Baby on the Oregon Trail

by Lynna Banning

  “Yes,” she said quietly, “it is.” The sight lifted her spirits somewhat. They were going to reach Oregon. It was two thousand miles from Ohio, but they had to reach it. She clamped her teeth together to stifle a sob.

  * * *

  Out on the hot, barren plain, Lee swallowed hard and stared at the red-rock mesa in the distance. Was he hallucinating? His magnificent black stallion stood silhouetted against a haze of blue-gray smoke.

  But there was something odd about the scene. For one thing, his Arabian stallion did not seem to be restrained in any way. No lead rope. No bridle. If Indians had taken it, wouldn’t they keep it confined? And if that was an Indian camp, where were the Indians?

  Instinctively he checked his rifle and very slowly stepped his mount forward toward that mesa. Any minute he expected to be shot out of the saddle.

  A movement ahead caught his eye, and then something twitched in the sagebrush. Lee lifted the rifle and kept moving. Sweat dampened his face and neck, dripped from his upper lip. He could taste it, warm and salty on his tongue.

  Whatever was in the brush rustled, and suddenly he thought he knew what it was. He rolled out of the saddle and hit the ground, then belly-crawled into a shelter of sagebrush and waited.

  An hour went by. The bay mare moved off, nibbling sporadically at sparse clumps of stunted dry bunchgrass, and still he lay quiet. If he didn’t live through this, he hoped Jenna would understand.

  He craned his neck to see the top of the mesa, where his black Arabian still stood. God, he wanted his horse back.

  And he wanted some answers. Why was the animal still there? He could see it pacing back and forth, unrestrained by rope or hobble. If Indians were nearby, which nation were they, Sioux or Crow? Or Cheyenne or... Where was their camp?

  He waited, batting away flies, until the moon rose and hundreds of Indian campfires glowed far across the wide plain. Duty nagged at him. He stood up slowly, caught the mare and led it away to the south, away from the mesa. Away from his horse. He’d never know what had twitched in the brush; if it was an Indian, he’d make no sound. Maybe he’d grown tired of waiting.

  He counted a hundred or more campfires, and across the wide valley were a hundred more. He rode on until he saw no more sign of campfire smoke, then turned east and headed back toward the wagon train.

  In the morning, the wagons would have to cut even farther south to avoid the Indian battle he knew was ahead. He’d give anything to ride out to that mesa and look for Devil one last time, but...

  Must be past midnight. He was so tired his vision was blurry. He kicked the bay mare into a canter, and before he knew it he’d blundered within thirty yards of another Indian camp. This one was dark, with no campfire. He pulled up short, and the horse stood trembling in the dark.

  Very quietly he dismounted, slid his Winchester from the saddle holster and began to lead the mare away. He’d taken half a dozen steps when the crack of a rifle sounded, and a scorching bolt of fire bit into his shoulder.

  He hit the ground, clawing at his flesh. His last conscious thought was that somehow he had to get back to Jenna.

  * * *

  “Sam? Sam, where is Lee? It’s after midnight.”

  “I don’t know, Jenna. He should have been back by now. Maybe he ran into an Indian skirmish and had to detour around it.”

  “Oh! What if—?”

  “Jenna, the man’s an experienced soldier. He knows how to take care of himself around Indians.”

  Her unease tightened her chest, but she had no choice but to walk back to camp. Halfway there she could Tess’s raised voice. “Let go! Let go, Mary Grace! That’s my ribbon.”

  “It is not, it’s mine! It matches my dress.”

  Jenna marched to the back of the wagon and tore open the bonnet. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop this endless fighting. You girls argue over every little thing, things that are not important.”

  Tess turned a flushed, belligerent face to her. “What is it that’s so important, Jenna? Tell me that!”

  “Our survival is important,” Jenna shouted. “Can’t you see that? A ribbon is not important. It makes no difference whose ribbon it is. What matters is food! Water!”

  Good heavens, her mother would never have recognized that tone of voice from her properly raised daughter. Her mother, she thought with a stab of regret, would not recognize anything about her now.

  “I wish we’d never started out on this wagon train!” Tess yelled. “I want to go back to Ohio.”

