DISCLAIMER: This story and all its characters belong to me. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are purely coincidental. Most of the places in this story actually exist or existed, though.
AUTHOR NOTES: English is not my native language, so please be patient with me.
This story is set on the Oregon Trail in 1851. Although I did a LOT of research and tried to make things as realistic as possible, there might be some mistakes. Please let me know if you spot any.
SUMMARY: “Luke” Hamilton has always been sure that she’d never marry. She accepted that she would spend her life alone when she chose to live her life disguised as a man.
After working in a brothel for three years, Nora Macauley has lost all illusions about love. She no longer hopes for a man who will sweep her off her feet and take her away to begin a new, respectable life.
But now they find themselves married and on the way to Oregon in a covered wagon, with two thousand miles ahead of them.
RATING: NC-17. This story depicts a loving/sexual relationship between two consenting adult women.
THANKS: A very big
thank you goes to my beta reader Pam for her corrections and valuable input. I
couldn't have done this without you!
FEEDBACK: Feedback, comments and
constructive criticism are welcome at jae_s1978@yahoo.de
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Backwards to Oregon
By Jae
Part 2
Her head began to pound as Nora sat up. She sat still and waited until her vision had cleared. Looking around the tent, she saw that Luke had already risen. “All right,” she mumbled. “Get up. There’s work to do.”
Every single bone in her body ached, but she clenched her teeth and forced herself upright. She ignored the burning in her feet as she slipped into her boots.
Amy crawled out from under her blanket just as she wanted to leave the tent. “Mama? Me go, too!”
Nora didn’t really feel up to dealing with the energetic child and her endless questions, but she nodded nonetheless and kneeled down to help Amy dress. She grabbed the dented pot they used for carrying water. Even in its empty state, it seemed much heavier than usual and Nora had to struggle not to drag it through camp.
Finally, she reached the river and bent down with a groan. She filled the pot with water, but when she tried to lift it, she almost fell into the river as the heavy weight pulled her down. Gasping for breath, she half-emptied the pot and tried to lift it again. Her head pounded and she started to sweat.
Suddenly, another hand grabbed the pot. It was too big to be Amy’s.
Nora flinched away from the unexpected touch. Her unsteady feet slipped on the muddy bank. She flailed her arms as she began to pitch forward.
Strong arms grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against a warm body. “What the hell are you doing?” Luke’s annoyed voice rumbled through her.
Nora broke his grip and moved away from him. If he got to touch her, she wanted it to be on her terms – in a short, businesslike encounter with clear roles, not in this half-angry, half-worried embrace. “Getting water for breakfast,” she answered with a hint of defiance.
Luke snorted. “You can hardly stay on your feet, much less carry that pot or cook breakfast. You’ll stay in the wagon today.”
Nora would have liked nothing more than to crawl back between the covers and stay there for the rest of the day, but she knew that she couldn’t. She had to gather eggs, milk the cows, and prepare breakfast, then wash and repack the dishes. She needed to set some dough to rise or she would have no bread to bake this evening. “I’m fine, just a little bit off-kilter, that’s all,” she said, but her voice ended on a croak.
“Bullshit! You’re anything but fine! Go and lie down in the wagon. It’s only going to get worse if you don’t,” Luke warned.
She hesitated. He was right, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that she had a lot of things to do before she could allow herself to rest.
“I managed not to starve before I met you,” Luke said as if guessing her thoughts. “I’ll take over your chores for today.”
“But…” Nora swallowed against her sore throat. She looked down at Amy who listened with wide, scared eyes. “What about Amy? I can’t lie abed all day. Someone has to take care of her, and I can’t impose on Mrs. Garfield again.”
Luke cleared his throat and stared down at the child. For a moment, he looked helpless, then he shrugged. “Uhm… I suppose I can do that, too.”
“You suppose?” Nora arched an eyebrow. “Luke... Either you look after her or you don’t. There is no supposin’ about it.” She would take no half-hearted promises when it came to the well-being of her daughter.
“I will look after her,” Luke said with more determination. Then he admitted, “I have absolutely no experience with children, but I’ve trained stubborn mules, wild horses and hundreds of recruits, so I guess we should be all right.”
Nora opened her mouth to object, but a sneeze shook her body, and she shivered. She had never before let anyone but her closest female friends take care of Amy and had never trusted a man enough to leave Amy in his care. But now, she had no choice but to start trusting this man who was her husband. “Just for a few hours,” she said, sniffling. She relinquished the pot to Luke and shuffled back to the wagon.
* * *
“I don’t need no naps no more!”
Luke forked her fingers through her hair. “Amy…”
“No!” The girl stomped her foot and stuck out a pouting lip.
Lord, give me the most stubborn mule, the wildest horse and a dozen recruits on their first day! Anything but this! After half an hour of fruitless discussion, Luke was at her wit’s end. The girl had started rubbing her eyes and yawning at noon break, but had stubbornly refused to follow Luke’s suggestion that she lie down in the wagon with her mother. An hour later, Luke had tried again, this time ordering Amy to take a nap.
Once again, Amy had refused, and Luke didn’t know how to react to that blatant insubordination. She had been a soldier for most of her life and was used to the clear military hierarchy. Giving and following orders was the most normal thing in the world for her.
But Amy was not a soldier, but a three-year old, and ordering her around obviously didn’t work. The girl didn’t need a drill sergeant; she needed someone to comfort her. You’re her father… or her second mother or whatever, not her commanding officer. That was the problem. Luke knew how to be a soldier and an officer, but she had no idea what being a parent meant. It’s not like I had great role-models. She pinched the bridge of her nose. You’re a woman, remember? You’re supposed to have these maternal instincts, so use ’em!
She took a deep breath, listening to whatever her instincts might tell her. Her first panicked thought was to just take the kid and stuff her into the wagon with her mother, but that probably wasn’t a good idea when she had promised to take care of Amy while Nora was sick. She’s your responsibility now, she chided herself. When you said “I do” you agreed to be there for her, too.
Luke exhaled sharply. Obviously, I didn’t think this through. She had only thought about the fact that others would see her as a father and therefore as someone who was unquestionably male, but she had never thought she’d have to take over the day-to-day caring for a child.
She scratched her head when whatever innate sense of how to interact with the girl remained utterly silent. All right. Think. What would Nora do... or Mrs. Garfield? They’re both so good with children. How do they do it? A mental image of Nora cuddling her crying daughter popped into her mind, but this was not her way of interacting with people. In order to hide her true gender, she had made it a habit of keeping people at a distance – not only physically, but also emotionally. In her effort to blend in and appear totally male, she had forgotten what it meant to be a woman, how to reveal her emotions and show affection. She had been so afraid of being thought effeminate and weak that she had buried her softer side deep inside. After acting tough and “manly” for so long, she now found it hard to be affectionate and soft-spoken with the child and her sick mother.
Luke eyed the teary-eyed, still pouting girl. What does she need from me? She tried to think back to her own childhood, but that wasn’t much help either. Her mother had never been the caring type. All right. Try to put yourself in her shoes… She’s a little girl who has been taken away from the only home she has ever known and from the people who were her friends. She had to watch her mother almost drown and now she’s sick and that leaves you, a total stranger, to take care of her… She’s not rebellious, she’s just scared, Luke suddenly realized.
“Amy?”
The girl turned away, refusing to even look at Luke.
Luke sighed. All right. Last resort... good, old bribery. “Do you want to go for a ride with Measles?” She managed to say the name without wincing.
Slowly, Amy turned back around and cautiously studied the adult.
Luke sent her a smile of encouragement. “Come on, she’s waiting for us.” She left Wayne, the oldest Garfield boy, in charge of the ox team and bent down to pick up Amy. Small arms wrapped around her neck and suddenly, she was eye to eye with the three-year old. “You can even hold the reins this time,” Luke said, uncomfortable with the girl’s silent stare.
A delighted grin broke out on Amy’s face. She threw herself forward against Luke’s body and pressed a wet kiss on her cheek.
Luke’s hands clutched reflexively at the girl’s dress, then she forced herself to relax and returned the embrace. She lifted one hand to caress the silky red locks and stood just inhaling their scent for a few seconds.
“Mea’les?”
“Right.” Luke shook herself out of her almost-trance. She unhitched the horse from the back of the wagon and lifted Amy up before she swung into the saddle behind her.
The girl bounced in the saddle and squealed in delight as Luke urged the mare into a fast trot. Soon, she slowed the horse to a walk. The slow, rhythmic gait and Luke’s warm arms around her made Amy sleepy. It didn’t take long until her small hands loosened their grip on the reins and with a sleepy sigh, she slumped back against Luke. “Rosie?” she mumbled.
“Huh?” Rosie? Was that a friend of hers? One of the girls in Tess’ establishment, maybe?
“Rosie.” Only half-opened sad green eyes looked up at Luke. “She falled in the water.”
Luke suddenly remembered. Rosie was the name of Amy’s doll. “We’ll look for a new toy later. Now sleep.”
Amy snuggled her head against Luke’s shoulder and did just that.
* * *
Nora blinked open her still heavy eyelids when the creaking of the wagon told her that another person was climbing inside.
“Hey.” Luke’s face appeared in her line of sight as he cautiously looked down at her. “How are you?”
“Better,” Nora croaked. It was a lie, and they both knew it. She had spent the last two days in bed, and she felt weak and feverish. Her violent shivering made her head ache.
Luke settled down next to her. “Here. You should eat a little.”
Nora didn’t even look at the tin plate he held out to her. “I’m not hungry.”
“But this’ll be good for you,” he insisted.
Weakly, Nora lifted her head and looked. “What’s that?”
“Raw onions with cucumbers in vinegar on bread and butter. Mrs. Garfield says it’ll help with your cold. Come on.” He invitingly lifted the bread to her mouth.
Nora stared up at him. For someone so…detached from his own emotions, he’s not bad at playing nursemaid for his sick wife. She was still not sure if he really cared about her well-being or if he was just eagerly awaiting the moment she could take over caring for Amy again. She reluctantly opened her mouth and took a small bite. It was painful to swallow, and she sank back after only that small crumb. “Did we stop for the night?”
“No. We reached the Uniontown ferry across the Kansas River and are still waiting our turn to cross.”
“Uniontown?” Nora repeated.
Luke nodded. “It’s not much more than a trading post, but it’s the only town for many miles.”
Nora looked up hopefully. “Could we go to town and buy a new doll for Amy?” This might be a chance to make her daughter smile again. Being in a new environment with her mother too sick to take care of her had been hard on the three-year old.
“I don’t think so. The town’s just being re-established; I doubt that they have anything but the bare essentials to buy.”
Nora’s thoughts seemed much slower than usual. “Re-established?” she echoed.
Luke nodded grimly. “The town was burnt down after cholera broke out last year.”
Cholera. Nora grimaced. “How long do you think it will be until I’m back on my feet?”
“I don’t know…”
Nora’s head started to pound as she raised an eyebrow. Her heart echoed the frantic beat. It was the first time Luke hadn’t known the answer to a question. He seemed to have a vast knowledge about anything that might occur along the trail. Does he really not know… or does he want to spare me from the truth? she thought with sudden fright. Nora wasn’t stupid. Like many of the other women of the train, she had counted the hastily dug graves alongside the trail that were a constant reminder of the fragility of life. In some years, only one third of the people that had started out from Independence had reached their final destination. Many succumbed to cholera, influenza, infections and other diseases or they died in accidents or shootings. “I will eventually get better, won’t I?”
“Of course you will,” Luke said immediately.
His reassurance didn’t really make her feel better. Even if she did survive this sickness, whatever it was, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t succumb to any of the other many dangers on the trip. She had already almost lost her life when she had fallen into the Wakarusa River without knowing how to swim. Suddenly, panic gripped Nora; a overwhelming fear of dying and leaving Amy behind. She was all Amy had. What would become of Amy if something happened to me? Luke might be a somewhat acceptable stand-in for a few days, but Nora couldn’t see him raise Amy on his own.
Luke bent down to look into her face. “Are you in pain?”
“I’m…” Nora hesitated. After two years as a prostitute, she had learned to hide emotions like disgust and fear, but she didn’t want to lie to the man who was doing his best to take care of her daughter. “…I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?” Luke repeated as if that emotion was completely foreign to him. His eyes widened, and he moved back from her.
“No!” Nora closed her eyes for a second. For such a confident man, he was surprisingly unsure of himself when it came to human interactions. “I’m not afraid of you. It’s just… it suddenly occurred to me how dangerous this whole journey will be.”
Luke studied her with narrowed eyes. “You’re afraid to die.”
It was hard to look into his steady gray eyes. “I’m not afraid for myself, just for Amy. She would be all alone if something happened to me,” she whispered as if saying it out loud would somehow make it happen.
Luke rubbed his nose, playing with the bump that attested to an old break – clearly a gesture of nervousness. “She would have me,” he said in an equally low voice.
Nora didn’t know what to say, how to react. She didn’t dare to reject his offer to take responsibility for Amy, but she also didn’t dare to accept it. She didn’t know and trust him enough to let him raise her daughter.
When she just stared at him without answering, Luke looked away. “Do you want to turn around? It’s been less than a week. I could take you back to Independence.”
Nora’s gaze snapped back to him. Take you back, she mentally repeated. He was clearly not intending to stay in Independence, too. He would leave us behind without a second thought. This farce of a marriage obviously doesn’t mean much to him. So much for “Till death do us part.” “No.” She slowly shook her pounding head. “There’s nothing there to return to.”
“All right.” Luke stood. “Sleep now. I’ll wake you when it’s our turn to cross.”
* * *
Nora sank down onto the wagon tongue, stretching out her sore feet for a moment. Like every one of the last ten days, she was exhausted. She wasn’t sure if the hardships on the trail were especially hard for her, because she wasn’t used to living off the land with no stores to provide for her or if the constant state of exhaustion was a symptom of something else.
She looked across the long grass, sprinkled with wild flowers, that was gently undulating in the soft May breeze. They had followed the Little Blue River northwest, traveling over rolling prairie where water, wood and grass were always available. For the most part, it was an easy way to start the trip and get used to handling the oxen, but there had also been thunderstorms and downpours that flooded creeks and rivers and made them difficult to cross.
Fording Rock Creek the day before had been difficult for another reason. Here, the country became hilly, with an abrupt descent into the valley and an equally steep, rocky bank on the other side. The oxen had pulled the wagons half-way up the bank, but when they stopped exhausted, the wagon began to slip back. The men had to grip the spokes and help push the wagon forward until the narrow path widened further up the bank.
For the first time, Captain McLoughlin decided to stop travelling and remain in camp this Sunday. The week before, after long discussions, they had pushed on, afraid that losing a day a week on the trail might mean getting caught in snowstorms on the western end of the journey.
While most men had set off to hunt – more for sport than food – the women had started on the laundry. The banks of Rock Creek were lined with fires, kettles, and piles of unwashed clothes.
