Sophie's Journey - Chapter 34
Spoons for Hardtack
The lantern’s light threw shadows on the adobe wall. Captain Willie sat on an empty hardtack crate, elbows on his knees, holding a tin cup of water. He had not slept. The fort was quiet. The Saints tried to rest. Willie stayed awake, checking the carts and counting supplies. He hoped the numbers would change, but they did not.
He heard the cane before he saw the man. The wood struck the packed earth in a uniform rhythm.
Peder Mortensen stepped out of the dark. The lantern showed his gaunt face. He looked at Willie, waiting.
"You knew," Peder said. No greeting. No Captain Willie or President Willie. Just the stone-cold words.
Willie did not look up. "Knew what, Brother Mortensen?"
"Don't." Peder stopped a few feet away, leaning hard on his cane. "Don't call me brother when you led us into a graveyard. You knew there would be nothing here."
Willie looked up. Peder's face was worn and thin. His eyes were angry.
"I did not know," Willie said quietly. "I hoped."
"Hoped," Peder uttered the word with contempt. "Hope is what they sell in Liverpool to peasants who don't know better. I counted on leadership. I counted on men in Salt Lake who promised God would provide if we had faith enough to pull a cart."
He came closer. His voice fell to a whisper.
"Where are the supply depots, Willie? Where are the caches the Church was supposed to station here for late companies? I saw the empty storehouse. I saw the bare shelves. There is nothing."
Willie set his cup down. "There were no depots established. Not for us."
"Why?"
"Because the Perpetual Emigrating Fund is empty," Willie said plainly, without excuse. "The Church assumed we would move faster than ox teams. They assumed we could carry sufficient provisions to reach mid-route relief points further west. They did not account for... delays."
"Delays." Peder laughed, a dry, harsh sound. "You mean the delays we were warned about in Florence? The warnings Brother Savage begged you to heed? We are not a delay, Captain. We are four hundred souls who Brigham Young told to walk into winter because it was cheaper than wagons."
Willie stood. His legs ached, but he would not let Peder look down at him.
"I did not set the Fund's balance," Willie said. "I did not choose the handcart scheme. Church leadership called me to lead it, and I have. Through sand and death and river crossings that took strong men. I have done what I could with what I was given."
"But you knew," Peder pressed. "You knew the Fund was empty. You knew they assumed we would fly across the plains like angels. You knew the supply wagons from the Valley would not be waiting here."
Willie was silent. The wind moved through the fort.
"I knew relief wagons were sent," he said at last. "I was told they'd meet us. I didn't know they unloaded at Deer Creek and turned back when the early companies passed, assuming no one was behind them. That’s because of the distance and bad communication. It is men with full bellies in warm rooms making decisions while we suffer on the trail."
"Convenient failures," Peder said. "Failures that cost nothing to the men in warm rooms. The Perpetual Emigrating Fund is depleted-so they send the poor. They send the ones who cannot buy their own passage. They send Danes and English and Scots who believe that Zion waits with open arms, and they do not bother to put flour in the storehouses because it saves them money."
"Brother Mortensen-"
"And Fort Laramie." Peder cut him off, gesturing toward the darkened commissary with his cane. "A military post dependent on supply trains from the East Coast. No excess inventory. No bulk provisions for four hundred starving Saints. You traded spoons, Captain. Your own silver spoons. For two barrels of hardtack. That is what the Church's planning has come to. Spoonfuls."
Willie's jaw tensed. He remembered the silver in the sutler's hands and the small sack of flour it bought.
"I did what I could," Willie said, his voice subdued. "I traded every trinket, every personal effect, every small dignity I had left. I walked into that commissary, and bargained like a beggar because no one else would. The traders here do not answer to Brigham Young. They answer to money. And we had none."
"It is because the Church left us with nothing," Peder said. "They looked at a ledger in Salt Lake, saw empty columns, and figured faith would cover the rest. But faith doesn't fill a child's stomach, Captain. I've already watched five die. Five names. And more will follow—not because God willed it, but because men did. Men who looked at a calendar, saw August slipping into September, and sent us out anyway."
