The Trail Master's Bride (13 page)

“What in heaven’s name?” Mina breathed in awe.

“Independence Rock,” Weston announced. “We’ll stop here for a while and have a look.”

“At what?”

He just grinned as he signaled the train to a stop, then helped her down. After watering the cattle, they approached the rock formation, the other folks falling in behind them out of curiosity.

“Look closely at the engravings,” he urged.

Mina stepped close, reaching her hand out to trace over the first name. “Hannah Snow, 1844,” she read, shifting to another. “George Harlow, 1848.” She twisted back to Weston, her fingers still resting on an etched name. “There must be thousands of them!”

“Millions even,” little Jonathan Bishop effused excitedly. He’d come up by her side and was running his fingers over every name he could reach, as if he would touch them all.

“Probably not that many,” Weston chuckled. “Tens of thousands, more like it.”

“Can we write our names too, Mr. Carr?”

“Yep. That’s why we stopped. It’s a rite of passage, so to speak.”

“Huh?” the ten-year-old asked, not getting his pun. Then he shrugged, going back to scanning the rock. “Look,” he pointed excitedly over his head, “that one is written in ink.”

“No, that’s tar. I don’t recommend that if you want your name to last any length of time. It’s best to etch it in with something sharp.”

“Boy howdy,” the boy shouted, such was his enthusiasm. “I’ll go get my hunting knife.”

Weston handed his pocket knife to Mina. “Would you like the honors? My name is already carved somewhere up top.”

“You climbed it?” she questioned, her head tipping back as she gazed up at the summit over one hundred feet overhead.

“Back in ‘46, on my second time through.”

“How many trips have you made?”

“This is the eighth.”

“Zounds,” she exclaimed, already searching for an empty spot for her name. “If you ask me, one time is too many. I can’t fathom eight.”

The travelers lingered long enough for each of them to scratch their name into history. Those that had lost loved ones also etched their names on the rock under the label RIP or in loving memory. It was an emotional group that made their way back to the wagons.

“Why is it called Independence Rock?” Mina asked when they were rolling again.

“Trail lore says that if you make it to this spot by Independence Day, you’re on schedule to beat the snows of early fall and will be to Oregon by mid-September.”

“So we’re halfway there?”

“Nearly, somewhere along the South Pass coming up is the halfway point. You’ll see the marker. After that is when the trip really gets challenging.”

Her head swung around and she gaped at him, eyes unbelievably wide. “You mean this was the easy part?” She dropped her forehead with a thump on his shoulder. “Great merciful day.”

“It’ll be fine, Mina. You’ve got me to get you through, don’t forget.”

She nodded. “Despite all the delays, we had you, our fearless leader and trail guide extraordinaire, to thank for keeping us on pace and managing to get us here three days ahead of schedule.”

“It wasn’t easy. Not with a pretty little spitfire redhead throwing stumbling blocks in my way.”

Her head all but flew off his chest. “I did not,” she said in a huff. “Stop exaggerating.”

“Mina, do I need to remind you of how you ran off at the drop of the hat, or the number of times I had to rescue you along the way, and ultimately marry you to save your adorable but troublesome behind from being thrown from the train, not the least of it, I had to spank you—”

The last words were muffled as she covered his mouth. “All right. There is no need to relive the last few months chapter and verse.”

He laughed beneath her palm, which tickled, so she pulled away.

“—several times, needless to say.” He finished as if she hadn’t interrupted. His grin was infectious, although she fought hers tooth and nail. It didn’t break free until he wrapped his big arm around her and gave her a hearty one-armed squeeze.

“I’m teasing, darlin’. I think our arrival at the rock is a sign that our luck has changed.”

* * *

Over the next few days, Mina began to think his prediction was right. Since their bad luck and tragedy had struck at the onset, they were enjoying a patch of good fortune now. The weather was cooperating. The days were dry, yet they received regular rainfall at night, and luckily it was in manageable amounts, not the torrential rains that were common for the region. This kept the train moving forward and the pioneers in good spirits.