Mrs. Garfield came over and sat next to Nora on the wagon tongue while they both waited for their water to heat up over the fire.
Nora studied her new friend and sometimes-mentor. The older woman looked tired, too, but there was still a friendly smile on her face. Bernice Garfield stretched out her feet and dried her hands on the white apron that was tied around her ample waist. Nora looked down at her hands – they were as rough and reddened as her own. The hot water, the sun, and the harsh lye soap were hard on their bare skin.
Doing laundry - pounding clothes against washboards or stones, then lugging the heavy, sodden laundry to the line strung between wagons - was back-breaking work.
Emeline Larson, the young woman from the wagon behind Nora’s, hesitantly wandered over and stood silently staring into the fire.
“Hey!” Mrs. Garfield looked up in surprise. “What happened to your eye?”
Emeline shyly fingered her black, swollen eye. “I stumbled with the kettle and bumped into our wagon,” she said without looking at them.
Nora didn’t even need to look to know that she was lying. She had been beaten enough times by moody or drunk customers to recognize the signs. He’s her husband, she told herself. It’s none of your business how he chooses to treat her.
“You should put some ointment on it,” Mrs. Garfield advised.
Emeline just nodded and continued to look at anything but the two other women. “Your husband,” she nearly whispered, peeking up at Nora, “is a real sweetheart.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Garfield agreed resolutely, “you were lucky to land such a good husband.”
Nora turned her head to look in the same direction. Luke was sitting on a rock at the edge of the river, carefully balancing Amy on his lap. They were both holding onto a fishing-pole, and Nora had to admire his patience with the small hands that hindered more than they helped. Well, yes, I suppose I’ve been lucky in some regards.
Unlike Emeline’s husband, Luke didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, or chew tobacco. She had never seen him engage in fist fights, lose his temper, or raise his voice. He was always polite and respectful toward any woman to whom he spoke. He even helped her with chores that no other man would do, and he had begun to praise her cooking skills, even if there sometimes were mosquitoes in the bread dough or the meat had an ashen crust. It was a strange experience for Nora. In all her life, no man had ever shown her any appreciation for anything she did – except maybe for her skills in the bedroom. Luke was still reluctant to show too much affection, but he never made her feel unimportant or inadequate like her father and brothers often had.
And the most important thing, Nora thought, smiling when she watched Amy fall asleep on Luke’s lap, he’s trying hard to be there for Amy, even if it doesn’t come naturally to him.
Even in her sleep, Amy was clutching the wooden horse that Luke had carved for her, complete with little dots that resembled that of Measles. Nora giggled as Amy’s head fell limply back against Luke’s shoulder, and she began to drool on his jacket. The look on his face was priceless.
Even Emeline Larson had to smile. “I think you better give that jacket a good scrubbing, too.”
* * *
“We should start crossing right now,” Jacob Garfield said, pointing in the direction of the large, deep Big Blue River.
“What’s the hurry?” Bill Larson argued. “This is the best campsite he had since we started. I say we stay there until at least tomorrow.”
Luke looked around. Alcove Springs really was the most idyllic campsite. Lush grass and wildflowers grew everywhere. A spring of clear, cold water cascaded over bluffs and splashed into a rocky pool twelve feet below. The boulders around the spring had the names and dates of emigrants from past years carved into them. Luke could understand that many of her fellow travelers wanted to stay and enjoy this place.
Many of the wagon trains around them had already set camp and most would stay for several days before they continued west. The roads from St. Joseph and Ft. Leavenworth joined the main trail just north of Alcove Springs, making it a favorite campsite. Last year, Luke had led a military expedition to the Rocky Mountains, and she had seen thousands of emigrants encamped at Alcove Springs. This year, word of the cholera epidemic of 1850 had spread and had discouraged many prospective emigrants. The trail was less crowded this year, and Luke was thankful for it.
“The Blue rises fast,” Garfield objected. “If a rainstorm breaks, we’ll be stuck on this side for a long while until the water goes down again!”
Larson rolled his eyes. “You old croaker! Someone said there’s a ferry somewhere, so we won’t have to ford the river…”
“Yeah, if you want to pay through your nose! Five dollars per wagon!” There were many rivers, toll-bridges and ferries ahead of them, and the Garfields and many others just didn’t have the money to pay for each and every one of them.
Other men began to voice their opinion and soon, a loud argument began.
Luke leaned back against a rock and said nothing.
Disputes were all too common in the wagon train. Men seemed to argue about every decision they had to make along the trail: how fast or how slow to move, when and where to camp, whether to take a shortcut or not, how many guards to post at night…
Not that Luke didn’t have an opinion about these things, she did, but fistfights and shouting matches were not her thing. Part of her successful disguise was never to draw attention to herself. She avoided making enemies – and for the most part, making friends, too – so that no one had a reason to take a closer look at her.
The hot-headed Bill Larson took a swing at one of his opponents, and Luke wandered off in search of a quieter spot. She walked along the rocky basin, where several emigrants were splashing and playing. One of the Garfield boys called out for Luke to join them, but she just waved and walked on by. After two weeks on the trail, she would have loved a bath, but it would have to wait. Maybe she could take a quick dip when it was dark. With that appealing thought in her mind, Luke went to scout out a more secluded spring.
She left the busy camp behind and wandered until she came to a place where the valley was more heavily timbered with cedar, oak, and ash trees. Through the trees, she heard the gentle gurgling of another spring and parted a few branches to get a glance at her possible “bathing tub”.
Instead, she got an eye full of something else… or rather someone else.
There, in the middle of a small, natural basin, stood a stark naked Nora, scrubbing the scalp of her giggling daughter.
Luke had upheld the image of a gentleman for many years, but now she couldn’t help but stare. Only once or twice in her life had she seen a naked woman, and never one so beautiful. Nora had none of the worn, excessively made-up looks of a typical parlor-house girl. Her gaze flickered up Nora’s shapely legs, opaque beneath the water of the pool, and paused on a gently rounded stomach to admire the creamy skin there before it wandered up to the flaming red curls that loosely tumbled down over full breasts.
Her fingers let go of the branches she still held parted, and one smacked her in the chin, finally making her look away from the unsuspecting woman. Stop staring! she sternly told herself. You’re not a fifteen-year-old boy! The thought that the woman in the pool was her wife made her head spin and her heart pound.
When Nora and her daughter waded to the edge of the pool where their clothes lay, Luke hastily backed away and hurried back to camp.
* * *
Nora’s eyes narrowed as the trail in front of them did the same thing. The Little Blue River which they had followed for days flowed on one side of the trail and on the other side rugged bluffs rose high above them.
Whenever possible, the wagons had spread out to avoid the dust that the wagons in front of them had thrown up, but in this bottleneck the trail became so narrow in some places that the wagons had to proceed single file and the pace slowed to a crawl.
Nora watched as Luke directed his mare towards her. Unlike her he looked like a born horseman. The reins rested loosely in his hand, and he seemed to mainly steer the horse with little movements of his slender body. Nora quickly looked away when he dismounted and glanced at her.
“Do you want to take over?” she asked as he fell into step next to her. She moved to hand him the whip and climb up onto the wagon seat next to Amy. Behind them, Bill Larson had long ago taken the whip from his wife, sure that she wasn’t able to guide their team safely through the bottleneck.
But Luke made no move to take the whip from her. “Nah,” he said. “You’ve gotten really good with them. I think they like you better than me.”
Nora’s head jerked around and she stared at him suspiciously. Was he making fun of her? But he just looked at her calmly. There was no hidden agenda, Nora realized. He really believed in her skills. Stunned, Nora flicked the whip again. She noticed that Luke no longer had to duck or risk having his ear taken off. Maybe she really had become good at this.
“Amy!” Nora whirled around when her daughter started to fidget on the wagon seat. “Sit still or you’re gonna…”
Amy started to topple forward.
Nora threw away the whip and tried to reach her daughter in time.
Before she could reach her, Luke’s determined hands snatched her up. “See! You almost fell! Your mother told you to sit still!”
Nora let a shuddering breath escape. Just last week, one of the Mason children had fallen out of the wagon and had been run over by the heavy wheels. The little boy had died within an hour, and Nora shuddered to think that it could have happened to her daughter, too.
Amy started to cry, and Nora took her from Luke, who was still berating the girl. “Stop. You’re scaring her.”
Startled gray eyes looked up at her.
Nora realized that he had probably thought about the Mason boy, too, and was quite shaken by Amy’s near accident. He just didn’t know how to deal with his emotions and how to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again. “Amy,” she said seriously, but didn’t raise her voice, “look at me.” She waited until teary green eyes looked into her own. “Falling from the wagon is a really, really, really bad thing. You could get hurt. You have to sit very still up there on the wagon seat, and if you want down, you just tell me and don’t try to climb down yourself. All right?”
Amy held her gaze for a second, then she nodded and looked away.
“Good. Now, why don’t you go and play with Hannah?” She pointed to the eight-year old Garfield girl and watched Amy run off. Turning to Luke, she repeated his words from earlier, “You’ve gotten really good with her.”
Luke squinted at her. He laughed; a sound bare of any humor and full of sarcasm. “I just scared her to death.”
“It wasn’t that bad. And you probably saved her life – again.” She wanted to lean forward and kiss his cheek, thanking him for saving the most precious thing in her life, but something in his stiff posture told her that he wasn’t ready to accept her thankfulness.
“Well, that seems only fair, seeing as to how I’m the one who’s responsible for her starting on this dangerous trip,” Luke muttered and turned away.
Before Nora could think of a response, he started to run. Nora stared after him in puzzlement, but then her eyes widened when she caught sight of Amy bending down to pick up something that she probably thought was a stick. “Amy! No!” she yelled and ran after Luke.
The Narrows was a haven for rattlesnakes. One of the poisonous rattlers had uncoiled from its hiding place and was clattering menacingly, warning the curious child to back away.
Luke reached Amy just as the snake was about to struck. There was no stone or stick to find in the vicinity, and his weapons were back in the wagon. Never slowing down, Luke careened into the rattlesnake and tried to crush it beneath his boot.
The snake slithered around and sank its fangs into Luke’s leg before his other boot came down on its head.
With a curse, Luke scanned the sandy ground for other snakes. When he found none, he sat down and pulled off his boot.
Nora wrapped a crying Amy into her arms. “Did it bite you?” she asked over her daughter’s red locks.
“Yeah.” Luke pulled up his pant leg, revealing two small puncture marks right above where the edge of his boot had been. He unwrapped the bandanna from around his head and tied it around his upper calf, pulling it tight with a groan. Without hesitation, he moved his knife across the bite marks in an x-pattern.
Nora groaned and felt bile rise in her throat as he squeezed with both hands and blood squirted out. She swallowed heavily. “Is it… bad?”
“Not if I get all the poison out right away,” Luke murmured without looking up. He was bending down as if trying to get a better look at the wound.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to suck the poison out,” Luke grunted while he tried to reach the back of his calf.
Nora stared. “I don’t see how you’re going to do that, unless you’re a contortionist.”
“A what?”
Nora didn’t answer. “You can’t reach the wound. Let me do that.”
“No!” He wrapped his hands protectively around the leg, holding it out of Nora’s reach.
“We don’t have the time for childish discussions!” Nora kneeled down and pulled his hands away. She gently laid her hand against his calf. It was already hot to the touch and starting to swell. Nora bent her head down, absentmindedly noticing the fine black hairs that dotted the soft skin of his leg.
She felt Luke shudder as her lips met his skin. His breath came fast and hard, and sweat glistened on his forehead. This poison works fast! It’s already in his system. Nora had seen other men die from snake bites, and she knew that time was of essence, so she took a deep breath and started to suck.
The taste of blood and the bitterness of the venom made her head spin. Her stomach started to rebel, and she quickly wrenched her mouth away, spitting out blood and poison.
Luke moaned.
“Oooh, you like that, huh?” She winked at him, trying to lighten the mood even if she was nauseous and scared to death. She was only half-joking, though. That moan had been pretty sensual.
“That was not a moan of pleasure! I’m in pain here!” Luke grumbled.
Nora lowered her lips to the wound again.
Amy tried to crawl around her to see what she was doing, but Bernice Garfield came over and pulled her away. “Mama kiss the owie! Make it good!” the girl explained.
Nora nearly spit blood all over her clothes. Her tattered nerves almost made her break out in wild laughter.
Jacob Garfield handed her a small flask of whiskey and a bandage, clearly expecting Nora to handle her husband’s injury.
Her hands were trembling just a little bit as she opened the flask and poured some whiskey onto the incision.
Luke groaned, but held still.
“I’m sorry,” Nora whispered.
Luke looked up. His normally silver-gray eyes were now a darker color, like the sky seconds before a thunderstorm broke loose. “It’s all right; it just burns a little.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Nora said, nodding down to the flask in her hand. “You got hurt while you rescued Amy – for the second time today.”
Luke awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well, better me than her. I don’t think she would have liked it if I cut her leg with a knife.”
Nora shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. Her stomach roiled again, and her tongue was starting to go numb from the poison. Her body was going into shock, and only her responsibility for her daughter kept her from breaking down completely.
“Come on, let’s get him into the wagon,” Mrs. Garfield took charge. “And you, li’l one, better keep your father company before something happens again!”
Nora followed them numbly, not even bothering to correct Mrs. Garfield’s assumption that Luke was Amy’s father.
* * *
Luke leaned back against her saddle and stared out into the darkness with her carbine on her knees. She swung the barrel around when she heard soft footfalls. Then she lowered the weapon as Nora stepped into the circle of the firelight. “What are you doing up?” she asked gruffly, mainly to hide that Nora’s silent approach had scared her for just a second.
“I brought you something to eat.” Nora held out a tin plate like a peace offering. “You hardly touched your dinner.”
Luke had been too exhausted to eat. Soon after leaving the Narrows with its serpent inhabitants behind, they had said farewell to the Little Blue, the river they had followed for days, and trudged over low sand hills – a strenuous twenty mile trek without creeks, water or trees for shade to rest in. After a sleepless night, sweating with the remnants of a fever, Luke hadn’t had any appetite. And she, like every other emigrant, had long since gotten tired of beans and salt pork, day after day.
But when Nora set the plate down next to Luke, it wasn’t leftover dinner. “What’s this?” she mumbled around the first forkful.
“Fried dried apples with cinnamon,” Nora said with a proud smile.
Though she would never admit it, Luke had a sweet tooth, and she made short work of the dessert. Finally, she offered Nora the empty plate. “Thank you. After that steady diet of beans and pork, it was a real treat.”
Nora took the plate, but didn’t stand and walk away like Luke had thought she would. Instead, she settled down next to Luke.
What does this mean? What does she want? She nervously studied Nora from beneath the brim of her hat.
A spray of sparks popped up from the fire, and they both watched them float back to earth.
“How’s the leg?” Nora finally broke the silence.
“Fine,” Luke answered.
