Chapter Six
Grace had never known that her feet could hurt so badly.
She sighed as she soaked them in the cool water of a stream.
When Grace had thought about traveling the Bozeman Trail, she had always imagined herself seated in a wagon for the majority of the journey, but there were times when the party had to rest the animals and were forced to walk.
Her feet throbbed worse than she had ever imagined possible, and her half-boots had worn through at an alarming rate, even though they had only been traveling for about a week.
“Fish! Look at the fish!” Emily exclaimed.
Grace’s daughter sat on her knees, her arms extended into the softly flowing river. Emily wiggled her fingers and laughed as little gray minnows darted between her fingers.
“I see them,” Grace said, smiling. “Look at how quick they are!”
Emily made an attempt to catch one, but the gray-brown fish slipped deftly between her fingers. Undeterred, she tried again.
Grace furrowed her brow, watching as her daughter played in the stream.
Emily acted like she was happy, which was better than Grace had dared hope.
She had only wanted to give Emily a sense of normalcy, fearing that her little girl might struggle with being away from Lexington, which was everything she had known until now.
Despite that, Emily seemed to be managing well.
Maybe even better than Grace was.
Grace idly took a stone from the bank beside her, turning it over in her palm. It was smooth and flat—the most perfect for skipping that she’d ever seen.
“Let me show you something,” Grace called to her daughter as she climbed to her feet. She lightly tossed the stone, watching as it skipped over the river—once, twice, three times!
Emily clapped and seized a stone. She threw it with all her might into the water, where it promptly sank.
“Mine didn’t do that!” Emily huffed.
Grace laughed. “You have to throw it a certain way. Let me show you. First, you select a smooth, flat stone.” Grace found one at her feet and showed it to her daughter.
Emily wrinkled her nose and looked about, soon finding a suitable stone. “This one!” she declared, holding it aloft as though it was some precious possession.
“Perfect,” Grace said. “Now, you pull back your arm like this…”
Grace demonstrated, waiting for Emily to mimic her movements.
“And, forward!” Grace said. “You have to throw the stone just like I do.”
She released the stone, which skipped merrily along the surface of the water, making four skips before sinking.
Emily scrunched up her face in concentration, then heaved her arm back and gently cast it forward, releasing the stone. It skipped once, then sank. Emily’s face brightened. “I did it!”
“You did,” Grace agreed. “Nicely done!”
“But yours skipped more!”
“I have more practice,” Grace pointed out.
Emily pressed her lips together in a tight, tiny frown. She seized another stone and threw that one. One skip.
“I’ll practice until I’m as good as you are!” Emily declared.
“You’ll be even better than I am, I’m sure,” Grace said, grinning. “Now, come on. It’s time for us to get on the road again.”
Emily groaned, though Grace suspected the less-than-eager reaction came more from her being unable to skip more stones than from frustration at the prospect of more travel.
That was promising. It meant that Emily wasn’t as bothered by this whole journey as Grace had anticipated.
She withheld a sigh of relief, worried her daughter might hear and question it.
Grace pulled on her boots, and they walked to the wagon together. She helped Emily into the wagon, then settled in beside her daughter. Father soon joined them, casting a quick glance into the wagon.
“Ready to go?” he asked
“Yes!” Emily exclaimed. “I want to see all the new places!”
“Good,” Grace said, beaming at her daughter.
Even her father managed a rare smile, free of his usual criticism and worry. “Well, we don’t want to keep the whole world waiting,” he said.
With a click of his tongue and a snap of the reins, he coaxed the horses into motion.
The rest of the wagon train slowly moved along with them.
Grace sat in the interior of the wagon, carefully mending one of Father’s shirts.
Although the inside was quite dim, there was still enough light to complete simple tasks.
And while she’d neglected her cooking in recent years, Grace had still practiced her sewing and needlepoint.
Once the shirt was finished, she raised it up to inspect it.
She was pleased to see that her stitches didn’t even show.
Satisfied, Grace folded it carefully and placed it with the quilts that kept them warm at night.
Across from her, Emily busied herself playing with her cloth doll.
It was a simpler morning than the ones they had shared in Lexington, but Grace found that she liked this new routine.
She reached for another shirt when the wagon jolted forward. Grace swayed a bit and caught herself on her hands. The jolt had not been too rough, but it was noticeable enough for her to be concerned.
“Father?” she asked.
“We hit a rut!”
Grace edged forward towards the driving seat, just as her father leaped to the ground.
He frowned as he inspected the wagon wheel.
Seizing the spokes of it, Father grunted and pulled, but the wheel refused to budge.
He swore quietly under his breath, and Grace winced.
She cast a furtive glance at Emily, who thankfully did not seem to have heard.
“Is it bad?” Grace asked.
She made to join him, but he shook his head. “Stay up there. Hold the reins so the horses don’t bolt when I manage to get the wagon free.”
Grace pursed her lips, certain she would be of more help trying to aid her father in freeing the wheel from the rut instead of sitting up here, but she did as he’d asked.
Father grunted and strained, trying to pull the wheel free once again.
