“I believe what happens will, and having a man beside me won't stop any misery that might come.” She knew that from experience “Won't spur solutions into daylight, either.”
“I didn't think women could go without a man's help assigned,” Tipton said. “You wouldn't want to let your wagons get behind, not with children along. Mister Bacon would fairly sizzle at such an idea.”
“Why is it people think only bad things can happen to women alone? If something happened to Jed, Betha would have to cover for him. I don't see the point of such thinking.”
Tyrell picked up his nippers.
“Fine,” Ruth said. She'd thought this out before, knew the subject would come up more than once, and she had to sound as confident and secure as she was but without challenging the men. They didn't like that, she'd found.
Ruth said, “I can take on a teamster at Fort Laramie if need be Between here and there, the trail's easy enough Don't see it'll be a problern. If I absolutely have to name someone wearing pants who'll walk beside me while I bullwhip, 111 find a kid. Someone fifteen or so, not otherwise committed It's no small irritation though, for a kid to be considered more reliable than a woman who's already come alone all the way from Missouri.”
Tyrell gazed at Ruth long enough that she felt uncomfortable. She turned to scratch the horse's nose. “We'll be just fine, won't we, Koda? You and me and Jumper and all the rest.” The horse shifted weight again. “Whoa, now,” Ruth cautioned.
“Don't let yourself get dirtied, Tip,” Tyrell said, his hand urging the girl back. “You looking so pretty Why don't you wait at the wagon? I'll find you later”
He'd patted the girl's head. Ruth saw her fury from the corner of her eye just before she swung her parasol and quick-walked away.
Tipton didn't know when she'd felt more like a kite tail, up and down and swirled around. She'd felt so unburdened by the mere mention that Tyrell had held her in his mind and shared a pleasant thought about her with another—about her sketching and that she looked like a “china doll.” Then she'd plummeted like a kite dropping in a dying wind when he'd dismissed her like a child.
She'd seen the way Tyrell looked at that Martin woman. Admiration. That's what she saw in his eyes. Admiration for Ruth Martin while his betrothed got a dog's pat to the head.
Her breathing tightened as she walked away, nodding and swirling her parasol at those who stood beside their wagons. She didn't hear them, just a buzz of words, harmonica music in the distance. What if Tyrell left the Bacon train, if he decided to go with a different group? He didn't need Mr. Bacon's money if what the Martin woman said was true about the demand for farriers, and of course it was. Tiptons worry raced on What if when we get to wherever were going, he doesn't want to settle near the Bacons? She hadn't thought of that before either. He'd have a dozen offers, and who wouldn't want to desert Mr. Bacon if the chance arose?
She shook her head, pasted on her smile, and headed back to the wagon to secure her pencils. Never let them see you fret, her mother always said. She'd pretend all was well. She'd get that look of admiration Tyrell had so easily given away.
She spent the day with her stomach aching until Mrs. Mueller insisted they walk through the town, buying pins and palm-leaf sun hats and extra saleratus for keeping the biscuits raised. Mrs. Mueller traded plant cuttings, and they listened to rumors about the Missouri crossing. Then Miz Bacon sent them back to buy up matches corked in a bottle and another whetstone for honing the knives. Mrs. Mueller kept up a running chatter “Talkfixl” was how Tipton thought of Mrs. Mueller, and she noticed with reluctance that the older woman's presence had kept her mind from Tyrell and his smiling at Ruth Martin.
In the evening, everyone in the vicinity was urged to attend a gathering to express their opinions about the upcoming journey. Dancing was said to follow
“Not necessary,” Mr. Bacon said over the meal that Tyrell missed.
“The meeting or the dancing?” Miz Bacon asked him.
“Only the meeting,” Mrs. Mueller answered. “Dancing's required, I'm sure.” Mr. Bacon scowled.
