“I can protect myself in the wild. What I can’t do is risk taking the rest of the wagon train with me.” An image of Broderick Thames, with his hulking shoulders and long, silver braid down his back, had haunted Victoria for months. “I have no choice. I made a promise. Audy, Heidi nearly fell apart when her brother passed on yesterday afternoon. She’s going to need a tender hand for quite some time.”
For a moment, Audy didn’t say anything, simply watched Heidi and shook her head. She sighed. “The captain won’t let you do it, my dear.”
“I know.” And she did. It wasn’t difficult to see how protective Joseph was of her.
“He’s quite smitten, I believe.”
Victoria nodded, for once allowing herself to enjoy the warmth of that knowledge for a few seconds. She loved how he sought her company. “But he doesn’t need any distractions on this journey, and I’ve had enough heartbreak to last me a lifetime.” She studied the graves. She’d been married to a man whose passion she couldn’t return. Could she even love again as she once had loved Joseph?
Matthew had deserved a woman’s whole heart, but he’d settled for her broken one. As he’d worded it the day he’d asked her to marry him, he believed this was the closest a man like him was going to come to true happiness. They’d had a full marriage in every way, and Victoria knew he’d been content. If he ever wondered about her heart, however, he’d never spoken of it. For that she was grateful.
“Those two children were close, what with their poor papa passing on last year.” Audy’s voice wobbled with emotion. “I noticed she couldn’t seem to shed more tears with her mother’s passing. It was too much for her.”
Victoria was far too familiar with the pathway tears made down one’s cheeks and through one’s soul, and when they ended, one fought hard to keep them from returning, even if it meant not weeping over the burial of another loved one. “She’ll revisit her grief when she’s ready.”
As if in one accord, they both turned to look at the young subject of their conversation. Heidi’s fair hair hung in limp strands over her shoulders and down her back, and her neck appeared permanently curved downward, like a broken woman carrying too heavy a load in her thoughts.
She had done nothing this past hour except stare into the deepest shadows of the forest, as if she wished to enter them and lose herself there. She had spoken to no one, not Audy, nor William, nor any of the other dozen or so friends and neighbors who had tried to draw her back into the fold. Not even to Victoria.
“That poor child doesn’t need to be alone right now,” Audy murmured. “I’m going to see if I can get her to talk.”
“I’ve tried several times. Check her hands to see if they’re cold. I tried to get her to drink something warm, but she simply shook her head. I don’t want her to fall into a fugue.”
Audy patted Victoria’s shoulder and turned to march across the close-cropped field of grass the livestock had munched down. If any mother could manage to get Heidi to talk, it would be Audy.
Southwest Missouri’s blanket of spring grass made a bright contrast against upturned soil tamped down over the graves with stones from Shoal Creek. The evidence of life in this teeming valley hinted at hope despite the scars of loss on the wagon train’s journey toward Kansas, and despite the looming forest that surrounded the sunshine.
Giant oak, pine and fir trees hovered over the camp of the stalled wagon train, crowding closely, their billowing tops intertwined like heads pressed together to better observe the petty struggle of mere mortal travelers. Heidi stood at the foot of those trees, soaking in the gloom of their shade. Audy dodged the spots of horse, mule and oxen manure that would grow yet a thicker yield the next time the blades of grass pressed upward.
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