Janet Quin-Harkin Read online

  The two men glared at each other like fighting dogs, then Rival stepped down from his wagon. “We’ll redistribute,” he said. “I’m not leaving one shovel or one sack of flour.”

  They started down the train, past the straining and sweating oxen. Libby held her breath as they came closer to her wagon.

  “Maybe you could get rid of some of this food,” she heard Jimmy say. “You’ve got an awful lot to feed just one person. Maybe you’ll have to go without some of those luxuries.”

  “Very well, very well,” Sheldon Rival said with a sigh. “I suppose I can sacrifice as well as the next man. This is one wagon I want to get through without mishap. What do you think I’ve got too much of?”

  Jimmy leaped up onto the back of the wagon. “Well for a start,” he began, then he pulled away a sack and stopped. “What have we here?” he asked.

  Eden and Bliss crept out, wide-eyed with fear. Libby jumped and grabbed them. “They are my children,” she said. “Mr. Rival wanted me to leave them behind. I couldn’t do it.”

  Sheldon Rival’s face was almost purple with anger. “You dared to try and trick me?” he asked. “When I said no brats, I meant no brats.”

  “They’ll be no trouble,” Libby said. “They can walk. They do not need to ride in your precious wagons. They can eat from my portion of food. We will ask nothing of you.”

  “Absolutely right that you’ll ask nothing,” Rival shouted, “and nothing’s what you’ll get. You can take them and . . .”

  The sentence was cut off because Gabe Foster came riding up, pushing his horse between Rival and Libby. “Hey, there they are,” he said, bending to scoop Eden and Bliss up onto his saddle. “My two favorite ladies. I knew they couldn’t be far away. Come along, I’ve been telling all the guys about you and they want to meet the prettiest girls between here and California. They’re all looking forward to hearing you sing to them at the campfire tonight.”

  He turned his horse and started to head back down the wagons again. “Even you couldn’t be that much of a rat, Rival,” he muttered over his shoulder.

  Sheldon scowled after him as he watched his guards crowd around the little girls and heard high childish laughter.

  “You better keep them well away from me,” he said, “and you try and trick me on anything else and I’ll forget you’re a lady, so help me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Libby said. “I have no further reason not to be straight with you.”

  CHAPTER 9

  LIBBY’S DIARY: June 10, 1849. We do not seem to be progressing westward very quickly. Already we have become bogged down in terrible mud. The whole trail is churned up and littered. It is not pleasant walking through sticky mud, and the mosquitoes particularly seem to love our fair northern skin. The children and I are covered in bites which are soothed somewhat by plastering wet mud on them, making us look like strange, primitive tribes-people!

  It took a while to get going again after some of Rival’s goods had been taken out to lighten the loads. The men had to bring up the spare ox teams to drag the wagons, one by one, through each patch of mud, and even when they spread out sacking over the track, it was hard going. It was clear that every party ahead of them had to similarly lighten loads to get through. All along the trail was a litter of abandoned articles—sacks of bacon, fancy clothing, even an iron stove.

  “Pity I didn’t bring an extra wagon just for the purpose,” Sheldon Rival muttered. “Or even a fleet of extra wagons. I have a feeling I could have sold people back their own stuff when we reached California.”

  “You’re all heart,” Libby said, making him laugh.

  When they camped for the night everyone was exhausted and even Sheldon Rival was too tired to complain about his food. They had only covered twelve miles in twenty-four hours.

  Later the next day they came to the first ferry. Wagons were lined up for a mile or more along the bank. Men sat in the sunshine making repairs to wagon wheels, sewing up canvas into bags or shelters. Others stood waist deep in the river, washing clothes. Everyone seemed to be occupied with a huge spring cleaning.

