Blood on the Wagon Trail (Preview)

Prologue

Greenhill, Nebraska 

1855

“Gah!”

Thomas Ward reached up to grab a tree branch with one hand and clutched the wound in his ribs with the other. He was shot, losing blood, fighting to stay conscious.

It was black dark midnight and he couldn’t see where he was going. His wound burned like a hot poker was ramming into his ribs, but he couldn’t stop. Because he was the sheriff of Greenhill, and Greenhill was on fire.

He raised bleary eyes. An inferno roared up to the sky where Greenhill used to be, and faint shouts and screams wafted to him on the night air. He pushed forward, staggering through the underbrush. He’d heard stories of towns getting treed by outlaws, but he’d never seen it before, and he’d sure never dreamed it could happen to his town.

To people who depended on him to protect them.

A branch beside him exploded as a bullet hit it, and he ducked reflexively, biting back a curse. Thomas turned to glare over his shoulder at his invisible tormentor.

“Keep going!” the voice bawled at him, then broke out into raucous laughter. “Run, big man! Run, Sheriff! Tuck that tail between your legs and light a shuck out of here!”

Another branch splintered beside his head, and Thomas groaned and dragged himself on for a few more yards.

He wanted to help his neighbors, his friends, but he could only stumble along, gasping and grabbing for whatever would hold him up. He lurched from tree to tree with one hand clapped to his ribs, and slowly the screen of trees opened up to reveal Greenhill’s death throes with horrifying clarity.

The whole main street was engulfed. Every roof was on fire: the brick courthouse they’d just finished building, the café where he had breakfast every morning, the church, the schoolhouse, the undertaker’s. Orange flames belched from every window and were the hideous backdrop for what was going on in the streets. Black silhouettes fled in every direction from laughing bandits: old men were being shot down, little children were being choked, women were fighting crazily to keep the monsters from throwing them to the ground.

Hot tears scalded Thomas’s face as he stood there and watched, because he was helpless to save them. His eyes widened in horror when he saw a figure burst from the burning general store and run down the street. The man was on fire, and Thomas gasped to realize that it was Burt Miller, the store owner, a man he’d known for twenty years. He watched in agony as Burt fell face down on the road and died before his eyes.

His face twisted. He bent down and wept as something inside him broke. He would’ve stayed there for hours, weeping, if he hadn’t seen something move under the porch of the tailor’s shop across the street. Thomas dragged a hand across his blurred eyes. It was Jane, Burt Miller’s little granddaughter. She’d pulled herself into a small, terrified knot under the porch, too scared to come out.

Thomas looked up. The building over her was burning, and he dragged himself over to where she was and knelt down with a groan of agony. He hadn’t been able to save Burt, but maybe he could save Burt’s grandchild.

He gasped, “Janie, it’s Sheriff Ward. You gotta come out from under there, you’ll burn up!”

She looked up at him, her eyes dark and huge with fear. She shook her head, and he groaned.

“You got to, Janie. You’ll burn up. I’m here with you. Come on out.”

He held out his hand. Janie looked at the street, and then at him.

“Quick, now!”

She suddenly darted out from under the porch and grabbed his hand, clung to it. He took her by one shoulder and gasped, “Go hide in the woods. Stay there until tomorrow morning, then high-tail it to Taylorville as fast as you can. Tell the folks there what happened. They’ll take care of you.”

Her mouth crumpled up. “I’m scared. I don’t wanna go into the woods. It’s dark out there!”

Thomas forced himself to stare sternly into her eyes. “You got to be strong, Janie. If you don’t do as I say, those bad men are gonna catch you and kill you. Do you understand me?”

She stared up at him in terror, then darted around the building and into the darkness beyond. He watched her go with a burning heart, but he didn’t have time for pity.

He heard boots walking toward him, and he pulled himself up and turned to face them. It was his relentless enemy, the bandit who’d ruined his life and burned his town and murdered his neighbors.

His brother, Otto.

His brother was a fearsome figure in the red glow of the firelight. Otto’s bald head, gray-brown beard, and eye patch made him look like a bandit out of a dime store novel. He tucked his revolver into his belt as he approached, then pulled back and kicked Thomas in the ribs as he crouched on the shop steps.

Thomas shouted in pain and doubled up on the ground as his pitiless brother stared down at him in triumph. When he could draw enough breath to form words, Thomas groaned, “If you want to kill me, kill me and get it over with! What have these people done to you?”

