Gone West (8 page)

Johnny put his empty bowl down first.

“How’s the footprint situation today, Sam?”

It was Sam’s turn to blush. “Must’ve been a figment like I said. Things was clean as a whistle this morning.”

“What footprints?” demanded Jamie.

“This is grownup talk, son. Did I hear anyone invite you to partake of it?”

“No, sir.” Chagrined, the boy turned his attentions back to the pup.

Johnny was taking no chances with little pitchers and their big ears, however. All Jamie had to do was report a few words of the conversation to his friends and those words would spread like wildfire, creating rumors of sneaking Indians or Mormons or both. Time to change the subject.

“I was talking to Max Kreller before supper tonight, showing off the pup to his brood. He spotted a small herd of deer this evening, just before we stopped. There might be some good meat nearby for the hunting.”

The other men looked up in interest. You could almost see venison steaks floating before their eyes.

“How do we get ‘em?” asked Sam practically.

“Exactly. We need a plan.”

The Kansas River had to be crossed. It was eighty-seven miles out of Independence. As first emigrants of the season the Chandler party’s early arrival had given the swollen river little time to calm itself.

Captain Chandler ordered the wagons to line themselves up when they came to the Pappan Ferry at midmorning. Johnny unyoked and tethered the Stuart’s oxen, and the whole family walked to the river’s edge to watch with the rest of the emigrants as the process began.

Maggie peered over the edge of the bank first. “Johnny! It looks dangerous!” she gasped, and automatically reached to feel for Charlotte on her back, to firmly grasp Jamie’s hand.

Johnny’s excitement at the sight was different. “The Kansas must be two hundred yards wide. And the currents are running mean! Something real is happening at last.” A grin of anticipation spread across his face. “Watch ! They’re testing the waters with Chandler’s wagon.”

The captain’s white top was being lowered down the steep bank by means of a rope, one end winched around a stout tree. It was slow work. Waiting below was a very curious concoction of a boat.

“What kind of a raft is that, Johnny? I never saw one like it on the Ohio.”

“It looks like two
pirogues
~canoes~bridged with poles, Meg. I think they mean to float the wagon in the middle.”

Maggie shivered in the early spring warmth. Johnny noticed and gave her hand a firm squeeze. “Not to worry, love. The owners of the ferry~those two Indian-looking gentlemen directing the proceedings down there~they’ve been doing this since ‘44. The Pappan brothers. Their father was a French mountain man, their mother a squaw. They’re in the guidebooks, and Chandler seems comfortable with them.”

Maggie studied the sweep of water, surging powerfully against its banks.

“Where’s Jamie?” She spun around wildly. He’d slipped out of her grasp unnoticed. In her mind’s eye the boy had already fallen into the waters and was even now being swallowed irrevocably by the merciless currents.

“Rest easy, Meg. He’s wandered over there, with the Kreller girls.” Johnny pointed.

Maggie ignored the creaks and groans of the Chandler wagon being lowered against its will. “I’m off to get him into my sights.”

“Meg.” Johnny smiled. “This should be an easy crossing. We’ve a ferry to help us. A thousand miles beyond here is when you can begin to worry.”

“I’m still getting that boy firmly into view. The way he hops around, he could be vaulting himself into the river any moment. He’s overly impressed with himself and his exploits these days. Even his strong swimming couldn’t save him from those currents!”

Johnny shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I guess I forget the boy’s only seven.” And Johnny himself stepped nearer to the brink.

Maggie caught up with Jamie in the center of a crowd of youngsters. He was busily scratching something on a bare patch of earth with a stone. Finished, he stood up importantly to show off his work.

“There, Matty. This is how I see it. That big old rope is acting like a pulley, levering the wagon’s weight slowly down~” He sensed something and looked up. “`Lo, Ma, Charley. Just explaining to the girls how the ferrying business works. Wish I knew the depth of the river so I could judge how those Injuns figure to pole the wagons across.”

Maggie let out her pent up breath. Maybe he had more sense than she gave him credit for.

“You must be Jamie’s mother. A fine boy you’ve got there.”

