The Veil Read online

  Ellie wondered at the hunger that would cause the too-thin women to trade the useful items or the objects that had once struck their fancy. With watchful, dark eyes, the women beckoned the families from the Farrington train to come nearer. Through sign language they acted out their need for food and clothing for themselves and for their children. Their men stood silently behind, their arms folded across naked chests, their stares a challenge to deny their women’s offers.

  Alexander told Ellie and the others that it was better to trade than ignore the group. They would get what they came for anyway—by stealing or raiding if necessary. Though Ellie knew it was wise, she was still reluctant to give up their precious food supplies.

  On the third night of the Pawnee presence, the band camped nearer to the company than before, almost within a stones throw of Ellie’s wagon. Alexander was out with Abe checking the herd, and she knew it was with good reason. The Pawnee had that day been joined by another group of braves on horseback. Both bands together now totaled maybe forty women, men, and children. They could easily run off with a hundred head of cattle or more.

  Ellie, pulling out her cookware to start supper, tried to cover her nervousness and ordered Meg and Sarah to stay near the wagon inside the circle.

  But the little girls, with their friends Prudence Angeline and Louisa O’Donnell, had grown more and more curious about the Indian children, and they sidled closer to the Pawnee camp. Ellie couldn’t take her attention from them for a moment for fear they would draw too close.

  The Indian encampment was a hubbub of activity. Babies squalled, and scrawny dogs nosed for scraps from both the wagon camp and their own. On one occasion, Ellie glanced up from her cooking fire to see a young woman watching her, a baby at her breast as she sat by her own fire. The woman stared with unblinking black eyes, looking hungry and sad. Around the Pawnee cook fire sat two tiny boys and a black-eyed little girl about the age of the twins.

  Finally, Ellie could no longer look at the woman’s hungering eyes. She pulled a fresh-baked johnnycake from the griddle, wrapped it in a dishcloth, and called the girls.

  Meg’s eyes danced when Ellie explained what she wanted them to do, and Sarah nodded vigorously.

  She placed the warm bread in Meg’s hands. “Now, I want you to take it to the woman feeding the baby then come right back, you hear?”

  They nodded. “Yes ma’am.” Then Ellie touched the little girls on the shoulders, indicating they needed to wait a moment.

  The woman was watching Ellie carefully, her baby still suckling at her breast. Then she moved her dark-eyed gaze to a freshly washed calico skirt hanging from the back of Ellie’s wagon. Ellie could see the hunger on her face, more for the dress than for food, so she stood and gathered it into her arms, folding it neatly.

  She handed it to Sarah. “Take this, too, sweetie, and give it to the woman.” Sarah nodded solemnly.

  A few minutes later, the twins walked the short distance to the Indian camp. The woman stood as they approached and walked resolutely toward them, and her skinny baby boys and the black-eyed little girl remained by the fire.

  Hands on hips, Ellie stood, carefully watching the proceedings. Meg and Sarah handed first the dress then the johnnycake to the woman. The woman took the calico and held it in the same arm with the baby. Then, with deerlike grace, she moved back to her fire as the twins turned their attention to the black-eyed little girl who was now coming toward them. The three girls stared at each other for a minute, then Meg took Sarahs hand to start back to the wagon camp.

  Ellie let out a deep sigh as the girls began walking toward the wagon. Then she frowned. Sarah had stopped in her tracks, yanking her sister’s arm to halt as well.

  She appeared to be frowning at something the black-eyed Indian girl was holding in her arms. But before Ellie could even begin to comprehend what had caught her daughter’s attention, Sarah let out a cry that stood Ellie’s hair on end.

  Suddenly Sarah grabbed for the Indian girl’s bundle, but the child wouldn’t release her hold. Around them, the Indians’ dogs set in to a howling, yipping bark, growling, their neck fur standing tall.

  Sarah squealed even louder and yanked harder.

  By now the entire Indian encampment and half the wagon company, including Ellie, were rushing to the place of the fracas. Sarah cried and yanked and cried even louder than before.

