Where the Trail Ends: American Tapestries (21 page)

The Waldrons’ oxcart was hidden back against a cliff, their oxen grazing nearby, but there was no sign of Samantha, Micah, or Hiram.

When Jack first came across the river with Alex, they’d spent the night with a fur-trading party tucked back in the wilderness.

Had Samantha passed him that night, or had she gone east to the mission for help? He leaned back against a tree. He would keep hiking until he reached the mission, and if they weren’t there, he would return to the fort to see if they’d arrived while he was gone.

As he watched the rapids on the river, the feeling was there again. In the past three days he’d been searching for the Waldrons, he kept feeling like someone was watching him. He turned again, scanning the trees behind him.

This time he caught a glimpse of blue among the browns and greens.

“Who are you?” he called. The blue was gone, but he knew that someone was there. He stepped forward. “Why are you following me?”

He waited for another minute, but no one answered.

He called out again. “Do you know what happened to the woman and boy?”

Seconds passed, and then a young woman stepped out from behind a tree.

She was no older than seventeen or eighteen, and she was the prettiest woman Jack had ever seen. Her skin was tan, and she wore her hair in a braid like the Indian women who had fed them in the village before they canoed down the Columbia. Except those women all had dark hair. This lady’s hair was a golden-brown, and she wore
a bow strapped over her white buckskin dress, a quiver of arrows at her side, and a long necklace made of blue beads.

Her brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight as she searched his face. “Why are you looking for them?”

“They were part of my company—” He stuttered under the intensity of her eyes and his surprise at how well she spoke English. “The father was ill.”

She pointed down the river. “I buried him, about twenty miles back.”

He’d guessed that Hiram had passed on, but the thought of his death still saddened him. “Did you see the woman and the boy?”

She nodded.

“Where did they go?”

“They crossed the Columbia down near Fort Vancouver.”

He took a deep breath of relief. “They are safe.”

“If God wills it.”

He leaned back against the tree. If only he knew what God willed. It would make this journey so much easier. They would know when to cling and when to let go. Everything, he discovered, needed to be held with an open hand. His wife, Jenny. Then Samantha and her family. As much as he wanted to keep them safe, he could not. Not if God allowed them to go.

It would take him another three days to journey back to Fort Vancouver, to find out whether Samantha and Micah were safe. Until then, he would have to trust in God, like he’d wanted Samantha to trust in him.

He stepped forward, lifting the canvas off the cart and digging through it.

“What are you doing?” the woman asked.

He turned back to her. “I’ll take a few things to the fort for them.”

He retrieved the Waldrons’ family Bible, a bag of Hiram’s prized
seeds, their mama’s shawl. Clothes for both Samantha and Micah and the shoes they’d saved for when they reached the valley. He tucked as much as he could into his pack, but he couldn’t carry all of it.

“I will help you,” the woman said, taking the Bible, Micah’s clothes, and some of the seeds. He hesitated for a moment. Some of the Indians on their journey had stolen from them, but this woman already knew where the cart was located. She could have taken their supplies at any time.

She didn’t have any sort of pack, but she picked up the items and wrapped them in one of the animal furs. Then she carried it in her arms.

They turned on the path and silently began the walk west as the sun dipped low behind the clouds.

In the next hour rain came again unannounced, as it had done often during the past three days, and wind tunneled up the gorge. Last night he’d slept on his bedroll, under the stars, but he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight if the rain continued.

He would have to say good-bye to this beautiful woman and walk through the night. If the rain stopped in the morning, he would rest.

A narrow canyon cut through the rock walls, and the woman motioned him toward a path that led away from the river. “We need to get out of this storm,” she said.

He hesitated at the junction.

Was she leading him to an entire tribe of Indians? An ambush? He’d heard the stories, but he had little to give the Indians except his life.

Then again, he’d heard that some of the tribes sacrificed humans to their gods.

She stopped and turned toward him. “My name is Aliyah.”

“I’m Jack. Jack Doyle.”

“You can trust me, Jack Doyle.”

But he wasn’t certain that he could.

She began walking again and he followed several feet behind her so she wouldn’t run with Samantha’s things. And if necessary, so he could run the other way.

With the wind and rain spilling over him, he followed this beautiful woman into the woods.

Alex tapped on the corner of his desk in the warehouse. He dipped the nib of his pen into the inkstand and began to record the fort’s inventory in the leather-bound journal called the daybook.

McLoughlin had given him this responsibility when Alex returned to Fort Vancouver last year after his work at Fort Colville, and it was one of his favorite duties, reflecting on all that had been trapped, made, and traded inside the fort each week as he pored over the blotters of the individual clerks and then recorded the final number in the daybook.

The front door opened, and Simon walked into the room and sat on the edge of Alex’s desk. “So tell me about her.”

He didn’t look up. “About whom?”

“About the American woman you rescued from the sea.”

He finished writing his line in the ledger. “I found her on the Columbia, not the sea.”

Simon leaned down. “Why didn’t you tell me you rescued a lady?”

He dipped the nib again. “I guessed you would find out that information on your own.”

“What is her name?”

He glanced up at his friend. “She was drowning in the Columbia. I did not stop to ask.”

“Maddox said she had her son with her.”

“That is correct.”

“Taini will be jealous.”

He set his pen in the marble stand. “She has no reason to be jealous. As you well know, my affections are promised elsewhere.”

