Westward Hope

by Bailey, Kathleen D. ;

  The powers of darkness had followed her here.

  Martha. She stood on the edge of the crowd, her head bowed and tears running down her newly-thin cheeks.

  “Martha. Surely not you.”

  “I got to.” Martha lifted her ravaged face. “We got five kids, six by spring. Ben’ll do what he can, and we’ve got Sam’l back, but we don’t know what’s ahead. We need to be where there’s people to help. I don’t believe a word of it, but I got to go with the group to California. I’m sorry, Caroline.”

  Ben joined Martha, tapping his way with the walking stick Sam had fashioned for him, his steps cautious but unafraid over the rough ground. His unblinking eyes looked at a point over Caroline’s head. “Iffen I could see, wouldn’t be no question. We’d go with you. I don’t much like mutinies, and I don’t like bullies. Or liars. But I don’t know how much help we’ll need, at least ‘til we get squared away. “‘Til I get the hang of doing things.”

  And maybe, just maybe, someone from the larger group needed the grace notes that were the Harknesses.

  “Go with God,” Caroline said. There was nothing more to say.

  With Jenny standing guard, Pace dispatched Michael with the heads of households, two at a time, to get his money.

  Caroline went into her wagon and sat, trembling. She could not get warm though the day was hot, and her teeth chattered. She wrapped herself in a quilt and waited until the crowd, at last, dispersed.

  Could she bear to lose Martha, the only woman who had managed to see past her shame? Her parents, Daniel’s parents, Daniel, now Martha. The people she had loved most deeply, taken from her by death or circumstances. She could have Michael if she wanted him, but having Michael without Christ was worse than not having him at all. Yet–yet how much the Father had loved her, to put these bright lights in her life for even a short time. Bits and pieces of Heaven on earth. Like a broken mirror, reflecting the Father’s love in shards.

  Jenny poked her head through the canvas opening. “They’re done now.” She looked as drained as Caroline felt.

  “Good.”

  Jenny ducked through the opening and dropped down on the floor across from Caroline, her long denim-clad legs sticking out in front of her. “That weren’t fair. I’m used to it, and it’s true about me. At least it was, but you didn’t deserve none of that.”

  Could she tell her, could she break Jenny’s trust? She had to. Trust based on a lie wasn’t worth anything. “Jenny, Mr. Moriarty—Michael—he was telling the truth. He and I did make a mistake back in Ohio. And we’ve paid for it, over and over.”

  Jenny raised one shoulder. “Thought there was something between you two. When you was sick he stuck to you like a burr. But that don’t make you—”

  “Yes, Jenny, it does. You are I are equal before God.”

  Jenny ducked her head. “Told you I wasn’t religious. Ain’t gonna change.” But as she looked up from under her long lashes, her lips curved in one of her rare smiles. “But if anyone talks to me about that stuff, I’d as soon it be you.”

  Nobody had the energy to walk up to Tess’s for supper, and Caroline’s scrambled eggs got a tepid reception.

  The new wagon train left the next morning. Pace had removed their two wagons and remaining oxen from the larger group, and retrieved Caroline’s books from the Harkness wagon. He and his crew watched the preparations from their breakfast fire, a quarter mile away. Caroline had fried eggs this time, with biscuits, but no one had much of an appetite.

  The wagons broke their circle and formed their ragged line. Two teenage boys walked with the “cow column.” Caleb Taylor, the newly-elected president of the company, patrolled the group on foot. They had no scout, no horses for a scout to ride.

  Pace and Michael glanced at each other, nodded grimly.

  “If they make it to California—” But Pace let the sentence trail off. He wasn’t a man who dealt in maybes or miracles.

  Caroline glimpsed the Harkness wagons, Martha maneuvering her craft into place, another figure she knew to be Sam falling in behind. Like a tired child, she pressed her fist to her mouth.

  “Go to her,” Michael said at her side, his words barely a breath on the morning air.

  “I will. But I have to get something.” She clambered into her wagon, returning with the sack of lemon drops.

  She picked up her skirts and ran, swishing through the long grass, jumping effortlessly over a trickle of brook.

