Wagon Train Wedding

by Rhonda Gibson

  He nodded. “I’ve been hanging on to it, waiting for the right moment to give it to you.” His grin was infectious, and Cora found her mouth curling into a smile.

  “Is that moment now?” she asked, leaning into his warm side. Cora pulled her feet from the water.

  He stood, then tugged her to her feet. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

  “Flynn Adams, you better not put anything gross in my hands.” Cora laughed and then did as he asked. She waited, holding her breath. What could he possibly give her?

  “I am sorry for this morning, Cora.” He slipped something over her wrist.

  Cora wanted to peek so badly but she’d agreed to keep her eyes closed. “Can I open them now?”

  He turned her hand over. “Not yet.” His strong fingers fiddled with whatever it was he’d placed on her wrist.

  It felt like he had fastened something leather on there. Had he made her a bracelet?

  “All right. You can look now.” Flynn still held her hand in his.

  Cora recognized the beautiful bracelet from the fort. “Oh, Flynn, you shouldn’t have. This is too expensive.”

  He smiled broadly. “Not if you like it. If you do, it’s worth every penny.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “I love it. Thank you.” Cora decided at that moment that she wanted to tell Flynn that Noah was her sister Gracie’s baby, and that Hank might be following them to Oregon to take the baby back. Then she wanted to tell him how much she had grown to love him. It was his sweet spirit and kind ways that had proved to her that Flynn was a wonderful husband. He was nothing like her brother-in-law. She took a deep breath, ready to confess everything, but just before she could get the words out, Doc called to Flynn.

  “Flynn, Harold needs your help repairing a wheel.”

  Not wanting the doctor to see her bare feet, Cora quickly released Flynn and grabbed her socks. She quickly pulled the stones out and then put both shoes on her feet.

  Flynn knelt down beside her and kissed her on the cheek. “Stay here if you want and relax.” His voice was low, intended for her ears only. His gentle smile softened his features and she gloried in the shared moment. He then turned back to the wagon train.

  Cora watched him go. She’d missed her opportunity to tell him about Noah and her fears of Hank catching up with her. Not to mention that she loved him.

  Doc laughed. “No need to look so sad. He’ll be back in a little while and you can have your romantic time with him.”

  Frustration at Doc welled up in Cora and she had a hard time not letting it show. She wished he would follow Flynn and leave her alone. Why wasn’t he helping Mr. Clarkson fix the wheel, instead of enlisting Flynn’s help? Doc had helped a lot of people on the train with sickness, sunburns and scrapes, but Cora realized that not once that she knew of did he help the men with manual labor. When labor-intensive work came up, Doc managed to find somewhere else to be.

  She stood as the ducks flew away. Doc watched them fly. “Ducks are interesting birds.”

  Cora nodded. “I think they are pretty.”

  “Oh, they are.” Doc looked at her. “How are you feeling?”

  Surprised by his question, Cora answered, “I feel all right.”

  “Good. Did you know that your friend Annie Clarkson is with child?” He picked up a stick and waved it about, reminding Cora of someone practicing with a sword.

  “Are you sure?” Cora knew Annie had been feeling peaky in the mornings but hadn’t thought that she might be pregnant. Showed how much she knew about these things.

  He laughed again. “I am a doctor, Mrs. Adams.” He played with the stick for a few moments more, then tossed it away. “Of course I’m sure.”

  Cora was happy for her friend. Annie would make a good mother. In a way, Cora envied her. She would love to carry a baby in her body. Noah was a year old now. She hadn’t made a big deal of his birthday; not because it wasn’t important, but because she’d woken up sad the morning of his birthday that Gracie was missing her son’s first birthday. She feared she would cry if someone mentioned it, so she hadn’t told anyone about the significance of the day. Just the thought of how her sister would have loved celebrating every milestone in Noah’s life broke Cora’s heart.

