I cannot clear my mind tonight of all that has happened. Nor can I help but wonder what Papa must have endured in the weeks before his death. Mama’s face, full of frowns and disapproval, haunts me daily. To think she worried over me—me! —simply because I talked the ears off most people. What a conniption fit she would suffer now.
I have thought of little else these past days but how sorely disappointed Papa must be that I have failed to keep Nettie from disaster. I feel powerless to change the circumstances, but Lord God, what should I do to protect Nettie now?
Major Montgomery has spoken little to me of late, and even less to Nettie, but rides far out in front of the wagons and at night walks off into the dark by himself. I cannot go on as we are.
Footsteps crunched toward the wagon beneath which Constance rested. Hurriedly she puffed out the candle stub and lay still, clutching her journal at her side. By the time her eyes adjusted to the dark, whoever it was had reached the Nylands’ wagon next to hers, and here the footsteps paused. And then she heard another step, closer.
Boots. She breathed a sigh of relief. Not an Indian. Not Yellow Wolf. At least not wearing boots. And anyway, an Indian would not walk boldly right into a white man’s camp, even if she had left loaves of bread for him. She had wrapped them in a towel and tied them to the sycamore with the same deer-hide thong that had laced the moccasins together.
The footsteps moved to the wagon and stopped. Constance peered out from underneath and recognized the scuffed black leather. Joshua Duquette.
She held her breath until he went on, and she let a full quarter hour pass before she dared to move.
The next thing she knew a hand slipped over her mouth.
“It’s John,” a low voice murmured. “Don’t yell.” Making no sound, the major slid his long length under the wagon next to her.
“Took me a while to get here,” he said in an undertone. “I’ve been following Duquette on his walk-around, thought he’d never go back to his wagon. Then Mrs. Stryker got to coughing. Figured she’d wake up the whole camp.”
“I heard Duquette,” she whispered. “Then not another sound until you came.”
“Old Indian trick. Wrapped my boots in deerskin.”
He barely breathed the words, keeping his mouth near her ear.
“Nettie’s in the wagon, asleep.”
“Maybe. I don’t trust her. Kind of wondering why you still do.”
“John, she’s my sister.”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Abel was Cain’s brother. Didn’t count for much.”
“Oh, this is the worst mess I could ever have imagined. It is so awful it seems unreal.”
He let out a long breath. “It’s real, all right. At least what’s growing inside Nettie is real. The rest of it, her playacting with Colonel Butterworth, reeks of deception.”
“I don’t know what to do.” She forced the words past a hard, dry lump blocking her throat. “John, do you…do you have any whiskey?”
Again he chuckled, his breath ruffling her hair. “Well, that’s one way. Sorry, but I drank it all that night the colonel announced my impending marriage.”
Constance bit her lip. “I can’t sleep at night for thinking of Nettie and what has happened.”
“I can’t sleep, either.” He brought his hand up, laid his warm palm against the side of her face. “But not because of Nettie.”
She drew in a shuddery breath. “John. Oh, John, what are we going to do?”
He rolled onto his back, covered his eyes with his forearm. “I can marry her. Give her child a name.”
“Yes, you could do that. Or she could face up to what she’s done and bear the child out of wedlock.”
“Even out West, having a baby outside marriage will ruin a woman. Being her sister, you will be tarred by the same brush.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care about me.”
He uncovered his eyes and turned his face toward her.
“You must care. You will be settling out in Oregon, where a person is pretty much on his own. Especially a woman. Your actions, your good name will determine whether you end up being shunned or having friends and neighbors when you need them. Nettie can drag you both through the mud.”
“Marrying her will ruin your life, John.”
“Right now it’s the only way I can think of to protect you.”
She shut her eyes to squeeze back stinging tears. “I cannot bear to think of you with her. I know it sounds petty and selfish, but…” Her voice caught.
“I won’t sleep with her. And I won’t live with her. But it will accomplish something—it won’t compromise your life. Your future. I’d do it for you as much as anything.”
