Chapter 12
Kate was wretchedly thirsty. They had left the cool valley of the Little Blue yesterday, with its trees and clear waters and plentiful game, and headed into this desolate stretch of dunes.
No water for twenty miles. And nearly every drop they could take with them was needed for the mules as they pulled the loaded Schuttler wagon through the dragging sand.
She called encouragingly to the team as they shouldered up the next hill, urging them forward.
“That’s it! Big team! Big team! Get up there, team! ”
They topped the rise and Kate groaned, looking at yet another hill of sand.
Her muscles were tense with the effort. “Whoa!” she called, pulling the team to a stop.
They all needed a rest. Ma was to the left somewhere, walking clear of the dust. She pushed her broad-brimmed hat off her head and let it hang by the stampede string at her throat.
She squinted up at the gray sky. If it started to rain and turned all this sand to mud, she didn’t know how they’d make it.
Andrew rode up on her right. “You doin’ all right, Miss Kate?”
“Just tired of the sand. Any chance you know when we’ll be through this mess?”
“We should be comin’ up on the Platte sometime this afternoon. But I don’t know if it’ll be thirty minutes or three hours from now.”
“Guess we just gotta keep goin’,” Kate said with a sigh, gathering the lines again.
“You’d think one of your brothers would be in charge of drivin’.”
Kate bristled at the insinuation but tried not to let it show. “Well, Pa brought enough stock to start a dozen ranches, and he’s determined to lose not a one, so it takes all hands to drive the herd. And since I apparently shouldn’t be herdin’ cattle, drivin’ the wagon is my job.”
Andrew nodded, seeming not to notice her pointed remark. “If you’d like, I could sit up with you, drive your team for a spell. Give you a rest.”
She gave him a tight smile. She should really try to be more agreeable; it was a sweet offer after all. “That’s mighty kind of you, Andrew. But I’d hate to add another pound to what the mules have to pull, let alone another whole person.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a short nod and heeled his big bay forward.
Kate flicked the lines with a little more force than necessary. “Get up there, team! That’s it, Max, that’s it, Delilah! Get up there, Joe, you lazy brute! Just a little ways to go!”
The team struggled forward once again. Max took to the challenge as always, leading the charge, his muscles rippling under his dark, glossy coat.
Delilah, hating to be outdone and needing to be the center of attention, pulled right there beside him.
And then there was Joe, just a big lout along for the ride as usual until there was something—or nothing—to spook about, and then he’d prance and kick and raise a ruckus to wake the dead.
Kate rolled her eyes. What a team. But they managed well enough as long as there was a strong hand on the lines.
She had trained them from when they were foals, and they trusted her.
Nearly two hours later, sweating and sore, Kate noticed a ripple of excitement spread through the travelers ahead of her. She perked up. Had they finally made it? A few fat raindrops began to fall. She slapped the mules’ rumps to quicken their pace. They crested the last hill and Kate gasped.
There it was in all its glory: the North Platte River.
Its immense expanse stretched before her, wider and more alien than any river she’d ever seen.
Threaded with channels and peppered with islands, there wasn’t a tree to be seen on either side.
The land was so flat and the banks so small it seemed like a thimbleful would cause the river to spill over and cover the entire prairie, and with the last of the dunes flowing to meet the edge of the water, it looked like a vast inland sea—waves of yellow, silt-laden water undulating far out to where the western horizon met the sky.
It began to rain in earnest. Then the late afternoon sun shot out from below the edge of the clouds and blazed out across the land, and suddenly everything before her was cast in gold, the dazzling water glittering like a string of jewels strewn across the prairie, the raindrops sprinkling from the sky like a hundred thousand falling diamonds. It was breathtaking.
Then the driver behind her cursed loudly and shouted at her to keep going. Kate hurriedly got the team moving again.
The approach to the river still took the last hours of the afternoon. Proctor’s pace must have been quick because they had caught up to three other trains camped on the banks of the Platte. Buffalo chip campfires dotted the night like stars.
The next day dawned clear and warm. Ma sat up next to Kate on the hard wagon seat. She looked tired.
“So much has happened. It feels like no time has passed since we left, yet St. Joe seems like a lifetime ago,” Ma mused.
“And here we are at the Platte. Andrew says we’ll follow it all the way past Fort Laramie.”
“I’m glad he decided to come along. It feels good to have people you know and trust with you out here in the wilderness.”
