Mountain Meadows, Utah
September 1857
Mama held my hands so tight it hurt my fingers. I didn’t fuss or let go, though.
It felt good to walk through the grass, after sitting still for so long in the trench.
I tried not to think about how my mouth and throat were sticky and dried-up at the same time, because that made me want to cry. All I could think about was water, and how I’d drink and drink when we got out of the Meadow.
“Just a little longer, Nancy,” Mama said like she knew what I was thinking.
In front of us were all the other mamas and the older kids who had to walk. Sissy Lou and Mary and William and James were up there somewhere, but I couldn’t see them.
Mama kept looking around, trying to spot them.
When the trail in front of us dipped down, I could see the wagon where Uncle Uri was riding with the other hurt people, and the wagon where baby Tri and the little babies were riding, way up front.
All the papas were walking behind us, but not my papa.
I felt jealous about that, but mostly I was thirsty and scared.
There was one military man riding a horse in front of the women and walking children. And another military man riding a horse leading the papas. Both of them had big guns and blue uniforms, and neither of them smiled.
“Will that man shoot us with his gun?” I asked Mama, but she shushed me quick.
I gave her a pout. The past three days had been nothing but gunshots.
“No, he’s keeping us safe from the Indians,” Mama said. “Just a little longer, and then we’ll be all right.”
I craned my neck and looked up at the tall, red rock and blue sky, because when I did that my mind stopped thinking about Uncle Uri’s torn-up arm and the people with their eyes open and all bloody and not moving in the grass.
I liked staring at the sky, instead of at the mamas and the kids walking in front of us. Some of them had blood on their dresses and shirts. The rest had dirt on their faces and arms that looked a little like blood.
I was so thirsty.
I was so sweaty.
I was so dirty.
The little yucca horse the Indian woman gave me was so full of dust, the black ties on its braided legs were light brown.
I held it tight in one hand and held onto Mama with the other. I felt proud of her, even though we were at the very back of the group. The mean-looking man said she wouldn’t be able to keep up with her hurt toes, but she was doing her best.
“We’re almost there,” I told Mama, same as she told me when my feet got tired and I asked to get in the wagon.
“Mama, do you think—” I wanted to ask if she thought Sissy Lou had any more strawberry jam hidden somewhere. I’d been wanting that jam so bad ever since we had to hide in the trench.
But then everything bad happened all at once.
Right behind us, the military man on the horse screamed one word. “HALT!”
I didn’t have time to ask Mama why he yelled that, when we’d only been walking for a little while. Because as soon as he said that word, rifles went off behind him, all at once.
BOOM.
Then, the screaming was everywhere.
I couldn’t see Mary or Sissy Lou or James or William anymore, because everybody was running around.
I started screaming, too.
Indians wearing paint all over their bodies had jumped out of the bushes holding clubs and knives and rocks.
One of them, a man with a big stomach, lifted a knife over his head and brought it down on America Dunlap’s mama a few feet ahead of us. Red spilled out of her face.
Everywhere I looked, people were making noises like terrified animals.
Men covered in black and red and yellow just kept spilling from the bushes, holding knives and thick clubs. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t make my eyes shut either.
The grass was red now, instead of green.
All the mamas and the children running away tripped over the ones who had already fallen down.
So many of them were covered in red.
“Mama!” I screamed, but she was already pulling me down to the ground, scrambling into the sagebrush.
The sky, then weeds and dirt spun around in front of my face. All I could see through the brush was bodies falling down and red. All I could hear was crying and screaming and more booms.
“Don’t look,” Mama whisper-cried, turning her head toward me, her voice so upset it scared me even more. There were tears on her cheeks. “Stay quiet. Follow me.” Then she started crawling on her hands and knees, belly low to the ground.
I closed my eyes at first, but then the little yucca horse slipped out of my hand.
I popped my eyes open to snatch the horse back. I got hold of it just before Mama tugged me away and pressed it hard into my hand.
