The Complete Oregon Series, page 17
“I will.” He disappeared into the night.
Nora forced herself to move away from the flap. She bundled Amy into a halfway dry blanket and pulled the strings to draw shut the covers at Amy’s end of the wagon. “Amy,” she said as calmly as she could, “I have to go outside and help Luke. You stay here. Don’t climb out of the wagon by yourself. I’ll be back soon, all right?”
She waited until Amy nodded, then climbed back out. The rain was still falling hard, but she ignored it. She readied the wooden yokes and unchained the wagon from the others that it had been bound to overnight.
When Luke returned with the nervous oxen, the wagon was ready to go.
They worked together in silence, yoking the oxen and urging them forward, away from the dangerous river. Theirs was the first wagon to pull out, but Nora could see others following behind them. With a firm grip on the lead ox’s yoke, Luke led them through the night.
Nora concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to stumble or get stuck in the ankle-deep mud. Their trek through the darkness seemed to last forever. When Luke brought the wagon to a halt, Nora almost fell.
“Careful!” Luke caught her but pulled back when she had secured her footing. “I think this is far away enough from the river,” he shouted toward Captain McLoughlin’s wagon behind them. “We should camp here for the rest of the night. It’s not safe traveling in the dark.”
The captain agreed, and the soaked-through emigrants settled down for the night in their wagons.
Between trunks, sacks of flour and beans, and a keg of pickles, there wasn’t much space for them in the wagon bed. Nora settled down between a feeding bag and her butter churn, curling herself around Amy’s body for added warmth. She closed her eyes but couldn’t sleep.
The wagon covers had been rubbed down with linseed oil to make them waterproof, but the night’s downpour had been too much for them, and now they leaked anyway. A steady succession of drops hit her shoulder, and she moved a little to the right to avoid them. She closed her eyes again, but now another leak had built at her feet.
She had just resigned herself to a sleepless night when she felt another blanket being settled over her and Amy, followed by the rainproof tent cover.
Without a word, Luke returned to his place at the end of the wagon, staring out into the rain with his back resting against a sack of flour.
“Thank you,” Nora whispered. She tried to make out his face in the dark but couldn’t. “Do you want to join us in our little nest?” She lifted the edge of the covers in invitation.
“There’s no room,” he answered.
Careful not to wake Amy, Nora stood and balanced the butter churn on top of the keg of pickles, then shoved the feeding bag as far to the side as it would go. “There’s room now.” She lay back down and again lifted the covers for him to join them.
“No, it’s all right,” Luke said. “I have to go out in an hour anyway to ride guard over the herd.”
Nora was determined not to give up this time. Luke had taken care of everybody tonight, and now she would take care of him. “Then you should rest for that hour, not sit up and be miserable. Come on, it’s getting cold in here.” She again lifted the blankets.
Slowly, Luke edged toward them. He lay down with his back pressed against the keg of pickles, careful to keep as much space between them as possible.
“You have to move a little closer, or the blanket won’t cover you,” Nora said.
He hesitated but then inched closer.
Amy turned around in her sleep, probably feeling his heat, and snuggled up to him.
This close, Nora could make out his expression and stifled a laugh as she saw him blush. She settled the blanket over him, leaving them in a warm cocoon of shared heat. Now he is sharing my bed. She giggled.
“What?” Luke asked.
Nora pressed a hand against her lips. “Oh, nothing.”
“We have to break up camp in the middle of the night or risk getting drowned. Our wagon is leaking. A stampede could break out any second. I don’t even want to imagine tomorrow’s travel through knee-deep mud, and you’re giggling over nothing? Uh-huh.” He gently poked her in the shoulder, making Nora giggle again. “Tell me.” He raised his finger in mock threat.
If any other man had raised his hand and used a tone this threatening with her, Nora would have been scared to death, but this time, with Luke, her finely honed instincts told her that she had nothing to worry about. “Well, it just occurred to me that you’re finally sharing my bed.” Not giggling now, she stared into his face and held her breath while she waited for his reaction.
