Читать книгу Wagon Train Sweetheart - Lacy Williams - Страница 10

Chapter Two

“Your presence here is quite inconvenient.”

Emma bathed Mr. Reed’s face with a rag dipped in tepid water from the small basin she’d tucked between two crates in the cramped Conestoga wagon. She was down to the dregs of what she’d started with—most of it had splashed onto her as the wagon jostled over the rough terrain.

She dared speak to him so rudely only because he hadn’t regained consciousness after his collapse early this morning. If he was awake, she never would’ve had the courage.

And he probably wouldn’t have heard her, anyway.

His continuous unconscious state worried her. Where her knuckle inadvertently brushed against his cheek, his skin burned her. His fever was high. Dangerously so.

“Crossing the creek again,” Ben called out from outside the wagon, where he walked beside the oxen.

Again?

Emma braced one hand against the sideboard. The wagon lurched and she slid forward, then another unexpected drop sent her sprawling, her arm resting across Mr. Reed’s massive chest and her chin on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she muttered, even though he couldn’t hear her. She quickly pushed herself upright and away from the man.

After endless days of walking—sometimes as much as twenty miles—Emma had never thought she’d want to hike again. Until this very moment. When would they stop for luncheon?

There was no space. The Hewitts’ wagon hadn’t been overfilled as Abby’s family wagon had, but their provisions were many and there wasn’t room for two grown people back here.

She was alternately worried for Mr. Reed’s health, and embarrassed about their shared close confines.

More so because she knew Mr. Reed didn’t like her. She had no idea why, or what she’d done to offend him. But it had been very clear from their few interactions at the evening meal that he had no wish to be friends. The Hewitts shared a campfire with the Binghams and Littletons to conserve fuel. As Mr. Reed drove the Binghams’ wagon, he ate supper with their group. Several times when Emma had offered Mr. Reed a supper plate and attempted polite conversation, he’d avoided her gaze completely and nearly ripped the tin plate from her hands before disappearing into the shadows. As if being in her presence irritated him.

After the third time, she’d quit trying to be kind and merely served his plate in silence. Unlike the times when papa’s illness had made him difficult, she didn’t have to accept the rudeness from a stranger.

He moaned, a low sound of pain that tugged something in the vicinity of Emma’s gut. He was alone, with no one to care for him.

Her innate compassion dictated that she do for him what no one else would. She hoped someone would do the same for her should she need it.

“I know you don’t like me very much,” she whispered, dabbing the cloth over his forehead again. “But it would be lovely if you would wake up.”

But Mr. Reed made no response.

The caravan slowed and stopped for the noon meal and Emma was relieved to escape the wagon for a few moments.

Ben allowed the oxen out of their traces and led them off to graze for a bit. Rachel and Abby had their heads together, probably planning supper or trading news from elsewhere in the wagon train.

And Emma was left standing in the shade of the wagon. She arched her back, hands at her hips, attempting to shake the aches that being hunched over and jostled all morning had given her.

The landscape had changed subtly in the past days to bare, sandy plains. There was little vegetation, only the occasional wild sage. Ben had told her earlier they should come upon the Wind River Mountains by the end of the day.

“How does your patient fare?”

Emma looked over her shoulder at the familiar, friendly voice calling out. Clara Pressman. Disguised as a man. “Clarence” Pressman was only a ruse to hide the truth.

Emma had discovered the masquerade after they’d left Independence, Kansas. Clarence had gotten a nasty cut on his back and Emma had been called to aid him. While cleaning the wound, Emma had discovered his secret. Clarence was Clara.

And Clara was pregnant. Very much alone, after her husband had died, with no family in the East and no home to return to—her husband had sold everything to make the journey West—she’d decided to go on alone and meet up with her sister who already lived in Oregon. She’d felt it necessary to hide her true identity, fearing the organizers wouldn’t allow her to make the trip if they knew she was a pregnant woman on her own.

She’d probably been right. Emma didn’t necessarily agree with the ruse, but Clara had held up remarkably well on the journey so far.

Nearby, Clara was unhitching a yoke of oxen along with Mr. Morrison. Emma waved at her friend and called out a greeting to both.

Clara nodded, but the second man turned red and then turned his face away, not acknowledging Emma at all.

Emma’s stomach pinched. Had her shout been too forward? She didn’t know how to relate to men properly. When other girls her age had been attending socials and picnics and learning to flirt, Emma had been at her father’s bedside.

Maybe her naivety and inexperience with the opposite sex was also the reason she didn’t understand why Mr. Reed had snubbed her those several times.

What would Tristan McCullough think of her?

