Where the Trail Ends: American Tapestries (7 page)

The earth trembled under her feet, and she turned to watch four oxen and two horses run toward the riverbank. Even though the men would only release a few at a time to avoid another stampede, the earth still felt as if it were about to open up.

She tugged Micah to the other side of the stream, and as he gulped the water beside her, his towhead glistened like the autumn leaves in the sunlight. He’d stripped down to the buckskin trousers she’d found for him at Fort Hall, and those were rolled up to his knees.

Lucille hurried down to the water next, accompanied by her mother and little Katherine and a crowd of women carrying pails and kettles that clanged beside them. The women laughed as they rushed toward the stream, and Samantha stopped for a moment, watching them with envy. She wished her mother were here to celebrate the finding of water with her. She wished they could laugh together and work together and even commiserate together as they cooked over their stove in the heat.

Mama had been much more fragile than most women in their forties, her body battered by frequent miscarriages and an unexplained illness that plagued her for years. When their doctor said the dry air out West might be good for her health, Papa began saving money to travel to Oregon Country. It had taken him less than a year to save the money for their journey, and Samantha suspected he’d been saving a lot longer than that.

When he finally had enough money, it was too late to save Mama. They buried her four months before they left Ohio.

Samantha dragged her pail through the stream and took another long sip from it.

Even if Mama had joined them on this journey, there would be no running alongside her or cooking over the stove together. The fifteen or twenty miles of walking each day would have been impossible for her, and the toll of a wagon ride, jostling and bumping for hours upon hours, would surely have taken her life.

Micah jumped from rock to rock in the stream, and Lucille sat down on a smooth rock beside Samantha while her mother and younger sister continued downstream a few yards.

Lucille dipped her ladle into the water, drinking like the others. “Oh, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

Samantha nodded, the breeze gently tangling her skirt around her knees. “The best water I’ve ever tasted.”

Then Lucille eyed Boaz lapping the water. “The captain said to leave the dogs roped up for now.”

She shrugged. “Boaz was just as thirsty as the rest of us.”

Lucille splashed her face with the water. “I know Loewe isn’t always the nicest man, but Papa says we have to listen to him since we voted for him to be captain.”

“I didn’t vote for him,” Samantha muttered.

“No, but your father did.”

He had; all the men had voted for Loewe back in Missouri, though some of them seemed to regret it now. She petted Boaz’s wet fur. “It’s not fair for Boaz to suffer because the other dogs were barking.”

“This isn’t about what is fair, Samantha. It’s about keeping everyone safe in our company.”

“And appeasing that man.”

“Perhaps, but what is so wrong with keeping the peace?”

Another small herd of animals hurried to the water, and Captain Loewe’s whistle sounded to gather the men for a meeting, as it did
every night before he announced the evening plans and schedule for the night guard. No one could fault the captain for his leadership abilities. It was his temperament that got him into trouble.

Boaz bounded through the water with a giant splash, soaking her dress and bonnet. Micah laughed from the other side of the stream and then, with his blue eyes focused on her, trailed one of his arms through the water and doused her face.

“Oh—” she sputtered.

He laughed again. “You needed to be cooled off.”

Water trailing down her cheeks, she returned his splash with her foot.

“Samantha!” he hollered at her as if she’d started the battle.

Lucille shook her head. “Sometimes, Miss Waldron, I think you are more eight than eighteen.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I’m two months older than you.”

Lucille shook her head again, like it wasn’t possible.

Samantha winked at her friend and then splashed Micah again. This time her hem tore, and she sighed. She’d have to fix that after the evening meal.

She glanced over at her friend; Lucille was still shaking her head.

Lucille probably wished she could join in their fun after sweltering in the sun today, but she was much too refined to join in the splashing, no matter how hot she was.

Samantha turned slowly toward Lucille, a grin stealing up her face. Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you even think about it.”

But Samantha couldn’t help thinking about it. It was her father in her, the part that couldn’t resist a golden opportunity.

With a swift kick, she splattered water across Lucille’s pale green traveling dress.

