The Complete Oregon Series, page 25
Bernice’s gaze rested on her the whole way. “You’re not coming with us, are you?”
“No, we’re not.” Nora had to fight back tears. Bernice had been the first friend she’d made for herself, almost like a mother or a big sister. “I guess this is good-bye.”
“Yeah.” Bernice sniffled and engulfed Nora in a warm embrace. “You take care of yourself and the little ones, you hear?” She gently touched Nora’s belly.
“Is Jacob really determined to take the detour to Fort Bridger?” Nora asked. She had hoped that Bernice would be with her if she had to give birth on the trail. Sure there were other women who could help, but she hadn’t formed close friendships with them. Emeline Larson had enough of her own problems and didn’t need to deal with Nora’s on top of it.
Bernice squeezed her one last time. “We have to. Our supplies won’t last until we reach Fort Hall.”
Jacob came over to them. He patted Nora’s arm instead of hugging her. “I’m sorry to hear that you won’t come with us. We could have used someone like Luke.”
Right on cue, Luke wandered over. He shook Jacob’s hand and politely nodded at Bernice while Nora hugged the Garfield children.
Amy, who had enthusiastically shared hugs with everyone, began to cry as they walked toward their own wagon and she began to understand that the Garfields weren’t going to follow.
Nora bit her bottom lip. She hadn’t thought about what their decision to take the shortcut would mean to Amy. Once again, Amy had to say good-bye to people she’d gotten to like. Bernice had been almost like a grandmother or an aunt for Amy, and her youngest daughter was Amy’s favorite playmate. Now she would be a lonely child again.
For a second, Nora wanted to turn around and tell Luke that she’d changed her mind, but then she watched Luke urge the oxen forward. He didn’t look back, his gaze fixed on the trail that led west. With a sigh, Nora vowed to do the same. Reaching Oregon before the first snow fell was the most important thing; everything else was pure luxury.
Big Sandy River,
July 14th, 1851
Nora sat with her back against a sack of flour, biting the end of her quill while she thought about what to write in her diary. She had already written down the details of today’s travel.
They’d reached the Big Sandy at noon and had decided to camp until nightfall. The wind threw up clouds of dust and made it impossible to build a fire or set up the tents, so each family retreated to their wagon, the covers drawn shut as tightly as possible.
Amy was finally asleep, and Luke had gone with the other men to drive the cattle toward the hills where they would find grass. Nora was alone with her diary and her thoughts. Sitting in the wagon while the wind howled and ripped at the wagon covers, Nora felt isolated and alone as she hadn’t for a long time. Bernice, her only friend west of Independence, was many miles away by now. Only friend. She stared at her diary. Is Bernice really your only friend? What about Luke?
In the last few months, she had learned to trust him as she’d never trusted a man before. He’d held her life and Amy’s in his hands more than once on their journey west, and each time, he’d proven worthy of her trust. But she did more than respect his skills and admire his integrity. Admit it, you like him.
The cover at the end of the wagon opened, interrupting her thoughts.
Luke climbed into the wagon.
Nora set her diary aside and moved to bring him a plate of bread and cold beans.
“Stay.” Luke gestured for her to sit back down. “You don’t have to wait on me. Finish your writing.”
With a relieved sigh, Nora sank back against the sack of flour. With every day that her pregnancy progressed, her feet were more swollen and her back seemed to ache more than the day before.
A plate in one hand, Luke settled down in the only empty place in the wagon—right next to Nora, leaning against the same sack of flour that served as Nora’s backrest. “Can’t think of something to write?” he asked after a while and pointed at the diary with his fork.
Nora sighed. It was exactly the opposite. There were too many thoughts going through her head. She closed the leather-bound diary. “The words just don’t come tonight. How about I give you that promised reading and writing lesson instead? It’s too windy to go out for target practice anyway, so I might as well take my turn at playing the teacher.”
Luke chewed thoroughly, taking his time to answer. Finally, he swallowed. “I’m too old to learn this.”
