Levi Savage Journal from August 27, 1856 - October 25, 1856

One of the sources I am using for the story of Sophie Petersen is the diary that Levi Savage kept while he was a part of the Willie Handcart Company. I am sharing it here to give you a better picture of the life Sophie and her children experienced on the handcart journey.

August 1856

Wednesday, 27th August 1856 This morning we left the Loup Fork. At 12 o'clock we came to some wells, and from there traveled over sandy roads to a pond of poor water, having traveled about 15 miles. We encamped. Captain Bunker's Company passed on the 10th instant.

Thursday, 28th August 1856 (Wood River) Today we crossed Prairie Creek about 12 o'clock. From this point, Brother Siler and I went in search of buffalo. We saw four and shot at them, but got none. The handcarts and teams moved on to Wood River, some 8 or 10 miles. Brother Siler and I found the carts about 2 miles from the river. The teams did not get to camp until after dark; they left old Brother Haley behind, a mile and a half or two miles distant. They sought for him but in vain. He lay out all night and encountered a heavy rainstorm.

Friday, 29th August 1856 (Wood River) This morning, all healthy men in camp were requested by Brother Willie to go in search of Brother Haley. They found him about a mile and a half from camp, wet and cold but in good spirits. We started at 12 o'clock p.m. We traveled 5 or 6 miles and came to a camp of 800 Pawnee Indians. They are hunting buffalo, and yesterday killed 90. We bought some meat of them. They informed me of A. Babbitt's teamster being killed by the Cheyennes; a woman that was with them was carried captive, and her child, 10 months old, was killed. The U.S. Troops followed and killed some of them.

Saturday, 30th August 1856 (Wood River) This morning the Indians came to the camp early to trade more. At 7 o'clock a.m. we were under way. At 12 p.m. we stopped to dine. Here we saw two oxen in the yoke at a distance. Brother J. Elder and myself went on horseback and got them. They were very wild. We had a hard run for them. From this, we traveled until near 6 p.m. and encamped, having traveled about 15 miles. A. Babbitt, whose teamsters were killed and who stopped back on business, has just overtaken us. I have not spoken to him yet.

Sunday, 31st August 1856 (Deer Creek & Platte River) This morning Mr. A. Babbitt left us and went to Fort Kearny. He brought an elderly sister from Florence, intending to take her to the valley, but due to the robbery committed upon him by the Indians, he is unable to do so. He hired Brother Siler to take her. We traveled 18 miles. Had a good camping ground.

September 1856

Monday, 1st September 1856 (Buffalo Creek) Today we traveled about 18 miles. This evening we killed a buffalo and a cow for beef; the cow was shot 11 times before she fell. I never saw a beast so murdered before. Brother Willie had some disagreeable words concerning Brother Siler driving his teams between the handcarts and in front of the handcart teams. I objected to his driving there, it being to us a traveling camp with our sick. Brother Willie says he shall drive there, as he has driven there from Florence except for two days.

Tuesday, 2nd September 1856 (Buffalo Creek) Today we traveled 13 miles and encamped at 4 o'clock. Plenty of buffalo in sight. Some of the brethren shot at them but got none.

Wednesday, 3rd September 1856 (Near Chugwater Lake) This morning, just after daylight, Sister Ingra, aged 75 years—who had been sick and deranged since leaving England and had been drawn in a handcart from Iowa City—died. She suffered much. The camp moved on while Elder Willie and others remained on the ground and buried her. At 12 o'clock, the brethren killed two buffalo near the road. We took the meat on the handcarts, traveled 16 miles, and encamped without wood. We cooked our food with buffalo chips (dry dung). Brother J. Elder and I went on horseback and endeavored to get a buffalo calf or cow. The old bulls would not let us have any. They formed themselves in battle array, ready to receive their enemy. Their large heads were to be seen in all directions. We did not get to camp until after dark.

Thursday, 4th September 1856 (Near Chugwater Lake) Some time last night, 30 of our best working cattle left us. We had a guard around them, but no one knows when or where they went. I and a number of the brethren spent the day unsuccessfully hunting them. As I passed down the river, I saw Brother Smoot's train on the opposite side, south. We had an awful storm last night.

Friday, 5th September 1856 (Near Chugwater Lake) Today we also searched for the cattle without success. Brothers Atwood, Siler, and Jolley visited Brother Smoot's company across the Platte. I came to camp at dark and found Brothers Smoot and Rockwell, who had accompanied Brother Atwood's company to camp. I was glad to see them. They stopped with us all night.

Saturday, 6th September 1856 (Near Chugwater Lake) This morning, Brothers Elder and Smith started back toward Florence after our stray oxen. The remainder of us moved the camp, half at a time, about 3 miles. About 3 o'clock p.m., Brother Smoot and Rockwell left us to overtake their train, which is supposed to be moving 15 miles ahead.

Sunday, 7th September 1856 (Near Chugwater Lake) This morning, four men from California were seen encamped near us. Brother Willie, myself, and others visited them. The names of three of them are as follows: James H. Hurn (he said they had left a horse about 18 miles back, and if I could find him I might have him), Franklin Hawkins, and John Hawkins. They were short of provisions. They intended to go to Kearny, then to Missouri. We spent a part of the day in a meeting preaching to the people, and the remainder in repairing our handcarts and yoking unbroken cows.

Monday, 8th September 1856 (Platte River) This morning, a discharged soldier from Laramie came into camp and reported two families from Salt Lake were killed by the Indians. One of their names was Thomas Margetts. They were all well known by many of the Saints in this camp. We transferred from our wagons onto our handcarts about 4,000 pounds of flour, hitched up our teams, and got under way about 11 o'clock. We went 10 miles and camped by the Platte just at dark. Numbers of the sick did not get in until some time after. Our wild cows worked extraordinarily well; surely the hand of the Lord is with us yet.

Tuesday, 9th September 1856 (Platte River) This morning we started rather late and had heavy, sandy roads. We traveled about 12 miles and encamped at 4 o'clock p.m. on Skunk Creek. Our teams, as well as the Saints, were very tired.

Wednesday, 10th September 1856 (Platte River) Today we had sandy roads, traveled 14 miles, and encamped at the Cold Springs.

Thursday, 11th September 1856 (Platte River) Today we have had good roads and crossed several creeks, over which most of the women and children were carried by Brothers Willie, Atwood, and others. All are in good spirits and but few are sick. The flour on some of the carts draws very hard.

Friday, 12th September 1856 (North Bluff Fork) This morning we started at half-past eight and traveled eleven miles, crossing this creek about four o'clock p.m. Soon after this, Brothers F. D. Richards, D. Spencer, C. H. Wheelock, William Kimball, and others came up with us, as well as Brothers Elder and Smith, who went in search of our cattle. It was a joyful meeting. No one has heard of or seen our cattle, to our knowledge. This evening, by moonlight, we held a meeting. President Richards and others spoke, congratulating the Saints on their arduous journey and the blessings they should hereafter receive. We had a good time.

Saturday, 13th September 1856 (South Bank of the Platte) This morning, agreeable to Brother Richards' request and Brother Willie's orders, we arose at 4 o'clock, got breakfast, and made ready for starting at 7 o'clock a.m. At this time, our teams being hitched to our wagons and our handcarts packed ready for starting, very unexpectedly to me, I perceived a meeting of the Saints was called—not on the camp ground as usual, but a short distance to one side. I supposed it was for prayers.After singing and prayers, Brother Richards commenced to speak, and I soon perceived that the meeting was called in consequence of the wrong impression made by my expressing myself so freely at Florence concerning our crossing the plains so late in the season. The impression left was that I condemned the handcart scheme, which is radically wrong. I never conveyed such an idea nor felt to do so; quite to the contrary, I am in favor of it.The meeting was also called more particularly because someone, unknown to me, informed Brother Richards of the disagreeable words that took place between Brother Willie and myself concerning Brother Siler's teams traveling between the handcarts and front wagons, which I supposed was settled when I asked Brother Willie's and the Saints' forgiveness for all that I had said and done wrong. Brother Richards reprimanded me sharply. Brother Willie said that was the spirit I had manifested since Iowa City. This is something unknown to me and something he never before expressed. I had always held the best of feelings toward him and supposed he had toward me until now, except in the case of Brother Siler mentioned above.After the meeting, President Richards and company left us, intending to arrive in Salt Lake City in time for the October conference. Agreeable to his counsel, we crossed the river onto the south side and encamped. The water was shallow, but it required a strong team to draw our wagons through the sandy bed of the river, a mile distant.

Sunday, 14th September 1856 (Platte River) Today we traveled up the Platte bottom 12 miles and camped by the river again.

