“I should not have invited you,” he murmured. “‘Tis no place for a woman.”
“You needn’t try to protect me, Michael.” Her expression was defiant. But she’d passed over the chance to embarrass him. “Running the farm by myself took care of a lot of my squeamishness. And I need to know everything I can about this trip. May I see our wagon, please?” She moved ahead and stumbled over a rock.
He took her arm, and she didn’t shrink away as he guided her over the rough ground. But the touch told him enough: under the new womanly figure she was thin, the brittle thinness of near starvation. He knew what hunger looked like, felt like. “Have you been getting enough to eat?”
“Mrs. Harkness made a lunch for us, for the trail. Ham sandwiches, boiled eggs.” Her voice lingered over the memory. “Cookies and apples. It lasted a couple of days. Then we ate at inns. I helped her with the children, and they paid for my meals.”
“Before that?”
She didn’t answer. She wouldn’t lie.
He silently blessed Martha Harkness for seeing to this need.
Caroline met with the carpenter who did all their work, Jimmy Dulaine. She climbed up into the wagon bed without assistance, and listened as Jimmy described how he made the tongues of oak and soaked the canopies in linseed oil to repel the rain. She asked questions, nodding seriously as Jimmy spoke of axles and oxen, of weight-bearing and endurance. She crawled around the inside, inspecting the shelves and bins Jimmy had crafted, as curious as ever.
Jimmy went back to work, clambering over the top of the wagon to secure the canopy.
Caroline turned to Michael. “It looks safe enough.”
“Jimmy’s the best. I’ve never seen one of his wagons not make the journey. And he makes them a little wider. Six feet rather than four, so you can sleep inside. Barely.” He took her arm again. She stiffened, but let him guide her. “Ben will be a while—Jimmy hasn’t started his wagons. And he couldn’t pry Samuel away even if they were done. Do you want to ride back to the hotel, and have some dinner?” He held his breath.
“Yes.”
Caroline mounted on her own, clicked to the mare, and cantered off. Her small, slim figure sat erect in her saddle, her hat slipping off and hanging down her back. She seemed glad to be riding again. What had life been like for her alone on that farm, without Daniel? Had to be pretty bad to drive her to a trip few women made, and even fewer made alone.
He pulled up beside her.
She slowed the mount to a walk. “When do we leave, Michael?”
“End of the week. Jimmy’s finished a small wagon for Pace and me, but there’s others need them done and other carpenters who aren’t as quick. We need to pick up the rest of our food, too.”
Caroline fitted the hat back on her head. “I’ll help. I’m not used to being idle, and Martha and I were planning on shopping together.”
“I can tell you the best places to go. Pace and I have an account at Denton’s. He’s a bit less of a crook than some of the others. And I’ll give you a list. You’ll need six months’ worth of supplies. Everything.” He grew tired of pretending. “Caroline, why did you answer Pace’s advertisement? What made you decide to come?”
Her heart-shaped face was shaded by her hat brim, and he could not see her eyes.
“I prayed about it, Michael. And the Lord told me it would be all right.”
“So you’re ‘saved.’ I can see Dan’s hand in that.”
“Daniel didn’t ‘save’ me, Michael. He led me to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I accepted His sacrifice. It’s made all the difference in the world.” She smiled up at him.
For a moment he lost sight of everything else. “Well,” he said at last. “That’s good, Caroline. You’ll be remembering I don’t have much to do with religion. The priests and nuns back home took care of that. In my last year in the parish school, I’m guessing my knuckles got rapped twice a day.”
He’d left parish school when he’d gotten big enough to punch the curate in charge. It hadn’t even been for himself. He could pretty much take whatever they threw at him. It was for his little brother, Dickie, standing gloveless in the snow because he’d misspelled a word too many times. Though the day was warm, Michael shivered. Daniel, and his faith, had been different from the curate’s. But no God of Daniel’s could make up for Ireland.
He had never told her, or anyone else, the truth about Ireland. He’d stuck to the funny stories, true and fanciful, and he’d dined out on those stories for years. He’d run to Mexico for a while, and then crisscrossed this country for two years. But he’d never been able to outrun Ireland. Hawthorne had connections, money, and patience. Hawthorne’s reach could span an ocean, and half a continent.
