She waved him off. “It might not even matter. Dawson might have something else in mind completely, something that doesn’t even involve me. And don’t forget how strong the smell of gold can be. It’s silly of us to talk about this. We are taking far too much for granted, and I’m not interested anyway.”
Michael shook his head. “My, oh my. You are the worst liar who ever walked the face of the earth. And Dawson? I can see right through that man. He’s interested, all right. He just doesn’t feel worthy of you, or of happiness. When he learns to quit blaming himself for things that aren’t his fault, he’ll be able to open his heart and truly love someone. I told you, Clare. God is working in His own way, on you and Mr. Clements both.”
“Since when did you become such a romantic?” Clarissa teased.
“Just calling it as I see it,” Michael answered.
Clarissa folded her arms. “Then you’re looking through rose-colored spectacles.” She walked over to join Sophie and Lena, praising their drawing.
“See, Mommy?” Sophie pointed to her drawing, a man and a woman and a little girl, drawn as stick figures. “It’s you and me and Dawson. And this is the house we’ll have someday.”
“Is that so?” Clarissa thought how it was going to break poor Sophie’s heart—and maybe hers—when Dawson left them….
Chapter Eighteen
June 16, 1863
Crossing the Platte to get to the north branch was indeed a frightening experience. The fork was so wide we could not even see the other side, but as Mr. Clements promised, it was hardly any deeper at the center than at the edges. I have never known such a shallow river, even when it is swollen in spring, although several times the water touched the wagon beds. To keep them safe, Dawson rode across with Sophie and Lena, as well as taking some of the other youngest children, making several trips back and forth.
We will soon reach Fort Laramie, where we will get a much-needed rest. Everyone is anxious, especially Otto Hensel, who accidentally shot himself in the foot two days ago while cleaning a handgun he thought he might need because we are in Indian country. Mr. Clements was very upset with him and said that no one who is not accustomed to using guns is allowed to handle one at all.
Clarissa had to smile at the memory of Otto hopping around on one foot yelping like a wounded coyote. She felt sorry for his pain, but the picture was comical indeed, and she was not the only one who’d had to turn away and laugh. Even Dawson, upset as he was over the incident, had later laughed about it when he agreed to eat supper with her and Michael and Carolyn later that night.
“Buffalo!” someone shouted.
Clarissa had been standing at her open wagon gate and using it like a table for her writing. She blew on the ink as more of the travelers started shouting, “Buffalo!” She closed the book and set it and her pen and ink inside the wagon to join others who were running outside the wagon circle. She’d heard a great deal about buffalo, but had never seen one, and she was just as curious as everyone else. She ran to catch up, spotting Lena and Sophie with Carolyn and Michael. The girls were pointing, their eyes wide with excitement.
“Look, Mommy! Michael calls them bufflow.”
“I see them!” Clarissa lifted the girl so she could see better. They were camped on a low rise, and ahead of them in a lower section of land moved a sea of dark bodies, so many buffalo that it appeared one could literally walk through that valley on top of their backs.
“Look how big they are!” Lena exclaimed. Even from where they stood, it was obvious that many of the shaggy beasts were as tall or taller than the average horse, with much shorter legs and much bigger girths than an equine. They looked solid and strong and a little frightening. She saw Dawson riding toward them from the direction of the herd.
“No guns and no shouting,” he said when he reached them. “If that herd were to decide to stampede this way, you’d never get out of the way in time. They are amazingly fast for their size and those short legs. A herd that size would destroy everything in sight.”
“What magnificent beasts,” Michael commented.
“And great game,” Dawson added. “There’s enough meat on one buffalo to feed a family for weeks, maybe months. That’s why they are so valuable to the Indians.” He directed his attention to the others. “There is a hunting tribe of Sioux right behind those buffalo, so don’t be alarmed when you see them come into view. They aren’t out to make war. They’re just hunting. They have women along to do the gutting and skinning.”
“Indians!” Young Robert Trowbridge commented, “You sure they aren’t dangerous?”