Monday, 15th September 1856 (Platte Hills) This forenoon we traveled up the bottom on good roads. In the afternoon, we commenced to ascend the bluffs. The ascent was sand, which caused very hard pulling. As we reached the summit, three Indians came to us. They appeared friendly and said that the Cheyennes and Sioux would kill us all, and that they had, some five days ago, fallen upon a large train. What damage was done we did not ascertain, and we only have the Indians' word to confirm it at best.At sundown, we camped around a small buffalo wallow which had been recently filled by the recent rains. We were all much fatigued with our day's journey. We chained our oxen to the wagons, for there was neither feed nor water, and we had some fears of the Indians. We set a strong guard. About 2 o'clock a.m., an alarm was made. I immediately got out of bed but saw nor heard nothing of Indians. Some said they saw one and heard the voices of others.

Tuesday, 16th September 1856 (Platte Bluffs) This morning, the camp was called by the sound of the bugle at 3 o'clock and moved before daylight. We traveled some 10 miles, during which distance we descended through a rough canyon to the Platte, where we took breakfast at 10 o'clock a.m. Here we remained until 2 p.m., when we moved up the river three or four miles and encamped for the night. Both people and teams are much fatigued by the heavy, sandy roads.

Wednesday, 17th September 1856 (Platte River) This morning, just before the camp got under way, a cold and strong wind arose from the northwest. This, together with the heavy sand, made our progress very slow and extremely laborious. Several were obliged to leave their carts, and they, with the infirm, could scarcely get into camp. Our teams also, at times, could scarcely move. We traveled about 10 miles.

Thursday, 18th September 1856 (Ash Hollow) This morning we got under way as usual and traveled 4 or 5 miles to where the road ascended the bluffs. Here we dined, then doubled our teams and ascended the long, steep hill. Immediately upon reaching the summit, we commenced descending into Ash Hollow and encamped at its mouth by the Platte. At dinner, Sister Reed, whom Brother Babbitt left with us, was missing. It was ascertained that she was ahead, but she is not in camp, and no one knows where she is. She is bound to stay out one night.

Friday, 19th September 1856 (Mouth of Ash Hollow) Today we remained in camp to repair our carts. Some are broken, and on others, the axles are badly worn. Brother Chislett, with a company of brethren, went in search of Sister Reed. About 11 o'clock a.m., they returned and reported they had followed her footsteps 7 or 8 miles, mingled with Indian footsteps, and supposed that the Indians had got her.President Willie was not fully satisfied and determined to go himself; he chose me and ten others. We found her steps as reported, but I was satisfied that she had not been disturbed by Indians. She had taken the road up Ash Hollow, going back to the South Fork of the Platte. About 5 miles out, we found her steps coming back, but they soon left the road. Dark came, and we returned to camp, where we found she had just been brought in by some of the brethren who had gone to the canyon for timber. She was nearly exhausted, having been 36 hours without food and water. The weather is extremely warm.

Saturday, 20th September 1856 (Platte River) At 2 o'clock p.m., having repaired our carts, we started and traveled 6 or 8 miles. The weather is cold, and this evening a mist of rain commenced to fall. No wood.

Sunday, 21st September 1856 (Platte River) Last night was very rainy and disagreeable; it is also wet and cold today. Many are sick and stopping back to get into the wagons. The roads are very sandy. We could scarcely move. Sister Leafson's little boy, 2 years old, died at 11 o'clock last night. The weather is still cold and damp. Traveled 12 miles.

Monday, 22nd September 1856 (Platte River) This forenoon a mist of rain was still falling. In the afternoon, the clouds broke a little, the rain stopped, and it became a little warmer. We have traveled about 12 miles today. Brother Empey departed this life at half-past one p.m. One of his hands and arms was nearly covered with putrefied sores, which I should suppose were hereditary. He had been having the ague for some time past, but no one thought him dangerous.

Tuesday, 23rd September 1856 (Platte River) This morning was cold and foggy. The Saints were dilatory in rising and getting breakfast early, notwithstanding Brother Willie's repeated orders to arise at the sound of the horn (daylight)—apparently not realizing the necessity of our making as much distance as possible in order to reach the valley before too severe cold weather sets in. Some complain of hard treatment because we urge them along. Many hang on to the wagons. This afternoon, we came in sight of Chimney Rock and camped within 10 miles of it. Have traveled 16 miles.

Wednesday, 24th September 1856 (Platte River, near Chimney Rock) Today we traveled 16 miles. Camped near Chimney Rock. I thought we were nearer to it last night than we actually were. We have fine weather.

Thursday, 25th September 1856 (Platte River) Today we traveled about 16 miles, and at five o'clock encamped a short distance above Robidoux's late trading post. Just before we arrived at the post, we caught a large bay horse. He is very thin in flesh and has been left, no doubt, by some company passing to or from Great Salt Lake or California.

Friday, 26th September 1856 (Platte River) Today we traveled 14 miles without water. Some of our oxen nearly gave out. We camped at Robidoux's old trading post. When we stopped at 12 o'clock p.m., Sister Ann Bryant—who had been ill some time but was not thought to be in danger—was found dead in the wagon in a sitting posture, apparently asleep. Her age would have been 70 years next month.

Saturday, 27th September 1856 (Platte River) Today we traveled about 12 miles. The old appear to be failing considerably.

Sunday, 28th September 1856 (Platte River, 20 miles from Laramie) Today we traveled 16 miles. At 12 o'clock, we met a company from Salt Lake going to the States, I think mostly apostates. Benjamin Brackenbury was with them. They said Babbitt was killed by the Indians. Just before camping, some soldiers who were camped near the road took the horse that we had caught, by force.

Monday, 29th September 1856 (5 miles below Fort Laramie) Today we traveled about 14 miles. Brothers Woodward and Elder went to the fort. Brother Richards has no cattle provided for us here, and no other provisions have been made.

Tuesday, 30th September 1856 (Fort Laramie) Today we moved on 6 miles and camped 2 miles from the fort.October 1856

Wednesday, 1st October 1856 (Platte River) This morning, Brother David Reeder was found dead in his bed. He had been ill some time with no particular disease but debility. He was a good man and a worthy member of the Church. Brother Siler and his company stopped here to recruit and strengthen his teams, and to join the first wagon company that arrives here bound for the valley. Our camp moved on, and Brothers Willie, Atwood, myself, and others went to the fort and purchased provisions. They are extremely costly. I stopped all night with Brother Siler and company.

Thursday, 2nd October 1856 Early this morning, I returned to the fort, sold my watch (which cost me 20 dollars) for eleven, and purchased a pair of $6.00 boots and other articles. Then I proceeded to overtake the camp. On my way, I met a company of elders from the valley bound for the different nations of the earth to preach the Gospel. I met Brother Parley P. Pratt in camp. He spoke cheeringly to the Saints. Today, Brother Read died of a disease of the heart. His age was 64.

Friday, 3rd October 1856 (Platte River) Today we left the river and crossed over the hills, said to be 22 miles to feed and water. We traveled until 8 o'clock p.m. and camped within half a mile of a spring, but there was no feed for our cattle. We were all fatigued. Brother Ingra, aged 68, died just after we camped.

Saturday, 4th October 1856 This morning at 10 o'clock we started and traveled about five miles to a small creek and encamped. We took an estimate of our provisions and reduced our rations to 12 ounces per day. Pacific Springs is the only place where we are sure of meeting supplies. Brother Benjamin Culley, aged 61 years, and David Yadd, aged 2 years, died. All three were buried, as well as a Dane who died last night. Some stealing is practiced by some; consequently, we put all the provisions into three wagons and placed a guard over them.

Sunday, 5th October 1856 At eight o'clock this morning we got under way. We have had good roads and traveled about 16 miles. Camped by the Platte. The weather is very fine.

Monday, 6th October 1856 (Platte River) Today we traveled 16 miles. Our rations are now reduced to an average of 12 ounces of flour per head. We are not certain of supplies before arriving at Pacific Springs

.Tuesday, 7th October 1856 (Platte River) Today we traveled 14 miles. The weather is good.

Wednesday, 8th October 1856 (Deer Creek) When we arose this morning, we found the best ox in our train dead. In the weak state of our teams, the loss impaired us much. At 9 o'clock a.m. we moved and traveled 15 miles. Our old people are nearly all failing fast. A four-mule team express from Laramie is camped near us; they passed us this afternoon.

Thursday, 9th October 1856 (Platte River) Today we moved 16 miles.

Friday, 10th October 1856 (Last Crossing of the Platte) At about 12 o'clock, we passed the Platte Bridge. Here we got 31 buffalo robes which President Richards purchased for us. Moved on 5 miles, crossed the river, and encamped. Our teams are very weak.

