Baby on the Oregon Trail

by Lynna Banning

  He opened his mouth to point this out, then decided not to tangle with the mama bear. She had her mind made up. He knew that all four of them scrunched in here together at night would swelter in the late summer heat. He swallowed a chuckle, enjoying a ripple of secret satisfaction. You can lead a horse to water...

  He waited while she eyed the new arrangement. Finally she blew out an exasperated breath. “Could you move that sack—?”

  “Jenna?” Emma Lincoln’s voice called from outside the wagon.

  Jenna moved to the curtained opening. “Yes? I’m coming.” She climbed down from the wagon, but Lee stayed where he was. The minute he decided she was done shifting things around he figured she’d come up with another idea. So he waited, listening to Emma and Jenna talk outside.

  “We’re having a social tonight after supper, Jenna. You’ll come and bring the girls, won’t you?”

  “Oh, Emma, I don’t think—”

  “Your young-uns need other people,” the wagon master’s wife continued. “It’s not good for them to be so isolated, ’specially now that Mathias is gone.”

  A long silence fell. Lee would give a nickel to see Jenna’s face. She was probably torn with indecision since he guessed that when Borland was alive he hadn’t been too friendly with the other emigrants. That was a hard thing for young girls. Maybe for Jenna, too. Jenna didn’t mix much with the other emigrants except for Hulda Gumpert, who stopped by occasionally with a quart jar of milk and another of cream from the cow tied to their wagon.

  Silently Lee willed Jenna to say yes for the girls’ sake.

  But she didn’t. “I... That is, I don’t enjoy—”

  “Well, glory be, Jenna, you should!” Emma urged. “I know you’ve suffered a great loss, dearie, but life must go on. Especially for your daughters. Think about it, won’t you?”

  The woman’s footsteps scraped past the wagon, and then he heard Mary Grace’s hesitant voice. “Please, Jenna, couldn’t we go? Just for a little while? There’ll be music and maybe even dancing. Oh, please?”

  Another long silence. He could almost see the stubborn tilt to Jenna’s chin. Quietly he moved to the back of the wagon and peeked out the bonnet. The three girls stood in front of their stepmother, their faces upturned.

  “Tess, Mary Grace, do you two even know how to dance?” Jenna asked.

  “No, but...”

  “I do!” Ruthie piped up.

  “Huh!” Tess scoffed. “Where’d you ever learn to dance?”

  “Didn’t hafta learn,” Ruthie returned. “It’s just somethin’ I do when I feel like it.” She spread her arms wide and twirled in a circle.

  “That’s not dancing,” Tess sniped. “Dancing is with someone.”

  “It is so dancing!” Ruthie challenged.

  “Is not!”

  “Girls!” Jenna’s voice sounded tight. “We are not going to attend the social, so stop arguing.”

  Against his better judgment Lee stepped forward. “For God’s sake, Jenna, why not let them have a little fun?”

  She turned hard green eyes on the back end of the wagon where he stood. “I do not recall that anyone asked for your opinion, Mr. Carver.”

  He stepped through the canvas bonnet and jumped down to the ground. “You’re right, no one did. Still, what’s the harm in a bit of music and dancing?”

  “For a young, impressionable girl?” She tipped her head sideways to indicate Tess. “There can be immense harm.”

  Aha. Another piece in the puzzle that was Jenna Borland slipped into place. “My family back in Virginia used to vote on things we didn’t agree on,” Lee said.

  “No doubt that is why your family back in Virginia lost the War,” Jenna retorted.

  “That’s not fair,” Mary Grace shot back. “Let’s us vote on it!”

  Jenna’s lips thinned.

  “I think,” Lee hazarded, “you are already outvoted, Jenna.”

  She stared at him for so long he thought he might have a blob of shaving soap on his nose. “Very well,” she said, her tone resigned. “We will attend for a little while.”

  “A long while!” Ruthie shouted. “Let’s vote on that, too.”

