Baby on the Oregon Trail

by Lynna Banning

  “Oh, Lee, you shouldn’t be doing this. I am fine, really I am.”

  He barked out a harsh laugh. “Neither one of us is fine, Jenna. I figure that you and I together probably make one whole person.”

  “Then we will drive in shifts,” she announced. “We will trade off every hour.”

  “We’ll trade off when I say so.” But his voice was so gentle she had to smile.

  “How about when I say so?” she countered.

  “We’ll arm-wrestle over it. On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea. With my bad shoulder, I might lose.”

  “Lee, you don’t have to do this. Really, I am—”

  “Hush up, Jenna. And move closer to me in case I start to tip over. I need to be here. Besides, I want to keep an eye out for Devil. Saw him yesterday, but I couldn’t get to him.”

  At sundown, the wagon train bumped into a loose circle to camp for the night. Both Jenna and Lee were parched and half-sick from the heat, and the minute he pulled the ox team to a halt, they struggled off the bench and crawled under the wagon where they lay panting in the only available shade.

  Lee knew he’d pushed himself too hard. His breath came in jerky gasps, and his shoulder hurt like a red-hot poker had been shoved into it. But he was even more worried about Jenna. She lay beside him, her eyes closed, her fingers knotted over her swollen belly.

  “You all right?” he whispered.

  “Yes, just worn-out.” She didn’t open her eyes, not even when Ruthie crept in next to them.

  “Don’t cry, Jenna,” the girl said. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Lee jerked to a half-sitting position. He hadn’t realized Jenna was crying. He laid his hand on Ruthie’s thin shoulders. “Where are the girls, honey?”

  “Gettin’ the oxes unhitched. Tess said she’d cook some supper when they’re done.”

  Jenna sucked in a shaky breath and tried to sit up, but he pressed her back down. “Let her do it,” he intoned. “You’re done in and Tess isn’t. Sometimes, Mrs. Borland, it’s more blessed to receive, you know that? Besides, she’s not pregnant.”

  “What’s ‘regnant’?” Ruthie inquired. Jenna laughed but said nothing.

  “Well,” Lee said, “it’s when a woman is growing a baby inside her.”

  “You mean like another sister for me?”

  “Or a brother.”

  Jenna laughed tiredly. “Which one would you like, Ruthie?”

  “A baby brudder,” came the instant answer. “Don’t want no more sisters ’cuz they pinch me.”

  “Oh, dear,” Jenna murmured. She looped one arm around the five-year-old and cuddled her close.

  “Carver?” a gruff voice called. “Young miss said I’d find you under the wagon.”

  “Yeah, Doc, I’m here.”

  “What the hell? I told you to ride inside today, what with your fever. Give your shoulder a chance to heal. Come on out of there and let me take a look.”

  Reluctantly Lee moved away from Jenna and Ruthie and climbed out from under the wagon. “I think I’m okay, Doc.”

  “Huh! Until you get a medical degree, I’ll be the judge of that. Siddown and let me take a look.”

  Mary Grace took one look at Lee and dragged the fruit crate out of the wagon for him. He nodded his thanks and sank down on it. His shoulder felt bad, but what worried him was that his legs were unsteady.

  Doc hemmed and hawed and poked and prodded for a good ten minutes while Lee gritted his teeth and sweated. Finally, Doc handed him a tin cup of water.

  “Need any laudanum?”

  “Nope.”

  “Got enough water?”

  “Sure hope so. Doesn’t look like we’ll find much in this desert.”

  “Where’s Miz Borland?”

  “Resting. Under the wagon. She drove the team most of the day.”

  “Good God,” the doctor blurted. “Neither one of you has a lick of sense. You know, I could always ask Mick McKernan if he’d—”

  “No!” Lee shot. “McKernan stays away from Jenna and the girls. Away from this wagon.”

  Doc’s bushy gray eyebrows rose, but he said nothing, and at that moment Sam strode into camp. “Emma wants to know if you all would take supper with us?”