Luke snorted. “This is not exactly what you had in mind, huh?”
Isn’t it? Nora wasn’t so sure what she had or hadn’t wanted anymore. She had never really enjoyed going to bed with men, and after three years in a brothel, she certainly wasn’t eager to have relations with one of them again. Yes, she had wanted Luke to share her bed, but not for carnal reasons. She had wanted to get closer to her husband and share an intimacy that would ensure that he wouldn’t leave her.
“Nora? You asleep?” he whispered when her answer didn’t come.
“No, just thinking.”
This close, his gray eyes were like silver mirrors in the light of the moon that peeked out from behind heavy clouds. “About what?” he asked after a minute of silence.
Nora hesitated. She had been taught from a very early age that women should never speak their mind. Life in the brothel had only enforced that. Her first instinct was to keep her thoughts to herself and tell him that she had been thinking about what condition the trail might be in tomorrow. Then she shook her head. She wanted to start a new life, be a new, respectable woman. She didn’t have to keep up her old habits. “I was thinking about what I want from you.”
Luke sucked in a breath. He was quiet for so long that Nora began to fear that she had annoyed him. When she opened her mouth to try soothing his ruffled feathers, he asked, “And what is it that you want?”
That was the point where Nora’s ruminations had stopped. She didn’t have a clear picture about what she wanted from him; she just knew it wasn’t only his protection. “I…I want to…be closer to you.” She closed her eyes for a moment, realizing the truth of her words as she spoke them. “I feel like I don’t really know the most important person in my life. Adult person,” she said, briefly looking down at her sleeping daughter. “I don’t know anything about you.”
Luke’s formerly relaxed expression became guarded again. “You know everything you have to. Why would you want to know more?”
“Because I—”
“Hamilton?” A shout from outside interrupted Nora. “Hamilton, are you in there? We need your help with the animals.”
Nora recognized the voice. Bill Larson. One more reason to hate him.
Luke scrambled out from under the blankets.
Larson had spoiled her one chance to talk to Luke. She knew that he would avoid discussing this topic again. With a sigh, she settled back down and pressed a kiss into Amy’s red curls. “Sleep tight, sweetie.” At least one of us should.
Scotts Bluff,
June 17th, 1851
From under the brim of her hat, Luke glanced up to the high cliffs that loomed like a bastion above the plains. An hour ago, she had glimpsed a band of Indians watching the wagon train from the pine-covered top of the massive bluff.
This was Sioux territory, so as far as Luke was concerned, the natives had every right to be there. She kept a watchful eye on them, but otherwise didn’t pay them much attention. She didn’t have the time to, because unlike Chimney Rock, Scotts Bluff was an obstacle for the wagon train.
Ravines and eroded wastelands stretched from the bluffs to the river, making it impossible to continue on their usual trail along the North Platte River. Luke and two other scouts had been sent out to look for a pass through the bluffs.
From the distance, the bluffs seemed to be an impenetrable barrier, but Luke knew from her military expeditions that there was a lower, less rocky area several miles to the south.
Larson and some of the other men grumbled about the detour, but in the end, the captain had agreed to use Robidoux Pass instead of the shorter, but steeper and more dangerous Mitchell Pass.
Luke wiped the sweat from her brow. After the downpour two days before, the weather had turned oppressively hot. Humans and animals suffered alike under the blazing sun and the clouds of mosquitoes. Fortunately, the ascent was a gradual one until the last half mile before the summit, where they had to double-team the oxen to navigate the hundred-foot rise.
They stopped at the crest of the pass to rest in the shadow provided by nearby cedar trees and to renew their water supplies.
Luke gratefully took the ladle of cool, clear water that Nora handed her and swallowed slowly while she looked around.
In the distance, the faint blue shadow of the Black Hills loomed on the horizon to the west. The snow-capped Laramie Peak seemed to reach into the clouds. Luke watched Nora stare west with as much anxiety as awe.
