Mona Hodgson - [Hearts Seeking Home 01]

by Prairie Song

  Garrett nodded. “Anything I should know about?”

  “He doesn’t approve of the way Mama Zanzucchi lets her boys run wild.” A slow smile bunched Tiny’s full cheeks. “Oh, and one of Le Doc’s horses has a case of the scours and left a surprise on the road in front of his camp.”

  “Ha!” Boney slapped his pant leg, sending dust up to mingle with the smoke. “What goes around comes around.”

  Caleb nodded, hoping that wasn’t entirely true. Unless it pertained to only his most recent actions. Anna Goben had a way of bringing out the best in him.

  “Nothing about anything missing or having seen anything,” Boney said. “I did get an earful from Tom Brenner about his disdain for being forced to listen to the Bible every morning.”

  Garrett nodded. “Yeah, he hit me up with that same complaint.”

  Caleb took a biscuit from his plate. “Sally Rengler suggested I search her brother-in-law’s things.”

  “Oliver? She thinks he may have taken Mrs. Zanzucchi’s teapot?” Garrett sighed. “What did you tell her?”

  “I asked what made her think of Oliver, and she didn’t have any credible reason. Only that he was slow minded and bound to do something like that.” Caleb bristled, remembering the way her nose went into the air every time she spoke Oliver’s name. “I said I’d talk to him, which I did. He didn’t know anything about it either, and said he felt real bad for Mama Zanzucchi and that she was a really nice lady and made the best noodles.”

  “Hey, Boss.” Frank Marble raked his dusty blond hair. “You asked me to talk to the Gobens about things gettin’ pilfered, and I found out somethin’ really interesting.”

  “Oh? Let’s hear it.”

  “It seems someone might have stolen Miss Anna Goben’s …”

  Caleb’s shoulders tensed.

  “Heart.” Frank cackled and pinned Caleb with wide eyes, and his mouth puckered for a fanciful kiss. “You know anything about that, Ca-leb? When I asked ol’ Otto if there was anything I could do to help out, his granddaughter was all too anxious to pipe up and sing your praises.”

  “Now, you’ve gone and given me indigestion.” Boney reared back and belched. “Not sure it’s good to talk about such things over food.”

  Garrett cleared this throat. “Doesn’t sound like any of you heard any reports of anything else missing.”

  Isaac shook his head. “The Le Beaus and the Pembertons were all fine. No complaints.”

  “Good. I hate this sort of stuff. Becomes easy to get sidetracked and distracted from what’s most important.”

  Isaac added a log to the firepit. “Seein’ to the safety and well-bein’ of all these folks has got to be rough.”

  “Exactly right, Isaac.” Garrett drained his coffee cup. “I’ll go talk to the Zanzucchi family after supper. I’ll tell them we’ll keep our ears and eyes open, but that for now we’ve not received any other reports, nor found the pot in question.” Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. “You all let me know if you hear anything new.”

  Caleb nodded, his thoughts centered on how to get back at Frank for his ruthless teasing. Maybe a surprise in his cornbread ingredients the next time it was his turn to cook.

  23

  Caleb perched on a log, watching the sun sink through the last of the Missouri trees. Warming his hands on the tin cup, he gulped fresh coffee. He and Isaac had left the Company after breakfast. While it was true the number of westbound overlanders had dwindled considerably in the past ten years, Independence was still the main jumping-off point. The end of April through the beginning of May was the prime time of year for starting west, and enough camp space and grazing would be hard to come by. Garrett had sent him and Isaac ahead of the wagons to scout for their arrival tomorrow.

  One of the farmers he and Isaac talked to near Lake City had sent them this direction—a nice wide spot along the Little Blue River. A company smaller than the Boone’s Lick group camped up the road, but the river was close and the grasses plentiful enough for a two-night encampment.

  When the last ribbons of color faded, Caleb returned his attention to the campfire, where Isaac roasted the rabbit he’d snared. His trail mate sang while he cooked. Sang or hummed or whistled while he did most anything. Despite the scars down the left side of his face and neck and despite the savage way in which his wife was taken from him, Isaac was a cheerful soul who said he found his peace and rest in the goodness of the Lord.

