Baby On The Oregon Trail

“Huh! That’s all you know.”

“Girls!” Jenna snapped out the word in a tone Lee had never heard her use. “Hush up and listen to Mr. Carver. Since he insists on keeping that animal, you should know how to act around it.” Then she shot him a look that would ignite kindling.

Lee stood up. “That includes you, Mrs. Borland. Don’t startle the horse by shouting or screaming when you’re near him.”

She propped both hands on her hips. “I plan never to be near him, Mr. Carver. I dislike horses. And I dislike—” She snapped her jaw shut. “But since I seem to be stuck with your services, I will do as you say.”

Her voice was pure frost. He’d guess Sam Lincoln had refused to replace him, and for the first time since he joined the emigrant train he felt a small amount of acceptance. By Sam maybe, but not by Mary Grace or Tess.

And not by Jenna. Jenna was the only one he really cared about, besides Ruthie. Strange, that the little girl accepted him with an almost adult understanding; she didn’t care that he was a Virginian or a Confederate soldier.

“Mrs. Borland, would you have any coffee?”

She twitched her skirt. “Of course. I don’t drink it at night as it keeps me awake.”

“Mind if I brew some up?” He ran two fingers over a lump swelling above one temple. “I have the beginnings of a headache.”

She whirled away to the wagon, rummaged around for a moment, then emerged with a small canvas bag of coffee beans and a small wooden coffee mill. “Tess, poke up the fire and fetch the coffeepot, please. I’ll go for water.” She snatched up one of the buckets and marched off toward the creek.

While she was gone, Lee ground a handful of coffee beans, and Tess unceremoniously clunked the coffeepot onto the fire. He saw Jenna stagger across the field with the heavy bucket and went to lift it out of her hand. Her grudging “thank you” came out cold as an ice chip.

Lee drew in a long breath. Looked like he was in an enemy camp with just one ally, a little girl less than three feet tall. Well, hell, he’d lived through Gettysburg and Appomattox, and he’d lived through the grinding emptiness of his life after Laurie died; he guessed he’d live through this.

Suddenly everyone disappeared into the wagon, even Ruthie. He brewed up his own coffee and sat alone by the fire gulping it down as hot as he could stand it. Anything to remind him that he was alive, even if he wasn’t liked or wanted.

The soft murmur of a woman’s voice drifted from the wagon. From the measured cadence of the sounds, he guessed Jenna was reading aloud. Poetry, maybe. That must be why Tess knew a word like preposterous. Jenna was obviously well-lettered, and apparently she was educating the girls.

After a time her voice stopped, and she climbed out of the wagon and moved into the firelight. She ignored the coffeepot and perched on a wooden crate across the fire pit from him.

“I heard you reading to the girls,” he said. “Poetry?”

“Yes. Idylls of the King.”

“I admire your sharing your knowledge, even though they resent you.”

“I don’t want them to grow up ignorant, Mr. Carver. They will also know how to cook and sew and keep house. An ignorant girl in a wild new country like Oregon is asking for trouble.”

“Forgive me, Mrs. Borland, but an ignorant girl anywhere is asking for trouble.” He watched her back stiffen and waited a good ten heartbeats before he opened his mouth again.

“On another subject,” he began, “is it all right with you if I spread out my bedroll under your wagon?”

She didn’t answer.

“I sleep with my rifle next to me. Thought you’d like to know you’ll be protected at night.”

“Yes, I appreciate that.”

“You sleep inside the wagon?”

She waited so long to answer he thought maybe she hadn’t heard; then he realized where she’d been sleeping up until last night.

“There is not enough room inside for me,” she said at last. “I have been sleeping under the wagon.”

That stopped his breath. He’d bet a month’s pay she didn’t know what to do now. He could make it easy for her, volunteer to sleep outside, next to his horse. But something inside rebelled at that. Maybe it wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, but he wanted to sleep near her. Couldn’t say exactly why except that she was damn pretty and she had a nice voice. When she wasn’t yelling at him, that was.

Anyway, she was so mad at him she probably wouldn’t speak three words to him.

“Suits me,” he said quietly. He noticed she wouldn’t look at him.

* * *

The situation was awkward. Embarrassing. Never in a month of Sundays would Jenna have imagined lying next to a man who was not her husband. Her mother would have apoplexy if she knew.

