“Mr. Mitchell. He’ll always be my partner when I stand guard, which will be about every two weeks. They offered to not make me help with guard duty, because I’m the preacher, but I am young, and I can handle both. It’s better to let the older men who need to preserve their strength sleep.”
“That makes sense to me. I hate that you have to pull double duty, but I know you’re strong enough to do it.” She looked down at her plate. “I’ll miss having you hold me as I fall asleep tonight.”
“I’ll miss you too. It’s only for four hours, though, and then I’ll be able to join you.”
“What are you going to preach about tomorrow?” she asked.
“I thought about preaching about the different ways God provides for us. He makes sure we get to rivers when necessary, and he has provided meat for us almost every night. Our group is strong, and there’s only been one serious injury so far. We’ve been blessed.”
“We have,” she said with a smile. “I feel like we’ve been blessed by God with both the way he’s delivered us through, but also how wonderful our new friends are. I hate the idea that we won’t see them anymore after we get to Oregon. Do you think we can talk them all into settling in the same area with us once we arrive?”
He laughed. “I really don’t think that’s possible.”
A short while after Jed went to start his guard duty, Hannah saw a teenage girl pass by with a peppermint stick in her cleavage. She went to Amanda’s wagon. Hannah had met her, and knew her name was Edna Blue, but they were always ahead of them in the order of the wagons, so she hadn’t gotten to know her. It did seem odd that she was walking about with that peppermint stick coming up out of the front of her dress, but the girl had been dressed the same every time she’d seen her. Perhaps she thought to start a fashion that way.
She shook her head and got Edna out of her thoughts, going to the river for water to wash their dishes. The music was starting for dancing that evening, but without Jed to dance with her, she chose instead to work on the laundry tonight, so it would have all day tomorrow to dry.
She was the only one at the river while she was scrubbing the clothes, but she thought she could see another couple sneaking by. Squinting her eyes into the darkness, it looked like Mary, but who would Mary be sneaking around the camp with? Mary hadn’t mentioned to Hannah a man she was interested in, and she still said she planned to homestead on her own. It was odd.
Hannah finished the clothes and hung them to dry, thankful that hated part of her week was over. Washing in the dark wasn’t something she ever wanted to do.
She walked back to camp and lay down in the tent that Jed had erected for her before he left, and she wrote in her journal in the tent, and when she was finished, she closed her eyes and let the music wash over her.
The kittens wrestled in the tent beside her, as they always did late at night. They had taken to killing birds during the day and bringing the dead critters to drop them at her feet. More than once she’d stepped on one, and she always gave an unladylike squeal when she did.
When Jed returned to the tent, he found his wife sleeping peacefully and decided not to wake her, though he would have liked to. He lay down beside her, wrapping one arm around her and snuggling her close to him.
Sunday morning was a lazy morning for Hannah, because she had done most of her work for the day the previous evening. She woke before the gunshot, and she turned over to find Jed behind her.
She kissed his neck and woke him without meaning to. His brown eyes stared into her green. “You seem awake,” he said.
She nodded. “I fell asleep early because I missed you. I can get up.”
He shook his head, and flipped her onto her back, kissing her passionately. “Why would I want you to do that?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and held onto him as he gently explored her body. She had no idea what time it was, but she certainly hoped they could do what they needed to do before the other emigrants woke.
They had just finished when the gunshot sounded, and the camp started to stir around them. She giggled, and he kissed the sound away, but when he lifted his head he was grinning as big as she was. “If they could have just waited another minute or two…”
“I’m glad they weren’t a minute or two earlier,” she whispered back. She bounced off the ground and pulled her clothes on. “I’ll start the coffee.” She decided that starting her day with a romp in the covers with Jed was the perfect way to stay happy.
“I may need to take a nap after services while all the other men are hunting.”
“I might nap with you,” she said wiggling her eyebrows at him. “I did the laundry last night, so there’s no need for me to work all day today.” There were still meals to prepare, of course, but the bulk of her work for the day was finished.
“Good!” he said. “I’m never going to refuse a nap with my beautiful wife.”
She frowned and walked out to start the fire. She didn’t like it when he called her beautiful, because it always made her feel like he was talking about another woman. That wasn’t what she wanted from her husband.
He came out just as she was putting the coffee on the fire, and he sat down beside her on the ground. “Did I say something to bother you?”
She shrugged. “I just don’t like it when you call me beautiful. I know I’m not beautiful, and I always feel you must be thinking about another woman when you say those things.”
“You really don’t think you’re beautiful?” he asked, stunned. From the day he’d met her, he’d admired her hair, but the more he’d gotten to know her, the more kindness radiated from every pore of her body.
“I really know I’m not beautiful. So please don’t say that again.”
He frowned. “I say what I see.”
“Please.” She turned away and stirred the campfire, putting a pan on the fire to heat for flapjacks. She was finished talking about her appearance. He was a handsome man, and she always felt as if she’d married a man meant for another.
He sat and watched her for a while, admiring her appearance. He so wished she could see herself through his eyes, and realize what a treasure he’d found when he walked into her home that first night.
