Chapter Seventeen
Clay woke before the light.
For a moment he did not know why his back hurt or why his hand was curled around his rifle. Then he heard the horses shifting outside and smelled smoke.
Sarah lay on the other side of the wagon beneath Noah and Charlotte’s old quilt.
Clay climbed down quietly.
The camp was already stirring. No one was properly awake, but no one seemed willing to sleep either. Rain had turned the ground black.
A little ways down the trail in the distance, Sarah’s wagon stood where Everett’s men had abandoned it.
The canvas had been cut open. Her trunk and small chest were gone. One wheel was smashed, and the mule stood nearby with a rein dragging through the mud.
Violet was checking its hoof.
“It’s not lame,” she said.
Brady stood beside her, staring at the wreckage.
“Did those men come back?”
“No.”
“Will they?”
Clay looked toward the trees.
“I don’t know.”
Brady picked up a broken peg. “I’d shoot them if they did.”
“You would not,” Violet said.
Clay left them and found Samuel beside the dying fire.
“You sleep any?” Samuel asked.
“I think so.”
Samuel handed him a cup of coffee.
Across the camp, two men were arguing quietly.
“We should’ve gone with Everett.”
“You say that now.”
“He had men enough to protect us.”
“Protect us from what? Himself?”
They stopped when Clay looked over.
Samuel took the cup back.
“How many are thinking it?” Clay asked.
“More than will say it plain.”
Clay looked around the remaining crooked circle of wagons, tired animals, and hungry people who had begun to understand that something was wrong.
Noah was dead. Sarah had lost nearly everything she owned, and they had little food. Everett knew exactly how vulnerable they were.
Sarah came from the wagon wearing Clay’s spare coat.
“They won’t take anything else,” he said.
She looked toward the ruined wagon. “That a question?”
“No. A promise.”
She studied him, then gave a small nod.
Tucker crawled from the wagon behind her.
“Are we having breakfast?”
Sarah closed her eyes briefly. “Let me guess. You were hungry when you went to sleep?”
“I was hungry before that too.”
By the time the sun appeared over the ridge, everyone had gathered around the main fire. Fear had done that.
Charlotte sat wrapped in Noah’s old blanket. Violet kept Brady close. Anna sat quietly near the edge of the group, a bruise still yellowing on her cheek.
Clay cleared his throat.
The talking stopped.
“Y’all know Everett’s men took Sarah’s wagon last night,” he said. “They meant to take more if they could. Sarah stopped them. She fired. I fired. They ran.”
A few people looked at Sarah.
“They may come back. I won’t lie about that. Everett knows this trail. He knows we’re short on food. He knows we have children and sick people. He thinks that makes us easy to frighten.”
Harlan shifted uneasily.
“Maybe it does,” he said.
“He always is,” Anna said. “Angry, I mean. When somebody won’t give him what he wants.”
Clay nodded.
“When I was a boy, I thought being alone was the finest thing a person could be. Nobody could tell you where to go. Nobody could leave you behind.”
He looked at Tucker and Brady.
“But being alone doesn’t make a person strong. It just means there’s nobody to help when the wheel breaks or the river rises, or a man comes in the night.”
The fire crackled.
“Rufus said something to me before he left. He said something like fear can make a man mean before it makes him wise. I reckon that’s true.”
Clay looked from face to face.
“We’re afraid. We have cause to be. But if we start looking at one another like burdens, or like something to trade away when the road gets hard, then Everett’s already won.”
Samuel nodded.
“I can’t promise we’ll all reach California,” Clay continued.
“I wish I could. I can promise I won’t leave anybody behind to make my own load lighter, and I won’t sell anybody’s safety for my comfort.
If we have food, we share it. If somebody’s sick, we tend to them.
If Everett comes again, we stand together. ”
Harlan frowned.
“With what?”
“With guns, if we have to,” Clay said. “And with better sense than he’s counting on.”
Clay took a breath.
“God didn’t carry us this far so we could turn on each other in the mud. I believe that. We’ve got people who can hunt, mend harness, tend the sick. We’ve got children who can still find something to laugh about when grown folks forget how.”
He looked around the circle.
“We need each other. Not because any of us is weak. Because this is what people are for. That’s how we are strongest, together; been like that since the dawn of us.”
Samuel set down his cup.
“Clay’s right.”
His voice was quiet, but everyone listened.
“Everett has supplies, knowledge, and men willing to follow him. That makes him dangerous. It don’t make him stronger. Not if we mind one another.”
“I’ll take watch tonight. When we stop,” Harlan said.
Violet stepped forward.
“The children need a proper meal.”
“That’d be a fine thing,” Tucker said.
Sarah put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not helping.”
“I can peel potatoes.”
“You can eat them fine, but cook them, I’m not sure.”
“I can help,” he said. “I want to help.”
That finally drew a few smiles.
“I’ve got flour,” Charlotte said. “Noah always said flour was meant to be used, not guarded like gold.”
Her voice faltered. Anna moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder.
Violet offered dried apples. Harlan had a little bacon. Clay looked around the circle.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s make a meal.”
There was work for everyone. Harlan repaired the broken harness. Violet gathered what food remained. Charlotte made bread. Tucker and Brady went for kindling and returned with twice what they had been asked to collect.
Clay and Samuel brought back two rabbits before noon.
By afternoon, smoke rose from three fires.
The stew was thin, the bread heavy, and the beans plain. But when they sat together to eat, nobody complained.
Tucker ate too quickly.
“You’ll make yourself sick,” Sarah told him.
“I won’t.”
“I’ve heard that before, on the night I had to clean up vomit from your shirt!”
“Well, that was different. I was younger then.”
For the first time in days, laughter moved through the camp without anyone forcing it.
Children played. Men traded stories. Charlotte spoke more than she had since Noah died. Even Anna seemed less afraid.
Clay found Sarah near the fire.
“You have soot on your face,” she said.
She reached up and rubbed her thumb across his cheek.
“There.”
Clay looked at her.
“You missed some.”
“I did not.”
“Right here.”
He touched the side of his mouth.
Sarah’s cheeks reddened.
“You are impossible.”
“So you keep saying.”
She turned away, but he saw her smile.
Later, as the sun sank behind the hills, Clay sat beside her near the fire. Their shoulders touched through their coats.
Neither moved away.
Samuel came over and looked into the empty stew pot.
“Best meal we’ve had in a while.”
Tucker lifted his spoon.
“That’s because I peeled real fine.”
Sarah gave Clay a look.
Clay kept his face straight.
“That must be it.”
Samuel looked over the camp.
“Let’s get moving tomorrow,” Harlan said. “Time to find a new place to rest.”
Clay nodded.
The wagons were still worn. The food was still scarce. Everett was still somewhere ahead or behind them.
But men were mending what had torn while the women washed the dishes.
For now, the fire held.