Leaving Independence (12 page)

“And I still came!” Abigail hung her head. “That’s how foolish I am.”

“Abigail, you are not foolish.”

When Abigail closed her eyes she could still see Mimi riding off in Arlon’s wagon. Mimi
. . .
if only Mimi were here!

“Tell me she’s going to make it,” begged Abigail, not caring to hide the desperation in her voice. She kept picturing Mrs. Helton at the graveyard back in Independence.
Who gets married and who has children . . . who loses children.
And she kept picturing those fresh yellow flowers on the graves—the same flowers she had planted around the headstone by the springhouse. Surely the flowers at the cemetery had been a sign, and she had been too blind to see it.

Doc laid his hand on her shoulder. “Ned Vandergelden pulled through just fine and I never even tended to him.”

Abigail lifted her head and searched the doc’s eyes. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It should. Lina’s getting better care. But I’m not God, Abigail. I can’t make promises about life or death.”

“I lost one baby.” Abigail was surprised to find herself telling him this. But there was something about Doc Isaacs. Hoke had Seth’s way with horses, but Marc Isaacs had her brother’s mischievous inner spirit and calm outward demeanor. “During pregnancy. Before Lina. I had gone to my father’s. They had new horses and Seth wanted me to ride with him. Two days later I lost the baby. Robert never came right out and said it was my fault, but . . . that’s when things started to fall apart.”

Doc Isaacs took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I didn’t mean to burden you with that, it’s just that . . .” She hung her head again. “I can’t lose another one. I can’t put another child in the ground, then leave her. Not Lina. She has been the presence of the Lord to me every day of her life. I couldn’t bear to live without her.”

“Why don’t you let me give you something?” Doc Isaacs said. “Are you sleeping at all?”

Abigail shook her head. How could she sleep when constant prayer was needed? Others in the group claimed to be praying for Lina, but no one else was going to say the things she would. No one loved Lina more than she did. No one else would be so shattered to lose her.

No one else had brought Lina on this trip. Abigail had. Abigail was responsible.

Melinda’s voice, calling her children to supper, drifted through the canvas.

“Let me go get you a plate of food,” said Doc.

Abigail shook her head again. “I don’t have any appetite.” The very mention of food made her ill. “What is that you’re giving her? Are you sure it’s the proper dose? It doesn’t seem to be helping her fever come down.”

He smiled at her patiently. Abigail wondered if this was something he’d learned in medical college. But his patience was making her anxious.

“You don’t have to stay.” She brushed his hand away from hers. “I know you have other folks to see to.” Abigail knew that Nora Jasper, a young married woman from east Tennessee, had also fallen ill, as had one of the Schroeders.

By the fourth afternoon Abigail was exhausted. Her whole life had become a chain of constant motion: combing Lina’s silken hair back on the pillow, brushing her red cheeks with a cloth, dipping the rag—hot from Lina’s fever—into the bucket to cool it down, twisting it out, sponging it back over her arms and legs, laying her head over Lina’s chest in order to hear the beating of her heart and feel the breath coming out of her mouth, then forcing some liquids down Lina’s throat, and finally combing her silken hair back again.

Feeling dazed, she raised her head off the bed. The wagon had stopped. She must have fallen asleep. Sounds of evening camp trickled through the canvas. She groggily stroked Lina’s forehead.

It was cold.

“No!” she wailed, fully awake now, her heart leaping.

She heard the sound of feet running. The wagon flap was torn back and Hoke looked inside as she hugged Lina to her breast.

Abigail smiled at him through her tears. “I was wrong,” she whispered. “Her fever broke.”

Then Doc was there, climbing into the wagon with his stethoscope. Lina watched everyone with large eyes.

“Why are you crying, Mama?” she asked.

Abigail laughed. “Because I get to keep you, sweetheart.”

CHAPTER 11

Burrowing her toes into the grass

One evening the men congregated on one side of the camp to talk about how far the wagon train had come and plan rotations for guard duty. Josephine Jenkins had the children singing on the opposite side. Lina, now recovered, sat in Christine Dotson’s lap.

The children’s sweet voices sang
Oh, say can you see . . .
and a deep voice floated in to join them on the words
 
. . . by the dawn’s early light.

It was James. The men had finished their meeting and were coming over.

April 30, 1866

Each evening as the supper dishes are cleared, Josephine Jenkins calls out, “Who’s going to sing with me? Hannah Sutler? Cooper Austelle? I bet you kids know this one!” Fast-paced spiritual hymns are her favorites. They fit her personality.

The men start bringing extra benches over and the women lay out quilts as children circle around her. “Here We Are but Straying Pilgrims” has become a regular. Mrs. Jo says it perfectly captures the essence of our journey.

