Never Look Back (53 page)

As Matilda and Tabitha had only four oxen but many water containers, their beasts didn’t suffer as badly from thirst as some on the train, but washing had to be abandoned, and drinking rationed to the bare minimum. Their eyes were sore from the dust, the sun burned their faces, and sometimes Matilda was so tired she dozed off, only to come to with a start as she lurched sideways. Thankfully the oxen were so used to following the wagon in front that they didn’t appear to need her guidance. Sometimes they were even too tired to eat at the end of the day, it was a pitiful sight to see them flop down as soon as their yokes were off. Tabitha felt so sorry for them that she rooted around to find clumps of grass to tempt them up again to look for food themselves.

When Chimney Rock was spotted in the distance there was a great deal of rejoicing, as it was known to be a third of the way there. It was an extraordinary sight, to Matilda it resembled a half-buried village with a golden-brown chimney sticking up, only it was some 400 feet high. The Captain informed them it was made of hard clay.

That rock brought home to everyone just how vast the distances were out here, for although they could see it so clearly, it took days to reach it. When they did finally get there, a great many people went closer to write their names on it. But not Matilda. She had already made up her mind to take no risks, there were many snakes around, and even sharp thorns through their boots could cause trouble. Nor did she want anyone to strike up a conversation with her.

She could no longer hide her swelling belly, even with a loose pinafore over her dress her condition was obvious, and much as she ached for another woman to talk to, especially to give her some reassurance about the birthing, she forced herself to stay aloof. She let Tabitha socialize with other families as she prepared the evening meal, but as soon as it was eaten they climbed into the wagon together for the night. Tabitha always fell asleep immediately, and Matilda wished she could too. Exhausted as she was, back aching, hands stiff and sore, sleep didn’t come easily, and as she lay there listening to the chatter, laughter and singing all around, her whole being wanted to go out and join
in. But lying didn’t come easily to her, and she knew if she allowed anyone to get close to her she might very well tell them the truth about her situation and that could be very dangerous.

Her mind was clear now. Tender memories of Giles might catch her short all too often, but making a good life for his two children was her goal and she looked only towards that. Oregon might be a vast place, but gossip could travel as far and as fast as birds. She was never going to do or say anything which might affect her children’s standing in society there.

At dusk on 9 June they arrived at Fort Laramie. Matilda breathed a sigh of utter relief at the sight of the crude adobe walls, for they meant two whole days and nights of rest and security. In the past few days there had been many sightings of Sioux, and one morning they found that several horses had been stolen during the night. Since then Matilda had slept with one arm round Tabitha and her other hand on her gun.

Although the fort was a lonely outpost, the army was there to protect them. They could stock up on the provisions they’d run out of, get repairs done to their wagons, and post letters home.

After camping for the night down by the river, Matilda and Tabitha joined in with everyone else to go inside the fort to check out what was available at the stores. Although they had been warned in advance it was used as a trading post by fur trappers to sell their pelts, the stink of the huge piles of raw hides in the centre was disgusting. The prices of supplies were exorbitant too, back in Independence Matilda could buy three sacks of flour for the price of one here, and she was very relieved she didn’t need anything that desperately. Worse still though was the dishevelled appearance of the enlisted men. Few had real uniforms, they were dirty and unshaven, and sat around playing cards and gawping at the women travellers. Many of them were so drunk they couldn’t stand.

As she hurried out of the fort empty-handed, Captain Russell broke away from talking to another officer and came over to her and Tabitha.

‘You didn’t buy anything? Wasn’t there anything you needed?’

Tabitha saw a child she often played with and skipped off to join her.

‘Not so badly I’d pay their prices,’ Matilda said with some
indignation. ‘As for the stink in there, and those awful dirty, drunken soldiers! I can’t believe what I saw!’

He laughed. ‘Would you have them shave, polish up their buttons and press their uniforms when they aren’t going anywhere?’

She was surprised at his tolerance, she had never seen him dirty or unshaven, even his hair and moustache were always trimmed.

‘But the drinking!’ she exclaimed. ‘What if Indians attacked? How could they fight them off?’

