Baby On The Oregon Trail

Slowly the circled wagons peeled off into a ragged line and amid the creak of huge oak wheels and the clank and groan of mule and ox teams, the train rolled forward. Their wagon took its designated place at the end.

Rather than ride next to Mr. Carver, Jenna set out on foot, walking an arm’s length from a downcast Mary Grace, who twitched her spare body away from her. She tried to say something, but the girl cut her off. “Just leave me alone,” she hissed.

Suddenly the girl yelped and darted forward to her father’s grave. The wagon train wheels were now rolling over the mounded earth, and Jenna could see that Mr. Carver intended to do the same.

“Stop!” Jenna screamed. He reined in and waited.

Mary Grace reached him first. “They’re driving right over Papa’s grave!” she wailed.

Mr. Carver tied the reins around the brake and jumped down to face the girl. “Miss Borland, we do that of necessity. If the grave looks fresh, wolves will get at it.”

“Wolves?” Jenna shuddered.

He went down on one knee before Mary Grace. “I know it’s hard to watch, miss, but it has to be done unless you want your father’s grave desecrated.”

“What’s des-crated?” Ruthie piped from her seat on the driver’s box.

Mr. Carver pushed his hat back and stood. “Desecrated means something spoils a grave. Digs it up, maybe. You wouldn’t want your papa to be disturbed, would you?”

Fat tears stood in Ruthie’s blue eyes. She shook her head. Lee Carver glanced over at Mary Grace. “You understand, miss?”

The girl nodded.

Lee Carver looked to Jenna. She stood close to her daughter, but he noted that the girl hitched herself away from her side. Odd.

“Mrs. Borland?” he prompted. “Would you like me to drive around the grave site? This is the last wagon, so it’ll be pretty well dusted over by now.”

She stared at him, her face so white it reminded him of the stationery he’d used to write Laurie during the War. After a long moment she gave a short nod.

“It is all right, Mr. Carver. I would not want their father’s grave disturbed by animals.”

He wondered why she put it that way, “their father’s grave.” Why was it not “my husband’s grave”? All at once he realized that the girls were not her daughters; they had been his.

He glanced up at the smallest girl. “Ruthie?”

“It’s all right, mister. Papa’s in heaven anyway.”

His heart thumped. Oh, God, what had he done? He’d shot a horse thief, but the man had been a father. A husband. No horse was worth that, not even his black Arabian.

What the hell had the man intended to do with his horse? Where was he heading? And why?

He clenched his jaw, then climbed back up onto the box and picked up the reins. No matter what he did to make amends, Jenna Borland would get rid of him the first chance she got.

Chapter Three

Tess spoke not a single word to anyone all morning, and when the sun burned high over their heads, she refused to offer Mr. Carver even a tin cup of water.

Ruthie’s nose and cheeks got sunburned, despite her floppy calico sunbonnet, and halfway through the long morning her tired little body had tipped sideways against the upright frame of Mr. Carver. To keep her from toppling off the bench, he curled his arm around her and went on driving the oxen, the reins looped over his long-fingered hands.

Jenna pressed her lips together and brought him a cup of water from the water barrel lashed to the wagon.

By the time the train stopped for their nooning, Jenna was half-sick from the heat and dust. She had walked beside the rank-smelling oxen for hours after Mary Grace had given up and crawled into the wagon bed, and when the train pulled into a shady grove of ash trees, every muscle in her legs was trembling.

She rested for an hour in the cool shade, letting the breeze dry out her sweat-sticky cotton dress and soothe her overheated body. Then she packed away the lunch makings and when the train was ready to pull out again, she resumed her position beside the wagon. She stiffened when she saw Mr. Carver approaching.

“Mrs. Borland, if you think you could drive the oxen, I’ll walk. I can keep one hand on Sunflower’s yoke just to make sure she—”

“No,” Jenna interrupted. “I don’t like those two animals. Horses, too, if you must know. I would rather you drive the wagon.”

“Wouldn’t you rather rest inside the wagon instead of walking, ma’am?”

“Again, no thank you. The girls will be inside and they... Besides, it’s stifling in there. I don’t know how they can bear it.”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t even ask, if I were you. Mary Grace and Tess, isn’t it? The older one would rather bake like a biscuit than look at me.”

Jenna blew out a weary sigh. “I’m sure part of it is because of their father, but the rest is because... Well, I don’t pretend to understand them.”