  “Well, I best be getting back to camp.” Cora jumped. Lost in her thoughts, she’d almost forgotten Doc was there. “I promised the Welsh woman I’d come by and check on her little girl. She was coughing yesterday, but I’m hoping the hot water and honey I recommended have soothed her throat.” He ran his gaze up and down Cora’s body. “You sure you’re feeling all right?”

  Cora nodded. The way he was looking at her sent a chill down her spine.

  He shook his head. “Let me know if you start feeling like Mrs. Clarkson. I would think you’d be with child by now, too.” Doc chuckled at the expression of shock on her face. He walked back to camp, leaving Cora outraged at his boldness.

  “Hi, Cora.”

  Cora turned to find Rebecca carrying a basket of clothes to the river with a small washboard sticking out the top.

  Had she heard Doc’s parting words? “Well, hello there, young lady. I see you’re getting a jump start on chores. If I’d known you would be here, I’d have brought Noah’s things to wash.”

  “Ma says we will finish quicker if I wash mine here and she does hers and Pa’s at the wagon. When the washing’s put back up, we’re going to play backgammon and eat popcorn. It’s our treat for the day’s work.” Rebecca’s features became animated as she shared her excitement with Cora, and it wasn’t lost on Cora how easily the girl called Mrs. Cartwright “Ma.” It appeared Flynn had chosen wisely with that situation. The Cartwrights had voiced their intentions of adopting Rebecca legally when they arrived in Oregon.

  “So you love being with the Cartwrights?”

  Rebecca straightened herself with dignity. “They reward me when I do good, or when I work hard, helping them with what they’re doing or with chores, and when I mess up, they don’t get upset. Instead, they encourage me to try again. Just like my real ma and pa.” She pulled her shoes and socks off and stepped into the river. “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” she squealed. “This water’s cold as ice.”

  Cora laughed as the girl hopped about, her dress tied in a knot at her knees to keep it from getting wet. “You might want to hurry and get out of there before you catch your death of cold.” The water hadn’t seemed that cold to her, but Rebecca was making such a fuss that Cora couldn’t help laughing.

  A question she had wanted to ask nagged at her, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what it was. She turned to leave and then it hit her. She whipped back around with hands on her hips. For a moment, she savored the feel of the leather bracelet on her wrist. “Where did you get popcorn?” Oh, how she loved popcorn! But not once had she smelled the delightful food in camp.

  Rebecca clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. She shook her head. She dropped her hand, shoulders sagging. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Tonight, while everyone is at the get-together, Ma, Pa and I planned to come back to our wagon and have popcorn and play games. We only have three ears of the stuff and that’s not enough to share with everyone.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t tell, nor will I ask you to share. Did the Cartwrights bring it from Independence?”

  “No,” Rebecca said. “Ma traded two buckets of apples to the rancher’s wife for the popcorn and some lard and sugar. Ma’s going to teach me how to make apple dumplin’s.” She grinned proudly. She’d changed so much during her stay with the Cartwrights.

  “That’s wonderful, Rebecca. I’m sure you’ll be cooking as well as your ma in no time.”

  Cora watched the girl start her laundry. Rebecca didn’t look up from the task, so Cora walked back to her wagon. With luck, Flynn would be finished with Mr. Clarkson and Martha would ret
urn Noah. She suddenly had a longing to spend quality time with her own little family. The chat with Rebecca had inspired her. And if she could, she’d get some of that popcorn from the rancher’s wife.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Annie, would you like to close us in prayer?”

  Cora carefully watched Annie’s reaction to Sarah’s question. If she acted the least bit nervous, Cora would step in and pray herself, even though she still felt uncomfortable praying in front of others. But ever since Annie had joined their prayer group, Annie had eagerly soaked up every bit of information she could on the Bible and the Christian way of life. To Cora’s surprise, she readily agreed to pray.

  Haltingly at first, she came up with a simple prayer asking God to forgive her and then went on to seek His blessings. It was short, but Cora observed a few covertly wiped tears from several of the ladies and had to clear her own throat of the lump suddenly lodged there.