Maggie collected herself to stare up into the calm eyes of a fine-looking, chestnut-haired man. He smiled at her, clamped his teeth down on his meerschaum pipe, and held out a hand.

“I’m Max Kreller. Matty’s father. And Hilda’s, and Irene’s too. She’s the baby.”

“I’ve heard nothing but `Matty this and Matty that’ since the trip began,” Maggie smiled back. “The children seem to have taken to each other.”

He nodded his head in agreement. “Matilda don’t take to many, so it’s a pleasure to see them get on like that. Always wanted to be a boy, she has.”

“She’ll grow out of it when the time is ripe. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kreller.”

“Max.”

“Maggie Stuart, Max.”

A slight woman bustled up, a baby near Charlotte’s age draped over one shoulder, busily pulling fistfuls of dark black hair out of her mother’s bun.

“You Jamie’s mother?” She didn’t wait for Maggie’s nod of agreement. “I’ve been wanting awful bad to meet up with you. I’m Hazel. Max’s wife, and mother to his daughters.” She went on nonstop. “I do admire the way you’ve dealt with your baby. Slung on your back like that. Ain’t never seen nothing like that back in Pennsylvania where we come from. Looks a mite easier’n how I handle mine, and leaves your hands freed up for the work, too.”

“I learned it from my Indian friends in Independence.” Maggie watched Hazel’s eyes widen in surprise. “If you’ve got a length of extra canvas and a few sticks I could fix you up the same.”

“Would you? I’d be indebted, and that’s the truth!”

“Sure you don’t mind a little learning from the `heathen’?” teased Maggie gently.

Hazel grunted. “Sounds like you’ve met up with that parson Winslow. Beats me how a slew of Christians can send someone so full of himself out to the missions. Plenty of decent ministers back home don’t look down their noses at every blessed soul. And the ways he’s been going on about Mormons to any that’ll listen! He’d have my eyes turned round clear to my back if I hadn’t already decided to swallow less than half of what he says.”

Maggie laughed. “I think we’re going to be friends, Hazel.”

“Don’t see why not. We seem to be close to the same age and all. We got youngsters the same, and husbands with wanderlust the same. There’s a lot we could share. I just did for the cows, so why don’t I get you a nice cup of milk?

When the Kreller family took their turn at the ferry, baby Irene was trussed up on her mother’s back like Charlotte. Maggie stood watching, heart in throat, as her new friends helped to ease their wagon onto the frail-looking raft and climbed aboard. Hazel shaded her eyes to wave at Maggie.

“See you ‘tother side. Come round for some more milk after you make it!”

Maggie waved harder. It would be their own turn soon. She looked round for Johnny. He’d finally wearied of watching the proceedings and was comfortably ensconced under a nearby tree reading a book as if nothing were happening. Jamie raced up and screeched to a halt.

“May I have a book, too, Ma? The girls are gone across. The Richmans with Jube, they’ve gone, too. There’s no one to play with.”

Maggie motioned toward a group of wan children scrabbling in the muddy wagon ruts nearby. “What about them?”

Jamie shook his head deprecatingly. “They’re Winslows. You know their pa don’t ‘llow them to mix.”

Maggie sighed. “You’re way behind on your lessons anyway.”

“It’s not lessons I’m after. I’ve memorized enough poems through this past deluge to last me forever. Pa says we’re on
sabbatical
after all. I’m looking for something adventurous!”

“Poems are fun. You can’t ever memorize enough of them. You’ll not be avoiding your serious lessons for the whole trip, my boy. Take those multiplication tables, for instance~”

“I’d rather leave ‘em, Ma.”

“Jamie. Three times nine.”

“Umm.” He stood twitching his fingers, obviously counting up on them. “Twenty-six?”

“My point in a nutshell.” Maggie shook her head. “I’ll have to talk to your father about this. And as for that adventure nonsense. It seems to me there could be few things more adventurous than what you’ve been watching here all day.”

“It palls after a while, it does. A person like me needs excitement every minute!”

“Young man, I was never entertained every moment of my childhood. In fact, I can’t remember ever being entertained.”

