Chapter 21
Like every morning on the wagon train since leaving Missouri, Theda started her rounds. The camp was already stirring with its usual rhythm.
She checked on the Morrisons first, then the Hendersons, making her way along the edge of camp where dew still clung to the grass. By the time she reached the Crenshaw wagon, the sun had cleared the hills and the day was well underway.
Verity stood at a washbasin with her sleeves rolled to the elbows, scrubbing clothes with practiced movements. Nearby, Ansel sat inside the wagon with the canvas rolled up. His elbows rested on his knees, his hands hanging loosely between them.
He wasn't doing anything at all.
“Good morning,” Theda called.
Verity glanced up and smiled. “Morning.”
Ansel didn't react.
Theda noticed the sharp look Verity Crenshaw gave her husband, as if she weren't happy about his dismissiveness. There was something distant in Ansel's expression that troubled her.
She made a mental note to mention it to Jem. She hadn't seen him all morning.
A little farther ahead, Della and Oren's wagon sat beside the trail with one wheel tilted at an unfortunate angle. Leland crouched beside it, sleeves rolled up and a mallet in hand. Judging by the look on his face, the wheel had personally offended him.
Theda slowed to survey the situation for a few seconds.
“How bad is it?” Theda asked.
“Could be worse,” Oren replied. He looked up from beside Leland, his shirt covered with mud from helping.
“We'll have it fixed before it’s time to move,” Leland said without looking up.
Theda checked briefly with Della to make sure no one had been hurt then headed off to find Phineas.
She’d let him know Della may need a little bit of help.
Phineas was supposed to be riding in their wagon, near the front of the row, but instead, it was Jem, getting the wagon moving.
Jem was leading one of the gray horses along the trail.
The mare walked reluctantly beside him. Jem rested one hand against her neck, speaking softly to her as they walked.
She wasn't connected to the wagon, but all on her own.
When Jem spotted Theda, he lifted a hand, and a warm smile spread over his face.
“Where have you been all morning?” she asked, falling into step beside him. She was used to seeing him checking on different wagons or helping with the animals.
“Your brother’s mare.” He nodded toward the horse. “She worked a stone up into her hoof. Phineas asked me for help, so I’ve been working on getting it loose. Took a while.”
“Is she all right?” Theda cared about all of the horses they’d brought from Missouri. Some of them, they’d had since she was a little girl.
“She'll be fine.” He gave the mare's neck an affectionate pat. “How are your rounds going?”
“Fine, though Della and Oren have a broken wheel. Did Phineas say it was time to start out yet?”
“Do they need help?” Jem asked, his hands tightening on the mare’s lead rope.
“No. Leland's fixing it.”
Jem glanced at her. “You sure you're awake? You look a little tired and distracted.
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. He was right. She’d woken up a little more tired than normal, and it was probably affecting her.
“I was thinking about Ansel Crenshaw. He seemed a little strange this morning.” She glanced over at Jem, trying to see if he agreed with her.
A meadowlark called from somewhere in the grass and fell silent. The mare dropped her head and began pulling at a clump of grass at the edge of the trail. Jem let her.
He was looking back down the trail.
“Maybe he’s just struggling with being on the trail for so long.” Jem shrugged and led the mare over to the wagon, hooking her up to the harness with the other mare. “Phineas said that we should start moving once the sun was fully up.”
Theda watched him, as he started guiding the horses forward, pulling the wagon. The other wagons were used to the routine, they’d follow the one in front of them, and so forth, till they reached the last wagon in the train.
Della and Oren were a distance back. Hopefully, they’d have enough time to finish their repairs before it reached them.
Theda easily kept up with Jem as he walked forward with the horses, their wagon moving slowly behind them.
Jem was silent for a long time, and Theda fidgeted. It wasn’t like him to be so quiet and introspective.
“Did you enjoy the dance?” she asked, unable to bear the silence any longer.
He turned to look at her. Something shifted in his expression. “I did,” he said. “Most of it.”
“Most of it?”
He looked back down the trail. The other wagons still hadn’t come around the bend.
“I did,” he said again, slower this time. “Until you were dancing with Leland.”
Theda didn't answer immediately. She wasn't sure she had heard him right.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Jem’s hand moved along the mare's lead rope. She didn’t think he was going to say more than that.
“I'm not sure I can explain it simply,” he said.
“Try,” she didn’t want him to hold back what he was thinking. She hadn’t felt much choice with dancing with Leland. She hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings. But if there was someone she hadn’t wanted to hurt more, it was Jem.
Jem looked at her then. He stopped walking and glanced back at the empty trail.
The wagon came to a grinding halt, and Theda stayed where she was.
They were standing so close. Just the two of them and the wagon and horses, and an empty trail.
The two wagons up ahead of them were just shapes in the distance, giving them a rare moment alone.
“Watching you dance with him…” He stopped. He exhaled slowly. “It made me see how much I wished I was still dancing with you.”
Her heart flipped.
“I was…wishing that you were still dancing with me too.” Theda’s heart pounded in her chest.
“Theda.” He said her name like it was reverent. He was looking at her with an expression that made her want to look away and hold his gaze forever at the same time.
“Jem, I…”
She’d been avoiding facing her growing feelings for Jem. Every time she considered it, Nick was there again, haunting her memory, filling her with the dread of loss. But this time, standing there with him, looking into his hopeful gaze. She wanted to give him the answer he was looking for.
