Eagle Talons (The Iron Horse Chronicles: Book One)

by Robert Lee Murphy

  Her father sloshed back through the creek and joined her at the rear of the Conestoga wagon, looking at the wheel. A broken spoke jutted to the side. “We’ll have to unload the wagon before we can replace it.”

  He tucked his bullwhip under the stump of his left arm, reached up and grasped an overhanging branch with his good hand, and pulled himself out of the creek.

  “Alistair, I’m sorry to have caused this trouble.” Jenny’s mother spoke to her father from her seat in the jockey box on the front of the wagon.

  “It’s not your fault, Mary.” Her mother had come down with a bilious fever only two days after the family had crossed the Missouri.

  Jenny waded through creek water that rose halfway to her knees. She stopped at the front of the wagon and looked up at her mother. “Mama, we’ll get out of this. Don’t worry.”

  Her mother laid a hand atop her head. “We’re lucky to have your strength, Jenny. But dear, put on your bonnet.”

  “Oh Mama, it’s hard to work with that thing on.”

  “Jenny, dear. You must look after your complexion. This prairie sun is too damaging to a Southern lady’s delicate skin.”

  The bonnet dangled behind Jenny’s neck on a string. She gathered her long, black hair behind her neck and pulled the bonnet back onto her head. Her complexion had been ruined weeks ago. She didn’t look like much of a lady dragging the skirt of her calico dress through muddy water. But, if it soothed her mother, she’d wear the bonnet.

  Jenny swished back to the rear of the wagon. “Elspeth! Duncan! Get over here and lend a hand.”

  “Who said you’re the boss?” Elspeth glared at her from the creek bank. “I’m older than you.”

  “Then act like you’re sixteen and lend a hand. You stayed back there to gather up buffalo chips because you didn’t want to get your dainty feet wet.”

  “Wasn’t my idea to go to California. I was perfectly happy to stay in Virginia.”

  All the McNabbs spoke with a Southern accent—Elspeth’s cultivation of hers increasingly annoyed Jenny. “You mean starve in Virginia. You forget the damned Yankees burned our house to the ground.”

  “Ladies, that’s enough,” her father said. “Jenny, I know damned Yankees is a single word, but it upsets your mother to hear you curse.” He winked.

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Not much daylight left. We’re an easy target here. I heard a lot of gunfire yesterday from across the river . . . up where the railroad tracks probably run. We’ve got to get to Julesburg before the wagon train pushes on.” He stepped back into the creek. “Duncan, climb into the wagon and drag things to the rear. Your sisters and I’ll carry them to dry ground.”

  Jenny’s mother rose to her feet.

  “Sit down, Mary,” her father said. “We’ll do it. Save your strength, please.”

  Duncan splashed through the creek, scrambled up the tailgate, and disappeared into the bed of the wagon. Jenny admired her skinny, eight-year-old brother’s spunk. He was always willing to help, but he wasn’t very big. She was sure he’d eventually develop into a strong man like their father, but now he was just a growing boy.

  Jenny chuckled when Elspeth stepped into the creek, clutched her fists against her breast, and grimaced. Even though her blonde sister was three years older, Jenny was as tall as Elspeth. They stood toe to toe in the stream and glared at each other. Elspeth stuck out her tongue.

  Duncan dragged a heavy trunk to the tailgate where Jenny and her sister grabbed the end handles. They staggered backward with it, muddy water swirling around their skirts.

  “Look at my dress.” Elspeth moaned. “I’ll never get it clean!”

  “Watch where you’re going, Elspeth!” Jenny tightened her grip. “This is mother’s china.”

  “I know what it is. You think you’re so smart.”

  “That’s enough!” Their father pointed an admonishing finger first at Jenny then Elspeth. “Stop this bickering. If we had horses, instead of oxen, I could ride for help . . . but we don’t. We’ll make do the best we can. Let’s get this done quickly, and quietly. It’s going to be dark in a few hours. We’ll have to spend another night out here alone on the prairie as it is.”

  Jenny’s father grasped a spinning wheel that Duncan had hauled to the tailgate and lifted it one-handed. Swinging a cavalry saber throughout the war had increased the power in an already strong right arm. He refused to talk about the battle in which he’d lost his left one.

