Baby on the Oregon Trail

by Lynna Banning

  The question sliced into his brain clean as a razor. “Yeah, they will. Probably going to mate.”

  He heard her breath suck in. She must be pretty ladified if the word mate brought that reaction. Made him wonder even more about her.

  “You said your mother was ‘proper,’” he ventured. “How come she let you join an emigrant train?”

  “She didn’t have a choice, really. I mean I didn’t have a choice. Mama had to let me marry Mathias and join the train.”

  “How come she let you marry a horse thief in the first place?” He held his breath, expecting an explosion of anger. No woman wanted to hear her husband called a horse thief.

  She stayed quiet for a good two minutes while he waited.

  “Again, Mama felt she had no choice.”

  “Your father still alive?”

  “No. He was killed in the War. At Antietam.”

  “Too bad. It’s hard on a woman alone. She never remarried?”

  “Mr. Carver, you ask far too many questions.”

  “Maybe. Some might say I don’t ask nearly enough.”

  “Well,” she huffed, “I would not be one of them. I thought Southern people, refined people from the state of Virginia, were too polite to probe into others’ affairs.”

  “We are, usually. No law says we can’t be curious, though. And we’re out here in the West, Mrs. Borland. Not in Virginia. We’re in Yankee country, and Yankees, I’ve observed, are often ill-mannered.”

  “That is insulting!” Her voice held more than a bit of frost. “Surely you, a supposedly genteel Southerner, recognize bad manners?”

  Lee exhaled a long sigh. “I’m less Johnny Reb now than I was a few years back. Maybe now I’m more like your bluecoats. Your husband, for instance.”

  “You are nothing like my husband,” she countered, punching out the words. “Nothing at all.”

  He laughed quietly. “I’ll take that as a compliment, if you don’t mind. I didn’t like your husband.”

  “I do mind,” she retorted. “You didn’t even know my husband.”

  Lee chose his next words with care. “I knew him enough to see some things.”

  “What things?” Her tone went from frosty to cold, stinging sleet in sixty seconds.

  “For one, he had no business bringing his family on a wagon train with as little preparation as he’d made.”

  “What do you mean?” Her voice rose. “Mathias prepared for this trip.”

  “Then I’d have to say he didn’t have much experience. And for another thing, looks to me like you’re gonna run out of food before you get halfway to Oregon. Your man didn’t plan far enough ahead.”

  Her voice turned to steel. “I’ll thank you to shut your mouth, Mr. Carver.”

  Again he laughed. “You know, whenever you’re mad, it’s ‘Mr. Carver.’ And when you’re learning something, or scared, it’s ‘Lee.’”

  “I cannot make up my mind about you, Mr. Carver.” She bit his name out in hard, clearly enunciated syllables.

  “You might want to hurry that up a little, Mrs. Borland. We’re going to be in each other’s back pockets for another two months.”

  That seemed to shut her up. He closed his eyes, listening to her uneven breathing. He knew she wasn’t asleep because she kept twitching under her quilt.

  The wolves were crooning loud and long by now. Lee let himself listen and thought about Jenna, about what she’d sound like if... Ah, hell. That wasn’t any way to get to sleep.

  But he couldn’t help thinking about it. He smiled up at the shadowy underside of the wagon and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Odious man. He was laughing at her, and if there was one thing Jenna hated it was being laughed at. Who did he think he was, anyway? She would never last another two months in the company of this man with his outspoken ways and his subtle goading.

  The South had lost the War, hadn’t it? Mathias always said the Confederate soldiers should have slunk back to their ruined plantations and done some honest work. At the moment she half agreed with him.

  On the other hand, some of the things Mathias said, which he’d expressed often and crudely, were things she could not agree with. Now that he was gone, she could try to erase some of the hateful poison he’d spewed into the minds of his daughters. It hadn’t all been about her; mostly it was about how worthless other people were. How they owed him something. How he was better than they were.

  “Jenna.”

