Leaving Independence (9 page)

When the train stopped to make camp that evening, Hoke and James nailed steps to the Baldwyns’ wagons. Corrine walked by and asked, “Why are you doing that? We don’t need those.”

“Sure you do,” said Hoke. “It’ll help you get in and out easier.”

“I can get in and out just fine.”

“What about your little sister?”

“She’s got plenty of people to help her in and out.”

“You got something against people making your life easier, Corrine?” asked Hoke.

When the girl twisted her brow she looked just like her mother.

“No, sir.”

“Then quit acting like you don’t want to be helped.” He stuck a nail between his lips and held another step in place.

Corrine raised her chin and walked off.

James watched her go. “You don’t see many girls that pretty with such a healthy dose of sass. Now me, I favor a sassy woman, where some men take it as a contradiction to their pride.”

“She’s just hurt is all,” mumbled Hoke.

“Hurt from what?”

“Hurt about bein’ left, I ’spect.”

“Who left her?”

“Her father.”

James looked from Hoke to Corrine’s retreating back. “What do you know about it?”

“I just know the signs.”

Later, when Hoke took the tools back to his wagon, he noticed Abigail Baldwyn sitting on a sawhorse. Her boots were peeled off and she was squeezing a rag she’d pulled from a bucket, rivulets of water spilling out as she bathed her feet. He put the tools away slowly, stealing glances to see how long she’d sit there.

She hadn’t complained all day.

He could tell her back hurt when she got off her wagon at midday, but she never said a word about it. And she’d raised those kids well. Charlie had helped swab the mules’ noses without being asked, and he’d been quick to unhitch the teams at the end of the day and rub their coats with a handful of hay, same as Hoke did.

Hoke wondered what she was thinking and whether she would come to regret her decision to make this trip. It wouldn’t be easy . . . but maybe she was up to it.

After washing her feet, Abigail climbed up on the sawhorse with the bucket still in her hand, her toes curling around the wood, and poured what was left of the water into her box garden.

Hoke shook his head. She didn’t need to be standing on the sawhorse that way; she could turn her ankle.

Damn woman.

CHAPTER 9

Covered in dirt stains

April 14, 1866

Each morning fires flare up in clusters, Mimi. As the smells of coffee, bacon, and pan biscuits fill the early dawn, roosters from the Schroeders’ henhouses crow before the first rays of light. Everyone scrambles from sleep. We splash water on faces, eat a quick breakfast, water the livestock, hitch the teams—the mules often kicking—tie up bedrolls, wrap extra biscuits to make the lunch stop quicker, wash out pans, snuff out the fires, and jump in our seats for the roll out.

Abigail’s skirts caught fire.

If Hoke hadn’t walked up with fresh firewood at that moment, dumped it on the ground, and taken his hat off to swat the fire out, she might have gone up in flames.

Her face flushed with embarrassment for appearing so inept.

“Thank you.”

Irene McConnelly had just been over to speak to her. “Why, Mrs. Baldwyn, how many fancy clothes did you bring on this trip?” Abigail had been bent down, laying a pan of bacon on the fire, and when she looked up, Irene smiled and added lightly, “I just came over to see if your wagon was stuffed full of them.”

Abigail straightened then and held out her hand. “I haven’t formally met you yet, Miss McConnelly. Abigail Baldwyn.”

Irene waved Abigail’s hand away. “Oh, please, attend to your food and don’t mind me. I just came over to stir the pot.”

Abigail looked at her a minute before stooping down to turn the bacon. A moment later, Hoke walked up, dumped the firewood, and swatted out the fire in her skirts. When Abigail looked toward Irene, now several wagons over, the woman’s shoulders appeared to be shaking in laughter.

Had Irene raked Abigail’s skirts in the fire? Or was she just taking pleasure in Abigail’s own blunder?

Feeling the sear of Hoke’s eyes on her, Abigail looked up.

“You might ought to rake those back when you’re working by the fire.” He pointed at her smoking hemline. “You got the sweepingest skirts I ever saw.”

Abigail scowled and inspected the hem. “I thought I was. Maybe I’ll take my skirts up. Most of my hems are getting covered in dirt stains anyway.”

Her heart was covered in dirt stains, too. Could Hoke see those? He missed little else.

She expected him to leave—after all, the man was never still—but he lingered.