  “Papa?” Duncan called from the interior of the wagon. “Do you want to unload the stove?”

  “No. That cast iron thing’s too heavy. We’d never get it loaded again.”

  They worked steadily, transferring the remaining contents from the wagon to the dry ground. Their feet slipped in the mud of the creek bottom under the weight of the bundles. Both girls’ full-length skirts were heavy with water and coated with mud. Their father’s old cavalry boots helped keep his feet dry, but the girls’ shoes gave them no protection.

  Jenny wrapped her arms around a wooden butter churn. The last item. She turned with the unwieldy burden and tripped over Elspeth’s outstretched foot. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the smirk on Elspeth’s lips before she fell into the creek. The current rolled the churn hard against her and tumbled her facedown in the water.

  She sat up sputtering and yanked the sopping bonnet off her head. She gritted her teeth and wiped her eyes clear of muddy water. The force of the stream kept bumping the churn into her backside.

  Where’d that horse come from? Her eyes scanned up the legs of a black horse standing beside her in the creek. A young man looked down at her from astride the animal.

  Jenny glared. “What’re you staring at?”

  The young man jerked back, but continued to stare.

  “Are you just going to sit there . . . or are you going to lend a hand?” She scowled at the rider and pushed her wet hair off her face.

  “Oh,” the horseman said. He slid off the horse into the creek, picked up the churn, and set it on the bank.

  “That’s not what I meant by lending a hand.”

  “Oh.” He extended a hand and pulled her out of the creek.

  “Is oh all you can say?”

  “Oh, sorry. I’ve never seen a pretty girl so wet and muddy before.”

  “Pretty, my foot!” Jenny’s wet shoe squished when she stomped it.

  “What’d you mean by lending a hand?” he asked.

  “Can’t you see our wagon has a broken wheel?”

  “Oh.”

  “There you go again with oh.” Jenny looked into brown eyes that didn’t waver from looking back at her. “Where’d you come from? Who are you?”

  “Will . . . William Braddock. I grew up in Iowa. I’m heading west to find my uncle. Yesterday, Indians attacked our train and tried to steal Buck.” He patted the horse’s neck. “They stole all the other horses, but not Buck. I got him back. But the train went on without me. I didn’t want to take a chance running into the Indians over there last night, so I crossed the river and hid out along the bank on this side. Now I need to get on to Julesburg.”

  “We’re headed there ourselves . . . as soon as we get this wagon rolling again.”

  “Well . . . I guess I can take time to lend you folks a hand.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you. We’d appreciate that. My name’s Jennifer McNabb . . . call me Jenny.” She waved a hand toward her family members. “Meet my father, and my mother . . . my little brother, Duncan . . . and my older sister, Elspeth.”

  Will jerked off his slouch hat and nodded to the McNabbs. “How do you do.” He pushed back a mop of unruly brown hair before returning the hat to his head.

  “What’s a boy like you doing out here alone?” Jenny asked.

  “I’m not a boy. I’m fourteen. Won’t be long till I’ll be fifteen.”

  “Oh.” Jenny giggled.

  “Now who’s saying oh?”

  “Sorry.” Jenny flicked a drop of water off the end of her n
ose with the back of a muddy hand. “Mama’s been sick ever since we left Missouri. We fell behind the other wagons. We need to get to Julesburg to join back up with them. But, as you can see, we’re not making much progress. We can use some help.”

  “We don’t need help from a damned Yankee,” her father said.

  “Papa,” Jenny said. “Please. We need help. Just because he comes from Iowa makes no difference. The war’s over. Think of Mama. This boy may be able to help.”

  “I’m not a boy!”

  Jenny cocked her head to the side and looked at Will. “Maybe this young man can help.”

  She grinned and watched Will blush. He wasn’t going to be hard to manage—not the way he stared at her. “Any ideas?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “You have a spare wheel.” Will pointed to a wheel suspended by chains from the underside of the wagon. “We’ll have to lift the wagon to get the broken one off.”

  “Humph.” Jenny snorted. “That’s rather obvious.”

