“Potter, you will eat your share,” Michael said. “Have you ever seen a buffalo? There’s plenty for everybody.”
What would it be like to have someone to protect? He wouldn’t be any good at it. Hadn’t yet, anyway. Michael shrugged off the question and went to find his shotgun.
14
Caroline swiped her forehead with the edge of her apron. One-half down. Four and one half to go.
Lily Taylor broke the silence, and said what most of the women were thinking. “Well, I have never done anything like this, as I live and breathe.”
Martha flung a thin strip of meat over the drying rack. “I smoked meat before. Don’t know too many people who haven’t. But I never cut up any animal this size. I wish Samuel—” She compressed her lips, bent to another section of the carcass she was working on.
The men of the company had bagged five buffalo. Caleb Taylor, who had hunted in Wisconsin, brought down the first one; and a dazed-looking Henry Prince brought down the last. They waited until the entire herd finished passing by, then dragged the corpses up the bluff, one by one, on what Michael called a travois, a three-sided sledge dragged behind a horse.
During the hunt, the women had cleared a space between wagons and built a fire.
Michael and Pace improvised a rack from some extra wheel axles lashed together with stout rope.
With their sun-bonneted heads bent against the hard prairie sun, the women sliced meat from the humps of the great beasts. Older girls watched every child except for the nursing babies.
Caroline sweated, from the heat and the fire, and her damp hair was matted to her head. But she knew better than to take her hat off. Not even a sapling cast its shade over them, and the flies already swarmed around the bloody carcasses.
Jenny worked a little ways away from the other women. She still didn’t blend in well and they gave her a wide berth, this woman who dressed as a man and had appeared out of nowhere. Jenny didn’t seem to mind, kneeling on the ground without a blanket, slicing the meat with deft decisive strokes.
Sarah Potter had picked her way across the rough ground to join them; then, with one look at the blood-soaked bones, she’d lost what little color she’d had and gone back to her wagon.
Probably just as well. With the size of these beasts, there would be enough for everyone.
Like Jenny, Lyman Smith’s oldest girl worked a little apart from the others. She had turned gray when the first beast was brought up, she’d run behind a rock, and Caroline had heard a retching sound; then she’d washed her face and taken her place with the meat cutters.
On her way back from getting a drink of water, Caroline knelt beside the girl. “Loretta, do you want to help Rose and the other girls with the children? It would be more fun for you, and I’m sure we’ll have enough meat for everyone.”
The girl lifted her pale face, brushed away a strand of sand-colored hair. “No’m, thank ye. Pa says I’m fourteen now, I’m old enough to earn my keep.”
But she already did that with the cooking, the washing, the minding of the younger three. When Lyman Junior had a toothache, she’d been the one who’d stayed up all night with him—and she’d been the one who finally pulled it out and stanched the blood. Lyman Senior only came to his wagon to sleep, and to give orders to his brood.
When Caroline had time to think, the girl’s face haunted her. She tried again. “Would you like to borrow some of my books? It can get dull out here. I have some nice novels.”
“Cain’t read.” Loretta bent to her task, the thin blade gleaming in the unfiltered sunlight.
Of course she couldn’t.
“I could teach you. That was my job, Loretta. I don’t mind.”
Loretta’s head shot up, her face sparking to life. “Pa?”
“He doesn’t have to know. We could do it during–during his nap. You know he naps every day. You just need to make sure your chores get done.”
Loretta bent her head again. “Mebbe,” she said. But Caroline saw a faint smile, in the part of her face not covered by sunbonnet.
Jenny, too, kept herself aloof, except for instructing the women in the finer points of buffalo curing. The girl had more layers than an onion. How did she know these things?
Caroline brushed a fly away from her forehead. The sun beat down on her bare arms, seared through the thin cotton of her housedress. She used an already-soggy cloth to wipe her neck. And they were only on the first carcass. Fresh meat, she reminded herself. And food for the trail.
And time away from Michael Moriarty.
