“Good God.” His voice sounded strange. Abruptly, he broke his gaze, stepped back, and let his eyes travel down to the swelling beneath her apron, larger now, too big to conceal. She didn’t even try. For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut, as if surprised at himself. Next moment, his foot was in his horse’s stirrup. An easy swing returned him to the saddle. “Time to go.”
She knew she shouldn’t ask but couldn’t quell her burning curiosity. “You haven’t finished your sentence. I should know you find me ... what?”
“I’ll save my answer for another day.”
She knew better than to ask again, much as she wanted to. Best to change the subject. “Will we be safe, crossing that river?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there for you.” He rode away.
Chapter 7
Throughout the next day, straining, cursing men, using all their strength, hauled forty wagons safely across the river’s swift current. Following that, they brought the rafts across, piled high with goods from the wagons. Women and children came next. At dusk, the final group, Lucy and Noah among them, waded through shallow water at the river’s edge and huddled together on what would be the last raft to cross.
Lucy held Noah in front of her, arms locked around him. The child twisted his head around and stared wide-eyed at the fast current. “Will we be all right?”
She wished she knew. She was every bit as nervous as Noah but hoped it didn’t show. “Of course, we’ll be all right. Didn’t you see how the wagons got across safely, then all the other people on the rafts? We’ve got your father to keep you safe, and Mister Dawes, and Mister Palance, and all the other men. This is going to be fun. Think of it as an adventure.”
“Adventure, my foot.” Bessie’s face was taut with fear. She sat by Lucy, clutching her three little boys.
Roxana, Bessie’s oldest daughter, sat on her other side, her fair-skinned face flushed with excitement. She kept a firm grip on her two younger sisters. “Ma, don’t worry, Mrs. Schneider’s right. The others traveled safely, and we will, too.”
Lucy thought that if she had a daughter, she’d want her to be like blond, sixteen-year-old Roxana, who was not only pretty but level-headed and always cheerful besides. She glanced around at some of the others on the raft. Agnes sat cross-legged like the rest, surrounded by her brood of six. For once, her caustic mouth remained firmly shut. The raft hadn’t yet left the water’s edge, but already she was hanging on for dear life. Inez Helmick, minus her usual self-confident expression, clung to three of her children while Bessie’s sister, Hannah, who had no children of her own, held the other two. And, of course, timid Martha, who sat with her eyes squeezed shut, muttered her prayers.
Cordelia sat by herself. Over her objections, Clint had enlisted Chad to work with the men on shore. Chad had gone gladly, happy to get away from his mother’s smothering care. Lucy noticed every woman on the raft had one thing in common: fear in her eyes. True, the other rafts had crossed safely, but two of them had almost tipped, one when the rope caught on a rock, and one when a log struck it midstream. The men managed to pull both to the far shore without further incident, but Lucy easily imagined what would’ve happened had the women and children aboard been flung into the icy water. Most of them couldn’t swim.
“Everybody ready?” Charlie Dawes shouted from the bank. “Let’s get this raft across.”
The men started hauling on the ropes. They started across, everyone hanging on tight. All went well until the middle of the river ... when one of the ropes snapped. Amid frightened cries, the raft spun around and tipped. Lucy gripped Noah tight while a spray of cold water from the river drenched them. They were going to tip over. Were they going to die? Her heart raced. Seconds later, the raft righted itself, and they were again underway. She saw Clint, atop Paint, fighting the swift current but hanging tight to the rope.
“Just look what Mister Palance done,” Bessie cried as the raft floated to shore. “Rode his horse right into the river and saved us all.”
“Yes, it looks that way.” Lucy remembered Clint’s words, Don’t worry. I’ll be there for you. He’d been there for the others, too, but somehow she knew he’d been watching over her especially, determined to keep his word.
* * *
When Clint got back to shore, his partner gave him a funny look. “That was a dang foolish thing to do. You could have been killed riding into that swift water.”
“I wasn’t, was I?”
Charlie took his time answering. “Looks to me like if a certain person hadn’t been aboard that raft, you never would’ve taken such a crazy chance.”
“Every life is precious.”
“Even so ...”