For a moment, the sounds of nature around her seemed to still. The rustle of the leaves quieted, and she no longer heard the gentle
lapping of the stream as it flowed over the river rocks. Lucille’s mother and her sister and all the women turned, watching to see how Lucille would react, to see if the water would crack the calm.

Lucille didn’t crack.

Words, as useless as they were, didn’t form on her lips. Instead she slowly scooped up a ladleful of the stream and she flung it at Samantha. She ducked, and Lucille gasped.

Turning, Samantha saw the elderly Prudence Kneedler behind her—gray hair sopping and water trickling down her ears and cheeks.

At first, Samantha watched Mrs. Kneedler in horror, waiting for the woman to scold her. Instead, Mrs. Kneedler lowered her pail to the water and reciprocated with her own blast.

In seconds, the entire party of women and children was splashing under the hot sun, Boaz weaving in between the arcs of water. Leave it to Boaz to begin a water fight, injecting a shot of life into their tired party.

A gun blasted from the wagons behind them, and the laughter stopped.

Women and children alike turned back toward the wagons now positioned in a perfect circle, with each tailboard butted against the front of the neighboring wagon to create a fence for the livestock as well as a makeshift fortress. It wasn’t anywhere near as secure as the wooden forts they’d passed on the trail, but it was the best they could create.

The dogs they’d left behind began to bark, and Samantha shaded her eyes against the sunlight to see if something was threatening their wagons. But she couldn’t see either people or animals. Perhaps the men had spotted a herd of antelope or even bison coming to the stream to drink.

She hated the thought of killing any animal, but her stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh meat for supper. It had been weeks since they’d eaten good meat—a buffalo that Jack shot near Fort Laramie.

When another shot rang out near the wagons, Samantha stepped out of the stream.

“Will you watch Micah for me?” she asked Lucille.

Lucille glanced over at the wagons and then back at Samantha. “Where are you going?”

“To find out what is happening.”

“There’s nothing you can do—”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Do be careful, Samantha.”

She picked up her torn hem and hurried toward the wagons with Boaz at her side. Smoke from a campfire drifted up from the center of the circle, but no one was inside the enclosure. She didn’t see any of the men out chasing a deer or buffalo, either.

Where had everyone gone?

She rushed toward the camp to retrieve her rifle from their wagon in case Indians were threatening them.

She stopped when she reached her wagon. The men were standing outside the circle, huddled together as if trying to decide what to do with a buck they’d killed. Quickly she threw open the back of their wagon’s canopy to retrieve her rifle, but she jumped back at what she saw. Her father was inside the packed wagon, sitting amid their goods on Mama’s prized rosewood chest. His face was the same ashen color as the trees that guarded the stream.

Her stomach seemed to plummet to her toes. Papa never missed the evening meetings.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Papa shook his head, looking down at Boaz with a sadness she didn’t understand. “There’s been a vote.”

Her eyes widened. “What sort of vote?”

“The captain—he doesn’t think it’s safe for us to continue with the dogs.”

“Not safe?” Her voice began to escalate. “What do you mean, it’s not safe?”

He shook his head again.

Her voice quivered. “It’s not safe to finish this journey
without
our dogs.”

“Last night—” he began, but she interrupted him.

“Last night was an anomaly, Papa, you know that. The dogs hardly ever bark like that.”

He brushed his hands on his dusty trousers and stood up, hopping over the tailboard and landing on the ground beside her. “It’s not about last night. It’s about the stampede at the Snake. Those dogs could have killed all of us.”

She leaned against the wagon, trying to make sense of what Papa was saying. They needed their dogs. They didn’t bring harm to the camp—they protected them from harm.

Another shot blasted, and she slowly turned toward the men who’d edged into a half circle. The terrible realization, the truth of what they were doing, plunged into her gut and burned like a raging fire. She didn’t want to ask Papa what was happening, didn’t dare believe it possible. Her voice trembled again, barely a whisper, the thought so incredulous that she could barely form the words.

“Are they—” She thought she might retch. “Is he killing our dogs?”

At Papa’s nod, anger blazed through her skin and her mind raged. “But the men—you said they had to vote before he can kill our animals.”

