Part Two
1836–1859
Chapter Twenty-Seven
From the first night the wagon train formed a circle for shelter and a corral for the animals, Jessica learned that nothing was expected of her. The other women were hardly out of their wagons before they set about preparations to get their families fed and bedded down for the night. Jessica watched the organized industry in awed dismay, feeling helpless and totally useless as mothers sent their smaller children off to gather firewood and fetch water, the older ones to dig a fire pit while the men unhitched, hobbled, and fed the animals. Dutch ovens and roasting spits, frying pans and eating utensils appeared, and in no time at all, pots were simmering and coffee brewing. A slave couple named Jeremiah and Maddie whom Silas had brought along in lieu of Lazarus and Cassandra were assigned to take care of camp duties for the Toliver family.
Watching the activities wrapped in her fashionable blue cloak of merino wool, Jessica said to Silas, who had drawn to her side for the first time that day, “I feel rather…pointless.”
“No need to. You were such a help with Joshua today. You kept him occupied.”
“Keeping him engaged is a pleasure. What are my duties?”
“None, except to stay well.”
“Ah, yes, we can’t have me dying on you before you build your plantation.”
Silas looked ready to explain that she’d once again misinterpreted his meaning but thought better of the effort and said, “Tell Tippy that in the future she’s to set up your washstand in the light of the campfire. The shadows are private but dangerous—a good place for a silent abduction with no one the wiser until you’ve been discovered missing.”
“Me? Why—why would anybody want to abduct me?”
“Perhaps your imagination can assist you in taking my word for it, Miss Wyndham.”
Jeremy had drawn up to their campfire. “Ransom, Jess,” he explained quietly, addressing her by the shortened, friendly version of her name he’d elected to call her, “or a Creek warrior desiring a white squaw.”
“Or worse,” Silas added, an eyebrow arched meaningfully.
“You—you’re trying to frighten me.”
“No, Miss Wyndham,” Silas said. “We’re trying to protect you. Stay in the light of the fire.”
Jessica did not dare dispute the order and washed in the Conestoga, keeping ears and eyes open for strange sounds and shadows outside the wagon. With Tippy sleeping on a pallet beside her, she hardly closed her eyes for two weeks because of watching for a skulking figure or the feathered headdress of an Indian warrior outlined against the canvas.
From the outset, Jessica realized the privileged daughter of Carson Wyndham was not to be invited into the close-knit community of the wagon train. Besides her dubious standing as Silas Toliver’s wife, she treated her black driver and maid as equals, confirming gossip of her anti-slavery leanings that had leaked to the cavalcade before it pulled out. Members of slave-owning families, especially the men, gave her wary looks and, Jessica was certain, discouraged their wives from mingling with her, “quite as if they expect me to unlock their slaves’ shackles and set them free,” she told Tippy. The others did not seek to befriend her simply because of the great distance between her status and theirs, and Jessica was at a loss how to bridge the barrier of their social differences.
She would have liked to discuss the matter with Silas, for she was willing to enter into the activities of the community, do her share, but she rarely saw him except in the evenings when they gathered for supper around their campfire, and then not for long. His council and attention were in constant demand. When he could take time to enjoy a meal, Joshua was the main focus of conversation between them. Jessica had reluctantly granted Tippy’s request that she and Jasper eat later with Jeremiah and Maddie—“It looks better that way, Miss Jessie”—but often Jeremy and Tomahawk joined their group, and her hope to have Silas’s attention was disappointed. Jessica came to resent the intrusion on her only opportunity to speak to her husband.
To occupy her time, she would keep a journal—a type of logbook—of their migration, Jessica decided. One day she might write a book of her experiences for posterity.
“What will you name it?” Tippy asked.
“I don’t know yet. I expect inspiration will come.”
Writing the journal was the ideal solution to fill the empty hours of bouncing along on the seat of the Conestoga behind Silas’s wagon while Tippy was busy under the canvas sewing a buckskin jacket like Silas’s to present Joshua on his fifth birthday in May. Tippy had made the request for the skin from Jeremy, who had procured it from only the wind knew where, and the secrecy with which the four of them—Jeremy, Jasper, Jessica, and Tippy—kept the garment concealed from the little boy and his father lent a little air of mystery and excitement to the long days.
Silas did not drive his Conestoga, since he was at the head of the wagon train with Jeremy. He had put a longtime slave of Queenscrown in charge of it, and when the wagon’s back flap was open, Jessica could see the woody branches of roses the driver was to mind carefully. Jeremy had also brought along burlap-wrapped root balls of roses from his garden. Tippy had told him and Silas to have them mounded with used coffee grounds to keep them strong. Since wagon space was so valuable, Jessica had been surprised that the men had allotted some of theirs to roses.
“What is their importance?” she had asked Jeremy.
“They are symbols of our family lines that began in England,” he told her, and explained their significance. “Silas brought his Lancasters along in honor of his heritage.”
“And you? Why did you bring along your White Rose of York?”
“In memory of my mother.”
Against her husband’s better judgment, thin, spindly Jasper drove Jessica’s spirited four-horse team, a present from her father. Silas would have preferred the gift had been oxen. They were slower, but more manageable and made better farm animals.