Michael had to get on the trail as soon as possible. He’d go out to the wagon yard and hammer boards himself if it would make this trip come more quickly. He was running again. No, nothing had changed. He glanced over at the delicate features of the woman he’d never expected to see again, the woman who was now under his protection. As if he could protect anyone.
I never lied to you, Caroline. I just didn’t tell you everything.
3
They gathered that night on the hotel porch. Pace held court from a rocking chair as people crowded around to ask questions.
Michael leaned against a pillar, his arms folded and his lips about to quirk into a grin. Caroline had seen that look in Ohio, the look that said he’d heard it all before.
Under her red sunbonnet Baby Hannah looked out, wide-eyed, from Martha’s lap. Though it was already late, no one was in a hurry to leave the soft May evening.
Caroline tried to keep awake. The hotel dinner hadn’t been especially well-cooked, but there was plenty of it and she’d taken a second helping. It was good to be able to eat again. When the buyer came to pay her for the farm, she had been down to her last pound of flour. Her Lord had taken her that far, and He would take her through this.
Michael Moriarty had the look in his blue eyes that said, “You’re exactly who I want to be talking to right now.” Even if one wasn’t. Oh, Michael was a charmer, still.
But there was something under the charm, something she had sensed in their Summer Pasture days, the stories he wasn’t telling. He’d covered for them with chatter. He was regaling the men with a story from the trail, even now. She could only pick out the words “ambush” and “too much blood.”
Several of the older girls, the ones ready to start their own establishments, stole covert glances at Michael. Were they wondering what it would be like to be held by him, to hear endearments in that rich, Irish brogue? She could have told them not to bother. It would end badly. It always did with Michael.
She wasn’t stupid enough to get mixed up with Michael. Just lonely enough.
“I like her bonnet,” she said to Martha.
Martha smoothed the tomato-red cloth. “Thank you. I made it so’s we wouldn’t lose her out there. Hannah’s a wanderer. But anyone can spot a red hat.” She looked at the toddler. “Do you want to sit with Miss Caroline?”
Hannah held out her arms, and Caroline welcomed the warm little bundle into her lap.
Tom Potter and his wife, Sarah, came into the light. A large paisley shawl could not disguise her distended belly or the splay-footed way she walked. She was pretty, with big, dark eyes and long lashes, her glossy brown hair still in a girlish braid. She couldn’t be older than sixteen. Tom looked at Sarah as though she were made of crystal.
Pace jumped up and Tom guided his wife to the vacant rocker beside Caroline.
The girl gave Caroline a shy smile. “‘Evenin’, Miz O’Leary.”
Tom joined the cluster of men as they continued to talk of their plans, to thumb their dog-eared guidebooks and swap ideas.
Pace drew a map in the sawdust on the porch floor, and a group of men huddled over it.
“Good evening to you,” Caroline said a shade too heartily. “How was your trip here?”
“Rough,” Sarah said with a
sigh. “Tommy made me lie down, and I still ache all over.”
“When is your little one due?” Caroline threw a glance at the men, taking too many seconds to stare at Michael in the thick of it all. She turned back to Sarah.
The girl arched her back. “August, we think. I never been regular, so I wasn’t sure when I got caught. But we was married. Tommy never laid a finger on me until we was married. My pa gave his blessing the day I turned fifteen, and we married that same night.”
Caroline’s fixed smile never wavered. Daniel hadn’t lived long enough to give her a baby. She cuddled Hannah closer. God didn’t see fit to give her a child, so she’d just love other people’s children. “Why are you going West?” she asked.
“Tommy’s the second son, and he knowed he’d never get his pa’s place. But he’s been saving all along. His pa paid him wages, and he also hired out, nights and Saturdays. Tommy’s a worker. So we will have our own farm, only it’ll be in Oregon Country.”
This girl would give birth before August. Maybe she was just carrying low. A darkness that had nothing to do with nightfall settled over Caroline. “Mrs. Potter, have you seen a midwife?” she asked.
“‘Course I did. Last time was just before we left for St. Joseph.”
“What did she say?”
