The Lost Wagon Train

by Stephen Bly

  “What?” Retta pressed.

  “Well... I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  “What? What is it? What does he call her?” Joslyn bubbled.

  “Promise you won’t tell?” Christen urged.

  “We promise. Tell us, tell us, tell us,” Gilson demanded.

  “He calls her...”

  The three girls held their breath in unison.

  “‘Peachy.’”

  “What?” Gilson looked disappointed.

  “In fact, he calls her ‘Peachy dear.’”

  Retta wrinkled her nose. “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  Joslyn shook her head. “I thought you were goin’ to tell us something naughty. ”

  “Joslyn Jouppi,” Christen exclaimed.

  Retta picked up another chip and then caught up with them again. “Well, my papa calls my mama ‘darlin’.’”

  “Your papa calls ever’ girl ‘darlin’,”’ Christen pointed out.

  “And what’s wrong with that?” Retta snapped.

  “Nothing.”

  Gilson stopped and stared at a buffalo chip. “Retta, are you really going to get a horse before we reach Independence Rock?”

  “Yes.”

  The girls walked in silence for several minutes. A fly buzzed around Retta’s head, and she shook her thick brown hair back and forth to chase it off.

  “You think we’ll see a real, live grizzly bear?” Gilson asked. “I don’t like bears.”

  “I heard Bobcat Bouchet say the scariest thing he’d ever seen was Mrs. Mallory before she combed her hair in the mornings.” Joslyn giggled.

  “My papa says Mr. Bouchet tends to stretch the truth a little,” Retta observed. “But in that case, he may be right.” Christen pointed to the wagon train. “Look who’s coming out.”

  “It’s Ansley,” Gilson said.

  “And her fifty dollar horse,” Christen mumbled. Joslyn let her burlap bag slip to the ground, and she rubbed her shoulder. “How come Ansley MacGregor doesn’t have to pick up chips with us?”

  “Her daddy hired those two men to cook and gather chips,” Retta replied.

  Gilson brushed her blonde hair back over her shoulders and retied her bonnet. “I think Ansley is very pretty.”

  “Well, she is thirteen,” Christen put in.

  Gilson stood tall, her shoulders back. “Do you think I’ll look like Ansley when I’m thirteen?”

  “I don’t think I’ll look that good when I’m sixteen.” Retta sighed.

  “Lerryn is sixteen, and she’s very pretty,” Gilson encouraged her.

  Retta watched as the girl rode straight for them.

  “Lerryn looks like Mama. The boys look like Papa. I don’t look like anybody.”

  “Your papa is very handsome. My mama said so,” Gilson declared.

  Retta studied the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl. “She did? She said that?”

  “She said, ‘Mr. Barre is a very handsome man when he smiles, but he doesn’t smile enough.’”

  Retta turned and marched ahead of the others. “He smiles. He’s just quite busy, you know. He has lots of worries on his mind.”

  As Retta tramped along, the soft prairie dirt sank under each foot. Lord, sometimes I feel so out of place, even in my own family. There’s Mama and Lerryn ... there’s William, Andrew, and Papa ... and then there’s me. I’m like the extra fork at Aunt Clara’s nobody knows when to use. Not that I’m complaining.

  “Okay, maybe I’m complaining a little,” she whispered.

  Chapter 2

  A cloud of dust rolled over the four gingham-clad girls as red-haired Ansley MacGregor reined up beside them. She wore a leather skirt and a straw hat tilted to the side. The long-necked black horse pranced from side to side. His dark eyes darted toward the river.

  “Have any of you little girls seen Benjamin Weaver?” Christen held her hand to her forehead and shaded her eyes. “What do you want my brother for?”

  Ansley studied the horizon. “I have a message for him.”

  “Tell me the message, and I’ll tell him next time I see him,” Christen offered.

  Ansley cocked one thick red eyebrow. “I’m afraid it’s much too delicate for you.”

  Gilson pointed a thin arm north. “He went over the hill and toward the river.”

  “Thank you. Ta-ta.” Ansley laid her heels into the flanks of the black horse.

  The girls waited for the dust to settle before they spoke.

