“The Miracle at the Crossing,” Ensign, March 1975, 40–43
The Miracle at the Crossing
1st Place Short Story Contest
It was one o’clock in the morning of a late January 1878. Alice lay rigid in her bed in the wagon box. She was afraid that if she moved, she would wake her husband who slept beside her. The twitching of his body and his heavy breathing, broken every now and then with an incoherent mumbling, told her that again he had worked too hard the day before and his body was still protesting the abuse he gave it.
Alice was tired to exhaustion also. It had been a miserable day. Their caravan of horses, wagons, and extra stock had arrived at the river’s side in the late afternoon after a long, tedious day of driving. The weather had been terrible. It had started to snow before they had broken camp at five that morning, and the storm had increased with each mile they had laboriously covered. The wind-driven snow had laced the horses’ long eyelashes, and when her husband had left his perch on the high spring seat of the wagon to crawl back under the canvas cover, she had seen his beard was stiff with tiny icicles.
When they finally reached the river, everyone was ready to hurry through the essential chores and quickly seek the warmth and comfort of his bed in one of the wagons. As usual, Alice had the last things to tend to: a quick check to see that the fires were safely banked, the dishes all washed and stored, the food packed into the grub box.
When she had finished, she made her nightly rounds to all the wagons to see that everything was well with her children. Her oldest sons were nearly grown men, but Alice still rested better if she knew they were all in their places. She found them all sleeping as peacefully as if they were on beds of down in a palace. At little Bert’s bed she paused just a bit longer. She put out her hand and touched his rough, warm cheek. It was rough even against her work-hardened fingertips; she thought how his bright red cheeks, his cracked lips, and his sore, chapped hands bore mute evidence of his own little battle with the elements. Resentment rose within her. It seemed almost too much that one so small for his age and so frail in body should have to endure the hardships of this journey.
When she had made sure all was well in camp, the tired mother wearily prepared for bed. She was so tired she felt she could not hold her eyes open long enough to get undressed, but here it was, hours later, and she was still wide awake. Her mind, relieved of the pressing cares and interruptions of the day, took up its heavy treadmill on the path of fear—this path of fear which she had trod almost constantly in the six months that had passed since her husband first told her that they had been called by President Brigham Young to colonize in Arizona, and she and her children were to go with him this time and make a permanent home. Arizona didn’t frighten her, nor did the long journey nor the Indians nor the winter weather she knew she must face. The mountain of work that she must do to prepare supplies of bedding and clothes and foodstuffs to last her family of eight for a year looked almost insurmountable, but she attacked that job with a will—work had never frightened her. She did have some moments of sorrow when she thought of leaving her comfortable home and her friends, but she knew she could build a new home and find new friends and could be happy as long as she had her children and her husband with her. The only thing that frightened her was THE RIVER—she always thought of it in capital letters—THE RIVER, THE BIG COLORADO RIVER.
All these months the roar of the great river as it crashed and leaped against its banks in its swift descent to the sea had never been far from the level of her consciousness. And even when her driving responsibilities had occupied her waking hours, the terror of THE RIVER had broken through to haunt her dreams. Many a night she had awakened with the influence of THE RIVER so strong within her that her whole body shook and dripped with perspiration, and she had found it difficult to compose herself to sleep again.
It was her husband who had planted the seed of fear within her. Some time before the call came, he had accompanied some of the brethren on a scouting trip to Arizona. When they had attempted to cross the treacherous stream, their ferry boat had been swamped with water; and the horses, wagons, carriages, and men were swept into the violent waters. Brother Roundy had drowned, and the others had barely escaped. Her husband had described the fearful experience and told how he had sunk to the bottom of the river and could not fight his way to the surface until he bumped into a carriage wheel. He had climbed up the wheel onto the top of the carriage, from which he was rescued as it traveled swiftly through the rapids. He had lived through the experience, but it did not affect him as it did Alice. The terrors he had suffered were nothing compared to those that grew in Alice’s mind as she remembered what he had gone through and then imagined how awful it would be if such a thing were to happen to all of them in the crossing they must make.
Alice was a very quiet woman. If she had troubles and sorrows, no one knew about them, for she kept them to herself. But finally the dread of THE RIVER had grown so large within her, she could no longer cope with it alone. One night when she was especially restless, her tossing and turning had awakened her husband, and timidly she had confided in him. He was amazed. “Why Alice,” he had gently chided her, “I can’t understand you at all. You had the courage to leave your home and family in England when you were but a girl to cross the great Atlantic Ocean in a small vessel, and to walk all the way across the plains pulling a handcart. You crossed many rivers, some of them as wide and dangerous as the Colorado. Why are you afraid of it?”
“Oh, can’t you see?” she replied. “Then it was just my own life in danger. Now there are you and my dear children.”
