Journey of Honor A love story (17 page)

Every time Trace checked on him that day, he knew he wasn’t sleeping and assumed it was because of the pain, but the wound in his thigh became markedly less inflamed within just a couple of hours. By that evening, he appeared to be out of the woods for good. The next morning Many Feathers struggled to his feet and dragged himself into the bushes beside the stream near their camp. When he came back a few minutes later and lay back down on his travois, Trace knew he was eventually going to be all right after all.

It was a marvelous feeling to know that you had helped another human being to stay alive. Giselle came up to him as he watched Many Feathers settle back onto the travois, and she put her arm around Trace’s waist and hugged him. With a huge smile, she patted his chest and said, “Wonderful job, Medicine Man Grayson. You are a fine physician, not to mention a very handsome one. He will heal beautifully. I’m sure of it!”

She hugged him again and went off toward the wagon to lie back down and Trace watched her go, wondering what he was going to do about her. He didn’t think he could stand to leave her behind. He looked up to find Many Feathers watching him with deep, dark eyes. When Many Feathers glanced back up at the wagon, Trace reminded him gruffly, “She’s mine! Don’t even look at her!”

That night, Many Feathers approached him soberly and, in an absolutely friendly manner, offered Trace three blankets for Giselle. Trace was horrified, but tried not to let it show on his face as he calmly turned him down. Many Feathers stayed with them one more day and night. Finally, Trace told him that he believed he would be okay and when Many Feathers said that he needed to return to his home soon, Trace explained how to cut out the stitches in several more days and how to care for his wounds until they healed.

Before Many Feathers rode away on the ninth day, he offered Trace the three blankets as well as his horse for Giselle. Trace turned him down flat again and Many Feathers looked up at the wagon and then turned and rode off. Trace smiled to himself to realize he was actually going to miss the man.

Even traveling from before it was light until full dark every day except when they had found Many Feathers, they still hadn’t caught up with the rest of the train. Honestly, Trace didn’t even think they were close. All sign of the other wagons was several days old at every camp.

Giselle was doing better, but she was so weak, and though she spent part of every day sitting with him, she still lay in the back of the wagon a good portion of the time. When she sat with him, she would answer his questions about her church as they drove and he’d finally asked her if she would read to him from her book. He wasn’t sure if it was intriguing to him because of its content or because of the fascinatingly sweet voice and accent she read to him with. Maybe it was both. Her reading was hypnotic, but the story line was fantastic. Whatever it was, he was becoming enthralled with the book and looked forward to those hours that she read aloud to him as they traveled.

Just a few days after Many Feathers rode away, he came back one morning. He came to Giselle and left her a leather bag full of pine nuts and then approached Trace. This time, he offered two horses and a prime buffalo hide. It was a beautiful hide, but still Trace didn’t even glance at it before he turned the offer down. Many Feathers looked longingly at Giselle and then rode away again.

Giselle asked him right out if Many Feathers was trying to buy her. Trace wasn’t sure how she had figured it out, but he had to level with her. When he admitted that he was, she wanted to know how long this had been going on. With a guilty smile, Trace admitted, “Since a couple days after the bear.”

Giselle was mad clean through, Trace tried to mollify her by explaining that it was simply the way Indians did things. She didn’t mollify very easily, and she was still mad when they stopped for the evening. When he lay down next to her and put an arm over her, she turned to him and tried to apologize for being angry. He laughed softly at her and gently pulled her close to pray with her. At least she was mad and not scared over the whole thing.

*****

For some reason, when Many Feathers was well enough to leave them, a lot of things started going wrong all at the same time. It wasn’t just that the weather turned cold and blustery. The wolves dogged them, and between the intermittent rain and sometimes even snow, the trail got sloppy. Then they had the first major wagon breakdown they’d had the whole trip. Trace spent most of one afternoon repairing a wagon wheel that had begun to wobble.

