Bright Morning Star

by J. R. Biery

  When the tarp was unrolled with its blanket bedrolls inside the canvas tent, she sighed as she looked toward the boys busy arguing about which got to sleep next to the tent opening. The boy’s black and white dogs, Tip and Tyler, stuck their noses through the tent flap and whined for attention. Bonnie shook her head. “No, you don’t. You two can sleep under the wagon or outside to guard the door. Get, she snapped,” The two dogs bowed and growled a little, but both backed out as directed. “You two,” she turned to look at the twins. “Tom left, Jim right. Get your boots off. The light is going off on the count of ten.”

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  At noon, Bonnie passed out the lunches she had made in the morning. She carried Claire’s to her last and sat on the tailgate of the wagon beside her friend while they ate. After Bonnie brought up yesterday’s encounter, Claire showed her the hat pin and how quickly she could push it forward if needed. Swinging their feet together, Claire asked Bonnie how difficult it was to sleep on the ground.

  Bonnie shook her head, “A piece of heaven. Made me remember sharing our pallets on the floor, me and my four sisters. The lads are no problem, it’s those spoiled cow herders that are the problem.”

  Claire laughed as the pair of matched shepherds appeared as though they knew they were being talked about. Although she wasn’t sure which was Tip and which Tyler, she smiled as the pair of dogs managed to gain their balance enough to walk along behind the wagon on two legs. Even Bonnie laughed at them. Both tossed one of the dogs a bite of crust, and the two disappeared.

  Father Wimberley rode up beside the laughing girls, admiring the pretty picture they made. “Did Mother tell you then? I thought you would like the news.”

  Both looked puzzled, but it was Claire, who asked. When she heard the news, she squealed with delight. For the first time since leaving St. Louis, they would have another chance for music and dancing. The plan to have a meeting of all the wagon teams was a great one.

  Bonnie had been complaining about the drawbacks of being in a large group of wagons and worse about the problem of following another train with forty-two wagons. There was little to gather or collect along the trail when so many were covering the same ground ahead of them. She now got to ride more, since there were fewer wagons and animals to keep track of. With less work for the men, they shared the nice bays, Bob and Sue. Usually it was the twins who rode out with her, but Claire had ridden with her once or twice. Still, Bonnie was frustrated, because she saw no chance to shoot game.

  Father Wimberley interrupted her thoughts. “The Raglons only emphasized the problem. We are a newly formed caravan and it’s time everyone had a chance to meet and get to know each other. I asked the others yesterday, and we decided tonight was a good time. Looks to be good weather, and we are near enough to the troopers to have good protection still.”

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  The soldiers passed through just after he left. They talked brusquely with everyone, but they made time to visit and flirt with the Wimberley party. They were pursuing renegade Indians on their way to the next fort, and seemed happy for the diversion. Bonnie dropped off the tail gate to resume her trek beside the Lambton’s wagons. The soldiers tried flirting with her, but she was better at ignoring them. Most moved through the caravan, looking for other pretty girls to chat with. She noticed how Claire fairly sparkled like a glittery angel at all the flattery and attention. When Henry rode past his wagon and kept pace with the lead animals, Bonnie could tell from his glower that he had noticed too.

  Her friend was a woman of her word. Claire had turned her attentions to finding a husband among the horde of young men moving west as they traveled. She knew it was wrong to even consider another woman’s husband. Bonnie knew the girl was honest, there had been nothing untoward to happen between her and Henry Lambton. Still, it was always there, that current of awareness between two people. Everyone in their party sensed it. Bonnie didn’t have to look to know Bella was even now staring at Henry’s stiff back atop the prancing bay, carefully holding the animal in check so he could keep the girl and her admirers under his gaze.

  Only when the troopers raised their caps in salute to the women and moved on did Henry relax in the saddle and ride the horse forward. Bonnie knew it wasn’t just coincidence that Claire was working her way through the wagon’s crowded interior to join her mother on the wagon seat. Sighing, she fell back a few steps to talk to Bella about the dinner and dance later that evening.

