by Prairie Song
That was his answer. There was little chance he’d have a permanent place in Anna’s life. She’d chosen to take the weight of her mother’s bad habit on her shoulders. He couldn’t compete with Anna’s dogged determination to do what she deemed right by her family. He couldn’t argue with Anna’s need to fix her mother, to try to protect her. He’d watched his sister try to do the same for him.
But it wasn’t his past that had come between him and Anna, it was her present.
“Anna,” Mutter called.
Anna sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Not with Caleb Reger. Not with Mutter.
“Anna. Come here, please.”
Against her will, if she had any, Anna climbed up the spokes of the wheel and knelt on the wagon seat. “What is it, Mutter?” She didn’t bother to whisper. “Großvater will be back soon with the oxen, and I need to get his breakfast.”
She looked through the puckered opening in the canvas. Mutter lay on her side in the hammock, holding her head. “Why were you so rude to Caleb? And after all the nice things he’s done for us.”
Tears stung Anna’s eyes. She couldn’t tell Mutter the truth—that she now wanted nothing to do with him because of his drinking. Why she still cared about Mutter’s feelings after all the pain she’d caused, Anna couldn’t say, but she did. Blinking back the tears, Anna stood. “I’m taking care of you and Großvater. Isn’t that enough?”
Mutter groaned. “Don’t you want more?”
She did. “Not with Caleb, I don’t.” Not anymore. “Now, while you rest, I’m going to see the doctor.”
“Good morning, Anna.” Captain Cowlishaw’s voice came from behind her.
She wondered how long it would be before he showed up to revisit yesterday’s happenings. She turned and climbed off the wagon.
“Good morning, Captain.”
“You said you were going to see the doctor?”
“Yes. For some catnip for tea.”
“You have a headache?”
“It’s Mutter. After all the excitement yesterday—”
“Yes, I’ll need to speak to her about that.”
“I’m afraid she’s not feeling well this morning.”
He stepped up to the wheel and spoke into the canvas. “Ma’am, I need to have a word with you.”
Anna raised her chin a notch. “My mother is still in her bed.”
“It is official business, Anna. I must speak to her.”
Her shoulders sagging, Anna nodded. Perhaps it was best they were turned around and sent packing. Not seeing Caleb every day wouldn’t lessen the pain she felt, but it would make letting go of him easier.
“Mutter, you need to come out,” Anna called.
Mutter groaned. “Give me a moment, Captain.”
“Yes ma’am.” He turned toward Anna. “If you’d like to go find the doctor, I can see to your mother.”
“Yes. I will do that and return shortly.” She’d done all she could for Mutter, and now it was time Mutter faced the consequences for her actions. If nothing else made a difference, perhaps confrontation by authority and the public humiliation that went along with it would.
When Anna returned to the wagon a few minutes later, Mutter sat on the seat alone, her head in her hands. Anna pulled a tin cup from the wagon box and filled it with steaming hot water from the kettle that hung over the campfire. While it steeped, she carried the cup to the wagon.
Mutter looked up, her eyes red and her cheeks wet with tears. “This is so hard.”
Anna’s breath caught. Was Mutter going to tell her they couldn’t go on with the caravan; that she’d lost Anna’s chance to go west with her friends? To start a new life there?
She set the cup on the seat and climbed up.
Mutter looked at her. “Did you see the doctor? Did he give you what Caleb said?”
“Yes.” Anna picked up the cup and sat beside Mutter. “What did the Captain say?”
Mutter took the cup from her. “He wanted to know what happened to me yesterday. On the ferry.”
“What did you tell him?”
Mutter took a sip from the cup and wrinkled her nose as she swallowed. “I told him I lost my balance.”
Anna sighed.
“Then I told him I was frightened to cross the river and that I took a little whiskey to settle my nerves.”
“You did?”
“Yes.” Mutter drank more of the headache remedy. “But he already knew I’d been drinking.”
“What else did he say?”