“Yes, how do you know for sure?” Lawyer Burkette questioned Dawson.
Obviously peeved at him, Dawson scowled at Burkette. “Because I served out here for years,” he answered. “I know a war party from a hunting party.”
“You’re sure they’re Sioux?” Otto Hensel asked.
“Yes, and they know we’re here. Zeb and I have already talked to them. They’ll leave us alone as long as we leave them alone, so don’t anybody go getting any ideas.”
“What if they try to turn that herd toward us to stampede us to death?” Burkette asked arrogantly.
“They won’t.”
“Why shouldn’t they?” Burkette asked. “We have plenty of supplies and women along. Don’t they lust after white women?”
To everyone’s surprise, Dawson flat-out slugged Burkette, sending him sprawling on his back. A couple of women screamed and others, men and women alike, gasped and stepped back.
“You know, Burkette, for all your fancy education, you sure do talk like an ignorant man,” Dawson told him. “You don’t need to talk like that in front of the ladies here, and you don’t need to be planting frightening thoughts in their heads. I told you I have already talked to them. It’s a hunting party. You hired me for what I know about the land out here, so listen to what I tell you.”
Burkette wiped at the blood on his lip, his face beet-red as he got back to his feet. “What’s wrong, Clements?” he fumed. “You afraid I’ll offend the woman you’re sweet on?”
“Peter, that’s enough.” Burkette’s wife spoke up. Blair Burkette was an elegant woman who was friendly but reserved, and some suspected she was abused by her husband. He’d raised his hand to her more than once, but so far no one had seen him hit her.
“Shut up!” Burkette barked at the woman. “Or I’ll shut you up!” He turned back to Dawson. “No one calls me ignorant! If you’re going to single me out, Clements, how about admitting your own indiscretions—like seeing the widow woman on the side. Everybody knows about it and we don’t intend to put up with it!”
More gasps. Clarissa felt the color coming to her cheeks, more from anger than embarrassment. “How dare you!” she exclaimed. “There is nothing going on between me and—”
“Don’t say another word,” Dawson ordered before she could finish. He kept his eyes on Burkette. Suddenly he grasped the lawyer around the throat with one strong hand and turned to slam him against a wagon. “Apologize to Mrs. Graham!” he growled. “Or I’ll drag you to those Indians and tell them to practice their latest torture on you!”
Burkette stood there panting, his dark eyes bulging from fear and anger. He looked sideways at Clarissa. “Sorry,” he said quietly.
“Louder!” Dawson insisted.
Taking a deep breath, Burkette repeated, “I’m sorry.”
Dawson let go of him and he slid to the ground, grasping his throat. Dawson turned to the others. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’ll not have one person on this wagon train wrongly accused of anything. Mrs. Graham is one of the finest women I know. I don’t want to hear one other person suggest otherwise. And if I choose to properly court her—” he looked at Clarissa, who stood speechless and amazed “—I’ll court her,” he finished.
The entire group became momentarily silent. Clarissa felt a wonderful warmth move through her entire body at the revelation that Dawson Clements was indeed interested in her as more than just one of t
he members of the wagon train.
Blair Burkette ran over to her husband, who angrily shoved her away and told her to leave him alone. He glowered at Dawson before storming away from the crowd. His wife followed. The sound of whooping Indians broke the odd silence, and suddenly everyone was turning their attention again to the sea of buffalo in the distance, where a good twenty or so Indian warriors rode swift ponies directly into the buffalo herd. The animals began to run, thankfully in the opposite direction.
“There is a sight you may not see again,” Dawson told them, “but one you’ll want to savor to tell your grandchildren about—watching wild Indians on a buffalo hunt. In a few years there won’t be many buffalo left…or Indians.”
“You sound like you sympathize with them,” Otto commented. The man used homemade crutches to stand.
“Sometimes I do,” Dawson answered, “but not when one is headed toward me with a raised tomahawk.”
