Fortune's Journey (11 page)

Splashing through the puddles, she climbed over the back of the wagon. It was wet in there, too, the painted cloth cover insufficient to withstand the full fury of the storm.

Even so, it was home—or as much of a home as she had at the moment. The sound of Mrs. Watson's snoring, so annoying such a short time before, suddenly seemed oddly comforting.

Stripping off her soaked things, Fortune climbed into her makeshift bed. Pressing her face to her blanket so that Mrs. Watson would not hear, she cried herself to sleep.

Chapter Eleven

It was three days before either of them spoke of what had happened. Fortune was riding beside Aaron at the front of the wagon—something she had avoided entirely the previous two days—when he said, “About the other night…”

“I don't want to talk about it!”

Aaron nodded, and fell silent. Fortune glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw set. A moment later he tried again. “Listen. I just want to say I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to do.”

She relaxed a little. “I'm sorry I got so mad,” she said.

He shook his head. “You had every right.”

They rode in silence for another moment, then he reached for her hand. She let him take it. Yet the gesture didn't make her nearly as happy as she wanted it to. Her feelings for him, once so clear, were now as muddy and churned as the road beneath them.

Turning her head, Fortune began to study the vast prairie that stretched away on all sides of them. As always, she was amazed at the flowers, sweeps of red, orange, and yellow that looked like schools of multicolored fishes swimming through an ocean of grass. Life seemed to pulse around her—the hawks that circled overhead, the insects that buzzed and swarmed over the grasses. She knew there was more life, too, life she was less apt to see, like the coyotes that sometimes prowled the edges of their camp at night, the rattlesnakes she had been warned against, the red deer the men sometimes shot and carried back to camp.

She had been revolted the first time she saw Jamie clean and gut a deer; it was the only time in her life that she had been forced to come face to face with the reality of the meat she ate.

Her squeamishness had evoked some teasing from Edmund and Aaron, and also left her thinking about some of the other women she had met on the journey—women like Becky Hyatt's mother, who had been killing and cleaning animals since she was a child.

Eventually Fortune slipped her hand from Aaron's and scrambled back into the wagon to talk to Mrs. Watson.

The red-haired woman sat serenely on a chair she had wedged between two chests, looking like a queen in exile. She had a book in one hand and was quietly turning the pages, as if the bounce and bump of the wagon had no effect on her at all.

Fortune sat on the rounded top of one of the chests next to her and waited for Mrs. Watson to notice her. When it became clear that she was so absorbed in her book that she wasn't going to, Fortune asked loudly, “What are you reading?”

“Why, Fortune!” Mrs. Watson seemed genuinely pleased to see her. She closed her book and looked at the cover. “It's called
Frankenstein,”
she said with a shudder. “Most gruesome thing I ever read. Gives me the shivers. Written by a young woman not much older than you, believe it or not. It's about a scientist who builds a new man out of the parts of dead people!”

Fortune blinked in astonishment at such a revolting idea. “If it's so horrible, why are you reading it?” She looked at the book as if it might bite her.

“Oh, I
love
to have the shivers. Besides, it's how I get away from all this bouncing and jouncing. I can pretend I'm not here at all.”

As if on cue, the wagon rolled over another bump, sending both passengers an inch or two off their seats. Mrs. Watson put her hand against her back and groaned. “Sometimes I think that even if I do live to see California, my spine will have been ground to powder by the time we get there.”

“Maybe you should walk for a while, as the others do,” suggested Fortune.

“The sun would be devastating for my complexion, chicken. I don't know how you can stand it out there yourself. If you must walk, I wish you would stop taking off your bonnet. You're doing terrible things to your skin.”

“I'm sure,” said Fortune. “Even so, I prefer it to being cooped up in here.”

She paused, uncertain how to talk about what was on her mind, afraid Mrs. Watson would laugh. She wasn't even sure she
should
talk about it.

Mrs. Watson looked at her closely. “Are you all right, chickadee?”