They'd wandered to the clustering, Mr. Bacon bringing coffee and a cold piece of pie. Across the circle, a round woman with a snow-white apron swept an area then laid a coverlet to sit on. Her skirts billowed out about her. She must be Betha, Tipton decided, as the woman waddled in, then urged Ruth Martin and an older, slender man wearing a monocle and smoking a clay pipe to sit beside her. Ruth had a whip coiled on her hip now. Tipton hadn't noticed that before Four children whose heights were one step apart climbed around them. The slick-haired boy who'd peered into their wagon was one of them. The boys hid behind the man while they reached across to their sisters to grab at ears, pull hair, and squeal before running to hide behind their mother, who smiled, then spit on her handkerchief and wiped a smudge from one boys face.
Ruth leaned to the youngest, a girl with deep dimples, who giggled and tumbled onto Ruths lap. When Ruth pulled one of the boys toward her, she exposed dark brogan shoes beneath her skirts.
“Their papa must be deaf and dumb,” Mrs. Mueller said, nodding their way.
“The Barnards?” Tipton said “That's Jed and Betha from St. Louis and his sister Ruth Martin—she's a horsewoman. Jed used to be a solic-ltor.
Mrs. Mueller looked at her. “Aren't you the local paper.”
“Tyrellie introduced us. He was telling her this afternoon about our impending marriage.” Tipton patted the ribbon at the back of her neck, then lifted it to let the evening breeze lick at the moisture beneath it. She wouldn't let anyone know about the worms that twisted in her stomach. “She's asked me to draw her horse.”
“I didn't know that you could make a likeness.”
“Lots you don't know about me,” Tipton said.
“That's only half that story,” Mrs. Mueller said. She picked at her teeth with a thin little stick “Other half is that I don't necessarily want to know more about you.”
Tipton grunted. The woman could be so crude.
“So will you?”
“What?”
“Draw the woman's horse for her.”
“I might.”
“That should keep you out of trouble anyway,” Mrs. Mueller said.
“As if I was in any.”
“You haven't been trouble so far,” Miz Bacon said, dropping down beside her, “much to my surprise.” Mrs. Mueller had gathered her skirts and leaned over her crossed legs to pull at a grass stem she then blew between her palms. “Mother! That's a horrible sound. You're worse than the children!”
“Used to do this as a young'un. Makes quite a squawk, you think? Better than a tin whistle, if you don't have one.”
Tipton turned away. At least here she could see that the Martin woman wasn't with Tyrell, wherever he was. She watched Ruth smooth her niece's braids. The child whispered something, and Ruth stood, walking with her, hand in hand, away from the circle.
Smoke from cooking fires drifted upward toward a sky that threatened more rain. Stock stomped in the distance, swished their tails at flies. Someone had hung a wind chime in a cottonwood, and its tinkling soothed the evening like fireflies in June. Tipton heard what sounded like a troubadour harp strumming and a throaty drum, then bursts of voice and laughter. There'd be dancing, and Tyrell could hold her clean and cleat. She swallowed. Tipton just had to put any other thoughts away, the ones that threatened and strangled.
None of them had asked much of her, not really It was a small price to pay for the freedom to be with Tyrell when she could, to have people see them as a pair. It was almost as though they were married.
“Got to have a little fun every day, I say,” Mrs. Mueller said, breaking into her thoughts. “You're all so serious.”
“This is serious business,” Mr. Bacon said as he sat down beside his mother-in-law.
Tipton felt something shift in the air with his presence. He folded his long legs in front of him. His hands rested on both knees. It seemed to her that Miz Bacon sat a little
straighter with him around. Mrs. Mueller stopped blowing the grass, just ran it through her fingers “You slept in this morning,” Miz Bacon said. “The cow was a bit distressed.”
“No one woke me! Mrs. Mueller, you said—”
“She's teasing you,” Mrs. Mueller said, patting Tiptons hand. “You've done fine, child, just fine.”
“I'm not a child.” Tipton pulled her hand away, straightened her shoulders.
“Seems like you ought to be for a while yet.” Mrs. Mueller blew her grass again.
Tipton started to stand up, to move away from this gathering where people treated her like a mindless doll.
Her heart skipped as Tyrell walked through the clusters of people toward her She stood, lifted a hand to wave. Where had he been? Was that guilt on his face?
A stocky man signaled to a fiddler to stop tuning his instrument, then clapped his hands for attention as he stood in the center near the low fire. The faces around the circle faded into the dusk and people ceased their chatter. Tyrell stayed on the far side of the circle.
