by Merry Farmer
It had been a year since Graham had saddled a horse. Like everything else in his life, he wasn’t sure how he would be able to do it with his balance so compromised. Isaiah must have still been in the mood to prove he was a better man, and threw his saddle over the back of the tallest gelding and set to work securing it and straightening the blanket.
Graham took a breath and pushed himself over to the stack of saddles that had been left out the night before. He selected the one that he’d seen on Jackal, and lifted it to his shoulder. Saddles were meant to be lifted with two hands, however, and it took Graham far too long with too many fumbles to work out how he would be able to carry the saddle and blanket, and heft it onto Jackal’s back while still using his crutch to walk.
“Need some help there?” Isaiah asked, gloating, as he finished tightening the girth of his horse’s saddle.
“Nope,” Graham replied. He’d be damned if he let Isaiah have any sort of advantage over him.
Isaiah finished with his horse, then came to stand with crossed arms by Jackal’s rump. It took Graham three attempts to get the blanket and saddle over Jackal’s back, let alone in the right place. All the while, Isaiah stood there with a smirk.
“I can do it for you if you’d like,” Isaiah jabbed him again.
“I’ve got it,” Graham insisted. He was red-faced and panting, but he would saddle Jackal if it was the last thing he did.
“Watch out for the horse spooking,” Isaiah said.
“Why would he spook?” Graham growled, intent on his work.
“No reason,” Isaiah said. He wore his smirk like a badge.
Graham only had a split second to consider that Isaiah was up to no good before it happened. Blatant as the summer sunshine, Isaiah reached out and slapped Jackal’s backside. Hard. Jackal shouted and reared.
Hot, sinking memory folded back on Graham. Valliant screaming as the bullet hit him. The two of them going down. The snap and pain as his ankle broke.
Graham’s balance faltered as Jackal darted forward. The saddle slumped right off his back and Graham fell. But as the impact knocked the wind out of him, all Graham could see was the burst of fear in Jackal’s eyes as he tore off, desperate to get away from whatever had hit him. He kept going. Graham’s heart went with him. Jackal had been so patient with him when Estelle forced him to get back in the saddle. He couldn’t let the poor horse be afraid. He couldn’t let Valliant die without a fight.
Without thinking, he grabbed his crutch and pushed himself to his feet. The horse Isaiah had saddled was ready only a few feet away. Graham lunged for him, letting his crutch drop when he was close enough to reach for the saddle. He heaved himself up with every bit of strength he had and swung his half leg around to settle comfortably.
The second he was in place, every bit of him aligning in perfection atop the horse’s back, Graham felt whole. He grabbed the reins, keeping Jackal in his sights, and nudged the horse forward with a sharp, “Ha!”
The new horse obeyed his command without question, the two of them hurling forward. They zipped around the edge of the camp, following Jackal’s panicked flight. Wind brushed against Graham’s face, filtering through his clothes to kiss his skin. The scent of horse and the oh-so familiar surge of its muscles mingled with Graham’s own efforts. Instincts honed through years in the saddle and a lifelong love of horses flared to life. He wasn’t crippled, he wasn’t damaged. He was a man chasing after a loose horse that would do itself harm if he couldn’t catch it.
They were far out from the wagon train—in a patch of barren prairie grass, scorched by the summer heat—when Graham came close enough to Jackal to call out to him. “Whoa. Whoa, boy,” he said. Without a saddle and bridle, Graham had nothing to grab on to but Jackal’s mane. He didn’t want to risk pulling the horse’s hair or hurting it in any way, so he used his voice and the control he had over the new horse to slow him down.
“It’s okay, boy,” he said over and over. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re going to be just fine.”
He’d said those same words to Valliant as the two of them lay broken in the mud. It had been a sweet lie then. It was the truth now. Jackal would be fine if Graham had anything to say about it.
