Under the Distant Sky (26 page)

Vanessa’s heart lurched and she took another step back. This time she felt water seeping into the edge of her shoes.

Dwight moved closer. “I watch you all the time, Vanessa. I wish I could ride on the wagon seat next to you.”

Vanessa slowly began inching her way along the river’s edge. Dwight followed. “I know the kiss I gave you that day in the rain is one you’ve never forgotten. You can have more.”

Vanessa’s skin crawled at his words. If only someone would come along!

“I know you have to act like you don’t like me,” Dwight said, “but I know you do. I see it in your eyes whenever you look at me. You’re attracted to me; you’re just afraid to show it.”

“You’re dead wrong, Dwight. What you see when I look at you is revulsion. Do you understand? You are a repulsive, uncouth barbarian!”

Dwight chuckled and grabbed her. A scream started from her throat, but it died to a whine as he pressed his lips to her mouth. She felt as if she was suffocating.

She kept struggling while the kiss lasted. Finally he removed his lips. But before she could get out a sound, he clamped a palm over her mouth. “I told you what I’ll do if Lafe comes!”

She caught the heel of his hand between her teeth and bit
down as hard as she could. Dwight let out a stifled cry and relaxed his grip.

Vanessa ducked under his arm and ran toward the wagons as fast as she could.

Solomon Cooper had just led Stuart Armstrong to the Lord, and Tony and Stuart were talking excitedly, when Vanessa rushed past. Solomon excused himself and followed the obviously distraught woman.

“What’s wrong, Vanessa?”

At the sound of Solomon’s voice, Vanessa burst into sobs.

“Dwight Cuzak?”

She whimpered and nodded.

Solomon’s temper flared. “That dirty—I’ll get Lafe.”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Cooper!” Vanessa kept her trembling voice low as she said, “Dwight… found me alone on that night on the trail… when it rained so hard. He… he forced a kiss on me.”

“Did you tell Lafe?”

“No. Dwight said if Lafe came after him, he’d kill him. I’m sure he’s capable of it, Mr. Cooper.” She took a shuddering breath. “Dwight just pushed himself on me again when I was at the river bank.”

Solomon’s cheeks were flaming red. “This has gone on long enough! Don’t you worry, Vanessa. I’m going to take Lafe with me to talk to Ezra. This Cuzak stuff is going to end right now!”

As he headed for the Oakley wagon, where Lafe was helping Dave Oakley repair a wheel, Solomon came face to face with Dwight Cuzak. It was evident that Dwight had been eavesdropping.

“You’ve pushed it too far this time, Cuzak!” Solomon said. “When I tell Ezra what Vanessa just told me—”

“You ain’t tellin’ nobody nothin’, Cooper!”

Vanessa darted away to find Ezra as people on both ends
of the Tolliver wagon moved closer. Stuart Armstrong and Tony Cuzak had followed Solomon when they realized there was trouble brewing.

Solomon saw Dwight ball his fists. “You can come swinging if you want, Dwight, but pounding on me isn’t going to change a thing.”

Dwight grinned wickedly. “You’re scared to fight me, ain’cha? You’re a lily-livered coward!”

Word was spreading throughout the camp, and people were starting to gather. Hannah and Tracie followed Ezra and the Tollivers through the crowd and noticed that the other Cuzaks had pushed their way to the front.

“I’m not afraid of your fists, Dwight!” Solomon said. “But fists won’t settle anything here!”

“Yeah? Well, maybe
this
will!”

There were gasps and shrieks as Dwight pulled a .42 caliber Derringer from his pocket.

Solomon had been in hand-to-hand combat in the Civil War, and now his instincts took over. Despite his game leg, he moved swiftly and seized Dwight’s wrist with surprising strength.

The two men stood face to face with the small pistol between them.

Suddenly a shot cracked the air.

Hannah’s knees went watery and she held her breath as she saw Solomon’s bad leg stiffen and buckle. Blue-white smoke drifted up from between the men’s bodies, and Dwight’s eyes were burning into Solomon’s with pure hatred.

