Trail of Chances

by Merry Farmer

  Trail of Chances: Trail’s End

  Hot on the Trail - Book 9

  Merry Farmer

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright ©2016 by Merry Farmer

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  Chapter One

  Oregon City, Oregon Territory – 1865

  “Well, there it is, Miss Josephine. The end of the trail.” Pete Evans pointed to a wide yard filled with wagons and people. Merchant booths and tents filled the area in front of the heart of the settlement on the other side of the last hill of the Oregon Trail. Oregon City at last.

  “Thank merciful God in heaven above,” Josephine Lewis sighed, pressing a hand to her heart.

  After three months, several storms, far too many deaths, one heart-wrenching parting of the ways, and more adventure than she’d ever bargained for in her life, her journey was done.

  And in some ways, with forty years of life and the entire rest of the country behind her, she had a feeling her journey was only just beginning.

  “Are we there? Did we make it?” Young Freddy Chance scrambled down from the back of the wagon, helping his smaller sister, Muriel, as he went.

  “Yep, that’s it.” Pete pointed toward the settlement again. He swept his hat from his head to run a hand through his silver-grey hair.

  “Where’s the ocean?” Libby Chance asked, hurrying up to join her younger siblings. Libby had turned eighteen on the trail, and in spite of her burst of enthusiasm, looked more like a woman than a child now.

  “The ocean heard you were coming and it ran away screaming.” Luke teased his sister, tugging on the long braid down Libby’s back.

  “Ow! You pig.” Libby turned to punch Luke’s arm.

  “Oink, oink!” Luke laughed.

  Josephine rolled her eyes. All four of the Chance children had grown restless and irritable on the last leg of the journey. Maybe it was all the energy they hadn’t been able to expend in leisurely pursuits for the last few months, since starting west with a group of other orphans. Or maybe it was the uncomfortable question that hung over all of their heads now that they had reached Oregon City.

  What happened to the four Chance children now that the journey was over?

  “We’re still a fair ways from the ocean,” Pete stepped in to answer Libby’s question, fitting his hat back on his head. “But if you keep following the river for a day or so, you’ll get to your ocean eventually.”

  “Unless it retreats once it hears you’re coming,” Luke added under his breath.

  Libby huffed and balled her hands into fists. Freddy and Muriel snorted with amusement.

  “Luke Chance, please stop tormenting your sister,” Josephine scolded. “I swear, you’ll give me more grey hairs than I already have.”

  The minor feud was eclipsed as the Jacksons, one of the families they had been traveling with, drove up beside them.

  “I bet you’ll be glad to finally be rid of that lot,” Beulah Jackson snorted, shaking her head.

  Cold anger formed a knot in Josephine’s gut. “I—”

  “You’re a mite too long in the tooth to be saddled with that kind of responsibility anyhow,” Beulah went on.

  “Children like that need a younger hand,” her husband, Jim, agreed. “Someone with the energy to teach them manners.”

  Josephine’s cold stomach turned over. She glanced to the children. Freddy and Muriel were busy chasing a puppy that had run close to the wagon. Luke and Libby had heard the comment though and looked decidedly put out.

  “Thanks for all your help, Pete.” Jim slapped Pete on the back as he passed, not giving Josephine time to reply. “I expect you’ll kick back and enjoy a quiet retirement now, but I sure am glad you dragged your old bones across the frontier for this one last trip. We couldn’t have made it without you.”

  “You take care, Jim.” Pete waved after him.

  The Jacksons walked on, leaving Josephine speechless. She turned to Pete to see what he thought of the nasty set of comments. Long in the tooth? Old bones? Indeed! But Pete merely shrugged and walked back to check on the wagon.

  Josephine sighed. Yes, that was probably the best thing to do. Ignore unhelpful negativity and unkind remarks. She turned her attention back to the cluster of buildings and wagons and people at the edge of the larger settlement.

  “Goodness gracious me.” She let out a breath and clasped her hand to her chest. “It’s been so long since we were around any significant number of people that that budding new town looks like a veritable city.”

  “There must be a hundred people there at least,” Muriel added, coming up to Josephine’s side to take her hand.

  Josephine chuckled and hugged Muriel closer. There were far more than a hundred people in Oregon City. Tens of thousands of people, if not more, had made the same journey they’d just finished in the last fifteen years, and while not everyone stayed put at trail’s end, a good many had set up shop and planted roots in the burgeoning little town nestled between two rivers. All that hope and industry and planning for the future settled cozily in her heart, no matter how weathered it was. There was something comforting about real chimneys with smoke coming out of them, livestock grazing in the fields, and people going about everyday businesses without a care for how soon they would have to pick up and move on.

  “I tell you,” she said to Pete and the children with a satisfied sigh. “That sight right there is enough to make me feel as though we’ve reached a new world.”

