A Journey of the Heart Collection (33 page)

Isaac stood in the stirrups to stretch his muscles as the sunrise cast golden rays across their path. He had awakened the wagon train early and was even more eager to reach the safe haven of the fort after the ambush two days before.

The women had rolled up the sides of the ambulance so they could watch the approach to Fort Phil Kearny.

Isaac pointed out the majestic peaks in the
distance. “That's the Bighorn Mountains. Beautiful, aren't they? This Powder River country is the last of the Sioux hunting grounds. It's usually thick with buffalo, but they're beginning to thin out from the white man hunting them. The Indians are afraid that if they let us establish the Bozeman Trail along here, we'll drive away the last of the game. And they're right, as usual. It's already starting to happen.”

“Maybe that's a good thing,” Emmie said. “With no game, they'll go somewhere else.”

Sarah frowned. “I lived with the Sioux for a short while. It was a curiously peaceful life where we worked for our food and really lacked nothing important. Their ways aren't any different to us than our ways are to the Europeans. The Indian women do beautiful needlework. Sometime I'll show you my buckskin dress and take you to see inside a Sioux tepee. My friend White Dove taught me a lot about what's really important in life. Things like love and unity and self-sufficiency. You would like her.”

“Where is she now?” Emmie asked.

When Sarah glanced at him, Isaac realized she didn't know. Maybe Rand had tried not to worry her. “She's with Little Wolverine in Red Cloud's resistance,
as far as I know. Rand and I tried to talk them out of going, but they said they had to stand with their people before the Sioux are no more.”

Emmie shivered and tugged the blanket more tightly around her legs. “How can Rand fight the Indians when he has friends among them? What if Little Wolverine was with the band who attacked us?”

Isaac glanced at the hills around them. Danger could be anywhere, and he'd expected an attack on the route. “It would be Rand's worst nightmare to have to fight his friend. I don't know if he could or not.”

If only his own brothers had Rand's integrity.

SEVEN

P
hil Kearny ahead!” Rand called.

Sarah and Emmie both thrust their heads out under the rolled-up canvas on the sides of the wagon and looked eagerly for their destination. Emmie could see sentries on a hill ahead waving signal flags.

“They're signaling our arrival to the fort,” Sarah told her. “The commander will send out an escort.”

Rand had ordered the women to stay in the ambulance away from the possible eyes of hostiles, but Emmie longed to climb out of the lurching conveyance
and run on ahead to the fort. The thought of sleeping in a real bed was enticing. As she and Sarah looked toward the fort, a wagon loaded with wood lumbered by. On the back of the wagon a bloodstained figure lolled, one arm flung down the back of the wagon. Emmie thought he looked like he had red hair like Isaac until Sarah gasped.

“That soldier's been scalped,” Sarah choked out, her hand to her mouth.

Emmie shuddered and looked around fearfully for the Indians who had committed the atrocity. But the wooded hills around the fort looked peaceful. The ambulance jerked forward as the driver urged the horses to a trot. Rand had seen the dead soldier and motioned the troops to hurry toward the safety of the fort.

As they pulled inside the stockaded garrison, soldiers milled around shouting orders. “Do you see Amelia?” Sarah asked anxiously.

Emmie looked around but saw no other women. She consulted the gold watch pinned to her dress. “It's around lunchtime. Maybe we could find her in the mess hall.”

They climbed down out of the ambulance and Emmie staggered, a little unsteady on her feet, as though the ground were lurching under her. “It looks
more like I thought Laramie would look. There are stockades and sentries along the blockhouses.”

Sarah nodded. “If that murdered soldier is anything to go by, they need all the protection they can get. There's no telegraph line strung this far north, so if they've been having a lot of trouble with hostiles, they wouldn't be able to wire for reinforcements.” Joel was dancing around impatiently, so she gave him permission to go look for his friend.

Rand stepped up and put an arm around Sarah. “I'll see if I can find Jacob and Amelia. You look done in. While you're resting at Amelia's, I'll see the quartermaster and get our housing assignment.”

Emmie turned as a male voice shouted, “Rand!” She hadn't seen Rand's brother Jacob in a while, but she instantly recognized his stocky frame and brown hair.

“Rand!” Jacob ran toward them and seconds later the brothers were hugging and slapping one another on the back. “I can't believe you're here. And Sarah too. Amelia will be ecstatic. She's been driving me crazy with missing Sarah.” He pulled her into a bear hug, then his face sobered when he saw Emmie. Rand gave him one last clap on the back and hurried off to find the quartermaster.

Emmie knew Jacob had never liked Ben. She hadn't had much occasion to talk to Jacob herself, so she assumed his reserve was because of her brother. He would just have to find out she wasn't like her brother. She held out her hand. “Hello, Jacob.”

He smiled then and took her hand. “Emmie. What are you doing here? Did your husband join the army? Ma wrote when you got married.”

Sarah rushed in as Emmie bit her lip. “Emmie's a widow and she's here to keep me company. But there's plenty of time for explanations later. I'm dying to see Amelia. Where is she?”

“I'll show you to our quarters. She's been feeling poorly, and I told her to rest this afternoon.”

“What's wrong with her?” Sarah sounded alarmed. She and Emmie hurried to keep up with Jacob's long strides as he led them across the uncompleted parade ground toward a row of wooden houses.

He grinned. “You'll have to ask her.”