  “Ta-ta?” Joslyn mocked.

  “Little girls?” Christen fumed.

  Gilson coughed as she untied her bonnet string. “What’s a delicate message?”

  Retta grinned. “Something we’re not supposed to hear.”

  “Why is she talking to your brother about delicate things?” Joslyn puzzled.

  “I don’t know,” Christen answered. “I bet she made that up.”

  “I dreamed that Ansley’s wagon sank completely out of sight in the quicksand.”

  “You did?” Gilson looked intrigued.

  “Well, it wasn’t really a night dream. I just sort of daydreamed.”

  “Just because she called you a little girl last week?” Christen asked.

  “And she rode through camp and kicked out our fire. And the time she borrowed my water scoop to use on her horse. And she told me if I got any more tan, I could be sold in Charleston. And she asked me not to sing around the campfire because I was messing up her concentration.” Retta sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Should I go on?”

  “Eh, I think we should change the subject,” Christen proposed.

  “Good. Who wants to race back to the wagons?” Retta challenged.

  “Carrying chip sacks?” Joslyn objected.

  “Sure.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair. Retta’s got two,” Gilson pointed

  out.

  “Are you saying I couldn’t run with two sacks?”

  “I’m saying you couldn’t win, and that wouldn’t be fair.”

  “I happen to have very sturdy legs.”

  “And strong bones.” Christen giggled.

  Joslyn adjusted her sack higher on her shoulder. “Okay, let’s race.”

  “I’m not feeling too well,” Gilson announced. “I don’t think I’ll run.”

  “You can count us down,” Retta suggested.

  Gilson stepped out in front of the girls. “Ready? Three ... two ... one ... go!” she yelled.

  Burlap straps cut into Retta’s shoulders as she sprinted across tableland prairie. Even in June the grass clipped tight against the brown dirt by cattle that grazed the trail ahead of them.

  Retta spied Joslyn’s dark hair and determined jaw to her right. Christen’s brown curly hair bounced on her left.

  I’m not going to lose even if I have to carry Gilson’s sack, even if Christen has longer legs, even it takes my last breath of air. I’m not going to lose.

  The line of wagons stretched across the blue horizon until they looked like nothing more than crude miniature replicas. They moved so slowly only the Nebraska dust revealed their progress.

  Retta felt her thigh muscles burn as she pushed her lace- up, high-top shoes into the dirt. First Joslyn, then Christen fell back, and soon she could see neither.

  Don’t turn around and look. I know I can win. I have fast legs. I am not fat, Travis Lott. I just have strong bones.

  The pale blue prairie sky was faded like an abandoned robin’s egg left out in the sun. Sharp pains shot through Retta’s shoulders. The burlap rubbed through her dress and began to chafe her skin. Her mouth dropped open as she gasped for breath.

  As she approached, the wagons grew gradually larger. The white canvas and red spokes were caked with yellow- brown dust, making the horizon look fuzzy, like when she first woke up after sleeping with her arm across her eyes.

  To the left she spotted the green water barrel of Joslyn’s wagon, and she knew her wagon was two ahead of it. She slanted across the cropped
slough grass and kept focused on the wagon with a yellow flap at the rear.

  I told them I would win. I knew I could. And I have twice as much to carry.

  She sprinted to the side of the six-ox wagon. She heard her father shout “Gee! Gee!” as he turned the team a little to the right. Now Retta could see her mother’s bonnet and the white apron she wore over her blue calico dress. Panting, Retta pulled even with the front seat of the wagon.

  “Hi, Mama,” she hollered. “I won!”

  It could have been a hoof print or a small hole dug by previous wagon trains. It probably was a prairie dog hole. Whatever it was, Retta’s right toe caught something, and she reached out to keep herself from landing face first in the dirt. One bag of buffalo chips tumbled across the prairie. The other folded under her, caught her in the stomach, and pinned her hand.

  Her face smashed into the prairie soil. Retta rolled to her right, but she couldn’t breathe.

  “Are you all right, baby?” her mother called out as the wagon continued to roll.

  Retta grabbed her chest but couldn’t say anything.

