One man stepped out into the river with a pole about six feet long. He was probing to see how deep the water was. Halfway across he was still only up to his waist. He waved and yelled something to his partner. The second man climbed up into the lead wagon and picked up the reins to his two huge mules. The driver snapped the reins and the wagon started forward slowly.
Mules did not like water and were much more difficult to control during a fording operation than either horses or oxen. But these were evidently well trained and went into the river with only minimal signs of agitation. Matthew stood, then stepped out from beneath the tree, wanting to see better. The water was deep enough that it reached the bottom of the wagon box, but the driver was experienced and headed the mules at an angle into the current so that the water didn’t push directly on the wagon bed. In five minutes it was over. There was a shout of triumph as the second wagon started after the first.
Matthew nodded slowly, then turned and walked swiftly toward their camp. When he arrived, Thomas Grover and Appleton Harmon were standing beside the ferry, looking downriver. Matthew saw that they had watched what he had just watched. He didn’t need to say anything.
“Appleton and I were just talking,” Grover said. “I think we’ll keep the ferry open for a few more days, then close it down.”
Matthew nodded. It was time. In the first place, it was the twenty-eighth of July. The number of emigrants moving along the trail this late in the season was minimal. In the second place, it was clear that not many were going to be anxious to pay a dollar fifty cents for a ferry when they could ford the river without much danger.
Appleton Harmon turned to Matthew. “Well, we can decide all that in a day or two. Luke Johnson and I are headed back to Deer Creek to get some more coal for the forges. You interested in coming?”
Matthew nodded without hesitation. Life here was about to get very boring. “Sure. Let me get some things.”
For Mary Ann, the camp at Deer Creek was one of the most pleasant places they had stopped along the entire trail. Their campsite was in a grove of tall, stately cottonwoods along the creek, not far from where it emptied into the North Platte. The trees provided deep shade, and there was plenty of grass for the animals in spite of all the other companies that preceded them. Several days before, the five guides sent east by Brigham Young had brought a letter giving details of the trail. One of the things William Clayton had noted about Deer Creek was that there was excellent fishing in the stream. Joshua, Solomon, and Carl had tested that bit of knowledge out and found it to be true. The whole family had feasted on fried trout for supper, a welcome change after hardtack, beans, and occasional antelope stew.
The children were off playing hide-and-seek among the trees. She could hear their calls and an occasional shriek as they tried to beat someone “home.” Carl and Melissa had gone over to visit with the Wellesley family. That was good too. David Wellesley had brought his family across from England in time to arrive in Nauvoo after the main body of the Church had left. During the final days of Nauvoo, David and Carl had become acquainted. They had fought together in the Spartan Band and become good friends. It had been good for Carl that the Wellesleys had also ended up in the Daniel Spencer company.
The other thing Clayton had told them about was the coal bank to the south of their campsite a short distance. Always after fuel to fire the bellows, the blacksmith had announced he was going after some coal. Intrigued by the description of an open coal bank, Solomon and Joshua volunteered to help.
Mary Ann found that idea strange too and decided she would walk out there in the morning and see it for herself before they started out again. But for now she was content to just sit and enjoy the pleasant evening. The supper dishes were cleaned up, the tents were pitched, and there was really nothing else that needed doing. Jenny was reading stories to the children in preparation for bedtime. Lydia, Jessica, and Caroline had gone for a walk along the river. They had invited her, of course, but Mary Ann was finding that at nearly sixty-one, she did not have the endurance that she had once enjoyed. There was another half an hour before dark, and she would simply sit and enjoy it.
Jenny came out of the tent, combing out her hair and humming softly to herself.
“Asleep?” Mary Ann asked.
“Finally.” Jenny came over and sat down beside her, still humming the song.
“Is that an Irish tune?” Mary Ann asked with a smile.
Jenny ducked her head. She had barely been aware of the fact that she was making any sound. “Yes. My mother used to sing it to us when we were small.”
“I love it. Are there words?”
She shrugged. “If there are, I don’t remember them.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It reminds me of Ireland, what little I can remember of it.” She smiled with some sadness. “More important, it reminds me of my mother.”
“She was a good woman, Jenny.”
