Comanche Moon

By Marilyn Gardiner

On the Oregon Trail, Jenny Nation is only three weeks into the trip by wagon train when her husband is killed. Frozen in grief and fear, Jenny chooses to go on. Through heat, storms, walking, a buffalo stampede, and her daughter's kidnapping by the Comanches, Jenny refuses to give up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613093528

Book preview

One

Jenny stood silent and numb, her small daughter clutched in her arms. Dry-eyed and frightened, Jenny stared straight ahead over the new grave. Rain, which had begun at dawn, continued to pour down, soaking the small gathering.

A dozen people saw what had happened. Daniel’s horse had shied at a rattler and threw him. His head hit a rock, not even a large rock, and he was gone. Samson, the horse, had trotted off a ways and stopped, looking back, his reins dangling. At first, Jenny leaned over her strong, young husband in disbelief. He looked to be asleep, his arms long and loose, flung out in abandon. There wasn’t much blood, but he was dead. The medicines she brought along would do no good.

In the warmth of the early spring day, she felt frozen.

They were on their way to homestead in Oregon. Everything they owned waited in their wagon. Her head still reeled with plans for the future. Together they would build their cabin, their barns, their herds, and plant their crops. Together they’d build their life. But now she was alone with five-year-old Sophie to care for. How could she go on?

The wagon master stumbled over the words he read from a tattered Bible: ...ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. He droned on and Jenny wondered how many times he’d said those same words over an unmarked grave on the prairie. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

The women drifted away and the men followed. Kind hands touched her arm and soft words drifted in the falling twilight. Still she stood, her gaze fixed across the grave and through the veil of rain to the prairie, stretching on and on—forever. There was no end to the waving grass and blowing wind. No end to the silence. What was she going to do?

She couldn’t turn around and go back. Not alone, without the protection of the train. Besides, everything was sold before they left Missouri. There was nothing to go back to. Not even family. Rain beat on her upturned face, and the wind blew long strands of copper-colored, corkscrewed hair around her head and shoulders. Sophie squirmed under her now-wet blanket. Dark was coming on, and the night would be black without even the stars for light. Deep, rolling clouds were backlit by lightning, and thunder grumbled in the distance. Yonder, the grouped bunch of livestock was restless; she could hear them fidgeting and moving about. If he were here, Daniel would be getting ready to ride the night owl shift, keeping them quiet. But Daniel wasn’t here. He wouldn’t be here ever again. God help me. I have to think.

Daniel had been so excited about the prospect of having his own land at the end of the journey, dependent only on themselves. It was all he could talk about for months before they left Missouri. Each man was entitled to 640 acres. His brother, Joshua, was already in Oregon and promised they could share his land until they could prove on their own. They only needed to get there. At first, Jenny had dragged her feet. The journey was dangerous and long. Leaving the graves of her beloved Mamalene and the precious baby boy was hard, yet she hadn’t had the heart to discourage Daniel, especially since they didn’t have much of anything where they were, and no prospects of more. In the end she agreed to the trip, so it was her decision as well as Daniel’s. Think. Think.

She had Daniel’s new Kentucky rifle, which he’d all but sold his soul to buy, and she could shoot. Daniel had seen to that. She already helped handle the oxen some of the time, and she could do it again. The bald fact was there was no one else; the responsibility was all hers. It was up to her to make a decision and, trying to ignore the empty, terrified spot inside her chest, Jenny stiffened her shoulders and raised her chin. She’d go on. Joshua would take her in when they got to Oregon, she was sure of it, and she could decide what to do after she got there. Please God, the authorities would allow her to claim her own land by herself. She had to believe that.

After all, this was 1848 and before they left home, she’d read that the first woman to cross the plains in a wagon train had done so thirty-some years earlier. If that woman could make the journey, so could she. She would go on and trust the Lord to take care of her until she got there.

Swallowing against the gaping hole that yawned in her chest, she took a deep breath. After all, horrible things happen all the time and people live through them. Somehow. You had to have hope. Without hope you would not dare open your eyes to another day. Setting Sophie down and gripping her hand, Jenny resolutely turned her back on Daniel’s grave and headed for the wagon. Never again would she see the place where he was buried. Never be able to visit his grave. Never lay a flower there. Like the baby’s grave, she’d have to remember it in her heart. Jenny took one last look over her shoulder. The spot was forlorn and lonely with only the wet prairie grasses and a standing stick with a red rag to mark Daniel’s final resting place. But there was no chance she would ever forget. She walked back to her fire on wooden legs.