He regarded her with a flicker of emotion in his eyes. “Could be they resent having a stepmother.”

“When Mathias was alive, the girls tolerated me, up to a point. Now that he’s gone, they can’t bear to be near me. Except for Ruthie, that is.”

Why was she telling him this? She’d never confessed to anyone how Mathias’s daughters treated her, not even to Emma Lincoln. Perhaps the midday heat was softening her brain.

“I’d think not being their mother would be difficult.”

“Are you married, Mr. Carver?” Too late she realized how rude the question sounded. If he had a wife, surely she would be traveling west with him.

A veil dropped over his gray eyes. “I was married once,” he said, his voice quiet. He said nothing more, and Jenna knew she couldn’t ask. But she did wonder about him.

Near sundown, a shouted command from Sam brought the wagons into a wide circle, and men began unhitching their tired animals and leading them into the grassy area in the center to feed. Forage was lush, and there was plenty of water from a tumbling creek. The mules and oxen gulped greedily. Jenna longed to splash some over her face and arms, but first she had to make supper.

A grumbling Tess lugged two brimming buckets of water and plunked them at Jenna’s feet so hard they slopped over onto her leather shoes. Biting her tongue, Jenna stepped around the lanky girl and enlisted Mary Grace to help her drag three flat rocks together to make a crude fireplace. She sent Tess and Ruthie for kindling and firewood—buffalo chips, if they couldn’t find any downed tree branches.

When the fire was crackling, Jenna settled the iron kettle on the rocks and began slicing up potatoes and wild onions and dried venison. For seasoning she added a generous dash of salt and the last of the dried rosemary. Then she mixed up plain flour and water biscuits and patted circles of dough onto the hot rocks to brown while the stew bubbled. The smell was mouthwatering.

She kept a wary eye on the black stallion, still roped to the wagon, and wondered why Mr. Carver didn’t release him to graze with the other animals. She found out when he strode into camp, scooped out a double handful of oats from a burlap bag tied to his saddle and offered it to the horse in his cupped hands. He talked to the animal in low tones while it ate.

Jenna shook her head. Mercy, he treats that animal like it was almost human!

Men. Back in Roseville, Mathias had once adopted a mongrel dog. He’d fussed over it plenty, but he’d never hand-fed the mutt. Jenna had hated it because it nipped at Ruthie’s bare toes. When they joined the emigrant train, Mathias had left the dog behind to fend for itself. Even Jenna had wept.

“Mary Grace, would you please tell Mr. Carver supper is ready?”

“I’d rather let him starve,” the girl announced. Her hazel eyes flashed with anger.

Jenna dropped the iron ladle into the stew and spun to face her middle stepdaughter. “I can understand how you feel, Mary Grace, but the man has driven our wagon all day in the hot sun while you and your sister lazed inside. It would not be kind to refuse him food. He has certainly earned it.”

“You tell him, then!”

“I am busy with supper.” She worked to keep the annoyance out of her tone, but from the rebellious look on the girl’s round face she knew she hadn’t been successful. She laid her free hand on Mary Grace’s plump shoulder, but she jerked away.

“I know you do not like Mr. Carver, Mary Grace, but do as I ask. Now,” she added. “Unless you don’t wish to eat supper.” She leveled the threat calmly, but she’d had enough. Putting up with hateful treatment took energy, and her strength was just about depleted.

Mary Grace threw her a dark look and stomped off to where Mr. Carver stood brushing the stallion’s hide.

“Why do we have to be nice to him?” Tess demanded from behind her.

“Because.” Jenna sighed. “Feeding your enemies is the Christian thing to do.”

“Huh!” Tess clattered the tin plates and cups onto an upturned apple crate. “I hope he chokes on it.”

“Hush, now. Here he comes.”

Ruthie danced up from washing up in the creek, her face and hands still dripping. “We’re having ven’son stew, mister.” She blotted her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her dress.

“Smells good,” Mr. Carver said. “I’ve been eating hardtack for so long I forgot how good real food smells.”

“What’s hardtack?” Ruthie asked.

“Kind of a thick dry cracker.”

“What’s it taste like? Is it good?”

“Not too good. It tastes a little like sawdust, I guess. Mostly you just roll it around in your mouth until it softens up, then you swallow it quick.”

Jenna ladled the thick stew onto the plates. “Pass the biscuits around, please, Tess.” She tipped her head toward Mr. Carver.

