by Caroline Lee
Swallowing past a suddenly dry throat, Tess forced herself to keep her gait steady and calm, when all she really wanted to do was clutch her baby and run. But her act must have worked, because the men didn’t say anything else about her.
She turned eastward as soon as she couldn’t hear the men’s laughter anymore, and gave the cattle a wide berth. Last thing she needed was to accidently step on something important and start up a commotion… or stampede. Once away from the fire she kept the vague glow of sunset at her back until the stars were clear enough to guide her. Baba used to take her away from the city to show her the pictures the stars made, and she knew how to find the one in the north that didn’t move. She used to love the stories of Zhuque, the Vermilion bird of the South and Baihu, the White Tiger of the West, and occupied her mind by telling them to Jacob as he fell asleep against her chest. Once he was sleeping, though, she didn’t have anything to distract her from the desperate situation she’d somehow landed in. Tess wrapped her arms around his bottom for better support, kept the North Star on her left shoulder, and walked.
And walked…and walked.
She was strong and there was enough moonlight for her to see where she was going. Still, she managed to stumble on hidden hollows and burrows several times, despite the way the plains seemed to stretch out before her. Soon enough, the small of her back started to ache from carrying Jacob in front of her, and she regretted not slinging him across her back. She took more and more of his weight on her arms instead, and soon was exhausted. Her feet, even in their sturdy boots, began to ache, and then burn, and then faded to a dull ache once more.
She walked for hours, surely long enough for Willis and the others to have noticed her missing. What did they do when they realized she wasn’t coming back? Were they riding after her right now? She’d surely left a clear trail, but there was nothing she could do about that. She somehow forced herself to walk faster.
It was probably only an hour before dawn when she stepped in a hole—an animal’s den, probably—and fell. She just couldn’t make herself get up again. Clutching Jacob to her, she slept, utterly spent.
The two-year-old started to squirm after dawn, and she untangled him from the sling just in time to help him unbutton his trousers. He was hungry, of course, but so was she; they each ate and drank a little before she sat him in the sling across her back—her shoulders and hips would carry most of his weight, rather than her aching back—and they set off again towards the rising sun. Tess hadn’t had enough sleep, but she couldn’t stop. The Laramie River was somewhere over there, and they had to reach it.
And so she walked, and walked.
Jacob wanted to get down to walk too, and when she wouldn’t let him—she couldn’t afford the delay—he threw a fit that lasted most of the morning. He didn’t understand the danger they were in, and she didn’t want to try to explain. She worried that his screams would travel back the way they came, and point Willis in their direction, but she couldn’t make him hush. The only time she let him down was to eat or relieve himself, and he eventually tired himself out. She joined him for a brief nap when the sun was high in the sky, but he was awake before she felt refreshed. It was a bad idea to keep sleeping after he woke; Lord knows what kind of trouble an unsupervised, curious two-year-old could get into. She fed him again and set off.
Tess was hungry, but couldn’t afford to eat much. The stolen food would have to last them both until they reached Fort Laramie, and she estimated at least another day of walking. Would she be able to last that long? She would have to. More than the constant pain in her feet and legs, it was the heat that bothered her. She’d been born in temperate San Francisco, and spent the last years in Montana Territory. The heat of a Wyoming August was fierce. Her mother’s scarf helped tie her hair out of her face, but nothing could be done about the way her shirt stuck to her skin or the cotton skirt seemed to tangle around her knees. She was losing too much liquid from sweat, and had to rely on finding streams to refill her canteen. Soon, she occupied her mind with prayers to find water.
That journey was the most grueling ordeal she had ever encountered, and it was made worse by Jacob. She was constantly terrified for him, and what would happen to him if she stopped and Willis and the other cowboys caught up. Or if she failed, collapsed and died out here, dooming him as well. His safety—his survival, now—relied on her decisions, and that was frightening. And he was just too young to understand why he couldn’t run around, or why he couldn’t eat more.
They walked most of the second night, too, and into the next day. The hours blurred together into a haze of dull terror and pain. The way Jacob’s eyes started to grow listless terrified her, and she let him drink the rest of their water. She walked and walked, always eastward, seeing nothing but grass.
On the second evening, Jacob fell asleep early, and she allowed herself to sink gratefully into a doze. But it was just a nap for him, and the moon wasn’t up too far in the sky before he woke, propelling her mechanically to her feet once more. They walked through the night.
Her son chattered himself to sleep again sometime well after midnight, but she forced herself to keep walking. She felt like a monster from one of Baba’s stories; cursed to follow a command—walk east!—like a clockwork person. All she wanted to do was drink, sleep, and eat… in that order.
Thank goodness dawn had come by the time she stumbled on the riverbank; otherwise she surely would have tumbled in and drowned in the sluggish flow. As it was, it took all of her energy to refill the canteen, drink greedily, and refill again. One need sated, at least, she loosened Jacob in the sling, and lay down beside him, using the material to shade them both from the sun.
Right before she fell asleep, she prayed that they’d found the Laramie River. Because she couldn’t take any more of this.
Don’t worry! You can read how Cam rides to Tess’s rescue in A Cheyenne Thanksgiving, available now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caroline Lee is what George R.R. Martin once described as a "gardener author"; she delights in creating interesting and lovable characters, and allowing them to lead their own stories. Often they draw the story along to completely unexpected--and wonderful!--places. She considers a story a success if she can re-read it and sigh dreamily... and she wishes the same for you.
A love of historical romance prompted Caroline to pursue her degrees in social history; her Master's Degree is in Comparative World History, which is the study of themes across history (for instance, 'domestication of animals throughout the world,' or 'childhood through history'). Her theme? You guessed it: Marriage throughout world history. Her favorite focus was periods of history that brought two disparate peoples together to marry, like marriage in the Levant during the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or marriage between convicts in colonial New South Wales. She hopes that she's able to bring this love of history-- and this history of love-- to her novellas.
Caroline is living her own little Happily Ever After with her husband and sons in Virginia.
Other works by Caroline Lee
The Sweet Cheyenne Quartet
A Cheyenne Christmas
A Cheyenne Celebration
A Cheyenne Thanksgiving
A Cheyenne Christmas Homecoming
Where They Belong: A Sweet Cheyenne Christmas Novella
The Mothers of Sweet Cheyenne: A short story collection
Everland Ever After
Little Red (Rojita + Hank)
Ella (Ella + Ian)
Beauty (Arabella + Vincenzo)
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