After a swift and definitely annoyed glance from his partner, Charlie closed his mouth. Both still astride their horses, they watched Lucy, Noah in hand, and the others wade to shore, all of them wet, bedraggled, and shivering from a sudden chill wind.
“Thank God, it’s over.” Bessie called to Charlie Dawes. “I surely hope we don’t have to do this again.”
Before Charlie spoke, he exchanged a rueful glance with Clint. “There’s many a river to cross afore we get to California. This here’s just the beginning.”
* * *
In the hours that followed, Lucy found herself so busy she barely had time to change from wet clothes to dry or even sit down. Along with Jacob, Benjamin, and Henry, she helped rebuild and repack the wagons. Despite her pleas, the men showed little regard to how, with her tidy nature, she’d originally insisted upon a place for everything and everything in its place. Now they heaped in everything in a complete jumble, causing her to wonder how she’d ever find clothes, dishes, pots and pans—anything at all. Too tired to complain, she collected firewood and built a fire, then fixed a hasty dinner of biscuits and beans. By the time she hauled water from the river, washed the dishes, put them away, and put Noah to bed in the wagon, she crawled into the tent Jacob had erected, totally exhausted.
Jacob lay in bed, sound asleep. Thank you, Lord. After such a day, surely he wouldn’t wake up now. She would have a whole, wonderful night’s sleep without having to endure his near-nightly attentions. Silently, she slipped into her nightgown. Stealthy as a cat, she slipped between the covers and lay next to her snoring husband. Please don’t wake up now.
Jacob kept snoring. Ah, she counted her blessings. She savored the thought of a few precious hours of peaceful sleep and was just drifting off when she heard the patter of light rain. Drowsily, she hoped it wouldn’t get worse, but soon, the patter turned to pounding. Not long after, she felt something damp seep from underneath. She stuck her hand out of the covers to touch the ground. Wet. “Jacob!” She shook her husband awake. “It’s raining! Water’s seeping into the tent!” As if to punctuate her words, a huge clap of thunder broke over their heads, so loud the ground shook. Seconds later, the heavens let loose with such a deluge of rain the tent sagged in, and a stream of water came running through.
“Lord Almighty!” Jacob leaped up and stared at the water.
Lucy cried, “Take the bedding. We must get to the wagon.”
They grabbed the mattress and what blankets they could. Through what seemed a wall of water, they ran for the wagon, just as a barrage of hail struck.
Inside they found Noah awake and sitting straight up, shivering with fright. He watched as Lucy and Jacob hastily climbed inside, both soaked to the skin. “Father, will we be all right?”
“Of course, Son. We’re under a heavy rainproof canvas, double thickness. Nothing can get through.”
Lucy couldn’t quite believe what her husband said was true, not with hailstones big as her fist pounding on the cover. Not with the enormous peals of thunder that assaulted her eardrums and the jagged bolts of lightning that flashed nonstop, as if to rip the sky apart. She gazed upward in time to see a split appear in the very top of the canvas, and then another. Water began to pour through the front and back, despite Jacob’s tightening the flaps. Soon mattresses, blankets, c
lothes, everything not packed in the trunks, was soaked through. A chill wind lashed the wagon, so hard she feared it would be blown apart. She was drenched and shivering. “Jacob, what shall we do?”
His face carefully blank, Jacob reached for his Bible, kept dry beneath his coat. “We shall pray.”
“Pray?” Sudden rage shot through her. “Here we sit in the middle of nowhere, cold, wet, and the cover ready to rip off any second, and that’s all you can do?”
He shook his head as if gently admonishing a child. “Psalms thirty-seven, Verse eight: ‘Cease from anger, and forsake wrath.’ ”
Oh, she could kill him! “You’ve got to do something. Not just sit there and quote the Bible.”
“Are you mad at Father?” Noah’s voice was small and frightened. His teeth chattered. He was shaking now, his little face white from the cold.
She must calm down. Ranting at Jacob wouldn’t do a bit of good. “No, I’m not mad, sweetheart. Here, let’s try to get warm.” She gathered her stepson and lay down with him on the soaked mattress, pulling him close in her arms. No use pulling the covers up. They were soaked, too. “Jacob, there’s a piece of canvas in the trunk that might help. Get it and lie on the other side of Noah. We’ll put the canvas over us. Between the two of us we can try to keep him warm.”
