Mona Hodgson - [Hearts Seeking Home 01]

by Prairie Song

  “And she’s charmed me.” Burying her nose in the baby’s thin hair, Anna drew in another deep breath. “She smells of soap and talcum powder.”

  Her hands hidden in quilted gloves, Mary Alice lifted the tin of biscuits from the kettle. “I just fed her, so that sweet smell won’t last long.” Her laugh made the baby jump.

  Anna traced Evie’s soft cheek with the back of her fingers. The baby calmed and returned to slumber.

  “You look fully at ease in that role, Anna.” Maren sat at a small table cranking the coffee grinder.

  She was at ease, which only created a familiar tension. She’d passed up her chance at starting a family of her own. Now, even with Großvater doing so much better, he and Mutter would still need her help to start their new lives.

  Mary Alice set the hot bread pan on the table away from Maren’s coffee dust. “You know, Anna, Boney Hughes isn’t the only single man in camp.” Her lips pressed together in a catlike grin.

  No one had to tell her that. She’d just watched one charm Mutter and bend a wagon hoop into place as if it were no work at all. And what of the image of him clasping his hands to give her a lift? Charming and surprising.

  “Mary Alice is right.” Maren stilled the grinder. “What about Charles Pemberton? There’s nothing wrong with your brother, is there, Hattie?”

  “Sounds like a trick question.” Hattie tittered. “But I suppose as big brothers go, Charles is all right.” She glanced at Anna with a grin that matched Mary Alice’s. “Only thing is, you might have trouble finding him if you don’t know where to find Camille Le Beau.”

  A chorus of “Ohs” prompted a round of giggles.

  Anna lifted the baby to her chest, letting Evie’s head rest on her shoulder.

  Hattie pulled the pins from her hat. “That only leaves Captain Cowlishaw, Tiny, Frank, and Oliver Rengler.”

  Four could play this silly game. Besides, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, as Dedrick had been fond of saying. “I wouldn’t put Garrett Cowlishaw on the list,” Anna said. “Not with the way he looks at Caroline.”

  Mary Alice nodded and gave the stew a brisk stir.

  “What about that other trail hand—the ruggedly handsome and mysterious one. Caleb Reger, is it?” Newlywed Maren Wainwright was enjoying this game a little too much.

  “Oh! I must have forgotten about him.” Mary Alice was the camp master of teasing grins.

  Anna let out a long sigh. “He was just at our camp, and you all know it. Hattie waved on her way by.”

  Hattie’s eyes widened in feigned surprise. “Are you saying I’m a gossip?”

  Anna and everyone else pinned Hattie with a knowing gaze.

  “Very well.” Hattie pursed her lips, raising her chin a notch. “I did mention seeing him there. But only because I’m a romantic.”

  “My grandfather was busy, so Mr. Reger offered to help.”

  Mary Alice cocked her head, dipping her chin. “Mr. Reger was bending wagon hoops and pulling canvas. You can’t tell us you haven’t noticed him.”

  Caleb.

  “Of course I’ve noticed him. So has Hattie. He was none too happy with either of us our first day on the road.” Though he did want to clear the air. No need to mention that part. Or the dimple.

  Mary Alice waved her wooden spoon. “You don’t have to worry about Hattie where Caleb Reger is concerned. She has her sights set on Boney.”

  Her face turning the color of ripe tomatoes, Hattie pulled the hat from her head and hid behind it.

  Anna leaned toward Hattie. “You do?”

  “I don’t. At least I have no compelling desire to marry him.”

  Mary Alice stirred the pot. “You mean, even if you had a clean shot at him?”

  “I wouldn’t express my feelings in terms of guns and targets, but I do like Boney.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t marry him,” Anna said, smiling. “I think so.” Hattie grinned, feverishly blinking her blue-gray eyes. “If you think so.”

  “I do.” The moment the words slipped out, heat rushed up Anna’s neck, and her friends burst into laughter.

  Perhaps she should’ve let Caleb clear the air between them.

  Though as far as she was concerned, he already had.