“The first bobble, Jasper, and you’re out of that seat and on foot, understand? I’ll have somebody else take over the reins.”
“Yes suh, Mister Silas.”
“Did you hear that?” Tippy said to Jessica. “Your husband is concerned for his wife’s safety.”
“My husband is concerned for the safety of his bankroll.”
There was much to record, and Jessica was discovering she had a flair for narrative beyond reporting mundane particulars like road conditions, weather, and features of the terrain, usually the sole details found in travel journals and logs. She included such information only if it affected life on the trail, which it often did, sprinkling her accounts with personal reflections and impressions of people and places and items of interest so that within days she realized her journal was taking on the tone of a diary.
MARCH 20, 1836
I sometimes recall myself in my other life and can hardly remember who that girl was. I remember she rose from a down-filled bed no earlier than nine o’clock, washed her face in a room warmed by a good fire prepared by a servant, combed her hair, and joined her family for breakfast served from a heaping sideboard. There were always ham and gravy, bacon and eggs, grits, and biscuits kept hot under their sterling lids and served on fine china, and jellies and jams and sugar cane syrup and coffee and cream. Afterwards, that girl took herself off to be bathed and dressed and coiffed at the hands of her maid and best friend, her only dilemma that of choosing what to do with her day.
The girl I am now rises from a hard pallet while still dark on days so cold she can hardly keep her teeth together. She sleeps in the clothes she wore the day before, and bathing is out of the question because the water is icy. There are mornings the attempt to comb her hair is not worth the time or energy since it will be hidden under a bonnet needed for warmth and not removed until time for bed. Breakfast is hot mush sweetened with sugar cane syrup, of which our supply will soon be depleted, and eaten out of borrowed tin bowls that replaced the china we had to leave by the side of the road.
Still, I do not miss that other girl too much, despite the rigors of the trail. I never had reason to be vain anyway, so to do without a fresh change of clothes each day or my hair dressed mean little to me, though I do long for a hot bath with scented soap—any bath! A creek would do, but I’ve been told—ordered by my husband—never to venture beyond the compound at night, the only time for privacy. It is too cold now even to consider sneaking out of my wagon for a dip in whatever watering place we camp by, but spring is coming. There are days you can almost feel the old earth turn over to warm its back in the sun, and clouds write poetry against the blue sky.
My husband. How strange to think of Silas Toliver that way since, of course, he will probably never be mine to claim as such. His heart belongs to Lettie, perhaps forever. He must miss her sorely. How can she not occupy his thoughts during the empty hours at the head of the wagon train? But even if it were not for Lettie, Tippy describes my countenance when Silas and I do meet “about as welcoming as a hot skillet on a bare bottom” and suggests that I smile at him occasionally.
He wouldn’t notice, I say to her.
Try it, she says, and then I know that with her uncanny perception she’s aware of my growing feelings for him.
APRIL 1, 1836
For the company of Silas, I would prefer my Conestoga to be at the head of the wagon train, but no, he has decreed it rumble along smack dab in the middle of the line. I could voice my dissent, but then Silas would ask my reason, and I’d be at a loss how to answer him. His basis for my wagon’s place in line is simple: It is safer. The lead driver has responsibilities that Jasper has had no experience to handle. The lead driver must navigate problems in the terrain, set an even pace, and be ever alert to the wagon leader’s signals to stop, slow down, speed up, or change course. It is not uncommon to come across a snake or animal in the path that can startle the teams, and without a cool head handling the reins, a runaway wagon or possible stampede are sure to result. Also, the lead driver is the first target of an Indian arrow.
Jeremy’s Conestoga at the head of the Warwick line is driven by a slave named Billy who is one of the most famous teamsters in South Carolina.
Do I dare write of my feelings in my journal? What if Silas should read it? Then he would know that I resent hardly having a glimpse of him until nightfall unless he reins back to check on Joshua sharing my wagon seat on those days he does not permit him to ride beside Billy.
When Silas does appear, I still can’t keep my chagrin from showing. Mercy, if it were not for his son, I do believe my husband would never show his face to ask after his wife. What is happening to me? Every time I see Silas so confident and authoritative in the saddle, so calm and judicious in meeting the concerns of others that flare up daily, I feel this dreadful gush of warmth and pride that angers and bewilders me. How can I be victim to such wifely emotions when I share no bond with the man who causes them?
I wish I had a confidante who possessed the knowledge and experience to help me understand these untoward sensations that leave me weak and feeling helpless. Sometimes I am so filled with them I believe I will explode like an over packed pig’s bladder.
Tippy told me I am in love and all my woman’s juices are flowing. The stars told her so.
Ask them what I’m to do about it, I told her.
Be nice to Mister Silas and see what happens was her reply.
I told her that I had said terrible things to him at Willowshire, and he’s bound to remember.
Tippy replied that men take no mind to what women say, not when their juices are flowing.
I lamented that my appearance was not liable to make him forget or to start his juices flowing.
You might be surprised, she said, and grinned.
Indeed I would be.