Ana Seymour

by Jeb Hunters Bride

  The wind had picked up and flapped the ends of the blanket around them. Kerry shivered and felt a sudden cold that went deeper than her exposed skin. “Leave me with a child?” she asked. “Isn’t it customary when people…make babies, to raise them together?”

  Jeb moved his arm from beneath her back and lifted her to a sitting position against the tree. Then he started to pull on his clothes. “That’s why I was careful that we didn’t make a baby, Kerry.” His voice sent the chill even deeper, all the way to her core. “That kind of a life is not for me.”

  “You must have wanted that life once.”

  He shook his head. “Yes. If I’d only been content to stay with my wife and build that life, I’d be a different person now. But I wasn’t, and now I’ve lost the right to even think about such an existence.”

  Kerry pulled the blanket tightly around her shoulders. “I don’t believe that, Jeb. No man should forever lose his chance for happiness because of one mistake.”

  He’d finished dressing and the expression he turned on her was almost angry. “It wasn’t just a ‘mistake,’ Kerry. I was responsible for the brutal murder of a helpless young woman who trusted me to protect her and provide for her…”

  Something clicked inside Kerry’s head. “Helpless?” she said. “Maybe she was helpless against the band of scum who killed her, but surely she wasn’t helpless. A pioneer woman?”

  “A woman,” Jeb corrected. “Just like any woman who should have the protection of a man in order to survive in this country. Just like you, Kerry, though you think yourself so invincible. The same thing could happen to you as happened to Melly. And who would protect you? A thirteen-year-old boy?”

  “I’d protect myself. Just the way I intend to build my ranch myself. Just as I’ve come this far by myself.”

  “By making moves such as the stunt you pulled tonight, which might have ended up getting you and your brother both killed.”

  They were both on their knees now, facing each other, all tenderness gone from their voices and their expressions. “I’ve already apologized for that, Captain,” she said frostily. “And if you would be so kind as to hand me my clothes, I’ll let you get back to the train where you can be the masterly protector of all the poor women and children, assuaging your guilt as much as you like.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked angrily, tossing her clothes into her lap.

  Her own anger died as quickly as it had arisen, and she spoke sadly. “There’s nothing noble about spending a life wallowing in the past, Jeb, no matter why you think you’re doing it. I’m sure that your Melanie was a staunch woman if she was willing to start a home in the wilderness. And I’m equally sure she would not want the circumstances of her death to mean that you should forfeit the rest of your life as a penance.”

  Jeb was silent as Kerry quickly put on her clothes. When she was finished, he said simply, “We’d better get back.”

  She nodded and waited for him to mount Storm and pull her up behind him. She put her arms gingerly around his waist but tried to keep her own body as far as she could from his as they trotted back to the camp without another word.

  Patrick and Scott were both waiting, looking out into the night for them as they rode up. Scott started to ask why they had taken so long to return, but evidently thought better of the question after one look at their tense faces.

  Jeb pulled his horse up beside the wagon. He turned around to her and held out a hand to lift her to the ground. Out of earshot of Patrick and Scott he murmured, “I’m sorry.”

  She looked him in the eyes, then glanced at his extended hand. Ignoring it, she grasped the back of the saddle and boosted herself to the ground. “I’m sorry, too,” she said tersely, then walked around the back of the wagon and out of sight.

  As he had promised, Jeb showed up early the next morning to take Patrick up on the horse with him. He was still having problems with a group of settlers who didn’t want to follow his water-rationing plan. It did not help matters that Foxy Whitcomb and Daniel Blue were scoffing at the wagon master’s fears about drinking from the river.

  “I’ve drunk every kind of water from here to the coast,” Foxy boasted. “Including those Satan’s holes John Colter discovered northwest of here. Never been sick a day in my life.”

  But it wouldn’t make much difference to his problems to have the boy ride along. He’d already disappointed one member of the Gallivan family. He could at least make things up to her brother.

  It lifted his spirits to see Patrick’s smile of welcome, and it felt good to have his company. Jeb tried to put thoughts of Kerry out of his mind as he concentrated on the daily duties of keeping the train moving west. In spite of the sickness and the water problems, they were still making good time. They would reach Independence Rock in another couple weeks. Each crossing he felt that if he could get his group there with good spirits, the hardest part of the job had been done. The mountain passes still lay ahead. But no matter how arduous the physical labor of those climbs, it did not take the same kind of mental toll on the group as the prairie and desert.

  Kerry’s “good morning” had been barely civil when he picked up her brother. He’d looked up into her eyes, those same blue eyes he’d watched glow with passion the previous night. And there’d been a knife twist at his gut such as he hadn’t felt since shortly after Melly’s death.

  “I’ll bring him back when we stop for the nooning,” he’d told her. She’d nodded without speaking.

  As it turned out, the nooning that day was the most turbulent they’d had since the train left Westport. He and Patrick had ridden up to the Crandall wagon to find a group of settlers crowding around Foxy and Daniel. The two old-timers were mixing cornmeal into a kettle of dirty river water. When the meal settled to the bottom, so would the mud and so, Foxy announced loudly to the group, would the evil spirits.