  Annie’s fresh outlook on God’s forgiveness of her sins reminded the ladies of their own gift of grace. They left the meeting each morning with a sense of encouragement, and the burdens of each day of traveling seemed lightened somehow.

  Cora left the meeting and rushed to her wagon. The train wasn’t traveling today, due to heavy rains all night. Trying to drive through the muddy roads would only damage the wagons, and they would get nowhere. If she worked fast, she could catch up on washing clothes and cleaning the wagon. Dust was an inch thick on the floor and even in her bedclothes. But it looked like the sun would shine bright today, and if she hurried, her wash would be dry before nightfall. Martha and Sarah had given her several outfits for Noah but not enough to last an entire week. So Cora washed them out in the evenings when they stopped for the night. She’d been hampered by last night’s weather, and if she didn’t get some baby outfits washed, Noah would have nothing to wear.

  She pulled down the tin bucket that hung on the side of the wagon and filled it halfway with water from the water barrel. She’d left water simmering over the grate while she went to the prayer meeting and she carefully added the hot water to the bucket, along with a few pieces of lye soap that she mixed in with her wooden paddle until she had suds.

  “You do that as if you’ve done it all your life.” Annie stepped up beside her and watched as Cora added Noah’s outfits to the water. Cora left them to soak and added more water to heat for the second washing.

  “Well, I have done it a few times before this trip, but never for this many people.” She hoped Annie didn’t want to chat and that she’d leave Cora alone to get her work done. “While Martha has Noah, I like to get the work that uses hot water out of the way. He toddles around way too much for my peace of mind.”

  “I’m still not good at the clothes washing. I don’t wring them out well enough and it takes forever to dry, but Harold helps me if he’s able to.”

  Cora took her paddle and swished the clothes around. And then one by one she wrung them out tight and dropped them into the bucket of rinse water. So absorbed was she in her task that it took her several seconds to realize Annie had walked off. Had she offended her friend by ignoring her? Oh, well, she would make it up to her later. When she had the last little romper in the rinse water, she added diapers to the wash to soak. She strung her line from the back of the wagon to the edge of Annie’s wagon. Should Annie decide to do her own wash, she would attach her line from her wagon to Cora’s. As she hung Noah’s rompers on the line, she wondered how much longer he would fit into them. He grew like a weed.

  When the diapers were done, she fetched a fresh bucket and washed Flynn’s two shirts and a pair of his pants. She had never questioned him, but it seemed odd that he had wound up on this wagon train with only the clothes on his back. She knew he had bought the two extra shirts and a pair of pants at the first fort.

  Even as she thought of the fort—and the crates she and Sarah had discovered there—she glanced around furtively. Could she possibly make cinnamon apple dumplings for just Flynn, Noah and herself? There had been spices of every kind in one of the crates he had toted back to their wagon. And apple trees were all around them. If Cora had her druthers, she’d stay right here in this area. Along with apple trees, there were hickory nut trees, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d spotted a few persimmon trees, as well. The rolling hills and green grass went on as far as the eye could see and Levi had found fresh spring water before breakfast this morning. She knew several of the ladies were apple picking, and she would, too, later if there were any left, though laundry had to come first. This opportunity to get even her bedcovers washed was too good to pass up.

  She had a husband and a child to care for and she loved it. She’d never have thought how satisfying it was to cook meals for them to enjoy as a family, to see Flynn in clean clothes she’d washed herself and to dress Noah and know that he was well cared for. And though their wagon wasn’t that big, she had organized it to meet their basic needs.

  She went to Annie’s wagon and called out, “Annie, are you not washing clothes today? If not, can I stretch your line?” There was no answer, so Cora pulled the line hung on the sideboard of the Clarksons’ wagon and attached it to the back of hers. She hung up the freshly washed blanket she and Noah slept on and Flynn’s blanket, along with their two towels and a few washcloths. She straightened and rubbed her back. Cora was no stranger to hard work, but this was a dilly.

  “Annie?” she called again. Maybe she could talk Annie into apple picking with her by promising to share the apple dumplings with her. Her husband would probably appreciate the treat. Annie was learning to cook just as Cora had done, and oftentimes it ended in disaster. “Annie, where are you?” Maybe her friend had gone with one of the other ladies.