  Caleb sighed. Isaac should be the one reading the Scriptures every morning. He didn’t just talk about peace; he knew peace.

  His boss, and shepherd of the roving flock, probably figured Caleb could learn something from Isaac. But their situations were different. Isaac hadn’t been the one who kept making the mistakes and doing wrong. He had only to forgive others.

  “Mister Caleb?”

  “Yes?”

  “That night in Saint Charles when you told Frank you wasn’t the marrying kind.”

  Caleb drew in a deep breath. He should have known the subject would come up again.

  “Did you mean it?”

  After a few seconds of listening to the kettle of beans bubbling over hot coals, Caleb looked up at Isaac. “I did. I loved someone once. Thought I did, anyway. A wisp of a girl named Susan, almost pixie-like with the smallest freckled nose.”

  Isaac gave the rabbit a turn on the spit and stirred the beans.

  “I thought she loved me. She said she did.” Caleb picked bark off the log and threw it onto the embers. “We planned to be married in time. She was sixteen, and I was seventeen.” The flames sparked and popped. “The war broke out and I went to fight. Later received word that Susan had found someone else.”

  Isaac topped up Caleb’s coffee cup then refilled his own. “You’re plenty young. You want to find someone else to marry one day, don’t ya?”

  “I do.” Caleb pressed his hands against the cup’s warmth. “But I won’t.” His first answer was the accurate one. He might have one day married Anna, if things were different for him. If he hadn’t been responsible for so many deaths. If he knew she wouldn’t turn her back on him if she knew the truth. If only.

  “Hmm.” Isaac pulled the roasting stick from above the fire and studied the browned rabbit. “He’s done. And the beans are hot. No reason we can’t eat while we talk.”

  “About something else.” Caleb set his cup on a rock, stood, and held out his plate for his portion. “It’s best I don’t think about all that. Some men make mistakes.”

  “Like both of them two on the crosses, either side of our Lord Jesus?”

  It wasn’t that simple.

  “Both guilty. The man who believed, Jesus told him He’d see him that day in paradise.” Isaac separated the rabbit and put the meaty back half, a ladle of beans, and a biscuit on Caleb’s plate. “Don’t think God woulda sent His Son to die to give us grace we didn’t sorely need.”

  Isaac was the one who would make a good preacher. Garrett should ask him instead.

  Caleb took his supper to the log and sat down. When Isaac brought his plate over, they both bowed their heads, silent.

  The horses nickered. The sound of a snapping twig popped Caleb’s eyes open. They weren’t alone. Jumping up from the fallen tree, he nearly toppled his plate. A hairy man draped in buffalo skins walked out of the darkness and into the light of the fire.

  Caleb’s heart pounded. He’d done it again. He’d let someone sneak up on them. He started for his bedroll where he’d left his rifle.

  Isaac motioned for Caleb to stop. “Evenin’, Mister.”

  The intruder walked straight to the fire and warmed his hands.

  Isaac hadn’t moved from his tree stump. “You hungry? We got some grub, if’n you are.”

  Caleb swallowed hard at the memories of intruders.

  “We got coffee too.”

  The hairy man shook his head then studied the kettle of beans.

  Isaac stood and held his full plate out to the man. “I’m Isaac, and this here’s Mis
ter Caleb.”

  In one swift move, the trapper took the plate then squatted close to the fire. When Skins started eating, Isaac motioned for Caleb to do the same. He did, never looking away from the strange man.

  How could Isaac be so trusting? so calm? fearless?

  When the trapper had dragged his last bite of biscuit across the plate, he studied Isaac. “You two ain’t from around here.” The words came out in a mumble. His mouth hadn’t even moved.

  “No sir.” Isaac took the empty plate from him. “Scouting for a caravan of wagons.”

  “That rise over there.”

  Caleb followed the man’s gaze upstream, to where they’d seen a low hilly area before dark.

  “Black bear and her cubs live up there. Hunt down here.”

