Journey of Honor A love story

by Jaclyn M. Hawkes

  Trace wasn’t sure whether to delve or not. Somehow, he’d almost gotten the impression from Mose that he needed to know whatever it was that they had been talking so heatedly about, but Giselle didn’t seem to think that way. Wondering what to do and what his role was here, he let it go for the time being. Later he’d pick at Mose a little more for answers.

  In the meantime, Giselle looked awful and he worried about her. He crouched down beside her and took her pancake turner. When she looked up at him, he said, “At least your grandparents don’t seem to be getting any worse. How are you doing? Are you holding out taking care of them? I know that caring for the sick can be hard at times.”

  Stirring a pan of scrambled eggs, she didn’t look up at him as she said, “I’m fine, but thank you for asking. How are we doing traveling? Are we going to make it over the mountains on time?”

  That was a good question, but only God truly knew the answer. “We’re traveling as fast as we can. Whether that will prove to be fast enough will depend completely on what kind of fall we have. If the weather stays good, we’ll be fine. If winter hits early, we’ll be in trouble either this side of the valley of the Great Salt Lake or in the mountains on the other side. Either way, we need to go as fast as we can.”

  Finally, she looked up. “I’ve been praying all will be well. I’ll keep praying.”

  “I will too, Elle. I will too.”

  He was surprised to see Mose milking her cow, and later as Trace rode his horse beside the train, he came alongside Mose’s wagon. For several minutes he just rode with him in silence. Finally, Mose asked, “Did she say anything when you asked?”

  Trace was noncommittal. “About as much as you did when I asked. Why were you milking this morning?”

  “Because I think she’s doing too much and I’m worried about her. When I try to encourage her to go easier she always brings up the danger of getting caught in the snow in the mountains.”

  Thoughtfully, Trace said, “Yeah, she said something about that to me, too. She’s looking a little rough lately. I mean as rough as a woman that beautiful can look. Is that what’s wrong? She’s doing too much?”

  Mose shrugged. “You’re the doctor. You tell me. A little rough isn’t what I’m seeing. I’m seeing full-blown exhausted.”

  Trace was quiet for a while, thinking. He hadn’t noticed her all that exhausted, but then maybe he just wasn’t seeing things very clearly. She always looked great to him. Too great. His feelings for her had become so strong that he’d begun to almost try to avoid her to dampen them. How he was ever going to be able to walk away from her to continue on to California was beyond him, the way he felt about her.

  He thought back to what Mose had said about her. Trace knew that she was sleeping hard lately, and for a while he’d wondered if she was putting on weight, but lately her face was almost too slender. And she was paler, but she had attributed that to the rain and Trace had accepted that logic. He decided that come lunch time, he would look at her more closely, and see what he really thought.

  *****

  As Giselle drove that morning, she felt horrible. Her whole body ached from the cramps in her stomach and lower back, and she felt ridiculously guilty for telling Trace that she was fine. That was the closest to telling an outright lie that she had ever come.

  Even telling herself that it was necessary to keep things running as smoothly with the wagon train as possible didn’t make it seem any less dishonest. She wasn’t fine, and the blood that she knew was soaking through her petticoats and skirt right now was more than evidence of that.

  She wondered how much a person could bleed before it would make them sick. In a way, she knew that Mose was right and that she needed to tell Trace right away, but if what her grandmother suspected was true and she’d lost these babies, then telling him would be pointless anyway.

  She was dizzy and light-headed and almost nauseous today, and with the pain, she could be honest at least with herself and admit that she had never felt so weak and sick in her life. It was all she could do to hold on to the reins this morning, and every bump that the wagon hit made the pain in her back radiate outward. Several times she caught herself groaning when her tummy would cramp up, and she wished that she could rest during the coming noon instead of feeding and helping her grandparents.

  Towards late morning, she began to know that something was seriously wrong, and when she found herself with black dots dancing in front of her eyes, she worried in earnest. She was too weak to call out to Mose in the wagon in front, and Trace was riding along somewhere behind. Neither of her grandparents were in any shape to help her, and when she knew that she was indeed blacking out, the only thing she could do was slip from the seat of the wagon to the floor in front of it, hoping that she wouldn’t fall underneath the mules or the wheels.

  Chapter 7

  Trace had spent the morning scouting ahead for the best route for the day, and then riding up and down the length of the train checking with the drivers and the wagon master as he went. Everything seemed to be going well down the whole length of it, but still he couldn’t shake this feeling that he was missing something that was out of place. Looking around for a clue to what was nagging him, he noticed that Giselle’s wagon was pulling wide for some reason. He started forward to see what the problem was, but it pulled right back into place again and he held back.

  Must be that stupid, ornery mule again. From time to time it got some fool notion in its head to act up, even after nearly two and a half months on the trail. He should have encouraged Josiah to sell it back in the settlements and get another that wouldn’t be so much trouble. Twenty minutes later, she did it again, and this time the wagon pulled wide and then went back into line only to go wide the other direction. What was she doing? She’d been driving by herself for weeks now and she’d done a great job. He wondered why she was having trouble today.