  Cora grabbed her bucket and took off toward the apple tree closest to their wagon. She knew there were bigger and better apples nearer the creek, but for her, these would do fine. A briar scratched her leg and Cora sucked in a deep breath. “Ouch.” She reached to push the briar away, and to her surprise, it held blackberries.

  She walked a bit farther and there was a small patch of briars loaded with blackberries, her favorite berry. “Oh, merciful goodness. How absolutely wonderful! I can make a blackberry cobbler this evening and still have some left over to make blackberry syrup.” Instead of apples, Cora picked berries till her bucket was almost full. She would make two cobblers and share one with Annie.

  Cora decided that she’d tell Sarah about the patch when she went to pick up Noah. With the kids’ help, Sarah would be able to make cobblers and syrup, too.

  Feeling accomplished and quite proud of herself, she hurried back to the wagon to get started. Flynn would eat well today and that thought brought a feeling of happiness to her heart.

  * * *

  Harold Clarkson walked up to where Flynn busily guided his oxen to a greener spot of grass, before taking them back to the wagon for the night. Doc had arrived a few moments before Harold but as of yet had offered no help. “Howdy, Harold. Did you need Doc to help you with something?”

  If Doc would go on about his business, Flynn could get a lot more done without stopping to answer Doc’s constant barrage of questions. And lately there had been some bizarre ones that made little sense.

  “Have either of you seen Annie?” Harold’s voice held worry as well as frustration.

  Flynn shook his head. “No, can’t say that I have—not today.”

  Doc shook his, as well, muttering under his breath that some women should never become wives. Harold ignored him but Flynn’s indignation was stirred that Doc would openly criticize another man’s wife. Where was his common courtesy to a man who was taking him to Oregon without getting anything in return? Doc was supposed to be Harold’s relief driver, but so far, Flynn hadn’t seen Doc work with the oxen at all.

  “Last time I saw her, she said she was going to the river for water, but when I got back from the afternoon watch, she’d not returned. T
he water bucket is gone, too, so I can only assume she hasn’t come back. I thought maybe she stopped by to visit with Cora, but she’s not at your wagon, either.” Harold looked expectantly at Flynn, as if Flynn might have answers to share.

  “Well, Cora is at the Philmores’. Maybe Annie’s with her.”

  “I’ll go check.” Harold walked off in the direction of the Philmores’ wagon.

  Flynn started back to work and noticed that Doc still watched Harold.

  “Something on your mind, Doc? Everything working out with you traveling with the Clarksons?”

  “Did you know Annie is a soiled dove?” Doc’s scowl increased as he said the words.

  “That so?” He hadn’t known, but he couldn’t say that he much cared. Over the last couple of months, Annie and Cora had become friends. Flynn had seen Annie go from lazy and helpless on the trail to a woman who worked hard and made a traveling home for her husband. Her past mattered a lot less to him than the fact that she was trying hard to build a good future.

  Doc stood. “Well, I think I’ll head to bed. I’m sure Harold will find her soon.”

  Flynn frowned. Doc had changed since he’d known him in Texas. Gone was the man who cared for his patients. He now seemed to not care about anything—including his looks, his behavior or how others might see him. Plus, he seemed unusually interested in the women on the train and judgmental about their pasts to the point of downright rudeness. The old Doc he remembered would have been concerned for Annie and would have offered to help find her.

  “Good night, Doc.” Flynn waited for a moment, carefully analyzing that gut feeling he got at times when he was around Doc—the feeling that there was something...off. Something wrong. He didn’t want to feel that way. Doc was his friend. Maybe he needed encouragement.

  Flynn’s conscience pricking him, he tied up the oxen and followed Doc to camp, pondering ways to soothe the older man’s feelings so he wouldn’t be so grumpy. Maybe he could invite Doc back to their camp and Cora could offer him some of the blackberry cobbler she’d had left over from supper.