Gone West Read Online Free PDF Page B

Eve, it be unhealthy to make such a row out here?”
     
    “Bosh! Ain’t a soul aside from us for miles around!” threw in someone.
     
    “I beg to differ with you, sir,” Winslow countered darkly. “There could be Indians sneaking around, and maybe even~” his voice lowered, “~maybe even Mormons !”
     
    His words were received with blank stares. It was the big man who’d requested Home, Sweet Home who spoke up slowly and with consideration.
     
    “Mormons be considerable north of us, Reverend. Maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty miles or more to Iowa. ‘Sides, from what I last heard, they got their own troubles to contend with. I can’t picture ‘em sneakin’ around the prairie at night spyin’ on a friendly train of emigrants. Ain’t like any of us is from Illinois and got a bone to pick with ‘em.”
     
    There were a few `Hear, Hears!’ before the preacher chose to answer.
     
    “The Saints do their own bone-picking, I assure you. They’ll be short on provisions with tens of thousands of them barely across the river from Nauvoo, sitting there in hunger these past two months. They’ll be sending out parties to plunder in the unholy names of their prophets and their god.” He glanced around the darkness. “Just mark my words, all of you. If you won’t honor the Lord, at least consider your own earthly possessions!”
     
    Johnny looked as if he didn’t care for the feet beginning to shuffle uncomfortably around him. Fear~particularly unfounded fear~was not a useful emotion with which to begin a two thousand mile pilgrimage.
     
    “I’m sure we’ll take all that under advisement, Reverend, as soon as our musical soiree is finished. But we’ve really only just begun. Right, folks?” Johnny grinned mischievously at the group highlighted by the campfires surrounding them. “In fact, some of our new friends were about to haul out their own pieces and join in.” His eyes caught those of the shy giant who’d spoken up in defense of the Mormons. “You there, sir. You look like a man with music hiding in your bones. Have you nothing to contribute to our group?”
     
    The big man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Sam Thayer, I be. And I ain’t exactly inspired with it, but I do have me a harmonica.”
     
    “Haul it out, Sam, and drag it over here with your body.” Johnny turned to the others. “What do you say. The trip will be long. Best to start now in organizing a little entertainment of an evening.”
     
    There were several prodding elbows, more embarrassed grins, and in a few minutes a fiddle, a guitar, a bugle and a washtub had been added to the proceedings. The Reverend Josiah Winslow, pained, took his leave with small grace.
     
    Maggie alone watched his departure. Johnny’s response had been good for the general morale of the camp. But she didn’t care for the disposition of this Winslow. She recognized the type. The Reverend Winslow was a hard man, like her own father. There’d been no music or singing in her own childhood, either. But although stern to fault, James McDonald had also been fair, and increasingly open to new thoughts as Maggie had grown. Winslow, however, appeared completely single-minded. He could make a difficult enemy. She pitied the Indians he’d come to save, and wondered what had transpired between Winslow and the Mormons to elicit such obvious hatred.
     
    Then she forgot about the man. Charlotte was asleep in her skirts and Jamie nodding off against her shoulder. She joined in on another song.
     

FOUR
     
    The rains came again. It was later in the week, at evening, in a show of might and fury. The dinner fires were extinguished, leaving only the fire in the sky to light up the darkened camp.
     
    Maggie raced sopping into the caravan, Johnny just behind. They dripped on the clutter together.
     
    “Maybe we should have left the children out,” Johnny joked. “They could stand a bath, too.”
     
    “Really, Pa? May I go stand out in the