Saturday, 11th October 1856 (Mineral Springs) Today we traveled 12 miles. Three of our working cows gave out and one died, and the remainder of our oxen were nearly overcome.

Sunday, 12th October 1856 (Small Creek) Today, we left out of the yoke some of our cows that were nearly exhausted. Last night our cattle had good feed, and they traveled much better today than yesterday. One of the cows that was overrun with work, though driven less, could not be got within a mile of camp. By Brother Willie's order, several of the brethren went back to kill her for the people to eat (if they wanted to). They struck her twice in the head with an ax; she got up and ran into camp, where she was shot, dressed, and issued out. The people have sharp appetites.

Monday, 13th October 1856 (Greenwood Creek) Today we have traveled 13 miles. The nights are cold; the days are warm and pleasant.

Tuesday, 14th October 1856 (Independence Rock) Today we traveled 12 miles, got some saleratus out of the Saleratus Lake, and crossed the Sweetwater River at the second bridge.

Wednesday, 15th October 1856 (Sweetwater) Today we traveled 15½ miles. Last night, Caroline Reeder, aged 17 years, died and was buried this morning. The people are getting weak and failing very fast; a great many are sick. Our teams are also failing fast, and it requires great exertion to make any progress. Our rations were reduced last night by one quarter, bringing the men's to 10½ ounces, the women's to 9 ounces, and the children's to 6 ounces and 3 ounces each.

Thursday, 16th October 1856 (Sweetwater) This morning we had three deaths and one birth. We have traveled 11 miles today. Our oxen are much worn down, and our loading increases daily by the weak and sick.

Friday, 17th October 1856 (Sweetwater) At 2 o'clock this morning, Brother William Philpot died and was buried before we started. At 10 o'clock the camp moved, traveled 10 miles, and encamped at sunset.

Saturday, 18th October 1856 (Fourth Crossing of the Sweetwater) Today we traveled eight miles, camped, killed a beef, and prepared for a 16-mile drive with water. The weather is cool but fair.

Sunday, 19th October 1856 (Fifth Crossing of the Sweetwater) At half-past 10 o'clock we started. In about one hour, we encountered a very severely cold and blustering snowstorm; for one hour, the poorly clad women and children suffered much. At 12 o'clock, we met Brother Wheelock and company, who have come to our relief. He reported 40 wagons loaded with flour just one day in advance of us. This was joyful news to us, for we had eaten the last pound of flour, having only 6 small beeves and 400 pounds of biscuit to provision over 400 people.After a short meeting, in which Brothers Wheelock and Joseph A. Young spoke cheeringly to the Saints, we moved on. The wind continued strong and cold. The children, aged, and infirm fell back to the wagons until they were so full that all in them were extremely uncomfortable. Brother Knowles, aged 66 years, died during the day in a handcart hitched behind one of the wagons. Sister Smith, aged, and Daniel Esplin, aged 8 years, died in the wagons. They had been ill some time. The carts arrived at the river at dark. The wagons, it being dark, took another road and did not get into camp until 11 o'clock p.m., nearly exhausted; so was myself and the teamsters.

Monday, 20th October 1856 (Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater) This morning when we arose, we found several inches of snow on the ground, and it is still snowing. The cattle and people are so much reduced by short food and hard work that, unless we get assistance, we surely cannot move far in this snow. Brother Willie, the captain, and elders started on horseback about 10 o'clock to search for the wagons that Wheelock reported a short distance in advance of us. This morning we issued the last bread or breadstuffs in our possession. It continued snowing severely during the day. We expected Brother Willie would return this evening, but he has not come.

Tuesday, 21st October 1856 (Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater) This morning about eleven o'clock, Brother Willie returned with Brother George D. Grant, bringing a good supply of teams, wagons, provisions, and some clothing—a desirable relief. Here, we buried several persons.

Wednesday, 22nd October 1856 We prepared for starting and commenced moving about 12 o'clock. Brother Grant took a good portion of the teams and continued his journey to meet Brother Martin's company, and Brother William H. Kimball took charge of our company. We traveled about 10 miles and camped at the foot of what is called the Rocky Ridge. I had charge of the teams, and because of their reduced strength and heavy loads—a large number of sick and children being in the wagons—I did not arrive in camp until late at night. The wind blew bleak and cold, and firewood was very scarce. The Saints were obliged to spread their light bedding on the snow, and in this cold state, endeavored to obtain a little rest. Sister Philpot died about 10 o'clock p.m., leaving two fatherless girls; several others also died during the night.

Thursday, 23rd October 1856 This morning we buried our dead, got up our teams, and about 9 o'clock a.m. commenced ascending the Rocky Ridge. This was a severe day. The wind blew awfully hard and cold. The ascent was some five miles long, and in some places steep and covered with deep snow. The people became weary, sat down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze.Brothers Atwood, Woodward, and myself remained with the teams, they being perfectly loaded down with the sick and children, so thickly stowed that I was fearful some would smother. About 10 or 11 o'clock in the night, we came to a creek that we did not like to attempt to cross without help, it being full of ice and freezing cold. Leaving Brothers Atwood and Woodward with the teams, I started to the camp for help. I met Brother Willie coming to look for us; he turned back for the camp, as he could do no good alone. I passed several on the road and arrived in camp after about four miles of travel.When I arrived in camp, but few tents were pitched, and men, women, and children sat shivering with cold around their small fires. Some time elapsed before two teams started to bring up the rear; just before daylight they returned, bringing everyone with them—some badly frozen, some dying, and some dead. It was certainly heartrending to hear children crying for mothers, and mothers crying for children. By the time I got them as comfortably situated as circumstances could admit (which was not very comfortable), day was dawning. I had not shut my eyes for sleep, nor lain down, and I was nearly exhausted with fatigue and want of rest.

Friday, 24th October 1856 This morning found us with thirteen corpses for burial. These were all put into one grave; some had actually frozen to death. We were obliged to remain in camp, moving the tents and people behind the willows to shelter them from the searing wind, which blew enough to pierce us through. Several of our cattle died here.

Saturday, 25th October 1856 We commenced our march again. From this time, I have not been able to keep a daily journal, but nothing of much note transpired except that the people died daily. Theophilus Cox died on the morning of the 7th of November on the Weber River, was carried to Cottonwood Grove, East Canyon Creek, and there buried. We overtook Brother Smoot's emigration company on the 9th, and that afternoon arrived in Great Salt Lake City, where we deposited the people among the Saints and they were made comfortable.

Sophie’s Journey - Chapter 11 - The Camp at Clark’s Mill

 

Sophie's Journey - Chapter 

The Camp at Clark's Mill

The rain over Iowa City didn't fall so much as settle, turning the air to gray weight that soaked Sophie Petersen's wool skirts until they hung against her thighs like something meant to drown her. She stood under the jagged lip of the engine shed, listening to the iron roof take its beating. Inside, five hundred bodies pressed into a single humid knot. There was damp wool, unwashed skin, the smell of wet soot and salt rising off the floorboards like fog. 

Sophie shifted two-year-old Otto to her other hip. He was quiet, watching the rain bounce off the tracks. Behind her, the children had folded themselves into a stack of limbs: Emma's hand on Peter's shoulder, Anne's face buried in the hollow of her mother's back.

"We have left the iron horse behind, Sophie," Marianne whispered, her eyes fixed on the empty rails that stretched back toward the east. She looked smaller than she had in Denmark, her skin sallow under the flickering lamps of the shed. "There are no more cars to carry us. No more steam. Only the mud."

Sophie didn't look back at the tracks, though the urge to see the path of their retreat was a cold itch between her shoulder blades. "The mud is only the beginning of the road, Marianne. We knew the rails would end. Now we walk to the campground."

"Walk?" Marianne’s voice hitched, a fragile sound lost in the drumming of the rain. "My boots are already ruined from the station yard. The children... their shoes are thin as parchment, Sophie. Look at them."

Sophie looked—the jagged tear in Peter's left sole. Emma's toes beginning to poke through the leather. She thought of the sturdy clogs she had sold in Gentofte, their weight a memory of level ground, paved streets, a world that stayed where you put it. Her fingers found the leather-bound Danish hymnal in her pocket, its hard edges the one thing unchanged since they left.

"We'll mend what we can when the rain breaks," she said. "Elder Willie says the campground at Clark's Mill is three miles. We can do three miles."

By noon the next day, the rain had faded to a fine mist hanging low over the prairie. The roads hadn't dried; they'd turned to thick black paste that tried to pull the boots off your feet with every step. The company moved out, a slow line stretching from the rail terminus. Peder Mortenson limped near the edge, his face tight with pain he wouldn't mention. His old injury from back home made the uneven road a particular trial.

