A Journey of the Heart Collection

by Colleen Coble

  The mountains loomed in the distance, their purple peaks blending into the deep azure sky. Game flourished everywhere, and Isaac and his men had no trouble providing fresh meat to supplement the mess-chest fare. The rest of the section he ordered to keep close together as they all kept a sharp lookout for Indians.

  E. B. Taylor had attempted to negotiate a constructive peace treaty in May 1866, but Red Cloud had angrily stomped out when Colonel Carrington showed up to establish three new forts in the last of the Sioux hunting grounds. Red Cloud objected that the army would be setting up forts without waiting for the agreement from the Indians to allow troops to patrol the Bozeman Trail.

  These past months had been tense, with numerous skirmishes between soldiers and Indians. Red Cloud was said to be massing together not just Sioux but Cheyenne and Arapaho to fight the invasion of bluecoats. Along this very trail just a month earlier, three soldiers had been killed and several others wounded during an ambush. So Isaac preached constant vigilance and caution.

  The nights were cool and clear. Once he pointed out a pack of timber wolves on a bluff overlooking the camp. He assured the women they were safe from attack, but Emmie had spent the rest of the evening with her haunted gaze on the hills. The journey was taking its toll on both women, and he saw how Rand watched his wife with a growing worry. They’d been on the trail for eight days, and safety was still another two days away.

  Isaac came back from a hunting trip to find Emmie waiting for him. “Isaac, have you noticed how poorly Sarah looks?”

  He nodded, his brow crinkling with worry. “There’s a post surgeon at Fort Phil Kearny who can take a look at her. It’s only another three days or so away. I’ve been thinking we might camp here an extra day. The horses could do with the rest too.”

  Emmie’s brow furrowed. “I think that’s too long. She needs a break now. Could we stop for an extra night?”

  He paused and looked out over the landscape. “We’re in a good location to see any approaching attack. I can talk to Rand about it. Every day we’re out here the danger escalates though.”

  “I know we all want to get to the safety of the fort, but I don’t want Sarah to lose the baby.”

  He let his gaze linger on her. She was pale too, and some tendrils of dark hair had come loose from the pins. His fingers itched to touch one of the silky curls hanging in her face. Her concern for Sarah touched him too.

  Emmie didn’t seem to notice his rapt gaze. “She keeps pushing herself so. Today is the first time she’s agreed to take a nap. And with the river right here, maybe we could clean up too.”

  Isaac nodded slowly. “I’ll post extra sentries and string up some blankets for privacy. I could use a bath and a shave myself.” He rubbed his grizzled cheeks with a rueful grin and watched her almost skip away to tell Sarah.

  Emmie was beginning to despise that ambulance. She lifted her skirt off the ground and climbed into the canvas wagon. Sarah was braiding her long red-gold hair when Emmie shut the flap behind her.

  Sarah looked a little brighter. “I’ve been asleep for over two hours.”

  “You needed it. And I have exciting news.” Emmie sat next to Sarah. “We’re going to stop beside the creek for an extra day to rest up and bathe.”

  Sarah brightened immediately, a little pink rushing to her pale cheeks. “Oh, lovely. I was just feeling sorry for myself before you came. Missing Wabash and my father.” She stood up as she thrust the last pin into place. “I’m so glad you’re here, Emmie. I could not have endured this trip alone.”

  Emmie laughed self-consciously. “I’m just grateful I had somewhere to go when Monroe was killed.” As she hugged her friend, she tried to push away the guilt she felt over not being completely honest. Someday the truth would have to be told, but not now.

  The afternoon sun still blazed by the time they wandered down to the stream to find Rand, but the air was brisk. True to his word, Isaac had rigged up a rope with blankets around a lovely pool of water. It looked clear and inviting, and Emmie couldn’t wait to strip off her clothes and plunge in.

  “I’ll go get us some clean clothes,” she told Sarah.

  By the time she got back, Sarah had pulled off her shoes and stockings. She sat with her skirt pulled up to her knees and her feet dangling in the water. Emmie looked all around, but the soldiers were busy about their other duties setting up camp.

