Glory (18 page)

Shoving her hat to the back of her head, she joined the
other girls as they walked toward the wagon master cautiously. Glory knew full well that when Jackson’s face was red and bad words were as plentiful as weeds, he wasn’t in any mood for socializing.

The travelers stood in the middle of the trail, staring at the torn strip of leather as if staring would miraculously repair it. The sun seared through their bonnets as the women shifted stances, eyes switching periodically to Jackson.

Lily finally broke the strained silence. “What do we do now?”

“Fix it.”

“But that will take all afternoon!” Glory exclaimed.

Jackson took off his hat and wiped a stream of sweat dripping off his forehead. “Do you have a better idea?”

“We could switch teams. Use the mule team today and repair the oxen’s harness tonight.”

He nodded, but his grim expression didn’t soften. “We could do that,
if
the mule team’s harness hadn’t broken when I went to hitch them this morning.” His tone was louder and harsher than usual. “All our leather has taken a beating in this heat. I wipe it down with conditioning oil at night, but the salty sweat and the wear and tear have taken their toll.”

Glory didn’t have another idea, good or bad. She stared at the thick leather, then at Jackson. “So we stop and fix it now?”

“I guess we don’t have a choice.”

Jackson disappeared into the back of the wagon for the
repair kit. Glory stayed put, knowing he didn’t want her help. For the next few hours, he sat under a shade tree and patched the broken harness.

Ruth offered to help, but he brushed her efforts aside, saying he could complete the job faster by himself. However, Glory noticed he was thoughtful enough to thank Ruth for her offer.

The girls spread out, each pursuing her own activity. Ruth and Lily caught up on mending; Harper read a dime-store novel that she kept tucked out of sight in her satchel. Patience sat in the shade and fanned herself, her young face flushed with heat.

Midafternoon, Mary climbed into the back of the wagon and slept, her coughing more pronounced today.

Glory asked, “Why does Mary cough so much?”

“Dust,” Ruth explained. “She has asthma.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a powerful affliction affecting the lungs. Doctors don’t know much about it, so it’s difficult to control or treat.” She glanced at the wagon, shaking her head. “Poor Mary.”

Glory nodded. Poor Mary. She listened to Mary’s dry coughs at night, hurting for her. Mornings, Mary’s ribs were sore from coughing, and she struggled to draw each breath. When the attacks refused to let up, Ruth heated water, and Mary put a towel over her head to inhale the vapors. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept Mary breathing.

Late afternoon, Glory wandered over to the tree where
Jackson was repairing the harness. She studied the tool he was threading through the leather. “What’s that?”

“An awl.”

“What does it do?”

“Pokes through leather so you can sew it.”

She stood for a moment, waiting for an invitation to join him, but it never came. So she sat down without one. Lately, he didn’t seem to mind her company as long as she didn’t talk too much or ask too many questions. She thought maybe he was getting used to her.

Jackson glanced up from his mending. “Where are the other girls?”

“Keeping out of your way.”

He flashed a tolerant grin. His temper had cooled, but Glory noticed the worry lines were still evident around his eyes. The delays were happening more often, it seemed. Guess he had a right to be concerned.

“We’ll walk faster,” she promised. “We’ll be in Denver City before the first snow.”

“I hope you’re right.”

They sat in companionable silence, she watching his long, capable fingers thread the rawhide strips through the harness straps. Mary’s worsening coughs filled the silence.

“You shouldn’t talk bad, you know,” Glory said evenly.

He bent his head, pretending interest in the harness, but he didn’t fool her. He was ashamed of himself for talking that way in front of the others, and he should be. He was a good man who had let his anger get the best of him.

“There’s women present—Ruth says a man isn’t to talk that way in front of a woman.”

“Ruth’s right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” She wasn’t one to hold grudges. “I’ll remind you when you do it again.”

He gave her a sour look. “You do that.”

Settling back, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the faultless blue sky. “Do you believe in angels?”

Jackson glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Never thought much about it. Why?”

“Ever met one?” Glory turned to perch on one knee, watching him work. Her discussion with Ruth still lingered in her mind.