Willie approached closer. He was taller than Peder, but the Dane did not flinch.
"You think I do not know this?" Willie asked. "You think I have not lain awake every night since Florence, counting the days, measuring the miles against the rations, watching the days get shorter? I knew we were late. I argued. I wrote letters. I pleaded for delay, for wagons, for mercy from those who had the power to grant it. And I was overruled. The Fund was depleted. The ships were late. The carts were built of green wood. And still they said go."
"Then you should have refused," Peder said. "You should have stood in Florence and said no. Better to be stranded in Iowa than frozen in the Rockies."
"And who would have led them then?" Willie's voice cracked, the first fracture in his armor. "Who would have kept them moving when the sand buried the wheels? Who would have organized the searches when Sister Stewart wandered into the hollow? Who would have carried the sick when the supply wagons were full? You, Brother Mortensen? With your cane and your ledger of the dead?"
Peder stared at him. The quietness grew.
"I am not the leader," Peder said eventually. "I am a blacksmith who counted on the Church to be what it claimed. A refuge. A family. A body that does not abandon its weakest limbs. Instead I find a corporation with an empty treasury, sending the poor to die so the rich in Zion do not have to pay for ox teams."
"The Church is not a corporation," Willie said, but the words sounded meaningless even to him.
"Then why are we treated like debtors?" Peder asked. "The Perpetual Emigrating Fund is depleted-so the poor must pull their own salvation. No supplies waiting. No relief at the fort. Just a long road and a promise that God will make up the difference. I am tired of God making up the difference, Captain. I am tired of watching children pay the interest on the Church's poverty."
Willie turned away. He looked at the dark fort. The Saints sleeping in the dust. The handcarts lined against the wall.
"I cannot change what the leadership did or did not do," he said. "I cannot conjure flour from empty shelves or supply wagons from frozen passes. I have twelve ounces per day. I have four hundred and twenty miles. I have winter waiting in the mountains that Brother Savage says is coming early. And I have you, Brother Mortensen, standing in the dark telling me what I already know."
"Then what will you do?" Peder asked.
Willie turned back. His face was tired, his eyes red. He looked stubborn.
"I will reduce the rations," Willie said. "I will stretch the flour. I will leave the wagons behind and lighten the carts. I will pray for relief wagons that may or may not come. And I will walk into those mountains with every soul who can still stand, because the alternative is to stop here and wait for death. And I will not stop."
"Even if the leadership abandoned us?"
"Especially then." Willie came closer, his voice lowering to a whisper just as fierce as Peder's. "Because if the men in warm rooms failed us, then we must not fail each other. That is the only covenant left, Brother Mortensen. Not between us and Salt Lake. The covenant is between the widow Mary Ann Empey and us. Between your friend Sophie, her children, and us. Between every Saint on the trail and us.
You want to lay the dead at the feet of the Church? Fine. I will lay them at the feet of God. But I will not lay down myself. Not while there is still a mile to walk."
Peder held his gaze for a long moment. The wind grew chillier, carrying the first true breath of winter. Somewhere in the night, a child coughed-a thin, rattling sound.
"You are a good man, Captain Willie," Peder said, and there was no praise in it. "Good men make excellent shields for bad plans. The Church will call you a hero when this is over. They will sing songs about your spoons and your twelve ounces. And they will forget that they sent us here with nothing, because that is what institutions do. They disregard the cost."
"Then remember it," Willie said. "Write it in your ledger, beside the five names. Write that the leadership failed. Write that the Fund was empty and the depots were bare and the supply wagons turned back. Write it all, Brother Mortensen. And when you are finished writing, keep moving forward toward Zion because the only thing that matters now is the next mile. Not the last one. Not the ones we lost. The next one."
Peder looked at him. His eyes were tired now. He turned and walked into the dark, his cane striking the earth in steady beats.
Willie stood alone in the lantern glow. He picked up the lantern and walked to the supply wagon. He rested his hand on the rough wood. He knew the supplies were not enough. But what was he to do?
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