Gone West (3 page)

Her Johnny would probably never rest. She might have a real house for a while once they made it to the Oregon country~a snug little cabin like this one they were fixing to leave~but could it ever be permanent? Would Johnny search for other horizons, farther north? Surely he couldn’t go farther west. Farther west from Oregon meant only the vast watery oceans, and he wasn’t a sailor. Johnny liked land beneath his feet, as long as it wasn’t his own.

Maggie had married a gypsy. But what a gypsy! Lean and muscled, with that constant light dancing in his eyes, and a sharp mind and loving heart. Maggie knew it mattered not where he lead her. She would follow him to the ends of the earth, then up to heaven when the world got too small.

When the time came for leaving with the wagon train Johnny had signed them on, it was still hard.

Maggie had spent the final night in their little cabin sleepless, praying for her family long since left behind in Ohio. Praying for friends made along the way. Praying for the Indians she’d come to love. But mostly she prayed for the deliverance of her own small family. She joined the train in the morning with dry eyes, but knew her heart wasn’t leaping like her Johnny’s was.

A hungry wail jarred Maggie’s ears. She gave a shout, but continued walking next to the oxen, skirts tucked up against the pernicious mud that caked her boots and legs beyond. The mud caked everything several days out from Independence on the Oregon Trail.

“Jam-ie!”

The boy came running back from ahead. He was the only one the mud never seemed to slow.

“Yes, Ma?”

“See to the team for a little, son. I’ve got to feed Charlotte.”

“Sure thing, Ma.”

He snatched the rawhide whip from her hand eagerly, cracking it a few times in glee. Maggie had to smile. It was almost longer than he was. Still smiling, she adjusted the straps of the sling holding baby Charlotte to her back, Indian fashion. Waiting another moment next to the slowly revolving wheels to get her timing right, Maggie finally sprang up to the wagon seat protruding from the little caravan the oxen were pulling, and gratefully seated herself. It had been a trying morning already, and the excuse of resting while feeding her baby was welcome.

Carefully maneuvering the baby forward, she freed up a breast and let the little one nurse. Charlotte latched on greedily while Maggie got a good grip on the babe to keep her from tumbling out of her arms.

“Jamie?”

“Yes, Ma?”

“How’s your father doing up ahead with his wagon?”

“He says his new boots are starting to break in fine, but Brandy’s giving him some grief. Keeps wanting to stop and feed.”

She watched the boy prod the animals before them. Oxen must be the slowest creatures on God’s earth next to snails. But they were steady~unlike flighty mules some on the train had chosen~and they were strong. They’d kept the wagons from miring too often in potholes hub-deep from unusually heavy spring rains.

Maggie gazed down at her daughter’s fire-red curls and the little fists contentedly kneading her. In between concentrating on her meal Charlotte enjoyed the animals’ slow jogging, the chance to stare bright-eyed at the new sights constantly moving past them. It was Maggie who missed the forceful trotting of Dickens and Miss Sally, the two cart horses who had brought the family down the Missouri to their wintering place in Independence. The horses were having a rest now. They trailed on bridles behind the covered wagon in front of Maggie’s caravan, occasionally trotting around and up front on their long leads to check on Johnny’s progress with his oxen.

Johnny’s white top was carrying the heavy portable printing press he’d salvaged from the river in Nauvoo as well as his type, so he had three yoke of oxen. Maggie’s wagon was a little cabin on wheels and the family’s usual home. It held the books, not to mention sundry other personal possessions, and was led by two yoke of oxen.

The other emigrants on the train had thought the young family demented to attempt to haul two wagons across the trail, with only a woman~a nursing one at that~responsible for half the burden.

Johnny had just pointed to the sign painted in red on the side of the caravan:
John and Margaret Stuart, Booksellers
.

“We are a team, my wife and I. We’ve worked together with our books, and we’ll work together with our Westering,” The elected captain of the train, Joshua Chandler, was still doubtful, so Johnny had added the clincher. “You and the others travel with seeds and plows, ready to work the new land. We are tillers of the mind. Are we to leave our tools behind?”

Back in Independence Johnny had nudged grudging approval from Chandler to join the train of thirty other wagons. Now they were part of a hundred-member family.