Luke couldn’t blame her. Laramie Peak signaled the beginning of their ascent into the mountains. Ahead of them lay difficult terrain. Firewood, water, and even buffalo chips would become scarce. They would have to leave more of their possessions behind to lighten the load of the weary oxen as they tried to cross the Rocky Mountains.
Luke dipped the ladle into the water barrel again. When she lifted it, she caught a glimpse of half a dozen Sioux cresting the rise.
“Indians!” Bill Larson reached around his faint-looking wife for his rifle.
“No!” Luke sprang forward and grabbed the barrel of Larson’s rifle before he could aim at the Sioux.
Larson refused to let go. A tug-of-war ensued. “Let go, you fool, or we’re all gonna die.” Larson tried to kick Luke from his elevated position on the wagon seat.
Luke used his forward momentum to pull Larson down from the wagon. She never let go of the rifle because she knew how it would end. The Lakota, as the Sioux called themselves, hadn’t attacked emigrants so far, but they started to eye the streams of white men passing through their land and leaving behind herds of slaughtered buffalo with distrust. They were a powerful and proud tribe, and when pushed by trigger-happy settlers, they would respond with hostility.
“Stop it! Both of you.” Captain McLoughlin stepped between them. “We have to show strength in front of the Indians. Fighting among ourselves doesn’t help with that.”
Slowly, Luke let go of Larson’s rifle. The captain was right. She straightened and watched as the six braves slowly led their horses toward the wagon train.
“Keep on your guard,” Abe McLoughlin said over his shoulder, “but nobody lifts a weapon without me ordering it.” He stepped out of the shadow of Larson’s wagon and greeted the Lakota in their own language. From time to time, he turned back around to translate for the other emigrants.
Luke didn’t need the translation. In her eight years with the dragoons, she hadn’t made a lot of friends and had kept to herself a lot, particularly after Nate’s death. She had spent a lot of time with the other outsiders of the company, including the native and half-blood scouts. As a result, she understood at least some words of half a dozen native languages. She caught that they wanted to trade before McLoughlin translated it for them.
“They want to trade?” Bill Larson roared with sarcastic laughter. “I don’t need no stinking Indian blankets. Tell them no.”
“Abe,” Luke said before the captain could turn back around to translate Larson’s refusal, “if we refuse to trade with them, they’ll follow us for days and try to steal our stock at night. Let’s trade with them, give them some clothes or coffee. That’s all they want.”
The captain nodded. He turned and asked the barrel-chested leader what they had to offer.
The tall Lakota pointed to the only female in his group, then at Measles.
Luke blinked and then wildly shook her head. She wouldn’t trade her horse and certainly not for an Indian wife.
When the captain translated the offer, Bill Larson laughed and slapped his thighs. “Hamilton can’t even handle one wife. What would he want with two?”
Luke ignored him. “That’s a very generous offer,” she said slowly, in the Lakota’s language, “but I already have a wife.”
The tall Lakota fixed the gaze of his intense black eyes on Nora, who was inching closer to Luke. He looked at her for much longer than Luke was comfortable with.
Luke half-turned toward Nora, trying to understand what had captured the Lakota’s attention. Now that Nora was no longer hiding it, her pregnancy was quite obvious, but to Luke’s continuing surprise, that was only adding to her beauty. Officers that she had served with had often extolled the glowing beauty of their pregnant wives, but Luke had always taken it for the sentimental talk of love-sick fools. Now she had to reconsider that opinion.
Nora didn’t have the perfect porcelain complexion that she had started out with in Independence any longer, but still she was much more fair-skinned than anyone else on the wagon train. The constant sun had tanned her skin to a creamy, golden complexion. She had taken off her bonnet while they rested in the shadow, and her flaming red hair contrasted nicely with her green eyes.
The Lakota slid from his horse and offered Luke the braided leather reins.
