A trail untamed, p.1
A Trail Untamed, page 1
A Trail Untamed
Wagon Train Matches
Lacy Williams
Copyright © 2023 by Lacy Williams
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Exclusive invitation
Acknowledgments
A special thank you for my readers
Find me online
Also by Lacy Williams
Chapter One
They were everywhere.
August Mason sat tall in the saddle on top of his buckskin mare as dawn's silver light filtered over the horizon. His breath frosted on the morning air, but he knew the cool wouldn't last. By noon, he'd be shedding his slicker. It was almost June.
He was the only rider in sight. Alone out here, where no distractions meant he could hear himself think.
And what he thought was the herd of buffalo that stretched as far as the eye could see was beautiful—but deadly. The enormous animals seemed peaceful enough as they grazed the long prairie grasses, but he'd heard stories of a mother buffalo stomping a dog to death when she had felt threatened.
There were a lot of kids in the wagon train. He would tell Hollis that everyone needed to keep their distance from the buffalo.
Hollis Tremblay, the wagon master, should be out here himself. August had been scouting with him since the start of their journey. But Hollis had been gravely injured when a recent tornado had destroyed several wagons from their train. The wagon master’s terrible head injury had kept him flat on his back. The man couldn't sit a horse without the plague of dizzy spells and headaches. He'd asked August to be his eyes, scout the route ahead and give daily reports on the best way to traverse the difficult terrain.
But he had asked more than that.
He'd asked August to be one of the captains, men appointed to leadership by the company, tasked with keeping the peace, settling disagreements between travelers, and setting the watch at night.
August had declined.
Their wagon train had left Independence, Missouri six weeks ago. By August's calculations, they were currently somewhere in the Nebraska Territory. In these six weeks, he'd witnessed more altercations between travelers than he cared to think about.
People were selfish and unkind, and the dangerous journey and monotonous conditions only seemed to magnify their natural faults.
A lot of folks were scared.
And scared people made bad decisions.
He knew enough about making those kinds of decisions himself.
Pushing away thoughts of the past, he rode out another two miles, urging his horse into a gallop that the buckskin gave him. Then he followed his sense of direction as he traversed a different trail. Probably a deer track, faint through the woods.
August was alert for any sign that something wasn't right. A broken twig could mean someone had traveled through here recently. He'd seen scat from coyotes, deer, buffalo, raccoon. No sign of bear or wolves in the past weeks, but they'd be entering bear country soon enough.
He forded the river in a different spot than he had in the near-dark just before dawn. Dismounted, water streaming from his pants and slicker, and walked up and down the creek bed, attempting to judge whether a wagon wheel would get stuck in the rocky, sandy soil. He didn't much like the feeling that a company of over two hundred souls was depending on him for their safety.
As he came up out of the river bottom, he was afforded a glimpse of the circled wagons, their white canvas tops like a beacon amongst the greens and yellows of the prairie grasses.
There was movement around camp. Men hitched oxen to the wagons or saddled up. Inside the ring of wagons, he knew women would be tending cookfires for breakfast or packing up their wagons. Making preparations to leave.
On foot now, he approached his half-brother, Leo Spencer, and Leo’s half-brother, Collin Spencer, as they saddled their mounts.
August’s father had been married to Leo and Alice’s mother but had walked out on the family when Leo was a tot. He’d gone West. All the way to California, where he’d married August and Owen’s mother. August and his brother hadn’t known about Leo and Alice until their father’s deathbed admission. After Pa had passed, Owen insisted the right thing to do was find their long-lost siblings and try to make things right—share the inheritance that Pa had left behind.
Alice had been welcoming. But Leo had wanted nothing to do with them. Leo had had troubles of his own. His younger half-brother Coop, Collin’s twin, was a troublemaker, and they’d been in a hurry to leave New Jersey. It had taken weeks of working together on the wagon train for Leo to stop looking at Owen and August with a suspicious glare.
August still wasn’t sure whether his older half-brother wanted them around, wanted the added protection of two strong men for his new wife and her very young sister.
Which is why he intended to walk past the two men without saying hello.
He could overhear their hushed conversation though he kept his head tilted so his hat blocked them out of his sight.
“I don’t know where he’s getting the whiskey.” That was Leo, complaint audible in what was barely more than a grunt.
“I’ll talk to him again.” Collin was the peacemaker in their family dynamic. It was easy to hear the placating tone in his voice.
“Do you think Alice is helping him hide it?”
“Why would she—?”
“Morning,” Leo called out.
August glanced over to find Leo looking right at him while Leo tightened the cinch on his saddle.