  “We need leverage,” her father said. “The wagon’s too heavy for us to lift without a jack. I loaned ours to a fellow who forgot to return it. If we were with the wagon train there’d be enough strong-bodied men around to hoist the wagon by hand.”

  “We can do what my pa did when the wheel came off our hay wagon one time.” Will pointed at the rock against which the wheel was wedged. “We’ll use the rock to gain leverage. We just need a pole strong enough to take the weight. We’ll wedge one end of the pole under the wagon, balance the middle of it across the rock, run a rope from the other end of the pole down under that exposed root and back up over that branch of the tree. Buck can pull the rope.”

  Jenny’s father nodded slowly. “Might work.” He pointed along the creek bank. “That sapling looks both strong and limber. It should take the weight.”

  Duncan picked up an ax that was almost as big as he was and headed for the small tree. Jenny saw the young man glance at her father’s one good arm.

  “I’ll chop it,” Will said. He removed his shirt and draped it over a bush.

  Maybe she should be embarrassed, but she was too fascinated by the muscular build that showed through his tightly fitting undershirt to turn away. A cord of some kind—horsehair maybe—encircled his neck. From it hung two talons. A talisman? Funny. She wouldn’t have imagined a boy wearing such a thing.

  Will felled the sapling with a dozen strokes of the ax, lopped off the branches, and dragged the crudely shaped pole to the wagon. “Is that a harness on the bank?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “We don’t have a horse right now, but we will when we get to our new home. Then we’ll need it for plowing.”

  “We’ll put the harness on Buck.”

  “I’ll bet that Morgan’s never been harnessed,” her father said. “Looks like a cavalry mount.”

  “He is,” Will said. “He’s General Rawlins’s riding horse.”

  “John Rawlins? Grant’s chief of staff?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jenny’s father shook his head. “Well, I never expected to get help from a damned Yankee officer, much less his horse.”

  “Papa, stop it,” Jenny said.

  Her father nodded. “All right. Let’s get on with it.”

  Buck snorted and shuffled when Will draped the harness over his back. “Easy, fella. This won’t hurt. It’s just different. I really need your cooperation, Bucephalus.”

  “Bucephalus?” Jenny asked.

  “Yeah. We call him Buck for short.”

  “Bucephalus was Alexander the Great’s warhorse,” Jenny said.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Anybody who’s read Plutarch knows who Bucephalus was.”

  “Blue starch?”

  “Plu-tark. The Greek philosopher who wrote about the lives of famous men from ancient times. Papa had a copy of Plutarch’s Lives in his library . . . before the Yankees burned the place. You ever read it?”

  “No, ma’am, never read it.”

  “Don’t ma’am me. You can call my mother ma’am, but my name’s Jenny.”

  Will grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am . . . Jenny.”

  She liked the twinkle in his eye. She returned his grin.

  Will eased the horse collar over Buck’s head and settled it around his neck. Buck snorted and reared his head. “Easy, Buck. You can do this.”

  Jenny could tell the horse trusted Will, even though he didn’t like the harness.

  Will straightened the leather straps along the horse’s flanks and reached beneath his belly to grab the cinch. “Now that’s not so bad, is it?” Buck tossed his head and nickered.

  That’s impressive, Jenny thought. He does know how to manage a horse.

  Will buckled the harness to the collar and backed Buck up to the cottonwood, while she helped her father and Duncan position the pole and attached the rope. Will tied the other end of the rope to the harness beneath the horse’s tail.

  “Buck,” Will said. “Young Duncan here is going to lead you away from the tree when I give him the signal.”

  Jenny choked back a giggle at Will calling Duncan “young.”

  “Just talk softly to him,” Will said, “and you two will get along fine.”

  Duncan grasped Buck’s halter. Will gave Buck a pat and stepped into the creek beside her and her father. “Let’s give this a try, sir.”

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  The leverage scheme required an hour to replace the broken wheel. Jenny didn’t know what they would’ve done if Will hadn’t ridden into their lives.

  Will helped the family reload the wagon. “You sure have a lot of books,” he said. He set a box of them on the tailgate, and Duncan dragged it back into the body of the wagon.