She hadn’t allowed herself to hope that the sheriff Grayson spoke so highly of in his letters would like her once they’d met.

What if Mr. McCullough found her natural shyness irritating?

Perhaps he wouldn’t even be interested in her once they met. Her cautious nature caused her to hesitate more than hope. She would wait and see how things turned out.

A soft whine drew Emma’s attention to the long grass beneath the wagon, where a small brown dog crouched, panting. Watching her, almost asking a question with its eyes.

“Hello, you,” she said, squatting. This was Mr. Reed’s dog. She’d seen the brown-and-black mottled mutt from a distance, witnessed the man sharing snatches of his supper with it, but had forgotten about the animal in the rushed moments of finding a place for Mr. Reed before the bugle had urged the travelers to move out.

“Have you been following us all day?” She reached out and was astonished when the creature let her scratch beneath its chin. “Yes, your master is inside that wagon.”

Pitiful begging eyes reminded her of the family cat, Buttons, that had been her childhood friend. “Hungry, are you?”

She knew the animal couldn’t really understand what she was saying, but the dog’s tail whupped against the grasses as if it did.

“I’ll share some beans with you, but only if you promise not to tell your master.”

She was so tired of the trail fare. Cold beans and bacon for dinner. Every single day. Unless one counted the times they had fresh buffalo meat to break up the monotony.

She wanted a real stove, not a camp stove and a fire. Real walls.

“Unfortunately, we’ve got a ways to go,” she told the dog.

“What’re you doing?”

Emma jumped at the sound of the unexpected voice and thumped her head on a bucket hanging from the side of the wagon. She backed out from where she’d been crouching, rubbing the top of her head and grimacing at Clara.

“If you must know, I was making a new friend,” she groused.

Clara glanced behind her to where the dog still sat beneath the wagon’s bed.

“I need one today,” Emma finished.

Now Clara turned a raised eyebrow on her. “It’s going that well with your patient, then?”

“Oh, Mr. Reed has been perfectly amiable, entertaining me with his lovely conversation and sweet nature.”

“Ah.” Clara’s lips twitched. “So he hasn’t woken up?”

Emma’s friend kept the straight face for several moments before a smile broke through. Emma couldn’t help sharing a chuckle with her. Between her father and two brothers, she well knew that men could be irritable when they were ill.

“And how are you this morning, friend?”

Just then, Amos and Grant Sinclair, brothers traveling the trail together, passed by.

Clara stiffened and waited until the men had passed out of hearing distance. “Fine.”

Up close, Clarence’s secret was no secret at all—­although her womanly figure was covered with men’s clothing, Emma could see straight through the ruse. She didn’t understand how everyone else saw only a man.

Clara unobtrusively put her hand at her lower back. She nodded at the horizon, and Emma followed with her gaze. “Storm’s coming.”

Clouds built on the western horizon, directly in their path. Even as Emma watched, the slate-gray mass twisted on itself, forming a thunderhead.

And Emma had hated storms since she’d been caught out in one as a small child.

* * *

The ominous clouds had delivered on their promise. The caravan had been forced to end its day early because of driving rain.

Now in the twilight dimness, Emma was secluded with the still-unconscious Mr. Reed, with no end in sight of the intense storm.

Ben and Rachel were hunkered down in the family’s tent, probably soaking wet instead of the mere damp that Emma suffered.

Rain pelted the wagon bonnet, rattling the canvas until Emma felt as if her teeth rattled with it.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to wake up now,” she said to the comatose man. She worked in the dark, still attempting to cool his fever. She’d lit a candle twice but wind had gusted in through the flaps and blown out the light—and once knocked over the candle. She was too afraid of catching their wagon afire and losing all their goods to try again.

Late in the afternoon, when they’d still had light, she’d watched the measles rash climb Mr. Reed’s chest and neck. She imagined it had crept into his cheeks by now, but his heavy, dark beard obscured her view.

His continued unconsciousness worried her. None of the children had experienced a prolonged period like this. She guessed that measles could affect adults differently than children and that his body was likely attempting to fight off the burning fever.

“Not that I object to nursing you in particular,” she went on. “It’s just…I had hoped to leave behind the need to use my nursing skills.”

She’d been so beaten down by her time at her father’s bedside. The hours spent caring for him, praying for his recovery—only to be bitterly disappointed when he had died.

She’d hoped to, planned to, help the children at the orphanage with her other skills. Sewing clothing. Cooking. Loving on the children. But it was not to be, not when her family had decided to pull up their roots and travel West. And now she was here with Mr. Reed.

Static electricity crawled along her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms stand upright and raising gooseflesh in its wake.