“That he couldn’t allow me to put the whole company at risk because of my reckless behavior.”
Anna’s chest tightened. “We have to turn around, go back to Saint Charles, don’t we?”
Mutter huffed. “No, dear. All the captain said was that if I take another drink of alcohol, we will have to leave the caravan.” She drained the cup and looked at her. “Is that what you want? Do you want to turn around?”
“No.” Anna shrugged. “I don’t know what I want.”
“That was apparent when you chased that nice young man off with your foul mood.”
“Never mind that.” Anna drew in a deep breath. “Did you tell the captain about Caleb?”
“No, dear. That’s not my place.”
“But you told me.”
“I only told you because you are my daughter, and you have feelings for him.”
Feelings she now had to deny. For her own sake.
32
Friday morning, under the coral ribbons of dawn, Anna rolled her hammock and tucked it into the wagon. Mutter sat on a trunk wearing a fresh dress. Looking uncharacteristically peaceful, she pulled a brush through her hair.
“Mutter?”
She turned toward the opening and smiled at Anna. “Good morning, dear.”
“You’re out of bed?”
“The horn sounded, and there’s breakfast to fix and things to do.”
“Yes.” The same thing had been true the last two mornings, but Mutter had spent them both in bed. In fact, she’d been sequestered in the wagon since the incident at the Kansas River. Anna climbed into the wagon. “Your headache?”
“Is all better.” Mutter sounded bright and clear. “I feel good today. Except that I am so hungry. I think we should have potatoes with our sausage.” She raised her hairbrush. “I’ll make popovers too. You said you brought Emilie’s receipt with you?”
“Yes, but—”
Mutter raised her hand. “Really, dear, I’m fine now.”
Neither of them had spoken a word about the bottles Anna had thrown into the fire. She wanted to believe that was behind them now. And not another breath had been spent discussing Caleb Reger either. But it didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about him.
Mutter pinned up her hair and tied a yellow calico bonnet at her neck. “You’ve been working so hard. You need to let me help.”
Anna nodded, starting to believe for the first time in a long while that Mutter could help.
“You take your time, dear.” Mutter climbed out over the seat, then looked back in at Anna. “You and Vater have been doing all the work the past few days. I intend to pull my weight.”
Anna knelt at the washbowl atop the salt barrel and splashed water on her face. Refreshed, she toweled her face dry. Next, she pulled a cotton skirt and shirtwaist from her trunk.
Pots and pans jangled just outside in the wagon box. It felt good to have a break, to not be the one doing the work and making the noise. She wanted to feel as confident as Mutter did that Mutter was ready to face the day’s tasks. Anna knew she had no choice but to let Mutter try.
In the meantime, she would spend her extra minutes readying herself this morning. She may even take the time to plait her hair.
While Anna dressed and tidied the wagon, sausage sizzled over a cookfire and the aroma of potatoes and onions wafted in through the canvas and set her stomach to growling. She couldn’t recall the last time Mutter had cooked a full meal. Long before they’d left Saint
Charles.
Anna pulled her bonnet from the hook on one of the bows framing the wagon and set it on her head. As she tied the ribbons, she heard the plodding footsteps of the ox team approaching.
“Tochter.” Großvater had returned from the pasture.
“Guten morgen, Vater!”
“Guten morgen!” Großvater’s voice echoed the surprise in Anna’s heart. “Is our Anna sick?”
“Anna is well, only slower than I am this morning.”
Straightening her bonnet, Anna poked her head out through the opening.
Großvater stood at the tongue, setting the yoke on the first two oxen. He looked up at her.
“Mutter is right,” Anna said. “I can’t keep up with her this morning.”
His eyebrows arched.
Anna climbed over the seat and down from the wagon. “Mutter is feeling better.”
Großvater glanced at the steaming skillet on the cookfire then at the worktable, where Mutter rolled out dough. “My tochter is cooking?”
A smile edged Mutter’s lips. “Vater, I was cooking long before I ever birthed Anna.” She shook her head.
