Wagon Trail (10 page)

“That’s a relief,” said Carole.

Lisa grabbed Yankee’s halter while Carole took hold
of Doodle’s, and slowly they led the horses into the river. At first the wagon just creaked along the sandy bottom, but then, as the river deepened, the current lifted and buoyed the wagon. “We’re floating!” Stevie called. “We’re now officially a boat!”

They reached the other side of the river quickly. The horses shook the water from their coats. Lisa and Carole let go of their halters and Stevie drove them close to where Nikkia and Veronica were tied. “Good boys!” She rubbed them both as she tied them to a tree. “I’m going to sneak you two an apple after lunch!” Suddenly she turned. Someone down by the river was screaming.

She ran back down to the bank. Midway across the river, a wagon had turned over. Though the horses and passengers were safe, all the wagon’s supplies were drifting downstream. People on the bank were yelling at Carole and Lisa, who were already swimming out to rescue everything they could grab.

“Wait for me!” cried Stevie, tearing off her boots and hurrying to the shore. She waded into the water and started swimming just as someone else plunged into the river behind her.

Carole and Lisa had spread out in the water. “You grab those bedrolls,” Carole called to Lisa. “I’ll try to get this backpack.”

“What should I get?” asked Stevie, paddling frantically.

“Anything else you can,” called Lisa.

A cell phone floated by Stevie’s ear. She grabbed it and looked around for something else that might be drifting away, but instead of seeing spilled supplies, she saw Gabriel behind her, grappling with a huge, overstuffed suitcase.

“Here,” she said, swimming over to him. “Let me help.”

“Lift one end up and it won’t get so wet,” he said, spitting out a mouthful of water.

Together they maneuvered the suitcase to the riverbank just as Lisa and Carole waded out with all the bedrolls and the backpack. A crowd of people gathered around as they came ashore.

“Oh, girls,” a pretty blond woman said as they stood gasping for breath. “I can’t thank you enough! You’ve saved all our important supplies!”

“And you girls did it just like the real pioneers!” Polly said.

“They didn’t save my teddy bear!” shrieked a small voice behind Stevie. She knew without looking whose voice that was. It was little Eileen’s.

Mr. Cate started to laugh at Eileen. “Why is a big girl like you crying about a teddy bear? Your parents could have lost everything they brought with them!”

“Because it was
my
teddy bear!” Eileen shrieked even
more loudly. “Mommy! They lost Teddy! They lost
my
Teddy!”

“Shhh, Eileen,” said her mother, suddenly embarrassed. She leaned over and wrapped her arms around the weeping girl. “Let’s sit over here on the bank with Daddy and calm down.”

Suddenly Jeremy rushed up. “Is everyone okay?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Gabriel. “We’re fine.”

“That was quite a rescue you put on. I was busy with their horses, but I saw most of it. The four of you certainly work well together as a team.” Jeremy smiled.

“Actually, we did,” replied Stevie, glaring at Gabriel. “Imagine that. Menfolk and womenfolk, working together.”

Gabriel ignored her and looked at Jeremy, who was squinting at the wagons waiting on the far shore. “After the rest of the wagons cross the river, we’ll be on our way,” Jeremy said. “We won’t go too much farther today, so you folks can take it easy. A river crossing kind of takes the starch out of everybody.”

“You can say that again,” laughed Lisa, wringing a stream of water out of her skirt.

By midafternoon the wagon train had stopped for the night. Stevie, Carole, and Lisa gave a sigh of relief as the wagons made their traditional circle, a formation
the pioneers used to enclose their livestock more than to protect against Indians. As the girls pulled into position, their river-soaked clothes struck to their backs, and Lisa’s wet socks squelched with every step she took.

“I vote we dress modern for a little while,” she said as Stevie pushed the wagon’s brake. “And try to get our pioneer clothes dry somehow.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Stevie.

They changed into their jeans and hung their wet clothes on some scrub pine that was growing near their wagon. Their normal clothes felt wonderfully comfortable, and for a long time they just relaxed on the ground, letting the afternoon sun warm their stiff muscles as it dried their dresses.

