Chapter Twenty
Camp Before and Beyond the Next Crossing
Nathaniel returned to his horse on April twenty-third.
After five days of rest, Nathaniel’s horse no longer favored its strained leg. Rebecca approved a slow return to work, though she warned Nathaniel that horse and rider were both to avoid steep ground.
He could not use his right arm well, but he could ride slowly and give orders with the left. Eleanor remained responsible for the rear division, and he named her co-captain before the entire group.
“This is not temporary,” he said.
Mr. Daugherty raised a hand. “Do we vote?”
Mrs. Bell lifted her walking stick. “Do you want me to hit you?”
Mr. Daugherty lowered his hand. “No.”
“Then the appointment stands.”
Everyone laughed.
Eleanor looked at Nathaniel. “Did you arrange that?”
“I lack Mrs. Bell's courage.”
The day's road led to a shallow crossing. It was not dangerous enough to become a crisis, but it required careful spacing and doubled teams on the far bank.
Caroline directed the first Whitaker wagon. Rebecca handled the second. Eleanor remained on horseback beside Nathaniel, overseeing the entire line.
She did not take the reins from either sister.
Both wagons crossed perfectly.
“They can manage,” Nathaniel said.
“I see that.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“A little.”
He laughed. “Honest woman.”
“I am proud. I am also wondering what to do with all the thoughts I spent on their safety.”
“Think about me.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“I hope so.”
Eleanor blushed and rode ahead.
They camped on the far side of the crossing. While Eleanor helped Martha prepare supper, the clasp on her left earring caught in her bonnet string.
She freed it carefully. The unreliable wire had loosened again.
“Do not move,” he said from behind her.
“You should not sneak up on a woman holding a sharp earring.”
“I survived a fall from a horse. I am becoming reckless.”
He took the earring and sat beside the fire with his repair kit. His right arm remained supported close to his body, so Eleanor steadied the small pieces while he worked with his left hand.
“I tightened it before,” he said.
“And it broke again.”
“Your gratitude is touching.”
“Your persistence is astonishing.”
“Tell me about your mother,” he said.
Eleanor sat beside him. “She was quieter than Father, but not obedient in the way people assumed. When they married, her family expected her to give up teaching. She told Father she would marry him only if she retained the freedom to use her own mind and skills.”
“What did he say?”
“He gave her the earrings and told her he was marrying her mind as well as the rest.”
Nathaniel smiled. “I like your father better.”
“He was occasionally sensible.”
“The earrings were a wedding gift?”
“Yes. Mother told me once that a matched pair did not mean one stone disappeared into the other. They remained separate and belonged together.”
Nathaniel looked at the garnets.
“Walk with me,” he said.
Eleanor's heart began to race.
He led her beyond the wagons to a small rise overlooking the camp. Evening light spread across the prairie. Behind them, twelve wagons and nearly forty people settled into the familiar work of supper, animals, and bedding.
Nathaniel faced her.
“I had intended to kneel,” he said. “My shoulder and Mr. Daugherty's mud have made that unwise.”
Eleanor laughed softly.
“I have no ring.”
“That seems careless.”
“I know. I am poorly prepared.”
“For the first time.”
Nathaniel gathered both her hands in his left. “I can offer you my life, my savings, my labor, my experience, two horses, and an equal voice in every home we build. I will not ask you to abandon your sisters, your land, or your authority. I ask to join you in carrying all of it.”
Tears filled Eleanor's eyes.
“Eleanor Whitaker, will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
The word came without fear.
Nathaniel kissed her. Eleanor put her arms around him carefully, and he kept his injured arm between them rather than risk the shoulder in his happiness.
When they parted, she removed the left earring.
“Keep this until the wedding.”
He stared at the garnet in his palm. “Are you certain?”
“Two separate pieces,” she said. “Belonging together.”
Nathaniel closed his fingers around it. “I will guard it with my life.”
“Please do not. I have had enough people risking their lives for my earrings.”
He laughed and kissed her again.
*****
THE SISTERS CELEbrATED with sugar.
Martha used part of their precious supply to make sweet biscuits. Lydia announced the engagement before Eleanor and Nathaniel returned to camp, though Eleanor never learned how she knew.
“I have eyes,” Lydia said.
“You were supposed to use them near the fire,” Eleanor answered.
Caroline hugged her first. “You are happy.”
“I am.”
“And frightened?”
Eleanor considered. “Less than I expected.”
Rebecca examined Nathaniel. “If you become unreasonable after the wedding, we will outnumber you.”
“You outnumber me now.”
“Good. You understand.”
Grace wanted to know where Nathaniel would sleep after they married. Lucy wanted to know when they would marry. Lydia wanted to know whether Eleanor planned to kiss him again before the ceremony.
“These are not family questions,” Eleanor said.
“Everything is a family question,” Lydia replied.
Nathaniel looked at Eleanor. “I am beginning to understand what I agreed to.”