Her husband seemed unable to move, as if overwhelmed into inaction. “We must pray first—”
“No!” she shot up at him through chattering teeth. “I shall pray when I’m not cold and shivering and wet. Now get that piece of canvas and get down here.”
To her surprise, Jacob complied without argument. The three of them lay together in a tight bundle, shivering, thoroughly soaked, sharing what warmth there was. After a time, the hail stopped, but the rain kept pelting the canvas, and the wind did not let up. Tired as she was, she found sleep impossible. She could only hope poor little Noah could sleep despite their misery and that he wouldn’t catch pneumonia. As for Jacob ...
Bitterness welled within her. Up to now she’d seen him as a pillar of strength, but tonight, for the first time, she had detected weakness. How indecisive he’d been! How helpless against the frightful storm! She seriously wondered why she married him. Father had warned her about the weakness he sensed beneath Jacob’s façade of strength. Sarah, too. No, she wouldn’t listen. She knew the reason. She’d been so anxious to escape the clutches of Pernelia, she took the first escape route that came along. Now, as a consequence, she found herself in the midst of the most miserable night of her life. Lying on the soggy mattress, her tears mixed with rain, she pictured her warm, snug bed back in Boston. Oh, how she missed it! Oh, how she wanted more than anything in this world just to be home. She wasn’t home because she was trapped in the middle of nowhere with no place to go, trapped with a husband she wasn’t sure she loved anymore. Oh surely not! Appalled, she wondered how she could even think such a thing. Of course she still loved Jacob. In the morning, when the sun shone again, she’d see all his wonderful qualities that tonight seemed to elude her. Then she’d remember all the good reasons why she married him, and all would be well.
Morning finally arrived but brought no sunshine. Instead, throughout the day, a steady, dreary rain fell upon the soaked, cold, wretched members of the Schneider wagon train. The muddy trail made continuing their trek impossible. They couldn’t even build a fire in the heavy downpour. Everyone huddled in their wagons, subsisting mainly on cold biscuits and beans. What Lucy wouldn’t give for a hot cup of tea! She spent part of the day sewing patches over the tears in the canvas, not easy when her fingers were numb with cold. The rest of the time she spent hunkered down in the wagon, trying to keep herself warm and Noah warm and entertained. Jacob arose early and left to make the rounds of the other wagons to see how everyone fared after the horrendous hailstorm. She should be proud of her husband, the fearless leader doing his duty, but she wasn’t. The memory of his indecision the night before, and his helplessness, hung heavy on her mind.
The next day the rain stopped, but they still couldn’t travel. Deep mud bogged the trail. Everyone in camp, all still cold and miserable, had to drag their soggy belongings from the wagons and lay them out to dry. Not an easy task, considering that scattered clouds hid much of the sunshine. As a result, the following morning when they rolled again, the wagons still smelled damp and musty. Lucy spent much of the day comforting Martha, who still fought nausea. Lucy didn’t feel so well, either, musing miserably that being pregnant in a smelly, rocking wagon wasn’t the easiest of fates.
Mid-morning, Jacob and Abner received a visit from the council, plus Clint and Charlie, after their wagons repeatedly got stuck in the mud. “Either lighten your load or get left behind,” demanded Agnes’ blunt, strapping husband, William Applegate. The other men of the council, including Elija Richards, Nathaniel Benton, John Potts, and Stanley Helmick, stood behind William Applegate in strong support.
John Potts, recently recovered from typhoid, proved especially loud, as well as crude. “Piss on your wagons, Captain. I’m done.”
Mild-mannered, always gentlemanly Nathaniel Benton said, “We simply cannot spend our time hauling your wagons out of the bogs. I, for one, refuse to give you one more push.”
After heated debate, Abner gave in, self-righteously asserting that God knew who was right and who was wrong. Finally, Jacob gave in, too. “All right, you’ve forced me.” He scowled. He ordered Benjamin and Henry to remove the barrels of whiskey from the wagons. “Bury them. We’ll come back later and dig them up.”