  Joel was by the privacy screen. “I’ll stand guard.” His youthful voice held resolve.

  “The very guard I’d choose.” Reassured of their privacy, she slipped behind the curtain and pulled off her stained and dusty dress and the pins from her hair. She plunged in and came up sputtering. “It’s like ice,” she gasped. The cold seeped into her bones.

  Sarah wasted no time in joining her. Birds chirped in the trees around them and the breeze lapped the water into gentle waves and ripples as they quickly washed their hair. The water was too cold to stay in long, and the cool breeze chilled their damp skin.

  After they dressed, they left their hair down to dry as they washed their dirty clothes. Sarah looked better already. Emmie spread their wet clothes out on the rocks and sat at the edge of the stream. She sighed, a sound of pure enjoyment as she felt the heat from the rock she was sitting on radiate warmth through her chilled body.

  Almost dozing, she stretched out in the sun like a cat until a faint movement on the other side of the stream about fifty yards away caught her eye. “Oh, Sarah, look! Is that a buffalo?”

  Sarah squinted against the glare of the sun as the movement came again. “Indians!” she screamed as she jumped to her feet.

  Aware they’d been seen, the dim shapes rose to their feet and threw off their buffalo robes. Charging across the shallow creek with fierce yells, they headed straight toward the women with their tomahawks raised over their heads.

  “Injuns!” Joel whipped away the privacy screen. He dropped to one knee and aimed his rifle at the Sioux. “Run to the ambulance!”

  A shot rang out from his gun, and Emmie saw the closest warrior fall facedown into the water.

  She grabbed Sarah’s hand and dragged her toward the ambulance as she screamed for Rand. Sarah shouted for Joel to run with him, and she grabbed his arm as they reached him.

  He shook off her grip. “Leave me be, Sarah. I’m not a kid.” He took aim again.

  Before Sarah could insist he leave with them, Isaac and Rand, followed by four or five other soldiers, charged toward the Indians.

  Rand aimed his gun. “Run! I’ll take care of Joel.”

  Emmie nodded and propelled Sarah toward the circled wagons. Only after several steps did she realize Isaac was on Sarah’s other side, helping her hurry. Shots rang out, and Emmie dared a glance back. The fierce expressions the Sioux wore made her put on a bigger spurt of speed.

  Isaac dropped to one knee and aimed his rifle toward the advancing Indians. “Get under the wagon.”

  A fearsomely painted warrior choked and fell seconds after the rifle cracked. Soldiers raced from all over the camp to join the fray. Emmie covered her ears at the booming gunfire and the terrifying screams and shouts. She was sure she and Sarah were about to die.

  Rooster rolled in under the wagon beside the women. “Don’t you fear, missy,” he panted to Emmie. “No Injun’s gonna git ya. I’ll shoot ya first myself ’fore I let them red devils take ya.”

  Shoot them himself? Emmie swallowed hard. Was being captured by Indians that bad?

  Unaware of the shock his words caused Emmie, Rooster fired his rifle methodically at the faltering horde of Sioux. A few minutes later it was over. One man was dead and three were injured, including Rand, who had taken an arrow in the left arm.

/>   Joel strutted around the camp with his chest puffed out. “Wait until Jimmy hears I shot three of them.”

  “You were a good guard,” Emmie told him as she watched Sarah fuss over Rand.

  “It’s just a scratch,” Rand said. “I’m all right, Green Eyes.” He held her with his good arm as she burst into tears, then he saw Emmie’s face and held out his bleeding arm for her to join them.

  She buried her face against the other side of his shirt for just a moment. Once she gathered her composure, she pulled away.

  Isaac’s vivid blue eyes met Emmie’s, and she had to check the impulse to run to him. Turning away from his anxious gaze, she pulled out of Rand’s protective clasp so Sarah could tend to his wound. Emmie hurried toward the tent before she disgraced herself by begging Isaac to hold her. What was wrong with her anyway that she would have such a crazy thought? Men couldn’t be trusted. She’d best not let herself forget that.

