Baby on the Oregon Trail

by Lynna Banning

  “I’m so clean my skin squeaks,” Mary Grace added.

  Ruthie followed her sisters over to the fire pit and the sizzling skillet of bacon. “My skin doesn’t say anything!”

  “Huh!” Tess shot. “Your skin is red as an Indian’s.”

  Jenna pointed her fork in the direction of the creek. “Go.” None of the girls made a move.

  Lee cocked his head. “First one washed up and back here gets to ride Devil this—”

  Before he could finish, Mary Grace streaked off, Ruthie at her heels. Tess ambled sullenly after them.

  “Yes, I will bet,” Jenna said with a stiff smile. “Tess will kick and scream before she gets back on that horse. I think Mary Grace may be your most eager student.”

  “What about you?”

  She sent him a sharp look. “What about me?”

  “Riding Devil.”

  She whirled back to the skillet without answering. “Sam Lincoln stopped by. Our wagon is being rotated to the front this morning.”

  “Good. Kinda dusty at the end of the line.”

  They ate biscuits and bacon around the fire, and before Jenna and Tess had finished drying the tin plates, Mary Grace tugged Lee over to Devil for a riding lesson.

  Ruthie threw her arms around Jenna’s knees. “When do I get to ride the horse?”

  “What a stupid question,” Tess snapped, shoving her younger sister’s shoulder. “Who wants to ride a horse, anyway?”

  “Tess, let her alone,” Jenna said. She bent down to Ruthie’s level. “When you’re bigger, honey, then you can ride.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow. You’ll have to grow much taller.”

  “How tall?”

  “You must ask Mr. Carver that question, Ruthie. I think you have to be able to reach the stirrups, and your legs aren’t long enough yet.”

  “What about Tess? Her legs are real long.”

  “I don’t want to ride your old horse,” Tess said, a sneer in her tone. “It’s big and smelly.”

  Ruthie danced in front of her. “You’re scared!” she crowed.

  “I am not.”

  Ruthie clasped her small hands together and glared up at Tess. “I’m not one bit scared.”

  Tess gave her another shove. “You haven’t got the brains of an ant or you’d be scared, too. Even Jenna’s scared, aren’t you, Jenna?” She sent Jenna a mocking smile.

  Jenna straightened. “Yes, I admit I am apprehensive about riding. I have never liked large animals.”

  “See?” Tess stuck her tongue out at her sister and flounced away toward the wagon.

  Jenna bit back her angry words. Tess was stuck between being a petulant child and being a young woman, noticing things like Virginia reels and Jimmy Gumpert. If she had had more time to establish herself as the girls’ stepmother before she married Mathias, it would be easier to curb their meanness toward each other and guide their behavior. As it was, she had her hands full just getting them to be civil.

  Especially to her. When they joined the wagon train to Oregon, Jenna had expected Mathias to discipline his daughters, particularly when it came to their treatment of her. Now she realized that nothing was going to change unless she herself took on the disciplining, and Lord knew she didn’t want that role.

  She reached for the bucket of dirty dishwater, intending to dump it out, but instead she bowed her head over it and closed her eyes. She could not imagine life in Oregon alone with bickering stepdaughters and a new baby.

  Behind her she heard Ruthie scramble into the wagon, and in the next moment the quarrelsome voices rose again.

  “I did not!”

  “You did, too! I saw you.”

  Jenna clenched her hands under her apron. She felt like screaming. Even riding a horse would be easier than stopping this constant warfare. At least riding would get her away from the girls’ incessant squabbling.

  She looked up to see Mary Grace coming across the camp mounted on Devil, her dress rucked up in front. Lee walked beside her. He directed the girl to bring the horse to a stop, steady it and dismount by herself.

  “You’re not done yet,” he said to the grinning girl. “Remember what I told you?”

  “Rubhimdownandgivehimsomeoats,” Mary Grace rattled off. “Do I have to?”

