by Merry Farmer
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she apologized.
“I have no objection.” He settled on his side, facing her. The underside of the wagon wasn’t a particularly big space, and even though they slept apart, they were close enough to talk. “I understand that the frontier is no place for a single woman.”
Callie had been telling herself the same thing for days, but hearing it from someone else was depressing. “I never intended to be a single woman on the frontier.”
“Where did you and your brother come from in Pennsylvania?”
“A town called Bethlehem.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“And you said you were originally from Boston?”
“Yes, Boston.” Strangely enough, without glasses his eyes seemed even larger as they met hers across the dark and cozy space.
“And… was your wife from Boston too?” It didn’t click until after she’d asked the question that she was his wife now.
“No,” his voice grew even quieter. “Shannon was from Ireland.”
“Ireland?” A flash of interest sparked through her. She pushed it down out of respect for his privacy. “You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to.”
He thought about that for a moment before saying, “You have a right to know.”
An odd chill shivered down Callie’s spine.
“Her name was Shannon O’Donnell,” John told her. “She came over with her family about five years ago to escape the famine. My father owned a large store in the city and she came to work for us. I managed the store at the time.”
He paused, breathing in, lost in his memories. In the dim lamplight, Callie thought she saw the first wisp of a smile in his eyes.
“She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her hair was flame red and curly. I’ll never forget that.” He paused. Her curiosity increased. “She had so much of it that pieces were always escaping, no matter what she did to it. We worked together for years—I was her boss, mind you—before I worked up the courage to say anything to her. And when I did manage to speak, I said everything at once, that I thought she was beautiful, that I loved her, that I wanted to marry her. I thought I was through, that I’d lost my only chance. But it turned out she felt the same way.”
He was definitely smiling. Callie smiled with him.
John cleared his throat. “Of course my father didn’t approve. Not at all. He said she was too far beneath our family. So we eloped. We packed our things and ran off in the middle of the night, found a church to marry us.”
“How romantic.” It was a far cry from the chaos of Greg announcing they were packing up and leaving everything. Callie lost her own smile at the bittersweet memory of her brother. How long before he felt more like a memory than a reality? Coldness settled around her heart in spite of the closeness underneath the wagon.
“We were lucky that I had enough money to take us all the way to St. Louis by train,” John continued. “It was easy for me to get a job in a store there with my background. Shannon was given a job too, but in no time she was with child, so….” he drifted off, embarrassed. It was a long time before he could bring himself to speak again. “She died in childbirth.”
“I’m so sorry,” Callie whispered.
“It was two months too early. Something went wrong. The doctors tried, but couldn’t save her or our son. He only lived for an hour. Patrick. He was so small.” He choked on the last words.
Callie’s throat closed up. She couldn’t help but think of the first time she had held her tiny nephew. The image was replaced all too soon by that of his pale, lifeless form, curled in Rebecca’s arms. She couldn’t help but think of her strong, happy brother, pale and shaking before giving up, his spirit leaving him.
“Shannon and I were married for less than a year,” John finished his story in a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them,” Callie somehow managed to find the words through her tears. “It hurts when they leave you. Greg was all I had. Our parents died last year and—”
She couldn’t go on. Everything flooded back to her. Four days’ worth of trying to be strong and doing what she needed to do took their toll and she broke down. Silently as she could, she cried.
Before she realized it, John reached for her and put his arms around her. He scooted toward her in his bedroll, his body silently quivering with his own grief. It was too much when added to Callie’s loss. She freed her arms from the blanket around her and hugged him. Nothing could ever replace the loss of her family, just as she knew no one could ever replace Shannon in John’s eyes. But somehow it felt just a little better holding onto him, knowing that he knew, he felt this grief as deeply as she did. Whatever else, neither of them was alone now.
They slept through the night holding onto each other. In the morning, when they emerged from under the wagon, they were greeted by sly looks and smiles from the others in the wagon train. The attention set Callie’s teeth on edge.
“Just ignore it,” John told her, straightening his glasses and focusing on caring for his oxen.
“I will,” Callie said, though it was hard to ignore. At least John found the grins and giggle as offensive as she did, judging by his stern frown.
They didn’t say anything to anyone, not even to each other, as they helped with breakfast and prepared their wagons to move out. Then John climbed up to drive his wagon and Callie climbed up to drive hers. The wagons moved on as though nothing were different. Callie knew better. Everything was different. Life was moving on.
Chapter Five
Days passed, and moving on seemed to Callie to be the only activity in her life. When Greg had told her all about how wonderful the frontier was and how glorious it would be to start over, he had never mentioned how tedious it was to get there. The wagon train continued to drive on through vast, empty prairie, following the Platte river. The route was well worn after almost two decades of pioneers crossing it, but it was still a far cry from the neat roads of the East. The endless grasslands and meandering miles of river all blended together.