The nursing babies complained, weakly but steadily. Their mothers rigged shelters from shawls and scarves, but even these didn’t protect them. The sun and heat came in from the sides, filtered through the thin fabric. When their mothers nursed them in the shade the babies stopped fussing and the mothers dozed a little, until the smell of curdling blood brought them back to consciousness.
And Ina Prince’s voice cut through the torpor like a buzz saw. “Just how do you know so much about these matters, Miss? Are you part Injun?”
No question about her target. Caroline held her breath.
Jenny’s broad-brimmed hat shaded her face. “I been a couple of places,” she said, barely audible, as her knife sliced through the bloody meat.
“Yeah, and where? Got a lot of secrets, if you ask me.” Ina looked around triumphantly.
Caroline got along well enough with Lily Taylor. Lily was all right by herself. But in a crowd of women, Lily sank to the bottom. Lily stuck to whoever was leading the charge, whatever the charge was.
“Yes, Jenny, where exactly did you come from?” Lily asked sweetly. “You’re awful secretive. Was you a squaw or the like?”
“Did you actually let one of them touch you?” Alice Carver tittered.
Jenny threw down her knife. Her long legs, even longer in denims, carried her out of the work space.
Caroline cleaned her own knife, methodically, on her blood-flecked apron. She placed it on the ground next to the section she’d been working on. “I’ll be right back,” she said to whoever would care.
Martha’s voice followed her. “Now, Lily, Ina, that’s not fair. Whatever the girl was, she’s one of us now, and we all got to pull together to get through this. Let’s get these monsters cut up so’s we can see what they taste like.”
Well, all right. It took defending someone else to bring Martha back to herself. So be it.
She found Jenny under a stand of cottonwoods near the creek where they’d drawn water. It wasn’t much of a stand of trees and it wasn’t much of a creek, but Jenny had snagged what shade there was, the only shade for a mile. Her back straight against the trunk, she stared at the sun dancing on the water.
“Pious old cats,” she burst out as Caroline dropped to the ground beside her. “Iffen they only knew.”
Hypocrisy. It shouldn’t have surprised either of them. But Caroline chose her words with care. Her own reputation was fragile with this crowd. “Jenny, everyone’s hot and tired. They were just picking on you because you were the first thing to hand.”
“Yeah.” The girl looked at Caroline. Her blue eyes were huge, dark with pain and frustration. And she was beautiful, even with her ragged hair and trail clothing. Caroline could see how Jenny would attract men, even married men. Especially married men.
“I ain’t going back,” Jenny said. “You’re all right, you and Miz Harkness, but I don’t give a fig for the rest of ‘em. I’ll starve before I go back there.”
Caroline laughed, a laugh tinged with hysteria. Who would have thought she’d be out on these plains, telling a former saloon girl she didn’t have to go help cut up a buffalo?
She gave Jenny the same answer she’d heard Michael giving the Potters. “Jenny, have you seen the size of those buffalo? You and I and Mr. Moriarty and Mr. Williams—yes, and the two Potters—we’ll be eating off those things for months. You’ve done more than your share.”
“You don’t need me?”
No
t if the others abused her. “I think we can manage. Why don’t you take Rebel for a run? And then see if the men need any help at the cooking pit. We’re all eating together tonight, to celebrate the hunt.”
“Sure. I can do that.” Jenny unfolded her lean length from the ground. She stretched a little before turning those blue eyes on Caroline. “Can’t wait ‘til we get to Oregon.”
Neither could anyone else.
But Jenny lingered, staring off into the distance. To a place that wasn’t here.
Caroline couldn’t really blame her. “Where did you learn the Indian ways?” she asked quietly.
Jenny’s face softened. “On the way out here. I got sick and Rebel took me to a Cheyenne camp. They saw I was good with horses and they wanted me to stay. But I had to get to Michael.”
There was more to it than that, and Caroline waited.
“There was an Indian,” Jenny finally said. “White Bear. His family took care of me. He was…nice. I wonder sometimes if I—if we—ain’t never felt that way about anybody. I took to saloon life at fourteen. You don’t get to know what love is like.”
“Tell me about White Bear.”
