by Merry Farmer
“I still can’t believe Estelle tried to pass herself off as one of us,” Ruth Nelson chattered to someone as she walked past Lucy’s wagon. “That woman has some nerve. My Clarence is going to take care of things, though.”
Lucy tensed, all of her warm, happy thoughts at being with Gideon vanishing. He went taut behind her, his arm pulling her closer in a protective embrace, proving he was awake after all.
“It’s disgraceful what young people think they can get away with these days,” Viola Riley echoed Ruth’s thoughts as their voices faded down the line of wagons. “In my day, young women knew their places, and they kept to them. Estelle is bad enough, but have you seen the way that that Lucy Haskell has been shamelessly carrying on with….”
They moved out of earshot, but Lucy didn’t need to hear another word to know what they were saying. She had never been very good at keeping her thoughts and emotions to herself, and she was certain she fairly glowed when Gideon was around. With a light that wasn’t exactly pure white.
“If their gossip bothers you, I’ll have a word with Clarence Nelson,” Gideon spoke softly behind her.
Lucy considered for half a second before shifting to her back. Gideon matched her movement, and balanced himself half above, half beside her, gazing down into her face. She met him with a smile, cradling his cheek. It was morning, and he needed to shave. She liked that he could be disheveled and out of sorts with her. It gave her the feeling that he was all hers, through and through.
“No,” she sighed, shrugged. “I don’t really care what they think about me. People have never truly approved of me anyhow. I’m used to it. What bothers me more is that they’re so cruel to Estelle when she doesn’t deserve it.”
“Estelle is a fine woman,” Gideon agreed. “But not so fine as you.”
He punctuated his comment by dipping down to kiss her, long and lingering. Lucy drew in a breath, half hoping he would reach a hand down to pull up her skirt and let his fingers play in the most scandalous way possible. But no, it was too late. The sounds of the wagon train coming to life were already buzzing around them.
Still, it dawned on her that if all else failed, there was one profession out West that she was clearly suited for.
“No, that’s a terrible idea,” she answered her thought aloud with a wary laugh.
“What is?” Gideon asked. Instead of lowering his hand to places she’d been imagining, he raised it to brush her hair back, raking his fingers through the loose, auburn mass around her.
“That if worse comes to worst and my reputation is ruined, I could always become an entertainer in a saloon.”
Gideon’s expression froze, then dropped into a mask of concern. “Laying with me does not make you a whore, Lucy.”
“In Wyoming, they prefer the word ‘entertainer,’” she replied, hoping he would see it as teasing, hoping she was teasing and not passing judgment on herself.
His frown didn’t budge. In fact, it grew deeper. “Sexual communion is a natural part of human existence and essential to life. Just because you enjoy it doesn’t mean you should be penalized for it.”
She snorted to a giggle, pressing a hand to her lips, then repeating, “Penalized.”
Gideon tried to hold onto his scolding demeanor, but failed. He broke into a chuckle, then lowered himself to kiss her in order to stop. “You are incorrigible,” he said, once they had both stopped shaking with mirth.
“I have been told that before. I rather like it.” She grinned and stroked his stubbly cheek again.
“You’re not a whore,” he repeated.
“They why won’t you marry me?” she snapped in reply before she could stop herself.
Instantly, she felt the sting of embarrassment for, once again, speaking without thinking. She would have slapped a hand to her mouth if the wagon bed hadn’t been too cramped for the movement.
Gideon lifted several more inches above her. “Who said I wouldn’t marry you?”
A warm tremor, like being dowsed in sunlight, filled her. “Is that question the kind of question I think it is?” To be proposed to like this—first thing in the morning in the bed of a Conestoga wagon while on her back—would be a story she most certainly would not tell her mother.
Gideon’s face grew serious once more. “No. It’s not. I can do much better.”
“Oh.” She would have to think about whether she was disappointed or excited for the possibility of a grand proposal. She wasn’t through playing with him yet. “What if I end up with child? It could happen, you know.”
He nodded, the scientific light back in his eyes. “It could. Nature designed the mating process to be pleasurable for a reason—so that we will rush to procreate.”
Her grin grew to uncontainable levels. “I like it when you use big words with me.” She moved her hand from his face to his arm, then around to stroke his side, heading lower.
As if he’d been stung, Gideon sat straight. “It’s too late to start that,” he scolded, eyes flashing. “The rest of the wagon train is already up.”
The Aunt Virginia part of her wanted to make a joke about him being up too, but he had a point.
She pushed herself to a sitting position and shuffled to locate her wash things and a change of clothes for the day. “Are you going to try to sneak out of my wagon without anyone seeing you?” she asked, gaze dropping to his trousers for a moment.
Gideon glanced down as well and, seeing a bulge, sighed. “In a minute. Though I doubt anyone will bat an eyelash at this point.”
“Why?” The question was a genuine one. Wasn’t the whole world ready to jump on women who were not the picture of what they were supposed to be? Heaven knew she’d been taken to task for being too chatty and forward a hundred times before.
Gideon sank to sit against the side of her wagon, brushing his hair with his fingers. “Estelle’s revelation has everyone looking the other direction. I just wish there was some way to help her and Graham make people see sense.”