  “Me, too,” Mary Grace said. “I’m scared out here, ’specially at night.”

  “Hush up, both of you,” Jenna ordered. “I am scared, too. But we can’t go back. We’ve come too many miles from home to turn back. Besides, we cannot travel alone, just one wagon. We have no choice,” she said, her voice suddenly calm. “We must go on to Oregon.”

  Tess groaned. “What’ll we ever do in Oregon? Tell me that, Jenna.” She shoved her face up close to Jenna’s and began to shout. “What are the three Borland sisters and a bossy old stepmother gonna do in some place we’ve never heard of?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenna said. She was beginning to tremble, and she had to work to keep her voice steady. “Your father had thought of opening a store, but—”

  “But Papa’s dead!” Mary Grace screeched. “And we’re all alone.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that? That I don’t wonder what we’re going to do?”

  “You’re not even our real mother,” Mary Grace sobbed.

  “No, I am not. But you are not all alone. I am here. I am your stepmother, and I am doing the best I can...” She choked back a sob and took a deep breath. “The very best I can...” Her voice broke. She waited four heartbeats, then five more. “To...to be strong and think clearly and do what must be done. Now, you two, stop your arguing and think about helping me to—”

  A horse whickered somewhere in the dark, and in the next instant she heard the thud of hoofbeats. They did not slow, but drew closer.

  Jenna motioned the girls into the wagon and scrambled in after them, then reached up to the canvas pocket for Lee’s revolver. She gestured for the girls to keep down, raised the gun and pulled back the hammer.

  “Jenna,” a ragged voice called from the dark.

  “Lee?” She handed the Colt to Mary Grace and climbed down as fast as she could manage. A horse stepped in close to the wagon and halted, flecks of foam dripping from its muzzle.

  “Lee!”

  He lay along the winded animal’s back, clinging to its mane. “Jenna,” he croaked. “Get Sam.” He slid sideways off the mare and lay motionless. Blood soaked his shirt.

  Jenna dropped to her knees beside him. “Tess, get Dr. Engelman. Hurry! Mary Grace, go find Sam. Move!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jenna started to tear away Lee’s blood-sticky shirt, but his hand snaked out and caught her arm. “Gotta talk to Sam.”

  “I sent Mary Grace to get him, Lee. He’s coming.”

  His hand fell back and his eyes closed. “Thirsty,” he muttered.

  She brought a cup of water, lifted his head and held it to his lips. When he’d drunk all he could, she went back to removing his shirt. The linen was stuck to the wound, and when she pulled it free, blood welled from a ragged hole in his shoulder.

  “Who shot you?”

  “Don’t know. Tell Doc I want to see the bullet when he gets it out.”

  Jenna pressed the clean part of his shirt hard against the seeping blood and bit her lip. “Did you see any Indians?”

  “Lots. Two camps, about three miles apart. Big battle coming.”

  Sam arrived, along with Dr. Engelman, who dropped his leather bag and squatted beside Lee. Jenna moved to one side as the graying physician leaned over to study Lee’s wound.
r />   “Close,” he muttered. “Missed your artery by a hair. Take it from the back?”

  “Wish I knew,” Lee gritted.

  “That bullet’s gotta come out, you know,” the doctor said, giving Sam a look.

  “Figured that,” Lee rasped.

  “Isn’t going to be fun.”

  “Figured that, too. Gotta talk to Sam first.”

  “Make it fast, son. You’re losing a lot of blood. Boil some water, will you, Miz Borland? And have you anything to use for bandages?”

  “Tess.” Jenna caught the girl’s eye. “Look in the chest inside the wagon. Find one of my petticoats.”

  Sam knelt at Lee’s side while the doctor rummaged in his bag. “What’d you find out, Lee?”

  “Two Indian camps dead ahead. Go farther south tomorrow, maybe ten more miles, before you turn west again.”

  “Right. I’m grateful, Lee. We all are. Sure sorry you got hurt.”

  “Better me and a bullet hole than twenty wagons and a couple hundred Indian arrows.”

  The doctor shouldered Sam out of the way and motioned for Jenna to bring a bowl of boiling water. He set it down near Lee’s shoulder and reached for the petticoat Tess held out.

