“Is he…?”
“No,” she replied. “Not yet.” She glanced around at the quiet camp, everyone still in their wagons. “I … have to talk to you, Zeke,” she said quietly, “away from camp … so there’s no chance of somebody hearing us.”
He nodded. “Just a minute.” He reached over and, taking his canteen of water, poured a little into his hand and splashed his face with it. Then he took a drink from it and rinsed his mouth. He opened his parfleche, took out a small cloth, wiped his face, and then reached inside again, taking out a peppermint stick he’d bought at Fort Laramie and breaking off two small pieces. He put one into his mouth and handed the other to Abbie.
“Sometimes a body’s mouth needs to be kind of woke up in the morning,” he said with a grin. The remark surprised her and actually made her smile. Zeke smiled back.
“It’s good to see you smile, Abigail. This has been an awful thing for you,” he told her, “and I admire your courage and strength.”
Her smile faded slightly, and she nodded, putting the peppermint in her mouth. She raised her hand to her hair, which hung long and loose, blowing in the Wyoming wind. “I need more than this peppermint,” she remarked. “I’d like a whole bath, a hot one, in a real tub, you know?”
He smiled softly and reached out to touch her hair. “You look just fine. Let’s walk out a ways.” He put a supportive arm around her, at the moment not caring how it looked, but only caring that this young girl was carrying the weight of three other people on her shoulders at the moment: her useless and worrisome sister, her drunken and guilt-ridden father, and her dying brother. She had no one to turn to herself, and she must be at her wits’ end. He walked her a good distance from the train and through some trees to where they could not be seen, then motioned for her to sit down on a fallen log. She took the seat wearily, and he knelt down in front of her. “Well?” he asked. “What do you want to talk about?”
Her eyes teared immediately, and she struggled to get the words out. “Jeremy. There’s maggots on his arm now.” Zeke closed his eyes and sighed. “He’s dying for sure, Zeke, and his pain must be beyond the imagination. I … I asked him this morning … if it wouldn’t be nice to be with God … and with his mama … and he said yes. I … I think he knew what I meant, Zeke. And I think you know what I mean. He’s suffered enough. This can’t go on.”
He opened his eyes and met hers, overwhelmed by the courage it took for her to suggest what she was suggesting. He reached out and put a hand to the side of her face.
“You want me to do it,” he stated quietly.
She nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks now. “It’s … an awful thing I’m asking!” she told him through her tears. “But I … can’t do it myself, Zeke. It has to be done … so there’s no noise—so even pa doesn’t know he didn’t die naturally. And … I thought … with you being so good with a knife and all…I thought maybe … you’d know a way to do it quick—so he wouldn’t even feel anything. I know it’s a terrible, terrible thing I’m asking … but it would be so much better for him … just to have it end, and …” She could not go on. She broke down into wrenching sobs, and he stood up, pulling her up with him and into his strong arms, holding her tightly and knowing she needed to feel someone else’s strength and power. It seemed they stood there a long time. He let her cry until it was all out of her, holding her the whole time as she wept against his chest. He held her until he felt her begin to relax in his arms, and her tears subsided.
“You … don’t have to do it,” she whimpered, pulling away a little. “I don’t even have the right to ask—”
“I’ll do it,” he interrupted.
She raised her face and met his eyes.
“It would be an act of mercy,” he went on. “And it’s something you should never feel bad about, Abigail. It took a lot of love for you to even consider it. What about your pa?”
She sniffed and took a handkerchief from her dress pocket and blew her nose. “He’s stone drunk and passed out,” she replied. “I thought… I thought if you could put Jeremy … out of his misery … we could dress him and make like he just … died from the injuries. Nobody needs to know but us.”
He reached out and grasped her face in his big hands. “And nobody will. It will be our secret,” he told her. “I can do it quick, and I promise little Jeremy won’t know what’s happened to him.”
She searched his eyes, seeing the pain of his own memories. “I’d … feel better if …if you’d tell me you’d do the same … for your own son,” she said quietly. His dark eyes held hers for a long time, and his grip tightened on her face.
