by Merry Farmer
She let out the breath she had been holding and marched toward the wagons. With no family left, no time to get to know the men in question, all she had to go on was instinct and the promise of where she would lay her head at night. The dream of the frontier was not her dream. She wanted a proper bed with sheets and curtains on the windows. She didn’t want to have to contend with wild animals in the house. She couldn’t even think about children. Not yet. But she wanted a man she could be proud of, even if she never loved him.
The answer came to her as a quiet acceptance of what she knew was right. She sought up and down the line of wagons for John Rye.
He stood by the edge of a small stream on the other side of the wagon train, watching his oxen drink. He may have been dressed in mourning, but his clothes were clean and well-made. His glasses reflected the sunlight, and his expression was sad and distant, as though he was a thousand miles away. He looked up when Callie drew near.
“Mr. Rye?” Her voice cracked.
“Yes, Miss Lewis?” he replied.
Two days. Her brother had died only two days ago, and here she was, making the biggest decision of her life.
“Would you be willing to marry me?” The words felt as though they came from someone else.
He took in a breath. The weary look in his eyes told her he’d seen the question coming, had been thinking about his answer already.
“I’m willing,” he told her in a soft, hesitant voice, mouth drawn up in a small line, “but I don’t know if I’ll be a good husband.”
Callie shook her head. “I don’t need you to be a ‘good husband,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean. I just want a peaceful life. If you can put a roof over my head and food on my plate and give me something to keep me busy in my days, that’s all I need.”
He considered her words for a moment. There was something reassuring in the way his brow knit in thought before he spoke. “Miss Lewis.” He paused and shifted his weight. “I suppose I should call you Callie.”
A thrill of hope combined with relief flooded through her. He was going to say yes. She wouldn’t have to go on alone.
“If you’d like,” she replied. “Although my given name is Callysta.”
His brow inched up. “Callysta. That’s a lovely name. Unusual.” He took a breath. “Callysta, are you certain this is what you want?”
A wry grin pulled at the corner of Callie’s mouth. “None of this is what I want,” she said rubbing her forehead. “But asking for your help is a decision I can live with.”
A splash of color touched his face and he lowered his eyes, looking almost guilty. It was the most curious look she had ever seen on anyone’s face, and for some reason it prompted a swirl of butterflies in her stomach. There was something more to John Rye, something he hadn’t mentioned and had only barely hinted at in their one conversation. She caught herself wanting to know what that was, wanting to untangle the mystery of the unassuming, grief-stricken man in front of her. He was special, but she didn’t know how.
He cleared his throat and lifted his eyes to meet hers once more, studying her carefully. His large eyes were rimmed dark with grief, but also with intelligence and something latent, like a fire that had been all but put out. Callie could have sworn there were embers still burning in him.
At last, he let out a sigh and nodded. “All right. If you’re certain, I will marry you.”
Chapter Three
The wagon train moved on after the heat of midday began to lessen. Callie had the bubbling sensation that her life was moving on with it, whether she was ready or not. She and John walked his oxen back to the wagons together, chatting about inconsequential things before she returned to tell her friends about her decision.
“I think you made a good choice,” Mrs. Weingarten told her. The older woman rode with Callie once the train was on the move again. John repositioned his wagon directly behind Callie’s. Already he was watching out for her. “Mr. Rye seems like a man with a steady head on his shoulders,” Mrs. Weingarten went on. “Mr. Weingarten tells me his wife, his first wife, died in childbirth, along with their son.”
“I heard the same thing.” Callie nodded. She kept her focus on the oxen she was driving. It was a skill she still wasn’t certain she’d mastered—a combination of verbal commands and taps with the pole-like whip in her hand. Greg had taught her on a whim at first, but as soon as he fell ill, the responsibility of driving had fallen on her shoulders.
Mrs. Weingarten went on. “Mr. Rye will stop mourning his departed wife soon and open up his heart to you, I’m sure.”
“I’m not asking him to open his heart to me,” Callie snapped, a little too defensive. She let out a breath and lowered her head as a way of apologizing. “I mean, I would never ask him to forget someone he’s grieving for.”
“But in time he—”
Mrs. Weingarten must have recalled too late that Callie was grieving as well. Rather than continuing with her protest, she reached out and patted Callie’s leg.
“Time heals all wounds, dear. When I came from Prussia as a girl I lost a sister and an aunt on the ship and then my older brother a few years later. I’ll keep them in my heart always, but life moves on. Life always moves on.”
Her words brought to mind the endless prairie. Life would always move on, but if it was as monotonous as the journey west, Callie almost wished it wouldn’t.
That fleeting thought jolted her out of her gloom. As bad as things felt in that moment, she couldn’t, in all honesty, say that she would rather have died herself. Just to know that brought a strange comfort. Greg would be proud of her. She didn’t want to give up. John might be proud of her too. After all, he hadn’t given up, and in a way he’d lost more than she had.