  “Thank you, no,” Tess’s voice came from inside the wagon. “I am cooking supper tonight.”

  Doc’s eyebrows went up again, and Sam’s mouth dropped open. “Well, sure, Tess, if you say so.” The wagon master turned to go. “You need anything, Lee, you just holler.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Lincoln,” Tess called after him. “Mary Grace is helping me. We’ll be fine.”

  Lee eyed Tess as she climbed out of the wagon lugging a skillet and half a loaf of bread. “Have any trouble with Sue and Sunflower?”

  “Nuh-uh. Fed ’em and everything, just like you showed us.”

  The doctor bent and peered under the wagon at Jenna. “Hmmm. Sound asleep, both her and the little one.” He snapped his medical bag shut. “Be sure she eats, Carver.”

  “I will,” Mary Grace answered. “Jenna doesn’t much listen to what Mr. Carver says.”

  Lee twitched. “Huh? Why do you think that?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Jenna doesn’t like you.”

  He choked on a swallow of water. “She tell you that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, what, exactly?”

  “Tess and me saw you dancing at that ball at Fort Caspar. You never even talked to each other.”

  “Tess and I,” came Jenna’s voice from under the wagon. She was laughing so hard the words came out unevenly.

  Lee clamped his mouth shut for fear he’d do the same. “Right,” he said when he could trust himself to speak. “We didn’t...uh...talk much that night.”

  “So,” Mary Grace said, “you don’t like her either, huh, Mr. Carver?”

  “Well, I—”

  “No,” Jenna burbled. “He doesn’t like me. You are very observant, Mary Grace.”

  “I just hope you keep on driving our wagon, Mr. Carver. ’Cuz Jenna doesn’t do it right.”

  “What?” Jenna yelped. “What don’t I do right?”

  “You go too slow and jerky.”

  Lee gave a weak laugh. “The wheels ran over lots of potholes and wheel ruts today,” he managed. “Probably be worse tomorrow, so best not ride inside.”

  “Oh. Very well, I guess.”

  Lee was starting to feel dizzy, so he crawled back under the wagon with Jenna. “I can see how hard it’d be to be a stepmother to those two,” he murmured.

  “You have no idea,” she said tiredly.

  “Sure glad I’m not their father.”

  Half an hour later, Mary Grace bent down and handed two tin plates with bacon and slices of fried bread under the wagon. “Well, damn,” Lee said with a chuckle. “Maybe there’s hope.”

  Jenna poked a piece of bacon into Ruthie’s mouth. “I have asked myself over and over and over again why Mathias took your horse. Where could he have been going? And why?”

  Lee stared at her. “And?”

  “I think I know,” she said slowly. “I think Mathias was, well... This will sound crazy, I know. I hardly believe it myself. But I think he was running away.”

  “Running away? What are you talking about?”

  “I think he was going back home, to Ohio.”

  “Alone? Without his family? What makes you think that?”

  She waited some time before answering. “Because many times I have longed to give up and do the same thing.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I think Mathias was frightened by how hard the trip turned out to be and by what lay ahead.”

  “You’re just as scared, aren’t
you? I don’t see you turning tail and running.”

  “I am scared, Lee. I’m terrified every single day, afraid we won’t make it to Oregon. Afraid of what we’ll find if we do get there.”

  “You’ll make it, Jenna. I’ll die before I see you fail.”

  She held his gaze, her blue-green eyes brimming with tears. “Don’t say that, Lee. Don’t even think it.”

  “Okay. Let’s think about when we can make lo—”

  “Hush!” She gave a significant glance at Ruthie, happily munching a mouthful of crunchy bread.

  “Okay,” he said with a grin. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “No, we won’t. I’ve done a good deal of thinking about it, Lee. We have to stop.”

  “What?” Lee set his tin supper plate down and grasped Jenna’s hand. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  “Ruthie,” Jenna said quickly. “Finish your supper and go help Tess.”