  They had to wait three days for their turn to cross. Rival offered to pay extra to the ferrymen to cut to the head of the line, but there were enough men waiting who stood fingering their rifles to convince him to get back to his place. Finally it was their turn to cross. The ferry was simply eight dugout canoes lashed together with planks on top. Onto this they loaded the wagons and swam the oxen and mules across. Libby thought the whole contraption looked very flimsy and would almost rather have swum across with the mules. She held on tightly to the children as the water lapped at the ferry boards, but all of Sheldon Rival’s company made it across and struck out westward again.

  Soon after, the soft, wooded countryside came to an end. Ahead was a sea of grass, waist high and sighing in the light wind. They could see wagons from companies ahead of them, their bowed canvas tops now truly looking like white sails on a green-golden ocean. Through the middle of this endless prairie a new line of brown was now drawn where countless wagons had already created deep parallel ruts in the rich soil. Sheldon Rival’s wagons now started across this, the rocking of the wagons each adding to the illusion of sailing. Libby found all this evoked more painful memories of home; the creaking of sailing ships in Boston Harbor, the tangy ocean breeze, the beach at Cape Cod, picnics, beach parties—all so civilized and safe. All along this prairie trail were constant reminders of how very precarious life was at the present; not just castoff furniture, photos in heavy frames, sacks of food or tools, but graves, every mile or so, covered with new soil and primitive wooden crosses with crudely scrawled inscriptions on them—Josiah Weldon from Buffalo, New York. Died May 28, 1849. Aged 17 Years.

  Libby looked carefully at each one, hoping not to see Hugh’s name. As she stared down at the fresh red earth a new and more disturbing thought came into her mind. She found herself almost hoping that she would come across Hugh’s name so that she need not subject her children to the terrible unknown ahead and could go home again with clear conscience.

  “Poor devil,” Gabe said, riding up beside her as she stared at a grave, lost in thought. “To think that his family back in New York is still imagining him filling his pockets with gold.” He shook his head. “This whole thing is madness.”

  “But you chose to subject yourself to it?”

  Gabe gave her that easy, laconic smile. “Don’t you know the devil always protects his own?”

  “Don’t say things like that, even in jest,” she said, shivering. She watched his back as he rode up and talked to Eden and Bliss, perched in the back of the wagon. She saw their faces light up and heard their laughter as he spoke with them. I don’t know what to make of you, Mr. Gabriel Foster, she said to herself. I’ve never met anyone who confuses me as much as you do.

  When they stopped to camp that evening, Jimmy had the wagons drawn into a circle. “We’re moving into Pawnee country,” he said.

  “I’d like to see any damn Pawnee try to mess with me,” Sheldon Rival said. “We’ve enough firepower here to blast the whole Pawnee nation to kingdom come.”

  “I’m not worried about an attack,” Jimmy said. “I’m more concerned with a sneak raid in the night that carries off all our mules.”

  He came over to Libby. “From now on you start collecting buffalo chips,” he said. “You won’t see more than five trees between here and the Rockies.”

  “Come children,” Libby called to the little girls. “You can help Mama get fuel for the fire.”

  “Watch them, though,” Jimmy called after her. “You don’t want them stepping on a rattlesnake. Keep them close to you.”

  “There are snakes here?” Libby asked, suddenly not anxious to leave the rutted camping area and set off into the waving grass.

  Jimmy grinned, a very boyish grin in a weathered man’s face. “Don’t worry. They won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them, but they do object to being stepped on.”

  Libby took down an e
mpty sack. “Maybe you ought to stay and play here, girls,” she said. “I don’t want to be worrying about you when I have to work.”

  “We’ll be very good and careful, Mama,” Eden said. “We’ll stay right beside you as Mr. Jimmy said we should.”

  “Yes, Mama, we want to come,” Bliss added, not wanting to be left out.

  “All right, come on then,” Libby said.

  In half an hour they had filled the sack with buffalo chips. They were not as disgusting as Libby had feared they would be, but hard and herb-smelling. The girls, not knowing what they were touching, filled the sack while Libby searched.

  Libby had gone a little way ahead, leaving the girls sitting beside the sack when she heard a sudden yell. “Mama! A snake! I’ve been bitten by a snake!”

  Libby rushed back to see a terrified Eden jumping up and down, slapping at her legs. “Mama, it’s biting me. Make it stop biting me!”

  “Where? Where?” Libby struggled with Eden’s pantaloons.

  “On my legs. It’s biting my legs.”

  “Both legs?” Libby succeeded in pulling down the long cotton panties.

  “There’s no snake here,” she said.

  “But it hurts, it’s biting me,” Eden protested, almost hysterical now. “Make it go away.”

  Little red wheals were appearing all over Eden’s calves. Libby, calmer now that she could see no snake, spotted the problem. “It’s only ants,” she said. “Look, nasty little red ants. Hold still and I’ll brush them all away.”

  “They hurt like snakes,” Eden complained, scowling down at her legs.

  “I’m sure they did,” Libby said soothingly. “Let’s go back to camp and we’ll put some nice cold water on the bites.”

  She led the children back, glad that she had not obeyed her first impulse to yell for help. She could imagine how Jimmy would have grinned if she had panicked over a few ants.

  For the next few days life settled into a pattern with nothing to break the monotony. They broke camp early in the morning and marched until the heat of the day became unbearable. Then they marched again at midafternoon before finding a safe camping spot for the night.

  In her diary Libby wrote: June 15, 1849. In the middle of nowhere, between Independence and Fort Kearny. I had thought dangers would be the worst part of the journey, but I can see that boredom is far worse an enemy. Nothing changes from day to day. The sun rises, the sun sets and we don’t seem to have progressed at all. How I long for something to change the monotony. Anything to speed up the pace of this journey. How will I endure three months of this?

  The sun shone down on the back of necks and bare arms, turning them from white to red to brown. Libby kept her bonnet pulled forward over her face in the hope of at least keeping her complexion pale, but she noticed as she peered into her little hand mirror that there were already unsightly freckles over her nose. Apart from that minor tragedy, she was now getting used to the journey. Her feet no longer throbbed with blisters at the unaccustomed walking. She had managed to bake bread in the dutch oven. She was even developing muscles from scouring out the blackened, sticky cooking pots and was feeling rather proud of the way she was coping.

  If Father could only see me now, she thought with a smile.

  The little girls were also looking well, choosing to walk with Libby rather than ride in the wagon. Libby was fanatical about selecting what they ate and drank, always aware of those cholera graves beside the track.

  From time to time they overtook other groups that had stopped to mend broken wagon shafts or change wheels. The strangers often invited them to share a cup of coffee, but Sheldon Rival always insisted on pushing on, showing no interest in either socializing or helping his fellow travellers. Once they overtook a party down with fever. Rival made his drivers push on the teams with all speed and he kept his handkerchief clamped over his own mouth until they were far away.

  Then, on the eighth day of prairie, when they were not far from Fort Kearny, their first point of reference on an almost blank map, they came upon a group of about twenty ragged men, a couple of ox wagons, and a few tired mules heading back to Independence.

  “If you’ve got sickness, keep well away,” Sheldon Rival shouted as they jostled for space on the narrow track.

  “Sickness will be the least of your worries,” one of the men called back. “When your head and your shoulders are separated, you’ll not have to worry about cholera or anything else.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jimmy demanded, riding up to meet them.

  “Haven’t you heard? The Pawnee are on the rise. They’ve slaughtered a great group of seventy emigrants and they say they’re thirsting for more blood.”

  “Who says?” Jimmy asked, unmoved.

  “Out past Fort Kearny. It’s common knowledge out there. We decided to come back rather than risk it. We’re not going to be cut up by savages.”

  “A bunch of cowards,” Rival sneered. “Let them go home. All the more gold for the rest of us.”

  “You’ll decide who is a coward when you feel your scalp being peeled off,” the man said.

  “I’d like to see the savage that dares to attack me,” Sheldon Rival said. “Do you know how much ammunition I carry? How many guards I’ve employed? Let the Pawnee prey on weaklings if they want to. We’re pressing on.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders expressively, then cracked his whip for the oxen to move on. Libby looked longingly after them. They had represented a way back to sanity and she had not taken it. Now, it seemed, she had Indians to worry about, as well as all the other disasters waiting to happen. Jimmy was still talking to Rival and it appeared from their faces that neither was concerned.

  “Do you think there’s any truth in what they say?” Rival asked.

  Jimmy pushed his hat back on his head. “These rumors go up and down the trail all the time,” he said. “I don’t think there’s been a large-scale Indian attack since so many people took to the trail. They might have picked off a lone wagon, but there’s safety in numbers, isn’t there?”

  Libby walked on, hoping their confidence wasn’t misplaced. She wondered how many braves there were in the Pawnee nation and what would happen if they went on an organized warpath. Now as she walked, she kept her eyes open for dust clouds rising in the distance. She did notice, however, that Sheldon Rival posted guards that night for the first time.

  Until that point the prairie had been singularly empty of wildlife. With so many travellers, any misguided grouse or pigeon that came near the trail wound up instantly in a cooking pot. Every day the men had been on the lookout for buffalo, full of exaggerated tales of moving carpets of animals where any shot would be guaranteed to bring down a beast. They were beginning to resent the monotony and ready for any form of excitement when there was a cry in the distance of “Buffalo! Hundreds of ‘em!”

  Without waiting they grabbed at rifles, mounted every horse and mule, and were off into the grass, leaving Libby and the children coughing in the cloud of dust they made. It was only as they disappeared that Libby realized that the men who had gone were the guards and the wagon train was now completely unprotected. She looked around nervously, then told herself that it was broad daylight and that there must be enough men left behind who could get to rifles.

  Eden and Bliss were playing at tea parties with leaves and pebbles in the shade of the wagon, so she took the opportunity to collect her buffalo chips for the evening meal. She stayed close to the trail, her ears straining for any sounds of a buffalo hunt. She could hear very distant cries but they seemed to be receding. She bent to fill her sack and when she straightened up, she found herself looking into the faces of three Indians.

  All of the stories she had ever heard, whispered around the drawing rooms of Boston or printed in the cheaper newspapers, came rushing back to her. Indians carried off white women and took them as wives. Would that be preferable to being killed instantly? Would it be preferable to being scalped and dying slowly? She tried to remain o
utwardly very calm and not run. The three braves, for their part, did not appear about to make any hostile move, but they had appeared from the grass so miraculously and silently that she could not predict what they were about to do next. She nodded to them and hoped that they would pass her by. But instead they came toward her, talking to each other in deep, guttural voices and, to her horror, one of them reached out to touch her head, saying something as he did so. Libby’s heart was beating so furiously that she was sure it must be sounding out across the plains like a drum. She wondered what would happen if she screamed. Would any help come or would it make the Indians panic and kill her quickly, or, worse still, carry her off?

  Then she was aware of someone at her side. Gabe Foster came up and Libby was glad to see that a brace of pistols was shining at his belt. Instead of grabbing her and running or gunning down the Indians, he walked over to them and began conversing with many gestures. One of the Indians again pointed to Libby’s head. Gabe nodded. Libby felt as if she was about to explode with tension.

  “Would you get me out of here?” she snapped to Gabe.

  “In a minute, what’s the rush?” Gabe answered. “I’ve never met real live Pawnee before.”

  “So you’re going to wait around and watch me get scalped?” she demanded.

  “What gave you that idea?” he asked.

  “They keep pointing to my head.”

  “That’s because they like the tortoise shell comb you’re wearing. They’ve come to trade.”

  “Oh,” Libby said, feeling rather foolish.

  One of the Indians grunted again, pointing at Libby. Gabe listened, then laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Libby demanded.

  “He asked if you were my squaw and says that you make much noise.”

  “Most amusing,” Libby said. “So how come you speak their language if you’ve never met a Pawnee before?” she asked, hating to be shown up to Gabe in a bad light once more.