Brides of Prairie Gold (5 page)

"My mother says it isn't the destination that's important, it's the journey." Hilda accepted the reins from Perrin; it was her turn to drive the oxen. She peered through the snowflakes at the wooden markers. "I hope their journey was a happy one."

Now that Perrin didn't have to worry about the oxen, she relaxed her spine against the short wooden seat with a sigh and considered her own life's journey. So far, life's road had been rocky, strewn with obstacles and problems. Most of her problems could be laid squarely at the feet of some man.

Men took. That's how it was and had always been. Garin Waverly had taken her confidence and self-esteem and crushed them beneath his bootheels; Joseph had taken her reputation and cast her good name to the winds.

There was no reason to assume that the unknown bridegroom awaiting her arrival in Oregon would be any less of a thief. He would take her body, her labor, and her future. And she would have no say in the matter, no choice.

She touched the fingertips of her gloves to her forehead. "Odd, isn't it? How small decisions can lead to such enormous consequences," she murmured, not realizing she spoke aloud. "One day you take stock, and you don't really know how you got to where you are. But chances are, the first step began with a small decision."

Seeing the graves called to mind all the people she had lost. Her parents, the aunt and uncle who had raised her, her husband. A friend here, an acquaintance there.

Joseph was her most recent loss, though she couldn't properly mourn him. To be absolutely honest, Perrin wasn't sure how deeply she grieved Joseph's death. Her feelings were so mixed about him. There was affection, yes, and gratitude, certainly, but also a deep reservoir of resentment and anger.

It was Joseph who had prompted her thought about small decisions leading to large consequences. An insignificant decision to accept a ride in Joseph's carriage to escape a sudden downpour had eventually led to her flight from Chastity, Missouri.

Actually, the beginnings were even more trivial. Perrin would marry an Oregon stranger because it had rained on a certain morning a year ago when she had decided to walk to Brady's Mercantile to beg for an extension of credit.

Or maybe she was sitting on this wagon because Garin Waverly had died needlessly, leaving her destitute, which had led to an accumulation of debt at Mr. Brady's store, which had caused her to walk out on a rainy morning, and that in turn had led to accepting a ride in Joseph's carriage.

Or perhaps she would wed a stranger because Garin Waverly and his brother had purchased her uncle's riverside warehouse and thus she and Garin had met and decided to marry, which had led to Garin's jealousy, which had led to that terrible moment in the street and the sound of gunfire, which resulted in Garin dying needlessly, which had Perrin rubbed at the headache forming behind her forehead.

Hilda coughed into her hand and shook her head to dislodge the snowflakes accumulating on the brim of her bonnet. "Everyone makes mistakes," she said after a minute. She gave Perrin a quick look of curiosity mixed with sympathy. " Ja . Sometimes we all do things that we later regret."

Perrin nodded gratefully. After three days together, she could guess this was Hilda's way of saying that she didn't judge or condemn. The problem was, Perrin doubted the other brides would be as generous. By now Augusta would have made sure that all of them knew. If they hadn't heard rumors beforehand.

Ducking her head, she picked at her gloves and realized there wouldn't really be a fresh beginning for her. With Augusta on this train, Perrin was taking her reputation with her.

"I don't know why I'm here," she said in a low puzzled voice, gazing at the slanting curtain of falling snow. "I keep wondering if I'd changed one small decision, maybe a decision I made years ago, maybe I would be somewhere else now."

"I know exactly why I am going to Oregon," Hilda offered with a chuckle. "I am twenty-eight years old, plain as a boot, and I have never had a single marriage offer. This is my chance to marry and have children of my own. I will not likely have another." Cold silvery vapor plumed before her lips. "With more and more families going to Oregon, I expect there will be opportunities for teachers. In every way, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me," she added brightly.

Perrin examined Hilda's expression and wondered how she could sound so cheerful when they were both feeling wretched, suffering the effects of coach fever.

All the women except Sarah Jennings were ill with coach fever, which Sarah said the army referred to as motion sickness. Despite Smokey Joe's advice that they suck on pebbles, the only genuine relief arrived when the wagons halted and the rocking, shaking, jarring, jostling mercifully stopped.