Großvater chuckled as he backed the two lead oxen into place. “I’m glad to see you remembered where you had hidden your spunk.”
Mutter held up a wooden spoon and twirled it between her fingers.
Anna giggled. Instantly, Mutter and Großvater had taken her back in time to one of their prewar sparring matches.
“Good morning, folks.”
Anna looked up to see Garrett Cowlishaw walking up the line toward them.
“Good morning, Captain.” Mutter wiped her hands on her apron. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”
He sniffed the air. “Makes we wish I hadn’t already eaten, ma’am. Smells real good.”
“Perhaps the next time you come to check on me.”
Garrett removed his slouch hat. “Yes ma’am. I’d like that.”
Anna met the captain’s gaze. “She is feeling better than she has in a long while.”
Großvater stepped away from the yoked oxen. “My tochter is cooking. That should tell you life is good.”
Garrett rolled his hat in his hands. “It does all our hearts good to see you up and about, ma’am.”
“Mine too, Captain. That was one nasty ailment.” Mutter removed the pan of popovers from atop the dutch oven. “But as you can see, I am alive and well.”
“Yes. And I’d best let you get your breakfast. I’ll see you out for the Scripture reading, then.”
“We’ll be there.” Mutter spoke before Anna could come up with an acceptable excuse not to join the gathering.
Twenty minutes later, they’d finished eating and the three of them had worked together in the cleanup. The wagon was packed and ready to go. Anna stood with Mutter and Großvater between the Kamdens and the Zanzucchis. Caleb stood beside Garrett in front of the Company, his Bible open and his hat tucked under one arm. His hair, the color of ground coffee, dusted the collar on his denim shirt.
When he looked directly at her, she looked away. On this third day since Mutter’s revelation, she didn’t find it any easier to ignore him.
Caleb cleared his throat and pressed a finger to the open pages. “This morning, I will read from the Apostle Paul’s letter to Ephesus in Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Caleb closed his Bible. “According to my friend Isaac Jackson”—he glanced at the freed slave standing on the sidelines—“God wouldn’t have sent His Son to die to give us grace we didn’t sorely need.”
Anna shuddered. Was he referring to Mutter or to himself? He had to know Mutter would tell her of his problem. And now he was trying to say she needed to have more grace?
Settling back against the cantle of his saddle, Caleb studied his scouting companion and the old flop hat that shaded Boney Hughes’s narrow face. Boney insisted on riding a mule, said they fit him better. As usual, Boney was chewing on something. Probably jerky, since he never had to spit. How was it possible he could always be eating and not add an ounce to his girth?
Boney swung his gaze toward Caleb. “You want to talk about Anna. Go ahead.”
“Tuesday night, after the boss crossed the river, he gave me a talking to. Questioned our judgment, yours and mine.”
“Yeah, he chewed on me the next mornin’. Was none too happy about us takin’ to the river after Anna and her mother.”
“You think we had a choice?”
“Not a lick of a chance we coulda done anything else.” Boney scrubbed his whiskered chin. “When I seen you take off on your horse, I knew something was wrong. Had to help.”
Caleb couldn’t speak for Boney, but he knew he was having trouble thinking of much else besides Anna. She was a distraction, a delight, and a frustration—all at once.
“The boss all but said me and you don’t think straight when it comes to the Gobens.”
Caleb nodded. Couldn’t deny it was true. For him, at least. “He told me if Wilma gets to drinking again, he’d have to turn all three of them back. Can’t take the chance of her causing anybody any more grief.”
“I believe he’d do it.” Boney’s brow furrowed. “Sure don’t wanna see that happen. Anna really has her heart set on a fresh start out west. And then there’s you and your feelings for her.”
Caleb’s tension was causing a cramp in his neck, and he reached up to rub it. “There’s nothing there.”
“I helped with your chores all those mornings so you could be with Anna.” A crooked grin lit Boney’s blue eyes. “And the kiss I saw?”