“For certain? No, I don’t think so, though I wondered a few times.”

“Really? You think you might have met one?” If he’d met an honest-to-goodness angel, she wanted to hear about it. Harper didn’t believe in angels, but there wasn’t much she did believe in.

However, angels fascinated Glory. It was only a couple of nights ago Ruth read where God gives his angels charge over you, to protect you, to guide you. One appeared to Mary in a blaze of light to tell her she was going to have a baby. And a whole bunch of angels sang in the sky to the shepherds. Now that’d be plumb scary—get a body’s attention all right. The suggestion that there was an all-powerful God and watchful angels looking after her seemed imaginary, yet when Ruth read from the black book, Glory
wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe it with all her heart. The pretty words spoke to her—made her long to know this all-powerful being, made her want him to know her. But how could he know her? Except for Jackson and the girls, no one knew her, and it wasn’t likely God would ever find her out here on the trail.

Jackson worked the tool through the leather, lost in thought. “Met a man once. I’d been shot trying to defend a friend; I was left lying beside the road. I thought I would bleed to death, but a stranger came along and tended my wound. He got me to a doctor, and before he left, he told me that I would live.”

Jackson paused, staring at the piece of rigging in his hand. “There was something about his eyes. . . . At the time, the doctor shook his head, and I could see he didn’t think that I would make it through the night. Infection set in, and I was out of my head with a high fever for two weeks. Then one morning, I opened my eyes. My fever was gone, and I was hungry enough to eat a bear.”

Glory sat up straighter, leaning toward him. “Was it because of that man? You think he was an honest-to-goodness angel?”

“I don’t know who he was, but that day he was my angel.”

Glory sat back, mulling the story over in her mind. Poppy could have been her angel—hadn’t she fallen out of the back of a wagon, and hadn’t he been there to rescue her? She knew their prairie schooner traveled for days, sometimes weeks, before meeting another soul. Poppy’s shanty
was even more secluded, so why had Poppy been there that day, that hour, that moment?

She glanced back at Jackson. “You never talk about your life. Why not?”

“Not much to tell.”

Glory didn’t believe that for a minute. He was an interesting man with an interesting life. She bet that he had all kinds of stories to tell, adventurous stories, like meeting that angel—if it had been an angel.

“Actually, I’m boring.” He laid the mended harness aside and flexed his hand. “Lived a pretty normal life.”

“But you take people across country every year.” She’d heard Ruth and Lily talking; Jackson was one of the most experienced wagon masters around. Folks paid a bundle of money for his services.

“That doesn’t make me interesting.” He smiled, and her heart leapt at the familiarity in his eyes, and she wanted—oh, how she wanted—to sit here all day and talk to him. She thought about what would happen to her when they reached Colorado. He’d go one way, and she’d go another. She didn’t much like the thought. The feelings that went with it grew more painful every day.

“What about your mother?” She knew she was out of line now. Ruth had already told her that he didn’t get along with his mother and didn’t like to talk about her.

His features tightened. “My mother lives in Illinois.”

“Do you see her often?”

“Not often.” He leaned back, resting his eyes from the
hot sun. Grasshoppers lifted in a dark cloud; others flitted back and forth across the road, their spindly legs whirling. He was silent so long she thought he had forgotten her question. Or maybe he was sorting out his feelings.

“No more often than necessary,” he finally murmured.

Glory couldn’t imagine not wanting to see Poppy. She’d loved him, wanted to be near him, though he wasn’t perfect. Far from it. Cantankerous as a woodpile rattler at times, but that didn’t make her love him any less. She could be a mite trying herself if the situation called for it. Yet she couldn’t understand why a son wouldn’t want to keep in touch with his mother. Didn’t seem natural.

Jackson’s eyes remained closed. “Go ahead.”

Glory pulled a strand of weed. “Go ahead what?”

“Ask what you’re fairly bursting to ask.”

“I’m not bursting—not much, anyway. I was just wondering why a son wouldn’t want to be with his mother as often as possible.”

“You haven’t met my mother.”