“I would,” he finally answered. “And I did … for my wife. She was … still alive … when I found her. I fixed it so she’d die quick.”
Abbie reached up and put her own hands over his. “Then you understand.”
“I understand.”
“I want you to explain it to Jeremy, so he understands, too, Zeke,” she replied. “He has that right. And he’ll know it’s out of love you’ll be doing it. I don’t expect he’d want to die by any other man’s hands but yours. He thinks you’re some kind of grand warrior. I wouldn’t doubt he’d be proud to have it be you. He won’t be afraid, Zeke.”
He pulled her into his arms once more. “The Indians believe that to die bravely at the hands of another brave warrior is an honor. A strong and brave heart is something to be respected, and honored in the afterlife. Jeremy has a strong and brave heart. He’ll be considered a brave warrior in heaven.”
“Just promise me it won’t hurt,” she told him, her face buried against his broad, strong chest. “It has to be a knife, so no one hears any noise. That’s why I figured … you’d be the best one to do it.”
He squeezed her tightly. “It’s all right, Abigail. And I give you my word it won’t hurt. And Jeremy will finally be at peace.… Then you and your pa can be at peace, too.”
“I’m scared, Zeke. I’m scared … about what you saw in your vision … about me being alone. I’m so scared!”
He kept his arms tight around her and kissed her hair. “Don’t you be afraid, Abigail. Don’t you ever be afraid. You’re a strong girl and will be an even stronger woman, and there is much ahead for you. I feel it. You will have a long life, and you will have many stories to tell your children and grandchildren. You might be alone for a while, but you won’t always be alone. And you remember the stones I gave you. Hang on to them, Abigail. And hang on to the strength that is within yourself.”
He led her back to the wagon, and she waited outside while Zeke climbed in. He noticed Trent still passed out. Abbie paced restlessly, holding her stomach and quietly begging God to forgive her for what she’d decided to do. Everyone else still slept, except Olin Wales, who was starting a fire, oblivious to what was taking place. Abbie waited for some kind of noise or scream, but the wagon was quiet. Zeke was inside for only about five minutes, but it seemed five hours. Then suddenly he was behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders.
“It’s over,” he said quietly. “He’s not suffering anymore.”
She slumped slightly and he grabbed her, then pulled her close, as her terrible sobbing woke the whole camp. Jason Trent had slept through it all and continued to sleep as some of the other men began building a coffin.
They buried him deep, not wanting the wolves or anything else to be able to dig him up. Zeke had dressed the boy himself, in the one and only little woolen suit he had, and it gripped Abbie’s heart to see that the sleeves and trouser legs were a little too short. She remembered telling him not long ago that she would have to let them down. Now it would not be necessary.
There was no outward sign that the boy had died other than naturally, and considering the fact that there had been no sound from the wagon, Abbie knew that Cheyenne Zeke had apparently done his job well. She did not, nor would she ever ask him how it had been done. At least now Jeremy lay peacefully at rest. His dark hair blew softly, and Zeke’s blue stone beads were still ar
ound his neck.
Jason Trent sat near the grave, sobbing uncontrollably, and LeeAnn wept quietly beside Quentin Robards. Abbie stood off alone, not wanting anyone to touch her or even speak to her, except for Zeke. Her face felt dry and stony, but she hadn’t even bothered to use the creams she’d brought along to guard her skin against the hot, dry West winds. She felt as desolate as those winds, and was thinking to herself that one day they all would blow away and no one would ever know they’d existed. And others would come, to be greeted by the endless, endless Wyoming winds, to forge against them and move on. And just like the little group she traveled with, some would make it—and some would not. And in a few years little Jeremy’s grave would disappear, and no one would even know he lay there beneath the earth.
She held Zeke’s crying stones tightly in her fist, squeezing them as she stared at Jeremy in his little coffin. She tried to gear her thoughts to the positive, in order to save her sanity. Jeremy was no longer in pain; he was with their mother. And she realized she should be weeping for her father, rather than her brother, for Jason Trent was a broken man and not likely to mend.
