Katie and the Mustang, Book 3 (3 page)

“Julia!” Polly called again. “What are you doing? Come on!”

Julia shook her head. “She's bossy. She's the oldest cousin, so she thinks she can tell the rest of us what to do.”

I nodded like I understood perfectly, but the truth was, I didn't. If I had any cousins, they were in Oregon, and I had never met them. I didn't know whether they were boys or girls.

Polly started off, then glanced back at me. For an instant, I thought she might ask me to come with her, but she didn't. I felt a little stab of disappointment, but I knew it was silly. I had to help out. I had to earn my way with the Kylers. I didn't want to be beholden to them for anything if I could help it.

I finished my food, then went and checked on the Mustang while Mr. Kyler and his sons ate their seconds. They all laughed and joked as they ate, comparing complaints and worries, teasing one another.

I helped clean the plates. It wasn't hard. Everyone had been hungry enough to practically lick the tins clean. Mrs. Kyler showed me a trick—a way to twist a hank of grass into a pot scrub. We used as little water as we possibly could, washing the tins in a shallow tin basin, one after the other. When the plates were done, Mrs. Kyler restacked everything in the jockey box and closed the heavy lid.

Then she sighed and came back to the fire. “I think we can leave what's left in the pot beside the fire until morning,” she said, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “There's two wagons with dogs, but Mr. Teal said they had to be tied up at night.”

“I didn't see any dogs,” I told her.

She yawned. “Nor did I, but Mr. Teal said there were a couple.”

“Thanks very much for supper, ma'am,” I said, suddenly remembering my manners.

Mrs. Kyler reached out and stroked my hair. “Where do you want to sleep, Katie?”

I hadn't thought about it, and I didn't know what to say. I was used to sleeping beneath the wagon, so that's what I finally told her.

“Not inside?”

I shook my head.

“Julia sometimes sleeps with us, but she isn't going to tonight,” Mrs. Kyler said. “Her mother wants her close.”

I shook my head again.

“It's a fea-ther bed,” Mrs. Kyler said in a sing-song voice. “A feather bed with a real bolster pil loooow...” She was smiling.

A real bed. I hadn't slept in a real bed since home...you couldn't really call a pallet in a pantry a real bed. My mother had had a feather bed. In the winter, we had all slept in it to keep warm.

My eyes flooded with tears, and I turned away. “May I just sleep outside, ma'am?” I asked as evenly as I could.

Mrs. Kyler put her hand on my shoulder. “Of course.”

She walked away, and I heard the wagon creak as she climbed up the steps at the rear gate. I spread my bedding and then went to check on the Mustang once more before I lay down. The mares were asleep. The Mustang was wide awake, his ears swiveling to catch every sound. He seemed calm enough and let me kiss his forehead.

Walking back to the Kylers' wagon, I could hear men's voices on the other side of the wide circle. I saw one campfire, built up and burning bright. Ten or fifteen men were standing around it, talking. Their voices sounded angry.

Lying beneath the Kylers' wagon, listening, I remembered what Mr. Teal had said. The wagon party had to become like a family, or fewer people would make it all the way to Oregon.

CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

 

L
ate the next morning we came over a little rise and saw the Elkhorn River. The men had all been talking about it at breakfast. It wasn't wide, or all that deep, they said, unless there had been rain upstream. What they hadn't said was that the Elkhorn was as curved as a snake's track in summer dust.

The Mustang had smelled the water a mile away, I was sure. All of a sudden, he had tossed his head, his nostrils flaring as he scented the breeze coming toward us. Then he had picked up the pace, pulling me along, outpacing the oxen easily. The road passed farmhouses and fields, and I wondered about the people who lived there, if the wagons passing made them want to go west or if the constant dust just made them angry.

The McMahons waved at me when I came up even with them. I smiled at little Toby; he was peeking out the back of the wagon again. Then I angled away from the wagons to keep clear of the other families and their children. The Mustang was prancing, pulling me along by the time we started downhill.

The wagons followed the rutted road with slow deliberation, Mr. Teal in the lead as he usually was, the big wagons swaying and creaking over every little bump. This slope was long and gradual, not like the steep descent into Council Bluff.

We crossed a path that had been worn by cattle; there were thousands of cloven hoofprints in the dirt. The farmers here let their cows run loose to graze, it looked like, and they had trampled a path down to the river. It was narrow and curved in long arcs, switching back and forth, always headed downhill, always within sight of the road—so I took it to escape some of the dust from the wagons.

I kept glancing at Mr. Teal, thinking he might call me back into the line, but he didn't seem to notice or care if I took a different route, so I kept going.

At first the path led us away from the wagons, then zigzagged back toward them. After the turn, I could see our whole party strung out in a long line. I pulled the Mustang to a halt and watched.

The wagons looked so different like this, from a distance. All the sounds were muted; I couldn't hear the voices, the wood axles creaking, the labored breathing of the oxen. I could just barely hear a dog barking. I spotted it, standing on the driver's bench, a big black dog with its legs splayed to keep its balance. I hadn't seen it before.

I hadn't seen a lot of things, I realized. There were four teams of mules—the rest were six- and eight-oxen hitches. One wagon had what looked like a birdcage hanging on the back gate. I saw three boys running in circles near the front of the party, their bare feet raising dust.

The drivers were all sitting easy, both hands loose on the reins. The sheer weight of the oxen—and their refusal to move forward any faster than their usual plodding walk—was brake enough on this gentle decline.

