There had been a ridiculous amount of debate concerning the payment of the toll, ever since we first set foot on the road, despite Mr Tennant’s insistence that he, as party leader, would carry the whole cost. ‘Repay me one day, when you have prospered,’ he said expansively. Mr Franklin was unhappy with this largesse, and complained that we were being cheated, no matter who paid the money, since there was no choice but to use the road. But Father pointed out that there was indeed a choice – we could have gone by raft or boat along the Columbia. The road was a private venture and the men who built it had to be paid for their labour. It was a fine instance of good American business, he said, and something we should admire.
Mr Fields had adopted an oddly wistful manner over the past week or so. More than once I found him staring intently into the vegetation bordering the road, apparently lost in thought. At last I approached him. ‘It seems so mysterious,’ I murmured. ‘And dangerous. It must be full of Indians and bears and cougars. I feel them watching us.’
‘Forty years ago, my father was here. Perhaps on this very spot. Already the changes are immense. The area was thronged with Indians, who bartered willingly with the white explorers. They supplied meat, saving the strangers’ lives. They behaved like true Christians.’ He said this last with a cynical grimace.
‘Venison?’
‘Dog. Lewis and Clark ate scores of dogs. It became their preferred meat.’
‘Don’t tell my sister Lizzie that!’ I was myself sickened at the idea. ‘How did they kill them?’
He shook his head. ‘Knife, I presume.’
‘Of course.’ The harshness of that epic journey in the first years of the century was a legend to us all. Huge bears that refused to die; endless raging rapids overturning their canoes and rafts; sickness and confusion – all miraculously survived. And here was a man who had heard the stories first hand. ‘Did he tell you a lot about his experiences?’
‘Some. I saw little of him. He was seldom with us. But perhaps I already mentioned that there was a summer month, when I was in my first years of manhood, that we spent together. He taught me to use a rifle, to set traps and catch fish. And he talked to me about his life every evening. He was a wise man, though entirely unlettered. He saw the future for this land. You have it right, Miss Collins, about our being watched. The Indians have drawn back into their wilderness, wary of us now, where before they were open and friendly. They felt themselves superior then, the white men weak fools knowing nothing of the place. Since then the balance has tipped the other way, and they are afraid of us.’
I thought of the man at the crossing. ‘I fancy not all of them fear us.’
He nodded. ‘Many have understood that their best hope is to become businessmen. The Nez Percé – the tribe with the pierced noses – are a good example. But the spirit of most tribes has already been broken. They steal the white man’s livestock as a pathetic gesture of revenge, knowing the coming flood of emigrants with overwhelm them.’ His expression contained a medley of gloom and anger. ‘Even the bears are learning to keep their distance.’
It was men rather than women, I had discovered, who dwelled on the implications for history of what was happening in the present. Henry and Mr Fields had both drawn pictures of how the world would change in years to come; the gains and losses; the great movements of humanity across the American continent. The women contented themselves with the details of keeping warm and fed, and maintaining moral standards.
Except for my sister Fanny, I realised dourly. Fanny had an eye to the future, while ignoring the conventions of behaviour. But even Fanny was thinking like a woman – planning to supply the comforts of the boudoir to lonely deprived men.
I could not permit my mind to rest on Fanny for more than a few minutes together, before I became agitated. I was powerless to alter her plans, having no influence over her. If I marched up to my parents and informed them in the plainest language of what she had told me, I feared that they too would find themselves unable to affect her. Short of keeping her a prisoner, I could see no means by which she could be prevented from pursuing her goals. She had said nothing about requiring any help in the form of good or money. The hordes of single men who would eagerly buy her services would quickly render her independent of her parents.
Unless, as I half believed, it was indeed nothing more than an idle fancy. I could envisage a scene where I betrayed Fanny to our parents, upon which she would laugh hilariously and mock me for taking her seriously. I would be tainted simply by giving voice to such a disgusting notion, while Fanny escaped with all the sympathy. At worst she might be reproached for letting me run away with such very unacceptable ideas. I was the elder – they would assume that it was I and not Fanny who was the originator of topics to do with men and fornication, even though Fanny’s sinfulness with Abel was no real secret. Had she mentioned to them that there was no longer an engagement? Nothing had been said in my hearing, and it was difficult to initiate a serious conversation without the whole family knowing about it, especially on this road where we could not get far from each other.
