Journey to Respect Read online

  Soon after arriving home in their village near Philadelphia, Eve and her father had begun sorting through their possessions in their modest cottage, deciding what to take and what to leave behind. Today she and her father were going through the parlor that served as his examining room and library. With the windows open, a warm breeze fluttered the white sheers. Eve wore one of her older blue-sprigged cotton dresses. It looked crumpled and worn out, and that reflected how she felt. As they continued preparing to leave, Eve tried again and again to coax her father into telling her why he’d enlisted. His evasive replies had only heightened her concern and wore on her nerves.

  Six years ago in the Panic of 1819, her father had lost most of the money he’d inherited from his father, and from the family manse they had moved here. Since then, he’d supported them on the income from his medical practice. Since he treated many who could not pay or who could pay little, their financial situation had been...difficult. Eve had learned how to cook simple meals and how to keep a house neat. She gazed around at the small room, listening to a robin sing outside the open windows. Its cheery song failed to lift her spirits. Could their complete ruin be imminent? Was that the cause of her father’s enlistment?

  She choked back worry and listened for the expected arrival of the land agent. While they were away west, their small cottage would be rented out, furnished. Prospective renters were expected at any time to view the property.

  Eve lifted down another clutch of her father’s many books. She was finding it hard to decide what to take of her own possessions. “Can I really only take a trunk, valise, and a hat box?”

  “Yes. My instructions were quite clear. Of course, my medical supplies will be allowed no matter how much I carry with me. But otherwise I’m restricted to the same amount of personal effects.”

  Holding the books close, Eve tried to come up with a new way to ask her father for an explanation.

  Her father forestalled her. “Eve, I love you with all my heart. I’m doing this for you. You must trust me.”

  Doing it for her? That made no sense. She was happy here. She couldn’t help it—a gust of breath, filled with frustration, escaped her.

  Her father chuckled and then became serious. He glanced at her and then went over and tugged her into an embrace, the books between them. “My sweet Eve, just trust me.”

  “You’ve always been frank with me,” she objected, longing for reassurance, for matters to return to normal.

  He patted her shoulder. “I know, but this time I think it’s good for you to work on trusting. Do you trust me, Eve?” He looked into her eyes.

  She’d always trusted him but now... This was becoming harder and harder. The robin stopped singing and somewhere close crows began a chorus of raucous caws, reflecting her own turmoil. She gazed at the face she loved more than any other. She did trust her father’s love, but sometimes his judgment erred. The Panic of 1819 had proven that truth. But then, the Panic had swept the whole country. She couldn’t hold it against him, hadn’t really. “I trust you, Father.” But why won’t you trust me?

  He kissed her forehead then walked away to continue packing his medical supplies.

  She turned to her task of packing books that would be stored in her uncle Eustace’s spacious Philadelphia attic. At least she was going with her father, not being left behind.

  A knock at the door sounded and Matthew, their only remaining servant and her father’s valet, went to answer it. Voices came from the hallway. Eve turned her back to the parlor door so that she could hide her reaction to strangers inspecting her home.

  Her mind chewed over this latest conversation. She trusted her father. But he was only human, fallible. And so was she. Why hadn’t she seen this turn of events coming? Had she missed some clue as to what had prompted her father to make this startling decision?

  But now she must stop asking why. He wasn’t going to tell her. And he’d asked for her blind trust. A difficult request for her. Her emotions tumbled inside her, rampant and unsettled. She could not see where this would take her and she didn’t mean merely—westward.

  After spending some time bandaging wounds and wrapping the few dead Osage in blankets to take back to camp for their funerals, the Osage war party had turned toward home. The war chief decided that the Pawnee had been taught a lesson but that the Osage would take a different route home to lead their enemy astray, confuse them. The sun beat down on their bare shoulders and backs and the tall grass grazed their legs as they rode homeward through it.

  Towards the end of the day, they glimpsed the smoke from what must be a chimney over the next rise. As if it were a wave of heat enfolding him, Rafe felt the indignation of the Osage. The intrusion of white settlers and Eastern tribes had become a constant irritant. He pictured a small cabin, a man, a woman, and perhaps children, unaware that they were about to be attacked by an Osage war party. Was there any way he could stop this?

  Black Horse said something uncomplimentary about white people. And edged his horse closer to Rafe. “We should let the half-white show that he hates people who take our land by leading the attack.”

  “Attack? That is not for you to say,” the war chief snapped.

  Black Horse had overstepped himself.

  Rafe spoke up, “Perhaps they do not know that this is Osage land. Should we give them a chance to leave in peace?”

  “You see he wants to protect the whites that steal from us,” Black Horse challenged.

  “What do you have to say, Grandson of Honga?” the war chief asked, not acknowledging Black Horse.

  “If the white soldiers asked me to attack the Osage,” Rafe replied, “I would refuse. So I will not attack a white family who may have been misled by others. Many times people are sold land falsely.” He was aware that the concept of selling land never made sense to the Osage or other tribes. To them, it was like selling the air or the sky.

