CHAPTER 12 
CHAPTER 12 Sick? With the cold?” Nellie asked Morning Sun’s brother. “Sick with a fever,” he said. “Oh, no. Oh, no!” she wailed. Surely Morning Sun didn’t have the bilious fever or whooping cough. “Can I see her?”
Morning Sun’s edoda pulled on the reins and paused the horses long enough for Nellie to climb on the back of the wagon.
The inside was dark and as cold as outside. After her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Nellie could see Morning Sun lying on a buildup of wooden boxes that served as a bed. She was shivering, even though she was covered with two blankets. Her etsi squatted on the pile of boxes, her head not two inches from the top of the wagon canvas.
Nellie climbed the boxes and crawled until she could reach Morning Sun’s hand. It was burning hot with fever. At her touch, Morning Sun opened her eyes. “Nellie?” she said, followed by a racking cough. “Your cold is worse,” Nellie said. “What can I get you? Water?” Morning Sun’s etsi shook her head and pointed at a nearby water bucket.
“I’ll get Etsi to fix a poultice. She makes a foul smelling concoction that she puts on a rag around my neck. The bad smell may be what makes the cold go away,” Nellie said with a nervous laugh. “It hasn’t failed yet.”
“I’ll be okay,” Morning Sun said. The deep cough once again followed her words.
“Don’t talk. I’ll be back with the poultice.”
But it wasn’t as simple as Nellie hoped. Etsi said the poultice required brewing, and there wasn’t a fire until the wagons stopped in the late afternoon. As soon as the first fire was lit, Nellie put a small amount of water on to boil and stood at the back of the wagon as Etsi rustled through her herb sack for mint leaves. She had already set out some animal fat and her bottle of pine resin to add later.
“Etsi.” Sarah was calling from just inside the wagon, where she had ridden all day. Etsi had carved out a little place among the boxes and supplies so she could look out but stay out of the wind’s chill. The last couple of hours she had been asleep.
“Etsi’s busy. What is it?” Nellie walked to the front of the wagon.
“I don’t feel good,” Sarah said on a whimper.
“Sarah!” Nellie scaled the side. “Where do you hurt?”
“My head and my throat and my all over,” Sarah said and coughed.
“Oh, no. Oh, no!” Nellie couldn’t stand the thought of both Morning Sun and Sarah sick. “I’m going to make you a bed, Sarah, and I’ll stay with you and nurse you. You’ll be well in no time.”
“In Old Rivers’s wagon?” Sarah asked. Her eyes were bright with fever, and when Nellie grabbed her hand, it was as hot as Morning Sun’s.
“No, and not in the tent. I’ll fix us a special place in this wagon. We’ll keep you away from Etsi, so she doesn’t get sick and make the baby sick. This will be our special place.”
Nellie rushed to Etsi and told her to double the potion. Then she climbed in the back of the wagon and moved boxes around until she made a flat space atop the boxes where Sarah could lie down. Her head was near the canvas wagon covering, but that didn’t matter. “I’m so cold,” Sarah said.
“We’ll fix that,” Nellie said. As gently as she could, she wrestled Sarah into several more layers of clothes. Some were Sarah’s and some were Nellie’s that she dug out of the spots where they had been stuffed. They were unused to cold weather like this, and they had no coats like the white men who sold them supplies wore. Only Lewis’s jacket had been packed. They had no extra blankets. The suppliers hadn’t brought enough, so Edoda had not gotten any since they had brought some with them. But their blankets were thin, and they were so dirty. They had served as pallets under the wagon, laid on the bare ground. But that couldn’t be helped now.
Nellie carried one blanket to the fire and held it close until it was warm. She wrapped Sarah in it and took her own blanket and did the same, switching off the blankets as they grew cold.
“Nellie, will I die?” Sarah asked in a small voice.
“No, honey. You just have a cold, that’s all. You’ve been sick before. Remember that time close to Christmas last year when you were in bed for a week with the croup?”
“Will I be in bed for a week this time?”
“Maybe even less. I’ll be right back.”
She carried a blanket out to warm.
“Is the poultice ready?” she asked.
“It has not cooked down but soon,” Etsi said. “You stir. I’ll take the blanket to Sarah.”
