Wanderville (16 page)

T
he wagon took off with a fierce jerk that nearly pitched Frances and the boys off the front seat.

Frances scrambled to take the reins. “Whoa-oh!” she called to the horses.

“Wait!” Jack cried. “We're not ready!”

“Try . . . telling . . . horses . . . that!” Alexander gasped. He'd tried to stand up, but now he was swaying back and forth so precariously that his arms began to windmill and flail.

The reins were thrashing and Frances felt them yanking her like a puppet. “Stop! Halt!” In her peripheral vision she could see Alexander's desperate motions. Was he going to fall off?
He was going to fall off.

“Alex!”
Jack was braced against the seat, and he lunged forward as the wagon hit one hard ridge.
Thunk!
His hand caught just the back of Alexander's shirt, and he tugged until his friend fell back down in the seat with a thud.

“They won't stop!” Frances cried. “I can steer the horses, but they're not stopping!”

“Just hold on!” Jack told her. Trying to turn the wagon at this speed would be too dangerous.

He and Alexander crouched down to get a better hold on their seats while Frances braced her feet against the front board. Jack could hear muffled, surprised shouts from the kids in back and hoped they were holding on, too.

“The horses won't slow down!” she yelled.

Jack twisted around to look back. He couldn't see the bunkhouse yard or the Pratcherds or the other adults. Had Quentin noticed what happened? Jack faced the front again and saw that they were approaching a set of gateposts that would take them beyond a split-rail fence.

“We've reached the main road!” Frances gasped. “We're leaving the ranch!”

“Then we'll go,” Alexander told them. “Turn left and
go
!”

As they turned, the road became smoother and the horses picked up speed. Now Alexander decided to look behind the wagon. He knelt on the seat and peered over the long black roof of the wagon.

“Uh-oh,” he called out. “Jack, look . . .”

Jack climbed up next to Alex and saw what he was seeing: Back by the ranch gate, two figures had dashed out onto the road. Two men—Jack couldn't exactly make out their features with the distance, but it looked like the sheriff and Mr. Pratcherd.

“They're on foot! They can't catch us,” Jack shouted over the rattle of the wagon.

“But they saw which way we're going,” Alexander yelled back. He was holding onto the edge of the wagon seat with one hand, and the other he held over his shiner to protect it from the road dust. He looked straight at Jack with his good eye. “We've got to get the wagon off the road.”

“
How?
”
Frances called up from her spot behind the reins. “We can't stop!”

The boys exchanged a nod. Jack turned back around and slid next to Frances on her left. Alexander took the spot to her right. “Who said anything about stopping?” he said.

Jack could see Frances's eyes grow wide, though she didn't dare take them off the road. “Right!” she said. “Just say when.”

Jack scanned the side of the road for a good place to turn off—some place that wasn't too bumpy, or muddy, or fenced off—while Alexander crouched down to tap on the window that led to the back of the wagon.

“Attention, passengers!” he called through his cupped hands. “By and by there will be some jostling as we change our course. . . .”

“
Hold on!!!
” Frances screamed.

The horses surged to one side and yanked the wagon so hard that one side swung up, then down with a
slam
and three bumps so wild that Jack swore he felt his teeth rattle.

The noise beneath the wagon had changed—from the clatter of the hard road to a deeper pounding sound. They were driving over dirt, over grass, across the open prairie.

Frances nearly toppled out of her seat from shock. “We did it,” she breathed. The boys clasped her shoulders on each side.

“Don't fall off now,” Alexander said with a laugh. “Just keep driving until we get to the railroad tracks. And then we'll be almost home.”

I
t turned out Frances didn't need to worry about stopping the horses. Once they'd reached the railroad embankment, which was too high for the wagon to cross, the horses simply slowed down and then stood in place.

Frances's legs felt like jelly as she and the boys raced around to the back of the wagon. “Harold!” she cried.

He was the first one to jump out. “I told everyone not to be scared,” he said as his sister folded him into a hug.

“Were
you
scared?” Frances asked, keeping him close.

“Sure,” Harold said matter-of-factly. “But I also told myself not to be scared. You always tell me, Frances, but I can tell myself, too.”

“Yes,” Frances whispered, hugging him once more. “Yes, you can, Harold.” Then she let him go and watched as he ran back to the wagon to help the others climb out.

Jack was checking on the horses. “We have to ditch the wagon here because it'll be too hard to hide it by the creek,” he called over to Frances. “It's a shame. . . . These seem like a fine team of horses.”

“We really left Mr. Pratcherd and the sheriff in the dust, didn't we? They didn't have a chance of catching up with us,” Frances said, stroking the horses' heads. “Thank you, whatever your names are,” she told them.