Nora looked at her, clearly expecting more of an answer.
“The swelling has finally gone down,” she added.
“Do you already feel fit enough to stand guard?” Nora peered at her more closely than Luke would have liked.
Luke was not used to someone worrying about her. She wasn’t sure if she should be annoyed or thankful. “I told you; I’m fine. I can’t very well advise the Captain to double the guard and then refuse to take a turn.”
“Bill Larson did,” Nora said.
Luke held herself back from spitting into the fire. She was coming to detest Larson. He was always starting fights, avoiding the most hated male chores like chasing lost stock and standing guard at night, and if Luke wasn’t mistaken he was beating his wife. “I wouldn’t want to do the same things that Larson does.”
Nora’s gaze met her own, and she was suddenly sure that Nora knew about the daily beatings Emeline Larson had to endure, even if she had never said something about it. She probably thinks it’s his right as her husband to treat her however he sees fit.
A loud howl interrupted the awkward silence.
Nora stared into the darkness, trying to pinpoint the source of the howling. “Wolves?”
While traveling along the Little Blue River, the emigrants had grown used to the company of wolves at night. But this time, Luke wasn’t so sure. “That or Pawnees.”
“Pawnees?” Green eyes widened. “You mean… Indians made that noise?”
Luke shrugged. “It’s possible. This is Pawnee country and in this area, between the Little Blue and the Platte, they like to do most of their thieving.”
“They’re thieves?” The Indians they had encountered so far had mainly been the so-called “civilized” tribes, the Shawnee and the Potawatomi, who spoke English, had learned the white man’s customs and had become farmers.
“It’s a sport for their young braves. They don’t attack outright. They’re clever and silent, so you don’t notice that your horses are gone until the next morning,” Luke explained. “It’s said that they can almost steel a horse from under its rider.”
“Why the howling then?”
She’s a clever one, Luke noticed again. “They make all that noise to hide their advance. You’ll never hear rustling grass or the snap of a dry branch when wolves are howling all around you.”
“That’s why you made them chain the wagon circle and keep the livestock inside,” Nora realized.
Luke simply nodded.
Nora turned her head and looked at her, making Luke want to squirm under the intensity of her gaze. “How do you know so much about all the things along the Oregon Trail?”
Luke shrugged. “Ah, I’ve been around…”
“You don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?”
It wasn’t really a question, so Luke didn’t bother to answer.
“Do you mind if I ask a question anyway?”
Luke sighed, but had to suppress a smile nonetheless. On the surface, Nora was as submissive and as eager to please the men she depended on as she had expected it from a woman who had worked in a brothel for years. But if you looked a little closer, you got glimpses at a courageous and caring woman. “I mind, but you can ask anyway.”
“What made you give up your military career and want to leave the States? I mean… what are you gonna do in Oregon?”
Luke was not used to giving explanations for her decisions. As an officer, she had never had to justify her orders, and before she’d joined the dragoons, all her decisions had only affected her and no one else. It’s not only you anymore. She’s your wife, Luke told herself. The word still sounded strange. She’s got a right to know why you’re dragging her across the country. “I felt like the dragoons didn’t have anything to offer me anymore.” She had joined the military because she wanted order, structure and stability in her life, but as she grew older and more secure in herself, that need began to fade. Now, she wanted to make it on her own. “I saw Oregon when I led an expedition after the Cayuse Wars and it’s good land with fertile soil in the Willamette Valley.”
Nora frowned. “You’re a farmer?”
Obviously, Nora couldn’t imagine Luke spending her life farming either. Many of their fellow travelers were farmers, but not Luke. “No. I want to raise horses, not crops. I plan on building a horse farm.”
Nora lowered her head, dragging a branch through the ashes of the fire. “Horses, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Nora snapped the stick apart and hurled the pieces into the fire. “You couldn’t have picked a worse wife for a horse rancher than me.”
It was true. Nora had no experience with horses; she couldn’t even ride, but that hadn’t bothered Luke. She had never thought further than reaching Oregon. A wife had never been part of her plans. In her mind, she had always been alone when she was going to build a log house, when she dug a well, and when the first filly was born. She couldn’t imagine sharing her life with someone, when she couldn’t share who she really was. But she also couldn’t just leave Nora and Amy upon reaching Oregon. An inexperienced woman and a child alone wouldn’t make it through the first winter.
Maybe she’ll find someone who’ll care for her, Luke told herself. There are a lot of bachelors in Oregon who would give their right hand for a beautiful wife like her. “You’ll learn whatever you have to in order to survive,” she said vaguely.
Nora turned her head to look at her. Her green eyes appeared almost black in the light of the slowly dying fire. “Like I always have.”
Luke awkwardly cleared her throat, uncomfortable with Nora’s allusion at her job as a prostitute. It was clear that Nora still thought her and Amy’s survival depended solely on herself. Part of Luke wanted to tell Nora she could depend on her, but she knew she couldn’t make such promises – not when she knew Nora would go her own way as soon as she discovered her secret.
Another howl came out of the darkness. Nora shivered. “I think I’ll turn in now.”
Luke watched her walk away until she disappeared into the night.
* * *
Nora’s wagon topped a rise and she halted the oxen next to the other wagons, looking down across the prairie. In the distance, she could make out a line of white shapes that marked another wagon train, and beyond that, a broad, muddy river formed lazy S’s.
After miles and miles of only level prairie and the dust of the sand hills, the Platte River was a welcome sight. The oxen seemed to sense the water, and they quickened their steps.
As they neared the river, Nora curiously studied the valley of the Platte that would provide the path westward they would follow for more than a month. It was a wide, shallow river that flowed quietly around its many islands. Nora had heard the Captain joke that the Platte was “a mile wide and an inch deep” and Jacob Garfield had added that it was “too thick to drink and too thin to plow”. Its color resembled more that of coffee than that of clear water.
The plains on either side of the river were covered with grass, ensuring that their livestock would find enough to eat, but Nora could see no trees along the banks of the Platte and she wondered how they would build a fire tonight.
Then she flicked the whip again and grinned thinking about herself. Only a few short weeks ago, she would have naïvely enjoyed the sight of the river without wondering about such practical things like feed for the animals or wood for a fire.
“Mama, look!” Amy peeked out of the wagon and pointed forward. “Dat’s where the piwats live!”
Nora looked into the direction her daughter indicated. There was a long island in the river, bigger than any of the others. It went on for miles and was covered with green grass and dense timber. Ah, there’s wood on the islands!
She nearly forgot about Amy’s comment until Luke directed his mare around the wagon and asked, “Piwats? Is that a native tribe I’m not aware of?”
Nora grinned. “I think she means ‘pirates’. I’ve read her a bedtime story yesterday where a bunch of pirates lived on an island.”
“There are no pirates on Grand Island, I’m afraid, but there’s a fort at the western end of it.” Luke winked at the girl in the wagon.
Mrs. Garfield strode over, her skirts rustling loudly, while Emeline Larson followed more meekly behind her. “Have you heard?” Bernice Garfield was grinning from ear to ear. “We’ll reach the fort by this evening! We can visit together and see what their stores have to offer! Maybe they have fresh apples, so we could bake a pie!”
Nora smiled at her older friend’s enthusiasm. She glanced at Luke, knowing that she was expected to get his permission.
Luke nodded without hesitation.
“Great!” Bernice Garfield clapped her hands. “We’re going!”
Nora looked at Emeline, who was hanging her head. “Hey, don’t worry if you don’t have any money to spend. We’re all just looking at things for the most part. We don’t have much to spend either.”
Emeline didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s not the money… Bill doesn’t want me to go. He says I’m to stay here and keep an eye on the wagon.”
“What?!” Bernice crossed her arms over her ample chest. “But no one stays here except for a few guards, the sick and the old!”
“He doesn’t want me to go,” Emeline repeated in a whisper.
Bernice still couldn’t let it go. “But why?”
Emeline picked a piece of lint from her apron. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
I bet I know why he doesn’t want her to visit the fort, Nora thought glumly. He wants complete control over her. She had encountered a lot of men like Bill Larson since she had left her parent’s home.
“I could talk to your husband,” came an unexpected offer from Luke. “I’d offer to accompany you ladies to the fort and back, if he doesn’t think it’s safe for you to go alone.”
Nora looked at him. She studied the sincere gray eyes, noticing for the first time the fine lines that touched the outer corners of his eyes. That’s sweet. Sweet, but clueless. “That’s not a good idea, Luke.”
He blinked in surprise. “Why not?”
Nora sighed. How could she explain to an honorable man who would never even think of beating his wife, of trying to control every aspect of her life? She knew that any attempt to intervene in behalf of Emeline would only result in more complications for the shy woman. Bill Larson would take his anger about them butting into his business out on his wife. Luke is a man . He has never thought about what power a man holds over his wife, because he just takes it for granted. Bill Larson is Emmy’s husband, and he has the right to decide. There’s nothing we can do about it.
“Please, don’t,” Emeline begged. She clutched Luke’s sleeve, then quickly let go when she became aware of it and backed away. “It’s all right. I don’t really feel up to going anyway… I think I might be with child,” she told them in a whisper and forced a smile onto her lips.
With child? Nora stared at her in horror, even if it should have been a joyful occasion. She couldn’t imagine Bill Larson as a loving father, but she knew that Emeline had no other options but to stay with him.
“Well,” Bernice finally said after an awkward pause, “then we’ll bring you back some nice fabric for baby clothes from the fort.”
* * *
Bernice Garfield and most of the other women were behaving like children when a circus came to town and they got to see an elephant for the first time, but Nora was still thinking about Emeline and the baby that might soon be born into the Larson family.
The fort was not as impressive as she had imagined and couldn’t distract her from her glum thoughts. Fort Kearny was not the proud “Gateway to the Great Plains” that many emigrants had expected. Instead of a walled fortification, it was a collection of rugged sod huts, a few adobe buildings, a store, a small post office, a blacksmith and a crude hospital. Most soldiers were unshaven and wore patched up uniforms, and many of them were not much more than homesick young boys.
Prices were too high for Nora and most others to buy anything, but they planned to visit other wagon trains later and trade their excess supplies for things on which they’d fallen short.
“Well, at least there’s a post office,” Bernice Garfield commented. “We can write home and tell our families that we made it safely so far.”
Unlike most of their fellow emigrants, Nora had no family who was anxiously awaiting news from her, but she had already penned a letter to Tess and the other girls. She turned to Luke. While almost every other man and woman on the train had been writing letters last night, he had busied himself with carving another wooden animal for Amy. “Is there no family you want to write to?”
“No.”
“What about friends? I know that Tess would love to hear from you,” Nora suggested gently. She didn’t understand why he tried to constantly hold himself apart from other people.
“I don’t have time for such sentimentalities!” Luke snapped.
Only weeks ago, Nora would have flinched back from his anger and quickly apologized, but in the meantime, she had gotten glimpses at his gentle nature, and she was no longer afraid of him. She had noticed that his gruffness mostly served to hide any insecurities on his part. She watched as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and lengthened his strides to walk away from her. “Wait!” Nora lifted her skirt a bit and hurried to keep pace with his long strides.
Reluctantly, he slowed down, but didn’t look at her.
“You can’t write,” she said with sudden insight.
“I can write just fine!” he growled.
Nora had been born into a wealthy family and had had a good education. She was very aware that he must feel like a stupid fool in comparison to her. “I know that you can sign your name,” she said, thinking back to their wedding day when he had signed the certificate, “and for most people, that’s all they ever need to be able to do.” Just a few years ago, Nora had dreamed of becoming a teacher, even if she knew that her father would never allow it. He had sternly insisted that no Macauley woman had ever needed to work and that he would provide anything she needed until she married and then her husband would take over that role. Her mother had always told her that men didn’t like women who were more intelligent than they were. They didn’t marry a woman for her intelligence; they married for beauty, docility, and house-holding skills. Her father had often yelled at her whenever he caught her with a book in her hands, accusing her of daydreaming. For the last three years, her parents’ advice had served her well: The customers of a brothel paid well for beauty and submissiveness, but most didn’t care about having a well-read, intelligent conversationalist.
She didn’t really know why, but something about Luke made her hope that he was different from all the other men. He hadn’t married her to have a beautiful bed partner or a skilled housewife, so maybe he would come to appreciate her other talents. Hesitantly, Nora peeked up at Luke. “If you want to… I could teach you to write and to read.”
“We’ll see,” Luke said noncommittically. “I doubt that we’ll have time for that.”
Nora didn’t say anything else, not daring to pressure him. She didn’t even comment when, upon reaching the post office, he muttered something about having to see the blacksmith. She balanced her heavy daughter on her hip and entered behind Bernice.
A long line had already formed in front of the counter. Nora looked around, trying to distract herself from her aching feet. On the whitewashed adobe wall in front of them hung a poster and Nora began to read while they waited. The poster informed her that the Donation Land Claim Act, which had become law just last autumn, granted a hundred and sixty acres of land in the Oregon Territory to every single white man who staked out his land and filed a claim. A married man could claim another hundred and sixty acres for his wife. Nora’s stared at the poster, forgetting about the letter in her hand. A man can claim twice the amount of land if he’s married? Nora hadn’t known that, as she knew very little about life in Oregon. Is that why Luke married me? To get more land for his horse farm?
Suddenly, it all made sense to Nora. Why else would a man marry a woman without an even passing interest in sharing her bed? He had married her for strictly practical, egoistical reasons. Nora had assumed that from the start, refusing to believe that he harbored any romantic feelings towards her, but now that she knew for sure that her gentle, kind husband had only used her like every other man, she was disappointed nonetheless. Why did you allow yourself to think that he might be any different from the rest of ’em? You should know better by now! she chided herself.
A frightening thought occurred to her: Will he try to divorce and abandon me once he owns that extra quarter-section of land? Then another thought came, and her eyes widened even more. He doesn’t even have to get a divorce! He can have an annulment, because we never consummated the marriage! That’s why he refused to lie with me! Does he plan on just leaving me and Amy to our own devices once we’ve reached Oregon?
Every bit of excitement about visiting the fort had suddenly vanished as she worried about her future and began to frantically think of ways how she could prevent Luke from filing for an annulment.
* * *
Luke left her mare behind and tiptoed through the grass, listening intently. The wind howled, but she was far away enough from the wagon train not to hear anything else.
After leaving Fort Kearny, they had traveled uphill along the sandy left side of the Platte. Now it was almost dark, and Luke could see the glow of campfires on both sides of the river in the distance. Sweat and sand clung to her skin and made her itch. Her clothes smelled of smoke and buffalo chips, the dried dung that they used to build fires in the absence of wood. Clouds of mosquitoes made her even more miserable.
When they had encamped near Twenty Islands, two dozen islands of varying size, for the night, Luke had decided to risk a quick bath in the river tonight. She knew that this might be her last chance for many miles, because the treeless country ahead would provide no cover for her.
