Trail Angel by Derek Catron

forgiveness? Where was the healing of time? She feared she would never understand that.

C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
    The wagons typically stopped late in the day, depending on where the scouts found a good campsite. They had left behind Fremont, a settlement of maybe two hundred souls. Two weeks out from Omaha, the scouts brought back word that they’d passed the westernmost point of the Union-Pacific railroad construction site. They were still at least a week away from Fort Kearny. The monotonous routine and vast distances sobered Annabelle, like crossing an ocean in a rowboat with only a vague faith that land waited on the other side.
    Yet the journey brought its own pleasures. Evenings were Annabelle’s favorite time. While the men unhitched the wagons and moved the stock to graze, the women and children gathered fuel and started cook fires. Trees were still plentiful near the river when they first left Omaha, but they began to see fewer, then hardly any. Earlier travelers had cut down what few trees there had been, the Colonel explained. Before that, great herds of buffalo ate or rubbed down whatever shoots came up long before they grew into trees.
    A stream of emigrants with rifles had run off those herds, yet plenty of evidence remained of their migrating through the area between seasons. When dry, great piles of dung could be burned, putting off enough smoky heat for cooking. The boys in particular enjoyed gathering the dried buffalo chips, even if they spent as much time flinging them at each other as adding them to their cart.
    Each evening, her father and Luke took the end board from one of the wagons and placed it across two provision boxes. The women set the “table” with tin plates and cups. Without chairs, most sat on small boxes. After supper, while the women cleaned up, the men oiled harnesses and saw to repairs. Later, they played cards or got out their dice to play chuck-a-luck. Sometimes they visited with other families. On fair nights, the emigrants came together at one fire. They talked of family and loves left behind or spoke dreamily of their hopes for the new land.
    One warm night when the mosquitoes were scarce, they made music. Caroline had a beautiful voice and, despite her youth, played the best fiddle among them. Others improvised instruments from washboards, spoons and kettles. Some of the couples managed to dance a few steps in a dusty clearing near the fire. The Colonel sat to the side, tapping his knee in rhythm with Luke’s spoons. Caroline asked if he knew a song.
    â€œI best leave that to you, pretty lady,” he said, drawing a blush from the teen. “If we come across some hostile Indians, maybe then I’ll try a tune. The sound is sure to drive them off.”
    Josey Angel and Lord Byron never joined them on these evenings around the cook fires. They always took the first shift of guard duty, with the rest of the men taking turns on the overnight shift. The guides would fill plates of food and disappear to eat in darkness with the animals. It wasn’t clear to Annabelle if they wanted to eat by themselves—or if they assumed that to be the preference of the others.
    Quick to warm to an audience, the Colonel enjoyed company. Once Caroline finished her song, Annabelle asked him about Indians. She knew his opinion that sickness and travel accidents posed a greater threat and didn’t want his joke about hostile tribes to alarm her mother.
    â€œIndians are a concern.” His measured words sounded as if he hoped not to frighten the women without giving the men reason to feel they no longer needed the guides’ services. “That being said, the Indians along the Platte are mostly peaceful now.”
    â€œYou mean they’ve been put in their place,” one of the Daggett boys said. Annabelle couldn’t yet tell them apart.
    The Colonel chewed on the stem of his pipe. “The tribes aren’t what they used to be. Some lost more than half