by Sadie Conall
“I heard what Martha said to you,” Ruby said, her voice nothing more than a whisper. “And she has no right, Ella! For I know Marrok likes you, indeed everyone knows it, including Martha, but she’s just worried she’ll lose you, that you’ll head off to Oregon with him and she’ll never see you again. I can see it in her eyes when the two of you are together, because he singles you out over everyone else. I think if you were to invite him for supper every night, he’d come, I’m sure of it.”
“Oh, hush now Ruby. You’re being foolish to talk on such things. He’s a good man, who saw I needed help. That’s all. More than likely he feels sorry for me, for out of all these wagons I’m the only single woman taking a wagon west by myself. And I would imagine he feels some responsibility towards me, for it was Marrok who invited me along on this journey in the first place.”
Ruby laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh full of joy. Instead it was low, soft in the quiet of the night and Ella couldn’t mistake the sarcasm.
“You cannot see it, but I saw it within hours of meeting you. Even then he had eyes only for you. But I’ll say no more on the matter, for I see it upsets you.” She patted Ella on the arm then left to go to bed.
Ella didn’t believe what Ruby said, but as she reached over to stir the hot embers of the coals, she became aware that Jasper and the brothers lay less than fifteen feet from her in their shelters. And beyond them lay other shelters, where men and women slept. There was no privacy here, with whispers and gossip already spreading about the state of some folk’s marriages, the single men and women falling in love, the misbehaved children.
But as she thought on Martha’s words, Ella began to feel uneasy sitting there alone, so she damped down what remained of the fire then went to bed. But as she lay under her blankets unable to sleep, Marrok filled her thoughts and she couldn’t help but reach out to pull back the canvas to look across to his camp.
He was damping down the coals of his own fire and Ella watched as he crawled under his blankets. But as he lay on his back, his arms behind his head, he glanced over towards her shelter.
He couldn’t possibly see her, but instinctively Ella moved back, stunned that he should seek her out.
And all she could hear was Ruby’s words. He singles you out over everyone else.
*
She was reminded of Ruby’s words almost a week later when Marrok rode into camp late one afternoon. And as he rode along the length of the wagon train looking for Artie, he passed Ella.
“How are you?” he called, before riding across and reining in his horse.
She pulled Billy up, surprised by the beard on his jaw, but he‘d been gone for almost five days and clearly hadn’t bothered to shave. He asked after Martha. “Is she faring a little better with her blisters?”
Ella nodded. “She is. But she’s been riding in the wagon most days to let them heal.”
Marrok noticed the cloth tied around Ella’s left hand and nodded towards it. “What happened to you?”
“I reached for the coffee pot this morning forgetting to use a cloth,” she said, feeling the dull ache from the burn. “I broke the skin rather badly, but it’s nothing that won’t heal in time.”
Marrok swerved his horse closer to her own and held out his hand. “It can be serious if an infection sets in. Let me see?”
She unraveled the cloth and showed him the angry red welt. He reached out to take her hand, even as Ella felt people watching them, as the wagons continued to roll on by. Yet she was also conscious of how small her hand was within his own and as Marrok ran his thumb gently around the burn, he whispered something in a language Ella didn’t know, before abruptly letting her hand go.
“What did you say?” she asked in surprise, as she covered the wound with the cloth.
“I took the burn away.”
Ella stared at him, even as Marrok smiled. “Some tribes believe in it. If someone takes away the burn, it stops the pain and starts the healing. I’ve just done that for you. But as it heals, don’t pop the blister. Let your body take the fluid back into itself. It’s all nourishment. And once the fluid is gone, rub some honey into the wound so it doesn’t leave a scar.”
“You don’t use lard on the burn?” she asked, startled by his suggestion.
He smiled and shook his head. “Putting lard on the burn will feed it and leave an ugly scar.”
Ella nodded, unnerved by his dark eyes. Then he nodded politely. “I’d best get moving. Please give Martha and your team my regards.”
And then he rode off to find Artie. Ella flexed her hand, aware of the heat where his thumb had touched her. She blinked, sure that she was imagining it, but it seemed the hurt of the burn had dulled, just a little.
June 1846
A month into their journey they were hit with a storm that left the wagon train bogged down for days. When the rains finally stopped, men spent hours digging mud out from beneath wagon wheels while women tried to get bed linen and clothing dry, leaving everyone short tempered and tired. And even after all that hard work, the wagons only moved a few miles that day with animals and wagon wheels continuously getting bogged down in the wet ground.
It was during the storm that Ella and her team discovered Ruby was terrified of thunder and lightning. For as the thunder boomed overhead on that first night, with shafts of lightning illuminating the prairie as if it were day, Ruby burst into the shelter which Clara and Ella shared.
“What on earth’s the matter?” Ella cried, as Ruby crawled between the canvas flaps.
“I loathe storms. I’m so afraid of them. Can I stay here with you for a little while? Just until the thunder stops?”
“What? ” Clara asked, pulling her blankets back so Ruby could crawl in between her and Ella. “A child like you frightened of storms? But you ain’t afraid of nothing! What’s a little thunder to you girl?”