She cleared her throat to tell him as much when she heard it, the creak of the first wagon coming around the bend. She wished they would have waited a little longer, held back a few more moments for her to share with Jem. She swallowed hard, the sound of her heart loud in her ears.
Theda took a half step back. Jem turned toward the horse, gathering the slack from the lead rope up off the ground.
“Time to move,” his words were gruff, full of emotion and she could see that he hadn’t said as much as he wanted to either.
She fell in beside him as the wagons began catch up. Her cheeks burned with heat, and her head spun.
Can I tell him later?
Maybe I misread the situation.
She didn't look at Jem directly for a while. When she did, he was watching the trail ahead of him, his expression was heavy, mirroring her own swirling emotions. The next time they spoke, she’d be ready to share what was on her heart with him, no matter how complicated that was.
---*---
Theda barely waited for Jem to stop the wagon before she jumped down.
“I want to visit Della before supper,” she rushed out.
Jem's eyebrows rose. “Okay. I can set up camp for you, then I'll head over with the horses for the night. I might not be here when you come back.”
“Thank you.” Theda paused nervously. “You can join us over there later if you'd like. Phineas and I will probably have dinner over there, and some of the other wagons will most likely join in.” She tried to keep herself from blushing, but to no avail.
“Maybe I'll join you later then,” Jem smiled, bidding her farewell with a tip of his hat.
Theda rushed through camp as fast as she could without running. As she rounded the corner, she couldn't help but notice Tolliver at the Crenshaw wagon.
Verity had her arms crossed over her chest, and her shoulders seemed stiff. In the time it took Theda to pass, Verity glanced over her shoulder twice. Her expression was distant, as if she were oblivious to whatever Tolliver was saying.
Theda looked back at the interaction as she continued forward.
Should I stop?
Tolliver's gaze met hers and his expression twisted into something…
She shuddered. Speaking to Della was her priority. Theda half turned, intending to go to Verity’s aid when Ansel Crenshaw came out of his wagon and joined his wife.
Now that Verity wasn’t alone, she was certain t hey could deal with whatever Tolliver wanted. She'd check back in later to make sure things were all right. It didn’t take her long to get to Della’s wagon.
Della's fire was small but well-built. Della sat in her camp chair with a cup of something hot, and beside her sat Ruth Morley. Her twin boys were locked in what appeared to be a contest to see how hard they could throw a ball at Oren before he dropped it.
Oren had not dropped it yet.
“Theda.” Della lifted her cup. “Come sit.”
“Mrs. Carey.” Ruth smiled and shifted her chair to make room.
Theda sat down gratefully. She hadn’t visited as much with Mrs. Morley as she had with Della and suddenly felt self-conscious about what she wanted Della’s advice about.
One of the Morley boys, she could never tell them apart, hurled the ball with more enthusiasm than accuracy. Oren lunged sideways and caught it anyway.
“Good arm,” Oren called.
“Too good,” Ruth Morley said under her breath.
Della laughed, and the two women picked back up the conversation Theda had interrupted. The younger twin, by four minutes, Ruth always made sure to specify, had finally started taking to his reading lessons.
His brother, apparently, remained deeply suspicious of the whole enterprise. For twelve years old, the two sounded quite intelligent.
“He sat down with his primer for twenty minutes last night without being asked,” Ruth said. “First time that's ever happened.”
“That's real progress,” Della smiled warmly.
“Don't tell him that. He'll stop doing it.” Ruth laughed and both Theda and Della joined in.
The woman's conversation was interesting, but Theda couldn’t focus.
She wasn't watching the fire at all. She was turning over the way Jem had said her name.
She kept wondering what she would have said if they hadn't.
“All right.” Della's voice cut through her thoughts. “Be out with it.”
Theda looked up. “I'm sorry?”
“You've looked like you're about to come out of your skin since you sat down.” Della tilted her head. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Theda shifted on her crate. “I just wanted to sit for a bit.” Her cheeks felt as hot as the flames of the fire.
Ruth Morley made a sound low in her throat. “Honey, you've been staring at that fire like it owes you money.”
The heat in Theda’s face intensified.
“I just wanted some advice,” she said. It was more than she'd meant to admit.
Della and Ruth exchanged a look.
“On anything specific?” Della's voice had the careful ease of someone who already suspected the answer.
“Not particularly.” Theda smoothed her skirt. “General advice. Maybe on love?”
Ruth picked her cup back up, turned it once in her hands, and looked at Theda, her eyes growing distant with memory.
“I won't ask for your specifics,” she said. “But I'll tell you what I know.” She paused. “Take advantage of love when it comes to you. However it finds you. You never know when it'll come around again, and it goes faster than most people expect.”
One of the twins erupted over something about the last catch, and his brother answered right back. Oren stepped between them without breaking stride.
Theda looked back at the fire.
She’d loved Nick. She'd loved him since she was nineteen, built everything she'd imagined about her future around him, and then lost him so fast that she hadn't known how to be a person for a long while afterward.
For years, she'd carried the quiet certainty that a loss like that didn't leave room for anything else.
She believed that loving, came with loss, and dealing with losing someone she loved, wasn't something she could go through again. The risk of that…she couldn't take it.
She wasn't so certain of that anymore.