The Lost Wagon Part 26

"Missed," Joe said, and he took refuge in Tad's alibi. "They weren't very big anyhow."

"It's nothing," she said, and Joe thought he detected a catch in her voice. "There'll be other opportunities. You come and have your suppers now."

She had kept their plates warm near the dying fire, and she gave Tad one. The youngster stood up to eat while Emma brought Joe's plate. He looked down at it, potatoes, biscuits, b.u.t.ter, jerked beef that they had bought in Independence, and a cup of coffee. They were his usual full rations, and he said,

"Doggone, I just don't feel hungry. If you'll put this away, it'll be all the lunch I want tomorrow."

Tad said, "I ain't hungry neither, Mom."

"Now see here!" Emma's voice rose and there was a convulsive sob in it.

"Barbara wasn't hungry, Tad isn't hungry, you aren't hungry--! What's the matter with all of you! You've got to eat--you've _got_ to!"

Carefully, Joe put the plate and the cup of coffee on the ground. He caught her in his arms and held her very close to him, and she leaned against him, tense and trembling, without making a sound. His arms tightened about her, and he whispered so even Tad couldn't hear,

"My darling! Oh my darling!"

"I--I'm sorry, Joe."

"Emma," his voice was firm, "I know it's hard. But we'll get out, and I swear that to you by everything that's holy to me!"

Her eyes seemed like live coals as she looked at him.

Miserably Joe said, "Tad, you eat. If you're going to scout up more game you'll have to."

Barbara, who had been putting the younger children to bed, jumped from the wagon to stand comfortingly near her mother. Joe said gently,

"Your mother and I have some things to talk over, honey."

She said uncertainly, "All right."

Joe said, "By the way, you take your meals too, Bobby."

"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 las.h.i.+ng 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 partic.i.p.ated. 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 a.s.suring 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.