Luke pulled off her boots and waded into the yellowish water of the Platte. She rounded a small island, hiding behind its trees and shrubbery. When she was sure that no one had followed her, she began to undress. She slipped off her shirt and hung it on the branches of a tree to prevent it from getting wet. After pausing to listen into the darkness once again, she lifted her hands to the bindings around her chest. Slowly, she began to unwrap them.
She looked down at herself and smoothed her hands over the lines that the broad strips of fabric had carved into her skin. She splashed water onto her chest and watched as drops ran down her small breasts.
Sometimes she would go for days without consciously thinking about the fact that she was not a man, until moments like this reminded her of what she was – and what she was not.
The last month on the road had shown her that she was not really “one of the boys”. She had kept herself at a distance from the men on the train, especially those who secretly indulged in drinking and gambling whenever the Captain looked the other way. She was not a man, but she didn’t want to live the life of a woman either. She felt like she was stuck somewhere in the middle, not really a part of either world. Nora and Amy had eased her loneliness a bit, but she still couldn’t really relax around them, and she saw no chance that this would ever change. As long as she had to hide a major part of her identity, no true emotional intimacy could develop, and she didn’t plan on revealing her secret to Nora or anyone else.
Measles nickered softly.
Luke looked up in alarm. Her hands automatically wrapped the bindings back around her chest, hastily pulling them tight. She ducked behind the shrubbery when she heard soft footfalls come closer. Luke had lived with horses long enough to know who had found them out here. Horses generally had little to say to humans, so Measles’ nickering probably meant that the mare hoped for some delicious treat from a person she knew.
Nora, Luke concluded. For a woman without any experience with horses, Nora sure had a soft spot for the gentle beasts. Luke snatched her shirt from the tree and quickly slipped it on.
Water splashed and then Nora’s voice reached her through the darkness. “Luke? Are you out there?”
Luke hesitated for a second, but she didn’t want to scare Nora by not answering. “Yes, I’m here.” She waded back through the shallow water and joined Nora on the river’s bank, quickly closing the top button on her shirt.
“What were you doing out here on your own?” Nora tucked her hand into the bend of Luke’s arm as if they were out on a stroll along the river.
“That’s the question I should ask you,” Luke responded without answering her question. She didn’t like to stress her domination and make Nora feel inferior, but at times like this, being thought of as a man came quite in handy, because it gave her the freedom to go wherever and do whatever she wanted. Nora had to answer to her husband, but not the other way around.
Nora’s warm hand wandered up her arm. “I’ve been searching for you. I missed you.”
Luke narrowed her eyes. She had seen that act often enough to know that Nora was once again falling back into her role as a prostitute. What the hell is she doing? I thought we’d got that over and done with! “I just needed a bath,” she said matter-of-factly.
“It seems I found you just in time to help.” Nora’s fingers skimmed over Luke’s shoulder and re-opened the first button of her shirt.
“I already had my bath,” Luke corrected quickly.
Nora didn’t listen. She leaned forward and pressed soft lips against the skin that the opened button revealed.
Heat shot up and down from that place just below Luke’s collarbones. “Nora!” she got out, partly a warning, partly a groan.
Ignoring the warning part, Nora pressed closer until Luke felt the warmth of her body against her own.
Luke’s eyes threatened to close. Her rational mind fought against her bodily instincts that were telling her to wrap her arms around Nora and pull her even closer. In a haze, she felt Nora undo another button.
The soft lips wandered lower, caressing the skin of Luke’s upper chest.
Luke swayed. A teasing tongue created a blazing path downward, and she moaned in desperation, knowing that she had to stop this, but not really wanting to.
Nora’s skilled fingers scraped lightly over her neck, tracing the rim of a sensitive ear, before following the path of her lips.
With a groan, Luke pulled back from the gentle touch. “Wait!” One more button, and Nora would encounter the bindings and probably become suspicious.
“Why? It’s just you and me out here, and Amy is asleep and with the Garfields…” Nora quickly stepped forward into Luke’s space and reached for the buttons of her shirt again.
Luke sidestepped her and captured her wrists, careful not to hurt her in the process of trying to escape her seduction. “Stop it, Nora! I meant it!”
Nora bit her lip and hung her head like a rejected child. For a moment, Luke thought she would just turn around and slink away, but then Nora looked up, and a hint of defiance shone through the tears in her eyes. “Why? I’m your lawfully wedded wife, Lucas Hamilton! Tell me one good reason why we shouldn’t do this!”
No, you’re not Lucas’ wife, and I doubt that anything about this marriage is really lawful, Luke thought darkly, but she couldn’t very well tell Nora the actual reasons for refusing to sleep with her. She was at a loss at what to say. “Nora…”
“Is it because…? Did you get hurt in the war?” Nora asked quietly.
The question caught Luke off guard. What does the war have to do with this? And how does she even know I fought in the war? Did Tess tell her… and what else did she tell her about me? “How do you know that I fought in Mexico?” She eyed Nora suspiciously.
Nora looked down and tugged at her skirt. “Well… sometimes you’re crying out and talking in your sleep.”
Luke froze. I’m talking in my sleep?! That’s not good, not good at all! What if she accidentally gave away her secret while she slept? She took a deep breath and forced the panic down, concentrating on Nora’s words instead. “Hurt?” she repeated belatedly.
“Yes, uhm…” Nora gestured down Luke’s body, nodding towards the padding that Luke wore in her pants. “Did you maybe suffer an injury of certain… important body parts? Because if that’s the case, there are other ways to make love to a woman, you know? And I’m an excellent teacher, if I do say so myself.” She gave Luke the rakish grin that Luke had seen hundreds of times in various brothels.
For a few seconds, Luke just stared at her. Nora was so much blunter than the officer’s wives in Fort Leavenworth, and Luke really didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing. At the moment, it was mainly embarrassing. “No,” she choked out. “No important body part of mine suffered any lasting injury in the war.”
“All right.” Nora nodded slowly. Her green eyes studied Luke intently. “What is it then?”
Luke suppressed a groan. Damn! I should have told her that I had a disabling injury and left it at that! But no, your pseudo male pride wouldn’t allow that, huh?! She didn’t know how to answer Nora’s question without revealing her true identity, so she used her husbandly dominance as a last resort. “I don’t want to. That’s all you need to know. End of discussion.”
“I think I know the reason anyway,” Nora whispered, facing the ground.
Luke swallowed against the lump that had suddenly developed in her throat. She doubted that Nora really knew the true reason, but her heart began to thump anyway, pounding in her ears until she almost missed what Nora said next.
“You… you want to have our marriage annulled once we reach Oregon. I saw the poster.”
“Poster?” Luke was too stunned to do much more than repeat the last word of Nora’s revelation. She shook her head to clear it. “You saw a poster that said I want to get an annulment in Oregon?”
Nora dug the tip of her boot into the muddy riverbank. “It said that as a married man, you’re entitled to twice the amount of land that you could claim as a bachelor.”
Nora might have been just a whore in a frontier town, but she’d had a good education and was really intelligent. She must have read a poster about the Donation Land Claim Act and immediately assumed that it was the reason why I married her.
Isn’t it? Luke asked herself. You sure as hell wouldn’t turn down a hundred and sixty acres of free land, would you? It sure was a nice side effect of marrying Nora. It hadn’t been the only reason, but Luke couldn’t fault Nora for thinking that. She must have figured it all out in her mind: As soon as I claimed the land in her name, I’d abandon her and the child and keep the land for myself.
The thought of getting an annulment had never occurred to Luke, because she hadn’t really thought about what would happen once they reached Oregon. Whenever she thought about the future, she had never pictured herself living with someone, sharing bed and table, even if that was what was traditionally expected of husband and wife. “Maybe getting an annulment would be for the best,” she offered hesitantly.
Nora’s eyes widened when she saw her worst fear confirmed. “But… but what would happen to Amy and me? We can’t survive in a strange, wild land all on our own!”
“No! That’s not what I meant. I won’t just leave you while you still need me.” Luke stopped as if to listen to what she had just said. They need me.
“While we still need you?” Nora echoed incredulously. “We will always need you! The West is no place for a woman and a child living on their own!”
Luke knew that better than anyone else. If anyone suspected her true gender, she would have never had the chance to build a new life for herself out west. A single woman would have to find a husband or work as a schoolteacher or a seamstress to survive, but no one would employ an unmarried woman who had a child out of wedlock. Without a husband, Nora would soon be back at working as a prostitute. “If we annul the marriage, you’re free to find yourself another husband. With your good looks and the number of unmarried men in Oregon, you could have another husband in a matter of days if not hours,” Luke reasoned. Someone who can really make you happy, someone who can share your bed and give you children, someone who doesn’t have to keep secrets from you…
Nora shook her head. Her green eyes looked at Luke in confusion. “Why would I want to take another husband? I’m already married to you, and marrying another man wouldn’t improve my situation.”
Luke almost had to smile at Nora’s practical mind. Nora didn’t associate marriage with love. All she really wanted was someone who would take care of her and be kind to her daughter. From Nora’s point of view, I must be the perfect husband. She doesn’t want to take the risk of marrying another man who might be abusive. This discussion would get them nowhere. With a sigh, she took Measles’ reins. “We should get back before we get shot by our own guard again.”
She looked back over her shoulder and saw Nora follow silently behind her. She knew that Nora would try to seduce her again. Seduction had been her primary means of survival for so long that she knew no other way to convince Luke of her worth as a woman and wife. The journey to Oregon would be a long one indeed.
* * *
Nora chuckled as she watched her daughter make a game out of gathering buffalo chips. Since travelling along the Platte, the scarcity of wood had forced them to resort to dry buffalo dung for building fires. After leaving Fort Kearny, the landscape had changed. Long green grass had given way to short brown grass, and the road was very sandy. Sagebrush and thin-bladed yucca plants had taken the place of the cottonwoods.
Amy and the other girls were racing around their camp, trying to see who could fill the sack hanging from the side of their wagons the fastest. Nora had gathered chips all day while she walked, because she knew that they would burn so rapidly that she would need three whole baskets to cook their dinner.
She grinned to herself, knowing that just a few weeks ago, she would have refused to touch the dried buffalo droppings with her smooth hands that were a requirement for her former profession. Now, her hands were no longer soft and without calluses, and she picked the buffalo chips up without any hesitation, jokingly referring to them as “Bois de Vache” or “Wood of the Cow” to Bernice Garfield.
While she dug a trench to prevent the wind from blowing the burning chips away and quickly lit a fire with a skillful stroke of flint and steel, she thought about her first pitiful attempt to build a fire.
Under Luke’s patient guidance and with Bernice’s help, she had learned a lot about living on the trail. Since her last failed attempt to seduce her husband, she had even tripled her efforts to learn. She wanted to be the best wife he could wish for, and make herself indispensable for him, until he no longer thought about annulling their marriage.
While Bill Larson in the wagon behind them constantly complained that eating his wife’s food was like chewing shoe leather, Luke had repeatedly praised Nora’s pancakes and he always took a second helping of her stew.
Learning to cook over the campfire was even more challenging than Nora had thought. Her first attempts at baking bread had resulted in a lump that was burned on the outside and still doughy on the inside, but now she was finally beginning to master it.
Nora ignored the shouting that once again came from the Larson wagon while she chopped up bits of antelope meat and added it to the boiling pot of beans. At last, she seasoned the meal with wild onions that she had found while she walked.
She spread freshly churned butter on a slice of bread and handed it to Amy.
Buttered bread in hand, Amy ran towards the riverbank. Nora tensed when she saw her running towards the river’s edge until she noticed that Luke was standing there, talking with some of the other men. Luke’s initially non-existing protective instincts had gotten much better in the last few weeks. Nora watched in relief as he caught Amy before she could slip in the mud near the water. He swung her up into his arms and playfully took a bite from her bread, before he sent her back to the wagons.
Sometimes, he still seemed a little clumsy and uncomfortable when dealing with a child, but he treated Amy with a patience and gentleness that she had never witnessed from man concerning a child that was not his own. She sensed that behind the tough, aloof outer shell, there lay a sensitive man.
She didn’t love him – and had never expected to – but she was convinced that she was unlikely to find a better husband, and she was determined to wear him down until he gave in. If her job in Tess’ brothel had taught her one thing, it was to be perceptive about the wants and desires of the men she had serviced. That night at the river, she had sensed that he was not as indifferent towards her feminine charms as he pretended to be.
When she saw the men walk back towards the camp, she began to ladle the stew onto tin plates.
Jacob Garfield and three of the other men took their own plates from their wives, but then walked over to the Hamilton fire. “That’s one crossing that shouldn’t be too difficult,” one of the men commented. “What do you think, Luke?”
The three men stopped eating and looked up from their plates, waiting for Luke’s answer.
Luke scooped a large forkful of beans into his mouth and chewed thoroughly as if stalling for an answer.
Nora had often watched how he kept himself apart from his fellow travelers, never taking part in any of the social gatherings. She had never understood his tendency to keep people at a distance. After being shunned by the citizens of Independence and the forced seclusion of her life in the brothel, she enjoyed being part of a community.
On the trail, the importance of status and veneer of respectability faded while they shared their struggle to survive. As Luke’s wife, she even enjoyed a certain standing in the wagon train. Despite his attempts to separate himself from the rest of them, the others came to him for advice. He seemed to know even more than the Captain about the Oregon Trail and all the things they encountered on their journey, and with every mile, he became more and more of a natural leader for them.
Nora studied him while he sat with the other men. He wasn’t taller than the rest of them, but he had a powerful, if unassuming presence to him. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, everyone listened. Nora took a certain pride in belonging to a husband like that.
“Don’t underestimate the South Platte,” Luke warned them quietly.
“Hamilton, you yellowbelly!” Bill Larson strutted over to their fire and looked down at Luke with an expression of repulsion. “You are not afraid of that little river, are you? It’s shallow, with gentle banks, and not moving too fast… but of course, if you’re scared, I could take your wagon and your wife over for you.”
The other men around the fire tensed, but Luke never even looked up. He kept eating as if Larson had never spoken.
A part of Nora was glad that her husband was too level-headed to engage in fist-fights. In the brothel, she had seen so many brawls, that she didn’t find them heroic anymore. But another part of her couldn’t understand that he would sit quietly while Larson insulted him. He hadn’t even reacted to Larson’s thinly veiled threat to take Nora away from him.
Nora shuddered and her stomach flipped at the mere thought of that.
“All I’m saying is that we should be careful,” Luke said without raising his voice or looking at Bill Larson. “The river bottom is partly quicksand and if a wagon gets mired down in it…”
Nora looked at the deceivingly harmless river. She had learned to trust Luke’s assessment, and that made her dread the river crossing, but she knew that they had no choice but to cross the river. The Platte River divided into a north and a south branch at this point, and they had to cross the South Platte to gain access to the north branch of the river, which would lead them west.