  The covered wagon kept its plodding pace. Her mother turned toward her. “I said, are you all right, baby?”

  Retta nodded, still clutching her chest.

  “Well, Coretta, stick those chips under the wagon while we’re moving. Daddy doesn’t want us to slow down.”

  Retta rolled over on her back. Air exploded back into her lungs. She gasped as if coming out of cold water after a dive into the river. Sweat rolled down her cheeks.

  A buckskin gelding thundered up to her as she struggled to her feet.

  “What are you doin’ in the dirt, li’l sis?”

  “I... was racing, and I... tripped at the finish line.”

  “Racing? You mean it was a game?”

  “Yes. And I won, William.”

  “Who were you racing?”

  “Christen, and Joslyn, and Gilson ... well, not Gilson. She doesn’t feel good, but—”

  “They are all walking.”

  Retta spun around. Her three friends on the horizon sauntered toward the wagon train. “We were racing, but I was going to beat them, and so they must have quit.”

  “Well, don’t be runnin’ up to the train like that and failin’ down,” William cautioned. “I thought you had spotted Indians or somethin’.”

  “I didn’t see any Indians,” she reported.

  William waved his arm at her. “Okay, pick up the mess.”

  “I really won,” she insisted.

  “There was nobody runnin’ but you, Coretta Emily.” William laughed as he rode toward the lead wagon.

  “Are you all right, girl?” Mr. O’Day called out as his wagon rolled near.

  “Yes,” Retta said. “I stepped in a prairie dog hole. One of these chip sacks is Gilson’s.”

  “Load it up while we’re movin’,” he ordered. “Them sacks don’t look very full.”

  “They were getting kind of heavy,” she explained. Retta took the full sack and jogged alongside the plodding wagon, tossing the buffalo chips on the canvas sling suspended under the box, between the axles of the wagon. Then she trudged back to the other sack and picked up the spilled buffalo chips. She had just finished when her three friends reached her.

  “I won,” Retta hollered.

  Joslyn shrugged. “You won.”

  “How come you quit?” Retta asked.

  “I was tired,” Christen replied.

  “So was I, but I don’t quit just because I’m tired,” Retta huffed.

  “I was too tired to even begin,” Gilson said.

  “Well, anyway, I won,” Retta boasted. “I told you I could run with two sacks.”

  “I wonder if you could run with four sacks?” Joslyn pondered.

  Three girls laughed.

  “Maybe our bones aren’t as strong as yours,” Christen remarked.

  * * * * *

  William soon took over the ox-driving chore. Retta saw her father ride off toward the river as she brushed off her dress. She rummaged through the green chest and found some camphor salve to rub on her skinned elbow. Then she climbed up on the back of the slow-moving wagon to see if the butter had churned as it bounced on the tailgate. She heard her mother say something to Colonel Lancelot Graves, but he was riding on down the line by the time she crawled up into the seat. “Mama, what did the colonel say?”

  Mrs. Barre handed Retta the corner of her apron. “We will be stopping soon. You have a smudge on your cheek, baby.”

  Retta wiped her face. “Stop for the night? But there’s still plenty of daylight to burn.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like your father. The colonel said we’d park in a straight line and pitch the tents to the southwest. He’s expecting a storm and said this higher ground would be a good place to stop.”

  “Storm? A real storm? With clouds and everything?”

  “That’s what a storm usually means.”

  “But it’s been real still all day.”

  “That’s what worries the colonel. Bobcat Bouchet says there’s a lightning storm coming this way.”

  “But there aren’t even any clouds,” Retta protested. She scanned the flat western horizon. “Except that little one.”

  Mrs. Barre fanned herself with a small paper fan. She rubbed the small of her back and then tried to smooth her apron across her stomach. “This weather is different from back home. It just explodes on us all at once out here. Go tell your sister to come back to our wagon. We’ll need to make things watertight.”

  “Where is Lerryn?” Retta asked.

  “Where do you think?”

  “Visiting with Nancy Suetter, I suppose.”

  “She and Nancy are very good friends.”

  “That’s only because of Brian Suetter.”

