The Promised Land (Destiny's Dreamers Book 2) (4 page)

He ignored her hint, reaching for a piece of the jerky she was throwing into the stewpot. He bit into it. “I guess I do.’’

Maggie shivered again, more at his indifference than from fear of Indians. She’d sooner take on twenty tribes of braves, single handed, than Johnny’s indifference. What was happening to him, to them? She would not beg for what should be given freely.

“What did they look like?’’

“Different from Red Eagle’s village. These tribes came with their travelling houses. You saw the tepees. The women were fired up, too. Their faces were painted, and they had on their fancy dresses, beaded like yours. I think they’d all been drinking some pretty strong whiskey.’’

He paused to bring the picture back to his mind, choosing to ignore the obvious turmoil in his wife’s face. He wasn’t ready yet to unfetter his own emotions. He didn’t understand them, anyhow. He didn’t understand much since Red Eagle and Snake.

“I met a man watching the Sioux~a white man. He said his name was Parkman. He was drunk, too, but I think it was with the sight, not the liquor. He kept saying it was a sight he’d come clear from New England to see. He called it a
rendezvous
and said more Sioux are due from all over the plains the next few days. He was aiming to stick around and follow them, and watch the big battle. It all seemed a game to him. A funny kind of fellow~skinny, and he had an unhealthy look, maybe even the lung fever. It’s strange to come this far with no more purpose than to gawk at the Indians like they were savage freaks. It crossed my mind to give him a few words from experience, but he didn’t seem the type to pay me any heed.’’

Before Maggie could respond, Jamie returned to place a shawl around his mother’s shoulders.

“Thank you, son.’’ She gave him a brilliant smile, a smile she’d been saving for Johnny. “Did you get something for yourself?’’

“I couldn’t find my old coat, Ma. This would be a good night for my new vest, though.’’

Maggie stirred the pot. “You know it’s not finished yet.’’

She’d been putting it off, connecting even that vest in her mind with Red Eagle’s village, and her dreams of an emaciated Jamie turned into a wild Indian waif. It had been more than two weeks since that incident. It was too soon to have the nightmare cleared from her mind. She looked up at her lingering husband. Would the nightmare ever free the two of them?

TOM tom tom tom, TOM tom tom tom
.

The drumbeats echoed through her head, achingly, unceasingly. Maggie yelled out louder than necessary, trying to dull the sound.

“Supper’s on!’’

Maggie tried to smooth the goose bumps from her arms. It didn’t work. She began struggling with her hair in the cool of the morning. The steady winds kept pulling it from her grasp as she wove it into a long plait down her back, then rolled up that plait, pinning its heaviness to her head. It was an unexpected load, and she twisted her neck, trying to accustom herself to it. She’d borrowed Gwen’s piece of mirror for the task. She’d borrowed a big scarf from Grandma Richman, too. Now she took the scarf and carefully bound it round her head, turban-fashion. Johnny came upon her at that moment.

“What in God’s name are you doing to yourself, woman?’’

His face gleamed from the soap and water and razor he’d just used. Like the other men and women of the train, he, too, was making little preparations for the civilization beyond.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m covering my hair.’’

“Why?’’

“You should be the last person to need to ask that question, Johnny Stuart.’’

Light dawned in his eyes. He came closer to put his arms around her in a rare gesture of solidarity.

“You’re afraid of its color. Afraid that what happened once may happen again.’’

“Yes!’’ every limb in her body cried out.

Johnny kept one arm around her, but with his right hand began to slowly undo what she had so laboriously accomplished.

“We’ve all got secret fears, Meg, myself included. But we can’t escape from them by hiding. We’ve got to face them head on. We’ve got to try to overcome them. I’m going with you to Laramie. The Indians have other things on their minds than kidnapping a lovely white women with fire in her hair. Besides, they’ve brought their own squaws.’’ He stopped. “You’ll come as God made you, and I’ll proudly show you off that way.’’

The turban was off, and her rich tresses flowed freely again. Maggie looked into the mirror and saw Johnny’s face, his eyes reaching for hers. They met, and the stiffness went out of her body. He was willing to help her. She could do it. She turned and reached for his lips. They were warmer than they had been in days.

Fort Laramie was not what anyone had anticipated.

The Stuart family approached it on their two dray horses. Jamie was seated before his father and Charlotte was on her mother’s back trussed up and cross, fussing for her freedom. She was getting too big to be treated as a papoose. Lumbering behind on ropes were the oxen needing attention. In the radiance of the early summer morning the fort loomed before them sparkling white beneath the sun, seemingly a worthy edifice for their hopes.

