Katie and the Mustang, Book 3 (4 page)

“I'll come across with him,” I called back. “I can lead him just fine.”

It was too hard to explain anything at a shout. I had never told anyone that the Mustang had run away from me once, and then galloped back again. He might not come back the next time. I patted his neck to keep him standing steady and still. I didn't want Mr. Kyler to think he was skittish.

“He'd be fine with the herd,” Mr. Kyler called back to me. “Teal looked. He says the ford is wide and shallow.”

“It is,” I called back. “I watched people crossing on foot. It's best if I just lead him across.”

He shrugged and faced front—the McMahons' wagon was starting to move.

“Be careful,” Mrs. Kyler called, leaning forward so I could see her.

“I will,” I shouted back as their oxen began to move. As the wagon turned, I saw Polly looking out the back of the wagon. She didn't so much as smile at me. If she was riding with her grandparents, Julia was probably in the wagon, too. Maybe the younger girls were there as well.

I was glad I had insisted on leading the Mustang across myself. I would feel very out of place in the wagon with the Kyler cousins.

Through the spaces between the wagons, I saw other people leading stock along. One woman had a milk cow; an older man had a mare with a spindly legged foal. Mr. Teal galloped down the line, shouting instructions I couldn't hear, then circled his horse between two wagons to gallop toward me.

“Here we go!” someone shouted.

Mr. Kyler was popping the whip over the oxen's backs, and the wagon began to roll just as Mr. Teal got close enough to shout. “Wait until they are all across, you hear me?”

I nodded, and he spurred his horse around, galloping until he was back at the head of the line.

I led the Mustang off to the side to be out of the way, but I took him back toward the river so we could watch. Mr.Teal was shouting at the drivers as they passed, reminding them all not to start across until the team ahead of them was on the far bank.

The woman with the milk cow came to stand near me and introduced herself as Mrs. Craggett. “He tell you to wait until they were all across?”

I nodded. “It's probably safest.”

She smiled. “I am sure you're right, but I also think that man just likes to shout orders.”

I couldn't agree out loud; my mother had taught me never to criticize my elders. But in my heart, as I watched Mr. Teal galloping, pivoting his horse, making sure he had something to say to every single driver, I began to see what she meant.

As the ninth or tenth wagon came into position, I spotted the boy who had teased me. He was still wearing the odd hat. I stared, tangling my hand in the Mustang's mane without realizing I was doing it until my fingers got caught and I had to pull them free. The boy had his hat pulled low, and I couldn't really see his face, but it didn't matter. I recognized him anyway.

He was walking behind his parents' wagon, shoulders squared, tossing a rock up into the air, then catching it again, in rhythm with his steps.

My heart constricted. I was sure, even though I wasn't close enough to really see his face. It was the boy from Des Moines who had thrown a fist-sized rock at the Mustang. I was sure he had recognized me—he would remember the Mustang—when he had talked to me by the river.

“Something wrong, honey?” the woman with the cow asked me.

I shook my head. There was no point in telling her. There was nothing she could do. “I don't think so,” I answered, and could only hope that it was true, that he wasn't as mean as he had seemed that day in Des Moines, that he would only tease and taunt me, not try to hurt the Mustang again.

When all the wagons were finally up on the other side, I led the Mustang across the river. Three or four men had stayed back, watching in case anyone needed help. I soaked my skirt, but I wasn't in any danger, not even for an instant.

The woman with the cow came over after me. The poor milker bawled all the way across the river, the cool water unpleasant on her udder and belly. The foal and mare made it fine.

On the far side of the river, I kept my eyes moving, scanning the trees and the sandy bank, but the boy wasn't around. I hung back, walking a little way behind the last wagon for the rest of the day.

CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

 

F
rom the Elkhorn crossing, we went west, then northwest, following the Platte River. The road became ten roads, then twenty paths.

We crossed a dozen rivers that no one had names for in the weeks that followed. Every river was scary in its own way. Some were deep, some swift, some were both.

Twice the men caulked the wagon beds and the wagons were floated across, like clumsy boats, pulled by ropes and teams of oxen on the shore. More often, we drove across, the oxen hitched and swimming. We always used a tow rope upstream and a fixed rope on the downstream side, to give anyone thrown into the water a chance to catch on and stay afloat.

Andrew lost one gelding, and the black dog was washed downstream in a current so swift that he was there one instant and lost in white foam and roaring water the next. The young man who had brought him whistled and called for days, every time we stopped, hoping that the dog had made it out of the river and was following, but he never came back.

There were dozens of streams and creeks, too. Most of them had no names that anyone of us knew, anyway. All the big rivers were scary, but no one drowned. We were lucky; we all heard many terrible stories of drownings from other travelers.

Mr. Barrett, the man who Mr. Stevens had planned to travel with, had talked about the Oregon trail, but we began to realize that there wasn't a single trail, not really—and that not all the rutted paths were good roads. The lay of the land mattered more than anything else. Sometime the best-worn paths led to marshes or creeks that had to be crossed—or couldn't be crossed—because of early rains.

Mr. Teal rode out every evening, scouting for the next day, but he couldn't always go far enough before dark to tell which was the best path to follow. He made his best guess, and we followed his advice. Mostly, he was right.