“You don't mean—”

“Yeah. Can you believe I'm going to be a papa? Rand and I are going to make each other uncles within a few weeks of one another.”

Sarah clapped her hands. “Wait until Rand hears!”

“Here we are.” He stopped beside a small wooden house.

Emmie looked around curiously. The home was tiny, and sap ran from the cuts and nicks in the logs. She touched a sticky lump and raised it to her nose. It smelled like pine. She'd noticed coming toward the fort that this area had a lot more trees than down around Laramie.

Jacob pushed open the door and led them into a tiny parlor with a fireplace in one wall. It looked much like the home they'd left except it was even smaller. “It doesn't look like much now, I know,” he said with an apologetic grin. “I haven't had time to knock together a table and chairs for the kitchen yet, so we've been eating in the parlor. It's pretty inconvenient for Amelia, but I told her I'd make sure I got to it this week. The Indians have been a constant nuisance. Even the wood detail has to be accompanied by armed troops. And that doesn't always stop Red Cloud's band, as I'm sure you noticed on the way in.”

“Who was the murdered soldier?” Sarah asked as Jacob led the way through the minuscule kitchen toward the closed door on the far side. “Did I know him?”

“No, Corporal Johnson was a new recruit, and he
was as hotheaded as they come. We're just lucky more weren't killed. Some of the men have been spoiling for a fight, but I thank the good Lord that Carrington has been able to restrain them so far.” He pushed open the door to the bedroom and smiled when he saw his wife.

She lay on her side, one arm outflung and her face pink in sleep. Her black hair was unbound and fanned out on the pillow in a silken cloud. Jacob's face softened in love and pride as he gazed at his sleeping wife.

“Honey. Look who's here.” He spoke gently as he took her hand.

Her long lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes blearily. She stared for a long minute into Sarah's eyes, then bolted upright. “Sarah?” She looked over at Jacob, then back at Sarah.

Sarah bounded forward and jumped onto the bed. “It's me, Amelia. It's really me.”

A pang of jealousy overwhelmed Emmie as she saw Sarah and Amelia fall into each other's arms with tears of joy. She'd always liked Amelia, but she'd grown to rely on Sarah over the past weeks. Bleakly, she knew she would have to settle for second place in Sarah's affections. She squared her shoulders and
pushed the hurt feelings away. She would not be like her brother Ben. He had allowed jealousy and possessiveness to ruin his life and Labe's too. She'd come here alone and she could leave the same way if she had to. But she didn't want to leave. It felt grand to laugh with friends like Sarah and Rand.

Amelia drew away and noticed Emmie standing unobtrusively to one side. “Why, dear Emmie too!” She slipped out of the bed and ran to give her a quick hug. “How wonderful to see you. I had no idea you were with Sarah. Is Monroe with you?”

Amelia seemed truly glad to see her. Emmie shook her head at Amelia's question. She glanced gratefully at Sarah, who rushed in with a quick explanation of Emmie's circumstances.

“You poor dear.” Amelia gave her another quick hug. “No wonder you look so peaked. I am glad you're here, though you may want to run screaming for home with two crotchety women in delicate conditions for company.”

“Well, I'll leave you three to get caught up on all the gossip and go find my brother,” Jacob put in.

The women barely noticed his departure as they all three piled on the bed and began to talk at once.
“We brought some fresh newspapers from back East with us—they're only two months old,” Sarah said.

“And I brought a magazine of new fashions Margaret sent with me. I've been saving it until winter settled in, but we could get it out whenever you want,” Emmie added.

“Let's save it until we can get together with the other ladies,” Amelia said. “You'll love our little community. There's Mrs. Horton, the wife of our post surgeon and surgeon in chief of the Mountain District; Mrs. Carrington, the commander's wife; Mrs. Wands; Mrs. Bisbee; and Mrs. Grummond. They've been a wonderful help to me.” She slipped off the bed, picked up the hairbrush from the barrel that served as a nightstand, and began to put her hair up. “Let's have some tea and then I'll introduce you to the ladies.”

The bugle sounded retreat as Isaac strode through Fort Phil Kearny. It bustled with activity as soldiers led their horses toward the stables and hurried to get ready for evening mess. Isaac thought he'd never seen a more beautiful spot than this Tongue River Valley.
The Bighorn Mountains south of the valley, the Panther Mountains to the west, and the Black Hills to the east all formed a majestic backdrop to this busy little fort in the wilderness.

Black-billed magpies scrabbled in the thin dirt in search of food, while flocks of mountain chickadees chirped in the trees outside the fort. The smell of cut pine and sawdust mingled with the scent of horse and wood smoke as he made his way through the tradesman encampment. The air was fresh with the scent of imminent rain, and Isaac could see thunderheads towering like newly forming mountains to the west.

The stockade was not yet completely finished. Its walls of hewn pine were interspersed with block guardhouses situated diagonally at the corners of the fort, and the gates were made of massive double planks with small sally wickets and a small sally port for the officers' use. Immediately inside was the quartermaster's yard, a cottonwood corral that housed the teamsters and their stock along with wagons, hayricks, and the shops for wagon makers and leather workers. Just beyond that was the fort proper, with officers' row, the barracks, and the sutler's store. He skirted the manure and mud as he hurried toward the Campbell quarters.

Emmie opened the door when he knocked. He grinned at the startled look on her face.