  “Brian’s out with the cattle,” her mother said. “At least, I think he is.”

  “After I find Lerryn, can I go tell Daddy and Andrew?” Mrs. Barre studied the northern horizon. “Baby, with the rise in the prairie, I can’t even see the river from here. This is a strange land. At home we can’t see the river for the trees. Out here there are no trees, and we still can’t see the river. Yes, you go tell them, but don’t go by yourself. You know how worried I can get. I’m afraid I don’t have the patience out here, baby.”

  “Mama, I’m really not a baby.”

  Mrs. Barre grinned. “Coretta Emily, I won’t be able to call you that much longer, I know. Just humor me awhile longer. Now tell Papa the colonel said to bunch the cattle and guard them close. If there’s lightning, they might run off. ”

  Retta’s blue eyes widened. “I’ve never seen a stampede before. I wonder if we’ll see St. Elmo’s fire dancing off the horns and their wild red eyes flashing and horns rattling, and the thunder of destruction will be forever logged in our minds.”

  “You’ve been reading those penny-press books again.”

  “Just one, Mama—The Calico Queen of West Texas.”

  “Well, purple-gingham queen, go find your sis.”

  “It’s pansy plum, Mama.” Retta hopped down and sprinted along the wagons behind them.

  A big, bearded man screamed, “Haw!” and turned his oxen a little to the left.

  She waited until he cracked his whip above the oxen’s heads. “Mr. O’Day, is Gilson in the wagon?”

  “She’s takin’ a nap, girl,” he bellowed. “Don’t you go botherin’ her.”

  Retta ran to another wagon. “Mrs. Jouppi—I mean Mrs. Landers, is Joslyn here?”

  The tiny woman with coal-black hair peered out from under her bonnet. “I thought she was with you. She must be in Christen’s wagon.”

  Retta glanced up and down the wagon train. I wonder why they didn’t come get me? Maybe I’ll just go out and find Papa and Andrew on my own. I know my way around better than the boys do.

  Retta tramped across the dirt toward the river and then spun around. Lerryn! Why do I always have to fetch my sister? She’s four year
s older. She ought to fetch herself.

  Retta stomped back down the line of wagons until she reached the one with dusty fringed curtains. A very tall man hiked alongside the oxen. His eyes were almost closed. He looked half-asleep.

  “Hi, Mr. Suetter.”

  The man threw his shoulders back and blinked open his eyes. “Eh ... hello, young Miss Barre. I think I was dreaming of Oregon.”

  “I do that all the time, Mr. Suetter.”

  “How are you today?”

  “I’d be better if I were riding a horse.”

  The tall man laughed and cracked the whip above the lead ox. “Wouldn’t we all? You lookin’ for your sis?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She’s at the back of the wagon, I think.”

  Retta stood by the side of the wagon and waited for it to roll past her. A boy and a girl were sitting at the back, their legs trailing over the tailgate.

  “Were you spying on me?” Lerryn called out as Retta approached.

  “No, I wasn’t. Mama sent me to fetch you.”

  “What for?”

  “She wants you to help set up a watertight camp. The colonel said a storm is coming.”

  “There’s no storm coming today,” Lerryn argued. “The colonel said it was.”

  Lerryn leaned her shoulder against Brian Suetter’s. “You’re making up this story just to get me to go back to the wagon.”

  “Why would I do that? I don’t care what you do. But Mama wants you at the wagon.”

  Brian Suetter jumped off the wagon and helped Lerryn get down. “I heard the same thing. Maybe you’d better go. I don’t want your mama mad at me.”

  “Mama thinks Lerryn is with your sister.”

  “Then I especially don’t want her mad at me.”

  “You’d better be telling me the truth,” Lerryn huffed.

  “I’ll walk you to your wagon,” Brian offered.

  “Mama thinks you’re out tending cattle,” Retta cautioned.

  “In that case, maybe I shouldn’t walk you back.” Brian Suetter’s smile revealed two deep dimples.

  “I’m going to the river to tell Papa and Andrew about the storm,” Retta announced.

  “By yourself?” Brian asked.

  “You can come with me if you want.”