  “Good to know,” Isaac said. “Much obliged.”

  Skins raised his hand, then turned and disappeared into the trees.

  Caleb dropped his plate and cup in the wash bucket. “I should’ve been paying attention.” He started pacing. “Shouldn’t have let him sneak up on us like that. Should’ve seen him coming.”

  “Mister Caleb, I don’t know what happened or what that mistake was you talked about, and I don’t need to know.” Isaac laid his hand on Caleb’s arm. “But for someone who reads the Scripture as much as you do, you don’t seem none too familiar with God’s grace.”

  Caleb nodded then walked away from the firelight.

  While Isaac got his supper, Caleb ducked under the makeshift tent he’d tied to a branch and rolled out his bed, but he didn’t expect to get much sleep. He planned to be on guard for vagrants and beggars. And bears. He couldn’t make that mistake again.

  Anna moved the small worktable as close to the campfire as she dared then sat down with her parchment and quill. Crickets chirped and tree leaves rustled in the breeze. Smoke from various fires floated on the cool night air, glowing in the light of the almost-full moon.

  The Company’s children had quieted, tucked in for the night. Anxious for morning, Mutter had gone to bed. Großvater had turned in early too. Most of the camp had settled in, except for the handful of men still wandering about.

  Anna had adorned all the hats she’d brought with her. Now seemed the perfect opportunity to pen a letter to Emilie. The city of Independence would have a post office, and if she made haste, she’d have the letter ready to mail when they arrived tomorrow. Leaning over the table, she dipped the quill into the ink and set it to paper.

  Dearest Emilie,

  She wrote in German, the language she shared with Emilie and Mrs. Brantenberg. Mrs. Heinrich, now, she reminded herself. So much had happened in the two and a half weeks since they’d left Saint Charles that Anna scarcely knew where to begin.

  We are well. I pray the same for all of you. We are all anxious to hear news from you and the others.

  Your father? How is he faring? And Mrs. Heinrich? Much happened so quickly in that last week before our departure that I still have to remind myself that Mrs. Brantenberg is your father’s wife.

  Caroline sorely misses her sister and the children. Although seeing the beauty of lush meadows, streams, and uncountable animals has been a feast for my eyes, I miss delivering candles to the Dry Goods and Grocery. I miss seeing you.

  Anna leaned against the chair while a memory carried her back to the day of her canceled wedding. Caleb Reger in the store, spilling coffee beans on the floor. Much had changed between them since then. Since the first day on the road when he’d scolded her and Hattie for lingering in town. The way he’d jumped in to help her and Mutter with the wagon canvas. The way in which he’d looked at her since that day in the field with the ox hadn’t escaped her notice either. The way he’d held her hand and comforted her. She couldn’t say for sure what it was that blazed in his brown eyes, but it was no longer condemnation.

  Yes, he was a much more complicated man than she first thought.

  Adding her sigh to the hoot of the owl off in the distance, Anna returned the quill to the page.

  Do you remember a Caleb Reger? One of Garrett Cowlishaw’s trail hands.

  The one who, along with Mr. Isaac, had left camp on his Tennessee Pacer directly after breakfast that morning. Truth was Anna had noticed far more about Caleb than she cared to admit, even to herself.

  Mr. Reger is not entirely rude and distant, as I first thought.

  Rather charming, in fact. She left that out of the letter too.

  Oh dear, she hadn’t realized how much Caleb Reger occupied her letter. Her thoughts.

  She would miss seeing him early tomorrow morning and hearing his deep voice recite Scripture. He read with authority, and yet she heard a longing there too. No doubt, his troubling war experiences. Much of her fellow travelers seemed weighted by such memories.

  Perhaps God had brought her—all of them—on this road for something more than just a long walk to a new home. She prayed it was so.

  An owl hooted from a distant tree, probably protesting Isaac’s snores. Caleb was used to them. He rolled over and stared at the glowing canvas, lit by embers in the firepit. How was he to sleep with thoughts of roaming trappers, hungry bears, and the thief on the cross?

