Bittner, Rosanne

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

April 1863

Luke tightened the rawhide straps around the belly of one of the mules that carried his supplies. "Suck in that gut, you stubborn ass," he muttered. "I'm not going to hold up this wagon train because you spill my supplies all over the place."

The animal brayed loudly, and people turned to stare. "Shut up, damn it," he ordered the mule, yanking harder. It embarrassed him to have everyone witness his struggle with the obstinate animal.

He figured there were plenty of others amid this crowd headed west who were even less prepared for what lay ahead of them than he was. Including the children, there were about a hundred people camped here outside of Independence. He had counted eighteen wagons. He himself had decided against bothering with a wagon and oxen. His horse and four pack mules were enough. Some of his fellow travelers were herding cattle and extra horses as well, some had chickens with them, a few had pigs. Most of them were headed for California or Oregon, many fleeing the hideous War between the States and the ugly raiding that had been taking place between Kansas and Missouri. He had his own reasons for heading west, but they had nothing to do with the war.

He finished buckling the strap. He hated mules, much preferred horses. But he had taken the advice of experienced scouts back in St. Louis that mules were much better suited to carrying heavy loads for long distances, and it was a long way to Montana. As far as he was concerned, California and Oregon were already too heavily settled. He was going to a place where a man could still claim big pieces of land, where there was still hardly any law. That way a man could do whatever was necessary to keep his land without answering to anyone but himself. This wagon train would get him as far as Wyoming. From then on, he would be on his own. The prospect was exhilarating. He was determined to show his father and his brother that he didn't need the inheritance money that had been denied him. To hell with them both! His father could believe what he wanted. He knew in his heart he was not a bastard. He had every right to the Fontaine money, and he swore that someday he would be a hundred times richer than his father, and he would do it all on his own.

The crack of a gunshot startled him out of his thoughts. Horses whinnied, and a woman began railing at her husband for being careless with a handgun. When Luke looked up, a couple of horses had bolted at the noise of the gunshot and were running toward him.

Then everything seemed to happen at once. "Nathan!" a young woman shouted frantically. Luke turned to see a towheaded little boy running toward him from another direction, a stuffed animal in his arms, a big grin on his chubby face. The boy obviously thought his mother was playing a game by chasing him, but his path was taking him on a collision course with the runaway horses.

Luke ran to the boy, lifting him with one strong arm a split second before the horses would have trampled him. He ducked aside, landing on the ground and covering the child. He felt a blow on his right calf from a horse's hoof and grimaced with pain, wondering why it had to be that particular spot. He still suffered enough pain there from his war wound. He didn't need a horse's kick to awaken the agony. He heard the shouts of "whoa!" felt people gather near him. Someone grabbed the little boy right out of his arms. "Nathan! Nathan!"

A couple of men helped Luke to his feet, asked if he was all right. They held his arms as Luke limped over to a log to sit down. "I'll be fine," he insisted, rubbing at his leg. "Just got a little kick." He decided not to mention the war wound. In crowds like this there was usually a good mixture of Northerners and Southerners. Mentioning he'd fought for the Union army just might start a needless argument, and for the next four months or so, they all had to forget their differences and band together for the journey west.

"Sorry, mister," a man spoke up. "I accidentally spooked my horses."

"Don't worry about it," Luke answered. "I'm okay. All of you can get back to whatever you were doing."

The man who had misfired his gun apologized again, this time to a woman standing near Luke. "Thank God your boy wasn't hurt," he told her.

"It was partly my fault," the woman answered. "Nathan has just found his legs, and he is always running. He thinks it's a game. I think I shall have to put a rope on him and tie it to my own waist."

"Might be a good idea, ma'am." The man left to collect his horses, and Luke looked up at the woman who held the towheaded youngster he had just rescued. The boy still clung to his stuffed animal, which Luke could see was a homemade brown horse. Part of a feather from the stuffing stuck out of one of the seams. The child was still grinning, oblivious to the danger he'd been in. His mother chided him for running away from her.

