Where the Trail Ends: American Tapestries (11 page)

In Ohio, Samantha would have called for their doctor, but Doctor Rochester was the only doctor in their wagon train, and he’d left with Loewe. She could act as a nurse, though. She’d spent plenty of hours caring for Mama at home whenever the fever overtook her.

She reached for the bottle of laudanum. “I’ll give the medicine to him, Papa. You get some water.”

When Papa left, she dabbed Micah’s head with her handkerchief and drew the string to cinch the back of the canopy. She propped his
head on a pillow and then unbuttoned his flannel shirt to check his bones. He was plenty bruised and scratched, but no bones seemed to be broken. She only hoped he hadn’t wounded anything else on the inside.

When Papa returned with the tin cup, she held the tepid water to Micah’s lips. He spit out the first sip, but when she encouraged him again to take it and the laudanum, he finally drank both of them. Samantha dipped her handkerchief into the little water that was left and wiped the water across his forehead.

Hopefully they would be at this Whitman Mission soon. Surely they would have a doctor there.

Alex knew when he needed help, and he wasn’t too proud to ask for it. Looking across the classroom at the faces of the boys and girls, he begged the Sovereign One for wisdom. These children were intent on making his life miserable—he could see it in their faces—but he wasn’t going to desist without a fight.

He picked up a piece of chalk and stared back at them. How hard could it be to teach school? If Calvert could do it, so could he—at least until McLoughlin returned. Then he could convince the governor that the children should go to Ottawa or Quebec to continue their education.

The children shouted to each other in a variety of languages, but instead of trying to quiet them, he turned around and began to write the British Oath of Allegiance on the blackboard.

I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.

The room grew quiet as he wrote, and he straightened his shoulders. He may not have gone to a traditional school when he was a child, but he had certainly spent enough time in the classrooms at
Cambridge. The children would respect him if he pretended that he knew what he was doing.

Something hit the back of his neck, and he jumped, the chalk in his hand trailing a line across the oath. He swiveled on his heels, scrutinizing the children in front of him. They were all looking at their desks, some of their heads bobbing with what appeared to be laughter.

Would it be more effective to address their behavior or ignore it?

One of the older boys lifted his hand.

Alex nodded at him. “Do you have a question?”

The boy stared at the blackboard. “I’m having trouble reading your scrawl.”

Alex turned around and looked at his neatly written words. It all read perfectly clear to him. He turned back around. “What happens to be the problem with these words?”

The boy smirked. “They are in English.”

Snickers filtered across the room, and he heard whispering in Cree and French. Sighing, he turned back to the board and erased his words with the sheepskin eraser. Perhaps he should start with something simpler so they could learn the mechanics of English. He could start at the very beginning: Genesis 1:1.

As he began to write the words from Scripture, he heard the loud hum of the baling press start up outside the window, preparing to compact the dozens of pelts their Indian friends had brought for trade. The sound overpowered the noise of the whispers behind him.

After he wrote out the words from Genesis, he turned back again to the students. Strange. He thought there had been more children in the room before. Perhaps he’d been distracted.

He reached for the register, but before he looked down, a young girl raised her hand.

“What is it?” he asked rather loudly, over the sound of the baling press.

She grinned. “Don’t ya think we need something a little longer if we’re gonna learn good English?”

He glanced back at the simple verse on the board. Perhaps she was right. The verse was short, and they desperately needed to learn the Queen’s English.

He erased the first verse in Genesis and studied the board again. Then he began to write, in much smaller letters, the verses he had memorized from Psalm 23. Perhaps that would be easier to learn than the oath.

His confidence began to swell as he transcribed the verse. He may not aspire to be a teacher, but he could do this. Even though there were certainly a handful of unruly children among them, some, like this little girl, were anxious to learn. Perhaps he could make some progress in their education before McLoughlin returned.

Minutes passed as he focused on writing clearly, so the children could read his work. With a bit of flourish, he dotted the last period and whirled around to address his students.

His jaw dropped.

A dozen empty desks stared back at him. The noise of the baling press drowning out their footsteps, they’d all sneaked out of the room.

“Something a little longer...”

While he was busy writing, they’d played him for a fool.

He leaned back against his desk and glanced out the window at the horde of children racing away from the schoolhouse.

Sighing, he placed the eraser on his desk. Didn’t these children know what a gift they were being offered? With a solid education, they could read and write and calculate numbers. They could succeed in this life.

He’d longed to go to school as a boy, but his mother had never been able to afford the fees. He had spent hours with an elderly neighbor, learning to read from the few books she owned, until his
mother died. Then Uncle Neville brought him into his manor and hired a tutor.

He drank up those early lessons with a quenchless thirst. Even as a boy, he remembered feeling a bit like Joseph of the Bible, going from prison to palace in a day. He was suddenly Lord Neville Clarke’s nephew, his honored and esteemed heir, and he was offered an education to go along with it.

Uncle Neville was thrifty with his praise, but Alex hoped he’d made the man proud. If his father were still alive, would he too be proud of the man Alex had become? Alex never knew his father.

The only father Alex had ever known left him and his mother when he was four. He barely remembered Fulton Knox, but he remembered enough to know that he didn’t want to follow in the steps of a man who prized neither education nor family.