“That’s the ugliest pony I’ve ever seen.” Bill Larson smirked. “You still want to trade, Hamilton?”
The horses of the native tribes were much smaller than that of the white settlers. Compared to the captain’s large black gelding the chief’s gray mare looked downright tiny. But Luke knew better than to think the small horse inferior. She let her gaze pass over the mare’s flank, shoulder, legs, and chest. She knew without a doubt that the horse was hardy, fast, a good climber, and able to live on vegetation that wouldn’t sustain McLoughlin’s pampered gelding. “What do you want for the mare?”
The Lakota didn’t hesitate. He pointed at Nora.
A wave of possessiveness swept over Luke, making her ears burn. She felt Nora press against her back. Trembling fingers closed around her own, and she gave them a reassuring squeeze. She had to unclench her jaw before she could speak. “No.” She looked the chief right in the eye, leaving no doubt about the finality of her decision.
But the Lakota didn’t give up. He now offered three horses for “Red Hair.”
Luke understood: The Lakota were fascinated with Nora’s flaming red hair. She shook her head again. “She is my wife. I won’t trade her.”
The Lakota chief shoved the young Indian girl in her direction. “Three of my best horses and her. You’ll still have a wife to care for you,” he said in his language.
“No,” Luke said. “I already have the wife I want. I won’t trade her for anything you offer.”
The Lakota frowned and turned to his braves. One of them fiddled with his bow, and another one rested his hand on the butt of an old smoothbore musket.
The emigrants began to reach for their weapons too.
“Maybe we should just turn her over,” Bill Larson said.
Before Luke could turn toward him, the Lakota chief stepped forward. “If you don’t want to give away the red-haired woman, give us the child.” He pointed at something behind Luke.
Luke turned.
Amy peeked out from under the wagon cover’s flap, her flaming red hair glowing in the sun.
Cursing under her breath, Luke faced the Lakota. She knew that she had to do something before the situation escalated. Briefly, she thought about offering Measles, but then she had another idea. “The woman is not a good worker.” Even though Nora couldn’t understand her words, Luke squeezed her hand in silent apology. “And the child is weak and sickly. I have something better that I can offer you.”
The Lakota stood waiting, his face expressionless.
With slow movements, careful to keep her hands half-raised so that no one could misinterpret it as an attack, Luke turned toward the wagon and opened one of the trunks. She unfolded her navy-blue uniform coat. Suppressing a sigh, she turned back around and presented the jacket to the braves. She pointed out the row of the carefully polished brass buttons and the shoulder boards with embroidered gold bars.
The Lakota chief stepped closer and extended a hand to finger a gleaming button with almost childlike curiosity. He seemed interested, but then he lifted his head to look at Nora.
Before he could decide that the red-haired woman would be a better deal than an old military jacket, Luke reached into the trunk again and pulled out her saber. She showed him how to unsheathe it, then handed the weapon over to the chief.
The chief tested the blade’s sharpness and grinned as he lifted a bloody thumb in the air.
“Luke,” Nora whispered, gripping the back of her shirt. “Do you really want to give up your uniform?”
“It’s all right,” Luke whispered so only Nora could hear her. “I promised to take care of you and Amy until you find another husband. You don’t want to marry him, do you?” She nodded at the chief.
The grip on Luke’s shirt tightened. “No.”
“You’re supplying the Indians with weapons?” Bill Larson’s brows lowered until they formed one thick, black line. “Do you want to encourage them to slaughter us all?”
Luke didn’t even turn toward him. She kept her gaze on the chief, who was still weighing the saber in his hand. “A saber is a dangerous weapon in the hands of a trained dragoon officer, but it won’t do much harm in the hands of a Lakota brave fighting against white men armed with revolvers and rifles.” It was the truth. She had seen how much trouble the volunteers in the Mexican War had learning how to handle a saber. In the early months of the war, there had been a lot of lop-eared horses in their remuda.