When they stopped in the evening, as the sun dipped low to the horizon, spreading warm shades of sunset over the prairie, Callie pulled her oxen to a halt and stood to stretch. Every muscle in her body ached and all she had to look forward to was a night sleeping on the ground. She sighed and moved to climb down from the wagon, only to find that John was there to help her.
“Thank you.” She smiled at the unexpected kindness.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, still solemn. “Do you need anything?”
No one had asked about her needs in the two weeks they’d been on the trail, in the months before that, even, if she was being honest. It brought a weak smile to her lips.
“Not really,” she answered. “Food, a cool drink, a chance to walk around and stretch my back and legs for a bit.”
John nodded. “Why don’t you go find your food and drink? I’ll take care of your oxen.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she told him, feeling vaguely touched all the same.
He thought for a moment before saying, “One thing you’ll learn about me, Callysta, is that I take my responsibilities very seriously. Too seriously, some say.”
His use of her full name sent sudden flutters through her gut. “That’s kind of you. Although I don’t see how one can take responsibility too seriously.”
He raised an eyebrow at her in answer as if to say, ‘Wait and see.’ In spite of herself, she smiled.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked in return.
“Water?” he suggested. “Supper if we’ve got it.”
“Is cold tea alright? I don’t like this trail water.”
He nodded. She smiled in return and walked around to the back of her wagon as John went to make sure her oxen had what they needed.
Across the line of their train, families were already lighting fires and preparing meals. Since Greg and Rebecca and Jeremy had gotten sick, Callie had been eating with the Weingartens or Emma’s family, but now she felt the need to start a fire of their own. She didn’t mind eating with the others, but it would be nice to have a few moments of peace with just John. They should spend their time together. After all, they were about to become man and wife.
She sucked in a breath at the thought. It still didn’t seem re
al to her, and yet it was. She set to work building a fire and stoking the flames so they would be hot enough to cook, then fetched a large jug of tea from her wagon. She poured a cup for herself and one for John so that it would be ready when he was finished with the oxen. Then she cut a few slices of bread and heated some of the awful stew she’d made with dried meat Greg had bought in Independence. Nothing she’d eaten for weeks qualified as decent food.
“It’s sweet,” John commented with raised eyebrows when he drank his tea.
“I put a little sugar in it.”
They sat on the ground, side-by-side, backs leaning against the wheel of Callie’s wagon, waiting for the beans and bacon John had thrown in a pot to boil.
“I shouldn’t be so picky,” Callie went on, “but I can’t get used to the taste of the water coming from these streams.”
“There’s something not quite right about it,” he agreed. “This is a clever solution.”
Callie had been called clever before, but nothing had ever made her feel quite as deserving of the compliment as being told she was clever by a man wearing glasses. Guilty as she felt for making the generalization, there was something intellectual about a man with glasses, something that set her at ease.
That was the end of the conversation, though. When the beans finished cooking, Callie served them, then set the plate of food on the grass between the two of them. They were too occupied with eating and dwelling in their own thoughts to talk. Callie couldn’t think of anything to say anyhow. What could she say to a man she had met yesterday, who she would be marrying tomorrow, especially when he was still mourning his first wife?
She remembered how her papa had been right after her mother died. He had been inconsolable. He’d gone to bed one night and decided not to wake up the next day. Callie had felt a bittersweet sort of joy for him then, knowing that he and Mother would be together. But now, with no one but John sitting silently near her, she couldn’t help but resent his weakness just a little. She could have used her father right then.
A shout rose up from the cluster of miners playing poker at the far end of the train. Callie and John looked up in tandem. They exchanged a glance, then shifted, craning their necks to see what was going on.
“Cheater!” one of the older miners—Callie thought his name was Barney—declared. “You’re a damn cheater!”
“Who you callin’ a cheater?” a younger, tougher miner named Kyle stood up to glare at him.
“That doesn’t look good,” John commented in a low voice.
Callie hummed in agreement.
Pete Evans, their trail boss, hopped up from the campfire where he’d been eating with a family of farmers and strode toward the miners. More were getting up from their seats now as Barney continued to rail, “He cheated! You saw him, he had that king up his sleeve.”
Callie was about to leave the miners to their scuffle and drift back into her thoughts when she noticed Elton sitting amongst them, holding a hand of cards. His eyes were narrowed as he watched Kyle and Barney trade insults. Callie let out a breath that felt as much like a sigh of relief as anything else.
“Now I understand,” John said.
Callie blinked and turned to him. “Understand what?”
“Why you asked me,” John answered plainly. He nodded past the arguing miners to where Elton was now peeking at every abandoned hand of cards. “You didn’t have much in the way of options.”
Callie opened her mouth to reply that of course she’d had options and that she’d chosen John because he was the right man at the right time. Only he was right.
“It’s fine.” He managed a half smile. “I promise you won’t regret any of this.”
Bewildered, there was nothing Callie could say but, “Thank you.”