To Jenna’s embarrassment, Tess pointedly bypassed him and instead scooped biscuits from the crockery bowl onto her sisters’ plates.

“Tess.” Jenna kept her voice calm but inside she was seething. “If you would honor your father’s memory, you will behave as he would want you to. And now, because he is gone, you will behave as I want you to.”

Mr. Carver solved the problem by standing up and reaching a long tanned arm for the bowl. Then he settled back on the ground, dropped the biscuit into his stew and mashed it up with his spoon. Jenna hid a grin. Tess’s rudeness didn’t seem to matter one whit.

She set a bucket of water onto the coals to heat for washing dishes and ate her supper in silence. When she had downed her last bite, she licked the spoon, laid it on the tin plate and handed it to Mary Grace.

“Would you rather wash the dishes tonight or roll out the bedding in the wagon?”

“Dishes,” she said with a grimace. “Let Tess make up the beds.”

Jenna nodded. Tired as she was, she tried to smile at the girl. “Ruthie, your cheeks are sunburned. I’ll put some ointment on before bedtime.”

“Where’s Mister gonna sleep, Jenna?”

Ruthie’s question stopped her cold on the way to the wagon for the medicine kit. Yes, where would he sleep? Up until tonight, she and Mathias had slept together under the wagon, but now what?

Out of the corner of her eye she caught Mr. Carver studying her. Would he sleep in their camp? Under the wagon, where she slept? Absolutely not. She must speak to the wagon master right away.

“Girls, I’m going over to talk to Sam Lincoln.” She pressed the bottle of ointment into Ruthie’s small hand and untied her apron.

“Can I come with you?” Ruthie begged. “Missus Emma gives me cookies.”

“Not this time, honey. I have some...business to discuss with Mr. Lincoln. You stay in camp and help Tess make up the beds.”

Mr. Carver rose and stood looking at her, his hands on his slim, jean-clad hips. The back of her neck grew hot, so she turned away from him and marched out of camp.

“Mister?” Ruthie gazed up at Lee with a question in her sky-colored gaze. “How come nobody likes you?”

Son of a gun. Even a child sensed the resentment against him. It wasn’t just the Borland family; everyone in the entire emigrant train had avoided him since the day he joined them at Fort Kearney. The thick hatred in the air because of his Confederate service followed him everywhere, and now, after killing Mathias Borland for stealing his horse, the heavy fog of dislike felt suffocating.

He knelt down to Ruthie’s level. “There’s lots of reasons they don’t like me, I guess. For one, I’m a Southerner. A Confederate.”

“What’s a ’Federate? Is it bad?”

Lee exhaled and thought how best to answer her. “A Confederate is someone who thought it was worth a fight to keep their way of life. I’m from Virginia, and that’s a Confederate state. Or it was, anyway.”

“Did you fight?”

“Yes, I did.” He’d fought alongside Bobby Lee, not because he thought slavery was right, but because he loved the South and his heritage. General Lee had felt the same.

“Did you win?”

“Nobody wins in a war, Ruthie. It’s a bloody, senseless way to solve a disagreement. The North won. That’s your side. But soldiers I commanded probably killed some of their kin, and that’s why nobody on this train likes me much.”

“Did you ask ’em to kill those people?”

Lee shut his eyes briefly. “Yes, I did. That’s what soldiers do, and I was a soldier. Was your daddy a soldier?”

“Nope. Papa didn’t like fighting. He was a...” Her voice faltered. “A...”

“A Quaker, maybe?”

“Nope. Tess says he didn’t want to go off to war an’ leave us.”

Lee sensed there was more to it than that. There was something odd about this family, and he sensed it was more than just the loss of their father. The girls resented Jenna, that much was clear. Maybe because she was going to bear a child? Or maybe because Jenna had replaced the girls’ real mother.

What little he’d seen of Mathias Borland made him wonder why Jenna had married the man. What was she, twenty-three? Twenty-four? She was too pretty not to have had other offers, plenty of them. Why would she choose a blustering loudmouth like Borland? Unless she was pregnant and he had been her only option.

Ruthie held up a dark bottle of something. “Would you put this on my face? It’s stuff Jenna made to help my sunburn.”

“Wouldn’t you rather wait for Jenna? Or maybe get one of your sisters to do it?”

“Nope. Mary Grace pinches, and Tess pulls my hair.”