Slowly, Jackal calmed down and came to a stop. He bobbed his head, eyes following Graham as he brought the other horse around and rode close enough to reach out and stroke Jackal’s neck. The look in Jackal’s eyes was one of pure trust.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “We’re safe now. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”
It was only after the fact, as he led Jackal back to the cluster of wagons—a dozen or more people watching him, some cheering—that Graham realized he’d been stupid to jump up on a strange horse with only one leg and no balance. The same old voice that had been telling him he was good for nothing railed on, but it was distant now, like a buzzing fly at the back of his head. He brushed it away, settling deeper into the saddle. This was where he belonged. Estelle had been right. This changed everything.
Chapter Fifteen
Estelle saw Jackal shoot out into the wilderness and watched Graham mount Barnaby to fly out after him on her way back to the supply wagon after helping Olivia. Tim grabbed her hand and jumped up and down, pointing at Graham as he hunkered down for the race. The pride that surged through Estelle’s chest was so strong that she was tempted to cry. Graham rode like he was born in the saddle. Graham could conquer his fears. He could do anything.
“I never would have guessed he had it in him.”
Estelle gasped and whipped to face Isaiah as he strolled up to her side. His expression was smug, eyes dark and sharp with resentment. He smiled, but Estelle could feel the frustration rippling off him.
Tim gripped her hand tighter, swaying into her skirts.
“He’s a brave man,” Estelle said. “He tackles his trials and fights to overcome them. Without lashing out at others and putting their lives in danger,” she added, sending Isaiah a scolding look.
Isaiah’s jaw hardened in response. He crossed his arms and stared out across the parched prairie grass as Graham continued his pursuit of Jackal. Estelle sent every good wish she could muster with Graham.
“You’re a dreamer, Miss Essie,” Isaiah said, voice low, a compliment couched in a threat.
“I beg your pardon?” she replied. Prickles broke out down her back. She fought the instinct to run.
“You always were a dreamer,” he went on. “I could see it in your eyes when you stood up there on the porch at the big house. You would look out over the fields—where the rest of us were toiling away with no hope and no future—and smile. You’ve got that same look in your eyes now.”
“What look?” Estelle’s voice shook with wariness. She cleared her throat, frowning and focusing on Graham as he galloped.
“It’s the look I see in these good people who travel west with us,” Isaiah told her. “The look that says a better life waits around the corner.”
“It does,” she insisted.
Isaiah laughed. The sound crept through her in sinister waves. “But you… you had that look in your eyes long before it was a possibility for folks like us.”
She wanted to argue that she was not like him, that she had never been like him. Saying that would only prove his point. She hugged herself, pressing her lips tight.
Isaiah pivoted to face her, dragging his eyes from where Graham had caught up to Jackal at last. “It doesn’t matter who your papa was or who your grandpapa was, Essie. They’ll never let you be one of them.”
“You don’t know that,” she murmured courage failing.
“Yes, I do.” His expression hardened, took on an edge that sent a chill down Estelle’s spine. “Your Graham had a very interesting conversation with Mr. Clarence Nelson this morning before you woke up. Very interesting indeed.”
Estelle remained silent. She glanced up at Isaiah with a cautious, sideways look. “Mr. Nelson has plans to help Graham build a future in politics.”
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��Yes he does.” Isaiah nodded, his grin almost predatory. “And Graham wants that future, doesn’t he?”
Estelle shifted, heart beating uneasily. “Yes, he does.”
Isaiah nodded. “Mr. Nelson was advising him that a man with the wrong woman has no future at all in politics.”
A hundred conflicting thoughts flooded Estelle at once. Of course Nelson would say that. Graham would never take that advice, though. The only thing she was confident about right now was Graham’s love for her. The fact that Isaiah was trying to undermine that made her as uneasy as if she were tempted to believe him. It was a ploy, an attack, and even though it wouldn’t work, her instinct was to run.
“I know you want to pass,” Isaiah went on when she didn’t take the bait. “Your sort always wants to better themselves that way.”
“My sort?” Offense spiraled up through her throat, making her hoarse.
Isaiah shrugged. “You and I both know how many dark children of the masters there are out there. Worst kept secret in the South.”
Estelle hardened her jaw, but didn’t reply.