“I want no future without you. I told Nettie as much, but she said it doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t, to her. It does to me. I never thought I’d feel anything for another human being, but I do. God help me, I do.”
She waited until she could speak. “How far is Fort Laramie?”
“Eleven days. Maybe twelve. We’ve got some hills ahead of us, and some steep bluffs after that.”
“Twelve days,” she whispered. “Only twelve days.”
“For the time being, it’s all we’ve got.”
She fought to think clearly. “Where will you live, if not with Nettie?”
“Fort Kearny. I’m a soldier, Constance. I have orders. When I’m free, I’ll come for you.”
“After Nettie’s baby is born.”
“Christmas, you said.”
Her heart felt as if it were cracking right down the middle. “I want you to come now. To be with us. With me.”
“Oh, God, Constance.” He rolled toward her, gathered her into his arms. “I can’t. I can’t go on to Oregon right away, not without incurring a court martial. In August, I can muster out with pay. I’ll come for you then. I’ll catch up to the wagon train at Farewell Bend.”
“It will be hard,” she cried against his neck. “It’s all upside down because of Nettie.”
“It’s the best we can do, given the circumstances.”
“Is there a chance you might not come in August? Or even December, when the baby is born?”
“Not one chance in hell.” He nudged her chin up and kissed her, slow and hard. “Wait for me,” he murmured against her mouth.
She closed her eyes and reached for him, held on tight while his lips sought hers and her soul cleaved in two.
When she could breathe again, he was gone.
The long hill stretched before them, climbing so gradually it looked as if it led right into the sun. Constance lifted her head and scanned the worn tracks marking their route. “Up and more up,” she murmured. How could it get baked day after day by this summer heat, yet still be so green?
“Near two miles long,” Billy West had said. Two miles of pulling their overloaded Conestoga would kill their oxen. She glanced back at the cow, lumbering behind the train along with the Ollesen brothers’ mares. Lordy, with all this jouncing, by evening Molly should give pure butter!
Nettie and four of the Ramsey brood straggled with listless steps to the left of the wagons, far enough ahead to be shaded by the Stryker’s canvas bonnet but not out of earshot. All of them wore their new moccasins, even Nettie, whose fashionable black leather shoes now had two silver-dollar-sized holes worn through the soles. In the afternoon heat, their steps dragged, even though Nettie was urging them on with a game.
“And then the…?” She paused, waiting for an answer.
“Antelope!” Essie shouted.
“Good.” Nettie ruffled the child’s blond curls. “And then the antelope said to the…” She paused significantly and touched seven-year-old Elijah on the shoulder.
“Buh…bor…baby!”
Nettie missed a step. “Yes, that’s a fine B word. And the antelope said to the baby, ‘Why do you have no horns, as I do?’
The alphabet game again. Constance listened in spite of herself. The next round would be Remembering and Counting Syllables, and then the children would spell out the words. Even four-year-old Essie knew all her letters and her numbers up to fifty. Given enough incentive, Nettie could teach a horse to speak French.
Ahead of them trudged heavyset Flora Stryker, her back ramrod stiff as she marched beside the wagon in her peculiar rolling gait. Her gray hair was tucked up under a blue prairie bonnet that matched her apron, and when she lifted her voluminous skirt to avoid a patch of wild roses, Constance glimpsed a bright red petticoat ruffle.
Well, the woman wasn’t so old that she couldn’t kick up her heels a bit! Mrs. Stryker had a ready laugh, and those days when Nettie felt faint with the heat, the old woman sent her to lie down in the wagon with a cool cloth over her eyes and watched over the children herself.
Today Nettie seemed fine. It was Flora Stryker who was having trouble breathing. Her wheezy cough carried back to Constance, and her own throat felt dry and raspy. She reached for the water canteen.
The wagons slowed to a crawl. She could see the long line of them snaking up the hill, the white canvas bonnets floating over the land. The lead wagon, Joshua Duquette and his wife, came to a complete halt, followed by the Nylands and on down the line. Constance pulled the team to a halt and waited.
Billy West rode back, stopping at each wagon. “Major says to unload yer heaviest piece so’s you kin pull up yonder incline.”
