Katie and the Mustang, Book 2 (8 page)

He was talking fast, and it struck me how much he had changed. He smiled more now, and I had heard him whistling when he went back and forth to the Kylers' wagons.

“You worried?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “Do you think we'll make it all right?”

He nodded and patted my head. “We're both pretty tough, and the Mustang is tougher than both of us put together. We'll do.”

I smiled at him. “You never used to talk this much.”

He ducked his head, then looked at me. “I lost my family the same as you did, Katie.”

I flushed, knowing I had been rude to say what I did. I started to apologize, but he stopped me.

“No. You're right. I didn't talk much for a few years. I'm feeling some better now. I nearly talked Annie to sleep last night.”

“I am a little better, too,” I said quietly. “Some of the time, anyway.”

“Maybe some of the time is all we'll ever get,” he said.

I nodded. “That'd be all right with me.”

He grinned. “You'll be in love someday, Katie.”

“Maybe you will, too,” I said.

I waited for him to answer, but he didn't. I blushed, realizing I had probably offended him. A girl talking to a grown man about such things! “Sometimes I wonder what my life will be like,” I said awkwardly, to fill the silence.

“You'll do fine wherever you go, Katie. You have a good heart and a stiff spine.”

He took a few coins out of his pocket. “I'll stay with the Mustang for a while. Go look around and buy anything you think you might need.”

I stared at him. “Just go off and...?”

He was nodding. “Buy what you'll need that I won't think of. Clothes and whatnot. Stretch the money. Give it some thought.”

I took the coins and handed him the Mustang's lead rope. The stallion was completely calm now, standing quietly with the mares beside the wagon. The mares were nosing at the tattered grass beneath the wagon.

“He's used to me,” Hiram said. “And he's had to get used to all this.” He gestured, taking in the milling crowds and the hundreds of wagons.

“Where?” I asked vaguely, absorbed in my own nervousness about leaving the Mustang.

Hiram understood me, by some miracle.

He pointed. “Most are up that way. There are folks selling goods off tarps and blankets all along that side, and tents up the rise as well. Buy clothing too big. You'll grow this next year. Get sturdy goods, stout enough to take being washed on creek rocks instead of in a tub.”

I glanced at the lead rope in his hand. It hung in a loose arc to the Mustang's halter. The stallion was half asleep, stamping a hoof now and then to scare off a biting fly.

“Go on,” Hiram said.

“I won't be long,” I promised.

“Take the time you need to take. I'll go over the wagon once more, see that everything is sound and ready.”

I nodded and turned to walk away. It felt strange to leave the Mustang with Hiram in such a crowded place. But I knew that he was right. Even when the Mustang got startled and nervous now, he knew enough to settle down quick enough.

I glanced back and ran into a boy carrying a mound of tangled harness. I apologized and walked on, blushing fiercely.

Hiram was right. There were so many selling goods that I didn't know where to start.

Some of the sellers lived in tents pitched in long rows. Some had pulled their wagons into the line. There were a few buildings, too, though not nearly as many as in the town of Kanesville on the other side of the river. There were people coming across on the ferry all the time, I thought. Then, within a few days, or a few weeks, they left. I wondered if anyone actually lived here.

I kept walking until I found a woman selling used clothing.

“I need a dress or two stout enough to take wagon life,” I told her.

She smiled at me, and I saw that she didn't have but three or four of her teeth left. “How about these? A girl brought them in about an hour ago—said she'd outgrown them and she was the youngest.” The woman held up a dress made of heavy home-spun cotton and another of flannel. “This one will be best this summer; the flannel is a little bigger for fall,” the woman said.

I nodded, pressing the fabric to my face to smell it. It was fresh. Whoever had had the dresses had washed them often enough. The colors were faded a little, but not too bad. “How much?” I asked the woman.

“Fifty cents each.” she said.

I laid the dresses back onto her blanket as though they had burned me.

“Now, child,” she began, lifting the dresses and handing them back to me. “If that's a little too much—”

“More than a little,” I told her.

She shook her head. “Not here it isn't. Everyone here sells high. Including the man who sells me my bread and milk.”

She sounded impatient, almost angry. I was sure she heard people gasp and complain all day long about her prices.

I noticed a woman walking past turn her head to look at the dresses. I scooped them back up. “Thirty cents each,” I said, imitating my mother's tone of polite stubbornness whenever the tinsmith had come to the door to fix pots.

“All right,” the woman said.

I counted out the money and handed it to her, then gathered up the dresses and turned to go—and almost ran into Annie Kyler.

“Katie!” she said, “I thought that was you. Getting ready to leave tomorrow?”

“I'm trying,” I answered, not quite sure what I meant.

She rubbed her hands together as though they were cold. “I am pretty nervous about the whole thing. Three of my sisters stayed home, and I almost wish I had.”

“Hiram says we'll be all right,” I told her. “And he said your father found a guide.”

Annie nodded. “He did. A Mr. Wilkins. The man seems steady to me, considered—not a braggart. I hope so anyway.”

I remembered Mr. Barrett and knew what she meant. He had sounded like he knew everything about everything.

Annie smiled. “Do you read?”

I nodded. She put one hand on my shoulder. “Let me show you something.”

