Never Look Back (52 page)

‘Do you still think it’s cosy?’ Matilda joked as they lay huddled together for warmth, listening to the sound of the rain beating on the canvas.

‘At least we don’t have to sleep outside like some people,’ Tabitha said. ‘Did you know that there’s one wagon with nine children in it? Only the little ones and their mama sleep inside.’

One of Tabitha’s main delights about the train was the freedom to mix with other people. Back in Independence she went to school, then came home, and there she stayed, going out only by invitation. Here she could join in games of chase alongside the wagons, invite another girl up into the wagon to play with her doll as they rolled along, sometimes she played school with several children, and she was always school mistress because she could read and write very much better than the others. In turn she met these children’s parents, and gleaned a great deal of information about their fellow travellers, and she passed it all on to Matilda.

There were five wagons of Mormons going to join the settlement a man called Brigham Jones had founded on a big salt lake. Tabitha said everyone was talking about them because some of the men had two wives. She reported that in one of the families
both the wives must be having babies too, for they both had big bellies and sat side by side on the front of the wagon wearing identical grey dresses. ‘They aren’t wicked people,’ she had said earnestly. ‘They pray all the time and the ladies call each other “sister”. They say they are going to the Promised Land.’

She did think one of the women in one party looked wicked, because she wore a very fancy red dress. Matilda had said tartly that she didn’t think she was wicked, just stupid, because by the time she got to Oregon that dress would be in tatters and faded by the sun.

One of the children in another wagon way back in the train was very sick, and another had incurred the injuries Captain Russell had spoken of when he jumped from the wagon and had his foot run over by a wheel. Tabitha had reported that the poor boy was in the most terrible pain and that people were saying he’d have to have it amputated if he got gangrene.

But Tabitha’s favourite people on the train were the three scouts. Two were young half-breeds and wore buckskin shirts, the third, Carl, was older, perhaps forty, and looked as if he’d spent his life in the saddle. All three of them had taken a shine to Tabitha too, and often stopped by the wagon to take her for a short ride on their horses. Matilda had been fearful of them at first, especially the half-breeds, but Captain Russell had reassured her that Indians cared for children far better than white folks did, and as she would be seeing a great deal more Indians before they got to Oregon, the scouts’ influence on her could only be beneficial.

On the morning of the tenth day, a Sunday, it was sunny again. The Captain said they could stay put for a rest and to give them all time to wash and dry their clothes.

It struck Matilda as she took her washing down to the river that what the Captain meant was that the men could rest. They lay on the grass smoking pipes and playing cards, while their womenfolk were kept even busier than usual, feeding the stock, filling water pots, washing, baking bread, cleaning out the wagons and looking after the children.

She heard at noon that the child who’d been sick almost from the start had passed away. Everything stopped for a brief but very moving funeral service, and Matilda thought she had never seen anything so poignant as the little boy’s father trying to burn
the child’s name into a wooden cross to mark the little grave at the side of the trail.

‘There’ll be still more of those before we’re through,’ Captain Russell said to Matilda as he saw her looking back at the boy’s mother crying beside the brown mound of earth.

Matilda looked up at him in surprise, his tone was so cold it chilled her.

She had noticed a great many inconsistencies about this man. On the face of it he was a typical soldier, brawny, curt, impatient, and tough on the more helpless men on the train. She didn’t mind any of that, it was what she expected of a wagon master. But now and again when he’d stopped to speak to her or Tabby, he sounded and acted like a gentleman. Yet if she looked surprised at anything he said, he immediately covered it up with rough words or sarcasm.

He was so insolent too. Time and again she’d heard him bark out orders to people as if they were imbeciles. He seemed to have no understanding that almost everything was new to the people he was leading. They were farmers, shop-keepers, carpenters, often struggling with large families too. She thought he should be more patient with them and explain things, rather than shout at them.

Now he was showing himself to be callous too!

