by Merry Farmer
Once their wagons were set for the night, they walked down to the edge of the river together to take a look at the crossing site.
“It’s so far.” Callie stared at the opposite bank, hugging herself and rubbing her arms against a chill, even though it was a warm evening. “It looks dangerous.”
“Hundreds of wagons have crossed over before ours,” John reasoned, stepping close to her side and taking her hand to comfort her. “We’ll be fine.”
Callie looked down at her hand in his between them. His hands weren’t particularly wide, but they were graceful, with long fingers. She remembered how his fingers felt against her skin, how they felt inside of her. They were very much a man’s hands. A shiver of excitement passed through her.
“Don’t be nervous,” John said, misinterpreting her shiver.
Callie laughed, arching an eyebrow. “Easy for you to say.”
“I said I would protect you and I intend to do that.” The sunset painted his face with rich, warm colors that reflected off of his glasses, hiding his eyes.
“You think you can protect me against nature?” Callie teased in spite of the flickering tremor deep in her gut.
“I saved you from a tornado, didn’t I?” He brushed off the harrowing experience with a shrug and a grin.
“Oh, that was you that made the tornado change direction, was it?” She laughed.
“Naturally.” He glanced up from the river to look at her. The sun stopped reflecting in his glasses. She could see his eyes, dancing with mischief. “I am Catholic, after all.”
His teasing mood was contagious, leaving Callie breathless. “And that gives you the power to steer tornadoes?”
“Among other things.”
She couldn’t hold onto her awkwardness, not after a comment like that. She laughed, letting her shoulders relax. It was wonderful to see John smiling, happy. She slipped her arm around his waist, rested her chin on his shoulder, the way she had with Greg at the end of long, tiring days. He reciprocated by sliding his arm around her, something Greg used to do too. But different. Very different. It almost reminded Callie of home.
“Greg would have loved to see this,” she sighed, picturing him standing there with the two of them, brimming with excitement about the imminent crossing.
“So would Shannon,” John agreed. “She loved a good sunset.”
A lump caught in Callie’s throat that she couldn’t swallow. She stood straight, feeling suddenly as if she’d been doused in nettles. She took a step back, turned away, started walking back up the slope toward the wagons. Shannon. Of course.
John followed, a step or two behind. Callie didn’t stop to wait for him or turn to look at him. Her momentarily perfect mood had been punctured. Of course he would be thinking about his wife, just as she had been thinking about Greg. She had no right to be… whatever she was. Not jealous. What right did she have?
She didn’t sleep well at all that night, in spite of John’s arms around her and his steady breathing. Between her anxiety about crossing the river and her restlessness due to John’s mention of Shannon, sleep wouldn’t come. As soon as Callie knew John was dreaming, she pulled away, turning to her side to face away from him.
Her mind turned in endless circles, like the wheel of a wagon plodding endlessly west. Did it bother her that John had been thinking of Shannon? It shouldn’t. Shannon was his wife. She had been his wife. He loved her. But she, Callie Rye, was his wife now. Only he didn’t love her. The thoughts turned over and over.
She sucked in a breath and flipped to her back, staring at hints of starlight through a small rip in the canvas covering the wagon. She wasn’t asking for John to love her. She didn’t need him to love her. Like her, that was all. Like her a lot. Her back itched as though she’d told a lie. She tossed again, landing on her side. She certainly didn’t love him… did she? He was her friend, her very good friend. Nothing more. They were together because of circumstance, not because of any sort of affection.
Except that when he’d touched her the other night, so tender and so intimate, the heavens above had sighed with delight. When she stood by his side at work or at rest, it was as if she’d come home. She couldn’t imagine her new life without him.
Callie squirmed in her bedroll, wishing her jumbled emotions would leave her alone. She twisted to her other side, facing John. He’d settled onto his back. There was no way she was going to fall asleep. She stared at his profile in the near pitch-blackness. He had a narrow nose. His mouth wasn’t symmetrical. His lips looked soft. She wanted to touch them. No, that was wrong. She wanted them to touch her. That was even more wrong.
With an impatient sigh, she wriggled to lie flat on her back, keeping her eyes away from him. Her thoughts refused to turn away. She wondered if it was her or Shannon he thought about during the long, long daily drives. Had he been thinking of her when he ran his hands across her heated skin, when he tasted her breast?
No, she didn’t want to know. Why did her heart have to make things so difficult?
She must have fallen asleep at some point. In the blink of an eye, morning sunlight slanted through the gap in the canvas at the back of the wagon. Callie had inched closer to John in her sleep, and at some point he’d captured her in his arms again. The first thing she was aware of after the light was the warmth and scent of his body.
She was wide awake in seconds. Outside of the wagon, Mr. Evans was making his rounds, hollering “Good morning! Rise and shine! Let’s cross this river!” to wake everyone.
John drew in a breath, his arm tightening over her for a moment before he stretched and shook himself.
“Good morning,” he echoed Mr. Evans and scrubbed his face, trying to wake up fast.
“Good morning.” Callie mumbled. She threw off the blanket and rose to her hands and knees.