That evening when Many Feathers showed up again, Trace was glad to see him and enlisted his help in taking the whole wheel off and then putting it back on after he’d finished repairing it. Giselle disappeared into the wagon as soon as Many Feathers appeared and wouldn’t come out even when he wanted to present her with a quarter of venison. Before he left, he offered Trace three horses and a finely tanned set of buckskins.

That night as they lay down, Trace teased her about how tempting those buckskins had been. She leaned up on one elbow and asked him, “You wouldn’t really sell me, would you Trace?”

He laughed and pulled her back down to lie against him. “No, Elley. I would never sell you. Go to sleep.” After a few seconds he said, “Well, maybe. If he ever offered ten horses. But I’ve never heard of anyone ever offering that much, so you’re probably safe.”

She smacked him in the dark and for the first time, they got into a little wrestling match there in the wagon and ended up laughing together until Trace finally got the upper hand. He got hold of both of her arms and as he leaned over her there in the moonlight, he looked down at her and the smile died out of his face. He looked down at her and she looked up at him and somehow they were no longer laughing.

He wanted to kiss her so badly that he could almost taste it, and before he even realized that he was doing it, he did. Just once. It was gentle and relatively fast and she tasted like heaven, but it took both of them by surprise. She looked up at him with big, quiet eyes in the darkness and he sighed and lay down next to her, feeling incredibly guilty about both kissing her and still wanting to do it again.

He groaned and tried to apologize. “Sorry, Elle. I didn’t mean to do that, I swear. I don’t know what got into me.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. In a truly penitent voice, he said it again. “Sorry.”

The wagon was quiet for a few seconds, and then she laughed softly and leaned up and smiled and said with her distinctive accent, “It is okay. We are friends. We
are
married—at least for a while. You have saved my life a number of times, and I love you dearly. It is okay. It was nice. But we should be careful, because soon we will have to leave each other, and you would break my heart into a thousand pieces if you did it often.

We have been through enough things to handle this. No? Kissing me on accident I can handle. Just do not sell me.” She laughed again and threatened as she lay back down, “I would have a very hard time forgiving you.” She snuggled over to him and sighed.

After another minute or two, he admitted, “It’s not you handling it that I worry about, Elley. I have to be honest with you and tell you that sometimes it’s incredibly hard to lie here by you and not want to do things like kiss you. There are times that you are far too tempting. Sometimes I’ve felt so guilty because I even felt that way when you’ve been so sick. It makes me wonder what kind of a doctor I am that I sometimes want to be close to my patient. Like really close.”

She leaned over and laid her head on his chest and rested her hand on him as well. “Ours has been an interesting trail west, hasn’t it Trace? I know what you mean about lying beside each other. There are times it has been so hard to remember that we’re not really married. But can I tell you that sleeping beside you has also been the sweetest peace I have ever known? When we started this trip, I was so incredibly afraid. I can’t even tell you. I can’t even explain that fear. I wouldn’t even want to try.

“And then even when Filson was gone, I had never slept outside before. And the wolves and the storms and all the things like Indians and robbers. But I’ve always known I was safe here beside you, even when everything was strange and different, and even when I didn’t really know you well. I’ve always known that you would watch over me.

“Then when I thought I was dying, even then, I knew that whatever happened, it would all be okay because you were here. That has been the most priceless gift to me. Someday, in a few weeks when I have to tell you goodbye and pray that you get to California safely…”

She sighed. “I’m going to miss you more than you will ever know, Trace, but ’til the day I die, I will always be grateful for being able to lie here beside you and know that I’m safe with you. My heart will be broken, but I will always love you and be so thankful for you. You have been the sweetest and best friend and protector for me. Thank you.

“I only wish there was some way to return this gift. There isn’t and I know that. How could I ever repay a gift this great? It can’t be done. But please know how much I appreciate you and all you do for me.” She leaned up and looked at him and then gently kissed him one more time. She laid her head back down on his chest. “I do love you, Trace. I’m sure I always will.”

He wrapped his arm around her again and played with a strand of her silky hair. “I love you too, Elley. Good night.”