“What? Oh, certainly. Only…Mrs. Watson, did you ever have…man trouble?”

She did laugh, but it was a friendly, confiding laugh. “What woman hasn't? It's the curse of our sex. Also the blessing. What's bothering you? Aaron, or Jamie? Not Edmund, I hope. Silly little peacock.”

Fortune made a face. “Not Edmund! Aaron, mostly. The other night…”

She fell silent, unable to tell the story.

Mrs. Watson looked at her, but said nothing. The wagon bounced and bumped along. Finally Fortune spoke again. Hesitantly at first, then overcome by memory and anger and sorrow, she poured out her story. She included Aaron's apology, but didn't mention the way he had just taken her hand.

Mrs. Watson shook her head, and Fortune could tell that she was delighted to be consulted in this matter. “There, there, love. Men do that sort of thing every once in a while. At least, a lot of them do. The thing to ask yourself is, does it happen all the time, or was it just a mistake? We all do make mistakes, chicken—even us women. Sometimes we even mistake strong feelings for love.”

“What do you mean?” asked Fortune suspiciously.

Mrs. Watson shrugged. “You need to be on your guard, Fortune. Right now you have to figure you're sort of like a mouse in a roomful of hungry cats. You may not be much, but you're the best thing around.”

“Well, thank you very much!”

“Don't be a goose. I didn't mean it like that. Anyway, what a smart mouse would do is play the cats off against each other. As long as they're fighting over the mouse, they won't be trying to catch it.”

Fortune thought for a moment. Finally, timidly, she asked, “What if the mouse
wants
to get caught?”

Mrs. Watson smiled. “Ah, now that's different. First you have to choose your cat.”

Choosing to ignore the implication of that statement, Fortune said nothing for a while. She began to study Mrs. Watson's face and realized that her expression wasn't merely serious; it was almost mournful.

Yet there was a veil behind her eyes, as if she were shutting out the world—or holding something away from it. Prompted by something she didn't quite understand, Fortune asked, “Did you ever have a dream, Mrs. Watson?”

“Once,” she replied, her voice soft and husky. “For a while.”

“What happened?”

Mrs. Watson's eyes grew dark, and her face seemed to close in on itself, shutting Fortune out somehow. “It's a long story, dear,” she whispered, “and I'd really rather not talk about it.” She paused, and stared past Fortune at the light filtering through the wagon cover. Suddenly she straightened her spine and said, almost fiercely, “But I will tell you one thing—something I know, as sure as I know the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Once you figure out what you want, you're a fool if you don't fight for it with all your heart and soul.” She paused. The mask of cheerfulness she usually wore returned. The memory, whatever it was, had been pushed back into hiding.

“One more thing, Fortune.”

“Yes?”

Mrs. Watson picked up her book. “Until you do know what you want, you're a fool if you don't have some fun finding out.” She paused, then added, “The thing about cats is, they can't control themselves. Twitch something in front of them the right way and they'll dive for it, whether they want it or not. It makes them a lot of fun to play with.”

She returned to
Frankenstein.
The talk was over.

Fortune started for the front of the wagon, then decided to climb through the back instead and walk for a while.

The prairie stretched into the distance. Though Fortune could see nothing that really qualified as a hill, certainly nothing that blocked the seemingly endless view of grass, the land was not as flat as she had been warned—as she could tell by the burning in her calves that came from walking up and down the rolling landscape.

After a while Jamie slid off Dolly, tied her to the back of the wagon, and fell into step beside Fortune. They walked in silence for several minutes. Finally he said, “That was some storm the other night.” Fortune looked at him suspiciously, wondering if he was aware of what had happened.

“I don't like the wind,” she said at last. “It blows so hard out here.”

“Oh, that wind wasn't much,” said Jamie. “Last year the wind blew so hard in Busted Heights that one day I watched one of our chickens lay the same egg four times.”

Fortune snorted.

“Her sister was smarter, though,” continued Jamie, as if he had not heard. “She just turned around and opened her mouth and—
Pop! Pop! Pop
!—laid five eggs in three minutes. Most amazing thing I ever saw.”