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  All forty-three people from the eleven wagons of the oxen wagon train met for a shared supper, enjoying dishes made by others. In the midst of the warm conversation, as people tried to learn more about their neighbors, the laughter and bustle of the women preparing the food stopped. Everyone listened to the haunting sound beneath the starlit night of the howl of wolves in the distance. When a second wolf answered, farther away, there was silence followed by a little awkward laughter.

  As soon as the delicious meal was over, the men brought out the fiddles and jugs to play a tune. Volunteers were called for to sing or call the dance. When no one came forward, four of the young women whispered together before stepping onto the makeshift platform. While Bonnie and Claire sang with two other young women on the train, the married couples moved out to dance hesitantly in the flickering flames of the campfire. The children danced around amid the older couples.

  Claire winced when Bonnie hit one of her flat notes. She tried to sing louder to hide the sound. Lynne and Bonnie both loved to sing. Singing was alright, and Claire had been told she had a lovely voice. But she only sang when at church or in a group like tonight. The other two were as her father joked, Irish song birds.

  Claire was aware of the young men standing in a row, whispering among themselves as they looked over the serenading women. Were they really the only single women in the wagon train? When Kaye Raglon’s son looked her way, she noticed he bowed to her and said something sharp to the man beside him. Both seemed to regard her again with a little more admiration. It made her feel annoyed and pleased at the same time. She shed her flowered bonnet to reveal her curls and shook her head for a minute. Carefully, she set her fanciest hat at the end of the wagon. As the fiddler changed his tune, the girls all sang a ballad and the line dancing partners twirled around in pairs to the waltz tempo.

  There were only seven men available. Two were still boys, one was the Raglon man, and she had no interest in him at all. At the second tune, men came up and shyly asked the singers to dance. One short fellow asked Bonnie, but she shook her head, announcing she was married. He turned to Claire and held out his hand. Smiling, she gladly accepted. At five feet, the man was just perfect in height for her. As the others danced, Bonnie sang a duet with a sad-eyed old man about the lost love of Barbara Allen.

  Claire danced next with a young man named George. He told her of his plans to strike a claim and return home rich to his sweetheart. When she asked him if he had proposed to the woman before leaving, he shook his head. “Did you at least tell her your intentions and ask her to wait?” When he shook his head, Claire shook her own and laughed at his answer. “Well, what will you do if she finds someone who will speak up and ask her? If you return home rich only to find her married?”

  He appeared insulted and left her to one of the other three who were traveling west together. This one, James, was considerably taller and Claire was getting a crick in her neck, leaning her head back far enough to talk to him.

  James told her all four of them were from the same town. When the news of the gold strike in the Black Hills appeared in their paper they were playing cards. It was the man who had just danced with her who had come up with the scheme. All younger sons, with no chance of inheriting enough land to ever make a go of it, they all knew they needed to move on to find a way to earn more money. It was George, the man who had left mad, who suggested they pool all their assets and head west.

  “Of course, it didn’t take a lot to convince the rest of us. Cobb there and Gerald, they were ready to leave
the moment he said anything. But we all worked another month, so we could stockpile things we needed to make the trip. Then we rode the train to St. Louis.”

  “Really, isn’t that terribly expensive. Where was it you were from, James?”

  “Hanover, Pennsylvania. We’re all members of the same church and went to school together when we were younger. Well, we all knew we wanted to do it. So we kind of stowed away you might say, in one of the train cars, after we loaded our sheep on it.”

  “Your sheep?”

  “Well, it was the same as ours, so to speak. We kind of each brought a few head from our parents’ farms. Planned to sell them with the notion of buying a wagon with the proceeds when we got out west.”

  When Claire was quiet, he took the chance to move the pretty girl to the other side of the fire not realizing they ended nearer to her parents. Two men were already paying attention and were moving their way, but his maneuver had earned him a few more seconds to converse with her.

  “You’re not married or engaged are you?” he asked.

