Leaving Independence (10 page)

Jacob, who was sitting nearby, said, “Does it take three to feed your whole bunch?”

“Naw. That’s just for us—rest of ’em have their own ham hocks. We raise pigs.”

“We noticed,” said Corrine.

Hoke smiled down at the harness in his hands. One of the Schroeders’ pigs had gotten stuck in a bramble earlier that day when the Douglas brothers’ sheep got after it.

“Not very brave ones either,” said Corrine, “to let sheep run ’em up in a bramble.”

James was right; Corrine did have sass. He liked hearing her sling it toward Prissy Schroeder—every one of those Schroeder children swarmed the camp like unwelcome horseflies, but none was more worrisome than Prissy.

“Where’s your other brother?” Prissy asked Corrine.

“Charlie went to get water.”

“Where’s your little sister?”

“She’s with Mother.”

“Where’s your maw?”

“She’s off looking for flowers.”

“How come?”

Corrine rose to her full height, nearly as tall as her mother, and put both hands on her hips, apparently about done with Prissy Schroeder. “Because she likes them and wants to make the table pretty.”

Prissy scrunched her nose. “Yeah, well, I’m tellin’ my maw y’all don’t got no meat.”

“Are we in trouble?” asked Corrine.

After Prissy shrugged and took off, James rode up holding a turkey by the neck.

“Howdy-do, little lady!” He slid off and handed Jacob his reins. “You mind tying my horse, Jacob, so I can pluck this for your sister? Or did you want to pluck it?”

Jacob shook his head and took the horse. He waved to Hoke as he walked past.

“I don’t think we’ve properly met,” said James to Corrine. “I’m James Parker.”

With level eyes that signaled mild interest at best, she looked at him a few seconds, then turned back to her work. “Well, now we have. I’m Corrine.”

Hoke tried not to laugh when James looked at him.

CHAPTER 10

The art of biscuit making

April 18, 1866

Ours is Company C, led by Mr. Hoke and James Parker. They are a contrast. James Parker is much more lively. All the women on the train, including the spinster sisters from Company A, are in love with him.

In spite of Mr. Parker helping me cure the pan, my biscuits have burned on the bottom every day. Sewing skills are of no use whatsoever when what everyone wants is food. Corrine is the only one who has complained about it, though.

“They aren’t rising like they should, Mother. They’re hard as rocks.” Corrine whipped up a batch one night at supper to prove she knew how to make them rise.

“I swear! You keep cookin’ like this, Corrine, I’ll have to marry you,” said James, enjoying his fifth or sixth biscuit.

“And just how old are you, Mr. Parker?” snapped Corrine. “Forty?”

“Whoa now, I’m not even thirty! Is my beard makin’ me look old? Hoke, is my beard makin’ me look old, or are your crusty ways rubbin’ off on me?”

Hoke glanced at him sideways but said nothing.

“That is downright hurtful, Corrine, you thinkin’ I’m that old,” sulked James.

Abigail looked at her daughter. “Show me how you made these or you’ll have to cook breakfast from now on.” Currently it was Corrine’s job to get Lina ready in the mornings.

James rubbed his beard. “I’m partial to good biscuits. These are just like my grandmaw cooked ’em.”

Corrine ignored James and turned to Abigail. “You’ve got to get the salt portions right.”

“I used the same amount of salt as Melinda.”

Mr. Parker and Mr. Hoke take their meals with us regularly, which is adding to my desperation as I seek to master the art of biscuit making. Even with Melinda Austelle building her fire close and watching over my shoulder, I can still ruin the biscuits. Corrine, on the other hand, is a wonderful cook as you predicted.

“Melinda!” Abigail called. “Didn’t I make mine exactly like yours?”

Melinda came over to inspect. “I thought you did, but somethin’ ain’t goin’ right. Maybe you knead ’em with a heavy hand.”

“My grandmaw had a big wooden biscuit bowl to make her biscuits in,” said James. “Hoke, did I ever tell you my grandmaw raised me?”

Hoke never looked up from his plate. “Yes.”

“How do you know when you’ve kneaded them long enough?” Abigail asked Melinda.