Instead of sitting there, he got up and walked, taking the musket with him. He never knew when he might see an animal that would be good in Hannah’s stew pot, so he always went prepared. He enjoyed the variation the different types of meat brought as much as she enjoyed cooking with new things.
He had walked a good mile away from camp when he saw a herd of buffalo out of the corner of one eye. He wasn’t certain if he should run back to camp or run toward them and try to shoot. Deciding he had a better chance of bringing one of the great beasts down if he didn’t go back to camp, he ran toward them, his musket against one shoulder.
When he was close enough, he took careful aim and one of the buffalo fell. It wasn’t quite weak enough, and tried to run again, so one more shot had it laying dead on the ground, while the rest of the herd kept running.
He turned to run back to camp, but his gunfire had brought several of the men, who went with him to fetch his kill. “This will feed the entire camp tonight,” one of the men said.
Another raised his musket to shoot another, but Jed said softly, “Why kill another when we won’t be able to eat all of the meat from this one? Another would just go to waste.”
“He’s right,” Mr. Mitchell said. “We don’t need to be wasteful with the buffalo. One is enough for the whole camp for a couple of days. The women will work on drying it, and we’ll all feast tonight.”
Jed was glad to have another man back him up. He wanted to leave the land as pristine as they’d found it, not littered with rotten buffalo carcasses.
The men quickly went to work on the dead buffalo as soon as the herd was past. They skinned it, cut it up, and carried the meat back to camp. It took hours to get that much meat into small chunks, but they knew the meals they would all get from it would be worth i
t.
Jed carried a choice roast back to camp and presented it to Hannah. For a moment, she looked repulsed, and he remembered her background. Then she took the meat from him and put it in the Dutch Oven she had, and put the pot right into the fire. “Buffalo?” she asked after the meat was settled.
He grinned. His pampered wife was learning to act first and ask questions later. “Yes. I shot it.”
She smiled up at him. “Mary is going to be disappointed. She wanted to be the first in the train to kill a buffalo.”
“Well, she can help dry the leftover meat then. There’s more than enough to feed the entire wagon train with a lot left over.”
“Oh, wonderful! I will help with the drying since I’ve finished my laundry already.” Of course, that would have to wait until after the noon meal, and the church service he would have for them all.
He nodded, pleased that she seemed to be in better spirits than she had been when he’d walked out of camp a short while before. He reached for another cup of coffee and took a drink. He’d noticed a lot of the other emigrants had started to drink water, and while it sounded wonderfully refreshing to him, he didn’t want to risk his health that way.
Sure enough, by noon, one of the women he barely knew was sick that day. “We’ll pray for your wife,” he promised Mr. Henderson before the church services. By the time the services were over, they were digging a deep grave for the woman. Cholera took people quickly, and cholera was exactly what Mrs. Henderson had been diagnosed with.
Dr. Bentley urged them all to begin drinking coffee, even the small children. “We don’t know why it is, but people who drink coffee on the trail don’t get sick and people who don’t often die. Please everyone, drink coffee and not water.”
It was the first death in their wagon train, and all of them were hit hard by the news. It shouldn’t have been unexpected, but somehow it was, and they were all shocked by her death. It had taken almost two weeks for them to lose one of their own, but the others who had died from previous wagon trains weren’t living breathing people to them, and Mrs. Henderson had been.
Her husband and three children walked around camp looking lost without her. The children were all quite young, the oldest being seven years old. When Hannah saw them just after the funeral, she stopped and took Mr. Henderson’s hand consolingly. “If you would like, I’ll make sure your children walk with me every day from now on. There’s no need for you to fret about them while you’re driving your wagon.”
The man nodded, but seemed unable to say anything else. He was obviously devastated by the quick, unexpected death of his wife.
The children were all looking lost and confused. Hannah walked with him so she could introduce herself. “I’m Mrs. Scott. I’ll be walking with you starting tomorrow.”
“Your husband is the preacher,” the tallest one, a boy, said to her.
“He is. What’s your name?”
“I’m David, these are Hattie and Alice. They’re little, and I don’t think they understand.” David swiped at a tear on his cheek, angry that he was showing the emotion. “I’m seven. Hattie is four and Alice is two. They need a mama.”
“They do,” Hannah said softly. “I’m sure their papa will do what’s right for them, though.”
“What’s right for them?” David asked, his face earnest.
“Your papa will know, even if you and I don’t.” Hannah looked at Mr. Henderson. “I have enough meat to make a huge meal tonight. Please come and eat with us, if you can.”
“I don’t want to be around people,” was all Mr. Henderson said. She could see by the look on his face that he was devastated to have lost his wife.
“Then I’ll bring some food to you, and you can eat it or not. I do think your children should eat.”
He nodded, and she turned and walked away, and the further she got away, the more she wanted to run and hide. And she did. She ran from camp and continued downstream for as far as she could run, and then she fell to her knees. Mrs. Henderson had not been someone she really knew, but the entire wagon train was her community. And her heart went out to those precious children who had lost the most important person in their world. She couldn’t stop thinking back to the death of her own father, and the tears wouldn’t stop. Even after she’d pulled her special hanky from her sleeve and used it for the tears, she couldn’t seem to stop her ridiculous reaction.
