The Long Way Home (18 page)

‘‘I know. So how about we back up a couple of feet and close the door. That way . . .’’ Their feet obeyed. Their eyes spoke in paragraphs. The next kiss lasted longer, ending on her sigh.

‘‘You sure this is the way newly married folk behave?’’

‘‘If they can.’’ He drew her over to a chair and pulled her down in his lap. ‘‘Now, Mrs. Torstead, where were you goin’ in such a rush?’’

‘‘To find you, I think. Or was it back to my wagons? You get my head all mixed up.’’ She clasped her hands around the back of his neck. ‘‘I like that Mrs. Torstead name.’’

‘‘Good thing. It’s yours now.’’

‘‘I like that Mr. Torstead name too.’’ Would it be too forward if she kissed him first? She did so without hesitating. He didn’t seem to mind.

‘‘So what have you been doing?’’

‘‘While you slept, you mean?’’

‘‘Um.’’ She hid a yawn behind her hand. ‘‘I haven’t been this lazy since . . .’’ The sun dimmed for her.
Since Mother died, and I had to take over the managing of Twin Oaks
. A sigh slipped out before she could catch it.

She opened her eyes to see him studying her. Laying her head on his shoulder, she picked up one of his hands and placed hers against it, palm to palm. ‘‘My mother taught me how to be a good wife. I can manage a plantation, keep the slaves busy and in order, keep up the household accounts, the entire plantation accounts if need be. I know how to cook, put up food for the entire plantation, garden, sew a fine seam, entertain the kinfolk and the men who come calling on the husband, read Greek and Latin. My father taught me to ride, along with how to shoot a gun, and raise tobacco—from field preparation to drying, shipping, and selling.’’ She ticked off each skill on her fingertips.

‘‘She taught you well.’’

She jerked up right. ‘‘How do you know?’’ At the look on his face, she thumped him on the chest, a saucy grin tickling her cheeks. ‘‘Wolf! You taught me that.’’ She nestled her cheek back into his shoulder. ‘‘Thank you for this morning.’’

‘‘You are very welcome.’’ He leaned forward. ‘‘Now, I have work to do, and Meshach has already been by to see what you wanted him to do.’’

‘‘But of all those things I know to do’’—she shook her head, her hair teasing his chin—‘‘not many are needed out here in the wilderness.’’

‘‘No, but you already have added many more things. You can tan hides, sew shirts out of either buckskin or cloth, cook over a campfire, drive a wagon, train horses or oxen, skin a rabbit or deer or whatever needs skinning, including a buffalo, birth foals, and while there’ll be no call for harvesting tobacco’’—he kissed the tips of her fingers—‘‘you have made one man bone-deep happy and sometime, God willing, you’ll be raising sons and daughters along with those foals that will pay for the things we can’t raise.’’

Jesselynn could feel the blush start below her neck and flame its way up to her forehead.

‘‘I declare, Mr. Torstead, the way you talk.’’ She fingered the fringe on his buckskin shirt. ‘‘There is something I haven’t told you.’’

‘‘We have our entire lives to find things to tell.’’

‘‘I know, but this is different.’’ She sat up straight and looked into his eyes. ‘‘Someday, when that cursed war is finally over, I want to take breeding stock back to Twin Oaks.’’

‘‘Domino?’’

‘‘Perhaps. But if the colt develops like he looks to be, him for sure, maybe the two fillies. Both mares took.’’ She tipped her head slightly to one side. ‘‘That means fewer for sale in the next couple of years.’’

‘‘We’ll send all the horses we can, but keep in mind that I, you and I, cannot live in Kentucky.’’

‘‘I know, and someone famous once wrote, ‘You cannot go back.’ The life I knew will never be there again. Even if someday Zachary can rebuild the big house, it will not be the same. The war has destroyed life as we lived it.’’ She could feel the tears burning the backs of her throat and eyes. ‘‘I wish you could have seen it.’’

‘‘Had you stayed there, you would not be here.’’ His hand stroked the nape of her neck.

‘‘I know.’’ She dredged up a grin so that she would not cry. ‘‘God sure does work in mysterious ways.’’ She leaned forward and butterfly-kissed his smiling lips. When she started to stand, he held her back.

‘‘I am grateful every day to our God and Father that you came west.’’

‘‘Even if you almost refused us passage with your wagon train?’’

He groaned. ‘‘That was business.’’

‘‘Bad business.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘I will never understand why you allowed the Jones brothers to join up but almost refused us.’’ She looked at him again, her head continuing to move from side to side.