Sarah laughed—a girlish peal that belied the seriousness of their topic. “She told us to wait on the trip until after the baby comes. Said I wasn’t carrying right. But Tom said if we waited we’d get a late start, and be stuck in the mountains in winter. Besides, Tom won’t let me lift a finger. I’m as safe here as I’d be at home. Tom will take care of me. He’s twenty, you know,” she added with pride. She stretched again, and frowned. “My back hurts all the time. This must be a big baby.”
Or it was coming sooner than she thought.
On a burst of laughter, Tom Potter broke away from the other men. “Time to get you home, woman.” He stretched out both hands and pulled Sarah up.
She stumbled, held off-balance by her huge belly. Still, her smile was wide and sweet as she turned to Caroline. “Good night, Mrs. O’Leary.”
“Good night, Mrs. Potter. Sleep well.”
But Tommy Potter lingered, one arm around his bride. “Miz O’Leary, me and Moriarty were talkin’, and Mr. Williams, too. Sarah’s not as strong as she could be. If we added our food stores to yourn, could you maybe cook for us, too? I’d pay you. Just until—” Propriety stopped him.
Caroline put a hand on Tom’s arm. “Mr. Potter, I’ll take your flour and sugar but not a dime of your money. With the kind of cooking I’ll be doing out there, beans and stews, it’s easy to fill two more plates. I’ll just double whatever I’m making for Mr. Moriarty and Mr. Williams.”
His grin was her pay. If Sarah Potter wasn’t worried about her baby, freckle-faced Tom Potter was worried enough for both of them.
Ina Prince fingered the cameo at her collar. “I’m hopin’ the trail doesn’t get too rough. We’ve got real glass windows in the wagon‒and a mahogany breakfront. Took four men to load it. Wasn’t space enough for my whole dining room, but I’ll send for it when we get settled.”
Martha’s glance caught Caroline’s, with the barest flicker of amusement. “You think you’ll find someone willing to haul someone else’s furniture, in a wagon, all the way from Bangor, Maine?”
Ina sniffed. “Henry will find someone, if he knows what’s good for him. This wasn’t my idea.”
“Will you have a big house in Oregon Country, Ina?” another woman asked.
“Big as the one I left behind.” Her narrow face was set. Henry, her husband, was already a pace behind the other men in his preparations, he’d had to buy jeans and flannel shirts like the other men wore. Caroline had seen Michael in the mercantile, patiently advising Henry on which tools to purchase. Henry had brought none from Maine, save for a pocket knife.
Lily Taylor, a matron from Wisconsin, frowned as she looked out at knots of young people by the hitching post. “The young’uns run wild on the trail, so I hear. We’ll see more than one seven months’ baby before Christmas.”
Martha’s voice was pleasant but firm. “If that happens, we’ll love them. It won’t be the babies’ fault.” She scanned the crowd. “I hope Sarah gets some rest.”
“That one.” Ina had already formed an opinion of the young wife.
“It’s always the men,” Lily was saying in a philosophical tone. “They get ‘Oregon Fever,’ and it’s all over. You can’t talk to them.”
“Better make the best of it, it don’t seem’s we have much choice,” Martha said. “Ben’s been reading about it for years. He voted for President Polk because Polk wanted to push West. Polk says it’s all gonna be ours someday, and I guess Ben wants his share. ‘Manifest destiny,’ they’re calling it.”
“Hiram told me the same thing,” Lily said with a sigh. “We had everything in Wisconsin, and he up and sold it all.”
“Henry was a banker,” Ina said. “This had better be worth it.”
Caroline’s thoughts strayed to Daniel, gone too soon. If he had lived, she wouldn’t be here stuck on a Missouri porch with a group of strangers—and Michael Moriarty just a few feet away.
“Mrs. O’Leary?” Ina Prince coughed, not so politely. “I asked how you knew Michael Moriarty.”
“He was my husband’s best friend back in Ohio, but he left a long time ago. After Daniel died, I had trouble keeping the farm going. Mr. Williams hired me as their cook. I’m working my way West.”
“Is there work for a decent woman in the West?” Ina’s thin expression held waspishness.
This was one woman to steer clear of. Caroline forced a laugh. “I certainly hope so. I was a teacher before I married, so I can always do that.”
