“That would be fine.”
Surely he wasn’t going to stand there and watch her! She couldn’t make herself stop rattling the dishes until he walked off into the distance.
Mrs. Helton told me how to make skillet biscuits, saying that would be easiest, but she went through the directions fast, assuming I had some basic knowledge of cooking. I was too embarrassed to admit otherwise.
Soon Charlie and Jacob were at the fire. Abigail handed Jacob the milk bucket.
“How much?” he asked.
“As much as you can get.” Abigail smoothed his unruly hair.
Jacob retousled it and set off swinging the milk bucket.
“I’ll feed and water the teams,” said Charlie. She was pleased to see that Charlie had combed his hair.
Jacob soon ran back, sloshing the milk. “I’m helping Charlie with the mules!”
“Slow down, Jacob,” she hissed, but he was already out of earshot.
Abigail tried to ease the milk into the flour and lard like Mimi always did, but the dough stuck to her hands. Wiping them off as best she could, she pulled out a wire rack to place over the fire for the skillet to set on. How was she going to manage this without burning herself every morning?
Smoke blew in her eyes. Hoke was back with a small table for her to work on.
“Are those biscuits?” he asked.
“I hope so.” Abigail wanted to show appreciation for his help but hesitated to offer him any, fearing her biscuits wouldn’t turn out. “Should I make extra for you and Mr. Parker?”
“That would be nice. I’ll send James with some bacon.”
The sky lightened and roosters, so close Abigail jumped at the sound of them, began to crow. Someone came toward the fire chuckling. “Those roosters belong to the Schroeder clan yonder,” the person said, pointing. “They’ve fastened chicken wire to the sides of their wagons and made floatin’ henhouses.”
It was the tall, bearded man she’d seen with Hoke last night.
“My God, you’re pretty. I don’t believe we’ve met. James Parker.” He stuck out his hand, then drew it back when he saw hers were tacky with the dough. “Hoke has sent me over with bacon and coffee.” He held up a small black pot and a grinder.
Abigail looked up. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Parker.”
She went back to her work, expecting him to leave. But he didn’t. When she looked back up, he was grinning.
“Why don’t I grind the coffee and slice this up?” he offered. “You know, if we fry the bacon in that pan first, those biscuits might not stick as bad. Pan looks new. Fryin’ a pan full of bacon grease will help it cure.”
She looked down at the pan. “Oh, yes. Good idea. Thank you, Mr. Parker.”
Abigail picked her sticky biscuits back out of the pan and handed it to him. “I don’t have much experience cooking.”
“Well, I got lots. What do you say we do it together?”
She offered him a grateful smile.
“You know, I been tryin’ not to smile at the dough on your cheek.”
“Oh!” Abigail reached up and felt one of her cheeks.
James Parker was grinning down at her over his thick beard again. Then his voice dropped and his eyes got serious. “If you won’t think I’m pryin’, who did your cookin’ before now?”
Abigail appreciated the man’s ability to put others at ease, but she didn’t know him well enough to trust him with much information. She also didn’t trust herself to talk about Mimi without setting her heart to aching. “I had a woman who helped me. She went back to her sister, who was sick.”
Hoke was rubbing down the legs of the stallion, getting him ready to saddle, when James walked up.
“You’ll be glad to know I’ve got the bacon frying, the coffee ground, and the water boiling.”
Hoke didn’t answer.
“You keep rubbing that horse’s legs, you’ll wear the hide off.”
“Hast thou given thy horse strength, James? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?”
“I know that comes from the Bible you tote around in your saddlebags with all that ‘thou’ language in it. Now that I’ve met me a proper preacher, I mean to ask Harry Sims if he knows where that horse bit comes from. But I ain’t as dumb as a rock. I been over to deliver coffee, and now that I’ve seen that woman up close, I think I got an idee why you were suddenly so keen to go on this trip.”
Hoke didn’t bother looking at him. He kept working on the stallion.