Keeping a routine seemed best. Sophie ate her cornbread crumbled in a cup of milk and, after Jenny walked the child a little way from the campfires and into the tall grass to empty her bladder, she settled them both for the night. Jenny sat on her blankets with the lantern burning on a box beside her and, as she did every night, read her Bible while she methodically brushed her hair. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow...Thou art with me. She clutched the verses close. She was not alone. God was as near as her next breath. It was hard, right at this minute, to make the words real, but they were a promise. She needed to remember them.

But why would God let this happen? She and Daniel had prayed long and hard about the decision to sign up for the trip to Oregon. Did they misunderstand God’s answer? Jenny rubbed her eyes as the letters on the page blurred. No, she would not let herself believe they’d over-ridden God’s will with Daniel’s desire. What was done was done. She had to cope with now. Thou art with me. The words bore repeating.

Sophie curled on her side with a thumb plugging her mouth. She was too little to understand that Pa was gone forever, and she’d asked, sober-eyed, before she dropped off to sleep, Will Pa be home tomorrow? Jenny was too tired, her brain too dull and flat, to think of an answer.

No, she said simply. Not tomorrow. She would cope with that later. Still, she lay on her pallet a long time, the lonely sound of rain on the canvas a pounding backdrop to her thoughts, and tried to list all the things that would be left to her and her alone. She flinched as a crack of lightning sounded directly overhead. The thunder that followed seemed to rock the very earth. Sophie didn’t move. Please God, let all the tethers hold. Having to search for the oxen and Annabelle, the cow, in the morning was a daunting thought. Everything would be dripping, even if the rain stopped.

She wondered what would happen if she wore a pair of Daniel’s pants instead of her skirts. Long skirts were almost unbearably heavy when damp. She’d be soaked through to the skin long before she got the team hitched. If she wore pants, there would be a lot of frowns. No decent woman wore pants. There must be a place in the scriptures that forbade it, because it was considered wanton for a woman to show the shape of her legs. Still, Daniel’s pants would be loose, and skirts were awkward climbing up and down from the wagon. Pants were safer around the fire anyway. In a cold, hard place she remembered there was no longer a man to ask permission; she could make her own decisions. What did she care what others thought? The only one she had to please was dead. She would do it.

Her mind nattered on, the problems growing so fast she could hardly keep up. There would be a fire to build in the morning— but maybe not if they ate cold cornbread from tonight’s supper. She shuddered. It was right after he’d eaten at the nooning that Daniel had gone out to check the stock and met the rattler. A vivid picture of the writhing, wicked snake, its forked tongue darting, the flat, evil head rising, came to life behind her eyelids. Her heart thumped against the wall of her chest. From the time she was small, snakes had terrified her. Ever since Mamalene killed the copperhead with a hoe and it wriggled around even after Mamalene hung it over a fence, Jenny hated the evil things.

No! She wouldn’t think about the rattler now. Someone had shot the snake that caused Daniel’s death. She breathed deeply. Gradually her heart slowed.

FORTY MILES OUT OF Independence they came to a fork in the road and Rance, the captain of the train, had led them to the north and onto what was being called the Oregon Trail. He said they would be climbing steadily from then on. Climbing for the 900 miles yet to travel before they reached the Continental Divide. Thank God no one else had complained about her going on alone. South Pass, where they were aiming, was said to be the easiest way to the mountains, and from there it was another 1,000 miles downhill to Oregon. Walking that far did not bear thinking about—that and all the tasks that would fall on her shoulders alone. She would have to take it one day at a time. Mamalene used to say the task of the moment was sufficient unto the day. Her stomach felt sickish. God, you’ll have to help me. I can’t do this alone.

The biggest threat of all, of course, was the Indians. According to Zane Thatcher, their guide, they’d been in Indian country for a week, and everyone in the train was anxiously watching for them. So far, there had not been a single sign of the redskins, but as Zane said, that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Just last night he stood before the group with the big central fire dancing behind him, his broad shoulders shielding them from the heat of the flames.