The Mustang nudged my shoulder and shook his mane. I patted him, and he angled his body sideways, tugging at the lead rope, lowering his head to paw at the earth.

“All right,” I told him. “But I can't go as fast as you can.” So we went on with the Mustang holding his head so high that I could feel his breath on top of my head all the way down to the bottom. I hurried, afraid he would step on my heels if I didn't go fast enough.

The bottomlands were lined with cottonwood trees, and, as we got closer, I could see the Mormon party lined up beneath them. About half their wagons had gone across; fifteen or twenty were waiting.

Mr. Teal saw them about the same time I did. He shouted and stood in his stirrups, motioning to the first wagon to follow him—so of course, the whole line did, out into a meadow a half mile above the fording place.

I followed along, not in line, but traveling a parallel course across the wide, flat bottomland, walking beside the river. The grass was high in places where the cows hadn't gone much. The Mustang slowed down to grab mouthfuls of it as he walked. He kept on toward the water, though, and I didn't try to stop him. There was at least a half hour to wait before the other party was out of our way, and so long as I kept an eye on the wagons, there was no reason to go stand in the sun with everyone else.

The shade beneath the cottonwoods was deep and cool, and the Mustang drank from the shallows. I could see glimpses of the wagons crossing at the ford downstream. I was relieved to see people leading stock across. The river didn't look more than knee deep on the men.

I dipped one foot in the water, then the other. It was chilly, and it felt wonderful. I remembered Hiram's promise to teach me to swim. Now I might never learn.

I tangled my hands in the Mustang's mane. “I miss Hiram,” I told him. “I know he loves Annie. I know he has every right to decide to get married, but I miss him.”

A burst of derisive laughter made me spin around. A boy wearing a broad-brimmed hat was standing a little distance off, staring at me, his head tipped to one side and his face twisted into a mocking grin. “I never heard anyone talk to a horse like that in my whole life,” he said.

I blushed and tried to think of something clever to say back to him, but I couldn't. He was standing in dappled sunlight, and I couldn't make out his features. I wasn't sure if he was one of the boys from our wagon party or not. I hoped not.

He lowered his voice. “Your horse ever talk back?” He laughed again, like he had just heard the fun niest joke in the world.

“You live around here?” I asked, tightening my grip on the Mustang's lead rope. “Or are you going west?” I hoped he would answer without taunting me, that he'd stop being mean, but he didn't.

“Oh, it's best you don't talk to me,” he said in a low voice, like he was being serious all of a sudden. “Your horse'll get jealous,” he whispered.

He laughed again, then turned to leave, and the sun caught the side of his face. I could see blond hair sticking out from under the hat. He looked familiar in a vague way—maybe I had seen him in Council Bluff?

He ignored me completely, stopping to roll up his trousers, wading into the shallows. He went on downstream, not looking back even once, skipping rocks on the surface of the water.

I waited until he was out of sight, then I hitched up my skirts and let out the Mustang's lead rope so that he could keep grazing as I waded in up to my knees. The water was breathtakingly cool. The Mustang lifted his head and watched me, then waded in.

I cupped my hands and scooped up some water to drizzle over his face. He snorted, shaking his mane, then pawed at the water, soaking his own belly and drenching me. It made me laugh, and I found myself forgetting about the boy's mean jokes.

The sunlight flickered when a breeze swayed the canopy of cottonwood boughs overhead. The Mustang pranced along, sloshing through the shallows. He pawed at the water again, and I splashed him back. Then I ran and he trotted behind me. He stopped abruptly when he noticed a patch of grass on the bank—like a child who notices candy on a table he is running past. It made me laugh again. My voice sounded too high, too squeaky—
unfamiliar.
How long had it been since I had heard myself laughing?

I finally waded out, and the Mustang followed, his legs and tail streaming water. As we came out of the trees I saw that Mr. Teal had taken this opportunity to give the drivers a practice session at circling the wagons. It had gone better this time than it had the night before, but the circle still wasn't exactly round.

I could see Mr. Teal standing with four or five men, all talking more or less at once. One of the men was Mr. Silas. As I got closer, it sounded like he was still complaining about having to be last in line.

It was clear that Mr. Silas wasn't going to accept the position he had been asked to take. It was equally clear that Mr. Teal was irritated that the man wouldn't cooperate. I remembered his saying that a man who argued on the first day might not be welcome on the journey. What about a man who argued on the first day
and
the second day?

I stopped and let the Mustang graze. The Kylers waved at me, and I waved back to let them know I was watching and would be ready when the party headed toward the ford.

The Mustang was still eating eagerly, chewing steadily, when I heard Mr. Teal shout for the drivers to get ready. A few minutes later, he lifted one fist in the air, giving his usual yell of “Wagons ho!” as he led the way toward the ford. I stood still as the wagons got moving, the line forming again as each driver came out of the circle.

“Katie!” Mr. Kyler shouted at me. He was waving me closer. I led the Mustang toward him.

“Yes, sir?” I called back.

“You want Andrew to run the Mustang across with the rest of the herd? You can ride with us.”

I shook my head before he finished talking. I was sure that Andrew Kyler knew a lot about farm horses and saddle horses, but the Mustang wasn't like any of them. He was awake and alert every minute, listening, scenting the air, watching everything. If something startled him and Andrew tried to drive him back into the herd, his drover's whip popping, the Mustang might try to fight.