“It couldn’t have been
that
bad on the farm, Ma.”

“I guess it wasn’t, at that,” Maggie laughed. Her eyes went from Jamie right over to the far side of the Kansas River without seeing it. Not after Johnny started coming each year to their cabin with his father and their books. She thought again of her parents left behind on their parcel of land near the banks of the Ohio River. Her mild-mannered, sweet mother; her stern, red-headed father whose only peace was found in constant work and regular readings of the scripture; her three brothers and sister. It seemed too long since she’d laid eyes on them.

“Is it all right, Ma?” Jamie brought her back to the present.

“What?”

“To get an adventurous book!”

Exasperated, Maggie gave up the struggle. “Certainly, Jamie.”

Maggie eased herself down near her husband to feed the baby. It would have been better if they’d been right up in front of the line like the Chandlers. There’d have been no waiting and worry all the day. What would her own mother think if she could see Maggie now, ready to endanger everything she held dear in this world, all for the fording of a river in flood? Her mother had never been farther than thirty miles from the farm, to camp meeting every autumn. She’d never understand, not even with the letters Maggie had been sending from Independence.

The sounds of the rope winching down another groaning wagon broke into Maggie’s thoughts. The Kreller’s had made it across all right. So had everyone else. The two half-breed brothers seemed to know their business. They’d certainly had enough practice. She ought to just relax~

“It’s swamped! Ma! Pa! They’ve lost a wagon!”

Jamie’s book was in the dust and Charlotte clung to Maggie’s breast with an alarmed expression as Maggie and Johnny raced for the bank. Once there, Maggie’s eyes travelled unerringly to the spot where the white top was turned on its side, rushing irrevocably downstream with the currents. Slowly, too slowly, hands reached out from within to grasp at the canvas. One by one children, wife and husband were clinging to the top of the wagon, still tearing downstream.

“Who are they?”

“The Butlers,” whispered Jamie. “Ain’t had much to do with them so far. Guess I won’t, either.”

“Haven’t,” corrected Johnny. His excitement over the flooding river was gone. He reached one arm around Maggie, the other around Jamie.

“There’s nothing easy in this life. Remember. Pray for them. When we’re across we’ll track them down and see what aid we can give.”

Too soon the ferrymen were back in business as if nothing had happened. It was the Stuarts’ turn.

Johnny helped his family down the slope and slowly counted out four one dollar coins into the nearest Pappan’s hand. When he was finished the hand was still stretched out. Johnny looked up.

“It be another twenty-five cents each animal, and ten cents each man. Throw in the papoose no charge.”

Johnny counted out more coins.

“Do we get our money back if we swamp like the Butlers?” Jamie asked, giving the ferrymen a shrewd look. The taller of the two men, stripped to the waist, coal-black hair wet and slicked back, stared at the boy and finally broke into a brown-stained smile.

“For you, maybe we give half back. ‘Tother family ain’t had the sense to ask beforetimes. Told ‘em they was topheavy.”

“We ain’t~aren’t~topheavy, are we Pa?” Jamie frowned at Johnny.

Johnny turned to one of the brothers questioningly.

The halfbreed spat out a stream of tobacco juice. “If’n you had problems I’d a said so. You be holdin’ up the line.”

Johnny straightened his shoulders. “Go ahead with the children, Meg. I’ll come across with the books.” He gave them each a hug as he planted them firmly inside the canvas top. “See you before you know it.”

Maggie sat on an edge of the dismantled Ramage printing press, grasping the little brass finial of its top piece like a talisman. It had been beneath the waters of a great river once before. Surely once was more than enough.

Charlotte was firmly strapped to her back and blessedly napping. Jamie was sharing his mother’s perch, clinging to her free hand tightly. His face magnified her own fear. True adventure was better in books. She was afraid to look forward, afraid to look back. But she’d have to do something for the boy.

“Can you unbutton that side flap, Jamie? Let in some river breeze. We can watch the Pappans pole us across. You wondered how they did it, after all. We might even pick up a few pointers for future crossings.”

Jamie loosed his death grip and did as bid. Then he was back, holding her less tightly.