Chapter 5: Across Kansas Territory

 

Shortly before noon the third day, the trail split. A small wooden sign bore two arrows—one pointed south to Santa Fe, the other north to Oregon. Mac grinned. They were in Indian Territory now.

“Last chance for Santa Fe,” Captain Pershing shouted. “But we’re Oregon bound.”

Through the afternoon, the wagons crawled along the ridges of low hills and splashed through valley creeks. The ground was wet and the wild grasses fragrant.

Mac rode Valiente beside his lead ox to guide the team. Jenny walked with other women, talking with Captain Pershing’s oldest daughter. He couldn’t remember the girl’s name. He had enough trouble remembering who the men were.

He knew the doctor, Abram Tuller, a somber man, who spoke plain common sense. Captain Pershing, of course, and his oldest son Ezekiel, a few years younger than Mac’s twenty-four. Several farmers whom Mac couldn’t yet name, and a Negro carpenter named Tanner. All with families, as Pershing had demanded.

The day after Mac had told Jenny he was taking her to Oregon, he’d found Pershing sipping whiskey in the tavern again. “You said if I had a wife I could join you,” he’d told the captain.

Pershing narrowed his eyes. “You married now?”

“I will be when we leave.” The lie came more easily than Mac had thought it would.

Pershing nodded his agreement, and Mac bought enough food and supplies for Jenny, throwing in a blue sunbonnet as his last purchase.

He was surprised she hadn’t argued more about the journey. So far, she worked without complaint on the trail. Didn’t talk much, though. Mac hoped their fellow travelers wouldn’t ask many questions. He and Jenny hadn’t agreed on a story. She didn’t seem like a good liar, and he wondered if their ruse would hold up. He hoped it would last until it was too late for Pershing to send them back.

“That hill have a name?” Mac pointed at a rise ahead of them.

“Blue Mound,” Pershing said. “Marks the Wakarusa crossing. Take your purty wife to the top. Nice view.”

Mac rode over to Jenny, who now walked with Mrs. Tuller. “Want to climb the hill?”

“Who’ll watch the wagon?” Jenny asked.

“I’ll walk by your team a spell,” the doctor’s wife said. “Doc’s minding ours. You two go on.”

Mac pulled Jenny up behind him on Valiente.

“The prairie goes on forever, doesn’t it?” she said when they reached the top.

“Sure does. There’s the Wakarusa.” Mac waved at a narrow ribbon of water. “Kaw’s in the next valley. Can’t see it yet.”

“So many rivers,” she whispered. It seemed the Blue River hadn’t cured her fear.

That evening he wrote:

 

April 16, 1847. Camped on the Wakarusa. Tomorrow we cross.

It rained during the night, and the river rose three feet. In the morning Mac and the other men stood on the bank staring at the churning brown water.

“Can we cross?” someone asked.

Pershing pulled at his beard. “We’ll have to float the wagons,” he said. “Lighten the loads first.”

The travelers unloaded half their belongings, floated the remainder across in the wagons, emptied that portion, and returned for the rest of their provisions. Ferrying their goods across took the whole day. Men and women alike were tired and dirty by evening. Mac saw Jenny wobble in fatigue and wipe a hand across her forehead.

“We’ll stay here,” Pershing ordered, after the last wagon crossed.

“Stay?” complained a farmer named Samuel Abercrombie. “We ain’t gone nowhere. Got to move faster, if’n we want to reach Oregon afore winter.”

Pershing shook his head. “Slow and steady. Some days we’ll make good time. Not today. Dry out your belongings tonight. I’d planned to rest on Sundays, but not tomorrow. We’ll have a prayer and a song, then head out.”

Mac sat beside the fire that evening and wrote,

 

April 17, 1847. Wakarusa crossing took all day. The wilderness beckons, but it is hard work getting there. Men grumble at Pershing—for some, he moves too slowly; others want him to take a Sabbath rest. He has a rough manner, but knows what he’s doing.

Mac’s breath steamed in the frosty morning air. His muscles were sore from yesterday, and he still wasn’t used to sleeping on hard ground. After breakfast the travelers followed Pershing in a prayer and “Amazing Grace.” Jenny’s voice rang out sweet as a meadowlark’s before it caught on the last verse, “And grace will lead me home.”

Later Mac walked with her beside their oxen. “We ought to have a story about how we met,” he said quietly.

“What?” She stared at him in surprise.

“Someone will ask. We need to tell the same story.”

“More lies.” She sounded resigned.

He didn’t like lying either, but they were committed now. “We can say we met in Arrow Rock where you lived. That’s not a lie.”

“All right.”

Mac glanced at her. “No need to talk about killing anyone. Or running away.”

She nodded.

“Just . . . we met, we fell in love, we married.”

“Love.” She sighed.

“Well, isn’t that how it’s done?” Mac tapped his whip on the lead ox’s rump to get the team moving faster.

“How what’s done?”

“Getting married.”

“Sometimes.” Jenny smiled. “Mama and Papa loved each other. But she married Mr. Peterson to have a man to run the farm.”

Mac shrugged. “My parents get along well enough, I suppose.” He’d never thought about their relationship. He’d done what they told him, until he discovered they weren’t as well-meaning as he’d thought. Then he’d left.

In the afternoon the sun shone warm, the grasses dried, and many emigrants walked ahead of their wagons. Mac easily spotted Jenny in the new blue sunbonnet he had bought her. Most of the women wore drab browns or faded pinks.

He rode over beside her. “Want to ride a while?” he asked.

She nodded, and he pulled her up behind him. The horse pranced a few steps, then settled back into an easy gait.

“Are you getting to know the other ladies?”

“A few,” Jenny responded. “Mrs. Tuller’s very nice. So sad, though. All her children dead.”

“Maybe that’s why the doctor’s so solemn.”

“And Mrs. Pershing,” Jenny said. “I’ve walked with her and her daughters Esther and Rachel.”

“Esther’s about your age.”

Jenny nodded. “She seems older. Then sometimes she’s so silly.”

“Silly?”

“Oh, you know,” she said, blushing. “About boys.”

Mac grinned. “Is she sweet on someone?”

“Daniel Abercrombie. His father Samuel’s a farmer from Tennessee.”

“Good lad, Daniel.”

“Lad?” Jenny laughed. “He’s almost as old as you. Old enough to be thinking about marriage.”