by Sadie Conall
*
To celebrate the ceremony, women made cakes and baked fresh bread and men brought in deer meat which was cooked on a large spit. And then the fiddlers started playing and Marrok and Ella got up to dance. And when she thought on it later, Ella knew she’d never heard Marrok laugh so much as he laughed that day.
They feasted on fresh bread and cakes and hot meat and the drinking of elderberry and berry punch, made by a young man on the wagon train eager to start his own brewery in California, where he’d been told the grapes grew as big as plums. And when Ella and Marrok finally snuck away to one of his wagons, Ella saw Marrok had pulled it away from the others so it stood alone under a grove of trees. She was grateful for the privacy on their first night together. And later, when she fell asleep in his arms, she couldn’t imagine there being anything better in the world, than this.
3
The night after their wedding, Constance went into labor and in the early hours of the morning she was safely delivered of another boy. Martha helped deliver him, along with the two midwives who had travelled west with them.
Abe and Wilber declined Marrok’s offer to join him in Oregon. And they also declined the offer to join the family from South Carolina in Willamette Valley. Instead, they joined Moss and Nell Weslock’s team, along with Ruby, with the aim of going on to California, which had been their dream from the beginning.
Ella felt some guilt about leaving half her team stranded in Fort Hall, although they didn’t seem to mind too much.
“I’ve got to get to California somehow,” Ruby said to her. “And now that my ride with you is over, I’m happy enough to travel with Nell and Moss. They’re good decent folk. And you know me Ella, I’m always ready for a change.”
Moss couldn’t have expected a better outcome, although he was well aware that Ruby didn’t feel the same way about him, as he did her. And he told her that, before she agreed to share her life with him and his mother for the next few months.
“I don’t mind so much about it anymore, I’ve got over my disappointment,” he said. “All I know is that I’ve been struggling since Pa died, working the oxen and the wagon alone. And Ma has found life on the trail hard since he died, so you’ll be good for her. You’ll take her mind off her grief. And I’ll be grateful for Abe and Wilber’s help.”
But when Moss made Ella a decent offer to buy her wagon and oxen, it was Marrok who persuaded her to sell them.
“We’ve got eight wagons between me and Artie. We don’t really need another, or more oxen, and we’ll likely have to dismantle the wagons to get though the mountain passes anyway,” he said.
“And although we could use them as shelters for all those people coming north with us, I’d rather trade some of our oxen for teepees, for the teepees will be warmer in the coming winter. So go make your sale Ella, but keep the money in your pocket. One day you might have something to spend it on, just for yourself. It will remind you of your parents and the ranch and this journey west by wagon train and how far you’ve come.”
Moss was delighted with the sale, which gave him two good wagons and twelve oxen to start up his ranch. It also meant Ruby could remain sleeping in Ella’s wagon.
4
Four days after Ella and Marrok were married, Joe Bracedon was sworn in as the new wagon master, responsible for taking the wagon train on to California. They were scheduled to roll out at 6am the following morning.
Miller Minson was sworn in as the wagon master for the settlers heading up to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. They planned to roll out just after the bigger wagon train, bound for California.
When the first bugle call come at 4am, Ella, Marrok, Artie and all their teams got up to wave the settlers off and say goodbye.
“Don’t fret about me, my lovely,” Ruby said, hugging her. “You know I’m different to you. And although I wish with all my heart I could settle down and find a good man like your Marrok, you know I’ll never settle down. So please be happy for me? I’ll think of you often. You know I will. For how could I ever forget you? Or Marrok. Or Clara. Or what the three of you did for me. And when you think of me at all, think of me standing on stage in a big concert hall, being paid to sing!”
Then Ella turned to Martha and Constance and Willard, as their girls watched on, half asleep. The girls were upset that Ella was leaving them. Their only consolation was that Ruby was staying on and they had a new baby brother to fuss over. But Martha couldn’t stop her tears.
“I can’t believe I’m losing you. It don’t seem right somehow.”
And then Constance stepped forward, putting an arm around her mother-in-law. “We’ll do just fine Ella. You go on and live a good life. We all know you’ll be happy, for anyone just has to see you with Marrok to know that no other man would do for you.”
Willard kissed her on the cheek. “Martha mentioned that you’ll try and send us word. I look forward to receiving that letter. And I’ll make sure that we check on those big hotels in the years ahead, to see if they’ve received anything from somewhere in the wilds of Oregon.”
But as the wagons rolled out to face the hard terrain ahead, Ella felt her heart lurch with grief, for this would be the last time she saw Martha. Or any of them.
Martha sat beside Willard on the buckboard and as the wagon passed by, they both waved goodbye, even as Martha wiped away her tears. “I love you, darling girl! Be happy, Ella!” she cried and then she was gone, the wagon passed.
Constance and the three older children sat at the back of Willard’s other wagon, with the new baby in Constance’s arms. “Take care Ella!” Constance called as they waved goodbye, the two older girls sobbing.
And then the two wagons which belonged to Moss were passing by. Ella watched as her father’s wagon rolled on by, with Ruby sitting on the buckboard beside Nell who held the reins.