Then they came to the Sweetwater River. At first, compared to the frequently muddy and silt-filled Platte, its cool, clear, gently flowing water was refreshing. There was a small problem, however. The river wound back and forth across the high plains and along the foothills. Following each bend by driving alongside it could take a full day or more, Weston warned. His plan, instead, was to drive through it. They forded it the first time at midday, then again and again as it meandered back and forth directly in their path. They camped beside it that night and the next morning were back at it. By Mina’s count they crossed the Sweetwater nine times before they were through. The other travelers were grumbling after the second or third time, but she wouldn’t trade those two damp days for all the tea in China and another month by the dry, dusty Platte.

Mina was different in that she didn’t really mind. The crossings weren’t all that difficult in the fairly shallow river and the water wasn’t swift. Weston’s wagon was well equipped for the task as well; he had sealed the underside with tar many times in the past, which prevented water seeping through the boards and soaking the contents of the wagon. Not to mention, the terrain was less rocky, which made for an easier ride and less walking, which was a blessing as she was down to her last pair of shoes. This also gave her much more time with her husband, who more often now drove the wagon and let Jeremy lead. He was training him to take over his guide service anyway, and Weston admitted to Mina, he’d much rather spend the day looking at the ugly backsides of eight oxen if he got to do it with her at his side.

Once again, he could be surprisingly sweet.

Mina and Wes were coming to know each other better each day. Even more so at night when they crawled under their wagon together and spent hours in each other’s arms. Often, they fell dead tired onto their blankets with a brief kiss and cuddle. More frequently, their passions would flare and they’d spend the first hour or more partaking of prolonged kisses, intimate touches, and finding pleasure in the other the likes of which neither had ever experienced before.

They were entering the South Pass, a fork in the trail so to speak, where travelers either went south to California, or northwest, beginning the gradual winding trail that would take them deeper into the Oregon Territory. It wasn’t a narrow, perilous gap between the mountains with steep rocky walls on either side as she’d pictured. It was actually a wide valley and travelled so frequently by other pioneers heading west that the constant traffic had beaten down the grasses and compacted the dirt to form a crude, but clear road.

They passed the marker indicating the unofficial halfway point Weston had mentioned. After three long months, it was hard to imagine they hadn’t come farther and still had one thousand miles left to go. Although a milestone for the members of the wagon train, there wasn’t much celebration, not with another daunting ten weeks to go.

It wasn’t long after that when disaster struck. At least for Mina, that is.

One little mishap occurred, which was followed by another, and another. By the end of the week, after passing by the majestic Oregon Buttes and crossing the continental divide, a series of calamities had occurred and folks were looking at her as the root cause.

It was Sunday evening and they had just made camp. Weston had pushed them to ride all day bypassing campsites of brown grass and sagebrush, in favor of a campsite alongside a tributary of the Green River on the other side of the pass. The creek he led them to had clear, cool water fed by Rocky Mountain streams and sufficient wood and tinder could be found along the banks to build a real fire.

No more buffalo dung for this gal,
Mina thought cheerfully, truly amazed at what she saw as blessings now.
With a lighthearted smile, she retrieved the safety matches from the metal dry box in the wagon and returned to where she had laid out the wood for her fire. Before she struck the first match, she heard Weston’s boots pounding the dirt and looked up. She sat back on her heels, concerned by the tension in his face as he moved toward her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Leave supper,” he ordered, but didn’t wait to see if she obeyed. Instead, he gathered her hand in his and tugged her along behind him toward the creek bank. Mina noticed it was abandoned, as all the other travelers had headed back to camp to relax over a hearty meal at the end of a long trying week. Which is what she and Weston would have ordinarily been doing. This evening, he led her to an outcropping of rocks, surrounded by tall summer grass and weeds so high they reached his shoulders. He took a seat on a low lying rock and pulled her between his spread thighs. His eyes were serious and his expression stern as he settled his hands on her hips for a talk.

She swallowed; having been in a similar situation before, it didn’t bode well for her or her behind.

He started right in.

