Mr. Carver.”
“My name is Lee.”
“Lee, please. I am truly afraid. Surely he, I mean Devil, senses that?”
“He won’t hurt you if you don’t startle him, or yell at him, or hurt him. He’s just like a human being. If you mistreat a man, he will strike out.”
“Is—is that a warning?”
“About the horse? Yes. About me? No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He grinned suddenly. “I know you don’t.”
She could not think of one single thing to say. She just stood there with her hand captured under his and her heart fluttering like a frightened bird.
And then he bent toward her and whispered in her ear.
Jenna jerked away from Lee so fast he thought something had bitten her. “What? How dare you say something like that to me!”
The truth was he didn’t know how he dared. First off, she was carrying another man’s child. And second, after his wife died he’d sworn never again to think twice about any woman. But Jenna wasn’t just “any woman.” All he knew was that even after a day under the broiling sun and a night sleeping in all her clothes without even a spit bath, Jenna Borland smelled good, like something flowery.
So he told her so.
“You,” she said, her blue-green eyes accusing, “smell like a horse. A smoky, bacon-y horse. A...sweaty horse.”
He laughed aloud. “That’s because I’ve been working around the oxen and frying bacon over a campfire and haven’t taken a bath in a while.”
“I must pack up the breakfast things,” she said quickly.
“Get Tess and Mary Grace to pack up. I want you to watch how I yoke up the oxen.”
She knew better than to argue, because she walked with him into the center area where the animals were grazing and watched in silence while he drove Sue and Sunflower to the wagon and wrestled the harnesses and the wooden yoke into position.
“Slide the hoop under the yoke, like this,” he instructed as he worked. “Then attach it to the tongue, here. Next, put a lead rope through the nose ring, see? Be sure not to tangle those lines there.”
Jenna nodded. She stared at the two animals. Hour after hour, day after day, they plodded patiently along the wheel-rutted trail, hauling their wagon loaded with everything they owned.
Some days she’d felt just like those two oxen, as if she were pulling a crushing weight with no respite, with no encouragement from Mathias or from the girls, working until her back ached and her hands were chapped and her nose sunburned.
Lee sent her a swift look. “Think you could manage this if you had to?”
“You wouldn’t force me to, would you? As you did with your horse?”
He shook his head and bent toward her. “Just look over yonder at Tess and Mary Grace,” he intoned.
Both girls stood transfixed at the sight of Jenna scratching behind Sunflower’s ear. At least she assumed that’s what they were staring at. Or perhaps her petticoat had come unsnapped, or her drawers...
But no. The instant the traces were attached, both girls lost interest. It wasn’t her they watched; it was the oxen. And Lee Carver.
Lee offered to show her how to drive the wagon, but after the horse, she couldn’t face another challenge. The man made her nervous; he asked things of her she wasn’t ready for.
He climbed up onto the driver’s bench and looked at her expectantly. She didn’t want to sit next to him, even with Ruthie between them. Maybe it was the way he smelled.
But you like his smell. Admit it. Mathias never smelled like anything except, well, hair oil and strong spirits. Imagine, dousing oneself with hair oil on an emigrant train. There were some things about Mathias she had never understood.
One by one the wagons rolled into a long, ragged line, and the day’s journey began. Mary Grace and Tess walked on the side of the wagon opposite Jenna, occasionally stopping to pick wildflowers or collect buffalo chips in their aprons.
The route skirted the south fork of the Platte River. Lee said they would have to ford it ten miles farther on.
But after their nooning, the sky darkened and it began to rain. At first it felt refreshing. Tess and Mary Grace yanked off their poke bonnets and turned their faces up into it, but then the sky opened up and fat drops pelted down. Ten minutes later both girls were soaking wet and took shelter inside the wagon.
Lee dragged his rain poncho out of his saddlebag and sheltered Ruthie underneath it. She insisted on riding on the box with him, but Jenna gave herself up to the cleansing downpour, unbraided her thick, dark hair and let the rain wash through the dark strands. Then she shook the dust out of her skirt and held it out so the water soaked through it. If only she dared, she would strip off her dress and let the downpour cleanse her body, but when she saw Lee watching her, she gave up the idea and dropped back to the rear of the wagon.
“Tess? Mary Grace? Come on out! The water isn’t cold, and it feels wonderfully refreshing.”
Silence.
Mathias’s daughters had no sense of adventure. Well, why should they? Mathias himself had had little sense of adventure. Then why had he insisted they travel to Oregon?
“Jenna!” Lee yelled over the rumble of thunder. “Climb up here under the poncho.”
She shook her head, feeling the wind slap wet tendrils of hair across her face. “No,” she called. “I like the rain. It’s like taking a bath!”
He slowed the oxen. “There may be lightning,” he shouted. “Don’t get caught in the open.”
She nodded, then stretched out both arms and turned lazy circles in the wet. A jagged bolt of blinding white lightning cracked across the black sky, and she bolted for the wagon. Lee pulled to a stop and reached his hand down to her. She climbed up and took Ruthie on her lap, and he draped his poncho over them both.
Water sluiced off the wide brim of his hat. Jenna reached out and tugged it lower on his face, but he brushed it back with an impatient gesture. “I have to see,” he yelled. She nodded, but he didn’t turn away. Instead he stared at her for a good half minute.
Goodness, she must look a sight!
Finally he refocused his gaze on the muddy trail ahead, an odd smile playing about his mouth. Well! He’d look messy, too, if he was as wet as she was.
An hour passed, then another, and the oxen kept lumbering forward. Then Sam Lincoln rode up on his bay mare and signaled to Lee.
“River’s dead ahead,” he shouted. “Hurry it up.
