Leaving Independence (20 page)

“No, there is no chance of being lonesome here,” said Hoke. But he didn’t really mean it.

Truth was, being in a group like this and having no one to call his own was lonelier than being by himself on the trail.

Hoke looked around the camp.

Michael Chessor and Duncan Schroeder were on guard duty, which was good.

Colonel Dotson, Jenkins, Tim Peters, and Mr. McConnelly—the latter still bruised and pistol-whipped—stood in a clump talking about the route and the next good water hole.

Jacob and a couple of other boys had sticks for guns and were sneaking up on targets. The Becketts’ wagon wheel must have been a skittish deer, because they were crouched low now, moving forward on their forearms, inching in for the kill.

Beckett’s head was out of a book for once as he and his wife talked to the Austelles.

Rudy and Faramond Schroeder had their older boys helping with the chickens. Sometimes at night the Schroeders put up a crude yard and let the hens wander and peck. The men were up fetching the hens out of the wagon, handing them down to the boys. Several dogs, including Rascal, watched nearby, hoping one would get away.

“Rascal!” called Hoke. “Come here.” Rascal looked at the chickens one last time, his mouth dripping with saliva, then came as commanded. Hoke rewarded him with a good head scratching.

“Sit down.” Rascal sat next to him on the grass and put his head on his paws, his eyes darting back and forth between Hoke and the chickens several yards away.

“I don’t know what you did to him to make him your dog,” said Abigail.

“He’s just smart, aren’t you, boy?” Rascal sniffed up at Hoke, and Hoke laughed. “I guess he thinks I’m a dog. I probably smell like one.”

Rascal licked his hand and Hoke massaged his ears absentmindedly. He felt better with animals than with people. Animals were simpler: just take care of them and they’ll take care of you. Wasn’t he forever telling James that?

Abigail smiled, running another stitch through the pleats she’d finally folded to suit her. She nodded toward the camp. “Is this more togetherness than you’re used to?”

“Yes, it is. Always something to be done, sunup to sundown. It is a temptation just to ride off and leave it some days.”

As soon as he said it he wished he could pull the words back. Wasn’t that somewhere in Scripture? Something about things that couldn’t be recalled? Spoken words, an arrow that’s been shot, an opportunity missed.

Abigail’s face darkened. “I guess that’s the way Robert felt.”

Hoke winced, cursing himself for his thoughtlessness. He hadn’t even meant it; he was just trying to make a joke.

He had tried to peer inside her mind ever since he met her. He longed to know everything about her. She was hurt. That was apparent. And it would, of course, be hard for her to trust again. If her husband
was
at Fort Hall, they had some damage to repair.

Why had there been so few letters between Abigail and him on the Baldwyns’ way out here? Couriers came past the train about once a week and dropped off and picked up mail. She sent regular letters to this Mimi, but . . . he didn’t think she’d gotten many—if any—from her husband. Few things escaped Hoke’s observation.

He had been convinced her husband didn’t exist. How then to explain that one letter she’d mentioned? And what did Baldwyn’s “You tracked me down” comment mean? Hoke had turned that one over and over in his head and couldn’t make any sense of it.

“Of course, I gave the colonel my word. I signed on for this trip and I don’t aim to let anybody down. I’m sorry if I let you down with Jacob.”

She laid a hand on his shoulder, which caused him to look up into her eyes.

Her eyes were so blue . . . her hand so warm. She was a toucher—a hugger. He hated it when she touched anyone else, like Doc Isaacs or Orin Peters, but loved those rare moments when she put a hand on him. He wanted to take her in his arms. Tell her he’d take care of her. He wanted her to always look at him the way that she was looking at him now.

Abigail thought again how nice it was to have Hoke sitting next to her. He was real and alive and sitting right here—in the flesh—his sleeves rolled up, revealing his strong forearms.

Why
was
she always goading him? She didn’t mean to.

“You didn’t let me down. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I should have thanked you for bringing Jacob back safe and helping him make moccasins. I’ve also been meaning to thank you for nailing that extra wood on my boxes.”

“Glad to do it.”

She moved her hand off his shoulder and went back to her sewing.

“Say . . .”

She looked back down at him.

“Could you make me a shirt?”

Hoke’s shirts were heavy and it had grown hot. Why hadn’t she thought to offer? No wonder his sleeves had stayed rolled up lately. “I’d be happy to! Would you like something lighter weight?”

“Yes. I’m dying in these buckskins. Didn’t realize it got so hot up here in the north.”

“Stand up. I’ll measure you. Wait, I need a pencil and my tape.” She set down her needlework and went to her wagon.

Hoke followed.