Collin’s eyes darted between the two men. He finished adjusting his stirrup. “I need to go check on Stella.”
August made his living as a trapper. He spent days on end in the woods. He’d honed his senses to be able to detect the faintest shift in the wind or slightest rustle in the undergrowth. Which is why his shoulders tightened at the undercurrent of tension between him and Leo and Collin.
Leo and Collin shared a closeness that August wasn’t part of. And not knowing whether he was welcome in their close-knit family made him uncomfortable.
Enough to say, “I’ve got to talk to Owen. Give him my report.”
“That can wait.” Alice appeared, having crossed the space between the wagons and where he stood near the picketed horses. “Breakfast,” she said in her matter-of-fact manner, holding out a tin plate heaped with flapjacks and fried ham.
He never had any question where he stood with Alice. She was an open book. A firecracker. And he knew enough about her that he took the plate. She was stubborn enough to follow him around until he ate what she gave him.
He liked her. And it was easier to turn in her direction and let Leo and Collin finish their murmured conversation.
“Do you even sleep?” she asked, one hand propped on her hip.
“Of course.” He spoke around a bite of flapjack.
“I don’t believe it. You’re either on watch or out scouting before any of the rest of us wake up.” She was glaring at him a little.
Was this what having a sister was like?
“I sleep.” Not much. He worried about the safety of their wagon train. In some ways it was easier to scout out potential dangers than to quiet his mind while lying in his bedroll worrying about all the things that could kill them out here.
She was still watching him. He swallowed the bite in his mouth. “How’s Felicity?”
Felicity was another of the travelers, a single woman who had paired up with another young woman, Abigail, to go West together. They’d faced some misfortune, namely the twister that had ripped their wagon apart and injured Felicity.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
There was some spark in Alice’s eyes. Curiosity maybe. Or orneriness. He couldn’t tell.
He bent his face over the plate, hoping it would hide the slight heat he felt creeping into his cheeks.
Felicity’s voice box had been damaged when her wagon nearly crushed her. She couldn’t speak. And the fact that she had a hard time communicating made him tongue-tied and awkward around her. She’d thought he was sweet on Alice, for heaven’s sake.
Owen waving to him from near their wagon was a relief. Now he could escape Alice’s nosy interrogation.
“I gotta go.” He passed her the plate, now empty. Thought better of just running off. Leaned over to buss her cheek with a kiss. “Thanks.”
“You’d better sleep tonight,” she called after him.
Felicity Vacker woke to the sounds of camp breaking.
Light filtered through the small gap in the canvas tent where she and Abigail had been sleeping these past few days.
She'd overslept. Again.
She'd asked Abigail to wake her—
Felicity rolled over, sucking in a desperate breath when her bruised ribs flared wit
She wanted to curl into a ball, let the tears that pricked at her eyes roll down her cheeks and just wail.
But she couldn't.
She dug her fingertips into the bedroll and pushed up with her arms until she was in a sitting position.
It wasn't any better. The pain was constant, and enough to take her breath away.
A week ago, the pioneers had been caught in a terrible storm. Several wagons had been decimated by a tornado—including Felicity and Abigail's wagon, with Felicity inside it.
She'd nearly been crushed by the wreckage, but she'd lived. They didn't have a doctor on the wagon train, but one of the young women had some training as a healer. She'd diagnosed Felicity with busted ribs. The injury made every movement painful.
But they were only a month into the two-thousand-mile journey and their company couldn't afford any delays. Which meant Felicity traveled on with the rest, though she'd been relegated to riding in a wagon instead of walking. Walking was painful, each step jarring her ribs.
Voices murmured outside the tent.
"Anyone think to wake Felicity? They're gonna blow the bugle before long."
She recognized the steady cadence of August Mason’s voice. He'd been the one to find her and Abigail after the terrible storm. She would've still been trapped under the broken pieces of the wagon if he hadn't lifted them free.
Someone answered him, the second female voice farther away, and she couldn't make out who was speaking.
"She still in there?" he asked, his voice closer now. "We need to pack up the tent."
She opened her mouth in a frantic moment of modesty. She was still wearing her nightdress. It would be highly inappropriate for him to pull back the flap. But no words emerged. Her voice remained useless. Gone.
His shadow fell over the split in the canvas door.
And at the last moment, she clapped twice.
His shadow froze.
"That you, Felicity?"
She clapped twice more.
She hadn't known August before he'd saved her, other than as a face amongst the other travelers. Since then, she and Abigail had been taken in by August and his brother, Owen, and by association, with their other family.
Now she knew August was not only intelligent, but he noticed things. Small things.
