Gone West (10 page)

Johnny paused only long enough to reach down and swing Maggie off her feet in a bone crushing hug. Then he kissed her, for luck, and was off, riding like one of the wild Indians of the plains, primed for the hunt.

The women of the train began to settle their wagons in a very tentative circle next to the trees and water of the Big Vermillion. It was easier said than done. The oxen had already smelled the water and were lunging for it, heedless of their heavy yokes and burdens.

“Brandy! Stop that! Duke!” Maggie wielded her whip in an effort to make the oxen turn. “Gee! Turn right, not left. Gee!”

Behind her, Gwen was yelling “Haw.” Gees and Haws and thwacks resounded through the wagons until Hazel shouted from across the semi-circle. “I give up!”

So did the other women. Whips were dropped and yokes “manhandled” by gasping females. Finally freed, the stock showed more enthusiasm than they had all day in their dash toward the creek bank to get their fill.

Maggie flopped onto the grass, heaving. How easy to forget the usefulness of men with their natural strength. Her pulse rate almost slowed to normal, she finally raised her head into the brilliant sky. The sun was heading westward. It must be almost three. Its strong and welcome rays were already beginning to dry up the mud surrounding them. Her other duties born upon her by a yell from Charlotte, Maggie forced herself up to go after a ground sheet and the baby. The little one was ready for liberation, too.

“You ladies surely were a sight, Ma, sweating and thwacking like you were!”

Maggie wheeled around, baby in arms. “Jamie! I completely forgot you were dealing with your father’s wagon. How did you get it so nicely curved in front of mine?”

Jamie grinned. “It was nothing, Ma.”

“Don’t you go exaggerating into fibs with me, young man. Remember what happened to George Washington when he was your age.”

“Wasn’t fibbing, Ma. It wasn’t nothing a
man
couldn’t do.”

Maggie took in the thrust out chest, the cocky stance of the tow-headed boy. She bit back her own grin. “All right, then, young sir. Since those yokes are like feathers in yours hands, you can help me build a corral out of them for your sister. So she can exercise, but not crawl off to mischief.”

“Aw, Ma. I got men’s work to do~”

He still wasn’t too old to nab by the collar. Jamie helped to build the tiny corral around the ground sheet. He forgot himself and his new importance long enough to tickle his sister’s toes before his duties came back to him.

“Where’s my special hatchet, Ma?”

“It should be with the tools in your father’s wagon.”

Jamie ran off, to return swinging the tool like a sword.

“For heaven’s sake, watch how you handle that, son. Keep away from fingers.”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Your own and others!”

“Yes, Ma.”

Maggie relented. “And don’t forget George Washington. Watch out for cherry trees!”

“Aren’t any cherry trees out here on the prairie, Ma~” He finally caught her joke and laughed. Charlotte giggled at his mirth, and he reached into her corral for one more tickle before racing off with his little hatchet into the trees, Bacon scampering after him.

Maggie sat with the baby for a few minutes, letting the sun ease her tired muscles. The early stopping was a delight, but she knew she couldn’t squander the gifts of fair weather and time. There were too many needs pressing upon her. Finally, she left Charlotte with a little soft, stuffed doll she’d made for her to teethe on, and went into the book wagon to collect dirty linens. The creek was a ready-made laundry site, and she had washing galore crying out for the job.

Other women had already gathered by the side of the creek. Maggie nodded hello to Grandma Richman, and to the Reverend Winslow’s wife~a pale, long-suffering looking woman~then threw down her parcel of soiled linens and her thick brown soap next to Hazel Kreller.

Hazel grinned hello. “Your man gone off half crazy like my Max?”

Maggie laughed. “I surely hope they shoot something. Just one elk would make a nice meal for the camp tonight. But I’m not counting my chickens. Even though he’s practiced at targets, and actually bagged some small game back in Independence, Johnny’s never aimed a gun at anything as impressive as an elk in his life. It would be a miracle if he actually hit something.”

Hazel nodded knowingly. “Hopefully not each other, either.” She moved to offer Maggie a spot on the broad, flat boulder she was using as a washboard to pound her clothes, then spun her head around as only a mother could do when attuned to her small children. “Hilda! Now I told you to look after baby Irene. Carry her away from that slope!”

Maggie glanced back. “Want to put Irene in Charlotte’s corral? Then Hilda could go off with the rest of the children after firewood. That’s where she probably wants to be anyhow.”

“Hilda’s but four and a half, Maggie.”

“She shouldn’t get into too much mischief.”

Hazel wiped her soapy forearms onto her skirts. “You’re probably right at that. She’ll find more mischief here ignoring the baby.”

In Hazel’s absence, Maggie took a pile of scrubbed linens down to deeper water to be rinsed. Mrs. Winslow was there already, and started skittishly at Maggie’s approach.

“Not to worry. I surely won’t bite. I’m Maggie Stuart, and I’ve been meaning to be a little more neighborly.” She thrust out a wet, soapy hand.

The preacher’s wife hesitated for several heartbeats before taking Maggie’s fingers in her own.

“Ruth Winslow.”

“ `Wither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ You’ve a fitting name for a missionary’s wife.”

“Would that I could bear up as my namesake!”

Maggie was taken by the catch in the woman’s voice. She studied more closely the faded blond hair, the washed-out blue eyes that surely had held a sparkle in the past. Ruth Winslow, perhaps thirty-five, seeming more like fifty, had once been an attractive woman. Maggie spoke more gently.

