Slowly the circled wagons peeled off into a ragged line and amid the creak of huge oak wheels and the clank and groan of mule and ox teams, the train rolled forward. Their wagon took its designated place at the end.
Rather than ride next to Mr. Carver, Jenna set out on foot, walking an arm’s length from a downcast Mary Grace, who twitched her spare body away from her. She tried to say something, but the girl cut her off. “Just leave me alone,” she hissed.
Suddenly the girl yelped and darted forward to her father’s grave. The wagon train wheels were now rolling over the mounded earth, and Jenna could see that Mr. Carver intended to do the same.
“Stop!” Jenna screamed. He reined in and waited.
Mary Grace reached him first. “They’re driving right over Papa’s grave!” she wailed.
Mr. Carver tied the reins around the brake and jumped down to face the girl. “Miss Borland, we do that of necessity. If the grave looks fresh, wolves will get at it.”
“Wolves?” Jenna shuddered.
He went down on one knee before Mary Grace. “I know it’s hard to watch, miss, but it has to be done unless you want your father’s grave desecrated.”
“What’s des-crated?” Ruthie piped from her seat on the driver’s box.
Mr. Carver pushed his hat back and stood. “Desecrated means something spoils a grave. Digs it up, maybe. You wouldn’t want your papa to be disturbed, would you?”
Fat tears stood in Ruthie’s blue eyes. She shook her head. Lee Carver glanced over at Mary Grace. “You understand, miss?”
The girl nodded.
Lee Carver looked to Jenna. She stood close to her daughter, but he noted that the girl hitched herself away from her side. Odd.
“Mrs. Borland?” he prompted. “Would you like me to drive around the grave site? This is the last wagon, so it’ll be pretty well dusted over by now.”
She stared at him, her face so white it reminded him of the stationery he’d used to write Laurie during the War. After a long moment she gave a short nod.
“It is all right, Mr. Carver. I would not want their father’s grave disturbed by animals.”
He wondered why she put it that way, “their father’s grave.” Why was it not “my husband’s grave”? All at once he realized that the girls were not her daughters; they had been his.
He glanced up at the smallest girl. “Ruthie?”
“It’s all right, mister. Papa’s in heaven anyway.”
His heart thumped. Oh, God, what had he done? He’d shot a horse thief, but the man had been a father. A husband. No horse was worth that, not even his black Arabian.
What the hell had the man intended to do with his horse? Where was he heading? And why?
He clenched his jaw, then climbed back up onto the box and picked up the reins. No matter what he did to make amends, Jenna Borland would get rid of him the first chance she got.
Tess spoke not a single word to anyone all morning, and when the sun burned high over their heads, she refused to offer Mr. Carver even a tin cup of water.
Ruthie’s nose and cheeks got sunburned, despite her floppy calico sunbonnet, and halfway through the long morning her tired little body had tipped sideways against the upright frame of Mr. Carver. To keep her from toppling off the bench, he curled his arm around her and went on driving the oxen, the reins looped over his long-fingered hands.
Jenna pressed her lips together and brought him a cup of water from the water barrel lashed to the wagon.
By the time the train stopped for their nooning, Jenna was half-sick from the heat and dust. She had walked beside the rank-smelling oxen for hours after Mary Grace had given up and crawled into the wagon bed, and when the train pulled into a shady grove of ash trees, every muscle in her legs was trembling.
She rested for an hour in the cool shade, letting the breeze dry out her sweat-sticky cotton dress and soothe her overheated body. Then she packed away the lunch makings and when the train was ready to pull out again, she resumed her position beside the wagon. She stiffened when she saw Mr. Carver approaching.
“Mrs. Borland, if you think you could drive the oxen, I’ll walk. I can keep one hand on Sunflower’s yoke just to make sure she—”
“No,” Jenna interrupted. “I don’t like those two animals. Horses, too, if you must know. I would rather you drive the wagon.”
“Wouldn’t you rather rest inside the wagon instead of walking, ma’am?”
“Again, no thank you. The girls will be inside and they... Besides, it’s stifling in there. I don’t know how they can bear it.”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t even ask, if I were you. Mary Grace and Tess, isn’t it? The older one would rather bake like a biscuit than look at me.”
Jenna blew out a weary sigh. “I’m sure part of it is because of their father, but the rest is because... Well, I don’t pretend to understand them.”
He regarded her with a flicker of emotion in his eyes. “Could be they resent having a stepmother.”
“When Mathias was alive, the girls tolerated me, up to a point. Now that he’s gone, they can’t bear to be near me. Except for Ruthie, that is.”
Why was she telling him this? She’d never confessed to anyone how Mathias’s daughters treated her, not even to Emma Lincoln. Perhaps the midday heat was softening her brain.
“I’d think not being their mother would be difficult.”
“Are you married, Mr. Carver?” Too late she realized how rude the question sounded. If he had a wife, surely she would be traveling west with him.
A veil dropped over his gray eyes. “I was married once,” he said, his voice quiet. He said nothing more, and Jenna knew she couldn’t ask. But she did wonder about him.
Near sundown, a shouted command from Sam brought the wagons into a wide circle, and men began unhitching their tired animals and leading them into the grassy area in the center to feed. Forage was lush, and there was plenty of water from a tumbling creek. The mules and oxen gulped greedily. Jenna longed to splash some over her face and arms, but first she had to make supper.
A grumbling Tess lugged two brimming buckets of water and plunked them at Jenna’s feet so hard they slopped over onto her leather shoes. Biting her tongue, Jenna stepped around the lanky girl and enlisted Mary Grace to help her drag three flat rocks together to make a crude fireplace. She sent Tess and Ruthie for kindling and firewood—buffalo chips, if they couldn’t find any downed tree branches.
When the fire was crackling, Jenna settled the iron kettle on the rocks and began slicing up potatoes and wild onions and dried venison. For seasoning she added a generous dash of salt and the last of the dried rosemary. Then she mixed up plain flour and water biscuits and patted circles of dough onto the hot rocks to brown while the stew bubbled. The smell was mouthwatering.
She kept a wary eye on the black stallion, still roped to the wagon, and wondered why Mr. Carver didn’t release him to graze with the other animals. She found out when he strode into camp, scooped out a double handful of oats from a burlap bag tied to his saddle and offered it to the horse in his cupped hands. He talked to the animal in low tones while it ate.
Jenna shook her head. Mercy, he treats that animal like it was almost human!
Men. Back in Roseville, Mathias had once adopted a mongrel dog. He’d fussed over it plenty, but he’d never hand-fed the mutt.