Long after she finally fell asleep, he lay there thinking about her and what she had just said. Her sweet honesty had been both wonderful and terrible. It had been heaven to hear her tell him her innermost thoughts and feelings, and he didn’t doubt them for a second. He was sure that she did love him. It was just hard to hear her say that and, in the same breath, talk about how they would be leaving each other and that she was okay with that.

He knew that was still the plan, but he wasn’t okay with it at all. He really, really wasn’t okay with it. He never wanted to leave her for the rest of forever and ever. He didn’t just love her now after these last months. He was in love with her and couldn’t for the life of him honestly picture himself walking away when the time came.

Chapter 11

It snowed that night. Real snow that stuck to the ground and settled on top of the ice in the water bucket. The next morning the world was beautiful with its pristine dusting, but both of them looked at the low, ragged gray clouds with concern. By that afternoon it had all melted off again; and the clouds blew away and they had a trouble-free day for once, but it was a rude reminder of what they could be up against. They pushed ahead hard and didn’t stop until it was too dark to see where they were going. They made dinner in the cold and dropped into bed too exhausted to even worry about wanting to hold each other.

They had several more good days of travel in a row. The freezing temperatures actually helped in a way, because the trail was good and solid until after mid-day when the October sun finally thawed the mud out. On those cold nights they were incredibly grateful for each other’s warmth.

Every few days Many Feathers would appear to up the ante for Giselle. He had followed them for nearly two hundred miles across an expanse of the Wyoming territory. Trace had been relatively sure that once they hit Fort Bridger, he would turn back and head for his own home, wherever that was, but just one day after they left the fort, he showed up early in the morning and indeed offered Trace ten horses for her. He left her a beautiful elk hide tanned with the hair on, even though Trace had turned down his offer as usual.

Once he was good and gone, Giselle came out of the wagon and stretched her hands out to the warmth of the breakfast fire. Trace came up behind her and wrapped both arms around her and said with a laugh, “Well, you’re up to ten horses.” He laughed again and she turned to him with unbelieving eyes.

“Really? Ten horses?”

He nodded with a grin. “Ten horses. That’s got to be some kind of a record!”

She leaned down to stir the breakfast porridge. “Ten horses. Buying wives is barbaric, but that’s a lot of horses!” He turned to finish hitching up the mules and she asked, “You’re sure you wouldn’t sell me?” He laughed all the way to the team.

They had passed Fort Bridger on the eighteenth of October and it had been the perfect Indian summer day, but then the weather turned cold with a vengeance. At least it was cold and dry for a couple of days. Finally, one morning they were slogging along in wind driven sleet that froze onto anything that it touched. They were wending their way through the part of the trail that wound in and out of the Bear River Valley, and of course the rogue mule chose that day to act up again.

Before they were even under way that morning, the trail and everything near it was covered with a grainy coating of ice. By the third time they had to cross the river, the mule was positively balking, and every time they hit an ice covered rock, it would simply stop and stand in the harness with its huge ears pinned back against its head. Several times Trace had to ask Giselle to come hold the reins for him while he rolled rocks out of the way or levered a wheel out of a bind. Finally, Giselle just insisted that she drive while he walked along beside the wagon so that they didn’t have to keep starting and stopping.

At first Trace wanted to argue with her, but then he looked around and realized that, if they didn’t make headway soon, they were going to be camped in the middle of the very river bottom. If things got any worse, they’d never get out the next morning after more ice or snow.

Even with Giselle taking the lines and him clearing the way and pushing, they didn’t make it up out of the bottoms until long after dark. Parking the wagon as far under the lee of a hill as he could get it, Trace sent Giselle to go get out of her wet clothes while he unhitched the team and got the stock into some shelter as well. She had been driving today in just her dress and two heavy shawls that she had wrapped around her. The shawls had long since soaked through and she was wet to the skin. He would have given her his own slicker except that it would have drowned her, and he knew she would never have taken it anyway when she had the protection of the wagon cover from time to time.