  Ellie pushed some Indian children aside, trying to get to her daughter. When she finally reached Sarah’s side, her daughter was still trying to pull the small bundle from the black-eyed child. Tears were tracing down her dusty cheeks. “It’s mine!” she yelled, sobbing. “It’s mine!

  Meg, standing solemnly to one side, lifted a sad-eyed gaze to her mother. But she seemed too overwrought from the frightening commotion to speak.

  “What is it?” Ellie breathed as she knelt beside Sarah, attempting to pull her away from the crowd. “What is it?” she repeated even as she saw the bedraggled bundle now secure in the black-eyed child’s arms.

  “It’s Phoebe,” Sarah sobbed. “It’s Phoebe!”

  FOURTEEN

  Sarah cried herself to sleep that night, sobbing for Phoebe. Ellie, Alexander, and even stoic Meg tried to console the brokenhearted little girl. Finally she slipped into a troubled and restless sleep, crying out for her missing baby.

  Ellie and Alexander looked at each other helplessly and discussed what they might barter to get the doll from the Pawnee.

  “Its not right to do that to the little girl,” Ellie concluded as they settled onto their pallets by the night fire. “If we bargained for the doll from her family, she would be just as sad as Sarah. Her parents would benefit from whatever we might give them, but the child would be left with empty arms.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I love you so much, Ellie,” Alexander said, sliding closer to his wife.

  “Why?” Ellie asked, loving the sound of his voice as he spoke of his care for her.

  He rested his head against hers. “The way you care about others, not just our family, your concern for the feelings of a little Pawnee child.” He fell quiet a moment. “Actually, I agree with you. But I can’t think of any other way to get Phoebe back. I know it seems small in the grand scheme of things, considering all we face ahead. But …” His voice faltered, and he let out a deep sigh.

  “But your little girl’s heart is broken.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I won’t always be around to comfort her when her heart breaks, but at a time when I am here—such as now—there should be something I can do.”

  Ellie turned to look at her husband in the starlight. “What a sorrowful thing to say—that you won’t always be around.”

  He laughed lightly and pulled her close, and she settled her back against him as he circled his arm around her. “You know what I mean, Ellie. Once we’re in California and Sarah grows up and falls in love, marries, and has babies of her own, I won’t always be there. Not in the same way I am now … to kiss a skinned knee or wipe away a tear.” He let out a deep sigh. “I know it’s impossible, but I can’t help wanting to protect Sarah and Meg from heartache.”

  “You can’t protect them from life,” Ellie murmured. “Heartache is part of living.”

  “I just don’t want her to learn it now,” he said quietly. “She’s only six years old.” His voice dropped sleepily. “I think about Amanda Roseanne and Rebecca, now married with families of their own. It doesn’t seem that long ago that they were small enough to fit in my arms. And now, they’re a thousand miles away.”

  They lay quietly, and soon Alexander’s breathing became deep and even as he slept. Ellie listened to a sudden wind moaning through the prairie grasses, and she gazed up at the starry heavens that seemed more brilliant than ever tonight. She lifted Alexander, Sarah, and Meg before their heavenly Father, trusting them all into his care, before drifting off to sleep.

  In the predawn darkness of the following morning, the Pawnee were striking camp and preparing to leave. Alexand
er was up and had already set out the dried cow patties for the fire when Ellie awoke.

  “You need to look at the wagon bench,” he said as Ellie stood and stretched her limbs.

  “What is it?”

  “Come look. I’ve got a lantern.”

  Ellie followed him to the yoke end of the wagon, where he lifted the lantern high.

  There, on the bench, was Phoebe. Dirty and bedraggled, the doll’s tattered and shredded clothes barely clung its worn-smooth body.

  Ellie met her husband’s eyes in wonder, and he smiled.

  Smiling at its pungent and smoky odor, Ellie gently lifted the doll almost as if it held a life of its own. She stepped up the stairs at the rear of the wagon then slipped inside where the twins slept on the cornhusk mattress.

  Moments later, she tucked Phoebe into Sarahs arms and whispered for her to wake.

  Sarah’s squeal of delight heralded the first joy of the morning. The second was when Meg, without their prompting, marched into the nearly dismantled Pawnee camp, holding her hatbox. In it lay her still-unnamed wooden doll with all its little doll clothes.