She knew he was right. She hadn’t met his mother, didn’t know a thing about her, but she’d like to see the woman who’d produced such a fine specimen of manhood. For Jackson, with all his swearing and impatient flare-ups, was a good man. Other than a few bad words in trying situations, he was a true gentleman. He also seemed to have faith like Ruth’s Bible said. He often reminded the girls about their evening devotions and prayers before each meal.

She’d seen the way he dealt with others less fortunate
whom they’d met along the way. He’d given a man and his wife and infant child two sacks of flour—flour that would be needed for their own journey—but Jackson had said that they were all getting fat and could eat less for the duration of the trip.

Another time he’d given a fellow traveler a pair of boots, boots Glory knew Jackson favored. But the man had no boots, and Jackson said he had two pair. Jackson seemed to go out of his way at times to prove otherwise, but he had a good heart.

He met her eyes and sighed. “My ma ran my father off when I was a little boy. I didn’t think much of her from then on.”

“Ran him off? Like, ‘Shoo! Go on, get out of here’?”

“No, like she complained and nagged until he couldn’t take it any longer. One day he up and left, and I never saw him again.”

“And you’re mad at
her
?” Seemed it ought to be the other way around. Glory didn’t know much about mothers, but she’d heard Ruth read something about children respecting their parents.

“Doesn’t that book say something about the way we’re supposed to treat parents?”

“It’s not ‘that book’; it’s the Bible, Glory. And, yes, it does say how we’re supposed to treat our parents, but sometimes it’s hard to live by those teachings.”

Glory thought about that. She expected that he was right; no matter how hard she tried, she messed up. And those rules Ruth read were mighty lofty goals for people.
She sat, twirling the weed in her fingers, thinking about all the troubles a body faced.

“I don’t know much, and I don’t know anything at all about your mother, but seems to me folks would be better off trying to right their own problems than stewing about the wrong in everybody else.”

Reaching for the harness, he glanced at her. “How old are you? Fifty?”

She shook her head. “Don’t rightly know, but I don’t think I’m
that
old.”

He grinned. “That was meant to be a joke.”

“Oh.” She grinned, relieved. She was hoping her almost nightly baths made her look right nice, even nice enough for him to notice.

His eyes softened, and he leaned over to brush a lock of sweat-soaked hair off her cheek. “How old
are
you?”

“Best I can figure—eighteen.”

“You don’t know?”

“Can’t know. Poppy could only guess how old I was when I fell off that wagon.” Her eyes fused with his, and the sun suddenly felt like a fiery furnace. “How old are you?”

“Turn twenty-eight this spring.”

Twenty-eight. He was mighty old. A lot of years separated them, but the age span blurred for Glory. When he looked at her the way he was looking at her right now, those blue eyes boring into her soul, she didn’t care how old he was; she could love a man like Jackson Lincoln if he were twice her age.

“I’m too old for you,” he stated, and she wondered if she’d spoken her thoughts aloud.

“Ain’t looking for a husband,” she reminded him. The only thing she needed was a life free of Amos and to be rid of the awful burden of knowing that she had killed a man.

His smile was crooked. “You
aren’t
looking for a husband.”

“That’s what I said.”

They stared at each other, unable to break contact. Glory wondered what she saw in the depths of his eyes. Respect? Affection? Trouble? Regret that he’d even asked her to ride along that day?

Mary’s cough broke their visual standoff.

Gathering the mended harness, Jackson stood up. “See if Mary needs your help. She sounds worse this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.” Glory struggled to her feet, brushing dirt off the seat of her trousers.

“Jackson,” he reminded. He winked at her.

Jackson.
Her heart sang as she hurried to the back of the wagon to look in on Mary.

Fiddlesticks. Twenty-eight wasn’t
that
old.

Chapter Eleven

The prairie schooner swayed along the Fontaine qui Bouille Creek. The travelers walked long into the night, trying to make up for lost time.

During noon breaks, Jackson would unhitch the oxen and tie them to the back of the wagon. In their place he would hitch the mules they’d rescued from the family who died of cholera; the mules could withstand the heat of the afternoon sun better than the oxen. Switching teams made it possible for the animals to work longer than they could have otherwise.