  Jenna frowned, but she said nothing. Instead she caught his gaze and shook her head. He couldn’t fathom what that meant, but it was a triumph for the Borland girls. Later maybe he’d ask her what she had against socials and dancing. Maybe he’d even ask her why she was so... Oh, the hell with it. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

  * * *

  All through their supper of molasses-baked beans and corn bread, Tess, Mary Grace and Ruthie chattered with excitement. Jenna felt nothing but trepidation. The worst part was that Lee had persuaded the girls to his way of thinking. She bit her lip. Attending a social might be good for them, but it would certainly not be good for her. She had no wish to mingle with these people, especially since Mathias’s death. Being a widow made her feel...exposed.

  She washed up the dishes with an unusual amount of careless clatter, and even when Lee got out the coffee mill and ground the beans for her, she wasn’t inclined to soften her anger. They had all ganged up on her, even him. Mostly him. Her jaw ached from gritting her teeth.

  After an endless round of brushing each other’s hair and trying on different ribbons, the girls stood expectantly at the edge of camp. Already fiddle music floated on the soft night air.

  Tess eyed the bubbling coffeepot and Lee’s waiting coffee mug. “Can’t you hurry up?”

  “Just one cup, all right, Tess? Gives a man courage.”

  Inside the wagon, Jenna gave one last swipe at her tangled hair with her mother’s silver-backed brush and wound her hair into a bun at her nape. Then she splashed water on her overwarm, perspiring face, shook the dust out of her skirt and emerged just as Tess flounced off.

  She noted that Lee now wore a fresh blue flannel shirt and his hair was neatly combed. Cleaned up like that, she had to acknowledge he was extraordinarily good-looking. Why on earth would a man this handsome need courage to attend a social? He’d have women sticking to him like cockleburs.

  “Very well,” she announced. “I am ready.”

  The three girls dashed off toward the Lincoln wagon. Lee set his coffee mug on a flat rock and moved, rather reluctantly she noted, to her side.

  “What is the matter, Mr. Carver? You don’t enjoy socials?” She heard the sniping tone in her voice and instantly regretted her words. Jenna had not been raised to be spiteful. Mama was proper, but she was never mean. Mama just didn’t like most people.

  He hesitated. “I used to enjoy them, before the War,” he said in a low voice. “Out here on the trail, I feel like I don’t belong.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Sam tells me that after the War, you served with the Federal Army. As a widow, I am the one who feels like an outsider.”

  Lee stopped dead, took hold of her arm and jerked her around to face him. “You know something, Jenna? The world doesn’t dance to your tune. Don’t you ever wonder how other people feel about things?”

  Her face turned pasty for a moment, then a rosy color flared over her cheeks. “Of course I do! However, most of what these people on the wagon train feel doesn’t concern me.”

  “You know what? You have a chip on your shoulder as big as a wagon wheel.”

  She propped her hands on her hips. “Oh, I do, do I?”

  “Yeah, you do. Maybe it’s because you’ve lost your husband. Maybe because you’ve been saddled with two squabbling, rebellious stepdaughters and one who’s too young to talk back to you, but sometimes you are hard to be around for any length of time.”

  He expected her to slap him, or scream at him. Instead she just stared at him, her eyes slowly filling with big fat tears. He wanted to call back his words, but it was too late. Instead he gave her
arm a little shake and turned her toward the sound of fiddles.

  Chapter Ten

  Jenna didn’t utter a single word until they reached the camp gathering, where “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” pulsed from a fiddle, a squeezebox and two exuberantly played banjos.

  “Emma, where is Ruthie?” she asked.

  “Over with the Zaberskies.”

  Jenna quick-marched toward the Zaberskie wagon.

  Lee hesitated. He hated the feeling that he didn’t belong here. It hadn’t bothered him so much when he’d been on patrol, fighting the Sioux, but it sure did now. To these people on the emigrant train, all of them Northerners, he was still the enemy, even though his family and everyone he knew had been wiped out during the War. It didn’t seem to matter. In the eyes of these folks, he’d always be a Johnny Reb.

