by J. R. Biery
When she heard one of the dogs growl from under the wagon, she struggled to her feet and into her wrapper. When she grabbed the edge of the gathered canvas of the opening she held a gun in her shaking hand. The moonlight highlighted an armed figure outside.
In a gush, Claire let out her breath and sank onto the crate behind the raised tailgate. “Henry, you frightened me,” then her face fell as her eyes teared up.
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Henry stood still as the guard dog sniffed his shoe, then lowered his hand to let the animal touch his fingers with its cold nose. Satisfied, the dog slunk back under the wagon to the boys.
As the girl lowered her gun onto the mattress, he angled his rifle toward the ground and dared to step closer. “You should be asleep,” he said.
“I was until the animals woke me,” her voice sounded strangled on the whispered words.
Henry stood near, not daring to touch her. He waited, and she raised her head and gave him a pleading look. “For a moment I hoped it was…”
He tried not to move, but his left hand reached out of its own volition to grip her slender wrist and force her hand down from her face.
A deep cough from the front of the wagon, then Robert Wimberley’s rough whisper, “Is that you, Henry, already?”
Henry was staring at the angelic face, the portrait of sorrow with the cold moonlight painting her face and the silver tears glittering on her cheeks.
Henry shook her arm and released her to step back again. They both heard her father climbing out of the front of the wagon. Another four hours until dawn. Trembling, Claire turned back and slipped beneath the covers, each breath sending a silent prayer upward for Bonnie.
Only two hours later, Father began waking all the weary travelers.
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Claire tried again to cheer the grumbling children as they woke up. Finally, she convinced all that Chief Washakie had the girl. The men gathering at her Father’s summon looked like they believed her too. Boldly she turned to talk them into following the Indians to recover Bonnie. Instantly, they ignored her. For a moment she wished for Bonnie’s courage to demand that they listen.
Instead, Father started talking to the group that had gathered. “You need to get the wagons ready early. We’re camped where there is no water. How many of you used all your water last night to water your stock? The men looked around in the limited light of the lanterns to the men or woman beside them. Slowly many began to raise hands. “That’s why we need to get moving. I want us to be at this watering hole at daylight. These animals, and none of us, can make it without water. Without it we won’t last.”
There were some half-hearted arguments, but he shook his lantern and pointed ahead to the clear trail in the moonlight. “The trail is marked from all those who’ve gone before us. We’ve got the full-moon to light the way. Stop jawing and get harnessed. Those who are ready, help your neighbor. We need to get to that water.”
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Father’s fear pushed the others. The wagon train was underway while it was still dark. Claire felt helpless frustration as she realized they were moving constantly farther away from Bonnie.
There was no time to feel annoyed at having to do all of Bonnie’s work. Her past complaints evaporated as she watched each of the small figures in their group, the women on the wagons hunched under their shawls, the children stumbling along beside the wagon with her. She wondered if any others were still searching the dark and fretting about the missing girl. With each step, her fears increased.
When the sky grew pink ahead, she saw the lazy bend of the river gleam below. She felt a sudden calming of her troubled heart. With every sunrise, there was hope. Hadn’t she been taught that her whole life. She wondered if Bonnie were watching the same sunrise, feeling the same burst of hope. She prayed that she was. To keep from obsessing over it, she handed out dried beef strands and a canned thin biscuit to each of the people in her small group of nine.
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Downstream, Father and Henry lowered each of the wagon’s barrels, then rolled them over to the river to fill with the water above the watering cattle. Women and children splashed below the watering hole, men not tending the cattle moving even higher, blending into the cane break along the water’s edge.
Most of the travelers were eager to break their fast. Claire wondered if all had as well provisioned a wagon as the Wimberley’s. A few started fires to start cooking the beans for the next meal and Claire rushed to do the same. When the young men who had come to call, seemingly so long ago whistled out and stopped by her fire, Claire was delighted. When the first two dropped a string of four fish beside her fire, she clapped her hands in delight.
“Do you know how to clean them?” Cobb, one of the last two, asked.
Claire knew she was dusty and flushed from the night walk and the rush to get something for the group to eat. Nervously she reached up to brush curls escaping from the unwinding night braid. For a moment she felt breathless at the young man’s stare. Blushing, she shook her head in answer.
Cobb and Gerald remained beside the fire as the other two men headed toward the Brewer’s wagons. Cobb gutted the fish and Gerald scraped the fish scales. Tip and Tyler darted excitedly about near the activity and the men tossed them the guts to snap up. Gerald left the pink glistening fillets spread on the flat rock beside her fire.
Cobb blushed at her effusive thanks, but Gerald spoke up boldly. “Had to do it, Claire, you looked so pretty this morning. Like you better this way, with your hair down.”
Henry and Father were returning with the full water barrels, carefully rolling them in front of them. Father called out, and Claire’s suitors moved over, each to help one of the men put their barrels back in place at the end of their wagon.
“Have you refilled your own?” Father asked after saying thanks.
“Got distracted with the fishing,” Gerald answered.