All at once Solomon released his hold on Dwight’s upper arm, and Dwight slowly crumpled to the ground. Solomon took a step back, and Hannah rushed to him, sobbing.

Ezra began to move forward, but Walt pushed him aside and dashed forward to roll Dwight on his back. He released a wild cry, wailing, “He’s dead! He’s dead! My son is dead!”

Vanessa clung to her husband, weeping with emotional exhaustion, as he said, “It’s okay, honey. He won’t bother you ever again.”

Ezra stepped up to Walt Cuzak and said, “No more chances, Walt. You and your sons are out of this train. Take Dwight’s body with you and get out. Now!”

“You can’t do this, Comstock! It ain’t right! It ain’t our fault what Dwight did!”

“I told you before that I was holdin’ you responsible for your boys’ actions. Arguin’ ain’t gonna get you nowhere but deeper in trouble. Get out!”

Walt bristled, letting his hand drop toward his sidearm. He froze at the sound of the dry clicking of hammers from every side. More than a dozen rifles and pistols were aimed at him.

Slowly, Walt moved his hand from the gun butt and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “All right, boys, let’s go. Pick up your brother’s body and put it in one of the wagons.”

While Frank, Edmund, and Gordon hoisted Dwight’s body, Walt glared at Solomon and said, “You haven’t seen the last of us, Cooper. Somewhere along the trail, we’ll get you.”

Walt held Solomon’s stare for a few more seconds, then turned and looked at Tony. He fixed his youngest son with dark, brooding eyes and said, “Well, traitor, you see what your pal the Bible-thumper did to your poor brother? Christians! Nothin’ but pious hypocrites!”

“Pa, Mr. Cooper acted in self-defense, and you know it. Dwight brought it on himself. He’s the one that pulled the gun. If he’d stayed away from Mrs. Tolliver like Ezra told him to, he’d still be alive.”

Walt’s face reddened. “Bah!” he said, and walked toward his wagons.

Everyone remained where they were as the three Cuzak wagons rolled onto the moonlit prairie and headed west.

The spell was broken when Tony moved close to Solomon and said, “My father’s threat was no idle one, Mr. Cooper. He and my brothers will be lying in wait for you somewhere up ahead.”

When the Coopers got back to their wagon, Hannah and Solomon made an effort to distract the children from what had just happened. The fact that both Stuart and Tracie Armstrong had been saved that evening lifted their spirits.

After the Coopers had prayed together, and after much persuasion from Solomon that the Lord was not going to let the Cuzaks kill him, the children finally settled into their bedrolls.

Ezra set up watchmen in shifts throughout the night, in case the Cuzaks decided to come under the cover of darkness. This preventive measure would remain in effect until the train reached Fort Bridger.

The rest of the camp had settled down as Solomon and Hannah sat by their fire, holding on to each other. Tears glistened on Hannah’s cheeks as she said, “Darling, I thought for a moment there—when that gun went off—that it was you who took the bullet. I… I don’t know how I could ever face life without you. I am bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Our lives are so entwined, I wouldn’t want to live if you died.”

“But, sweetheart, you would still have the children to live for if the Lord took me home.”

“Yes, of course. And I love them with everything that’s in me. I didn’t mean—oh, it’s hard to say what I mean.”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

They stayed in each other’s arms for a few more minutes, then kissed goodnight and climbed into their bedrolls beneath the wagon. Tonight the girls were sleeping inside, and the boys slept only inches from their parents.

It wasn’t long until Solomon was breathing evenly, while Hannah still lay wide awake.

She asked the Lord to protect Solomon, then claimed Isaiah 26:3, fixing her mind on the Prince of Peace. Soon the Lord flooded her heart with His own peace, and Hannah Cooper fell asleep.

A
s the wagon train rolled westward along the Platte, the river widened and became more shallow. The buffalo herds were much more numerous along the river banks, and that worried Ezra.

He rode along the line and warned everyone about water contamination. They would have to conserve what water they had and use it only for drinking and cooking until the buffalo herds thinned out.