“It won’t work, Essie,” he said, inching closer still. “You’re fair, I’ll give you that, but not fair enough. Everywhere you go, it will only be a matter of time. As long as you’re with him, Graham won’t have a future.”
The words stuck in Estelle’s gut, twisting and hurting. “Graham is stronger than that,” she said, though doubt ripped at her.
Isaiah huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Keep thinking that if it makes you happy. You and I have both seen the truth of things too many times.”
Estelle refused to reply. She tried not to think about her fellow pioneers who had snubbed her. She tried not to see the confusion in the faces of Bob and Hank and Pete’s other crew members, who she’d gotten to know so well. Far ahead, across the field, Graham leaned closer to Jackal from Barnaby’s back. They started back toward the camp.
“I’m offering you something better, Essie,” Isaiah went on. “Once that tired old soldier realizes he can’t succeed with you in his way, you’ll need an alternative. I’m offering you a real life, a real chance. I intend to make something of myself out here.”
Estelle pulled her gaze away from Graham. “I won’t marry you,” she said, then turned to head back to the campfire, resting her arm around Tim’s shoulders. How Isaiah could even suggest such a thing now, when he had caused so much harm in her life, was beyond her.
Isaiah followed her.
“I’m offering you everything I have,” he went on. “Together we can show everyone who ever raised a whip to us, everyone who told us we were less than human and incapable of achieving anything, that they were wrong. We can show them.”
She snapped her head to glare at him. “You have some nerve,” she spat. “If you think I would ever entertain a passing acquaintance with you, let alone marriage, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t need to hurt someone to show them that I’m more than they thought I was. It seems to me that you’re the one still held back by the way things used to be.”
She stepped away from Tim and lowered her voice to a harsh murmur. “Yes, we were both slaves. But I’ve seen a lot of the world now, Isaiah Jones, and if there’s one thing it’s taught me, it’s that everyone is a slave to something. It takes a strong person to overcome those chains, no matter what form they take. It also seems to me that the man who clings to the resentment that forms the links of those chains is the one who won’t let himself be free. The whole reason I’m determined to start a new life is to break free of all of that forever. I won’t let you or anyone else stop me from living the life I want, whether it fits the image of the life you think I should have or not.”
She was panting by the time she finished. It felt good, so good to say those things, to lift those burdens from her chest. Sparkling with confidence, she headed back to grip Tim’s hand—so tightly that she was afraid she might hurt him—and marched on to the camp. Tim didn’t seem to mind, though. His hardened jaw said he agreed with everything Estelle said, even if he wasn’t old enough to fully understand it.
“I would be careful about walking around with an attitude like that,” Isaiah called after her, following several yards behind. “If folks see someone getting above themselves when they think that person should mind their betters, they look for ways to knock them back down.”
There was no point in listening to him. He was only throwing words at her.
“Folks like that know just how to take away the things that make you strong—your pride, your self-respect.” He paused before finishing with, “Your children.”
Estelle missed a step. She glanced to Tim, who watched her with wide, worried eyes. Isaiah wouldn’t dare… and yet, hadn’t she heard Ruth and Viola saying something similar at the river just the day before?
“Come on, Sweetheart.” She smoothed Tim’s hair and bent to kiss his forehead as they continued to the camp and the work they had to do. “Don’t listen to him.”
Tim softened into a smile, but Estelle couldn’t bring herself to rest easy. Too much of what Isaiah had said was right.
Few things were more worrisome than a woman who wasn’t talking.
“I’m not sure how to describe it,” Graham said, helping Estelle to pack away the remainder of their supplies. “Everything that was holding me back vanished. It felt so right being back in the saddle. That horse—Barnaby, you said his name is?”
“Mmm hmm,” Estelle hummed.
“He obeyed my commands without question. And here I had been so certain a horse wouldn’t know what to do if he was getting lop-sided commands.”