Otto pulled the eye patch off his head and pointed to the empty socket beneath. “Look at me!” he demanded. “Look at this hole where my eye should be!”

A shrill scream clawed the air from somewhere behind them, and Thomas groaned, “For pity’s sake, call off your men! Leave these innocent people alone!”
Otto turned to glance in the direction of the scream. “It’s a little too late for that,” he observed dryly. “And anyway, I have no intention of killing you. I want you to suffer all your life, like I have. I want you to pay, and I’m gonna make sure you do. No matter where you go or what you do, I’ll be right behind you. I’ll do this as many times as I have to!”

He punctuated the words with another savage kick, this time to the head. Thomas felt a lightning bolt of pain, and then nothing.

Chapter One

Three years later

Independence, Missouri

“Hey! Hey, Thomas, you in there?”

Fierce knocking at this door made Thomas mumble and stir in bed. The movement knocked an empty whiskey bottle off his chest, and it clattered onto the floor and rolled away.

“Thomas, open up!”

Thomas pulled his hands over his face and groaned. His head felt as big as a bushel basket and his mouth was as dry as gunpowder, but he rolled off the bed, hit the floor, and slowly pulled himself up again.

He staggered to his feet, then listed sideways to the door of his room. He was still in his long johns, and he was staying in a boarding house, but he yanked the door open anyway. His grumpy business partner, Thurgood Potts, was standing in the hall outside. Thurgood was every day of seventy-five and irritated about it.

He crossed his arms and nodded at him. “Go dunk your head and get dressed. We got to meet our clients at the stables in fifteen minutes.”

Thomas ran a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me that was today?”

“I did tell you, but you were too drunk to remember. Go clean up, we don’t have much time!”

“Oh, all right.” Thomas lurched off to the washstand and looked at his bleary reflection in the mirror. A fifty-ish man stared back at him with dull eyes, a slack jaw, and an unshaven chin. He poured water into the basin and splashed his face with cold water.

Thurgood came strolling in, sniffed the air, and wrinkled his nose. “You smell like a polecat,” he complained. “When was the last time you took a bath?” He sauntered over to the washstand and tossed a towel toward him. “You better wash as good as you can before you come meet our clients,” he drawled, “or they’ll buck at the thought of traveling with you for the better part of a year.”

Thomas splashed his face, and when he looked up, Thurgood was gone. He walked over to close the door, then unbuttoned his shirt to scrub up.

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at the stables still mostly asleep and with a throbbing headache. A group a little shy of a hundred settlers was waiting for him, mostly families with young children. He stopped in front of the horse trough, and as they watched he bent down and dunked his head in it. He straightened up, shook beads of water from his long hair and beard, and belched. One of the women in the group made a soft scoffing sound and he made accidental eye contact with her. He cracked a grin to see her cross her arms and look away.

“All of you for the wagon train, come over here and form a circle,” he shouted. They looked at one another, then at him. But they finally came over to circle around him, slowly and with apparent reluctance.

Thomas straightened up and slicked his wet hair back from his brow before announcing, “My name is Thomas Ward, and that’s my partner Thurgood Potts over there.”

He nodded toward Thurgood, who was leaning against a post with his arms crossed. All eyes turned to Thurgood, who stared back with a dour expression. Thurgood was bald except for a horseshoe ring of gray hair and had an intimidating mustache, and some of the little children retreated behind their mothers’ skirts.

“We will be your guides on this wagon train. The trip to Oregon may take up to six months. We will do our best to make it a safe journey, but we can’t guarantee your survival,” Thomas stressed, and moved his eyes from one face to another. “It’s our duty to make you understand the dangers of this trip. The Oregon Trail is two thousand miles long. It is an arduous journey, and you will walk most of the way. You will endure blazing heat, freezing cold, dangerous river crossings, storms, and the possibility of attack by bandits or hostile Indians.”

A dismayed murmur eddied around the group, and Thomas paused to let his words sink in. After a few moments, he went on.

“There is also the possibility of fatal illness or injury. Folks have been killed when they fell from moving wagons and got run over, or kicked by oxen or horses, or even picked off by wild animals. Whole trains have been wiped out by cholera, and many have died from dysentery and typhoid.”