“Guess we may as well get this meetin moving,” the man said “Gathered here to talk about some rules and such, and whether we should be teaming up. So I say—”
“There they are!” A woman's voice interrupted, carried across the crowd. Heads turned.
Tipton stiffened with recognition. Her breathing shallowed, and her fingers began to numb.
4
discovering home
“Adora? Adora Wilson? Is that really you?”
“In the flesh, Mazy Bacon. In the flesh.” Adora bolted across the circle, a mother cow discovering her lost calf. She grabbed Tipton and wrapped her arms around her, rocking her, releasing and inhaling, then holding the girl at arms length to gaze upon her child. “Oh, my baby looks so tired!”
Tiptons limbs, like rigid posts, bound her sides
“Mama…?” Tiptons words slurred as though through cobwebs of confusion. “Why…? Did you come alone?”
“Course not, child.” The older woman motioned behind her where a dusty-looking Hathaway Wilson wove his way through the neck-straining crowd that murmured over the commotion. His bigheaded son, Charles, followed. The men wore tired and resigned expressions in the dust of their faces.
Jeremy stood to shake Hathaway s hand, nod to Charles.
“Are you taking me back? Youre not, are you?”
The man calling the meeting clapped his hands like an irritated teacher bringing in unruly students. “You folks catch up later, yah? We got business here. Act like a bunch of soaplocks,” he said.
“We're not rowdies,” Hathaway defended, “just late arrivals.” He slipped to the ground on the other side of his daughter, who sank like a feather onto the blanket. Tipton sat pressed between her parents, rubbing absently at her right arm.
A fragment of home arriving in an unfamiliar place. All these people and sounds and smells and now the Wilsons’ appearance made Mazy feel discombobulated. She couldn't imagine how Tipton felt.
Still, if the Wilsons had a change of heart and planned to take Tipton back, Tyrell would surely follow. Then the Bacons would have no teamster, no man to drive the second wagon, and perhaps that would be the sign Jeremy needed to turn back too. At the very least, they'd lose a few more days finding a replacement for Tyrell—if they could—and in the meantime, Mazy could make her case with renewed vigor. Going home pulled at her as Pig could when the dog wanted attention, nibbled at her fingers then tugged until he got his way.
“Yah, then. All set?” the self-appointed leader started over. “We're—”
“Don't you think we should begin with a moment of gratitude? We've all come so far.” People turned to locate the source of the woman's voice, not unpleasant or strident, but clear. Mazy located her and noticed that in addition to a black wool dress, she wore a dark caplike hat that fit tightly over her ears and tied beneath her chin.
“Go ahead, then,” the leader sighed.
“My intent was only to remind,” the woman said. She stood stiff as an ivory comb, her hair pulled so tightly back into a bun it caused her eyes to look almost almond-shaped in the firelight. Mazy noted her bulbous nose, narrow lips, and tight collar held by a cameo pin. A cross on a chain around her neck flashed against the firelight. “Surely a man of the cloth is present?”
“Yah. Do we have a preacher, then?” Heads turned to look. In the more than a thousand wagons now gathered, there would be dozens, that's what Jeremy told Mazy when she'd asked about their spiritual “essentials.” But apparently none gathered in this small cluster of wagons at this fire. Mazy wondered how they'd come to settle in a grouping without even one man of God to bless their efforts.
Music drifted across the gatherers. Many were already dancing beyond them. She could hear the calls and fiddle from the far reaches closer to the river.
The man spoke up. “Will you be leading us then…?”
“Sister Esther. And no, it is not my place.”
The man shifted on his heels. “Yah, well.” He said it with a kind of whine, as if annoyed by a problem brought to his attention without a ready solution. “There being no preacher present, I'll offer up. Let's bow” Mazy heard the hush of hats being removed as she closed her eyes. “Lord, we're glad you came to this meeting, then. Help us pay attention and not go off all bullheaded like I can…like we can ” He coughed, as awkward as a schoolboy unpracticed in public praying. Mazy gave him credit for his effort. They might all be saying new prayers before this journey ended
His “Amen. Name's Schmidtke,” sounded like one word. Eyes lifted and he gazed across the group. “Antone Schmidtke Late of New York. Got three wagons, a hundred head of cattle, four ox teams, some horses and mules, a boy, Matt, and one teamster, Joe Pepin. Good men, they are. Wave your hats, boys. Yah, then. Been farming my life long. Hope to keep doing it West. We're civilized folks, the Schmidtkes are. Know that men need rules to make it in a venture like this. Enforce ‘em fair I'd make you a good captain. My teamster's been this way once before so we've got trained eyes.”