“They saved the day,” Jack said, though it didn't sound quite right to say those words. Not with Quentin back at the ranch still, with the other kids they hadn't rescued in time. Jack should have known the horses would bolt. He should have gotten more kids into the wagon before it took off. He looked out across the prairie.

Frances pointed west. “The Pratcherd place is out that way, if you're wondering,” she told Jack. “And I've a feeling you
are
wondering.”

“Do you think they're all right?” Jack asked. “Quentin and the others?”

“We won't forget about them, Jack,” Frances said. “None of us will.”

She went to help the other children who were clambering out the back of the wagon. Jack, meanwhile, stayed by the horses, staring out at the spot on the horizon where Frances had pointed.

Harold grabbed Frances's hand and pulled her over to meet the others from the ranch.

“Lorenzo and Sarah were on our train,” Harold told her. “And here's Nicky, and George, and Anka.”

Frances remembered dark-haired Lorenzo. Sarah looked close to her own age, and Frances had known her on the train not by name, but by her smooth braids and wry smile.

Nicky had black curly hair and was very skinny, and Alexander seemed glad to see him. “He was on my train,” Alexander explained.

“Anka's ten and she's from Poland!” Harold told Frances. She had ash-blond hair and was shy to speak, but she looked strong and smart.

“I'm George,” said the last boy, a towheaded kid who looked close to Harold's age. “Where are we going?”

“You'll see,” Frances told him.

Alexander and Lorenzo helped Jack unhitch the team of horses. Once the horses were loose, they stepped up over the railroad embankment and trotted off down the other side.

“I think they know there's an oat field over that way,” Alexander said. “They'll enjoy grazing.”

Jack nodded in agreement, then motioned toward the wagon. “When the sheriff finds the wagon by the tracks, maybe he'll think we hopped a train.”

“Let's hope so,” said Lorenzo.

Soon they were all walking across the open prairie. Alexander was a few paces ahead of all the others, and Frances ran up to walk with him.

“I'm sorry I doubted you before,” she told him quietly. “When we fought after Harold was taken.” She looked up at his black eye. “I'm sure it wasn't easy to go back to the Pratcherds' after all you'd been through there. That was really brave of you. . . . Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he replied. “And, uh, thanks for driving.”

“Well, sort of driving.” She laughed. “But you're welcome.”

Jack recognized the lone tree where he and Frances and Harold had spent their first night in Kansas. It seemed like months ago now.

“We'll walk toward that tree and then head straight east,” he told the others. “And then we'll be in Wanderville.”

“Is that a town?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, in a way,” Jack replied.

“It's
our
town,” Frances said.

They reached the spot where the ground began to slope downward into the ravine.

“This way,” Alexander said as he led them toward the creek.

Jack had wondered if Wanderville would be the same as he remembered. Not that it would have changed much in the last three days, but would he see it the same way? Would it still seem like their town, or just a rough campsite in the woods? And what would the others think of it?

But then he saw the little clearing and the creek bank and the fireplace. The courthouse, the hotel, and the storehouse. His tree and Frances's tree and Alexander's. And the stones Harold had arranged. It was all there.

The two girls and the three boys from the ranch walked slowly around the clearing, looking up at the trees and down at the creek. They said nothing, and the combined sounds of their footsteps moving through the dry leaves made a strangely restless noise.

“Welcome to Wanderville,” Alexander said a little nervously. “Over here is the main square. . . .” But his voice trailed off.

“Just let them look around,” Jack told him, his voice low.

Lorenzo walked over to the courthouse and nudged the big rock with his foot. Nicky was over by the hotel.

“Do you think they see it?” Harold whispered to Frances.

Frances watched for a few moments. “I think so,” she said.

Sarah had found the rope swing. “Oh,” she sighed. “This is the best thing ever.”

George was walking along the log bench. He pointed to the rock wall. “Did you make this?” he called over to Harold.

“Yes!” Harold said, running to join him. “Let's keep building it.”

Nicky had picked up the flint rock, and Alexander went over to show him how it worked. Lorenzo was scaling the big tree.

“This is excellent,” he called down to everyone. “Excellent!”

Frances and Jack walked over to where Anka was standing, in the pine tree grove of the hotel. She was turning slowly all around.

“What do you think?” Jack asked her.

“I like very much,” Anka said. “And I like this.” She pointed to a fork in one of the trees where Frances had placed a short plank of wood just the day before. She had wedged it in firmly between two branches and made sure it was level so that it could be used as a shelf.

Anka reached into one of her pockets and pulled something out. It was a small doll, carved out of wood. The doll had a full wooden skirt like a little bell, and it was painted with stripes and dots and flowers. Anka put it on the shelf. “There,” she said, and turned it so that Jack and Frances could see the doll's face. The head had a painted kerchief and a tiny smile and closed eyes that were like little smiles, too.

“There,” she said again. It looked perfect.