Katie and the Mustang, Book 4 (9 page)

I waited for him to say something more, but he didn't. I finally gave him a little wave and angled the Mustang off the rutted trail, to look for grass. I could tell Mr. Kyler was truly worried.

When I found a patch of dry, leathery grass, I stopped and the Mustang dropped his head to graze. I leaned against him and he lifted his head, turning to nuzzle my face, his mane falling like a shawl across my shoulders. I was so tired of traveling. I was so worried about so many things. But I didn't cry. I couldn't. Maybe a person had only so many tears in her, I thought. Maybe I had run dry. But, it turned out not to be true.

Later, walking some distance from the others, I cried for Mary and for myself and for Annie's poor burned hands and for Grover and for the mare that had broken her leg and for all the weary world.

The Mustang nuzzled at me and walked more slowly than he usually did, matching his pace to mine for the rest of the day. I put one foot in front of the other, and that was hard enough.

CHAPTER NINE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W
e were in the Blue Mountains now—the part of the trail everyone had always said was the worst. It was. There was one grade so steep that I stood at the bottom and held my arm out, sighting along my hand at the top of the rise. My elbow touched my ear, it was that steep!

It took us two terrible days to get all the wagons up. We hitched twelve oxen to each wagon. Even so, it was hard.

At the top, the men would rest and unhitch one team, then start back down, driving the six oxen ahead of them. We went on that way until dark, each team pulling twice.

A few days later we came to another hill almost as steep, and it slanted side to side as well. Each wagon was double teamed again. We all lined up on the low side and pushed against the wagons, palms flat against the wooden bed rails. We had to walk sideward, crisscrossing our legs with each step, shoving with all of our strength to keep the wagons from crashing down the mountainside.

Every hand was needed. I left the Mustang with Andrew's herd and the mares so I could do my part. The Taylors' youngest son watched the stock with Grover's mother and little Toby. The boys were seven and five, and Mrs. Heldon could barely stand, but Mr. Kyler was so afraid that one of the wagons would tilt and wreck, rolling downward, that he asked everyone to help. Mrs. Heldon rode up in the last wagon, and Toby and I held the stock until Andrew and Charles Kyler could get back down.

A few days after that, there was a steep, rocky downgrade, and we used the heavy ropes as makeshift drags and brakes as we had before. One place was so steep that we had to unload every single-bingle wagon, lower it down by rope over a rock shelf, then lower the goods down to repack. One ox broke a leg and had to be shot. It was awful.

Mr. Silas butchered the poor animal and we all ate fresh meat for a few days. I was ashamed that we had driven the poor animal to its death, but like everyone else I was starved for fresh meat. Everyone's bacon was rancid, plain and simple. It stank. But everything else was long gone.

I had a dream one night, about eating a salmon supper. When I woke up I was so disappointed that it had been only a dream that I nearly wept.

One chilly morning, we woke to a ground frost that coated the pines and crackled beneath our feet when we started off. We had followed a deep rutted trail all the way. But more and more we were sure that whoever had run wagons down to—and over—that rock ledge had been lost. And so were we. We all kept walking, and no one talked about it much. I was grateful. Talking about it would have only made it worse.

We saw deeper ruts on a road we came upon, and so we turned down it. That must have brought us back on course, because we saw wagons ahead of us two days later. And Mr. McMahon had a name in his guidebooks for the big, lovely valley we came into shortly thereafter.

Grand Round was a pretty place. There was a wide valley surrounded by country as pretty as anything we had seen in the Rocky Mountains. The soil was dark and smelled like farmland. And the hillsides were covered with tall, stately pine trees. It was beautiful, and everyone slowed to breathe in the soft air and gaze at the hillsides.

I was walking the Mustang beside the wagon. “You have to wonder why this isn't far enough,” Mrs. Kyler said, looking around. She climbed down off the wagon, jumping off the step as the oxen went on. Mr. Kyler frowned and watched to make sure she'd landed safe, then turned back to face the road ahead of the wagon.

“Why should we go another step?” Mrs. Kyler asked the sky, stretching, then pressing her hands against her back.

I nodded and stopped with her. It was a wonderful place. Even the air was fine, scented with the pine needles. I could see two creeks, looking down the wide valley.

The Mustang tossed his head and pranced a little. I pulled him off to one side. I shivered, and Mrs. Kyler noticed.

“You have a heavy jacket?”

I nodded.

“Does it still fit?”

I nodded again. “I think it will. Hiram bought it too big. I need to get it out, I guess.”

Mrs. Kyler went silent for a while, and I wished I hadn't mentioned Hiram. Thinking about him could only make her think about Annie. All the hard and weary miles behind us lay between her and her daughter.

Mrs. Kyler finally turned to look at me.“I suppose we'll have to keep on all the way to Oregon City.”

I smiled at the resigned tone of her voice. “I suppose we will.”

She sighed and pressed her hands against her back again. “The menfolk talk about Oregon City like it is heaven on earth.”

We both pulled in a deep breath at the exact same moment, then let it out as if we had counted ready, set, sigh! It made us laugh, and the laughter helped us keep walking. Sheer habit kept us going, too. We were so used to it that it was hard to imagine stopping sometimes.

A few days later two men on horseback caught up to us. They had been visiting friends near Fort Boise and were on their way home to Oregon City. Mr. Kyler called a greeting, and they reined in. He handed the reins to Mrs. Kyler, then turned sideward and jumped off the bench without reining the oxen in. They plodded onward. Mr. Kyler lifted his knees high for a few steps, getting the kinks out of his muscles, then strode along, talking, walking alongside the strangers.