  “Oh, what is it?” she said sharply. She clamped her jaw shut. At least he hadn’t called her “Mrs. Borland.”

  “I owe you an apology. I had no right to question you in that manner.”

  “Oh.” Instantly her annoyance began to fade, but she couldn’t resist one last jab. “Tit for tat, Mr. Carver. The next time we converse it will be my turn to pry.”

  He chuckled. “I will look forward to it, Jenna. Good night.”

  She debated making a retort until she heard him roll over on his pallet. “Good night,” she said at last. After a long pause, she added, “Lee.”

  His soft laugh made her grit her teeth. Why, why was it that he got under her skin? Tomorrow, when he least expected it, she would find some way to make him squirm. She could hardly wait.

  Chapter Nine

  Ruthie gazed up at Lee with round blue eyes. “Mister, I heard funny noises last night.”

  Lee snapped his pocketknife closed. “Noises like what?”

  “Like something crying.”

  “Do you know what a wolf is?”

  The girl shook her head. “Tell me ’bout a woof.”

  “A wolf is like a dog, honey. In fact, a long, long time ago, dogs were wolves.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I guess they grew up. Some of them got to be dogs, and others stayed wild.”

  “I want one,” Ruthie announced. “A big one.”

  Lee swallowed a smile. “Would you like a new doll instead?” From his shirt pocket he produced the small figure he’d been carving.

  Her eyes grew larger. “A dolly? For me?” She reached out her small hand and touched it with one finger. “Is it a boy doll or a girl doll?”

  “A girl doll, I think. See, she has on a dress.” From the corner of his eye he saw Jenna watching them, her hands propped at her waist. But her eyes looked soft and kind of shiny.

  Ruthie flung her arms around his neck and smacked a kiss onto his stubbly cheek. “Gosh, mister, you’re all scratchy.”

  “Yeah. Guess I’d better shave, huh?”

  “Oh, goody. Can I watch?”

  Over the girl’s blond curls he saw Jenna shake her head.

  “Maybe another time,” he said. “What will you name your doll?”

  “I’m gonna call her Lee.”

  “What? Lee is a boy’s name. My name is Lee.”

  “You’re not a boy, mister. You’re a man.”

  At Jenna’s burst of laughter he felt a rush of relief. From the moment she rolled out of bed at dawn, she had been glowering at him, all through their breakfast of cornmeal mush, right up to the moment Ruthie had interrupted his wood carving. Didn’t take a genius to see Jenna had something stuck in her craw.

  He rose, pressed “Lee” into Ruthie’s hands and strode off to the creek to shave. As he scraped away at his chin he thought about Tess and Mary Grace and what he had planned for them this morning.

  And Jenna. That is, if he could he persuade her to do it.

  * * *

  “Not on your life,” Jenna announced an hour later. “No. No. No. Never.”

  “Listen,” he said, his voice oozing patience. “The girls will learn, and that will make your presence out here on the plains a good deal safer.”

  “
I understand that,” she said. “But you don’t need extra hands for firearms we don’t have. We have only your three weapons.”

  He shook his head. She knew what he was thinking, that Mathias had not taken proper steps to protect his family. In that, perhaps, the Virginian was correct.

  She watched him walk Tess and Mary Grace off some fifty yards away from the wagons, nail a scrap of white cloth to a tree stump for a target and direct the girls’ attention to his revolver.

  With a sniff, Jenna turned back to the fire pit where the kettle of beans sat soaking.

  A single gunshot cracked into the quiet, and she looked across the plain to see Tess standing with Lee’s Colt gripped in both long-fingered hands. Lee was bending to show her how to reload.

  He was right about their need to protect themselves. It was foolish to depend solely on him. What if he fell ill, or was injured? Yesterday he’d risked his life getting their wagon across the Platte River. What if he had lost his footing and drowned?