“Don’t worry about me, Ella! You know I’ll be just fine!” the girl called. “And once I get to San Francisco, a whole new life awaits! I love you!” And then she reached over and embraced Nell, who laughed through her tears as Clara ran beside the wagon, calling goodbye.
“You take care of yourself, girl!” she yelled to Ruby. “You go on an’ find someone to hold durin’ the worst of storms!”
“I’ll miss you Clara!” Ruby cried. “I love you! I love you for taking care of me!”
And then they were gone, as other wagons rolled up behind them, blocking them from sight.
Ella sobbed as she watched them go, as the dust rose behind them and then the smaller wagon train was heading out, on its way to the Willamette Valley.
She felt Marrok tense beside her, knowing he was also eager to ride on out and at last, there was no-one left, other than the few people who lived at the trading post, for the large group of Bannock and Shoshone had left the day before, riding out at dawn to head back into the mountains, back to their own valleys.
“Are we ready?” Artie called.
Marrok nodded. “Let’s go,” he said and as everyone headed back to their wagons, their oxen harnessed and ready to go, Marrok turned to Ella.
“Are you alright?”
She nodded and reached out to wrap her arms around him. “Yes, I’ll be alright.”
Artie climbed aboard his wagon but before he flicked the reins he raised his arm.
“Wagons ho!” he yelled.
Ella mounted Billy and rode with Marrok towards Jasper who sat astride Bear. Clara sat on the buckboard beside one of Marrok’s men. She and Ella were the only women accompanying twenty-two men north, along with six wagons and thirty oxen.
Ella wiped away the last of her tears as Marrok rode up beside her. He reached between their horses and took her hand, bringing it to his lips as Ella glanced back towards the wagons heading for California, too small to make out now as the last of them moved between a forest of pine way in the distance. Soon they would be lost from sight forever and Ella felt that loss again as she thought of Martha and Ruby. She would never see them again but as she looked
at the tall handsome man sitting astride his horse beside her, holding her hand, she knew without any doubt that this was where she should be, beside him. And no matter what lay ahead for them, the good and the bad, Ella knew in her heart that Marrok would always be there for her. She smiled and raised his hand, which still held her own, and kissed his fingers.
“Let’s go Marrok. It’s a long ride to Oregon.”
Epilogue
April 1849
Ella reached for a shawl and draped it around her shoulders, before covering the infant in her arms to keep him warm as she walked silently towards the bedroom door. Before she closed it behind her, she glanced back at Marrok. He lay abed, in shadows, fast asleep, for it wasn’t yet dawn. But Ella had no desire to wake him. He looked so peaceful lying there, and she couldn’t help but think that in the years since they’d married at Fort Hall, he’d barely changed. A few more lines around his eyes, but that was all. He was still fit and lean and she loved him as much, if not more, than she did when she married him. For although the passion was still there between them, they now owned a deeper, stronger bond since she’d had the babe.
She shut the door quietly behind her, the moccasins on her feet keeping her warm as she stepped into the main room of the cabin, moving across to the hearth to stoke the hot coals before adding several logs of wood, shivering a little in the coolness of the early morning. For even though it was April and the beginning of spring, it was still cold up here in the high country.
She walked across to the window and opened one of the wooden shutters to look out at the mountains which surrounded them, as the sky slowly turned to grey in the pre-dawn light. This was her favorite time of the day, watching the sun rise over the mountains, for soon the colors of pink and gold would come, turning the darkness of the night sky into something breathtaking.
The babe squirmed in her arms and Ella closed the shutter to keep the heat in the room before opening the front door and stepping out onto the porch. And as she pulled the door shut behind her, she glanced at the two smaller cabins built just beyond this two-room cabin she shared with Marrok. One of them now belonged to Clara, the other to Jasper. Smoke drifted from both, as well as the half dozen cabins built up in the woods where the six men who had stayed on to work for Marrok lived, four of them with their Chinook wives.
Ella squinted in the early morning light as she looked over towards the river, as it wound its way between the trees that lined it’s banks, although the branches of the cottonwoods and birches lay empty, their leaves long ago lost to winter. Way on the other side of the river she could see the drift of smoke coming from the two-room cabin where Artie lived with his Chinook wife and further away, from cabins where ranch hands lived with their wives and young families.
She turned as the mares ready to foal walked restlessly in the corral, which Marrok had built near the house. And beyond them, way out across the valley, the rest of the herd grazed on open land. These were Marrok’s horses. Some of them he’d brought west with him, others had been bred with the hardy mustangs the Chinook preferred. On the other side of the house, the oxen that Marrok had brought west with him from Independence, grazed within large corrals.
Ella smiled as she looked out over the ranch. She’d loved it from the moment she’d first laid eyes on it, for it was as beautiful, as vast, as fertile as Marrok had described. Some thirty miles wide by some forty miles long with a wide shallow river running through the centre of it, Artie and Marrok had each claimed a side of the river for themselves.