  Three hours later Emmie was still too keyed up to sleep. She could hear Rand’s rhythmic breathing on the other side of the tent. Sarah snuffled occasionally in her sleep as she lay enfolded in his good arm with Joel on the other side. She’d wanted to make sure both the males in her life were within arm’s reach.

  Emmie shivered as she rolled over on her back and sat up. Maybe she’d just go out and sit by the fire for a while. The cold wouldn’t leave her bones.

  Rooster looked up as she lifted the flap on the tent and slipped outside. “Howdy, Miz Emmie. Can’t sleep?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life, Rooster.” She settled down beside him as he rummaged through his haversack and handed her a piece of jerky.

  “Here. Jaw on this awhile. It’ll wear you out.”

  She smiled as she took the jerky. “Did you mean what you said about shooting us yourself?”

  “’Course I meant it. It’s the unwritten law out here. We don’t never want to let our wimmenfolk fall into the hands of them red devils. We know what they do to ’em. We been told to save a bullet for any female and one for ourselves.”

  Emmie shuddered. “What do they do to women?”

  “No use in you knowin’, ’cause it ain’t goin’ to happen to you.” He avoided her eyes as he poked the fire with a stick.

  “But what if it did?” She always preferred to know the worst. The things she imagined were always worse than the reality, so it was better to just know and set her mind at rest. Being killed by Indians couldn’t be any worse in reality than it was in her imagination.

  But Rooster just clamped his jaw tight. “Don’t go coaxin’ me to tell you ’cause I ain’t gonna do it. Old Rooster ain’t never goin’ to let them git you, so don’t you bother yer purty head about it.”

  And that’s all he would say, so Emmie had to be content with the horrors of her imagination. She could tell he meant what he said about shooting her first. And that scared her. What if one of the soldiers shot them because they thought they’d be captured and help arrived just in the nick of time? She shivered. Maybe she should ask Rand to change the rule. She yawned, finally sleepy, and mumbling good night to Rooster, made her way back to her tent.

  Isaac stood in the stirrups to stretch his muscles as the sunrise cast golden rays across their path. He had awakened the wagon train early and was even more eager to reach the safe haven of the fort after the ambush two days before.

  The women had rolled up the sides of the ambulance so they could watch the approach to Fort Phil Kearny.

  Isaac pointed out the majestic peaks in the distance. “That’s the Bighorn Mountains. Beautiful, aren’t they? This Powder River country is the last of the Sioux hunting grounds. It’s usually thick with buffalo, but they’re beginning to thin out from the white man hunting them. The Indians are afraid that if they let us establish the Bozeman Trail along here, we’ll drive away the last of the game. And they’re right, as usual. It’s already starting to happen.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Emmie said. “With no game, they’ll go somewhere else.”

  Sarah frowned. “I lived with the Sioux for a short while. It was a curiously peaceful life where we worked for our food and really lacked nothing important. Their ways aren’t any different to us than our ways are to the Europeans. The Indian women do beautiful needlework. Sometime I’ll show you my buckskin dress and take you to see inside a Sioux tepee. My friend White Dove taught me a lot about what’s really important in life. Things like love and unity and self-sufficiency. You would like her.”

  “Where is she now?” Emmie asked.

  When Sarah glanced at him, Isaac realized she didn’t know. Maybe Rand had tried not to worry her. “She’s with Little Wolverine in Red Cloud’s resistance, as far as I know. Rand and I tried to talk them out of going, but they said they had to stand with their people before the Sioux are no more.”

  Emmie shivered and tugged the blanket more tightly around her legs. “How can Rand fight the Indians when he has friends among them? What if Little Wolverine was with the band who attacked us?”

  Isaac glanced at the hills around them. Danger could be anywhere, and he’d expected an attack on the route. “It would be Rand’s worst nightmare to have to fight his friend. I don’t know if he could or not.”

  If only his own brothers had Rand’s integrity.