“Nonsense. It’s never too late to learn. Don’t give up before you have even tried.”
He took another bite, then set his plate aside. “All right. I’ll try.”
Carefully, Nora pulled an empty page out of the back of her diary. She scribbled down the letters of the alphabet and then showed them to Luke. “This,” she pointed at the first letter, “is an ‘a’ like in ‘apple.’”
Luke took the page from her to study the letters. Their hands touched, and both of them quickly looked away. “Why are there two letters for the ‘a’?”
“You use the capital ‘A’ in names like ‘Amy’ and at the beginning of a sentence.” Nora circled the letter for him.
Luke studied the many unknown symbols on the page. “There’s a lot to learn.”
“Yes, but there’s also a lot of time until we reach Oregon. If you study for an hour or even half an hour each day, you can write the letter, telling your friends that you arrived in Oregon, on your own.”
Luke tugged on his bottom lip. “If you don’t run out of patience before that.”
“You never lost patience with me, so why should I?” Nora held his gaze. “I told you, I dreamed of becoming a teacher, and you can’t be worse than an eight-year-old, can you?”
Luke laughed. “Let’s hope not. At least I can already count and know how to write the numbers.”
“You do?” Nora knew nothing about his past. Had he been born in a poor family that couldn’t afford to send him to school? But then why had he learned the numbers, but not reading and writing?
“Keeping count of her money was important to…” Luke paused. “It was important where I grew up.”
Nora laid down the quill. “Tell me about it. Where did you grow up?”
Luke pointedly looked at his pocket watch. “Let’s get this lesson over with. We won’t have the time again until we reach the Green River.”
With a sigh, Nora reached for the quill again.
Green River Desert,
July 15th, 1851
Luke looked around, making sure that nobody was watching her before she discreetly spat out the dust in her mouth. It might have been a manly gesture, but Luke didn’t like the constant spitting. Here, in the middle of the Green River Desert, it was a necessity, though.
They had filled every water casket and every canteen in the Big Sandy and had waited for dusk before they started their journey across the grassless fifty-mile tableland. The boys of the train walked ahead of the wagons, carrying lanterns to show them the way. Traveling by night was cooler, but the wagons still stirred up the alkaline dust and sand.
They’d traveled all night, through deep sand, steep ravines, and dried-up alkali lakes. By sunrise, they still hadn’t reached the Green River. Luke knew they weren’t lost, though, because the trail was marked by abandoned wagons and the bleached bones of dead cattle.
By noon, the oxen began to slow under the blazing sun. The morning dew that provided some meager fluid for the cattle had long since evaporated. There was no grass for them; even wild sage hardly grew in the sandy soil.
They stopped for half an hour of rest while the sun beat down on them. Luke carefully dipped a tin cup into the water barrel, measuring the amount of water for each animal. She checked their hooves and found that Snow White had lost an ox shoe. The hoof of one front leg threatened to split on the rough trail. Luke used the break to apply hot tar to the hoof, sealing the split.
“Here.” Nora came over and offered her a tin can in which two slices of peach remained.
Luke licked dry lips but made no move to take the can. Instead, she held up her hands that were smeared with tar. “I’ll eat it later.”
“There’ll be more sand in the can than peaches if you don’t eat it now.” Nora stepped around the bucket of tar and held out a slice of peach.
Luke swallowed—not because of the mouth-watering sight of the peach, but because Nora obviously wanted her to eat the slice right out of her hand. “No, I’ll—”
“Come on, or it’ll go to waste in this heat.” Again, Nora held out the piece of fruit.
Reluctantly, Luke bent her head and picked up the slice with careful teeth. Her gaze met Nora’s, and she swallowed the peach in one bite, too distracted to chew the fruit. Coughing, she forced it down her throat. “Thanks.” She gasped.
Nora turned away with a smile. “You’re welcome.”
