Chapter Nineteen
Prairie Camp
Mr. Henry Lawson died before dawn.
He had been ill when the train left Independence, though he told everyone it was merely a lingering cold. The wet days and difficult travel weakened him. On the evening before Mr. Lawson died, he asked to remain near the fire while the wagons settled.
By morning, he was gone. His wife sat beside him holding his hand.
Eleanor stood near the Lawson wagon with Nathaniel. No one knew what to say. All the ordinary sounds of camp seemed wrong: children whispering, animals shifting, wood breaking in fires.
Mrs. Lawson looked up at Nathaniel. “He wanted Oregon.”
“I know,” Nathaniel said.
“He spoke of the trees. He wanted to build a table from Oregon wood.”
Nathaniel knelt beside her. His injured arm remained in a sling, but he took her free hand with his left. “Tell me about the table.”
Mrs. Lawson began to speak.
Eleanor listened as the widow described a piece of furniture that would never be built. She understood then that comfort did not always require an answer. Sometimes it required someone willing to hear the future that had been lost.
The ground was soft enough for a grave.
Nathaniel could not dig with his injured shoulder, so Eleanor organized the work. Men took turns with shovels. The sisters prepared the body with Mrs. Lawson's permission. Martha washed Mr. Lawson's face. Charlotte found a clean shirt. Grace and Lucy gathered prairie flowers.
The company formed a circle around the grave. They buried him right there on the trail, knowing that having the wagons roll over the grave would pack it so animals wouldn’t be as interested.
Mr. Daugherty—who had once been a preacher—said a blessing over the grave. Mrs. Lawson wept quietly.
Before the burial, Eleanor removed one garnet earring.
She placed it in the widow's palm.
Mrs. Lawson stared at it. “I cannot take this.”
“Only hold it for a moment.”
“Why?”
“My mother wore these when courage mattered. You need not be brave for us, but perhaps it will remind you that grief can travel with you. You do not have to leave him in this ground.”
Mrs. Lawson closed her fingers around the stone. After a moment, she returned it.
“Thank you.”
Eleanor fastened it in her ear.
The grave was filled. First with stones to keep the body from being disturbed by animals. Then it was covered with dirt they would all drive over the following day. The company remained in camp for the day.
No one complained about lost miles.
*****
NATHANIEL SAT BESIDE the fire that evening with Eleanor.
For the first time in years, he spoke about Abigail's final day from beginning to end.
“She asked me to stay,” he said. “I told myself the supply reports could not wait. The truth was that I could not sit beside her and watch her leave me.”
Eleanor held his hand.
“I thought if I kept moving, grief would not catch me. I sold the piano. Left the house. Began leading people west.”
“Did it work?”
“No. Grief has excellent endurance.”
She smiled sadly. “It does.”
“I never said goodbye to her.”
“You can now.”
Nathaniel looked into the fire. He remembered Abigail laughing too loudly, placing bread in the oven and forgetting it, playing the piano with more enthusiasm than skill.
“Goodbye,” he whispered.
Eleanor rested her head against his uninjured shoulder.
They sat quietly until the fire burned low.
“Tell me about your father,” Nathaniel said.
Eleanor was silent for a long time. “He was certain of everything. Even when he was wrong.”
“A terrible quality.”
“You would recognize it.”
“Immediately.”
She smiled. “After Mother died, he made plans. Every season, there was something new to prepare. He believed Clover Creek would keep us together and give each of us a future.”
“And you?”
“I turned his plan into a command. Following it was easier than grieving him.” She removed the leather pouch and unfolded the pages. “If we failed to meet the distance he noted, I felt I had failed him. If I changed a load, route, or decision, I felt I was erasing him.”
Nathaniel looked at the neat figures. “A plan cannot love you back.”
“No.”
“It also cannot be hurt when you change it.”
Eleanor took out a pencil. Together, they revised the schedule. Fixed daily mileages became ranges. They added rest days after major crossings, bad weather, injury, or illness. They left room for repairs and unexpected losses.
At the bottom, Eleanor wrote: The people making the journey must decide what the journey requires.
