I’ll be able to get through the pass with snowshoes. But if we don’t go, the company will never get the handcarts through, and this cave isn’t big enough to shelter all of us.”
Anna opened weary eyes long enough to plead with her husband. “Please don’t leave me alone,” she whispered. “It hurts, Dalton. The baby’s too big, I can feel it!”
“Take heart, Anna,” Papa said, “this is your first time. Your body knows what to do. I’ll be back in the morning.” Though his voice was strong, Jennilee could see the anguish in his eyes, and the terrified knowledge that he knew his words were likely a lie.
“Papa,” Jennilee said, her voice barely carrying over Anna’s harsh, panting breaths. “I can stay and help Mother Anna, I know what to do.” And, in fact, she did. At fourteen years of age, she’d already attended and assisted three births. That was how it was for the Mormons. The regular doctors and midwives back east wouldn’t dirty themselves to help, so they’d had to care for their own.
“Jennilee!” Ina Abrams, Dalton’s first wife and Jennilee’s actual mother, gasped. “No! What if—”
“Mama,” Jennilee said quickly, cutting her mother off before she could articulate the fear that hovered over all of them. If Anna didn’t deliver the baby soon, she and the child were both likely to die, and Jennilee would be left all alone. His brave words aside, the chances that Papa would actually make it back through the pass were minimal. If she stayed, she was as good as dead.
But if the small company of handcarts didn’t make it through the pass before this storm hit, they were all as good as dead. The carts were smaller than wagons, and required at least one adult to push them along, two if they were heavily laden. Though the mobs who’d chased them out of Missouri and Illinois hadn’t left their family with much, what they did have was on that cart, which was already starting to founder as the falling snow slicked the winding path. If they lost the cart, her entire family would lose all that they had to eat for the rest of the long trek to the promised land. Better that she and Anna died than their whole family suffer and starve to death.
The thought should have chilled her worse than the building wind outside, if not for one thing.
Jennilee had faith.
Deep in her mind, words of scripture reverberated, just as they’d done when Anna had fallen to the ground, unable to walk any farther along the perilous track toward the mountain pass: Greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends.
She didn’t know how, but as surely as she knew her own name, Jennilee knew that her Heavenly Father had a plan for her. And if this was part of it, then so be it.
“Mama,” Jennilee said again. “I can do this. The Spirit guides me. I will stay and help Anna, and Papa will come back for us once the handcarts are safely through the pass. But you’d best get moving, before the rest of the company leaves you all too far behind to catch up with them. The little ones are cold and getting tired. We’ll be fine here.”
Ina Abrams stared at her eldest daughter for a long moment and then slowly nodded before dropping the knapsack she had slung over one shoulder.
“There is food in here,” she said. “And water for two days. Be smart, and stay with Anna. You know what to do, like you told your father. Be sparing with the food, but not the water. You’ll need a clear head.” As ever in times of great stress, Ina took refuge in the practical.
“Thank you, Mama,” Jennilee said, and accepted the hard hug for what it was: the substitute for the emotions her mother couldn’t express any other way.
Dalton Abrams kissed his daughter on her head, then his younger wife one more time before he and Ina left the cave to take up the trek once again.
* * *
—
“Push . . .” Jennilee murmured, the sound of her voice lost under Anna’s frantic panting