“I know.” She looked away. “It also reminds me of Kathryn.” She sighed. “I miss her so, Mother Steed.”
“I do too. And Peter. It’s funny, but I think of the four of you—Derek and Peter and you and Kathryn—as if you were my own children.”
Jenny impulsively reached out and touched Mary Ann’s hand. “And you seem as much like my mother as my own mother did.” How she loved this good woman! So much of her had been passed on to her youngest son. That was partly why Matthew was so easy to love.
They fell silent, each lost in her own thoughts, neither knowing that the other was thinking of the same person that she was.
There was a noise and then they saw three figures coming toward them through the trees. Mary Ann looked up. “It’s Joshua and Solomon.” She looked more closely. The light was behind them and she couldn’t make out their faces. Who was the third person?
Suddenly Jenny gasped and one hand flew to her mouth. That gait was something she would recognize anywhere.
The figure broke into a run, waving. “Jenny! Mother!”
“Oh!” It came out as though Mary Ann had been struck; only it was an exclamation of pure joy, not pain. She rose to her feet, staring in total disbelief.
The hairbrush fell from Jenny’s fingers as she jumped up and darted forward, running hard, her hair flying out behind her.
Mary Ann’s hand shot out to steady herself. “Matthew?” she cried.
Jenny had reached him now and they were holding each other tightly. Joshua walked swiftly over to join his mother. She was on her feet now, but her knees felt weak. She gave Joshua an astonished look, as if to say, “Can this really be?”
“Can you believe it?” he laughed. “When we got to the coal bank, there he and two other brethren were, digging out coal like they’d been there forever.” He laughed aloud. “I almost fell off my horse.”
Matthew sat on a stool that was placed between his wife and his mother. Betsy Jo, at five, was too big to sit on his lap now, but she did so anyway, her arms around Matthew’s neck. Emmeline, now two, sat on one knee. Jenny held his free hand. The rest of the family was gathered around him, beaming as they watched this favorite uncle and brother with his family.
“So Kathryn has a baby now?” Lydia said, shaking her head. She turned to Mary Ann. “Yet another grandchild for you.”
Caroline smiled. “Did you ever think that if Will and Alice have a baby too, that will be Mother Steed’s first
great
-grandchild?”
“That’s right,” Matthew said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
Lydia’s Emily came forward to stand as close to Matthew as she could. It was all she could do not to move in beside Betsy Jo and put her arm around her uncle. There was only twelve years’ difference between her and Matthew, and he had been more like a brother to her and Josh when they were growing up than an uncle. She was nearly as happy to see him as Jenny and Grandma Steed were. “I’ll bet they do have a baby,” she said. “It’s been almost two years since they were married.”
Caroline looked suddenly sad. “And there’s been no word of them?”
“No,” Matthew answered. “Hopefully, when Peter got to California, he found them. But there’s no word of Peter either yet.”
Joshua was as sharply disappointed at the lack of news of their son as Caroline was. “Maybe Peter, Will, and Alice have already started back and will be in the Valley waiting for us.”
“Well,” Matthew answered, “knowing both Peter and Will, there’ll be no stopping them once they learn where we are.” Then Matthew noticed Lydia, who sat quietly through all this. “And Josh. The battalion has been discharged by now. They’re on the way too, I’ll bet.”
Lydia smiled her thanks at him.
“Derek and Rebecca couldn’t say enough good about your son, Lydia. You would have thought he was their own boy.”
Mary Ann leaned forward, breaking in. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking these last few minutes?”
They all turned to her. “What, Grandma?” Rachel asked.
“Years and years ago—clear back when we were still in Far West—I had a dream. I remember it so vividly because it came at the darkest hour of our troubles in Missouri. I was walking through this great wilderness, a great open plain. It was beautiful but I was all alone. In the far distance there was a beautiful city, and somehow I knew that that was where I was going. Then one by one my family started to join me. It was wonderful. We were so happy. We sang and talked and laughed. We were all going toward the city together.”
