At Christmas that year, Cathy acknowledged receipt of their grave news and imparted her own:
We each have our cross to bear, sister. My husband has only half the sense of yours. Perry has pledged himself a member of the Westward Emigration Society. This means that he has promised to pack us all into a wagon and drive us across the prairies and the mountains until we reach California, or die in the attempt. If your mouths have fallen open, you know how I myself greeted Perry’s announcement. But I am his wife, and it is my duty to obey.
Perry thinks Missouri is too crowded. We are struggling, it is true. It is hard to compete with the farmers who have slaves. Perry says everything will be different in California. He says its soil is fertile year-round. David and Sophie will grow up healthy and strong, because malaria and stranger’s fever are unknown there.
Perry is not the one who has to sew the wagon cover, tent, and extra clothing. Nor does he have to calculate how much flour, coffee, and soap we’ll need. He does not have to decide which belongings he can bear to part with. Perry has his tools and his rifle and he is ready to leave, though we will have to wait until spring.
“But California is a different country!” Joseph’s grandmother protested, amongst many other exclamations.
At least, Joseph reflected, the Mexicans were Catholics.
A fortnight after their departure,Cathy passed a letter to a band of trappers returning to St. Louis:
You would hardly recognize me. When one is out in the open, hour after hour without respite, a bonnet can do only so much—already I resemble a squaw. Much of the color is not even from sun; it is dust, dust, dust. It stings our eyes and invades our noses and mouths. And the mosquitoes! They fling themselves even into my dough!
Earlier today, there was a break from both harassments, but only because we had a thunderstorm instead: hail the size of goose eggs and a tornado we were certain would carry us away. Now we are battered and filthy. As soon as we pry our wheels, shoes, and animals out of one mud hole, we become mired in another. Yesterday we were nearly scalped by marauding Indians. Perhaps California is Paradise, but it seems we must traverse Purgatory to reach it.
I have not yet told you my greatest burden: I am expecting another child. I will bear this little one somewhere in the wilderness. There are no true doctors or midwives in our party, but there are four other mothers. At least we can commiserate about the folly of our husbands.
I know Perry is worried about the baby too, though he shows it in his own way. He fashioned me a cart that would make me alaughing-stock in Charleston—an ugly, rough thing pulled by mules. But the other women are envious. No one can ride in the wagons for long—they jar your bones something fierce and turn your stomach worse than biscuits black with mosquitoes.
Perry drives our oxen by walking alongside them. The pace of the wagons is so slow that Sophie can pick flowers—when she has collected enough “buffalo chips.” There is so little wood here, I am forced to cook our food with dried dung!
David kept running up to listen to the trappers spinning their yarns about grizzly bears—until I forbade it. These men dress like savages, and I am sure they taught him appalling new language. Now that he is nearly ten, my son is too proud to ride with me, so David walks beside us and sulks with his nose in a book. I worry that we have not brought enough shoes.
God’s will be done, I tell myself. He has already blessed this mad venture. Just as the men in our own party were admitting their ignorance of the route, we met a band of missionaries also heading west. These holy men were far better prepared for the journey than we. They are six Jesuits who go to minister to a tribe of heathens in the mountains. Would you believe, these savages actually sent messengers to St. Louis andaskedfor “Black Robes,” because they have heard of the “great medicine” of the white man.
‘Jesuits arenota comfort!’ Joseph’s mother argued. ‘Theyembracemartyrdom amongst the savages!’
CHAPTER 33
God wishes to punish me for having loved myself too well… What I suffer will no doubt help my salvation…
— Anne of Austria, on breast cancer,Mémoires, par Madame de Motteville(1723)
The pecan trees in Charleston were beginning to give up their bounty. Joseph could already taste the pralines. He’d promised to help Henry harvest his family’s tree. But as Joseph approached his parents’ house, he saw his sister wrench open their gate and flee inside as though someone were pursuing her. Puzzled, he peered down the sidewalk, but he saw only Tessa.
She was running herself. When she stopped, she caught the gate for support. It was ajar, yet Tessa stared forlornly through the slats, as if she would be refused admittance. Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes. “Oh Ellie…” She glanced to Joseph. “If I’d known…”
“What happened?”
“We were visiting invalids this morning. I chose the last call: a widow named Mrs. Gordon. I knew she was dying, but…” Tessa shuddered. “Mrs. Gordon has cancer of the breast. Her nurse was changing her dressings.” Tessa closed her eyes. “I don’t blame Hélène for fleeing. I could hardly breathe myself.” She looked back over her shoulder. “ButImust return. I must make our apologies.”
“Permit me to walk you?—”
“Thank you, Father, but ’tis only on the corner of Queen Street. Then I will meet Hannah and return home.”
Reluctantly, Joseph watched Tessa disappear. He closed the gate and found Hélène at the back of the garden. She knelt before their statue of the Blessed Virgin, in the shadow of their pecan tree.
Henry’s basket lay forgotten beneath the branches. “Are yousureyou don’t want me to find your father?” he asked Hélène.
She nodded fiercely, though her cheeks were stained with tears. She did not raise her eyes from her clasped hands.
Henry saw Joseph and left them alone.
Joseph knelt beside his sister. He knew how difficult this past year had been for her. Their father and his friend Dr. Mortimer had experimented with both internal remedies and external applications, but the tumor in her breast continued to grow: from the size of a pea to the size of a sparrow’s egg. The growth did not pain her—though uncertainty caused a distress all its own. “Tessa told me about Mrs. Gordon.”
His sister’s breaths became even more ragged. “Thesmell, Joseph! Like she was already—like she was rottingalive! Her chest is this oozing blackmass…That’sgoing to happen to me.”