“People rarely see sense until it pokes them in the eye,” she replied, tugging off her blouse so that she could wash under her arms with the sponge she’d just wet in the nearly empty pail of water at the back of the wagon. “The only thing we can do is stand up for Estelle, make a show of being her friends, and not mind what anyone else thinks of us.”
There was a long, heavy pause before Gideon said, “You’re too good for me, Lucy.”
She burst into laughter. “Hardly. I’d say that you’re much too good for me. I know nothing and you know everything.”
He shook his head. A catch formed in her throat when she peeked at him. He wasn’t light-hearted and joking now. Something was bothering him. It was the same, deep pain that had been gnawing at him for most of the journey, she was almost certain. He was holding something back from her, and it was hurting him.
“Knowing everything isn’t necessarily a good thing. Especially when the things you know can cause more harm than good.” It was a full two beats after he finished speaking that he glanced up at her, his expression troubled. “Lucy, if I told you I did something… bad… before, would you hate me?”
She laughed, but the sound was far less confident. “I could never, ever hate you, Gideon.”
The only thing that kept her from bursting out that she loved him, would always love him, was the serious frown that marred his handsome face. She continued to watch him for a moment as that expression pinched and tightened, expecting him to make some sort of impassioned confession at any moment.
Instead, he said, “If you’d like, I could figure out a way to construct some sort of prophylactic device.”
Lucy blinked. “A what?”
His touch of gloom faded as he latched onto his new thought. “There are means of preventing pregnancy, you know. I’m sure I could get my hands on a bit of animal intestine. I’m not certain what the process would be to treat it in order to construct a device for the purpose, but we could experiment with—”
“Is that suppo
sed to be romantic?” She had no idea whether to giggle or be offended. “Animal intestine?”
He was saved from answering by a knock on the back of her wagon. “Lucy?” Josephine’s voice cut through the odd tension that was beginning to form. “Are you available to help with this goodbye breakfast some of the ladies want to host for folks heading on to Denver City?”
Lucy sent Gideon one last, pinched look before saying, “Certainly. I’d love to help.”
“Thanks,” Josephine replied. A moment later, she said, “You know, you might want to get in the habit of kicking gentleman callers out of your wagon before sunrise, dear. Maude Sanders is having a fit because she walked past here about fifteen minutes ago and heard the two of you laughing.” By the tone of her voice, Josephine was more amused than scandalized.
Lucy sighed and sent one last look Gideon’s way before reaching up to untie the cords holding the canvas closed. She was still in only her chemise, so she ducked back and gestured to Gideon.
“Scoot,” she told him. “Before the upstanding and moral ladies of the wagon train come along to argue with you about what I am and am not.”
Gideon jumped to do what he was told, slipping past her. Before squeezing out through the gap in the canvas, he whispered, “You’re not a whore, you’re mine,” and kissed her lips.
He had wiggled out through the gap and rushed away before she could think of a reply.
No, Lucy was not a whore, but he was the worst kind of scoundrel that had ever lived. Murder, adultery, lying—well, failing to come out with the whole truth when the opportunity was staring him right in the face—at the rate Gideon was going, he might as well build a golden calf and covet Pete’s horse to break all the commandments. It was hard to decide if he would be more or less of a blackguard for proposing marriage to Lucy.
Because right or wrong, he was going to propose.
But not until he told her everything.
“Gideon.”
He snapped out of his conflicting jumble of thoughts at the sound of Pete calling his name. Pete strode toward him from the direction of the river’s tributary where they had made their camp. His expression was serious, but not alarmed. Gideon braced himself to be told off about spending the night in an unmarried woman’s wagon, or to hear that they hadn’t been as discreet out in the tall grass last week as he’d thought.
“I need you to come take a look at the water,” Pete said instead.
Gideon’s brow flew up. He tugged his hands out of his pockets. “The water? Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Everything else was forgotten for the moment as he marched with Pete across the scattered camps of the now divided wagon train. The men who would be leading those on their way to Denver City to the south were already lining people up and making sure all of the oxen were watered and ready. A few people had started to do the same for the wagons heading on to Oregon, but a small cluster stood around a green patch of ground that Gideon had come to learn meant there was a spring nearby.
“What’s the problem?” he asked as he and Pete approached.
“You’re a scientist,” Pete’s crew member, Hank, said. “What do you think?”
Gideon joined the circle, and looked down at a slow-bubbling stream. The water seemed clear as far as he could see, but a slight, decayed smell sent a twist to his stomach.
“I say it’s fine,” another of the men in the circle, Rick Carlton, said. “See?” He scooped a tin cup full of water out of the spring and handed it to Pete.
Pete sniffed it, frowned into the cup, then handed it on to Gideon.
In his years of research, before the army had become involved, Gideon had handled more than his fair share of samples of putrid water. He knew by instinct alone that the clear liquid in Rick’s cup wasn’t safe to drink, but without instruments and testing supplies, he had no idea what was wrong with it.
