The Mission

By Kay McElroy

For recently widowed mission schoolteacher Audrey Donavan, life is far from the dream she held so close to her heart. Her dream of being able to serve God by bringing his Word to the West was one of sacrifice, certainly, but she never envisioned that she would be so tested. Are death and poverty all that God has in store for her?

In September of 1845, Americas frontier is a rough-and-tumble battlefield for the soul, and Audrey is a weary soldier. Traumatic experiences have hardened her heart and wreaked havoc on her, physically and emotionally. She clings to her faith that God has better plans for her, and that sees her through the hardships of life on a frontier mission.

But following a savage attack on her life, Dyami, a Native American guard, is stationed at the mission. In exchange for his keeping the mission secure, Audrey is forced to tutor him. But Dyami has more than guarding and English lessons on his mind

Through their trials together, Audrey realizes that her fear of getting too close to Dyami is far outweighed by her fear of losing him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462005871

Kay McElroy

Originally from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, KAY McELROY now lives in Florida with her husband, Jim; daughter, Tara; and dog, Lucy. Her Christian Native American heritage inspired The Mission. She attends church at First Baptist Fort Walton Beach. She has written two novels, numerous articles, and is in the process of writing a series for children.

Book preview

Chapter One

September 1845

Northwest United States

U.S./British Territory

Tears fell on the calloused, bloodstained hands folded on her lap as Audrey Donavan stared at them in disbelief. How was it possible that these hands belong to her? Not so long ago, they had been the soft, creamy white manicured hands of a lady.

Alone again now and sitting on a tree stump, trying hard not to focus on the task that Charley, Orville, and she had finished only moments earlier, Audrey elected instead to concentrate on her weather-worn, blistered hands and what they might look like in ten years—given that she made it that long.

The unwitting new bride of two years earlier, now twenty-five years of age, felt ancient, like an antiquity—not of beauty, but of a tired old beaten-down has-been piece that was no longer noticed by the world around it. Does life ever get any better this side of heaven? she had inquired of her late husband Jake’s grave on more than one occasion.

Glancing over at the handmade oak cross that marked her husband’s resting place, she thought back to the day two years earlier when she had watched as they lowered her Jake into the ground here in this place behind the mission. The cross marker had been hewn from pieces of the oak chest of drawers they had shared during their few days of marriage. Till death do us part, she had painfully realized, consisted of about three weeks.

Now, looking at the pathetically callous-roughened hands on herlap, one thumb bearing a new blister, she remembered the day of Jake’s death. Her heart, like her hands, was tougher now, too. But just as she had been mistaken in her assumption that there wasn’t a soft enough place left on her hand to blister, Audrey realized that it too, had a soft spot remaining. By now, she should be well capable of dealing with anything life threw at her, but here she sat with enough sorrow falling from her eyes to form a puddle on her lap, were it containable.

The lead wagon that had carried what was left of their belongings (so many items were discarded along the trail to lessen the load and so that the sick could ride in the wagons) suffered a broken wheel from hitting a huge boulder while attempting to cross the Snake River. It turned over in the chest-high water, spilling its contents into the river, including the elderly Charley Rawlings. Jake had managed to save Charley, but got caught up in the swift current and drowned trying to save two of the oxen. The oxen were lost and the river was not crossed, at least not by Audrey and Charley.

Fortunately, Charley’s few belongings were on another wagon. But unfortunately, the only things Audrey recovered were two dresses, much too formal to wear here, some undergarments, a pair of Jake’s trousers, and pieces of the chest that now served as his grave marker.

Jake had been only one of many lost along the trail. Some she was acquainted with, others were strangers. In places, entire families were buried together or just remembered by a marker if their bodies were yet to be found. As they traveled past these markers along the way, she had wondered how many more lives would be taken between this dreadful place and the land of their dreams.

How many more wouldn’t last another day? she had asked herself once while studying the circle of pale faces on the starving people they camped with, knowing that she appeared no better. The camp scene had been in such contrast with the anxiously excited group of adventurers in their company as they had left Kansas not even a month earlier, but what seemed like centuries ago.