“And it’s damp here,” Ella said, as the water tracked beneath the canvas sheeting.
“Well, it damp inside the wagon as well,” Ruby said, pulling their blankets over her. “Tell me something of yourselves, anything you like, just to take my mind off it.” She cringed as another crack of thunder boomed overhead. “I don’t even care if you make it up, just talk to me.”
Ella glanced at Clara, but the older woman just shook her head then rolled over and went back to sleep. Ella paused, then began to speak of her childhood. She told Ruby about her mother’s death from fever, of helping her father out in the fields alongside Jasper. She spoke a little of Quentin’s illness and of Milton’s arrival at the ranch. She told Ruby how much she’d hated her uncle and his plan to marry her off to Jebediah Crawley. And lastly, she spoke of Marrok and his sudden arrival at the ranch and her decision to leave with him and Martha for Independence.
Ruby listened in rapt silence until Ella finished. “I can’t begin to imagine your childhood,” she said. “It sounds idyllic. I never knew my mother. From what I’ve been told she died not long after I was born. And I have nothing of hers, not even a small portrait, so I don’t even know what she looked like. Although I found a letter in one of her drawers when I was about thirteen, which made me think she didn’t die at all but ran off with another man. I didn’t dare ask my father, but it would explain his bitterness. And why there was nothing in the house which showed she’d ever lived there. And why he loathes me so much. Months before I ran away, I got up the courage to speak to our housekeeper who’d lived with us for years and she remembered a little of my mother. She said I had her hair color and had inherited her love of singing,” she paused as the sky lit up with lightning and Ruby counted before the thunder boomed overhead. She cowered under the blankets, then looked over at Ella.
“Do you want me to keep talking or do you want to go to sleep,” she asked, sounding like a child, her voice muffled by the blanket.
“You can keep talking. I’ll never sleep in this storm,” Ella said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how Clara can.”
Ruby nodded then reached out to
take Ella’s hand. “Like you, I grew up with my father, although I rarely saw him. He left the house early, came home very late, leaving me to be raised by nannies and governesses. I only saw him when he needed to parade me in front of his wealthy friends at supper parties. When you talk of your father, it sounds like you were loved. I never was. I was a possession, nothing more,” Ruby cowered again as another shot of lightning lit the sky followed by more thunder. She waited for a few minutes, before continuing.
“My father never remarried after my mother’s death, although he had other women. Sometimes they came to the house and stayed a few days, then I never saw them again. Just before I turned eighteen, he met with me in our grand dining room. It was all very formal and he appeared nervous, which I’d never seen him before. Then he suggested I marry the son of one of his friends, a family I wasn’t particularly fond of. They were wealthy and powerful, but they weren’t nice people. So I refused. Which is when the war between my father and I came out into the open. He no longer bothered to hide his loathing of me, saying I should have been born male and I should make myself useful for once in my life and marry this young man and give him a grandson. Otherwise he would disown me. After that comment, I began to plan my escape. Better to leave with my dignity and some of my inheritance, than be thrown out on the street with nothing.”
“Will he ever give up looking for you?”
Ruby shook her head. “No. But he has the money to keep searching for me until the day he dies. Or I die. No, he’ll never give up. And he’s powerful enough and has enough powerful friends to find me. Although I knew full well when I ran away that I’d spend the rest of my life staying one step ahead of him.”
That night was the only time Ruby ever spoke of her father or her privileged upbringing. She never mentioned him again, nor her life in New York. And in the days and months ahead when Ella saw her laughing, or dancing with someone, or singing before the whole wagon train when the fiddles were brought out, she understood that Ruby took pleasure in the simple things because she’d never had them and they might be gone on the morrow.
And during those times when Ruby was singing along to someone’s fiddle or harmonica and Ella caught sight of Marrok watching her along with every other man in the company, it could have been so easy to be jealous of Ruby for she seemed to have it all. But Ella now knew differently. And when it seemed as if the girl demanded you like her, when she clamored for attention, for love, Ella didn’t mind, for she grew to love Ruby as much as she’d loved anyone.
*
Ella thought the rain was the worst, but others argued it was the dust. With the rain came the damp, with wet and dirty laundry crowding the wagons and restless children kept inside an already overcrowded space and exhausted men digging for hours to try and free the wheels of mud.
But the dust seemed to get into everything. It left a fine film over food and supplies, over the wagons and animals and it got into people’s ears, noses and mouths. On the worst days, before the wagons had a chance to spread out and get away from that cloying brown cloud, everyone would tie scarves around their mouths and noses to avoid breathing it in.
One night around Ella’s camp fire, as a large group of people gathered to listen to Ruby sing after supper, a discussion started on which was worse just before everyone went home. Most men decided the rain was the worst, because the wagons came to a standstill. A lot of the women agreed it was the dust, for the rain at least allowed them precious days of rest and gave them extra water to do washing and bath dirty children. But the dust soiled everything, even getting into the pores of everyone’s skin. Ella watched Marrok as he sided with the men, deciding the rain was the worst. “Wait until you get up north where the rain holds a bite to it,” he said, smiling. “Then you’ll wish for the heat and the dust back.”