  The sun came out in full, a glowing, red-gold orb.

  Don’t let them leave, she prayed. Not yet. She was panting when she reached Martha’s wagon.

  Martha looked over at her, and a smile spread across her face. “Knew you’d come.” She halted her team.

  “I had to.” Caroline put a hand over her pounding heart, and steadied herself on a wagon wheel with the other. “Martha, I’ll–I’ll miss you. But I know why you’re going to California. I understand.”

  Martha shrugged. “If Ben wasn’t blind, things would be different.”

  “I know.” Caroline’s heart finally slowed, and she studied every detail of her friend’s dear, familiar face. “You need to know this. I couldn’t live without you knowing.” She swallowed, and her stomach lurched. “Martha, what they said was true. There was something between me and Mr. Moriarty, back in Ohio. Before I knew Jesus. It was what brought me to Jesus—and Danny. I can’t bear you not knowing the truth.”

  Martha’s laugh pealed out over the morning-fresh prairie. “Honey, I knew. Knew there was something by how careful you were around each other, and the things you didn’t say. Knew and didn’t care. Don’t care now, either.”

  Caroline loosened her hold on the wagon wheel and handed Martha the paper sack. “Lemon drops for the children, and enough for the Smiths. You’ll write?”

  “Mr. Moriarty said you can get mail at the mission. I’ll write as soon as I have a place. And I’ll pray for you, Caroline.”

  Caroline nodded, knowing they would never meet again in that lifetime. She stepped back as Caleb Taylor’s bellow, “Wagons, ho!” echoed down the column of wagons.

  When she came into their camp, Michael looked up from brushing his horse. The currying brush fell to the ground and he moved toward her, arms half-raised.

  Had he seen something in her face? Perhaps. Did he want to comfort her? Most likely. Did she need his comfort? More than anything. But from where she stood, it was a divide they dared not cross.

  She brushed past him and set to work stamping out the last vestiges of their breakfast fire.

  26

  And then there were four.

  They laid over a day to adjust their plans. At the trading post, Pace sold the second wagon and oxen to an Army man who was taking his family back East. “Tough enough in those mountains with one wagon, and me and Mike can sleep on the ground,” he told Caroline.

  “One of you can leave. I don’t need a wagon master and a scout,” she told them, walking back from a subdued supper with Tess and Jacob. “Mr. Moriarty, you could get to that ranch of yours.” Oh, I don’t want you to leave.

  And he’d said no, just as she’d known he would. “I’ll see this through, thank you very much. The land will still be there when we’re done.”

  That was that. He’d see it through. She ducked her head, in the thanks she knew he didn’t care about. Would they ever meet again?

  Pace, too, shrugged away the offer of release. “Ain’t nothin’ for me to do in St. Joe ‘til spring,” he said. “Might as well winter over here. I can still get back in time to meet more fools who want to do this.”

  And Jenny said, “We’re goin’ the same way. Might as well stick together.”

  Miss Jenkins would not be going on with the splinter company, or with Caroline, Pace, Jenny and Michael. The Army family would take her back, from one post to another, until she landed back in the world of shops and restaurants, carriages and churches. Caroline visited her one last time in her bare little room at the trading post.

&nbs
p; Miss Jenkins—Margaret—sat stiffly on the edge of her cot. But she looked younger and softer now, in her faded gingham housedress, and her eyes lit up when she saw Caroline in the doorway. “Come in, my dear. There’s no place to sit…” She patted the other end of the bed.

  “I’ll miss you,” Caroline said. And for the first time she believed it.

  “And I you, my dear. What they did to you, it wasn’t fair. Or kind.”

  No. It hadn’t been. But even as the oxen from the other wagon train plodded away, Caroline felt the sting beginning to fade. What was done, was done.

  “It’s all right,” she said, and meant it. “What will you do?”

  “Elton left me a little money, and another missionary wants to purchase the Bibles. I’ll have some funds to establish myself back East. I can be a governess, or a lady’s companion.”

  “You could come with us.”

  “It was Elton’s dream, not mine.”

  Always the men’s dream. Well, almost always.