The Indian encampment was still spread out around it, all the way down to the water twenty-five feet below the rise on which the fort was built. In the light of day the Sioux did not seem anywhere near as threatening as their sounds had made them appear in the night. Jamie was excited by those Indians who were up and about. They were mostly the indefatigable children and their mothers, looking worse for the night’s festivities. The braves were still sleeping off the party within their tepees.

Maggie felt marginally better and turned her attention back to Laramie itself. Fort John. No one called the quadrangle with fifteen-foot walls by its given name. But by any name it was imposing, rising as it was from the middle of nowhere. Its bastions stood tall at each corner, and sentried palisades hugged its walls.

Sooner than expected the Stuarts were at the blockhouse and entering the gateway. They were dismounting, looking around with eyes widened from days of empty prairies.

The interior did not correspond with the whitewashed brilliance of the fort’s outside walls. All was a dry adobe brown, long since bleached of other colors by the relentless sun. Small buildings~houses~were built close against the walls, their doors and windows opening into a large central square. A corral to hold the fort’s animals in times of danger further partitioned off the space. There was a smithy, and a shop selling stores. And lounging everywhere was as strange a collection of humanity as they’d yet set eyes upon.

Maggie watched her son’s face as he took it all in: a dozen varieties of Indians; half-breeds, Mexicans, mountain men; even creoles and negroes surrounded them. There were men of every hue and dress, their attire adding strokes of color to the drab sandiness around them, the dialects and patois of their tongues imparting life to the heating air. Johnny pressed them on so their gawking would insult no one. He was closing in on the blacksmith’s shop. He had no desire to be at the end of a long line of emigrants wishing to use these services this day.

Johnny nodded hello to the smith and his helpers and began negotiating for the shoeing of his animals and the purchase of bullets. His family continued to stare, even Maggie. The niceties of Independence became part of another lifetime.

“Ma,’’ hissed Jamie. “Look at that one there. His buckskin is purple! And its got bits of bright cloth stitched all over it!’’

Maggie tried to appear worldlier than she was. “I guess he dyed it, son. The squares of cloth may be silk. It’s shiny and soft enough. It looks a little like pictures of a clown I saw once in your father’s books. He was called a Harlequin, and wore what they called motley, like that.’’

“Think he’s a clown? Maybe he’ll do some tricks if I ask.’’

“Hush. No, Jamie. He must be a hunter.’’

The boy’s head was in a whirl. “See that Indian by the corral! I never saw one wearing such a colorful shirt.’’

Maggie took in the calico of the man in question. It had been trimmed with bright red fringes. There was a yellow sash around his waist and a matching turban with a feather sticking out from his hair.

“He must belong to a different tribe than we’ve yet met, Jamie. Just look, but don’t say anything. We shouldn’t appear too forward.’’ She took the boy’s hand and firmly moved him on to the store beyond. “Let’s see if we can find some things we need. I lost my last big needle, and I have to ask about how to send a letter back to Ohio, to your grandparents.’’

“Is that what you were doing in the cabin last night, scribbling away?’’

“I thought you were asleep.’’

“I was, mostly.’’

Jamie’s attention was now switched to a group of mangy dogs lying in the center of the dusty street. “See. They have got dogs. I could’ve brought Bacon after all!’’

“No. Bacon’s better off back at camp. He would’ve just gotten himself into mischief.’’

“I can’t see how he’s better off tied up like we left him. He hates being tied up.’’

“Someone had to guard the wagons, Jamie. That’s his job.’’

They entered the dim interior of the company store at last. Maggie studied the rows of trade blankets, stacked according to value, the bins of flour and sugar and coffee. She went up to a man behind the counter.

“Excuse me, sir.’’

The clerk looked up from his ledger. It had been a long time between shaves and a bath, and his hair hung in greasy strings down his back.

“Could you give me the price for coffee, please?’’

“Dollar a pint.’’

Maggie blanched. “How could that be?’’

“This ain’t Philadelphia, lady. Gotta haul in the goods from Santa Fe by mule train. Santa Fe brings ‘em from farther down in Mexico, or even from Independence. Sugar’s a dollar-fifty a pint, flour four bits a pint. Take it or leave it. Won’t find no other goods a settin’ out on the trail up ahead, though.’’ He went back to his ledger.

Maggie gathered her courage and spoke again. “What about vegetables, then? How much for potatoes? Or greens?’’

