Chapter 25: One Year Alone

 

Jenny woke to a frigid February morning. The fire across the room had died to embers. She shivered as she put another log on the coals and stirred until flickers of flame licked the wood.

William fussed when he awoke. He still slept in the cradle Mac and Tanner had made when they arrived in Oregon. Now the seventeen-month-old toddler filled it end to end. She would ask Tanner to make him a trundle bed, something her son could use until she felt comfortable allowing him to sleep alone in the loft. But the cradle reminded her of Mac every time she rubbed its polished maple. She wouldn’t like putting it away.

 

Saturday, February 17th—Mac left me a year ago today. Sometimes it feels like yesterday. Sometimes I feel I’ve been alone forever. Our life on the trail seems like a dream.

 

Jenny felt a lump in her throat as she put her diary away. She started breakfast, mixing cornmeal and milk with a little soda for flapjacks. Jenny tried to do most of the heavy housework, now that Hatty’s pregnancy was well along. Jenny didn’t know how they would manage the crops this year. Hatty had helped her husband almost every day the year before, but she wouldn’t be able to do much planting with a new baby.

Jenny could try to hire a man to help Tanner. But most men had their own land to farm, like Zeke. Or they’d gone to California or planned to leave in the spring.

Hatty knocked and entered the cabin, Otis at her side. “Miz Jenny,” she said, taking off her shawl. “I could have started the flapjacks.”

“No matter,” Jenny said. “Would you please wash William’s face? Get him ready for breakfast.”

Hatty lifted the toddler, a grunt escaping her as she did.

“Is your back bothering you?” Jenny asked.

“Some,” Hatty said. “I’ll be fine.”

Jenny sighed. She wouldn’t be able to count on Hatty’s help much longer, though the Negro woman would never complain.

Jenny’s school had done well through the winter. She would have to close it in a few more weeks, so the children could help their families with spring planting. The Pershings and Abercrombies had paid her in kind or with credit on her account at the Abernethy store in Oregon City. She was well fixed through spring, but she worried about next winter already, hoping she would have a bountiful harvest in the fall.

She hadn’t spent much of Mac’s money. The coins were there if she needed them, but she didn’t think of them as her money. They were Mac’s, and she wanted to replenish what she had spent, so she could return them to him someday—somehow. And the letter of credit remained hidden in the loft with the money.

A few days later the Abercrombie girls brought a gold coin to class with them. “Look what Grandfather Samuel gave us,” Annabelle said. “A beaver coin.”

“What is that?” Jenny asked.

“New money made here in Oregon. By the government,” the girl told her, pointing to the etching of a beaver on one side. “Grandfather says it come from the gold in California.”

“Came,” Jenny corrected.

The other children all wanted to touch the beaver coin. Jenny wondered if the money Mac had left her would be worth less if coins were being minted in Oregon.

When she saw Doc after church the following Sunday, she pulled him away so she could speak to him. Mrs. Tuller followed.

Doc was upset because the Oregon Spectator would no longer be printed. “The only printer up and left for California,” he fumed. “Won’t be no way to learn the news.”

“Now, Doc,” Mrs. Tuller said. “The publisher says he’s looking for another printer.”

“It’ll be a month of Sundays afore he finds anyone. Every able-bodied man is headed to California, so it seems.”

“Doc,” Jenny interjected, “the Abercrombie girls brought a new coin to school. Minted here in Oregon, they said.”

Doc shook his head. “Legislature don’t know what it’s doing. No more’n the newspaper does. Those coins were only made for a few weeks. They ain’t legal. Only the federal government can make money. Says so in the Constitution.”

“So what will happen with the beaver coins?” Jenny asked.

“Well, they’re still gold, so they’re worth something,” Doc said. “But no different than gold flakes, if you ask me.”

“Mac left me some gold coins,” Jenny said. “Are they worth anything?”

“U.S. coins?” Doc asked.

Jenny nodded. “Double eagles.”

“They’re good tender,” Doc said. “Mind you keep ’em hidden. You don’t want nothing stolen. But here’s some more news for you.”

“What’s that?” Jenny asked.

“The last issue of the Spectator published a new law about land claims.” Doc held up the newspaper. “Right here on page three. Says land claims are part of a man’s personal property after he dies. Widows can reside on the land while they’re alive and don’t remarry. Of course, you ain’t a widow. Nor a wife neither.”

“What happens if a woman remarries?” Jenny asked. She had no plans to marry—and couldn’t remarry—but she should know what the law was.

“Then the land passes as her dead husband’s personal property. To his heirs.” Doc frowned at her. “But if anyone finds out you ain’t married to McDougall and William ain’t his son, you’ll likely lose the land. Without a wife or heir, all McDougall’s rights in the claim are gone.”

Jenny swallowed a pang of fear. “I’ll farm until that happens.”

“You need to come to grips with McDougall being gone.”

Doc was right. But every time Jenny thought of never seeing him again, she panicked. “Maybe I should have married him,” she said.

Mrs. Tuller sighed. “The two of you got along well, and could have made a good marriage, Jenny. Love would have come.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Doc said.

Jenny was silent. It wasn’t love she’d lacked, but courage. Could she have lived with a man after being raped? She hadn’t thought so when Mac asked her. Now she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone. Maybe she would have been happy married to Mac.

Zeke still came by Jenny’s farm about once a week. He usually had some reason to talk to Tanner about the fields or shoeing a horse. But after he talked to Tanner, he sought out Jenny. Sometimes he stayed for a meal, sometimes he said he needed to get back to his claim.

“Have you heard from Mac, Miz Jenny?” he asked her one evening.

“Not since his letter months ago,” Jenny said. Everyone knew Mac had written her—Esther made sure of that. All Jenny had told her friends was that Mac was staying in California awhile.

“Joel wrote Pa he was mining on a place two days outside Sutter’s Fort. I wonder if he and Mac ever see each other.”

Jenny laughed. “Wouldn’t that be a fine thing? They both leave Oregon, only to run into each other in California. But Mac won’t stay in California.” Then she stopped herself. What more could she tell Zeke?

Zeke frowned, seeming puzzled. “When do you think he’ll be back?”

Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know. He said when he left he was going to Boston, but then he stopped in California. I don’t know whether he’ll go on to Boston or come back here.”

“I never understood the way he treated you. He shouldn’t have left you and William alone.”

“He treated me fine.”

“Mac never appreciated you. Must have seen too many fancies and fripperies in Boston to know what he had. I wouldn’t leave my wife alone for so long, that’s for sure.”