  The chief glared at Black Horse, still obviously displeased by the man’s insubordination. “What do you think we should do, Grandson of Honga?”

  “Since you ask, I would suggest that we warn them that they are on Osage land and tell them to leave. But of course, that is not my decision.”

  “That is what we will do then.” The chief signaled for the war party to proceed.

  Black Horse glared at Rafe, promising more trouble in the future.

  Walking their horses through the tall grass, it did not take long for them to reach the cabin. At the very least, Rafe had expected a man to come out with a gun to face them. But when no one came out, he began to worry. The other members of the war party sat on their horses, exchanging glances, also wondering. A falcon let loose its high throaty caw in the quiet.

  “Grandson of Honga, go in and find the whites,” the chief ordered. “Is the man a coward?”

  Rafe obeyed. Handing Tristan his reins, he slipped from his horse and approached the cabin. “Hello the house!” He called out the common frontier greeting. And waited. But in vain. He pushed open the door and stepped inside the dim interior. What he found froze him place.

  Then, heart pounding, he turned and shouted, “No one enter! Keep back!”

  The only sounds in the cabin were a soft moaning and a baby whimpering. By now the fire had gone out. Rafe moved to the rope bed in one corner and looked down at a man and woman. Their stench nearly made him gag. Both of their faces were covered with ugly red pustules. The baby lay whimpering in a cradle beside the rope bed.

  Rafe touched the man’s throat to feel for a pulse. Suffering from a high fever, the man still lived, but had only the strength to open his eyes. Next Rafe touched the woman’s throat. She had already died. He stepped back in revulsion, a sick feeling sinking inside him. But he must sound the warning.

  He walked outside and held up both hands. “There is sickness here. A bad sickness. Stay back.”

  Black Horse snorted. Murmuring broke out.

  The chief held up his hand for silence. “What sickness?”

  “Smallpox.” The falcon shrieked again. The sound ripped through Rafe as he grappled with this crisis.

  “What is smallpox?” the war chief asked.

  “It is a deadly disease that white men carry,” Rafe declared. “You must not come near. It could kill everyone.”

  A murmuring filled with doubt answered Rafe. They needed to see it to believe. “The wife is already dead. I will bring out her body to show you. But everyone must stay back. It is easy to catch. And deadly.” Rafe turned and went back inside. He lifted the limp corpse and carried it out into the sunshine and held it up to be seen.

  A horrified gasp echoed through the war party.

  “If it is so deadly, why do you not fear to carry her?” the chief asked.

  “When I was a child, my white mother gave me medicine to protect me.” Rafe turned so that his left arm could be seen. “Do you see the mark there? That is where I was vaccinated. That is what the protection is called.”

  “I was vaccinated too,” Tristan added and moved his horse forward.

  “They are white also,” Black Horse challenged. “Why did they become ill?”

  “They must not have been vaccinated. Not all whites are. But my mother was wise and wanted her sons to be protected,” Rafe replied, the woman’s body weighing down his arms, weighing down his spirit. She couldn’t have been much more than sixteen.

  “What should we do?” the chief asked, holding his fidgeting horse. The uneasiness of the Osage over this new threat had communicated itself to their horses, making them shy and neigh.

  “The man and the baby still live,” Rafe replied, the sun burning the back of his neck. “It is not right that I leave their bodies without burial. I will stay and care for them and then bury them.”

  The war chief nodded in agreement. Unthinkable to leave anyone to die alone.

  “Please tell my grandfather and the others that I think it would be best that all whites be avoided until I return. That is the only way at this time to protect the tribe. Understand this—” Rafe put all his fervor into his words. “This disease can kill whole settlements. Stay away from all white people and anyone who has been near whites in the last two weeks. Or our whole village could die.”

  His final words shimmered in the air, invisible but palpable. The war party turned and departed in silence and with haste.

  Still aching from days traveling by coach from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Eve let her father help her up the gangplank to the crowded steamboat for the trip down the Ohio River to St. Louis. Even though the sun still clung to the eastern horizon, the heat of summer hung in the humid early morning air. A parasol dangled from one wrist and a fan from her other. She’d dressed in her lightest cotton lawn dress. The girl at the inn had pressed it for her this morning but she knew even the stiff starch would not be able to stand against the coming heat. She felt herself wilting.

  “This will be an interesting day,” her father said. “Our first steamboat trip.”

  His light tone did not go with the dark circles under his eyes. Was he losing sleep over his decision to move them west? She squeezed his hand, wishing he would confide in her. His lack of candor with her was unusual, and more troubling than his decision to enlist. She would still try to find out why they were heading west, but her confidence in gaining the information she so craved was lagging

  “Dr. Holcombe?” A young military officer waited at the top of the gangplank.

  “Lieutenant Henderson?”

  The handsome, dark-haired lieutenant answered with a salute which he prolonged until her father shifted his valise to his other hand and returned it. “I’ll become accustomed to this saluting, I promise.” He added a grin to his apology.

  “Just so, sir.”

  “This is my daughter, Miss Eve Holcombe.”

  Eve stepped onto the boat and the lieutenant stepped back politely.