She decided to sleep in her dress and petticoat, even though with Mathias she had stripped to her chemise and drawers. She arranged her pallet opposite to what she thought his would be, putting her head where she supposed his feet would be.

She did not like Lee Carver. But for some reason she did not fear him. She lay back on her quilt and closed her eyes until his voice startled her.

“Jenna.”

Just her name, spoken so low she might have imagined it.

“Yes?”

“Can the girls in the wagon hear us down here?”

“I don’t know. Mathias and I never talked at night.”

“Listen, then. You know I mean no harm to your family, or to you.”

No harm! She wanted to scream the words at him. You shot my husband. Your horse could have killed Ruthie.

She watched him spread out his blanket and prop his saddle at his head. He stretched out fully clothed and folded his arms behind his head. His rifle lay between them.

“Is that loaded?”

“Yes, it is. Did your husband not keep a rifle handy?”

“Mathias did not have a rifle.”

“Revolver, then.”

“He had no revolver, either.”

He sat up. “Good God, how did he plan to protect you?”

Jenna swallowed. “He did not think of it. Mathias did not plan ahead.”

She had often thought about it after they joined the emigrant train at Independence. Mathias was the only man other than Reverend Fredericks who went unarmed.

“Your older girls should learn how to fire a weapon, Mrs. Borland.”

“They will be proper, educated young ladies in Oregon. Why should they know about firearms?”

“It’s a long way to Oregon. Their lives might depend on knowing such things.”

She edged her body farther to the right, away from his rifle and away from him. Then she realized with a start that they were facing each other. So much for her head-to-foot plan.

“Tomorrow...” His words halted.

“Tomorrow,” she said in as matter-of-fact a tone as she could manage, “I will make coffee and breakfast and you will yoke up the oxen and we will move on toward Oregon. We need not even speak to each other.”

“Not quite,” he said. He shifted his frame, rolled onto his side and propped himself on one elbow. “You can’t shut me out like that. You don’t have to like me, Jenna, but you do need me.”

She sucked in an angry breath. “I do not need you, Mr. Carver. I will never need you.”

He laughed softly. “Yes, you do. You need me to teach your daughters about horses. About how to protect themselves in case...in case something happens to you. Or to me.”

A dart of fear stabbed into her chest. “What do you mean? What could possibly happen?”

“God! We’ve got over a thousand miles to go with two aging oxen. Rivers to ford. Four wooden wheels that could break or get mired in quicksand. Dust storms. Dried-up water holes and God only knows if there’s enough flour and beans in your wagon to last. Wolves. Indians.”

“I am well aware of the dangers. You need not elaborate unless you are trying to frighten me.”

“Hell, yes, I’m trying to frighten you!”

“Well, it’s working, so please hush up!”

She heard him chuckle, and then he gave a long, drawn-out sigh and settled back on his blanket. After a while his rhythmic breathing told her he was asleep.

She tried to forget his words, but they swarmed and circled in her brain until she wanted to shout them out of her head.

A thousand miles, he’d said. She wanted to weep.

Oh, no she wouldn’t! She might be frightened to death at what was ahead, especially now that she alone was responsible for the Borland girls, but she would not let it show. She would cry when they reached Oregon. By then, she supposed, she would be completely unhinged.

And by then she would be a mother.

Oh, God, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do any of it. Why, why had she let Mathias talk her into heading across this rough, uninhabited country?

And why, dear God, why had he taken Lee Carver’s horse?

Chapter Five

Lee woke before dawn and looked over at the still form that lay next to him. She was curled up on her side like a young girl, her face resting on her folded hands, and a little fluff of white petticoat peeked out beside her drawn-up knees. Her leather shoes sat off to one side, the coarse stockings stuffed inside. He wondered what kept them up after walking all day.

Her eyelids looked shadowed with fatigue and a purpling bruise bloomed on her cheek. Quietly he drew the rumpled quilt up over her sleeping form and crawled out from under the wagon.

Sue and Sunflower grazed peacefully a few yards away. He fed Devil a handful of oats, then tramped down to the creek to wash and shave using his army kit. He hung the mirror on a low branch, but in the half-light he could barely see the dark stubble on his chin.