She sat slumped on the seat of her wagon, Greg’s wide-brimmed hat pulled low over her eyes to keep the sun off her face, Emma riding in silence beside her for company. She should have struck up a conversation with her shy friend, but she was too busy worrying about what she’d find once the journey ended. She tried to imagine her and John’s house. As her oxen plodded on, she tried to imagine what her children with John would look like. It was as hard as imagining the darkest jungles of Peru. If they were going to have children, they would have to do other things first. Her cheeks flared pink at the thought. She knew how babies were made, but when she tried to imagine that kind of intimacy with John, her mind drew a complete blank.
“Callie, look,” Emma whispered at her side, popping her out of her awkward thoughts.
Callie twisted to where Emma was pointing, only to find Elton riding beside her wagon.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked. He wore a cheerful grin in spite of the fact that he had no hat and had to squint in the sun.
“Nothing important,” she lied.
“You sure looked like you were thinking about something important.”
Callie snuck a glance at Emma—who was staring at her hands, cheeks pink—then turned back to Elton. “Honestly, Mr. Finch, I’ve been driving this trail for so long and seen the same prairie for so many days that I can’t begin to form a thought anymore.”
He laughed. “I know what you mean. It’s beautiful country, but it does seem the same after a while.”
“It does.” She smiled vaguely at him and pretended she needed to pay attention to her oxen. Elton had barely said a word to her before he’d heard she was looking to marry, and now that she was married, he had no reason to talk to her. But there he was.
“How does married life suit you?” he persisted.
Callie blinked. Emma peeked up, her cheeks even pinker with shock. The question was borderline in
appropriate.
“It suits me fine,” Callie answered.
“I guess you haven’t had enough time to form much of an opinion yet.”
She shrugged. Emma watched with wide, scandalized eyes. Callie knew how she felt.
“You know you can always talk to me if you do form an opinion. And if in the end that opinion turns out to be a bad one….”
Callie wondered if she had heard him right. It sounded like he was suggesting she would change her mind.
“Thank you.” She hoped he would find her short answer dismissive.
“No one would hold it against you if you wanted to, you know, make an adjustment.”
“I’m content with things as they are.” She stared straight forward. Emma imitated her gesture.
“If anything should occur that makes you feel, well, that makes you feel as if you and your property would be under better protection in someone else’s hands….”
He left his sentence hanging. Callie pressed her lips together, refusing to play his game.
At last he finished with, “I’ll just be riding with my brother Paul and his family a couple wagons back if you need anything.” He dropped back as Callie’s wagon rambled on.
“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered once he was gone. “I wanted to say something to make him go away, but I couldn’t think of a single thing.”
“It’s all right.” Callie squirmed as if she had a knot in her shoulders she couldn’t loosen. “He was just being friendly. People on the trail helped each other out.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Emma replied, but Callie could see her friend didn’t believe it any more than she did. There was something that bothered her about Elton, aside from the fact that he shouldn’t be talking to another man’s wife the way he had. He was too friendly. She shouldn’t have let his attention bother her. There was nothing he could do now that she and John were married.
A gunshot sounded from farther down the train, shaking Callie out of her thoughts. Emma yelped. Callie twisted to see what the trouble was. Her heart caught in her throat when she saw Cade Lawson being dragged by his speeding horse across the prairie several yards away from the wagon train. All worries about Elton’s inappropriate behavior were forgotten as she watched Lynne gallop after him. Up and down the line of wagons, women gasped and men exclaimed.
Callie tightened the reins in her hand and was about to pull her oxen to a stop when she heard Mr. Evans give the order, “Keep moving!” before chasing after Lynne and Cade, Dr. Meyers right behind him.
“Dr. Meyers,” Ellie murmured, clutching Callie’s arm.
Callie could only watch as Cade’s horse eventually stopped and Lynne reached him and dismounted. Her heart pounded against her ribs and it was hard to swallow until she saw Lynne and Dr. Meyers help Cade to his feet. Even then, the relief Callie felt left her shaking. She clung to Emma’s arm to still it.
“Are you all right?” John called from his wagon.
She brushed the sweat from her face with the back of her hand then inched away from Emma to lean out over the side of the wagon and look behind her. John had his neck craned to check on her, concern lining his face.
“I’m… I’m fine,” she said and managed a smile. “We’re fine.”
John peeked back at Cade and Lynne, Mr. Evans and Dr. Meyers, then said, “It looks like he’s walking. That’s a good sign.”
She nodded before straightening in her seat and focusing on driving. “That was close,” she told Emma.
“Dr. Meyers is there. He’ll make sure everyone is all right.”
Knowing no one was injured didn’t set Callie’s mind at ease. Too many things seemed to be happening for the worse on this journey. Maybe it wasn’t as monotonous as she’d assumed after all. She would almost have preferred boring.
The awkward conversation with Elton and the incident with Cade and Lynne were still at the forefront of Callie’s mind when they stopped for midday. It was a hot day, and the train was shifty and unsettled as she climbed down from her wagon. She wore Greg’s hat as usual, but remembering John’s explanation of how sweating was the body’s way of keeping cool, she went looking for his buckskin jacket as well to see if it would help stave off the heat of the sun.