  “Yeah, you do. Currycomb and brush are in my saddlebag.”

  Jenna jerked to attention. “Lee,” she cried softly. “Your revolver. It’s in your—”

  “No, it isn’t. I stowed it somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  He turned questioning eyes on her. “Why? You planning to shoot me?”

  She couldn’t tell if that was a half smile on his lips or a scowl, but it nettled her. She sent him a sour look and he stepped closer, glancing at the bucket of dishwater still sitting on the fire.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing, I guess. I’m just tired.”

  “Physically tired? Or fed up?”

  A spurt of laughter erupted. “However did you guess?”

  “It wasn’t hard. You look like you could chew nails.”

  “I might prefer nails over having words with Tess. I am...well, I am failing at being a stepmother. The girls need guidance, especially Tess, and I am the last person she will listen to. It’s draining away any good spirits I may have had when we started out last May.”

  Lee watched Mary Grace’s progress with the currycomb and tipped his head toward the girl. “She likes riding. She’s going to be good at it.”

  Jenna nodded and bit her lip.

  “Riding would be good for Tess, too,” he went on. “Give her something to think about besides herself.”

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up about that.”

  He lowered his voice. “Did you two have words this morning?”

  “Tess has words with everyone. Except you.”

  “Yeah. I’m not a threat to her, the way you are.”

  “How am I a threat? Besides marrying their father, I mean.”

  He hefted the bucket of dirty water, strode off a few yards and splashed it out onto a patch of grass. When he returned he closed her fingers around the handle and spoke in a low voice.

  “For one thing, you know how to dance. For another you’re a grown-up woman, and pretty, and that’s what both Tess and Mary Grace want to be. They’d like admirers, too. All women want admirers, don’t they?”

  “I did not when I was their age. That came later.”

  “Then you up and married their father, and everything went to hell, huh?”

  “Yes. I’ve often wondered if...if I should have married Mathias.”

  “Too late now,” he observed. He signaled to Mary Grace, and the girl put aside the brush and stood patting Devil’s nose. Again he rested his gaze on Jenna.

  “Do my thoughts make sense to you?” he asked.

  “How would you know anything about raising girls to be young ladies?”

  Lee let that pass in favor of a more pertinent question. “What do you plan to do when you reach Oregon?”

  Her face changed. “Mathias had some idea about running a store.”

  “But now you don’t have Mathias. What is it that you, Jenna, plan to do?”

  She twisted her mouth and passed the empty bucket into her other hand. “The girls must go to school, of course. And I want... Oh, I don’t know anymore. Well, yes, I do know. I want my baby to be born safely. I want to not feel on the outside all the time. Disapproved of. Excluded. I want to start a new life in Oregon.”

  “What happened to the girls’ mother, Mathias’s first wife?”

  She studied the empty wash bucket, then the patch of damp ground where he’d tossed the contents. “Mathias said she ran off wi
th another man. Later he received word that she’d been killed in a stagecoach accident.”

  She eyed him over the bucket. “Since we’re asking personal questions, why didn’t you go back to the South after the War? To Virginia?”

  “I did.” He gazed out at the grassy enclosure between the wagons. “I found my land ruined, my wife and baby son dead. I couldn’t stay. The only thing I could salvage was my horse. Now Devil’s the most important thing in my life. In Oregon I plan to start a horse ranch. Breed horses for the army.”

  It was a way for him to start over, build something he could believe in. Something he would never lose, unlike a wife or a child. He’d never remarry; it was too damn risky. Loving someone meant he could be emotionally destroyed all over again.

  He strode off to yoke up the oxen and insisted that Mary Grace watch. A grumbling Tess stood by. “How come we have to learn this?”

  “Because,” Lee said evenly, “I want you to be able to do it if you have to.”

  “But why would we have to? You’ll be here, won’t you?”

  “I don’t like the prospect of having men like...” He stopped himself. He was going to say the McKernan brothers, but thought better of it. “Men that might muscle their way in too close to the Borland women under the guise of being helpful.”