Suddenly Carole frowned. “Do you guys feel anything weird?”

“Weird like how?” Stevie asked.

“I don’t know,” said Carole. “It’s like the ground is tingling.”

“Tingling?” Stevie leaned over and put her hand flat on the sandy ground. “Good grief!” she cried. “It
is
tingling! Maybe we’re sitting on some kind of underground volcano that’s about to blow!”

“Hi, girls,” Shelly Bean called, hurrying by. “Are you feeling the cattle yet?”

“The cattle?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah. The herd from the dude ranch. Just put your
hand to the ground and you can feel their hooves.” Shelly grinned and pointed over his shoulder. “You can also see the dust they’re raising on the horizon.”

The girls looked where Shelly pointed. Sure enough, a small cloud of brown dust was slowly drawing closer.

“So much for your underground volcano,” Carole laughed as Stevie’s face turned red.

They watched as the dust cloud grew bigger. Finally they could pick out individual riders moving a mass of cows toward the river.

“Let’s go over and say hello,” Carole said, standing on tiptoe as she watched the herd.

The girls joined some others in their group and walked over to the dude ranch camp. An array of people much like their own greeted them—families, a couple of teenagers, and a few retired couples. They all seemed comfortable on their cow ponies and eager to share tales of their trip with the Oregon Trail folks.

“We hear you guys crossed the river today,” a redheaded young wrangler said.

“That’s right,” replied Stevie. “Some of us did it more than once.”

“Was it hard getting your wagons across?” a sunburned woman asked.

“Probably not as hard as two hundred cows,” laughed Carole.

A little boy in a white cowboy hat rode up on a fat
black pony. “Have you heard that we’re going to have a big party tonight?”

“Yes,” said Lisa. “And we’re really looking forward to it.”

“Our trail boss, Robbie, is going to play his fiddle and one of the cowboys is going to call a square dance!”

“That sounds like fun,” said Stevie. She turned to Carole and Lisa. “Maybe we’d better go back to our camp and get into our outfits again.”

“Good idea,” Carole agreed. They said good-bye to their new cowboy friends and hurried back to their camp. Just when they had gotten their pioneer clothes back on, they heard the dinner triangle clanging loudly.

“Come and get it!” Shelly Bean had hopped up on a hay bale and was making a speech. “Tonight my buddy Sidewinder Slim and I have cooked y’all the most delicious, mouthwaterin’, lip-smackin’, hair-curlin’ meal west of the Missouri! And anybody who ain’t had two helpings before sundown is gonna hurt my feelings!”

“Whoa!” Carole laughed. “I guess we’d better go eat!”

They joined the others around a huge campfire. Shelly and Sidewinder Slim had truly come up with a feast, filling everybody’s plates with thick steaks, piles of corn on the cob, and rhubarb-and-apple cobbler for dessert. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole ate until they couldn’t eat anymore.

“Arrgggh,” groaned Stevie. “I’m stuffed.”

“You can’t be stuffed now, Stevie,” said Carole. “The dancing is about to begin.”

Just as everybody finished supper, a cowboy from the dude ranch stood up by the campfire.

“Howdy, folks. My name’s Rascal Robbie Robertson and I’m the head drover for this cattle drive. Tonight I’m going to prove that I can outfiddle anybody east of California and west of Nevada.” He struck a chord on his fiddle. “And while I’m sawin’ on this thing, my buddy Willowbark Bob here’s gonna call some dances for you. So grab a partner and let’s have some fun!”

Everybody cleared a large space in front of the fire. Rascal Robbie started to play, and soon six couples were dancing in a square to Willowbark Bob’s calls.

A tall boy from the dude ranch came over and asked Lisa to dance, and then Stevie and Carole got up and danced with each other. As they did a ladies’ chain around the square, Stevie noticed that Gabriel was dancing with one of the girls from the dude ranch.
Probably too chicken to dance with any of us
, she thought as she and Carole locked arms and swung each other in a wide circle.

