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Chapter Two

The following morning, Sam Lincoln and four other men dug a grave and laid Mathias to rest. Jenna watched them, her hands curved around Ruthie’s narrow shoulders, while Mary Grace and Tess looked on in stony silence.

Reverend Fredericks read some verses from the Bible, something about there being a time for everything under the sun. Then clods of earth thudded onto the blanket-wrapped corpse of her husband. It was an awful sound, terrible and final. Jenna clamped her jaw shut and pressed her palms over Ruthie’s ears.

Finally the last shovelful of fresh earth was heaped onto the mound and her fellow travelers drifted back to their wagons. Ruthie stepped forward and laid a ragged handful of scarlet Indian paintbrush on her father’s grave. Jenna’s heart lurched as if cracking into two jagged pieces.

“Come, girls,” she managed. “We must pack up our things.”

Ruthie turned her face into Jenna’s blue homespun skirt. “I don’t want to leave Papa here all alone.”

Tess leveled a venomous look at her sister. “Then you’re nothing but a big baby.”

Jenna fought an urge to sharply reprimand the girl, but concentrated on wrapping her hands around Ruthie’s quivering frame. She had never disciplined Mathias’s daughters, and besides, what good would it do now?

“Tess.” She addressed the girl over Ruthie’s blond curls. “That is unkind. Your sister, all of us, are hurting. You know how hard it is to leave your father here.”

Tess bowed her head. “Sorry, Ruthie. You’re not a baby, I guess. Come on, Mary Grace.” The two older girls walked off, leaving Jenna standing by the grave with her youngest stepdaughter.

She stared at the wildflowers, wishing she had thought to gather some as well, but she’d been so busy frying the breakfast bacon and rolling up the bedding inside the wagon there had been no time. And anyway, Mathias would not care. The flowers were really for Ruthie, a way to say goodbye.

Jenna closed her eyes briefly, then turned toward their camp. She felt numb, unreal, as if this were happening to someone else.

Emma Lincoln stopped her. “Jenna, at the meeting this morning, Sam asked the men for a volunteer to drive your wagon. In about half an hour the man will come to hitch up your oxen. If you’d like to be alone for a while I could take the girls in our wagon.”

Jenna studied the woman. What a kind soul the trail master’s wife had been, right from the very beginning. How she wished some of that generosity of spirit would rub off on Tess!

“No, thank you, Emma. I am quite all right.” She wasn’t, really. She dreaded the days ahead, but she could not admit this to anyone. How would she manage without Mathias?

A blade of anger sliced into her belly. Mathias had talked and cajoled and pushed until she finally agreed to join the wagon train and come west. And now here she was, embarked on an unwanted journey she had no choice but to continue; once a wagon train started out across the prairie, there was no way to get off. No way to go back to Ohio.

Another woman, Sophia Zaberskie, thrust a loaf of fresh-baked bread into her hands. “You eat,” she grated in her perpetually hoarse voice. “Keeping belly full makes to heal.”

Jenna pressed Sophia’s meaty arm. Sophia should know; she had lost one child to cholera before the emigrant train was even under way, and another child, a boy, died two weeks later when a wagon wheel rolled over him and crushed his chest. If Sophia could survive, so could she.

She took Ruthie by the hand and walked to their camp. Tess and Mary Grace looked up but did not speak, both keeping their faces resolutely turned away from her while she moved about packing the skillet and the Dutch oven inside the wagon. Tess grumbled at her request to fill two buckets with springwater and dump them into the water barrel strapped to the wagon box; Mary Grace walked listlessly at her sister’s side, kicking at stones.

When the last of their belongings were stowed away, Jenna surveyed the tangle of ropes and harnesses and wood oxen yokes stashed under the wagon and her heart sank as if weighted with lead. She had no idea how to hitch up the team. Mathias might have taught her. Why hadn’t he?

It was hard to accept that he was gone, that he would never again snap at her for forgetting to fold a blanket in his particular way or serving him dumplings with his stew when he preferred biscuits. She knew she had been a disappointment to him; she often felt small, as if she didn’t matter.

Ruthie’s small hand patted her skirt. “Jenna, are you crying?”

“N-no, honey. I’m not crying, just feeling a bit sad.”

“Me, too. Tessie won’t talk to me and Mary Grace is too busy. And I’m scared.”

Jenna went down on her knees before the girl. “I’m a little scared, too. But we will be all right, just you wait and see.”

A shadow fell over her. “Mrs. Borland?”

She jerked to her feet. The man was tall, with overlong dark hair and steady eyes that were a soft gray. He held his broad-brimmed hat down by his thigh.