Sophie watched him struggle, his breathing shallow as he tried to keep pace. When a workman's wagon came up behind, loaded with timber, Mortenson didn't beg. He stood in the center of the path, hands raised, still as a man who knew his own worth. The driver stopped. After a few words Sophie couldn't hear, Mortenson pulled himself onto the tailboard. His eyes met hers for just a second, no apology in them, only the cold focus of a man who meant to arrive whole.

The staging ground at Clark's Mill wasn't the sanctuary Sophie had imagined. It was a sprawling mess of industry cut into the greenery. The air was thick with saws and hammers. White canvas tents dotted the mud like islands, and everywhere, men bent over frames of green wood. This wasn't a place of rest. It was a factory of desperation.

Sophie stepped into the clearing. The midday sun broke through the clouds, steaming the moisture from their clothes. She felt a hollow realization. The carts they'd been promised weren't waiting. They were being built in a hurry from unseasoned timber.

"They aren't finished," Peter whispered. He slowly clenched his fist as they passed a row of unfinished axles. "Mother, they look like toys. Like the ones Thomas used to make from sticks."

Sophie looked at the handcarts, the wood still pale, sap weeping from the joints. She knew tools. Her husband had helped build a house that would last centuries. She saw how the wood was forced together, gaps filled with hope instead of precision.

"They're what we have, Peter," she said. "We'll help make them strong."

Elder Willie moved through the center of the camp, his black coat stained with the mud of the mill. He looked like a man carrying five hundred souls on his narrow shoulders, his jaw set with a certainty that seemed at odds with the frantic work around him. He stopped near a pile of wagon tongues, his eyes scanning the crowd of Danish, Swedish, English, and Welsh converts looking to him for a sign that the plan was still sound. 

"Sister Petersen," Willie said, his voice resonant but frayed at the edges. "You are here. The Lord has seen you through the rails. Now, we must prepare the vehicles for the final gathering."

Sophie dipped her head, though her eyes remained on the green wood of a nearby cart. "The wood is wet, Elder. It will shrink when the sun hits it in the high country. My husband... he used to say that green wood is a liar. It looks strong until it dries."

Willie's expression didn't soften, but something like weariness passed behind his eyes. "We don't have the luxury of the season, Sister. The Spirit moves us forward. We must trust the Lord will provide the seasoning where the timing failed us. Go to the Danish division. Brother Mortenson is already beginning the inventory."

Sophie found the Danish Saints near a stand of oaks, their voices a low hum that felt like a bridge back to Gentofte. Marianne sat on a crate, her head in her hands, the light that had once defined her gone now, extinguished by the tragedy on the Thornton, the soot of Chicago, and the mud of Iowa. Beside her, Handcart No. 42 sat on its two wheels, hickory and oak, supposed to be the family's entire world for the next thousand miles. Sophie walked to it, her hand tracing the rough grain of the pull-bar. It felt flimsy, a skeletal thing without the gravity of a proper wagon.

A hush fell over the camp. The saws fell silent one by one as a man climbed onto the wheel of a supply wagon in the center of the clearing. Millen Atwood. His face was sun-scorched leather, deep lines carved by twenty years on the frontier. He stood with his hat in his hand, hair plastered to his forehead. When he spoke, his voice wasn't polished oratory. It was raspy, blunt, cutting through the humid air with the weight of experience.

"I have been to the mountains," Atwood began, his gaze sweeping over the tired faces of the mothers and the small, hollow-eyed children. "I have seen the wind at the South Pass. I tell you now, as a brother and a servant of the Lord, that if we leave this late in the year, we are marking our own graves. The snows do not wait for faith. The mountains do not ask if you are weary. If we move now, with these carts of green wood and these children who have already given too much, we will leave a trail of bones from here to the valley."

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant, lonely cry of a hawk. Sophie felt a cold shiver that had nothing to do with her damp clothes. She looked at the faces around her—the religious zeal of the young men who wanted to prove their devotion, the desperate hope of the widows who had nowhere else to go. Elder Willie stepped forward, his face flushed with a righteous heat. 

"My brothers and sisters, look around you,” he began. “Five hundred Saints, gathered from Denmark, Sweden, England, Wales. The Prophet has called us to Zion. Not someday. Now.

The season is against us. The carts are green. You know this. I know this. But the Lord does not call the prepared. He calls the willing. He tests what is in our hearts.

Some of you have buried children on this journey. Some have left everything they knew. You did not come this far to turn back because the road looks hard.

We are the gathering. We are the fulfillment of prophecy. Every step we take is a step toward the valley the Lord has prepared. The carts will hold. The Lord will provide. Our faith will carry us where timber fails. Who will come with me? Who will stand and be counted among the faithful?"

As Elder Willie called for a vote, his hand rose into the air like a standard.

Sophie looked at her children. She looked at Peter, his ten-year-old face already hardening into a man's. She thought of the golden valley, the life she'd left in Gentofte. When she raised her hand, her fingers trembled with a weight she couldn't name; a choice that felt less like faith and more like surrender to a current she could no longer swim against. Most hands rose with hers, reaching toward a Zion Atwood had painted in the colors of a cemetery.

As the meeting broke up and the hammers resumed, Sophie walked back to Handcart No. 42. She found Peder Mortenson behind a supply tent, his back to the company. He was holding a small tin of axle grease, fingers working tallow into a jar inside his coat. He didn't jump when she approached. He looked at her with a steady, practical stare-the look of a man who believed in preparing for the worst so he could help others through it.

"It is a late start, Sister Petersen," Mortenson said, wiping his greasy hand on his trousers. "Atwood is a man who knows the weather. But Willie is a man who knows the heart. The heart is a poor navigator in a blizzard."

Sophie said nothing. She turned back to the cart and began to arrange what was left of their things. Her movements were precise, her focus on the wood and the wheels. She refused to watch from the side. She would pull the handcart herself. There would be no man to pull her family's cart. She would be the one to bear the weight.

She stepped to the front of the cart and felt someone watching. She looked up. Millen Atwood stood a few paces off, his hat brim low. His eyes held a quiet look of admiration and sorrow before he tipped his hat and turned away, back to the chaos of the camp.

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Sophie’s Journey - Chapter 10 - The Iron Road West

Sophie's Journey - Chapter 10

The Iron Road West

The iron beast came roaring in, belching smoke and steam that burned Sophie's lungs and turned everything gray. She stood pressed among hundreds of strangers, her arms aching from holding two-year-old Otto, her fingers gripping Anne's frayed wool sleeve so tight she feared the seam might give way. Back home in Gentofte, the horse carts moved slowly as the seasons themselves, quiet and moss-covered and patient. But here in New York, the air had been thick with humidity one moment, and now it tasted of scorched coal, coating her skin like ash. The wheels were taller than Peter, her eldest, grinding to a halt with a scream of metal that made the platform shudder beneath her boots. Sophie felt the speed of this new country like a blow, a force that rushed forward whether you were ready or not, whether you had time to catch your breath.

"We are to climb inside those boxes?" Marianne asked, her voice thin and wavering. She stood with her eyes wide, staring at the livestock cars that lacked anything resembling comfort. "It looks like a prison, Sophie. A cage for the cattle."

Sophie didn't answer her friend. She was too busy counting heads, making sure she hadn't lost any of the four children in the crush, eyeing the bundles that held everything they had left of home. "It's wood and iron, Marianne, and it'll get us there in days instead of weeks. We're the lucky ones."

She stepped up into the cattle car, her boots ringing hollow on the metal. Inside, the light was thin and gray, and the air smelled of bodies packed too close and tobacco smoked too long. No beds, no tables, no benches, just bare walls and a floor that rocked beneath her feet. Sophie found a corner and wedged her family in, limbs folded like kindling. Peter sat stiff as a soldier, his jaw tight in that way that made her chest ache; he looked so much like his father. Emma, six years old and fearless, pressed her finger to the grimy window and began drawing shapes in the soot.

The train jerked forward with a snap that threw Anne hard against Sophie's side. No warning, no easing into it, just sudden motion and the world outside turning to streaks of green. The New York countryside rushed by at thirty miles an hour, fast enough to make Sophie's stomach lurch. Every few miles, the whistle screamed, high and lonely, vibrating right through her teeth. It was the sound of progress, she supposed, of industry and invention, but it felt cold to her, indifferent. The Saints were gathered here, families like hers seeking Zion, and the train didn't care about any of it. It just ran.

"It is so loud," Emma whispered, her finger drawing a small, crooked house in the dust on the glass. "Does the noise ever stop, Mother?"

"It is the sound of us getting closer to the valley, Emma," Sophie said, though her own head throbbed with the relentless clatter of the tracks. 