"I'm concerned about Winnie Larson," Perrin remarked. Despite the snow and frigid temperature, she blotted feverish perspiration from her brow and stifled a groan as the wagon tilted and rocked over another large stone. "Winnie is still our worst case. Jane Munger made her a bed in the back of their wagon. Jane's driving the team with no relief."

Conversation diverted her thoughts from a queasy stomach and the headache banging at her temples. She tried not to think about the unrelenting rocking motion, the hard wooden seat bruising her tailbone, or the icy fingers of cold creeping into her gloves and down her collar. Cody Snow had grinned and promised the coach fever would pass, but so far it hadn't.

Cody Snow was another subject Perrin didn't want to consider right now. She hadn't made up her mind how she felt about him or how to take him. It irritated her that she wasted so much time thinking about him and planning their evening meetings.

"Winnie's mother and mine knew each other in Germany," Hilda offered. Her face was red with cold above the scarf wrapped around her throat.

"Then you and Winnie are friends?" Perrin hoped the question didn't betray her surprise. Hilda's sunny intelligence seemed at wide variance with Winnie's drifting lack of focus. Whenever Perrin encountered Winnie Larson, as recently as during the noon rest, Winnie appeared drowsy and withdrawn. She was agreeable in a distracted sort of way, but her attention wandered in realms an observer couldn't follow.

"I do not really know her." Hilda glanced at Perrin. "The Larsons live in Chastity; we live three miles out." She explained that the Clum family owned a prosperous dairy farm, whereas the Larsons were town people.

Perrin sucked on her pebble and watched the snowflakes swirling over farmland and low hills. The landscape hadn't yet changed much.

"How much longer do you suppose Mr. Snow and Mr. Coate will continue before we stop for the night?" Hilda shivered, then wiped her nose and eyed the snow collecting on the oxen's backs.

"Not long, I hope."

The coach fever would ease when the wagons halted. But their problems wouldn't end. The last two nights had revealed that only Sarah Jennings had the slightest inkling how to cook in the open. A few of the brides had gone to bed hungry. Others, like Perrin and Hilda, had choked down charred biscuits; hard, half-cooked beans; and coffee that tasted like flavored creek water. At least the weather had been dry and Hilda had managed to get their fire going. Ona Norris and Thea Reeves had given up and ended by accepting Sarah Jennings's invitation to join her and Lucy Hastings for warmth and a bite of the stew that made Sarah the envy of everyone who walked within sniffing distance.

Following supper came the problem of erecting their sleeping tents. The first night the teamsters had helped those baffled by poles and tie-downs, but last night they had all had to manage on their own. Since Winnie was too ill to help Jane, Perrin had lent Jane a hand while Hilda assisted Cora Thorp with the tent Cora shared with Augusta Boyd. As far as Perrin knew, Augusta had not done two minutes worth of driving, cooking, or physical labor.

Thinking about Augusta Boyd and how much Augusta hated her made Perrin's stomach cramp. Changing direction, she let her thoughts wander to Cody Snow. His handsome, rugged face sprang into her mind, one eyebrow lifted in a roguish expression.

She couldn't decide what Cody was all about. During their two brief meetings since they'd been on the trail he had treated Perrin with unfailing politeness, but he'd erected a barrier between them. At first she told herself that his mind was focused on the numerous details that had to be addressed to ensure a successful journey. Then, she couldn't help it, she started worrying and wondering if he had heard the gossip about her.

Well, she didn't care. She straightened on the hard wagon seat and glared at the falling snow. Cody Snow and his blue, blue eyes meant nothing to her. She and Cody Snow would begin and end this miserable journey as strangers. That's how it had to be. And that's exactly what Perrin wanted. Obviously, it was what Cody wanted too.

She had no idea why she suddenly felt sad.

Bootie Glover leaned to the fire and extended her gloves over the flames that Mem had finally managed to coax into life.

"My head is still reeling, my bottom hurts, and I'm freezing! I swan, Mem, I've never been so miserable in my life!"

Mem paused to watch snowflakes tumbling into the biscuit dough she stirred on the wagon sideboard. Wearing gloves made her actions clumsy, but she'd pulled the gloves back on after her fingers started to tingle and turn blue with cold. A sudden smile curved her lips. The unusually cold weather and cooking with her gloves on would make an entertaining story for her trip journal.