  Claire again shook her head to answer. At his follow-up question, Claire paused to give a thoughtful answer. “Of course I want to marry. What woman wouldn’t want that? I want to wed and have children, maybe even three or four.

  Her mother and father stepped up closer to the couple and the tall man bowed over her hand and disappeared into the crowd.

  The other two men approaching were elbowing and pushing each other as they converged on the little blonde. Claire sighed and Father chuckled. In minutes, the man named Gerald had swept his prize away. Claire tried to signal Bonnie as he twirled her past. In minutes, the jug blower and a man with a mandolin joined the fiddler and again played a Virginia reel that had everyone changing hands and moving through to the faster dance. There was even a pass when she danced with Henry before he and Bella were swept away down the aisle of dancers.

  It was followed by another reel and Claire was actually breathless when the last man, called Cobb of all things, released her to a waiting Bonnie and Mary Anne. The three young women moved to the table where desserts and coffee were being served. With much giggling, the girls discussed the dance and the men who were now wearing out the other two single young women. Claire chided Bonnie for not dancing. Bonnie only gave her a look.

  Mary Anne, with all the innocence and enthusiasm of a child, urged Claire back into the dance with her. The two young women exchanged smiles when the darling girl picked Tom and drug him out to be her dance partner. Although he groaned at dancing with his sister, Claire noticed the lad was a good dancer, like all the McKinneys, and was really enjoying himself.

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  As the camp settled down to sleep, Bonnie teased the pretty girl about dancing with so many handsome men tonight. Claire laughed and Mary Anne interrupted to announce she had danced with two good-looking boys herself.

  “Tom and Jim?” Bonnie asked.

  “Yes, but I wasn’t counting them. The dark-haired boy with the long nose, you know the one that looks like a gypsy.”

  Bonnie smiled. She had noticed the little boy that looked closer to her sister Reagan’s age of five than Mary Anne’s seven years.

  “Was he a good dancer?” Claire asked.

  “Very good, he was a little short but he could move to the music. I also danced with the boy from the last wagon. He was tall, but he wasn’t any good at all.”

  “Why didn’t you dance, Bonnie?” Mother asked from the other side of the little girl.

  “Well, first, I am married. Second, they were all too, too short for me.” The others laughed. “And third,” she hid a deep yawn behind her hand, but didn’t reveal the third reason. She heard the other women yawning too. In her mind’s eye, she imagined swirling about the fire in the arms of a handsome Lieutenant while her brothers stood with the fiddler, singing the tunes.

  As Claire settled down to sleep, she tried to bring up images of each of the men she had danced with. She wasn’t a writer like Lynne, whose letters had kept them all enthralled with her stories. But she decided she would list each man she met along the journey, the single ones, and after their name, all the particulars she could learn. Sleepily she opened her journal and by candlelight listed the single men at the dance, even the Raglon one. Mary Anne turned away, muttering about the light while Mother and Father quickly began to snore.

  When Claire tried to recall their particulars to record on the line beside their names, only one face came to mind. Instead of the suitable young men, all she saw was a handsome man with neatly groomed blonde hair and a trim mustache. His smile flashed briefly, as he hooked her arm with his to spin her in one circle of the reel.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Claire flounced down from the wagon, wearing her pink gingham dress and its matching bonnet. Although not as durable as the tan linsey-woolsey or as stylish as her favorite green dress, it was still one of her favorites from home. Last night she had met the other maiden ladies as they discussed what to sing after dinner. Bonnie had offered several tunes but the girls had looked to Claire for a final decision. It had buoyed her self-esteem, and she had immediately taken a liking to the timid cousins from Nauvoo, Illinois.

  They had been impressed by her sense of fashion and had invited her to visit as soon as possible. She would meet with the first girl, Faye, as soon as breakfast ended. The other cousin, Dorothy, in the afternoon. Like having a full dance card last night, having other ladies to talk with filled her with pleasure. Although she had Mother, Bonnie, and Bella, after all these weeks together, there was little new left for them to share. Dorothy in particular had asked for news about fashion and Claire planned to take her last Godey’s magazine. Of course it was four months old, but she had the stack of duplicate fashion flyers the buyer had given her after modeling for him in St. Louis.