I had hoped for more consolation from Mr Fields, who while saying little, could give me a smile or a nod that would often make me feel I had a friend in him. I debated with myself whether I ought to speak to him about Ellie, but that too might be construed as a betrayal. I could not advise him to be more demonstrative with the child, for reasons of basic embarrassment. His distance was born of integrity, I guessed, and a determination to respect society’s edicts concerning such relationships. A stepdaughter was natural prey to certain kinds of man, as even I dimly understood, and Mr Fields was never going to allow himself to be viewed as such a type.
The little boy had an easier time. His stepfather romped with him, once in a while, throwing him around and pretending to be a bear. Such moments seemed to come as a relief, even to Ellie, despite Jimmy being a trifle old for such cavorting. She would stand to one side, smiling. Partly wistful, admittedly, but also genuinely pleased at the normality of this aspect of family life.
And within five days, perhaps, it would all be over anyway. We would go our separate ways, letting the experiences of our journey settle into our memories, looking back at our former lives with wonderment. What could happen in that brief time to upset our complacency at the success of our migration? At the very worst, if the wagons rolled into a river and all the goods were lost, we were still within reach of civilisation and rescue. We had horses enough for a large party to ride on to Oregon City and summon assistance, or we could walk it if we had to, carrying enough food and coverings for survival. Illness, injury, loss, utter exhaustion – none of them would undo the achievement now. And, I was convinced, none of those disasters would happen in any case. We were weary, yes, but we had sufficient strength to complete the final miles and face whatever came next. Nobody in the entire train seemed to have any doubt about that.
There were birds as big as full-grown laying hens to be glimpsed amongst the trees, and there had been some success in shooting them for the pot, in the past week or so. Mr Fields, as always, was the keenest shot with his Indian bow. He never forgot Mr Tennant’s edict from so many months before, and made a great point of sharing the meat from anything he killed. The Tennants, always well provisioned with dry goods, milk and ale, were at pains to make a fair exchange with him, the rest of us less able to do so. Mrs Bricewood’s eggs were our greatest asset, the birds laying steadily, even into the colder weather, with more than enough for the whole party.
Grandma did not like the Barlow Road at all. Her boots had worn thin and she did not have a pair to spare, so that walking over the mangled surface mile after mile tired her more than she would admit. Her balance seemed awry and her pace grew slower. On two afternoons already she had admitted defeat and ridden in the wagon, jesting that her weight would go quite unnoticed by the oxen. She was indeed a little woman, with no flesh to spare. But she felt it as a failure, I could see, and as a sort of penance she sat inside the vehicle at her spinning wheel, and somehow managed to spin half a fleece in the bumping lurching wagon. Grandma’s spinning was normally very fine, the yarn soft enough for a baby’s shawl, but the product of those afternoons was of a different calibre – thick and knotty, and fit only for weaving into a hearthrug or horse blanket. Nobody criticised, however. It was a relief to be rid of much of the fleece, where it had hung in a hessian sack since we left Westport. It emitted a strong smell in hot weather, and Mother said the moth would be in it by winter.
Five more days, I repeated to myself, as we finally approached the toll gate that was in fact a well-made gate across the road, with a small shack beside a large painted notice giving all the different prices for having used the Barlow Road. This last milestone was a disappointment in one way at least: there was nowhere at all for Mr Fields to bury his wife. Forest grew densely on all sides, with our way down into the Valley a simple track such as we had known for so many miles. The river was close by, as well as large creeks and the towering Mount Hood, now behind us to the east, watching over our activities.
A second disappointment was the absence of foodstuffs for purchase. There was none of the general mingling and assemblage that we had found at the many forts along the trail. We stared around at the meagre provision of camping space, and began lethargically to erect tents and set fires going. It was a gloomy night for the whole train, perhaps for no very good reason. We were so nearly at the end, it was all we could abide, to go through the same monotonous procedures, eating the same dried food and seeking out sparse pasture for the beasts.