They traded with the Chinook for everything they couldn’t grow or hunt themselves, but once a year they did a seven-week round trip to Vancouver Bay to buy supplies of flour, coffee, sugar, salt and salted bacon. Tomorrow morning Marrok and Artie would leave with several of their men to do that annual trip again, but this year they hoped to return with a few pigs so they could breed from them and make their own salted bacon, as well as a few milking cows and chickens. They had put the order in last year, knowing the stock would have to come across from Hudson Bay or up from California. But now that Ella had the babe, her need for fresh milk was urgent, for she knew her own milk wouldn’t last much longer. And she longed for the chance to make cheese and butter.
She usually went with the men to Vancouver Bay, but this year she didn’t have the energy, not with a four month old babe. But while Marrok and Artie were away, Clara and Jasper would help her, along with several of Marrok’s men who would stay behind. And some men would remain at Artie’s ranch, along with members of his wife’s family.
Jasper had also declined Marrok’s invitation to travel this year, although Ella knew as did everyone else that Jasper’s knees and hips pained him now, more than he let on. But the Chinook came to visit often, with herbs to help his joint pain, so Jasper rarely complained. And despite the bone aching cold of these high mountain winters, Ella knew he’d never change the life he had here, to the life he’d left behind in St Louis, or the warmer climate there.
And nor would Clara change a thing. She had told Ella once that she’d found a deep peace living in these mountains. And even though a couple of men who worked for Artie had shown an interest in her, Clara had declined their offers of marriage. She loved her life just the way it was, having her cabin all to herself, yet spending her days with Ella and the babe.
Ella suddenly thought of the letter she’d written to Martha. She must remember to give it to Marrok on the morrow, for it had taken her over a year to write. Marrok had promised to give it to the captain of any ship docked in Vancouver Bay heading for California, with instructions to leave the letter at the biggest hotel the captain could find. Ella didn’t know if Martha would ever receive it, but it gave her pleasure knowing she’d sent it.
She’d written to Martha of her joy in Marrok and her son, of building their cabins and settling down, of her pride in her vegetable plot of corn and squash, the seeds given to her by the Chinook. She wrote of the wild blueberry patch she’d found up in the woods behind the house, of Clara making pies with those berries, reminding Ella of the blueberries they’d found on that wagon trail all those years ago. She also wrote of their first winter, spent with the Chinook, sheltering in teepees against the bitter cold, of having to dismantle their wagons so the oxen could carry them over the mountains with the help of travois the men had built, before finally reaching this valley in the spring of 1847.
Two years ago, yet it felt like an age, for their lives had changed so much. Ella could still remember how isolated she had found it, living out here in the wild, but once the men built the cabins and the ranch hands settled down and had families of their own, everything changed. And the Chinook were always here, ready to trade, setting up their teepees close to the river, offering a share of their hunt while everyone gathered around their open fires. And soon the salmon would come, filling the rivers, and everyone would feast on them.
Ella sometimes thought of her father’s ranch, along with those three graves on the hill behind the house. She couldn’t imagine living there now, and when she bothered to dwell on her lucky escape from Jebediah Crawley, she still felt her belly crawl with disgust for him and her uncle.
One thing she wished for but knew she could never have, was for her parents to have met Marrok and her son. But she never said it aloud, never wanting Marrok to know how much she missed them. Nor did she speak of the muggy summer heat of St Louis on those bitterly cold days of winter, when temperatures plunged below freezing.
But she wouldn’t change anything. And she wouldn’t leave here, not for anything in the world.
She smiled, taking a deep breath of the glorious morning air, aware of the scents of damp grass and herbs and horses as she remembered the hard times along with the good. And as she held the babe close to her body’s warmth against the chill of the day, the door opened behind her. She turned as Marrok stepped out to join them, a blanket around his shoulders and as he bent to kiss her, he moved to wrap the blanket around the three of them, enveloping them i
n a hug, pulling them close.
She would miss him during the seven weeks he’d be gone, but he’d be back for summer. She couldn’t wait. And as the baby whimpered in her arms again, Marrok moved to take him, holding the child to his heart, whispering to him in his Objiwa dialect. Ella understood the words, for she knew some of them now, along with some Chinook. And as she leaned into Marrok, looking up into his strong, handsome face, she whispered back the same words. “I love you.”
The following in an excerpt from the second and last book in the escape west by wagon train series.
Ruby paused as she climbed the hill to look down over the town below and the ocean beyond. The sea birds flew on the hot thermal air currents, those same salty breezes blowing in from offshore sweeping around Ruby, making her feel alive, as if she too could fly away on them, like those gulls.
She turned to glance up towards the trees above her and knew the sooner she reached the shelter of them the better, for she could feel her pale skin burn in this heat. So she lifted her skirts and pushed herself onward, her hat falling about her shoulders, leaving her face flushed with the excursion of the climb and the heat of the day.
When she reached the trees she sank down in the long grass beneath them, grateful to be in the shade and in an effort to cool down, she pulled her skirts up above her knees before taking off her boots. She closed her eyes in bliss as she leaned back against a tree, grateful not only for the silence, but for that blessed cool breeze.
She saw them less than an hour later, after she’d feasted on the bread and cold roast beef and cheese she’d brought with her. Two men, one older than the other, far below, climbing towards her.
Ruby pulled on her boots and swept her skirts down before pushing herself to her feet, annoyed at being disturbed.
But she also felt a tremor of fear.