Bright lightning flashed, momentarily filling the interior of the wagon with brilliant white illumination. Thunder crashed so loudly that Emma instinctively raised her hands to press against her ears. The earth trembled, the entire wagon shaking with it.

When the thunder receded, Emma’s eyesight retained large glowing spots, an aftereffect of the bright light that rendered her momentarily blind.

She reached out and clutched the first thing she found, attempting to ground herself in her state of disorientation.

The nearest thing turned out to be Mr. Reed’s shoulder.

A muscle twitched beneath her palm, but he remained still and silence reigned inside the wagon, only the cadence of rain drumming all around them.

Emma squeezed her eyes tightly closed, bent over and breathed through the fear, inhaling the scent of stale sweat and man. Not for the first time was she made aware that she was nursing a man and not one of the children. The firm muscle beneath her fingers also made it impossible to ignore that this was not her father in his frail condition those last months.

Mr. Reed was a fine specimen of a man. Fit, tall, broad-shouldered. A bit unkempt for her tastes but everything else that usually made her tongue-tied.

Except he was unconscious.

“That was a close one,” she breathed.

An echo of thunder rumbled from far away. Just how large was this storm? How long could it last?

Her nervousness and fear made her ramble on, though she attempted to keep her thoughts on the past and not the storm. “My father lost everything in the Panic. His spirit was broken and he was never the same after that. He got sick.”

Emma allowed her hand to move until her fingertips brushed Mr. Reed’s temple. Still hot.

In the dark, she fumbled for the rag and bowl of cool water. She dabbed at his forehead, feeling that her efforts were in vain. What if Mr. Reed died? The man wasn’t even her acquaintance, yet she felt responsible for him.

“It wasn’t that I resented being the one to care for Papa,” she murmured. “But it was…difficult. Being closest to him when his spirits suffered. He battled despondency and often there was no comfort I could bring him…”

She was surprised when a sniffle overtook her. She’d thought she had mourned her father completely, but perhaps this trip was calling for more from her.

“Dealing with his bodily functions…”

She paused. “Perhaps I did resent my siblings a bit,” she admitted. “For not asking if I needed their assistance.”

It felt good to say the words, admit to her unkind feelings, knowing that no one would ever hear her.

“Of course,” she went on to excuse them, “it wasn’t as if Ben and Rachel ignored their responsibilities. Ben was constantly busy running the ranch. And Rachel took over the entire household. The situation was difficult on all of us.”

And that was why her siblings had wanted a new start.

But the truth was, she’d hoped to find her new start right at home.

* * *

Nathan lay in the dark, knowing he should tell Emma Hewitt he was awake.

The booming thunder had shaken him out of the place of darkness that had claimed him…all day apparently.

Or maybe it had been the clutch of her small hand against his shoulder that woke him.

He should tell her.

But some small part of him that hadn’t died with Beth had savored the soft brush of her fingers against his blazing forehead, the thought that someone wanted to converse with him.

Oh, he wasn’t kidding himself. He knew she was caring for him out of basic human kindness—even that was as foreign to him as a store-bought candy. As out of it as he’d been, he had still heard her soft-spoken words and had felt her each time she’d smoothed back his hair, had bathed his face and neck with water, had helped him sip water from a tin cup.

No one treated him this kindly. Not since Beth.

Most people acted as if he didn’t exist, or if they had no other choice but to talk to him, treated him like dirt.

It was what he deserved.

But that one small part of him held his limbs captive and numbed his tongue so that he just lay silent and still.

He didn’t particularly like the dark, confining space. He was used to sleeping outdoors, even in the rain.

He couldn’t see her, but he could make out a darker shadow that must be her form sitting close at his side. Beneath the damp smell of rain floated the scent of their foodstuffs. Flour, sugar, coffee. And a hint of wax, perhaps a candle that had guttered out.

And something he couldn’t identify. Flowers or freshness…­­it must be her scent.

She was still speaking in a low voice.

“Once Ben received Grayson’s letter, there was no talking him out of his plans. And Rachel on board, as well…how could I hold them back from their dreams?”

What about her dreams? It didn’t sound as if Emma had wanted to take the trip West. Why not? Curiosity stung him. He might not ever get answers, not if she stopped talking. Because he would never ask.

Light flashed again, not so brightly this time, perhaps farther away. Thunder rolled. Water from the cloth she was using trickled down his jaw and behind his ear.

It tickled, and he used all the willpower he possessed not to move.

“I hope your little dog found a safe place to curl up for the night.”