After the midday meal, they raised the beds of the wagons a few inches by putting blocks under them. Nora hoped that it would be enough to keep their belongings and the food that was stored in the wagon dry.
Bill Larson’s wagon was the first in line to cross. They double-teamed, so that now six yoke of oxen were pulling the wagon across the river. Larson forced the oxen through the murky water with an iron hand, yelling at them over the dim of the roaring waters.
As they had learned to do, the wagon crossed at an angle. When he reached the middle of the river, Larson turned the oxen upstream to finish the crossing. He paused for a moment, throwing a triumphant glance back at Luke who was watching from the bank.
Then Larson flicked his whip again. The oxen strained against the harness, but didn’t succeed in moving the wagon forward. The wagon wheels only sank deeper into the quicksand of the riverbed. The more Larson yelled and the more the oxen struggled to free themselves, the more the sand held and sucked them deeper. Water smashed against the wagon, nearly upsetting it, and the oxen bellowed.
“He’s mired,” Luke shouted. Without hesitation, he waded into the river, yelling at the others to throw him a rope.
Nora watched with growing concern as the water rose on Luke’s chest as he strode forward against the current. She clutched Amy’s hand when he finally had to swim.
“Mama…” Amy looked up at her with frightened eyes.
“It’s all right, Sweetie.” Nora gently stroked the red curls. “Luke will be back soon. He’ll be fine.” She prayed that fate wouldn’t make her a liar.
Luke let the current carry him past the wagon. At the last moment, he grabbed hold of the lead cattle’s yoke and quickly attached the rope to the stuck team.
With the help of a dozen oxen on the shore, they freed the wagon.
Nora breathed a sigh of relief when Luke finally emerged from the river, stumbling up the bank in sodden clothes. Lifting Amy up into her arms, she went to meet him halfway. She had planned on offering him dry clothes, but instead she found herself saying something else. “Why did you risk your life for him?” She angrily jerked her head in Larson’s direction who had safely reached the other side by now. “Just an hour ago, he called you a coward in front of the entire wagon train and now you…” Nora trailed off, feeling like she didn’t understand her husband one iota better than on the day she had met him. He certainly didn’t understand how afraid she was that something would happen to him, leaving her and Amy without a protector and provider.
He looked up, pushing wet strands of hair from his face with a weary hand. “I didn’t,” he said as he fell into step next to her.
Nora shot him a incredulous glance.
“I didn’t do it for Larson,” Luke added. “I did it for his wife.”
Nora stopped walking for a second, then hastened to catch up with him. “You wouldn’t have swum out to rescue him if Emeline hadn’t been in the wagon?”
Luke didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to, as far as Nora was concerned. She was certain that she already knew. He would have waded out to save Larson’s life. He’s just that kind of man. She really wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. “You should change into some dry clothes,” she said as they reached their wagon.
Luke shook his head. “No sense in that. I have to wade right back in, ’cause we’re the next to cross the river.” He glanced inside the wagon. “We should leave a few things behind to make the wagon lighter. Every extra ounce could cause us to get stuck.”
Nora swallowed. The abandoned items that littered the side of the trail had become an everyday occurrence. She had seen stoves, trunks, anvils, china plates, and even food left behind to lighten the load of the weary oxen, but this would be the first time that she had to leave something behind.
She turned back the flap and looked into the wagon, studying each item. Unlike most other emigrants, Luke had packed wisely and without overloading the wagon, so now she was at a complete loss as to what she should discard.
She didn’t dare to leave any of the sacks or kegs of food behind. The cooking utensils, Luke’s weapons, their bedding, and some extra clothing were also indispensable, and they would need the tools once they reached Oregon.
With a sigh, Nora lifted the fine linens that Tess had given her as a wedding gift as well as the heavy trunk that came with it, and set both down on the sandy ground. After a second’s hesitation, she put her leather-bound diary down on top of it. Quickly, she turned around before she could change her mind.
Her heart pounding in her throat, Nora perched on the wagon seat with Amy behind her in the wagon. She stared down as their wagon reached the river’s edge and began to move through the moving mass of sand that was the river bottom. The water became deeper and deeper as they traversed the river diagonally down with the current. She glanced longingly at the other side, more than three-quarters of a mile away.
A few times, she felt sand give way beneath the wheels, jarring the wagon, but Luke kept the oxen moving. They both knew that if they stopped for even a moment, the wheels would bog down.
Amy squeaked when a flood of water soaked her feet, but then they were finally past the halfway point, and Luke turned the oxen, making them struggle back up against the current. After forty endless minutes, they reached the opposite bank.
By the time all wagons were safely on the other side of the river, the oxen and mules were exhausted. Each animal had been double-teamed and used repeatedly to haul the wagons across. As soon as the last wagon struggled up the bank, Captain McLoughlin gave the go-ahead to make camp for the rest of the day.
Luke disappeared into the wagon while Nora was busy building a fire. When she put on a pot of coffee to brew, she heard Emeline Larson’s surprised gasp and her stammered apology, “Oh, I… I’m sorry… I didn’t know… I just wanted to…”
She turned around and watched Luke emerge from the wagon, quickly closing the top button on his shirt and slipping into the vest, while Emeline Larson looked away in embarrassment. Nora grinned when she saw both of them blush, wondering if she had ever been that innocent.
“I… I just came over to tell you… to thank you,” Emeline stammered, still not raising her eyes to Luke’s face. “You saved our wagon today… and probably our lives.”
Luke nearly crumpled his hat between his hands. “You don’t need to thank me, Ma’am.”
Nora watched him study the tip of his boots. He seemed almost embarrassed at Emeline’s thankfulness, and if she hadn’t known how confident and self-assured he could be, she would have thought he was shy. Once again, she wondered just how much experience with women he had. She still wasn’t sure if he had ever lain with a woman.
“Here,” Luke grumbled, pressing something into Nora’s hands as he shouldered past her on his way to take care of the oxen.
When Nora looked down, she discovered that she was holding her leather-bound diary that she had left behind on the other side of the river. Smoothing her hands over the leather, she looked up at Luke with a question in her eyes.
Luke seemed to feel her gaze on him. He shrugged and said back over his shoulder, “I threw out two cans of peaches instead.”
Canned peaches… Nora pressed the diary against her chest. He can’t read, so the diary holds no importance to him… yet he traded it for the canned peaches… She knew that it was quite a sacrifice for the man with the sweet tooth.
“He’s a good man,” Emeline Larson whispered next to her.
Nora saw the longing and the sadness in her eyes. She just nodded. Better than yours, you mean. With a sigh, she went back to work.
* * *
Nora gasped for breath, struggling to keep up with Bernice Garfield as they trudged up a long, steep grade. After crossing the South Platte, the scenery had changed abruptly. Nora had gotten used to the flat, open prairie and suddenly found climbing up the steep hill that was pitted with deep ruts unusually exhausting. This is the first hilly terrain since Blue Mound. You just have to get used to it again, she told herself.
She had attempted to ride in the wagon for a while, but the constant jolting motion of the wagon had made her queasy, so she had quickly climbed back down. Wiping a damp strand of hair away from her overheated face, she looked back over her shoulder and gave Luke a small nod. She was glad that he had offered to carry Amy, because if she was honest with herself, there was no way that she could carry the extra weight up the hill.
After what seemed like hours to Nora, the terrain finally stretched out into a high, flat tableland. She gratefully accepted the canteen that Bernice offered her. “Thanks.” She took a large swallow and quickly handed the canteen back when the tepid water almost made her gag.
“You can take a little more,” Bernice encouraged.
“No, it’s all right.” Nora wiped her mouth, hoping that her nervous stomach would finally settle down. “Luke said that we won’t find fresh water until we reach the North Platte tonight. We have to make do with what we have.”
Bernice gripped her elbow and turned her around to face her. “Are you all right?” She lightly cupped her cheek, and for a moment, Nora allowed herself to lean into the motherly touch. “I noticed you didn’t touch your breakfast this morning.”
Nora swallowed. Her stomach rolled at the mere thought of food. “I’m fine.”
The older woman squinted at her. “Do you have a stomach ache?”
With a sigh, Nora nodded, but added, “It’s not too bad. Probably just all these beans we’re eating.”
“Vomiting?” Bernice asked.
Nora hesitated. Anyone would have vomited after traveling in that stuffy, bumpy wagon, right?
“Convulsions?”
“What?!”
“Diarrhea?” Bernice continued.
Nora shook her head. Whatever might have been going on with her, she hadn’t experienced that. “What are you getting at?”
“Well, you know what they’ve told us about Cholera…”
Nora’s head jerked around, and she swayed for a moment as a wave of dizziness hit her. “You think I have Cholera?!”
“Are you sure that’s not it?” Bernice Garfield eyed her with concern.
“Quite sure,” Nora said. She hadn’t felt quite right for some time, and Cholera victims usually were in intense pain within minutes and often dead within hours.
Bernice heaved a sigh of relief. The worry about cholera was omnipresent on the wagon train. “Well, what is it then?”
Nora had a long, internal battle with herself while they continued to travel over the high plateau. Biting her lip, she turned to see where Luke and Amy were, only to find that Luke had dropped back a bit and was no longer within earshot. He had probably done it deliberately, giving the women some privacy for whatever they might have to discuss. Nora had never encountered a man with that much sensitivity and instincts that fine about the needs of women.
With a frown, Bernice followed her gaze in Luke’s direction. “Is everything all right… between you and your husband?” she asked hesitantly.
Nora knew how much courage the simple question must have required. Things between a man and his wife were generally thought to be no one’s business but the husband’s, even if Nora happened to be miserable in her marriage. She squeezed Bernice’s hand while they walked. The older woman had become the first friend she had made for herself on the train. “Everything is fine,” she quickly assured her, praying that this wouldn’t change if her suspicion proved to be true. “This has nothing to do with… my marriage.” She didn’t want Bernice to think that Luke was the kind of husband that Bill Larson was.
The expression of concern didn’t leave Bernice’s face. “What is it then? There is something wrong with you,” she insisted.
Nora couldn’t deny that any longer, even if she had tried to explain it away to herself. “I’m not sure…” She didn’t want to voice her suspicion, maybe because that would lend an air of finality, of reality to it.
Bernice gave her an encouraging nod. “Tell me.”
“I’m not sure, but…” Nora looked over her shoulder, making sure that neither Luke nor any other emigrant was within earshot. “…well… maybe… There’s a possibility that I… I might be pregnant.”
“A baby!” Bernice squealed, then quickly lowered her voice as Nora shushed her. “A baby! That’s wonderful.”
Nora suppressed a grimace. It might have been, if the baby had been my husband’s, she thought bitterly. She had missed her monthly cycle, had been constantly tired, and had experienced some bouts of nausea and dizzy spells since before she had left Independence, but she had blamed it on the beating at the hands of a customer and then the strains of the journey. But in the last few weeks, she had also gained weight and the poor quality of their food sure couldn’t explain that, so Nora finally had to face the fact that she was pregnant again.
“Oh, come on, girl!” Bernice hugged her exuberantly. “You have every reason to celebrate! Why that long face?”
Nora licked her lips. How could she explain that to the warm-hearted older woman without revealing her past? She turned to glance at Luke again.
Bernice followed her gaze. “What did he say? I bet he’s…”
“I didn’t tell him.” Nora could hardly accept the fact that her life, which had finally started to go into the right direction again, was changing once again, much less reveal it to Luke.
Bernice blinked. “What? Why not?” She gave her a disbelieving stare. “Surely you don’t believe that he wouldn’t want a second child? He clearly adores his daughter; just think how happy he would be having a son!”
Nora pinched the bridge of her nose. It just wasn’t that easy. Nothing in my life ever seems to be. Maybe I’m just not destined for a quiet, happy life. Yes, Luke had married her, even knowing that she already had a daughter, but another child that was not his own hadn’t been part of the equation when he had proposed to her. She still wasn’t sure what made him refuse to share her bed, even though he wasn’t totally indifferent towards her female charms. Her most plausible hypothesis was that he wanted to avoid binding himself to a wife and a child for the long term. Nora was almost sure that he would attempt to buck that more constant responsibility if a baby was added to the mix. “It’s complicated,” she told Bernice.
“Complicated?” Bernice raised thick brows. She clearly couldn’t see what would be so complicated about being pregnant.
“Yeah…” Nora trailed off, not knowing how she could explain.
“But you will tell him, right? You can’t hide this from your husband!”
Nora sighed. She knew that she couldn’t go on like this for much longer. Soon, her pregnancy would be obvious even to an unsuspecting man who didn’t have Bernice’s keen eye for female problems. She had no choice but to tell him, but lacked the courage to do it.
She was still searching for the right words that might magically make Luke not want to run away as soon as she revealed her secret when they reached the edge of the high tableland hours later.
The wagons halted at the edge of the steep slope where the tableland suddenly dropped toward the North Platte River below. Nora gazed down Windlass Hill. With growing anxiety, she took in the splintered wood and torn canvas that littered the trail down. Could they really make it safely down that steep grade?
Her gaze searched for Luke, automatically looking at him for assurance and practical advice. When he turned towards her, she quickly pinched her cheeks to give them some color. She didn’t want him to know how queasy she once again felt.
Luke stepped next to her and lifted a protesting Amy down from his shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Nora jumped. She had to fight down her rising panic. It’s a harmless question, she soothed herself. He doesn’t suspect anything. Nonetheless, she found that Luke was surprisingly observant at times. “I’m fine,” she quickly told him. “I just wonder how we’re ever going to make it down this hill. Bernice said it’s called Windlass Hill… Do we really need a windlass to get down?”
“No,” Luke said with a small smile. “We’re gonna lock the wheels and slowly skid the wagons down by ropes.”
Nora watched as the men did exactly that. The brakes were set and the hind wheels were chained to the wagon boxes. Long ropes were tied to the wagon, and every available man took up a position behind the wagon, tightly clutching the rope in gloved fists.
Then the oxen were urged forward and the men holding onto the ropes were dragged down the steep hill. Nora saw Luke dig in his heels, his arms straining to resist the downward pull and slow the wagon’s descent. Sometimes, they had to lift the wheels to ease them over solid rocks. It seemed to take forever before the bumping wagon finally reached the bottom of the canyon.
The men unfastened the chains and ropes and trudged back up the hill to use them on the next wagon.
Wagon after wagon was slowly skidded down the steep slope. After watching them master the difficult journey down the hill, Nora relaxed a little. Another wagon had almost made it safely down when one of the men slipped on the rocky, trampled ground and lost his grip on the rope. The wagon jerked forward. The other men on the ropes were pulled down the hill.
Men yelled, women screamed, and the oxen being dragged down the hill roared. Rising dust and the wagon cover that had come loose obstructed Nora’s view, but then she saw Luke take a desperate leap. He raced after the wagon, refusing to give up his grip on the rope.