As she fastened the buttons, a racket coming from the miner’s section of the train drew her attention. Fights were a regular occurrence with that lot, but not moments after the wagons had stopped, and not when the parties involved were sober. John strode up to where Callie stood, frowning as he watched with her.
“Never a dull moment,” he commented.
Callie didn’t have time to reply.
“Give it back!” The poor, stupid miner, Barney, said and took a swing at Kyle, the miner he’d accused of cheating at cards. “An’ don’t lie to me. You stole it. Thief!”
Kyle backed away, laughing at Barney’s efforts. “I didn’t steal nothing, you old coot,” he sneered. “You lost it.”
“I lost my nugget to you, I’ll admit that much.”
“There you are,” Kyle snorted.
“But where’s the rest of it?” Barney hollered.
“Where is what?” Mr. Evans strode up to break up the impending fight.
“The deed!” Barney wailed.
“What deed?”
“The deed to my claim. The property my brother Earl willed to me.”
“He probably just lost it in his things when he was drunk,” Kyle scoffed.
Mr. Evans spun on him. “Kyle, I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”
Callie’s eyes flew wide. She exchanged surprised glances with John, both of them wondering what had happened to have Mr. Evans so riled up over a hollow accusation.
“I didn’t do anything,” Kyle spat back.
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Mr. Evans wouldn’t back down. “First I get a complaint from the Harleys about you snooping around their wagon—”
“I wasn’t doing nothing! Just going for a walk.”
“—and then that brooch was found in your sack.”
“Stuck to the outside of my sack,” Kyle doggedly defended himself. “Probably fell off Mrs. Garrett’s blouse and stuck to my sack when all those bags got thrown in the wagon together.”
“It’s too much coincidence for me,” Mr. Evans grumbled. He pointed hard at Kyle. “I’ve had enough of the shenanigans on this wagon train. I got my eye on you.”
Mr. Evans turned to Barney. “Where do you think you could have put that deed?” he asked and walked him back to the wagon a few of the miners shared. Kyle spat at Mr. Evans’s back, then stormed off to his own wagon. The rest of the train returned to watering their animals and setting up their midday camps.
Callie sent John a worried frown. “I don’t like the thought that we might have a thief in our midst.”
“Neither do I.” He continued to watch Kyle until the miner disappeared behind his wagon. “Too bad we don’t have a safe with us. I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye out.”
He paused and looked Callie up and down as if noticing her for the first time. “Is that your brother’s jacket?”
Callie glanced down at the big buckskin and its fringe. “I suppose I should have buried him in it. He loved it that much. It reminds me of him.”
A pinched look of grief came to John’s eyes, but he swallowed it and asked, “Is that why you’re wearing it?”
Of all things, Callie grinned. “No, I’m testing out your theory about sweat cooling you down.”
John arched an eyebrow, his lips twitching close to a smile. “Let’s hope my theories don’t end up being the death of you.”
As soon as he’d spoken the words, his face flushed red with… with shame. Callie narrowed her eyes, puzzled, as he turned away and went to work setting up their camp. Curiosity burned in her chest. Something was bothering her new sort-of husband, and for better or worse, she wanted to know what.
There was no time to stop and talk about things, though. John built a fire and Ca
llie heated up a light lunch of biscuits and bacon. They ate together in silence, watching their neighbors in the train go about their business. Afterward, John and a few neighbors led their oxen down to the stream for a drink. Callie stayed to clean up and rearrange her things in the back of her wagon. By the time she had most of the crates and sacks of supplies where she wanted them, she was ready to take Greg’s blasted buckskin jacket off. It may have kept the sun off of her arms, but she was boiling in her own juices.
“Are you waiting for a winter storm?”
Once again, Elton strode up to their camp with his bright smile and shining eyes.
“I thought we were finished with our conversation, Mr. Finch.” Callie hugged the jacket tight around her, as if she was naked underneath. She searched for John. He was yards away by the river.
“Maybe we are and maybe we aren’t.” The sly grin Elton gave her didn’t ease Callie’s discomfort. “You’d better take off that coat or you’ll pass out from the heat,” he said.
“Sweating is the body’s way of keeping cool,” she quoted John.
Elton laughed at her. “You don’t look very cool.”
She wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know.
“Why don’t you take that coat off and let me ride with you this afternoon so we can continue out little chat from this morning? I think we should get to know each other better. I can tie Jed here to the back of your wagon and—”
“No thank you, Mr. Finch.”
He wasn’t deterred. “I noticed John is still driving his own wagon. You shouldn’t be riding alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” she reminded him. “Emma was with me, and Mrs. Weingarten rides with me all the time.”
He brushed off her comment with a shrug. “You’d think a man would want to ride with his new wife. Unless he’s not much of a man.”
Callie’s eyebrows shot up at the sneaky dig. Several replies popped into her head at the same time but she couldn’t manage to voice any of them. “I’m fine,” was all she could manage.
“Mrs. Weingarten is worried about you.”
She stared at him, eyebrows raised in question. What was he doing talking to Mrs. Weingarten?