Free 0800722329 by Jane Kirkpatrick Page B

the heart-cries of death. We children from the school stay silent, await our end. I hear horses, more shouts, then in a language I can understand, Chinookan mixed with Cayuse and Sahaptin, we are told to “Go! There!” I turn to thechildren, tell them to move, and like cattle we are herded to a room with immigrants, poor people merely stopping on their way west. It’s cold, evening now, as we huddle. A man shot in the belly groans, begs to be finished. He dies in the night but I do not remember that. Nor did I hear Mr. Canfield, wounded, slip away toward Lapwai. I sleep, blessed sleep protecting me, as later imagining all the awfuls in the world would become a way to contain the uncertainties in my life.

    “Eliza! Get smelling salts.” My father shook me. “Help now. Poor Rachel.” His voice pulled me back into this present moment. He didn’t notice where I’d gone or that I shivered. “This is too much for Rachel’s sensitive nature. But she so wanted to help with butchering. Go on. Get the salts, Daughter. You’re all right.”
    I stumbled to our cabin, slowly back into this place of autumn leaves, the sound of geese calling to each other high above. For a moment their calls were cranes above Waiilatpu, but the dog’s nose against my hand as I walked kept me here. “Yaka. Good boy.” I let him come inside while I pulled the smelling salts from the box, my hands shaking. I checked on the stove, made sure the damper was closed so we didn’t have to tend to it for now. My ritual of safety completed, I headed back out, the molding leaves of autumn musking the air. I put my arms beneath Rachel, and she sat up as I swept the salts beneath her nose. With my father, we half carried her to the cabin where she rested all day, and my father and I—with the help of Henry Hart and the little ones— finished the slaughter of the hog. My mother would have helped without fainting. And she would have seen me disappear and brought me back to warming arms to stop my shaking. My father defiled our mother’s memory with his marriage, even if Rachel did her best. She would never be as good as my mother’s worst.

The Diary of Eliza Spalding
    1850
    I fail my husband, not being able to care for my household. Horace my dear brother has agreed to remain with me during the trial. I am so grateful, as I have three children to care for and my own health has deteriorated. Do I repeat myself? I should look back in this diary and see if I speak overly much of my trials. Long hours I spend in bed, praying through a persistent cough that tires me more than when I taught school, sewed, dried foods, picked berries, and yes, rode horses, the latter for pure joy and the feel of the wind in my hair, the sun on my face.
    Gracious God in heaven, be with my family, me. Help me to set aside these thoughts of anger and betrayal directed at the Mission Board, my husband’s insistence to expose Eliza to yet more pain. Help me see that you are in all places, light and darkness, that we can better see the light because we have wandered in the shadows. With gratitude for the lives you spared I remain your humble servant. Amen.
    I was strong on our journey west, though more than once I asked Mr. S to leave me behind. It was a genuine request to hasten a death I thought could not be avoided. I did not wish to be responsible for the deterioration of the work we’d been set to do. I didn’t complain. It was a practical matter. I was with child and, merciful God, may I one day understand—I lost the infant. And if this was God’s provision for me, an early death to bring me to his Presence, I was prepared for it. But my dear husband would set our tent at night, cook over our fire, settle me in, bring me tea. And by morning, I would be better. Praise God.
    I suppose a part of me did not wish to let my husband go on without me, traveling with Narcissa Whitman, a woman Mr. Spalding had once proposed to, though she had declined. We were near the fort at