Baby On The Oregon Trail. Lynna Banning

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СКАЧАТЬ God, what is the world coming to?”

      “Wondered that a lot when I was in the field. And later, fighting the Sioux.” He finished tightening the jangling metal, patted the heads of both animals and turned to her. “What are their names?”

      “Tess, Mary Grace and—”

      He smiled, and she was struck by how white his teeth were against the tanned skin. “I meant your oxen, Mrs. Borland. Helps to know how to address them.”

      “Address them? Mathias never talked to the oxen.”

      “Lots of folks don’t. I do.”

      “Sue and Sunflower. Sue is the one on the left.”

      He nodded and scratched Sunflower behind one ear. “If you’re ready to pull out, I’ll go get my horse.”

      A horse! She was terrified of horses. One had bucked her off when she was eight; she’d never forgotten it.

      “Aren’t you going to...? Mr. Lincoln said the volunteer would drive our wagon.”

      “I will do that, ma’am. I’ll just bring my horse and tie it beside the wagon.”

      Jenna checked on the girls. “You two can walk alongside the wagon if you wish. Or you can ride inside, but it will be hot when the sun is high.”

      “I’ll walk,” Mary Grace said.

      “Me, too,” Ruthie chimed.

      “I’d rather die than see that man driving Papa’s wagon,” Tess muttered. “I’ll stay inside.”

      Jenna found her sunbonnet and a blue knitted shawl, then climbed up onto the driver’s box. She supposed she could learn to drive the oxen. She’d never liked the two animals. She’d never liked horses, either. But she supposed she could stand Mr. Carver until they stopped for supper tonight and she could speak to Sam Lincoln about a replacement.

      Within ten minutes he returned, mounted on a huge, gleaming black horse. He tied it to the wagon, climbed up beside her and lifted the reins. Then without a word he lowered them again and eyed Ruthie, who stood clutching Mary Grace’s hand.

      “You want your little one to ride up here?”

      “Why?”

      “It’s safer,” he said.

      “Very well.” She dropped onto the ground and handed Ruthie up onto the box beside Mr. Carver. She didn’t really want her sitting next to that man, but he was right; it was safer. She wondered why Mathias had never thought of that.

      Slowly the circled wagons peeled off into a ragged line and amid the creak of huge oak wheels and the clank and groan of mule and ox teams, the train rolled forward. Their wagon took its designated place at the end.

      Rather than ride next to Mr. Carver, Jenna set out on foot, walking an arm’s length from a downcast Mary Grace, who twitched her spare body away from her. She tried to say something, but the girl cut her off. “Just leave me alone,” she hissed.

      Suddenly the girl yelped and darted forward to her father’s grave. The wagon train wheels were now rolling over the mounded earth, and Jenna could see that Mr. Carver intended to do the same.

      “Stop!” Jenna screamed. He reined in and waited.

      Mary Grace reached him first. “They’re driving right over Papa’s grave!” she wailed.

      Mr. Carver tied the reins around the brake and jumped down to face the girl. “Miss Borland, we do that of necessity. If the grave looks fresh, wolves will get at it.”

      “Wolves?” Jenna shuddered.

      He went down on one knee before Mary Grace. “I know it’s hard to watch, miss, but it has to be done unless you want your father’s grave desecrated.”

      “What’s des-crated?” Ruthie piped from her seat on the driver’s box.

      Mr. Carver pushed his hat back and stood. “Desecrated means something spoils a grave. Digs it up, maybe. You wouldn’t want your papa to be disturbed, would you?”

      Fat tears stood in Ruthie’s blue eyes. She shook her head. Lee Carver glanced over at Mary Grace. “You understand, miss?”

      The girl nodded.

      Lee Carver looked to Jenna. She stood close to her daughter, but he noted that the girl hitched herself away from her side. Odd.

      “Mrs. Borland?” he prompted. “Would you like me to drive around the grave site? This is the last wagon, so it’ll be pretty well dusted over by now.”

      She stared at him, her face so white it reminded him of the stationery he’d used to write Laurie during the War. After a long moment she gave a short nod.

      “It is all right, Mr. Carver. I would not want their father’s grave disturbed by animals.”

      He wondered why she put it that way, “their father’s grave.” Why was it not “my husband’s grave”? All at once he realized that the girls were not her daughters; they had been his.

      He glanced up at the smallest girl. “Ruthie?”

      “It’s all right, mister. Papa’s in heaven anyway.”

      His heart thumped. Oh, God, what had he done? He’d shot a horse thief, but the man had been a father. A husband. No horse was worth that, not even his black Arabian.

      What the hell had the man intended to do with his horse? Where was he heading? And why?

      He clenched his jaw, then climbed back up onto the box and picked up the reins. No matter what he did to make amends, Jenna Borland would get rid of him the first chance she got.

       Chapter Three

      Tess spoke not a single word to anyone all morning, and when the sun burned high over their heads, she refused to offer Mr. Carver even a tin cup of water.

      Ruthie’s nose and cheeks got sunburned, despite her floppy calico sunbonnet, and halfway through the long morning her tired little body had tipped sideways against the upright frame of Mr. Carver. To keep her from toppling off the bench, he curled his arm around her and went on driving the oxen, the reins looped over his long-fingered hands.

      Jenna pressed her lips together and brought him a cup of water from the water barrel lashed to the wagon.

      By the time the train stopped for their nooning, Jenna was half-sick from the heat and dust. She had walked beside the rank-smelling oxen for hours after Mary Grace had given up and crawled into the wagon bed, and when the train pulled into a shady grove of ash trees, every muscle in her legs was trembling.

      She rested for an hour in the cool shade, letting the breeze dry out her sweat-sticky cotton dress and soothe her overheated body. Then she packed away the lunch makings and when the train was ready to pull out again, she resumed her position beside СКАЧАТЬ