  “I dowanna. She’ll pinch me!”

  “You tell your sister that if she pinches you, I will make her sorry.”

  Ruthie’s blue eyes grew wide. “You would, Jenna? Really? Nobody’s ever stood up to Tess before.”

  “Well, it’s about time, don’t you think? None of you sisters should be mean to each other. We all need each other. Now, shoo! Off you go. Mr. Carver and I need to talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jenna watched Ruthie crawl out from under the wagon and felt Lee’s eyes bore into her. “You really want us to stop being together?” he asked.

  She gulped in air. “Yes. Now, while we still can.”

  “Can what? Jenna, you’re not making sense.”

  “While we can still walk away from each other.”

  His head jerked up. “Well, hell, Jenna, you can do that anytime you want. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know. And I know that when we reach Oregon you’re going off somewhere to start your ranch.”

  He looked away. “I’ve wanted this ever since I went back to Virginia after the War. Everything was gone. Fields ruined. Stables burned. The house had been ransacked, and Laurie...she had died the year before. Even her gravestone was gone.”

  He swallowed. “Ever since then I’ve wanted to start a horse ranch. I need to take away the memory of killing and start over, get my life back. A ranch is where things can grow. I need that now.”

  “Then that is what you must do, Lee. No matter what.”

  “Jenna—” He broke off and stared at her. “You know I care about you.”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “But we can’t go on, Lee. For one thing, the girls... I am responsible for them. I must set a good example.”

  “Oh, hell, they’ve never noticed what goes on under this wagon at night.”

  “Perhaps not. But I notice.” She cared for this man far too much. If she wasn’t careful, he could break her already bruised heart.

  “Also,” she continued, “I am pregnant. Very pregnant.”

  “So?” He caught her chin in one hand and forced her to look at him. “That’s not the real the reason, is it?”

  “N-no, it’s not.”

  “Then what is it? God, I feel like a horse just kicked me in the gut.”

  “I don’t want to be in love with you, Lee. Loving someone makes a person...vulnerable. Once I thought I loved Randall Morgan, and that turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice rough.

  “And I know that you loved someone once, too. You talked a lot last night. You were feverish, I know, but the things you said told me you don’t want to love anyone again.”

  “Must have been raving about my wife, Laurie.”

  “Yes.” She worked her fingers into a knot where he couldn’t see it. “You don’t want to be hurt by a woman again. And I wouldn’t want to hurt you, Lee.”

  “Yeah,” he said drily.

  “That doesn’t mean...” Her voice broke. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”

  “Thank God,” Lee breathed. Her words were sending razor-edged knives into his belly. “Jenna, I’ll do whatever you want, but God, this isn’t what I want. What I want is you, dammit.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “I understand.”

  “Then I guess we both understand. Doesn’t make it easy.”

  Jenna nodded. “But we must try.”

  Lee rolled away from her. The look on her face was ripping up his insides. He didn’t think he could stand being close to her on the driver’s bench tomorrow, but doing all that walking beside the wagon wouldn’t be good for her. And he knew from his experience yesterday, lying in the wagon bed, that enduring the jolts and bumps inside would be unwise for her. Dr. Engelman had warned him about it.

  He’d have a hard time keeping his hunger for Jenna under control. He wasn’t sure he could do it; he didn’t even want to try.

  Halfway through the morning it became clear that he couldn’t. Not in a thousand years could he keep from wanting Jenna Borland. He listened for her voice as she spoke gently yet firmly to the girls and comforted little Ruthie when she skinned her elbow, watched her move around camp making coffee and frying bacon. He ached to touch her.

  He spent more hours driving the wagon that day, just to keep her near him, but it was sheer agony sitting next to her on the driver’s bench, feeling the warmth of her body through his jeans. He worked to keep his arousal hidden from her and from the girls.

  He didn’t want Jenna to drive the wagon; it tired her too much. That evening he offered to rub her sore back and shoulders, but she declined, and all night she kept a foot of distance between them. Hell, he might as well sleep with his rifle!