  Another shot sounded. This time it was Mary Grace, whose two-handed grip wobbled with the revolver’s weight. She had managed to nick the target, and Jenna felt a surge of admiration for the eleven-year-old’s accomplishment. And, she thought grudgingly, for Lee’s skill at instruction.

  The rifle lesson was next, she gathered from the difference in the sound. She tried not to listen. In an hour, the target practice session drew to a close, and Jenna grew edgy. Lee had insisted on showing her how to yoke up the oxen and touch that precious horse of his. She prayed he would draw the line at handling firearms.

  Probably not. Once this man made up his mind about something, he was stubborn about it. Sam said Lee had “sand.” Right now, she wished he had a good deal less of it.

  “Ruthie,” she called into the wagon. “Let’s walk down to the stream and take a bath, shall we?”

  “Don’t want a bath, Jenna.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want to do it with Mister Lee.”

  Jenna stuffed down a chortle of laughter. “You can’t do that, honey. Boys and girls don’t bathe together.”

  Ruthie pushed out her lower lip. “He’s not a boy, Jenna. He’s a man.”

  Oh, my. How could she explain the difference? Before she could come up with anything remotely proper, Tess and Mary Grace flitted back into camp.

  “Did you see us, Jenna?” Mary Grace chirped. “I hit the target twice. Tess didn’t even come close.”

  “Show-off,” Tess muttered. “Who wants to hit a dumb old tree stump?”

  “I do!” Mary Grace challenged. “Lee says it’s important.”

  “And it is,” his low voice announced behind her. “Now, Jenna...”

  She spun to face him. “No.”

  His dark eyebrows rose. “No what? I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

  “Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

  He looked at her steadily with crinkles growing in the corners of his gray eyes. “I was going to say that I’m going to take a bath before supper. All right with you?”

  “As long as I don’t have to—”

  His snort of laughter told her he’d read the thought she had squelched. Still chuckling, he strode off toward the stream, his canvas shaving kit dangling from his hand.

  “All right, girls,” Jenna said when he was out of sight. “Let’s find us a private spot and do the same.”

  * * *

  Lee hung his shaving mirror over a huckleberry branch and lathered up his chin with the bar of soap he’d extricated from his kit. He finished stropping his razor and had just bent to peer into the mirror when a pair of blue eyes showed in the reflection.

  “Ruthie! What are you doing here?”

  “Wanted to watch.”

  “Does Jenna know you’re here?”

  “Nope. She’s takin’ a bath.”

  His blade jerked. “Really?”

  “Yes. Tess an’ Mary Grace are finished already. Jenna’s real slow.”

  Jupiter! A picture rose in his imagination of Jenna emerging from the stream wearing nothing but her... Wearing nothing. He tried to keep his mind on shaving and his hand steady as he scraped away at his whiskers. Ruthie watched in total absorption, and for that he was grateful. It forced him to pay attention and keep his mind off other things. Like Jenna, all wet and...

  He nicked his chin.

  When Ruthie scampered off to play with her new doll, Lee tucked his shirt into his jeans, packed up his shaving things and headed back to camp. He was three yards from the creek when he heard a soft splash and a female voice humming a tune. “Polly Wolly Doodle.” A damn Yankee song if there ever was one, but it drew him like a magnet.

  He walked eight steps past the huckleberry bush and there she was, thigh-deep in the water, with her back to him. Her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders in wild disarray, and water glistened on her skin. His groin tightened. She was too damn beautiful.

  And then she turned, and he saw the slight curve of her belly where the baby swelled under her heart.

  His fists clenched. She was carrying a child, he reminded himself. Another man’s child. He could want her, even ache for her, but he could never have her. She belonged to that unborn child. Not to her husband, the man he had killed, but to a being she could not even see yet. From the moment of conception until she reached Oregon and was finally delivered of her burden, she would belong only to that child.

  Jenna Borland needed him only to yoke up her oxen and drive her wagon across the Great Plains and the Rockies to a new life. He didn’t belong here, with her. Once again he was the outsider. He and Jenna Borland were in two different worlds, heading toward two completely different lives.