‘‘Me neither.’’ He set her on her feet and rose. ‘‘Let’s be on out to the wagons.’’

‘‘I have to return my dresses first.’’ She gazed at the creamy silk hanging on a hanger. ‘‘That most surely is a lovely dress.’’ She caressed the material again. ‘‘Wolf, I do have a skirt in the wagon.’’

‘‘Good. Let it stay there. You can use it when we come into the fort if you like. Britches are much more practical where we are going. Oglala women wear deerskin leggings under a deerskin shift. No skirts to get in the way.’’ He thought a moment. ‘‘At least they used to. My mother did beautiful bead and quill designs on her clothes, and my father’s too. Even moccasins testified to her love of beauty.’’

Jesselynn held perfectly still. For once, she had a glimmer into his life as a child. A life so foreign to her that she wondered if she would ever understand it anymore than he would understand life at Twin Oaks. After a moment she folded the garments over her arm so that nothing dragged and went out of the door ahead of him.

Someday they’d have a house too. But for now . . . She sucked in a deep breath. For now she must go back to the real world, of Aunt Agatha, slow plodding oxen, dust, and distances. ‘‘I’ll hurry.’’

They left in the morning as planned, waving good-bye to the Jespersons, who figured on waiting for the next wagon train heading west. Scouts reported there was another train three days out. Jesselynn rode Ahab, she and Wolf at the head of their small train, the two packhorses on lines behind the last wagon, driven by Meshach. Aunt Agatha managed to lead the train without talking to either Jesselynn or Wolf. When Jesselynn gave thought to her aunt, she caught herself sighing.

This could be a long trip and a hard winter if Agatha kept her mouth pursed like that and went out of her way to avoid sitting by them or joining in conversation. But how could Jes-selynn uninvite her along? There was no place for her at Fort Laramie.

Lord God, this is beyond me. I’ve done everything I can, short of not marrying, and she will not bend an inch. Yet I know she respected Wolf as the wagon master, thought he was fine man. Fine for everything but marrying into the Highwood family
.

She knew Zachary would feel the same way, so the letters she sent to Richmond and Twin Oaks made no mention of the wedding. She just said they had decided to go north instead of on to Oregon. Not a lie, but certainly not the whole truth either.

Riding with Wolf certainly beat riding alone or driving a wagon. He pointed out buffalo wallows, places where deer spent the daylight hours, and a slide for river otters. Benjamin fished the deep pools of the Chugwater River that snaked across a valley belly-deep in rich grass. Daniel’s snares netted rabbits.

‘‘Why don’t we settle here?’’ Jesselynn looked back over her shoulder at grass shimmering in the sun as it turned from green to gold. ‘‘There’s hay aplenty and—’’

‘‘And the river floods in wet years, and we would be forced to build all over again. There is grass also in the valley I know of. And we will be bothered less up the river.’’

‘‘Bothered?’’

‘‘My tribe travels through here from summer to winter hunting. I do not want to be in their way.’’

‘‘Oh.’’

‘‘Other tribes too, and sometimes they war on one another.’’

‘‘I see.’’ But she didn’t. The word ‘‘war’’ made her want to head south again to the Oregon Trail. Would she never be free of war?

The second day they left the verdant valley and traveled between hillocks as they followed the south branch of the river, now more like a creek. Willows and other brush lined the waterway, and grass grew deep on the flats, but the hills around them wore sparser blankets of golden grasses. Hawks and eagles
screed
above them, huge ravens announced their passage, grouse thrummed in the evenings. Deer and pronged antelope leaped the hills while Wolf promised elk in the mountains ahead.

The great sky arched in changing shades of such blue as to take one’s breath away. They saw no other humans but themselves.

‘‘Come, I have something to show you.’’ Wolf mounted his Appaloosa and waited for her to mount Ahab. ‘‘Just follow along the creek,’’ he instructed Benjamin who, mounted on Domino, scouted ahead for the wagons. ‘‘We won’t be gone long. We’ll be at camp before nightfall.’’

‘‘Yes, suh.’’ Benjamin touched one finger to the brim of his hat. ‘‘That be good.’’

Nudging the horses to a lope, the two riders edged the creek a ways before Wolf set the Appaloosa at a hill. Up and down they walked and trotted until Wolf stopped with a raised hand. ‘‘See.’’

