Chapter Two

~ Back on the Trail ~

 

Timmy and Jason found time to continue helping Lorrie and her group to buy two more wagons, chickens for Hannah, and other supplies. The Browns’ team was hitched to one of the new wagons, and the disassembled wagon and good axle were loaded into it. Bolt brought her two horses for the other wagon and said only that their former owner didn’t need them anymore. Lorrie laughed at him, and he smiled back, saying, “Now don’t you shoot anyone ’til you’re well out of town.”

Getting ready for the new wagon train, loading and distributing supplies and furniture and working with the new team, Cherry Pie and Dandy, found them almost ready when the train arrived. This wagon master, Colonel Dawson, was eager to have them join his train. “Two wagons broke down and had to be left along with their contents; three families turned back at the last settlement, and there’s a pregnant woman who’s wanted to stop for miles now.” He shook his head. “They were all ill-prepared. I should never have taken them on, but it was getting late. The smart ones leave in spring.”

Lorrie nodded. “I know.” That’s what she and her uncle had done. It took at least four months to get to Oregon Country, and now it was almost the middle of June, and it was miles to South Pass.

“Let me take a look at your group. I don’t need to be slowed any more.” He was impressed by the livestock and wagons, however. He glanced at the brother and sister. “They look young to be on their own. And what about them?” He looked curiously at the negro couple.

“The youngsters are my niece and nephew, and I’m responsible for the others too.”

“Good. I’ll just worry about the rest of my flock then. We leave in two days—at dawn. I wouldn’t wait that long, but we need supplies, and the livestock could use the rest and time to graze.”

The grass was wet with dew as they harnessed the horses and oxen. Evan helped with the oxen after he’d hitched up his own team. “Strong looking, all of them. What are their names? I’ll need to know if I’m to drive them.”

“The two red and white ones are Jemmy and Dolly; Jemmy has more red. Clay is the brown one, and Spotty is the black and white. They were named when we bought them,” she added. “Hannah won’t have any trouble with your team?”

“Never. Peter and Paul—she named ’em—are as gentle as you could wish. And we’d been taking turns.”

“I see. I’d switch off if we could, but with all of us driving, that’s not possible. I want to be sure we’ve got enough wagons if one breaks down,” she explained. “Also, my uncle had heard that settlers had to dump a lot of furniture when that happened so we started out light. We didn’t have much to pack anyway. And he thought we might pick up any good stuff we came upon. No need for it all to rot, he thought.”

“Your uncle was a thoughtful man, I reckon.”

She looked at Evan. “You have no idea. I miss him a lot, but I’m more than grateful for the people who’ve helped me since then.” Then it was time to line their wagons up, but Lorrie took a few minutes to jump off her wagon seat when Timmy and Jason came up. They were carrying a box with holes.

“It’s for you,” Timmy said. “It’s two hens ready to lay, and you can cook ’em if you have to. We heard they’d come in handy.”

It’s a gift,” Jason added, so she’d know not to offer them money.

“You couldn’t have given me a better gift,” she exclaimed. “My uncle and I did start out with a little flock, but we let them out one evening to feed and never saw them again. Never heard a sound either.”

“Not smart,” Timmy told her. “Be careful with these uns.”

Jason nodded. “The marshal gave us money,” he added. “We didn’t steal em.” That sounded like they had in the past, but didn’t want her gift to be tainted—or to have Bolt down on them. She smiled and exclaimed over the chickens again, but didn’t hug the boys. They probably expected to be treated as men.

“Good-bye to you both, and be sure to say good-bye to the marshal for me.”

“He had to go after some bandits down river,” Jason told her in explanation.

She would have told them to take care of him, but that might cause them to go help him, so she didn’t. They’d gone after him before, she knew.

After that they started, not dawdling because by then the Colonel was there frowning at them. Evan went first with the oxen, followed by Hannah driving Peter and Paul, Lorrie driving Shadow and Sunny, Carrol driving Abe and Sarah, and Dennis driving Cherry Pie and Dandy. They weren’t the last wagon though. That belonged to the Johnson family, which included Samuel Johnson, a very pregnant Elizabeth Johnson, and their three boys and a daughter.

“Mrs. Johnson says she’s suffering enough. She don’t need dust in her face too,” the Colonel told Lorrie, explaining the lineup and why the Johnson’s wagon hung back, before galloping to the front of the train to get it moving.

Sunny, Lorrie’s red roan, was frisky when they started out, but she settled down after a few miles, and the Colonel, who’d been keeping an eye on the newcomers, finally left Lorrie and her team to check on the others.

It didn’t take long for everyone to get into the routine of hitching up, pausing for a break on occasion, and then unhitching and rubbing down the animals before going to the campfire where Hannah was cooking supper. They all took turns caring for her team so she could concentrate on feeding them. She tended to see that they were all tucked in too, though mostly they were grateful to be lying down rather than being tossed to and fro as the wagons went up over bumps and down into ruts.

The days were always the same except when it rained, and the wagons bogged down in the mud. Fortunately the trail paralleled the river so far, and there was plenty of water for washing and for watering the animals and keeping the water barrels full. The days were punctuated now and then by the moans and cries of Mrs. Johnson.