  “Tess, take Ruthie over to Sophia Zaberskie, please.”

  “Sure, Jenna. Should I stay there, too?”

  “No. I might need you here.”

  “Is...is he gonna die?”

  “No,” Lee muttered. “We’re not finished with your riding lessons yet.” He tried to smile at her, but the doctor dumped half a bottle of whiskey over his chest and he hissed in his breath.

  “Oh,” Tess moaned. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Sorry, miss. Got to hurt him to save his hide. Why don’t you do what your stepmother said, go on over to the Zaberskies’ with your little sister.”

  “Take Mary Grace with you,” Lee added.

  Doc dropped two steel instruments into Jenna’s pot of boiling water. When the girls headed off, he motioned to Jenna. “You mind me ripping up your petticoats for bandages?”

  She didn’t answer, just tore off the bottom ruffle. Before she was half-finished, she heard an agonized groan slip from Lee’s mouth. The sound cut into her belly like a jagged blade, and she turned away.

  “Need someone to hold this and soak up the blood,” Doc said.

  Tess stepped out of the shadows. “I’ll do it.”

  Jenna forced herself to continue ripping strips from her muslin petticoat, but Tess gave a little cry and she whirled around. Then another dreadful sound came from Lee, half scream and half choking, shuddery breath. Tears flooded her eyes.

  “Damn,” the doctor said. “Can’t reach it. Gonna have to try once more, son.”

  Tess was crying, but she kept blotting away at the blood. Jenna tried not to listen to Lee’s labored breathing, and when he cried out again, she gritted her teeth so hard her jaw ached.

  “Got it!” the doctor exclaimed. “Press that cloth over here, miss. Don’t worry that you’ll hurt him, he’s unconscious. Sure has lost a lot of blood.”

  Tess nodded and continued to work.

  “Sam,” the doctor said. “Think we could lift him into the wagon? I’d like him to ride inside tomorrow. He’s running a fever.”

  Jenna scrambled to make up a pallet in the wagon, and the two men manhandled Lee inside.

  “Can someone sit up with him tonight?” Doc asked. “With that fever, he’ll need to be sponged off.”

  “I’ll stay with him,” Jenna said. “Tess, you and Mary Grace can sleep under the wagon.” She glanced at the older girl. Her hazel eyes were huge and troubled, and Jenna laid both hands on her shoulders.

  “He will be all right, Tess.”

  The girl nodded wordlessly. Jenna noticed that her eyes were wet.

  “Ask Mrs. Zaberskie if she can keep Ruthie overnight, will you? I don’t want her upset, and tell her that Lee, uh, Mr. Carver, looks...well, he looks...”

  “He looks dreadful,” Tess supplied. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Zaberskie.” She turned to go.

  “Tess?”

  “What?”

  “You did well tonight. I’m proud of you.”

  The girl sent her an unreadable look, spun away and disappeared into the dark. Jenna climbed into the wagon and settled herself beside Lee’s motionless form.

  His face was flushed, and sweat stood out on his forehead. She wiped it off. His eyes were still closed but all at once he began to talk. The words made no sense, something about that black horse of his and someone called Laurie. He sounded angry when he spoke of the horse, but when he mentioned Laurie, his words drifted into unintelligible syllables and he began to thrash.

  Jenna pinned his arms, afraid he would open his wound, but he broke free. “Laurie,” he muttered. Then “Never again. Never.” His voice sounded so anguished it sent chills up her spine.

  “Lee.” She ducked under his waving arm. “Lee, it’s Jenna. You’re all right. You’re here, on the wagon train.”

  “Jenna,” he whispered. She sponged off his face and chest, careful not to disturb his bandage. His fist opened to reveal a small lump of metal, which she retrieved and stowed in her skirt pocket. When she looked up, his eyes were open.

  “Jenna, get some sleep.”

  “I’m fine, Lee. You’re the one who’s been shot.”

  “You...drive wagon tomorrow. Get...rest.”

  Tess climbed in through the bonnet. “I can sponge him,” she announced. “He’s right, Jenna, you need to rest.” She lifted the cloth out of Jenna’s hand.