“He’s definitely settled into his role.”
Ma glanced at her. “He’s very responsible.”
“Quite,” Kate responded.
“And ambitious. Your father was telling me he wants to start a ranch of his own.”
“He knows what he wants, that's for sure.”
“And he’s always at Sunday services. What an upstanding young man.”
Kate eyed her mother. “I feel like you’ve been hired for his political campaign.”
“Oh?” her mother queried innocently.
Kate rolled her eyes. “What are you tryin’ to say, Ma?”
“I’m just discussing what a nice young man he is. And he seems to enjoy your company. Maybe it's time you thought about calming down your wild ways and looking for a husband.”
“And there it is!”
“You are well into marrying age, Katherine,” Ma said, exasperation coloring her voice. “You should be having babies by now, not driving mule teams.”
“So you just want to sell me off to the closest eligible young man?”
“It’s not like that and you know it. Andrew is a good, Christian man. He’d make a fine husband. I just want what’s best for you, Katherine. Don’t you want to get married?”
“Of course I want to get married! I just haven’t found the right person yet. ’Sides, I haven’t exactly had a line of suitors to choose from.”
Ma pursed her lips, eyeing Kate’s broad-brimmed hat with distaste. “Maybe if you wore a bonnet and acted like a proper young lady should, the suitors would actually recognize you as one.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “If a man can’t handle me bein’ better at ridin’ and ropin’ than he is, then he doesn’t deserve my attention.”
Ma threw up her hands. “You are impossible! You can’t just ignore what society expects of you then act all mulish when you don’t get what you want! You cannot have it both ways, Katherine. You have to either choose to act properly or resign yourself to a life of loneliness.”
Kate clenched her jaw to keep from saying something she’d regret.
They’d had this argument countless times, and it always ended the same.
Kate just couldn’t be the person her mother wanted her to be.
Would she ever be accepted for who she was?
Couldn’t she live a little outside the lines of what society thought was “proper” and have someone love her for it?
She wanted to find a man to spend the rest of her life with, but she wanted a man who would see every part of her and love her for it, wildness and all.
Kate stared straight ahead as Ma studied her. “I just want what’s best for you, Katherine.”
Kate’s jaw unclenched at the soft concern in her mother’s voice. “I know, Ma,” she said quietly.
Jacob Munroe came riding down the train, pausing at each wagon.
Maybe he’d take Ma’s mind off trying to reform her wild child of a daughter.
He certainly made Kate’s mind wander from her mother’s chastisements.
His clean blue shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and matched his eyes in a way that was rather distracting.
“Howdy, Mrs. McGrath. Miss McGrath,” he said as he turned his buckskin to match pace with their team. “Just informin’ everyone that we should make Fort Kearney by sundown, or close to it at least.”
“Thank you kindly, Mr. Munroe,” Ma said with a broad smile. She practically oozed ladylike manners. Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Ma continued in a melodious voice. “You’ve been to Fort Kearney before, haven’t you? Could you tell us what to expect when we get there?”
“Well, it’s mighty nice to get to a spot of civilization out here in Indian territory. But don’t expect it to look like anythin’ back home,” Jacob said, all charm and smiles, his blue eyes luminous beneath the shade of his hat.
“Oh? Is it that rough?” Ma asked.
“There’s no stockade walls, and it’s mostly adobe. But they’ve planted a couple rows of cottonwoods now, and there’s even a bakery, last I heard.”
“That sounds lovely! Doesn’t it, Katherine?”
“Mmhmm,” Kate agreed absently. She cocked her head. Was that thunder?
Ma kept peppering Jacob with questions, which he patiently answered.
Kate was sure she was trying to show her wayward daughter the finer points of utilizing one’s womanly charms to make sparkling conversation.
Kate didn’t pay attention. Her gaze kept flicking between the tossing heads of her mules and the open prairie to the southeast. Joe kept pulling to the right in his traces, throwing Max and Delilah off balance.
She craned her neck, searching the skyline for the telltale thunderheads that would signal an imminent storm.
But there was nothing but blue as far as she could see. What was that sound?
Kate couldn’t take it any longer. “Ma, shhh. I think I hear somethin’.” She pulled the team to a stop. They stamped their hooves and brayed nervously.
“Katherine, I do not appreciate being interrupt—”
“Quiet, Ma. Listen. What is that?”