Waltz in the Wilderness

by Kathleen Denly

  He rubbed a hand down his face. Nine months was a long time for a person to remain angry. And silent. Was this a sample of how their marriage would be?

  He kicked a stone. He’d planned that returning in time to purchase a house and have their own ceremony before her sister’s wedding would smooth things over.

  That was unlikely to happen now.

  With a sigh, he tucked the worn paper into his pocket, then grabbed the bread and ate it in four large bites. He refilled the canteens before returning to the terrace.

  Eliza sat on her bedroll.

  He handed her her canteen before sitting down several feet away.

  “Is everything all right?” She tilted her head. “You were down there for a while.”

  “Just thinking.”

  They lapsed into a companionable silence, sipping from their canteens. Then he retrieved his blanket and laid it a respectable distance away from hers, yet not so far that he wouldn’t be alerted if she had any trouble in the night.

  Eliza removed her bonnet and set it beside her blanket. She lay down and wrapped herself in the rough wool with an exhausted moan. Her eyelids drifted shut.

  He checked on the horses one more time before lying down, his back to Eliza.

  Several quiet minutes passed with plants rustling in the breeze, water tumbling over rocks in the gorge below, and the occasional distant cry of a coyote piercing the night.

  “Daniel?”

  Her voice whispering his name touched a deep place within him he didn’t want to examine. He rolled to face her.

  Her eyes sparkled with the reflected light of the moon. “Thank you. I can’t imagine being out here on my own.”

  Her quiet admission caught his breath. From the moment he’d met her, she’d been bent on proving she could do everything on her own, yet she’d just as good as admitted she needed him. Thank you, Lord. What better confirmation could he ask for? He drew a long breath, filling his lungs.

  He was exactly where he belonged.

  Eliza was being shaken. There was a hand on her arm. She cracked an eye open. Daniel stood above her, silhouetted by the gray light of an approaching dawn.

  “Sorry to wake you, but we need to get moving.”

  Closing her eye again, she released a long sigh. The aches of the previous day were compounded by a night of sleeping on the hard, lumpy ground. Every part of her was sore. Pa. She was doing this for Pa. With a groan, she silenced her mental whining and focused on the task at hand.

  It didn’t take long to eat breakfast and pack their things. They mounted up and rode down the narrow path into the gorge. Turning north, they continued to follow the river.

  A few hours later, they came to the crumbling dam that had once fed the old flume. Here, the gorge opened into a wide valley and they came to a small, shallow lake surrounded by trees. They took the opportunity to rest the horses and refill their canteens.

  As the horses grazed, she and Daniel ambled along the lake’s shore beneath the cottonwood, oak, and elderberry trees. Although some had lost their leaves, several of the trees retained enough greenery to cast shade onto their path.

  “Look.” Daniel pointed to a large, fierce-looking bird sitting in the branches. It had a curved, black bill and its white head and body glistened in the sunlight. Its dark brown wings matched the wide eye-stripe surrounding its large, yellow eyes. The regal creature took flight to soar high above the water. Then it swooped down, piercing the surface with its feet and coming back up with a fish wriggling in its talons.

  “Smart bird.” Daniel began wandering, seeming to search the ground for something.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see.”

  A few minutes later, he returned with a long, thick branch in one hand and a worm in the other. He set the worm on a nearby rock and laid the stick beside it. After retrieving a string and a hook from his saddle bag, he tied the hook to the string and the string to the branch before sticking the worm with the hook. Then he cast the hook into the water.

  She bit her lip. The knots he’d tied weren’t very strong ones. She tapped her foot. Didn’t he know he needed a curve or a short branch at the end of his stick to keep the string from coming loose?

  Daniel scanned the surface of the water. There. Tiny air bubbles floated to the surface a few feet to the left of where his string broke through the water. He maneuvered his bait closer.

  Beside him, Eliza’s hands landed on her hips.

  Uh-oh.

  He flicked a glance at her face.

  She was biting her lip.

  He sighed. How long could she keep her opinion to herself? One, two….

  “You’re going to lose your string and hook.”

  He hadn’t even gotten to three. “Is that so?”

  “You used the wrong knot.”

  “Uh-huh.” The knot he’d used had served him well on many occasions, but it wasn’t worth arguing over.

  As he waited for a nibble on the line, she rooted through the bushes. After a few minutes, she popped up brandishing a long stick similar to his, but thicker. Her bonnet sat askew and a leaf clung to her hair near the nape of her neck.

  “Here.” She said as she tramped through the brush toward him, holding out the branch. “This is what you need. See the short branch at the end?”

  He nodded, but his focus remained on the caught leaf. The soft curls restraining it beckoned him.

  “That will keep your string from sliding off.” She jiggled the stick at him, but he ignored it. Instead, he set aside his stick, stepped closer and reached for the leaf.

  She sucked in a breath.

  He froze and met her gaze.

  Her eyes were round.

  His hand drifted toward her cheek, but he caught himself before touching her. Snatching the leaf from her soft curls, he stepped back and spun toward the lake. No looking. No touching. Remember?