  He kicked his horse into a trot to go check with her. If he had his druthers, he’d ride right beside her all day, but that hadn’t been much of an option and it wouldn’t have been wise anyway. He had known all along that they would be parting ways in the Mormon’s Zion, and falling so hard for her so fast had made him feel almost like he shouldn’t spend time with her at all.

  Coming up alongside her wagon, he was shocked to realize that she wasn’t in the driver’s seat, and he wondered what had happened that was such an emergency that she’d let the mules have their heads while she climbed into the back. He was just about to call out to her when he realized that she wasn’t in the back at all, she was lying in a heap on the floor in front of the seat. One of the reins to the mule team was dangling over the front of the wagon and the other was dragging on the ground back under the wagon box itself. That was what was making the team veer left or right. Every time the dragging rein hung up on something, the team would pull that direction.

  Instantly sick at heart and wondering what in the world had happened, he rode as close as he dared to the side of the wagon and then jumped from the horse and pulled himself up to the seat. The one rein was easy, but to get hold of the other he had to climb clear in front of the wagon and try to balance on the single trees in front of it. Even then he couldn’t reach the rein and had to climb even further out over the wagon tongue. He was watching the rogue mule, wondering if he was going to be able to do this without the mule coming unglued at the seams.

  Just when the mule pinned its ears and he thought to himself here he goes, he was able to catch the other rein. Now he just had to make it back onto the wagon without becoming tangled in the riggings and harness. When he finally made it back to the wagon seat, it felt likehe’d been hanging precariously between the wagon and mules for days.

  Abruptly, he pulled the wagon out of line and stopped the team. Putting the brake on and tying off the reins, he knelt to see what had happened to Giselle. When he went to pick her up, he was horrified to see that her dress was covered in blood. He stretched her out as best he could, but he was unable to tell whe
re it was coming from. As the wagon behind him went past, he told his driver to hurry forward and tell Mose that he was pulling off to see to the VanKomens, and to go ahead to the nooning area and he’d catch up. “Oh, and see if you can catch my horse, would you.”

  He went to turn back to Giselle and Josiah leaned a weary head up over the wagon box to see what was going on. Trace turned to him and asked without preamble, “Josiah, what’s happened to Giselle? Where is she injured?” At first Josiah didn’t appear to understand what he was asking. Frustrated, Trace asked again. “The blood, Josiah. Where is she cut?”

  Tiredly, Josiah replied as he looked sadly at Giselle lying on the floor of the seat. “She’s not cut, Trace. She’s losing the baby.”

  Trace didn’t understand what he was saying. “She’s what?”

  “The baby. For days she’s been worried that she was going to lose it. The last couple of days especially.” He sighed. “Petja and I have been heartbroken that we couldn’t help her more.”

  Trace still couldn’t comprehend what he was telling him. “Baby? What baby?” He had to be mixing this up. Giselle wasn’t the kind of girl to be pregnant . He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the old man, questioning. “Giselle is expecting a baby?”

  Gently, Josiah began to explain in a voice filled with the deepest sadness. “Filson and a mob of Mormon haters came. Giselle either happened to be in the way, or she was what they were after in the first place. I do not know which. I only know that the baby was the result of them hurting her so badly that night.”

  Was he hearing what he was hearing? Trace couldn’t seem to get his brain to process this. Giselle pregnant? And by a mob of hateful men that included Filson? He sat back on his heals stunned. How had he worked and slept beside her for months without figuring this out? He was a doctor for crying out loud! Slowly, Josiah lay back down in the wagon box while Trace looked down at the unconscious and bloody girl in his arms, stunned beyond even acting. His Giselle. How had he not known this?

  Mose had known. Somehow Mose had known, but hadn’t felt like he could tell him. And Giselle hadn’t told him even though they were married and he was a doctor who should have been helping her. At first the feeling of failing miserably was overwhelming, but the very volume of the blood that she was lying in spurred him to action. He had seen her this morning. All of this had been from just the last few hours. This had been going on for days?

  In retrospect, he remembered thinking that she had been changing dresses more often. Now he knew why.

  But this wasn’t something he could fix with a few stitches. There were places in this country they could operate on this kind of problem, but the wilds of the Wyoming territory wasn’t one of them. The only thing he could do would be to put her down flat on her back and hope that the hemorrhaging would stop before she bled to death. He rose up to look over into the wagon box. All of the bedding in sight was being used by Josiah and Petja. Giselle’s bedding was with his in his wagon ahead.

  He looked around them at the country they were traveling through. It was a variable country between the baldness of the prairie and the mountains ahead. Hills and flats were interspersed with washes and gullies where streams ran through. Occasionally there had been bluffs and mesas, but immediately around them, it was just occasional low hills.

  He tried to remember what the country was like directly ahead. He needed to pull off somewhere and take care of these three, but where? Where could he safely let them rest up where she wouldn’t have to be moved and jostled around? He had to find some shelter. He couldn’t bed her down in the back near her grandparents even if he’d been able to somehow find the room because they were so contagious. He’d have to keep going at least long enough to find a place to get her in out of the weather.