  Caroline dunked the cloth into the dishwater. Mary Alice Brenner’s laugh carried to the Kamdens’ camp. The threatening storm clouds from earlier had passed without incident, and although the temperature was dropping with the setting sun, the night sky was clear. Dishwater dripping from her hands, Caroline held a clean tin plate out to Rhoda Kamden.

  “I’m thankful for your help.” Rhoda wiped the plate dry with a thin towel and set it on the corner of the table. “I just don’t seem to be able to keep up with it all anymore.”

  Duff, Lyall, and Maisie busied themselves with Gabi and the other children, playing marbles and chasing a hoop within the camp. After the Zanzucchi boy broke his arm this afternoon, all the parents were on alert. Ian Kamden had gone to see if his services as a wheelwright were needed. His mother was in the wagon fetching her knitting.

  Caroline’s quilting circle friends had invited her to join them for supper tonight. She should’ve asked for the evening off. A little laughter would’ve been good for her. Sitting around a campfire would be sweet relief for her feet too.

  She glanced at the circle of three-legged stools Ian Kamden had set out for supper, then handed Rhoda another clean plate. The sprite of a woman hardly seemed big enough to withstand the birth of one child, let alone five. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Caroline.”

  “I’m glad to be of help.” That much was true. But she couldn’t say she was glad she was here, because she’d much rather be at the campfire with her friends.

  “I’m sure you’ll soon need a break from the children and caring for us.” Rhoda carried the plates to the wagon box and glanced toward the Brenners’ camp and the sound of Hattie’s and Anna’s laughter. “For a little time with your friends.”

  “I’d like that. Thank you.” Feeling selfish, Caroline pulled a tin cup from the dishpan. “But I’m fine.” Her time with the Kamdens was temporary. Besides, she did have many of her friends on this journey with her. The younger Mrs. Kamden seemed lost and alone even in the midst of her family of eight, with a husband who hardly spoke a word and a mother-in-law who seemed bent on making up for it.

  “You get along well with the children.” Rhoda took the clean cup from her. “And Mither Kamden is happy for your company.”

  “Except when that horn blows in the morning and I tell her it’s time to rise from her bed.”

  Rhoda snickered. “I’m glad it’s you sleeping in there, and not me.”

  Caroline raised a teasing eyebrow. The work had given her a purpose, making her feel useful. But she was thankful the job was only for five months.

  And she missed her quilting circle friends. She’d take Rhoda up on her offer of time off. Soon.

  The senior Mrs. Kamden climbed out of the wagon, clutching a cloth sack. “I can’t find it.” She walked to the worktable and looked at Rhoda. “I said, I can’t find it.”

  Caroline and Rhoda both glanced at the sack in her mother-in-law’s hand. “You have your knitting. There.”

  “I know that.” Davonna Kamden scrunched her face. “I’m not stupid.” She laid her hand on her chest. “I’m talking about the locket my husband gave me.”

  Caroline lifted the biscuit pan from the table. “You went into the wagon to get your knitting.”

  “I know what I went to do.” Davonna huffed. “I decided to look at my locket.” She squared her shoulders, broad compared to Rhoda’s. “Someone is taking my things.”

  Caroline stilled. Could someone have really taken the locket from their wagon?

  “That seems a drastic conclusion, Mither Kamden. I’m sure you’ll find the locket,” Rhoda said. “Things like that are easy to misplace.”

  Another huff from the elder woman.

  Cloth in ha
nd, Caroline scrubbed the pan. “I can help you look for it in the morning.”

  “That would be a waste of precious time.” The older woman pressed the knitting sack to her midsection. “If the locket were there, I would have found it.”

  Ian Kamden strolled into camp, carrying a broken spoke. He looked at least as tired as Caroline’s back and legs told her she was.

  “Son!” Davonna waved him over. “There’s something you should know.”

  He glanced at his wife then at Caroline, his brow knit together.

  “Don’t look at them,” Davonna said, her voice seeping agitation. “They’re hiding the truth. I’m the one who knows what’s going on.”

  Rhoda busied herself drying the clean pan while Caroline retrieved the empty bean pot from a nearby rock.

  “Whatever your news, Mither, do I need to hear it this moment?” Mr. Kamden tossed the spoke into the fire then looked at his mother.