  “The Injuns do it this way,” Foxy told the group of mostly male settlers. “They never get sick.”

  In fact, the resultant water at the top of the kettle looked remarkably clear, nothing at all like the greenish sludge that was flowing along the river. Several of the men brought cups to scoop some out and take a sample.

  “Fresh as spring water,” Thomas Crandall said approvingly.

  His son, Homer, who was only now recovering from the effects of the dysentery that had struck him, stood by his father’s side and viewed the water doubtfully. “The captain said we shouldn’t be drinking it yet. Not till we get farther up toward the mountains.”

  “Well, the captain doesn’t have a whole family to haul a supply to every day,” Crandall replied. “I don’t see why we should be getting up before dawn to ride out to some creek when we’ve got a perfectly good river right alongside our wagons.”

  Several of the other men murmured agreement.

  “That boy next to you is the reason, Crandall,” Jeb said sternly as he rode up to the group. “You almost lost him, and now you’re risking losing someone else in the family or killing yourself.” He swung down from his horse and walked over to knock the cup out of Crandall’s hand. “Don’t be a blasted fool,” he ended angrily.

  Crandall looked almost as if he was going to take a swing at the wagon master, but he held back. His face had gone white with anger. “I reckon Whitcomb and Blue, here, have taken this route a sight more times than you have, Hunter. If they say it’s all right to clean up the water this way, then it’s all right by me.”

  “Well, then, it’s lucky that you’re not the one running things around here, because you could kill us all. I say that no one drinks from the river until further notice, and if I see anyone disobeying my orders, they’ll be off this train the minute we reach Fort Laramie.”

  He took the kettle from Foxy and emptied the contents on the ground, then remounted Storm. “There are plenty of streams in the hills we’re passing through. There’s no point in taking needless risks. I’m not going to lose another one of my charges.”

  He rode
off, leaving the milling crowd looking after him, several with looks of dissatisfaction on their faces.

  “These young whippersnappers always were too quick to see a problem,” Foxy said.

  “I think Hunter just likes the feeling of ordering people around,” Crandall added. “Maybe it’s time he got reminded that we’re the ones who hired him.”

  The trouble continued that evening when Jeb called a camp meeting to organize teams of lookouts for the night and advance and rear guards for the next few days’ travel.

  “We’re at the heart of Sioux country now,” he told the gathering. “And they haven’t been friendly these past couple of years.”

  From the back of the group Foxy drawled, “Ain’t a Sioux within a week-long goose flight of here.”

  Jeb had kept himself awake much of the previous evening with tortured thoughts of Kerry, at turns remorseful and erotic. He’d ridden hard all day and had had several disagreeable encounters about the water problem. He was not in a humor for any more of Foxy’s folk wisdom.

  “Have you been up flying like a goose, Whitcomb, to be able to make a statement like that?” he asked sharply.

  Foxy got to his feet and came slowly toward the front of the crowd. The majority of eyes were on him and he preened a little at the attention. “How many buffalo have you seen in these parts? None, right? The Sioux have followed the buffalo up north.”

  “The numbers are thinning,” Jeb acknowledged. “That’s precisely the problem. The Indians can’t survive without them, and they’re none too happy about the streams of white folk coming into their territory and decimating their herds.”

  “They’re well north of here,” Foxy insisted.

  Jeb shook his head in exasperation. He waved a hand around the crowd. “You may be willing to risk the lives of all these folks on that assumption, but I’m not. We’ll post lookouts and we’ll ride guards. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

  As he looked around the group he was distressed to see the number of skeptical expressions. When they’d started out on this journey, they’d taken anything he had to say as gospel. But he knew that this stretch was in many ways the most demoralizing part of the journey. They’d been on the move now for nearly two and a half months, through endless, boring, dry, hot prairie. It was the time when every overlander started to feel as if the journey would never end. The fresh food was long gone. They were sick of insects, sick of dust seeping into every seam of their clothing and every possession. Many had developed chronic coughs, yet still had to get back on the trail each day to breathe in several more hours of it.

  Once they reached the Rockies, attitudes changed. Remarkably, everyone felt new energy to tackle the obstacles ahead. The goal was finally in sight. On the other side of those mountains was the promised land. It was not to say that the arduous passage over them would be easy. But morale at that point usually soared, at least for a while. And if things went right, it stayed that way until they reached the coast.

  Jeb knew all this, and usually he worked hard to keep his own temper even and pleasant during these last tedious days of prairie. But he’d never had a crossing quite like this one. He’d never before found himself so distracted by one of his emigrants that at times he’d totally forget his responsibilities, by one who’d so fired his blood that he tossed at night with restless dreams.

  “Frank has some paper,” he said wearily. “I’d like every man over eighteen to check in with him and sign up for a watch.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kerry looking up at him with something like sympathy in her gaze. He had a fleeting memory of when she’d comforted him by drawing his head into her arms last night. He hadn’t deserved the comfort, but it had felt good. Too good. For the sake of the train and for the sake of his own soul, he’d have to be damn sure that he never gave himself the opportunity to take advantage of it again.