“I remember.” And now he wished he could forget the kiss altogether. He blew out a long breath. “For all the good my feelings are doing either of us.”
“I knew somethin’ must have happened. I’ve been seein’ way too much of you.”
“Has Anna said anything to you since our, uh, swim Tuesday?”
“You mean, about her mother’s drinkin’ and all?”
“About me.”
“Anna hasn’t been out and about much, and the boss is keepin’ me too busy for idle chattin’.” Boney shook his head. “No. What are you expectin’ her to say about you?”
“I don’t know. She turned me away Wednesday morning. I’ve been busy too, but when I have seen Anna, she’s been quick to look away and busy herself. I thought we were, uh, starting to enjoy each other’s company.”
“This started when you discovered her mother’s problem with drinkin’, right?”
Caleb nodded. “Yeah. After my suspicions were confirmed, anyway.”
“She’s probably red-faced about the family secret bein’ out.”
“Anna doesn’t need to feel embarrassed. Not around me.”
“You tell her that?”
“I will.” Caleb leaned forward as his horse climbed an incline. “First chance she gives me.”
Over the rise lay a lush green valley. An ideal place for their camp tomorrow night, except for the village of tipis clustered along the creek. Caleb pulled back on the reins, slowing his Pacer.
“Looks like we’ll be sharing the valley with the mission Indians the boss told us about.” Boney stopped his mule, stood in his stirrups, and looked to the horizon.
Caleb didn’t see any Indian scouts, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there. “We’ve got us some pretty skittish folks. You think they’ll be all right having Indians for neighbors?”
“I sure hope so, ’cause that’s where we’ll need to camp.” Boney looked out over the valley. “I say we pay ’em a friendly visit.” He pulled a slab of jerky from his pack and clicked his tongue at his mule.
Caleb took jerky from his pack too, then pulled his horse around to follow Boney’s mule down a muddy path toward a stand of about twenty tipis. Women dressed in deerskins busied themselves around firepits while men dressed in elk hide stood and watched
them wander in. Children wearing loincloths chased one another with sticks in some kind of a game. The scent of smoke permeated the village. Buffalo skins hung on frames, drying in direct sunlight.
Boney glanced at Caleb. “Hunters and gatherers. Nomads like us.”
Caleb kept his head facing straight ahead, but his eyes were busy surveying his surroundings.
As they approached the center of the village, Boney held up the gift of jerky. “Afternoon, folks.”
A trim young man wearing a felt hat stepped forward from one of the frames. When he offered a short sentence in a language Caleb didn’t understand, the children ran toward Boney’s mule chattering and laughing. An older man joined the young one. They each reached for one of the offered gifts.
When the younger man took the jerky from him, Caleb removed his hat and pointed at the creek. “Hope you don’t mind, but we’d like to camp our wagons up the creek tonight.”
The man standing beside Caleb’s horse spoke undecipherable words to the man standing with the children, then smiled up at Caleb. “You make coffee then?”
Caleb nodded, chuckling inside. “Yes. You come see us. We’ll have coffee at the campfire.”
The older man held up his bundle of jerky and gave Boney a sort of salute before walking away, with the others falling into step. The greeting was brief, but Caleb took it as a good sign. They weren’t seen as any kind of threat. And this band obviously wasn’t Lakota, the tribe farther north, infamous for causing problems.
The wagon train could camp close by for the night. There didn’t seem to be any hostility or fear among the villagers. If only that were true for the band of travelers known as the Boone’s Lick Company.
33
Anna guided Molasses toward a hillock up the road from camp. The Indians with which the Company shared the pretty valley weren’t anything like those talked about in the dime novels. The children had played with the Company’s children, and several of the Indian men sat around campfires, drinking coffee and swapping stories. So far, it seemed to be Großvater’s second favorite moment on the trip. The first was the previous morning, when he’d returned to camp to find Mutter cooking and sassing him.