People laughed nervously. Clarissa could hardly keep her attention on the spectacular sight before her. Sophie watched as though mesmerized, and now they could hear gunfire. One by one several of the lumbering beasts fell.
“Might as well sit on the ground and watch,” Dawson told them. “We have to go right through there, and we can’t until they’re through with the hunt. Pretty soon the women will come in and start gutting and skinning the downed buffalo. They’ll use pretty much every part of the animals, not just the meat. And by the way, everybody, once the herd and the Indians are gone, you can hang buckets on the sides of your wagons and start picking up buffalo chips.”
“Buffalo chips? Vat are dose?” Otto asked.
Dawson chuckled. “‘Chips’ is just a nice word for, let’s say, what the buffalo leave behind when they’re gone. From here on you’ll see plenty of those leavings, and those that are dried-up make excellent fuel for fires. The smoke stinks, but we’re headed into country where wood won’t be all that plentiful, so start gathering, folks.” He walked away and mounted his horse, and everyone looked at each other until finally Otto started chuckling. The others joined in then, realizing what Dawson had been talking about.
“Yes, sir, life sure is different out here.” Michael laughed.
Dawson rode back down the hill, circling some of the dead buffalo while the hunters continued the chase, practically disappearing on the horizon as they followed the stampede. Everyone sat equally fascinated, and about an hour later Indian women with horses pulling sledlike contraptions behind them made an appearance from wherever they were camped to the left of a rise where they couldn’t be seen by the emigrants.
One woman at a time stopped beside a buffalo and dismounted, and it was obvious they were beginning the cumbersome project of gutting and skinning the animals. They all watched as Dawson spoke with one of the women, then rode back to the emigrants.
“I need a couple of volunteers,” he told them. “Preferably men. I spoke with the wife of one of the hunters who told me they are offering us one buffalo. All we have to do is go down there and skin it and leave the hide for them. There’s enough meat there to share with all of you, and we’re close enough to Fort Laramie to get the meat there in time to smoke it while we’re there so it will last. Who wants to come with me to clean the thing?”
“I will!” Robert Trowbridge piped up enthusiastically, obviously eager to impress his young wife.
“So will I,” Michael told him.
“Michael, if we can ride your two draft horses down there, we can use them to drag the meat back. It will be a pretty heavy load. Bring about three blankets.”
“Sure thing.” Michael left to untie his horses, and Dawson glanced at Clarissa, who was still somewhat dumbfounded at his remark about courting her. He tipped his hat to her and rode away.
Chapter Nineteen
June 20, 1863
Everyone’s spirits rose when they reached Fort Laramie, and Clarissa could tell that Dawson was most certainly in his own realm here. Since their arrival two days ago he’d spent most of his time talking with Major General Bartley Trundell, currently in charge of the garrison.
Clarissa shook out quilts and hung them outside over barrels, over the wagon seat and tongue, using any means she could to air them out. Shaking the quilts helped her vent her frustration over Dawson’s talk of courting her. He’d not talked to her alone or even joined her and Michael and Carolyn for a meal since the day of the confrontation with Burkette during the buffalo hunt.
She wiped perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand, feeling covered with dust from the quilts and perplexed over what to think about Dawson. Perhaps he didn’t mean to court her at all. Maybe he’d just said that to make his visits to her appear appropriate. Apparently someone had seen him come to her wagon a couple of times after dark and had made the visits into something more than they were. That, too, frustrated and angered her.
The wagons were circled just outside the fort, which consisted of several buildings and a huge, two-tiered barracks with a porch and railings shading both stories, all of which covered a large, sprawling area of land in Nebraska Territory. Soldiers milled about in constant activity everywhere—some drilling in formation, some in fenced corrals training fresh horses, some working a blacksmith shop, some serving clean-up duty by shoveling horse manure into wheelbarrows to be hauled away, some practicing on a firing range, some sitting outside the mess hall peeling potatoes. Today two men marched around the parade grounds carrying heavy logs, apparently some kind of punishment for disobeying an order or perhaps trying to desert.