  “Like you?” Tess’s hazel eyes were hard.

  “I’m not muscling in.”

  “What makes you different?” she challenged.

  Lee straightened and took a step toward her. To her credit, she didn’t back up and he hid a smile. “I’m just different.”

  He’d be damned if he’d explain to a spoiled thirteen-year-old how protective he felt toward Jenna.

  “It’s because you feel bad ’cuz you killed our pa, isn’t it?” Tess sniped.

  “Some.” Hell and damn, the girl’s tongue was sharp enough to slice jerky. He looked straight into her hostile eyes and let her have it.

  “You want to know something, Tess? About getting a boy to like you? Maybe someone like, say, Jimmy Gumpert?”

  She tried to hide it, but her eyes took on an avid interest.

  “Then listen up. First off, you’re nice to him. Second, you let him see that you’re nice to other people, too. Like your sisters. And Jenna. No man likes a shrew.”

  Ruthie popped up behind her sister. “What’s a shrew?”

  Lee blew out a breath. “A shrew is a female who says mean things.”

  Tess’s face tightened, but she said nothing.

  He finished yoking the oxen and climbed up onto the driver’s box. Ruthie clambered up next to him and he drove the team up to the front of the line. Mary Grace and Tess and Jenna walked alongside.

  “How come we’re not last anymore?” Ruthie questioned.

  “Because the wagons rotate.”

  “What’s ‘rotate’?”

  “It means to trade places so no one has to be last in line longer than a couple of days. This wagon has been dead last for three days. Now it’s someone else’s turn.”

  He pulled in just behind the leader, Sam Lincoln, and climbed down to check on Devil, roped to the right rear corner. He nodded to Emma Lincoln as he passed, glanced at the next wagon in line and stopped short. Directly behind the Borland wagon sat Mick McKernan, jiggling the reins of his four-horse team. The Irishman fingered his jaw and sent him a black look.

  Lee bit back a groan. He’d known men like Mick before. There was only one thing on their minds, and it didn’t involve getting to Oregon. He waited until Sam signaled the start, then climbed back onto the bench and motioned to Jenna.

  “Don’t fall behind when you’re walking. Make sure you and the girls keep with this wagon.”

  “What difference will it make?” she asked. “We often walk beside other wagons.”

  “Look behind you.” He waited as she peered past him. He knew the instant she saw McKernan because she pressed her lips into a thin line.

  “Oh.”

  “If you or the girls can’t keep pace, I’ll stop so you can climb inside. Understood?”

  “Yes, I understand.” Then, after a long pause, she looked up at him. “Thank you, Lee.”

  She tried to smile and his gut clenched. Jenna Borland wasn’t cut out for this journey. Probably wasn’t cut out for life on the Oregon frontier, either. But she was trying to do the best she could, and that counted for a lot in his book.

  The next time he talked to Tess about what men liked about women, he’d make sure to mention courage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The long line of wagons rolled across endless miles of knee-high grass punctuated with patches of yellow and orange wildflowers. The girls wore holes in their shoes from trudging beside the wagon, and then the leather uppers began to disintegrate. Ruthie preferred going barefoot, but both Jenna and Tess suffered with blisters because the loose, stretched leather of their shoes rubbed their heels raw.

  The Borland team of oxen pulled up long, gradual hills and rattled down the other side, and then the wheels rolled on, crunching rhythmically over the prairie. The warm air smelled of sage and animal dung dropped by the cattle, mules and horses in the train.

  Mary Grace spent more hours riding Devil than walking beside the wagon with her sisters, but both the older girls still refused to walk next to Jenna.

  As the endless days dragged by, wagons broke down and were repaired, horses were reshod, suppers cooked over campfires were devoured by hungry men and exhausted women. Jenna noticed their food supplies were beginning to run low, especially cornmeal and coffee. Lee gave up his morning cup of hot coffee and Jenna accepted Sophia Zaberskie’s offer of a canister of tea instead, but she found that tea no longer agreed with her.