  Well, shoot. He was attending this shindig only to accompany Jenna and keep an eye on the girls. He guessed he’d been through worse campaigns than this one, so maybe he should try to make the best of it for their sake.

  With a hard look, Jenna stalked off toward Sophia Zaberskie, seated on the sidelines. Tess and Mary Grace were holding hands and bobbing together to the music, imitating what other couples were doing. It made him wonder what their upbringing had been like. Didn’t they have barn dances in Ohio? Or maybe they hadn’t been allowed to attend?

  Ruthie bounced up beside him. “Wanna see me dance?” She spread out her arms to demonstrate, but Lee stepped forward and lifted her up into his arms. “How about we dance together, all right?”

  She grinned, and when she clasped her small hands about his neck, he circled around and around in the cleared space among the wagons while she squealed with delight. He spotted Jenna on the sidelines chatting with Mrs. Zaberskie and surreptitiously watching Ruthie, who was crowing happily in his arms. He wondered what Jenna was thinking.

  When he’d danced Ruthie into quiet, he set her down on the ground. Immediately she made a beeline for Jenna and climbed onto her lap. “Why don’tcha come and dance, Jenna?”

  Jenna bent forward and said something inaudible, but Sophia Zaberskie laughed. “You are not either too old. You go on, Jenna.”

  Jenna spoke some more words that Lee couldn’t make out, and suddenly he found himself striding toward her. He didn’t know what he planned to say; he just knew he wanted her in his arms.

  The music changed to a waltz: “Beautiful Dreamer.” He nodded at Mrs. Zaberskie and bent toward Jenna. “Dance with me.”

  Jenna hesitated. Then, with a little half-frozen smile, she stood up and stepped forward. He led her off a few paces, turned and took her left hand in his. He carried it to his shoulder, lifted her other hand and without speaking slipped his arm around her waist.

  Despite her pregnancy, she was still slim, her waist curving in above the flare of her hips. Her body felt warm under his fingers and he noticed a tiny tremor in the hand he held in his. She smelled good, like soap and something spicy. Suddenly he wanted to undo that bun at her neck and thread his fingers into her dark hair.

  The violin sobbed out the melody and Lee found himself remembering other dances, another woman in his arms. Laurie. Oh, God, Laurie. He closed his eyes.

  When Jenna began to hum he thought his heart would walk right out of his chest. Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me...

  Her voice stopped. “Lee?” she murmured.

  “Yeah?” His throat felt thick and hot, and he didn’t feel like talking.

  “Am I really self-centered?”

  He sucked in a gulp of air. “You want me to be honest?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “The answer is yes. Sometimes you act like you’re the only one who matters.”

  “I guess I am...protecting myself.”

  He released her hand and nudged her chin up with his forefinger until her gaze met his.

  “It’s not Borland’s child, is it, Jenna?”

  Her lashes swept down to cover her eyes and she shook her head. “How did you guess?”

  He couldn’t answer that. “Is that why you married him?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why you worry about Tess, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “She is young. And mistakes are easy to make.”

  “Jenna, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-four. Almost.”

  He laughed. “Tess is fourteen, almost. Mary Grace is twelve, almost. Girls sure want to grow up as fast as possible, don’t they? My sister, Serena, did, too. She was eleven. Almost.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I told you before, Jenna, she was killed,” he said shortly. “By a Yankee lieutenant.”

  “And your wife?” she asked softly. “What happened to her?”

  Again Lee closed his eyes. “She died having my child. I found out later it was the day the Yankees marched through our plantation. The baby died, as well.”

  Jenna said nothing for a long time, just gazed up at him with a stricken look on her face. “How clumsy of me!” she whispered finally. “I had no idea. How can you stand to be around us? Yankees, I mean.”

  “I try not to think about it.”