As we went, our days took on a pattern. We rose before it was light and fell to our chores, everyone stretching and yawning as they began their daily work. I would run to make sure the Mustang was all right, then hurry back to the Kylers' camp, shivering and hungry. It seemed like I was always hungry.

My first morning chore was to rake back the white ash, baring the still-hot coals that had lasted the night. Using twists of dry grass or dead twigs or whatever I had managed to gather the day before, I got the fire going again so Mrs. Kyler could start cooking breakfast.

I really liked this still-dark part of our days. We usually talked a little, shivering in the dawn dusk, keeping our voices down so that anyone trying to get a few extra minutes' sleep could do so.

I kept the fire very small, adding as little wood as I could and still keep it burning while Mrs. Kyler heated coffee and cooked eggs or ham. She was quick. She wasted no time at all getting started on breakfast in the morning. Half the time she had the skillet ready before I had rekindled the fire. I appreciated it. We had to be very careful of firewood. It was hard to find.

There weren't many cottonwood trees—they only grew along the creeks and rivers. And even when we saw a lot of trees in a day, there wasn't much deadwood in easy reach. The easy pickings had been taken by people who came before us.

It was my job to keep us in wood since I could range around—and make my way into thick copses of trees the wagons had to avoid. I brought back all I could carry, and put it in an old wire hayrick Mr. Kyler had fastened onto the back of the wagon. Julia, Polly, and Hope had the same job, but they rarely found as much wood as I did—all three of them put together. They weren't spoiled exactly, and they weren't lazy. They just didn't spend any time figuring.

If I saw a stand of cottonwoods with limbs hanging out over a creek, I'd go look, figuring that a lot of people would pass it by, not wanting to get their feet wet looking for deadwood. Or I'd tie the Mustang loosely to a plum thicket and get scratched up crawling to find deadwood at its center.

“I am getting pretty good at finding firewood,” I said quietly one morning.

Mrs. Kyler nodded. “Indeed you are. But you know what you'll be picking up for the cookfire before much longer, don't you?” She was stirring the eggs—the pork fat was beginning to snap and sizzle.

I wrinkled my nose. “Buffalo dung. That's what I heard Polly telling Julia. Is it true?”

She nodded. “You look for the dried-out ones. It won't be any worse than dry cow manure, I'm sure. It's just grass, after all.”

I made another face, and she winked at me. “I have gloves you can borrow, and a bag. You won't have to touch it much.”

I smiled at her, then turned back to the fire. I moved the skillet to place a Y-shaped piece of wood on the flames. The skillet didn't want to sit flat when I put it back. Mrs. Kyler handed me a smooth flat stone—part of her kitchen. I set one side of the skillet on it and let the new little log take the rest of the weight.

“You're a good hand to have on the journey,” Mrs. Kyler said.

I blushed and mumbled a thanks.

“Are the girls being nicer to you yet?”

The question caught me off guard even though it shouldn't have. I had noticed her watching her granddaughters when I was close by. They almost never said a word to me, just ran off together, giggling and skipping if they weren't tired. When we had covered a lot of miles, they walked slower, their heads close together and whispering.

I looked at Mrs. Kyler. The short answer was no, they were less nice with every passing day. “They're fine,” I fibbed. “We don't play much because I don't have time, always taking care of the Mustang. And you know they're busy with all their chores, too.”

She shrugged. “I don't know what's wrong with them,” she said.

I didn't answer. I was pretty sure I had puzzled out why the girls didn't like me—but I didn't want to tell Mrs. Kyler. It was partly because I was a stranger and they were protective of their friendships. They didn't want me wiggling my way in between any of them, trying to act like I belonged. But it was more than that. There were two other reasons.

I think I scared them in an odd way. I was an orphan. I was a walking example of their own worst worries—especially on this journey, no one knowing what was going to happen, who might not make it to the end.

I knew they were jealous of me, too, in a way. After all, I got to spend a lot more time with their grandmother than they did lately because they were as busy with chores as I was—in their own families' camps. They saw me laughing with Mrs. Kyler, joshing and teasing while we worked.

“I can insist they include you more,” Mrs. Kyler said.

I came out of my thoughts and shook my head vehemently. “They'll really hate me if you do that,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Mrs. Kyler tilted her head and stared at me a moment before she went back to tending the skillet. “I feel like I should give them a talking-to,” she said quietly.

“Please don't,” I begged. But then I pressed my lips together. I didn't want to make things worse by sounding so desperate about it.

“I have something for you,” Mrs. Kyler said. She walked around to the front of the wagon and opened the carry box under the seat. When she came back, I saw she had a pink bonnet in her hands. “I stitched it up out of one of my old aprons. I hope you like pink.”

I nodded. I did like pink well enough, but I hated bonnets. The way the coal-bucket face-shade stuck out, you couldn't see much to either side unless you turned your head way around. But I knew she meant well.

I took it and admired the stitching and thanked her twice. She was kind, and I was grateful to be traveling with her. I tucked the bonnet in my blanket roll so it would be safe. She saw me putting it away.

She frowned. “I can't make you wear it, but your skin will darken from the sun.”

I nodded. “I know. I just hate the strings under my chin and the way you have to turn half way round to see what is going on. The Mustang wouldn't like it either, I am sure, and—”

She laughed and I didn't bother to finish my list of excuses. “I hate them, too,” she told me. “But later on, when the sun gets fierce, you might want it.”