Tracy Blalock - Wed On The Wagon Train

Jed shook his head. “I can’t say that I have.”

Mattie cleared her throat and spoke before Adela had a chance. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Smith—”

“Jed,” he inserted.

“Jed. We won’t keep you any longer.”

He tugged his hat brim down lower on his forehead. “Well, I’ll just mosey along and say howdy to some other folks.”

Once he was out of earshot, Mattie turned toward her sister. “You shouldn’t encourage conversation. We must be especially careful that no one discovers the truth.”

Adela pursed her lips. “We’ll draw more attention to ourselves if we refuse to speak to anybody. That will make it seem as if we have something to hide.”

“We do have something to hide.”

“Yes, but we don’t want the others to suspect that.”

Mattie had to concede her sister made a valid point.

Adela waved to a passing woman, who offered them an affable smile. “Besides, chatting helps pass the time.”

“Fine. But please, watch what you say.”

Adela held up one hand as if making a pledge. “I promise not to let words come tumbling out of my mouth with no prompting from my brain. Will that satisfy you?”

“Thank you.”

It quickly became apparent that Jed wasn’t the only person who viewed the delay as an impromptu social gathering. Several others approached her and Adela, including a couple who turned out to be Josiah’s brother and sister-in-law.

Elias Dawson looked to be half a dozen years older than Josiah, but the family resemblance between the two was strong. Blessed with similar good looks, both men were tall and well built. But Mattie estimated Josiah stood an inch or two taller, and his frame carried a bit more muscle than the older man. It was difficult to judge for certain, however, without the pair positioned side by side.

Although a redhead like his brother, Elias’s hair was a darker chestnut than Josiah’s light red-gold hue. The most notable difference between the siblings was that the elder didn’t share the same intense blue eye color that had so struck Mattie the day before. Instead, the older man’s eyes were an ordinary shade of brown.

Rebecca, Elias’s wife, was a petite blonde in her early twenties. She seemed a pleasant woman, with her friendly manner and twin dimples bracketing her charming smile.

Mattie extended the bare minimum of courtesies. Adela, in contrast, chattered on merrily. “You’ll have to excuse Matt. He’s a bit tongue-tied around strangers,” she offered at one point.

Mattie’s stomach was in knots as she agonized over all the things Adela might let slip. But the younger girl skirted around any dangerous topics and steered the conversation toward inconsequential chitchat.

Still, Mattie breathed a sigh of relief when Josiah’s relatives eventually departed.

Time crept by, the minutes turning into hours as they waited their turn to ferry across the river. Mattie’s tension coiled tighter and tighter until she was almost sick with it. If only they were already out on the trail she would feel slightly more at ease. Sitting here, however, she was all too aware that it would be a simple matter for Miles Carpenter to order her and Adela back to Independence. The town was still much too close for her peace of mind.

And it didn’t help that the line of covered wagons inched ahead at a snail’s pace. Every so often she prodded the team into motion and the wagon rolled forward, only to come to a standstill again after a few short feet. This pattern was repeated again and again as morning gave way to afternoon. Until, finally, there was a single covered wagon left in front of them.

“You’re beautiful,” a child’s voice piped up, snagging Mattie’s attention.

She shifted her gaze and spotted a little girl of about five standing beside their wagon, staring at Adela in rapt awe. “Are you a princess?”

Adela laughed in delight. “No. But thank you for the lovely compliment.”

“Sarah Jane Baker, come away from there!” A woman with the same light brown hair and hazel eyes as the little girl rushed over and caught the child’s arm in a firm grasp. “Don’t bother the fine lady.”

“But, Mama,” Sarah Jane protested, tugging against her mother’s hold.

Adela offered mother and daughter a wide smile. “She’s not a bother.”

Mrs. Baker seemed momentarily stunned by Adela’s dazzling expression, but quickly recovered her wits and hastened her child away.

A piercing whistle rent the air, drawing Mattie’s attention to the man waving her forward. It was their turn to board the wooden ferry, at last.

But she immediately hit a snag when she tried to get the oxen in motion. After countless starts and stops, they weren’t inclined to budge any farther. And she had no idea how to persuade them. Though plenty of men used whips to control their teams, she hesitated to do so.

“Get up,” she urged, but to no avail.

One animal stamped his foot, but the team didn’t move forward.

Climbing down from the wagon seat, she walked to the head of one of the oxen and tugged on the U-shaped metal piece encircling his neck. Still nothing.

She didn’t have the strength to muscle him where he didn’t want to go. To make matters worse, he shook his head as though silently scoffing at her puny efforts.

“You’re making me look bad,” she scolded the recalcitrant beast. “Come on, cooperate. Please?”

All she got in response was an ear twitch.

“Hurry up!” a man yelled behind her, his British accent instantly recognizable.

Couldn’t he see she was trying? If he was in such an all-fired rush, he should offer his assistance instead of just shouting orders. But he no doubt considered it beneath him to help others.

Mattie wished her father had chosen horses to pull the covered wagon. She prided herself on her ability as a horsewoman. They would have given her no trouble. But horses couldn’t live off prairie grasses like oxen. And oxen were supposed to be more reliable—though, apparently, someone had forgotten to tell her team.

Lord, please move these oxen.

Josiah appeared at her side as if in answer to her prayer. “Need some help?”

Though it wasn’t what she’d meant when she’d appealed to the Lord, she wasn’t going to question His ways. “Yes, please,” she accepted in relief.

He gave the animal’s rump a light tap, which was enough to get him moving, and the rest of the team followed behind as docile as lambs, trailing Josiah onto the ferry.

Her cheeks heated.

What had she done wrong? She had no experience with driving a wagon. Had the oxen sensed that? If she couldn’t control her team, she’d be subjected to dangerous scrutiny. It felt like dozens of eyes were focused on her even now, and she pulled the brim of her hat lower over her face.

Once the wagon wheels rolled onto the wooden planks, Josiah hopped back down to the ground. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” Mattie stepped onto the ferry then glanced back in time to see Josiah heading toward an area where several horses were penned.

When he reached the fence, he paused to stroke the nose of one animal. It was a different horse than the one she’d seen him riding yesterday.

The wind tousled his bright hair, causing a lock to fall over his forehead. He was one of the most handsome men she’d ever met.

But good looks could hide a multitude of sins, as she knew from personal experience. Even months later, she still sometimes had nightmares about what her life would be like if she’d married Charles Worthington back in Saint Louis. She touched her cheek, where a tiny scar served as a permanent reminder to look beneath the surface.

Josiah appeared to be a truly good man—stepping in on two separate occasions to help her out—but she’d been fooled before and wouldn’t naively trust that he was everything he seemed.