Jed found her, far from camp, kneeling in the dirt crying, and he simply put his arm around her and held her as she wept. He didn’t necessarily understand her upset, but he didn’t need to. She was bereft at the death of a stranger, and she couldn’t stop crying, and it was his job to be strong for her. For the entire wagon train. She was his wife, and he would see to it that nothing terrible happened to her again.
They went back to camp when she’d calmed herself, and she put on potatoes and carrots to go with the roast. She was determined to make the best meal she possibly could for those precious children and their father.
Jed sat beside her, watching her work. “Do you want to talk about it?”
At his questions, her tears started again. She couldn’t speak because she was so upset, she was beyond words. Seeing those children, shortly after their mother had died so quickly, had been too much.
She wanted desperately to explain to him why she was so unhappy, but she truly didn’t have the words. Later she’d be able to speak, or so she hoped.
As the day wore on, she found herself completely incapable of speaking to anyone. Mary came by, and when she asked her why she was sad, Hannah started crying once again, shaking her head when the words wouldn’t come.
Once supper was cooked, she took a portion for her and her husband, and she handed him the pot and nodded in the direction of the Hendersons’ wagon, hoping he’d know he was supposed to carry it over to the other family.
“I’ll take this to the Hendersons,” he said. “They’ll have food to eat on this most difficult of nights.”
She nodded, and she sat waiting for him to return before she ate. As soon as he was back, he took her hand and prayed over their meal for them, asking God to help Hannah with whatever was making her so terribly sad.
As she ate the meal she’d fixed, she thought about the laundry Mrs. Henderson had done that morning. She’d seen her working on it when the stomach ailment hit her. After supper, she would go over and take down the laundry and fold it for the bereft family.
When she stood to go to them, Jed took her arm, shaking his head. “No. You can’t go there and help them. You can’t even help yourself right now.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t pleased with his answer. She had never been an obedient woman, but it didn’t take her long to know he was completely right at that moment. She couldn’t go there and cry as if she’d been best friends with Mrs. Henderson, because she hadn’t. Not at all. She loved her in a way that all Christians should love others, but her reaction was much worse than it should have been.
She washed the supper dishes, and sat down in front of the fire with her arms wrapped around her legs. Hannah realized she didn’t want to go on. She wanted to sit there in that camp and watch over Mrs. Henderson’s grave. She didn’t know the woman’s first name, but she still felt the need to protect her and be with her.
Her family would move on the following day and not even have a gravestone to visit to remember her. There was no gravestone. There was no cross. She was buried in a patch of dirt right on the Oregon Trail. Tomorrow when the wagons rolled over that spot, the dirt would be pressed down, and it wouldn’t be obvious that anyone had even died.
Hannah knew it was a necessity to do things that way, because the animals couldn’t really smell her that way, and the Indians wouldn’t work that hard to find her scalp, but Mrs. Henderson deserved better than that. Hannah wanted to rant and rave and scream her sorrow for the ignominious burial the other woman had received but not deserved. Her children were well-dressed, and they obviously loved their mother. How could a woman who was
loved so well by their children ever deserve for that to happen?
Jed put up the tent early, and she didn’t even question him wanting her to go in there. What she was feeling would make no sense to others, but it made perfect sense to her. She had lost her father just as unexpectedly, and now she had neither parent to love or care for. She was as lost to the people she’d always known as Mrs. Henderson was.
Why had she married and left Independence, when she knew that’s where she needed to be? She loved Jed, and she hadn’t regretted leaving with him before that moment. And now? All she could think about was if her mother died, she needed to have a decent burial with a headstone. If she wasn’t there, who would see to it?
Long into the night, her tears were still falling, and she fell asleep while still crying hysterically.
Jed lay beside her, but he could sense she didn’t want his words, and even more she didn’t want his touch. Once she was asleep, he pulled the covers over them both and he draped his arm around her. He wished he could find the words she obviously needed to feel better, but he didn’t have them inside him.
He was awake long after her breathing became even, because he wanted to help her, and all he could think to do was pray, and he prayed with all his might that the Hendersons would find peace, but more than that, he prayed that his wife would find a way to get past her sorrow over the death of a stranger.
If anyone had ever needed a miracle, he needed one at that moment.
Ten
April 10th, 1852
Jed’s Journal
I’m not certain what to do at this moment. We had our first cholera death from our wagon train yesterday, and we lost a young mother with three small children. She was someone neither of us knew well by the name of Nellie Henderson. She was sick at noon, and we buried her before three in the afternoon. Her death was quick and saddening.
Also, yesterday, I was the first to get a buffalo from our wagon train. My wife made a beautiful roast with carrots and potatoes, and she had me take it to the family. Before that happened, though, she introduced herself to the husband and all three children. The children will now walk with my wife every day, while I drive our wagon. Her life is going to be more difficult because she has so much compassion for these people.
Hannah's Hanky (Clover Creek Caravan Book 1) Page 11
