Chapter 6
Lou stood at the tailgate of
the wagon, showing Teresa how to mix a batch of baking powder biscuits. Since she had scouting duty today that meant
she also had breakfast detail. Ike and
Jeremiah were feeding the stock.
Watching as Teresa carefully
stirred the white batter that would go with bacon for breakfast, Lou swallowed
back the bile trying to force its way up.
“Dang it,” she muttered
angrily, turning away from the suddenly disturbing sight of the biscuit batter.
“You alright, Lou?” Teresa
asked, worried. They’d all noticed her
odd behavior the last few days, but she wouldn’t talk to any of them. She just kept getting crabbier and crabbier.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Lou muttered,
starting to walk away. “You know what to
do next. Call me when yer ready ta put
them in the dutch oven.”
“Sure, Lou,” Teresa said
quietly, taking the batter out of the bowl and plopping it down onto the
well-floured surface of the tailgate to begin kneading the dough.
“Still grouchy Lou today?”
Jeremiah asked, timidly poking his head around the corner of the wagon, having
just finished feeding and watering the livestock. Teresa nodded morosely. “Here,” he suggested. “Why don’t you give me that. I’ll finish the biscuits while you go milk
Samantha.”
Teresa happily traded chores
and, grabbing the bucket, took off quickly to find the milk cow. Jeremiah shook his head as he watched her
running across the field, braids trailing out behind her. She stopped at the first of the Stuart wagons
to pick up young Peter Stuart, the only other child on the wagon train her
age. They’d spent almost every free
moment playing together the last few weeks.
And, oh, hadn’t that gotten Mrs. Grayson’s goat! Eventually, Teresa made her meandering way,
Peter now in tow, to the temporary corral where all the milk cows were herded
together.
“Samantha,” Jeremiah muttered
to himself in disgust. “Oddest damned name
I’ve ever heard of for a cow.” Turning
to the dough in front of him, he began to use a tin cup to cut it into circles
for biscuits. “Don’t know why Lou
insisted on it.”
A sudden angry shout
interrupted his internal conversation.
Looking over to Lou by the fire, he saw her with a skillet raised over
her head, chasing after the Grayson’s little pug dog. It was running for all it was worth, little
legs churning through the dust, their rasher of bacon clenched tightly in its
jaws.
“Come back here, you
varmint! I’m gonna skin you alive!”
Lou caught up with the dog at
the same time that Mrs. Grayson descended from her wagon to see what all the
ruckus was about. Jerking the bacon away
from the canine, Lou started to swing the skillet at the now whimpering animal.
“Don’t you dare,” screeched
Mrs. Grayson. “You touch one hair on my
Poppy’s precious head and I’ll have you horsewhipped.” Bending over, she gathered the trembling dog
into her arms, holding him tightly to her heaving chest.
“Then you’d better keep that
nuisance in your own camp from now on,” Lou gritted out. “I can’t afford ta be feeding it bacon every
morning. It steals one more piece of
food from my camp, it even pokes its damned nose in my direction, and I’ll
shoot the danged thang and toss it in the cookpot!”
Mrs. Grayson sucked in a
shocked breath, before turning to stomp back toward her wagon. Looking around, Lou noticed the crowd her
temper had gathered.
“Y’all can go ‘bout yer
business. Ain’t nothin’ ta see here,”
she snapped, turning back toward her own camp.
Ike, returning from his own
morning chores, shook his head.
Something had to break, and soon.
Lou’s temper was getting worse and worse. Sure, the dog was a nuisance, but there was
no call to threaten to eat it.
**********
“Wagon’s West!” came the daily
call that got the train lumbering on its way.
Progress was slow and grating on Lou’s nerves. She was used to covering 75 miles in a
day. The train was on a roll if it made
10. Sighing, she turned her horse down
the route the train was taking and urged it into a gallop. Time to go find tonight’s campsite.
Ike watched her take off from
where he was walking alongside the oxen pulling their wagon in the permanent
drag position. He hoped she’d be back
for lunch today. He wanted to talk to
her, try to get her to open up. He knew
what had happened with Wicks was bothering her and that she was feeling guilty
for having told him, not Kid. But it
felt like there was something more. And,
she still wasn’t eating right. Normally,
Lou could, and would, keep up with the rest of the boys when it came to eating
everything in sight not nailed down.
Lately, though, she’d been surreptitiously giving half her food to their
dog, Duke. The other half came back up a
short time later, like as not. She was
starting to look tired and drawn and was losing weight, not something she could
afford to do to begin with. She’d always
been such a slight thing.