  Gradually the thick groves of ash and elm trees started to thin out, and Sam ordered the nooning stops in the small clusters of cottonwoods that appeared near the occasional stream.

  Then the streams began to dry up. Now the emigrants struggled not only with heat from the blazing sun and dust kicked up by the wind and the rolling wagons themselves but agonizing thirst.

  Lee tried to talk Jenna into riding with him on the driver’s bench, but she said Dr. Engelman had advised her to avoid the bumping and jostling of the wagon in her condition and to walk instead. Also, she insisted she wanted to keep an eye on the girls, and she couldn’t see them sitting next to Lee on the driver’s bench. He wondered if it was more than that. She’d been skittish ever since that night at the social when he’d said things he probably shouldn’t have.

  He felt pulled in two directions. Ripped apart was more like it. Part of him wanted to protect Jenna, keep her and the girls safe. Another part of him, the part he was trying hard to ignore, wanted to hold her in his arms and make her his.

  He slapped the reins and called out to the ox team. “Ho, there, Sunflower. Come on, girl, pull!”

  Jenna still shied away from learning to drive the team. He knew the physician warned her to stay clear of the oxen in her condition, but he also knew that, deep down, she was afraid of the animals. He was pushing her to overcome her fear of Devil, but he was learning that when Jenna made up her mind to something, she was plenty hard to budge.

  He admired her stubbornness in a way. She had backbone. She shouldered her responsibilities without buckling when the going got rough, but she could be as immovable as a brick wall when it came to some things.

  Him, for instance.

  She tolerated him. She was even polite to him now, after nearly a month of traveling together. But he sensed she was afraid of him. Maybe he’d never understand her, but that sure didn’t stop him from wanting to touch her. Sleeping next to her at night was tearing him up inside.

  During the long, scorching August days Jimmy Gumpert began walking beside Tess, and in the evenings the boy often wandered into their
camp after supper and serenaded her with songs badly played on his guitar.

  “Interesting development,” Lee intoned to Jenna one night, listening to Jimmy’s halting efforts at “Barbara Allen.”

  “Oh? Why is it interesting?”

  “For weeks, Tess has been unfriendly,” Lee said carefully. “Sometimes she acts downright mean to the boy.”

  “Yes, some girls can be that way,” Jenna said. “Tess can be extremely unpleasant and tart in her speech.”

  Lee looked sideways at her. “Well, now she’s being halfway civil to the boy. Maybe a male is a good influence on a female.”

  Jenna concentrated on the glowing coals in the fire pit.

  “The right male, perhaps. I know nothing about the Gumpert boy.”

  “I do. Jimmy’s more scared of Tess than predatory.”

  “Why on earth would he be scared of her? He’s bigger than she is and about six inches taller.”

  Lee fished the last tin plate out of the bucket of wash water and dried it. “It isn’t a matter of size. Maybe he doesn’t want to get his heart broken.”

  “Of course,” she sniffed. “Tess could always have her heart broken.”

  “Or,” he said, shooting her a quick glance, “they could end up being friends. Close friends.”

  “Oh.” All at once Jenna didn’t know where to look. “I never considered that.”

  “Did your mother and father like each other?” he asked.

  “Why, of course. They were husband and wife.” She laid his damp dish towel on a rock near the fire. “They loved each other.”

  “They were fortunate, then. Lots of couples don’t love each other. Most couples don’t even like each other. Take you and Mathias, for example. I’d bet a stack of silver dollars you did not love Mr. Borland.”

  “Well, you would lose!” she said sharply.

  “Would I?” he said at her back.

  She clamped her lips shut. “I refuse to answer such a question. My marriage to Mathias is none of your business.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just wanted to poke at that soap bubble you’re living in.”

  Jenna spun to face him. “If I am not mistaken, Mr. Carver, you have your own bubble.”