But next morning we woke with renewed determination, saying ‘Just four more days,’ to each other, as brightly as we could manage. The body of Mrs Fields could be kept for that period of time, with the risk of putrefaction much lessened by the cooler weather. I confess I doubted the truth of this four-day estimation, as we spent the morning on yet another steep and rocky descent that called for strong ropes lashed around sturdy trees, and brought new blisters to many a hand. The long relentless climb up to South Pass back in July now seemed an easy stroll compared to this vertical plunge down to the Willamette Valley. That morning we had woken to find a thin film of ice on the top of our water barrels and a frosting on the leaves. The year was passing swiftly and our good fortune started to feel more and more fragile, despite the proximity of our goal. Officially, it seemed, we were still using the Barlow Road, although its nature was subtly changed. The forests shrank back, and manmade buildings became more numerous.
‘Is it really only three or four days to the end?’ I asked Mr Fields, that evening, thinking it would be a kindness to speak to him on his first day as a widower. He was sitting close to his wagon, smoking a pipe that smelled more like dried grass than tobacco. ‘I detect little sense amongst the people that the journey is almost done.’
He looked at me sideways, and I found myself doubting the wisdom of broaching a subject that bore no relation to his very recent loss. But then he nodded, as if in agreement with my choice of topic. ‘The scouts have gone ahead to check that the road can be traversed the entire way. You know, I presume, that for the past few hours we have been the first train to use this final stretch? Before now, the wagons had to be dragged through underbrush and over rocks, for these last miles.’
I had not realised. Since twenty or thirty wagons had gone before ours, there was little hint of newness to the surface of the road as we passed over it. ‘Could they not find a more level route?’ I grumbled.
‘I guess not. They used ridges where they could, but a ridge does not go on for ever, but ends, more often than not, in a steep decline down to a lower plane. There were not many choices. And I can assure you that we have it far easier than those who were forced to use the Columbia, before this year. I can scarcely imagine the labour and danger involved.’ He met my eyes and I understood that our words were of much less importance than the fact that I was offering him my company, and that he was thankful for it. His wife’s dead body lay a few feet away, her children rolled in thick blankets and tucked into a small tent behind the wagon. All three were safe, giving no trouble, and needing no attention. And so we were free to exchange facts of immediate relevance to us. It was like the hour before dawn; the hour when wild animals go hunting and death’s cold breath is at its most close. We were alive and looking to the immediate future, when a new day would bring new experience, which the cold stiff Jane Fields would never know. Already the world was moving on without her, and there was no help for it.
I made no attempt to construct a detailed picture of the coming miles, content that we were very fortunate compared to those earlier migrants. Their wagons had been dismantled, and oxen led around sheer rock faces and forced repeatedly to cross the river in deep icy water.
‘It is a wilderness indeed,’ I said, hearing the inadequacy of my own words. ‘But already humankind is conquering it.’
Mr Fields made no reply, but I found he was watching me with a faint smile that contained no mockery or impatience. As before, it was as if we were real friends, equals in everything. I looked at the other people – the Tennants clustered together, the Franklins arguing over something, Henry Bricewood examining the foot of one of the beasts – and had a strange sensation of alienation from them all, with only Mr Fields on the same side as myself. With Henry I was always fearing to seem foolish; with Abel I was acutely aware of uncontrolled bodily responses. With my own sisters I was too old, too different, to feel a genuine intimacy. Then I looked back at Moses Fields, and returned his smile.
It was dark and our evening meal had been consumed an hour since. It was not an auspicious time for illicit intimacy. ‘I must go,’ I said. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘I have been alone for some weeks already,’ he said, with a shift of his shoulders. ‘The sorrow is that poor Jane never saw Oregon City, after coming so far. I shall lie here, brooding on that, perhaps. But I am well, and thankful for the few mewrcies remaining to me.’
I left him then, my heart sore and thick inside me. That night I lay awake, listening to wild outdoor sounds and wondering what it really meant to be human. Night thoughts often seemed so wise at the time, only to dissolve into nonsense with the morning light.
As we all set to the everlasting harnessing and packing, Mr Fields appeared in our midst, carrying a small red box. He proffered it to me shyly, saying, ‘By rights this should go to Ellie, but she tells me she wants you to have it. It is a belated gift for your birthday.’
I opened it to discover a gold filigree choker, set with small diamonds that caught the dying firelight and sparkled like magic.
‘Oh, no!’ I protested. ‘Why would you give me such a thing? It is too much.’ Which was true. I was amazed that his wife had possessed an object of such value. For him to give it to me, for no better reason than a birthday, seemed almost violent.
