Glory (14 page)

“I’ll help.” Glory scrambled out of the wagon, relieved Ruth was going to be otherwise occupied. She could help Jackson; the thought was pleasing though the circumstances were anything but happy.

Jackson and Glory searched a wide loop around the family’s wagon while the girls moved the wagon. He led the way down a slope to the Arkansas River, where tethered nearby they found a nice team of red mules still under harness, tied so they could graze on the heavy bottom grass and also reach water.

Glory murmured soothingly to reassure the two large animals as Jackson freed them. She trailed behind as he led them uphill. After tying the pair of animals to the back of his wagon, he and Glory joined the girls, who had formed a loose circle a short distance from the burned-out campfire. Glory and Jackson bowed their heads.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Ruth murmured.

Glory’s gaze drifted over the neat bundles near the campfire: bedrolls, folded clothing . . . people’s lives. Her eyes focused on a scrap of black leather left out in the open not far from where she was standing. She stretched her neck for a better look. Beneath the black cover, she saw a flash of gold. It reminded her of the Good Book open in Ruth’s hands. She glanced up. Sure enough, the two looked practically the same: black leather covers, pages edged in gold.

Her eyes widened. Could this book be a valuable treasure like the one Ruth handled with such care? she wondered. She glanced up to capture Jackson’s attention, but his eyes were closed as he stood silent with head bowed.

“Amen,” Ruth intoned, and the others followed.

“Amen.” Jackson glanced up and frowned at Glory, who was staring at him. When he raised his brows questioningly, she pointed to the black book on the ground not far from her feet.

“Can I . . . ,” she began haltingly. “Would it be okay if I picked it up?”

Jackson’s gaze traveled from the Bible back to her eager eyes.

“Sorry, Glory. I can’t let you have it. Cholera is a powerful sickness. We have to burn everything.”

Glory’s face fell. She’d give anything to have a book like Ruth’s. She couldn’t read it, but she could hold it and feel the power of its words in her hands.

Stepping away, Jackson walked to his horse and loosened the leather strap on his saddlebags. He withdrew a book,
secured the flap, and walked back to the gathering. He handed the book to Glory, his features grave. “You can have my Bible.”

Glory stared at the book, then up at him. He was giving her his Bible?

“I couldn’t take your Bible.” She handed the book back to him.

Seconds later, the black book was back in her hands. “I want you to have it.”

She opened the front cover and saw lines neatly penned in black ink. With a sigh, she passed the book back to Jackson. “What does it say?”

“You can’t read?” he asked gently.

Glory shook her head, unable to meet his eyes, feeling suddenly inadequate and strangely disappointed.

Jackson’s eyes softened. “It’s the family Bible, Glory. The names and origins of my family’s tree are recorded in the front.” He leaned closer, his breath warm on her cheek. “See here? My closest relatives live in Illinois.”

“Illinois,” Glory murmured, staring at the feathery script. No doubt Jackson’s kin had written the information for future generations.

“Perhaps you and I can write Jackson’s relatives in Illinois and tell them about our trip,” Ruth suggested, “so they’ll know where Jackson is and what he’s doing.”

“Thank you, Ruth. That’s a real thoughtful suggestion of yours.” Jackson gave Ruth one of those smiles Glory envied.

He studied the book in her hands for a moment. “I’m placing my Bible temporarily in your care, Glory, with one important condition.”

She nodded. “Whatever you say.” He was actually entrusting her with something of his. She’d never owned a book before. Neither had Poppy, though he’d always put a lot of store in such. She couldn’t believe her good fortune!

“If you want to keep this book, then it will be your responsibility to care for it. I think Ruth’s suggestion is good; you and Ruth will write to the names in the front of the book and tell them about yourself and how you came to be with my wagon.” He met her gaze directly. “This book is important to me, Glory. I wouldn’t entrust it to just anyone.”

She felt color spreading to her cheeks. “I can’t write.” He must realize that, so why was he embarrassing her all over again?

“Then you must learn to read. And write.”

Now she couldn’t believe her bad luck.

“
And
write?” Read
and
write. He might as well tell her to rehang the moon . . . or find an easier route to Heaven.

She sighed. For some reason, she wanted this book more than any earthly thing she could recall because it was his, but it came with strings attached. She sensed this reading and writing deal was going to be work, the kind of work she didn’t like, the kind of work where you had to sit still and think. She looked at the book, felt the weight of it in her hands. At that moment, she knew she would agree to most anything to keep it.

She nodded. “Okay.”

“We have a deal then?”

“Deal.” She nodded, sticking out her right hand while gripping the book tightly in her left.

Jackson took her hand and gave it a firm shake, then turned to face the girls. “Ruth, I’d like for you to teach Glory to read and write.”

“Of course, Jackson. I would be happy to tutor her.”

Harper lifted her brows and crossed her arms. “Teach her to read? Are you addled?”

“I don’t believe so,” Jackson replied, meeting Harper’s surly look with one of his own. “Other than you, Harper, no one has thought to question my common sense.”

Harper looked Glory up and down, her eyes dark with resentment. Glory felt her face grow hot under Harper’s scrutiny; she felt she was being judged like a cow taken to market.

“I-I’m not stupid,” Glory stammered.

“There’s times when—”

“Harper,” Ruth cautioned.

“I can do it.” Glory straightened defensively. She wasn’t an imbecile. There were just a whole lot of things she didn’t know. And reading and writing happened to be two of them.

