Brides of Prairie Gold (10 page)

"Two wagons full," Bootie offered brightly. "We're going to sell the"

Augusta could not endure it another minute. Turning, she gripped Bootie's arm, squeezing hard enough to cut off the flow of words.

"If you wish to discuss our business," she said in a frigid voice, addressing both Bootie and the drunk, "I suggest you do so with Mr. Snow." Turning, she dragged Bootie away from the man.

"In case I don't see Mister Snow, you tell him that you met Jake Quinton. You tell the son of a bitch that old Jake ain't forgot nothing."

The menace in his tone made Augusta look back despite herself. She stared into the meanest, coldest, most frightening smile she had ever seen. A prickle of fear shuddered down her spine. At once she knew she would see that terrible smile and those yellowish snake eyes in her nightmares. Panicked, she frantically looked for Miles Dawson and Bill Macy, the teamsters who had accompanied the women to the farmhouse. She didn't see either of them.

"You seem What's wrong?" Bootie asked anxiously, trotting along beside her. "He said he was Mr. Snow's friend."

"Hush," Augusta hissed. "That man is no friend of Mr. Snow's." When she darted another quick glance over her shoulder, she saw Jake Quinton licking his lips, his hard slited eyes studying the sway of their skirts.

"Dear God," Augusta muttered. Her lips were dry as toast.

A rush of relief nearly overwhelmed her when she spotted Webb Coate and Cody Snow striding toward the farmhouse. But when she dared another frightened glance toward the men beneath the cottonwoods, Jake Quinton had vanished.

"Thank heavens!"

Lifting her skirts, she hurried forward to relay Jake Quinton's message and to berate Webb Coate for choosing this terrible place as a campsite.

Her heart beat a little faster as she noticed Coate watching her approach, a condition she stubbornly attributed to her upset regarding Jake Quinton's threatening manner.

Augusta Boyd would never disgrace herself by feeling any attraction toward an Indian. She had standards.

My Journal, April 18,1852: Every day we rotate the wagons. The lead wagon goes to the back and everyone moves up a space. All of us hate being last because the dust is so bad. It gets in our mouths and eyes, on our clothes, and it scums the water buckets.

The lead spot is best because I can see him. He rides out ahead most of the day, but occasionally he drops back alongside the first wagon. I've noticed that he usually comes to my side whether I'm driving the oxen or taking my rest, but not always and I understand that. He doesn't want the others to notice that he favors me.

He doesn't say anything of a personal nature, nothing that would cause anyone to gossip about us. But sometimes his guard drops and I see his feelings in his eyes. Then he says things that are meant for my ears alone, but disguised so an eavesdropper would hear nothing to suspect. Still, it seems he could find a way for us to be alone. And he has yet to come right out and declare his feelings.

It thrills me that we share the secret of our love, but I struggle to understand why we must pretend to be strangers. My day is broken into the moments I see him, and the hours when I must suffer his absence. I need to be alone with him, need to hear him explain this game we're playing. I need to know the reason, need to hear it stated from his own beloved lips.

We have waited so long, lost to each other and believing we could have no future together, I tell myself I can wait longer if we must, but I wish so greatly that it could be otherwise. It shames me to confess that I don't always understand his secret messages, although I understand the glances he sends me, and I comfort my heart with the love I read in his gaze. I have loved him for so long.

We can see Fort Kearney in the distance and will camp therefor a day of rest. The Fort does not look like much.

It rained again yesterday. We see graves beside the trail every day. One of the teamsters got stepped on by an ox. Most of us have set aside any pretense at finery and wear old wash dresses of plain wool or serge. No one except Augusta still wears crinolines.

I long for him so much that I fear I will reveal our secret. I plunged my hand in the coals of our campfire; burning flesh cooled the heat of my yearning.

The chilly, overcast morning seemed more a reminder of winter than an affirmation of spring, Perrin thought, watching the men work. Heck Kelsey and the teamsters inched along the line of wagons, caulking bottom boards with tar and pitch to prevent the waters of the Platte from soaking into wagon beds. Ordinarily the broad but shallow river reached only knee high on a man, but swollen by the spring melt, the water had risen to four and a half feet. The crossing would be difficult.

Perrin joined Hilda on a muddy bank overlooking the turgid flow. From here, they had a clear view of wagons from other trains struggling to cross the river, and they could see the entire length of their own train. They watched Cody Snow shouting orders and moving along the line to inspect the teamsters' work.

"For the rest of my life I'll associate the smell of tar with being wet and cold," Perrin murmured, speaking against the wind. She drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders and dodged a breeze-blown tumbleweed. She had lost count of the number of river crossings, all of them difficult.

" Ja ." Hilda sighed and tucked a strand of blond hair beneath the braided coronet that crossed the top of her head like a tiara. "Mr. Kelsey says the crossing will take all afternoon and into the evening." They both glanced at the leaden sky. "I hope it doesn't snow or rain again."

Perrin dreaded the fording. Despite its comparatively shallow depth, the Platte was noted for unpredictable currents, quicksand, and shifting banks. It wasn't one river, but a series of streams that wound together like an intricate water braid, the strands interspersed with sandbars. They would have to cross six of the streams, each presenting its own peculiar set of problems.

"I overheard Smokey Joe telling Mr. Snow that the Platte is too thick to drink and too thin to plow," Perrin said, trying to smile. Automatically her gaze followed Cody along the length of the wagons. Usually the sight of him grounded her anxieties about any particular difficulty, but raised anxieties of a different sort. She didn't permit herself to analyze those anxieties.

Her shoulders tensed when she noticed he'd stopped to talk to Jane Munger. She fervently hoped Jane hadn't interrupted him with something trivial. Cody would be concerned about the upcoming crossing, and he was waiting for Webb Coate to return from a scouting trip to Fort Kearney on the north side of the river.

As Perrin watched, her hopes sank. Cody swung in her direction and pointed, saying something to Jane, then Jane stiffened and strode forward, heading toward the muddy point where Perrin and Hilda stood braced against the wind. Cody continued to stare toward Perrin's flapping skirts until he was certain she had noticed his frown.

Perrin swallowed a sigh. Last week, she had handled a myriad of small problems, all of them referred back to her by Cody, who had let her know the interruptions had not ceased. None of the brides were accustomed to taking problems to a woman; their instinct was to approach the man in charge. They resented being turned back to Perrin.

Regardless, Perrin had helped a distraught Lucy Hastings locate the family Bible she had feared left behind at their last camp; she had found Hilda's wandering cow; she had traded a bottle of castor oil for a bottle of peppermint oil to treat Ona Norris's earache; she had asked Smokey Joe for answers to Thea Reeves's questions about the bison they would be seeing soon.

These problems or questions had loomed large for the women involved, but none had been overwhelming for Perrin. She was discovering that helping others satisfied a deep-seated need. But none of the problems so far had been as serious as the problem she suspected Jane Munger was bringing her.

Jane marched across the muddy ground with no thought for her hem or boots, her face clamped in an angry scowl. When Perrin first met Jane at Cody's predeparture meeting in Brady's hall, she had admired Jane's high coloring and glossy dark hair, had thought her pretty, though sharp-featured. Now Jane's cheeks were pale and drawn with weariness. Dark circles ringed her eyes. The luster had faded from her skin and hair, and her lips trembled.