Rascal, released, went back to the chickens.

CHAPTER 18

Thick behind her wagon

Night hung thick behind her wagon, so Hoke lit an oil lamp and set it on the ground. He helped her climb down, the pencil and tape in her hands.

“Lift your arms out,” she instructed.

Her fingers walked down his lifted arms as she measured from his shoulder to his wrist, first on one side, then the other.

She wrote
Hoke
(just
Hoke
, he couldn’t help but notice) on the wood at the back of the wagon, then jotted letters and numbers below it.

Her hands wrapped the tape around his bicep, forearm, and then wrist as she stood to one side of him and measured the circumference of each.

It caught Hoke off guard when she reached around his broad chest and pulled the tape taut, measuring it at the widest point just under his armpits. He was still recovering from the brush of her breasts when she slid the tape down to his waist.

Damn!

Why hadn’t he asked for a shirt before?

She lowered his arms and stepped behind him to measure his back from the neck to the top of his pants.

“How long do you like them?” she asked.

He took her hand and showed her halfway down his buttock. She pulled her hand away as if she’d been burned, turned to the wagon, and wrote down the measurement.

She turned back toward him, looking down at the ground. “You don’t, by the way.”

Her eyelashes were so long.

“I don’t what?” Hoke could barely think straight with the nearness of her, the feel of her hands, those lashes . . .

“You don’t smell like a dog.”

She reached up.

Without thinking, he pulled her toward him. It was as if they were back at the dance at Alcove Springs. Only this time after laying her hand over his heart, he cradled the back of her head and pulled her lips toward his, his other hand sliding down to that familiar dip in her back so he could move her hips closer.

He hungered for every inch of her.

A faint memory in the back of his mind whispered that this was wrong, but he pushed the thought away. She was responding . . . her lips, soft as running water in a brook; her mouth startled at first, but now open and hungry as his own; her warm hands running down his chest, around his sides, up his arched back and down again.

The feel of her body pressed against his was more stirring than he had imagined, and he had imagined it plenty.

He heard something drop . . . the tape measure maybe . . . and then someone cleared his throat.

Abigail pulled back. Even in the dim lantern light Hoke could see her flush.

Orin Peters glowered at Hoke, then turned to Abigail. “I wondered if you had finished with my shirt. I didn’t realize you were . . . busy.”

Abigail touched her lips before answering. “I did finish it, Orin. I laid it down . . . somewhere.”

Hoke turned to leave, but Abigail caught his arm.

“I need your neck size.”

Oh. Was that why she had reached up to him? Not because she wanted him? But only to measure his neck?

Hoke stood rock still, staring a hole through Orin while Abigail reached up again and measured his neck with hands that faintly shook.

Orin couldn’t hold his gaze.

Abigail avoided his eyes, too. “I should have this finished in a couple of days.”

“Thanks.”

Hoke left, cursing Orin Peters and his own lack of self-control.

“I think I laid your shirt by the rocking chair, Orin.” Abigail moved in that direction.

Orin caught her sleeve. “I won’t tell if you’ll give me one.”

Fear, embarrassment, and anger all rose like bile in Abigail’s throat. “Give you one
what
?”

“Give me a kiss, like you were giving him.”

The memory of another man demanding a kiss from her as a form of blackmail came rushing back to her.

Abigail slapped him, the smack of it reverberating all the way back to her confused and pulsing heart.

“Don’t ask me to mend any more shirts for you, Orin Peters.”

She picked up the lantern and left him standing there.

That had been three days before they reached Ash Hollow. Hoke was wearing his new shirt now as he eased another wagon down the steep descent. It was gold, like the gold that rimmed his eyes, the color of the grass on the prairie. Best shirt he’d ever had. Hadn’t taken her long to make it, either.

Three days had passed since the kiss. They hadn’t spoken of it.

He had found the shirt folded on a table by his wagon the night before. A perfect fit. When he buttoned it up this morning he’d remembered the feel of her hands pulling the tape across the broadest part of his chest. When he tucked the shirt in, he thought about her measuring from his neck to the middle of his backside.

The shirt now stuck to his back with sweat as he held the rope to help lower the final wagon. They had been lucky to get everyone down the hill without any runaways, but the effort had come at a physical price. Some other travelers lowered their wagons with the help of logs, but logs could start to roll. Banged-up wagons were littered all over the hill as testimony to the dangers of this method. Manpower was the best approach, if you had manpower to do it, but Lord amighty! He’d feel it tomorrow.

He was feeling it now.

“I’ll be right down,” said James when they finished with the last wagon. “I see me a hunk of log over there I want.” He picked up an ax and set off after it.