Jenny sat again, and folded her hands behind her head. “He’s tall, not quite as tall as Michael, but taller’n me, just by a hair. He’s got them high cheekbones, full lips, beautiful brown eyes, and his voice is deep like molasses. Ain’t never heard anything like his voice.”
“Tell me more.” Perhaps it would get Caroline’s mind off Michael, where it had no business being.
Jenny stared out over the water. “Rebel took me there. Was almost as if he knew. And they cared for me, White Bear, his family. Didn’t want nothin’ in return. They was kind. We talked a lot, me and him, and he–he asked me to stay. Not like that, not yet, but he said iffen I needed a place to live—”
“You could go back,” Caroline said. “You found Michael. You did what you had to do. You could see if there was anything between you.” She wanted it for Jenny, as much as she’d once wanted it for herself.
Jenny shook her short blonde hair.” I ain’t good enough for White Bear. I’m barely good enough for this. Nope, it’s just me and Rebel from now on.” Jenny stood, whistled to Rebel and swung herself onto his back.
Caroline walked back slowly, no more eager than Jenny to face the gauntlet of women who were bored, hot, tired. She’d get it over with. She’d seen worse. But Jenny—her mind reached out to the girl, with a mother’s love. I’ll take care of her, she promised God. Although I don’t know why you gave her to me.
She isn’t yours. She’s Mine.
15
She could get used to this. Caroline took a second bite of the chunk of meat she had accepted from Caleb Taylor. It was crisp and dry, surprisingly tasty. She spooned in some beans, enjoyed a square of cornbread, then a second piece of meat.
The men finished building their cook pit before the women stripped the last buffalo carcass. The smell of the meat, sharp and pungent, filled the air. Chunks of fresh buffalo turned slowly on metal rods. The women had contributed companion dishes, a platter of cornbread from the Taylors, a bowl of beans from Martha. Men and women sat on overturned barrels and packing crates, their faces red in the glow and heat from the fire. Women fanned themselves and men swiped at their foreheads.
Though the sun was down the day’s warmth had barely faded, and the few trees stood sentinel without a breeze.
Michael and Pace sat one to either side of Caroline. It wasn’t so much an interest in her, at least not on Pace’s part; but the three of them constituted a unit of sorts, and this way the men would be seen to be above favoritism. None of the three said very much.
Jenny sat cross-legged on the ground, well to the rear of the group, and scowled everyone else away from her. The flames highlighted the planes of her face.
Was she thinking of White Bear?
Dr. Jenkins and his sister sat with their tin plates at the ready. Though he hadn’t gone on the shoot, he had moved his makeshift chair into a front position, ready to get the first sizzling chunks of meat. He had stayed to protect the ladies, he’d told more than one person. Too bad he couldn’t have protected Jenny from the taunting tongues.
The Smith children sat in a row, like stair steps, with their father glowering at one end. Loretta held Lyman Junior on her lap. Loretta wouldn’t be allowed to talk to the other girls, if at all, until he’d been fed and cleaned up after.
And Ina Prince had dragged a rocking chair from her wagon. She sat enthroned, gesturing to Henry that she’d like a plate of buffalo.
Rose Harkness visited with a group of the older girls. She had put on Caroline’s pink sprigged cotton, which already fit her loosely. There would be dancing later. She had left her hair unbound, crinkled from the constant braiding, and held back with a frayed pink ribbon. Her cheeks were even redder than usual as she stole glances at a knot of older boys. “Young’uns running wild on the trail.” Well, most of them worked as hard as their parents, they deserved a little fun. Would Samuel have danced?
Turning her head, Rose brightened and beckoned to Loretta Smith. Something kindled in Loretta’s dull eyes. The girl looked at her father, looked back at Rose, and gave a tiny shrug. Loretta had a friend—or could have one—if Lyman ever gave her some time off.
A buffalo hunt. Here was another thing to add to Caroline’s memory book. Another thing to tell a child or grandchild one day. Another thing she wished she could share in a letter home.