“No!” Nellie had always obeyed Etsi, but she would not hear of her mother tending to Sarah. She blocked her way when Etsi started toward the wagon. “Etsi, I’ll nurse her. She’ll be fine. You can talk to her from a distance, but don’t go near her. Think about the baby.”
“I’m thinking about my daughter,” Etsi said.
Edoda had walked up behind them. “Nellie is right,” he said. “Lewis and I have the tent up. You need to stay there tonight. Nellie is a brave girl. She can nurse Sarah.”
Etsi lowered her head, and Nellie could no longer see her anguished eyes.
“She will be fine. But if there is a change, I’ll get you,” Nellie promised.
As soon as the poultice was cooked down to a salve consistency and cooled some, Nellie took the warm goop and rubbed it on Sarah’s throat and chest. She covered the poultice with one of Lewis’s shirts and tied the arms around Sarah’s neck to keep it in place.
“Take this to Morning Sun,” she told Lewis. “Tell her about Sarah and that I’ll check on her as soon as I can.”
Lewis rode away on Blaze, and Nellie took up her station in the wagon. She bathed Sarah’s face in cold water to lower her fever.
Lewis returned and said Morning Sun was asleep, but her etsi would put the poultice on her.
“Take my coat to Sarah,” he told Nellie.
“No, I’m already using your shirts for her. Besides, you need to stay warm, or you’ll be sick. But thanks,” Nellie said.
Edoda checked on Sarah and reported to Etsi, who stayed away but whose worried voice could be heard right outside the wagon as she brewed up a mixture of butterfly weed with other herbs for Sarah and Morning Sun to swallow to help their coughs. Then she made a healing drink of slippery elm bark. When both were ready, she carried some to the back of the wagon for Nellie and sent Lewis to take some to Morning Sun.
Edoda brought the white doctor, but he was there only a moment and said Nellie was doing the right things. Then he left to go on to the next sick person.
Sarah fell asleep, and an exhausted Nellie lay down beside her.
In the night, she warmed the blankets again and covered them both, snuggling close to Sarah to share her body heat.
Nellie awakened before sunrise and built up the campfire so she could heat the blankets. Sarah’s forehead was hot to touch, but Nellie believed it was not as hot as it had been the day before. Was she gaining on this awful disease? And what exactly was it that Sarah had? Just a cold, or the more complicated lung disease that kept claiming the lives of the Cherokee on this forced march?
Sarah wouldn’t eat any broth and barely choked down the cough medicine before it was time for the wagons to roll. Nellie warmed the blankets once more before the fires were extinguished. She hoped Morning Sun’s etsi was doing the same for her.
Nellie lay by Sarah all day, hating the bumpy ride that jarred her until her teeth rattled. She welcomed the rest stops and welcomed Jesse Bushyhead’s order for forward riders to build fires along the way so the travelers could warm up. There still wasn’t much firewood, and future wagon trains would have to go farther from the road to find dead, dry wood, but right now the problem was survival. The walkers suffered mightily from the cold, the poor food, and exhaustion.
Many times Etsi stuck her head in the opening at the front of the wagon, and Nellie would reassure her that Sarah was doing better.
When a halt was called for making camp, Nellie thankfully climbed out of the wagon. She vowed not to complain again about walking, because riding felt even worse.
Etsi brewed another batch of poultice. When Lewis returned from taking the medicine to Morning Sun, Nellie was standing beside the fire, warming a blanket for Sarah. Lewis jumped off Blaze and wouldn’t look at Nellie. He ran for Etsi.
“What’s wrong?” Nellie called to him, but he wouldn’t answer.
Etsi listened to Lewis’s low words, bowed her head, and then walked toward Nellie.
“What’s wrong?” Nellie asked again. Fear gripped her heart. She couldn’t breathe. Tears welled in her eyes, and she knew before Etsi told her.
“Morning Sun has passed on.”
“No!” Nellie screamed. “No, that’s not true!”
“It is true, Nellie.” Etsi grabbed her and pulled her as close as her extended belly would allow. “She is with God now, and she is no longer hurting.”
Nellie sobbed. Her shoulders heaved. “Why?” she whispered.
“Why?”
“That is not in our power to answer,” Etsi said. “It is God’s way, and we must accept it.”
Nellie sniffed and wiped her face with her hand. “I’m tired of accepting, and I’m tired of forgiving.” She took deep ragged breaths. “I’m so tired.” She dissolved in another round of sobs that racked her spirit.