She allowed Preacher Graydon to speak some words over Jeremy, and he did a better job than she expected. Abbie felt that for little Jeremy’s sake the Lord would surely overlook the preacher’s own sins and accept the man’s offering of Jeremy’s soul to the Lord. When he finished and stepped back, Abbie swallowed and spoke up.
“I’d like … Zeke … to say something over my brother’s grave,” she told the others, not caring whether they liked it or not. The preacher colored slightly, but did not object, and none of the others seemed to mind. Zeke himself was glad for her request, for he’d been prepared to give little Jeremy a tribute of his own.
Zeke stepped forward, dressed in his outstanding white buckskin shirt that looked even more beautiful in the midmorning sunlight. He removed a turquoise handled knife from his belt, not the large one he’d used in the fight with the Sioux, but a slightly smaller one. It was obviously an expensive and beautiful knife, and Abbie knew right away it was the one he’d used on Jeremy. He laid the knife in the coffin beside the boy, and only he and Abbie knew why. She fought against breaking down completely.
“Jeremy Trent was a man, not a boy,” Zeke spoke up in a firm, clear voice. “He conducted himself on this train like a man, helped out like a man, and he … died … like a man. The Cheyenne bury their brave warriors with their weapons, to ward off evil spirits that might try to keep the dead man’s spirit from reaching the hunting grounds of the gods, where he is forever happy and at peace.”
He walked over and took a blanket from Olin. He opened it up for the others to see, and some of them gasped with pleasure at its beauty. It was a hand-woven blanket made of brilliant colors.
“Jeremy died because he was all excited about giving me a jacket for an Indian child,” he told them. “Right toward the end, as I sat beside him, he managed to say enough to tell me that once he was gone to be with God, he wanted me to have all his clothes for any Indian boys who might need them to keep from freezing in the winter. Now I give Jeremy a gift in return. This blanket took my mother many hours to weave, and it’s special to me. It will keep Jeremy warm in his grave and give him a wrap of bright colors to show his Master in heaven.”
As he knelt down and covered Jeremy with the blanket, Jason Trent burst into renewed sobbing. Everyone else was in tears—to Abbie’s surprise, even Quentin Robards and Morris Connely and the Browns. A moment later Abbie’s father collapsed completely, and Bentley Kelsoe and Bobby Jones helped him back to his wagon. Winston Harrell and Bradley Hanes put the lid over the coffin and began nailing it down. The others watched a moment, then began to leave, the women crying openly now. Abbie felt oddly cold and estranged, yet she stood staring as the men pounded in the nails. Zeke walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“You should leave now, Abigail.”
She looked up at him with tired eyes. “I … want to stay.”
“It isn’t good. Come away from here … please. After he’s buried you can come back, and we’ll put a marker on his grave.” He felt her trembling under his touch as he gently urged her away from the site.
“He … didn’t feel anything?” she asked quietly, stopping to look up at him again. Her heart ached when she saw tears in Zeke’s eyes.
“No,” he replied. “He didn’t feel a thing. He said … he trusted me to do it right. He wasn’t scared at all, Abigail. Fact is, he was braver than most grown men I’ve known. And he … told me—” He stopped and cleared his throat, as though to keep from crying. “He said he’d tell God … not to hold it against me … so that one wouldn’t count when I got to Heaven. I think he … uh …I think he figured he could put in a good word for me—something like that.” He smiled nervously, and she could see by his eyes that what he’d done had been harder than she’d thought it would be for him. And she loved him all the more for it.
“If I live to be a hundred, Zeke, I’ll never forget what you did for Jeremy today—for me, too. It took a lot of courage … a lot more than facing a grizzly or standing up against men like Rube Givens. It took a different kind of courage—the rarest kind.”
Their eyes held a moment, and then he suddenly backed away, as though he’d just realized someone might be watching. “There are all kinds of courage, Abigail. You’ve got courage, too,” he replied. “It took courage to even ask me to do it. And it takes courage to face the fact that certain things you might want… you can’t ever have, Abbie girl.”