"We're getting close to time to move out," he said now. "Take a few minutes and I'll come back to break down the tent, all right?"
She clapped twice more. He seemed satisfied with that because his shadow disappeared from in front of the tent.
It took far longer than it should've for her to slip the nightdress over her head and put on her dress instead. Lifting her arms was agony. She couldn't help the tear that fell, but she whisked it away with her wrist.
She hurried out of the tent with the bedroll in disarray, which once would've frustrated her, but with her current limitations, she had no choice. She found a private place to relieve herself and splashed her face with water at the creek before picking her way step by painful step back to the wagons.
Nearly everything was put away when she got back. Abigail, in her yellow gingham dress, stood on a crate, her dark hair pulled back behind her head and barely visible from where she stood with her shoulders inside the wagon. Did she need help? Maybe Felicity could offer assistance.
She neared the wagon and heard Abigail counting quietly.
"Not enough," came Abigail's words through the canvas covering.
Was Abigail counting the meager stores of food they had left in their wagon? After riding in the back of the conveyance for days, Felicity had come to know almost too well what little they had.
Abigail stepped down off the crate and turned, coming face to face with Felicity. Abigail’s light brown skin and dark eyes were shadowed with realization. They didn't have enough food supplies to make it to Oregon. The twister had decimated their stores.
No food. It took a few moments for Felicity to make Abigail understand with rudimentary hand gestures.
Neither one of them had acknowledged just how deep their misfortune was before this moment.
Abigail shored up a smile. It even looked real. "We'll be all right. God will provide."
Felicity's stomach twisted.
She hadn't known Abigail before the start of their journey. They'd both arrived in Independence, Missouri, looking for a partner for the journey west. The wagon master, Hollis Tremblay, had connected them.
It had become clear on the first day that Abigail was Felicity's complete opposite. She sang her way through backbreaking chores, always had a smile for anyone she met, and never stopped talking.
It should've bothered Felicity, but she'd been fond of Abigail from the very start. But right in this moment, Abigail's hopeful attitude just made the heaviness inside Felicity more crushing.
There were no supply stores along this route. Only forts filled with soldiers. And if they had food supplies to spare, like flour and coffee and salt, the prices would be exorbitant.
Felicity and Abigail had spent every last cent to pay for the supplies they'd lost.
There was no bright side to this.
Felicity didn't know how they would survive.
And she wasn't nearly as certain as Abigail was that God would provide. He hadn't done so for Felicity when she'd needed Him the most.
The bugle sounded from across camp. Abigail nodded. "I'd best check on Hollis before we leave."
Felicity was left to stare at the crate and the back of the wagon. She should climb inside, but she didn't know whether she could do it without help. A glance around showed Leo and Evangeline half-hidden from prying eyes as they stood near their wagon. Leo had one arm around Evangeline's waist, and she was saying something into his ear.
They were newlyweds, and their affection for each other was clear.
But as Felicity watched, Evangeline's much younger sister, Sara, darted past them. She headed beyond the wagon, straight for Leo’s horse and its dangerous hooves.
Leo broke away from Evangeline. In two long strides, he whisked the girl into his arms. Just before the horse shied and stomped.
Holding the little girl, he turned back to his wife, but a memory trickled through Felicity's mind, overshadowing the present.
She'd been eight. It was late in the evening, and she'd been ironing one of her father's shirts for church the next morning. She hadn't realized her younger stepsister was awake until the sneaky girl had reached for the iron.
Norah had barely touched the hot surface when Felicity had shoved her away. She'd fallen to the floor, already sobbing, when Celia, her stepmother, had stormed over.
Felicity had opened her mouth, ready to explain that she'd saved Norah from putting her whole palm on the iron's surface, but she hadn't gotten one word out before Celia slapped her across the face.
She'd gaped at Celia, tears springing up, cheek stinging, as the woman had knelt over her crying daughter and soothed her with kind words.
A sharp hiss broke Felicity out of the memory as Leo poured water over the remains of the fire, dousing it until steam billowed. Evangeline was squatting next to Sara, packing up a crate near the wagon.
Felicity blinked away the memory, but her chest remained tight. She gripped the wagon sideboard, aching from that old hurt. She'd come so far, made her own way. She wanted a new home in Oregon, a home of her choosing, so badly that she trembled.
Abigail might think that God would provide for them, but Felicity knew it was the work of her own hands that had brought her this far.
She would figure out a way to get more food.
It was going to be up to her.
Chapter Two
“We drive up the bluff and then lower each wagon, with ropes, down the other side," said Hollis.
August exchanged a look with Owen, who sat next to him at the wagon master's campfire.
