The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [21]
I did pray. Oh, how I prayed! Please, please, please. Don’t let anything happen to Mama. Please, forgive us for being foolish. I’d never take the word of a stranger, not ever again! I’d never take a wager like this. Money needed to be earned, not received for wild schemes. I prayed for my brothers and sisters, thinking, What will they do if we die here? They’d never even know. We’d be two lost clusters of bones found one day by strangers, and they’d make up a story about what happened to us. I started to laugh.
“Clara. What’s the matter with you?” Mama asked, shaking me as I leaned against a rock that looked like a statue of flowing water.
“What will they find of us?” I said. “My curling iron. Your frying pan. How will they ever explain that?”
“Don’t,” Mama said. “Don’t think that. We have to get out of here. We have to.”
I started to cry then. The fear, the hunger, the realization that we were lost set in.
“Please, show us the path and we’ll walk in it. Please, save my child if not me,” Mama whispered into the still night. I could feel her rocking beside me.
The night was a grave, time disappearing into darkness.
I slept, awoke in a start. “Mama? Is Papa here to take us home? Over there? By the lantern.” My face felt like I had my head in an oven, checking on the brown rolls. “Are you talking to him?”
“No, no,” Mama said. “You’re … I’m so sorry. Let me hold you. I’m praying, child. That’s what you hear. Hush now. The crying won’t help us, and it robs you of strength. Try to rest.”
She held my hands, rubbed at my fingers, smoothing over the rough edges. I didn’t remember her ever holding my hand. I must have been a little child.
“Your nails, they’re all torn,” she said then.
In the morning, Mama held the compass. She directed us to the northwest, saying we’d walk back the way we came, back to Boise City. I lagged behind. Thirsty. Rocks looked like soft pillows I could just lie down on. I sat in a crevice between rocks as big as buckboards.
Mama shook my shoulders. She looked blurry and fuzzy as a rabbit. I wished I had a rabbit to hold.
“Listen to me, Clara.”
I couldn’t.
She struck my face. I blinked, touched my cheek.
“We’re going to take one step, then another, then another.”
“I hear you. Everyone hears you, Mama.” I sloughed Mama’s hands from my shoulder. “Everyone hears what you say. That’s why we’re here. Hold tight,” I told her. Mama looked confused, but I only needed her to hold my hand again, to keep me from floating like a bubble from the washtub up, up into the air and far away into blue sky.
TEN
Desert Starlight
Night. Darkness. Whisperings. “If you must take us, please let Clara die first, Lord, so she won’t have to die alone without her mother tending her.”
A rumble far away. A storm brewing. Whispered words continue. The thunder.
“Clara! Do you hear that? A storm! We’ll have water.”
I hear her scrambling in the night.
“Where is that frying pan? We’ll collect water. It’ll rescue us, that old pan!”
She sounds happy. Mama is happy. I look up. No moon. No rain. Only pinpricks of stars. I close my eyes.
“Clara. Listen to me. I need to tell you something. Listen now. Clara?”
“My ears aren’t tired. Only my eyes.” I keep them closed. There’s nothing to see but darkness. I sleep maybe. I dream of julekaga, Mama’s Christmas bread, so sweet, so filling. One slice and I am full from all the love that goes into that bread for Christmas morning. Smells fill the kitchen. Am I dreaming? “Do you have julekaga, Mama?”
“Clara. Listen. It’s not Christmas. I must tell you a secret thing.” She holds me in her arms. I’m little, like Lillian. She rocks me. “There’s something I hoped I would never have to tell you, but you should know this. If something happens to me—”
“Are you going away again?”
“No. No. But if I … If you get back to Boise but