She read it twice.
“Father would argue,” she said.
“Would he win?”
“No.”
Nathaniel smiled. “Then the plan is yours now.”
Eleanor folded the pages and returned them to the pouch. She looked lighter.
“When I ask you to marry me,” Nathaniel said, “I will ask Eleanor. Not the keeper of eight women, two wagons, or a dead man's instructions.”
“Eight women?”
“You are among them.”
“I thought you were forgetting how to count.”
“Never.”
She kissed him gently. “Ask me soon.”
“Tomorrow.”
“That is very specific.”
“I have made a plan.”
Eleanor laughed. “Plans sometimes change.”
“Not this one.”
On the evening of April twenty-second, before the next crossing, the sisters held what Lydia called a council of future husbands.
Eleanor refused to participate.
This did not prevent them from holding it around her.
“Caroline requires a man who owns maps,” Lydia said.
Caroline did not look up from the route notes. “I require no man.”
Thomas Reed, seated ten feet away, became intensely interested in sharpening a pencil.
Rebecca noticed.
“So,” she said, much too loudly, “maps.”
Caroline kicked her.
“Ow.”
“You imagined it.”
Charlotte turned a page in the inventory. “If Caroline marries a mapmaker, we may save money on guidebooks.”
Caroline looked at her. “You are supposed to be the quiet one.”
“I am quiet. I am not harmless.”
Lydia pointed at Rebecca. “Rebecca needs a man who understands that livestock will always rank above him.”
“Incorrect,” Rebecca said.
“Oh?”
“Horses will rank above him. Oxen will depend on temperament.”
Grace laughed.
“Martha needs someone who will eat whatever she puts in front of him,” Lucy said.
Martha considered. “That is simply good sense.”
“And someone who knows when not to talk,” Eleanor added.
Nathaniel, approaching the fire, stopped. “Is this information I should write down?”
“Yes,” seven sisters said.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Lydia continued. “Charlotte needs a man who appreciates numbers.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I need a man who does not interfere with my numbers.”
“Different requirement,” Nathaniel said solemnly.
Charlotte nodded. “Thank you.”
“Grace needs someone gentle,” Martha said.
Grace blushed. “We do not have to discuss me.”
“That means we absolutely do,” Lydia said.
Grace surprised everyone by lifting her chin. “Fine. I want someone who listens before deciding what I mean.”
The sisters fell quiet.
Eleanor smiled.
“That is a very good requirement,” Caroline said.
Grace looked pleased.
Lucy raised her hand. “What about me?”
Rebecca answered immediately. “A fast horse.”
Everyone laughed.
“I mean a husband.”
“So did I.”
Lucy threw a folded cloth at her.
Lydia dodged it though it had not been aimed at her. “I need someone handsome.”
“Of course,” Caroline said.
“And clever.”
“More difficult.”
“And funny.”
“Impossible,” Rebecca said. “You will use all the jokes before he can.”
Lydia put a hand to her heart. “Cruelty from my own blood.”
“What about Eleanor?” Lucy asked.
Seven faces turned toward Nathaniel.
He looked alarmed. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because we already chose hers,” Lydia said.
Eleanor stood. “This conversation is over.”
Nathaniel caught her hand before she could escape. “I would like to hear the requirements.”
“No, you would not.”
Caroline counted on her fingers. “Patient.”
“Failed,” Eleanor said.
“Competent,” Charlotte added.
“Occasionally.”
“Not frightened by her,” Rebecca said.
Nathaniel smiled. “Never.”
“Kind,” Grace said.
Eleanor stopped teasing.
“Someone who makes her laugh,” Lydia added softly.
Martha looked at Nathaniel. “And someone who knows she does not need rescuing every time she is tired.”
Nathaniel squeezed Eleanor’s hand. “I am learning.”
Lucy grinned. “Also handsome.”
Eleanor laughed. “The council is adjourned.”
“No vote?” Mrs. Bell called from the neighboring fire.
Nathaniel looked at Eleanor. “I vote yes.”
Her sisters groaned, laughed, and threw bits of grass at him.