A few hours later, the first wagon began to lag behind. Amy and the other children complained of thirst every few minutes, and Luke started to watch Nora with concern. Her ankles were swollen, and she kept pressing a hand to the small of her back. “Nora,” she called to get her attention. “Do you want to ride for a while?” She pointed to Measles who was walking along behind the wagon. The riders had dismounted hours ago to spare the horses the extra weight.
“No, I’m fine,” Nora answered.
Just then, the oxen that had plodded on with lolling tongues and glassy eyes picked up their pace. After a few more yards, they broke into a clumsy run.
Luke looked down the bluffs. “Finally, the Green River.” A wide, swift-flowing stream lay below them. The water glittered in the sun. It looked clear, and Luke had heard that it was filled with trout and other fish. Cottonwoods lined its banks, and mountain sheep grazed on the lush grass in the valley.
Most of the emigrants broke out in victory dances and hurried down to the river.
Luke followed a bit more slowly. She knew that they had overcome one problem only to be met with another. Unlike most other rivers they had encountered, the Green River was not going in their direction, but bisected the Oregon Trail. They had no choice but to cross the Green River, said to be the most difficult crossing on the way to Oregon. A dozen nearby graves provided testimony to the dangers of the crossing.
“There’s a ferry,” Bill Larson said.
Luke looked at the raft that carried wagons across on pulleys. A wooden sign announced a price of eight dollars. Is that per wagon? “The water’s not that high for July,” Luke said, gazing down to the river. “I think we should save us the money and hire a guide instead.” Every dollar that they saved now would help them start their new lives in Oregon and survive the first, hard winter.
“Trust a dirty Indian with our lives and our wagons? Ha!” Larson spat out, barely missing Luke’s shoulder.
Luke stiffened but remained calm. She’d learned not to react to provocations like that. She felt a fleeting touch to her back and straightened further, knowing it was Nora, offering silent support. “The Shoshone are traditionally friendly to us, and they know the Green River better than anyone else. We’d be fools to refuse their help.”
“He’s right,” the captain said. “An Indian guide won’t charge as much as the Mormons operating the ferry, and we won’t have to wait our turn at the ferry.”
Without waiting for Larson’s protests to die down, Luke loosened the bolts that fastened the wagon bed to the running gear and propped the bed up, above the reach of the water, with blocks.
Soon, two Shoshones were guiding the double-teamed wagons into the river.
“Do you want to take over?” Nora offered her the whip.
“Do you want me to?” Luke knew they were following a gravel bar so narrow that the smallest misstep by the driver could overturn the wagon and send their provisions rushing downstream. The fear and self-doubt in Nora’s eyes told her that she was aware of it too.
Nora’s jaw clenched. Slowly, she straightened her shoulders. “I think I can do it—if you trust me to.”
Luke didn’t hesitate. “You know I do. The boys are playing favorites anyway.” She nodded at the oxen. They had gotten used to Nora’s gentler, but equally determined approach of handling them.
“All right, then.” With a tight grip on the whip, Nora waded into the river, urging the oxen along.
Luke’s gaze followed her. She couldn’t help the proud grin that curled her lips. It was good to see Nora begin to trust in her skills and in herself. She swung up into the saddle and followed Nora, keeping an eye on her and on Amy, who was peeking out from the back of the wagon.
The river was deep. Amy shrieked when the water ran into the wagon box, but their guides never hesitated, and within an hour, they were safely on the other side.
While they waited for the last of their fellow travelers to cross, Luke took Nora and Amy to the gray sandstone bluff running parallel to the river. Many other emigrants had left their names behind on Names Hill, and Luke had looked forward to carving Nora’s name in a place where the younger woman could see it.
Nora watched as Luke worked the sandstone with her knife. “You still know the letters. See, I told you you’d be a good student.”
Luke smiled. “I had a good teacher.”
Their gazes met and held.
“Come on,” Luke said. “Let’s go back to camp.”
