Katie and the Mustang, Book 2 (10 page)

I wondered what kind of games they played, and an odd feeling came over me. I didn't really know how to play anymore. Losing my family to the fever and living with Mr. and Mrs. Stevens had scraped my spirits so thin that I had forgotten how.

Mrs. Kyler was looking at me. “Andrew tells me you're going to let my boys run the Mustang as part of our herd so you can have a little more time to yourself.”

I turned and looked at her, suddenly angry. “Some days, maybe. I don't know yet,” I said, keeping my voice as polite as I could. “The Mustang trusts me. I have to be careful with him.”

She nodded and pushed her hair from her face. “Well, you can trust Andrew and the boys. They are all fine horse hands.”

I watched as she turned back to stir the bacon in the deep pan of popping lard. “Hungry?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I answered, grateful to be fed but resenting it, too. I wanted Hiram to come back to our wagon. We could cook. We could eat without imposing on the Kylers.

Another round of whispering came from inside the wagon, and one by one the girls tumbled out, tiptoeing around the side of the big wagon, off on some adventure that they didn't want their grandmother to notice.

“There you are!”

I looked up. Hiram was walking toward me. His clothes were even rougher than mine. His hickory shirt was covered in black soot and dirt, and his face was smudged.

“Someone tell you Annie got hurt?” he asked me.

I nodded. “Hannah came and got me. I'm real sorry to hear it, Hiram. Will she mend all right?”

He walked me a little ways from the cook fire. “She was trying to help put out the blaze,” Hiram said, wonderingly. “Imagine. She's about as big as a minute, and she just leapt into that bucket line. Oh, Katie, her poor hands...” He stopped and looked at me closely. “You're all right? The Mustang?”

“I held on to him. I know you told me not to, but it was fine. He's standing quiet with the mares—he was steady all night, even in the wind.”

Hiram rubbed his face with both hands and heaved in a long breath. “Well,” he finally said. “The Kylers won't be going anywhere today or tomorrow, and I think we should wait with them.”

I nodded. I hadn't thought about it, but it only made sense. “Will everyone wait?”

Hiram shrugged. “I doubt it. Mr. Wilkins can find more people to go.”

I didn't answer. I was sure he was right.

Hiram kicked at the dirt. “There are hundreds of people looking for guides. And everyone knows that a day or two delay can mean trouble at the end.” He sighed. “Wilkins was the only one we all liked. It took a lot of talk and some arguments before we settled on him.”

I nodded.

“You angry at me?” Hiram sounded so tired and so discouraged that I didn't answer. What could I say? I wasn't angry, really—I was something else. Something I couldn't put a name on. He shifted his weight, shrugging his shoulders up high to stretch.

“Katie?” Mrs. Kyler called. “Food's ready!”

“You better go get something to eat,” he said gently, reaching out to brush the top of my head the way he always had when he could tell I was upset.

“When are you coming back to the wagon?” I asked him.

He looked at me and started to say something, then didn't speak for another half minute. When he did, he sounded so sad and weary it scared me. “I'll be back by afternoon, I think. I want to wait for Annie to wake up.”

I nodded again. What else could I do?

“Food's ready, Katie!” Mrs. Kyler called.

“Give Annie my best wishes,” I said.

Hiram thanked me, then his face collapsed into pain and worry. “Katie, it's bad. She can barely stand the pain, and her right hand might be curled up, crippled.”

His voice was hollow as a blade of straw. I felt a chill, remembering the shouting, the screams. Had it been Annie? “Oh, Hiram, I hope it isn't that bad,” I said aloud.

“Katie?” Mrs. Kyler called again.

“I'm sorry,” I told Hiram. “I'm so sorry it happened.”

He nodded and then turned away. I walked toward the campfire, feeling light-headed and strange. I pressed my lips together.

Mrs. Kyler was bustling around, pretending to be cheerful. I had a lot of practice at that kind of pretending, and I was grateful to her. I admired her. It was her daughter lying in the wagon with burned hands.

I tried not to eat like a wolf this time, even though I saw Ralph and Andrew waiting for plates. The eggs and bacon tasted like heaven, though, and it was hard to eat politely. Sitting there, chewing, my stomach filling up, I began to feel a little better. The moment I was finished eating, Mrs. Kyler took my plate and rinsed it for one of her sons to use. I thanked her twice and she smiled at me, but I could see the strain in her eyes. She was terribly worried about Annie.

When I got back to our wagon, I shook the dust and grass out of the bedding and spread it to air. Then I walked the Mustang and the mares out of camp until I found a good patch of new grass. Only once they were grazing—and I was well away from anyone who might overhear—did I tell the Mustang about everything that had happened. He listened, nudging me gently a few times as if he understood and was sorry.

After a few hours, I took the horses back. The oxen were shifting, walking the tether line back and forth. They had eaten every blade of grass they could reach. I had helped my father herd oxen when I was six years old. I had watched Hiram with these animals, and they both seemed placid enough. If I didn't graze them, they'd pull the line down and go on their own before long.

I looked around. If Hiram had been to the wagon, I saw no sign of it. Before I left again, I wrote a note to leave on the wagon seat, weighting it down with a stone.

I got my new book out of my blanket bundle and set it out, then freed the oxen from the tether line. I tucked the book beneath my arm, then walked around behind them, clapping my hands. They began to move away from me slowly, staying together. Once they were moving, I ran back and got the horses again, leading the mares and letting the Mustang follow.