“Who was that man at the creek last night?” he asked.

Abigail’s eyes shot up. “What man?”

“There was a man talking to you. When you went to get water. You seem a little distracted this morning. Did he upset you?”

Abigail shook her head. Yes, the man had upset her. But she didn’t want Hoke to know it. She looked down, not trusting her eyes to hold up under his constant inspection. “He was looking for somebody. It wasn’t one of our group.”

“Who was he looking for?”

“Somebody that killed his brother. From Arkansas.”

Hoke’s voice dropped low. “What details did he give?”

“None, really, except that he felt his brother had been killed unfairly. He left before I could ask him much about it.”

Abigail reached for the pan that held the biscuits. When she turned back around Hoke was gone. Surprise . . . then relief swept over her. She needed time alone to think. Irene’s snide behavior was the least of her worries now.

Yesterday afternoon Abigail had wanted water for her plants. Charlie and Jacob were busy watching Hoke and James reshoe one of their oxen, so Abigail grabbed the bucket herself and walked to the nearby creek.

Just as the hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she got the feeling of being watched again, a man had stepped from the trees.

“How-do, ma’am.”

They were only four days’ travel from Independence. People who weren’t part of their group had come by the train continually, peddling wares, asking questions, and offering reports of what to expect along the route. Abigail hadn’t seen this man before, but he looked harmless enough with his homespun clothes stretched tight over a soft belly, and boots that both had holes in the toes.

She assumed he was selling something. So it surprised her when he asked, “Are you Robert Baldwyn’s wife?”

How did he know who she was?

“I am.”

The man removed his tattered hat and looked down at his feet. “I heard in town you were travelin’ to meet him. I thought you should know I’m lookin’ for him, too.”

Before she could ask why, the man added, “And I aim to kill him when I find him.”

A trickle of fear slid down Abigail’s throat. She tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry.

The wagons were pulled into the double circle Dotson had them form each evening for protection. Abigail looked back to the camp to see if anyone else had noticed her talking to the man—and to judge the distance in case she needed to gather her skirts and run.

The man held his arms up. “I don’t aim to harm you, ma’am. I ain’t a bad man. But your husband killed my brother and I can’t let that go.”

It didn’t match up. The man’s words were threatening, but nothing about his physical appearance frightened her. He seemed timid. And he wasn’t even carrying a weapon that she could see.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He could hardly look her in the eye. “Cecil Ryman. You ask anybody . . . they’ll tell you. I ain’t a bad man. My brother’s name was Dan—Dan Ryman, from Arkansas.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “This is the article the paper wrote. They don’t name your husband as his killer, but I know a man says he was the one who cut him—cut him with a fancy-handled sword and he bled out.”

Abigail shook her head, wondering if Cecil Ryman was of sound mind. “Mr. Ryman, this has to be a misunderstanding. I know my husband, and he has a strong sense of justice. He would never do the sort of thing you’ve described.”

“He may not be the man you think he is.”

Cecil Ryman’s words tumbled out so fast he was in danger of tripping over them. “Look, I’m not trying to upset you, ma’am, and I know this must seem strange, me coming out here to tell you this, but I saw you back in town and you seem like a nice lady with a nice passel o’ young’uns. I just thought you should know before you get too far down the trail. I’m sorry if it puts you in a bad spot, but I aim to kill him when I find him for what he done. I wouldn’t have rode out here to tell you if I was a bad man.”

He refolded the paper in his hands and turned to go.

“Wait!” Abigail tried to stop him. She looked back to the camp to see if anyone was watching. Should she call for someone to come help her talk sense into this man? But no one had noticed them as far as she could tell. “Please don’t do this, Mr. Ryman. Bring it before a court of law if you think he’s committed a crime.”

He put his tattered hat back on. “I’m sure courts and laws are coming west, ma’am, but they ain’t there yet. I swore on my brother’s grave I’d make it right, and I aim to keep my word. Don’t worry, I won’t lay for him dishonest. Maybe I was wrong to come out here and tell you this. I don’t like killin’ no one—I hate it. And I hate it for you. Just remember . . . I ain’t a bad man.”

Cecil Ryman apparently had said all he’d intended. He stepped back through the woods, leaving Abigail with an empty water bucket and a racing heart.

That had been yesterday at sundown. She’d hardly slept all night.