Mutt. The animal didn’t really belong to Nathan. It had attached itself to him the second night he’d been in camp. He’d waited for someone to claim the dog—it was friendly enough to belong to a family. But no one ever had. And maybe the little dog’s protruding ribs meant no one would.

Just like no one claimed Nathan.

He hadn’t been able to avoid the slight feeling of camaraderie with the animal, so he’d taken to feeding it scraps from his meals. It had started following him around, but Nathan didn’t regard it as a pet. It would wander off at some point.

“Storms like this are just one of the dangers on the trail,” Emma whispered. “Illness, poor nutrition, early winter, stampeding buffalo, snakes…”

She recited the list as if she’d read it in a book somewhere. Nathan had spent so much time trapping and living off the land that he didn’t even notice the critters she’d mentioned. If you were listening, you could hear stampeding buffalo from a mile off and get out of their way. Snakes didn’t bother you unless you got in their space.

It was the humans in the caravan that were the real danger. And didn’t he know it? His past had taught him that men couldn’t be trusted. He might have acquaintances back at Fort Laramie that he did business with, but there was always a part of him that held back. And look what had happened after he’d joined the wagon train. He’d been falsely accused.

There was a sudden muting of the rain outside. Prickles crawled along his skin and light flared. He caught a glance of Emma’s chestnut hair and bright eyes before he had to close his eyes against the painful brightness.

There was a loud crack, then a boom, shaking everything until he was sure his teeth rattled.

And this time was different from the last. Voices cried out. Screamed.

Emma’s hand gripped his wrist painfully.

A loud thump against the side of the wagon startled her and she jerked, releasing him.

“The Ericksons’ wagon got struck by lightning and caught fire!” That was Ben Hewitt’s voice. “Stay put for now, I’ll come for you if I need you.”

What a disaster. The torrential rain should help, but the lightning could’ve hurt the family inside the wagon or caused significant damage. He should get up to help, but he still couldn’t figure out how to get his legs to work. Maybe he was sicker than he’d thought. Or had they tied him up so this suspected thief couldn’t get away?

Emma shifted beside him. Another lightning flash and he saw that she’d curled up into herself, drawn her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her head was tucked down and she was rocking very slightly back and forth. She was muttering something, but he couldn’t make out the words over the continuing rain.

She could be praying.

Or upset.

How many times had his sister curled up just like that during one of their father’s angry spells?

Unexpected emotion ran hot through his chest and he did something he hadn’t done in years. He reached out for her.

Fever still coursing through him, his arm shook, but he cupped her elbow in his hand.

Somewhere in the haze of the day, he remembered her saying something about him not liking her. The statement was something of an untruth. He didn’t like anyone. No one liked him.

But when she stilled beneath his touch, he scrambled for something to say and what came out was, “I don’t dislike you.” His voice was raspy from disuse.

There was a beat of silence. As full and tense as that moment before the lightning had struck.

“You’re awake,” she said, surprise in her tone.

“I’m feeling a mite better.” It wasn’t entirely true but he figured she was probably tired of nursing him. Likely she’d want him out of her wagon any minute. “You all right?” he asked.

He sensed more than saw that she went still again.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked quietly.

Caught.

He hesitated. “Long enough.” He cleared his throat. His whole body felt as though it were on fire, and he figured half of it must be from the fever and half from the hot embarrassment that spiraled through him.

But instead of giving him a well-deserved shove out of the wagon, she shifted beside him. “You need to drink some water. Do you think you could keep down any food?”

She wanted to feed him?

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. His head felt stuffed with cotton.

She pressed a cool tin cup into his right hand. He tried to rise up on his elbows. Tried and struggled.

And she put a hand beneath his shoulder and helped him. She must be the kindest person on the face of the earth.

He frowned as he sipped from the cup, the tin metallic against his tongue.

She was too nice. He didn’t know why she was being kind to him. Experience had taught him that everyone wanted something. But with his head hot with fever, he couldn’t figure what her motive might be. Had her brother forced her in here to make sure he didn’t abscond with the goods he hadn’t actually stolen?

The water was a relief to the parched desert of his throat. He drank until the cup was empty, then wiped his chin with the back of his wrist.

Lightning flashed again, illuminating the interior of the wagon and giving him the visibility to see her flinch.

Thunder boomed again, rattling two pots hung above and behind his head.

And he had some strange impulse to comfort her. Maybe if he started a conversation with her, she would be distracted from the storm’s fury. Not that he knew how. He’d been on his own for too long to know how to talk to a proper woman. Which was why the most impertinent question popped out of his mouth.

“Have you always been scared of storms?”

He heard the small catch in her breath, felt the stillness between them. Even though rain pattered on the wagon’s bonnet, he thought she must be holding her breath.

