"The reason I called him Skins. A raccoon-pelt hat. A bear-hide coat. And I'm guessing there's some skunk in there somewhere."

She smiled, thinning her lips. "I'm sorry I screamed and scared you."

"I'm just thankful you're all right." He took a step toward her. "Anna?"

She nodded.

He placed his fingertip under her chin and lifted it.

The bucket hit the ground.

He leaned in closer, his lips touching hers.

Anna had just sunk her fingers into the hair at his neck, when the sound of someone or something fast approaching jerked them both to attention.

Boney stumbled to a stop in front of them, huffing and puffing, and staring at Caleb then at Anna. "I thought I heard you scream."

Caleb backed away from Anna. "She did. You did."

"Yes." Anna moistened her lips and glanced at Caleb. "A mountain man surprised me."

"I take it she ain't talkin' about you?"

Caleb shook his head, thinking about how cold and dry his lips felt right now. "Skins. The fellow from last night. I told the boss about him."

Boney glanced back at the trees and then out into the clearing.

"He's gone now."

"Yes." Anna moistened her lips again and smiled. "And everything is fine."

"Is it, now?" Boney looked them both up and down. "You sure?"

"I'm sure." Anna didn't take her gaze from Caleb.

Caleb smiled. "Well, then, we'd better get back."

"Good idea." Boney glanced up at the sky. "It'll be dark soon."

Anna cleared her throat in a most unladylike manner. "I need to get supper before the meeting."

When Boney showed no signs of leaving without them, Anna smiled and took the first step back toward camp.

Caleb motioned for Boney to follow her, then fell in line behind them and brushed his lips with the back of his hand. He'd wanted to tell Anna the truth about himself today, but their kiss was almost enough to give him hope that his past mistakes couldn't change the way Anna felt about him.

26.

Garrett stood beside his campfire and looked out over the Boone's Lick Company gathered before him, most seated on stools or chairs. A few folks had ridden into town before supper, but as far as he could tell, everyone else was accounted for. Anna Goben was easy to find with Caleb wedged between her and Otto. She and her mother had obviously returned from town. And so had the Rengler brothers and Arven and Lorelei, the younger Mr. and Mrs. Beck. And there was Dr. Le Beau, scarcely visible standing behind his wife. The children played off to the side with a wooden hoop and a leather ball except for young Alfonzo Zanzucchi, who had remained with his parents to translate.

Garrett looked up at the graying sky and cleared his throat. "We'd best get started. Many of you have children to settle into bed."

Mrs. Kamden waved her arm.

"A question, Mrs. Kamden?"

"Tomorrow is Sunday, Captain. You do intend to observe the Sabbath, do you not?"

"Yes ma'am." Garrett was careful not to look directly at the woman standing beside her, for Caroline Milburn was a different kind of distraction altogether. "We'll hold our camp until Monday morning. From here we'll head to the river and stay there overnight."

"Captain, Papa wants to know, are we making good time?" At seventeen, Camille Le Beau had the poise and maturity of a much older lady. "We are to pick up more medical supplies at Fort Kearney. We will arrive there the beginning of June?"

Not with all these interruptions, they wouldn't. Garrett forced a smile. "We are making good time, but we have only just begun." He waited for her to translate into French, and the Zanzucchi boy into Italian. "We could encounter difficulties that slow us down. But hopefully we will not."

Emery Beck stood, holding his whittling knife in one hand and a half-carved wooden shoe in the other. He looked directly at the doctor. "Difficulties with animals that aren't fit to haul a loaded wagon over a frontier trail, for instance?"

Garrett gave the ruddy-faced Mr. Beck a sharp look and drew in a deep breath. "So far, all the animals are faring well, including the doctor's horses. And your concerns about them are old news."

Dr. Le Beau jumped to his feet, shaking a fist. Apparently, his daughter had translated the cobbler's comment. The doctor rattled off several chains of words in French.

Garrett didn't know French, but he knew enough about body language to know the doctor wasn't merely reciting the finer qualities of his six quarter horses.

Apparently, Emery Beck knew it too. His eyes steely, he shook the wooden shoe at Le Beau. "Being a doctor doesn't give him the right to spread his shoulders and go against policy."

