toward their camp. She felt numb, unreal, as if this were happening to someone else.
Emma Lincoln stopped her. “Jenna, at the meeting this morning, Sam asked the men for a volunteer to drive your wagon. In about half an hour the man will come to hitch up your oxen. If you’d like to be alone for a while I could take the girls in our wagon.”
Jenna studied the woman. What a kind soul the trail master’s wife had been, right from the very beginning. How she wished some of that generosity of spirit would rub off on Tess!
“No, thank you, Emma. I am quite all right.” She wasn’t, really. She dreaded the days ahead, but she could not admit this to anyone. How would she manage without Mathias?
A blade of anger sliced into her belly. Mathias had talked and cajoled and pushed until she finally agreed to join the wagon train and come west. And now here she was, embarked on an unwanted journey she had no choice but to continue; once a wagon train started out across the prairie, there was no way to get off. No way to go back to Ohio.
Another woman, Sophia Zaberskie, thrust a loaf of fresh-baked bread into her hands. “You eat,” she grated in her perpetually hoarse voice. “Keeping belly full makes to heal.”
Jenna pressed Sophia’s meaty arm. Sophia should know; she had lost one child to cholera before the emigrant train was even under way, and another child, a boy, died two weeks later when a wagon wheel rolled over him and crushed his chest. If Sophia could survive, so could she.
She took Ruthie by the hand and walked to their camp. Tess and Mary Grace looked up but did not speak, both keeping their faces resolutely turned away from her while she moved about packing the skillet and the Dutch oven inside the wagon. Tess grumbled at her request to fill two buckets with springwater and dump them into the water barrel strapped to the wagon box; Mary Grace walked listlessly at her sister’s side, kicking at stones.
When the last of their belongings were stowed away, Jenna surveyed the tangle of ropes and harnesses and wood oxen yokes stashed under the wagon and her heart sank as if weighted with lead. She had no idea how to hitch up the team. Mathias might have taught her. Why hadn’t he?
It was hard to accept that he was gone, that he would never again snap at her for forgetting to fold a blanket in his particular way or serving him dumplings with his stew when he preferred biscuits. She knew she had been a disappointment to him; she often felt small, as if she didn’t matter.
Ruthie’s small hand patted her skirt. “Jenna, are you crying?”
“N-no, honey. I’m not crying, just feeling a bit sad.”
“Me, too. Tessie won’t talk to me and Mary Grace is too busy. And I’m scared.”
Jenna went down on her knees before the girl. “I’m a little scared, too. But we will be all right, just you wait and see.”
A shadow fell over her. “Mrs. Borland?”
She jerked to her feet. The man was tall, with overlong dark hair and steady eyes that were a soft gray. He held his broad-brimmed hat down by his thigh.
“Sorry to startle you, ma’am. My name’s Carver.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Carver.”
He’d joined the wagon train at Fort Kearney. A former Confederate soldier, Emma had confided. A Virginian. From a slave-holding plantation, no doubt. Jenna’s father had fought for the Union; he’d been killed at Antietam.
“I’ve come to yoke up your team.”
Her stomach clenched, and it must have shown on her face.
“Ma’am? Are you unwell?”
“Mr. Carver, surely someone other than you volunteered?”
His gaze flicked to the back of the wagon, where Tess’s face was peeking out from the curtain. “Mrs. Borland, is there someplace we can talk in private?”
“Why?”
Gently he grasped her elbow and moved her away from camp. “I want to tell you why I volunteered.”
“I don’t really care why, Mr. Carver.”
“I think you may when you hear what I have to say,” he said quietly. “You see, it was my horse your husband was stealing. I was the one who shot him.”
Jenna stared at him until her eyes began to burn. “Dear God in heaven, why would I want anything, anything at all, to do with the man who killed my husband?”
A flash of pain crossed his tanned face. “You probably don’t, Mrs. Borland. And I can’t blame you. But I’d sure appreciate it if you’d hear me out.”
Shaking with fury, Jenna propped her fists at her waist and waited. She could scarcely stand to look at him.
“I didn’t know who was taking my horse,” he said after a moment. “Didn’t recognize the man. But I knew my horse. The rider was heading hell-for-leather—Excuse me, ma’am. He was riding toward the trading post we passed yesterday morning. I fired my rifle and he went down.”
“You killed him.”
“Yes, I did. I’m sorry he turned out to be your husband, and the father of your girls there.” He inclined his head toward the wagon where three heads now poked out from the rear bonnet.
“‘Sorry,’ Mr. Carver, is not enough,” she snapped.
“I realize that. I know nothing can ever replace your husband, but I’d like the chance to do what I can to make it up to you. That’s why I volunteered to drive your rig.”
“You cannot ‘make it up’ to me, Mr. Carver. Ever. Don’t you understand that?” She clamped her lips together, afraid she would cry.
“I mean to try, Mrs. Borland. Where’s your yoke and the harnesses for the oxen?”
“Did you not hear me?” Her voice went out of control, rising to a shout. She hated him! He was a cold-blooded killer. “I do not want your help!”
He turned his back on her and peered under the wagon. Mary Grace stuck her tongue out at him, but he paid no attention. Instead, he snaked an arm out to capture the tack and moved off to where the oxen grazed inside the circle of wagons. He moved with such assurance she wanted to toss the hot coals from her morning cook fire into his face.
The instant he was out of sight, Tess scrambled down and planted herself in front of Jenna. “You can’t let him do this!” she screamed. “He was my father, and that man killed him. He has no right to be here, touching Papa’s animals.”
Jenna sucked in an uneven breath and wrapped both arms across her waist. “Perhaps not, Tess. But neither of us can yoke up the oxen, and he has volunteered. I will speak to Mr. Lincoln tonight and ask for someone else.”
The girl’s face flushed, but Jenna was suddenly too weary to care. Her shoulders ached. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with sharp-pointed rocks.
“Take Ruthie down to the latrine, then get in the wagon.”
She paced
