Brother Savage’s Warning
The morning at Clark's Mill was noisy. Saws cut through wood and hammers rang out as men worked hard. Sophie stood at the edge of the carpentry yard. The smell of hickory and pine filled the air. It reminded her of home in Gentofte, but now it only made her think of waiting.
Her handcart sat in the mud beside her. Sap leaked from the joints where the nails would not hold. She put her hand on the frame and could feel how weak it was. The wood was not ready for the journey.
The men worked quickly, their shirts soaked with sweat as they built the carts. Sophie noticed the order in the camp. Everything was counted and organized: tents, handcarts, people. Five hundred people divided into groups. It looked good on paper, but Sophie knew that plans on paper did not always keep people safe.
"They are finishing the axles on the last five," Peter said, his ten-year-old face smudged with sawdust and dirt. He stood with his hands tucked into his waistband, watching the craftsmen with the intense scrutiny of a boy who had been forced to learn the mechanics of survival too quickly.
Sophie ran her hand along the pull-bar of their cart. The wood was still damp. "It’s green, Peter. It hasn’t had time to dry. When the sun hits it on the trail, it will bend and twist."
"The Brethren say the Lord will sustain the wood as He sustains us," Peter replied, though his voice lacked the vibrance of true conviction. He looked toward the mountains they could not yet see; his small shoulders tensed against the weight of the coming miles.
Sophie did not answer. She understood how things worked. Salt pulled water from meat. Cold weather broke stone. Faith was important, but it could not change green wood. Hickory would still bend, no matter how much you prayed.
"Sophie?"
She turned. Marianne walked toward her, holding a small bundle of fabric. Her hands shook, and her eyes were wide. Sophie noticed how out of place Marianne looked in the Iowa mud and noise. The lace collar of her Sunday dress showed under her clothes, a reminder of the life they left behind in Denmark.
"They say we leave within the week," Marianne whispered, her voice almost lost in the noise. She held the bundle tighter. "But look at the carts, Sophie. They are not ready. How can we pull them?" She looked at Sophie, her eyes full of worry. "I am not strong enough for this."
Sophie did not know what to say. She could not give a true answer.
"We pull because we have to," Sophie said. "The carts are our homes now. We will get used to them, and soon it will be all we know."
Marianne looked down at her boots. The soles were already wearing thin. "I dreamed about the jasmine again last night. I could smell it and thought I was back in your garden. Then I woke up to the noise here and remembered I am just one more person in a tent."
"You are a pioneer," Sophie said, though she was not sure she believed it. "We have to let go of what we left behind. The jasmine is not here, Marianne. Only the hickory and the oak."
The camp grew quiet, and Sophie turned toward the road. Men were coming, their clothes covered in dust from the long journey. Their faces were thin and worn from travel.
At the front was Brother Levi Savage, the sub-captain from New York. He had a square jaw and sad eyes. Sophie remembered the things he had said in New York.
He got off his horse slowly, moving stiffly. He handed the reins to a younger man and looked around at the camp. He saw the green wood, the families waiting, and the confusion of people getting ready to leave. He noticed widows holding their children, old men with sticks, and mothers packing their few belongings.
Then he looked at Sophie. She saw him recognize her, and his expression softened for a moment. She wondered what he saw in her.
"Sister Petersen," he said, his voice a low, resonant baritone that carried a strange authority. He walked toward her, his boots thumping solidly against the packed earth. "I see you have made it to the mill. And the children?"
"We are here, Brother Savage," Sophie replied, dipping her head in a brief, respectful nod. "Peter and Emma are helping with the sorting. Anne and Otto are in the tent with the Mortensens. We are ready to move, though the carts seem less ready than the people."
Savage looked at Sophie’s handcart and narrowed his eyes as he touched the damp wood. He grabbed the wheel and shook it. The cart made a noise. Sophie felt uneasy.