  Jeb looked exhausted, and when Kerry listened to him outlining the details of the extra safety measures he wanted to put in place, she got a sense for the first time of exactly how much did weigh on those broad shoulders of his. It wasn’t only the burden of his wife’s death that Jeb was carrying, she realized. He carried the burden of every single settler he took across the country each season. What a fitting atonement for his supposed crime—the crime of having the same foolish aspirations that thousands of other young men were having at the height of the gold fever.

  It made her sad to think about. Sad for Jeb and for herself. When she closed her eyes she could still feel the ecstasy he had brought to her body. When she opened them, she could look into his face and feel a special warmth that was nothing like she’d ever felt. She’d loved her father and she loved Patrick. But Jeb seemed to have worked his way inside a little place in her heart that she hadn’t known existed.

  It didn’t matter. For them to have a life together, he’d have to be free of his demons. And he didn’t want to be free of them. They were the link that kept the memory of Melanie alive in his heart. It didn’t matter that it was a destructive, painful link. It kept her there. And Kerry didn’t think that he would ever be willing to break it and let her go.

  After the meeting she and Patrick wandered slowly back to their wagon with Scott. Scott was so open and uncomplicated. It would have made much more sense if he had been the one who had unlocked that special door in her heart. But, as she had said to herself many times since her father had died just on the verge of realizing his greatest dream, life didn’t make sense. It simply didn’t.

  “There’s talk of a mutiny,” Scott said when they were out of earshot of the other settlers.

  “What on earth do you mean?” Kerry asked.

  “Against Hunter. People are getting sick of his high-handed ways.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “You yourself said he was high-handed, if I recall,” Scott pointed out.

  “He’s the wagon master, isn’t he? I guess he wouldn’t be worth his salt if he didn’t know how to use some authority now and then.”

  “He’s not high-handed with me,” Patrick contributed. “I like him.”

  Scott didn’t look pleased with his comment.

  “Well, I certainly hope that people will come to their senses and stop talking nonsense. That’s not what we need when we’re about to enter a dangerous portion of the trail.”

  “If it is dangerous,” Scott added.

  “Well, Jeb says it is. I believe him.”

  “Jeb, is it?” Scott gave her a sideways look.

  Kerry flushed. “We hired him to lead us and I think we ought to let him do his job.”

  “I don’t know. Some folks are saying that Foxy and Daniel would be better scouts for us.” They’d reached Scott’s wagon and he stopped, evidently not intending to accompany them back to their own.

  “I can’t believe anyone would be foolish enough to think that. Why, those two have more tall tales than a shipload of sailors.”

  Scott squinted to see her face in the moonlight. “What is it with you and Hunter?” he asked.

  “You’ve changed your mind about him since the beginning of this trip.”

  “I’ve just seen that he’s efficient and knows what he’s talking about. And it’s obvious that he cares about everyone on the train.”

  “Some more than others, I’d wager.”

  Kerry did not try to refute Scott’s implication. The way Jeb was ignoring her, there was no way anyone could accuse him of harboring special feelings for her. “He’s been right about everything so far. He was right about the weight of our wagon and evidently about the bad water. No one else has gotten sick since we stopped drinking it.”

  “That could be coincidence. Are you saying he was right when he tried to keep you off the train, too?”

  Kerry sighed. Patrick had continued on to their wagon so she and Scott were alone. “I’m not saying that you have to like him, Scott. But it’s going to hurt the whole train if people begin to divide into
factions. You know what Jeb has stressed from the beginning—we all need to work together.”

  “We may just decide that what we need to do is work together without our current wagon master,” Scott argued.

  “I hope not. Because I want to get to California. I think you do, too. And I’m convinced that the person who’s going to get us there is, Jeb Hunter.”

  By the next day, almost everyone on the train knew of the whispers against the captain. After Jeb came by for Patrick, greeting her only with a nod, Kerry spent the rest of the morning wondering if he was aware of the degree of dissatisfaction among his charges. She should talk with him, she thought, but she was afraid that any kind of private conversation would be impossible after the way their last encounter had ended. She was sure that Jeb Hunter would be happier if he never had to set eyes on her again. And whereas she didn’t try to convince herself that she’d stopped caring for the difficult captain, she knew that the best thing for her would be for this trip to be over with quickly so that she would never have to see him again. She could put her heart and her energies into building her father’s ranch.

  The hot sun overhead meant that soon they would be stopping for lunch. Dorothy walked up beside the Gallivan wagon to ask Kerry if she was aware of the mutinous talk. At Kerry’s nod, she exploded. “It’s the men again—that Thomas Crandall and that old fool mountain man, Foxy.” A paroxysm of coughing stopped her tirade.

  “Walk farther out from the wagon, away from the dust, Dorothy,” Kerry suggested. “I can still hear you.” When her friend moved away, she continued, “What do you think we should do?”

  “Why don’t you talk to Captain Hunter?” Dorothy suggested. “You know him better than anyone.”

  Kerry shifted her eyes to the oxen in front of her. “I don’t think he’d want to listen to me.”

  Dorothy put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as she looked up at Kerry. “Are you two having a lover’s squabble?” she asked.