The air was so still and balmy it reminded him of spring back in Virginia. And it was quiet, a good time for mentally sorting things out. Jenna, for example.

She bothered him. It was more than her sharp words and obvious dislike of him; something about her didn’t make sense. Had she really wanted to come west with three stepchildren? Somehow she didn’t seem ready for a journey this arduous. Maybe she’d let her husband do the planning, and right about now she might be realizing that had been a mistake.

It made him angry. Made him want to take her by the shoulders and shake her. On another level it made him want to put his arms around her and hold her.

He hadn’t held a woman in a long time. Hadn’t wanted to.

Until now. The thought of holding Jenna, maybe kissing her, sent hot prickles all over his body, and he had to laugh. You damn fool, what about your Never Again resolution?

Yeah, what about that? He’d sworn he’d never let any woman touch his heart again. It had worked just fine until he’d shot Jenna’s husband and ended up with her in the middle of a family he hadn’t expected.

He rinsed his straight razor and folded it back into his kit, then filled two buckets of water from the creek and lugged them back to camp. He found the coffeepot, rinsed it out and moved away from the wagon to grind the beans so the noise wouldn’t wake anyone. An iron skillet waited beside the fire pit, but the bacon, if there was any, would be in the wagon. He’d rather brave a Sioux ambush than tangle with Tess.

Ruthie popped out through the bonnet and he pantomimed slicing meat. After a long minute she produced a small hunk of not-too-lean bacon and watched in silence as he sliced some off with his pocketknife and laid it in the skillet.

* * *

Jenna awoke to the smell of coffee. Coffee? The sun was up and her empty stomach was rumbling. She pulled on her shoes and stockings, folded up her bedding and crawled out from under the wagon. The sight that met her eyes made her blink twice.

Lee Carver stood over a skillet of sizzling bacon, but it was Ruthie who was forking over the strips. Steam puffed out the spout of the coffeepot sitting on a flat rock next to the fire. Without a word, Carver sloshed a mug full and presented it to her.

“Thank you,” she managed. It was hot and strong and just what she needed as an antidote to her annoyance with the man. Well, it wasn’t annoyance, really, she admitted. It was fear, plain and simple. Not of him, necessarily, but...

She hadn’t wanted to leave Roseville, where there were streets and board sidewalks and shops. She’d been completely unprepared to find herself with three stepdaughters, two of whom resented her, and a husband who had not cared about her, not really. Mathias had offered marriage simply to gain a mother for his girls. She had not allowed herself time to think too carefully about his offer because she had no choice, really, considering her situation. She had not dared to tell her mother the truth; instead she had unthinkingly agreed to marry Mathias.

“Any biscuits left over from supper?” he asked.

“In the wagon. Ruthie can get them.”

Tess yanked open the canvas bonnet, took one look at Mr. Carver and disappeared back inside with a sniff. But Mary Grace climbed out and marched up to Lee.

“When are you gonna show us about your horse?”

“After breakfast.”

“Can I ride him?”

“Not until I say so.”

Mary Grace propped her hands on her hips. “You are just plain mean!”

“I am sensible,” he replied without looking up from the skillet. “People who don’t know what they’re doing around a horse get themselves killed trying to ride before they’re ready.”

“You sure are hard to please,” she snapped.

“Maybe.”

Tess finally descended from the wagon and sent him a black look. Jenna laid out the leftover biscuits on the warm fire-pit rocks, and after a few minutes they gathered to devour them, along with the crisp bacon. Then, while she heated water to wash the tin plates, Lee marched the girls over to his horse and she could hear his low, patient voice giving instructions.

All at once he appeared at her side. “Now you.”

“Now me, what?”

“Horse lesson.”

Her heart somersaulted into her stomach. “No.”

“Yes. Jenna, you have to know how to behave around a horse.”

“Not this horse.”

“Any horse. How is it you grew up without knowing anything about horses?”

“I grew up in a town back in Ohio. I walked to school and the mercantile and the dressmaker and my music lessons. I had no need of a horse.”

“Well, you do now. This isn’t Ohio. Come on.”

Tess and Mary Grace drifted near and stood watching, waiting to see what she would do. No doubt they relished her discomfort, and the thought made her grit her teeth.

Carver turned his head toward them. “Mary Grace, would you finish washing up the plates? Maybe Tess could help you.”