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said with a faint grin. ‘Guess that sounded heartless, I didn’t mean it that way. But I look at some of these people and I wonder if they know the real price they’ll have to pay for free land in Oregon. If they manage to get past snake bites, measles, cholera and Indians, there’s always drowning, frostbite, and just ordinary little accidents that can take them when the poison gets in the blood. I heard tell from a scout that someone’s just found gold out in California – if that turns out to be true, afore long there’ll be thousands of folk coming this way. God alone knows how many more graves will litter the trail then.’

‘It sounds to me as if you don’t approve of people trying to better themselves,’ she said tartly. She thought he was going out of his way to scare her, but she wasn’t going to rise to it.

‘Is that what you’re trying to do?’ he said with a sardonic grin, his blue eyes mocking her. ‘Or are you hot-footing it away from something?’

Matilda felt her stomach churn. Had he found out about her?

‘My reasons for going to Oregon are my own affair, sir,’ she said indignantly.

‘Maybe they are anywhere else, but while you’re on my train, I’m responsible for you. I don’t hold with women travelling alone, it ain’t safe.’

‘If that’s the case then why did you agree I could go?’ she said, putting her nose in the air.

He looked at her hard for a moment. She wasn’t sure if that was a sneer on his lips or a smile.

‘I reckoned you’d set off on your own if I didn’t,’ he said. ‘You’ve got that determined look about you. Didn’t want that on my conscience.’

Matilda riled up. ‘You are insufferably insolent,’ she said, an expression she’d learnt from Lily. ‘Why do you assume a woman on her own is less likely to cope with a long trip than one with a husband? From what I’ve seen, the women have so much work to do just looking after their men, it surprises me they aren’t all flaked out on the ground right now.’

He surprised her by laughing. ‘Are all English women as prickly as you?’ he asked.

‘I dare say they are,’ she said. ‘And if you’ll excuse me now I have things to do.’

Her face was smarting with anger as she walked away. She really didn’t know how to cope with him for she’d never met a man like him before. Was it better to ignore him, or try to be nice?

‘You can’t be nice,’ she thought to herself. ‘He’ll just take that as weakness.’

‘It’s like we are just standing still,’ Tabitha remarked one morning a couple of weeks later. ‘Every day it’s the same scene, just grass, and grass and grass. Not even a tree to know we’re some place different.’

Matilda laughed. The child was right. They’d been travelling along this huge, empty plain with its long waving grass for so long, without anything in the distance to give them the idea they were moving closer to their destination. The vastness of the scene was so scary, nothing out there for hundreds of miles, except of course Indians and buffalo. At night they heard the strangest
noises, and it was all to easy to imagine Indians creeping towards them, or savage beasts waiting to pounce.

Attending to the needs of nature was a trial too. Every time a couple of women went off a bit, everyone knew what for – one stood, skirts outstretched, while the other crouched down behind her, it was so undignified. For Matilda it was even worse for she couldn’t leave the oxen, so she had to hold it in until they stopped at noon, then had only little Tabitha to shield her.

It was only mid-May but so warm already. They had abandoned their petticoats a few days earlier, but with summer creeping nearer Matilda wondered how much hotter it would get – both their faces were as brown as nuts already.

On the previous day they’d seen a vast herd of buffalo. They had heard them long before they came in sight, a low rumbling noise which got gradually louder as they came nearer, then a rattling sound of their horns and hooves. One of the scouts said there were over 2,000 of them. Matilda had been scared, yet thrilled once they came into sight, such huge shaggy beasts, with big sad eyes. She thought it was terrible that the men killed so many of them, when just two would feed everyone for a couple of days. But she had to admit they were good eating, as tasty as the big steaks she’d had at the Treagars’ house, and a nice change from bacon and beans. Some of the women had been appalled when the Captain told them to collect up the buffalo droppings for fuel – Matilda had laughed so much as they prissily sidled up to a pile and holding their nose, shovelled it up with one hand. She had no such qualms; if it burned well, and cooked the meat, she was all for it. And it had burned well, without smoke too, so she was going to make sure she always had a sackful of it hanging beneath the wagon.

‘We’ve got a fair bit more of this grass to come yet,’ Matilda said, thinking back to what the Captain had told her yesterday when he dropped off her buffalo meat. ‘At least it’s easy driving, Tabby, and plenty of fodder for the oxen. It won’t be so good once we get to the mountains.’