  He plucked his stick from the ground.

  “Daniel?”

  Clearing his throat, he kept his focus on the lake. “Yes?”

  “Don’t you want this stick?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’re going to lose your string.”

  “I’ve caught plenty of fish with sticks like this one and haven’t lost my string yet.”

  “You’ve been lucky.”

  Something tugged his line and he focused on catching the fish.

  Eliza continued to expound on how he was doing it all wrong, but a few minutes later, he had a small trout dangling from his hook. He swung it in her direction.

  She jumped back as droplets of water flew off the fish, spraying her skirts.

  He grinned. What would she say now?

  “Ooh.” She waved both hands in mock celebration. “Yes, all right. You caught a small one and managed to keep your string. But if you happen to hook a bigger fish, you’re going to lose it.” Her hands returned to her hips.

  The obstinate woman couldn’t admit when she was wrong. He removed the trout from the hook, slid it onto a new string, and hung it from a nearby tree. “Your branch is too heavy.”

  “It most certainly is not.” She waggled the branch like a scolding finger.

  “All right.” Stubborn woman. He marched to the horses and pulled a second string and hook from the saddle bag. Let her learn the hard way. As usual. He walked back and held it out to her. “Here. Do it your way.”

  When she held out her palm, he deposited the hook and string on it, then returned to the water’s edge.

  As she tied her knots, he recast his line and chuckled. “That club-of-a-stick has to weigh at least five pounds. I bet your arms give out in under a quarter hour.”

  She lifted her chin as she tossed her hook into the water. “And I bet you lose your string to the first big fish you hook.”

  “Loser does all the cooking and scrubbing for the rest of the day?”

  “You’re on.”

  Chapter 23

  Twenty minutes later, a bead of sweat s
at on her upper lip and her arms were shaking. Yet she continued to cling to her rod. The woman was tough, Daniel'd give her that.

  He considered their string of half a dozen small fish—three of which she had caught. It was more than enough to feed them for the day. They ought to call off the bet. He wasn’t going to catch a large fish. He opened his mouth to say as much when there was a strong tug on his line, jerking his attention back to the water.

  A big one. At last.

  Several minutes of coaxing and fighting later, he pulled in a trout the size of his forearm. And his string was still attached to his rod.

  Something frigid and wet splat against Eliza’s cheek. She gasped as her eyes flew open. More drops splattered her face as she sat up. It was raining!

  Across from her, Daniel shot up from where he’d been sleeping. “Quick!” He wrapped his belongings in his bedroll and jerked his head toward the silhouette of a nearby tree, its darker shape barely visible in the black of night.

  Eliza scrambled to her feet and threw her own belongings onto her bedroll. She grabbed up the corners of her blanket, creating a sack, and joined Daniel beneath the tree’s thick branches. It protected them from the worst of the downpour, but as the rain continued, fat drops dripped from the sodden limbs.

  She rubbed her arms. “We should have set up our tent.”

  He shrugged. “The clouds didn’t appear heavy, and even if we had, this rain would blow right through the open sides.”

  To cut down on weight, she’d convinced Daniel to purchase a basic shelter kit—an oiled-canvas tarp, some rope, and two wooden poles. “I know how to rig it to block wind-blown rain.”

  He wiped raindrops from his forehead. “Good to know.”

  By the time the rain stopped, their outer clothes were soaked through. They took turns changing behind a bush before emptying their bedrolls and lying down to catch a few more hours of sleep. The sun was more than halfway to its zenith by the time they’d risen, eaten breakfast, packed their things, and resumed their journey. They ate dinner in the saddle and began their ascent into the mountains by mid-afternoon.

  The wind picked up as the day wore on. The path narrowed as the vegetation thickened and the terrain grew more uneven. They rode single file, making conversation difficult.

  A hint of sage came to her on a gust of wind. Now and then a bird’s call sang above the crunch of their horse’s hooves.

  These mountains were neither as tall, nor as green, as those she’d climbed with Pa in the north, but still they appeared vast. Staring up at their peaks, and then twisting back to take in the valley through which they’d come, she was struck by the sheer size of this world God had created. She was tiny in comparison—like an ant on the Great Prairies her family had crossed on their way to Oregon.

  But she wasn’t alone. Daniel rode tall in the saddle ahead of her. Thank you, Lord, for sending him.

  As the sun dipped below the horizon, they found a clearing large enough for them to make camp above the river. After a quick supper, they laid out their bedrolls.

  Eliza checked the sky for the first time since nightfall and gasped. The clouds that had blocked the moon and stars for the last two nights were gone. An expanse of sparkling glory danced in the heavens above her.

  Daniel hastened to her side. “What is it?”

  “The stars.” She held her arms wide. “They’re so beautiful.”

  He lifted his face toward the sky. “‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.’”

  Her brows rose.

  He shrugged. “My mother made me memorize it before I left home. She was afraid wealth would change me and wanted me to remember where my true glory comes from.”

  “Your mother sounds wise.” She ducked her chin, picking at the dirt under her nails. He’d be almost home if it weren’t for Eliza. “She must miss you.”