“Is this woman pretty?’

Alex sighed. “Did I mention that she was drowning?”

“Maddox said you carried her a whole mile back to the fort.”

“Maddox exaggerates.”

“Do you think she’s still married?”

The boy had said his father had died, but Alex hated the thought of the other men finding out about an unmarried white woman at the fort. They hadn’t seen one in so long that the dozens of desperate men would parade past her room just to stare.

“Is her husband coming for her?” Simon prompted again.

“I am not certain.”

Simon didn’t blink. “But he might be gone.”

“He might be...”

Simon had the courtesy to look forlorn at the possibility, if only for a moment. “No woman remains widowed for long around here.”

“The captain of her party has gone to look for her. If her husband is deceased, he will surely marry her when he returns.”

Simon smiled again. “Maybe he won’t return.”

What would Jack Doyle do when he didn’t find the Waldron family on the trail? Or what if something impeded his return? The fort wasn’t the sort of place for a white woman with any kind of refinement. The Indian wives spent most of their days in their apartments, washing laundry for the unmarried men, pounding out hundreds of nails for the new buildings, or stitching clothing for both officers and laborers. It was a lonely life, he supposed, for any woman.

Simon’s eyes sparked. “For the first time in a long time, I’m glad you’ve promised yourself to old Judith.”

Alex nodded toward the door. “Do you not have something to occupy your time at the Sale Shop?

” Simon hopped off his desk. “Everyone seems to be trapping furs right now instead of trading them. And no one’s spending their money.”

“Perhaps you should become a trapper.”

“Not me,” Simon said as he backed toward the door. “I’d miss civilization.”

When Simon left, Alex stood up and walked toward the window. He could see McLoughlin’s house from his office, the white a beacon against the brown wood of all the other buildings except the powder magazine, which was built of brick and stone.

Doctor Barclay had said no medication or garden food would cure the American woman. She needed rest. Madame McLoughlin had personally overtaken the care of Mrs. Waldron and her son.

He’d rescued them from the river. His job was done. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder about her story.

Doyle had known she and Micah were back on the trail, yet why did the Americans leave them behind?

Madame McLoughlin would probably think he was interfering—and Simon would think he was speculating—if he paid the woman a visit, but there was nothing wrong with inquiring about her health, was there?

That’s what a gentleman would do.

Chapter Eighteen

Alex stepped over the dog that had lain vigilant in Samantha Waldron’s doorway since Alex carried her into this room four days past. Madame McLoughlin said Mrs. Waldron had awakened only twice since she arrived, asking about Micah. After her swim in the frigid Columbia, it was a miracle that she was alive at all.

Boaz watched him closely but didn’t move. Mrs. Waldron’s son was below in the courtyard, rolling a wooden hoop with a stick alongside two of Alex’s former pupils.

He hadn’t meant to be so harsh with Micah’s mother. Now that his head was much clearer—and after speaking with Micah—he realized she had also been protecting her son from the wolverine instead of needlessly risking his life. But back on that shore, with adrenaline pumping through his veins, nothing had been clear.

With Madame McLoughlin’s vigilance, he hoped Mrs. Waldron would recover soon. Alex wished someone from her company remained to welcome her when she finally woke, but the Kneedlers had left several days earlier for the Willamette, the governor’s mules laden with plenty of fruits and vegetables to carry them the remaining distance to their son.

Alex sat in the chair beside Mrs. Waldron, gazing at her pretty face. She barely looked old enough to marry, much less have a son as old as Micah.

Compassion warred with his sensibilities, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. She’d lost her husband on the trail, and she’d lost
everything else in this district except her son and the small bag that he carried.

He wondered at her story, what her life was like before she began the long journey west. He’d tried to talk to Micah about their history when they walked back to the fort, but the boy didn’t talk much except to say that his father had died and to ask when his mother would wake up.

Alex’s anger at her had tempered, but it still infuriated him to think about her and her husband bringing a child all the way over those treacherous mountains. He loved everything about the Columbia District, but nothing was safe here.

Why had she risked so much to come?

Mrs. Waldron shifted on the bed, and her hand slipped over the side.

He glanced over his shoulder, back at the open door, to see if someone was there to return her arm, but no one except Boaz was in sight. Sighing, he reached down and took her hand. It was so light, frail. With his heavy coat over her, he hadn’t realized how frail she was when he carried her back to the fort.

How had she survived walking two thousand miles, up and down the treacherous mountains? It was a miracle that the Columbia hadn’t whisked her away. If the rest of her body was as fragile as her hand, the smallest of breezes could probably pick her up.

He placed her hand back under the blanket.

Her body might not look strong, but there was an extraordinary strength in her. No other woman that he knew would have kicked as she did across the river. If she’d panicked, he hadn’t noticed. She’d pressed ahead with fervor to save herself and her son, and once Micah was safe, she collapsed.

He thought again about his betrothed, the picture of London society and fashion. What would Judith do if her canoe tipped?

The scenario never would have happened, of course. Judith was horribly afraid of the water. She might have starved before she’d board a canoe.

He shook his head. He shouldn’t compare this woman to his future wife.

Mrs. Waldron’s hand slipped off the bed again, and he reached for it. When he took her hand, she turned her head, her eyes opening slowly at first and then widening in surprise.

He bolted up out of the chair, staring at her.

What was he supposed to do now?