At the moment the Pawnee are friendly, and so are the Shawnee, but the Comanches are known to be hostile. They’ve been seen hunting far north of their usual territory. Every person on this train needs to be constantly on guard.

A voice came from the other side of the fire, and Zane turned to meet it. What’re they waiting for? Why don’t they attack?

They won’t attack unless all the signs are right. If even the smallest thing doesn’t line up in their heads, they won’t risk a fight. They’re there, though. Don’t doubt it.

Another question. Any recent reports of attacks?

Zane’s hair was dark and long, tied with a thong at the back of his neck. He stood hip-shot, his Plains rifle held in the crook of one arm. They’re raiding. Three families killed and their homes burned in as many weeks, he answered quietly. All of them south of here, but still within reach.

One of the men asked, Where’d you get your information?

We passed an Army scout this afternoon. Zane turned in a circle. Those of you with children, keep them close.

He went on. If the ‘Comanch’ take it in their heads to fight, they’re likely just biding their time until the signs I spoke of are right. We won’t know until they’re on us.

Zane finished with, In any case, they won’t fight at night. They’ll steal the horses and drive off the cattle at night, but they won’t fight. If they die in battle at night, they believe their souls will be lost in the dark. So you can sleep well. Dawn is the critical time.

Jenny fought the urge to tremble. They had all heard horror stories of what happened to captives. It wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on. Now, shouldering all the responsibility for Sophie, she had to worry.

Nevertheless, from her pallet, Jenny reached out to touch the Colt at her side. Daniel’s rifle was under the wagon seat, within reach. She’d never shot at a man, but if Sophie were threatened, she’d take aim and fire in a blink of a bat’s eye.

The storm seemed to be moving on. Lightning flashes were further apart and the thunder was now distant. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She prayed that by morning the wagon tracks they followed across the prairie wouldn’t be rutted in mud. The oxen pulled better when the footing was solid, and getting stuck in ankle deep mud was no one’s idea of a good day. The driving would be dreadful.

There was no doubt in her mind it would be hard. They were only weeks out of Independence and although harnessing up and getting on the move in the morning was getting smoother, they were all still struggling with the routines. She, from now on, more than most.

For some reason she couldn’t fathom, there were no tears, not one, since Daniel died. She guessed she was too scared to cry. However, the butterflies in her stomach had turned to fluttering birds. Even the very air around her seemed to hurt. Too many problems existed to grasp the enormity of what she faced. Jenny turned on her back and drew a deep breath. Tomorrow was another day and, with a little desperate catch in her throat, she reminded herself that everything looked better in the daylight. She took deep, deliberate breaths and fell asleep at last with a prayer on her lips.

Morning, however, brought a problem she hadn’t anticipated. The rain had stopped at dawn, and the only sign left of the storm was the steady drip from the wagon covers. The sky was clear and appeared so deep in the early dawn it almost made her eyes ache to look up. Jenny filled her lungs with the fresh smell of earth and wet grass.

Hurrying, not wanting the wagons to have to wait for her, she pulled her oxen into place. Come on, Jack. Move, Jake! Tugging and pushing the huge beasts with her shoulder, positioning them to the single tree, she harnessed them, one by one, to the yoke.

As the wagons lined up, a handful of men approached, led by the wagon master himself. Rance tipped his hat to Jenny as she finished with the oxen, and stepped back.

Ignoring the men’s astonished, disapproving looks at her legs encased in Daniel’s pants, she nodded. ’Morning.

Rance cleared his throat and looked not at her, but over her shoulder, as he said, Miz Jenny, we don’t want you to worry none. We’ll all help until we cross the Loupe, and stay with you until we get to Fort Kearney.

Jenny nodded. Thanks. Your help will be appreciated, and things will get easier for me the further along we get.

He frowned. You aren’t thinking of going on?

Jenny blinked at him. Of course, I’m going on. What else would I do?

Rance wouldn’t meet her eyes. We didn’t think you’d want to attempt the trip alone. I don’t think you realize what-all you’ll have to deal with.

Mr. Rance, I’m not a quitter.