Hoke spied Abigail working on the seat of her rocker off to one side of the circle, away from the others, weaving colored fabrics into the twine as she worked. It looked like she was nearly done. A small group of children who weren’t singing with Josephine were watching her, fascinated.

“How did you know to do that?” Prissy Schroeder asked Abigail, her green eyes squinting under brown hair that always looked uncombed.

“I just had the idea and thought it would be pretty.” Abigail smiled at her.

“Ma’s always making things pretty,” said Jacob.

“Who knew you could sing?” called Tam to James.

“He can play, too,” offered Hoke.

“Play what?” Tam demanded.

“Oh, I have a guitar,” said James demurely.

Josephine heard him say it and hopped up. “You have a guitar and you haven’t said anything about it! Why, Mr. Parker!” she scolded. “Go get it!”

Hoke saw Tam watching Nora Jasper, who looked at her husband, Nichodemus. The Jaspers were one of the poorest families on the train.

“Anybody else sittin’ on an instrument they ain’t told about?” Tam looked hard at Nora.

“Nichodemus has a hog fiddle,” Nora admitted.

“What’s a hog fiddle?” asked Prissy. No one answered her.

“What’s a hog fiddle?” she asked again, louder. It was impossible to ignore Prissy Schroeder for long, although several in the group had tried.

“It’s a dulcimer,” said Abigail.

“What’s a dulcimer?”

“An instrument they make in the mountains, where the Jaspers are from,” said Doc Isaacs, who was sitting nearby.

Hoke scowled. Doc Isaacs hovered near Abigail Baldwyn more than he liked. They seemed all the closer since Lina had fallen sick.

Harry Sims, the preacher, produced a harmonica and Alec Douglas, who seemed to have little else to his name besides sheep and Scottish brothers, a violin.

“Where have you been hidin’ that fiddle, Alec?” asked Colonel Dotson. “I’ll be
. . .
I thought I knew everything.”

Hoke understood what he meant. A man in charge had to know everything. The Peterses’ wagons rode low, for example, and it wasn’t just because of merchandise they’d brought for their general store. Hoke figured they had enough gold to start a bank.

Sam Beckett had a lousy gun, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t know how to shoot it anyway. He was a writer and always had his head in the clouds.

Old man McConnelly and Ty Vandergelden were no good in a fight, either. Irene McConnelly word-whipped her father as bad as Sue Vandergelden word-whipped her son and husband.

But Michael Chessor, a young adventurer in Company D, was a keeper. So was Harry Sims, the preacher. The verdict was still out on the Schroeder men. They liked their hogs, he knew that much.

Hoke, like the colonel, had been assessing what benefit each traveler brought to the whole ever since leaving Independence. The colonel had just missed this one. Hoke couldn’t blame him. Nobody would have guessed those simple Douglas boys possessed anything of value, or any musical talent.

Josephine scolded the group. “I can’t believe we had this kind of bounty right under our noses and no one has said a word about it! If James Parker hadn’t started singing, we might have gone all the way to Oregon without discovering it.” She demanded that those who hadn’t produced their instruments already go get them at once.

James made it back first and said, “Sing with me, Hoke.”

“Hoke sings?” teased Doc Isaacs, who was bouncing his nephew on his knee.

“No,” said Hoke, shaking his head, glaring over at the doc. Doc Isaacs spent most evenings bouncing someone’s child on his knee or doling out advice to mothers who had questions about fever, diet, or sickness.

“Sings like a bird.” James winked. “Like a deep-throated songbird. Makes weak-kneed women swoon.”

“I’d like to hear that,” said Irene McConnelly, who had perched herself nearby, staring hard at Hoke.

Hoke threw James a dark look.

James muttered, “You started this.”

“A rare mistake. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Come on, Hoke. Sing with me.”

“I don’t sing in public.”

“Hoke, don’t be selfish.”

“I’m not bein’ selfish, James.

“Yes, you are. You’re hurtin’ Mrs. Josephine’s feelin’s, too. Ain’t that right, Mrs. Jo? Tell him he has to sing.”

“Aw, you two quit arguin’ and give us a song!” bellowed Tam Woodford.

Hoke bowed his head and James elbowed him. “That’s a sport.” He strummed a couple of chords and winked at Hoke. Together they sang.

I had a true love,

Who was sent from above,

But she broke my heart in two.

She got cold feet in the spring,

And slipped off the ring,

That I had given her to.

She will never be mine,

She will never be mine,

But I have decided that’s fine.

Because I found another,

I went back to my mother,

For she still loves me true.

Everyone laughed. Irene McConnelly fanned her face and pretended to swoon.

“Did you make that up?” asked Prissy. “I never heard it before.”

“James doesn’t have a wide selection,” said Hoke.

“Now that’s not true, Hoke. Mrs. Josephine, I even know some spirituals.”