Her lips trembled and she closed her eyes and nodded. “I know,” she whispered.
He led her back to her wagon, and she climbed in and tried to console her father. But he sat sobbing in the corner, and there was no way to get through to him. His eyes were wild, his hair disheveled from running his hands through it over and over, and already an open whiskey bottle sat beside him.
Zeke decided it was best to leave the death site as soon as possible, and that afternoon they got underway to get in a few miles before nightfall. Olin Wales led the oxen for the Trent wagon, as Jason Trent still sat inside crying and drinking. Abbie sat at the back of the wagon, watching the little grave disappear.
“Jeremy Trent—age seven,” the market read. “A brave boy, who gave his life on the trail to Oregon.” She wondered how long the wooden marker would last.
* * *
Six days later, as they neared the north fork of the Platte, where they would have to cross the river again, Jason Trent had not improved. He’d been drunk most of the time and unable to lead his own oxen. He barely spoke and ate even less often. He’d brought along plenty of whiskey, for medicinal purposes and to trade with, but now he’d drunk up most of it, and by the ninth day after Jeremy’s death, the man was on his last bottle.
With Trent too drunk to think straight most of the time, and Abbie wrapped up in tending to him and doing everything by herself, Quentin Robards moved in on LeeAnn almost completely. She rode with him on his horse some of the time and spent all her spare time with him. She had become even colder and more distant toward Abbie since Jeremy’s cruel death. Now when Abbie needed her sister more than ever, she was unreachable, and the loneliness Zeke had predicted was becoming a hard reality.
Zeke and others tried to talk Jason Trent into wanting to live again. They reminded him that his daughters needed him; but the man only wailed that they were nearly grown, and that LeeAnn didn’t need him at all, for she had Quentin Robards now.
“Abbie, she’s the strong one,” he whimpered. “She’ll always be all right. She knows her way, my Abbie. She knows her way. Soon she’ll be gone from me, too. And I’ll have nobody—nobody!”
Always he used the same words. Jeremy’s death had seemed to affect the man’s mind to the extent that there was no reaching him.
They made it to the north fork, where they made camp on the east side. Everyone turned in early to rest up for the crossing in the morning, which Zeke promised would
be as bad or worse than their first crossing. Jason Trent bedded down under the wagon, unable to bear being inside near Jeremy’s things any longer. Abbie fell asleep to the man’s soft sobbing. That sound was to haunt her forever, for it was the last thing she heard out of Jason Trent.
It was a single gunshot, and it startled all of them awake. Abbie sat straight up, as did LeeAnn, and they looked at each other. It was still dark outside, and Abbie’s first thought was of Zeke. Had Rube Givens sneaked up on him and shot him in the night? She panicked and grabbed her robe, throwing it on and climbing out of the wagon, followed by LeeAnn. Now others were exiting their wagons.
“What’s happening?” Abbie shouted.
“Don’t know,” Casey Miles replied, buttoning his shirt.
“Who fired that gun?” someone else asked in the confusion.
Abbie turned to check on her father, but he was gone. “Pa?” she called out. “You up, too?” There was no reply, and they all stood looking at each other, feeling an eerie premonition, yet none of them realizing the reality of it yet. “Pa?” Abbie called out.
A chill swept through her, giving her goosebumps on her arms. “Pa? Where are you? Pa?” Her voice was panicky now, as her eyes darted around the small group that had moved closer to the campfire. “Has anybody seen pa?”
Hanes frowned. “He … doesn’t seem to be about, honey,” he replied. They all walked around now, searching and calling, but blackness began to sweep over Abbie as she turned back to the wagon and searched frantically for her father’s Spencer carbine. It was not there. The shot they’d heard had been a very loud boom, the kind of sound a Spencer would make. She climbed back out. “Find him!” she screamed. “Find pa! It’s gone! His rifle is gone!” She started to run off into the darkness when someone grabbed her arms.
Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) Page 19