But then one after another of the men fell or had to let go of the rope to avoid getting dragged down the hill at a break-neck speed. Luke fell and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Nora froze. Helplessly clutching Amy’s hand in her own, she watched as the wagon tumbled down the hill, crashing at the bottom in a shower of splinters. Her stomach flipped when she heard the pained moans from somewhere within the cloud of dust. After a few seconds, Jacob Garfield emerged and began to limp down the hill. The dust settled a little, and Nora discovered another man sitting on the ground, spitting and cursing.
It wasn’t Luke.
“Mama?” Amy’s worried voice drifted up to her.
“Luke’s fine, sweetie,” Nora quickly assured her, praying that she was right. “He’s just… resting a bit.” She stepped closer to the edge of the plateau, but she still couldn’t see Luke. Bile rose in her throat. Darkness threatened on the edge of her vision. A dull roar filled her ears, and she realized numbly that she was going to faint.
“Hey!” A secure grip on her elbow brought her back to reality.
Bonelessly Nora slumped against the dust-covered form. “Oh, God, Luke!” She clutched at his back, holding on as if for dear life. His body was reassuringly solid against her own trembling form.
“What? What is it?!” Luke finally managed to loosen her grip on him and stepped back to take in her expression.
Nora stared at him. “I thought you… you…” She gestured down the hill, where men and women tried to salvage what they could from the Bennett’s destroyed wagon.
“You weren’t really worried about me, were you?” His lips curled into a disbelieving smile.
Nora wasn’t sure if she should kiss him or slap him. He still had no idea how important his survival was for her and Amy – not for sentimental reasons, but because they needed a provider and protector. She abruptly turned away from him when her upset stomach roiled again.
“Nora?” Luke bent down to look into her face. “Are you all right? You’re kind of…green.”
Nora tried to straighten, but another wave of nausea overtook her and she lost what little she had eaten at noon. When she was finally just dry heaving and holding her stomach, she became aware of a comforting touch at her back. She turned around, swaying a little, and looked into Luke’s worried gray eyes.
Amy pressed herself against Nora’s legs, clutching her skirt. “Are you sick, Mama?” The girl stared up at her with wide eyes.
Nora rested a soothing hand on her daughter’s head, while her other hand remained on her roiling stomach. “Just a little tummy ache. It’ll soon go away.” She knew that it wouldn’t, but she didn’t want to worry Amy, and she was very aware of Luke’s presence next to her.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re sick?” His arm wrapped around her in an unconscious gesture, supporting her.
Where Nora had usually recoiled from men’s touches outside the context of her work, she found herself leaning on him. “I’m not,” she said, almost wishing she was sick. “I’m fine, just an upset stomach, that’s all.”
Luke studied her. His expression told her that he didn’t believe a word she said. He had seen through her not inconsiderable acting skills right from the start. “Maybe you should leave that strong, silent routine to… us men,” he suggested with a half-smile.
“Oh, yes, because you’re so much better at it than I,” she agreed, nodding down at his hands.
The taut rope had ripped through his gloves, and Nora could see blisters and raw skin through the rips in the material.
“Let me patch them up,” Nora said.
Luke shook his head. “There’s no time for that. It’s our turn to go down the hill. We can lick our respective wounds when we’re down there. Will you be able to make it?”
Nora straightened and squared her shoulders. She was determined to prove that she was no shrinking violet, but a hardy pioneer woman. “Of course.”
Luke’s intense gaze rested on her for another second, then he nodded. “All right. Then let’s tie everything in the wagon down.”
Nora climbed into the wagon. The stuffy air inside made her gag again, but she quickly suppressed it and started to tie down every loose item in the wagon. “Why don’t you let me finish this while you check on the oxen?” she suggested when she saw Luke fumble with his stiff fingers.
She half-expected him to decline due to male pride, but he nodded without hesitation.
Minutes later, Luke urged the oxen forward over the edge of the plateau and down the steep hill.
Nora watched with anxious eyes as the wagon bumped over rocks, barely held back from tumbling down the hill by the men holding the ropes.
Bernice Garfield joined her as she started to walk down the hill. She set Amy down so that she could walk with Bernice’s children.
“How’s Jacob?” Nora asked.
“He hurt his leg, but otherwise he’s fine. How about Luke?”
Nora watched her slender husband grip the brake handle. “His hands are badly scraped and blistered.”
“Did you… tell him?” Bernice grinned expectantly up at her.
The mere thought of telling Luke threw Nora into a state of panic, but she couldn’t tell Bernice that. She quickly looked around, making sure that Amy was still running around with Bernice’s youngest daughter and wouldn’t hear any of their conversation. She didn’t want her to repeat anything of what was said to Luke. “No, I’m… I’m still waiting for the right moment.”
“Ah!” Bernice laughed. “You want it to be romantic, huh?”
“Something like that,” Nora mumbled.
“I’m so happy for you and Luke!” Bernice beamed like a proud grandmother-to-be. “You’re such a nice couple.”
Nora forced a smile. She loved Amy and she loved children, and under other circumstances, she would have been happy to find herself pregnant again. Everything would have been perfect if this was Luke’s baby. But Nora knew that there was no possibility of that, and Luke would know it, too. They would never be the happy little family that Nora wished for.
She breathed a sigh of relief when their wagon finally reached the bottom of the valley.
They camped in Ash Hollow, a wooded canyon named for its ash trees. After their strenuous, dusty trek down Windlass Hill, the place seemed like an oasis with its cool springs, tall trees and bushes with sweet berries. The lush grass was sprinkled with a carpet of colorful wildflowers. Nora deeply inhaled the fragrance of roses and jasmine that permeated the air.
“Well, looks like this is the romantic place you’ve been searching for.” Bernice winked at her. “Do you want some time alone with your husband? I could take Amy tonight…”
Nora grimaced. Romantic place or not, she didn’t intend to tell Luke anytime soon. She was just not ready to have her new life end so soon. “No, thank you. I think I’ll wait a few weeks until I tell Luke. You never know what could go wrong, and I don’t want him to worry…”
She busied herself with wandering through the meadow and picking berries with Amy. When she walked over to the clear pond in the middle of the meadow to wash Amy’s berry-smeared face, she found Luke next to the spring, trying to clean his hands.
“Good berries?” Luke asked, fondly watching as the girl climbed into his lap.
“Vewy good! Mama make a pie!”
“I’m planning on baking a gooseberry pie,” Nora explained. “Don’t smear your face on Luke’s shirt, honey!” She took her protesting daughter away from him and started to clean her face. “Now you.” She turned to Luke.
Luke smiled, and it made his clean-shaven, normally stoic face appear years younger. “I didn’t eat any berries.”
“I’m talking about your hands. Let me clean them for you.” Nora held out her hand and waited until Luke laid his own into her palm. She gently stripped off the remnants of the gloves and looked down, studying his hands. They were slender, but strong, equally capable of handling a dozen oxen or shoeing a horse and rocking her daughter to sleep. Nora gently dapped at the blisters and scrapes, and then, without really thinking about it, bent down and pressed a kiss to a calloused palm.
Luke’s hand jerked in her grip. “What are you doing?” he demanded to know, his voice rough.
Nora looked up. His half-tempted, half-angry expression told her that he thought that this was another one of her attempts of seduction. It wasn’t. There had been nothing planned or calculating about it. Even if she had wanted to, she was too scared that Luke would discover her pregnancy should she share his bed now. It had simply been a gesture of relief, sympathy, gratitude and a grudging affection. To her astonishment, she felt herself blushing under his gaze. “Sorry, I didn’t think… it’s just what I do when Amy has a boo-boo.”
He drew his hand back and flexed it. “Well, I’m healed then. Thank you.” A quick nod, and he strode away.
* * *
Luke stared through the darkness towards the gurgling Ash Creek. Everyone else had already bedded down for the night, except for Luke who had volunteered for guard duty tonight. She leaned back against her saddle, deliberately staying out of the circle of firelight. This way, she would make no target for any enemy that might lurk out into the darkness.
She knew from experience that Sioux often camped near Ash Hollow, and she was determined to take no risks. As a soldier, her life had been a constant alternation of boring routine and life-threatening danger. She had fought in wars and skirmishes, but she had never been afraid to die. Her only fear had been to get injured that badly that her true identity would be discovered by the Army doctor or her comrades.
But now, with each mile that they got further away from Independence, the possibility of her own death took on another meaning for her. Nora’s reactions whenever Luke’s life was in danger had been far from indifferent, and Luke wasn’t naïve enough to believe that it was selfless love for the “man” she had married just six weeks ago. Nora’s concern was for her own future and for that of her daughter.
With each day, Luke comprehended more and more that her life was inescapably entwined with those of the two Macauley females. At least until we reach Oregon, she told herself. I’ll think of something by then. She knew that she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with Nora, even though she had come to appreciate the courageous woman who had managed to hold onto her warmth and friendliness despite her former occupation.
Nora was also a lot more intelligent and cultured than the average prostitute, and that was one of the reasons why Luke was afraid to spend more time than necessary with her. Sooner or later, Nora would discover her secret. Out here on the trail, she could always sleep apart from Nora and Amy, and she could take a quick bath at some out-of-the-way corner of a creek. If they lived under the same roof, Nora would expect her to share her bed and bath in the tub she prepared for her “husband”. There would be no hiding for very long.
Luke snapped out of her gloomy thoughts when she heard footsteps. She lowered her carbine when Jacob Garfield stepped into the circle of firelight.
He sank down next to Luke and looked at her with an eerie smile.
Normally not one for idle conversation, Luke felt the need to break the silence. His grin made her somehow nervous. “How’s the leg?”
“Suppose it’s gonna give me trouble for a few more days, but it could have been a lot worse.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and offered her a small flask of whiskey.
Luke shook her head. “I’m still on guard duty,” she reminded him.
“Oh, come on, young man!” He gave her a friendly slap on the back. “You can make an exception this once! You have a very good reason to celebrate, after all!”
Luke shrugged. The antelope she had shot this afternoon wasn’t a big reason for celebration in her mind, but it provided a nice change in their steady diet of salt pork and beans.
Jacob Garfield took a healthy swig. “Let’s just hope it’s a boy this time, huh?”
A boy? He isn’t really talking about the antelope, is he? Luke stared at him in confusion. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about…”
“Oh, no false modesty now! My wife can’t keep a secret to save her life, so I know that congratulations are definitely in order!” Jacob offered her the flask again.
Luke made no move to take it. “Congratulations?” she repeated slowly, hoping to catch up with his weird thought process. “For what?”
Jacob laughed. “Don’t tell me you don’t know that your wife is with child?!”
“What?! W-what do you mean… with child?”
“With child… in a family way… in a delicate condition… pregnant,” Jacob explained, his grin widening with every word.
He was definitely enjoying this a bit too much for Luke’s comfort, but by now she knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t joking. Jacob wasn’t one for silly pranks. “Nora… she’s pregnant?”
Jacob nodded, still grinning.
Luke stared at him in confusion. “B-but… how...?”
“The usual way, I’d imagine.” Jacob laughed heartily. “Come on, boy, take it like a man!”
Luke grimaced. I’m not a man! she suddenly wanted to shout. And this is not my child! But of course she said nothing while questions, doubts and assumptions somersaulted through her mind. Who is the father of this child? A customer? A beau back in Independence? Someone from the wagon train? Did she cuckold me? Luke gazed towards the wagons, trying to picture Nora’s interactions with the men on the train. Nora had always been friendly towards everyone, but Luke had never noticed her behaving inappropriately towards one of the mostly married men.
Was she already pregnant when she agreed to marry me? Was that the reason she accepted my proposal so readily? Was that why she tried to get me to share her bed? Did she want to make me believe that she was expecting my child? Luke snorted at the irony of the situation.
What am I gonna do now? She felt trapped in a situation that she had never counted on happening. She had planned on finding a way to end her sham of a marriage, not take on even more responsibilities.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Get going!” Jacob gave her a good-natured slap on the back, pointing towards the tent that Nora was sleeping in.
With a great deal of effort, Luke held herself back from glaring at him. He couldn’t know that she wasn’t the overjoyed proud father that he expected her to be. “I’m still on guard duty,” she grumbled.
“I’m taking the rest of your watch,” Jacob offered. “You can go and be with your wife.”
Luke wanted to refuse. Being in the small tent with Nora was the last thing she wanted to do, but she knew that the close-knit community of the wagon train would soon become suspicious if she kept away from the woman who was supposedly expecting her child. “All right.” She bent down and picked up her saddle, taking her time because she wasn’t in any hurry to reach the tent and the woman it housed.
She slowly raised the flap of the tent and tiptoed inside. Everything was quiet, and Luke breathed a sigh of relief. A sleeping Nora meant that she wouldn’t have to face the reality of this new situation just yet.
Quietly, she settled down in her bedroll, even if she already knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. She slammed her eyes shut as she detected movement from under Nora’s blankets and pretended to be asleep.
From under lowered lids, she watched as Nora abruptly threw back her blankets and hurried past her to the flap. She had barely made it outside when Luke heard her gag and retch.
Luke pressed three fingers to the bridge of her nose and stared at the flap. She wanted to pull the blanket up over her ears and ignore the pitiful sounds and what they meant, but as the minutes went by and Nora didn’t return to the tent, she sat up and listened into the darkness.
There were no more sounds. No vomiting, no retching, no footsteps.
With reluctant concern, Luke stood and wandered outside. “Nora?” she asked quietly.
“Uh.” Nora cleared her throat. “I’m… I’m here.”
Luke’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could make out Nora who was huddled on the ground, her arms wrapped around herself. “Are you all right?” The question sounded stupid in her own ears, but the thousand other questions in her mind were much more complicated, and she wasn’t ready to ask them yet.
Nora quickly wiped her mouth. “I’m fine. I just couldn’t sleep and came out here for a breath of fresh air.”
Looks like we’re evenly matched. She’s as good at lying as I am. Suddenly, Luke couldn’t stand the many lies that made up her life. “I don’t think a breath of fresh air will cure what ails you,” she said bluntly.
With a half-suppressed groan, Nora straightened and looked up at Luke. Her green eyes were wide and scared.
“Is there by any chance something that you wanted to tell me?” Luke found herself holding her breath. She wanted to hear it from Nora, half hoping that Jacob was wrong.
She heard Nora swallow heavily. Her gaze darted away from Luke’s. “You… you know, don’t you?”
Luke closed her eyes for a second. It is true. She nodded.
“How?” Nora whispered.
Luke snorted. “That’s exactly what I want to know. How can you be with child when we both know…” She quickly closed her mouth. Nora didn’t know just how impossible the thought of her fathering a child was.
Nora hung her head. “It’s not yours,” she admitted in a whisper.
“That much is obvious. Whose child is it then?” Luke demanded to know. An unexpected wave of jealousy swept over her.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Who…?” Luke began to ask again, but then stopped herself when she realized that Nora wasn’t protecting the identity of the father – she really didn’t know it. “A customer,” she said with sudden clarity.