Now his eyes honed in on hers. He looked uncomfortable and then firmed his voice. I’m sorry ’bout this, ’cause it seems your heart is set on Oregon, but we’re gonna have to ask you to leave the train at the next settlement. In a couple of weeks, we’ll hit the Loupe River near Fort Kearney and we’ll leave you there. He said it all in a rush as if by taking a breath, he’d not be able to begin again.

Jenny gaped at him in disbelief. Leave me? You can’t leave me anywhere. I need to get to Daniel’s brother in the Willamette Valley, and then to my homestead. What would I do at the fort? He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and his eyes darted to hers and bounced off. We...uh, we figured you’d best sell your wagon and plunder for passage on the next wagon train going back East, he said, looking at the ground. You and your young’un can manage better back there. You couldn’t homestead by yourself, anyways. You’d need a man.

Pressure built in her chest. Anger flooded in to replace the dull, flat feeling of the night. I can and I will homestead by myself. Daniel paid for our passage and we signed papers just like everyone else. You can’t just put me off like...like a dog you don’t want anymore!

The man stretched to his full height. I’m the wagon master and what I say goes. We took a vote. He looked around for support at the men behind him. We decided we couldn’t afford you hanging on. You’d have to hire someone to drive for you, and we ain’t got nobody to spare. I’m sorry for your trouble, losing your man and all, but you’ll have to leave at the fort. We’ll help you get across the Loupe, of course.

I’ll not be left at the fort! Jenny stamped her foot, more frightened than she ever remembered being. My passage is paid all the way to Oregon and you can’t force me out of the train as long as I’m capable of driving my team and doing whatever is necessary for Sophie and me. I’ll not drag you down. I’ll keep up. A chorus of angry mumbling came from the group of men.

A woman alone cain’t...

She’ll faint at the first sight of a redskin.

She ain’t got the strength to yoke them oxen ever’ day.

Who’s going to hunt for her?

Rance hooked his thumbs under his suspenders, dipped his chin and glared at her. We say you can’t do it. His voice hardened and his eyes narrowed. The train’ll travel on, south of the river, but we’ll help you across and drop you at the fort.

He turned and the entire bunch of men followed as he headed toward the front of the line of wagons.

I won’t go, she yelled after him. You can’t make me. Not a one of them looked back.

The bottom of Jenny’s stomach quaked, and her head seemed to be full of a weird buzzing sound. They couldn’t do this to her. They could not! But she knew they could. They thought she was too weak to hold up her share of responsibilities, and they could very well refuse to allow her to go on with them. She knew wagon trains abandoned folks who held them back. Folks who had a sickness, or whose wagons broke down. At least Rance hadn’t threatened to leave her here on the plains, alone. He was gracious, and the word fairly dripped from her mental tongue, gracious enough to plan to abandon her at a fort.

Well, he had a surprise coming.

She gritted her teeth and turned to the wagon. Sophie already sat on the hard wooden bench seat, her thumb tucked into her mouth and her cornflower blue eyes round as the blooms on Mamalene’s silver dollar plant back home. Mama? she asked around her thumb.

Don’t you worry, baby. We’ll be fine.

But though her words were brave, in her heart Jenny thought of the bigness of the task ahead of her. The image of Daniel’s unmarked grave on the windswept prairie was still fresh, and the constant ache in her shoulders from the morning harnessing would hang on all day. She was still awkward about building a fire, and Sophie rebelled at having to tag along with her mother when they’d gathered wood. Annabelle had to be milked and the oxen tended, there were meals to be cooked and clothing washed. Daniel could no longer hunt for the table; it would have to be her. And, of course, she would be walking, driving the oxen, all day, every day. The list was endless. Something inside her chest quivered. What if she were unable to do it? But—she took a deep breath—there was no choice. She could and she would. She just had to feel her way through it.

Firmly putting her fears aside to a place where she would deal with them later, she repeated, We’ll be just fine. Mama will see to it.

Two

Sheer grit and determination got Jenny through the next few days. By night she was so tired she could barely crawl into the wagon to sleep. Her shoulders hurt and her legs felt like mush long before she unharnessed the oxen and turned them out to graze with the rest of the stock. For three days, other women brought the evening meal, and the relief of having food she didn’t have to prepare was enormous. She lacked the energy to cook.