‘Not me, but Ellie,’ he corrected. ‘She tells me that you and she are friends.’ He looked at me quickly, then down at the ground. I held the flashing jewels aloft. ‘And I would be glad if that were so,’ he added, almost in a whisper.
‘Ellie has become fond of you,’ he said, with a little duck of gratitude.
‘And I of her.’
‘I believe you have done her a great kindness, at the moment of greatest need.’
It was rare, if not unique, for me to hear my behaviour so described. I recalled Hope Gordon’s remark as to how difficult it must be to live up to my name, and Fanny’s accusation that I fell very far short of doing so. ‘Have I been charitable?’ I asked, with a sideways grin. ‘As my name might demand?’
‘Better than charitable,’ he said softly. ‘I have always believed that charity lacks feeling. There is a prickly sense of duty to it, which I find uncomfortable.’
The solace I experienced was out of all proportion to his words. I realised I had been harbouring resentment and a degree of self-loathing ever since Fanny’s comments, and these feelings were finally loosening their hold. Somewhere there were warmer words hovering between us, which I hoped – even expected - to hear one day. Except, I remembered, we were shortly to reach Oregon City, where we would go our separate ways, and perhaps never meet again. ‘What will you do?’ I blurted. ‘When we arrive?’
‘Arrive?’ he repeated, still smiling. ‘Like a train pulling into its station.’
‘You have travelled by train?’ I was surprised.
‘In Quebec,’ he nodded. ‘Five years since. I lived there a twelvemonth.’
His life story was still a tale full of holes and apparent contradictions, but I had a suspicion that his experience of the world was vaster than I could grasp. I had seen trains on occasion, but never travelled on one. ‘Your plans?’ I prompted him, still holding onto the main question.
‘Ah yes – when we arrive. Somehow, I fancy it will not feel quite like an arrival. It will be a great bustling dispersal of goods and beasts, with agents attempting to sell stock and seed corn, Indians offering their services and government officers hoping to maintain order. With every wagon train, the population of the city increases prodigiously, and space must be found for all the newcomers. Chaos is inevitable.’
Again, I abandoned any attempt at imagining the scene, although his vivid words did leave a picture in my mind. ‘Much the same as Westport, then,’ I summarised.
‘In reverse. Unloading instead of loading, and taking leave rather than meeting. Makes a tidy conclusion to the year, of course.’
‘You sound like Mr Tennant,’ I told him. ‘I can almost see you on his thronelike chair and bidding everyone farewell.’
‘I shall not be sorry to bid that particular gentleman farewell,’ he said with a sniff. ‘My tongue has been bitten too many times for comfort, when in his presence.’
A glance at his face confirmed his good humour. Regardless of the death of his wife, his poverty and inferior status, he was plainly anticipating the end of our trek with some pleasure. His pockmarks seemed to have faded and his hair was a healthy glossy black. Lean certainly, but he was well muscled from the months of hard work. He was a fine example to the two little children he had inherited.
In our tent that night, speaking in the low breathy whispers we had adopted to avoid being overheard by the people lying so close by, Fanny said, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if Mr Fields proposes to Mrs Gordon in the next few days. It would be an excellent match for him, and not too bad for her. She needs a husband.’
The suggestion came as yet another shock inflicted on me by my sister. Would I never acquire the worldly wisdom she seemed to have been born with? I had never once seen Mr Fields and Hope Gordon together, never connected them in my mind for a second. I made no reply, speechless with surprise. His wife had not been dead two days and this girl was rematching him.
Fanny giggled. ‘I jest, Charity, waiting for you to cry “No! He’s mine!” as you did once before. I see you in such earnest discussion with the man, almost every day. What in the world do you find to speak of with him?’
I hissed a wordless fury at her. ‘You vixen!’ I managed. ‘You have no respect for a single soul, have you?’
‘Respect,’ she jeered. ‘What good will that do me? How fiercely the women in this caravan have guarded their respectability, when no-one cared a plum for it. Who was there to notice, but other women of the same kind?’
‘We will not be in a caravan for ever. In three days’ time we shall be settling again, carving a place in the new society.’
‘A little longer than that, I fancy,’ she argued. ‘And my place in society is already planned. I choose to forfeit respect for something rather warmer.’
‘Be quiet,’ I told her. ‘Let me sleep.’