  They watched as, solemnly, she presented her gift to the little black-eyed Pawnee girl. The two girls settled onto a nearby blanket that hadn’t yet been folded and packed away. Wordlessly, Meg lifted the lid and took the doll from the box.

  She placed it in the child’s hands.

  For a moment, the little girl sat as if stunned. Then she touched the doll’s face in wonder, the still brightly painted blue eyes and pink lips, the hair made from a horse’s mane. Then she looked up at Meg and smiled.

  It was the first time Ellie, who still watched from a distance, had seen any of the Pawnee smile.

  Then the girl pointed to herself and uttered a word Ellie couldn’t understand. But it was obvious that her daughter did, for Meg smiled and pointed to herself.

  “Meggie,” she said slowly.

  “May-gee,” the black-eyed little girl repeated, then she pointed to her new doll. “May-gee,” she said and smiled again.

  Ellie felt her eyes smart with tears as Meg made her way back to the wagon. Meg’s doll finally had been named.

  The wagon company pulled out by dawn, and before the nooning it was obvious they were heading into a bank of quickly building clouds.

  “Mommy, there’s a storm coming. Over there.” Meg, sitting next to Ellie on the wagon seat, pointed west at the billowing thunderheads. “I heard Papa tell the Barretts we’re gonna have lightning and thunder like we’ve never seen before.”

  “He said it’ll make our storms back home seem like steam from a kettle,” Sarah added. She was rocking Phoebe, completely lost in the wonder of having her baby back in her arms.

  Ellie glanced at the gathering clouds, awed by their living, breathing, building size, the omnipotent power they seemed to hold in their darkening forms. They were going to bring trouble; she could feel it in her bones.

  Within the hour the wind kicked up, and the sky turned a gray-green then darkened to shades of twilight, though it was only midday. Abe rode to the rear of the train to tell the cattlehands to gather in the herd; they were stopping early to make night camp.

  Alexander gave the signal to circle the wagons. There was no high ground, so the rigs pulled in one behind another on the flat, open land.

  “Stay in your wagons!” he commanded, his voice rising because of the wind. “No one should be riding—or walking—in this.”

  Ellie watched him make the circle, stopping by each wagon and checking to see if folks needed help. Abe and some of the other men followed suit.

  “Are you and the girls going to be all right here alone?” he asked as he rode up to their wagon and dismounted. “I’m going to have to be out with Abe and the hands. The herd’s already spooked. We’re worried they’ll stampede”

  “We’ll be fine,” Ellie shouted above the wind. A heavy gust whipped her hair around her face, and her skirt billowed and slapped against her legs. “Since Abe will be with you, Liza said she’d like to join the girls and me in our wagon.”

  Earlier Alexander had unhitched the team and driven them to mingle with the rest of the nervous herd. Now, their heads down against the driving wind, she and Alexander struggled to fasten the canvas flaps at the wagon’s ends. He cinched the rope that tied the canvas to the wagon bed, and Ellie finished tying the rope into a square knot and wound the rope ends around the rig’s tongue. Another heavy gust hit, and with it came the first damp feel of rain.

  “You’d better take cover. It’s about to break,” Alexander shouted. He reined the horse to move on, hesitated a moment, then turned back again to Ellie. “Be careful, Ellie. Don’t go out for any reason. Especially don’t let the girls out. There may be some flooding.”

  Nervous and jittery, the Appaloosa stepped sideways then back again with each blowing gust and rumble of distant thunder. Alexander patted the horse’s neck.

  Ellie nodded and stepped up into the wagon. A lantern hung on a side peg, and the twins were examining Phoebe, completely unconcerned about the storm. They were busy discussing the doll’s adventures after falling from the wagon on the river. Outside, the wind howled and whipped against the canvas wagon cover.

  The rain started, fat drops that stirred the dust. To the west, the low rumble of thunder grew louder. Ellie could hear the sounds of the herd, the whinnying of the horses, the stomping and snorting of the cattle, the bawling of the oxen. There were “haws!” and “gees!” coming from the cattlehands trying to calm the nervous beasts.