I was saw Mr. Taylor climbing down, too, then Mr. McMahon and Mr. Le Croix. Within a few minutes, all the wagons were still moving and all but three had women at the reins: Mr. Swann and Mr. Dillard kept driving Miss Liddy's second and third wagons, of course, and Mr. Silas had passed the reins to one of his men. No one stopped. We were all afraid to stop—we were racing the snow.

The men coming from the rear of the line trotted past, then fell in beside Mr. Kyler, listening and talking.

The men stopped when we did for noon dinner, the sun straight overhead. They had their own food, and I saw that Mrs. Kyler was relieved. We had little to offer besides smelly salt bacon.

I led the Mustang close. “Do any of you gentlemen know a Mr. Jack Rose?” I asked quietly. They all glanced up, shook their heads, then looked back into their plates. My heart was beating wildly, as it always did when I asked that question.

“You get that horse from around here?” one of the men called after me.

I turned, puzzled.

“There are wild ones in this country that look like that. Folks say they're from the Spaniards' horses that got set loose or lost a few hundred years ago.”

“I brought him from Iowa,” I said, and watched the man's brows lift. I didn't want to explain anything to him. I didn't want to talk at all. I crossed the little clearing where we'd stopped. I found some low, tough-bladed grass for the Mustang and he grazed while I swallowed my disappointment and tried to reason with myself. I would find someone who did know my uncle Jack eventually. I would. I had to. I shoved the thoughts aside and focused on what the man had said about the Mustang.

“Was your great-great-great-great-granddaddy from Spain?” I asked him. The idea pleased me. It seemed fitting that a horse as wonderful as the Mustang had come from somewhere magical like Spain.

As the Mustang grazed, one of the men drew a map in the dirt. Our menfolk crowded around, and I saw them nodding. They had decided something. I walked the Mustang back to the wagon and stood beside Mrs. Kyler.

“We're going to Whitman Mission,” Mr. Kyler said, coming back once the men had ridden on. He climbed up onto the wagon and Mrs. Kyler handed him the reins. “This road bypasses the place, but we've decided to take an extra day to get there and back.”

Mrs. Kyler looked astonished. “Why, if we don't have to? Why not go straight on?”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “They have crops. Carrots, potatoes, squash...”

“Squash,” she echoed, and my mouth flooded with saliva.

The Whitman Mission was a neat, tidy place, and the Whitmans had made a regular paradise out of it. There were Indians, polite men who seemed comfortable enough with the Whitmans, both Mr. and Mrs., and with us. They stared at the Mustang,though, so I kept back a little. One of the Indian men walked closer and pointed at the corrals, then back at the Mustang. I followed his gesture. Standing in the corral was a mare that could have been the Mustang's dam. She had the same dark honey coat and a black mane that fell thick and heavy down her neck.

I nodded, to let the Indian man know I understood and was glad to know there were horses like the Mustang here. I showed Andrew, and he bargained with the man who owned the mare, but she wasn't for sale. “I'd buy that stallion from you,” the man said, spotting the Mustang. “We don't see many of the wild ones and almost never a stallion. They never tame down unless you catch them as colts.”

Andrew shook his head. “He's not mine, but I can tell you he isn't for sale.” The man shrugged and walked away.

The Whitman Mission was like a well-tended garden. They had squash and apples and even some good wheat flour that they would have given to us as gifts—but most people gave them something in barter or a few coins.

The fresh food tasted like heaven to me. Mrs. Kyler made the squash into a soup that lasted three days. She tied the lid tight onto the pot with twine every morning so it couldn't slop much when the wagon lifted, then crashed down again as the wheels rolled over rocks.

I managed to get save a bit of the squash rind, and I fed it to the Mustang. He ate it with his eyes closed, like my mother used to drink her hot chocolate on Christmas Day.

Almost everyone seemed to gain a little health back every day from the food. We badly needed it. The Blue Mountains seemed to be determined to take the last bit of our strength.

Mrs. Heldon had been bedridden for some time, unable to eat at all. As we headed down the steep, rocky road, she got jostled and shaken, and we all heard her cry out now and then.

Grazing the Mustang one morning, I saw Grover helping her climb out of the wagon. She looked tiny and thin, like a sickly child. Neither she nor Grover noticed me, and I am ashamed to say I was relieved that I wouldn't have to call out a greeting and try to sound cheerful. I am ashamed because two days later she passed away, and I never had another chance to say anything to her at all.

We stopped for a few hours to dig a grave. Grover walked back and forth, gathering rocks and piling them on the little patch of broken earth that covered his mother. His father stood stock-still beside the grave, his hair a wild halo around his head.

I had left the Mustang with Andrew's herd, but I still stood back from the others. I watched, knowing I should say something to Grover, that I was the one, out of all of us, who should be able to say something to him. But I couldn't.

Staring at the mound of earth, listening to Mr. Kyler read from the Bible, I was lost in memories of my own parents' funeral and the weight of those memories very nearly crushed my heart. I swayed on my feet, biting at my lip, determined not to cry. My loss had no place in this wilderness beside the Oregon Trail. Poor Grover was in the first wounded day of his own grief. He had become my friend, and this was his time to cry, not mine. I stood, fidgeting, while Mr. Kyler was reading a Bible passage.

Then, on impulse, I picked up a rock so big I could barely carry it and walked, stiff-legged, to the grave. I set it down, then went to fetch another. Grover shot me one grateful look, and I knew I had done the right thing, maybe the only thing.