I held the horses back and let the oxen set their own pace. I saw a number of people turn to watch them go by, their white-splotched coats smooth and shiny in the sun. Hiram had made a real find, it looked like. Between the oxen and the Mustang, we got a lot of stares.

I lost my nervousness as we went. The oxen responded slowly and calmly to anything I did. The horses were full of grass and enjoying the sun. None of them knew the country any better than I did, so they were content to let me decide our direction. I finally found good grass almost a mile from the camp and settled under a tree to read while they all grazed.

A Christmas Carol
wasn't at all what I had expected. It was exciting, almost scary. Mr. Dickens had written a story about a mean man and ghosts that came every night in his dreams... and I was still so tired that I dozed off twice and had to rouse myself and walk around. I couldn't sleep. I had to watch the stock.

An hour before dusk, I walked the oxen back to the wagon camp. Hiram was not there. My note was where I had left it.

I refolded all the aired bedding and unrolled my blanket bundle once more. I replaced the new book, then stood staring at my mother's old fairy storybook. I held it for a long time. I even unwrapped the cloth and took out the silver shoe buckles that had belonged to my father. I kept expecting to cry, but I didn't. I think I was just too tired.

I bedded down beneath the wagon again, even though the storm was long gone. The Mustang lowered his head and reached around the wheel to nudge me once or twice before he settled into sleep.

CHAPTER TEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
he next day, Mr. Wilkins left with a full party of wagons. All the Kylers and Hiram and I stayed back. Annie was in so much pain that moving the wagon she was in—even just to get out of line—made her scream once or twice. But she was too weak to walk and had to lie down. I saw her for a moment. Her face was white as next-day ashes. It scared me to look at her. Hiram looked like the pain was his own. I watched as the Kylers made their new camp. He rarely left her side.

The Kylers made a half circle of the wagons a half mile to the north of the ferry. Hiram helped me move our stock and wagon close by, then he left again. He ate and slept in the Kylers' camp for the next few days, keeping Annie company. He came to our wagon once or twice a day to check on me.

He was proud of me for taking over and grazing the stock. He said I was as good a helper as any girl had ever been. But he didn't eat with me, and I slept alone in our little camp. He went back to sit with Annie.

I ate supper at the Kylers' fire for those first few days, too. I cooked my own bacon in the mornings, and it was handier—I could get the animals out to graze earlier if I cooked for myself. But it was lonely and cold, too.

“Annie is a little better,” Hiram said on the third evening. “There are places where her skin was burned black, and it is falling away.” He drew in a breath, his eyes still full of worry. Then he nodded and went on, talking fast, as if he were reassuring himself. “The wound isn't putrifying. There's no fever. With rest, I think she will heal. We found a man who knows some doctoring, and he said as much.”

I lowered my eyes. “I hope so, Hiram.”

“Katie?”

His voice had changed, and I looked at him. “Yes?”

“Are you set on going west?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Yes,” I said quietly. “Oh, yes. I have to find my uncle and his family, Hiram. You know that.”

Hiram nodded. The he blew out a breath in one whoosh, like a man who has picked up something he is barely able to lift. “I'd best get back to Annie,” he said. Then he walked away.

I watched him go. It was pretty clear he had taken a real fancy to Annie. Probably, once she was healing, he would want to take her in our little wagon, not me. Maybe that was why he asked about my going west. Maybe he wanted to leave me somewhere, like Mr. Stevens had planned to do.

I barely tasted my supper, and I noticed Mrs. Kyler watching me, but she didn't say anything when I left even earlier than usual.

Back at our little wagon that night, I tried to read, but I ended up listening to the Kylers singing around their campfire. I could hear them talking; I could hear Polly and Julia and the other girls playing and laughing. I pressed my lips together so tightly my mouth began to ache.

I didn't want to cry. I knew it wouldn't help me one little bit. But the tears began to roll down my face, and I couldn't do anything about them. I went to stand beside the Mustang in the darkness, leaning against his shoulder until the crying faded into sniffles and shuddery sighs.

“I want my family back,” I whispered to the Mustang. “I just want to
belong
somewhere.”

He shook his mane and stamped one back hoof. I dragged in a long breath and let it out slowly. Then I stepped back and set about laying out my bedding for the night.

The next morning dawned clear and bright. I ate a biscuit from the tin and a little salt bacon, raw. I didn't have time to make a fire. I gathered up the horses and drove them and the oxen out to find grass. It was getting harder to find places that hadn't been grazed flat. I finally found a good little meadow, but it took me a few hours, so I had to stay late to let the animals eat their fill.

When I got back to the wagon, it was almost dark. There was a note on the wagon seat. It said:
Join us for supper, Katie, please.

No one had signed it, but I was pretty sure Hiram had left it. Or maybe Mrs. Kyler had sent one of the girls to leave it for me. In any case, I was grateful. I was tired, and I hadn't eaten much for breakfast and nothing for dinner. I didn't want to rekindle a fire and cook, and I had begun to feel uncomfortable just showing up for a meal without being invited.

I tethered the mares and tied the Mustang loosely to one of the wagon wheels. The oxen took longer. They were sleepy and slow and didn't want to be led anywhere. By the time I got their leads tied to the tether line, the stars were out.

“We found a good guide,” I heard Mr. Kyler saying as I walked through the darkness toward the big Kyler camp. “His name is Teal. He's looking for more wagons, but he wants to leave tomorrow. He says we are already risking snow at the other end.”