“I ain’t as smart as you, but I ain’t as dumb as a rock,” James repeated.
Hoke still didn’t comment.
When James finally started to walk off, Hoke called after him, “We got enough extra wood to make the Baldwyns some steps on the back of their wagons? It’s going to be hard for those girls to climb in and out with dresses on.”
“Yeah, we got enough.”
“Good. Plan to help me with that when we stop this afternoon. And I’m studyin’ on how to make a grub box for those dishes so Mrs. Baldwyn doesn’t have to reach up for that crate every day.”
James shook his head. “You can think of more jobs than any man I ever met.”
Abigail’s back ached.
Driving a team isn’t hard, Mimi, not with how slow everyone is to get in formation, but four hours of sitting makes a wagon seat feel like a slab of moving rock.
James Parker was driving his and Hoke’s wagon. All morning Hoke had been on his horse, then off his horse, as he worked his way down the line of Company C helping people get adjusted to moving in a wagon train.
“You’re doing fine. Let ’em know you’re the boss. They’ll get the hang of things. Fall in behind that one, there,” Abigail heard him say to Charlie, then to her, then the Austelles, Doc Isaacs, Tam Woodford, and so forth.
Marc Isaacs waved to her from three wagons back.
“Who is that man?” asked Lina, standing in the wagon bed behind her.
“Dr. Isaacs. He has a nephew close to your age.”
Abigail’s back ached from spending a restless first night on a lumpy makeshift mattress, sitting on the hard wooden bench, turning so often to check on Lina and Corrine, and feeling so keyed up about the journey. Or maybe Hoke had been right about her getting a sore back from pulling the heavy dish crate down at breakfast.
When Colonel Dotson stopped the train at midday, she eased off the seat and reached up for Lina, feeling soreness down to every bone. As she unwrapped lunches she’d prepared for the children, Hoke came by with a bucket of water and swabbed the mules’ mouths and noses.
“Aren’t you going to stop and eat?” she asked.
“I will directly.”
Charlie ran to help him.
All too soon, it seemed to Abigail, Colonel Dotson was back on his big red horse motioning for each company to roll out again.
When the train stopped to make camp that evening, Hoke and James nailed steps to the Baldwyns’ wagons. Corrine walked by and asked, “Why are you doing that? We don’t need those.”
“Sure you do,” said Hoke. “It’ll help you get in and out easier.”
“I can get in and out just fine.”
“What about your little sister?”
“She’s got plenty of people to help her in and out.”
“You got something against people making your life easier, Corrine?” asked Hoke.
When the girl twisted her brow she looked just like her mother.
“No, sir.”
“Then quit acting like you don’t want to be helped.” He stuck a nail between his lips and held another step in place.
Corrine raised her chin and walked off.
James watched her go. “You don’t see many girls that pretty with such a healthy dose of sass. Now me, I favor a sassy woman, where some men take it as a contradiction to their pride.”
“She’s just hurt is all,” mumbled Hoke.
“Hurt from what?”
“Hurt about bein’ left, I ’spect.”
“W
ho left her?”
“Her father.”
James looked from Hoke to Corrine’s retreating back. “What do you know about it?”
“I just know the signs.”
Later, when Hoke took the tools back to his wagon, he noticed Abigail Baldwyn sitting on a sawhorse. Her boots were peeled off and she was squeezing a rag she’d pulled from a bucket, rivulets of water spilling out as she bathed her feet. He put the tools away slowly, stealing glances to see how long she’d sit there.
She hadn’t complained all day.
He could tell her back hurt when she got off her wagon at midday, but she never said a word about it. And she’d raised those kids well. Charlie had helped swab the mules’ noses without being asked, and he’d been quick to unhitch the teams at the end of the day and rub their coats with a handful of hay, same as Hoke did.
Hoke wondered what she was thinking and whether she would come to regret her decision to make this trip. It wouldn’t be easy . . . but maybe she was up to it.
After washing her feet, Abigail climbed up on the sawhorse with the bucket still in her hand, her toes curling around the wood, and poured what was left of the water into her box garden.