Martha reached around the bulk of her daughter and patted Caroline’s arm. “You’ll be the first teacher in our new community. And you’ll be a good one. I’ve already seen how you are with my children.”
Tears stung Caroline’s eyes. She shouldn’t be surprised at Martha’s kindness; she’d had plenty of it on the way down from Ohio. “I think I’ll go on up to bed.” She handed the now-sleeping Hannah back to her mother. She nodded to the women, nodded to their men, and managed not to run to the door.
She curled up in a ball on her narrow bed, and rocked back and forth soundlessly as the laughter from the porch drifted upstairs. Oh, she shouldn’t have come. Not because of Michael. She would brush him away like a gnat. But this West was too much for her. Wagons, snakebites—Pace Williams had described one with particular relish—and washing in creeks.
And women’s gossiping tongues.
She should have sought a teaching job. Would her discharge from Summer Pasture have tainted her in front of another school board? Well, she should have taken her chances. Or taken her chances cooking somewhere else—a hotel, a boardinghouse. She had been lonely and frightened on the farm in Summer Pasture. She was even lonelier here, and frightened of things she hadn’t yet seen. Her Bible lay on the narrow nightstand. She picked it up, but instead of reading, she held it to her chest, absorbing something that was even more than words.
~*~
He’d been aware of her all evening, listening for her soft voice through the babble—and was that a laugh he heard? He’d always loved her laugh. And didn’t she look beautiful with that little girl in her lap? He strained trying to hear a snatch of a phrase, anything that would be a key to unlock this new Caroline. She chuckled with Martha Harkness. Good, Martha was a kind woman. Caroline’s face closed up at something Ina Prince said, but the sound of her answer was calm and gracious. She’d excused herself and gone inside.
Should he go after her? There was so much they’d never said to each other. The hotel porch seemed emptier with her gone.
He should have stayed in Summer Pasture, been there for her when Dan died. But none of them had known Dan would die, and Ireland was closing in on Michael even there. A question about him at the mercantile in town, a report from n
ew emigrants. A sixth sense he couldn’t name, but that told him his time was running out. So he’d taken to the road, and then the trail. When would they realize Jenny’s Virginia story was a lie? How much time did he have, and what would he do when they caught up?
And what would it take to get Caroline out of his mind? She had no business being there. Dan’s wife. Dan’s widow. He could sneak out of here, invent a last-minute errand, go find out what Jenny knew.
He could lose himself in the sights and sounds and colors of the saloon, and forget Caroline O’Leary for one night. Because there would be nights to come when he couldn’t.
4
Before Kansas Caroline hadn’t known what a sunrise was. Oh, she’d seen her share, but they were pallid imitations, like the wrong side of a piece of fabric.
The dawn began with a graying of the sky, then pink fingers streaking through the gray, then a thin, red line glowing on the wide, wide horizon. Then it was all around her, a blood-red sun climbing the rough pink and gold clouds until it turned golden itself, and the light bathed the prairie, setting the dew on the long grass to diamonds. And the sky. So much sky.
She wished, as she always did, that Daniel could have seen it. But if Dan had lived, neither one of them would be here. Rubbing her eyes, she rose, put on clothes she’d laid out the night before, brushed her hair and pinned it up. She built her campfire and started coffee.
Other women’s quiet voices murmured, skirts rustling as they built and tended their own fires.
Michael and Pace Williams had gulped their cold biscuits, lukewarm oatmeal, and blessedly hot coffee.
Men and sometimes women stood, tightening a yoke, stamping out a fire.
They broke the circle and the wagons lined up for a day of travel.
“You’ll be all right today?” Michael paused by her wagon.
“I’ll be fine, Mr. Moriarty. Thank you.” Caroline avoided looking at him as she re-tied her sunbonnet.
They had been on the trail for two weeks, and she hadn’t asked him for help once. Ben had taught her how to yoke and drive the oxen, and Martha, who had spent a year talking to emigrants, coached her on some of the finer points of trail cooking and cleaning up. She had limited her contact with Michael to their shared meals, and delivering clean clothes to him when they’d stopped long enough to do laundry. She would owe him as little as possible.
Westward Hope Page 2