A stricken silence fell on the crowd, and Thomas forged on. “Thurgood and me appreciate your trust, and that you paid half up front. But if there’s any that wants to back out, now’s the time. Everybody needs to be real sure they want to go before we set out. If you wanna pull out, we’ll refund your money, and no hard feelings.”

He paused and scanned the crowd. They turned to one another, and some talked softly. Thomas waited and let them talk. If being a trail guide had taught him anything, it was that anybody who went on the Oregon Trail needed to want to go real bad, because they were going to suffer for it.

He glanced at Thurgood. His partner looked impatient, and Thomas rubbed his nose to hide a smile. This was gonna be their last trip, and he could tell Thurgood was as anxious to get it over with as he was himself. When they got to Oregon this time, they were selling their stock and their business. They were both too old to be going cross-country in a wagon. Thurgood didn’t act it, but he was downright elderly. And he was pushing fifty himself.

Yeah, this was gonna be their last trip. Thomas scanned the crowd of settlers to see what kind of people they were getting their last time out. Most of them looked up to it: farmers and farm wives, a few sturdy shopkeepers, a couple of men who looked like blacksmiths.

His gaze skimmed over a small family on the edge of the crowd and snagged there. The man was in his thirties, fair, with a kind face and thoughtful eyes. His wife was dark and pretty, and they had a little girl about six years old.

Thomas frowned slightly. The man looked like he’d never held a shovel or a hammer in his life, and he always worried about families with small children.

“Anybody wanna back out, they should do it now,” he called out, with his eyes on the little family. “Last chance!”

A man at the back raised his hand and his voice. “I’m backing out,” he called and pointed at him. “I don’t got no confidence in a guide who shows up stinking drunk. If you can’t stay sober setting out, what’re you gonna be like once we get out into the wilderness? Gimme my money back!”

A murmur circled around the crowd, and Thomas felt his face go hot with shame. Every eye was on him, and to his gratitude, Thurgood reared up and fetched the man the verbal equivalent of a slug across the jaw.

“We’ll be glad to give you your money back,” he retorted. “But this man’s one of the best guides in this business, and I won’t hear a word against him. He knows every inch of the trail and has saved my life more times than I can count. I don’t care if he likes his whiskey. It’s never interfered with what he has to do. I’ll bet you get a snootful now and then, too,” he added, with a nod toward the man. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that!”

Laughter rose up from the crowd, but the man pushed to the front, followed by his wife and children. Thurgood reached into his back pocket and counted bills out into the man’s outstretched hand.

Thomas put his hands in his pockets and stared down at the ground, because he couldn’t bring himself to meet the doubtful eyes of the crowd. It was true he drank too much. He didn’t try to hide it, but he wasn’t proud of it, either.

He did it because he needed that whiskey to blot out his memories.

“There you go!” Thurgood announced, and turned to face the crowd as the disgruntled man left. “Anybody else want to pull out?”

Thomas stared at the ground, heart pounding, as the moment stretched out. But to his relief, there were no more objections, and Thurgood finally called, “All right then! Everybody have their wagons stocked and ready and back here at dawn tomorrow morning. We’ll go down to the river crossing as soon as everybody’s here.”

The crowd broke up, and Thurgood came over to clap a hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” he urged, with a nod toward a nearby saloon. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

But Thomas shook his head. “No thanks,” he mumbled, and he walked back to his boarding house room with his eyes on the ground.

Chapter Two

“Woooo-hooooooo!”

The hollow whistle of the Dorathea Riley echoed over the water, and Thomas watched it dock on the river’s edge the next morning. The broad gray sheet of the cold Missouri River stretched out in front of him, still shrouded in morning fog. The shore was lined with ghostly ferries of all kinds: everything from grand three-story steamboats to crude wooden rafts. Ferrymen were bustling about, preparing for the crush of travelers once the gates were open, hauling on ropes and untying rafts.

Behind him, the landscape was crowded with covered wagons, oxen, horses, mules, and people. The scent of frying bacon wafted to him on the breeze, and all around him the sound of children calling, and their mommas answering, and men talking, and somebody singing, filled the air.

Every year it was the same: hundreds of trains full of impatient settlers crowded the banks of the Missouri River, waiting their turn to be ferried across. Some got mad because they had to wait, but it was no use to get all hot and bothered about it. How fast they got across depended on the number of ferries, the number of wagons, and who was there ahead of them.