I followed Annie, staring at all the goods piled on blankets and across the backs of wagons. My mother had loved going into Eldridge on market day. She would have had a picnic here.

I ducked my head. Remembering my mother made my throat ache and my eyes flood with tears. I managed to hide it from Annie by keeping my head turned until I could wipe my eyes.

“Look at these,” Annie said, stopping. I turned to see a woman seated on a stool behind four or five wooden crates that were full of periodicals.

“Do you know any of these?” Annie asked.

I read the titles:
The Slave's Friend
—these were old and yellowed and brittle-looking—and
Woodworth's Youth's Cabinet,
and some old
Harper's Magazines
—then I finally saw one I knew. “We read this one in church meeting sometimes,” I said, pointing at
The Youth's Companion
. They looked fairly new, too. I bent to read the dates. The top two were only a year old.

“Does it have stories?” Annie asked.

I nodded.

“Perfect,” she told me, and gathered up ten or twelve issues. “All you girls will need something to read.”

I saw a stack of books to one side of the boxes.
A Christmas Carol
, I read silently. The author's name was Charles Dickens. I bent down and touched the cover. It wasn't leather, and the paper looked tired and worn. My mother had loved singing Christmas carols. I looked up and the woman met my eyes.

“Twenty cents,” she said. Her voice was so harsh, so unfriendly, that I didn't even try to bargain with her. I gave her the coins, and I hugged the book against my chest.

Annie smiled as we walked away. “I have a whole box of books in our wagon,” she told me. “My father says we'll have to throw them all out to save the oxen before we're done, but I'll carry them myself before I allow that. I cannot imagine a life without my books.”

A commotion back in the wagon camps made me turn. I couldn't see anything, but there were shouts and a dog was barking.

“I better get back. I left the Mustang with Hiram,” I told Annie.

She touched my arm. “Everything is all right, then. Hiram is that rare kind of man—such a good family man.”

I was in such a hurry to get back to the Mustang that I barely heard her. It was only after I was back at the wagon, seeing that the commotion was over a dog fight and that the Mustang was calm, that I thought about what she had said.

Had Hiram talked to the Kylers about his life in New York, about his family? He must have. He had never talked to me about it, except to finally tell me he'd lost them.

I sighed and patted the Mustang's forehead. I had never talked much about my family. Maybe one of the Kyler girls could become a good enough friend. I felt my eyes stinging. The Kyler girls whispered and laughed and talked to one another all the livelong day. They took turns coddling the white cat and doing chores. What would that be like? I hadn't had a friend my own age since the day I had arrived at Mr. Stevens's house.

The Mustang jerked his head high, and I turned to see two boys racing toward us, chasing a rolling hoop, their push sticks tapping it now and then to keep it going. They veered off in another direction before they got too close, and the Mustang lowered his head to nuzzle my shoulder. I put my arms around his neck and leaned against him for a long minute, listening to their shouts and laughter fade. Then I went back to my chores.

Late in the day, we lined up our wagons for morning. Mr. Wilkins decided on a marching order, and we all went where we were told. Hiram and I ended up near the front of the line. The Kylers brought up the rear, with their big herd of stock behind that.

It took almost two hours, but once we were all in position, Mr. Wilkins walked up and down the line of wagons, shaking every man's hand and tipping his hat to all the ladies and girls.

Hiram stood off to one side with me, watching. He named the ones he'd met. “Kylers are last, six wagons. The next big party is the Laffertys. Mr. Lafferty has seven wagons; it's a whole family like the Kylers, come here from Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Spengler are between the two groups.”

Hiram lifted his hat and slicked his hair back with one hand, then resettled it. “They're from Indiana and have just the one baby. A nephew is driving their second wagon. I had a glimpse inside.” He shook his head. “They brought their bedstead, some fancy chairs, a houseful of furniture.”

I thought about Mrs. Stevens. Had she gotten to bring any of her grandmother's and mother's things? She would hate the journey, I was sure. There was dirt and grit dust on everything all the time, and no way to keep it back.

When we were finally all lined up, I went and got Midnight and Delia from the Kyler stock. I tethered the mares to the wagon with the Mustang tied loosely beside them. He was content to sleep beside the mares, and I wanted to be able to get a full night's sleep myself.

I lay awake awhile, puzzling on what Annie had said about Hiram. It was hard to imagine him sitting at the Kylers' campfire talking about his family to four or five of them at once. Maybe he had just talked to
Annie
about them. The idea made me uneasy. I wasn't sure why, but it did. I looked at the stars a long time before my eyes finally closed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A
storm rolled in during the night, and we all woke to the flash and boom of lightning. The menfolk were up instantly, their suspenders half buttoned, running to try to keep their stock from bolting.

I pulled my dress over my head and sat up, blinking as the sky flickered, long veins of lightning arcing across the darkness. For an instant, the earth was washed in that odd blue light that only comes in a thunderstorm. In that second, I saw everything.

Men were running in every direction. The mares were standing with their heads up, their eyes rimmed in circles of white, poised to run. The oxen, tethered on a line strung between two scrubby trees, were shifting, uneasy.

The Mustang was rearing. The next flash of blue-white light caught him striking at the sky with his ears flattened against his neck, his teeth bared.