  “Well, if you ask me,”—Davonna glowered at Rhoda—“this cannot wait.”

  He sank onto one of the stools and stretched his legs, crossing them at the ankles, then looked at his mother.

  Caroline quieted her scrubbing cloth. She shouldn’t listen in, but if Davonna Kamden was right about valuables disappearing, and there was a thief in their midst, she wanted to know about it. Mr. Kamden had been milling about with various men. She’d seen him talking to Garrett Cowlishaw before supper. Perhaps he’d heard news of other folks having such problems. She hoped not.

  “A thief is an abomination to the Lord.” Davonna raised a finger in the air, apparently for added punctuation to her proclamation.

  Mr. Kamden frowned. “A thief?”

  “Yes.” Davonna pressed her hand to her chest. “And we have one among us.”

  “In the Boone’s Lick Company?” Dragging his feet back to the legs of the stool, he looked up at his wife. Rhoda shrugged.

  Davonna’s nod was slow and deliberate.

  Standing, Mr. Kamden glanced out at the encampment of wagons. “I was just with several of the men. No one said a word about a thief.”

  “They may not know yet, but they surely will.”

  “Something here has gone missing?”

  “It most certainly has.” Davonna clutched the collar on her shirtwaist. “The locket your father gave me.”

  “Anything else? It seems that if someone went to the trouble to go through your belongings, they would have taken other things … more valuable things.”

  Davonna crossed her arms and set her jaw. “It pains me that you think me careless with such a precious gift.”

  “Mither, I’m only saying that such a small item can easily be misplaced.”

  “I know who took it.”

  Caroline lifted the kettle from the dishpan, tipping it toward the light of the fire to see if she’d gotten it clean. If someone had truly stolen the locket, how could Davonna know who’d taken it when she’d only just discovered it missing?

  “Who is it, Mother?”

  Caroline and Rhoda both stilled.

  Davonna leaned toward her son. “I abhor having to say it, but the culprit is our own employee, Mrs. Milburn.”

  “What?” The kettle slipped out of Caroline’s hands and into the dishpan, splashing the front of her dress with dirtied water. “Me? How could you ever think I’d do such a thing?”

  “This is preposterous!” Rhoda waved the towel. “Caroline has been nothing but kind and generous with you. How could you ever think she would take the locket?”

  Mr. Kamden rested his hand on his mother’s arm. “Did you see Mrs. Milburn take it?”

  “No. But she was the last one in the wagon before it went missing.”

  “That doesn’t mean she took it. She lives in the wagon.”

  “You think one of your own bairns is a thief?” Davonna jerked her arm away from him. “Why would they take something that wasn’t theirs?”

  “Indeed.” Rhoda’s arm fell, dragging the towel in the dirt. “And why would Caroline take it?”

  Davonna tugged her shawl tight. “I’ve said enough already.”

  Finally, something they all could agree on.

  Mr. Kamden met Caroline’s gaze. “The hour is late, and we are all tired.”

  “So that’s it?” Davonna planted her hands on her sides. “You don’t care about what I say? About your faither’s locket?”

  “Not tonight, I don’t.” He sighed. “I’m sure the captain is ready to bed down as well. If the locket has not turned up by porridge time in the morning, we will go speak to him.”

  “Very well.” Davonna squared her shoulders. “But I do not wish to sleep in the same wagon with her.”

  The feeling was mutual.

  If Caroline weren’t dripping wet, she would latch onto a candle lantern and start the long walk back to Jewell and Mary and Cora and Gilbert. Tears stung her eyes. She never should’ve left her own family.

  16

  Yawning, Anna pulled the coffee grinder and pot from the box on the back of the wagon. Thanks to her friends’ teasing ways during supper last night, she had dreamed of Caleb Reger in her sleep. She and the trail hand had been cheerful, giving the children rides on a cow, until Mutter called out to her from her hammock. A mishmash of her various journey experiences with Caleb.

  So far Saturday morning hadn’t chased the thoughts of him away as she held the pot under the spigot of the water barrel.

  “Anna?” Mutter’s voice drew her attention to the table where Mutter pulled a crust of bread from a sack. “Did you hear me?”