  While he was still trying to figure out where to take her, Mose’s wagon pulled up beside his. Trace looked up into his eyes. He wanted to tear into him for not letting him know what was going on, but in looking into his solemn brown eyes, so filled with sadness at seeing her like this, he knew that nothing needed to be said. He was sure that Giselle not telling him was what Mose had been angry about this morning. Mose had obviously wanted her to tell him, but she hadn’t.

  Even when he’d asked, she’d said she was fine. Why hadn’t she trusted him? Was it a matter of trust or simply the best way she knew how to deal with a terrible situation? Knowing her, she was simply trying to handle things without being a burden to anyone else. He gently brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face, wishing that he’d been more attentive. She slept next to him every single night. He should have been close enough to her that she could trust him to help share some of her load. He should have been, but he wasn’t.

  Looking over at Mose, he got down to business. “I have to stop with her, Mose. She’s going to bleed to death if we don’t get her down and still.” He sighed. “She may bleed to death anyway. Josiah said this has been going on for days. How much bedding have you got in your wagon? Are any of the blankets we bought to take to California in yours?”

  Mose tied off his reins on the brake handle and clamored into the back of his wagon and soon appeared with an armload of both blankets and sheets and a couple of feather pillows. They put their heads together to figure out if the VanKomen wagon had all the gear he’d need to stay and help care for them without catching up to the wagon train to get more. Finally, they decided to move her to the back of Mose’s wagon and go back to the rest of the train where they were nooning and get the gear he would need. Then Mose would continue on with the train and their freight and Trace would try to catch up as soon as he could.

  They were within just a few weeks of making it into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, but they might as well have been in Russia, as far as finding civilization nearby. A few weeks was a few weeks, and there was no short cutting the distance they had to travel. The only place nearer than the Mormon settlement that was any settlement at all was Fort Bridger, and even it was a long, long way. Mose shifted a few itemss around and then Trace carefully lifted her across to the other wagon and they headed out.

  The others were stopped only a mile or two ahead. Once they reached them, Trace went to talk briefly with John Sykes and then to his own wagon. Still wondering where he could stop to find any shelter, he worried about it out loud and Mose reminded him of a place not far ahead where there wasn’t really shelter, but there was a cliff face that was undercut with a stream nearby. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. Tossing his own bedding and gear into Mose’s wagon, he prepared to leave ahead of the others so that he could care for her as soon as possible.

  As he went to leave, Mose handed him a couple of cold biscuits, and it reminded him of the biscuit he had seen Mose give her that morning so long ago. “How long have you known, Mose? About the baby.”

  Giving his friend a sad smile, Mose said, “Do you remember how sick she was the morning after Filson was killed?” Trace nodded. “That’s when I knew. She was so sick in the mornings. every morning. nauseated. But the deal was she was supposed to tell you. She just never could.”

  “You’ve known this whole trip?” Trace felt more guilty than ever. “Why couldn’t she tell me? Am I that scary?”

  Shaking his head, Mose replied, “You weren’t scary. Admitting to being attacked by a mob was what she couldn’t face. I get the impression that she’s tried to pretend it never happened instead of dealing with it. When you get her healthy physically, you can tackle that one next. Someday she’s going to have to face it.”

  Sadly, Trace said, “I’m a good doctor, Mose, but no one but God can fix some of the horrible things this world inflicts. You of all people should know that.”

  “You’re right, Trace. But you’d be amazed what a strong husband can do in a good woman’s life.” He went to turn away and then stopped. “I’ll be praying for you, friend. You and God are a majority in any struggle. But then you already know that.” Just like Callie. I’ve been taking her biscuits If she ate before she got
up, she wasn’t so When he reached the undercut, Trace fixed her a bed as far under the cliff face as possible. Then he began to set up a camp of sorts while he waited for her wagon with all the rest of her things to arrive. He started dinner and put hot water on to heat; both to clean her up with and to wash out her clothing as well. When the rest of the train made it to where he was, it was the work of only minutes to drop off the VanKomen wagon and take Mose’s instead.

  Chapter 8

  As Trace watched the rest of the train leave without them, he had mixed feelings. He hated being left behind when time was so scarce, but he vowed here and now to take better care of Giselle. Granted, he hadn’t known what delicate shape she was in, but he should have. He was a skilled physician. He should have realized what was going on.

  In the last hour, he’d had to get honest with himself and admit that part of the problem had been that he cared about her so much that he had almost been avoiding her. That was backward, but it had been his way of protecting himself from getting even more attached to her when he knew that he was going to have to leave her behind in a few weeks.

  That had been a good plan, but it had almost cost her life because he hadn’t been close enough to see how weak and sick she had become. From here on out, he was going to take the best care of her whether it ripped his heart out later or not. Keeping his distance had been pure selfishness on his part.

  After first checking on Josiah and Petja, he began to get Giselle cleaned up and changed. He needed to know exactly how much she was still bleeding to know how she was doing. Dressed only in her underclothing, it was obvious that she was expecting a baby. He had no idea how far along she was, but seeing that distinctive tummy brought his feeling of guilt one more time. Theirs hadn’t been a real marriage in every sense, but he should have known. He should have known.