Solomon Cooper refused to let Walt Cuzak’s threat affect the way he faced each day. He continued to walk beside the wagon Hannah drove, and on some days he rode Nipper. But Hannah found herself studying every clump of brush, every knoll, every stand of trees. Fear often crept into her mind, and then left again when she fixed her mind on the Lord and let Him fill her with His peace.

As each day passed, they could see that more and more buffalo herds had claimed the Platte River as their habitat. Sometimes the herds were a great distance to the west, but since the river’s current flowed east, the wagon train couldn’t risk the possibility of disease carried by the water.

A week after the Cuzak incident, water barrels were getting quite low, despite rationing. When they made camp at the close of the forty-third day since leaving Independence, there were
no buffalo in sight. Ezra walked to the river’s edge and examined the water. There was evidence of contamination, but it was clean enough to wash clothes and bathe.

Ezra called everyone to the central fire. “Now, folks, I know we’re all gettin’ edgy as the water supply drops. I’ve never come this long without bein’ able to use the river water. I had hoped the big herds would be somewhere else by now.

“I’m sure at times you’ve noticed some farms and ranches in the distance…”

Everyone nodded.

“As I recall, there’s a small farm about a mile south of the river a half day’s drive from here. Like all the farms and ranches in these parts, they get their water from wells. When we reach that farm tomorrow, I’ll ask the farmer if he’ll let us fill our barrels. The underground rivers all come from the Rocky Mountains, so there’s plenty of water in the wells—we’re not gonna hurt the farmer by fillin’ our barrels. Another four days after that, we’ll arrive at O’Fallon’s Bluff. There’s a spring there. We’ll be able to load up the barrels again.”

George Winters raised a hand. “Ezra, do you think we’ll have this problem all the way into Wyoming?”

“Don’t think so. We’re just a week from the fork of the North and South Platte. Since we’ll be followin’ the North Platte, I think we’ll be fine. The buffalo ain’t as thick in those parts.”

While the watchmen did their duty throughout the night, the rest of the travelers slept. Solomon took his turn as watchman, staying away from the firelight in case the Cuzaks decided to creep up to the camp.

The wagon train rolled out by seven o’clock the next morning with Solomon riding out front with Ezra.

The Cooper children had asked to ride in other wagons.

Hannah took advantage of the empty wagon to invite Deborah Smith and Tracie Armstrong to ride with her. As a new Christian, Tracie loved to spend time with Hannah, and though Deborah was older in the Lord, she enjoyed being with Hannah, who seemed to have an unusual grasp of the Scriptures.

The two young women were intrigued with Hannah’s explanation of the tranquillity she had in her heart, in spite of circumstances. Hannah expounded on Isaiah 26:3, telling them what a pillar of strength the verse had been to her, not only in the Cuzak situation, but in making the decision to leave Independence and move to Fort Bridger.

“Mrs. Cooper—” Deborah said.

“Hannah. You can call me Hannah.”

“I was going to ask you, Hannah, exactly how is it that you stay your mind on Jesus?”

“What I do is list in my mind all the things I love about Him. That will occupy you for a long time, I assure you. Then I think about Calvary, picturing Him on the cross, dying for Hannah Marie Cooper. You can stay there a long time too. Sometimes I run through my mind everything I can remember from the gospels that came from His lips. Other times I call to mind the many names Jesus is given in Scripture… you know, Son of God, Son of man, Prince of Peace, Lamb of God.…

“When you think on Him this way, your mind is most definitely fixed on Him. And no matter what storms are beating against you, He will give you His perfect peace.”

Up front, Ezra and Solomon were discussing the Cuzaks.

“I don’t know if you should be riding Nipper for the next few days,” Ezra said. “The Cuzaks could hide behind one of these hills around here and try to ambush you.”

Before Solomon could reply, Ezra looked to the southwest and said, “Hey! We’re gettin’ near that farm I was tellin’ the folks about. We can see it from the top of that mound yonder. Let’s you and me go take a gander.”

Ezra turned in the saddle and motioned to Micah that he and Solomon would ride ahead.

As the two men trotted toward the mound, Ezra pointed out some tracks. “Looks like somebody decided to leave the trail. Let’s have a look-see.”