Audrey had stopped counting gravesites when the number got too disturbing to dwell on. But how many more are along that trail now? she wondered as she stared at her hands some two years later. How many broken hearts does each grave represent?

Having seen enough of such tragedy, Jake’s death had been the end of the trail for her. Desiring to keep her last memories of Jake near, Audrey had buried him here and couldn’t bring herself to travel on. He, having been a pastor and she, a schoolteacher, dreamed of reaching Oregon and starting a church and school after hearing of the desperate need. They longed for gardens and land and freedom from politics and government. But her dream of Oregon died with Jake.

So she and Charley had settled here, and both had played a prominent role in getting the mission and school started throughout that year. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that the desperate need they had heard about was not limited to Oregon. If she felt nothing else these days—she certainly felt needed.

Now with the other three men away on a hunt, Audrey and Charley had been left to hold down the fort. Things had been fairly quiet around these parts before they left so the men had decided to get an early start on the autumn hunting. With the additional noise and activity on the trail this year, they knew that hunting close by would be out of the question. And they had to allow time to clean, prepare, and smoke or otherwise preserve the kill before winter set in.

After helping her today, Charley had gone back to the mission and Orville, home for supper, so she had a few rare minutes alone to sit on this tree stump and sob for the child they had just buried. She was in no rush to get back after this particular burial, for there was no grieving family to console and feed, no mourners to comfort. She had been his sole caregiver since he lost his parents to the fever several weeks earlier, which he had contracted from them just before they went to be with the Lord. But it wasn’t the fever that killed this child.

Blasted savages, she muttered under her breath, pushing from her mind the expletives that she had been well trained not to use. Her reference was to the Shoquani, an idol-worshipping tribe who coerced their own young boys to starve and thirst in solitude while praying to the gods for a vision in order to become men. They had been trouble in the past and refused to conform to civilized ways.

The evildoers had smoked this poor child to his death as he slept in the mission’s makeshift sick bay. Unlike the adobe mission and school buildings, it was a separate temporary hut consisting mainly of wood scraps, woven roots, and grass, assembled deftly with the help of some local Yashami, in order to keep the boy quarantined from the others during the infectious period of his illness.

Audrey felt strongly that he would have survived the fever. He was getting better every day, and she was even able to get him to eat a bite every now and then. She had spent hours on end nursing him, reading to him, changing the blankets as he soaked them with sweat. A doctor who had traveled from Oregon to help his parents weeks earlier had stated flatly that it was too late—there was nothing he could do. He recommended that they be kept as comfortable as possible until the end. That was it. So Audrey hadn’t even sent word to him about the boy. By the time the doctor traveled back here, even if he was willing to, the boy would either be better or they would have lost him.

Since the onset of epidemic fever some ten years earlier, the small group of troublesome native tribes had been under the impression that the world was a better place without the sick in it. For fear of contagious infections spreading, they rapidly did away with anyone who got sick.

With the mission protecting and treating the boy, it took longer for them to plot his demise. But as soon as they were aware that three of the men from the mission were away hunting and Audrey had stopped her round-the-clock vigil with the boy, often going back and forth to the schoolhouse when Jeremy had shown signs of improvement, they made their move.

She had just helped Charley prepare the noonday meal for school and stepped outside when she saw the smoke coming from the adjacent hut. She lifted her apron and skirts almost to her knees as she took off in a run. It was too late—just as the doctor had been too late for his parents—just as the rescuers had been too late for Jake and so many others—she was now too late for little Jeremy.

Leaning back, she pushed her bonnet back from her face and lifted her eyes toward heaven. Father, is this the way it’s supposed to be? She could find no more words, but she knew that the Holy Spirit would step in for her here.

As she sat staring at the evening sky, her mind’s eye envisioned Jeremy with his Heavenly Father, no longer an orphan, surrounded by singing angels. He had accepted his Savior and was with Him now. Getting to her feet, she thanked God for the comforting vision and started back to her quarters at the mission.