“Do you always talk such nonsense?” asked Fortune, trying not to show how amused she was.

He shrugged. “I can be serious if you want.” He waited a moment. Then, as if to prove the statement, he looked at her and said, “Are you in love with Aaron?”

Fortune let out a little gasp. She was not used to such a blunt approach.

Not as surprising, but more distressing, was the fact that she had no idea what the answer was. A week earlier she would have said yes without even thinking about it. Now she realized she could think about it all day and not be sure.

Jamie repeated the question. His voice was gentle, but insistent.

She looked at him closely. His brown eyes seemed larger than ever; they had a soft quality, a vulnerability, that reminded her of a child who has skinned a knee. Yet they held something else, too; something hidden. She had the sudden feeling she could know him for a lifetime yet never know everything about him.

“I don't know,” she said. Then added, a little peevishly, “And it's none of your business if I am anyway!”

He nodded. “That's true. On the other hand, I'm glad you don't know.”

Fortune wasn't sure if she was being laughed at. Every time she talked to him, she realized how wrong she had been in her initial perception of him as “just” a small-town boy.

“Have
you
ever been in love?” she asked casually.

“Once or twice. Of course, there weren't that many people to fall in love with in Busted Heights. I did have a dog I was crazy about once…

She let out a hearty laugh, half in amusement, half to break the tension. “You're cracked.”

“I thought that was a requirement for anyone who wanted to be an actor.”

“It probably should be,” she said, half-seriously.

He bent and picked one of the purple flowers that Becky Hyatt had told her was called a shooting star. “A flower for milady!” he said triumphantly, holding it out to her.

Uncertain of what to say, Fortune took the blossom from his hand. Looking down at the flower, she caressed it with her fingertip. The petals were soft and smooth, their colors more shaded and varied than she had realized at first glance.

The wagon creaked and rumbled beside them. The sun was warm but gentle, the air sweet with new growth.

Jamie took the flower from her hand. She was still looking away as he threaded it through her hair, over one ear.

She turned to him and smiled. The sunlight burnished his chestnut hair, touching it with bronze and gold. She had an almost irresistible urge to touch it, to run her fingers through it.

Careful, Fortune Plunkett. Don't let yourself get carried away!

“What happened to your father?” asked Jamie, as if sensing her discomfort, her need to change the subject.

“He died. Of pneumonia.”

“I'm sorry. Does it bother you to talk about it?”

“No. Yes.” She turned her face away again. “I don't know.”

She had a sudden vision of her father, tall and handsome, standing on the stage, commanding an audience, overwhelming them with the power and beauty of his voice.

“Are you all right?” asked Jamie.

She took a deep breath, realized that she had stopped walking. “I think so.” She paused. “Do you want to know how it happened?”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

She walked in silence for several minutes. She hadn't spoken with anyone about her father's death. It was too personal, too painful, too recent. And yet somehow she felt she could trust Jamie to listen without intruding. She felt a sudden need to empty herself of the memory.

“Last year, around Christmastime, we had a fantastically successful week—a new town every night, and a full house in each one of them. You don't get a lot of weeks like that. We were staying in a place called Burke's Crossing. A little river ran through the center of the town.”

She shivered. “On Friday night Papa, Walter, Aaron, and Mr. Patchett went to a tavern after the show, to celebrate our good luck.” She paused again. “Papa had too much to drink.”

Her voice had a defensive edge. “He didn't do that very often, you know. It just happened that night.”

“I believe you.”

She searched his face. Satisfied with what she saw, she went on. “Anyway, they were coming back to the boarding house—it was a lot like your mother's place, actually—and when they stepped onto the bridge it reminded Papa of a stage. So he decided to make a speech—one of the big monologues from
Hamlet.
After he got rolling, he climbed up onto the railing.”

She smiled ruefully. “Papa was always very dramatic when he was drunk. Anyway, he finished the speech with a flourish, took a bow…and fell into the river.”