  “You could come back with me,” Miss Jenkins offered. “It’s a hard life out there. You’re young and strong, but…”

  Back East. To physical safety, if nothing else, and to the known. She could get some kind of job, make a friend or two, find a new church. She’d done this. She’d tried it. She’d proven herself. But she couldn’t go back. Going East now? It would be like trying to pour spilled milk back in the bottle.

  There was nothing for her back East.

  There was something in the West, for good or ill.

  And she’d come too far to turn back.

  ~*~

  “Hope that fire’s hot enough.” Jenny strode from the woods, a string of fish in one hand, and a makeshift pole in the other.

  “Should be.” Caroline stood and brushed at the knees of her skirt. “Nice to have wood to cook with again.”

  Perched on a boulder, Jenny began to clean her catch, her knife flashing in a shaft of sunlight falling through two evergreens.

  Michael and Pace followed her out of the forest, each with a fat hare trussed on a stick. Michael pushed his hat back, swiped at his forehead, and grinned at her. “Do you have enough to cook, Mrs. O’Leary?”

  “More than enough.” She looked at Pace, away from those searching blue eyes. “Thank you, gentlemen. We’ll have a real feast, and maybe I can smoke some for later.”

  “Be feastin’ every night,” Jenny said. “These here mountains are full of food.”

  ~*~

  The mornings were cold now, and the occasional hardwood tree like a bouquet of flame. Caroline wore a sweater and a shawl when she ventured outside to start the breakfast campfire. And she slept in her clothes, several layers of them, to keep warm. With the money he got from selling the extra wagon, Pace had bought fur coverlets, and she and Jenny snuggled under them at night.

  Jenny usually rode ahead, cantering Rebel up the stony slopes as though they were nothing. She couldn’t wait to reach their goal, to be somewhere for once. She was quieter than ever, but with a new…serenity? Peace? Was she thinking of White Bear?

  “She feels safe now, away from the gossips,” Michael said one day when he’d dropped back to ride beside Caroline. “There’s no one to sneer at her. And Pace standing up for her, that didn’t hurt any.”

  Caroline had looked at him, amazed by his perception, and then quickly looked away.

  Pace brought up the rear, his sharp eyes scanning the woods for trouble the others might not have spotted. And Michael often rode beside Caroline, chatting idly as the evergreens towered against the blue sky and the occasional hardwood rained down colored leaves.

  They were making camp one night when a half-dozen native men materialized at the edge of the woods. Caroline’s hands stilled as she knelt by the fire. She looked to Pace, who gestured to her to keep going. “They’s Cayuse, they’re usually friendly. But you might want to fix a little bit more for supper.”

  She made a thick porridge with the cornmeal Tess Schwartz had pressed on her and doubled her biscuit recipe. Jenny had shot two wild turkeys and Caroline had already dressed them. She’d hoped to have some left over for a second meal, but she’d make do. Wasn’t that what this trip was about?

  One of the younger braves plopped a freshly-caught salmon in front of her and gestured to the iron spider. Well, that would help.

  Their braids hung down in front of their beaded clothing, hide shirts and pants, sometimes a vest over a flannel Western shirt. They squatted at the campfire and a middle-aged man conversed easily with Pace in whatever dialect they used. Pace listened in that way he had, his hands still, but making mental notes about what could lie ahead.

  Michael was left out of most of the conversation. He sat next to Pace and between forking up pieces of salmon or turkey, he listened for Pace’s translation.

  And Jenny sat in the shadows, as quiet as she usually was with strangers, but with a watchfulness that was new. And that look of pain she couldn’t quite hide. White Bear? No, there was something more.

  There was something more with these native men, too. They finished their meals and grunted something she supposed was thanks. All headed back into the forest, except for the spokesman. He lingered, talking softly with Pace and sending questioning glances toward Michael.

  What had Michael done? And how had it followed him here?

  ~*~

  Michael’s heart began to pound under two shirts and a jacket. He took a third helping of supper, scraping every one of Caroline’s dishes down to the iron. Brought wood for the morning’s fire. Helped Jenny clean some of the guns. Tended to Blaze for the evening.