Lou enjoyed the morning back in
the saddle, flying down the trail on Lightning’s back, letting the wind ruffle
through her hair. She was able to simply
be. She didn’t have to worry about the
babe in her belly, or what everyone’s reaction would be. She didn’t have to think about all the things
that were bothering her. With a sigh
though, she eventually slowed the horse and began to search along the banks of
the river for a suitable camp spot.
Shortly before noon, she rode
back up to the moving line of wagons to report to the wagon master on what
she’d found. Drawing Lightning to a
standstill on a rise overlooking the train, she let her eyes drift down its
line, until they came to rest on Ike, and Emily, walking alongside her
wagon. Emily was chattering away while
Ike kept their oxen heading in the right direction. Lou smiled a bit at the sight.
When he caught sight of her
waiting, the wagonmaster, Stan Henderson looked up at the sun, almost directly
overhead, and raised his arm to shout…. “Wagons Halt!”… indicating it was time
to stop for the noon break.
In a stuttering line, the
wagons began grinding to a slow halt.
Lou watched in growing horror as she saw two of the Stuart boys playing
on the opened tailgate of their wagon, apparently oblivious to the order to
halt. One of them was Teresa’s new
little friend. Lou began to look around
for Resi, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Stuart wagon jerk to
a stop, sending Peter flying off the end of the tailgate, right under the
hooves of the oxen pulling the next vehicle.
Even from her distant position, she could hear the screams of horror
from onlookers as several adults rushed in to pull the child free.
Riding up to join the gathered
group of concerned family and friends, Lou could tell it was already too
late. In her few short years she’d seen too
many dead bodies. The oxen’s hooves had so
badly mangled the boy Lou would never have recognized him if she hadn’t seen
him playing just moments ago.
Not wanting them to witness any
more of the horror before her, Lou began herding the shocked children away from
the scene, even as Ike helped several of the men carry the boy to a shady spot
near the trail. It looked like they
weren’t going to make the campsite she’d found tonight, afterall.
“What happened to Peter,
Lou? Will he be able to play with me
again after lunch?” Teresa asked.
Lou stopped in her tracks and
looked down at her little sister.
Hunkering down on her knees, she looked Teresa in the eyes. “Honey, Peter won’t ever be able to play with
you again. He’s….” suddenly she found
herself choking up with tears over the death of a child she’d barely known,
“he’s dead.”
“But, he just fell out of the
wagon,” the little girl protested.
“Resi, you know how dangerous
those oxen can be,” Jeremiah scoffed.
“There’s no way he could’ve survived being trampled by six of them! Don’t be stupid.”
“Jeremiah! There’s no call to be mean,” Lou reprimanded
him, as Teresa threw herself into Lou’s arms, wailing for all she was
worth. “How would you feel if it had
been Liam who’d fallen instead?”
Standing, Lou picked up the
little girl and continued on her way back to their campsite, a chastened
Jeremiah following in her footsteps.
Seating herself next to their
wagon, leaning up against the rear wheel, Lou awkwardly patted her sister’s
back. “There, there,” she murmured. “It’ll be alright.”
“No it won’t. Peter’s never coming back, never, ever,
never,” she wailed at the top of her lungs.
Not knowing what to say to
that, Lou remained silent and continued to hug the little girl. Eventually, Teresa fell asleep in Lou’s
arms. She still sat there holding her
little sister close. It so easily could
have been Jeremiah or Teresa. Lou
couldn’t believe how scared she’d been.
“I’m sorry, Lou,” Jeremiah
finally broke the silence. “I wasn’t’
trying to be mean.”
Lou looked up at her younger
brother and saw the tear streaks down his cheeks. Holding out one arm, she beckoned him
close. He moved over and slid under her
arm to cuddle up to her side.
“I know you weren’t honey,” she
said quietly. “He was your friend, too,
wasn’t he?”
Jeremiah nodded his head in a
silent yes.
Feeling Teresa stirring in her
arms, Lou decided to broach the subject that had been preying on her mind. “Do you see now why we don’t let you play on
the wagon while it’s moving? How
dangerous it can be?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeremiah
whispered.
“Good,” Lou sighed. Looking up, she watched as Ike trudged back
to camp, his shoulders bowed in grief as well.
When he was close enough to speak, she asked, “How are they doing?”
*Not well,* he sighed. *John Stuart is putting together a casket,
but I think the boy’s father is losing it.
He was their only son.* Ike shook
his head.
“Is there anything we can do to
help?” Teresa asked from her place on Lou’s lap.