They reached Dunkirk as the sun sank into the gray stretch of Lake Erie. The switch from train to steamboat was chaos, sailors shouting over the smell of fish and coal oil. The water was choppy, dark purple, and the sky looked ready to burst. Sophie got her family onto the deck, scanning the horizon for whatever came next. They were handled like freight, papers stamped by men who never raised their eyes, names turned into numbers.

The night to Toledo was cold. The lake spray cut right through them, and the children curled under one damp blanket while the engine groaned below.

In Toledo, things fell apart. Railroad men on the platform looked at the crowd, hundreds of Danes and English and Swedes and Welsh, with confusion that quickly turned to hostility. No one had planned for them. No cars waited for Chicago. They stood in the mud of the yard while the children cried from hunger, and a wind whipped in off the water.

Peder Mortenson stood near the edge of their group, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched a harried conductor argue with Elder Willie. "They don't know what to do with us, Sister Petersen," Mortenson said, his voice carrying that familiar, dry edge of pragmatism. "To them, we are a spilled sack of grain. Too much to clean up, and not worth the effort to save."

Sophie adjusted Otto on her hip, her back screaming from the constant strain. "They cannot simply leave us here."

"They can do whatever they please with people who don't speak the language and have no place to go," Mortenson replied, nodding toward a group of local men who were gathered near a warehouse, watching the Saints with narrowed eyes. "This isn't Denmark. There is no king here to ensure the peace. Only the coin and the iron."

They were herded into freight cars for the run across Ohio and Indiana. The air was thick with the smell of animals and grain dust that caught in your throat. No windows, just thin cracks between the boards where light came through in blades. Sophie sat on the floor, her skirts bunched around her, feeling every bump in the track like a fist. By the time they reached Chicago, the children were pale and dusted black with soot. They looked like strangers, like ghosts of the children she'd packed into trunks back in Gentofte.

Chicago spread out like an industrial scar at the edge of the prairie. The conductor, a man with a face like sour milk, waved them off the train right onto a cobblestone street by the rail yards: no warehouse, no shed, no word about where to go. Just a signal, and the train pulled away, leaving five hundred people standing in the dark with their bundles. Piano music drifted from the saloons nearby, and horses clopped past on the wet stones, but for the Saints, there was only the cold cobblestones under their feet and the night pressing in.

"We cannot stay here," Marianne said, her voice rising toward a sob as she looked at the dark alleys. "The men... they are looking at us, Sophie. I can hear them laughing."

Something hard turned over in Sophie's chest, a stubbornness that wouldn't let her sink into the indifference of this place. She stood, her legs stiff from sitting, and started giving orders. "Peter, help Marianne with her bundle. Emma, hold Anne's hand. We'll find a place. Brother Willie and the others are out looking now."

They wandered for hours through the maze of the waterfront before someone led them to a warehouse, big and drafty, smelling of salt pork and rot. No heat, no straw, just splintered boards under their feet. Sophie spread her shawl on the floor for the children, pulled them close for warmth, and sat with her back against a beam, watching shadows move on the ceiling.

Sleep came in pieces, shallow and restless, broken by heavy boots on the pavement outside. Then there was shouting, ugly words, and drunken laughter that cut right through the thin warehouse walls. Sophie's eyes flew open at the thud of a rock against the siding. Glass shattered somewhere high up, and shards came down in the back of the room.

"Mormons!" a voice roared from outside, thick with liquor and malice. "Get out of our city, you filth! We’ll burn you out if you don’t leave now!"

The warehouse filled with soft sounds, prayers whispered, and children crying. Sophie felt Peter sit up beside her, his fists clenched, his eyes wide with fear he wouldn't show. She pulled him close, her arm across his chest. Outside, the men kept shouting threats and hurling heavy objects at the doors. Woodsmoke drifted in through the broken window, and for a moment Sophie wondered if Zion was just another furnace, different from the one she'd left but burning just the same.

"Will they hurt us, Mother?" Peter whispered, his voice trembling against her shoulder.

Sophie looked toward the door, shadows of men passing the cracks in the wood. She thought of Levi Savage's warning in New York, about the wind that didn't ask for faith. This was that wind. "No, Peter. They're just men with darkness in them. We're under the Lord's protection. Close your eyes and think of the mountains."

The rest of the night was silence and fear. The drunks eventually wandered off, their shouting lost in the city's roar, but Sophie didn't sleep. She watched gray light creep across the floor, falling on her children's soot-stained faces. They were alive. But the journey was cutting pieces out of them, leaving something jagged and hollow where the family from Gentofte had once been.

The last stretch to Iowa City took three different railroads, each more unreliable than the last. They sat for hours on sidings, waiting for freight trains to pass, the summer sun turning the cars into ovens. No food, no water, until Sophie traded a small lace collar from her wedding dress for a loaf of bread and a bucket of lukewarm water at a stop in the middle of a cornfield. The trade felt like giving away a piece of herself, her past handed over to keep going.

When they finally reached Iowa City, the world had turned to black mud. No more rails, no more whistles, no engines. Just open sky and the distant sound of hammers from Clark's Mill. Sophie stepped off the last car, her feet sinking into the prairie muck, and looked toward the horizon where the sun was going down, gold and stubborn against the coming darkness.

Sophie was tired down to her bones, carrying burdens she didn't speak of. But seeing her children standing in the Iowa mud, planted on solid ground, something hard turned over in her chest. The rails had carried them across the country, but they'd burned away any notion that the road to Zion would be gentle. It was a fight, and they were still standing.

She took Otto from Peter's arms, her eyes fixed on the buildings in the distance, marking where they needed to go. She didn't look back at the train. Facing west, she said a quiet prayer of thanks that they were still breathing.

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Sophie’s Journey - Chapter 9 - Stranger in a Strange Land

 

 

Sophie's Journey - Chapter 9

Stranger in a Strange Land

The air at the New York docks was thick with coal dust and salt. Sophie Petersen stood on the rain-slicked pier, her hand gripping Emma's coat, and wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.

The city did not welcome them. It collided with them. Steam whistles screamed. Iron wheels ground against cobblestones. Men shouted in a language that sounded like gravel in a barrel. The noise had no shape, no mercy.

Sophie held Emma's coat tighter. She tried to remember what silence felt like. She tried to remember home. The Thornton had been hard enough. This was harder.

Beside her, Marianne Lautrup stood with her shoulders hunched. Her eyes darted toward the brick warehouses that loomed over the water like silent sentinels. She clutched a bundle of damp linens to her chest. Her knuckles were white. They trembled.

The voyage had been hard. Sophie could see it in Marianne's face. The softness was gone. What remained was jagged, sallow, desperate. Sophie did not know how to mend it. She did not know if anyone could.

"It is too much, Sophie," Marianne whispered, her voice barely audible over the noise of nearby construction. "The noise, the smell. This isn't the garden they promised. It looks like the belly of a furnace."

Sophie didn't look at her friend; she couldn't afford to let the woman's fear take root in her own mind. She adjusted her grip on Otto, who was heavy and restless on her hip, his small fingers tugging at the frayed edge of her shawl. Her body felt strangely light, as if the absence of the ship’s constant pitch had left her disconnected from the ground. 

"It is only a door, Marianne," Sophie said, though the words felt brittle in her throat. "You do not live in the doorway. You walk through it to reach the house."

A man in a brass-buttoned coat approached them. His face showed nothing. He held a heavy ledger and spoke rapid English, his pen hovering over the paper with impatience. 

Sophie looked at him. She understood none of it. Her mind was blank where meaning should have been. In Gentofte, she had known what to do. She had moved through her small, orderly world with quiet competence. Here, she knew nothing. Without her language, she was reduced to marks on a page. A name in a ledger. A stranger in a strange land.

Someone translated the man's impatient words, and Sophie gathered her children and stepped forward. "Petersen," she said. Her voice sounded small. Foreign, even to her own ears. "Sophie Petersen. Denmark."

The official sighed. He gestured toward a long, muddy line stretching toward a wooden building. He did not see a woman who had buried her son three days ago. He saw a problem to be cleared. He made a sharp, dismissive motion with his hand.

Sophie understood the gesture. Words or no words, she understood. She began to move. Her boots sank into black, oily muck. This was the New York waterfront. This was her new home.

They were funneled into a sprawling hall. It smelled of wet wool and lye. Tables were pushed together in long rows. Clerks moved with mechanical efficiency, like loom workers.

Peder Mortenson was already near the front. His hands were tucked in his pockets. His gaze roamed the rafters with clinical interest. He seemed less affected than the others. His pragmatism shielded him from the chaos. The noise, the smell, the crush of bodies, none of it touched him. Sophie envied him for that.

