"I really wasn't hungry."
"You'd best take 'em anyhow."
He picked up the plate of food and the cup of coffee and led Emma into
the shadows away from the fire. Gently he turned to face her.
"How much did you eat?"
"I--I wasn't hungry."
He cut a slice of meat and used the fork to try to put it into her
mouth. Her self-control went, and she broke into deep, painful sobbing.
"Why did you bring us to this terrible place?" she choked out. "What
right did you have to take us away from our home? You--a father--to
bring six children out here into this mud--four helpless little
ones--this--this horrible _wilderness_!" The words were torn from her,
her whole body shook with the violence of her feelings. "You were
willing to take a chance, weren't you? But how about us! What if we
starve to death out here! How will you feel when there is _nothing_ to
eat--nothing for the babies, nothing for any of us? Joe, Joe, what have
you done to us!"
Now the sobs racked her so that she could speak no more.
Joe had placed the cup and plate on the ground, and now he stood silent,
alone, his head hanging low. He made no move to touch her. Under her
lashing all his courage had fled. He did not know his own mind. Likely
he was all wrong to have come out here. He was lost, and his family was
lost with him.
She dashed the tears furiously out of her eyes, and then suddenly she
saw him. As though she had been blind before, seeing only the children,
their hunger, now she opened her eyes and saw Joe. She saw what her
attack was doing to him. Helplessly, she looked at his stooped
shoulders, at his hands hanging lifeless. A knife of pain turned in her
chest. Everything that Joe had done, he had done for all of them. The
trip was to bring all of them to a new and better place. If Joe had more
hankering than other men had for an independent life, didn't that make
him a better father too, a man for the children to look up to? Why, she
was attacking the very courage that made Joe Tower the fine man that he
was, the fine father, the brave and loving husband.
Her fears did not disappear, but something bigger and more important
than fear flowed into her. Her sobs stopped. She went to Joe and put her
arms around his neck.
"I've been going on like a loon, Joe," she said.
He raised his face, and looked at her, bewildered.
"Seems as though sometimes I get an overdose of feeling, and an
underdose of sense." She laughed shakily. "We're going to a better life,
Joe, and no matter what I say, I know that from the bottom of my heart.
No matter what we have to go through on the way--we'll look back at
this, my darling, and have a good laugh over it, some day!"
An enormous relief came to his face. His shoulders straightened, and he
took her in his arms. "You do trust me, Emma?" he asked, huskily.
For answer, she kissed him on the lips. The kiss told him everything he
needed to know.
He took up the plate of food, divided the food exactly in half and,
dutifully, he and Emma finished every morsel. They each drank exactly
half of the coffee, smiling tremulously at each other over the rim of
the cup.
They returned to the children then.
Joe brought a bucket of water and a handful of sand from the Platte, and
they scrubbed their dishes clean. Back in the wagon, Joe let the drop
curtain fall, removed his mud-stained outer garments, and lay with his
sons curled close on one side of the curtain while Emma joined her
daughters on the other. It was the best arrangement now; the fire
offered little comfort and there was no point in just standing around
outside. Joe looked to his rifle, and made sure that it was within easy
reach of his hand. They had seen few Indians so far and all of them had
been peaceful. But they might run into hostiles.
Underneath the wagon, Mike moaned fretfully in his sleep as he dreamed
of some happy hunt in which he and Tad had participated. Joe felt a
little easier. The dog ate his share of food and so far he had been
unable to get any for himself. But he was courageous, and almost
certainly he would give the alarm if anything tried to approach them in
the night. Joe pulled the quilts up around his chin and settled into the
warm bed.
"There was a little wagon going to Oregon," he began.
On both sides of the curtain little pairs of ears were attentive, and
eyes stared expectantly into the darkness of the wagon. Joe continued
his story.
By sheer coincidence the little wagon in the story had the same number
of children in it that this wagon carried. But the mules were stubborn
and would not pull. Even a carrot dangled in front of their noses would
not make them move. They wanted to go back to Missouri. Finally the
children in the little wagon had a happy inspiration. They stood where
the mules could hear them--these mules could understand children
talk--and had a great argument. They wanted to go back to Missouri too.
But the mules did not know the right way. Calling good bye to the mules,
and assuring them that they were going to Missouri, the children started
walking toward Oregon. The mules looked at each other, decided they'd
been wrong, and followed the children all the way. When they got there,
they liked Oregon so well that they no longer wanted to go anywhere.
On the other side of the curtain little Emma said sleepily, "That was a
nice story, Daddy."
Little Joe yawned prodigiously and Alfred and Carlyle snuggled a bit
closer to their father. Tad whispered,
"Pa."
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry we didn't get us an antelope."
"So am I."
"But we'll get one, huh?"
"Sure we will. Don't talk any more now. The kids are going to sleep."
"All right, Pa."
Joe tried to sense whether, on the other side of the curtain, Emma still
lay awake. He had a feeling that she did, but he did not want to whisper
to her and risk awakening her if she was asleep. He stared at the
blackness over him.
Grandpa Seeley had told him as much as any man could tell another about
going to Oregon. But no man could really know unless he tried the
journey himself; how could Grandpa Seeley have forecast the rain and the
sea of mud? Joe stirred uneasily. He had, in a very real sense,
appointed himself the guardian of seven lives and he knew very well that
those lives were now in danger. Their supplies were dangerously low and
it was still an undetermined distance to Laramie. In that moment Joe
wished mightily that they had never come, and he knew that, if he could,
he would turn back. Now they might better go on. Laramie was certainly
closer than Independence or Kearney and there was nothing for Joe at
Kearney. The die was cast. They had made their choice.
The curtain rustled and Emma's hand came through, searching in the dark
for her husband. Tenderly, Joe took the proffered hand, and she
whispered,
"Joe, it will be all right."