Lee accepted the bottle and peered at the hand-lettered label. Aloe ointment. He uncorked it, took a sniff and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like turpentine.” He tipped it over and let the thick liquid ooze out onto his forefinger.

“What’s turp’tine?”

“Smelly stuff. Turpentine is what they use to clean things that are oily.”

Ruthie tipped her face back and closed her eyes. “I’m ready for the bad smell, mister. Do it now.”

He had to laugh. His sister, Serena, had gotten sunburned once. Hattie had doctored her with baking soda, and that night she had sneaked into his room and asked him to wash it off because it smelled funny.

He tilted Ruthie’s chin up with one finger and smeared a thin film of the ointment over her nose and cheeks.

“What’s your real name, mister?”

“My name is Robert E. Lee Carver. Why don’t you call me Lee? It’s shorter than ‘mister.’”

Being named after General Lee was probably one more reason why people on the train disliked him. Long before he became a general, Bobby Lee had been a close friend of his father’s.

He recorked the medicine bottle and stood up. “Show me where Jenna keeps this and I’ll put it away.”

“In the med’cine box. Inside the wagon.”

Lee frowned. “Then you’d better do it. Your sisters don’t like me being anywhere near your wagon.”

“What’s your horse’s name? Is it a boy horse or a girl horse?”

“His name is Devil. He’s a boy horse. They’re called stallions.”

“He’s real pretty.”

He watched the girl clamber up into the wagon and disappear through the bonnet, then started off to check on Sue and Sunflower grazing in the roped-off infield.

The instant he was out of sight, Ruthie emerged, climbed down onto the ground and headed straight for the big black horse tied up at the corner of the wagon.

* * *

“Why, Jenna,” Emma Lincoln exclaimed. “How are you doing?” She gestured at the fire pit behind her, where a blue speckleware coffeepot steamed. “Do sit and have some coffee with us.”

“No, thank you, Emma. That is kind of you, but I have come to speak with Sam.”

The large, graying man rose from his seat by the campfire and came toward her. “How’s your driver working out?”

“I—Well, that’s just it, Sam. I came to ask you—”

“I bet I can guess. The girls don’t like him.”

“Well, no, they don’t. Except for Ruthie, and she loves everyone. But—”

“And you don’t like him.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Is he rude? Or mean to the girls or you?”

“Well, no.”

“Talk too much? Spit tobacco juice? Smoke too many cigarettes? Drink spirits?”

“N-no. It’s that he—”

“Shot your husband.”

Jenna nodded. “It is difficult to be around him. The girls hate him, and I...well, I don’t hate him, exactly. But, well, he did kill Mathias.”

Sam Lincoln pressed her down onto his vacated seat and squatted in front of her. “You’re right, he did kill Mathias. Mathias was stealing his horse. Now, let me say something on Carver’s behalf.”

Jenna twisted her head away. She didn’t want to hear anything Sam had to say; she just wanted Lee Carver off her wagon and as far away from her as he could get.

“Carver’s a good man. Stepped right up and asked to make it right with you and yours by driving your wagon on to Oregon. He didn’t have to do that. Nobody holds Carver to account for shooting Mathias. It’s the risk any horse thief takes.”

“But I can’t abide...”

“You don’t have to like him, Jenna. Fact is, nobody on this train likes him much. He’s a Virginian and a Johnny Reb, a Confederate major.”

Jenna stared into the fire. “He’s the only Confederate soldier on the train. And that horse of his! Did you know he hand-feeds the animal? With oats that I could use to make mush.”

“That horse is pure Arabian, worth about a thousand dollars. Carver plans to breed horses for the army. The Union army,” he added. “Ever since the surrender, Carver’s been with our army, fighting the Sioux.”

“Oh.”

Sam laid a gentle hand on her hunched shoulder. “Anything else botherin’ you?”

“Sam, is there no one else who would volunteer to drive our wagon?”

Sam shook his head. “I trust Lee Carver. Might be a Reb, but like I say, he’s a good man. There’s some on this train that aren’t so good. Some I wouldn’t trust around you and three young girls. You take my meaning?”

Jenna nodded. Once again she felt helpless, caught at the mercy of a man she didn’t know but had to accept.

“You have any trouble, Jenna, you come to me, agreed?”

She bit her lip. Emma stood near the fire, pouring coffee into a ceramic mug. The older woman looked inquiringly at her. It did smell rich and enticing, but Jenna shook her head. She had duties back at her own camp.

