Baby on the Oregon Trail Read online

  “But, Mick,” Arn interjected. “You said—”

  “Shut up, boyo. Just shut yer trap.”

  Lee picked up Devil’s lead rope and strode back to Jenna’s wagon. When he walked in with his horse, Mary Grace squealed and threw her arms around the animal’s neck. Tess rubbed his muzzle, and even Jenna risked a small pat on the stallion’s nose.

  For the rest of that day Lee nursed his scraped knuckles and his left shoulder, and the train moved farther into the foothills of the Rockies. Every few minutes over the fourteen miles the wagons covered that day he found himself staring at his handsome black Arabian stud horse, securely tied to the corner of Jenna’s wagon.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  At first the ascent into the Rockies was so gradual the emigrants scarcely noticed the change except for thickening stands of dark green conifers. Towering pines and Douglas fir trees were punctuated with groves of blazing maples and aspens, their leaves gold and brilliant orange in the sunlight.

  “This reminds me of fall back in Ohio,” Jenna said over supper one night. “I always loved this season. I used to press those beautiful red leaves in my poetry books.”

  Lee set down his plate of venison stew and caught her gaze. A needle of jealousy niggled under his breastbone. Had Randall Morgan read poetry to her? On fall afternoons did they sit before the fireplace embers and...

  He swallowed hard. He had to get his mind off whatever Jenna and Randall had done before he’d met her, otherwise he’d go crazy. He couldn’t stand the thought of any man touching her, much less a snake like Morgan.

  He’d never felt so possessive about a woman before, not even Laurie. He’d never felt so protective, either. Maybe it was because he’d taken on responsibility for the Borland wagon and its occupants. Or maybe it was because, in his mind at least, Jenna belonged to him.

  Whatever it was, she was looking at him now with a question in those green eyes of hers.

  “How early did it snow back in Ohio?” he ventured.

  “Some years as early as October.”

  “One year it snowed on the first day of school in September,” Mary Grace added.

  “It’s almost September now,” Lee said. “Sure hope winter doesn’t hit until we’re over those mountains.”

  Jenna cast an uneasy look at the steep blue-green hills that rose ahead of them. “How can our heavily loaded wagons ever reach the top of such a mountain?”

  The question hung in the air. Lee couldn’t come up with an answer other than the obvious one. “We just put one foot in front of the other and cross over the pass one wagon at a time.”

  Disbelief was written all over Jenna’s face, but she said nothing, just worried the ruffle on her apron with her fingers.

  “I wanna go to school in ’tember,” Ruthie blurted.

  “You’re not smart enough,” Tess said.

  “Am too!”

  “Are not!” Tess then caught Jenna’s frown and patted Ruthie’s drooping head. “Well, maybe you will be smart enough by the time we reach Oregon. I was really smart when I was your age.”

  “Smart enough to learn French?” Lee teased. He figured the girls’ somber mood could use some lightening. His own thoughts could use some distraction, as well. Thinking about Jenna made his jeans feel too tight.

  “Sure,” Tess said. “I guess so.”

  “Me, too,” chimed Ruthie. She climbed up onto Lee’s lap. “Teach me.”

  He tugged one blond curl. “All right. Are you ready?”

  The girl nodded vigorously.

  “Okay, here goes. Bonjour, Mademoiselle Ruthie.”

  “I bet that means ‘I’m hungry,’” Mary Grace said.

  “No,” Tess shot. “It means, um, today is, uh, Monday.”

  Lee chuckled. “Jenna?”

  She met his eyes and nodded. “Comment ça va?” she said, followed by the first smile he’d seen all day. Nothing made him happier than seeing that smile, especially when it was directed at him.

  “Tres bien,” he responded.

  She smiled again, so he guessed her mood was lifting. She’d been oddly preoccupied all day, and while he worried about it, he figured he had to let her work whatever it was out on her own. He hoped it wasn’t about that Morgan fellow. He clenched his fists. He wanted Jenna to think about him, not Randall Morgan. And no one else.