Hoke shook his head. She didn’t need to be standing on the sawhorse that way; she could turn her ankle.
Damn woman.
CHAPTER 9
Covered in dirt stains
April 14, 1866
Each morning fires flare up in clusters, Mimi. As the smells of coffee, bacon, and pan biscuits fill the early dawn, roosters from the Schroeders’ henhouses crow before the first rays of light. Everyone scrambles from sleep. We splash water on faces, eat a quick breakfast, water the livestock, hitch the teams—the mules often kicking—tie up bedrolls, wrap extra biscuits to make the lunch stop quicker, wash out pans, snuff out the fires, and jump in our seats for the roll out.
Abigail’s skirts caught fire.
If Hoke hadn’t walked up with fresh firewood at that moment, dumped it on the ground, and taken his hat off to swat the fire out, she might have gone up in flames.
Her face flushed with embarrassment for appearing so inept.
“Thank you.”
Irene McConnelly had just been over to speak to her. “Why, Mrs. Baldwyn, how many fancy clothes did you bring on this trip?” Abigail had been bent down, laying a pan of bacon on the fire, and when she looked up, Irene smiled and added lightly, “I just came over to see if your wagon was stuffed full of them.”
Abigail straightened then and held out her hand. “I haven’t formally met you yet, Miss McConnelly. Abigail Baldwyn.”
Irene waved Abigail’s hand away. “Oh, please, attend to your food and don’t mind me. I just came over to stir the pot.”
Abigail looked at her a minute before stooping down to turn the bacon. A moment later, Hoke walked up, dumped the firewood, and swatted out the fire in her skirts. When Abigail looked toward Irene, now several wagons over, the woman’s shoulders appeared to be shaking in laughter.
Had Irene raked Abigail’s skirts in the fire? Or was she just taking pleasure in Abigail’s own blunder?
Feeling the sear of Hoke’s eyes on her, Abigail looked up.
“You might ought to rake those back when you’re working by the fire.” He pointed at her smoking hemline. “You got the sweepingest skirts I ever saw.”
Abigail scowled and inspected the hem. “I thought I was. Maybe I’ll take my skirts up. Most of my hems are getting covered in dirt stains anyway.”
Her heart was covered in dirt stains, too. Could Hoke see those? He missed little else.
She expected him to leave—after all, the man was never still—but he lingered.
“Who was that man at the creek last night?” he asked.
Abigail’s eyes shot up. “What man?”
“There was a man talking to you. When you went to get water. You seem a little distracted this morning. Did he upset you?”
Abigail shook her head. Yes, the man had upset her. But she didn’t want Hoke to know it. She looked down, not trusting her eyes to hold up under his constant inspection. “He was looking for somebody. It wasn’t one of our group.”
“Who was he looking for?”
“Somebody that killed his brother. From Arkansas.”
Hoke’s voice dropped low. “What details did he give?”
“None, really, except that he felt his brother had been killed unfairly. He left before I could ask him much about it.”
Abigail reached for the pan that held the biscuits. When she turned back around Hoke was gone. Surprise . . . then relief swept over her. She needed time alone to think. Irene’s snide behavior was the least of her worries now.
Yesterday afternoon Abigail had wanted water for her plants. Charlie and Jacob were busy watching Hoke and James reshoe one of their oxen, so Abigail grabbed the bucket herself and walked to the nearby creek.
Just as the hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she got the feeling of being watched again, a man had stepped from the trees.
“How-do, ma’am.”
They were only four days’ travel from Independence. People who weren’t part of their group had come by the train continually, peddling wares, asking questions, and offering reports of what to expect along the route. Abigail hadn’t seen this man before, but he looked harmless enough with his homespun clothes stretched tight over a soft belly, and boots that both had holes in the toes.
She assumed he was selling something. So it surprised her when he asked, “Are you Robert Baldwyn’s wife?”
How did he know who she was?
“I am.”