Jessica was nodding slowly, thoughtfully. “I remember that Father Steed was bothered by the fact that he wasn’t with you.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But I wasn’t worried about it because I knew he was already in the city waiting for us.” She straightened. “And then I awoke. I was puzzled by it all, but it left me with a great feeling of peace.” She reached out and touched Matthew’s arm. “Now the dream is coming true. One by one my family are coming together. When I saw you just now, I felt that same wonderful peace. That’s what reminded me of the dream.”
“Well,” Jenny said, blushing furiously as she took her husband’s hand. “Mother Steed has talked about reunions. And this has been glorious, Matthew. But there’s one more we haven’t told you about yet.”
“What?” Matthew asked.
She took his hand and laid it on her stomach. “Matthew, I’d like you to meet the very newest of the Steed clan.”
“Why didn’t someone tell us that once we were out of the army we still had to keep on marching?”
Sergeant Luther Tuttle laughed. “Why? Would you have been tempted to reenlist?”
Josh removed his hat and wiped the sweat away from his eyes with his bare hand. “If they promised me that I didn’t have to march anymore, I may have.”
“You just got soft lying around Pueblo de Los Angeles.”
Josh grunted something incomprehensible, put his hat back on, and moved ahead again. Maybe he had gotten soft down there, but in the over four weeks since they left Los Angeles, every ounce of softness had been wrung out of him. Four weeks and they were still more than a hundred miles from their destination. In the summer heat, once again as it had happened on so many occasions on their march to the Pacific, men began to fall by the wayside. Once again, the strongest would march on until they found water, then go back with full canteens to help their brethren. Once again they were wearing the boots off their feet. Once again their clothes were falling apart, unable to withstand the combination of pushing through heavy brush, fording rivers, the sun, the dust, pouring sweat, and sleeping fully dressed at night.
As they moved north and finally reached the foothills of the Sierra, water became more plentiful, but they still paid a frightful toll as they inched their way northward. They were now eight days north of the Kings River and moving steadily toward Sutter’s Fort and the California Trail.
“Hold it for a minute.”
The call from up front brought Josh’s head up. Levi Hancock and Sergeant Daniel Tyler had their hands up in the air, motioning for the men to stop. Then, squinting against the brightness of the sun, Josh saw why. Two riders were coming in at a lope.
“Looks like Captain Averett,” Tuttle said beside him.
Josh nodded. Captain Elisha Averett had been a musician in Company A. But on their discharge, Levi Hancock had appointed him as a captain of one of the divisions and given him primary responsibility for scouting the way ahead. To see them coming on the run in the afternoon’s heat was unusual, so the men crowded forward to see what was of such urgency.
Averett dismounted even before his horse came to a stop and trotted over to Levi Hancock. “Brother Hancock, you’ll never believe what we just found.”
“What?”
“A colony of Mormons.”
“What?” several men exclaimed.
“Yes. About three miles ahead on the Stanislaus River. There are twenty families from the ship
Brooklyn.
Brother Sam Brannan sent them out here to start a colony called New Hope.”
“The
Brooklyn?
” Josh called out, feeling a thrill shoot through him. “I have a cousin who came on the
Brooklyn.
Did you get to meet any of them?”
Averett turned. “We only met their leader, a man by the name of Thomas Stout. But they have invited us to stay with them tonight.” He grinned broadly. “In addition to fresh fruit and vegetables, they have five washtubs where we can bathe.”
“New Hope?” someone said with a laugh. “Are you sure it’s not called New Heaven?”
Josh didn’t even wait for the company to be shown where to make their camp. As soon as they reached the village, he sprinted ahead. The sixty or so people at New Hope had come out to meet the Mormon Battalion, lining the road, women and children waving their scarves and handkerchiefs, the men their hats. Racing up to the nearest man, Josh stuck out his hand in eager excitement. “Hello. My name is Josh Steed. I—”
“Brother Quartus Sparks, Brother Steed. We’re so delighted to see you. We heard you might be coming this way.”
“I have a cousin who came over with you on the ship. Will Steed and his wife, Alice.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
“Are they here?”
He shook his head. “No. They didn’t come upriver with us.” He turned to the woman beside him. “This is Sister Sparks, Brother Steed.” She did a little curtsy and Josh stuck out his hand. “Do you know if Will and Alice Steed are still in Yerba Buena, then?” he asked.