If Robert had really killed this man’s brother, she didn’t want the children—or the Dotsons and Melinda and Marc Isaacs and the rest of the group—to learn about it. What would people think of them? Could Cecil Ryman be right about her husband?

Abigail had been so angry with Robert for not coming home to them. She’d thought it was her fault—for the way she’d sent him off. But what if Dan Ryman was the reason he hadn’t returned? She had expected obstacles, and she wasn’t so naïve as to think Robert might not be greatly altered, but he wasn’t supposed to be a murderer.

No . . . Abigail shook her head. She refused to believe a stranger. It just didn’t sound like the Robert Baldwyn she knew.

Should she get word to Robert? Write a letter or send a telegram to warn him? Yes. That was what she would do. Couriers came by the train nearly every day collecting mail.

She wouldn’t say anything about it to the children or anyone in Dotson’s train. She would tell Robert. He’d know how to handle the news. He’d know how to make it right. And her warning him would show him that she was his partner and his ally, not the opponent he’d seen her as on the day he left.

It was only four days ago that she had sent the letter from Independence to say they were coming. And in that letter she still hadn’t told him everything . . . she hadn’t told him she was bringing the children.

She would need to be honest with him about that, too.

April 17, 1866

Each day the colonel’s goal is to cover seven or eight miles after breakfast. Tim Peters, who is planning to open a general store, has a device on his wagon wheel that will log the miles. Each time the spokes turn, it counts the rotation. So many rotations make a mile.

Colonel Dotson says he doesn’t need a mile counter; he can just tell by the sun and the distance. There is a constant discussion among the men about how much we have actually traveled each day and whether Tim Peters’s mile counter has an accurate reading.

At midday we stop for lunch—just long enough to rub down and water the animals, stretch our legs, and feed ourselves. Then it’s the goal of another seven or eight miles before supper and making camp for the evening.

“Why don’t you let Corrine and Jacob handle the teams?” Melinda Austelle asked Abigail a week into the journey.

“You think they’re old enough?”

“Of course. Don’t you see all my young’uns drivin’ our teams?”

Cooper was only a year older than Jacob. Since Corrine and Jacob were eager to take the reins, Abigail let them. Now they had four drivers to rotate between, which left her free most days to walk or ride the gray dun.

Charlie had claimed the brown horse.

“I’m calling him Molasses,” Abigail heard him tell Jacob as he brushed the horse one evening. “But don’t tell Mr. Hoke.”

“Why?” asked Jacob.

“’Cause Mr. Hoke doesn’t name his horses.”

Tim Peters, in Company A, is the only one who has been over this route before. He has three grown sons—Timmy (married to Nelda), Orin, and Bart.

Company B is made entirely of Schroeders. Mrs. Inez is the matriarch.

Rudy and Faramond (which all his family pronounces “Fairman”) are the oldest brothers. They remind me of the sons of Zebedee . . . the sons of thunder.

Faramond’s oldest two, Ingrid and Jocelyn, are in charge of all their thunder-sired cousins, and Melinda Austelle says that only they, being Schroeders themselves, are really up to the task. Rudy’s youngest daughter, Prissy, is especially unruly. She does not fit her name any better than Faramond fits his.

Duncan Schroeder is married to Katrina. They have twin girls who ride on the hips of their older cousins. Katrina says they’ll never learn to walk because they’ll never have to.

Bridgette Schroeder is not married.

Hoke looked up from repairing a harness and saw Prissy Schroeder stroll by the spot where Corrine was working on supper.

For three days Abigail Baldwyn had had something heavy on her mind, and not knowing what it was weighed heavy on Hoke’s. It was her habit, he’d noticed, to write letters of an evening. For the last three, she really took her time about it. It must have done her good because earlier that day her smile had come back.

“What are you cookin’?” Prissy asked Corrine.

Prissy Schroeder had to be close to Corrine’s age, but she acted more like she was six. She was never required to help with evening chores, so she nosed around other people’s wagons.

Corrine, by contrast, acted older than her years. She and Charlie were both more mature than others their age in the group.

“I’m cooking food,” said Corrine.

“What kind of food, exactly?”

“Potatoes, corn, and apples, if you must know.”

“Don’t you got no meat? We’re havin’ pork. My paw’s got three ham hocks salted.”