Dawson always seemed to be at one of those places when he was not with the major general, and Clarissa doubted more and more his hints that he wanted to settle into a different life. The man was a soldier, through and through.
She brushed herself off and looked toward a shade tree where Sophie and Lena played with straw dolls. Seeing that they were fine, she climbed back into the wagon to straighten more items and decide which clothes needed washing. She’d decided to risk a little of what precious money she had to pay a laundress at the fort to wash them for her, feeling somewhat guilty for the indulgence but needing the respite from scrubbing her own clothes in the river.
Plenty of hardship lay ahead, and Dawson had told everyone to take as much rest as they could get. They would leave the day after tomorrow for the next jaunt of their journey, through country even more dangerous as far as Indian worries. Besides that, the next stretch would be nothing but a gradual climb, even when the land seemed flat. They would be a good mile above sea level when they reached the foothills of the Rockies. Then came the most treacherous part of the journey.
She tried not to think about the danger ahead. She would take these three days to pretend all was well. The only thing she couldn’t get off her mind was Dawson Clements. Her hardest decision was whether or not she even wanted the man to court her. Was he taking too much for granted? Did he think that just because she was a woman alone she was naturally looking for a man to woo her and take care of her? Certainly not. She didn’t want to be patronized, nor did she want Dawson Clements’s pity.
She gathered some clothes into a pillowcase and tossed it toward the back of the wagon, too late to realize Dawson had come around the corner. The pillowcase full of clothes landed in his face.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, laughing as he grabbed the case full of clothes. He threw them playfully back inside.
“Oh! I didn’t know you were there,” Clarissa told him, embarrassed. She instantly forgot all her self-warnings about allowing another man into her life. Feeling suddenly flushed, she wondered how she must look. “I’m afraid I’m a mess,” she excused herself. “I’ve been shaking out quilts and straightening things in here. I’ve decided to take my clothes to the laundry here at the fort, if they’ll wash them for me.”
Dawson pushed back his hat. “I’ve already set that up for you and paid for it.”
“What?” Clarissa crawled to the back of the wagon and sat down on the gate. “You don’
t need to do that. I am perfectly capable of—”
“I know what you’re capable of. And I am capable of doing things for you if I want to, and I wanted to.”
“You shouldn’t be spending money on me. I’ve always heard soldiers make hardly any money to begin with. Surely whatever you have is important for your own future plans.”
He sobered. “A man I met at Shiloh left me some money when he was killed. It wasn’t a tremendous amount of money, but enough to get me started at something new. I felt like it was a sign that it was time to do something different with my life.” He put out his arms. “So, here I am, leading a wagon train to Montana and wrestling with some very strong feelings for a beautiful woman I still hardly know and who hardly knows me. How’s that for fate interceding in a man’s life? An unexpected inheritance, a war wound that gets me discharged and leads me to you, a trip to Montana that you just happen to end up joining. Don’t you think that means we need to explore these chance encounters?”
She nervously pushed back some wild strands of hair, thinking again how terrible she must look. She was starting to have feelings for him, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. “I suppose it does.”
Dawson stepped closer, grasping her hands. “So do I. And I have begun my quest to win your heart and your trust by setting things up with the wife of Major General Trundell to let you and Carolyn go to their frame house, over there at the end of the barracks—” he nodded toward the spot “—where Mrs. Trundell will let you use her bathtub to clean up. It’s the only real, porcelain bathtub on the fort site, so it’s a privilege to use it. She doesn’t mind, and the woman would enjoy your company. Her husband tells me she’s lonely for woman talk, so don’t feel as though you are intruding. She’s very excited about having you there and affording you the privilege of using the tub, of which she is very proud.”
Clarissa sighed. “I don’t know what to make of you. You can be so thoughtful, and then I don’t see you for days. You won’t open up to me or Michael or anyone, and then you turn around and talk about courting me, but there is so much about you I don’t understand.”
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