Maggie shifted on the seat, leaning gratefully into the stuffed deerskin cushion Johnny’d made for her back in Independence. It was one of Black Raven’s skins, and it had been her final curing project with Flower Blossom. If they’d chosen mules, she could have been sitting the whole time, leading with reins, this gift from her Indian friends to comfort and ease her. She sighed and moved the baby to the other breast. She would just have to get used to the idea of walking, regardless of the weather, most of the two thousand miles across the wilderness to get to their promised land.

Acclimation had already begun during the first two days. The last of the winter rains had continued, the heavens totally uninterested in the miseries its onslaught brought upon the little band below. Johnny had erected an umbrella above the heads of Maggie and her papoose, keeping at least the baby dry, although they must have made a rare sight, indeed. The coming of the sun’s rays this morning had been a blessing.

Charlotte’s suckling ceased. The babe had a replete smile on her face and in her jay-blue eyes. Those eyes. They were her mother’s color, but they danced like her father’s. Maggie bent her head to kiss the eyelids and the soft skin of her cheek, such a delicate porcelain. Maggie adored her child more each day.

“Please, Lord,” she whispered. “Let this little one survive the trip. Let her survive all the ailments of childhood. She will make an extraordinary woman. She has spirit, like her father.”

The pace of the wagon changed from a slow bump and crawl to a squeaking halt. Maggie looked up. Noon already? Easing herself and the baby to the muddy ground, she made an attempt at arranging her dress more modestly, then went around to the back of the wagon and climbed the two steps to open the narrow door. Inside the tiny cabin Maggie placed the sleeping child into the hammock Johnny had made for her, suspended from the roof between the bunks and the windows. It was netted all around, and the babe could sleep peacefully without danger of falling, without buzzing flies or gnats to disturb her.

Outside again, Maggie’s eyes searched for her husband. He must be letting the oxen out to pasture. She did so look forward to the sight of him, a little touch or kiss before starting on the meal. One look somehow made everything all right, and gave her the strength for her next job.

Her ears pricked up. The strains of `Summer is icumin in’ were being whistled with abandon. A long shadow fell from behind the wagon, and suddenly Johnny Stuart was following it.

“And how is my Lady holding up this fine spring day?”

His cap was doffed as he made a courtly bow before Maggie. When his eyes were raised again to hers she saw the laughter in them.

Maggie touched his face, already roughened by the weather of the trail. “I missed you.”

“And what of me? I miss sitting on the wagon next to you, too, like the old days.”

“We’ve both a lot of missing to go, then, Johnny Stuart,” smiled Maggie. We’ve hardly left Independence behind.”

Johnny kissed her forehead sweetly and was moving again, shoving the old felt hat back atop his black curls. He was incapable of stillness. There was something in him always ready to burst out~a song, an idea, a poem.

“Where are the children, and where’s the food? I could eat an ox, I’m that hungry. Particularly one Brandy. That laggard put me through my paces this morning.”

“Charlotte’s tucked away asleep, and Jamie could be anywhere.” Maggie was stooping to arrange a few stones for a makeshift hearth. “And you never used to think about food, Johnny.”

“I never used to have to deal with six lumbering beasts hour after hour since daybreak, either.”

Her eyes reached up for his again. “We’re not too far out to turn around, Johnny. There are still miles of roads we’ve never travelled back home.”

“And miss all this?” He gestured at the neighboring women fuming over squalling children and wet tinder, at the muddy ruts of the trail behind them. “Never!” And with an off-key `Loud sing! cuckoo!’, Johnny disappeared after firewood.

Maggie was still chuckling when another male voice made her raise her head from the hearthstones.

“Charley giving you a break, is she?”

Stretching her back from her labors, Maggie welcomed Irish Hardisty, one of her neighbors from the wagon behind. “Yes,” she smiled softly.

“It’s going to be mighty hard for this man to wait long enough for that young lady to grow up. She’ll be a dazzler, she will, the toast of the Oregon country.”

This time Maggie laughed. “You seem to have a gifted eye for the ladies, Irish, but you’ll be a grandfather by the time Charlotte is of suitable age.”

“Not this boy. I’m saving myself.”

“Highly unlikely,” Maggie replied to his back as he wandered off to inspect the crop of more suitable young ladies engaged in the trip.

Maggie was dragging a heavy iron skillet out of her wagon when Irish’s sister Gwen strolled up.

“Afternoon, Maggie.”

“Afternoon, Gwen. Off to collect fuel for your fire?”