While strolling back, she thought of the unfamiliar brave who had entered the smoky hut after her. Scooping the boy under one arm, he had pulled her out of the door with the other as she coughed furiously from inhaled smoke. Struggling for a breath of precious air, she noticed the native rescuer on the ground over Jeremy’s limp body. He was blowing air into his mouth as if to breathe life into him, the likes of which she had never seen.

About the time he gave up his efforts, Charley and Orville were rushing to the scene. When Audrey looked up again, the brave had vanished, which was not unusual. The natives were known for committing an act and running away. But usually the act was not one of kindness.

As she walked, her thoughts trailed again to Jake and little Jeremy. She almost envied them. Wondering what they were doing at this moment, she sighed and pondered all the work that awaited her. Work—there was always so much to be done. One could not do enough in a day. She dropped from exhaustion each night and, by morning, there were more chores, more needy pupils, more duties added to the unfinished ones of the day before.

At least the harvest and the canning were nearly over, which was good and bad—good because she would be free of those time-consuming duties for a few months—bad because the garden had not produced as well as the previous year and the mission would have a sparse winter on what it had.

She had become accustomed to the hunger pangs, the limited school supplies, the nonstop strenuous labor, and even the one step forward, two steps back effect that tended to go along with these inconveniences, causing many a missionary to lose sight of their purpose. But it was these horrific acts of Satan himself—the barbaric killing of a child—that fueled Audrey’s disillusionment and reopened the nagging temptation to get on the next merchant wagon going east, opposite the numerous, excited, soon-to-be homesteaders who were passing through almost daily now. But like all the other times she had contemplated it, she knew that she wouldn’t do it.

Jake’s adventurous words to his Kansas congregation before they left had flashed back in her mind often during her time here. My mission, he had drawled in his put-on Western accent, is to bring souls to salvation, to keep children in school, and to keep Audrey from killin’ me for draggin’ her out there. She had laughed along with the parishioners who were sad to see them go, but understood why they were going.

She missed them all and longed for female companionship. Oh, what she would give for a woman friend. There was Lizzie, Orville’s daughter, a student of hers who volunteered at the mission, but she was only in her early teen years and it just wasn’t the same. Although the wagon trains coming through now included a few women, most of them continued the challenging trek across the river and on into Oregon or California.

****

At the mission, she plopped down on her bed. It and a small bureau were the only two pieces of furniture in her room. Deciding to permit herself a few minutes of free time that she knew she couldn’t spare, Audrey picked up an old catalog from New York that pictured all the latest dresses from the previous year. Its pages were worn. Not from Audrey, but from her pupils who had passed it from grimy hand to grimy hand when it had arrived two months earlier. She had later been forced to remove the distraction from the classroom. With books so rarely received, any book was a welcomed sight in the classroom, but this—this was a treasure.

Daring to lean back on the thin down mattress beneath her, fearing that she would fall asleep if she stayed there more than thirty seconds, she gazed at the lovely creatures in all their finery, wondering what was going on back East. She had heard from Ernie, who drove one of the supply wagons, that the misinformed, dreamy Eastern aristocrats were sitting around in their hooped skirts, romanticizing the stories from out West, while viewing glorified paintings and telling of adventurous Western heroes and the fair maidens they rescued.

Audrey didn’t mind this so much. She had no desire to be included in a painting or photograph that exemplified Western life as it truly was. How dreadful it would be if such a picture existed of her and indeed ended up back East. Her mother would lose consciousness, of that she was certain. And her father would probably be on the next stagecoach west to retrieve his wayward daughter, which would be suicide at his age with his limited survival skills—thus leaving her mother to return to consciousness, a widow with her only daughter, judging from the photo, too unsightly to return home for the funeral. Yes, Audrey told herself, some things are just better left to their imaginations.