Nora raised her head for the first time and pleadingly looked into Luke’s eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone else since I agreed to marry you. I know that you probably won’t believe the word of a prostitute, but I swear to you that I haven’t-”
“I believe you,” Luke interrupted.
Nora still looked at her warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Luke took a deep breath and posed the crucial question. “When did you first learn that you were with child? Before or after you agreed to marry me?”
“I wasn’t sure for a long time. I thought I might be exhausted and queasy because of the strain of the journey…”
“Look at me.” Luke waited until green eyes reluctantly met hers. “This isn’t something that you discovered just now. You probably began to worry the moment you missed your monthly courses.” Luke knew too much about life in a brothel to believe otherwise. Children had no place in a prostitute’s life; they only meant a loss of money. “How far along are you?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d guess five months,” Nora mumbled, quickly looking down again.
Luke eyed the still mostly slender woman. “Five months? That’s impossible!”
Nora bit her lip. “I assure you, it is possible. You haven’t seen me naked, and these skirts and the apron are hiding my little bulge quite well. It was the same when I was pregnant with Amy – I could hide it until I was six months along.”
She had to hide that pregnancy as well? Luke instantly started to speculate about Amy’s father, but then stopped herself. She had other problems at the moment. “You agreed to marry me and travel two thousand miles through mountains, wastelands, and flooded rivers, knowing that you’re with child? What the hell were you thinking?!”
“Thinking?” Nora’s head snapped up, and she met Luke’s gaze without submissiveness for the first time. “I wasn’t thinking at all – I was just trying to survive!”
“By trying to pass off a customer’s bastard as my child?! Was that the reason why you were so hell-bent on going to bed with me?!” Heat shot up Luke’s body as she glared at the pregnant woman.
Nora blinked, and the glimmer of anger that had started in her eyes died. “I’m… I don’t know. I really don’t. I didn’t want to lie to you, but…”
“Then why did you? Why didn’t you tell me from the start?” Luke wanted to know, even as she thought to herself, Oh, you’re one to talk about trust and telling the truth, Luke Hamilton!
Nora wrapped protective arms around her middle. “Would you have married me, if you knew?”
They both knew that the answer was “no”, but Luke’s reasons were not the ones that Nora was probably thinking of. It wasn’t only that she didn’t want to be responsible for a pregnant woman and later a baby that wasn’t her own; mainly it was that she didn’t want to expose a pregnant woman to all the dangers along the trail. She shuddered when she thought about all the stories about miscarriages and death in childbirth she had heard along the trail.
“What is going to happen now?” Nora finally asked in a small voice.
“We’re going back inside, and we’ll make you some ginger tea. That should help with the nausea,” Luke answered, intentionally misunderstanding Nora’s question.
Nora stared at her for a moment, then found the courage to ask again. “No, I mean… what’s going to happen with me, with this baby…” She gently touched her rounded stomach. “… with us?” Now she pointed at Luke and herself.
Luke shook her head. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it just now.” She rubbed her temples where a dull throbbing had started. “Give me some time, all right?” Without waiting for an answer, she headed back inside and started searching for some ginger root.
* * *
Nora groggily lifted her head from the pillow and blinked her eyes open. The first pale light of pre-dawn was just starting to filter in through the canvas. She could make out Luke’s blanket-wrapped body on the other side of the tent, his back to her. His position illustrated the distance that had sprung up between them. Not that they had been overly close before, but in the five hundred and fifty miles since Independence, an easy camaraderie and mutual respect had developed between them. Nora had cherished that wary friendship, because she had never thought that she would ever have that kind of relationship with a man. But now…
It had been three days since he had learned of her pregnancy, and still they hadn’t spoken about the future. His silence became more frightening with every hour that went by. She pressed both palms to her middle, hoping to calm her unborn child. She had started to feel its movements two days earlier, but the joy of the moment had been overshadowed by constant fears and worries about her uncertain future.
After passing Ash Hollow, the trail had begun a slight, but constant uphill climb, and the nights grew colder with the rising altitude. Far off on the horizon, they could sometimes catch glimpses at the snow-patched Laramie Mountains. Nora knew that they were well past the point where Luke could just sent her back to Independence – not on her own, at least. But every time they met a family or a group of disillusioned gold seekers traveling back east, fear shot through her when she saw Luke talking to them. Each time, she was afraid that he was arranging for her to go back with them, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Luke had been distanced, but not unfriendly with her. He hadn’t yelled when she didn’t have breakfast ready when he rose, because just the smell of the food made her nauseous. He had calmly taken over the task of frying the bacon and sent her back to the wagon to rest.
As far as Nora knew, he hadn’t even told anyone that it wasn’t his child that she was expecting. Whenever someone from the wagon train congratulated him on the baby, he pressed his lips together, but accepted the congratulations with an embarrassed shrug. So far, no one suspected that he was not the baby’s father. Everyone was still treating Nora with respect, but she lived in the fear that this would change very soon, and she would be on her own once again.
With a sigh, she rose to begin her chores.
When she turned to the place right next to her, where Amy always slept, she froze. The blankets were empty. Amy was gone.
In panic, Nora stumbled to the flap of the tent, but stopped when she passed the place where Luke slept.
Her daughter slept peacefully next to Luke. Her red curls were peeking out from under the blanket that he must have covered her with. She had cuddled up to Luke, clutching him like an oversized doll.
Nora stared at the two of them. She suddenly realized that, if Luke should leave them, it would break Amy’s heart. Nora had taken care to protect her own heart by hiding it away behind a protective shield, but her daughter didn’t have that kind of protection. For the first time in her life, Amy had given her trust to a man, and Nora didn’t want to see that trust trampled on. She knew exactly how much that hurt.
She watched as Amy moved in her sleep, snuggling closer into the fabric of Luke’s shirt.
A strong hand came out from under the blanket they shared and spread protectively across Amy’s small back, keeping her warm and safe.
Nora bit her lip. She had never thought that she would trust any man with the welfare of her daughter, but now she found that she did trust Luke. Despite Luke’s inexperience with children and Amy’s distrust of men, they had bonded during the last few weeks on the trail.
Everything in her life had been perfect for once, but Nora had been afraid to let herself be truly happy, afraid that something would happen that would destroy her happiness – and now something had happened.
With one last glance at the two sleeping forms, Nora slipped from the tent. She shivered in the cool morning air and hastily stoked the fire. When she bent down to pick up the dented kettle, she heard footsteps behind her.
“Morning,” came Luke’s sleep-roughened voice.
Nora turned and took her yawning daughter from him. “Good morning. I didn’t wake you, did I?” She didn’t want to annoy him any more than she already had by hiding the fact that she was pregnant with another man’s child.
“No,” Luke answered shortly. “Let me do this.” He took the kettle from her and started towards the river.
Amy began to struggle in her arms, demanding to be put down. “Amy go too!”
Nora looked down. Dew clung to the grass and would soak Amy in seconds. “No, Amy, you stay with me. You’ll only get wet in the grass.”
Amy bent down to look at the dew, too. Her lower lip quivered.
“How about you help me make your favorite breakfast?” Nora suggested quickly before tears could start to fall.
Amy stopped struggling. “Apple-pancakes?”
“I don’t have any apples, but pancakes, yes.” Nora was fairly sure that her stomach could handle making pancakes. She set Amy down and showed her how to stir the flour and the milk for the pancake batter.
All around them, other campfires came to life as the other women started breakfast.
Nora pressed her lips together, trying to ignore the various smells of bacon, beans, bread, and onions that wafted over. Bile rose in her throat. She turned away from Amy and the pancakes for a second to take a deep breath.
When she turned back around, Amy had set the pancake batter down and was running through the grass towards the river. “Amy! Amy Hamilton! Stop and come back here right this second!”
But Amy had almost reached Luke now, who was returning with the water kettle. “Papa!” she shouted across the distance between them.
Nora froze in mid-step. She watched as the kettle almost slipped from Luke’s suddenly nerveless grip. He had stopped, too, and was now staring at Amy with an expression that almost made Nora laugh despite the grimness of her situation. “Amy!” She hastily caught up with her daughter. “Don’t call Luke that, sweetheart.” Calling him by that title meant forcing him to adopt the role of a father, when he was neither Amy’s nor the unborn baby’s. She didn’t want him to think that she had told Amy to call him “Papa”, even when it was clear that he was reluctant to accept that role in their lives.
Amy stopped hopping through the grass towards Luke. She turned and stared up at Nora with an expression of utter confusion. Her lower lip was trembling – a clear sign that she was fighting to hold back tears. “Sowwy,” she mumbled.
Nora bit her lip. She was sure that Amy didn’t even know why she was apologizing. She was afraid that she had done something wrong, but it was clear to Nora that her daughter had no idea why it would be so wrong to call Luke “Papa”. From the day of her birth, Amy had been the child of a prostitute, and she had been treated as such. Amy had often been yelled at and disapproved of by “respectable” townspeople. Even now, that she was around people who treated her like any other child born in wedlock, she was oversensitive towards disapproval.
With a sigh, Nora kneeled down next to her daughter. “You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart. You didn’t know…” She lifted her head and looked pleadingly into Luke’s eyes. “She must have heard the other children on the train calling their fathers by that name, and she must have thought… Amy, sweetie, Luke is n-”
“No.” Luke held up a hand, stopping her mid-word. “It’s…” He cleared his throat. “It’s all right.”
Nora stared at him. “It’s all right?” she repeated. What did that mean? It was all right as long as Amy never referred to him like that again?
“Your children need a father, and I’m willing to fulfill that role for as long as it takes you to find a better man,” Luke explained.
A better man? Nora felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Then you’re gonna be their father for as long as you live, because the longer I know you, the surer I am that you are the best man I could ever wish for. Slowly, she stood and rested her hand on Amy’s shoulder. “You really mean that? You would accept this child as your own?” She couldn’t hide the hope that shone in her eyes.
Luke shrugged as if it was no big deal. “As long as you’re my wife, your children will be mine, too.”
Nora blinked and dazedly shook her head. His wife, his children… is it really that easy for him? She couldn’t imagine that any other man that she had ever met would have reacted like that. Some might have tolerated that stepsisters or –brothers were growing up along with his own children, but she had never seen a proud man like Luke Hamilton just accept another man’s child as his own.
Doubts immediately began to grow in her. Pessimistic thoughts and worries crept back into her mind, but then she watched Luke pick Amy up, out of the dewy grass. The wet hem of her dress soaked his shirt, and she saw him shiver in the cool morning air, but he didn’t set Amy back down.
Maybe… Nora allowed a timid hope to grow in her chest as she followed them back to the fire.
* * *
Luke looked back over her shoulder. When she saw the Buchanan’s wagon slow and then stop, she raised her arm and shouted out a warning to Jacob Garfield in the wagon in front of hers, who repeated it until the message had reached the front of the train. The command to halt was repeated back the same way, until every wagon had stopped almost level with the slender stone column that jutted nearly five hundred feet into the sky.
Chimney Rock was one of the rock formations that rose from the plains along the banks of the North Platte River. Landmarks like Courthouse Rock or Chimney Rock loomed on the horizon for days and always appeared to be much closer than they really were. Some of the emigrants had walked three or four miles out of their way to climb the cone or etch their names into the sandstone, but their halt had other reasons.
Mrs. Buchanan had been too sick to walk when they had set out this morning. By noon, the Captain had sent riders out to other wagon trains in search of a doctor.
Luke’s gaze searched out Nora to make sure she was all right, something she found herself doing regularly since she had found out that Nora was pregnant.
Thankful for the breather, Nora had sat down on the wagon tongue while they waited for word from the Buchanan wagon, stretching her swollen feet out before her.
Now that Luke knew, she could detect a slight bulge where the baby grew. She was still alternating between horror and awe at the thought that she would soon be the “father” of a newborn baby.
Mr. Buchanan emerged from his wagon with a shovel and began to dig a hole right in front of his wagon.
Luke pressed her lips together and silently grabbed her own shovel to help him. She didn’t need to ask to know that Mrs. Buchanan had just died. She had known when the doctor from a nearby train had told them it was cholera that this was the most likely outcome.
Cholera had killed more emigrants than anything else. She had seen people in good health start out cheerfully whistling in the morning. By noon, they writhed in agony with horrible cramps, vomiting, and diarrhoea, and they were dead before evening.
Luke dug silently, shoulder at shoulder with Jacob Garfield and Tom Buchanan. Bill Larson, the neighbor from the wagon behind Luke’s, didn’t come out from his wagon; he just predicted a quick, horrible death for the helpers if they didn’t stay away.
Luke didn’t believe that cholera was contagious. Last year, when she had seen a lot of people die along the Platte, she had gotten the impression that cholera had to do with the low quality of the drinking water from the shallow river. She couldn’t prove it, but Bill Larson’s superstitious assumption was not enough to make her abandon her neighbor when he needed help. Digging a grave in the packed ground of the trail was hard work, but Luke knew that it was the only way now that they’d come this far west.
Chimney Rock had marked the end of their travel over flat plains and the start of the mountain portion of the journey. The scenery had changed from lush green to dry, brown grass. There was no wood in the area, and that meant that they couldn’t build a coffin for Mrs. Buchanan.
Luke watched as Mr. Buchanan wrapped his wife’s body in a quilt and lowered her into the shallow grave that they had dug into the ruts of the trail. They hoped that the constant passing of wagons over the grave would wipe away the scent and disguise the location of the grave, so that the body would be safe from Indians, grave-robbers, and scavenging animals in the packed earth.
Finally, the emigrants stood together in a loose semi-circle around the fresh grave. Nora stepped next to Luke when the Captain started to read from his Bible.
Out of the corner of her eye, Luke watched Nora sniffle and wipe her eyes as she helped Amy join her hands in prayer.
Luke wasn’t really familiar with the Lord’s Prayer that the others were mumbling in chorus, so she just moved her lips and watched the others.
Mr. Buchanan stood with his head hanging, while those of his children that were old enough to understand the irrevocability of what had happened wept openly.
Suddenly, a picture of Nora and Amy weeping at her grave shot through her mind. She gritted her teeth as she realized the grimness of the situation that Nora would be in if something happened to her. If she died or were too sick to continue, if her identity was exposed in the process, Nora and Amy wouldn’t even have the support of the usually close-knit community of the wagon train. No one would have much sympathy for a woman who had lived as the wife of such a freak of nature. No one would believe that she hadn’t known, that she had never shared Luke’s bed.
Luke looked at the assembled emigrants. She had no doubt that Nora would stand alone at her grave if it ever came to that. That is, if she’ll stand at my grave for longer than it takes to spit on it. If anyone attended the funeral at all, they would whisper and talk behind Nora’s back, just as they had talked behind Luke’s back during her childhood.
Luke had long since gotten used to it. She had learned to distance herself from others. Luke hadn’t cared about anyone, and no one had cared about her or what happened to her. She had only ever been responsible for herself.