“Better hurry and fill up. We’ll be leaving as soon as people down their breakfasts. We’ve still got miles to catch up.”
Cobb snorted. “Don’t be silly, we just caught up when we arrived here.”
Father looked at him and shook his head. As usual, Henry was ready to argue. “The animals need a rest,” he said.
“We need to reach Fort McPherson as soon as possible to get help to find Bonnie Michaels. I want to catch up with that large wagon train too, for safety.”
When a coyote howled, in broad daylight, the men stopped arguing. The two would be miners jogged off to get and fill their water barrel and tell the others as they passed. Father turned and walked back along the line of wagons to spread the word in that direction.
Claire stared at the fish that was already curling at the edges where it seared on the hot rock. Rushing, she called Mother and with her help stirred batter for some flapjacks to wrap around it.
Bella came up with Barney held against her hip even though he was struggling, wanting to reach down to get the dogs. “Nice, to have suitors at dawn. I like these kind of edible tributes better than flowers.’
Henry came back. Claire noted his unbuttoned shirt with rolled sleeves, his uncombed hair. She pretended not to notice him observing her.
She grabbed tin plates and cups. In minutes she was sharing the warm fish and bread, laughing with the surprised twins. Both were talking about catching their own fish.
“If we reach another spot beside a river, you can get the men to show you how. Wouldn’t hurt for all of us to learn, like when the Lieutenant showed us how to shoot,” Henry said.
Claire raised her eyes to try to catch him. It was wrong, but she had to wonder if he liked her better dusty and ungroomed as well as she liked the way he looked. She heard Bella snap at one of the dogs. It had tried to take the food from Barney’s hand. Father scolded it and each of the boys pulled their dogs over to them. For the first time in days, Claire felt the tension she had created, spread within the group.
One of the young dogs growled and she heard one of the twins give
it a swat. Wearily, Claire rose, trying to swallow her last bite of food past the knot in her throat. She collected plates quickly, rinsed them and handed them to her Mother to dry.
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Wearily, Claire made an attempt to raise her arms to pin up her hair, but failed. For a moment she felt as though she could fall asleep on her feet like the plodding animals.
Riding past, Henry called something to Father. Reluctantly, he looked back at her, then noted the boys stretched atop the lead oxen for each team.
Mary Anne was leaning against his wife, already asleep. Bella Lambton’s eyes were closed and she seemed to sway with each turn of the wheels. Dismounting, Father stood behind Claire, refused to listen to her arguments. In minutes she was mounted side-saddle and Bob trotted up beside Henry’s mare.
“Go on, you two ride up ahead and look for the campsite. We’ll try to make another mile, but I’d prefer to camp by water tonight.”
Claire opened her eyes wide, trying to wake up. Henry reached over and took her reins to lead the horse with the warning. “Grab hold of the mane and saddle horn before you fall off.”
Claire did as instructed. In minutes they were moving ahead of the lowing oxen. Claire was surprised, since it seemed the animals were picking up speed.
The trail dropped over the rise, but there was still no sign of the river. Nervously, Henry rested a hand on the gun at his hip, moved the horses at a fast walk down the rise. It was two miles before they found a thin stream beside a well grazed campground. Henry rode past it, but the stream seemed to disappear completely. Grunting, frustrated at being stuck with the girl, he swore, called Father a name that snapped Claire to attention.
“You’ve no reason to do that.”
“The hell I don’t. Here he’s stuck me with playing nurse-maid to you, and he expects me to find a reasonable camp site.”
Claire leaned forward, tried to tug the reins out of his hand. “I don’t need a baby sitter, thank you.”
She almost fell forward, but grabbed the horse’s neck to keep from falling off. Swearing even louder, Henry gave her a push up right and returned the reins to her hands. “Then wake up and keep your seat. We’re riding back toward the wagons, there has to be a better spot than this. Those cattle might not make it without water, but they need full bellies as well after the way he’s treated all of them today.”
Claire squirmed, trying to adjust her uncomfortable position on the saddle. She had one leg hooked around the pommel as usual, the other leg jammed into the stirrup. If she fell off, it wasn’t her fault. Bonnie was right. Men expected the impossible of women. How could one ride in this ridiculous way and keep control of their mount?
When Henry stopped a few hundred feet back to beat through the brush, Claire took the chance to awkwardly dismount. Only when she had the full skirt of her dress tucked between her legs the way Bonnie had showed her how to, did she look at the horse, ready to mount again.
Unable to reach the stirrup, she rode the horse over to a leaning tree and used it to climb up and lean over to mount the gentle horse from the wrong side. It snorted, as impatient with this female as Henry seemed to be. When Claire looked up, she was unable to see the infuriating man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Frightened, she screamed for Henry. He rode thundering directly through the cane stand, tearing his shirt to reach her. He was even angrier when he found her mounted astride the horse. She hid her mouth to keep from pointing out his shirt was torn. His arm was exposed, too white for someone who rode in the sun every day. Most of the other men were brown like Bonnie.
He wasn’t amused by her laughter. He looked ready to shake her for scaring him so much. In the distance they saw the train moving their way. Henry pulled at the wide swatch of ripped fabric on his sleeve, watched it wave like a white flag as he raised his arm to signal the wagons.