  The girls looked from one to the other with fascinated, puzzled expressions. “Are you talking about us?” Tess snapped.

  “Always,” Lee quipped.

  “Never,” Jenna said in the same instant.

  “What were you saying?” Mary Grace demanded.

  Again Lee caught Jenna’s gaze. “I think we’ve discovered a private language.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Do we need one?”

  His pulse began to race. “We might.” He stroked the stubble on his chin and tried to look thoughtful.

  Her green eyes widened. “What on earth for?”

  Oh, Jenna. Beautiful, maddening Jenna. There are a thousand things I’d like to say to you, in English or French or Swahili.

  “For...” he lowered his voice “...private conversations.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Bonsoir, monsieur,” she said, her voice crisp. She rose, brushed the biscuit crumbs off her apron and headed for the wagon.

  Lee laughed softly.

  “What’s funny?” Tess demanded. “Are you laughing at us?”

  “No, I’m not laughing at you. But sometimes adults can be funny.”

  “I am most certainly not funny!” Jenna shouted from inside the wagon.

  Lee gave a hoot of laughter. He guessed one way to take Jenna’s mind off whatever was bothering her was to tease her. Seemed to be working. Mad was better than preoccupied. It was also arousing as hell.

  “I wanna learn more ’rench,” Ruthie pleaded. “Please?”

  Lee leaned forward and whispered a single word in her ear. “Dormir.”

  She repeated it in a whisper. “What’s that mean?”

  He swept his gaze from Tess to Mary Grace. “Any guesses?”

  “Buffalo,” Mary Grace cried.

  “Donkey,” Tess countered. “They both start with a D.”

  Lee lifted Ruthie off his lap, set her on the ground facing the wagon and pointed. “Here’s a hint,” he whispered. “It means ‘to sleep.’”

  “I know, I know!” Ruthie chortled. “It means time to go to bed!”

  Jenna’s soft laugh floated from the wagon. “Ruthie, you get an A.”

  Mary Grace and Tess stared at him. Quickly he seized his advantage. “Va dormir,” he ordered.

  The two girls looked at him blankly, then gazed at each other, their expressions questioning. All at once Tess’s face lit up. “I bet va dormir means go to bed! Come on, Mary Grace.”

  “You get an A, too, Tess,” Lee called as she disappeared into the wagon. Mary Grace slowed and sent him a withering look. He gestured for her to wait, then murmured another word in her direction.

  “Vite! Try that one out on Tess.”

  The girl grinned. “Thanks, Lee. I love being smarter than Tess.”

  “Me, too,” said Jenna as she exited the wagon, her quilts piled in her arms. She gave Mary Grace a pat. “Moi aussi,” she murmured. “That means ‘me, too.’”

  Lee motioned her under the wagon. “Vite,” he muttered.

  Jenna laughed. “You,” she said softly, “get an F.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you have been ordering me around all day. ‘Sit here.’ ‘Don’t walk.’ And I...” she tossed her loose, just-brushed hair over her shoulder “...strongly object to taking orders.”

  Lee couldn’t take his eyes off her. He rose and moved toward her, but she quickly
turned her back, threw her quilts under the wagon and crawled in after them.

  “Hey.” He bent to peer underneath. “Come on out of there.”

  “You’re giving orders again, Mr. Carver. Besides, why should I?”

  “Because it’s almost September.”

  “So what?”

  “And we’ve climbed to over three thousand feet.”

  “So?” she said again.

  “So you should lay a waterproof ground cover underneath your bedroll.”

  “Why should I?”

  He blew out an exasperated breath. “Because at this elevation it gets cold at night.”

  “I have been sufficiently warm at night.”

  “Jenna...”

  “Don’t ‘Jenna’ me, Lee. Just spread your old ground thing where you want it and leave me and my quilts alone.”

  All right, by God, he would. Jenna was one headstrong woman, and she could sure be stubborn about things. She wasn’t usually this testy. Something was sure bothering her. One minute she was smiling at him, the next she sounded as snappish as Tess. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well.