His stepfather had been an entertainer who’d charmed Alex’s mother away from the life of a noblewoman, and she’d been too proud to attempt a return when Fulton left her penniless. She had been convinced that her first husband’s relatives would turn her away.

But they hadn’t turned away Alex. His aunt had been hesitant, but his uncle had welcomed him into his home. Without children of his own, Uncle Neville had been eager for an heir.

Perhaps if he had the blood of an entertainer, Alex thought wryly, he might have charmed these students into staying in school. Or perhaps he should have caned all of them into submission...though he doubted that even a good caning would make these ruffians obey.

He glanced out the window again. He couldn’t blame them, he supposed, for wanting to be outside on this beautiful day, but even if it were pouring rain, they probably wouldn’t want to learn. At least not from him. How he wished he could convince them that a good education would give them the opportunity to work with their minds instead of their hands.

He leaned back at the table, glancing down at his own hands. Sometimes he wished he knew how to work with his hands instead of directing other people to do so. He’d never admit it to anyone, but sometimes he even wished he could have the joy of planting corn or wheat like Tom Kneedler and watching it grow.

Perhaps he could teach the students the importance of using their hands and minds alike.

He raked his fingers through his trimmed hair. It was all a grand joke, the idea of Alexander Clarke trying to teach anyone. He didn’t know the first thing about children, nor did he have a clue how to inspire them. He’d wanted to sneak out of the classroom long before they did.

The door opened at the back of the room and he looked up, wondering if one or more of the children had decided to return to school. But instead of a child, the lovely Taini sauntered into the room.

She slowly crossed the floor, her dark green English dress rustling with every step, and she sat at one of the front desks, folding her hands before she spoke in her father’s language. “Where are your pupils?”

He answered her in rudimentary French. “They like the sunshine more than school.” Her brown eyes flashed as she tucked strands of straight black hair behind her ears. “I like the sunshine too.”

He nodded, glancing out the window again.

“But I am not like them. I would also like to learn English.”

He looked back at her, his pulse racing at the glance she gave him. She wasn’t that much older than some of his students, having married her first husband when she was only fourteen.

She fluttered her long eyelashes, her eyes speaking as loudly as any words. Everything within him shouted, “Leave!” but he’d learned early in life that it was better to confront a problem than run from it.

He crossed his arms. “I think it is a good idea for you to learn English, but I am not a good teacher.”

“You would be a good teacher for me.” She laughed lightly. “Or perhaps I could teach you.”

“I do not think so—”

She stood and stepped toward him, reaching for his hand. “I am a very good teacher.”

He turned quickly and plucked his cloak off the stand, throwing it over his shoulder. Perhaps in this case it was better to be like Joseph in the Bible...and flee.

Chapter Nine

“Pull harder!” Jack yelled as the men tugged on the ropes that were wrapped around trees and held the Kneedlers’ wagon back even as the oxen inched down the steep slope. The men had spent an hour chaining locks on the wheels and then rigging up a pulley to lower the animals and wagons to the bottom.

Micah lay on a quilt, asleep on the ground beside Samantha, as Papa helped the men with the pulley. She petted Boaz as they waited, so grateful that he’d led them to Micah. Now she prayed that rest was the best cure for her brother. And that he’d give up his penchant for exploring on his own in the wilderness.

The Kneedlers’ wagon made it safely down the slope along with the Parkers’ and Jack’s, but the next one, owned by the Oxfords, did not. One of the oxen slipped, tripping his yoke mate, and the men had to release the ropes. The wagon splintered with an ear-shattering crash when it hit the ground below.

Silence spread over the company until Miles Oxford swore. Then she heard his wife, Betty, and their two children begin to cry.

Jack’s voice rose above their cries. “We’ll consolidate their supplies with ours.”

Samantha surveyed the damage below them. Bags of food were split open, their contents scattered. Clothes and blankets were spread out over the ground.

The oxen bellowed with pain, and Samantha’s stomach wrenched as Jack and Miles Oxford shot them.

The Waldrons’ wagon was last, but Samantha looked away from the slope, toward the trees. She couldn’t bear to watch Abe and George go over.

She felt Micah’s forehead, and it felt like it was burning with fever. If only she had some cool water to wash him in. As she waited, she prayed that God would give her another opportunity to be a mother to Micah. If so, she promised Him, she would never let him wander off again.

Papa shouted to her, and she looked back toward the men. The oxen and their wagon had made it safely down.

Papa picked up Micah, and then Jack led the women, children, and remaining animals carefully down the steep slope.

As Papa placed Micah in the wagon, she saw the frightened look in his eyes. “We have to start moving.”

She nodded. The other wagons had already gone ahead through a narrow passage in the trees, and they didn’t want to be left behind. She tucked Grandmother’s quilt around Micah and then kissed his forehead as she pulled a blanket over him. “We’re going to make it.”

As the sun began to set, she asked God to provide water. Maybe Mama could ask God to send one of His angels to guide them to a stream.

The company didn’t find water, but an hour later, water found them. The skies opened up and rain poured down on them.

“Micah,” she said as she prodded her sleeping brother, “it’s raining.”

He didn’t wake, but she backed away from the wagon and opened her mouth wide, letting the skies quench her thirst. Then she opened the barrel, hoping God would fill it for them.