“I was four years old when I got caught out in one.” Her words came slowly at first, and then he was surprised when she went on. “My family was at a town picnic and I was playing with a friend. The storm came on quickly and as everyone rushed to get out of the open, I was separated from my friend and couldn’t find my family. It might’ve only been minutes, but I was alone in the wind and rain and thunder. And I’ve never liked storms since.”

He couldn’t say that he blamed her. Lightning flashed, burning into his brain an image of her as a small girl lost in the storm. His gut tightened. His cheeks got hot.

He didn’t want to feel the stirring of compassion or the small surge of protectiveness for a lost little girl.

His discomfort made his next words sharp.

“If you didn’t want to come West, why did you?”

Her grip tightened on his elbow. She didn’t answer outright. “Will you tell my brother I was complaining about the journey?”

“Why should I?” He’d spoken to Ben Hewitt when necessary in the weeks since he’d joined the wagon train, but it wasn’t as if they were friends. They didn’t share confidences. As far as he was concerned, if she hadn’t told her brother she didn’t want to be here, it was her business.

“There are many difficulties on the trail,” she said. “As you know. I was…finding my way back to being happy where we were, after Papa died.”

So she’d given up her own desires to go West with her family. It reminded him of Beth, his sister, who had often given in to his whims.

Thunder rolled again and he sensed her shiver.

The bitter taste of fear remained from his past. And he didn’t want that for her.

He tried a different tack.

“So you’re going to Oregon to get married?”

She inhaled sharply. “Have you been eavesdropping on me? What a childish thing to do—”

In the dark, he couldn’t tell if she was angry or teasing. “I just hear stuff is all.”

It was true. Always on the fringes, half-hidden in the shadows, he heard a lot. Whispered complaints against the committeemen. Young couples sneaking kisses and making plans.

He just wished he’d had some clue as to who had stolen her hair combs. Then he would’ve been able to prove his own innocence.

“I might marry Tristan McCullough. If I decide to.” Did he detect a note of petulance in her voice?

It was too dark to see her expression, so he was left guessing. Not that it was his business, anyway.

His head was pounding now and he shifted his elbows. She seemed to realize he needed to lie down again and pressed one hand against his shoulder as she guided him back down.

“My brother Grayson is already settled there,” she said briskly. “He knows Tristan. His friend is looking for a mother for his three daughters.”

“A ready-made family.” There was something poking his back, beneath the blanket they’d spread. He tried to reach beneath himself to adjust it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I suppose. It isn’t as if I’m unused to taking care of…”

“Your pa. Yes, you said.”

He still couldn’t get comfortable. He shifted, moving his weight. And she was there, helping him, reaching under his back to move the box or crate that had poked him.

He still couldn’t see her face; he imagined her frowning. But at least if she was miffed at him she wasn’t thinking about the storm.

“Do you want to marry a man you’ve never met before?”

“I don’t know.”

* * *

“I don’t know.”

Emma helped Mr. Reed settle again in the crowded wagon. He was warm, even through the barrier of his shirt. Though he had awakened, his fever had not abated.

Perhaps she should feel guilty about her indecision over Tristan McCullough. Her brother Grayson thought they would make a fine match, but how could she be ready to marry a man she’d never met before?

She’d spent the past several years caring for her father. Given up so many things—social events, time spent with friends, even time to herself.

Joining a new family with the demands of three young girls…she’d be jumping right back into the same type of situation. Housework, caring for the girls and the demands of a husband. She’d just begun finding her feet again, had found a worthy cause in the orphanage back home before their move had uprooted her. Did she really want to take on an entire family?

Or was this the purpose she’d been petitioning God for? Had He provided this family, these girls who needed a mother, just when Emma needed direction in her life?

She didn’t know.

She should be uncomfortable speaking so candidly with Mr. Reed, but somehow the darkness and the intimacy of their situation had erased her usual awkwardness with the opposite sex.

And then he said, “It sounds like it’s moving off.”

It took her a moment to realize he meant the storm. And he was right. Thunder rolled in the distance, but the patter of rain had slowed on the wagon bonnet.

Had he engineered the whole conversation to distract her from the danger the storm represented?

She loosened the ties and opened the back flap in time to see several flashes of light at the horizon. The storm would be completely gone before much longer.

“Fire’s out,” someone called out. There was much more activity than the camp usually saw after dark.

“Do you think you can hold down some food?” she asked again, turning back to her patient.

There was no response.

When she knelt at his side, his breathing had gone shallow and he didn’t respond when her fingertips brushed his forehead.

He’d fallen unconscious again.