“We must see what we can do to help Morning Sun’s family with the burial,” Etsi said.
Nellie nodded, but she didn’t turn loose of Etsi until Sarah called from the wagon for a drink.
“I’ll get it,” Nellie said as Etsi made a move toward the newly filled water bucket.
Etsi stepped to the wagon and talked to Sarah, but she didn’t crawl inside. Instead, she told Nellie she would check on the burial.
With a heavy, heavy heart, Nellie wiped her tears and carried water to Sarah. Her sister was still hot with fever, and a new terror gripped Nellie’s soul. What if Sarah was next to go?
Her tears flowed anew, and Sarah asked what was wrong.
“Morning Sun died.”
“Was she the same sick as me?”
“No. She was much worse. You are going to get well,” Nellie vowed and shook her fist at death. She would battle until her own dying breath before she let death take her sister.
“Here, Sarah, I’m going to put a new poultice on your chest. This is going to help you get better fast.”
She smeared on the salve, covered it, and wrapped Sarah in a warmed blanket.
“You must drink the broth tonight. You hear me?” Nellie gripped Sarah’s shoulders harder than she meant to. “You have to eat to get your strength back. You must help, Sarah.”
“I think I can swallow it, but Nellie, I couldn’t do it yesterday.” Tears flowed down Sarah’s cheeks. “I don’t want to be sick. I want to help.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry if I sound upset with you. I’m not. It’s not your fault you’re sick. I’ll get you some broth.”
The supper was merely salt pork broth, and Sarah drank as much as she could, and then she said she would try to drink some more. “This will help me,” Sarah said.
“Yes, it will. That’s a good girl, Sarah.”
Nellie waited until Sarah was asleep, and then she slipped out of the wagon.
“Nellie.” Old Rivers beckoned her to the fireside. “I am sorry about your friend. It is hard.” “It is very hard,” Nellie said.
“Your parents are with her family. They will bury her tomorrow morning before we leave.”
Nellie never saw Morning Sun again. Her body was wrapped in one of the precious blankets, and she was encased in a coffin of saplings loosely tied together with woody leafless grapevines.
As Reverend Bushyhead prayed over Morning Sun, snow fell softly, sifting through the gaps of the coffin and landing on the blanket.
“She will be cold,” Nellie whispered to no one. “She needs a warmed blanket.” She bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and moaned. Morning Sun, the bright girl who had a sunny smile and a friendly word for everyone, was gone.
Soon dirt formed a mound over the coffin.
“Let’s go, Nellie,” Etsi said and put her arms around Nellie’s shoulders. They walked back to their wagon and prepared to leave.
Nellie warmed another blanket in front of the fire and pushed it in front of her as she crawled into the wagon to Sarah. She watched out the front slit of the canvas for Morning Sun’s grave. As the wagon passed it, she crawled to the back of the wagon and looked out the back flap at the snow-covered mound.
“Sleep with the angels, my good friend,” Nellie whispered. Then she crawled back to squat beside Sarah’s bed.
For three more days, the gray sky spit snow, sometimes hard, sometimes softly. And then the sun came out just as the wagons lined up to cross the Ohio River.
Sarah’s fever had broken, and she sat inside the wagon with her head barely peeking out of the front slit, so she could see the outside world again. Now that Nellie was no longer needed as a nurse, she gratefully accepted a perch on the wagon bench beside Old Rivers.
“Long ago, this was the northern border of Cherokee land,” Old Rivers said, as they waited their turn to cross on the ferry.
“We are not halfway there yet, are we?” Nellie asked.
“I heard talk that after we cross the Mississippi, we will be halfway.”
“But look how much time has passed already. Etsi’s time will come soon. I thought we would be living in the new land before the baby was born.” She wondered at the words she was sharing with Old Rivers. In the old times, before this horrible journey, she would not have talked about an indelicate subject like childbirth with an old man. But they had been through rain and snow, death and more death, and hungry times. Not talking about something as important a part of nature as the birth of a baby seemed silly.
“She will be fine no matter where the baby is born,” Old Rivers said.
“I pray that is so,” Nellie said.
She rode onto the ferry atop his wagon and remembered how she had been astride Midnight when they had taken a ferry across the Tennessee River. John had not crossed that river. Now Morning Sun had not crossed the Ohio. Who would be missing when they arrived at the Mississippi?