A shrill shriek from behind them made them turn their heads. To Matilda’s horror, riding at full tilt towards them was a group of Indians, about twenty in all, almost naked aside from a bit of buckskin hiding their private parts.

Captain Russell came riding back along the train. ‘It’s nothing
to fear,’ he yelled. ‘Pull up, keep calm, and don’t cock any guns. They are Pawnees and they ain’t hostile.’

Matilda felt with her foot under the seat for her gun anyway, and placed it in a position where she could easily reach it if necessary. Her heart was beating very fast, and a sweat was breaking out all over her.

‘Aren’t they beautiful!’ Tabby exclaimed with excitement as the Indians came closer. ‘I’m sure the Captain is right when he said they aren’t hostile.’

Matilda agreed they were beautiful, but she wasn’t convinced they were friendly. They had halted their mounts now, waiting while one of the half-breed scouts rode some fifty yards out to them. They sat tall and proud, black hair and mahogany-coloured skin gleaming in the sun, but their haughty faces gave nothing away.

The scout said no more than a few words to them, then turned and rode back to Captain Russell who nodded as if agreeing to something, then he too turned and went back down the wagon train out of Matilda’s sight.

It was some tense half-hour later, with the Indians still waiting like stone statues, before Captain Russell and the scout rode out again to them, this time taking with them a couple of small sacks, a blanket and what looked like a couple of men’s calico shirts. The Indians took them, then wheeled round and rode off.

‘Roll on,’ the Captain yelled. ‘The show’s over.’

Later he rode alongside Matilda’s wagon while Tabitha was taking a nap in the back. ‘Were you scared?’ he asked, tilting his hat back.

She found it odd that the Captain so often asked her opinion on things that happened on the trail, it seemed like some kind of test.

‘No,’ she lied. ‘Should I have been?’

‘Most women are,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ve had women on trains before who have fainted at the sight of them. They think they are all murderous savages just because there’s been a few damn-fool stories spread around. That bunch were just checking us out, and the flour and other goods were kind of a payment for letting us pass through their land.’

‘Who did you get the goods from?’ she said, wondering if they were all supposed to offer something.

‘Those who could afford it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Some folks have got their wagons so tightly packed with goods they’ll never get up the mountains. Glad to see you aren’t one of those.’

Again she wasn’t sure whether that last remark was praise, or an opener to find out more about her circumstances. She wished she didn’t have to analyse every single thing he said to her, it would be nice to have a friendly, open conversation with him.

‘My friends in Oregon told me to travel light,’ she said airily. ‘I heard someone back there has a harpsichord, now that strikes me as plain foolish.’

‘Almost as foolish as those who set out knowing they’re gonna have a baby on the way,’ he said, looking right at her.

She blushed furiously. She didn’t know if that remark was a general one, or if he’d noticed the slight swelling of her stomach. But whichever, it wasn’t seemly for a man to mention such a condition.

She decided to ignore what he’d said, that was what Lily would have done. But instead of pushing on, or turning back down the train to check on others, he still stayed riding along beside her, less than two feet away. Even though she kept looking firmly ahead at the lead oxen, she sensed he was looking at her and it made her feel most uncomfortable.

‘I
do
know,’ he said at length.

She glanced at him in alarm. He was grinning at her impudently, his hat tipped back so she had a clear view of his bright blue eyes. ‘I can tell when a woman’s that way just by the way she walks. So don’t deny it, Mrs Jennings.’

‘Aren’t you a clever devil,’ she snapped back at him. ‘Where I come from gentlemen do not make such personal remarks.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t claim to be a gentleman. You might be glad I’m not before the trail’s over.’

He rode off then, leaving her quivering with anger.

As May ended so did the good grazing and water. The land they were moving across was dry, rocky and barren apart from sage bush, and so hot during the day that they felt they were being fried alive. The dust the wagon wheels kicked up turned Matilda’s black dress grey in minutes each morning, and their lungs felt as if they were full of it. Treacle no longer wanted to
go haring off in front of them, but stayed inside the wagon, panting.