Thomas leaned on the wagon wheel and gazed across the crowd in satisfaction. This was the part of his job he liked the best: standing in the middle of a mighty crowd, where nobody knew him and he didn’t know anybody else. It was almost like he was invisible, and that suited him just fine.

It had been three years since he’d seen his brother Otto, and he credited that to the job he’d chosen. He was always on the move, always with a pack of strangers who were headed clear across the country, and it made him real hard to find. So hard, in fact, that he was beginning to hope he’d never see Otto again.

But it hadn’t been near long enough to make him forget, and every time he saw a bald man, his gut twisted into a knot. Thomas reached into his jacket, pulled out a bottle of whiskey, and turned it up to take a long, deep pull. He sighed deeply and wiped his mouth, sticking the bottle back into his jacket as one of his clients walked up.

He was surprised to see that it was the blond man, the one who looked like a grocer. Thomas straightened up. He hoped the fellow was there to tell him that he’d changed his mind and wanted his money back. Men who looked like grocers usually died before they got halfway to Oregon.

“Good morning, Mr. Ward.”

Thomas frowned and searched his memory for the man’s name. He might’ve been told while he was drunk.

“Morning.”

The younger man clasped his hands in front of him. “I just wanted to introduce myself and to thank you for leading our train. I imagine it’s a very challenging job, and I appreciate you taking it on.”

Thomas blinked at him. He couldn’t remember the last time somebody had thanked him. “Well, ah… you’re welcome.”

“My name is Richard Holley. You might’ve seen my wife Jennifer and my daughter Lily.”

“Umm.”

“We’re on our way to the Baptist Mission in Portland, Oregon. I’m a minister of the gospel, and I’ll be working there.”
Thomas stared at the preacher in dismay and wondered if the smell of whiskey was still on his breath. He put a hand to his mouth.

Richard smiled at him. “I also wanted to offer my services while I’m part of this wagon train. If anyone wants a minister to pray with them, or to officiate anything, I’ll be happy to do it.”

Thomas nodded. “That’s real nice of you, Reverend. I’ll get the word out.” He rubbed his chin and gave the other man a thoughtful look. “You’re set on going, are you?”

The other man looked surprised. “Why, certainly, Mr. Ward. I’ve committed to taking the position at the mission. They don’t have anyone else. I can’t back out now.”

Thomas nodded glumly and swallowed a sigh. “As long as you’re settled in your mind, Reverend.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Thomas shot the other man a startled glance. “Ah… not that I can think of right now. If I do think of something, I’ll let you know.”

“Well, I stand ready to help if anything comes up.” Reverend Baker nodded. “My door is always open. Or my wagon,” he added with a laugh. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Ward.”

“Good to talk to you, Pastor.”

Thomas waited until the other man had disappeared around the back of his wagon, then exhaled in a long, silent sigh. It was probably a good thing to have a minister on the trail. Some of the people who were starting out so hopeful that morning were going to die on the way, and it’d be a comfort to have a preacher to say a few words at the burial.

He’d never been able to do it himself. Death didn’t used to spook him, but it did now. He could hardly stand to look at a dead body, and the thought of it made him reach for the whiskey bottle again.

The one thing that comforted him was knowing that it was going to be the last time. He was hanging it up and settling down in Oregon for good.

Oregon was far enough away from Nebraska that maybe he could live the rest of his life in peace.

Chapter Three

As Thomas had expected, the ferry traffic that morning was heavy. Breakfast came and went, lunch arrived, and they were still waiting on the bank at mid-afternoon. Thomas was experienced enough to have come prepared. He and Thurgood were sitting on the ground beside his wagon playing a quiet game of poker when a shout disrupted their game.

“Thomas!”

He leaned back and looked over his shoulder. Joe Franklin’s freckled face appeared around the side of his wagon. Joe was a good kid, barely eighteen. He’d proved himself such a good hand to work that him and Thurgood had been talking about cutting him in when they sold the business.

“Something wrong?”

Joe scratched his neck and looked troubled. “Nothing wrong, exactly,” he replied. “There’s a man who wants to join the train. Funny-looking fellow with a top hat and an English accent. Says he’s willing to pay extra to go, but he ain’t got a wagon.”

Thurgood raised his bushy brows in surprise. “How much extra?”

Thomas turned to him and jerked a thumb toward the back of the train. “You know we can’t take a man with no wagon,” he objected. “Who’s he gonna sleep with?”

