Katie and the Mustang, Book 4 (7 page)

There was an enormous difference between thinking about walking two thousand miles and actually walking each mile, one by one.

As always, the Mustang kept turning to nuzzle at my face and shoulder when he heard me sniffling, trying to hold back the tears.

I tried, but the tears came anyway and rolled down my cheeks. Hurrying, I led the Mustang even farther away from the wagons and found a swath of good grass off the trail.

I stopped, and he dropped his head to graze. I stood so the Mustang was between me and the wagons and gave up on fighting the tears. I just wanted my family back. I wanted to see my mother and my father. I wanted to play with my beautiful little sister. I leaned against the Mustang's shoulder and just plain sobbed. As he had since the beginning, the Mustang stood still, reaching around to touch me with the velvet-soft skin of his muzzle, nudging at my shoulder.

I didn't start after the wagons until I was finished crying. I didn't want Mrs. Kyler to see me coming undone. She had enough to worry about with her own big family.

As we got close to the end of the wagon line, the Mustang lifted his head suddenly and drew in a long, shuddery breath. I let out the lead rope to allow him to shake his mane and prance a little to one side.

“Do you smell something?” I asked him. “Is there something dangerous up ahead?”

He shook his mane again. Then he danced a half circle and I had to follow him.

I held the lead rope without pulling on it. Something was really upsetting him. “What is it?”

He stamped a back hoof, hard. Then he whinnied, a high, squealing call.

“What is it?” I asked him again. “Oh, how I wish you could just talk to me.”

He blew out a sharp breath and whinnied once more. We were close enough to Andrew Kyler's stock that the mares heard him and answered. But then, a few seconds later, I heard another whinny, from the other direction.

Indians? Trappers? It wasn't anyone driving any kind of a wagon, that much was sure. No wagon could make it up or down the hills on either side of the trail. Even the trail itself was full of rocks that the wooden wagon wheels jolted up and over.

I walked faster, and then ran until we caught up with the wagons. I kept my eye out for riders coming out of the rough country on all sides of us for the rest of the day, but no one did.

The next day I heard the whinny again when I was searching for grass for the Mustang. This time he turned, pulling me along with him, and squealed a long, high-pitched call, his head so high I had to reach up to catch hold of the halter. He squealed again and I heard a distant answer. It was then that I saw the horses through the trees, flashing past at a gallop, barely visible in the distance.

They were galloping in a group, strung out behind a big-boned gray. Behind them ran a horse that looked a lot like the Mustang. He had a thick, black mane that streamed out behind him. I waited to see who was herding the animals along, half expecting to see Indians. But the horses passed and disappeared, and even though I stared, I couldn't spot a single rider. It took me such a long time to figure it out that I blushed with embarrassment when I finally did. No one was herding them. They were wild.

I looked at the Mustang, at his arched neck. His eyes were as bright and alive as I had ever seen them. His nostrils were flared wide as though he had been running. For an instant, he surged forward, pulling at the rope so hard that I stumbled and nearly fell, hanging on to it. Then he looked back at me and slowed again, and I caught up.

I patted his neck, and we walked on together as we had been doing for months. I found a good patch of grass, and he lowered his head and ate hungrily. My stomach was fluttery. I would have to be more careful. If he ever saw wild horses up close, he would probably try to follow them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

N
ot long after that we came upon the Snake River. It was so beautiful to see water in the middle of that strange and broken countryside, the river curving in a long sinuous path across the broken, rocky land. Its surface was smooth as a gray-green looking glass on the cloudy day when we came over a rise and saw it below us.

The river was some distance from the trail at first, then the wagon tracks led us closer to the banks. The river had worn away the soil to form steep-sided bluffs. We saw many strange sights as we went. There was one stretch of bluffs on the far side of the river that spouted roaring springs that flumed enormous waterfalls straight out into the air, splashing downward to fall into the river below. It was as if an underground river ended there, joining one that ran aboveground.

One fine morning, as it was just barely beginning to turn light, we all heard splashing in the water. We stopped our morning chores and turned to look. In the dusk we could just make out blurred silver arcs—fish were jumping!

Andrew and two of his brothers rigged up netting, using twine from the Taylors' goods. By mid-morning, they had soaked themselves and caused their wives hours of worry, but they had caught ten of the magnificent fish.

“Salmon!” Mr. Kyler said happily when he saw them. “I've heard about this kind of fish.”

No one even suggested traveling on until the fish were cooked and eaten. It was heaven, after all the months of beans and bacon, to eat the delicate, pink fish meat.

Mr. Taylor and Mr. Heldon made hooks from old wire corset stays that Mrs. Kyler gave them.