"Don't stand too close to the flames," she called absently, glancing at Bootie. "Mind your hem."

"Can't we have a larger fire? Some of the others have bigger fires than ours."

Mem pressed her lips together and strove for patience. "If you want to go search for more wood, we can have a larger fire," she said finally.

Bootie peered uncertainly into the snowy darkness. "It's black out there, and everything's covered by drifts. There might be wild animals roaming around."

"Then stop complaining."

"Well, you don't need to snap." Bootie turned toward Mem with a liquid-eyed look of injury. "And I wasn't complaining. I was just stating facts. It is freezing. And there probably are wild animals out there." After a minute she sighed and added, "And our fire is smaller than everyone else's."

Mem pulled off balls of dough and arranged them in the skillet. At least Bootie had found something to complain about besides coach fever, her favorite topic along the trail. The only relief from an ongoing monologue of symptoms had come when they rolled past the graves.

Seeing the graves had prompted Bootie to recite a tearful remembrance of their mother's death, then recount her two miscarriages and agonize over the infant who had died in childbirth. The next set of snowy graves had brought on sobs mourning the deaths of their father and Bootie's husband, Robert.

Mem wrapped a scarf more securely around her throat, shoved a lock of auburn hair into her bonnet, then cut slices of ham into a second skillet and continued the dialogue going on inside her head. She supposed all spinsters talked to themselves.

She told herself that she didn't feel any less deeply about their shared losses, but she thought it depressing to dwell on painful subjects. She didn't refuse to discuss the death of their loved ones because she was cold inside, as Bootie so wrongly hinted, but because the pain was too great, and she preferred to look forward rather than back. When she did look backward, she chose to remember happy, pleasant moments, rather than drown herself in sadness and loss. She was not a cold woman, far from it. Glancing up from the skillet, she watched Bootie leaning over the flames and thought how shocked her sister would be to know just how brightly burned Mem's inner fires.

Bootie moved one of the camp chairs that Mem had dragged from the back of the wagon, and sat as close as she dared to the small fire. She pressed a hand to her stomach and groaned.

"I still feel like I'm rocking. And I'm so cold. We haven't had a decent meal and so far this whole journey has been so purely awful that I'm wondering why we agreed to go west."

Mem placed the skillets on the fire, then studied her sister's face in the light leaping from the flames. Bootie had always been the pretty sister, the amiable sister, the sister with the beaus and later a husband. Robert Glover had been charmed by Bootie's fluttery helplessness and by her reliance on his judgment and guidance. To Mem's knowledge, Robert had never noticed that Bootie depended not only on him, but on whoever happened to be nearby. And, of course, there was always someone nearby to smooth over Bootie's mistakes or her tactless remarks, to step in when responsibilities became overwhelming, or to flatten the bumps that appeared on Bootie's road.

"Why did you decide to come?" Mem asked.

"Why, to be with you, of course." Bootie's eyebrows lifted and she looked puzzled that Mem had posed the question.

The answer bowed Mem's head with guilt. She ground her teeth together.

Bootie and Robert had given her a home. They had genuinely welcomed her and had treated her as a valued sister and not as a servant, as happened to so many spinsters dependent upon a relative's largesse. She had no right to wish that Bootie had not accompanied her on this adventure. Her resentment was a shameful example of gross ingratitude.

To make amends, she offered Bootie the best, uncharred biscuits and the pinkest slices of ham. As further penance, she listened with as much patience as she could muster to a comparison of Augusta Boyd's mourning garb to their own plainer attire. And she assured Bootie that the lack of a few ribbons and furbelows did not mean they mourned the loss of their father less than Augusta mourned the loss of hers.

"And Robert," Bootie added with a catch in her throat. "I begged him not to accompany Father downriver. I pleaded."

"I know you did," Mem said soothingly. She felt trapped and wild inside. There was so much life out there, teeming all around them, but all they could talk about was death or illness.

Later, when they lay in their frigid tent, bundled in thick quilts, Mem silently chastised herself for wishing Bootie had remained in Chastity, and she waged a battle against the resentment she couldn't seem to vanquish.