  Or maybe she was feeling just fine, but she was worried about something. But what? God, the woman was a mystery.

  Without another word, he retrieved his rectangular piece of gutta-percha, spread it out next to Jenna and rolled himself up in his wool blankets. But his conscience pricked him.

  He should have insisted she use a ground cover, but for some reason she wasn’t taking any advice from him. Well, it wouldn’t hurt her to be cold for one night. Might even make her more friendly, since he’d be warm as toast and right next to her, so close she could touch him.

  He closed his eyes and tried to think of other things, the mountain passes they’d have to cross, for one. He prayed the weather would hold.

  In the morning, he took one look at Jenna’s pale face and felt a stab of guilt. He should have insisted on the gutta-percha ground cover, whether she liked it or not.

  * * *

  The trail before them wound up one slope and when they crested the top, there was another, steeper hill facing them. And then another. Foot-deep ruts that had been cut into the rock marked out the route. On foot beside the wagon, Jenna stared at them. “Look! How did those tracks get there?”

  “Those cuts were worn by hundreds of wagons that went before us.”

  “Oh, glory,” she breathed, her eyes widening. “How did all those wagons manage to get over these mountains?”

  Lee pointed. “Look around you.”

  Beside the trail lay discarded tables, chests, carved wooden bedsteads, even a piano. “Those wagons had to lighten their loads to make it up the grade.”

  “Do you think our wagon will make it?”

  He sure hoped so. He’d hate to see Jenna have to discard what little she carried. “Bet you never saw mountains like these in Ohio,” he quipped to take her mind off what they faced. “I know I hadn’t until I came out West with the army. But my patrols just looked at the peaks. We didn’t try to climb over them.”

  He pressed his lips shut. Until now.

  The oxen were slowing down. Their labored breathing told him the high altitude was affecting them, and he worried about Jenna, walking beside the wagon with one hand gripping the wooden frame. She was working hard, hauling her own weight plus the extra weight of the baby she was carrying.

  He leaned down. “Jenna, are you all right?”

  She didn’t answer right away, and when she did her voice sounded hoarse and breathy. “Yes. But my legs feel...shaky, as if they...” after a few words she gulped a big mouthful of air “...are going to give out.”

  He pulled the team to a halt. “Get into the wagon,” he ordered. “And don’t argue.”

  She clung to the wagon frame with both hands, panting, her head down. “Could I...ride up there...with you?”

  “The trail is too rough. We’re bumping up over rocks and dropping down into potholes. On the bench there’s nothing to hold on to.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not safe for you up here. Ruthie’s riding in the wagon, so just get in, Jenna. We’ve got to keep moving.”

  She sent him a dark look, but she climbed in through the bonnet, and the wagon rolled on. Jimmy Gumpert moved up a few yards, and Tess and Mary Grace walked steadily along beside him.

  Just when Lee began to relax, Sam appeared, signaling a halt, and he knew something was wrong.

  “Lee!” the wagon master yelled. “I need you!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Sam?” Lee shouted. “What’s wrong?”

  The wagon master puffed out his cheeks and didn’t answer. Sam never lacked for words, and Lee knew then it was serious.

  “Got something to show you,” Sam said at last. Lee set the brake, climbed down and followed Sam to the head of the train.

  “Look down there.”

  Beyond the lead wagon, the trail came to an abrupt stop. Sam pointed ahead to a steep drop-off, then gestured across a wide canyon where the wagon tracks picked up again. The two men stepped to the near edge and stood looking down an incline too steep for a wagon to negotiate.

  Lee whistled. “Lord, how’d they get across?”

  “Dunno,” Sam breathed, “but they did.”

  “Yeah? What’d they do, fly?”

  Other men from the wagon train started to gather at the cliff edge, and a low muttering of unease rose.

  “Got any ideas?” Ted Zaberskie said at Lee’s elbow.

  Emil Gumpert and two other men, one of them a sweating Mick McKernan, paced back and forth some yards away, studying the situation. Sam removed his hat and scratched his graying head.

  “Only way across that I can see is to lower the wagons on ropes.”