“How far along is she, Hannah?” Lorrie asked after the woman had come back from taking food to the Johnson wagon one night.

“Too far to go back, and forward’s a long ways too.” Hannah looked back worriedly at the wagon. “Bout eight months, we figger.”

“Didn’t she know she was pregnant when they started?”

“She wasn’t so far along then, and they got a late start ’cause one of the kids was sick. The youngest boy, George. Now she wants to stop. She says the land looks good enough to her. They can’t stop by their selves though.”

Oregon Country’s looking farther away than ever, Lorrie thought, and they were still on the plains, though there looked to be mountains in the distance. Some sort of rock formations anyway.

A couple days later the mountains loomed closer. She was wondering about them when Colonel Dawson halted his gray horse next to her wagon and hauled himself onto the wagon seat next to her. “We’re coming up on Mitchell Pass,” he told her. “That’s pretty steep. How are your people holding up?”

“We’re fine, and the horses and oxen are in good shape too. They’re thinner than when we started, but they don’t run away when we bring out the harnesses.”

“Too tired, I expect. You’re all doing well. I just wanted to check on how you were feeling. Not everyone is doing as well,” and he looked back.

“We’ve given her some mattresses,” Lorrie said. “I think that’s helping.” Mattresses were just some of the things she’d picked up along the way. The other members of her party had started doing that too.

“Ah, she has sounded quieter. Thanks.” And he made an agile leap onto the gray that had been keeping pace with the wagon.

It wasn’t long before they could see the rock formation. Chimney Rock, the wagon master told them. And then they began the descent. That’s when they almost lost Elizabeth Johnson. The mattresses began sliding toward the front of the wagon, and her children holding on tight, was all that kept them in the wagon until it leveled off.

“She’s not looking too good,” Hannah told Lorrie that night. “And the Colonel is beside himself, not knowing what to do.”

Lorrie shivered. “Is she likely to lose the baby?”

“I hope to God not,” Hannah said, with a desolation in her voice that startled Lorrie.

“Have you ever had children, Hannah?”

Yes. They’re long gone.”

“I’m sorry. Did they die before you decided to go west? Is that why…”

Hannah looked at her. “They didn’t die,” she said flatly; “they was sold,” and Lorrie saw hot anger in gentle Hannah’s eyes. She flinched.

“Not your fault, child. Nothing to do with you.” She touched Lorrie’s arm to reassure her before turning away to look again at the wagon. “What can we do?” she asked despairingly.

Lorrie wondered, too, and remembered other hard choices she’d made. She decided to talk to Elizabeth Johnson. Later that evening, when Samuel Johnson helped his wife carefully out of the wagon to relieve herself as far away from the wagon as she could walk, though it looked rather like an uncomfortable waddle to Lorrie, she approached the couple. “Why don’t you see to the children, Mr. Johnson, and I’ll stay with your wife for a while.”

Elizabeth Johnson looked at Lorrie, who’d loitered discreetly nearby, after pulling herself to her feet, which were shod only in slippers. “I’d be happier not go back in that horrible box,” she said bitterly.

“But can you hold on a little longer,” Lorrie asked, “if you knew that we could stop sooner? And not go through another upsy daisy pass?”

“Where?!”

“I don’t know yet. It’s too soon, you know that. This is not a good place, and I can‘t wait to get away from it. But further along towards the mountains, or at least the foothills. We need time to look around. I can’t promise anything, but there are settlements and forts here and there farther along.”

“He wants to make a good home for us. In a place that’s good for the children—all of them. He’s worried sick for me and the baby, and he’s so sorry that he brought us along, but I was the one who wouldn’t stay behind. I wanted us together. It probably doesn’t look that way to you, but it’s not his fault.”

“I see,” she said. “I did wonder. Okay. We’ll just sit here quietly and think about the future—and the baby’s future. And I’ll ask the colonel about Indians.”

Lorrie continued thinking after Mr. Johnson had come to fetch his wife. She thought as she studied the landscape, thought about her little flock, and pestered Colonel Dawson with questions. They were still headed north along the Platte towards the mountains and surrounded by territories that would someday be states. Before long they’d drop south and continue their journey westward.

“A respite before we tackle South Pass? That’s still pretty far, and I don’t want to waste time.”

“Resting the animals and letting them graze while there’s still plenty of grass isn’t wasting time, sir. And though Mrs. Johnson seems better, her whole family would appreciate the rest too.”

Colonel Dawson considered her thoughtfully. “I don’t usually let people tell me how to run my train,” he told her. She blinked and wondered how else to approach the subject.

“But I see that you’re thinking—maybe planning—something, and since it is a good idea, we’ll stop at the first good place with water and spend two days there—no more. There are some repairs to be made, and I’d thought about stopping soon myself,” he added.

Men were interesting and sometimes fun, she thought to herself, and wandered back to her wagon. Later, after supper, she said casually, “The Colonel plans to stop soon for two days rest and repairs. I’m planning to look around then, maybe up in those foothills. There are lots of trees up there, but I wonder what else is here.”

“Indians maybe,” Dennis said.

“No trace so far, Colonel Dawson said. The scouts have been looking for sign.”