“Hand me my glasses?” John asked, rubbing his eyes with one hand while reaching out randomly with the other. Callie found his glasses and handed them to him. He put them on, yawned and stretched, then let out a breath, blinking fully awake. “Are you ready to cross this river?”
“No.”
He smiled, taking the hand she offered to help him up. “Don’t worry, everything… everything will be fine.”
It was as if he was surprised by the words he was speaking. He drew in a breath, held it, then let it out. Then he kissed Callie’s cheek and muscled himself to stand and head for the back of the wagon where the trunks containing their clothes were. Callie wanted to cry. She wanted John to love her, only her. It didn’t make any sense. There was no use running from it, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She changed her dress after John hopped down and went to investigate the procedure for the day. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to float across the river on the raft with the wagon or wade across. When she went to find John and to see about her options, she discovered that she had none. None of the rafts were long enough to carry two wagons. They would have to undo the hitch that connected their wagons together, and Callie would need to drive one of them. Furthermore, they would have to redistribute their belongings between the two wagons so that the one wasn’t too heavy. Callie spent a large part of the early morning lugging boxes and crates and chests to even out the weight.
Her nerves and disquieting state of mind kept her distracted—so much so that when Elton sidled up to the wagon asking, “Do you need any help?” Callie nodded and slid a crate full of goods for Mr. Koenig’s store in Denver City his way.
John was right there, only a few yards ahead at the front of the other wagon, reattaching the single yoke. He glanced up with a guarded expression at the sound of Elton’s voice. Callie could see him through the long corridor of the two wagons, still end to end. Their eyes met, and his softened. He was still trying to tell her everything would be all right. She wasn’t sure she believed him.
“Looks like this has seen better days.”
Callie turned to see what Elton was talking about. He held her mother’s teapot. �
��It was my mother’s.”
“That’s a nasty dent. Looks like the hinge is busted. The tornado?”
Callie nodded.
“I can fix it, you know. Get a small hammer, tap at it for a while from the inside. It’ll be good as new. If you’d like I can take it and have it fixed by the end of the day.”
The idea of Elton handling something that held so much meaning to her set Callie’s already unsettled mood even more off. “No, thank you.”
“It won’t be any trouble.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“Just a few hours. I have the tools and everything.”
“No.” She stepped over to him and took the teapot straight from his hands. He didn’t want to let it go. For one odd moment, they struggled. Then he loosened his grip. As Callie put the teapot back in the box that held the rest of the tea service, Elton gave her a stern frown.
“You don’t have to be so stubborn, Callie. I’m just trying to help.”
Callie’s back was up in an instant. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Finch.” She didn’t even try to be genuine.
He scooted closer to her, lowered his voice. “The frontier can be a dangerous place, Callie. You need a man who can really protect you, a real man, not—”
“John is a real man, Mr. Finch,” she replied, stepping away from him and moving the box with her mother’s tea service to the very front of the wagon. She was so uncomfortable that her skin crawled.
“You know what I mean,” Elton tried to follow up. John was at the front of the wagon in an instant. He didn’t say anything. He checked in with Callie, eyes set and hard behind his glasses, and took the box with the tea set, transferring it to the other wagon a few feet away. He didn’t go back to working on the yoke. Instead he carefully adjusted his belt, checking the fastenings of the holster that held his gun. It was as clear a sign as if he had shouted.
“Well, looks like you folks are just about ready to go.” Elton straightened, smiling broadly as if there were no undertones. “I think Mrs. Weingarten needs my help.”
“Thank you,” John nodded, face as expressionless as Callie had ever seen it, as Elton jumped down from the wagon.
“Much obliged.” Elton nodded back. He walked off at a leisurely pace, shoulders squared and tense.
John glanced up to Callie, met her eyes. She couldn’t stop the momentary twist of misery that skittered across her face. That too made her want to cry. Everything did.
“We’re almost ready to go.” John’s voice was gentle, quiet.
He reached a hand up to help her down from the wagon. As her feet hit the ground, she wobbled. He grabbed her around the waist to keep her from toppling.
“I will protect you,” he reminded her, “from anything that you need protecting from.” There was no mistaking his meaning.
Callie nodded slowly, glancing down, feeling the heat of awkwardness spreading from her face down her neck. “I don’t think he means any of it maliciously,” she defended Elton half-heartedly. “I know he’s just trying to be nice out of… out of some sense of… of…. He’s just trying to be nice.”
John gave her a long, flat stare. It told her he didn’t believe a word she was saying. It reminded her that he still had her around the waist.
“You say the word,” he began, leaving the rest of his promise hanging.
Callie nodded, hoping it came off as reassuring. From the brief flash of worry that tightened John’s features, she knew it didn’t. She forced herself to put on a smile instead, to go back to work evening out the weight in the wagons.
The operation took longer than she felt like it should have. John went back to the task of changing out the yoke for one team of oxen. Mr. Costner, the blacksmith, stopped by and offered to help. It was slow going. Everything did manage to get done, but they ended up as some of the last wagons to go over, long after lunch, as afternoon was wearing out.
“Now you just make sure the oxen keep on their path, Mrs. Rye,” the broad-shouldered man who was in charge of the rafts told her once she’d driven her wagon down to the make-shift dock at the edge of the river. “I’ll guide them from the front, make them get on the raft without getting too excited about it, all right? You ready?”