“Let’s hear them!”

Doc Isaacs picked up his nephew and carried him toward the wagons, and Irene stood up and headed in Hoke’s direction, so he slipped from the circle and went to sit by Abigail.

“You’re about to finish that seat. What are you goin’ to do with it when you’re done?”

“Rock!”

Abigail’s eyes sparkled. Hers were quite a contrast to Irene’s, which had grown dark, as she’d just located him again. Hoke shut Irene out and concentrated on the woman beside him.

“Lina loves to be rocked.” Abigail smiled at Jacob, who was still sitting nearby. The other kids had gravitated to the music, closer to the fire. “All my babies loved to be rocked.”

“Ma,” groaned Jacob.

“What did I say?”

“I’m going to look for Charlie,” he muttered.

Abigail was sure that only moments ago Jacob had been proud of her. Now she had embarrassed him in front of Hoke.

Rascal looked longingly at Hoke before he followed Jacob. Rascal often ran at the heels of Hoke’s black stallion during the day and followed him around camp in the evenings.

“To a stranger, it would look like Rascal is your dog, not ours,” said Abigail.

Hoke ignored her comment. “How do you like the trip so far?”

“Other than thinking I might lose my daughter, it’s been fine. I mean, the mattress is lumpy, the cow’s being stingy with her milk, there’s a layer of dust on everything from morning till night, and my feet have never been so sore
. . .
”

She laughed. At least her back had finally quit hurting
. . .
in part because of the side box he’d built for the dish crate. “But I like it. I like being part of a close-knit community. I like the hope that hangs in the air when everyone talks about their plans and their dreams. And I love seeing my children so happy.”

“You have good children,” he said.

Those had been Mimi’s last words to her.

His buckskin shirt lay open at the neck and his hat was off. Hoke’s black hair—or was it dark brown?—fell in waves down to his collar. Abigail looked at his boots next to her once-slender feet that were so swollen she’d left her shoes off since supper. The cool grass felt good on them, but now she dug her toes deeper into the stalks, suddenly shy about their bareness.

Trail dust covered his black, worn boots, which seemed intensely masculine, as did his hands. She had first noticed his hands at the corral in Independence, the way he had stroked the horses. His hands were always working, it seemed
. . .
always busy.

Her own hands were coarse all the time now, and she often had dirt under her nails from working in her gardens. She tried scrubbing them, but stubborn traces of soil hid in the corners, only to show up in the light and embarrass her later.

Hoke needed a shave again. And those eyes
. . .
his gaze was so full of heat it nearly burned her skin.

Abigail looked back down at the rocker seat. Why was it so hard to meet this man’s eyes? Why did he make her feel so self-conscious? Few men had ever done so.

“Thank you. Your approval means a great deal to them, especially Charlie and Jacob. I hope you didn’t think I was mad at you over Lina. Her fever scared me. But I know you didn’t cause it. I appreciate all the kindnesses you’ve rendered us.”

Hoke loved to hear Abigail Baldwyn talk. She was perhaps the most refined and educated woman he’d ever met. He had a strong desire to ask about her husband but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Scared me, too,” he said instead.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“About what?” He looked up at her.

She kept her eyes on the rocker seat. “The kindnesses you’ve been rendering us. I don’t want to be a burden to you, Mr. Hoke.”

“Just Hoke.”

“You’re doing little things for us that you shouldn’t have to do.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m afraid Colonel Dotson wasn’t fair to you, putting us in your company.” She laid a hand on his shoulder.

He looked down at it, trying to remember when he’d last been touched so casually. By her
. . .
when she laid her hand on his arm the day he met her. “I don’t see it that way.”

“We can pull our own weight.” She removed her hand.

He nodded, missing the warmth of her touch already. “I’m sure you can. You do.”

“We’re not as experienced as some, but we’re fast learners.”

“I can see that.”

“Like watering my plants, for example.”

He tried to think of something to say that would make her lay her hand on his shoulder again. “Water’s heavy and those boxes are high.”

“I know, but that’s my problem, not yours.”

“Well, you’re in my company.”

“I know. That’s my point. I’m sorry Colonel Dotson put us in your company.”

He jerked his head up. “You don’t want to be in my company?” he asked, hotly.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

A fire lit in her eyes. “If you would stop cutting me off after every sentence, I would tell you!”

She sounded testy, but Hoke didn’t care. He was just glad to be near her. His own hungry eyes couldn’t drink in enough of her.

Her yellow hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head, but little strands were sneaking out like always. He loved the way they curled around her face in the heat of the day. She refused to wear a bonnet like the other women, so he didn’t know why it surprised her that Lina wouldn’t keep hers on, either. There was the brown hat she’d been wearing the day he met her, and another wide-brimmed straw hat she wore more often.