"They are measuring us like timber, Sister Petersen," Mortenson said, falling into step beside her as the line hitched forward. "Checking the teeth and the coin purses. If we were cattle, they’d have already marked us with blue chalk."

Sophie tightened her hold on Emma’s hand, the five-year-old girl walking with a wide-eyed silence that was more unnerving than tears. "We are not timber, Brother Mortenson. We are the Saints of God."

Mortenson offered a brief, cynical tilt of his head. "In this room, we are whatever the man with the pen says we are. I’d advise you to keep your papers dry and your children close. The Americans have a way of losing things that don't have a label on them."

The process was a grueling marathon. Silences stretched long. Then came sharp questions that they could not answer. Sophie watched Marianne struggle with a clerk. The man shouted, as if volume could bridge the gap between English and Danish. Marianne looked toward Sophie. Her eyes swam with helplessness, with panic. Her hands fluttered at her throat.

Sophie stepped forward. She placed herself between her friend and the official. Her jaw set in a stubborn line. That line had carried her across the Atlantic. It would carry her further still.

"Sophie Petersen," she repeated, placing her travel documents on the scarred wood of the table. She pointed to herself, then to Marianne, then to the children. "Together. Denmark. Zion."

The clerk stared at her. His eyes flickered from her face to the children huddled in her skirts. Something in her gaze seemed to register. Perhaps it was the hollow, iron-willed exhaustion of a mother who had nothing left to lose.

He did not smile. But he stopped shouting. He stamped the papers with a heavy, rhythmic thud and slid them back across the table. His eyes were already moving to the next person in line.

They were led away from the docks and into the city. The transition from sea to land still felt incomplete. Sophie's legs still expected the floor to drop away. The solid brick of the buildings felt oppressive.

A small, cramped meeting house that the Saints had secured for their stay waited for them. They were gathered into a narrow chapel. It smelled of floor wax and old hymnals. The space felt small and fragile against the churning American port.

A man stood at the front of the room. His coat was worn at the elbows, but his posture radiated quiet authority. He was lean, with sun-darkened skin and eyes that seemed to hold the dust of a thousand miles.

Beside her, Peder Mortenson straightened. His skepticism fell away, replaced by sharp curiosity. This was not a man like the polished missionary, Franklin D. Richards, they had seen in Liverpool. This was a man who had been hammered thin by the road.

"That is Levi Savage," Mortenson whispered, his voice uncharacteristically low. "He has just returned from his mission. He is a sub-captain, they say. A man who knows the physics of the trail better than the lyrics of the hymns."

Brother Savage began to speak, his voice a low, resonant baritone that carried the weight of experience. He didn't talk of golden mountains or the easy flow of milk and honey. He spoke of the timing of the season, of the cooling of the air, and the sheer, brutal distance that still lay between them and the Salt Lake Valley. He looked out over the crowd of Danish, English, and Welsh converts with a melancholy that made Sophie’s heart grow cold.

"I have seen the high plains in October," Savage said, his words being translated into Danish by a young man standing near the pulpit. "The wind there does not ask for your faith. It only asks for your heat. The handcarts are a new way, a fast way, but they are made of wood and iron, not miracles."

Sophie gripped the damp cover of the hymnal in her pocket. Inside was a lock of hair. The only thing left of Thomas. The son she had lost to the sea before they reached these shores. The memory of him sharpened her focus. She would get her remaining children to Zion, no matter the cost.

"The Prophet has called for the gathering," a voice called from the back. It was Elder Willie; his face was flushed with rigid certainty. "Shall we tell the Lord we are afraid of the wind? Shall we wait for the warm sun while the Saints are needed in the valley?"

Levi Savage looked toward Willie, his expression unreadable. "The Lord gave us a mind to count the rations and a heart to protect the small ones. I am not afraid of the wind, Brother Willie. I am afraid of the graves we will dig if we do not respect it."

The room buzzed with tension. The dream of Zion and the reality of the American wild had narrowed to a sharp, dangerous edge. Sophie felt the children shifting beside her. Their small bodies were exhausted and hungry. Their faces were pale in the chapel's dim light.

She looked at Marianne. Her friend's head was bowed. Her lips moved in silent, rhythmic prayer. It looked more like an incantation against the dark.

"What do you see, Brother Mortenson?" Sophie asked, her voice quiet. "Do you see the mountains or the graves?"

Mortenson didn't look at her. He was watching Levi Savage with a grim, nodding approval. "I see a man who has looked at a map and realized the ink is still wet. We are moving into a season that doesn't care about our covenants, Sophie. We’d best start thinking about how to survive before we start thinking about how to be holy.

Sophie did not answer. She looked down at Otto. He had finally fallen asleep against her shoulder, his breathing steady and innocent against the rising doubt. She thought of the dream. The golden valley. The promise of a legacy that would outlive her own breath.

New York City hummed outside the walls. A vast, indifferent machine that had already forgotten their names. But the trail was waiting. A long, white ribbon of uncertainty stretching into the heart of the continent.

She reached out and took Marianne's hand. Her friend's skin felt like cold parchment. The silence in the chapel was heavy. Filled with the unspoken weight of five hundred souls who had traded everything for a promise that was beginning to look like a test.

Sophie tightened her grip on her emotions. On her friend. On her children. Her jaw set in that quiet, stubborn line. It was the only thing she had left to give them. She did not speak. She stood in the drafty room, watching dust motes dance in a single shaft of gray light, while the great American city continued its relentless roar outside the door.

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Watercolors

 

Artwork by Regina Lawry

Watercolors

by Richard Lawry

I set a cup of water

On the kitchen table

Then I pick up a wash brush

And the paper feels right

I would have never dreamed

That I would be able

To show with watercolor

Dappled evening sunlight

Let the watercolors flow

Let the edges blur

No need to hurry now

It might be obscure

Trust the drifting colors

They will fall into line

Don't rush the flow

It just takes time

I take a soft pointed brush

In my wavering hand

Glide across the empty page

Creating my dreamland

Soft as a fleeting whisper

A little gold in the sky

The watercolor glides as planned

I wait for it to dry

Let the watercolors flow

Let the edges blur

No need to hurry now

It might be obscure

Trust the drifting colors

They will fall into line

Don't rush the flow

It just takes time

Painting a quiet river

Painting a pearly sky

Painting a mighty tree

And a bird flying by

Water and wonder

Flowing in my hand

Painting is contentment

It helps me understand

Let the watercolors flow

Let the edges blur

No need to hurry now

It might be obscure

Trust the drifting colors

They will fall into line

Don't rush the flow

It just takes time

It just takes time

But it will fall into line

Just let the watercolors flow

Let the watercolors flow

You can listen to the song as recorded by Faded Chrome at this link

Sophie's Journey - Chapter 8 - The Night Sea

 

                                                                      

 Sophie's Journey - Chapter 8

The Night Sea

The steerage hold of the Thornton felt like being trapped inside a dungeon, all damp oak and iron, with air so thick you could wear it. Hundreds of people breathing, sweating, hoping, and the whole place just heavy with it all. Sophie perched on the edge of her middle berth, worrying a small tear in her apron, while the ship rose and fell beneath her in that steady, stomach-turning rhythm that never let you forget where you were.

The smell hit first. Unwashed bodies, sour gruel, and that sharp chemical tang they used to fight the stink, though it never quite worked. The bilge always won out. Gray shadows everywhere, broken only by the swing of an oil lamp casting long fingers of light across the cramped wooden berths. It was a hard place. But Sophie kept her hands busy and her heart prayerful, because sometimes that's all you can do.

"Is the Promised Valley as big as this ship, Mama?" Anne asked, her three-year-old voice small and high against the groaning of the timbers. She clung to Sophie’s skirt, her eyes wide with the persistent worry that had settled into her face since they left the docks of Liverpool.

"Much bigger, little bird," Sophie said, smoothing the girl’s hair, which had begun to lose its luster in the dim light of the hold. "It is a land of mountains that touch the clouds, with grass so green it looks like the fields of Gentofte in the spring. There is space enough for every child to run until their legs are tired, and the air smells of pine and sunshine instead of coal smoke."

Across the narrow, dirty aisle, Peder Mortenson sat with his back to the hull. His hands moved steadily and practiced, the way a man's do when he can't stand still. He was whittling a scrap of wood, shavings falling like pale snow onto the dirty floor.

His sharp eyes, set deep in his face, flicked up and caught Sophie looking. That gaze held skepticism like a cold draft through a cracked window. Peder was a man who measured everything, inches and ounces, what was real and what was not. And when Sophie spoke of mountains, he looked at her like she'd offered him counterfeit coin, something pretty but dangerous to trust.