Now all that had changed. The sudden impulse to take Nora’s hand almost scared her. It was something a husband, a lover would have done, and she was Nora’s spouse in name only. No sense in letting Nora – or herself – hope for something that could never be.
When the prayer ended, she quickly strode away and readied the oxen.
“Are you all right?” Nora’s voice came from behind her.
Luke didn’t turn around. “Sure.” She shrugged as casually as possible. “I didn’t even know Mrs. Buchanan all that well.”
Nora stepped next to her and idly rubbed the lead ox’s flank. “She was a really nice woman. In the beginning, when I couldn’t bake bread to save my life, she shared hers with me more than once.”
Luke shuffled her feet as she watched Nora wipe at her tears. While she had taken care to hold herself separate from the rest of the emigrants, Nora had become a part of the community. She didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry,” Nora mumbled, obviously noticing how uncomfortable Luke was with her open display of emotions. “I think it’s all that…” She gestured at her growing belly. “…it’s making me a bit emotional.”
Luke just nodded. For the last few days, she had avoided to discuss the pregnancy with Nora, preferring to just ignore it for the time being. Avoiding the topic once again, she looked away from Nora and detected Amy laying a small bouquet of hand-picked wildflowers next to the grave. “You’re a good mother,” she suddenly found herself saying.
Nora blinked up at her, and her hands came to rest on her stomach in an unconscious gesture. “Do you really think so?” Hope and doubt mixed in her voice.
“I do.” Luke had never thought that she would say that about a woman who had once been a prostitute, but there was no doubt in her mind that Nora loved her daughter and tried everything she could to do right by her.
The last of Nora’s tears disappeared, and she smiled up at Luke. Golden highlights twinkled in the green eyes, and the charming smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks seemed to dance as dimples formed.
Irritated with herself for noticing such irrelevant details about Nora’s looks, Luke turned away and urged the oxen forward.
* * *
Nora licked dry lips that had cracked during a long day’s travel over a sandy road. Clouds of dust had hung in the air all day like fog. A thin layer of dirt had coated her skin, and it had been a relief to dip into the small creek where they had set up camp. Even Luke had returned with hair still damp from a bath from one of his solitary walks.
Finally, after their evening meal, rain had begun to fall, settling down the clouds of dust and turning them into mud, which had forced them to retreat into their tents.
Her tongue flicked over her cracked lip as she concentrated on threading her needle in the dim light inside the tent. When she had finally managed the task, she slipped the bodice of her dress over her head and looked down at the frayed cuff.
She pierced the needle through the fabric. When she pulled the thread through, her gaze fell on Luke.
He quickly turned away, making it obvious for Nora that he had been watching her.
Nora looked down at her thin chemise and smiled to herself. Moments like this were a healing balm to her battered self-confidence concerning her ability to entice her husband with her female charms.
The other men on the train were already engaged in more than just looking at their wives. Judging from some of the sounds that came from the tents around theirs, some of the other couples took advantage of their forced retreat from the rain to make love behind the canvas walls. Nora had worked in a brothel during wartime, so she understood that they were basically celebrating life, reassuring themselves and each other that they were alive and well.
“You know, I don’t mind,” she quietly told him.
Luke barely looked up. “You don’t mind what?” He sounded gruff, but Nora had learned that this was his way to avoid showing his emotions.
“I don’t mind you looking at me… at my body,” Nora explained. “You are my husband. You are allowed to look.”
Luke glanced up fleetingly, but didn’t answer.
“You’re allowed to do more than just look,” Nora added. She moved over to him and took his hand. She felt it jerk nervously in her grip, but she held on and gently pressed his hand against her belly. She could feel his calluses through the thin fabric of her chemise; the slight trembling of his fingers an astonishing contrast. That sign of vulnerability in the normally self-assured man affected Nora. There was none of the revulsion that usually accompanied a man’s touch.
He tried to pull away, but then his fingers hesitantly fluttered over her growing belly as if trying to communicate with the unborn child.
To her own surprise, Nora felt herself relax into the gentle touch. She had endured men’s touches hundreds of times in the last two years, but somehow this was very different. The small tent forced them to sit close together, and she deeply breathed in the unobtrusive scent of leather, horse and something that was just Luke. There was no hesitation on her part, as she slowly lead his hand upwards and pressed it to her only half-covered breast.
Luke froze. His gaze flickered over to Amy.
“Don’t worry,” Nora whispered. “She’s fast asleep. She won’t wake up.”
“Yeah.” Luke’s voice was raspy. “Because we won’t give her any reason to. I told you before that I have no intention of sharing your bed.” He slid his hand out from under hers.
Nora had almost expected him to refuse her again, but she still found herself a bit disappointed. Every time she thought she had finally established any sort of intimacy between them, he distanced himself from her again. “But why? There’s no risk now. I can’t get pregnant twice after all.” She forced a grin.
Luke clenched his hands into fists. “This arrangement would be much easier on both of us if you finally stopped trying to seduce me.”
“Arrangement?” Nora repeated slowly. The word left a bitter taste in her mouth. “The business relationships that I had with my customers were arrangements. What we have is a marriage, Luke.”
Still keeping his gaze fixed on his knees, Luke folded his arms across his chest. “I gave you and Amy my name and a chance to start a new life; I do my best to provide for you and protect you; and I agreed to be a father for your children until you find someone else. Isn’t that exactly what you wanted from our marriage? What more do you want from me?”
Nora swallowed heavily. Having a protector and provider was exactly what she had hoped for when she had agreed to marry him. If she was honest to herself, she had to admit that Luke had already surpassed all expectations. He treated her with a kindness and respect that had been missing from her life for a long time, and he showed more interest and patience towards Amy than her own father had ever had for Nora. So what more could she expect of him? What more did she want from him?
Shouts from outside their tent interrupted Nora’s thoughts. The flap was thrown back, and Captain McLoughlin appeared in the opening of the tent. Thick droplets of rain splashed from his graying hear and beard. “Strike the tent!” he shouted over the pouring rain outside. “We have to get away from here right now!”
Then he was gone. In the shocked silence, they heard him repeat his shouted message in the next tent.
Nora blinked and looked at Luke.
Like she had expected him to, he immediately took charge of the situation. “You wake Amy and pack up the bedding; I’ll take care of the tent. We’ll meet at the wagon.”
“Amy! Amy, wake up!” She frantically shook her daughter.
Amy’s eyes opened, and she blinked sleepily. With a groan of protest, she tried to turn around and go back to sleep.
“No, Amy, you have to wake up. We have to leave.” While her daughter sat up and began to struggle half-heartedly to free herself from her sleep-warm blanket, Nora rolled up her own bedding and Luke’s.
Loaded down with Amy perched on her hip and the bedrolls under her other arm, she ran outside. Raindrops pelted her face, and she bowed her head as she fought against wind and rain. The fire had long since gone out, so the camp lay in darkness. Nora could hardly make out the contours of the wagons, and she had no idea which one was theirs. Mud clung to her boots. Every step was harder than the one before.
Chaos prevailed all around her. Everyone was shouting, hurrying through the rain with crying children and a few belongings clutched to their chest.
Nora stumbled. She stopped for a second and turned back around, peering through the rain. She couldn’t make out their tent and hoped that meant that Luke had already struck it. Maybe it would be better to wait for him? He always seemed to know a way out of the troubles they found themselves in, and Nora realized that she felt safe with him. No, she told herself. I have to make it on my own. Luke can’t deal with helping me and taking care of the tent at the same time.
She bent down to protect Amy’s body from the rain with her own and then hastened onwards.
A bolt of lightning zigzagged across the sky and gave her a brief glimpse of the wagons. This one! She veered to the right and breathed a sigh of relief when she finally reached their wagon. She lifted Amy inside and climbed after her to stow away the now wet bedrolls.
Another lightning lit the sky, revealing the small creek where they had set up camp this evening. Small creek?! Nora stared for the second the lightning lasted. It wasn’t a gentle stream any longer. Right next to the circle of wagons a raging river was bursting over its banks and threatened to overturn the wagons if they stayed any longer.
“Nora?” Luke’s voice was almost drowned by the booming thunder.
Nora stuck her head through the flap. “Here! We’re here!”
With her voice guiding him, he reached the wagon and lost no time strapping the tent poles on the sides of the wagon. “Stay here. I have to bring in the oxen,” he said when he handed her the folded tent cover.
Nora could only imagine how frightened the animals must be by lightning and thunder. From what she had experienced on their journey so far, she knew that a stampede could break out any second. “Luke!” she shouted against rain and thunder as he started to turn away.
He turned back around. In the glaring light of another lightning, she could see that his soaked through shirt was plastered to his skin and for a second, she thought she saw something like a bandage under the half-transparent fabric. Then the surrounding of the wagon was once again thrown into darkness, and Nora thought she must have been mistaken. Surely he would have told me if he’d been hurt?
“What?” Luke urged her to speak.
“It’s just…” Nora swallowed. “Take care, all right?”
“I will.” He disappeared into the night.
Nora forced herself to move away from the flap. She bundled Amy into a halfway dry blanket and pulled the strings to draw shut the covers at Amy’s end of the wagon. “Amy,” she addressed the shivering child as calmly as she could, “I have to go outside and help Luke. You stay here. Don’t climb out of the wagon by yourself. I’ll be back soon, all right?”
She waited until Amy nodded, then climbed back out. The rain was still falling hard, but she ignored it and started to ready the wooden yokes and unchained the wagon from the others that it had been bound to over night.
When Luke returned with the nervous oxen, the wagon was ready to go.
They worked together in silence, yoking the oxen and urging them forward, away from the dangerous river. Theirs was the first wagon to pull out, but Nora could see others following behind them. With a firm grip on the lead oxen’s yoke, Luke led them through the night.
Nora concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to stumble or get stuck in the ankle-deep mud. She almost fell when Luke suddenly brought the wagon to a halt.
“Careful!” Luke’s arm caught her, but pulled back when she had secured her footing. “I think this is far away enough from the river. We should camp here for the rest of the night. It’s not safe travelling in the dark.”
The Captain agreed, and the soaked through emigrants settled down for the night in their wagons.
Between trunks, sacks of flour and beans, and a keg of pickles, there wasn’t much space for them in the wagon bed. Nora settled down between a feeding bag and her butter churn, curling herself around Amy’s body for added warmth. She closed her eyes, but couldn’t sleep.
The wagon covers had been rubbed down with linseed oil to make them waterproof, but the night’s downpour had been too much for them and now they leaked anyway. A steady succession of drops hit her shoulder, and she moved a little to the right to avoid them. She closed her eyes again, but now another leak had built at her feet.
She had just resigned herself to a sleepless night when she felt another blanket being settled over her and Amy, followed by the rainproof tent cover.
Without a word, Luke returned to his place at the end of the wagon, staring out into the rain with his back resting against a sack of flour.
“Thank you,” Nora whispered. She tried to make out his face in the dark, but couldn’t. “Do you want to join us in our little nest?” She lifted the edge of the covers in invitation.
“There’s no room,” he answered.
Careful not to wake Amy, Nora stood and balanced the butter churn on top of the keg of pickles, then shoved the feeding bag back as far to the side as it would go. “There’s room now.” She lay back down and again lifted the covers for him to join them.
“No, it’s all right. I have to go out in an hour anyway to ride guard over the herd,” Luke declined once more.
Nora was determined not to give up this time. Luke had taken care of everybody tonight, and now she would take care of him. “Then you should rest for that hour, not sit up and be miserable. Come on, it’s getting cold in here.” She tugged at the edge of the blankets that she held up for him.
Slowly, Luke edged towards them. He lay down with his back pressed against the keg of pickles, careful to keep as much space between them as possible.
“You have to move a little closer or the blanket won’t cover you,” Nora told him.
He hesitated, but then inched closer.
Amy turned around in her sleep, feeling his heat, and snuggled up to him.
This close, Nora could make out his expression and stifled a laugh as she saw him blush. She settled the blanket down over him, leaving them in a warm cocoon of shared heat. Now he is sharing my bed, she thought triumphantly and had to giggle.
“What?” Luke asked, sounding a little irritated.
Nora quickly pressed a hand against her lips. “Oh, nothing.”
“We have to break up camp in the middle of the night or risk getting drowned; our wagon is leaking; a stampede could break out any second; I don’t even want to imagine tomorrow’s travel through knee-deep mud and you’re giggling over nothing? Uh-huh.” He gently poked her in the shoulder, making Nora giggle again. “Tell me.” He raised his finger in mock-threat.
If any other man had raised his hand and used a tone this threatening with her, Nora knew that she would have been scared to death, but this time, with Luke, her finely honed instincts told her that she had nothing to worry about. “Well, it just occurred to me…you’re finally sharing my bed.” Not giggling now, she stared into his face and held her breath while she waited for his reaction.
Luke snorted. “This is not exactly what you had in mind, huh?”
Isn’t it? Suddenly, Nora wasn’t so sure what she had or hadn’t wanted anymore. She had never really enjoyed going to bed with men, and after two years in a brothel, she certainly wasn’t eager to have relations with one of them again. Yes, she had wanted to have Luke share her bed, but not for carnal reasons. The only thing she had wanted to achieve was getting closer to her husband, sharing an intimacy that would ensure that he wouldn’t leave her.
“Nora? You asleep?” he whispered when her answer didn’t come.
“No, just thinking.”
This close, his gray eyes were like silver mirrors in the light of the moon that peeked out from behind heavy clouds. “About what?” he asked after a minute of silence.
Nora hesitated. She had been taught from a very early age, that women should never speak their mind. Life in the brothel had only enforced that. Her first instinct was to keep her thoughts to herself and tell him that she had been thinking about what condition the trail might be in tomorrow. Then she shook her head. She wanted to start a new life, be a new, respectable woman. She didn’t have to keep up her old habits. “I was thinking about what I want from you.”
She heard Luke suck in a breath. He was quiet for so long that Nora began to fear that she had annoyed him. When she opened her mouth to try soothing his ruffled feathers, he asked, “And what is it that you want?”
That was the point where Nora’s ruminations had stopped. She didn’t have a clear picture about what she wanted from him; she just knew that it wasn’t just his protection. “I… I want to… be closer to you.” She closed her eyes for a moment, realizing the truth of her words as she spoke them. “I feel like I don’t really know the most important person in my life. Adult person,” she added, briefly looking down at her sleeping daughter. “I don’t know anything about you.”
Luke’s formerly relaxed expression became reserved again. “You know everything you have to. Why would you want to know more?”
“Because I-”
“Hamilton?” A shout from outside interrupted Nora. “Hey, Hamilton, are you in there? We need your help with the animals!”
Nora recognized the voice. Bill Larson. One more reason to hate him, she thought as she watched Luke scramble out from under the blankets. She knew that he would avoid discussing this topic again. With a sigh, she settled back down and pressed a kiss into Amy’s red curls. “Sleep tight, sweetie.” At least one of us should.
* * *
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