Jesselynn stopped and looked ahead to where he pointed. A small valley, shaped like a bowl, lay before her, hills mounding on all four sides. On the face of the tallest hill three caves faced south. ‘‘While I hadn’t planned on this many people, we can make do. Brush fences can keep the horses in the valley. See there and there.’’ He pointed to low places, like small ravines, that led into the bowl. ‘‘We can bring logs from up in the mountains, or use rock, to build walls. This will keep us through the winter.’’

Jesselynn nodded. ‘‘We spent last winter in caves around Springfield, Missouri. Guess this won’t be much different.’’

‘‘Plenty snow here, but’’—he drew a circle with his arm to encompass the area—‘‘good protection. Game nearby. Water. We will do well.’’

‘‘Will the creek freeze over?’’

‘‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We can cut hay and bring it back on the wagons.’’

Jesselynn thought to the bags of oats she had purchased at the fort. Enough to feed the mares through their foaling? Enough to plant next summer?

‘‘Come, I will show you more.’’

Not many minutes later they trotted around a corner with a rock face perhaps twenty feet high. Jesselynn felt like she’d stepped into a dream. The valley widened out, the creek deepened, lined by willows and cottonwood with deep green pine climbing the gentle sides of the hills. Grass rippled like a green lake under a breeze.

A slap echoed in the valley.

‘‘What was that?’’

‘‘Beaver. They dammed the creek. That’s why the pond. They’re just announcing visitors.’’

‘‘Why can’t we winter here? This is beautiful.’’

‘‘No caves. But here is where we build a house out of that rock we came around. You saw the square stones. Like using bricks.’’

Jesselynn leaned on her arms crossed over Ahab’s withers. ‘‘This is some beautiful.’’

‘‘When the red bark of the low brush shines through the snow or ice, then too this valley has beauty.’’

‘‘You have stayed here in the past?’’

‘‘In the caves one winter, my father and I, after my mother died.’’

‘‘No wonder you wanted to come back here.’’ She looked to the west where hills covered with oak and evergreens climbed to the mountains hidden in the distance. ‘‘Let’s get the others, Mr. Torstead. Our new life is about to begin.’’

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN
Richmond, Virginia

‘‘We’ll still be going then?’’

‘‘I can put it off three more days, but no longer.’’

‘‘What about disguises?’’

‘‘We’re working on that.’’

Louisa wondered who he meant by ‘‘we.’’ Who was providing the money for this trip, and who was getting them the quinine on the other end? Why did her brother see the need to be so secretive here at home? She could understand out in public, but at home? The ‘‘why’s’’ could stretch on forever.

Secret missions brought up another thought. She’d heard rumors of secret missions before her lieutenant told her he had to return to his family home. Who had blown up the train that took his life? Did they ever search for or catch the fiends that did such things? Or was that a natural part of war?

The war. Everything always came back to the
war
.

‘‘And when will I be informed as to what I am to do?’’ She didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

Zachary shook his head, a smile flirting with the corners of his mouth.

‘‘I’ve been a bit of a dolt, haven’t I?’’

‘‘Now that I won’t argue with.’’ Louisa knew she’d forgive him anything when he turned on the Highwood charm. ‘‘You’ve been treating Aunt Sylvania most shabbily, and you know she dotes on you.’’

He had the grace to look ashamed.

Thank you, Lord, there is hope for my brother yet
.

‘‘I will go up and see her.’’

‘‘I know the stairs are hard for you, but—’’

He interrupted her before she could finish her sentence. ‘‘But not impossible.’’

‘‘That wasn’t what I was going to say.’’

‘‘Perhaps not, but you’ve thought it.’’

Louisa looked down. ‘‘I stand condemned.’’

‘‘No, Louisa, don’t ever even think such things.’’ He reached for her hand. ‘‘Never, do you hear me?’’ His voice shook, the whisper cutting to her heart.

She looked into his eye, past the fire to see—what? Fear?

Zachary shrugged his shoulders and leaned back in his chair. When she looked at him again, the man she’d come to dislike gazed back at her.

‘‘I need to go sit with Aunt Sylvania. When you come to see her, bring that charming man with you, the brother I used to know.’’ Pivoting so her skirts swished, she sailed out the door, her teeth clenched at all the other words she would like to have said.

Dear Lord, what do I do with him? I want to strangle him one minute and hold him the next. I know he’s in pain much of the time, but this cruelty—that’s not my brother. And if it’s not my brother, who is it? What is it?

The sharp edges that jutted and jabbed all around downstairs had not made it up the stairs. Peace, soothing and gentle, reigned in Aunt Sylvania’s room. The evening breeze danced with the sheer white curtains, wafting the fragrance of the roses out through the open door.