He sighed, and it sounded heavy. "July tenth," he muttered, almost to himself. "We are starting late, and these carts are not ready." He looked at Sophie. "It is a hard thing to ask of a mother, Sophie."
"Is it too late?" Sophie asked, her voice dropping so Marianne wouldn't hear. She watched his face, looking for the truth that the official reports often smoothed over with religious fervor. "The brothers say the Lord will hold back the snows for the faithful. They say the late start is a test of our devotion."
Savage turned his gaze to the western horizon, where the sky was a deep, deceptive blue. "The mountains do not care about devotion, Sister. They only care about the physics of the cold. I have seen the snow in the high passes by October. If we leave now, we are racing the very breath of winter, and we are starting that race with broken legs."
Sophie looked at the inventory list again. There were five mules and six yoke of cattle for five hundred people. "You think we will not make it," she said.
"I think we are being asked to perform a miracle with the tools of men," Savage said, his jaw tightening. "I have told the Brethren my mind. I have warned them that leaving now invites the company's destruction. But they speak of faith, and I speak of the trail, and the two languages do not often meet.”
He looked at her. "You are a stubborn woman, Sophie Petersen. I saw it in New York, and I see it now." He paused. "You will need that stubbornness."
He put his hand on the cart again and paused before speaking.
"Do not trust the wood," he said. "Trust your own hands. And when the food gets low, do not wait for the leaders. Tighten your belt before you are truly hungry."
"I have been tightening my belt since Peter died," she said. "The leaders did not notice then either."
She looked back at the cart. "I will not wait for permission to protect my family, Brother Savage. But when the cart breaks, what do I do then? Do I carry what the cart cannot?"
Savage nodded. "Watch the wheels. If the wood starts to split, soak it in the rivers when you cross them. Keep it wet as long as you can, or the sun will ruin the carts before you reach the Platte."
He walked away, and the camp grew quiet. Sophie watched him go to Elder Willie near the command tent. Their voices rose in a heated discussion. She saw the tension in Savage's shoulders as he pointed toward the carts.
"What did he say?" Marianne asked, creeping closer, her face pale. "He looks like a man bringing news of a funeral."
"He told us how to save the carts," Sophie said, turning back to her handcart. "He told us to be careful."
She worked through the afternoon. Her hands tied the lashings again and again. She packed the rations box and cooking pot deep in the cart, where the weight would balance over the axle. She focused on the work, making sure everything was ready.
The sun set over the mill. The company was divided into groups of a hundred. Sophie stood in line with the other women as a clerk called out their names. She was assigned to the Danish group. She did not look at the others. She was learning that survival was something you did on your own, even in a crowd.
She saw Peder being helped toward his cart, his sons on either side. His face looked bitter and tired, as if he had given up. He looked at the cart, then at his sons. Sophie saw the moment when he let go of his pride.
He would now depend on his sons. It was a different kind of burden, and Sophie saw it made him bow his head lower than any load he had carried before.
Late that night, when the children had finally surrendered to sleep, Sophie found herself on the handcart, the wood damp beneath her. The camp had gone quiet - saws silent, hammers still, only the distant howl of a coyote.
She reached into the sack and took out the hymnal. She did not open it, but held it in her hands. The leather felt cool in her palms. The Danish words inside had belonged to her mother before her. She remembered her husband and Thomas. She remembered the smell of jasmine, her home in Gentofte, and the runestones at Jelling on the green hills. Now, those memories seemed distant, as if they belonged to someone else who had not made it from Denmark to Iowa.
She looked at her hands. They were stained with sap and dirt from working with hickory. These were the hands of a woman who would take her four children across a country where no one knew her name. She stood up, her back aching, and looked toward the west. The trail was there, dark and uncertain. She went into the tent, lay down next to Emma, and closed her eyes, trying not to think about what Brother Savage had said.
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Savage Words by The Junkyard Misfits written for the Sophie's Journey companion album
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