“I don’t know, you just know. You want to keep your dough ball nice and pli’ble.”

James turned to Melinda. “Does my beard make me look old, Mrs. Austelle? Do you think the ladies would like me better without it?”

“I like Mr. Austelle better when he shaves.”

Tam Woodford, four wagons over, called, “I got me a sharp razor if you need one, James! And some soapy water!” Tam and James, cut from similar cloth, had struck up a fast pick-at-one-another friendship.

Ignoring Tam, James scratched his jaw again, looking darkly at Corrine.

Abigail’s brow twisted. “The dough should be soft? Well, no wonder. Is that with all bread dough?”

“It depends on the kind you’re makin’,” said Melinda. “Elastic dough makes a chewy bread.”

“I don’t care if you like my beard or not,” James said to Corrine.

Corrine looked him level in the eye. “I don’t care that you don’t care.”

Hoke started laughing so hard he nearly choked on his bacon.

Abigail, forgetting about the biscuits, turned to look at him. They all did. It took a lot to even make Hoke smile.

By the time Hoke got his food swallowed, tears were rolling from the sides of his fierce, weathered eyes. “James, I believe that’s the first female you’ve met that don’t care for your prattle. Good thing it doesn’t contradict your pride.”

Abigail looked from James to her daughter. “I didn’t hear what you said, Corrine. Were you disrespectful?”

“She wasn’t disrespectful . . . just honest.” James stood up and shook the grinds of his coffee out in front of Hoke, who was still laughing. “Don’t you have some work that needs doin’?”

Hoke stood. “Always.” He smiled at Abigail as he left.

It lit a warm fire in her chest, and for the rest of that day the sound of Hoke’s laughter filled her head.

Colonel George Dotson and his wife, Christine, lead us. The colonel is tall and commanding. Gerald Jenkins, his right-hand man, is short and smiles even when irritated. They are married to sisters. Mr. Jenkins’s wife, Josephine, is the merriest woman I’ve ever met. Children adore her, Lina especially. Josephine rounds them up to sing in the evenings and makes every chore a game. Christine is more reserved, but like a sage mother to us all.

One afternoon Christine Dotson hooked her arm through Abigail’s as they walked beside the wagons. The grasses of eastern Kansas were just deepening into green as spring reached its full height. Christine bent down and measured the stalks with her hand.

“Folks back in Independence will be hot on our trail, now. That’ll worry George until one of them catches up with us. He wants to be the first group to Oregon this year.” She patted Abigail’s hand. “George says you’re going to meet your husband.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They walked in silence a few minutes, and then Abigail asked, “If you had two pieces of jewelry and needed to sell one, which could you part with easiest? The one from your mother, or the one from your husband?”

“I’d sell the one from George, because I still have him with me.”

Yes
. . .
of course that was why she had chosen to sell Mrs. Helton the pearl pendant. She’d soon be with Robert again, but to have lost her mother’s cameo would have felt like losing her mother all over again.

When Christine looked up at her questioningly, Abigail felt that she should explain herself. “When Robert left, we fought. He was an attorney and was against slavery.”

“And you were for it?”

“No, but my family owned slaves. I grew up with them. It was a point of contention between Robert and my father. When Robert decided to join the Union I knew my father would never forgive him. I begged him not to go. I felt there were other ways he could have served his interests without fighting directly opposite my family.”

“So you had family that fought for the Confederacy?”

“All three of my brothers. Seth—the one I was closest to—was killed. Thad and Nathan got him home after the Battle of Franklin, but he died in my father’s parlor.”

Christine sighed. “George had soldiers in his units who sometimes had family standing in the field across from them. Can you imagine taking aim on a sea of gray and knowing your son or brother was taking aim on your sea of blue?” She shook her head. “Have you forgiven him?”

How did Christine Dotson know Abigail had struggled to forgive her husband for his choice to leave?

“I thought I had, but
. . .
I also thought he had been killed. I didn’t hear from him for nearly two years. When I learned a couple of months ago that he was still alive and just never came home
. . .
I was plenty mad all over again.” This was the second time Robert had put her in a difficult spot.

Christine didn’t say anything, just tightened her hold on Abigail’s arm.