  “It’s certainly a new world for me,” Pete muttered, striding back to her side, hands thrust in his pockets.

  Josephine’s brow rose. It rose even more when she twisted to find Pete watching her, his face pink with…was that bashfulness? Her lips twitched into a grin. “What’s that supposed to mean, Peter Evans?”

  “Nothing.” Pete shrugged, cleared his throat, and marched forward. “There will be all sorts of merchants and land agents down in that crush,” he told her, looking around to make sure anyone else listening knew the advice was free for all. “They’ll be willing to buy your wagons and oxen and anything else you brought for the journey but don’t ne
ed anymore. But be careful, some of them are shysters who will take everything you’ve got and then some.”

  More families from the back of the long line of wagons were rolling up around them or heading down into the shallow valley where trading was going on.

  “You got anyone down there that you trust in particular?” Graham Tremaine asked as he and Estelle and little Tim rolled to a stop beside them.

  A few feet beyond Graham, Charlie and Olivia Garrett stopped their wagon and looked on with interest.

  Pete rubbed the back of his neck and squinted into the tangle of merchants and tradesmen. He studied them for a moment, then raised his hand to point at a portly man in a faded blue jacket. “That’s Russ Ryan. He’s a fair dealer when it comes to wagons. And Vincent Gordon down there is one of the more honest men that will take other goods off your hand that you don’t need anymore.” He turned back to the group. “If you were sticking around, I would recommend Paul Karlin to help you find and claim a patch of land to make your own, but you all have other plans, right?”

  “We’re going to take Gideon and Lucy up on their offer of visiting the Haskell ranch in Wyoming with a view to settle,” Graham confirmed. Their friends, Gideon and Lucy Faraday, had parted ways with the wagon train at Ft. Bridger and headed out to Lucy’s father’s ranch to settle.

  “And we’ve got business to take care of in San Francisco before we decide,” Charlie added, smiling at Olivia.

  Pete nodded, then turned slowly back to Josephine. “And you, Miss Josephine. Do you know what you’ll do next?”

  A completely unexpected lump formed in Josephine’s throat. Pete’s question wasn’t a difficult one. She knew the answer. But the unspoken uncertainty in Pete’s eyes, the wistful way Muriel stopped playing with the puppy and glanced up at her, the way Libby bit her lip…all of it made Josephine’s reply harder than she could have imagined.

  “My…my niece, Callie, is waiting for me in Denver City. I’m supposed to move in with her and her new husband, John. John runs a store in Denver City, you know. I’m told my life there will be quite comfortable. Suitable for a woman of my years.”

  There was no reason she should be justifying the life that awaited her—or bringing her age into the discussion—but she couldn’t help herself.

  Pete nodded. “Well, you’re not going to need a wagon in Denver City, that’s for sure.” He took a few steps toward the edge of the town, almost as if she’d offended him.

  Josephine’s heart dragged after him. Her arm twitched, and she almost reached pleadingly after him before reminding herself that it was unseemly to go chasing after a man of Pete’s standing like a girl trying to snag her first beau.

  She was spared the embarrassment of her moment of heartache by the young man passing by who stopped and asked, “Are you selling this wagon, ma’am?”

  Josephine blinked herself out of her well of emotion and turned to face him. Libby turned as well, and her eyes shot wide open.

  “I suppose I am,” Josephine told the man. “Pete’s right. I’m not going to need a wagon in Denver City.”

  The young man smiled. “Well, I sure as heck am going to need a wagon up at the logging camp.” He turned from the path he had been following and approached, holding out a hand. Josephine took it as soon as he came close enough. “Theodore Simms, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Josephine Lewis.” Josephine liked the man’s firm handshake.

  “And I’m Libby. Elizabeth Chance. You can call me Libby.” Libby thrust a clumsy hand at the young man, her cheeks aglow.

  Theodore Simms let Josephine’s hand go and smiled at Libby as though he’d just discovered a treasure. He took Libby’s hand, but rather than shaking it, he bent over it to kiss her knuckles as if they were at a society ball. “You can call me Teddy.”

  “Okay.” Libby batted her eyelashes, forgetting to let go of his hand.

  Josephine blinked rapidly, trying to keep her smile from getting away. At least until Luke leaned close to her and whispered. “Don’t sell your wagon to him, Miss Josephine. He’s crazy.”

  Josephine snorted something between a laugh and scolding, and swatted Luke’s arm. “Hush, young man.” She turned to Teddy. “I’d be happy to sell you my wagon if you think it’ll suit your needs.”

  Teddy tore his eyes away from Libby and nodded to her. “Do you mind if I inspect it?”

  “Not at all.”

  As Teddy circled the wagon, Libby following him, Josephine crossed to help her friends.

