Chapter One

I write this by moonlight, as it is so bright I need no candle. Sister sleeps inside the wagon, which is stifling hot, but she refuses to join me underneath where it is somewhat cooler, as she still professes her fear of snakes. It is too dusty for snakes, I tell her, but she will not be moved. I cannot blame her. It seems only yesterday we had a roof over our heads, and now we are a month out of Independence sleeping under an open sky.

I am worn to a nubbin. The heat is suffocating and the wind never stops blowing. The fine, silty dirt blows in our faces, into our hair, into our shoes. My teeth are gritty with it! Tonight even the crickets have been baked into silence. My hands are so dry and cracked Mama would turn over in her grave if I touched the tea service.

A hundred times each day I wonder if I have made the right decision.

 

“Cissy, come quick!”

Constance sat up so fast her forehead banged into the axle. She rubbed the spot until the ache began to subside. “What is it?”

“Hurry!” her sister’s voice commanded from the dark interior of the wagon.

She shoved her stockinged feet into the trail-worn leather boots she kept under her pillow and crawled out into the open. One big step onto the wagon tongue, another on the driver’s bench, and then she dove through the gathered bonnet and into the wagon.

“What’s the matter?” She kept her voice low. No use waking the sleepers in the other wagons just for one of Nettie’s fancies.

“I thought I heard something,” her sister whispered. “There…there it is again, a scratching sound.”

“Probably a field mouse. Or maybe it’s Mr. Nyland in the next wagon. You know he snores something fierce.”

“Cissy, I’m scared.”

Constance groped her way past their mother’s carved oak sideboard and knelt on the pallet beside her sister. “We’re all scared, Nettie. If we weren’t, we’d be locked up in an asylum.” She laid her palm against her sister’s damp cheek.

Nettie clutched at her hand. “I wake up in the night and I hear things, noises. Sometimes I’m so frightened I can scarcely breathe.”

“It’s probably just the horses. Or maybe a coyote.”

“I wish I were hearing carriage wheels or a church bell or Mrs. Cortland playing the piano after supper. I can’t help it, Cissy, I do.”

Constance let out a soft breath. “I know. I wouldn’t mind hearing a church bell myself. I get awfully tired of wagon wheels scrunching across miles and miles of tickle grass. It sounds just like Mr. Nyland, only it lasts all day long!”

A hiccup of laughter told her Nettie’s spirits were reviving. “Mr. Duquette says we’re almost to Fort Kearny.” She forced a lightness into her tone. “We’ve come over three hundred miles since April first.”

Nettie sniffled. “I wish we’d never left Ohio.”

Constance pressed her fingers against her mouth. Nettie was seventeen, no longer a child. But ever since Papa died, she had wept over every little thing. If only she would try.

“Just think, Nettie. One day we’ll tell our children about this journey, how we came out west in a spanking new wagon Papa bought with the bank money. We’ll tell them all about the water holes and the grasshoppers and how the dust collects under our shimmies and what we ate and…”

Nettie rolled away from her.

Constance cocked her head, listening to the rhythm of her sister’s breathing. She would not let herself cry until Nettie was asleep.

By the time the sky turned from black to pale peach, Constance had paced four times around the knot of wagons, dried her eyes with the hem of her skirt and crawled back onto her pallet.

 

“Mr. Duquette! Mr. Duquette!”

Booted feet thumped past the wagon at a dead run. Constance rolled onto her side and watched another pair of legs trudge by in the same direction. Then she heard Joshua Duquette’s raspy before-breakfast voice.

“Now hold on a minute. What are you two Norskies complainin’ about?”

“T’ree of my horses are missing,” a male voice shouted. “I tell you ve should haf kept them inside the wagon circle.”

That would be Arvo Ollesen. In addition to their riding mounts, Arvo and his brother Cal were herding a dozen mares along the trail west, nurse-maiding them as if they were wives and not just livestock. Constance didn’t really blame them; she felt the same about Molly, their cow. Molly was all the family she and Nettie had left.

Cal’s accusing voice broke into Mr. Duquette’s low rumble. “Vat ve gonna do in Oregon without our mares, eh, mister? Cannot breed horses only with males.”

“Stop yer bellyachin’. You got ten good animals left.”

“Nine. Ve got nine left. And ve bellyache until you be more careful with our ownings.”

Three pairs of boots stomped past the wagon in the opposite direction. Constance waited until the voices faded before she slipped out of bed and clambered up into the interior to dress. Then she would walk down to the stream and bring back a bucket of water for Nettie to wash in.

The soft predawn air smelled of grass. She opened her mouth and sucked in a huge breath, so clean and pungent it made her giddy. She’d never smelled anything like it. Each night she fell into bed so exhausted she could barely move; each morning the sweet-smelling breeze and the cloudless blue sky above her lifted her spirits and set her on her feet again.

She made her way past the Ollesen’s makeshift corral, double rope lengths strung between their weathered gray wagon and two cottonwood trees, and all at once a guttural shout stopped her in her tracks.

“Hold it right there, girl.”

Constance winced. The wagon train leader. The man was as bossy as any governess she’d ever had.

“Good morning, Mr. Duquette. Mr. Ollesen.”

“Just where d’ya think y’er traipsin’ off to so early?”

“Down to the stream to fetch water.” She kept her tone even, but it was an effort.

“Not this mornin’, missy,” the large man snapped. “Got Indians hereabouts. Stole a couple of horses last night.”

“T’ree horses,” Arvo corrected. His square, earnest face looked beyond her to his brother. Cal was his twin except in age and height. Neither man looked sturdy enough to survive in a high wind, but both were strong. Cal and Arvo hitched up her oxen every morning and unhitched them each evening in exchange for clean shirts and underdrawers on wash day.

“I am sure the Indians have gone. My sister and I need some using-water, so if you will ex—”

“I said no!” Duquette shouted. “Indians sneak around real quiet.” He angled his long arm in the direction of the stream. “Nobody’s safe out there.

“And another thing,” he continued. “Your wagon’s bigger’n all the others. When we pull out this morning, you take the tail position.”

Constance blinked in surprise. “But…but yesterday we were seventh in line. Should we not be eighth instead of last?”

Duquette spat off to one side. “Told you when we started we’d have no arguments. I’m the wagon master, elected fair and square, so you’ll do as I say.”

Worse than a governess. Joshua Duquette was a dictator of the first water. A month on the trail with him had been like marching with a Prussian general.

She pressed her lips together and turned away. Well, she hadn’t voted for him. She had favored sensible, soft-spoken Abraham Nyland, even if he did snore.