Each morning Jenny awakened, resentful that the sun continued to rise as if nothing had changed. Other people got up hungry and cheerful. She had to force herself to slog through the day. Somehow she got the livestock watered and fed, drug along beside Jack through the long hours on the trail, and her body continued to function like always. How could this be so when her whole world had splintered to smithereens?

Nights were the worst. In the dark, her heart felt as if it were wrapped in a wet leather band. There was a hollow place in her chest that she imagined was empty, scraped out and wiped clean. Carefully, she gathered herself—mind, body and soul—into a little pile and prayed. Father, I need a miracle here. Because otherwise I don’t think I can make it alone. Give me strength and courage, please. I need you pretty bad.

After nearly a week, she took herself in hand. Courage, she discovered, was a cold stubborn place in your heart that kept you going when you couldn’t do anything else. Forcing her mind away from the abyss that threatened, she counted her blessings. She had Sophie and her own strong body, a fairly even-tempered team and a good wagon, not ramshackled and falling apart like some others. A little ready cash was stored between the pages of the family Bible and a tiny amount more hidden in a box under the floorboards of the wagon. The rain had stopped before the ground turned to mud, thank the Lord.

Yes, she was blessed in many ways. She had to remember to be thankful for all she still had, for Sophie’s sake, if not for her own. Before dawn, Rance blew the horn that echoed down the length of the train. Jenny took her place beside the oxen, and they leaned into their harnesses. The train lengthened out and they were on their way.

The land was the same day after day. They left Pawnee country and entered Shawnee land, although Zane said the lines were blurred. You could find raiding bands anywhere. Undulating in front of them like a giant washboard, the grasses waved and dipped beneath the vast bowl of a sky so deep and blue it hurt the eyes to look at it for long. Once in a while they came to a stretch of forest where the trees were thick enough they hid the sun from view, and then it was back to the rolling prairie. Strange country.

She found herself wishing Daniel were here with her to see it all. To her grave, she’d remember how eager he was to make the journey. His grief over the loss of their baby boy had been different from hers. He wanted to leave the place where it happened. He couldn’t wait to get away and begin again. She needed to stay near the small grave and that of her blessed Mamalene. Sitting between the small mound and the larger one comforted her. Not so Daniel. The death of the two-month-old little boy had near broken his heart. Her own heart clutched with a pang. Daniel and the baby were lost to her forever. A rosebush marked the resting place of the little boy, high on a windswept hill in back of the old cabin. In her mind’s eye she could see it still. But Daniel...

Daniel was on the bare prairie with only a stick to mark the place. The men had buried him deep and then driven the wagons over the grave to prevent the possibility of animals getting to him. This was a hard and vicious country. Again and again, she fought back tears. She’d have to stay strong not to buckle. Still, for all her sorrow, she could appreciate that the ground they covered each day was beautiful in its way.

When the men went off to hunt, they found deer, turkeys, raccoons and small game. Every so often someone brought her a prairie chicken, for which she was ever so grateful—even while she felt guilty. One of the rules of the train was that everyone had to be self-sufficient. Right now her gratitude overrode her guilt, but soon she’d have to take up the rifle and hunt for herself.

Rance left her alone, not repeating his promise to put her off the train, but in her heart she knew every step brought her nearer to Ft. Kearney.

The start of the day was generally the best part. The wind blew fresh and the air was clear. Birds stitched a crazy pattern against the morning sky, soaring like leaves flung high by some invisible hand. Somewhere ahead of them was the Loupe and what might be a hard river crossing, and after that was the Platte, but here it was just the slow grip of the wheels against the prairie, following the wagon in front of them, and thanking God it was early enough in the year that the dust wasn’t bad.

Right now it was hard to think it, but she did have blessings. Walking along beside the oxen, Jenny couldn’t help but remember what she’d left behind and wonder what was ahead. She hated to leave the little cabin in Missouri where she and Daniel had begun their married life and where Sophie had been born. Their scant belongings and even the bare walls were dear, now that she’d handed them to someone else. Lashed beneath the wagon were the rocking chair where she’d sat with a cranky baby, and her grandmother Mamalene’s cherry chest. The flour barrel inside held the few dishes she owned, buried for safety.