“What do you need a hunk of log for?”

“I want to make something out of it.”

Hoke walked to the back of their wagon and peeled the gold shirt off, splashing water over his chest and wetting a bandana to tie around his neck. He heard a sharp intake of breath as Abigail came around the corner.

When he turned, she averted her glance and held out a fresh shirt.

“I made you another one. I hope you like green.” Her words came out fast. “I had time to sew it on the lockstitch machine while we were waiting at the bottom of the hill. Give me that one and I’ll wash it for you.”

He exchanged shirts with her, amused that she wouldn’t look at him, tempted to take her in his arms again, sweat or no sweat, but it was daylight still.

First there had been the awkwardness over Jacob, and now there was a new awkwardness between them since she’d measured him for the shirt.

It was his fault.

He was embarrassed to have let his instincts get the best of him, but the embarrassment was trumped by his desire for her. Try as he might, he could not get the sight of her, the smell of her, and now the taste and feel of her, out of his head.

“If I had a wife I’d ask her for a back rub.” Hoke watched her eyes, feeling only marginal guilt at her obvious discomfort.

She refused to look at him. “There’s always Ingrid. Or Irene McConnelly. Harry Sims could perform the ceremony after supper.”

Leaning against the back of his wagon, feeling worn out from the day’s hard work, he buttoned up the green shirt.

“Ingrid’s just a kid.” And Irene McConnelly was poison. She’d give a man a back rub, all right, and land him in hot water. Hoke had gotten educated on her kind twenty years ago. In fact, Hoke would have bet money that Irene’s flirting was what landed Harry Sims and Michael Chessor in trouble with the soldiers at Kearney. Irene had fluttered around Doc Isaacs until she learned he didn’t have any money. Then she’d lost interest . . . fast.

But maybe Hoke wasn’t much better himself, because now he had put a married woman in an awkward spot.

“Here.” Abigail handed him another shirt. “I made this one for James. I guessed his measurements based on yours—longer in the sleeves and a little smaller in the waist. Tell him to let me know if it doesn’t fit and I’ll make adjustments. Is that one going to work for you?”

Hoke inspected the sleeves.

She was talking fast again, refusing to let her eyes land on him for long. “I made it a little looser in the shoulders so you could move your arms more freely, and I thought—I thought you might like green.”

“It’s perfect. Thanks. And James will appreciate his. Can we pay you?”

Why wouldn’t she look at him? He had his shirt buttoned now.

“After all the two of you have done for us?” She turned to leave.

“Listen, Abigail.”

She stopped, her back to him.

Hoke breathed deep, not used to making apologies. “I’m sorry if I . . . misread things the other night.”

She, too, breathed deep, and tilted her head to the side, but didn’t turn around. “I’m a married woman, Mr. Mathews. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. It’s just been a long time since . . .”

He stepped toward her but she bolted.

“James has a nasty cut on his arm,” Hoke called after her. “If you see the doc, will you send him over?”

If Orin Peters wasn’t hovering around her, Doc Isaacs was.

June 15, 1866

Corrine has learnt to make butter by hanging a tightly lidded jar under the back of the wagon each morning, half filled with cream from the cow’s milk. The jar shakes back and forth all day and by evening, we have butter.

Abigail laid her pen down. She didn’t want to talk to Mimi about butter; she wanted to talk to Mimi about her feelings for Hoke.

If Mimi were here she would know what had happened just by looking at her. Abigail could hear her now.
Lord, Miz Abigail, I can’t believe you gone and kissed another man while traveling out to Mr. Robert!

Abigail had known Hoke had strong arms and shoulders, but until she measured him for the shirt, she hadn’t realized just w
hat a well-built man he was. Robert had only been a boy when they married.

Hoke was no boy.

The only thing to do was stay busy. If she kept busy she might think about Hoke less. And busyness might keep her from running to Harry Sims and confessing everything, as if telling a preacher could absolve her of her sin.

Her two wagons had been among the first lowered down that day. It was rare for her to have time to use the lockstitch machine in the daylight. The train only stopped on Sundays, and Sundays were supposed to be a day of rest, although she cheated and washed the laundry.

So Abigail had stayed busy by sewing. And look where it had led her . . . right back to Hoke’s wagon and Hoke with his shirt off! She had actually started to tell him she’d thought green would look good with the gold of his eyes.

Abigail was cloaked in self-reproach.

Thank God it had only been Orin who’d come around the corner. What if it had been one of her children?

If Orin told anyone, she could expose him for what he’d said to her, but the damage would still be done. She wondered how badly it would hurt Charlie, Corrine, Jacob, and Lina if Orin told them what he saw.