Her husband had tried to assuage her fears. “Well, don’t you worry any more,” he said, “We will make it, all right. The servant of the Lord has called me. We must not falter.” And with the strong faith that drives out fear, he had considered the matter settled.
But it was not so easy for Alice. Perhaps it was because her mind had run so long in the same path that it had lost the power to choose a new one. She had tried, and there were days when she had pushed this obsession so far down into her subconscious that she thought it was gone. And then some little thing would bring it up, and her battle would begin again.
Then when they had stopped at THE RIVER’S side that afternoon, and she had seen with her own eyes the swollen stream, its waves topped with a frosting of ice, and had heard with her own ears the menacing roar that beat against the rock sides of the riverbed, she knew with certainty that nothing she had imagined could be any worse than the reality of the crossing that she must face so soon. With a cry of despair she had turned and run from THE RIVER and for the rest of the day and evening she had driven herself so hard with work that there had been no time to really think.
Now the camp was quiet. Everyone—even the animals—were resting from their arduous labors. Even the storm had abated. Alice could hear the flapping of a torn bit of canvas as the wind blew it against the wagon, the breathing of her husband, and the muffled roar of THE RIVER, and that was all. But the roar of THE RIVER penetrated her very being and turned her heart to ice and started her mind once more on its weary quest for surcease from the dreadful feeling within her. Suddenly she knew she must find some relief for her tortured mind. Very quietly, so she would not disturb her husband, she turned in her bed and rose to her knees, still keeping the covers over her and tight against her husband so the cold could not creep in. And she began to pray. She had, of course, prayed many times, but never with such great intensity, and with such dire need for direct communication with her Father in heaven. She confessed to him her fears and her weakness in not overcoming them. She asked forgiveness and prayed for strength to meet whatever the morning would bring. Then, after submitting herself to God’s will, she sank back on the bed and lay there looking up at the wagon cover. No voice spoke to her and told her all was well. In her own mind she found no answer to her problem, but over her there came a wonderful feeling of peace. With a sigh of relief she turned on her side and went to sleep.
When she awoke she knew it was late, and though the wind was still, she felt it was much colder than the night before. Her husband was gone from the bed, and outside the wagon she could hear the many sounds that told her that her family and the animals were stirring about. But something was missing. She lay quiet for a moment before she could determine what it was. And then she knew: she could not hear THE RIVER, not even a whisper of the sound of it.
Quickly she dressed and combed her hair, and putting her warmest shawl over her shoulders, she climbed out of the wagon. No one was close at hand, but on the bank of the river she could see her husband and children lined up, gazing across to the opposite bank. She ran to their side as fast as her small feet could carry her short but ample body, and then she too stopped in wonder. The leaping icy waves were gone, and in front of her spread a smooth expanse of ice that reached clear to the other bank!
As soon as Alice’s husband realized what this miracle could mean to them, he began to organize every person in camp so they could take full advantage of the help it offered. First he tied a rope tightly around his waist and gave the end of it to the safekeeping of the two oldest boys. Carefully, step by step, he crossed the river, testing to see where the ice was thickest, and if it could safely carry a person. Then he returned and led a horse over the river. When he was thoroughly satisfied that the ice was strong enough, he moved quickly to make the crossing before the sun should become warm enough to soften their bridge. The cattle were rounded up and started across. In their hurry and jostling one against another, many of them fell and thrashed about so violently it seemed sure they would crack the ice. Quickly the father organized the children into a sandbucket brigade. They gathered every bucket and pan available, filled them with sand from the riverbank, and spread it on the ice so the cattle and horses could gain safe footing. A few of the animals were still so wild with fear that they could not be forced to follow the narrow path of sand. These were thrown to the ground, their feet bound together securely, and dragged protesting across the ice. The wheels of the wagons were locked, and they too were pulled quite easily to the other side.
During all this activity Alice kept pausing in her own duties to check to see that her children were all safe. After the sand was spread she looked around and could not find little Bert. Frantically she began to search for him. In a few minutes she found him on a little rise close to the river, entirely enveloped in the folds of a big red quilt. All that could be seen of him were his bright blue eyes looking out from the shelter of its warmth upon the wintry scene spread before him, with as much wonder and excitement as if it were a circus he was watching. “Why,” she said to herself, “this is not hardship for him. This is high adventure. This is an experience he will remember all his life.” And with that thought, a startling realization came to her: “Why, I am excited and happy, too—excited and happy about crossing THE RIVER!”
In a few hours everything and everybody were safely across. When it was all accomplished, her husband called the family together, and they knelt in prayer to thank the Lord for all their great blessings. To this Alice added her own private prayers that night and every night that followed, for she never lost her feeling of gratitude.
Alice did not return to cross the Colorado River ever again, but many of her family and friends did, and as long as she lived she never heard of that river ever being frozen over again. To the day of her death, the crossing of the ice over the Colorado River by her family was as great a miracle to her as the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites.