Chapter Nine

WILD HEMLOCK

JACOB CAREFULLY PLACED RUDY AND his blanket on the ground beside the wagon and rushed inside. A man bent over Faith, pinning her to the cot, as she fought against him. In the dim light, everything blurred.

“Whatsja doin’, Aggie?” the man slurred. “It’s jes’ me.”

Jacob grabbed him by the arm, pulled him off Faith, and shoved him out of the wagon. “What do you think you’re doing?” He noticed the man still had his clothes fastened, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Jus’ getting’ in sorta late. Guess Aggie’s right mad at her ol’ man. Guess I had one ta many tonight, huh?”

“This is not your wagon. Get on now, and don’t you dare come back here. I’ll kill you if you ever harm my wife.”

The man staggered off, Jacob lit a lantern and placed it on the wagon seat, picked up Rudy, and went inside the wagon to see about Faith. She lay on her side, curled into a ball, crying.

Remarkably, Rudy had slept through it all. He put the infant in the crate beside Faith’s cot, pulled the lantern inside, and sat down beside her. He gently pulled her into his arms to comfort her, and she yielded willingly.

“Sh-h-h. It’s all right, honey. He was just drunk and thought this was his wagon. I don’t think he wanted to hurt you. He’s gone now.”

She trembled in his arms, and he slipped back and pulled her into his lap. He rocked her gently as he stroked her head and back. Her hair fell down her back and felt as fine as silk.

He knew his heart had been warming to Faith, but this had to be too soon. He needed to observe a mourning period for Lucille, and Faith needed comforting—nothing more.

“Would you like me to stay here with you for the rest of the night?”

Faith hesitated, and then finally nodded. “I’d rather not be left alone.”

There was barely room for the cot and the baby’s crate in the cramped quarters. They needed to get rid of some of Lucille’s things to make more room.

He moved Faith to the back of the cot and took off his boots. He’d sleep in his clothes tonight. He noticed she wore a long chemise over her drawers. The soft, thin material did cover her to some extent.

He blew out the lantern and crawled in beside her. She’d slipped as far back on the cot as she could. He turned on his side to face her, and she turned to face away from him, fitting against him like stacked spoons. If he put his arms around her waist, it left plenty of room for both of them on the cot.

As Jacob lay there, with Faith wedged against him, he wished he hadn’t told her they would wait until they got to know each other better. He liked her already, and he hadn’t slept with Lucille since the night everyone celebrated their first day on the trail. His body responded to Faith in ways he didn’t need, not if he planned to refrain from intimacy.

He reminded himself the intruder had scared her, and she didn’t need his advances tonight anyway. He heard her breathing change and knew she’d fallen asleep.

He lay awake for what seemed like a long time, but he must have eventually dozed off. He awoke to hear Rudy fretting. Faith shifted and sat up to listen.

“Do I need to take him to Annie?” he whispered.

“Not yet.” She lay back down. “He’s just making noises in his sleep. When he wakes up hungry, he’ll let you know.”

“How do you know so much about babies?”

“Aunt Mabel had a baby girl late in life, just after I went to live with them. The little girl died of pneumonia before she turned three, but I took care of her until then.”

Faith had been right about Rudy. About three o’clock, Jacob jerked awake to the baby’s screams. Faith changed the baby’s diaper, while he got up and put on his boots.

“Will you be okay, while I take him to Annie?” he asked her.

“I think so,” she replied, “but leave a light burning and hurry back.”

He thought Rudy would never get finished, and he rushed back from Annie’s. When he got to his wagon, he saw Faith come from the wagon already dressed for the day. She smiled when she saw him.

“I figured there’s not much use going back to sleep at this point. It’s too near time to get up and start breakfast.”

He started the fire, while she lay Rudy down and got the coffee ready to put on. While the coffee made, they sat by the fire and held their devotion.

“I like these special times in the mornings,” he told her afterwards. “I’d like to make them a family tradition.”

“I’m sorry I got so upset last night,” she said, “but I appreciate what you did—pulling him away and staying with me like you did.”

“You had every right to be upset, and I’m going to talk with Marshall and the council about what happened. I’m glad I helped. I think you’re a very special person, Faith, and I already like you.”

“I like you, too.”

Jacob smiled as he went to bring up the milk cow. Maybe this marriage would be much better than his first one. Perhaps it could actually turn into a love match. He could always hope. And pray.

He would have never thought he’d be ready for another marriage, especially so soon after he’d buried his first wife. But, perhaps he needed someone to care for him, since Lucille never had. He found himself wanting Faith to fall in love with him. He wanted a real wife and a real marriage. Somehow, it almost seemed like Lucille had just been pretending.

When he related what had happened to the wagon master and the council, they decided to ban drunkenness. Anyone caught drunk would be taken to the council, and if he had indeed been inebriated, he would be kicked off the train.

“I don’t think a man should be told he can’t have his drink,” Jacob heard Rex Caulder complain to Marshall. “The rest of us shouldn’t be punished just because Parker can’t protect his woman.”

“This is no place for drunkenness,” Marshall said. “The trip will be hard enough without asking for more problems. No one is banning liquor. We’re just saying you can’t get drunk, and everyone but you agrees.”

Jacob realized Rex had it in for him, and he expected the man would try to make trouble. He shook his head. He agreed with Marshall. This journey west would be hard enough without some making things even harder.

Due to what had happened to Faith when left alone, Annie agreed to keep Rudy with her at night for some extra pay. That would make things easier for Faith and him.

The wagon train held more funerals. Almost the entire families of the two girls who’d picked wild plants with Faith had died. Apparently, the two had picked some poisonous ones, like wild hemlock, along with their wild carrots and parsnips. It caused violent deaths.

The bodies of those who ate it stiffened, and shook so violently they had to be tied down to keep them from hurting themselves. Their jaws clenched tightly, and they breathed with a hissing sound. On the last, blood spurted from their mouths. The father of one family and the son of the dead parents were the only family members spared, and that’s only because they hadn’t eaten any.

Marshall got everyone together after the funerals and explained to them how to recognize wild hemlock from the others. Everyone noticed how similar the three plants were. Jacob looked at Faith with a new respect. If she hadn’t been so cautious and wise, he and she might be in graves now, and Rudy would’ve been left an orphan.

Things began to fall into a routine. Faith managed to keep up with all the chores, even with caring for Rudy during the days. She had to wash more often than Saturdays with all the diapers and soakers. Sometimes she pinned the diapers to the canvas of the wagons to dry, and the sun helped bleach them white.

Occasionally, after they stopped for the day, she’d start supper cooking and take Rudy with her to the river or else Jacob would carry up water for her to use by the wagon. He recognized how much she did, and he wanted to help her as much as he could.

In any spare moments, she usually sewed more diapers or mended. Jacob started reading the Scriptures in the morning, so she could sew or knit while she listened. He also gave her the material he’d bought in Independence. She cut up the white for more diapers and baby clothes. Rudy would need some larger ones as he grew.

They used as much fresh milk as they could, and Faith churned the rest. She strapped the churning can to the wagon, and by the end of the jostling day, the butter had formed. Jacob thought it was ingenious, although Faith assured him other women were doing the same.

The days had now turned baking hot, but Faith rarely complained. Yet, if another woman drove a wagon every day, he didn’t know about it. He hoped they could put their goods together before long, and Faith wouldn’t have to work so hard. She had shown herself capable of making the journey on her own, so he wondered again why she’d married him.

The days passed in a monotonous routine. Time didn’t seem to mean the same out here.

When they circled the wagons on Saturday nights, Jacob looked forward to the lay-by a Sunday usually provided, but he began to feel an urgency to get Lucille’s things out of the wagon. Somehow, if he could redistribute them, even if Faith chose to keep some of them, it would be putting Lucille to rest.

He found himself drawn to his new wife in a way he’d never been to Lucille. Of course, Lucille had kept him at arm’s length from the very beginning of their marriage, and Faith didn’t. She seemed to genuinely like him. With Lucille, he’d had to watch what he said, or she would constantly be angry. With Faith, he could be himself, and he’d yet to see Faith angry or upset with him. He didn’t have to guard his words with her.

He looked forward to making Faith his wife in every sense of the word, and he thought that would likely be soon, maybe in another week. Tonight he planned to kiss her with a thorough kiss. He would be able to tell much about how she felt about him with such a kiss.

She fixed cream of potato soup for supper. It had onions and little pieces of side meat in it. With a mouth-watering cake of cornbread, “tasty” didn’t begin to describe it.

“Is this one of those special milk dishes?” he asked.

“If you like it enough, it is,” she told him, “but I have others. I also have an egg custard for dessert. With both our sets of chickens, we’ve accumulated some extra eggs.”

“I hope you like fat men, because I may weigh three hundred pounds by the time we get to Oregon Territory.”

She laughed. “With the way you walk beside the team and work so hard, I don’t think we need to worry about that for years. Not if you plan to establish a good-size farm. I think you can eat anything you want without a concern.”

He liked the easy way she laughed. It sounded almost as if she’d held it in for years, and now it tended to bubble over at any given opportunity.

When she started doing the dishes, he rose to help her. She seemed surprised, but he’d already finished his chores for tonight, and he knew Faith had already milked.

“Tell me about your childhood,” he said as they worked.

“My early childhood was happy. My parents had married against the wishes of their parents, but they were very much in love and they loved me. My father came from a rich family and was well-educated. His parents disowned him when he married Mama.”

“Where was he from?”

“Eastern Virginia, the Williamsburg area. Mama was Uncle Jed’s youngest sister, and he became very angry when she ran away to marry Papa. She had been sent to help another sister for a few months because the woman needed help with her coming baby.”

Her hands kept busy washing the dishes as she talked. “My parents moved to Salisbury, North Carolina, before I was born, and Papa tutored some students there, while Mama took in sewing. When I came along, Papa declared I would be the best-educated child around. He always said that’s one legacy he could give me, that and my faith. I started to read by the time I was three. When they died, I had just turned ten, and I was working on the same level as his best students four and five years older.”

“Was that when you went to live with Jed?”

“Yes. The pastor at the church we attended contacted my father’s parents first, but they wanted nothing to do with me. My aunt had died, and Jed reluctantly took me in. Mabel probably had a lot to do with persuading him. The pastor personally traveled to Kentucky to take me to them. I never received another day of schooling, but Papa had taught me well enough, and I continued to read my Bible and Shakespeare and study the dictionary.”

“Did your aunt and uncle mistreat you?”

“No, but I always knew I had to work hard for my keep. They didn’t have much, and we lived very meagerly, pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence. What about you? What was your childhood like?”

“Pretty normal.” He looked off remembering. “I was the third child. I have an older brother and sister. By the time I came along, my father had established a well-producing plantation in the Richmond area of Virginia. I grew up secure and loved, especially by my mother. She taught me about Jesus from my earliest memories. When I finished college, I decided to come to the West, because I wanted to farm, and I knew Charles would inherit the plantation, although I’ll likely receive some cash. Not long after that, Lucille took an interest in me, we were married that October, and you know the rest.”

The look she gave him said “Not really,” but she didn’t say it. He wanted to establish an intimate relationship with Faith before he told her about his problems with Lucille. He didn’t want the past to cast a shadow over their future together.

“Let’s take Rudy to Annie and take a short walk before we turn in.”