Chapter 4
Jacob Munroe leaned back against his saddle, the familiar smell of the worn leather as comforting as an old friend. It was his seat in the day and his pillow at night, and the closest thing to a home he knew. Whatever shack his father had holed up in didn’t count. If he was even still alive.
Jacob ran a hand through his dark, curly hair and sighed. Nights like this, he wished he did have a home, a real home—a place far away from where he grew up, a place where he could build a little ranch and put down roots. Who knows, maybe he’d even get himself a wife.
His deep blue eyes looked out into the night at the many cook fires of the circled wagon train.
He could sense the excitement that charged the air.
The collective dreams of all these travelers had fused together, solidifying until you could almost feel the presence of some unknown being vibrating with energy and purpose.
Each of these people had something that drove them, something that brought them together on this journey—escaping poverty, pursuing wealth, following a dream.
Jacob heaved another sigh. What did he have to live for besides the money he would earn by seeing this train through to Oregon?
“If you keep sighin’ like that, Jakey-boy, I’ll be inclined to think you’d gone and turned yourself into a dainty fe-male.”
Jacob smiled ruefully and glanced across the fire at his wiry traveling companion.
He and Seb had grown up together in the mud of the shanty towns of St. Louis, living on air and the stories of California gold.
As soon as they had convinced themselves they needed to shave the peach fuzz on their chins, they had lit out of that miserable place, dreaming of scooping up dazzling nuggets with their bare hands, getting rich, and milking life for all it was worth.
Nothing could stop them. The entire world was simply theirs for the taking.
Then they ran out of money and supplies by the time they reached Independence.
Hiring on as outriders to a wagon train seemed like the next best thing. At least they were still moving forward. They had done the same thing ever since, scouting the trail, looking the Elephant square in the face, and doing it all again the next year.
Seb took a long pull on one of his ever-present cigarettes, a habit he had picked up at ten and nurtured until he smoked those things like they were water to a dying man.
Blowing the smoke through a carefully trimmed handlebar mustache, he stretched out to his full height, a good half a foot less than Jacob’s six-foot frame.
What Seb lacked in height he made up for with an ego only rivaled in size by the ten-gallon hat that rarely left his head.
Jacob chuckled. He was just glad to be in Seb’s good books.
He’d never have to worry about being on the wrong side of his pair of six shooters and trigger-happy fingers.
It had gotten them in plenty of trouble over the years.
“I hope you’re not laughin’ at me, Jake,” Seb warned lazily.
Jacob smiled. “Naw, I was just thinkin’ of that time down in Jefferson when you landed us a night in the jailhouse over a lousy poker game and a mule nearly on its deathbed.”
“Ha! It was two mules nearly on their deathbed, if I remember rightly, and it was worth it a thousand times over, stickin’ it to that swanky city boy.” Seb put his hands behind his head and grinned at the stars, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Them were the good ol’ days.”
Jacob snorted. Twenty-two years old and here they were, reminiscing like a pair of crusty old men. Jacob hooked one muscled arm around his raised knee, stretching the other boot to the fire. Maybe it really was time to settle down.
“There you go agin, sighin’ like a woman.” Seb looked over at him. “You’re not gonna go swoonin’ on me, are ya?”
Jacob ignored his friend’s mild insults, gaze fixed on the fire. “Ya know, Seb, I think it’s ’bout time we thought of settlin’ down.”
Seb raised an eyebrow in his direction. “What, you an’ me? No offense, Jake, but I don’t want to look at your scruffy face for the rest of my life.”
Jacob leaned back and bantered good-naturedly. “Goodness knows I wouldn’t take you for your cookin’!”
“You know full well that I make a mean rabbit stew,” Seb said as he clasped his hands over his chest and closed his eyes. “’Sides,” he added, “with all your sighin’ and swoonin’ nowadays, you’d be the one in the kitchen.”
Jacob picked up a pebble and threw it at his friend. “Cut it out, Seb. I’m bein’ serious.”
Seb cracked an eye open and peered across the fire. “’Bout settlin’ down?” Jacob nodded. “You really think it’s come to that?”
Jacob suppressed another sigh (he’d never hear the end of it) and tried to explain his jumbled thoughts.
“Just look around, Seb. The West is fillin’ up.
Folks are floodin’ in, takin’ up any land that’s halfways decent.
There’ll be nothin’ left for us, Seb.” Jacob looked out as the twilight deepened into night.
“And I’m tired of spendin’ my days wanderin’, not havin’ a place to call home.
I want to be like them,” Jacob said, gesturing emphatically to the dwindling fires of the wagon train.