The fellow gave her a curt laugh. “Ain’t no veg-e-tables grown in Laramie. What you see is what we got. Staples, some cloth, blankets, ropes, Indian tradin’ trinkets.’’ He ran through the rest of the inventory in his head, then added, “Got some bacon slabs in the back room, too. Two dollars the pound. What’ll it be?’’

“Nothing just yet, thank you.’’ Maggie gathered her son to her and made a hasty retreat to the street.

The clerk called after her. “How about some whiskey, lady? Seein’ as how you’re the first train of the season I could let you have it for last year’s prices, four dollars the pint!’’ His chortle of amusement was grating.

Maggie bumped into someone on the way out, blinded by the bright light, but managed to beg the pardon of a an exotically beautiful woman. A woman, here? Spanish?

The woman shook her black tresses, smiled “
De nada
’’, and was gone.

Confused, Maggie returned to the smithy. Johnny was closely watching a negro farrier give Dickens a new pair of shoes. She pulled her husband aside.

“How much have we got to spend, Johnny? Everything’s terribly dear!’’

Johnny wrinkled his brow. “After we see to the animals and the ammunition, I’ve got to look into a new shaft for the white top. Sam thinks ours might not hold up over the mountains ahead. The flour is running low, and sugar, too, but it seems like coffee might be critical. It’s starting to taste more like chicory every day. Then we’ve got costs up ahead to consider. Like guides and ferrying for the Columbia River~’’

“How bad is it, Johnny?’’

He felt in his pockets and pulled out some carefully horded gold coins. “Two twenty dollar pieces is all I can let you have, Meg. And it’ll be tight at that.’’

She took the coins. “I’ll do the best I can.’’

“You always do.’’

Back in the store, Maggie carefully marshalled her resources and ordered, watching with eagle eyes to be certain that her measures were fair. She was left with a pitifully small pile of sacks and two copper pennies in her hand.

Jamie was still hovering hopefully around a shelf filled with trinkets which also encompassed a jar of sassafras candy sticks. Maggie studied the wistful expression on her son’s face. She gave the clerk her last two coins~one for a needle, the other for five sticks of the candy.

Four of the sticks were carefully tucked away for emergencies down the road, but Jamie swaggered out with one in his mouth, like a cigar. Maggie had to smile as she watched the boy ape the men around him, hands tucked nonchalantly in his pockets, king of the mountain. Her heart went out to him for the world he must learn to grow into.

The Stuart’s errands were completed by the afternoon. The horses were loaded. But still they lingered, beginning to enjoy the crowded square. Neighbors from the train were everywhere. They waited in lines to have their horses or wagons tended, or just chatted with anyone who might have information on the trail ahead, or the states left behind.

It was here the Stuarts learned their country was at war with Mexico. It was interesting information, but somehow distant from themselves. There was no news about the disposition of the Oregon Territory. That would have been more to the point, something they could understand. But even that information had become almost irrelevant. They were already on their way and nothing would change that fact. The insularity of their trip was becoming overwhelming. Little mattered now but the trail itself, and its completion. What would come next was in a different universe.

Maggie and Johnny finally left through the gate’s archway in late afternoon, satisfied to return to the known security of their own camp. Jamie unleashed a delirious Bacon and set off with Charlotte toddling beside him. Johnny went about storing the new supplies, and Maggie started a fire for supper. Dashed expectations began coming home to roost.

“No preacher. No priest. Nothing.’’ Gwen threw down the frock she’d had slung over her arm, close to tears. “Just a bunch of dirty men spouting French and Mexican and Indian!’’

Maggie picked up the wedding dress, admiring it as she dusted it off, folded it, and returned it gently to Gwen’s arms.

“It’s lovely, Gwen. But hadn’t you better put it in a safe place until it may be used?’’

“When will that be?’’

“There’s always the Reverend Winslow.’’

“How can you even refer to that man as
reverend
? It would make me feel unclean to be wed by him!’’

Maggie studied the water in her pot slowly coming to a boil. She threw in handfuls of jerky.

“If your mind’s made up on that account, you’ll have to wait. There’s the Whitman Mission ahead. It’s only another month or two. Johnny and I courted for seven years.’’

“But you were just children! I’ve already wasted half my life waiting!’’

Maggie reached for her new bag of flour and grimaced at the unexpected activity within it.

“Have you a sieve, Gwen? It’s a pity to throw out anything of potential nourishment, but I for one can’t stomach weevils in my dumplings.’’

Gwen turned, still pouting, to fetch one from her wagon.

Maggie called after her. “It will give you more time to be comfortable with each other, Gwen. It’s only been sixty days since you met!’’

“Never! It’s been years out of my life!’’