The Lost Wagon Part 8

"Elias, you can take a long running jump into the nearest duck pond."

Without looking back and without entering the store, he turned and strode through the darkness toward his house. A man who turned his back on the land almost turned his back on G.o.d too. But one who risked everything his family had was not a man at all. Joe entered the house.

Emma was sewing at the table and she looked up, and concern flooded her eyes.

"Was there n.o.body at the store?"

"I didn't go. I met Elias."

Emma waited expectantly. For a short s.p.a.ce Joe strode up and down the floor. Then he turned to face her.

"Elias offered to carry us another year. All he wants is a mortgage on everything that isn't already mortgaged to him."

Emma gaped, and Joe said quickly, "I told him to--I told him no."

She half rose out of her chair. "Joe, maybe you should have--"

"No!" he interrupted almost fiercely. "I won't do it! We're in debt as far as we're ever going to be! Some things will remain ours!"

There was a short silence while both pursued their own thoughts. Emma turned a worried face to him.

"Do you think you can make another crop?"

Joe looked at Emma and then he looked beyond her. Outside the night was black, but in his mind's eye he could clearly see the ravaged fields. In his muscles he could feel the ache of the plowing and the planting of the new crop. In the pit of his stomach he could already feel the pain and rage that he would feel if the new crop should be destroyed by frost.

Emma waited, and then she got to her feet with an anxious haste. "Pete Domley will pay for the seed, Joe. Barbara and I can help with the planting."

Now suddenly he didn't want to comfort her any more, nor to bolster up her hopes about the new crop. This was a time for facing facts.

"Emma," he said, and his lips felt dry and tight with the effort to control himself. "Emma, there's free land for the taking in the west."

She drew back as though she had been slapped. "That's a dream, Joe. A bright dream."

"It's not a dream," he said. "It's real land, and real people are going out there to live on it."

She clasped her hands in front of her, and he saw that they were trembling. Yet he made no move to go to her.

"We can't do it," she said. "Don't you see we can't do it? We've got six children to think about."

"Other people are doing it with children," he said doggedly.

"You can't make me do it!" she said wildly. "I'm not going to leave this house--not ever. We'll make out somehow. If need be, Pete Domley will take you on for a year--he owes you that after what happened."

The mighty storm that had been brewing in him broke now, and he lashed out at her. "I'm not going to be a hired man again, do you hear! I finished with that, and I'm not going back to it!"

His voice, harsh and loud, shattered Emma's self-control. She had always known that Joe could be angry, but never before had his anger been directed against herself. She went white, swayed for a moment, and then went unsteadily to the window. She stood clinging to the sill, staring out into the blackness.

He watched her in silence. Then he went to her, turned her around and made her look at him.

"Emma," he said through the pain in his throat. "You don't want me to be a hired man again, do you, Emma?"

Her eyes filled with tears and she tried to speak. No sound came, but she shook her head, No.

His voice grew humble now. He was deeply puzzled, and he begged her for an answer that he could understand. "Why are you so much against the west? Tell me truly. Tell me."

She found her voice. "I'm not against the west. I'm against leaving our home. I want to stay here. I--I hoped we could live here forever. I--I'm afraid, Joe."

He scowled, torn and uncertain.

"You've never been afraid before, Emma. We've been through a lot together, a lot of struggle and a lot of worry. We worried when baby Emma was sick, and when Tad fell out of the tree. It's always come out all right."

"That was different," she stammered. "We--we were here among our own people. If we needed help, we could get help."

"Emma," he whispered. "Emma--I can take care of you. I can take care of the children."

She clutched him, buried her face in his neck.

"Emma," he said, "when we left your father, you were worried then, but you faced up to it, and life was much better afterward."

"We were younger then," she said. "Oh, Joe--we were much younger, and we had only Barbara. Now we've got six! Think of it, Joe! Six children, out in the wilderness!"

He forced her away from him. With his hand under her chin he forced her to look at him again. From the depths of his restless soul, from the center of his self, his yearning for an independent life poured out through his eyes and entreated her to understand him. His voice was hoa.r.s.e with the intensity of his longing.

"Emma," he said. "I can take care of you. Trust me, dearest."

Something dissolved inside of her. She could not deny him any longer. He was begging her for his freedom to be his own man. He was begging her for s.p.a.ce to grow in, and for their children to grow in. He was begging her to be brave for his sake, so that he could fulfill his deepest needs. Whatever her misgivings, whatever her terror, she must go with him into the unknown.

She put her hands on his shoulders and looked squarely into his eyes. "I do trust you, Joe," she said quietly. "We'll go west. We'll go just as soon as we can get ready."

CHAPTER FOUR

Mountain Man

Morning light was dim behind the windows when Joe slipped out of bed. He moved carefully, making no noise, and after he had dressed he kept his shoes in his hand. A worried frown creased his brow, for last night had been a bad one.

It had started as soon as Joe came home from Tenney's store, where he had gone in the early afternoon to see Lester Tenney. He had counted on Les, a wise and good man, to advise him correctly and to give him information which he needed badly. Joe wanted to find out more about the west and, though he might have asked Bibbers Townley, he wanted the truth and n.o.body could count on Bibbers to tell the truth about anything.

Joe wanted to find somebody who had been west and who would give a reasonably accurate account of what it was like, and just as he expected, Les had known someone to whom he might go. At Hammerstown, fifteen miles from Tenney's Crossing, there lived a man named John Seeley. He was a farmer like Joe, and with him lived his ancient father.

Grandpa Seeley could do little nowadays except sit in the sun in summer and nod before the stove in winter, but his mind had not decayed when his body weakened, and he knew as much as anyone else about the west.

The famed Mountain Men, Jim Bridger, Jim Clyman, Kit Carson, had been his close friends. More than a dozen years ago, though he had not been a young man even then, he had helped guide the Mormon wagon trains on their incredible, desperate journey between Nauvoo, Illinois, and the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Grandpa Seeley had lived in the west until just a few years ago, and probably he'd be there yet if his body had been equal to the task of keeping him there. Now he had no choice except living with his son. If Joe wanted to know about the west, Grandpa Seeley was the man who could tell him.

Joe went home, satisfied. But as soon as he arrived, his satisfaction turned to worry.