Chapter 23
Jacob stared numbly into the churning waters of Snake River, rain dripping sluggishly off the brim of his hat. Had it already been two weeks since Fort Laramie? Time slipped through his fingers like sand.
Despite the near constant rain, the approach to South Pass had never gone so quick.
The work of getting the train through the endless mud had blurred the hours so that the days all blended together, and suddenly here they were, just a matter of days before the Lander Cutoff, just a matter of days before Kate and her family left the train to settle forever in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains and he left them behind, duty-bound to see the train through to Oregon. He closed his eyes. So little time.
An image of Kate shimmered in his mind’s eye, the way she had looked when they shared that intoxicating kiss.
Her hair, all curly and wild, set on fire by the light of the golden sunrise, the freckles on her bare shoulders, her eyes like deep pools of amber pulling him in, drowning him in longing.
He groaned softly, shaking his head. He had to stop thinking about her like that.
Kate had made it abundantly clear that friendship was the only thing she wanted from him.
He had tried so hard to forget that kiss, to do as she’d asked, to just be friends.
But every time he looked at her, her power over him deepened.
He was inextricably drawn to her, like a moth pulled into the shining light of a flame.
Could he just leave her? Could he just let her go without telling her how he felt?
The sound of rumbling earth brought him back to cold reality.
He opened his eyes in time to see a section of the far bank give way, the river hungrily swallowing the offering of clay and brush.
This didn’t look good. The water roiled and swirled, the current strengthened by the endless rain, driftwood and flotsam sucked along at an alarming rate.
“Blasted rain,” Seb grumbled, spitting tobacco juice past his limp mustache. His stash of cigarette papers had been soaked through, and he had resorted to his tin of chew. “It’s gonna be misery to cross this. Reckon we oughta wait a day or two, see if it drops?”
“We cross today.”
Jacob turned to see Proctor standing there, arms crossed, feet apart, face as impassive as a boulder. How a man of his size could move so quietly Jacob didn’t know.
Seb spat again. “You sure ’bout that, Boss?”
Proctor turned his steely gaze to Seb. “We cross today,” he repeated, voice cold. “I’ll not risk waitin’ a week to see if it goes down if it’ll most likely keep goin’ up.”
As much as he didn’t like the man, Jacob agreed with Proctor. With no letup in sight, the rain would likely continue swelling the river, increasing the danger to all those people waiting a hundred yards behind them. At least they’d had a lot of practice.
“Thompson at the back with the herd?” Proctor asked.
“He’s at the back doin’ somethin’,” Seb said. Another stream of chew hit the ground.
“Munroe, scout out a crossin’. Baker, make sure those folks is gettin’ ready to cross.”
“Yessir,” they answered in unison and led their horses away, leaving Proctor standing there in the rain, as implacable as a mountain.
They walked a few moments in silence. Seb glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder. “So,” he said quietly, “you go check with all them folks and I’ll scout out a crossin’?”
Jacob nodded in reply, already angling for the wagons.
The travelers went about their preparations with stooped shoulders and heavy steps, caulking wagon beds and stretching buffalo hides underneath to make makeshift rafts, barely registering the danger of the swollen river.
What was one danger among many? Jacob tried to muster encouraging smiles and firm handshakes, but it was hard to ignore the fact that his socks hadn’t been dry in eight days.
Even the McGrath boys, with their perpetually positive attitudes, were quiet and solemn.
They looked over the bedraggled cattle as Jacob pulled Kip to a stop beside them.
“Proctor says we’re crossin’ the river today,” Jacob told them.
“’Spose we wouldn’t want to risk waitin’, seein’ as how the water might rise further,” Ian responded. Jacob was always struck by how perceptive the oldest McGrath could be.
“Aw, it’ll be fine, right Jake? It ain’t nothin’ different than what we done a hundred times before,” Danny said, his natural effervescence still managing to shine through the gloom.
“Practice makes perfect, I hope,” Jacob said. “And there ain’t nothin’ to do but just do it. You fellas takin’ the herd over?”