  Impatiently, Claire noticed that the men were still not back. They spent longer setting up camp each evening and were slower to roll out of bed each morning. She complained as Bonnie cooked breakfast, and the tall girl pointed out the obvious. “We’re part of a bigger wagon train now, more people and animals to water at the end and start of each day. At least it gives me more time to cook and prepare the meals.”

  Although Claire had told herself she would help Bonnie more, it was hard to change her habits. The day Bonnie had ridden off with the twins to visit her brothers, Claire had discovered exactly how much work the woman did. But where it was hard on Claire, Bonnie made everything easily and with a smile. Claire fumbled at everything and took twice as long. One day of walking beside the big oxen had exhausted her for a week. So unless Bonnie complained, Claire wasn’t going to interfere and hurt her friend’s pride.

  Besides, sometimes she did the dishes, which seemed generous enough. She also helped to fetch water each evening. All of them had a series of chores, even Mary Anne.

  One of Father’s new chores was assigning a position for each wagon in the longer train. The trail dust grew thicker the farther back in the line a wagon rolled. So unlike some, Father forced the group to allemande back and let the tail wagon move to the front each day. Once a group had ridden at the back, they saw the fairness of the system. Since everyone hadn’t, there were a few grumblers like the Raglons.

  Grass was becoming scarcer because they were on a part of the trail where wagons had been moving through for nearly a year. The trail was well defined, with clear watering holes and camping sites. But that meant that the land around those sites was pretty closely cropped. Father argued and seemed to have convinced the majority of the men that they would be better off, unhooking their animals and leading them to water, then bringing them back to the uncropped grassland to graze at night. But the plan meant the women would have more steps to walk to carry water and that more men would be needed to guard the animals. Again there were complaints.

  The Raglons pointed out that every group didn’t have a pair of boys and well-trained dogs to help them take their animals to water and to herd them back to the newer si
tes. Father insisted they were lucky, so far there had been plenty of water for the stock. They better appreciate the fact and make sure they kept their barrels full for the time when the trail didn’t end at a river or stream. So now, the men took the time to top off the barrels first each day. Bonnie no longer had to drive a team and was trying to figure out what to do with her new freedom. She gladly took over that chore for their party and the Lambtons.

  Claire didn’t care. She was delighted to have other women to talk with on the train, ones who weren’t married and tired each day from tending children. Unlike Bonnie, they were eager to talk about potential marriage material. She intended to rate the prospects among the men on the train, the troopers who had ridden through, and have someone else to speculate with her about the miners and ranchers waiting ahead.

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  Claire stomped back from her visit riding beside Faye Brewer. Father and Henry had both offered their mount so she could ride, but she had laughed at the idea. Instead, she just remained by the trail until the sixth wagon rolled up and let Faye’s father help her to climb up beside his daughter. The two girls had sat with Claire’s log between them on the seat, giggling as they came up with descriptions and nicknames for each of the eligible bachelors. Cobb of course became corn cob, Gerald, with his long wild hair became Geraldine, George, King George.

  Claire was surprised the girl had already taken a liking to one young man. When she learned it was the Raglon boy, she had to bite her tongue to keep from warning her away. If it were Bonnie or Lynne, she would have confided what he had said to her two days before. But since she didn’t know if Faye might have formed the same opinion of her character, Claire was afraid to say anything.

  When, an hour had passed, she asked help in climbing down from the wagon. Mr. Brewer seemed a little annoyed by the request, but did stop his oxen so she could dismount. The wagon behind him yelled and someone farther back swore. Claire was sure it was the Raglon’s voices she heard complaining. Holding her head up and thanking him, she hurried to reach her own wagon. But in the soft churned trail, it was hard to walk fast. It seemed like the wagons and oxen were moving faster than she was.