There was a lot of good natured debate over this and Ella laughed as she listened, leaning into Ruby as she agreed with the women. The dust was definitely the worst.
August 1846
1
He reined in his horse and turned in the saddle, trying to hear them, to see how far behind they were. Two miles, perhaps a little more, but close enough to run him down. His horse stamped its hooves, nervously prancing about, for like Marrok he was well aware of the pack of wolves hunting them down.
Marrok lifted his head and sniffed the air, trying to scent them, to see how close they were, but all he could smell was the heat in those grasses just a few miles ahead. He kicked the horse on, knowing his only chance to lose them was to head for the prairies, to ride for open ground, for the wolves would not venture out from under cover of the trees.
He rode the horse hard, hoping the animal didn’t blow out, for they’d been running since they came across the pack high in the hills more than five miles back, with the pack’s huge black male, the alpha wolf, chasing him down with the others following.
Marrok thought he’d lost them when he rode along the bed of a wide stream. But they’d found the horse’s scent, although that precious half hour had given his horse a break and given Marrok a precious lead, but with the horse tiring, they would be an easy kill for those wolves.
He came upon a long deep gully, the trees towering above him with lush green ferns across the forest floor and another wide stream just ahead of him, running the length of the gully. Marrok reined his horse in and looked east, back towards the prairie. He might not make it, for it lay a good mile away. But if he could fool them again and enter that water, he might have a chance. He kicked his horse down into the gully, feeling the absolute stillness of the place until he entered the stream, the splashing of the water around the horse’s fetlocks seeming to echo in that silent world.
When the gully widened, the ferns less dense here, he saw a slope a quarter mile away that would take him back up into the woods. But as he rode on, a movement ahead of him made him look up, even as he reached for his shotgun. But it wasn’t a wolf.
He thought he imagined it at first, not quite believing what he was seeing, but yes, there she was, standing on the edge of the stream, looking back at him. A little girl, no more than four years old. And then she uttered a soft cry of hopelessness.
Marrok reined his horse in, looking up at the ancient trees towering above him on the edge of the gully, some twenty feet or more above him. He listened for the wolves but it seemed he’d lost them for now. But they would come, he knew it.
Yet it was so quiet down here, as if time stood still, that the little girl’s soft whimpers seemed otherworldly, as if he’d imagined them, as if they came from another time and place. But she was no ghost. She whimpered again, her small hand going to her dirty face, the tears leaving a clear path down her cheeks.
Marrok called to her in one of the local dialects, feeling the sweat dry on his shirt, aware he didn’t have much time.
“Come, little one, come,” he called and walked his horse towards her.
There was no doubt she was alone. He could see how thin she was, how dirty. Yet he didn’t have time to dismount and look around and discover the reasons for it, for he could hear them now, as a cry lifted above the trees less than a mile behind him. And then a howl that echoed hauntingly through that forest.
She stumbled towards him, her moccasins filthy, but Marrok didn’t dare dismount for that would be suicide and desperate now to ride on, he reached down and grabbed the back of her shift. She screamed with terror as he swung her up.
She was as light as a babe, yet Marrok didn’t dare move back to give her his saddle, for he needed to ride hard and fast. So he held her high against his shoulder.
“You’re safe now, little one. Can you be brave and hold on tight?” he asked.
She nodded, yet the tears coursed silently down her dirt covered face. Marrok took the reins in one hand, then yelled at his horse to move on, kicking him out of the stream towards the slope, then back into the woods before riding hard for the open prairie.
The little girl made not a murmur, intuitively understanding
the urgency as she folded into him, her small hands gripping his buckskin shirt as she curved into the hardness of his body, her limbs seeming boneless, which made it easier for Marrok to hold her.
And then the prairie was before them, even as Marrok saw the pack come up on his right, and then others racing alongside him on his left, snarling, lunging to bite at his horse’s legs and then at last they were out of the trees and galloping across those vast grasslands.
Marrok didn’t turn back until the sweat ran off his horse and he blew with exhaustion. Only then did Marrok pull up and look back.
The pack stood less than half a mile behind him. More than fifteen of them, pacing restlessly, deciding whether to chase him down.
It was time to take a stand. And he finally had a chance to do it, right here. Without taking his eyes off the alpha wolf, Marrok dismounted with the girl in his arms, putting her gently on the ground before reaching for his shotgun. Then he put one foot on his reins to keep the spooked horse from running, before aiming the gun above the wolves’ heads and firing. His horse bucked wildly while the little girl screamed and curled into a tight ball, her arms over her head and her legs drawn up to her chest, but the wolves turned and fled back into the trees.
Marrok stood there for long minutes, watching the trees as he petted his horse to settle him down then he moved to crouch by the girl who looked up at him in terror, her dirty little face wet with tears.
“I’m a friend,” he said softly. “You have no reason to fear me, little one.”
2
Ella always remembered the moment Marrok rode in with the little girl, for it seemed the catalyst of everything that had gone wrong.
They had been travelling for over two months when they dug the first of several graves. And they also had their first accidents, both caused by fatigue and carelessness.