“I could try treating some of the water with chlorine,” he suggested, handing the cup back to Pete. “We would have to be conservative. I have the chemicals and some equipment, but none of it is particularly portable. Everything I have is intended to be set up in a bigger facility at trail’s end.”
“Do you think you could throw something together?” Pete asked. “Like you’ve been doing with that leg for Graham?”
Gideon shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
Hank seemed to think it was worth a try too, but Rick Carlton and his friend didn’t look as convinced. They filled four buckets of water from the spring, then the entire group carried them off across the camp to Gideon’s wagon. They made an odd procession as they did, one which drew several eyes.
The procession wasn’t the only thing that drew eyes, though. As they walked past the group of women having breakfast together to say goodbye to the Denver City folks, Gideon caught Lucy’s eye. Whether it was their earlier conversation or simply the swirls of joy he felt every time he looked at her, they both blushed red.
“Boy, you caught yourself a wild one there,” Rick guffawed, as they continued past.
“I’m pretty sure it was the other way around and Miss Lucy caught him,” Hank added with a snort.
“Told ya,” Pete mumbled, finishing with a wink.
Gideon shook his head. He would have to do something about his situation with Lucy soon. Maybe if he made a deal with himself not to sleep with or even kiss her again until he confessed the sins of his past….
They reached Gideon’s wagon, and as the other men gathered around, resting their buckets of off-smelling water on the ground, Gideon hopped up into the bed. Since they’d started out from Independence, he’d continually shifted the crates around, unable to decide what the best placement for them would be. He hadn’t brought a lot of chemicals with him—chlorine, of course, a few small jars of ammonia, a vial of mercury, samples of copper, cobalt, and lead for other experiments. It was the small vial of bromine that worried him. If that should come into contact with the chlorine…
…then it would be Chancellorsville all over again.
He cleared his throat to shake the thought away. After his last anxious shuffling of supplies, the bromine was in a crate at the far front of his wagon on the left, while all of the chlorine—six crates of it—was near the back on the right side. Only one of the crates had been opened. He pried the top back once more and removed a jar of the yellow-green liquid.
Rick, Rick’s friend, and Hank all made surprised, uncertain noises.
“What in God’s name is that?” Rick asked.
“It’s a liquid solution of chlorine.” Once again, the excitement of explaining all of the discoveries he and others had made and how they could improve the lot of mankind sparked through Gideon. “When a small bit is added to water, chlorine has been shown to remove putrification. It shouldn’t be consumed in large quantities, by any means, but the addition of just a small amount to impure water can make it safe to drink. Careful, though. It has a distinct odor.”
One he remembered all too well. Remembered along with the strangled cries of choking men.
He checked one more time to make sure the bromine was as far away as it could be, sealed and safe, then unscrewed the top of the jar of liquid chlorine. He moved to pour some into one of the buckets.
“Hold on there.” Rick stopped him, snatching his two buckets away. “That stuff’s green.”
“Yes, chlorine has a strange color,” Gideon explained.
“Reminds me of my kids’ snot when he’s got a bad cold,” Rick’s friend grumbled.
Gideon frowned and straightened. “It’s not like mucous. On the contrary, its color has nothing to do with its effective properties.”
“Huh?” Rick’s friend frowned at him.
“I don’t want you pouring anything green into my water,” Rick said. “You’re as like as not to make it worse.”
It took Gideon a moment to grasp what they were saying. No one had ever doubted his word as a scientist when it came to solving problems. Then again, he’d spent
his whole life in a scientific community, far from laymen.
“It’s safe,” he insisted.
“It does kinda smell,” Hank agreed with the other two.
“Why don’t you just give it a try, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it again?” Pete said, playing peacemaker.
“And what if it kills us?” Rick snapped in return. He stepped away, buckets in hand. “I don’t want anything to do with that stuff.”
“Me neither.” Rick’s friend took up the other two buckets. He glanced into the one that Gideon had treated with chlorine, turned up his nose, set the other bucket down, and dumped the chlorine treated water on the ground.
Gideon yelped, but with a jar of liquid chlorine in his hands, there was only so much he could do. “This is valuable,” he scolded the man. “Expensive. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get more, and who knows how much water will need to be treated when we reach our destination?”
“Yeah, well if you ask me, no one in their right mind is going to let you dump green, stinking snot into their water supply, no matter where you go,” Rick said. He and his friend walked off, shaking their heads.
“I’ll see if I can talk them around,” Pete spoke up when Gideon said nothing. “I don’t like the look of that water to begin with. Something tells me the spring is contaminated, probably from too many folks coming through this way.”
He started off before Gideon could stop him with, “Wait, no, let them go.”
There didn’t seem to be any point in forcing people to take advantage of science when they were convinced it would do more harm than good. The aching truth behind Rick’s words were harder to deal with. What if no one let him help them once they reached the West? What if, in spite of his best efforts, the deaths he’d caused followed him around for the rest of his life, unatoned for.
“It’s all right.” Pete slapped him on the back, shaking Gideon to his senses. As he screwed the lid back on the jar and set back in its place in the crate, Pete finished with, “Some folks are just damn fools, no matter what you try to tell them.”
