.
“I know. I’ll be all right.”
She moved outside gingerly, hobbling on her battered feet. The night was hushed and still, the only sound being the soft plunking of the raindrops in the myriad puddles that filled the now practically empty campground. It was very dark, and she stood still, feeling the coldness of the rain on her cheeks, letting her eyes gradually adjust to what little light there was.
It was so quiet now. The first two nights had been chaos. The straggling column of women and children from the settlement, having been driven across twenty to twenty-five miles of prairie, finally reached the river shortly after sunup. There they huddled, lost and frightened, until their men finally found them later that day. By then, the river bottoms were a teeming mass of humanity. Refugees poured in from every settlement in Jackson County. Many families had been separated in the panicked flight, and there was the constant call from men looking for wives, women searching for their husbands or children, and children with wide and forlorn eyes desperately looking for any family member. Dogs barked, oxen lowed, cattle bellowed, hogs squealed.
Some families had been fortunate enough to escape with their household goods and even managed to save their livestock and bring it with them. Others had grabbed food and tools and shelter of some kind. But many, like the Lewises, fled with nothing but what they could carry. Makeshift shelters were erected by cutting down long branches and stacking them together in tepee form, then covering them with whatever could be found. Some camped around open fires, taking whatever the weather chose to send them. The Lewises had spent the first two nights out in the open, then moved into one of the shelters vacated as the Saints were ferried across the river.
During that first night after they reached the river, in one makeshift tent a woman gave birth to a baby boy as water dripped down upon her. Exposed to the cold and damp, she lived for a short time, then died quietly. The next day the camp had stopped to watch in somber silence as another sister was carried onto the ferry, stiff and still. There had been no pitched battle with rifles firing and balls flying this time, but these two were casualties of battle as surely as had been Andrew Barber. Jessica had looked away, not able to bear her sorrow. Two more names had now been added to the roster of the martyrs.
Jessica turned and looked north. Across the river, now jet black in the darkness, she could see the faint gleam of lamp or candlelight. There were hundreds of Saints still camped along the river bottoms on the north side, waiting for an opportunity to move inland into Clay County. That was something, she thought; one bright spot in an otherwise dismal landscape. The residents of Clay County were not in sympathy with their cousins across the river, and offered some degree of hospitality to the Mormon exiles. They made it clear that they did not want the Mormons making permanent settlement there, but in the meantime they responded with true Christian charity to their plight. Empty slave huts, barns, sheds—whatever was available—were offered as shelter. Men were given work so they could earn money or food for their families. Some provisions were just given outright to the destitute Saints.
Jessica hugged herself, looking with longing across the river. There, at least, lay some semblance of peace and refuge. That was why it was so frustrating—and so frightening—to still be camped here on the south side. There were only three families—the Lewises and two others—left now, and none had the necessary fare to cross. And none of those who had crossed could help now. Their own resources were exhausted, or they knew not that others were stranded.
A sudden movement off to her left caught Jessica’s eye. Someone was there. She felt a start for a moment, but then saw the dark shape and could see it was a woman. Jessica walked across the open area toward the riverbank, stepping carefully to protect her tender feet.