“Sorry to startle you, ma’am. My name’s Carver.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Carver.”

He’d joined the wagon train at Fort Kearney. A former Confederate soldier, Emma had confided. A Virginian. From a slave-holding plantation, no doubt. Jenna’s father had fought for the Union; he’d been killed at Antietam.

“I’ve come to yoke up your team.”

Her stomach clenched, and it must have shown on her face.

“Ma’am? Are you unwell?”

“Mr. Carver, surely someone other than you volunteered?”

His gaze flicked to the back of the wagon, where Tess’s face was peeking out from the curtain. “Mrs. Borland, is there someplace we can talk in private?”

“Why?”

Gently he grasped her elbow and moved her away from camp. “I want to tell you why I volunteered.”

“I don’t really care why, Mr. Carver.”

“I think you may when you hear what I have to say,” he said quietly. “You see, it was my horse your husband was stealing. I was the one who shot him.”

Jenna stared at him until her eyes began to burn. “Dear God in heaven, why would I want anything, anything at all, to do with the man who killed my husband?”

A flash of pain crossed his tanned face. “You probably don’t, Mrs. Borland. And I can’t blame you. But I’d sure appreciate it if you’d hear me out.”

Shaking with fury, Jenna propped her fists at her waist and waited. She could scarcely stand to look at him.

“I didn’t know who was taking my horse,” he said after a moment. “Didn’t recognize the man. But I knew my horse. The rider was heading hell-for-leather—Excuse me, ma’am. He was riding toward the trading post we passed yesterday morning. I fired my rifle and he went down.”

“You killed him.”

“Yes, I did. I’m sorry he turned out to be your husband, and the father of your girls there.” He inclined his head toward the wagon where three heads now poked out from the rear bonnet.

“‘Sorry,’ Mr. Carver, is not enough,” she snapped.

“I realize that. I know nothing can ever replace your husband, but I’d like the chance to do what I can to make it up to you. That’s why I volunteered to drive your rig.”

“You cannot ‘make it up’ to me, Mr. Carver. Ever. Don’t you understand that?” She clamped her lips together, afraid she would cry.

“I mean to try, Mrs. Borland. Where’s your yoke and the harnesses for the oxen?”

“Did you not hear me?” Her voice went out of control, rising to a shout. She hated him! He was a cold-blooded killer. “I do not want your help!”

He turned his back on her and peered under the wagon. Mary Grace stuck her tongue out at him, but he paid no attention. Instead, he snaked an arm out to capture the tack and moved off to where the oxen grazed inside the circle of wagons. He moved with such assurance she wanted to toss the hot coals from her morning cook fire into his face.

The instant he was out of sight, Tess scrambled down and planted herself in front of Jenna. “You can’t let him do this!” she screamed. “He was my father, and that man killed him. He has no right to be here, touching Papa’s animals.”

Jenna sucked in an uneven breath and wrapped both arms across her waist. “Perhaps not, Tess. But neither of us can yoke up the oxen, and he has volunteered. I will speak to Mr. Lincoln tonight and ask for someone else.”

The girl’s face flushed, but Jenna was suddenly too weary to care. Her shoulders ached. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with sharp-pointed rocks.

“Take Ruthie down to the latrine, then get in the wagon.”

She paced around and around their small campsite until Tess and Ruthie returned and Mr. Carver appeared, tugging the oxen, Sue and Sunflower, by their lead ropes. He said nothing, just moved past her, positioned the two animals in front of the wagon and went about jockeying the yoke into place and adjusting the harnesses, his motions unhurried.

Jenna stepped closer to watch what he did.

He paused and his gray eyes sought hers. “Want me to teach you and your oldest girl how to do this?”

“I—No. I mean, yes. But not my oldest girl. Tess would find such a task beneath her.”

His dark eyebrows went up, and then he nodded. “My little sister never wanted to curry her own horse. Same reason.” He went back to adjusting Sue’s harness.

“How did your sister turn out?” she blurted out. “Was she spoiled?”

He straightened, a look of such naked anguish on his face that Jenna winced.

“My sister was killed when Sherman’s men reached Danville and marched through our plantation. Some Yankee soldier bashed her head with his rifle butt. She was eleven years old.”

Stunned, Jenna stared at him, a choking sadness knotting her chest.

Mr. Carver shuttered his features and bent over the hitch again. “Watch now, Mrs. Borland. You have to pull this ring tight, or it’ll work loose.”

“Mr. Carver, I—I am sorry about your sister.”

“War is ugly, ma’am. We did some awful things to you Yankees, too.”

“But a child! Dear 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.