  And Pace waited for him. “C’mon, keep me company while I do my business.”

  Pace seldom wanted company, and never for that.

  Michael followed him deeper into the woods, until the campfire glowed as small as the tip of a cigar.

  “Cayuse say there’s men lookin’ for you.”

  “‘Tis a possibility.”

  As he buttoned his pants, Pace kept his back to Michael. “They’s two of them and they’re huntin’ a tall Irishman. Who else could it be?”

  “Nobody else, Pace. You know ‘tis me.”

  Pace turned. “You shoulda told me.”

  Michael couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but Pace’s tone was surprisingly gentle. “I didn’t think they’d make it this far. We barely made it this far, and we’ve done this before.” He could fight his own battles—his and other people’s. Always had. And he didn’t want to drag anyone into the mess of what had happened in Ireland.

  But somebody was already there.

  “Pace, ’tis late to tell you, but they want Jenny, too. That’s why she came after me.”

  Pace swore, and then looked back at the campfire winking through the trees. “Jenny?”

  “They came to her, looking for me, and she lied. Bought me some time. But they had to have figured it out by now. That’s why she’s on the run too.”

  Pace was silent for a few minutes. Long enough for an owl to hoot, for a scrap of Caroline’s silvery laugh to drift back to them, for a single snowflake to float from the sky. “We got to push on,” Pace said at last. “Outrun ‘em. Leave Miz O’Leary with the Whitmans—she’s done nothing wrong—and push on to Oregon City. The law will protect us, iffen we get there first.”

  The Provisional Government.

  But there was no law in these mountains.

  Michael swallowed. Leave Caroline? Pace was right, she’d done nothing wrong. But neither had Pace. “Pace. Man, you don’t have to—”

  Pace spat on the frozen ground, and Michael knew that was that. “Got nothin’ better to do. Three guns are better than two. Goin’ to bed.”

  And it was snowing. Not significant, not something that wouldn’t melt by noon tomorrow, but snow nonetheless. Michael tipped his face up to the second flake, and the third. Caroline. Would he ever see her again? Would he live to see her again? He didn’t deserve to. But if he’d heard her right, nobody in th
is life deserved anything, good or bad. It was, well, grace.

  And he had to be the one to tell her.

  ~*~

  She looked up, too quickly, as Michael came back from the woods. He took one of the iron skillets from her and rubbed it with sand. “Let me help you with these, it’s late.”

  They worked compatibly, side-by-side, cleaning up the mess from supper. What would it be like to do this every day, for the rest of their lives? No, she couldn’t think that way.

  Michael stomped out the last of the fire.

  She thanked him and turned to go.

  He caught the sleeve of her sweater. “Wait. Caroline, Pace and myself were talking.”

  She looked up at him, his face obscured by the darkness, but the face she knew so well. Like Ben mending the harness, she didn’t need to see. “Yes?”

  He grabbed her forearms, held on to her as if he never wanted to let go. “There’s men hunting me.”

  “And Jenny. I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I suspected. I’m not surprised. You and Jenny, you had too many secrets. And I didn’t believe the story about leaving the saloon. Not completely. I knew she was tired of, well, doing that, but I knew there was something more.”

  “So.” He cleared his throat, a sound like a cannon in the silent woods. “So we’ll go to Oregon City, where there’s government and laws and–and such. We’ll leave you with the Whitmans, and when all this is settled we’ll come back.”

  “You will not.”

  “Caroline, it’s for your own safety.”

  None of this trip had been “safe.” The cholera, the washout. The disgrace of Summer Pasture following her here. What could two Irish thugs do to her that the Trail hadn’t? “I don’t care. I’m going on with you.”

  ~*~

  He should have known. And wasn’t she the bravest woman ever? Or the most foolish. Could he part from her? He’d have to do it eventually, when she got to wherever in Oregon Country suited her fancy. He’d get her settled and they’d never see each other again. Him, a vagrant thought as she went about whatever she ended up doing; her, a bright thread in his memories as he worked cattle, riding, roping, branding in another wild place. Someone to remember. Someone to become part of a tale, embellished in its telling, around another fireside.