“If we ride back, I can sew and mend your shirt when we reach my wagon,” Claire said.
“No need, Bella will take care of it,” he answered. “Besides, didn’t I hear your other suitors tell you they’d be calling on you tonight? You might want to wash your face and comb your hair before they arrive, the bank of the stream is through that cane break.”
Claire stared at the broken reeds, looking dubious. Swearing again, Henry handed her his canteen and ripped the rest of the sleeve to hand her to use as a washcloth. At any other time she would have refused. But there was no way she was riding through that brush, and he had reminded her of two good reasons she should primp.
So what if he had a wife to sew his shirts, adjust his neckties, and scold him, among other things. Claire took the cloth wet it and did a thorough job of cleaning her face, neck and ears. Then she held it out away from her horse, to use more water to rinse the dust from it. She passed both back to Henry, ignoring the rapt way he was watching her.
She struggled with her hair, only managing to repin it enough to stuff beneath her dangling bonnet. Oh dear, if she didn’t watch, she would be as boiled red as an Indian.
Riders from the wagon train thundered up to them, looked around and smiled at Claire, who brightened again at the warmth of their looks. If they didn’t like what they saw, they didn’t shower her with disapproval like Henry. When one of the men offered to help her dismount, she accepted gratefully.
Henry pointed out where the stream was to the other man, and together they rode their horses back and forth, breaking down the barrier of the cane break.
As soon as her feet touched down, Claire was reminded of her pinned skirt and inappropriate position riding astride. Quickly she tugged the hem loose from her waist and stepped away to walk and force the skirt to fall full around her hips and legs.
“Wish you hadn’t done that,” James Temple said. “Was hoping to get a better look at you in your riding get up. Saw you riding that way once before, the day you called on Dorothy Brewer.”
Claire looked around, nervous to be alone with this young man. She had always been properly chaperoned before. He stepped closer and she backed out of reach until she collided with the side of Bob’s warm neck. There was something in the way James was grinning at her that made her duck beneath the horses’ neck so the man was on the other side from her and the horse was between them. Raising on tiptoe, she continued to talk to him as he leaned boldly on top of the saddle and smiled down at her. Once again, Claire was reminded that she didn’t like tall men. At 5’10’ he was the same height as Bonnie, two inches taller than her Father or Henry.
She was trying to think of what to say that was appropriate to wipe that look off his face when Henry and George crashed up from the creek. George was talking, something about, “yes, this looks like a great spot. Look at all this grass.”
Henry seemed pleased that someone finally respected his opinion, then he saw the way James Temple was ogling a blushing Claire. The fool girl, if someone didn’t watch out for her all the time she was going to be bedded and wedded before they reached Utah.
“Claire, do you need a boost up so you can ride back to your parents’ wagon?” Henry called.
Claire turned to look at him, annoyed by his tone of voice. She had just been thinking of how to manage that very thing before he arrived, but there was something about his condescending tone that made her determined not to obey.
She stepped back from the patient gelding she had been using for a shield and shook her head. “They will be here in a few minutes. I think I should gather firewood and be ready to start the campfire when they arrive.”
“I can help you,” James offered. At Henry’s glare, she shook her head. “Do you think you and George might catch a few more nice fish for us tonight?”
“This time of day, I doubt it. But we’ll try again in the morning if you like. Those boys with you, Tom and Jim, they made us promise to show them how it’s done.”
She continued to talk as she walked toward the tree line. “They told me about it several times already today. Well, everyone will be here in a short while. Excus
e me, gentlemen.”
Claire dropped a curtsy as though she were meeting the men at morning mass. It had the right sobering effect. They nodded and tipped their hats and George even bowed.
She was very much aware of being watched by all three as she walked toward the small growth of brush and carefully scanned it before picking up a few broken branches and making a small pile. They were all talking, although even from a distance she could tell that Henry disliked what they were saying. He seemed to prefer arguing with everyone.
Until the wagons arrived, there was no way to know where their campfire would be. Unlike most of the areas where they circled the wagon train, there would be no marked fire-pits. She called to the men as soon as she thought of it. “Maybe you could find a few flat rocks by the stream. Everyone will need one for their coffee pot beside the fire.”
When she moved back into the open and looked around, she was surprised to see Henry still standing there, holding the reins of the four horses. The others were doing as she requested and looking for stones. She wanted to smile at the curious look on his face. It was as though he was trying to decide something, but all he was doing was staring at her.
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In the days that followed, Claire had her hands full, keeping James at a distance. She did it by using teasing chatter about the other girls the boys were calling on, the Brewer cousins. “I thought you and George had made up your minds on who your favorites were.”
He looked confused, but Claire laughed as she said, “Oh come on, James, Bonnie and I watched both of you walking around with Dorothea and Faye.” For the first time in over a week she included Bonnie in the conversation without feeling a pang for her. She realized that like the others, she now believed Bonnie was safe and would return as soon as they let Calum Douglas know to go search for her.