Jenna knew that Lee Carver had been a Confederate soldier, as Emma had said. Well, she didn’t admire him for that. The South favored slavery, and her father had died opposing it. Besides, she just plain didn’t like the man.

She should have asked Sam how far they were from Oregon, how long she would have to put up with Lee Carver. Months, probably. Oh, Mathias, I wish...

No, she acknowledged, she did not wish him back. Not even with the baby coming. The man she had married in such desperate haste back in Roseville had turned out to be no bargain. But now she was stuck traveling in that tiny, cramped wagon with all their earthly goods crammed in among sacks of flour and sides of bacon with the man who...

She folded her hands over the slight swell of her belly and stared at the thick grass under her feet. It was difficult before; it would be intolerable with Mr. Carver. Perhaps...

She raised her head and rounded the corner of the wagon just in time to see Ruthie bounce up beside that huge black stallion and reach out to pat its side. Then she stepped backward, toward the animal’s hind legs.

With a gasp Jenna started forward, and in that same instant she heard a shout.

“Ruthie!” Out of nowhere Lee Carver appeared, running hard. He snatched the girl up into his arms and barreled straight into Jenna, who was racing from the opposite direction.

Chapter Four

Lee managed to keep his body underneath Ruthie as he fell, but he knocked Jenna sideways and felt his elbow connect with her cheek. He lay still, catching his breath, while Ruthie clung to his chest, her small head just under his chin.

“Ruthie?” he rasped. “Ruthie, are you all right?”

Her head moved in a nod, and her small voice answered. “I wanted to pet the horse.”

Jenna picked herself up off the ground and flew at him, batting his hands away from Ruthie. “You fool!” she screamed. “She might have been killed!”

A red mark bloomed on her cheek where his elbow had clipped her. He sat up slowly, feeling a muscle pull in his shoulder. “It’s my fault,” he shouted. “I’m sorry. I’m thankful Devil didn’t kick her.”

“That horse is dangerous! I don’t want it anywhere near our wagon.”

Lee got to his knees before realizing he must have hit his head on the wagon wheel when he went down. He was so dizzy he felt like vomiting. He rocked back onto his heels and put his head between his knees while Jenna paced around him like a stalking cougar.

“Get rid of that animal,” she ordered. “Now. Tonight.”

He shook his head to clear it and she gave a little screech. “Did you hear me? I said—”

“I heard you. Stop yelling for a minute and listen.”

“Listen! What can you possibly say that will...” Her voice was unsteady. Oh, hell, she was going to cry. He tensed, waiting for the tears.

But she surprised him. She spent the next five minutes calling him names and maligning his horse, and he let her get it all out of her system. But no tears. She was tougher than she looked.

When she began to run down, he got to his feet and stuck his face in front of hers. “You finished?”

She stared at him in mutinous silence. She had eyes that were an odd shade of green, like moss. And her mouth, when she shut it, looked soft and as rosy as ripe raspberries. He hadn’t been this close to a pretty woman in over a year, and funny things were happening in his belly.

“That horse,” he said quietly, “stays where I can see him, and that means he goes where I go. He stays tied up to the wagon until we get to Oregon.”

“I won’t allow it.”

“If you want me to drive your wagon, you don’t have a choice. I’ll talk to your daughters about staying safe around him.”

She glared at him. Ruthie sidled toward him, and then he became aware of two wide-eyed faces peeking out from the back of the wagon.

“Come on down, you two,” he ordered. “I need to talk to you.” While they climbed down, he knelt before Ruthie.

“Honey, listen. A horse doesn’t understand little girls. When you get close to his hind legs, he thinks you’re going to hurt him and he’ll kick you.”

Ruthie nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him. Tess and Mary Grace moved to stand on either side of their sister. He noted that they gave Jenna a wide berth.

“Now,” he continued with a glance to include the older girls, “if you want to pet a horse, you first look him in the eye and talk to him. Keep your voice low and don’t make any sudden moves. Then you can lay your hand on his neck. But you don’t do any of this unless I’m around.”

“What do you say to him?” Ruthie whispered.

Tess gave an unladylike snort. “You say ‘how do you do,’ I suppose. The whole idea is preposterous.”

“No, it’s not ’posterous,” Ruthie protested. “I want to know.”

Tess sniffed. “That just shows how stupid you are.”

“She’s not stupid,” Mary Grace interjected. “She’s...well, she’s not stupid.”