“Well, Harper, I know you’ll want to get in on Glory’s education. You can teach her to cook,” Jackson said.

“Cook? Her?”

“Maybe you’re not as smart as Jackson thinks,” Glory
stated, crossing her arms smugly. “Maybe you can’t teach anybody to cook.”

Harper uncrossed her arms and crossed them again. “I can teach
anyone anything
if I set my mind to it. My ma was intelligent. That’s what Mr. Potter said. Very intelligent. He said that’s where I get my smarts.”

“Ha.”

“Ha.”

The girls faced off hotly.

“Then it’s settled.” Jackson seemed eager to move on. “Harper, you’ll teach Glory to cook, and Ruth will teach her to read. Ladies, return to our wagon and move on down the trail about a hundred yards. Wait for me there.”

The girls followed his order, loaded up, and started down the trail. They were over a hill and down the other side when Ruth reined in the team to wait for Jackson. They could no longer see the family’s campsite, but minutes later, they saw smoke rising in the sky and knew what was happening.

When Jackson topped the rise and approached, they could see the sadness on his face. He stowed the matches, then joined Ruth on the wagon seat. Without a word, he took the reins and gave them a shake. The oxen leaned into the yoke and trudged on down the trail.

Glory turned to stare out the back of the wagon, clutching the worn, black book to her chest. Jackson had loaned her his Bible. She thought she was going to burst with the joy of it all.

After supper that night, Ruth sat with Glory beside the campfire, going over the alphabet. Jackson suspected that Glory would have preferred to spend her time skinning rabbits, cleaning a fish, even washing dishes, but she appeared determined to prove herself a capable student.

He smiled at the frown of concentration on her face as she carefully repeated after Ruth. Beckoning to Lily and Patience from the other side of the wagon, he got their attention.

“Ladies,” he whispered when they joined him, “I would appreciate it if you’d teach Glory some household skills. You two do a fine job of it, and those are skills she’s going to need in the future.”

“Of course,” Lily said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

“Couldn’t be that hard,” Patience agreed. “If Ruth can teach her to read and write, and Harper can show her how to cook, Lily and I can hone her domestic skills.”

“I’d be much obliged.” Jackson nodded with a conspiratorial smile. “And, ladies, let’s just keep this among ourselves, shall we?”

Patience and Lily glanced briefly at each other and back to him. “Of course.”

Later, Jackson found a moment to talk privately with Mary, and she agreed to teach Glory to sew. Each of the women was more than willing to help, and all had agreed to keep their arrangements with Jackson confidential. After all,
they told him, they wouldn’t want to hurt the young woman’s pride.

Jackson grinned as he set the wagon in motion the next morning, feeling downright proud of his accomplishments. He glanced over his shoulder, his smile widening. Glory was in the back of the wagon, leafing through his Bible. There’d be no walking until she satisfied her curiosity, and that would take a while.

A girl would be ill prepared for marriage unless she learned basic domestic tasks. Whether she liked it or not, before the trip was over, Glory would be qualified to make some man a good wife, even though somewhere in that stubborn brain of hers, she still thought that she was going to make it on her own.

Cooking. Now Jackson was set on meddling in her business. Glory picked up a long-handled fork and approached the fire warily. There were a hundred things she liked better than cooking. Sore bunions, for instance, or an earache would be better than standing over a hot skillet of spitting bacon.

She had more grease burns on her arms than she had freckles on her face. Uttering a bad word, she turned a piece of bacon, jumping farther back, spouting another unsavory word. Frowning, Lily shook her head. “We don’t say those words around here.”

Glory eyed the popping skillet, shoving it away from the
fire. “I can’t help it, Lily. I’m not a cook. Don’t even like it. Can’t I do the wash? Or shoot something for dinner like a rabbit or a squirrel?”

“You ate when Poppy was alive, didn’t you?”

“He did all the cooking. I made sure he had stuff to put on the table.” If Mary or Lily asked her to skin a deer, she could do that. She could shoot a jackrabbit or wring a hen’s neck to throw in a boiling pot. What she couldn’t do was fry a strip of bacon without burning it or make a drinkable cup of coffee! She jumped back again, sucking a burnt finger.

The group gathered at the back of the wagon to eat breakfast. Eating had turned into an ordeal Glory would just as soon avoid. For three weeks they’d been on the trail now, and for some reason table manners seemed suddenly more important.

The girls eyed Glory disapprovingly when she sopped up gravy with bread. Why? You were
supposed
to sop gravy with biscuits, not eat it with a fork like Patience. If she tried to eat gravy with a fork, it would take her all day to get a decent bite.

Jackson approached the wagon, removing his hat. The girls bowed their heads, and he blessed the food. “Lord, we thank you for this bounty and ask that you be with us today on our travels. Amen.”

Ruth and Lily unfolded their napkins and laid them in their laps. Ruth’s eyes followed Jackson, and she hurriedly reached for the plate of bacon and eggs. “You must be real hungry this morning.”

“Thanks, Ruth. I can always eat Harper’s biscuits.”

I can always eat Harper’s biscuits,
Glory mocked silently. Envy coursed through her. He’d never told her that he liked her cooking. Of course, she couldn’t blame him. She didn’t like her cooking, either.

She felt the girls’ eyes on her as she dug into her eggs, anxious to be on her way. The long days were full of new adventures, and she looked forward to each new day and to the knowledge it would bring her. Breaking a biscuit apart, she dunked it in gravy. “Good thing we ain’t—”