“We did vote.” His gaze traveled over to their fellow travelers. “It was nine to eight.”

Boaz sat up, nuzzling her dress as if he could sense her devastation. She placed her shaky hand on his wet coat. How could nine men vote to kill their guard dogs? Their shepherd dogs.

Their pets.

She understood why Titus Morrison would vote to kill the animals that killed his wife, and it was clear the captain no longer wanted the animals with them. But the other men...

She knew they were afraid of being ostracized, afraid of the captain’s wrath, but how dare they affirm the man’s insanity? And it was insanity.

She reached into the wagon for her gun.

“It’s more than the barking,” her father tried to explain. “The men at Fort Hall said—”

She didn’t let him finish. “They aren’t touching him.”

“It’s not our choice to make.”

“Not our choice?” Her voice escalated. “He’s our dog. My dog!”

She’d cared for Boaz for four years, from the time Papa brought him home as a puppy barely weaned. She’d coddled him, probably too much, as she raised him, but he’d been a good dog, fiercely protective of Micah and her. Boaz wouldn’t let a bullet or a man touch any of them, not without a fight, and she wouldn’t allow any of the men or their bullets to touch him. He hadn’t been the one to cause the stampede, nor had he been up barking last night.

“If we don’t allow this, they’ll leave us behind,” Papa pleaded, trying to make her understand. “And if they leave us behind...”

His voice trailed off, but she’d heard the stories about those who’d attempted to travel this journey alone. At Fort Hall, the traders had told them that no pioneering family could survive this trip without a caravan. Not only was there the threat of hostile Indians and wild animals, there were storms and fires and all sorts of strange illnesses. Hunger and thirst, raging rivers and steep mountains, broken axles, and exhausted oxen.

They needed each other—and their animals—to make it to the Willamette. Surely the captain wouldn’t leave them behind.

But as she examined her father’s face, she realized that he thought Captain Loewe would make good on his threat.

When Hiram Waldron and the other men signed the laws of their wagon train, they’d agreed to reasonable laws about what time to rise, a day of rest on the Sabbath, no swearing or drinking alcohol on their journey west. No one had said anything about killing dogs.

She pulled Boaz closer to her side, his wet head nuzzling her arm. “They aren’t shooting him.”

“Samantha—”

“You know it’s wrong, Papa.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Of course it’s wrong, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“But Boaz...he’s like family.”

Papa’s gaze traveled over her shoulder, and she knew that someone was behind her. She didn’t dare turn around.

Her finger tightened around the barrel of her gun. If Papa couldn’t stop this man, she would have to do it alone.

“Miss Waldron?”

She turned slowly, defiantly. Captain Loewe was several steps behind her, his gray eyes crazed with power. She couldn’t kill an animal, but the captain—

He glared down at Boaz as if he’d instigated all the trouble. “We need your dog,” the captain said, his voice a steely calm.

“My dog’s name is Boaz,” she said, matching the calm of his voice. Then she stepped in front of her pet to shield him from the captain and his pistol. “And he bites.”

Chapter Six

“Speak some sense into your daughter,” Captain Loewe demanded as he looked between father and daughter.

Samantha didn’t waver. One of her hands curled around her flintlock, and the other wove through Boaz’s fur.

“I’ve been trying to talk sense into her for almost twenty years, but sometimes good sense seems to deflect off her.” Even with the resignation in Papa’s tone, she heard a thread of the Waldron pride. Papa may not always agree with her, but he never stopped her from standing up for what she thought was right. And this was clearly right.

“Step away,” the captain ordered her, waving his pistol like the Blackfeet Indians had waved their bows during a confrontation back in Kansas.

But even as she held his gaze, doubts bubbled up in her like the springs of soda they’d passed two days ago. What if the captain did turn their family away and force them to travel alone? What if he decided to make a spectacle of the Waldrons for their—for
her
—insubordination? Papa was only trying to protect them from harm, but Micah’s heart would break as well if these men killed Boaz. He’d already lost Mama. Losing Boaz now would crush him...and it would crush her too.