Soda Springs,
July 24th, 1851
Nora looked over her shoulder. Behind them lay steep mountains and clear streams like Ham’s Fork. Finally, they had reached the green Bear River Valley. Here, the Sublette Cutoff rejoined the main route from Fort Bridger, but, of course, there was no sign of the other part of their wagon train. The Garfields and their companions were still many miles away, but sometimes, Nora couldn’t help looking out for them anyway.
“Mama, it stinks,” Amy said from her place inside the wagon.
Nora nodded. A strong rotten egg odor wafted through the air. “Yeah, it does.” She pinched her nose.
“That’s Sulphur Springs,” Luke said, “one of the springs along the banks of the Bear River.”
Nora saw the disappointed faces of the other emigrant women. We won’t be able to bathe in that particular spring. That’s for sure. She didn’t know whether she should be disappointed or relieved. Since her encounter with Brody Cowen in the hot spring, Nora had mixed feelings about taking a bath. Her tired, pregnant body longed to sink into a tub of hot water, but she was much too scared of Cowen to fully relax. Maybe it’s just as well that we can’t bathe here.
But it seemed as if her conclusion had been rash. They rounded a bend in the Bear River and found themselves in a landscape filled with cones, craters, bubbling springs, and geysers. Some of the springs were cold, some warm, and others hot.
The men gathered around one spring. “Come on over, Hamilton,” Larson shouted. “This water tastes like beer.”
“No, thanks,” Luke said. “I tried it before, and it tastes like rust.” He walked away.
Nora gathered their dirty clothes, determined to use one of the hot pools to do their laundry.
“Ah, ah!” Luke blocked her way and took a pile of shirts from her arms. “You’re not lugging around heavy, sodden clothes.”
“But the laundry needs to be done.” Nora wasn’t keen on doing the heavy work. The fear of losing her baby was constantly on her mind. There wasn’t much of a choice, though. Now that she no longer had Bernice to help her, she had to do it alone. She vowed to be as cautious as possible.
“Then I’ll do it.”
Nora stared at him until he began to squirm.
“What?”
“You want to do our laundry?” Nora asked. No other man on the train had ever offered to do a woman’s chores.
Luke shrugged. A blush climbed up his neck. “You said it yourself: The laundry needs to be done, and you sure as hell are not going to do it. So that leaves me.”
“Do you even know how?”
“You think I never washed my clothes before I met you?” His grin took the sting from his words.
“No, of course I don’t.” Compared to most other men, Luke was always clean and neat.
Luke dumped the pile of soiled linens into one of the warm pools. “You can watch and correct me if you want.”
Nora sat down on a rock and watched. It was hard to sit still while all around her, the other women did their own laundry. Even Emeline Larson, obviously pregnant and with new bruises on her arms, was scrubbing her husband’s shirts.
From time to time, one of the other women took a surreptitious glance at Luke. The younger ones giggled as they watched him scrub one of Nora’s chemises.
Luke blushed each time, but he never paused in his task. Finally, he hung the wet clothes on a line strung between two wagons.
Nora glanced at Amy, who watched her stepfather. What kind of woman will she become if she grows up around Luke? For a moment, she heard her father’s scornful words about women who forgot their God-given place in society. Then she straightened her shoulders. She’ll become a woman who doesn’t think she’s worthless just because she’s not the son her father longed for.
She watched Luke take care of his own chores, checking on the oxen and horses. Not allowed to do any hard work, she felt useless. “I could—”
“Why don’t you go and have a bath before all the best hot springs are taken?” Luke said.
Nora gazed with longing at some of the other women heading off with towels and bars of soap. “Maybe later.”
“Why not now? Later you’ll have to help with the cooking because, frankly, you’re a much better cook than I.”
Once again, Nora marveled at his ease in complimenting her. No other man had ever praised her for skills beyond the walls of the bedroom. She couldn’t help the pleased grin that formed on her lips but then remembered that she still had to answer his question. The smile disappeared from her face.