They had thought her utterly mad when she agreed to come here with her new husband. But when she hadn’t come home at his passing, they had their confirmation that she had indeed taken leave of her senses—and stated so in every letter to date.

Audrey tried to comfort them in her return letters and to relate her purpose and duty to the children. But as she wrote about life here, trying to leave out things that would cause them alarm or worry, it became increasingly difficult to fill the page as tragedy was the main topic on many days. Then the growing church and the school came to mind and the pleasant reminder of how far so many of her Yashami students and their parents had come. That didn’t take up a lot of space on the pages of her letters, but it was most gratifying and well worth the effort.

True, her immediate thought as the last shovelful of dirt was tossed on Jake’s grave had been to turn tail and run for the next wagon, horse, mule, or cow that appeared to be heading east, but she forced herself to think it through. Could she give up the dream they had shared? And how could she just leave Jake’s body here in this forsaken place?

As the weeks had turned into months and she became more keenly aware of the need here, it placed a tremendous tug on her heartstrings. There was no doubt it was a calling—one that had a hold on her that she couldn’t ignore.

It hadn’t all been Jake’s doing. She had grown more curious about coming west with each passing year since she was fourteen, when two native people groups had sent representatives to St. Louis seeking missionaries to come to their people. The breaking news of this event had been intriguing to a young Christian girl who had never left Kansas. So while other girls were filling their hope chests with dreams of marriage and comfort, Audrey was filling her heart with hopes of seeing what filled that vast land to the west of her someday.

Suddenly hearing Charley in the kitchen and recalling the twenty pounds of potatoes that weren’t peeling themselves, she dragged herself up to tend the evening chores that awaited.

Putting on a cheerful face for Charley, she took a deep breath and reminded herself triumphantly, There’s talk of the railroad coming through. That should put us in the real world. She snuffed out the lamp.

Chapter Two

Just as Audrey suspected, Charley was already preparing supper. The wood-burning stove had expelled the slight evening chill from the air. Orville and Lizzie are joinin’ us this evenin’. Maybe she’ll be willin’ to help you peel that sack o’ potatoes, he said as she reached for the tin teakettle that should have been retired years ago.

Orville and his thirteen-year-old daughter resided just over a mile from the mission. He had lost his wife and second child as she labored to bring the baby into the world.

Still mourning his loss at the age of fifty, he had packed up his belongings and his little daughter and traveled west five years earlier. He hadn’t gone farther because he desired more solitary surroundings than Oregon had to offer, but was now grateful that the mission had come in near them. He had seen what the loneliness was doing to his young Lizzie. She was now getting a much better education than he had the time—or the ability—to give her.

Orville had helped the mission workers, and others who had since moved on westward, with the adobe and wood constructed buildings for the church, quarters, and school, and had come to gain comfort as a parishioner himself alongside Lizzie.

Acquiring food and the preparation of it were ongoing chores with the growing number of famished and fatigued travelers passing through. And the school fed the children the noonday meal mainly for its nutritional value, but it was also an excellent way of increasing attendance. One thing that Audrey had learned here was that bribery went a long way with the local natives and their children, who made up most of her class.

She had very few white pupils; most families that made it this far traveled farther west. The five or six youngsters that lived within a three-mile distance rarely came to school since they were needed to work the homestead. Farming the land of the fledgling settlements required full-time participation from the entire family and Audrey knew it, but how she longed to have those children in her classroom, if only for a few hours a week.

Audrey had even heard the excuse from one wealthy white farmer who could spare his children on the farm, that he didn’t want his children mixin’ with them injuns. These were among the children she truly wanted to reach, for she knew that they would likely grow up with the same attitude if they were not taught differently.

So her class consisted of two white trail orphans and one native orphan who lived on the mission, Lizzie, and approximately twenty native children of the Yashami.

There were some nearby Shoquani and various other scattered bands in vicinities north, but none as of yet, had entrusted the mission school with their children—free lunch or not.

For the most part, the Yashami were a friendly people, although there was a small group causing division among them now, not willing to give up specific