  “We’ll take our wagons down to the yard there,” Graham was in the middle of telling Charlie. “Then we can go find a hotel or some other kind of lodgings.”

  “And we can figure out what forms of transport this town has to get to San Francisco. It might be easier to sail than to take a train.”

  “Tim and I can help find lodgings,” Estelle said, helping her adopted son down from the wagon.

  At the sight of Tim, Josephine gasped. “Land sakes. I need to check on all the rest of the orphans in the train. I hope by now the families we placed them with will find it in their hearts to adopt them, but I can’t assume.”

  “Luke and I can stay here and help Teddy—that is, Mr. Simms—inspect the wagon,” Libby offered.

  Josephine grinned, knowing exactly what it was Libby wanted to inspect. She couldn’t blame the young woman. Turning eighteen on the trail was a rite of passage. She was a woman now, and for the first time in months, there were eligible young men around.

  “I’m relying on you to keep her out of trouble,” she murmured to Luke.

  “Aww, me?” Luke pouted and kicked the dirt, proving that no matter how small the age gap between him and his sister, one of them wasn’t quite grown up yet. In fact, Josephine wasn’t certain either of them were fully grown.

  “You two can come with me.” She took Muriel and Freddy by their hands—although Freddy was a little reluctant to look like he needed his hand held—and started off into the maze of wagons that their train had become.

  When their wagon train had set out from Independence, Missouri, it had included a group of more than a dozen orphaned children, including Graham and Estelle’s Tim and the Chance children. Only a few weeks into the journey, the children’s guardian, Mrs. Gravesend, had died suddenly of a bad heart. Josephine was one of the people who had stepped up to care for the orphans and to make sure they were provided for by placing them with families in the train. Several had gone with the families that had parted ways with them and headed on to Denver City, but the rest had stayed, continuing the journey with families headed all the way out to Oregon City.

  As she, Freddy, and Muriel checked with the families that had taken those orphans in, Josephine was relieved to find that most wanted to keep their charges and adopt them. But not all of the kids were as lucky. The Raines family was disappointingly quick to hand over a thin, scrappy boy named Herbert, claiming they wouldn’t have enough to feed him now that they didn’t have the rest of the wagon train to rely on. And Mrs. Pitman practically tossed an eleven-year-old girl named Judith at Josephine, but not before searching all of Judith’s pockets for items she claimed had gone missing. Josephine was as relieved that they didn’t find any of those items on Judith’s person as she was to get the poor girl away from the shrewish Mrs. Pitman.

  By the time she returned to the spot on the hill where Teddy was finishing up his inspection of the wagon, she had six orphans in her charge—Herbert, Judith, and the Chance family—and no idea what to do with them.

  “Miss Josephine, I’m tired,” Muriel sighed, plopping to the ground to sit cross-legged, her chin resting in her hands, elbows on her knees.

  “And I’m hungry,” Freddy added, slumping to the ground himself. Herbert and Judith followed suit.

  Josephine tried not to wring her hands like a helpless ninny. Her experience as a guardian to children had been limited to the last two and a half months. Maybe Beulah Jackson was right.

  But no, not once in her
life had she given in to helplessness, and she wasn’t about to start now. “We should find a hotel too, and check into it until we can decide what our next step should be. That is, if I can figure out if Mr. Simms wants to take this wagon off my hands. Where did he and Libby go? Libby?”

  Almost as soon as she called out, there was a rattling, and the wagon shook a bit. Libby darted around the corner from the back, Mr. Simms a few inches behind her. A very few inches.

  “We were just talking,” Libby raced to inform her.

  Josephine grinned, shaking her head. “I’m sure you were.” Libby was a good girl, of that much she was certain. She wasn’t as sure about Teddy Simms, but she had a good feeling about the young man. “What do you think, Mr. Simms? Is my wagon what you’re looking for?”

  Pink-faced with sheepishness and with eyes only for Libby, Teddy nodded. “I think it will do just fine, ma’am.”

  “Good.” Josephine planted her hands on her hips and searched around. “Now where did Pete go? I have no idea how to conduct a transaction like this.”

  More than that, she found herself reluctant to leap off into a new life without him by her side.

  The end of the trail was always chaotic, but for Pete, this particular trail’s end was somehow harder than the others. This was it, his last time helping the people he’d guided across the West dispose of their travel equipment and find land and lodgings. His last journey was over. Chances were that he wouldn’t ever head East again. He was free to cut all ties and enter into the last chapters of his life without any encumbrances.

  So how come he kept turning at the sound of any voice that sounded like Josephine’s, or starting at the call of children Freddy and Muriel Chance’s ages?

  “Must be getting senile,” he muttered to himself. Hands thrust into the pockets of his worn trousers, he turned and headed back up the hill from the bazaar of merchants and fortune-seekers to where Josephine had parked her wagon.