Nettie and Constance exchanged glances. “Not Mama’s sideboard,” Nettie moaned.
Constance tried to make her voice as matter-of-fact as possible. “It’s either that or the chiffonier.”
“But Cissy, the sideboard has all Mama’s china and silver packed inside.”
“The chiffonier has all our clothes and linen.”
“Oh, I can’t do it, Cissy. I just can’t. We can’t do without either one.”
Ahead of her, the major and two other men settled a nickel-plated cookstove beside the Nylands’ wagon.
“Everyone has to give up something to lighten the load, pet.”
Nettie’s lower lip came out. “Well, we shouldn’t have to. We don’t weigh as much as some people do.” She shot a disparaging look at Mrs. Stryker. “I’ll just speak to Major Montgomery.”
Nettie had flounced no more than a dozen steps when Billy West intercepted her. “Care to ride, Miss Nettie? You kin use my horse iff’n you want privacy for a Necessary stop.”
“I do not care to ride, thank you. I am going to talk to the major.”
“Major’s mighty busy, miss. Maybe you’ll wanna talk to me, instead. I kin answer most questions.”
“This is not a question,” she snapped. “It is a request.”
Billy pushed his dusty hat back and leaned forward. “In that case, go right ahead and request away.”
“I do not wish to leave behind any of our furniture. These pieces belonged to my mother, and I do not wish to give them up.”
“Sorry, Miss Nettie. Rules is rules. Better to unload something now than suffer a broken axle or a draft animal dyin’ of a busted heart.”
She sniffed and moved to go around him. “We’ll just see about that.”
Billy stepped the horse to block her way. “Now jes’ hold up. I told ya the major’s busy helpin’ folks move their heavy pieces. I am speakin’ for him.”
Nettie reversed direction, started to whirl away from the horse, and Constance watched what happened next with widened eyes. Quick as a cat, Billy leaned down and snagged Nettie’s apron tie. He dismounted, then reeled her in like a hooked trout.
A furious Nettie turned on him. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes blazed like two blue sapphires, but Billy didn’t flinch.
“I’m teachin’ you some manners, Miss High-an’-Mighty.”
“You’re teaching me manners? Don’t be ridic—”
“Now you hush up an’ lissen. You ain’t so important that you don’t hafta follow the rules like ever’body else.”
Nettie slapped at the hand holding her imprisoned within her apron ties. “I am engaged to marry Major Montgomery,” she said, her tone frosty. “Your superior officer,” she added.
Billy yanked hard on the apron ties and Nettie’s mouth closed with a little click.
“Way I see it, you’ve got a few things to learn about livin’ in the real world. Fact that you’re gonna marry the major don’t make you special. Don’t make you my superior officer, little girl.”
“Doesn’t,” she corrected automatically.
“No, it don’t.” Billy raised his voice. “What about you, Miss Constance? You got a preference?”
Constance studied her sister’s flaming cheeks, her delicately pointed but stubbornly raised jaw. She hated to see Nettie make a spectacle of herself. She would do almost anything for her, but in this matter the way was clear. They would have to give up something. They were no better, no more important, than anyone else in the train. The day they left Liberty Corners, their old, privileged life ceased. They were, all of them, simply emigrants going west.
Besides that, she knew their Conestoga wagon was larger and heavier than the others. “Take the chiffonier, Billy.”
“Cissy!”
“We can always make new clothes, Nettie.”
But inside her chest, her heart ached. Another link to their old life was breaking. The uncertainty of their future, of Nettie and the child she carried, tightened her belly into a hard knot.
At the same time, her conviction that obeying the major’s orders and leaving the chiffonier behind was the only thing to do swelled until she wanted to weep with relief. It hurt, but it was the right thing to do.
How strange life was. Glorious and terrible all at the same time.
“Major,” Billy yelled. “Over here.”
The two sisters stood side by side and watched the major and Billy wrestle their mother’s favorite rose oak chest out of the wagon and onto the grass beside the trail.
After a moment, Constance put her arm around Nettie’s shoulders.