“Yeah,” Ian said. “Pa’s drivin’ our wagon. Didn’t want Kate to have to manage that on her own.”
“Not that she couldn’t!” Danny chimed in with a grin. “Made sure we knew it too.”
Jacob laughed and shook his head. Foolhardy courage is what that was. But the iron band of tension around his heart eased a little. She was in good hands.
“You crossin’ with the stock?” Ian asked.
“Figured y’all could use an extra hand, ’specially on a day like today,” Jacob said.
Danny clapped him on the back and grinned, “Glad to have you, Jake.”
Jacob smiled. Over the course of a few short months, Danny and Ian had become like brothers to him.
That trust, that companionship—other than Seb, he hadn’t had that since he was eleven years old.
And in a matter of days, he would have to say goodbye to them too.
He tried to steel his heart against the pain of it.
Everything he had ever cared about had been taken away from him.
His jaw clenched against the wave of anger that boiled up, but he had nowhere to direct it, so it seethed deep inside him, coiling around his heart like a leviathan of the seas, unseen but ready to take him under the moment he was unguarded.
So he hunched his shoulders and fought against it.
Andrew joined them, pulling up beside them without a word, and the young men sat with the placid herd, watching as one by one the wagons sank out of sight down the steep bank of the river, swallowed by the horizon like ships in the trough of a great wave.
The quiet tension deepened with each crossing until the only sound was the patter of rain on their hats.
Jacob shrugged his shoulders and water dripped down his back.
Ian left to go watch their own wagon cross.
The worry that boiled inside Jacob was mirrored on Danny’s and Andrew’s faces.
“I sure hope they make it over all right,” Jacob muttered.
“The Lord has them in His mighty hands, Jake,” Danny responded with simple, unwavering conviction.
Jacob frowned. “How do you know? I mean, what if she”—he swallowed—“what if somethin’ happened to them?”
Danny turned to him, his eyes the most serious he had ever seen. “If somethin’ happened to them, they’d be in a much better place than here.”
“So you’d be fine if God decided to just up and take your family from you?” Jacob burst out. The leviathan was awakening again.
“No, Jake. I’d be heartbroken,” Danny said quietly.
“But just ’cause bad things happen doesn’t mean God is any less good.
If my family died today, He’d be weepin’ right along with me, ’cause He knows exactly how it feels to lose someone He loves.
” He locked Jacob in an intense stare. “Our world is broken, Jake, and terrible things happen to good people. But the beautiful thing is that the Lord walks with us through those terrible things. And He made a way for us to get to a place where the pain of it will never touch us again.”
Danny’s words were like flashes of lightning in Jacob's mind, illuminating memories he’d buried deep inside.
He closed his eyes, trying to block out the image of his mother, pale and thin, lying sick and dying in the last home he’d known, saying the same kind of words, fervent urgency brightening her eyes for the last time.
I have to leave you, Jacob. You can’t imagine how much I love you and how proud I am of the man I know you will become.
Follow the Lord, my sweet boy. He will never leave you.
Even when life is so terrible you can hardly bear it, He is right there beside you.
Never forget. Jacob clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring, his mother’s soft voice reverberating in his mind. Never forget.
“You all right, Munroe?” Andrew eyed him.
“Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He looked over at Danny’s concerned face and attempted to keep his voice light. “You sound like a preacher, Danny.”
Danny snorted. “Just don’t tell Pa, else he’ll cart me off to seminary.”
Jacob smiled tightly. “So no preachin’ for you?”
“Naw, Ian’s the preacher. I follow the Lord. I just prefer to do it from the back of a horse.”
Silence descended, their eyes once again locked onto Ian’s small figure on the edge of the riverbank.
Anxiety crept back into the spaces between the raindrops.
His mother’s voice echoed again and again in his mind.
Never forget. Jacob shook his head, trying to focus.
Had the others taken this long to cross?
It seemed an age since the wagon had disappeared down into the valley.
Ian turned to them waving, giving a two-handed thumbs up before urging his mount into a jog. Relief washed over Jacob. They'd made it. Everything was gonna be all right.