Thurgood turned his eyes to the kid. “How much was he willing to pay?”

“Double the rate, he says.”

At that, they both raised their brows, and Thurgood laughed. “For that kind of money, he can sleep in your wagon, Joe.”

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“It won’t be forever. We all have to make sacrifices on this trip,” Thurgood replied piously. “What’s his name?”

Joe gave him a glum look. “Sebastian Carr.”

Thurgood laughed out loud, and Thomas rubbed his nose to hide a smile. “Sebastian!” Thurgood crowed. “Sounds like one of them fancy English butlers. But if he’s got the money, we’ve got the wagon. Call him over, and we’ll make medicine.”

Joe walked off, and Thurgood turned to Thomas excitedly. “That’s a stroke of luck. Nice little bonus at the end of the trail!”

Thomas stuck his hands on his hips and glanced back in the direction Joe had gone. He hadn’t been a sheriff for three years, but his instincts were telling him something was fishy. “It don’t figure,” he grumbled. “I hope this fellow’s not running from the law or something. That’d be about our luck.”

“Well, for twice the fare we can afford to mind our own business,” Thurgood retorted. “Look, here he comes.”

Thomas turned to see a tall, oddly scruffy-looking man come trailing behind Joe. He was dressed like a dude, but his suit and his hat were all scuffed up, and the elbows of his jacket were shiny and threadbare. He looked like a man who was down on his luck, and it didn’t figure that he’d have the money to pay double fare.

Unless he’d stolen the money, which would also explain why he was in a hurry to skip town. Thomas’s instincts formed a ball in his chest that griped him like heartburn. He crossed his arms.

Thurgood hailed him cheerfully. “Afternoon, friend! Joe here tells us that you want to join our train.”

“That’s right,” the man panted. He’d been hurrying and was slightly out of breath. He put a hand to his chest and shook his head. “I know it’s unorthodox, but I only need the ride.”

Thomas frowned at him. “You ain’t gonna be riding. You’re gonna to be walking most of the way. And if you don’t have a wagon, you don’t have a place to sleep. That matters when it’s raining or cold.”

“Oh, I’m willing to sleep rough,” the man replied stoutly. “I understand that the family men in a train usually sleep under the wagons anyway, to let the ladies sleep inside. Isn’t that right?”

Thomas pinched his mouth into an irritated line. “Well, yes, but—”

Thurgood waved his objection away. “Oh, there’s no problem, Mr. Carr! You can ride in Joe’s wagon if you need to. Joe told us you were willing to pay extra for the late notice and inconvenience.”

“That I am,” Carr replied, and reached into his jacket. He produced a heavy bag from an interior pocket and poured silver coins into his palm. “Double the going rate is what I offered, and I’m a man of my word.”

Thomas sucked his teeth and glowered at him. His instincts were screaming that this was probably the start of something bad, but he couldn’t prove the man was a crook, and Thurgood wouldn’t listen to him unless he could.

Thurgood pocketed the silver with a wide, satisfied grin. “Well! That settles that. Joe, why don’t you take him back to your wagon. We’ll be starting any minute now.”

Joe gave him a glum look but jerked a thumb toward the back of the train. “Come on, Mr. Carr. My wagon’s the last in the line.”

“Oh, call me Sebastian.”

Thomas frowned at them as they walked off. “We’re gonna rue the day we let him come along, you mark my words. Nothing about him makes sense. If he’s got all that money, why doesn’t he have a wagon?”

Thurgood shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t have time to get one.”

“That’s another question. Why’s he in such a hurry that he needs to pay double?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. You worry too much.” Thurgood came over to slap him on the shoulder. “We have enough real things to worry about to start borrowing trouble.”

Thomas shut his mouth, because that sure was the truth. He couldn’t deny it.

Thurgood glanced over his shoulder and pointed toward a ferryman waving at them. “Looks like it’s our turn at last.” He climbed up into the wagon seat, stood up, and blew a horn. Every settler within sight looked up as he called:

“Line up to cross the river! Wagons ho!”

Chapter Four

Thomas urged his oxen forward with a flick of the whip. His wagon had drawn a log raft ferry, the crudest kind there was, and even though he’d crossed the Missouri a dozen times, he never got used to crossing it this way.