“Ya left out yer wife,” someone yelled from beyond the firelight. “Ya got one a those, don't ya?”
“What? I did?” A few men chuckled. “Where you sitting then, Lura?” His eyes stopped at a small, straight-sitting woman quietly clicking knitting needles and wearing a lap of yarn. A slender lookalike girl sat beside her. “Wave then,” he said and she did, a shy smile flashing across the woman's face before she dropped her eyes. The firelight flickered against her bodice laced with sewing needles and pins. She wore pearl combs in her hair and chewed on a smokeless clay pipe.
“Left out his daughter, too,” Mazy whispered, leaning to her mother.
Ruth Martin returned, perched her nieces on her lap. “You have a daughter as well. What's her name?”
“I forgot my girl? Mariah, she is,” Antone said, his thumb and finger massaging his chin, eyes scanning but not stopping. “If we can get past the ancestral count…now to business. Don't need to be blabbing all night, then.”
“Looks like you're the only one blabbing,” someone shouted— Mazy couldn't tell who—and the group burst into guffaws. The darkness offered protection so people didn't have to own their observations or ideas unless they stood closer to the light for recognition.
Antone Schmidtke opened one button of his high collar. He was a broad man, and the green striped vest he wore widened him like a watermelon. “Yah, yah,” he said, irritated “Is there any out there who thinks someone else should lead this group of ragamuffins west, then?”
Mazy felt Jeremy move to stand, and her mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Jeremy Bacon. Grant County, Wisconsin.” He wiped at his nose with his ever-present handkerchief. “All due respect, Mr. Schmidtke—”
“Antone First name's good enough”
“Harder for the law to catch you that way,” someone shouted and people laughed. Mazy noticed that Ruth Martin didn't.
“If we need a leader at all,??
? Jeremy said, “he needs to be someone who's reluctant, someone who wants to let folks do on their own as much as possible.”
Mazy gazed up at her husband, wondering what he was truly thinking. They'd argued just hours before. He'd insisted they could go it alone, just the two wagons. Now he was describing what kind of leader their group ought to have?
“A fair number of us had no leader, yet here we are.” He lifted his arms to take in the gathering. “Seems foolhardy to turn over our scheduling to someone who doesn't know each family's quirks and ways. Me, I can't see the benefit. All we need is folks willing to listen to each other. Ask for help and the rest of us give it.”
Mazy's mouth dropped open, but she snapped it shut and exchanged a look she couldn't name with Ruth Martin who stared at her from across the circle.
“Got what, fifteen, twenty wagons right here represented,” Jeremy continued. “Now me, I've got Grant and MacDonald's guidebook that any who can read can look at with me. Just loosely head out in the same direction, stay on the North Platte road. Can't imagine we'd need anything more.”
“Outdated, that book is,” Antone said. He scratched a shaved cheek “Lot's happened since ‘46. I tell you, we are all going to have situations where a firm hand is welcome as water. First time you decide to stop and I pass you by and take your grass, you'll be saying I should have listened to old Antone.” People chuckled. “And there's Indian threats. Lone wagons, just one or two stopping to pick flowers'll make those folks think we're all daft. Can't risk vexing Indians, yah that's right.” Mazy watched heads nod in private chatter across the circle. “Got to at least look like we defend ourselves, yah? Getting cattle across rivers, circling stock, would all be better with cooperation. Don't need lots of rules.”
“We must decide about the Sabbath.” It was Sister Esther. Mazy wondered who the woman traveled with. No one had come forth to claim her as kin, though two men sat on either side of her. Behind her clustered several young women whose faces were shadowed by straw-woven hats that looked liked mushrooms pulled to a point at the top.