“To have hopes and dreams. To have somethin’ to live for. ”
His last words echoed off the hills. A long moment passed. Finally, Seb cleared his throat and broke the silence. “Makes sense,” he said simply.
Jacob looked up in surprise. “Really?” he asked. “You thinkin’ the same thing?”
Seb snorted. “Me? Not hardly!” he replied. “You might be turnin’ into an old man, but I’ve got plenty of livin’ left to do, let me tell you.” He flicked the last of his cigarette into the fire. “But like I said, makes sense. For you.”
The conversation lulled into silence. Jacob absently rubbed a hand over his neatly trimmed beard, discontent swirling in eddies around his heart.
It was all well and good to want to find a home, but what was a home with no one to share it with?
And what kind of woman would want to hitch herself to a wandering cowboy like him, with nothing to his name but a horse and what it could carry?
He’d noticed a few pretty little things on this very wagon train.
His brow furrowed. But it took much more than a pretty face to make it out here on the frontier.
She’d have to be strong, and not just to handle the physical exertion of the endless toil, but she needed grit, determination, and heart to scrape a life worth living out of the wilderness.
She’d have to be something else, that much he knew.
Someone different from all the meek, helpless young ladies he had known who balked at dirt and were scared of their own shadows.
His mouth turned up in a half smile. Not like a pretty face would hurt none.
But Jacob didn’t know if such a woman even existed.
He stared into the undulating flames and dreamt about a future that probably wasn’t possible yet tantalized him all the same.
The distinct sound of approaching footsteps caused the two scouts to tense, hands on their guns.
“Name yourself, stranger!” Jacob called out sharply.
The footsteps stopped. A disembodied voice answered from the night in a Georgian drawl that lit a lurid, long-suppressed memory in Jacob’s mind. “Andrew Thompson, gentlemen, I—”
“Walk into the light real slow-like, Mr. Thompson,” Seb cut him off coldly, “and state your business where we can see yer face.”
A tall young man, about their age, stepped into the light of the fire. “Evenin’, gentlemen,” he began again. Jacob’s jaw clenched. That accent. “I’m Andrew Thompson, and—”
“I don’t remember no Andrew Thompson on this here train. Do you, Jake?” Seb cut in again, his eyes locked on the newcomer. The fellow stood there with his mouth hanging open, clearly not used to being interrupted so frequently.
“Nope,” Jacob answered through clenched teeth.
The newcomer finally realized his jaw hung open and closed it with a snap.
A light of anger flared up in his dark eyes, but he continued smoothly.
“I’ve been talkin’ with Proctor, and he’s agreed to take me on as an outrider.
Said you fellas could use a hand. Said I’d best find y’all and introduce myself, seein’ as how we’ll be workin’ together. ”
Jacob spat into the fire, his action punctuated by the hiss of moisture hitting the red-hot coals.
So Proctor thinks we need help from this greenhorn?
Jacob thought. As if they needed help. He and Seb had done this trek almost as many times as Proctor had.
What is this Georgia boy going to bring to the table?
Jacob scowled. “Where were you when we left St. Joe?”
“I couldn’t get away ’til now,” Andrew replied curtly.
Seb grinned wickedly. “Aww, did yer mama finally let you leave?” He seemed oblivious to the fire of resentment he stoked in the newcomer.
Or maybe he was fully aware and enjoying it.
Or maybe, like Jacob, he was remembering the last time they had heard that accent behind the Opal in St. Louis, where Jacob had been beaten within an inch of his life and Seb had lost two fingers on his left hand.
All because Jacob’s deadbeat father couldn’t afford the whiskey in his belly.
Jacob breathed deep, rage flaring inside his chest.
“I got held up on the trail,” Andrew said roughly.
Seb stared at him, letting the tense silence fester.
Andrew’s eyes narrowed dangerously under the flat brim of his black hat.
Jacob saw a telltale twitch in his friend’s fingers where they rested on the grip of his pistol.
He ground his teeth in frustration. He didn’t like this upstart any more than Seb did, but if he didn’t intervene, somebody was going to get hurt.
Besides, this greenhorn hadn’t done anything other than speak in the wrong kind of drawl.
Jacob wrestled his seething anger under tight control then extended his hand. “Welcome to the train, Andrew.”
Andrew hesitated, glancing at Seb. Then he took Jacob’s hand in a firm grip and sat down slowly.
Seb grinned as if nothing had happened, but a hint of malice remained behind his eyes. “Name’s Sebastian Charles Baker the Third,” he said, introducing himself like he was king of the world. “And this here’s my partner, Jacob Munroe.”
They settled into an awkward and strained silence. Jacob sighed again, not caring what Seb thought. It was going to be a long trek to Oregon.