Thomas Reed finally looked up from his pencil.
Caroline met his eyes.
Lydia saw it.
So did Eleanor.
Neither said a word.
Some teasing was too valuable to spend immediately.
The next morning, Nathaniel planned to propose, and Eleanor knew something was wrong with him.
He was too agreeable.
He approved Caroline’s route adjustment without comment.
He accepted Rebecca’s warning about his horse.
He ate Martha’s breakfast without asking whether there was more coffee.
When Eleanor told him the rear wagons needed another ten minutes, he said, “Of course.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“You are behaving strangely.”
“I am behaving pleasantly.”
“That is what worries me.”
Nathaniel looked offended. “I am often pleasant.”
“No.”
“You wound me.”
“You survived a horse fall. You will survive honesty.”
He tried to walk away.
Eleanor caught his sleeve. “You are planning something.”
Nathaniel kept his expression carefully blank. “That is absurd.”
“You are a poor liar.”
“You have repeatedly told me I am an excellent liar.”
“When it concerns weather and campsites.”
“Then perhaps I am lying excellently now.”
Eleanor narrowed her eyes. “Is this about the proposal?”
Nathaniel stopped.
Her eyes widened.
His did too.
“You were not supposed to ask that.”
“I knew it.”
“You guessed.”
“You just confirmed it.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes. “I have led men through floods with less difficulty.”
Eleanor smiled. “When?”
“I am not telling you.”
“Today?”
“No answer.”
“This morning?”
“No.”
“Before supper?”
Nathaniel began walking.
Eleanor followed. “At the crossing?”
“No.”
“After the crossing?”
“No.”
“You are enjoying this.”
“A great deal.”
She moved in front of him, forcing him to stop. “Nathaniel Cooper.”
“Eleanor Whitaker.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
She stared.
He stared back.
Then both started laughing.
Nathaniel touched her cheek with his left hand. “For once, let me surprise you.”
Eleanor softened.
“That is asking a great deal.”
“I know.”
She stepped aside. “Very well.”
Nathaniel walked three steps.
“After supper?”
He groaned.
Eleanor laughed all the way back to the wagons.
Late that week, Nathaniel learned one important rule about the Whitaker sisters.
Never ask a question unless he genuinely wanted eight answers.
He remembered this while tightening the unreliable earring clasp one more time.
“Where did I put the small pliers?”
“Your coat pocket,” Eleanor said.
“Saddlebag,” Rebecca said.
“Tool roll,” Charlotte said.
“Beside the coffee,” Martha said.
Lydia said, “Did you check your other hand?”
Nathaniel looked at his left hand.
He was holding the pliers.
Silence.
Eleanor’s lips twitched.
Nathaniel looked at Lydia.
She looked unbearably pleased.
“Not one word.”
“I said nothing.”
“You are about to.”
“I was breathing.”
Eleanor began laughing.
Nathaniel pointed the pliers at her. “You created this.”
“I did not.”
“You taught them that phrase.”
“I believe you taught it to me.”
Charlotte nodded. “The evidence supports Caroline.”
Rebecca added, “Unanimous.”
Nathaniel looked around the fire. “I would like to appeal.”
“To whom?” Grace asked.
Mrs. Bell raised her walking stick from the neighboring fire.
Nathaniel looked at it. “Never mind.”
Eleanor leaned closer. “Wise man.”
“I have been forced to become one.”
“By eight women?”
“By seven sisters and one particularly difficult future wife.”
Eleanor smiled. “Particularly?”
“The others only outnumber me. You argue with me individually.”
“That takes skill.”
“It does.”
Lydia sighed. “They are flirting again.”
Rebecca said, “At least he found the pliers.”
Nathaniel looked down at them. “I may lose them deliberately next time.”
Eleanor kissed his cheek.
“That is your reward for finding them.”
He immediately dropped the pliers. Eleanor stared. Nathaniel smiled. “Lost again.”
She laughed and kissed him a second time.
Lydia groaned. “We have created a monster.”
Nathaniel bent to retrieve the pliers. “A highly motivated monster.”