  With a groan he acknowledged he was headed straight for another wrenching loss at the end of another long, hard campaign. He wished he’d never laid eyes on her, especially as she was now, naked and singing to herself as she dried the moisture from her hair and that silky-looking body and pulled on her clothes.

  When he strode back into camp, Sam Lincoln was waiting for him. The man nodded a greeting, then took a closer look at him.

  “Anything wrong, Lee? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  Lee shook his head and waited for the wagon master to continue.

  “Ted Zaberskie and the Gumpert boy brought down a deer this afternoon. Thought you might like a share of the meat.”

  “Sure, Sam. Thanks.”

  Sam made no move to leave. Instead he kept his gaze on Ruthie and Mary Grace, playing with their dolls in the shade of the wagon. After a long moment the wagon master stepped closer and spoke in an undertone.

  “While the men were out hunting, they caught sight of three Indians. Mounted. Too far away to tell what nation, but I thought I ought to warn you.”

  “Thanks, Sam. I’ll keep my eyes open. Don’t tell Jenna. If it looks like trouble, she’ll—”

  “No, she won’t, Lee. From what I’ve seen, that girl isn’t the least bit fainthearted.”

  “I’ve got two Colt revolvers and a Winchester rifle. Tess and Mary Grace can handle them, so that makes three guns if they’re needed.”

  “Let’s pray it won’t come to that,” Sam growled. He tipped his leather hat and tramped off past the fire pit just as Jenna returned from her bath.

  Lee found he couldn’t look at her. Even now, he could feel his groin swell, and she was covered in blue gingham from her neck to her ankles.

  “I’m going for a walk,” he announced.

  “No, you’re not,” she said, her voice quiet.

  He stopped short. “You telling me what I can and can’t do? Sounds like the conversation we had last night.”

  She leveled a long look at him, her blue-green eyes challenging. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you any such thing, Mr. Carver. I
t’s just that, well, I need your help with something.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “No, it cannot.”

  Well, damn. He needed to be away from her, not standing around being helpful, so close to her he could smell her hair.

  “In the wagon,” she said. She gestured toward the curtained opening.

  He climbed in after her and she pointed to a large barrel of flour. “Move that over...” she paused, one finger tapping her chin “...over there, behind that sack of cornmeal.”

  First he had to wrestle the cornmeal away from the curved wooden bow overhead, then shove the flour barrel into the space she indicated.

  “No, that won’t work,” she said when he finished. “Put it back.”

  Lee clenched his teeth. Without comment he reversed the position of the barrel and the cornmeal sack, but before he could get the flour back in place, he heard her voice.

  “No, I don’t think that will work,” she murmured. “Put the molasses crock over there, by the...” She stopped. “No, over there, in back of the cornmeal but in front of the flour barrel.”

  He bent to lift the ceramic container, then changed his mind and straightened. “Jenna, why are you moving all this stuff around?”

  “To make room, of course.”

  “Room for what?”

  “For me,” she said, her tone cool. “From now on I will be sleeping inside the wagon.”

  Lee surveyed the cramped interior where they stood, crammed with barrels and jars and burlap sacks of sugar and cornmeal, a side of bacon, a carved bureau and what looked like a piano stool, and the three girls’ pallets rolled up and stacked on top of the square wooden pantry box.

  “You think there’s enough room?” he asked.

  “I will make room.”

  “You mean I will make room. I’m the one shoving your supplies back and forth.” He worked the sack of cornmeal out a few feet and placed the molasses crock behind it.

  Jenna paced across the few feet of space, her lips pursed. “That’s not going to work, either. Move the crock back over behind the pantry box.”

  He rolled his eyes but obliged, then waited, sweating in the midday heat while she studied the space. He could see there wasn’t enough room for one more sleeper inside the wagon; in fact, there wasn’t really room enough for the three girls. He figured that’s why Jenna and her husband had slept underneath the wagon in the first place.