Callie leaned to the side, glancing back over her shoulder to where John sat in the driver’s seat of his wagon right behind hers. He saw the pale fear in her face and sent her a reassuring smile and nod. She remembered his words after the tornado, they could do this. They could. She could.
“I’m ready,” she replied to the river-man, a little too breathlessly.
If someone had explained what crossing a surging river on a seemingly too small raft atop a covered wagon entailed, Callie never would have done it. She drove the oxen out onto the raft, and instantly they were upset. The river-man did his best to keep them calm, keep them moving, but they jolted and jostled in their harnesses, lowing and rattling the wagon and every bone and nerve in Callie’s body.
The wagon bumped onto the raft. Callie stopped it when the river-man called, “Whoa there!” The raft bobbed like a child’s toy in a tub. Callie’s heart clogged her throat. She was sure the whole thing was going to capsize. Once her wagon was on and secured, the river-man and his assistants began to pull them out into the river, pushing with poles and walking with the rope from one end of the raft to the other. Their movements rocked the whole contraption with sickening pitches. Callie closed her eyes and gripped the seat as tightly as she could, as if that would help.
Another raft was pushed into place behind hers and John drove his wagon out onto that one. Callie heard the sounds of orders and more wary oxen lowing behind her. The sounds grew muffled as they made it to the center of the river. The rush of the water seemed overly loud to her. Part of Callie wanted to open her eyes, but she couldn’t muster enough courage to do it. The raft felt as though it were teetering on the brink of collapse. She just wanted the whole thing to be over, but it seemed to last forever. Her knotted stomach threatened to be sick.
“Ma’am? Mrs. Rye? Can you give her a little push?”
Slowly, Callie pried her eyes open to find the front of the raft solid against the opposite riverbank. The river-man was watching her with a bemused grin, hands gripping the oxen’s harness, ready to pull her to shore. They’d made it.
“Hmm….” Callie’s first attempt to talk was a failure. “Yes.” She settled for the obvious the second time.
She gave the whip a weak snap and the oxen surged forward, helped by the river-man. He hurried the team up the bank. The wagon lurched off the raft and onto dry land. They’d made it.
“Smooth as silk,” the river-man tipped his hat to her, letting go of the harness so that Callie could urge the oxen all the way up the slope that made up the opposite side of the river. It was easy for him to say. She let the oxen drag the wagon as far up away from the river as they wanted to before stopping them and turning back to see how John was faring.
His raft was almost all the way across. Callie shuffled clumsily out of her wagon and stood leaning against it to make sure he made it all the way in one piece. His face was set in concentration, his large eyes bulging with effort behind his glasses. He looked as serious as a judge. But as his raft bumped lightly against the shore his shoulders loosened.
Callie let her back relax too. John’s oxen were more than ready to get off of the raft and bolted hard enough to knock John sideways as they charged up the slope. The river-man hardly seemed to notice that somehow they’d made it through in one piece. He was already hollering at his men, getting them to turn back and fetch another set of wagons.
John pulled his wagon to a stop beside Callie’s. Callie somehow found enough stability in her legs to walk over to him as he was jumping down. “See?” he told her. “Nothing to it.”
He finished his pronouncement by capturing her in a hug. She didn’t even think twice about hugging him back. She was too relieved to be alive.
“You said everything would be all right,”
she reminded him with a frown.
He blinked, leaning back so that he could look at her, but not letting go. “Everything was all right.”
“But you’re shaking like a leaf, so obviously you didn’t believe a word you said to me.”
“Can we put it down to wishful thinking?” he laughed, beginning to let her go.
Callie wasn’t sure that she wanted to be let go of yet. “But you’re Catholic. Couldn’t you just have parted the waters and saved us all the trouble?”
A smile tweaked the corner of his lopsided mouth. “No, that’s the Jews. We Catholics are limited to tornados.”
Callie didn’t care that he was being ridiculous. She didn’t care that she wasn’t sure where she stood with him. She didn’t even care about Shannon. She laughed at his stupid joke and hugged him tighter, burying her face against his neck for a moment.
“I am not a pioneer.” She put her foot down when she felt secure enough to stand on her own again.
John shook his head, rubbing his eyes under his glasses and moving to climb back up into the wagon so they could drive on. “I can think of at least four oxen who would disagree with that statement.”
Chapter Sixteen
When John had first started out on his journey west from Independence, he had been eager to get to the end. The end was intended to be the end for him those many weeks ago. Now, as he lay in the back of the wagon the morning after the river crossing, holding Callie close while she slept, he was eager to reach Denver City for a new reason—to start a new life. All the patience in the world couldn’t keep his body from responding to his beautiful, brave wife. He was ready to make her his wife in more than name.
Somewhere outside of the wagon, a man coughed, cleared his throat, and spit. Farther on, oxen were lowing and a rooster that had been brought along greeted the sunrise. They were typical sounds of morning, but for a man who had spent his life living in cities, they were still as foreign and new as the West itself. And they represented the other reason he was eager to reach Denver City.