The wagons nearest to them had stopped, their horses stamping their hooves in protest as their wheels creaked under the weight of the settling wagons.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ethan Walker.
Grace clenched her jaw as the man joined Father. Ethan didn’t even spare her a glance. She might as well have not even been there.
“We’re caught in a rut,” Father said. “I’m trying to pull the wheel out.”
Ethan whistled through his teeth. “No kidding!”
It was an innocuous remark, but Grace’s blood still boiled.
She was sure Ethan hadn’t meant for it to be as innocent as it sounded.
It was just one more way for him to lord his superiority over them, as if Grace hadn’t already gotten the message that all their companions believed she and her father weren’t fit for this kind of travel.
Ethan seized part of the wheel, waiting for Father to take the other.
“Ready?” Father asked.
“When you are,” Ethan agreed.
“Now!” Father said.
Both of them pulled upwards on the wheel, muscles straining. Grace’s grip tightened on the reins as the wheel slowly rose from the rut and was finally pulled free. It rolled forward a few inches as the horses pawed at the earth.
“There,” Ethan said.
He turned away and climbed back up into his family’s wagon, just a little way ahead.
Grace caught a brief glimpse of Ethan’s sister, Hannah, peeking outside the wagon and waved as she relinquished the reins to her father and settled inside the wagon once more.
If Grace wanted Hannah to continue being her friend, she had to at least tolerate Ethan Walker.
If only the man wasn’t so infuriatingly smug!
***
Grace carefully inspected her dress, ensuring that the dirt from the hem had successfully been removed.
It had, but looking at the fine peach material, now wrinkled and wet, was another reminder of how out of place she was.
Beside her, Hannah was washing one of her own dresses, a neat and inoffensive garment made of practical brown calico.
After some consideration, Grace had chosen to start wearing a dark brown dress that she owned. The material was still far finer than that worn by most, if not all, of the travelers besides herself and Father, but it would hide dirt well.
A few feet away, Emily screamed with delight.
She and two other girls, who were about the same age, all broke into a run over a grassy hill.
A handful of boys chased them. Grace smiled.
There was her daughter, happy and playing amongst other children.
The trail had already given her more than Lexington ever had.
“Your sister seems to be enjoying herself,” Hannah commented.
It took Grace a beat to realize that Hannah was talking about Emily. “She is,” Grace said. “I’m glad for it. Emily didn’t have many children to play with back in Lexington.”
“Really?” Hannah’s brow furrowed, and she looked at Grace as if she was a puzzle that had not yet been solved.
“It was a complicated situation,” Grace offered. “My family wasn’t close to many of our neighbors.”
“Oh, how unfortunate.”
“It was.”
They continued doing the washing in silence, and a small, vain part of Grace couldn’t help but notice that the soap and water had already made her soft hands red and rough. Her fingers and wrists ached. She had stopped doing chores when she had moved back in with her father.
Grace smiled wryly. She’d become very pampered, hadn’t she? It was no wonder the others on the trail didn’t take her seriously.
“What about your family?” Grace asked. “What are they like, besides Ethan and Derek?”
Hannah hummed. “I suppose we were somewhat similar. Ethan and I only really felt close to our Ma. And I suppose I felt some kinship with Derek.”
Some kinship was an odd way to refer to one’s brother.
“I do not want to pry…” said Grace. She knew, more than most, that families could be complicated.
“But you have questions?” Hannah guessed.
Grace nodded. “Isn’t Derek your brother?”
“He’s my half-brother,” Hannah said. “I never particularly thought there was much of a difference between a half-brother and a full brother, but I know there are many people who care about such things.”
“Is that why you left?” Grace asked softly.
She still had questions, of course, but it seemed discourteous to ask. At least, not until she knew Hannah a little better. The other woman was so kind and cheerful, and it would be just awful if Grace ruined their burgeoning friendship by asking too many prying questions.
“Part of it,” Hannah said. “With Ma gone, there was nothing and no one left in town for us.”
Grace wondered if there was something else, maybe related to Derek being a half-brother, that had resulted in their decision to leave home and take to the Bozeman Trail.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for out west,” Grace said.
“I hope you do, too,” Hannah replied.
The young woman gathered all her freshly washed linens in a basket and balanced it on her hip. Hannah’s expression softened as she watched the children chase one another.
“Sometimes, I look at Emily and I find it difficult to believe that…” Grace trailed off, unsure how to put the great swell of emotion within her into words. “She makes me believe that there is something good in the world, even when everything seems cruel.”
Hannah slowly nodded. “Yes. I can understand that.”
A moment of companionable silence stretched between them, broken at last by Hannah hefting the basket higher onto her hip.
“Emily is fortunate to have such a loving sister,” Hannah said. “I hope you know that. When she is older she may not always appreciate you, but she will always love you.”
Maybe that was something sisters had in common with daughters and mothers.
“I know,” Grace said.
Hannah smiled warmly, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “I need to get these hung while the sun is still high. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Grace knew that she ought to hang her laundry, too. She couldn’t resist sitting for just a few minutes longer, though, watching as Emily ran and played without a care in the world.