  Alexander had ordered most of the train’s able-bodied men to the patrol. She knew that thousands of head of cattle had been lost in storms like this, bolting and running away in fright, never to be found.

  Just as the rain began a steady beat on the canvas and the dust was turning to mud, Liza Barrett called out, “Anchors a-weigh in there!” in a cheerful voice.

  Ellie grinned and opened the flap. “Come in, dear, or you’ll catch your death,” she said, stepping back as Liza climbed into the wagon and removed her oilcloth rain cape.

  After she’d given each of the girls a vigorous hug, Liza settled into one of Ellie’s two small farm chairs.

  The wagon’s cramped interior was filled with stacked barrels and trunks and a few pieces of furniture—a sideboard tipped on its side, a small hand-planked table with a gingham cloth, and the two farm chairs. Though crowded, the little room had a cheerful look to it, with a vase of wildflowers the children had picked that morning, a mandolin given to Ellie by her grandmother in one corner, and wood-carved blocks and toys strewn across the tiny patch of bare floor.

  Ellie took pleasure in lighting her lantern each night when darkness fell. It was a symbol of warmth that spoke of enjoyable quiet, solitude, and well-earned rest. It was almost magical the way it transformed her wagon into a home. Today, its glow seemed more welcome than ever.

  “The best way to while away a storm,” Ellie said, “is to visit with a friend you love.” It seemed they were often too busy with loading and unloading wagons, cooking and baking, washing clothes, and driving teams of unruly beasts to take time for a deep-heart talk.

  Liza squeezed Ellie’s hand. “All we need is a cup of tea.” Then she chuckled. “Though I’d like to see you get a cook fire started in here.” She shook her head slowly as the storm kicked up a howl again and the wagon rocked with the force of the wind.

  The lantern swayed, and shadows danced across the canvas walls. A lightning strike landed close by, followed by an angry clap of thunder that shook the ground. The little girls squealed, then went back to making up stories about Phoebe’s adventures.

  Lightning struck again. The inside of the wagon turned brighter than daylight for an instant then dark as midnight outside again as the thunder rolled.

  Through a break in the canvas, Ellie could see the lightning’s jagged strikes in a macabre dance across the plains. It was beautiful, both in its might and its danger. But with each strike, she could see the wet,
scraggly herd in the distance, and her awe of the storm’s power quickly turned to worry about Alexander and Abe.

  She glanced at Liza and saw the concern in her friend’s face as well.

  “God is with us all,” Liza said gently. “We aren’t alone in this horrible storm.”

  They turned the conversation to news of their families and friends, trying to keep their minds off the storm. But the rain continued to fall, a steady pounding on the canvas.

  After a time, Ellie stood and made her way through the tangle of barrels and boxes to the rear of the wagon. Lifting the flap, she was surprised to see the deepening lake of mud that surrounded them. She turned again to Liza. “Even if it stopped right now, we wouldn’t be able to leave until this mud dries. It’s already up to the wheel hubs.”

  Liza joined her, lifting the other side of the canvas flap. “It looks bad,” she agreed. “But we know how strong that prairie sun is. If it comes out full force, this will dry out in nothing flat.”

  Meg and Sarah had moved to the cornhusk mattress, plopped down, and were now making up a new version of Phoebe’s travels with the Pawnee. The two women returned to the small table and settled again into the two farm chairs.

  “How are you feeling, Ellie?” Liza asked, leaning forward and keeping her voice low so as not to worry the children. “I saw you rubbing your back the other day while you were walking beside the team.”

  “I’m feeling more early pangs than I did with the twins,” Ellie admitted with a frown. “But it’s at night when they’re the worst. In my back.”

  “When is the baby due?” Liza asked.

  “Not until the end of September.”

  “You’ll have the baby before we get to California, then.”

  Ellie nodded. “Yes. I figure we’ll be crossing the Sierra Nevadas about the time this wee one arrives.” She patted her stomach. “I just hope it won’t be in the snow.”

  “I’ll be with you when your time comes, Ellie. I’m here to help in every way I can.” Liza’s expression softened. “But think of the joy! God is giving you this child when you thought there would be no more.”