Sophie's Journey - Chapter 16
Faith Against the Frontier
The humidity was gone at last. A hot wind carried dust and the scent of sweat. Sophie stood at Clark's Mill, looking around. The camp was quiet as Elder Willie held his ledger and began the final count. The ledger seemed small against the vast prairie. It was meant to guide them through the wilderness ahead.
Men walked from cart to cart, their faces tense. They checked the flour sacks, pressing the canvas with their fingers, hoping for more grain. When they got to Sophie's cart, the lead elder did not look at her. He had a gray beard. He wrote down her ration and moved on to the next widow.
"Ninety-eight pounds," Peder Mortenson muttered, coming to stand beside her, his shadow long and thin against the dusty earth. "For a family of six, Sophie. They are calculating based on eighteen ounces a day for the men, less for the women, and a handful of flour for the children. It is a plan built on the hope that we will not grow hungry, or that the Lord will multiply the loaves in our pockets."
Sophie did not look at him. "The elders say the supply wagons will meet us along the way,” she replied. “That there are caches of grain waiting at the forts. We are not meant to carry everything ourselves, Peder. That is why we have the teamsters and the oxen."
"The oxen are old, and the wagons are few," Peder replied, his voice a low, dry rasp. "I watched them loading the communal tents this morning. Five tents for nearly a hundred people in our division. They are packing us in like salted herring, counting on the fact that half of us will be too exhausted to move during the night. It isn't faith that’s driving this company anymore, Sophie. It’s momentum. No one knows how to stop the wheel once it’s started down the hill."
He pointed at the line of handcarts ahead. The hickory wood was still wet, and sap leaked out where they were nailed together. Dark patches showed at every joint. Sophie knew the carts would not last. They were built wrong, but no one wanted to admit it.
Marianne walked over, her skirts muddy from the riverbank. Her eyes were wide with fear. She held a small wooden crate tightly, her knuckles white.
"They told me I have to leave the trunk," she said. "The one with my mother's linens. They said every ounce counts now, that the wood weighs more than the fabric." Her voice shook. "How am I supposed to start a life in the valley with nothing but the clothes on my back?"
"You leave the wood so you can carry the children, Marianne," Sophie said, her voice coming out flatter than she intended. "We are not going there to be ladies. We are going there to be survivors. If the trunk stays, it stays. The prairie doesn't care about your trunk, and neither will the snow when it finds us."
Marianne made a small sound and turned away, her shoulders hunched. Sophie watched her leave. She felt herself changing. She was a mother, a widow, and now she had to work like an animal. There was no room for old memories or heavy trunks.
The afternoon sun was hot on the staging ground. Sophie smelled wood and axle grease. She walked through the Danish group and watched as people were paired together.
The leaders were matching up the weakest people. Strangers were put together, hoping that two weak people could do the work of one strong one. Sophie saw an old couple from Odense put with three young orphans. Their hands shook as they tried to hold the pull-bar.
Sophie saw that the plan did not make sense. The leaders expected strong people, but most were tired and small. The handcart plan seemed to think faith could make people stronger, but the carts only cared about weight and rough ground.
She found Peter at the back of the cart. His face was smudged with soot, his jaw set tight. He was trying to tighten the leather straps on their water keg, his small fingers fumbling with the buckle.
"I can do it, Mother," he said before she could help. "I'm the man now. I have to be. Peder says the carts will break before we reach the first fort, so I'm checking the joints."
"Checking them won't stop the wood from shrinking, Peter," Sophie said, reaching out to steady the keg. "But you are right to watch them. We will have to be the ones who fix what the mill didn't finish. Save your strength. We start at dawn, and the hills will not be kind to those who spend their energy before we even begin."
She walked to the edge of camp where the prairie met the trees. From here, the five hundred people in the Willie Company looked small and spread out. The tents were thin, and the wagons were heavy. She looked at the blue sky and remembered the burial mounds in Jelling. There, the ground did not move.
Here, everything was moving. They were heading for a valley they had never seen. She remembered praying for a miracle in her kitchen in Gentofte, hoping for a better land. Now, that hope was meeting the hard facts of the American frontier. Everything came down to pounds and miles, and the numbers did not look good.
As the light faded, Sophie looked at her hands, already blistered from packing. She had no husband to pull for her. There was no father to protect her children. No one would help if she fell.
She was the worker now. If Zion was real, she would not get there because of the elders or the missionaries. She would get there by her own strength, step by step.
She did not pray. She adjusted her shawl and watched the stars. Her faith had brought her this far, but now it was up to her body to finish the journey.
The camp grew quiet. Sophie stood up and walked to her tent. She lay down next to her children and put her hand on Anne's back. The planning was finished. Only the work was left.
Sophie lay awake in the dark, listening to her children breathe. Tomorrow, they would start pulling the cart. She had seen the trail, a thin line through tall grass. The elders talked about Zion as if it was just ahead, but Sophie was not so sure.
The cart waited outside. It would not carry her to the valley. She would have to pull it, step by step, until she reached the place God wanted her to be, or until she could not go any farther. Either way, the journey would begin at dawn. She closed her eyes and tried to rest, saving her strength for the morning.
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