The oxen stepped out onto the raft as the ferryman led them on, and it dipped down almost to the level of the water. A bit of water sloshed over the sides as the groaning wagon rolled out onto the raft, and Thomas eyed it uneasily.

The ferry was tied to ropes stretching across the river, and the ferryman slowly began to haul the raft over. Thomas looked back over his shoulder as the raft set off. The faces watching him from the bank were hopeful, nervous, and scared, and it always touched his heart. He knew what it was like to be scared out of his wits and to have to keep going in spite of it.

His eye fell on a young couple sitting together on the seat of their wagon. They were both gazing out across the river with that combination of hope and fear, and something stirred in Thomas’ chest. It reminded him of when he and Ada had first gotten married. When they’d just gotten to Nebraska and had to build a sod house that first year.

He turned around and smiled a bit. That had been a lifetime ago. He’d been a different man, so full of hope for the future. Then they’d lost their baby, and their first crop, and he’d had to take a job as a sheriff to make money. They’d done all right for a few years, and then that terrible winter had hit, and he’d lost Ada to a raging epidemic that had taken out half the town.

Years ago, now.

Thomas gazed out to the far shore wistfully. It felt like so long ago that it was almost like remembering someone else’s life. Sometimes he missed Ada still, especially of an evening, but that wound had mostly healed. He’d never married again, and the way things had turned out, he was glad he hadn’t.

His thoughts turned to the future. When they got to Oregon, he was gonna settle down in a little cabin out in the woods somewhere and only go to town for supplies once or twice a year. He’d gotten used to his own company in the last three years, and now he preferred it.

The raft jerked suddenly, and Thomas was yanked rudely back to the present. The log raft ferry was always a bumpy ride. Slowly, the far bank of the river approached, and when the ferryman let the gate down with a splash, Thomas felt the familiar rush of relief that always swept him when he got off the river.

Thurgood was already across, and he’d parked his wagon to one side of the landing to wave their people on to the meeting place they’d chosen on the Kansas side. It was a broad, grassy meadow on the brow of the hill overlooking the river, a pretty place that always caught a nice breeze.

Thomas sent his oxen up the well-worn track up the hill. When he got to the top, he brought his wagon to a halt near the edge of the meadow, a place overlooking the river. It was a good place to spend the first night. Plenty of sweet grass for the animals to graze, plenty of water to fill up their barrels, and time enough to fish on the riverbank, for the folks who wanted to. He was going to be one of them.

He watched as the other wagons in their train were ferried across, saw them make their way up the hill. He waved them up to the grassy meadow, then climbed down from the wagon and showed them where to corral their animals for the night.

Soon there was a big camp full of wagons and people and animals, and he got busy organizing it: getting the corral roped off, showing folks where to park their wagons, showing them the pig trail down the bluff to the river and the best place to throw in a line. He’d done it so many times he had the speech memorized, and so far the start of their journey had gone off without a hitch. Nobody was sick, nobody had fallen off the ferry into the river, nobody was already talking about turning back. All of those things had happened before, and he was grateful for small favors.

* * * * *

By nightfall, everybody had their wagons and animals tucked in for the night, and the women were busy over a couple of dozen fires, cooking dinner. More than half of them were fish dinners, and the scent of cornmeal-battered trout frying in oil filled the air. Soon the wagons began to glow like yellow lanterns, and folks gathered together to eat and talk and sing a little before they turned in for bed.

Thomas shared his meal with Thurgood and Joe, like they usually did. When they’d finished their meal, they drew straws to see who’d pull lookout duty that night, and Joe drew the short one. He groaned, but they laughed at him. It wasn’t like they were in danger surrounded by dozens of other wagon trains.

Thomas stayed up a little later than usual, making sure everybody got squared away, answering questions, getting to know the settlers. He already knew the reverend and his family, but there was a German family who spoke broken English, an elderly couple with their little grandson, three related families from Virginia with a bunch of young men, and several middle-aged couples with older children.

In short, it was just the same as usual, and Thomas found the predictability of the routine comforting. When things were predictable, they were going smoothly, and that was the way he liked it.

When he climbed into his own wagon at last, he pulled the covers up to his ears with a sigh of satisfaction. They were getting underway at last, and every day that passed put him a day closer to that cabin in the Oregon woods where he could live in peace.

But when he fell asleep, his dreams were troubled in spite of it. In his dreams, he looked back from the ferry to see a bald man with an eye patch glaring at him from the eastern shore.