  But telling her had sure cooled him off. “I’ve never told anyone about Laurie before. Or about my sister, Serena. The men at Fort Kearney called me Sobersides, I guess because I didn’t join in the revelry at the fort. Or smile much.”

  But he noticed he did smile around Jenna. A lot. Maybe because he was trying hard to get along with this prickly woman and her odd-lot family. Except for little Ruthie, he’d like to dunk them all in a cold river. Tess he’d like to dunk twice.

  At the thought of Ruthie, he lifted his head to check on her whereabouts. Jenna’s eyes followed his. “She is over there, with Tess and Mary Grace.”

  She stiffened. “Oh, dear, Tess is attracting the attention of the Gumpert boy. I must go and—”

  “Let her alone, Jenna. As long as the girls are together they can’t get into much trouble. Anyway, young Jimmy Gumpert is tongue-tied around females.”

  “Just like his father,” Jenna said with a laugh. “Hulda Gumpert tells me Emil never says more than three words to her at a time.”

  “He must have chosen the right three words, because they did have young Jimmy!” He waited for the implication to sink in. He knew the exact moment it did, because that rosy flush was back on her cheeks. She bit her lower lip until it was the color of strawberries, and he wished he’d never mentioned Emil Gumpert’s three words.

  “Tell me about your stepdaughters,” he said to get his mind off where it was drifting. “How old were they when you married their father?”

  “The same age they are now. Mathias and I had been married only a short time before we started for Oregon.”

  Lee noticed that the music had stopped, but even without it he and Jenna kept moving. Then the fiddle player launched into a reel, and Tess and Mary Grace were the first couple to line up.

  “Are you up to dancing a Virginia reel?”

  Jenna nodded. “The baby’s not due for another four months. Dr. Engelman says I should keep active.”

  He led her into place, and when the other couples assembled he found himself standing next to Tess. The girl sent him an unbelieving look that clearly said why would an old man like you want to dance a reel? Then and there he decided to show her how an “old man” danced.

  When the music started he paced forward toward Jenna, bowed and retreated, stepped back to her again to swing her, and then turned to his right to swing a rigid Tess.

  “Loosen up,” he said as he grasped her waist. “And hold on tight!”

  He double-stepped the girl around and around in a tight circle, chuckling at the dumbfounded expression on her long, narrow face. Then he had to laugh aloud at the way
Jenna was looking at him, all wide green eyes and pink cheeks. But when he lifted her hands in his to form the bridge under which the other couples ducked, he noted she was no longer smiling.

  “What’s wrong?” he shouted over the thump of the music.

  “Short of breath,” she gasped.

  When the reel ended, she was panting hard. He escorted her to the nearest wagon, where she leaned against the sideboard, catching her breath. Mary Grace and Tess whirled past in an awkward version of a Texas two-step.

  Jenna’s gaze followed her stepdaughters and she frowned again.

  “How come you don’t like your two older girls?” Lee asked.

  “You have it wrong. They don’t like me.”

  “Did you ever look at it from their standpoint? Must be hard for them, having a new mother who’s young and pretty.”

  “I don’t see why it should be hard. I take good care of them.”

  “Maybe there’s more to being a good mother than taking good care of them. Maybe they want you to like them?”

  She didn’t answer, and then she surprised him with a question of her own. “You don’t like me much, do you, Lee?”

  He hesitated. “I like parts of you, Jenna. The part I dislike I already told you about.”

  She gnawed more color into her lips.

  Lee tipped his head toward her. “Tomorrow you’re probably gonna fill Sam Lincoln’s ear with more complaints about me and ask him again for somebody else to drive your wagon.”

  “Well, what if I did?”

  He shifted his weight against the wagon. “In one way I’d be relieved. I don’t fancy traveling another thousand miles squabbling with you.”

  “Oh? What else don’t you fancy?” she retorted. “You might as well say it all and get it over with.”

  He pushed away from the wagon. “I’d be worried.”

  “Worried? Whatever for? Someone else can drive my wagon.”