By morning, the miners were still grumbling over the results of their card game. John took special care to wake up early and check on Callie first thing. She’d put her trust in him, and as long as they were still on the trail, he would make sure that trust was well placed. There was something about the miners he didn’t like. For the most part, they were rough sorts, heading west with dreams of sudden wealth. Nine out of ten of them were harmless. It was that tenth part that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Not all of them were as innocent as they seemed. He kept an eye on them as he bathed with a rag and a bowl of moderately fresh water, shaved, and dressed.
The miners weren’t the only ones who irritated him for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Elton Finch raised his suspicions as much as Kyle or the old coot, Barney. Something was off about Finch. He turned the young ladies’ heads, charmed the older women, and swapped yarns with the men on the trail. None of it was out of the ordinary, barring that his smile was too wide and his eyes never settled in one place. Except when he was staring at Callie.
It didn’t take much for John to see that those stares made Callie nervous. By the time she was up and making coffee at the campfire, Finch already had his eye on her. Callie pretended not to see him for as long as possible, but he eventually caught her eye.
“Do you take sugar and cream in your coffee?” she asked, turning away from Finch’s stare.
“Sometimes,” John answered.
He stared back at Finch, his gaze unwavering, until he was finally noticed. John narrowed his eyes behind his glasses. With any luck, Finch would take the hint. Instead, the man had the arrogance to grin, a challenge if ever John had seen one.
“Today I’ll take my coffee black,” he told Callie.
If one hint wasn’t good enough for a man like that, maybe another was needed. He stood, making a show of removing his coat and revealing a revolver strapped to his belt. Finch’s grin vanished.
John’s satisfaction lasted until he saw Callie’s eyes widen.
“I hadn’t realized you were carrying a gun,” she said.
He left Finch to stew in his own juices and faced Callie with a sheepish look. If only she knew. “The West is wild, or so they say,” he gave her his lame explanation.
She stepped away from the fire and handed him a cup of black coffee.
“How can you wear a coat in this heat?” she asked, taking his coat as he took the coffee. As she shook it out, she nodded to his torso. “It’s not even nine o’clock and you’re already drenched.”
John glanced down at his black vest and the dirty white shirt he wore under it. Both had seen better days and both were soaked through.
“Sweating is the body’s way of cooling itself,” he answered, sipping his coffee. It was the best coffee he’d had on the trail. Once he did what he intended to do and was out of her life, she’d make a fine wife for some lucky man.
“Does sweating really work?” she asked.
“It does,” he nodded, continuing to sip.
“You still look hot.”
He shrugged. “I’ll be fine once we start moving.”
Callie wasn’t convinced. “I suppose this breeze will help.”
He glanced up from his cup, looked around at the wind ruffling the grass and blowing the leaves in the few scrubby trees. “Yes, it’s quite nice.”
The breeze was nice. It was even better once they cleaned up their overnight camp and started moving again. It was a fine day, with cheery sun and low humidity, and Ft. Kearny was only a few hours away. For a moment, John was closer to the outskirts of happiness than he’d been in months, particularly when he drew his wagon up beside Callie’s. They made it to the ring of trees that surrounded the modest fort before the sun had reached its full height.
“Is there a clean stream near here?” she asked as though he’d been scouting their path as they’d driven the last few miles.
John sat straighter on his wagon’s seat, squinting across the distance. “There should be. We followed a tributary of the Platte to get to the fort, and I assume that they built the fort near a source of fresh water.”
“Will you come with me to find it?”
“Sure.”
They clim
bed down from their wagons and did what needed to be done to make sure the oxen were taken care of. While Callie saw to that, John went to ask Pete where the best place to swim in the stream was. When he came back with directions, they set out, each carrying buckets and jugs.
Of course, they didn’t go alone. Callie’s friends, Lynne and Cade, were among the others heading for the stream. A group of miners was already stripping down and splashing in the water without shame. John checked his revolver with grim efficiency as he and Callie walked. For once, he felt as though he was carrying the weapon as more than just a reminder of his unfinished business.
The stream was swift-running compared to the rest of the Platte and the water seemed clear enough. Most importantly, it was cool. Callie wasn’t the only one eager for a bath. Farther up the stream, another man and his young wife had already reached the water, and the wife had stripped down to her chemise and drawers. Her husband laughed as if carousing in underwear was nothing out of the ordinary.
“That looks refreshing,” Callie said, with more than a little hint of longing in her eyes.
“I’m sure no one will mind if you want to do the same,” John said.
She snuck a glance at him, her lips twitching as though she wanted to smile. There was a spark of mischief in her eyes to go with it. In spite of himself and every dark inch of the grief that hung over him, that mischief warmed him, made him want to smile too.
“I think I do want to do the same,” she said.
“There are some bushes over there.” John nodded toward the stream’s bank. “If you want to bathe, you could probably do it discreetly.”
“You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
His chest squeezed tight. Swimming in a stream in nothing but a pair of drawers was tempting in the afternoon heat, but it was something that people who were full of life and joy did. He had no joy, and as for his life….