Toes and Tears

This is a story I am entering into the Mormon Channel's short-story contest for Pioneer day. It has to be a fiction about the early saints and less than 800 words (so short!). I'd appreciate feedback before submitting it. Thanks for reading!



Toes and Tears

“Oh God, please let me keep my toes.” This was the silent prayer I uttered as I removed my stockings in the early gray morning light. The night had been cold- impossibly cold, and though Thomas and I did our best to keep warm, my naked toes that morning were a deep purple.

A month ago, I would have cursed the ice on my lips, the ache in every bone, because this was not my trek, and not my religion. But that was a month ago and things had changed.

If it had not been for the promise I made Mama to take Thomas West with the Saints after she was gone, I would have turned my petticoat around and headed right back to Nauvoo. I was barely seventeen, and after Papa died of the fever, it was Mama who believed the Prophet Joseph Smith and read their strange bible, not me. But we had to burry Mama next to Papa, the Saints were leaving, and there was only one group left. Thomas was only twelve and needed looking after though he was a bother more of the time than not.

“Marianne, my toes are as blue as rocks,” he called to me, holding his ever-growing foot in his hands.

“Mine are too.” I tied the boots and stood. “Grab some cornbread and let’s get going. You know Brother Jacobs likes to get an early start.” Brother Jacobs’ oldest son, Tanner, was watching me with brown eyes across camp, but he quickly acted like he was sharpening his knife instead.

“Tanner fancies you, you know.” Thomas nudged me playfully, making me spill crumbs on my dusty blouse. Blushing, I gathered my tattered skirts and spun around so neither Thomas nor Tanner would see.

Tanner Jacobs was the one who helped cause the change in me. The first weeks on the trail had been hard: our feet and hands swelled red blisters, our legs tingled with exhaustion as we pushed them further each day to avoid the winter approaching faster than an eight-hitch wagon, but none of the others complained. I could not understand why. One morning, I caught a reflection of myself in Sister Myer’s hand mirror: the creamy white skin of my nose and cheeks was spotted with blotchy freckles and I just broke down right there and cried.

“Your name is Marianne, correct?” Those were the first words Tanner Jacobs spoke to me later that night around the campfire when most of the others had gone to bed and my tears and finally dried up like the dry creek bed we had hoped to find water in.
Thomas was sleeping with his head on my lap so I nodded my head so as not to wake him, but Tanner Jacobs did not stop there.

“My mother tells me you are not a member of our faith?” His eyes were gentle, but I was terrified.

“She is correct,” I confirmed in a low voice, unable to look anywhere other than my brother’s mud-crusted head that I picked at.

“This journey must be even more difficult for you,” he stated, rubbing the rim of his black hat.

“I do not know why you all do this,” I admitted. Thomas was a believer and he tried to explain it to me, but as the company prayed, blessed their sick, buried their dead, and preached their doctrine, I still didn’t understand why people would sacrifice so much, a part of me wanted to, but Mama’s death seemed to have scooped out a big hole in my heart.

“Have you ever read this?” Tanner asked, pulling a Book of Mormon from his coat.

Again, I shook my head.

“Well, I would like to give this to you then,” he stated and set the small book into my hands. “Perhaps it will provide you more meaning.”

That night and every frigid, star-filled night since, I read the book. That is when the change started: the throbbing in my legs seemed to lessen, my understanding of Mama’s death became clearer, and the hole in my heart filled with the purest joy I had ever felt. I came to know, as the other Saints did, that this was the gospel of Jesus Christ restored in its fullness at last upon the earth. The Savior knew us and loved us as a Church and individually. He would not let truth fail upon these frost-ridden plains. That was why I journeyed with the Saints toward Zion now, because even if I lost my toes, I would never lose my faith.