"Captain." Camille Le Beau's sharp voice silenced the crowd. The young woman stood beside her father, already two inches taller than him. "Papa said Mr. Beck should take more care with the knife he's wielding and the wood he's butchering, and leave the horses to us."

"Butchering?" Emery huffed. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Well, the doctor can ride his uppity horses to the nearest port." He dropped his knife and marched toward Le Beau. "Go home."

Tiny stepped in front of the cobbler, elbows out. The cobbler halted midstep. The other trail hands fanned out. Caleb and Frank with the Le Beaus. Boney and Isaac stood on either side of the fray.

Hattie's brother, Charles, appeared beside Camille, towering over everyone around him. His shoulders squared, he faced Emery Beck. "All this bluster ... coming from a German immigrant."

Hattie's gasp was one among a chorus.

Emery Beck looked around Tiny. "You say that as if I'm Irish." He jerked his gaze to where the Zanzucchis stood. "Or Italian, for that matter."

The boy didn't translate, but still Mrs. Zanzucchi offered a rebuttal in Italian. Her husband tugged at her coat sleeve, a wasted gesture.

Emery's chest puffed out. "Charles, you didn't seem to mind when Germans stocked dry goods for your trip"-he looked at Otto Goben-"or caned chairs for you."

Charles shook his head. "I only meant that neither you nor any of us have the right to point a finger at someone else and declare them unworthy of equal rights."

"Well said, Charles. Thank you." Garrett waved his slouch hat. "Gentlemen, we'll have no more outbursts. Understood?"

The doctor and Emery Beck gave him a tight nod and returned to their stools. Le Doc had no sooner settled than Caroline Milburn stepped up beside Camille Le Beau and spoke in whispers. Garrett followed their gaze to Ian Kamden who walked away from the crowd, his arm bracing his wife. Le Beau took quick steps to his wagon while Caroline accompanied his daughter to the Kamdens' Conestoga.

If the younger Mrs. Kamden had fallen ill, he needed to know about it. All the more reason to get on with this meeting.

"Folks, my concerns lie with the threat of illness and accidents, raging rivers, and howling winds that can splinter even the sturdiest of wagons." Garrett returned the hat to his head. "My intention is to keep you all informed of our progress, and any new developments. That is the reason for our gathering this evening. These next several weeks, the settlements and stage stops will peter out. Water is in short supply on the prairie, so make sure your water barrels are in good shape and topped up before we roll Monday morning."

The majority of the Company nodded, and family members whispered to one another, no doubt assigning additional duties. Good. He needed them to take the real issues seriously.

Anna carried her chair back to the wagon. Unlike the others in the camp, she wasn't talking about the argument between Mr. Beck and Dr. Le Beau, Rhoda Kamden's need for the doctor, or even the lack of civilization looming before them.

No, the conversation in town with her mother held Anna's attention and begged the question: If Mutter was serious about staying in Independence and mentioned it to Grovater, what would he say?

And if Grovater sided with Mutter as Anna feared he would, what would she do?

The memory of Caleb's kiss wouldn't let her give up and say good-bye to him so easily.

But she knew from Caroline's experience with the captain that he wouldn't allow a single woman to make the trip without a man in her party. For her, that was Grovater, but she couldn't ask him to leave Mutter alone in Independence.

Anna needed to keep going. Needed to get past Dedrick's death and Mutter's desperation. She had to believe she could, that God had a purpose and a plan in all of this.

Mary Alice was right-Boney wasn't the only man in the camp. And she had definitely noticed Caleb.

No. Anna shook her head. Marriage wasn't the answer. It couldn't be. If she couldn't marry Boney despite their long friendship, she'd never be able to marry someone simply to continue with the wagon train. Doing chores together, taking walks to the creek, and sharing a brief, interrupted kiss didn't mean Caleb intended to marry her. She didn't know what it meant, but she was desperate to stay and find out.

Back at the wagon with Mutter and Grovater, Anna set her chair at the cookfire but she had no intention of sitting down. Instead, she pulled her hammock from the wagon and slid the loop at one end over a hook on the wagon and played out the rope to tie it around a tree. Perhaps if Mutter saw her preparing her bed, she would do the same and forget the ridiculous notion to give up so soon into the journey.