Abigail found it deeply comforting, so she plunged on with her confessions. “But I’ve gone from being mad to afraid.”

Christine stopped walking and turned to her. “Afraid of what, sweetheart?”

“At first I was afraid he wouldn’t want us anymore
. . .
that he wouldn’t want me.”

“I can’t imagine that! Can’t you see the men in this group admiring you?”

What men? Admiring her how?

“No.” Abigail shook the thought from her head. “But anyway, now I’m worried something could happen to Robert before we get there.”

“Something could happen to any one of us any day, I suppose.” Christine squeezed Abigail’s hand. “We’ll just pray he’s waiting for you with open arms and an open heart.”

Robert,

I have taken your advice and am coming to Fort Hall.

It took reading the letter three times for the words to finally sink in.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

He looked at the date again and the postmark . . . Independence. That gave him three, maybe four months.

He pulled an old wooden box from under his bunk and blew the dust off the top. Inside were dozens of letters, all written in Abigail’s neat penmanship. He added her latest letter to the pile, then sorted them by date and started to read, starting at the beginning.

There were four children, not counting the one buried by the springhouse. Of course he knew that, though he’d never seen Lina, the youngest. He wondered what they looked like now. Corrine had always been pretty, like her mother.

Hours later he looked up when Sergeant Smith tapped on his door frame.

“Yes?” He hadn’t realized it had grown so late.

“Just wanted to remind you we have new recruits coming in tomorrow, sir.”

“Thank you, Smith. I’ll be ready.” When Smith hesitated in the doorway he added, “You can go now.”

He pretended not to notice Smith’s dark look as the man walked away. When he realized the light from his room must be shining in Smith’s eyes, he got up and closed the door.

As children in the train warmed up to each other, they ran from wagon to wagon in the mornings asking, “Who’s driving for you today? Can I sit with you? Want to come ride with us?”

April 24, 1866

Once we are rolling, the children have strict instructions not to jump off or run up to other wagons. The Kensington sisters in Company A cautioned all the mothers to be careful. They had heard of babies falling off and getting crushed by the wheels. Deep ruts in the trail and the strain of the animals as they pull attest to the massive weight of the wagons.

One morning as dawn broke, sounds of squawking, barking, and then yelling came from the direction of Company B. Abigail looked around. “Charlie? Where’s Rascal?”

A moment later, Hoke came walking toward the fire with Rascal in his arms.

“What happened?” asked Charlie, alarmed.

“One of the Schroeders’ chickens got out.”

“Oh, no!” said Abigail.

“Oh, yes.” Hoke set down the dog and rubbed his head.

“Did he—”

“He did.”

Abigail groaned. “I made two bonnets that I exchanged for Schroeder eggs just yesterday. They may be the last eggs we ever get.”

Sure enough, the whole German clan cast Rascal dirty looks the rest of that day, as if he were the devil. That didn’t sit well with the Baldwyn children. Abigail offered to pay for the chicken, but the Schroeders said, “We can’t put a price on the lost eggs,” and refused to take her money.

When Prissy came around that evening to let Abigail know that her mother said the chicken had been one of their best layers, Hoke said, “He was just being a dog!”

“Yeah. Eat the chicken and enjoy it,” added James. “It’ll be a nice break from all that pork.”

A doctor named Marc Isaacs, his widowed sister, Caroline, and her baby boy are in our company. I had the good fortune to meet Doc Isaacs before we left Independence.

Some in our group apparently fault him for being bookish and handsome, like a woman named Sue Vandergelden, who refused to let him near her wagon to tend to her boy when he came down with mountain fever. But I find it a comfort to have a doctor on the train.

Doc Isaacs’s nephew, Will, has developed a fondness for Corrine. It’s nice to see her soft side as she cares for the toddler.

“Is the sky bluer out here, Ma?” Lina asked one day. She was perched on the saddle of the gray dun with Abigail.

“Certainly seems like it.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.
”

Lina’s face twisted up toward her. “Did you read that somewhere?”

“Grandpa used to say that
. . .
a long time ago. It comes from the Bible. Remind me tonight and we’ll find the verse.” Abigail kissed the top of her head.