  “A fraction of what Papa’s library used to be,” Jenny said. “You have a favorite book?”

  “Ivanhoe.”

  “Humph. Sir Walter Scott. That’s one of the reasons the Confederacy lost the war. Many Southern boys died believing in that chivalry nonsense.”

  She looked sideways at Will who opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

  They completed the reloading and the oxen pulled the wagon up the far bank. Jenny grasped Elspeth by the elbow and pointed her upstream. She clutched a dry dress in her hand.

  “Ladies upstream to freshen up . . . men down.” She pointed the direction she wanted the males to take. “Mama, you rest here until we get back. And Will, you wash that shirt out. It stinks of smoke.”

  A few minutes later they all assembled back at the wagon.

  “Jenny,” her father said. “Let’s get some dinner cooked. I’m sure everybody’s hungry.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Jenny squeezed her hair one more time with the towel, then reached back to fan her tresses out over her shoulders to dry. The dry calico dress felt comforting and warm in the chill evening air. “Duncan, bring some kindling and chips over here and get a fire started.”

  “Sure thing, Jenny.”

  One of the chores Jenny and her siblings performed along the trail was gathering buffalo chips, as well as branches and twigs of wood when they could find any, and stowing them in a tarpaulin slung beneath the wagon. Wood of any kind was scarce on the prairie. The hundreds of wagons that had preceded them over the past dozen years had depleted the limited supply. Dried buffalo dung was the most readily available fuel. Dry chips made a hot fire that, surprisingly, was free of offensive odor.

  “Elspeth, get over here and lend a hand,” Jenny said.

  Her older sister sighed her displeasure at having to help, but she sashayed over to join Jenny.

  Duncan built the fire while his sisters prepared the meal. Jenny had to tell Elspeth what to do—her sister avoided the cooking chore when she could.

  “Whew!” her father exclaimed. “Where’d we get that fresh chip? Get it out of the fire, Duncan, or the stink will ruin our appetites.”

  Duncan scraped the offending patty out of the fire. The stench of manure was potent
when the thin crust of a fresh one broke.

  “Elspeth,” Jenny said, “you weren’t paying attention when you gathered up that chip.”

  “Wasn’t me.”

  “Had to be you. Duncan used the latest batch you gathered up.”

  Elspeth snorted and stalked away.

  After they’d devoured the simple meal of bacon, beans, biscuits, and coffee, they sat around the fire and listened to Will tell why he’d come west. Jenny sympathized with his not wanting to become a blacksmith and understood why he was anxious to find his uncle.

  “Will?” her father asked. “Do you think you could find the wagon master of our train when you get to Julesburg? That is, if they’re still there. Tell him we’re not far behind. His name’s Dryden Faulkner.”

  “Yes, sir. I can do that.”

  They’d all placed their wet footwear close to the fire to dry while they ate. Jenny saw that Will’s toes stuck out through holes in his socks.

  “Sorry about the holes,” he said. Will pulled his boots on.

  Jenny laughed. “Look at mine.” She wiggled her toes through holes in her own stockings, then slipped her feet into her shoes. “Walking across the Kansas prairie wears out shoes and socks.”

  “Walk? Don’t you ride in the wagon?”

  “Oh, no. We walk . . . except Mama. It’s easier to walk than ride in that jarring wagon. Besides, it’d be too much weight for the oxen to pull if we all rode. Mama has to ride. She hasn’t been strong enough to walk.” Jenny looked to where her mother rocked in a wicker chair they’d placed by the fire. Everybody else sat on the ground.

  “Where are you heading after Julesburg?” Will asked.

  “California, maybe Oregon. Papa will decide when we get to where the trails divide at Fort Bridger.” Jenny took his empty plate and added it to a stack of dirty dishes beside the fire. “And what are you going to do, Will?”

  “Return this horse to General Dodge in Julesburg. After that, find my uncle . . . I hope.” He tied the laces of his boots and stood. “I best be going . . . or I can stay and accompany you folks to Julesburg.”

  “Thanks, but that’s not necessary. We just have to push on for two or three more days and we’ll be there.” Jenny held out a hand and Will helped her to her feet.