Gwen leaned against the brightly colored flowers painted on the side of the book wagon. She slowly let out a sigh and pulled back several strands of blond hair which had fallen from her bun to curl around her ears. “It seems such a waste of energy to hunt for brush on this sodden, treeless plain.” She waved around the almost flat prairie spreading out on all sides of them, its grasses just sprouting several inches of green. “I mean, thirty or so wagons, thirty or so fires. Mightn’t it make a lot more sense to consolidate the effort?”

Maggie hid a grin. How had this woman chosen to go West? “This is only the third day out, Gwen. But go ahead, haul over some bacon. My skillet’s big enough to cook for all of us.”

Gwen brightened visibly. “It’s not that I mean to take advantage, Maggie~”

“I know.”

“It’s just that Irish, bless him, disappears as soon as the oxen are let off to graze. I can’t do much complaining to him, either. He’s my little brother, not my husband. I can’t allow him any excuse to ship me back East. Give me a piece of cloth and I could sew up a storm, but I haven’t quite gotten this campfire business organized in my mind yet.”

“I’ve had plenty of practice, Gwen. Lend me a hand and I’ll have you building a proper fire in no time.”

“God bless you, Maggie Stuart,” sighed Gwen with relief. “I couldn’t think who else to ask. The other women give me strange looks, if they deign to look upon me at all. Although what is so strange about a spinster travelling with her younger brother, I have not yet conceived.”

Maggie gave Gwen another glance, from the rich, sun-golden hair to the full bosoms, right down the rest of her neighbor’s perfect hour-glass figure. “Not strange at all, if you’ve looked at yourself recently, then looked upon most of the others. You’re attractive, Gwen. You’ve none of the hard look of having born six or eight youngsters and put up with a stubborn man in the bargain.”

“It was by choice, I assure you. Although I confess I get all shaky every time I see you nurse your Charlotte. Love lights up the two of you, from inside out~like a madonna and child. Most of the other women, they seem to spend their days yelling at their offspring, then when they’re good and wound up they let into their men.”

“Maybe they didn’t come by choice, Gwen. It’s a hard thing to do, having to follow your man into the wilderness. It’s a lot easier if you’ve done it by freewill and love, as I have.”

“Well, if I had a man like your Johnny, I’d follow him clear to China. He’s just like out of those romances.
Ivanhoe
or something. You expect him to be wearing shining armor instead of mud-spattered trousers.”

Maggie laid down the skillet and reached into her skirt pocket for her little match safe. Johnny’s performance had not gone unnoticed. She decided to ignore the comment, but her heart skipped a beat at a sudden vision of Johnny dressed for a tournament, her scarf gracing his lance. “Then again, maybe some of the women are a little jealous of you, Gwen.”

“Me?” Gwen was shocked. “I’ve got nothing. I’ve left the rock and I’m heading for the hard place. Irish is my only family, and he was so addled by the thought of going West that I couldn’t talk him out of it. My only choice was to go along with him, try to keep an eye on him, and maybe help him. He’s probably older than your Johnny~he’s a full twenty-four years~but he’s taking his own good time growing into responsibility.”

“It will come eventually, Gwen. Don’t worry over it. Every man has his own time.” Maggie picked up the skillet again. “We’d better get some food onto a fire before the captain calls time to yoke up again.”

Gwen tested a smile. “I’ll bring the coffeepot, and some brush I spotted a little way back. No guarantees on how dry it will be, though!”

They were wiping up the last bacon grease from their tin plates with flour pancakes Maggie had made. Irish put down his plate first and reached into his pocket for a cigar, bending to start it smoothly from a smoldering stick from the fire.

“First thing I intend doing when we get settled in Oregon is find me a nice rich clay deposit. Then I can set up my wheel and make some real pots and plates. It’s uncivilized to have to eat from metal. It leaves a tinny taste in your mouth.” He nodded towards Maggie. “No offense to your cooking meant, not at all.” Irish spread his compact body out on the damp grass, tipped his slouch hat over thick, wavy, chestnut hair and dark eyes, and pulled at the cheroot.

“How can he make plates with a wheel, Ma?”

“It’s a different kind of wheel from the ones that pull our wagons, Jamie. Irish is a potter by trade.”

“Oh.” The boy cogitated on the new information only a moment, then, “May I go and play with some children?”

“Who did you have in mind?”