  The next night Tess and Mary Grace allowed Ruthie back in the wagon, apparently having taken to heart Jenna’s warning about teasing their youngest sister. But without the girl’s small body between them, it was even harder. Lee tried to keep himself from moving close to Jenna, resisted laying his arm across her body when she sighed or moaned in her sleep. It kept his jaw tight all night.

  For the next three nights he lay awake, eaten up with wanting her. In the morning he was so groggy he could scarcely drag himself over to hitch up the oxen.

  The wagons detoured twelve more miles to the south, then turned west once more. On the fourth day out he noticed occasional clumps of huckleberry bushes and cottonwoods along the streams. But the air was hazy with blue-gray smoke. Dust, maybe. But it was an odd color. He raised his head and drew in a deep breath.

  It wasn’t dust—it was smoke! At that moment the wagon train came to an abrupt stop and Sam Lincoln suddenly appeared beside the Borland wagon.

  “What’s up, Sam?”

  “Indians. Battleground, I guess. Dead ahead. God in heaven, that’s the last thing we need.”

  “I’ll saddle up and go check it out.”

  “No. It’s too risky, Lee. We’ll hold up here and wait until dark. There’s some trees up ahead, maybe a river. We could use some fresh water. Nobody’s had a bath in over a week.”

  They located a narrow river, drew the wagons into a loose circle and settled down to wait for dark. The sky grew more smoky, but now it was tinged with brown. Dust. Somewhere ahead of them a battle was going on.

  He watched Jenna and the girls go off to the river to take baths and do some laundry. The men bathed downstream, and Lee even managed to lather up and shave his growth of beard.

  He spoke again with the wagon master, and that night after a quick supper, he saddled up Sam’s bay mare and rode west toward the smoky sky to scout ahead. After an hour he came up over a gentle rise and caught the scent of something he never in his lifetime wanted to smell again.

  Death.

  He stepped the mare carefully forward, his way lit by a sliver of a moon. When
he could make out the battlefield, he drew rein.

  Dead Indians lay everywhere, both Crow and Sioux warriors. His stomach tightened. Under cover of darkness, the braves would return for their dead, but for now the corpses lay like so many inert logs.

  Except for one. A movement caught his eye, and then he saw an arm thrash near a shadowed bush. Cautiously he drew his rifle and stepped the horse nearer. When he heard a guttural sound he dismounted and walked closer.

  A young Indian, Sioux, he guessed, lay faceup, his bloody scalp laid open, his chest heaving. Lee uncapped his canteen, knelt and held it to the boy’s chapped lips.

  Hooded black eyes watched him warily as he trickled water into the boy’s mouth. Then he folded the young warrior’s scarred hands around the canteen and left it beside him. He had to get away before the braves returned for their dead. After a cautious look around, he mounted up and kicked the mare into a trot.

  When he reached camp, Jenna took one look at him and brought a mug of coffee laced with whiskey. It was more than an hour before he felt like talking to anyone. Then, when he finished his coffee, he went to find Sam.

  Emma pressed another cup of coffee into his hands and disappeared into their wagon. “Looked like a slaughter on both sides,” he told the wagon master.

  Sam shook his head. “What a waste.”

  “Yeah,” Lee agreed. “Just a few years back men in blue and gray uniforms weren’t much smarter. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Why it seems more important to kill each other instead of sitting down and talking.”

  Sam shot him a glance. “You tell Jenna what you found?”

  “No.”

  “Any reason why not?”

  “Yes.” When he said nothing more, Sam pursed his lips and gave him a long look.

  “Protecting her, are you?”

  “Mind your own business, Sam.”

  The wagon master just smiled wryly.

  “The tribes will remove their dead tonight,” Lee continued. “By tomorrow morning the field should be clear. Except for dead horses, nothing should prevent the wagons from traveling across this valley. Just to be sure, I’ll leave before you pull out and scout ahead.”