‘Don’t you worry none about that,’ he said, ‘Soldiers fight better with liquor inside them. You’d drink too, Mrs Jennings, if you were stuck out here with nothing much to do, missing your home and loved ones.’

‘Soldiers would never be allowed to be like that back in England,’ she said, suddenly getting a mental picture of Queen Victoria’s Horse Guards. ‘It’s so slovenly.’

‘I guess it is,’ he said, looking amused. ‘But this ain’t England, ma’am, it’s a big, wild, often cruel country, and it can turn men like that too. I’ve spent many a year in forts like this one, seen things they never told me about when I was a cadet at West Point. But I can tell you now, I’d rather pick ten men from Fort Laramie to lead into battle than twenty clean and tidy milksops from back in the East.’

Matilda looked at him sharply, noting for the first time how refined his features were, well-defined cheek-bones, an elegant, almost aristocratic nose, shapely lips. That and his words suggested to her that he had indeed been brought up as a gentleman, but that somewhere along the line he’d turned his back on his own class. He was a very unusual man in every way, and her curiosity about him was stirred.

‘Are you married, Captain?’ she asked. Then, realizing such a direct question would in turn encourage him to ask her equally blunt ones, ‘I ask only because it must be difficult to have a home and family when your work takes you away so much,’ she added quickly.

‘My wife died four years ago, ma’am,’ he said crisply, and half turned to look back at the camp down by the river. ‘You’d better hurry on back there where the air smells sweeter, Mrs Jennings. Have a good rest, maybe even try a couple of drinks yourself.’

Matilda hurried away, smarting from the rebuff and promising herself she would ignore him completely in future. Later that night she wondered how he thought anyone could have a rest here – it might be sweet-smelling by the river, but it certainly wasn’t peaceful.

Some of the men took their cue from the soldiers, broke out bottles of whisky and got very drunk, and the sounds Matilda heard took her straight back to Finders Court: men fighting; and singing, stumbling and cussing, women shouting at them, often quickly followed by loud slaps and the women screaming. Children cried out in alarm, and dogs barked frantically. There were the sounds of love-making too, wagon springs creaking, and heavy breathing.

It struck her that living with the gentle, peaceful Milsons for so long had lulled her into thinking that they were typical of ordinary people. The truth of the matter was that they were very unusual. What she was hearing now was how most people all over the world, regardless of class, education, wealth or poverty, behaved after a few drinks. And if she wanted to make a good life for herself and the children in Oregon she had got to stop yearning for the well-ordered life she had with the Milsons, delve into her own past for the experiences which had shaped her character, and use them and her wits to make one that suited her.

‘You seem to be the only one anxious to leave,’ Captain Russell said to Matilda on the morning of their departure. She had already yoked up her oxen and she was smearing ointment on a sore place on the foreleg of one of them. Mostly everyone else was still nowhere near ready. ‘Why didn’t you join us last night?’

The previous day of rest, coupled with everyone being able to replenish their stores in the fort, had led to a big party. The soldiers had joined them, bringing whisky with them. Guitars, fiddles and accordions had been brought out, food shared, and for most of the women it had been a welcome opportunity to put on their best dress and dance. Matilda had let Tabitha join in for a couple of hours but she had stayed in her wagon pretending she was too tired to join in.

‘I’m in no condition for dancing and carousing,’ she said tartly,
putting the lid back on the ointment and wiping her hands on a piece of rag.

He leaned back against one of the wagon wheels and folded his arms. ‘You could have just watched,’ he said, watching her face. Her eyes were puffy and he suspected she’d spend most of the night crying. ‘And talked to the other women. You ain’t doing yourself any favours being so chilly.’

She wanted to retort that he’d been chilly himself when she only asked him a simple question. But to do so would imply she cared enough to notice. ‘I didn’t come on this wagon train to make friends,’ she said instead.

‘But you’ll need them when we get up in the mountains,’ he said, tilting his hat back and smirking at her. ‘And when your baby comes.’

‘I’ll manage,’ she said. She wanted to get back up on the wagon, she felt vulnerable standing so close to him, but if she moved to do that, she knew he would help her, and she didn’t want him touching her.