  SEVEN

  Phil Kearny ahead!” Rand called.

  Sarah and Emmie both thrust their heads out under the rolled-up canvas on the sides of the wagon and looked eagerly for their destination. Emmie could see sentries on a hill ahead waving signal flags.

  “They’re signaling our arrival to the fort,” Sarah told her. “The commander will send out an escort.”

  Rand had ordered the women to stay in the ambulance away from the possible eyes of hostiles, but Emmie longed to climb out of the lurching conveyance and run on ahead to the fort. The thought of sleeping in a real bed was enticing. As she and Sarah looked toward the fort, a wagon loaded with wood lumbered by. On the back of the wagon a bloodstained figure lolled, one arm flung down the back of the wagon. Emmie thought he looked like he had red hair like Isaac until Sarah gasped.

  “That soldier’s been scalped,” Sarah choked out, her hand to her mouth.

  Emmie shuddered and looked around fearfully for the Indians who had committed the atrocity. But the wooded hills around the fort looked peaceful. The ambulance jerked forward as the driver urged the horses to a trot. Rand had seen the dead soldier and motioned the troops to hurry toward the safety of the fort.

  As they pulled inside the stockaded garrison, soldiers milled around shouting orders. “Do you see Amelia?” Sarah asked anxiously.

  Emmie looked around but saw no other women. She consulted the gold watch pinned to her dress. “It’s around lunchtime. Maybe we could find her in the mess hall.”

  They climbed down out of the ambulance and Emmie staggered, a little unsteady on her feet, as though the ground were lurching under her. “It looks more like I thought Laramie would look. There are stockades and sentries along the blockhouses.”

  Sarah nodded. “If that murdered soldier is anything to go by, they need all the protection they can get. There’s no telegraph line strung this far north, so if they’ve been having a lot of trouble with hostiles, they wouldn’t be able to wire for reinforcements.” Joel was dancing around impatiently, so she gave him permission to go look for his friend.

  Rand stepped up and put an arm around Sarah. “I’ll see if I can find Jacob and Amelia. You look done in. While you’re resting at Amelia’s, I’ll see the quartermaster and get our housing assignment.”

  Emmie turned as a male voice shouted, “Rand!” She hadn’t seen Rand’s brother Jac
ob in a while, but she instantly recognized his stocky frame and brown hair.

  “Rand!” Jacob ran toward them and seconds later the brothers were hugging and slapping one another on the back. “I can’t believe you’re here. And Sarah too. Amelia will be ecstatic. She’s been driving me crazy with missing Sarah.” He pulled her into a bear hug, then his face sobered when he saw Emmie. Rand gave him one last clap on the back and hurried off to find the quartermaster.

  Emmie knew Jacob had never liked Ben. She hadn’t had much occasion to talk to Jacob herself, so she assumed his reserve was because of her brother. He would just have to find out she wasn’t like her brother. She held out her hand. “Hello, Jacob.”

  He smiled then and took her hand. “Emmie. What are you doing here? Did your husband join the army? Ma wrote when you got married.”

  Sarah rushed in as Emmie bit her lip. “Emmie’s a widow and she’s here to keep me company. But there’s plenty of time for explanations later. I’m dying to see Amelia. Where is she?”

  “I’ll show you to our quarters. She’s been feeling poorly, and I told her to rest this afternoon.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Sarah sounded alarmed. She and Emmie hurried to keep up with Jacob’s long strides as he led them across the uncompleted parade ground toward a row of wooden houses.

  He grinned. “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “You don’t mean—”

  “Yeah. Can you believe I’m going to be a papa? Rand and I are going to make each other uncles within a few weeks of one another.”

  Sarah clapped her hands. “Wait until Rand hears!”

  “Here we are.” He stopped beside a small wooden house.

  Emmie looked around curiously. The home was tiny, and sap ran from the cuts and nicks in the logs. She touched a sticky lump and raised it to her nose. It smelled like pine. She’d noticed coming toward the fort that this area had a lot more trees than down around Laramie.