To Jenna’s astonishment, both girls advanced toward the bucket of warm soapy water, and Lee muscled her over to confront the stallion.

Lord, the animal was huge! It looked at her with a giant black eye that clearly held a message: I hate you. She flinched away.

Lee caught her arm and pulled her back within touching distance, but Jenna put both hands behind her back. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Can’t what? I haven’t asked you to do anything yet.”

“If it’s about this horse, I can’t do it.”

He looked sideways at her. “Jenna, you can do this. You’re not a coward. You have plenty of backbone.”

“I don’t care about backbone.”

He gave her arm a little shake. “Are you going to give Tess and Mary Grace more ammunition just because you’re afraid of this horse?”

“Yes, I guess I am.” She thought that prospect over for a moment. Her relationship with Tess and Mary Grace was bad enough already; she would die before she gave them something else to dislike about her.

“No,” she blurted out. “I am not!”

“Good girl. We’ll take it slow.”

She drew in a careful breath. “I am not a girl, Mr. Carver.”

“That, Mrs. Borland, is obvious. Now stand here and just talk to the horse. Keep your voice low.”

Jenna stared into the big black eye and opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

“Jenna?”

She tried again. “H-hello, horse.”

“Devil,” he prompted. “His name is Devil.”

“That’s ridiculous. Surely he doesn’t recognize his name?”

“Try it.”

She stiffened her back and looked straight at the animal. “Um... Hello, Devil. What a d-dreadful name you have. It’s enough to scare anyone who has any sense at all.”

Carver laughed. “Good,” he said. “Keep going. Tell him who you are.”

Jenna shut her eyes. If she lived through the next ten minutes she would put hot pepper in Lee Carver’s coffee the first chance she got. She peered again at the big black horse.

“My name is Jenna West—Jenna Borland.”

Carver sent her a puzzled glance. Behind him she saw Tess and Mary Grace watching her with avid interest. She squared her shoulders.

“You’re doing fine, Jenna. You want to pet his nose?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I do not.”

He ignored her, took her hand in his and lifted it to the stallion’s shiny nose. She tried to jerk away, but he held her fingers firmly under his. His hand, warm and insistent, pressed hers into the animal’s smooth skin.

“Let go of me,” she whispered.

“No. Just relax. He won’t bite you.” He kept her hand pinned under his.

“Please, Mr. Carver.”

“My name is Lee.”

“Lee, please. I am truly afraid. Surely he, I mean Devil, senses that?”

“He won’t hurt you if you don’t startle him, or yell at him, or hurt him. He’s just like a human being. If you mistreat a man, he will strike out.”

“Is—is that a warning?”

“About the horse? Yes. About me? No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He grinned suddenly. “I know you don’t.”

She could not think of one single thing to say. She just stood there with her hand captured under his and her heart fluttering like a frightened bird.

And then he bent toward her and whispered in her ear.

Chapter Six

Jenna jerked away from Lee so fast he thought something had bitten her. “What? How dare you say something like that to me!”

The truth was he didn’t know how he dared. First off, she was carrying another man’s child. And second, after his wife died he’d sworn never again to think twice about any woman. But Jenna wasn’t just “any woman.” All he knew was that even after a day under the broiling sun and a night sleeping in all her clothes without even a spit bath, Jenna Borland smelled good, like something flowery.

So he told her so.

“You,” she said, her blue-green eyes accusing, “smell like a horse. A smoky, bacon-y horse. A...sweaty horse.”

He laughed aloud. “That’s because I’ve been working around the oxen and frying bacon over a campfire and haven’t taken a bath in a while.”

“I must pack up the breakfast things,” she said quickly.

“Get Tess and Mary Grace to pack up. I want you to watch how I yoke up the oxen.”

She knew better than to argue, because she walked with him into the center area where the animals were grazing and watched in silence while he drove Sue and Sunflower to the wagon and wrestled the harnesses and the wooden yoke into position.

“Slide the hoop under the yoke, like this,” he instructed as he worked. “Then attach it to the tongue, here. Next, put a lead rope through the nose ring, see? Be sure not to tangle those lines there.”

Jenna nodded. She stared at the two animals. Hour after hour, day after day, they plodded patiently along the wheel-rutted trail, hauling their wagon loaded with everything they owned.