“Surely with a preacher husband you’re used to the road. It can’t be all that different from being married to a peddler, as I am.”

“We weren’t always on the road. And my husband wasn’t always as he appears now. Once we had a lovely church, a joyous congregation . . . It was such a pleasant, bounteous town for the boys to grow in, before the troubles. Illinois~” She stopped suddenly, as if realizing that she’d revealed far too much.

Maggie tried to gloss over her remarks, to make the woman more comfortable. “The Oregon country is said to be lovely, too. You’ll have a church again, and a congregation.”

“Of Indians! I fear them more than the Mor-” She stopped again. Stopped cold and picked up her washing. With a white face she gave Maggie a curt nod and disappeared up the slope of the bank.

Maggie stared after Ruth Winslow in astonishment. What was that all about? And what had she almost spit out? Mor~ . . . Mormons? What had the Winslows to fear from the Mormons? And why?

Maggie mulled over the conversation as she finished her rinsing. When Hazel returned, Maggie put Ruth Winslow and her troubles out of her mind, as she had put the woman’s husband and his peculiarities out of her mind so often before. With Hazel she spent a pleasant several hours gossiping while pounding and wringing the mud of travel from their wash.

It was sunset, and the circle of wagons was draped in drying laundry. Big piles of gathered fuel were growing before each campsite when the sounds of hoofbeats were at last heard echoing over the plains. Maggie looked up from the fire she was preparing. She figured she’d at least get the coffee going, but had been at a loss on how to handle the meal itself. Was she to wait for promised meat? Would there be any?

She swooped Charlotte into her arms and trailed after the rest of the women and children to the far edge of camp, anxious to learn what had happened. Irish galloped in first and swung off his saddle in a most dashing manner. He landed directly in front of Josh Chandler’s daughter Susan, an attractive young lady of about sixteen. Susan gazed into his eyes with an expression bordering on idolatry. Maggie noted the possible ramifications with a small chuckle to herself before listening to what Irish was saying.

“We got three! A huge buck that must weigh fifteen hundred pounds, and two smaller females. Made up some pallets to drag ‘em back. The men said to get the fires going. There’ll be a celebration tonight!”

The women smiled, the children cheered, and Maggie returned to her fire to enlarge it. Next, with Jamie’s help, she began to build a few drying racks with the branches the boy had collected. That much meat would spoil quickly if it wasn’t preserved. Hazel and Gwen wandered over to watch her at work.

“What you fixing to do, Maggie?”

“The meat will probably be divided among families. I’m going to smoke some jerky with our extras, Hazel. It’ll be tough as leather, but it will keep. And it will taste good when we’re hungry on the trail.”

Ruth Winslow appeared on the edge of their group. She gave the other women a tentative, tired smile.

Maggie thought that maybe she was trying to apologize for her earlier behavior, so she made room for the missionary’s wife around the circle.

“I’m just giving a demonstration on how to get ready to dry meat like my Indian friends back in Independence taught me. Want to join the class?”

Ruth Winslow paled and almost sprang away. She had to be the most skittish creature Maggie ever met. But she also had to be trying hard to overcome some of her fears, especially with her husband not back yet to keep her under his iron gaze.

“I . . . I daren’t. My husband would rather his family starve than eat what the
heathen
do.”

Maggie looked up at her. “The Indians have learned to survive on such. We can learn a few things from them. And it might help you to understand their ways better when you live among them.”

“You may be right.” Ruth glanced around her quickly, as if to be sure she weren’t overhead. “But the Reverend, my husband, says the Lord will provide. Oh, I wish~” Then she bolted for her own campsite like a hunted rabbit.

Maggie caught the sympathy in Hazel and Gwen’s eyes for the minister’s wife. “The Lord helps those who help themselves, in more ways than one. We are not married to that man, thank goodness.” Gwen turned several shades of green at the thought and Maggie rushed to changed the subject.

“There’s no telling when we’ll hit on more fresh meat. What if the buffalo choose not to cross our paths this season?”

“I’d better get another fire going, Maggie, so I can smoke some, too. May I borrow a little wood?”

Maggie nodded yes to Gwen. Hazel still lingered.

“Only thing I’m dead set against is having my family starve. What would you judge to be the proper distance from the fire to smoke the meat?”

Laughing, Maggie showed her, adding, “It’s a little early in the season yet, but if you should see any fresh berries along the way~strawberries, maybe~start collecting and drying them, Hazel. When you get enough, I’ll teach you how to make pemmican out of the jerky, berries and a little animal lard.”

“I surely do appreciate your free-will advice, Maggie. I’ll send Matty by with some more milk for you. Just don’t let Jamie squander too much of it on that wild animal of his!”

The moon shown on their little party for the first time in days as they sat, replete with elk steaks. The Stuart family had received a liver, too, since one of their party actually bagged an animal. Maggie had fried that up first, making sure that each of them ate a fair share of the healthful organ. Now the seven of them were spread around the fire, Johnny occasionally moving himself to rotate the thin slivers of meat smoking above it.

Irish belched comfortably. “Chandler’s called a halt for tomorrow. A free day to rest up the stock, make repairs, and deal with the meat.”

Maggie shifted the sleeping baby in her lap. “That sounds like heaven. Have we really been on the road for over two weeks?”

“Yup,” from someone.

Jamie raised his nodding head. “Tell me again how you got the elk, Pa. Wisht I’d been along.”