"Mountains don't fill a belly, Sister Petersen," Mortenson said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that cut through the chatter of the hold. He didn't stop the movement of his knife, the blade peeling back a thin curl of pine. "And sunshine doesn't mend a broken axle. We’d do better to teach the children how to mend a sack than how to dream of valleys that they haven't seen yet."

Sophie tightened her hold on Anne’s hand, her jaw setting in the quiet, stubborn line that had become her armor. "Dreams are what keep their feet moving, Brother Mortenson. If we only look at the mud, we will surely sink into it."

"The mud is real," he said, tipping his cap toward her with a brief, mirthless twist of his lips. "The valley is a map in a missionary's pocket. I’ll trust the wood in my hands and the weight of the water in the casks. That is what gets a family across an ocean."

The ship gave a sudden, violent lurch, and a stack of tin plates went flying across the floor. The sound cracked through the hold like gunshots, sharp and startling in that closed space. The Thornton didn't just roll with the waves; it bucked against them, the hull's deep groan rising to a shriek of iron straining hard.

Sophie felt it in her boots first, that change in the vibration. The steady thrum gave way to something frantic and irregular, the Atlantic slapping against the hull like it wanted in. The air in the hold turned colder too, as if the sea itself had pressed a frozen palm right up against the wood, reminding them all who was really in charge out here.

"Stay in the berth," Sophie commanded, her voice sharp enough to make Peter and Thomas freeze where they had been playing with a handful of smooth stones. "Emma, hold Otto. Peter, keep your sisters close. Do not move until I tell you."

The storm didn't hit all at once. It came as a gathering madness, wind and spray working together as if they meant to peel the ship apart, plank by plank. Below decks, the lamps went out, one by one, snuffed for fear of fire. The darkness became absolute then, and people had to find their way through the chaos by sound alone, the water crashing and the screams of those thrown from their beds.

Sophie huddled in the center of their berth, her arms wrapped tight around Anne and Otto. She made her body a shield against a world that wouldn't stop lurching, holding on through the dark and the noise and the fear, trusting that morning would come even when she couldn't see it yet.

Above them, the deck had become a theater of screams and crashing cargo. Sophie heard it through the boards, that heavy metallic thud of something breaking loose, maybe a crate or a piece of rigging. Then came a sound that would stay with her, that would wake her in the night for years to come. A sharp crack, sudden and final. Feet sliding across wet wood. A frantic, high-pitched shout cut short by the roar of the gale, swallowed up before it could even finish. The hatchway above them groaned under the wind's pressure, and for one terrifying moment, gray light flooded into the hold, salt-stung and cold, the Atlantic itself pressing in to see what it could claim.

"Thomas!" Peter’s voice was a jagged tear in the darkness, full of a realization that Sophie’s mind refused to accept. He was pointing toward the upper deck, his face pale and distorted in the gloom. "Mama, Thomas went up! He went to see the waves!”

Sophie didn't stop to think. She moved on instinct, desperate and animal, clawing her way toward the ladder as the ship dropped into the trough of a massive wave. The wind hit her like a fist when she breached the hatchway, salt spray stinging her eyes, blurring everything into chaos, white foam and black water swirling together.

The deck had become a slick, tilted world of wreckage and panicked men. Near the rail, where cargo had shifted into a violent tangle of hemp and timber, she saw him.

Thomas lay pinned beneath a heavy wooden crate, his small frame looking impossibly fragile against the massive, water-darkened oak. His eyes were open, staring up at the churning sky with a bewildered peace, while blood from his temple mixed with the salt water pooling on the deck.

Sophie fell to her knees beside him, her hands trembling as she tried to shift the crate's weight. But the wood wouldn't move. It was unyielding, fixed there like part of the ship's own heavy bones, and Thomas was trapped beneath it.

"Thomas, look at me," she whispered, her voice lost in the screaming of the wind. She reached out, her fingers brushing his cold, wet cheek. "Stay with me, little one. The valley is coming. We are almost there."

The boy didn't answer. His chest gave one final, stuttering heave, and then he went limp, the light in his eyes fading like a candle blown out in a draft.

Sophie pulled him into her arms, not caring about the spray soaking her or the sailors shouting as they tried to secure the deck. She held him against her chest, her chin resting on his wet hair, while the Atlantic kept up its indifferent assault on the hull. The weight of him ached in her arms, a piece of her soul ripped away and left to freeze in the spray.

Beside her, Peter stood in the wash of the waves, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on his brother's silent form. He looked older than his nine years; the soft lines of childhood vanished in a single heartbeat. He didn't cry. He just watched, hands balled into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides. He was no longer a boy playing with stones in a dark hold. He was a man who had seen the price of the road, and the reflection in his eyes matched Sophie's own shock, identical and hollow.

"He is gone, Mama," Peter said, his voice flat and drained of all inflection. It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact that settled over them like the freezing mist. "The sea took him."

Sophie didn't answer. She sat in the shivering silence of her own grief, her prayers feeling hollow and useless against the storm's roar. She had traded her home for this, a black-hulled ship and a grave made of salt water. For the first time since leaving Gentofte, cold doubt reached her heart, the realization that her faith had not been enough to shield her son from the brutal physics of the crossing.

The aftermath came in a blur of gray light and the smell of wet wool. They were back in the hold, the air thick with muffled weeping from other families who had lost their belongings or their hope to the gale. Marianne sat in the corner of the berth, face buried in her hands, body shaking with rhythmic, silent despair. She had warned Sophie of the dangers, and now her silence spoke louder than any words could have.

"It is a sign, Sophie," Marianne whispered later that evening, her voice barely rising above the chaos of the hold. She wouldn't look at the small bundle wrapped in clean linen, lying in the center of the berth. "God is telling us we should have stayed in Denmark. He is closing the door to Zion with the bodies of children."

"God doesn't kill children to prove a point, Marianne," Sophie said, her voice coming from somewhere cold and hollow, a place of resolve that felt empty. She was holding her leather-bound Danish hymnal, her fingers tracing the water-stained cover. "The wind blew. The ship lurched. That was the world, not a judgment."

"Then why didn't He stop it?" Marianne asked, her eyes finally lifting to meet Sophie's, filled with a terrifying, vacant light. "If we're His people, why are we dying in a hole?"

Sophie had no answer. She opened the hymnal to the back page and carefully placed a small lock of Thomas's fair hair inside the binding, smoothing the paper over it like she could protect this one piece of him from the damp.

Across the aisle, Peder Mortenson watched her, his knife finally still in his hand. He looked at the wrapped bundle, then at Sophie, and for the first time, the skepticism in his eyes gave way to something else, a grim respect for a woman who kept moving even when the ground had fallen away beneath her feet.

"He didn't suffer, Sister Petersen," Mortenson said, his voice lower than usual. He leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. "The blow was quick. In this life, that is a mercy we aren't all promised. Don't listen to the talk of signs. The sea doesn't care about our sins or our prayers. It only cares about the weight of the wood."

"He was seven years old," Sophie said, her voice cracking for the first time. "He should have seen the mountains."

"He will see better ones now," Mortenson said. He looked toward the hatchway, where gray dawn light was beginning to filter down. "But the rest of us still have to pull the carts. You have four more children, Sophie. Don't let grief for the one who's gone drown the ones still breathing. God hasn't left the ship, even if it seems He's gone quiet for a while."

The burial happened in the thin, watery light of a North Atlantic morning. The wind had settled to a persistent, chilly moan, and the sea stretched out, a vast expanse of deep indigo as far as the eye could see. The company gathered on deck, faces gaunt, eyes red-rimmed from the night's terror. Elder Willie stood near the rail, his voice steady and practiced, trying to weave the tragedy into the story of their migration, speaking of the sacrifice of the Saints and the glory of the gathering.

Sophie stood at the edge of the group, her hand resting on Peter's shoulder. She felt the physical ache of loss, a phantom limb that throbbed with every heartbeat. Thomas's small wooden coffin, built in haste by the ship's carpenter, sat on a tilted board over the side. It looked terribly small against the horizon, a tiny, fragile box holding a piece of her life she would never get back.

When the final prayer ended, they lifted the board. The splash of Thomas's burial was drowned out by the roar of the sea, leaving Sophie staring at the ocean that had stolen a piece of her soul.

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Sophie's Journey - Chapter 7 - Cargo of the Thornton

 

Sophie's Journey - Chapter 7

Cargo of the Thornton

Liverpool was a canyon of soot and stone that seemed to swallow the sky. The air hung thick. Coal smoke. Rotting fish. The unwashed masses of a thousand different lives, all pressing toward the docks.