  “Thanks, Tess,” Lee rasped. “Appreciate it.”

  Jenna crawled under the wagon and stretched out her aching body next to Mary Grace. The girl murmured in her sleep and burrowed closer. Jenna wrapped her arms around her and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  In the morning after breakfast, Mary Grace helped Tess yoke up the oxen, then took over sitting with Lee. Jenna made sure that Jimmy Gumpert came to walk alongside the wagon with Tess; the girl was so tired she was weaving. Then she climbed up on the driver’s box.

  She drew in a shaky breath and lifted the traces. “I can do this,” she muttered under her breath. She flapped the reins. “Walk on.”

  Mile after mile, the wagon jounced and bumped along the new route to the south the wagon master was following. Ruthie huddled next to her on the bench, leaning her sunbonneted head against Jenna’s arm and chattering away as she always did.

  “How come Mister Lee’s riding in the wagon, Jenna? Is he tired?”

  “He’s... Yes, he is tired. He was awake very late last night, long after you went to sleep at Mrs. Zaberskie’s.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Not yet. He’s still asleep. Maybe when we stop for our nooning, all right?”

  “I wanna show him my dolly’s new dress. Missus ’Berskie made it for me.”

  After another five miles across the bleak, arid landscape, Jenna began to wonder if she herself would make it to the noon rest stop. She didn’t know which was worse, the searing heat or the thick, swirling dust kicked up by the wagon wheels ahead of her. She tied her handkerchief over Ruthie’s nose and mouth.

  When noon came, and she finally brought Sue and Sunflower to a halt on a stretch of sunbaked sand bordering a dried-up streambed, she discovered that her palms were blistered. Weary to the bone, she climbed off the bench and lifted Ruthie down beside her. Then she stretched out in the only shade available, under the wagon, and closed her eyes.

  She could hear Tess and Jimmy Gumpert getting out leftover biscuits and stuffing them with cold bacon strips from breakfast, but she was too exhausted to even think about eating. After a while Mary Grace brought her a cup of water from their precious supply of water.

 
; “Be sure that Lee, Mr. Carver, drinks some water, too, Mary Grace.”

  “I will, Jenna, but he’s more worried about you. He says driving the wagon into the sun can be punishing. What’s that mean?”

  Jenna sighed and swallowed a gulp of the lukewarm water. “Punishing means that it’s very tiring. And hot. And...” She drank again.

  “And he said to make sure you ate something.” She withdrew a lumpy bacon-and-biscuit sandwich from the pocket of her homespun skirt. “So you hafta eat this.”

  Jenna held the girl’s wide hazel eyes in a long look. “Thank you, Mary Grace.” She heard the girl scoot away and call out to Ruthie, and she closed her eyes again, pulling off bits of bacon and biscuit and shoving them into her mouth.

  Her temples throbbed. Her eyes stung as if sand scratched under her lids. Her arms felt so leaden she wondered if she would be able to lift them to take up the traces again.

  When the noon rest was over, wagon drivers gathered their animals, lunch makings were packed up, and Jenna hauled herself back up onto the driver’s box and pulled her best leather gloves on over her swollen fingers.

  Tess deposited a sleeping Ruthie inside the wagon next to Lee, and she and Mary Grace took up their positions walking beside the rolling wheels. Doggedly Jenna lifted the reins.

  The wagon wheels crunched over the sand, churned over the remains of bleached animal bones and clumps of desiccated brush. This land was barren as the surface of the moon, she thought. Or a burned-out planet a million miles from the sun.

  She tugged her calico sunbonnet farther down to shade her eyes and set her jaw. I can do this. I must.

  She drove for hours. The sun rose high in a sky white with heat, and it was tempting to shut her eyes and doze, letting the oxen plod along after the wagon ahead. She caught herself and jerked to attention.

  Suddenly Lee emerged from the wagon interior, and an arm swept her to one side. “Move over,” he ordered.

  “Don’t be absurd, Lee. You can’t drive!”

  “I can and I will. Move over.” He grabbed the reins out of her hands. She noted that he favored his left shoulder, but when she opened her mouth to argue, he shushed her. “Quiet. You’ll wake Ruthie.”