Fillmore, Utah
August 1857
I eyed the rising sun through the window, wondering what was taking the Indian women so long this morning. Today was the fifteenth, which meant some of the Paiutes from Corn Creek would be coming by to bake bread in exchange for corn, melons, and moccasins. Usually, they were here at sunup on baking days. Shrugging, I turned back to the pile of trousers on the kitchen table. There was plenty of work to do otherwise.
“The girls are lucky they get to wear skirts,” Proctor grumbled from where he stood across the room, loud enough for me to hear.
“You’ll count your blessings, Proctor Robison,” I told him, but when I looked up his brown eyes were playful.
“Just look, Mama.” He pointed back to the kitchen table, where I’d lined up his younger brothers’ trousers. “They could stand up all by themselves.”
I snorted. He was right. The rough cotton on the boys’ trousers was so stiff, the pants didn’t even need a pair of legs to prop them up.
I meant to patch the knees before the other children came home from swimming at the pond. They each had one pair of school trousers, and if I didn’t take care of the holes before the little brick schoolhouse opened up next week, they’d be sent home with a note.
“Go on and water the apple trees with your daddy,” I told him, wiping my forehead. I’d started the clay oven heating an hour ago, feeding the stacked firewood into its greedy belly, and already it was hotter inside the house than out. “Yours are the only trousers without holes in the knees anyway.” I swatted him on the behind with a piece of kindling. “Thanks to those new long legs of yours.”
He beamed. At fourteen, he was already an inch taller than his father, Vick. I knew he was proud of it.
One of our horses whinnied outside, a sure sign somebody was finally coming down the dirt lane. I wiped my hands on my dress and looked out the window. “Looks like we’re baking bread after all.”
I’d come to look forward to this time with the Paiute women each month, even though we usually spent the hours in silence. Most of the Paiutes at Corn Creek had been baptized Mormon in the spring, when Apostle George A. Smith visited Fillmore. Those once-wild people were one of us now, and the idea that I was baking bread with descendants of the ancient Lamanites made goosebumps pop up on my arms.
The Lamanites in the pages of the Book of Mormon were wicked, cursed with a dark skin so the Nephites—or white folk—knew to stay away. But Heavenly Father promised that in the last days—right now—they’d turn righteous and become our allies. It was a miracle to live to see it happening.
Proctor lingered in the doorway, and I gently swatted him again. “Waiting for somebody?”
I’d seen the way his eyes went wide at the sight of Chief Kanosh’s new wife Sally last month. She was only a few years older than him, and with her brown doe eyes, high cheeks and long black hair, I could see why she’d caught Kanosh’s attention—and Proctor’s.
Proctor’s cheeks turned red and he shook his head. “No, Mama.”
A shadow moved across the open front door.
“Hello, Sally,” I called and raised an eyebrow at Proctor. The slip of a girl smiled but didn’t come inside, wearing the same bulky crinoline dress she had last time I saw her.
Proctor ducked his head and hurried past her.
I strained to see beyond her, out into the yard. Usually at least three of the Indian women came to bake bread, but today it was only Sally. And she was empty-handed.
Seeing me glance at her hands, Sally whispered, “Melons gone.” Then she quickly raised her hand and pointed at the milk cow tied up outside. “But steers.”
It took a moment for me to find my tongue. I didn’t realize she spoke English.
“Steers?” I asked, not sure what she meant. The Paiutes had some horses, but not steers.
“Dead steers. We take the meat. You take two skins?” she said hopefully.
After a little more back and forth, I learned that the gentiles who had passed through Corn Creek had left four steer carcasses untouched that morning when they broke camp in a hurry. Two were ours for the taking, in exchange for the bread this month.
I nodded at Sally to show I understood, still shocked by the fact that she could speak a bit of English. She was making a generous offer. Leather fetched a good price in Salt Lake. “I’ll send Proctor for the skins. He’s strong as an ox. And growing faster than I can keep up with.” I chuckled and pointed at the pile of clothing waiting to be mended on the table. “All my boys could use a second pair of trousers.”
Even with dust devils on the horizon promising a wind storm, Proctor had saddled his fast blue mare and was off to skin the steers before Sally and I moved into the kitchen to start kneading dough.
We baked ten loaves that day, all in all. We didn’t talk any more while we worked. Sally had gone silent again, but from the way she followed my directions, I could tell she understood what I was saying well enough.
When she left that afternoon, I sat on the porch of our fine three-room house, putting up with the dust if it meant getting a breeze. I expected the younger children to come skipping home at any moment, smelling of muddy pond water. Then Vick soon after, covered in dust after spending the day in our apple orchard.
I sat on the rocker to patch the first pair of trousers, wanting to soak up the silence but needing to keep my hands busy.
I dropped the needle in surprise when I heard the blue mare’s high-pitched whinny after only a few minutes.
Proctor must have made quick work of the steers.
There he was, nearly home, a mountain of skins that was nearly as tall as my boy himself draped in front of and behind the saddle.
Before I could lift a hand to greet him, though, he slumped against the mare’s neck, doubling over at the stomach.
I set the trousers down, thinking the pile of skins had gotten away from him. “Proctor, you need help?”
He didn’t answer. Just let go of the skins he’d worked so hard to scrape, letting them slip from the horse’s back.
“Proctor!” I ran from the porch, too late to catch my boy before he tumbled off the horse like a rag doll, landing on top of the hides.
The blue mare just stood there, looking at me like she was worried, too.
When I got closer, I realized that my boy’s whole face was red and swollen.
I thought maybe he’d been sunburnt.
Until I saw his eye. It was so puffed up he could barely open it.