“Too late.”
He smiled. “Good.”
They decided to marry at the next suitable stopping place where Mr. Daugherty could perform the ceremony without delaying their journey.
Later, Eleanor and Nathaniel walked beyond the firelight for a few private moments.
“Mrs. Bell says a trail courtship may be forgotten by Oregon,” Eleanor said.
“Mrs. Bell says many things.”
“Will you forget?”
Nathaniel touched the single garnet now fastened beneath her right ear. “Not if you argue with me every morning.”
“I will do my best.”
He kissed her, slowly and tenderly.
When Eleanor returned to the wagon, Caroline sat with Thomas Reed over Father's route notes and his survey map.
“The next crossing is not where your father's plan places it,” Thomas said.
Caroline frowned. “How far has the trail shifted?”
“Enough that following the old map could cost us two days.”
She moved closer to the map. “Show me.”
Thomas pointed to the altered route. Caroline asked three questions in quick succession, and he answered each with growing interest.
Eleanor looked at Nathaniel.
“Should we warn her?” he whispered.
“About the map?”
“About falling in love on the trail.”
Eleanor smiled. “She would not listen.”
“Would you have?”
“No.”
The next morning, they rolled west again.
Eleanor rode Nathaniel's spare horse beside him, with one garnet at her ear and its mate safe in his pocket.
Caroline drove the lead Whitaker wagon, studying the trail and glancing occasionally toward Thomas Reed.
Rebecca handled the second wagon and kept a practiced eye on both teams, leaving Eleanor free to attend the rear division as co-captain.
Two wagons had left Independence carrying eight sisters and one dead man's plan.
They now carried a growing family, a living plan, and the promise of Clover Creek.
Home remained months away.
For the first time, Eleanor understood that home was also traveling beside her.
Three days later, after two steady travel days and a halt chosen for water, grass, and enough privacy to satisfy Caroline, Mr. Daugherty married Eleanor and Nathaniel in the middle of the wagon circle at sunset.
There were no church bells, no lace veil, and no wedding feast beyond Martha’s biscuits made with a precious measure of sugar.
Grace and Lucy gathered tiny prairie flowers.
Mrs. Bell cried openly and threatened anyone who mentioned it with her walking stick.
Before the blessing was finished, Rebecca informed Nathaniel that marriage did not reduce the sisters’ numerical advantage.
“I had already calculated that,” Nathaniel said.
“Good,” Rebecca answered. “You may survive.”
Eleanor wore both garnet earrings for the ceremony. Afterward, Nathaniel touched the repaired left clasp with his good hand.
“Still separate,” he murmured.
“Still together.”
That night Caroline arranged for the younger sisters to sleep under the second wagon and announced that anyone who disturbed the newlyweds without blood, fire, or a flood would answer to her.
Lydia immediately asked whether wolves counted.
“No.”
“Mr. Daugherty?”
Caroline considered. “Possibly.”
Eleanor heard Nathaniel laughing outside the small canvas shelter the women had rigged a discreet distance from the wagons.
“You can still escape,” she told him when he entered.
“From the marriage?”
“From my family.”
“Too late. Rebecca has threatened me twice. I believe that makes me officially related.”
Eleanor smiled, but nervousness tightened beneath it.
Nathaniel saw.
He sat beside her rather than reaching for her. “We do not have to do anything tonight that you do not want.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know that too.”
The assurance mattered more than practiced romance could have. Eleanor removed the garnets and placed them carefully in their little box.
Nathaniel watched. “Important occasion?”
“The most important.”
She leaned toward him and kissed him.
There was no urgency. They had spent weeks learning each other through mud, fire, grief, arguments, broken wagons, frightened sisters, and impossible choices. The tenderness between them had been built piece by piece, and Eleanor felt every piece when Nathaniel drew her gently closer.
She touched his face. “Your shoulder?”
“Improving.”
“That was not an answer.”
He smiled against her mouth. “I have married a tyrant.”
“You were warned.”
“Repeatedly.”
Their wedding night unfolded gently, with whispered questions, quiet answers, and enough laughter to ease the last of Eleanor’s nerves. Nathaniel’s injured shoulder made one embrace awkward enough that she had to hide her smile against his chest.
Afterward, she lay with her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
“I did not think marriage could feel like this,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like more room instead of less.”
Nathaniel kissed her hair. “You take up a great deal of room.”
She lifted her head.
“In the best possible sense.”
“You recovered that very quickly.”
“I am motivated.”
Outside, a wagon creaked. Someone—almost certainly Lydia—whispered and was immediately shushed by Caroline.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Nathaniel’s chest moved with silent laughter.
“Do not encourage them,” she whispered.
“I am lying perfectly still.”
“That has never prevented you from being troublesome.”
He kissed her again.
For the first time since Father died, Eleanor slept without dreaming of lists, distances, or things she might lose.