  “Huh!” McKernan exploded. “Not my wagon. I got anvils and blacksmith tools loaded inside. Damned if I’m gonna risk spilling them down some mountainside.”

  “Got any other suggestion?” Sam snapped.

  “Well, no,” the Irishman admitted.

  “Then shut your mouth!”

  Lee stepped up beside the wagon master. “We could attach ropes to all four axles and snub them around trees, then winch one wagon down at a time.”

  “Could,” Sam agreed. “There’s a switchback trail yonder.” He pointed a quarter of a mile off to the left. “The women and children will have to walk down.”

  “The horses and mules and Zaberskie’s cows could be walked down, as well,” Lee added.

  Sam turned to him. “Pretty steep incline. Think you could get Jenna’s ox team down that trail?”

  Lee wasn’t worried about the oxen; Sue and Sunflower were plenty sure-footed. He was worried about Jenna. She was moving more slowly every day, and with her expanding belly she was easily unbalanced. And she got tired quickly, and with all the switchbacks, that trail down the canyon side looked to be over a mile long.

  “Let’s pick out some trees,” he said. “I’m going to take Jenna down that trail myself, so wait ’til I’m back before you drop the first wagon over.”

  Sam nodded, and Lee went to talk to Jenna and the girls.

  * * *

  “Walk?” Tess screeched. “Down there?” She jabbed a forefinger at the trail snaking its way down the side of the canyon.

  “Walk,” Lee repeated. “And lead one of the oxen.”

  “I can’t!” the girl protested.

  Mary Grace stepped up beside him. “I can,” she said calmly. “But what about Jenna?”

  “I’ll walk Jenna down myself,” Lee said. “She’s unsteady on her feet, and I don’t want her trying to lead one of the oxen.”

  Ruthie grasped his hand. “Can I come with you, Mister Lee?”

  He nodded. He’d th
read a light rope through his belt and tie the other end to Ruthie in case she stumbled. But Jenna... He shot a look at her, standing some yards away and staring over the canyon edge. He’d keep a tight grip on Jenna all the way down.

  “What about Devil?” Tess asked.

  “We’ll need Devil up top to help anchor the wagons when we lower them.”

  “It won’t hurt him, will it?” Mary Grace said quickly.

  Lee shook his head. “Girls, I want you to climb inside the wagon and lay everything out flat.”

  Jenna started issuing orders, as well. “Take all the drawers out of the clothes chest, then unload the cooking pots from the pantry box and lay it down on its side.”

  Lee’s frown had deepened, and that worried her. Lee frowned only when he was angry about something she’d said. But he couldn’t be angry now. He was worried about something.

  “We’re last in line again,” she said. “How much time do we have?”

  “I figured it’ll take over an hour per wagon, and there’s twenty wagons. It’ll be full dark in another three hours, so your wagon will go over in the morning. Yours and the Lincolns’ wagon will be last. We’ll take the oxen down now.”

  Jenna nodded but said nothing, just peered across the canyon. She hoped what Lee would be doing wouldn’t be dangerous, but that had never stopped him before. Her heart began to pound and she clasped both hands over her breasts. Exasperating man.

  “Zaberskies’ wagon will be first. Sophia said she’d give you supper down on the valley floor tonight.”

  Jenna nodded and bit her lip. “Tess, load that slab of bacon into a sack. We’ll take it down to Mrs. Zaberskie.”

  Lee and Mary Grace unyoked the oxen, and each girl took a lead rope and started off toward the narrow trail, walking slowly with the other women and children, who led cows and mules and the extra horses. Ted Zaberskie tramped on ahead, balancing a wire cage filled with Sophia’s chickens on his shoulder.

  When Lee tied Ruthie to his belt the girl giggled with delight. Then he gripped Jenna’s elbow and started down the long, well-worn path snaking down the cliff side. She was thankful he was holding on to her; these days she lost her balance easily, and the touch of his hand was steadying. Every time she had been afraid or uncertain on this journey, Lee had been there, offering his strength and good sense.