They used twine for line and baited the hooks with chunks of bacon. The salmon didn't seem to be as tired of it as we were, because they took the bait and were pulled in, hand over hand, to the rocky banks. This was much easier than stringing nets, and all the men endeavored to make hooks and lines.

We ate salmon whenever we could, and it was delicious every time. The bacon we carried had been half-rancid for weeks in spite of being salted until it was nearly intolerable and stung our mouths.

But even though we got a welcome change in our meals, our stock did not. One night after supper, Miss Liddy pulled me aside. She looked sad.

“I want to stop the lessons for a while.”

I felt my heart sinking, but I knew why. “We shouldn't work Genevieve at all, probably,” I said aloud.

Miss Liddy nodded unhappily. “She's losing flesh. They all are. This cursed sage,” she said, taking a sideward kick at a clump of the gray-green plant, “doesn't nourish like grass does.” She shook her head. “And you can tell they hate it.”

It was true. “The Mustang curls his lip—and he is eating less,” I told her.

“They only eat it because there isn't much choice,” Miss Liddy said. “Ever wonder if you made a mistake by coming?” she asked me.

It caught me off guard. “Sometimes,” I admitted. “If I can't find my uncle...” I trailed off because I couldn't think about it without feeling physically sick.

“Oregon City will have enough people to give our show,” Miss Liddy said quietly. “So we'll make some money, enough to winter on, I expect.” She pushed her hair back. “Come spring we might head south to Mexico City if the war is over and travel is easy. I've never seen Alta California. I want to.”

I was astonished at the idea of her going where the war was being fought now, of talking about traveling an inch farther than we had to. I was also fascinated by the idea. Mexico City! What was it like just to go places because you wanted to see them?

“I'd like to travel one day,” I said quietly.

Liddy nodded. “Then you should.”

I looked at her. “The Kylers promised to get me to Oregon and help me find Uncle Jack,” I told her. “I can't imagine that he'd ever let me go traveling on my own.”

She smiled gently. “Circus life is hard work. And you're right, most people wouldn't let a girl your age go traveling. I did, but there wasn't anyone to tell me not to.”

“Liddy? We need your help here!”

It was Mr. Le Croix, shouting from across the camp. She waved at him to let him know she'd heard, then she kissed my forehead, her hands gripping my shoulders. “You are going to have a fine home, Katie. You are a wonderful girl, and they will be lucky to have you.”

I watched her walk away, feeling odd. The wagons would all separate when we got to Oregon City, I knew. The Kylers, the McMahons, the Heldons, the Craggetts, and the Taylors would be looking for land, I was sure. Who knew what Mr. Silas and his friends were thinking? They didn't seem like farmers to me. I wondered where we might all end up—if we would ever see one another again.

It made me sad to think I might not ever see Mrs. Kyler again. She had been so good to me. She was so funny, so patient; I knew my mother would have loved her.

I felt tears seeping into the corners of my eyes, and I turned away, walking fast. I needed to graze the Mustang. Lately, no matter how hard I worked to find grass, he was getting thin.

Maybe he was sorry he'd allowed me to lead him all this way. Maybe he would have been better off if he'd just kept going that time he'd run off. The thought startled and hurt me, and I pushed it aside. I took good care of him, and I always would.

I led him away from the wagons, and after a half mile or so, I spotted a patch of grass that still had a little green in it. The Mustang veered toward it when I did, without so much as a tug on the lead rope. He walked beside me, not behind me, as always. It wasn't like I was leading him. We were just walking together.

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

M
rs. Kyler was cheerful as we cleaned up after supper every evening. But she was quieter than she had been a month before. She looked tired, too. As we walked along the rutted trail beside the Snake River, the wagons creaking and moaning over the rocks, I began to realize that a lot of people weren't doing all that well.

Poor Mrs. Heldon had terrible stomachaches that made her double over with pain, and sometimes she had to vomit. She would walk away from camp, but we could hear her, and we all felt sorry for her. I noticed Grover doing the cooking for his father most mornings and at supper, too. His mother was lying down in the wagon every moment she could.

Andrew's wife, Hannah, was pregnant again—the rest of us could finally see what she must have known in Council Bluff. She looked nearly faint on the hottest days.

Mr. and Mrs. McMahon had lost their plump faces. She was thin as a scarecrow. Their little boy, Toby, was often weepy and whining, and I saw blood on his chin now and then.

For some reason, a number of people had dark, tender gums that bled when they ate. Andrew Kyler had had his left hand bound up in cotton rags for weeks—he had cut himself, and it hadn't yet started to close and heal.

Those among us who weren't hurt or sick were just plain tired. I was. Polly and Julia and Hope usually lay in one of the wagons reading to one another at night right after supper. I barely noticed them anymore, they were so quiet.