  “You told Frank you wasn’t the marrying kind. Did you mean it?”

  And impossible thoughts concerning Anna Goben.

  He’d thought he loved Susan. Her pixie-like looks and freckled nose was all he’d told Isaac about. All he really remembered was her looks. That didn’t sound like love to him now. And it didn’t sound at all like the way he saw Anna Goben.

  A strong young woman who valued her family enough at least to try to do what was right by them. She’d lost her brother and left the only home she’d really known to provide a fresh start for her grandfather and a mother whose unpredictable moods looked all too familiar.

  Wilma Goben had no husband, and she’d lost her son. She had every right to be bitter and moody.

  What had been his excuse?

  His father was honorable, a godly man who had only wanted what was best for his son. His mother had been proud of his every achievement, and his sister adored him. He had a bright and purposeful future as a preacher. But then that future had gone up in gunfire and smoke.

  And it wasn’t Susan’s fault. She’d probably done him a favor. He wouldn’t have wanted to marry a woman who didn’t truly love him. He had no one to blame but himself. It was his choice to follow the bottle, to ruin the life he no longer deserved.

  God, why did it have to be this way?

  His family didn’t know if he were dead or alive. They probably still blamed Union soldiers for his death or capture.

  Neelie had probably made him an uncle by now. A boy? A girl? Perhaps several. It had been at least five years since the wedding. He wanted to know her children. To see if Neelie’s daughter pouted like she used to, to hear his father preach again and to see his mother smile.

  His gut clenching, he rolled over again. He couldn’t face any of them. Not if he wanted to keep his secret. Not if he wanted to protect them from the truth. He had no choice but to make a family of people who didn’t know his past and couldn’t be hurt by it.

  So why couldn’t he have just done his job as a trail hand—scouting, guarding, helping—and kept his distance? He was supposed to have protected himself from the possibility of any attachments. Kept his emotions from becoming so tangled.

  He had managed it up until the point when he no longer found Anna Goben annoying. Until she stopped squaring her shoulders and jutting out her chin, angry with him. Until that day she accepted his help with the wagon canvas. And out in the pasture with the ox, when she said she was sorry for whatever it was he couldn’t say.

  Caleb scrubbed his whiskered face. He’d begun to care for Anna, and she could be hurt by the truth. He was horrified to think she cared about someone so despicable.

  He tossed from side to side for several minutes.

  God, why?

  “Some men make mistakes.” His own words taunted him
.

  Why did they have to die? Why would You make so many families grieve the loss of their sons because of me and my horrible mistake? If You’re so loving and ever present, why didn’t You stop me?

  “Like both of them two on the crosses, either side of our Lord Jesus?”

  The memory burned. What was he missing? What was he supposed to do about those two sinners?

  “Don’t think God woulda sent His Son to die to give us grace we didn’t sorely need.”

  What was it that Isaac understood about it all?

  Why can’t I forget?

  What can I do?

  Why don’t I feel forgiven?

  Silence.

  Caleb caught the bottom of the tangled wool blanket with his stockinged feet and pulled it straight. When his foot slipped from the blanket, he bumped the tent pole and knocked the canvas loose. The tent toppled on him and he fought against it, flailing his arms and legs.

  “Mister Caleb?”

  He stilled, letting the heavy canvas settle over him.

  “You all right, Mister Caleb?” Isaac asked.

  “Yes.” Another lie.

  “With all that thrashing, I didn’t know if you were sick or maybe sufferin’ a nightmare.”

  “Sorry I disturbed you. Go back to sleep.”

  “All right, then. You too.”

  Anna Goben had pushed her own grief aside to see to the needs of her family and friends.

  That was what he had to do.

  Caleb shoved the canvas off his body and straightened the blanket to cover himself.

  Garrett and a whole Company of people needed him to set his own concerns and desires aside to see them safely to their destination. And that was what he intended to do, with or without God’s help.

  Despite his own pain. His past failings. He would just have to pile them all on his back and carry them. A reminder of what he could’ve been. Maybe he would eventually learn to live with them, but his back wouldn’t support much more.