  “Miss Holcombe, a pleasure.” He lifted the hatbox from her hand.

  Accustomed to male attention, she curtseyed and murmured unencouragingly, “Lieutenant.”

  Her father’s valet brought up the rear, carrying her traveling valise and his own. Matthew would travel as far as Cincinnati with them. There he would leave them and join his married daughter.

  The steamboat blasted its horn, startling Eve.

  The lieutenant and her father both reached out to steady her.

  “I believe that means we are about to cast off,” the lieutenant said.

  She smiled primly at him and stepped away. “My thanks.”

  The lieutenant motioned her to precede them. He fell in step beside her father as Eve scanned the steamboat. Steam-powered boats were still new enough to intrigue her. Everything gleamed, new and polished. The tall paddle wheel dominated one side of the craft. Soldiers in blue uniforms had gathered toward the stern and civilians also lined the railing, waving, no doubt, to friends and family. The steamboat blasted its horn three times and then she heard, “Cast off!”

  At the sudden movement, she staggered, but her father caught her arm. The reality of the moment hit her. Her life had taken an unexpected turn. Now she must decide how to handle it. A new thought occurred to her. Perhaps Matthew, who had been with her father since they were both young men, would give her some insight into her father’s reason for enlisting. But if her father had confided a secret reason for this move in loyal Matthew, it would take some cleverness on her part to get him to share it.

  In the hot cabin in Kansas, yet another morning arrived. The man sick with smallpox moaned, delirious. Rafe sat beside him, bathing his tortured face with water. The door and two windows stood open, but little breeze entered.

  “Any improvement?” Tristan asked from beside the cradle where he was bathing the baby’s naked body to bring down the fever.

  “None. He’s burning up. The baby?”

  “Same.” A pause. “You know they’re going to die.”

  Rafe had already acknowledged this. Even the most skilled physician could do nothing more than they were. “Yes, we’ll bury them by the woman and then we’ll look among their effects and see if they have family. We should write them so at least they know what happened.”

  Rafe gazed down at the mottled red face and wondered what had caused this man to bring his family so far west all alone. Surely someone must have warned them against entering Osage land. What had possessed him to do it? And why hadn’t they been vaccinated when the smallpox vaccine was available in most cities? Surely they’d passed through St. Louis. Ignorance might be the cause, but it would cost this man everything, including his life. Rafe’s thoughts turned to his Osage family. He could only hope that his warnings would protect them.

  As the steamboat trip continued another day, Lieutenant Henderson appeared at Eve’s side where she stood under her light blue parasol at the railing. “The Ohio River Valley is very beautiful.” A commonplace pleasantry.

  “Yes, it is.” Eve did not feel like chatting but her inner turmoil begged for distraction. And this man might unknowingly drop some hint of what her father was thinking. She glanced at him from under her parasol. “Where are you from, Lieutenant Henderson?”

  “Maryland. But I have spent the last four years at West Point.”

  “Is this your first posting?”

  “Yes, I am terribly green.” He grinned.

  She liked him better then. “Did you expect to be sent to the frontier?”

  A pair of gulls swooped overhead, squawking. “Yes. Until there is another war, the frontier needs defense.”

  “Have you ever been west before?” she asked, fanning herself.

  “No, it will be a great adventure.”

  “For both of us.” She sent him an honest smile then.

  “May I escort you around the deck?”

  She didn’t want to encourage him, but walking beside him lifted her confidence, assurance that—even though her life was spinning beyond her control—the sun still rose in the east and the globe still turned on its axis and she still attracted male favor. She hated that that somehow mattered to her, but it did, especially now when everything was changing.

  “That would be pleasant.” She slipped her arm into the crook of his elbow and they set off on their walk around the deck. Though she craved distraction, still her mind grappled with what lay ahead.

  In her teens, she’d read the account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition west to the Pacific Ocean. She tried to remember what she had read, but her mind refused to give up the information. What awaited her on the frontier?

  In the blazing sun, Rafe and Tristan shoveled the last of the dirt onto the man’s grave. He now rested next to his wife. Rafe had found the family Bible, so he’d been able to carve their names into the wooden crosses.

  “I can’t believe the child is still alive,” Tristan said, lifting the fretful infant.

  “Only God knows why one survives and one dies.”

  “How old do you think he is?” Tristan asked, patting the baby’s back.

  Rafe studied the child and shrugged. “Somewhere between three to six months, do you think?”

  Tristan shrugged back at him. “Hard to tell since he’s been so weak. But I think somewhere in there. I saw him roll over a few times but he makes no effort to crawl.”

  Rafe nodded without conviction. What did the two of them know about babies?

  The baby’s fever had felt as if it were lessening over the last day. But the child still suffered from the enflamed, painful pustules. Rafe gazed down at the two fresh graves, mounded with dirt, and wondered once again what had brought these two so far out onto the frontier. And where they had picked up smallpox on the way.

  “What are we going to do?” Tristan asked, rocking the child back and forth.

  Rafe understood that he meant what were they going to do about this threat to the tribe. “I know what I want to do, but I don’t know if I can.”