“Yeah, what can we do? Anything’d be better than sitting here seeing
poor Peter falling off that wagon over and over again,” Jeremiah added.
Ike looked at Lou and she
nodded. It would be better to keep the
kids busy. *Resi, could you go help the
O’Callahans with the littler children?*
Teresa nodded eagerly,
immediately jumping up and running across to the O’Callahan wagon.
“What about me?”
*The funeral will be this evening,
before supper,* Ike said. *No one’s
going to want to spend a lot of time cooking afterward. Could you and your friends get your fishing
poles and catch us a mess of fish?*
“Yes, sir! I’ll get right on it,” Jeremiah said and was
soon rummaging through the wagon for his pole.
“Thanks, Ike. They needed something to keep them busy,” Lou
said, smiling wanly up at him. He
nodded.
*Our help is needed, too.*
“Grave detail?” she
guessed. Again he nodded. “Let me get our shovel and I’ll be right
there.”
As she stood to go, he reached
out for her arm.
*You don’t have to do this,* he
started to sign.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” she nearly
whispered. “That could’ve been
Teresa. Or Jeremiah. It could’ve been you or me. Yes, I have to do whatever I can to help,
because it could be one of us next time.”
Without another word, she
walked away. Ike watched her go, a pain
growing in his heart.
**********
“Lou! Lou McSwain!
Lou! You can stop now,” Stan
Henderson called to her. “Let someone
else take a turn. You can’t work that
hard for so long in this heat!”
“I’m fine,” she said,
continuing to swing her shovel in a rhythmic heave ho motion. “I’m almost there.”
“Ike,” the wagonmaster said,
“can you talk some sense into your brother.”
Ike shook his head and
shrugged. No one had ever been able to
talk sense into Lou once she had her mind made up.
“Done,” Lou panted, reaching
out to hand her shovel up to Ike. Then,
taking his hand, she used it as leverage to pull herself out of the grave, a
shiver crawling up her spine as she did so.
Rising to her feet, she swayed momentarily next to Ike. He reached out a hand to steady her.
*When did you eat last?*
She looked at him,
uncomprehendingly. Then, suddenly,
simply slumped into a heap at his feet.
Lou! he shouted in his head, wishing for the millionth time he
still had his voice. No one else noticed
as he frantically bent over to check on her.
Everyone was too busy taking care of all the details needed to bury one,
too young victim of the trail west.
Once assured Lou was alive, Ike
carefully gathered her into his arms and carried her back to their wagon. There
he climbed inside and laid her down on the pallet the children slept on. Then, he simply sat beside her, waiting. He didn’t know what else to do and had no one
to ask for advice.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long
before Lou began to come to, her head moving restlessly from side to side as
her eyelids fluttered once, then twice, before opening fully. Her brown orbs met his expressive green ones.
Suddenly, he was angry with
her. Taking a deep breath to calm
himself, he began to ‘talk’.
*What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing, because something
is obviously going on!* he gestured emphatically.
Lou started to turn her head
away, to deny him the chance to have his say.
This enfuriated him. Reaching out
he grabbed her chin and forced her to look his way. With exaggerated gestures, he continued his
tirade.
*I’ve had it, Lou! You act as if you’re the only one anything
happens to! Stop playing the
martyr. You ain’t the only one to
survive a tragedy. Well, guess what,
you’re my wife, admit it or not. What
happens to you happens to me. When
something’s wrong with one of us, then it’s wrong with both of us. You can’t keep trying to shoulder all the
burden. That’s not how it works.*
He was really angry, a startled
Lou marveled, watching as his arms swung wildly about. It was odd, being bawled out in complete and
total silence, she thought inconsequentially.
The only sounds in the confines of their wagon were Ike’s harsh
breathing and the occasional pounding of a fist against his chest.
*And don’t you go trying to
give me that crap about this being a marriage of convenience. If you haven’t noticed, there ain’t nothing
convenient about this. But I’m still
here! We’re a family. Long before you and I made any vows, we were
a family. Nothing’s changed about
that. And family sticks together. Didn’t you learn anything from Teaspoon?*
Finally, she opened her mouth
to say something, but Ike glared at her to ‘shut-up’ and continued on with his
tirade. So, she settled back on the
pallet and waited. When his motions
eventually slowed, she peeked up at him through her eyelashes.
“May I speak now?” she asked
meekly.
He nodded choppily, his anger
still in full force.
“I’m pregnant.”
This stopped all movement from
the tall man hovering over her. Until he
suddenly dropped to the pallet at her side, his eyes now twice the size they’d
been just moments before.
*Pregnant? With a baby?*
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