Everyone danced until late in the evening. Only Eileen wasn’t having fun. She complained to anyone who would listen that Stevie and Carole and Lisa and Gabriel had lost her teddy bear in the river on purpose.
Though everyone was sorry she’d lost her toy, nobody paid much attention to her accusations. Finally she gave up and wandered away by herself.

Later, when the fire had burned to embers, Rascal Robbie said it was time for his cowboys to go put their dogies to sleep, and the party broke up. The cowboys and the pioneers shook hands and wished each other good luck as they walked slowly back to their camps.

“Wasn’t that the best time ever?” Lisa said as the girls pulled their sleeping bags out into the open air.

“It was great,” said Carole. “And who was that boy you were dancing with? He was cute.”

“He said his name was Ken,” Lisa replied. “And he was cute, wasn’t he? Too bad he’s a cowboy and not a pioneer.” She nestled down into her sleeping bag. “Are you writing again tonight, Stevie?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just a little.” Stevie lit the oil lamp and wrote quickly.

She read over her words once, blew out the lamp, and shoved the journal under her pillow. She was too
tired to write anymore. She could fill in the details later.

Just as she closed her eyes to go to sleep, she heard an ugly howling sound. She lifted her head off the pillow and listened more closely, then shook her head and relaxed again.
Just the wind blowing through the scrub brush. Or maybe it’s Gabriel
, she thought with a chuckle as she drifted off to sleep.
Trying to play some trick to prove he’s scarier than me.

C
AROLE WOKE UP
with a start. She’d been dreaming that a swarm of bees was chasing her and Starlight. They were getting closer and closer, and as fast as Starlight galloped, he couldn’t outrun them.

Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten so much cobbler
, she thought as she rolled over in her sleeping bag. She fluffed her pillow and laid her head down. Oddly, she heard the same buzzing noise she’d just dreamed about. She lifted her head. The noise was gone. She laid her head back down. The noise was back.

“That’s weird,” she said aloud, sitting up. She put the palm of her hand down on the ground between her
sleeping bag and Stevie’s. The buzzing noise became more of a pounding. She felt the ground next to Lisa. It pounded even harder there. She blinked for a moment, and her heart skipped a beat. Suddenly she knew exactly what the noise was. The cattle were stampeding!

In a flash she was out of her sleeping bag. “Stevie! Lisa! Wake up! It’s a stampede!”

“Uh?” said Stevie, blinking.

“The cattle are stampeding. And since they’re down by the river, the only direction they can run is straight for our camp. We’ve got to stop them!”

Without another word, the girls scrambled into their jeans and boots. “What shall we do?” asked Lisa.

“We need to get to the corral and get on some horses, and wake up as many people as we can along the way.”

“What if everyone panics?” Stevie’s eyes were wide with alarm.

“We’ll have to let Jeremy worry about that. If they get trampled by a herd of cattle, they’ll be dead!”

The girls leaped out of their wagon and raced toward the corral. Carole and Stevie yelled, “Stampede! Everybody up!” while Lisa desperately looked for Jeremy. Most people just blinked at them sleepily, but a few understood what was going on. Karen Nicely wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and ran to warn the next wagon, while Mr. Cate hurried over to Shelly’s chuck
wagon to ring the triangle. Several cowboys from the dude ranch hurried to put their boots on as well.

The girls ran to the corral, where the dude ranch ponies were mixed in with the wagon train horses. “Shall we just grab anybody?” asked Lisa as the girls threaded their way through the nervous herd.

“Get a cow pony,” said Carole. “They’ll be easier to mount and they’ll know what to do with the cattle.”

The girls found three of the ponies in one corner of the corral, their noses pointed toward the cows, as if they sensed what was going on. They calmly allowed Stevie, Carole, and Lisa to hop on their backs, and they did not seem confused by the lack of a saddle and bridle.

“Okay,” said Carole. “I’ll let you two out of the corral, then we’ll ride to the cattle together.”