But it was all too much. The heat, the noise, the sound of a fiddle tuning up. The crowds. The women and their tongues. And when all else failed, Michael. “I’ll go wash my plate,” she said to no one in particular.
She walked out into the soft prairie dusk, the full moon her guide, until she reached the cottonwoods. She scrubbed her plate and tin cup with sand, and then rested her back against a tree trunk.
“Well, looky looky. Didn’t expect to find our Miz O’Leary out here.”
Lyman Smith. Her entire body went on alert, and she scrambled to her feet. “I was just washing my dishes.” The words tumbled out.
Smith laughed softly. “My oldest girl does ‘em. I don’t believe in lazy kids.”
Smith thought the Harknesses spoiled their brood, she’d heard more than once.
She nodded wearily and turned to go. Better a crowded, noisy buffalo celebration than privacy and Lyman Smith.
But he caught her arm, and whirled her to face him. His yellow teeth, bared in a grin, gleamed in the moonlight. “‘C’mon, Miz O’Leary. Caroline. It’s a beautiful night, and you’re a beautiful woman. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I need to get back. Now.”
Smith’s grip was unbreakable. “You been lookin’ at me since St. Joe, and I been lookin’ at you. But lookin’ ain’t enough. My kids need a ma.”
They needed a father first. She summoned up her old schoolteacher voice, though her heart hammered under her gingham bodice. “Mr. Smith, I must insist—”
“Call me Lyman,” he murmured.
She fought him then, struggling against the hand on her wrist and the other at the small of her back, pulling her closer, closer. His clothes were clean enough, thanks probably to Loretta, but his body had a stale odor. His breath smelled like two dinners ago, and his eyes gleamed feral in the moonlight. He brushed her lips with a kiss. “Come on, Caroline. I know why you was out here. Nobody has to know.” He drew her closer and kissed her harder.
She twisted her head, writhing in his grip. She could hear laughter in the camp and see the glow of the fire. So far away…
He tried to wrestle her to the ground.
She resisted. Never again. Especially not with him. She wrenched her head away from his lips and screamed, even though nobody could hear her out on the plains.
“The lady doesn’t want to.”
The only Irish voice on the wagon train. The voice she’d know anywhere.
Michael Moriarty shoved Smith against a cottonwood. “Leave,”
he said, his voice soft but somehow deadly. “Now.”
As Smith jerked himself out of Michael’s grasp, he glared at the bigger man. “Don’t you think we should ask the lady what she wants?”
“Mrs. O’Leary?” Michael’s voice was courtesy, distilled.
She straightened her bodice without looking at either of them. “I was not looking for company, and I do not desire the company of Mr. Smith.”
Michael breathed a sigh, and gave Smith a shove. “Go on with you. Go on back to those children of yours, and be a real man for once. And don’t ever bother Mrs. O’Leary about anything again.”
“You haven’t heard the last of it, Moriarty.”
“Yes. I have.”
Smith went, scrambling over the flat ground like a man possessed, until he neared the camp. Then he began to move more slowly, ambling along as if he’d just been out for a walk. Saving his pride.
Alone, they stared at each other. The moonlight, unimpeded by trees, poured down on them and made a path across the narrow creek.
“Did he hurt you?” Michael’s words were measured.
“Not yet.”
Should she thank him? She’d been saved from “the fate worse than death.” But she’d been saved by Michael.
Michael scuffed the toe of his boot in the hard earth. “Maybe–maybe you should try to stay to camp. Just to be safe. There’s other single men on the train, and they—”
“Why don’t you put me in a glass case?” She shouldn’t have snapped. But she shouldn’t have had a long, hot, blood-spattered day capped by an attack from Lyman Smith.
Michael exhaled. “I’m tryin’ to protect you, Caroline. ‘Tis all.”
Her first name. Had he noticed his slip, a slip that brought back those blissful days in Ohio?
“I don’t need protection.”
Michael’s laugh was a bark. “Caroline, this whole trip is about me protecting you, me, and Pace. And don’t pretend it isn’t.”
Of course. Though she provided a service, she was still under their charity. Michael’s charity, come far too late.
Westward Hope Page 9