"I don't know how to thank you, sir," she told Luke then. "Nathan could have been killed if not for your quick thinking. I do hope you're not badly hurt."

For the first time Luke truly noticed her and was surprised at how pretty she was. That thought had barely registered before it was eclipsed by the pain in his leg and his irritation at how the whole morning had gone for him.

"I don't think so," he answered, "but you ought to keep a better eye on the boy there. On a trip like we'll be taking, you'll have to hold a tighter rein on him, or you'll be running into this kind of problem every day." Luke watched her stiffen at the words, and the concern in her pretty eyes gave way to consternation.

"It isn't easy to watch an active two-year-old every second, Mr.—"

"Fontaine. Luke Fontaine."

"Hossy." The little boy held out his stuffed horse to Luke.

"That's his word for horse," the woman told Luke. "As you can see, there isn't a bashful or fearful bone in Nathan's body."

Luke could see the deep hurt and anger in her eyes, figured she was holding her temper in check for the boy's sake. He ignored the child's gesture, at the moment more interested in how a woman with such deep red hair and luscious green eyes could have given birth to a blond-headed, blue-eyed child like the one she was holding, but then that wasn't his business. Her husband must be the one with the blond hair. Luke wondered where he was. "You might try tying a rope around the kid like you mentioned earlier." He rubbed at his leg a moment longer, then stood up.

"Well, thank you for the sage advice," she told him coolly.

Luke studied her full lips, the porcelain look to her skin, her slender waist. He could not help noticing how nicely she filled out the bodice of her flowered cotton dress, a dress, he took note, that was suited to the journey ahead, but still had a more elegant look than what the other women were wearing. Her hair was nicely done up, in such a pile of curls that he was sure it must hang to her waist when she let it down. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I haven't had the best morning."

The woman sighed. "No, neither have I." She struggled to hang on to her son, who was wiggling to get down again.

"Here, let me hold him for a minute," Luke said. "I'll walk you back to your own camp."

"That won't be necessary," she started to protest, but the husky boy was obviously more than she could handle when he had the desire to climb out of her arms. "Oh, dear," she said, reluctantly handing him over.

Luke gathered the child into his arms, surprised at how easily he came to him when he had never met him before. "Well, Nathan, you've got to quit giving your mother such troubles."

"Hossy," Nathan said again, touching the horse's nose to Luke's. The gesture broke the strain between Luke and the boy's mother, and they both smiled.

"I am Lettie MacBride Dougan," she told Luke then.

Luke nodded, secretly touched when little Nathan put his head down on his shoulder. Over the last year he had given a lot of thought to what it might be like to have a son of his own. He'd certainly give him more love than he had ever known from his own father. "Glad to meet you, Mrs. Dougan."

She looked past him then at his mules. "You... you're traveling alone?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, then, I insist, Mr. Fontaine, that you let me and my family thank you for saving Nathan by joining our campfire tonight for supper. This first day's journey is bound to be difficult. The least we can do is save you the trouble of having to fix your own supper tonight. That is our lead wagon over there," she said, pointing to a wagon with the pole sticking up above it with the red cloth tied to it. "We marked it that way so that if Nathan runs off, he could spot our lead wagon easily and find us again. Actually, we have three wagons. My father is both a farmer and a merchant. He is taking a load of supplies along to start his own store when we reach Denver."

"Denver? You aren't going all the way to California?"

"No. We and some of the others will stay with the train to the fork of the North and South Platte rivers. Then we'll follow the South Platte to Denver. Father feels there is a great deal of potential there for a businessman, much more than in California and Oregon, which are already so heavily settled."

"Could be," Luke answered. "And how does your husband feel?"

He noticed the woman's face redden as though for a moment she felt some kind of shame.

"Nathan's father is dead," she answered. "Killed in a border raid."