  Shaking her head, Anna hung the pot from the hook over the fire Großvater had started. “I’m sorry. My mind … I was thinking about something else.” Someone else.

  “I was asking about your großvater.”

  “He’s gone to get the oxen.”

  “He was awfully slow getting out of bed this morning.” Mutter scooped butter from the churn. “I was already up and dressing before he dropped his hammock into the back of the wagon.”

  Anna nodded. “Yes, and now that you mention it, he was moving pretty slowly, even at rolling his hammock.”

  “That’s not like him. Since Vater agreed to join the caravan, he’s had more energy than I’ve seen in him since … well, you know.” Mutter looked away.

  Since Dedrick died. Why couldn’t Mutter say it?

  “Do you think he might be ill?” Mutter asked.

  “He didn’t say anything about it. Went after the oxen like he does every morning.”

  “You know your großvater. He wouldn’t say if he was feeling punk.”

  Anna pulled three tin mugs from the wagon box. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  Mutter began to slice dry sausage for their breakfast. “And I might talk to the doctor.”

  “Großvater wouldn’t like that.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t like it if he got sick and died on me.”

  Anna sighed. “Großvater is fine. You’ll see.” Still she couldn’t help but watch for him to return to camp while she freed her hammock from the tree and rolled it.

  The coffee seemed eager to boil this morning, sending out a rich aroma. Distracted by Mutter’s concerns, Anna realized she may have ground extra into the pot.

  Großvater appeared and dropped the lead rope at the tongue of the wagon, leaving the four oxen unattended. “I could smell our coffee two camps down. Works better than a dinner bell.”

  Anna poured him a cup and studied his face for any sign of illness.

  “Danke.” Großvater carried the cup to the table, the steam trailing him. He sank onto a chair and took a long gulp. “Tastes extra good this morning.”

  Mutter glanced at the oxen, not yet yoked to the wagon. “Vater?”

  After another gulp of coffee, he peered up at her over the cup. “Wilma?”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like everyone else. With my fingers.”

  Giggling, Anna handed Mutter a cup of coffee. “Großvater seems fine to me.”r />
  Mutter huffed. “Just as annoying as always, that is for certain.”

  “And you’re worrying for naught. You can’t blame me for wanting a little coffee before I go back to work.” He set his cup down and went to the tongue.

  “Mornin’, Otto.” Boney strolled up with Caleb Reger at his side. “Anna. Mrs. Goben.” Boney returned his attention to Großvater. “Me and Caleb were just fighting over who was going to get to yoke your oxen for a cup of that coffee and a hunk of Anna’s spice bread.” He looked at Caleb and raised a brow.

  “Uh, yes, we were. And I say it should be me. After all, everyone knows Boney’s a better cook than I am. He can make his own bread.” He looked at Anna and smiled.

  “Well, I am glad to see you,” Mutter said, “and will happily give you both a portion and a hot cup if you’ll do the rest of Vater’s chores for him this morning.”

  “Sounds like a good deal to me, Otto. We get fed, and you get to watch us work.”

  “My daughter thinks I’m weak.” Großvater shook his head. “When it’s just that blamed bear kept me awake the other night, and the memory of its visit hasn’t helped me get much sleep since.”

  “You and me both.” Boney gave a low whistle and clapped Großvater on the shoulder. “Show me where to find a coffee mug.”

  Had Boney seen what Mutter was worried about? Was Großvater not feeling well and trying to hide it? Or was he just grateful for the company? Mutter was no doubt wondering the same things.

  When Boney sat down to visit with Großvater, Anna poured a cup for Caleb.

  He looked up at her. “So that’s my prize?”

  “Your prize?”

  “The coffee.”

  Nodding, she smiled and held the cup out to him. “A sip or two might help with the work.”

  He took the cup, his gaze lingering. “Your smile is worth more than any cup of coffee.”

  Her cheeks warmed. She tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. “Thanks again for helping us with the hoop yesterday. Seems as long as we’re around, you don’t have to concern yourself with boredom.”

  “You are anything but boring, Miss Goben.” A smile parted his lips.