A hard lump came in her throat. Most of all she missed Mamalene’s four o’clocks just coming up on the south side of the cabin. As a bride she’d saved the seeds and replanted them tenderly each spring, adding to the ones already flourishing. Daniel hadn’t understood why the flowers were so important to her, but he didn’t quarrel with the small envelope sealed with last year’s seeds inside. It was safely tucked into the box holding their extra clothes. Daniel only shook his head and sighed. If pretty posies is what it takes to make you happy, I guess we can spare the additional weight. They weighed next to nothing, but she’d known if it was left up to him, they wouldn’t have added one single ounce to the weight they already carried. In a way, the seeds were part of her beloved grandma that she was taking with her into the wilderness. Her heritage. Jenny could no more have left them than she could stay behind herself.

Jenny’s mother had died when Jenny was only five, and with the passing years, her memory dimmed. Mamalene raised her, rocking, singing, laughing, playing—never too busy to pay attention to whatever Jenny was interested in. She’d lived to see Jenny safely married and pregnant with Sophie, then she died suddenly without time for a word of goodbye or last hug.

Jenny grieved in unrelieved sorrow for months after Mamalene’s death, and if it hadn’t been for Sophie’s birth, she might have gone on grieving longer. But she’d named Sophie for Mamalene—Sophia Arlene—and was delighted to see that as the child grew, the dimple in Sophie’s right cheek was an inheritance from her great-grandmother. As long as Sophie lived, the memory of Mamalene would continually be vivid.

Jenny wondered what her grandma would have said about taking a wagon train west. Her only advice before Jenny’s marriage was that she make her man as happy as she expected him to make her. With a sigh, Jenny knew she’d done her best. There were times when making Daniel happy was difficult. He was not a man who shared himself with others.

In the chaos of packing the wagon with everything they felt to be essential, he’d been animated like she’d never seen him. Their land and home sold for almost five hundred dollars and Daniel used most of it for spare parts for the wagon, the old smooth bore Kentucky rifle he bought as surplus, and ammunition. What was left over he spent for possibles and kept a few dollars for emergencies on the journey.

The sound of a horse approaching from the rear interrupted her reverie and she turned to see the train’s guide, Zane, riding up. He pulled the horse to a stop and swung down from the saddle with a skinned rabbit carcass in one hand. Thought maybe you could use something for the pot tonight. He dropped the cleaned rabbit into the cooking pot hanging on the side of the wagon.

Oh. Well, thank you. The nice-looking young guide had tipped his hat to her several times, but never stopped to talk.

She asked now, Will you share it with us? I’ve been told I make a tasty rabbit stew. And biscuits, she thought. She made biscuits or cornbread every other night, and they ate them cold until they were gone.

I’d be proud to, ma’am, if it isn’t too much trouble. He moved forward to walk beside her.

No trouble at all. I’m grateful for the meat.

He was a lanky man, with slim hips and broad shoulders. She’d noticed he walked with the grace of a mountain cat, and rode his horse much the same way. He wore a gun belt strapped to his waist, and carried a Plains rifle under his leg when in the saddle. It was his eyes, though, that held her attention. The delicate green of a sassafras leaf in the spring, they seemed to see everything. He looked solid and dependable, and made her slightly uneasy the way he seemed to focus that gaze so intently whenever he looked at her.

I’ll come by when we stop and unhitch for you. That yoke is pretty heavy for a woman.

I can handle it, she said quickly. She didn’t want anyone having the idea she couldn’t manage. Not with Rance ready to put her off the train.

Sophie peeped around the canvas of the wagon. You got a little girl, Mr. Zane?

He shook his head. No little girls, but I have a boy just about your size.

Sophie looked around as if expecting to see the child trailing his dad. Where?

With one finger Zane tipped his hat back and smiled up at Sophie. He’s with his aunt in Oregon. I have a place in the Willamette Valley and my sister Amelia and her husband live nearby. He slid his eyes toward Jenny and she knew he was speaking to her as well. Will is six. He’s staying with them until I get back.

Jenny couldn’t imagine leaving your child with someone else for the year it would take to leave home, somehow get to Independence, and then guide a wagon train back to Oregon. The one-way trip itself would take six months. She couldn’t very well say that, when the man was kind enough to bring their supper and