  “Hey.” His rough fingers cupped her chin and lifted her face. “It was my choice to stay and help you, and I know she’ll understand when she receives my letter. She would never have wished me to leave you here alone.”

  Their gazes held and her belly fluttered.

  He dropped his hand as if he’d been burned.

  Taking a step away, he faced the sky. “I don’t think we’ve seen stars like this since the ship.”

  She inspected his profile. Had he felt what she had? She spun on her heel and retreated to her bedroll. He’s engaged! “Not since the night of the dance.” She shuddered at the memory. “To think I nearly danced my first waltz with that…” She let her sentence trail off as she settled onto the blanket.

  “Your first waltz?” He gaped at her. “Surely you were invited to the balls along with the Davidsons? How is it you have not yet danced a waltz?”

  She bit her lip. Thank you, Lord, for the gloom or he would see the heat searing my cheeks. She fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She caught him wincing before he corrected himself.

  “We’ve got plenty of time.” He sat on his bedroll. “Tell me, please.”

  Should she? She’d never shared her dream with anyone else.

  She took a deep breath. “You remember I told you Mama died on the way to Oregon?” She managed to say it without a warble in her voice. “One of my last memories of her is the night one of the married couples in our wagon train taught everyone the latest dance from Europe called the waltz.” A small smile teased her lips. “It stirred some folks up. Some of our group threatened to leave the train because of it, but Mama and Pa didn’t see a thing wrong with it.”

  She chuckled. “I remember Pa stepping on Mama’s toes a few times. But by the end of the night, they were dancing as well as the couple that had taught them. They were happy and so in love, and I…” She hesitated. It hadn’t lasted. Days later, Mama was dead. No! Don’t think about that right now. She focused her mind’s eye on the vision of Pa twirling Mama around in his arms. “Well, I promised myself that I wouldn’t ever dance the waltz with someone unless we were as in love as Mama and Pa, but then the captain, well—”

  “He didn’t leave you a choice.” Daniel scowled.

  “No.”

  “What about the balls?”

  “Oh…” She snickered. “Cecilia said I couldn’t turn a man down without being rude, so at the start of every event I would check my dance card for when they were scheduled to play the waltz and made an excuse to leave the room before they began.”

  Daniel laughed. “Did your aunt never suspect?”

  “Oh, I’m sure she figured it out after a while, but since the men never seemed the wiser, she let it slide.”

  “Those poor men.” Daniel chuckled as he lay down. “What does your Pa say about such behavior? Does he approve?”

  “I’ve never told him.” Stretching out on her blanket, she shivered. Despite the cloudless day, the winds gushing through the gorge were chilling. They seemed to be rushing onward without her. Wrapping the blanket around her, she peered into the darkness.

  Where are you Pa?

  The next day, they continued their upward ascent and each turn revealed nothing but more of the same. Did this river never end? The slopes climbed ever closer to the sky. She fidgeted in her seat. How much longer till they reached another point on the map? When would they find Pa?

  As the sun sank behind the western slopes, they reached a small creek feeding the river from the east.

  “Daniel!” He stopped his horse and she rode up beside him. “Can I see the map?”

  He handed it to her. “What is it?”

  She unfolded it and held it tight against the wind. “The X isn’t along the main river. See, it’s on one of these side branches.” She shifted the map so that the wind pressed it against h
er mare’s neck. Eliza pointed to where the long squiggly line split into what resembled tree branches snaking over the little triangles that represented the mountains.

  “What are those?” Daniel pointed to a tiny row of dots on the western edge of the squiggly line, where the branch with Pa’s X broke off from the main squiggle that represented the river.

  “I don’t know, but…” The map flapped in the wind and she smoothed it back down to run her finger along the main squiggle as she traced their route thus far. “Here’s where it turned north by the mission, and here’s where it turned north this morning.” She pointed to the creek trickling into the river beside them. “That must be the creek.”

  “I don’t know.” Daniel scrunched his lips and his mouth tilted to one side as he studied the map. “Everything else on this map has connected with something we’ve seen so far, but I don’t see anything here that could be what he was showing us with these dots.”

  Eliza scanned the area and her lips pressed together. He was right. There wasn’t anything in sight that might be what Farley had meant to indicate with the dots. But this must be the creek he meant.

  Daniel pointed to the map. “There are two lines coming off the main line after that last bend. The X is on the second one.”

  He was right. Again. With a sigh, she handed him back the map and they continued on.

  Soon the sun sank beyond the horizon and it was almost too dark to continue. She peered into the deepening shadows. Was that another creek? She leaned forward in the saddle. It was!

  She scanned the surrounding hillsides. Still nothing that matched the dots on the map. Oh well. Eliza directed her horse toward the new creek. “Let’s follow this. See where it leads.”

  “But there isn’t anything that makes sense of the dots.”

  “So what? Are you going to continue passing creek after creek until you reach the river’s source and finally have to admit those dots are just dots?” She crossed her arms. “I’m telling you, this is the creek. It must be. Even the map says to follow the second creek.”