The man removed his tattered hat and looked down at his feet. “I heard in town you were travelin’ to meet him. I thought you should know I’m lookin’ for him, too.”
Before she could ask why, the man added, “And I aim to kill him when I find him.”
A trickle of fear slid down Abigail’s throat. She tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry.
The wagons were pulled into the double circle Dotson had them form each evening for protection. Abigail looked back to the camp to see if anyone else had noticed her talking to the man—and to judge the distance in case she needed to gather her skirts and run.
The man held his arms up. “I don’t aim to harm you, ma’am. I ain’t a bad man. But your husband killed my brother and I can’t let that go.”
It didn’t match up. The man’s words were threatening, but nothing about his physical appearance frightened her. He seemed timid. And he wasn’t even carrying a weapon that she could see.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He could hardly look her in the eye. “Cecil Ryman. You ask anybody . . . they’ll tell you. I ain’t a bad man. My brother’s name was Dan—Dan Ryman, from Arkansas.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “This is the article the paper wrote. They don’t name your husband as his killer, but I know a man says he was the one who cut him—cut him with a fancy-handled sword and he bled out.”
Abigail shook her head, wondering if Cecil Ryman was of sound mind. “Mr. Ryman, this has to be a misunderstanding. I know my husband, and he has a strong sense of justice. He would never do the sort of thing you’ve described.”
“He may not be the man you think he is.”
Cecil Ryman’s words tumbled out so fast he was in danger of tripping over them. “Look, I’m not trying to upset you, ma’am, and I know this must seem strange, me coming out here to tell you this, but I saw you back in town and you seem like a nice lady with a nice passel o’ young’uns. I just thought you should know before you get too far down the trail. I’m sorry if it puts you in a bad spot, but I aim to kill him when I find him for what he done. I wouldn’t have rode out here to tell you if I was a bad man.”
He refolded the paper in his hands and turned to go.
“Wait!” Abigail tried to stop him. She looked back to the camp to see if anyone was watching. Should she call for someone to come help her talk sense into this m
an? But no one had noticed them as far as she could tell. “Please don’t do this, Mr. Ryman. Bring it before a court of law if you think he’s committed a crime.”
He put his tattered hat back on. “I’m sure courts and laws are coming west, ma’am, but they ain’t there yet. I swore on my brother’s grave I’d make it right, and I aim to keep my word. Don’t worry, I won’t lay for him dishonest. Maybe I was wrong to come out here and tell you this. I don’t like killin’ no one—I hate it. And I hate it for you. Just remember . . . I ain’t a bad man.”
Cecil Ryman apparently had said all he’d intended. He stepped back through the woods, leaving Abigail with an empty water bucket and a racing heart.
That had been yesterday at sundown. She’d hardly slept all night.
If Robert had really killed this man’s brother, she didn’t want the children—or the Dotsons and Melinda and Marc Isaacs and the rest of the group—to learn about it. What would people think of them? Could Cecil Ryman be right about her husband?
Abigail had been so angry with Robert for not coming home to them. She’d thought it was her fault—for the way she’d sent him off. But what if Dan Ryman was the reason he hadn’t returned? She had expected obstacles, and she wasn’t so naïve as to think Robert might not be greatly altered, but he wasn’t supposed to be a murderer.
No . . . Abigail shook her head. She refused to believe a stranger. It just didn’t sound like the Robert Baldwyn she knew.
Should she get word to Robert? Write a letter or send a telegram to warn him? Yes. That was what she would do. Couriers came by the train nearly every day collecting mail.
She wouldn’t say anything about it to the children or anyone in Dotson’s train. She would tell Robert. He’d know how to handle the news. He’d know how to make it right. And her warning him would show him that she was his partner and his ally, not the opponent he’d seen her as on the day he left.
It was only four days ago that she had sent the letter from Independence to say they were coming. And in that letter she still hadn’t told him everything . . . she hadn’t told him she was bringing the children.
Leaving Independence Page 8