"Vater." Mutter carried her chair to the fire. "There is something we need to talk to you about."

Anna sighed, her lips pressed together. Mutter hadn't forgotten. Nor had she lost her determination.

Grovater pulled up the third chair and added a dried branch to the fire before sitting down. "Have the two women in my life been plotting against me?"

Anna shook her head. More like Mutter was plotting against her.

"Nothing like that, Vater." Mutter lighted on her chair beside Grovater and waved Anna over. "Come sit with us, dear."

Anna let go of the end of her bed, watching the ropes drop to the ground. Hopefully, her dream of a fresh start out west wouldn't do the same. Should she let go of it and let it fall, or hang on? She'd never done well standing up to Mutter. Neither had Grovater. But maybe it was time one of them did.

Anna wrapped the ends of her shawl over her arms and seated herself.

Flickering light from the fire showed the deep lines framing Grovater's mouth. "This seems serious."

It was, especially if he voted for setting up housekeeping in Independence. Anna opened her mouth to speak but wasn't fast enough.

"Anna and I had a lovely time in Independence this afternoon, and we came up with an idea. A wonderful idea."

We? Anna rubbed her arms, battling a chill inside and out. If Mutter wasn't going to clarify her involvement, Anna would. "It is Mutter's idea."

"And you don't like it?" he asked.

Anna shook her head. "Mutter wants to stay in Independence."

"To live?" Grovater stood, looking at Mutter. "You've come so far. We all have. Why would you want to quit now?"

"Anna makes it sound bad. Like I'm giving up. That's not what I'm doing, Vater. My daughter was wise to lead us out of Saint Charles, to drag me out of the pit I was in. I did need a change. But I'm better now. And you were terribly sick just eleven days ago. Now it seems the poor mother of all those children is ill. Not to mention the thief in our Company." Mutter straightened in her chair, stacking her hands on her lap. "Must we deplete ourselves and our resources completely, chasing an unknown future in the Wild West, when Independence is a fine city?"

Grovater paced between the fire and the back of the wagon.

Anna watched him, trying to discern what he was thinking and prepare for what he'd say.

Mutter stood, looking small and frail. She reached for the knot at her neck and untied her bonnet strings. "Making our home in Independence would give us the new beginning and still let us remain in our beloved Missouri."

God, help me. Am I being selfish? Should we stay? If that's what's best for Mutter, please change my heart. Give me peace.

Grovater warmed his hands above the flames then returned to his cane chair. "You are right, my dear tochter."

Anna's heart sank.

Mutter smiled and sat down, perched on the edge of her chair like a bird expecting a worm to come to her.

"Your Anna is wise. We were smart to let her lead us out of our Egypt." Grovater lifted his arms, swiveling side to side. "Out here, on the road, I feel freer than I have in years."

"But, Vater, what about that frightening fever?"

"And all the help we received?" Grovater met Anna's gaze, his look tender, then turned back to Mutter. "Wilma, it has taken great courage to come this far. Courage I feared our losses had taken from us." The fire crackled, drawing his attention. "Will we doubt God now when He has brought us this far?"

Mutter rose from her chair and crossed her arms. "And what if the West isn't our promised land?"

Grovater held his hands up to the fire. "What if Moses had given in?"

When the crowd had dispersed, Garrett looked at his men. "That was some meeting."

Isaac gave a low whistle. "Yessir. I'm afraid those two men left on their own; someone could get hurt."

"We'll just have to see that it doesn't happen." Garrett glanced toward the Kamdens' Conestoga.

"No one likes to lead or trail Emery Beck's wagon." Boney shook his head. "That man is pure sour, and nobody wants it rubbin' off on them."

They all chuckled. Leave it to Boney to make sure they had a laugh before the day was through.

"I think I'll leave you fellows to think on that while I go check on Rhoda Kamden," Garrett said.

"She's got five children. She's probably just ... uh, fruitful." Frank shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Be that as it may, Caroline seemed quite concerned about her."

"And you're quite, uh, concerned with Mrs. Milburn." Tiny pressed fingertips to his round cheeks and lolled his head.