“Let’s recap what has happened this past week. You forgot to leave the lid off the rain barrel early in the week, as I’d asked, which means we’re low on fresh water. The pass has none, so if I hadn’t come back at midnight and noticed it was on, we’d be plumb dry by now. Thankfully, it continued to rain straight through ‘til morning or we’d have been in dire straits and begging from our neighbors two days past. Then, there was the incident with the oxen. Not tying them properly allowed them to wander off, right into Mrs. Gillespie’s clothesline, dragging her entire wash through the dirt, which had her madder than a wet hen. She was ready to take a stick to your bottom for that mishap, but I talked her out of it. Further, they knocked over Mrs. Bishop’s Dutch oven where she’d had bread set out to rise, and it was dumped out and trampled beneath their hooves, ruining it, needless to say. Her butter churn didn’t fare much better. She was none too happy with you either. On top of that, there was two nights ago. Leaving the coffeepot and skillet behind was careless. If one of the other ladies hadn’t picked it up for us, we’d be cooking everything, including our morning coffee, in the Dutch oven until we could pick up another at Fort Hall, which is days from now. Finally, not setting the wagon brake at our last stop.” He shook his head. “What has you so scatterbrained, Mina?”

“I know it seems that way, Wes, but it wasn’t me. Something isn’t right. And, as I told you after each mysterious mishap, I didn’t do any of those things, I swear.”

His brows drew together in a dark frown at her answer, his disappointment in her apparent in his eyes. “Lying only makes the situation worse, darlin’.”

She bristled. He hadn’t believed her before either. “I’m not lying, husband.”

“Do you have a more reasonable explanation, a culprit behind these mysteries, perhaps?”

“Well, no, but—”

Sighing heavily, he drew her closer. “Then I think it’s time I give you another little lesson that will help remind you to be careful with your chores in the future.”

“The last time you gave me a little lesson, you spanked me.”

“Which is what I intend to do now.” He gave her wrist a tug and pulled her forward and across his lap.

Like the last time, his hard thighs supported her belly and a solid arm wrapped around her waist. Despite his steadying hand, she instinctively reached forward, her fingertips in the dirt, which was all that she could reach from her precarious perch over his long legs.

“But, Wes,” she protested urgently as his hand swept down her legs to her skirt hem. “I swear, none of it was me. I don’t know how it happened—”

With one quick movement, which startled her silent, even though she’d been expecting it, he flipped her skirt up onto her back. Clearly, he was unconvinced by her weak excuse and was intent on proceeding without delay.

She couldn’t figure out what was going on, although she’d tried to all week. She would swear on a stack of the bibles as tall as she was that she’d taken the lid off the barrel that night. Furthermore, she knew she’d tied the square knot like he’d shown her because she recalled double-checking it. She also specifically remembered washing the coffeepot and skillet, then storing them in the wagon as she did every evening. The wagon brake, well, she’d been known to forget that several times and Wes had scolded her about it. Had she done it again? Uncertainty swamped her as she struggled to remember. Was it possible that she’d been reckless and done all of those things while unaware?

Air across her backside brought her out of her ruminations. She became aware of her husband untying and separating the split in her drawers, baring her bottom to the warm night air. Her hand flew back to cover herself. “What are you doing?”

“You’re a wife now, Mina. Wives get spanked on their bare backsides.”

She began to struggle. “No. This isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“And that, right there, is why you’ve earned this spanking. If you’d have owned up to these oversights, I would have been more forgiving, but for you to continue to deny them day after day, until one lie builds upon another, when there is no other explanation except your own carelessness, isn’t something I can let slide.”

She heard the crack of his palm first. It echoed in the valley like a gunshot. An instant later, a sting like that of a thousand bees flared across the surface of her bottom. It was followed by another, and another. Then a barrage of searing fire rained down over both her hind cheeks and her upper thighs. Her hand, which had flown back out of self-preservation, had long since been pinned to her lower back by one of his own, all while he kept up a blistering pace of intense swats. She kicked, twisted, and even bent her head and tried to bite him.