He should shut up. He’d been saying the same or similar things to her for almost twenty-four hours now. When he returned to the camp on Barnaby’s back, leading Jackal, folks had made a fuss. Pete had met him at the edge of the wagons and asked him all sorts of questions—where he’d learned to ride like that, why he hadn’t been riding for the whole journey. Graham had no way of explaining his fear now that it was banished, and in the end, Pete didn’t really care. They’d taken care of the horses, then gone on to a long discussion about how Graham’s duties as part of the wagon train crew could be changed to suit his skills.
Isaiah was nowhere in sight, and kept himself scarce for the rest of the day. Graham had been tempted to seek the bastard out to give him a piece of his mind for slapping Jackal, but he’d been distracted. Gideon had come forward with a wealth of ideas of how to fit what was left of Graham’s right leg into some sort of altered stirrup to give him greater control.
He’d been energized by the conversations, by the new possibilities brought on by the sudden change in his outlook. He hadn’t had a chance to catch up with Estelle to see what she thought of the changes that, in essence, she was responsible for until lunchtime. She’d smiled with pride and listen to him prattle on, but she hadn’t said much. Her eyes never stayed still. She’d scanned the cluster of wagons, on the lookout, never moving more than a few yards from Tim.
Graham may have been a man—one who had just had a whole horizon opened to him—but he knew when something had upset a woman. He just didn’t know how to approach it. He blew out a breath. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”
Estelle’s face flushed. “No, I think we’ve packed everything and are ready to move out.”
Graham inched closer to her, balancing on his crutch long enough to brush his fingers across her hot cheek. “That’s not what I meant. You’re worried about something. Is it me riding?”
She blinked wide in genuine surprise. “No, not at all. I’m glad you’re back in the saddle.”
“Then what?”
Estelle peeked at Tim as he shuffled boxes in the back of the supply wagon. She pressed her lips together, taking a breath, but whatever answer she would have given was cut off as Pete strode into the packed up camp.
“Folks, we’ve got a problem,” he said, face drawn into a serious frown. Josephine marched behind him, looking equally as grave.
“What’s wrong?” Estelle stepped away from Graham to meet Pete and Josephine. Tim stuck his head out the back of the wagon to watch the adults.
“The Carltons are sick,” Josephine said. “And it looks like the McGoverns and the Halls might be coming down with it too.”
“Coming down with what?” Graham asked.
“Dysentery,” Pete said. “Or at least that’s what Dr. Pyle thinks.”
“Dysentery.” Estelle clapped a hand to her chest. The worry that had lined her face before resolved into a whole new kind of fear.
Pete let out a sigh, swiping his hat from his head, wiping his brow on his sleeve, then replacing his hat. “I’ve seen outbreaks of dysentery sweep through wagon trains, leaving a trail of graves behind them. The problem is, we can’t just sit here and wait it out. Not if we want to make it through the mountains before the snows set in.”
“So we have to move on?” Graham asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Pete said. “But it’ll be tricky.”
“Blackberry tea,” Estelle said. “If you have it. The sick should drink as much as possible. And boiled water only. Even laudanum, if we have any.”
Graham, Pete, and Josephine turned to her in surprise.
“You know how to treat dysentery?” Josephine asked.
Estelle bit her lip. “I’ve been through an outbreak before,” she confessed. “I helped to treat those who were infected on the plantation.”
That was all Graham needed to hear. “Do we have time to make some blackberry tea before we set out? Do we even have blackberries?” He launched into action.
“I doubt it,” Pete said. “But Ft. Laramie might have a supply of laudanum. We’re still a week or so out, though. Folks might have brought laudanum with them. Dr. Pyle’s sure to have some.”
“Then we need to try to find it.” Estelle nodded with certainty. “Above all, we need as much clean water as we can find.”
“Right,” Pete said. “You lead the way.”
That was all it took. The four of them launched into a search for water that had been boiled, blackberries, laudanum, and anything else that could treat the disease. Graham kept by Estelle’s side, and Tim jumped down from the wagon to go with them. Their fellow pioneers might have been stubborn and cold after the revelation of Estelle’s past, but when it came to pooling resources to treat the sick, they were willing to deal with her. By the time Pete got the wagons lined up and rolling on toward the western horizon, Estelle was hard at work treating the sick.