Charlie Dawes guffawed. “You think the Indians ain’t gonna find them? You’ve got to pour out every last drop. If you don’t, you’ll have every Indian twixt here and Fort Laramie so drunk they’ll come and scalp us all.”
William Applegate glared his contempt at Jacob. “Pour the fuckin’ whiskey out.”
Given no alternative, Jacob watched while his hired men hauled the barrels from the wagon and dumped his precious whiskey. He couldn’t have looked more anguished had it been his own life’s blood spilling on the ground.
Two days later the worn and weary members of the Schneider wagon train arrived after dark at the Platte River and set up camp. Next morning, Lucy awoke to bright sunshine. Her spirits rose as the day progressed. She bathed in the river, the “muddy Platte” they called it, and it certainly was. Even though the water wasn’t crystal clear, it was more than welcome to one who hadn’t been able to bathe for days. She washed her hair, loving its bouncy, clean feel. She donned a fresh calico dress and starched white apron. When she was finished, she felt as good as she had back in Boston after she’d primped and preened for a fancy dress ball.
In the late morning, Jacob and some of the other men went hunting. Before he left, she wished him luck, although so far all his hunting expeditions had been abject failures. So far he hadn’t returned with so much as a rabbit. She’d heard Charlie Dawes remark, “Farmers aren’t meant to be hunters.” Well, she certainly agreed.
Now, sitting upon the wagon seat clutching a rolling pin, she listened intently to Bessie, who stood below, giving her a lesson on how to bake a pie when stranded in the middle of nowhere.
“You take your dough and lay it right out upon the wagon seat. Just make sure there ain’t no splinters before you roll it out.”
Bessie’s words made Lucy burst into laughter, the first time in days she’d found anything to laugh about. “All right, no splinters in my pie. What’s next?”
“Then, after you get the apples in, you cook it in your Dutch skillet over the fire. ’Course, if it’s raining, you might just want to dig a hole in the ground. You jam in a hollow ramrod what serves as an air shaft, and then you fill the hole with small rocks and bake the pie on those.”
“That’s a lot of work,” Lucy replied. “What if I don’t feel like digging a hole in the ground?”
“Then you won’t get your pie.”
They laughed together companionably, Lucy thinking she felt almost her normal self again, and almost
pretty, too. Or as pretty as a woman could look when pregnant.
Suddenly, Bessie quit laughing, pressed her hand to her side, and moaned.
Lucy was alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been having these pains, but the baby ain’t due yet.” Bessie leaned heavily against the wheel and gave a choked, desperate laugh. “What am I going to do? I don’t want to have this baby by the side of the road. What if something goes wrong? What if—?” She started to cry, covered her face with trembling hands, and whispered, “Oh, God, I mustn’t let the children see.”
Lucy swiftly climbed down from the wagon and put her arms around her friend. “There, there, it’ll be all right. My goodness, you’ve already had six, and didn’t you tell me not a problem in the world? Well, the seventh will be the same.”
Bessie laid her head on Lucy’s shoulder. “My feet and legs are all swollen. That never happened before. What will the weather be like? What if it’s pouring down rain like the other night? Or worse, we aren’t going to follow this river all the way, so what if there’s no water at all? Can you
imagine—?” she pulled away and looked at Lucy with desperate eyes “—no water to wash the newborn in, no water for me! Then afterward, how long do you think the men will let me rest?”
“Well, I suppose a couple of days—”
“Ha! Don’t fool yourself. Your husband, my husband, all of them, what do they know? They’re so all-fired anxious to get to California, what would they care I just had a baby? They’ll want to start again, soon as I pop it out, and there I’ll be, lying in the back of that hot, smelly wagon, bouncing ’n rolling, so sick I’ll probably die, if I ain’t dead by then already.”
Bessie’s words sent a chill through Lucy’s heart. How could she comfort her friend when she harbored the same fears? Bessie had every right to worry. Bad enough to be pregnant, but what could be worse than having your baby by the side of the road? At least they had Inez, but that was small consolation.
Heartbreak Trail Page 8