Some days she’d felt just like those two oxen, as if she were pulling a crushing weight with no respite, with no encouragement from Mathias or from the girls, working until her back ached and her hands were chapped and her nose sunburned.

Lee sent her a swift look. “Think you could manage this if you had to?”

“You wouldn’t force me to, would you? As you did with your horse?”

He shook his head and bent toward her. “Just look over yonder at Tess and Mary Grace,” he intoned.

Both girls stood transfixed at the sight of Jenna scratching behind Sunflower’s ear. At least she assumed that’s what they were staring at. Or perhaps her petticoat had come unsnapped, or her drawers...

But no. The instant the traces were attached, both girls lost interest. It wasn’t her they watched; it was the oxen. And Lee Carver.

Lee offered to show her how to drive the wagon, but after the horse, she couldn’t face another challenge. The man made her nervous; he asked things of her she wasn’t ready for.

He climbed up onto the driver’s bench and looked at her expectantly. She didn’t want to sit next to him, even with Ruthie between them. Maybe it was the way he smelled.

But you like his smell. Admit it. Mathias never smelled like anything except, well, hair oil and strong spirits. Imagine, dousing oneself with hair oil on an emigrant train. There were some things about Mathias she had never understood.

One by one the wagons rolled into a long, ragged line, and the day’s journey began. Mary Grace and Tess walked on the side of the wagon opposite Jenna, occasionally stopping to pick wildflowers or collect buffalo chips in their aprons.

The route skirted the south fork of the Platte River. Lee said they would have to ford it ten miles farther on.

But after their nooning, the sky darkened and it began to rain. At first it felt refreshing. Tess and Mary Grace yanked off their poke bonnets and turned their faces up into it, but then the sky opened up and fat drops pelted down. Ten minutes later both girls were soaking wet and took shelter inside the wagon.

Lee dragged his rain poncho out of his saddlebag and sheltered Ruthie underneath it. She insisted on riding on the box with him, but Jenna gave herself up to the cleansing downpour, unbraided her thick, dark hair and let the rain wash through the dark strands. Then she shook the dust out of her skirt and held it out so the water soaked through it. If only she dared, she would strip off her dress and let the downpour cleanse her body, but when she saw Lee watching her, she gave up the idea and dropped back to the rear of the wagon.

“Tess? Mary Grace? Come on out! The water isn’t cold, and it feels wonderfully refreshing.”

Silence.

Mathias’s daughters had no sense of adventure. Well, why should they? Mathias himself had had little sense of adventure. Then why had he insisted they travel to Oregon?

“Jenna!” Lee yelled over the rumble of thunder. “Climb up here under the poncho.”

She shook her head, feeling the wind slap wet tendrils of hair across her face. “No,” she called. “I like the rain. It’s like taking a bath!”

He slowed the oxen. “There may be lightning,” he shouted. “Don’t get caught in the open.”

She nodded, then stretched out both arms and turned lazy circles in the wet. A jagged bolt of blinding white lightning cracked across the black sky, and she bolted for the wagon. Lee pulled to a stop and reached his hand down to her. She climbed up and took Ruthie on her lap, and he draped his poncho over them both.

Water sluiced off the wide brim of his hat. Jenna reached out and tugged it lower on his face, but he brushed it back with an impatient gesture. “I have to see,” he yelled. She nodded, but he didn’t turn away. Instead he stared at her for a good half minute.

Goodness, she must look a sight!

Finally he refocused his gaze on the muddy trail ahead, an odd smile playing about his mouth. Well! He’d look messy, too, if he was as wet as she was.

An hour passed, then another, and the oxen kept lumbering forward. Then Sam Lincoln rode up on his bay mare and signaled to Lee.

“River’s dead ahead,” he shouted. “Hurry it up. With this much rain there might be a flash flood.”

“Can’t,” Lee yelled back. “Oxen can only go so fast.”

Sam frowned and rode off toward the Zaberskie wagon.

When the wagons drew up along the riverbank, Lee heaved out a long sigh. “Flooding” was an understatement. Muddy brown water rushed past, swelling what had been a series of shallow rivulets and sandbars into a wide, slow-moving sea. He pulled the oxen to a halt and studied the situation until Sam reappeared.