Sophie stood on the edge of the cobblestone street. Otto in one arm. Her other hand was a tight anchor on Anne's shoulder. Peter gripped the strap of the heaviest sack. The scale of the city was a physical blow. She had thought Copenhagen was a world of commerce. But this was a machine of empire—a place where people were poured into the gears, like grain into a mill.

“Stay close,” Sophie said, looking at the children. “Emma, grip Peter’s coat and don't let go. Anne, keep your hand on my skirt. Thomas, you stay with Marianne. Eyes forward—we do not stop for anything until we find the Brother with the flag.”

They moved through the throng like a small, battered ship in a gale. The noise was a discordant roar—the rattle of dray carts on the stones, the shouting of sailors in tongues that sounded like gravel in a tin, and the endless, rhythmic thrum of the city’s heart. Sophie kept her eyes fixed on the distant masts that rose above the rooftops like a winter forest stripped of its leaves. 

"It is too much, Sophie," Marianne whispered, her face pale as a bleached bone. She walked with her head ducked. Her eyes darted toward the dark alleys. They branched off the main thoroughfare. "The people," she said. "They look like they haven't seen the sun in years. Are we to be lost here?"

"We are not lost, Marianne," Sophie said, adjusting the weight of Otto on her hip. "We are exactly where we are meant to be. Look at the children. Do not look at the alleys."

They reached the staging area near the Waterloo Dock—a vast, mud-slicked expanse. The scale of their undertaking finally revealed itself. Sophie stopped. Her breath caught. It had nothing to do with the walk.

Hundreds of people were gathered. Saints from England. From Wales. From Denmark and Sweden. A swirling, chaotic sea of trunks and crates. It was a harvest of souls. A massive assembly of the faithful and the desperate. All marked by the same soot-stained clothes. The same burning, hollow look in their eyes.

Franklin D. Richards stood on a makeshift platform. His voice was a resonant tolling bell. It tried to weave the chaos into a single thread of purpose.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said in a voice filled with authority. “You stand at the edge of a great water. Behind you lies the world you knew. Before you lies the world God has prepared.

You are not merely passengers. You are pioneers. Every step you take upon this deck is a step toward Zion. The Lord has gathered you from the fields of Denmark, from the mines of Wales, from the cities of England. He has marked you. He has called you by name.

When the waves rise and the wind howls, remember the mountains. The peaks of the West wait for us. The valleys of Deseret wait for us. And God, who has brought us this far, will not abandon us now.

The journey will test you. The sea does not care for our faith. But we care. We care for one another. Look to your left. Look to your right. These are your people now. This ship is your home. This company is your family. We are seven hundred and sixty-four Saints bound for Zion. Board with courage. Sail with faith. We go to build a city upon a hill.”

"Seven hundred and sixty-four," Peter whispered, his nine-year-old eyes wide as he looked at the sheer volume of humanity. "Mama, are they all going to Zion? Every one of them?"

"Every one, Peter," Sophie said. She felt a sudden, sharp chill. She had been a widow in a small village. A woman with a farm and a name. Now she was a number in a ledger—a single head among hundreds. The individuality of her struggle felt diminished and folded into the massive gathering.

It was a sobering realization. The Lord was not just calling Sophie Petersen. He was emptying the nations. The ship that waited at the pier looked far too small. Too small to hold the weight of so much hope.

The Thornton was a weary, weather-worn beast. As they were herded toward the gangplank, the smell of the vessel reached them. Wet hemp. Old bilge water. The sharp, medicinal tang of chloride of lime.

Sophie moved with clinical efficiency. She had spent her life counting bushels. Measuring rye. She ignored the shouting of the deckhands and the frantic weeping of a woman who had dropped her only trunk into the harbor. She focused on the placement of her feet and the steady rhythm of her children's steps.

Below decks, the reality of their passage hit like a physical barrier. The steerage hold was a dim, claustrophobic cavern. Divided into narrow wooden berths. They looked like coffins stacked three high.

The air was already thick. Depleted by hundreds of bodies pressing into the shadows. There was no privacy: only thin, splintered boards and the proximity of strangers' belongings.

 Sophie found their assigned space, small and cramped. It smelled of damp sawdust and the previous occupant's sweat.

"We are to sleep here?" Marianne asked, her voice cracking as she looked at the cramped wooden shelf. "Like cordwood, Sophie? I cannot breathe. The ceiling—it is touching my head."

"It is only for a time, Marianne," Sophie said, though her own stomach churned at the close-pressed heat of the hold. She began to unpack the rations box, placing the hardtack and dried apples in a corner where they wouldn't be crushed. "The ship will move, and the air will come. Help me with the quilts. We must mark our space before it is taken."

In the aisle, a traveler paused, a small man in a frayed coat and low-slung cap. His hands were stained with grease, his face a rugged landscape of past hardships. Behind him, a woman and several children stood with a weary determination that Sophie recognized instantly. For a long moment, he watched her, his eyes tracking the careful precision with which she managed her tiny domain.

"You’re Danish," the man said, his voice a low, steady rumble that cut through the din of the hold. "I can tell by the way you tie your sacks. No one else keeps a knot that neat when they’re half-dead from the road."

"Sophie Petersen," she said, not looking up from the quilt she was smoothing. "And I am not half-dead. I am alive, I assure you."

The man let out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. "Peder Mortenson. My family and I are in the berth across from you. It’s a tight fit for a man, but I suppose we aren’t thought of as people anymore. We’re just cargo now, sister."

Sophie finally looked at him. She noted the skeptical glint in his eyes. The way he held his shoulders, as if he were waiting for the ship to fail.

He was a man who looked for the crack in the stone. A fellow countryman. He understood the physical cost of faith. There was a comfort in his pragmatism. A grounding reality. It felt more honest than the soaring hymns echoing from the upper deck. They were not just Saints. They were bodies in a box. And Peter Mortenson looked like a man who knew exactly how many days the water would last.

"We are whatever the Lord needs us to be, Brother Mortenson," Sophie said, though her hands trembled slightly as she tucked a corner of the blanket. "Today, we are cargo. Tomorrow, we will be something else."

"Hopefully we're survivors," Peder said, tipping his cap toward her. He turned back to his own family, his voice dropping into a series of sharp, practical commands as he began to lash their trunks to the support beams. He moved slowly and with a pronounced limp. But Sophie only saw a man who had already decided. He would be the one to see the end of the road. No matter what the road held.

The afternoon stretched into a blurred eternity: noise and heat. More emigrants poured into the hold. English families with too many bundles. Lone men with nothing but a Bible and a spare shirt. Children who began to wail as the darkness settled over them.

Marianne sat on the edge of the berth. Her hands folded in her lap. Her gaze fixed on a small knot in the wood. She looked like a person who had already left her body. Her spirit retreated to some quiet corner of Denmark. A corner that no longer existed.

"They are singing again," Marianne whispered, nodding toward the hatchway where the sound of a hymn drifted down from the deck. "How can they sing, Sophie? We are in a hole. We have sold our homes for a hole in a ship."

"They sing because they have to, Marianne," Sophie said, sitting down beside her and pulling Otto into her lap. "If they stop singing, they will hear the water. And the water is very loud today."

The Thornton began to groan, the deep, rhythmic shifting of a beast waking from a long sleep. Above them, the heavy thud of boots on the deck signaled the final preparations. The anchor chain began to rattle, a sound like a giant’s teeth grinding together, and the vibration of the hull changed, moving from a static hum to a low, guttural thrum.

Sophie felt the ship lurch—a slow, sickening heave. The current took them. They were no longer attached to the stone of Liverpool. The last thread had been cut. The great, indifferent hand of the Atlantic was pulling them into the mist.

She leaned her head back against the rough wood of the berth and thought of the farm in Gentofte. The stone walls. The smell of the rye in July. She realized she could no longer see the color of the front door. It was a memory burned away by the soot of Liverpool. By the salt of the crossing. She was a woman without a landscape. A mother whose only territory was a few feet of wooden shelf. Shared with her children.

"Go to sleep, little ones," Sophie whispered, pulling the heavy wool quilt over the children. "The water will carry us. We have done what we could."

The lantern swung in the aisle. A persistent yellow eye. It refused to blink. Opposite her, Peder Mortenson leaned against the hull. His gaze was sharp. Restless. He scanned the shadows as if expecting them to sharpen into blades. Around them, the air was thick with the jagged, desperate harmony of a hundred voices. Singing of Zion. Of the distant peaks of the West.

Sophie remained silent. She withdrew into the shivering stillness of her own mind. She tracked the passing hours by the steady rhythm of her children's breath.

She didn't look back. She fixed her gaze on the dark timber of the ceiling as she contemplated the vast ocean that lay between her and America.

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Heave Away, Saints by The Junkyard Misfits written for the Sophie's Journey companion album