I wanted to ask how we’d find Mary, how we’d find Sissy Lou and William and James and Uncle Uri and baby Tri. But the blood and the screaming and the hurting was happening all around us, and I was too scared to do anything but crawl through the grass and trees after Mama.
A few feet away, I saw a man with yellow and black paint smeared across his face lift up a wooden club. I couldn’t help but stare, even though I wanted to close my eyes again.
At first, he looked like an Indian with all that paint. But his eyebrows were blond, and so was the hair peeking out from under his hat.
As I scrambled through the brush to follow Mama, the weeds parted just enough for me to see Maryann and Talitha Dunlap, crouched in the grass in front of him. They’d been hiding, just like me and Mama.
My stomach felt sick. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.
“Please don’t hurt us,” Maryann said in a tiny voice.
“Please, help us,” Talitha begged, holding onto her sister. Both girls were older than me, but younger than Mary. “Nobody saw us but you.”
The man with the blond eyebrows who was holding the club grunted. “Unbutton your shirts. Show me those bosoms.”
“All right,” Maryann was saying in a scared voice. “Come on, Talitha.”
I turned away and didn’t see what they did next. The sick feeling in my stomach got worse as I crawled faster after Mama.
Tears dripped down my cheeks and thorns stuck in my fingers, but I barely felt them. A little later, I heard MaryAnn, then Talitha, scream so loud I nearly stopped moving forward. Then I heard a wet, thudding sound. And another.
“Don’t look, Nancy,” Mama whispered, and I tried as hard as I could to make the sound of her voice the only thing in my head.
I realized we were headed for the front of the group, toward the wagons holding the injured and the babies. The last place we’d seen Sissy Lou and Mary and William and James.
Any second, I just knew that one of the painted men was going to leap on top of us and bash our heads with a club like they did everyone else.
When we got to a thicket of brush so dense we had to part the weeds back to see the Meadow, Mama and I peered out into the chaos again.
A little bit ahead, hurt people with bandages on their heads and arms and bodies were spilling out of the closest wagon. Some were limping on one leg while they ran, some were crawling. The red splashing all around looked like puddles from some kind of awful rainstorm that had drowned the people lying in them.
There were so many people. Mamas and papas and children, all tangled together drowning in that red rain.
The Meadow turned into little bits of red and golden light in front of my eyes, and my body felt floaty and heavy at the same time.
No, no, no.
“Uri,” Mama breathed.
I saw him right as he tumbled out of the wagon. Before he could duck into the weeds, a painted man with a long knife saw him and screamed something I couldn’t understand. The man jumped at Uri, slicing the hands he held in front of his face. Then pushed the knife into his throat.
I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t scream and moved my eyes away so I wouldn’t see.
That was when I finally saw Mary and Sissy Lou. They were holding onto each other, trying to run back to the papas.
A man with a big rock ran straight for them, his mouth open like he wanted to bite them. He had a big beard that was covered in red and black paint that made him look even scarier.
He wasn’t an Indian either, even though he looked like one with all that paint.
When Louisa threw herself over Mary and held out an arm, he brought the rock down on her head.
I knew I was screaming, knew Mary was screaming too from the way her lips made a big O shape, but I couldn’t hear any of it anymore.
The man hit Mary next. He hit her and Sissy Lou again and again until there was only red where they once had faces.
My eyes rolled sideways to see William. I closed them right before another painted man holding a knife jumped on top of him.
Mama was shaking. I was shaking. There was nowhere to look, so I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, they landed on the children’s wagon. It stood on a rise, overlooking the whole awful scene.
There was a little girl peering through the closed flaps, her mouth in the same terrified O that I knew mine was making.
Baby Tri.
The driver was trying to get the oxen to move, but they’d started bawling and wouldn’t budge another step.
“Mama, it’s baby Tri,” I gasped in a whisper, hoping I was making sounds even if I couldn’t hear them.
Mama turned her head just in time to watch with me as baby Tri tipped over the side of the wagon—right as it started to move.
She tumbled down like a rag doll into the weeds, bumping against the big rolling wheel as she fell.