‘Mr Jennings must have been one powerful man,’ he said reflectively.

‘Why do you say that?’ she retorted in alarm.

He gave her a long, cool stare, which seemed to penetrate right inside her. ‘Well, ma’am, even after his death and all these miles we’ve travelled, he’s managed to hold your heart so tight that you don’t need nobody else. I never had that power over a woman. Tell me about him.’

Matilda’s first reaction was to spit out something sarcastic, but as she looked up at the man she saw no ridicule in his blue eyes, only interest.

‘He wasn’t a tough man in the way you are,’ she said with a toss of her head. ‘He was a man who cared deeply about people and wanted to end suffering everywhere he found it. Even now I can’t understand why the Lord chose to take him when there’s so many wicked men in the world.’

The Captain looked hard at her for a moment, his expression one of sympathy. ‘Then you must count yourself lucky that you had such a man, even for a short time,’ he said with a new softness in his tone. ‘I can tell you, ma’am, there sure ain’t many out there like him. But from what you’ve said, I don’t think he’d
like you to cast yourself off from other people, especially now when you’ve got so much ahead of you.’

Tears prickled the backs of her eyes, but she was determined she wouldn’t cry in front of him. ‘Maybe you are right,’ she said stiffly.

‘I know I am.’ He smiled, moving from the wagon wheel and setting his hat straight. ‘And it wouldn’t hurt to put on another dress, one that don’t show up the dust so much. Black holds the heat, you know, and that ain’t good for you.’

His concern touched her. She was tired of being sharp and nasty with him, and weary of constantly being on her guard. ‘You are a puzzling man,’ she said. ‘One minute callous and sarcastic, another kind and thoughtful. Tell me what made you like that.’

‘Probably the same sort of things that makes you so prickly,’ he said, looking down at his feet and shuffling his boots in the sandy earth. ‘Death of loved ones, being far from home. You’ve got little Tabby dependent on you, I’ve got all this lot.’ He waved one hand back at the rest of the wagons. ‘Neither of us knows what lies ahead.’

Matilda sensed that he wasn’t ready to give her a more detailed explanation, but he’d said enough for her to feel they’d built a bridge between them, even if only a shaky one.

‘I’m counting on you knowing what’s ahead,’ she said teasingly.

He looked up and smiled at her, and this time there was friendship in his eyes.

‘I know the ways, and the perils,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you there. So can we call a truce? I’ll try not to be sarcastic if you’ll stop being so aloof.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said with a grin.

After Fort Laramie the going got even harder, rocks caught at the wagon wheels, threatening to turn them over, the dust blew worse than ever and it grew hotter day by day. For days on end there was no water or feed for the animals, and at night when the campfires were lit there was no singing or dancing, just the sound of children crying and laboured breathing from the oxen and horses. The fruit trees were wilting through lack of water,
and Matilda found herself dreaming constantly of a hot bath, of starched white sheets on a comfortable bed and cool breezes.

Sometimes they only made around eight miles in a day because the going was so rough. Matilda mostly walked with the lead oxen, leading them, for though it was tiring and hard on her feet, it was better than being constantly thrown around up on the wagon.

Indians came more often now, and presents had to be brought out and laid on a blanket for their inspection before they’d let them move on. The scouts reported war parties further north which made everyone nervous. Two more children died, one of the Mormon women gave birth to a little boy, a man with four children died from a snake bite, and several oxen had to be shot because they were too weak to continue.

Overcome by the heat, Matilda finally dug out another dress, the blue and white one Lily had given her back in London. She had to take the skirt apart to use some of the material to make the bodice larger, and she hoped she wouldn’t get very much bigger because nothing else she had would adapt at all.

They were moving into the Black Hills now, and Matilda discovered why the Captain had said she would need friends when her axle broke on a rock. It was all very well knowing the theory of how to change it, but it needed strong men to lift the wagon and fit the spare one.

But people were kind, four men came forward without her even asking, and one of their women took the opportunity to offer her an old dress she’d worn in her last pregnancy. Matilda had to unbend, she made them tea and gave them all the biscuits she’d made the night before.