Chapter 12

June 24

Lebanon, Oregon

The wagon train was guided by the town marshall to an open field behind the livery stable. The field had semi-circle shaped tracks that were clearly well used by wagon trains, supply wagons and locals. There were designated places for fires to be built and stacks of wood supplied to each area. It was the closest to a welcome that the train had received yet.

Setting up camp and getting the evening meal prepared happened quickly. Wendy, anxious to see if her mother was still in town, asked Hoss to escort her, and the two left on foot. As evening fell, cool and comfortable, they walked the boardwalks of the town until she spotted the shops of two seamstresses. Both shops were closed, but a trip to the marshal's office got them names of both proprietors. One lived above the store. The other lived in a small house on the northern end of town. The marshal consented to go with them and introduced them to Mrs. Yule Christenbaum and her husband, who said they hired no one but their own girls in the shop. The other seamstress looked Wendy over carefully, listening to the marshall explain their reason for calling so late.

"I remember a Miss Lily, but she didn't go by Pauly. She called herself Lily Beau."

"Lily Beauchamp?" Wendy asked eagerly.

"That's it, yes. Beauchamp. It sounded French."

"It's my mother's maiden name. Where does she live?"

"I'm sorry, dear. If she was your mother, she left town a few weeks ago. Headed to Albany, I think."

"How far away is that, Ma'am?" Hoss asked.

"It might take your train two days to get there. Should be on your route if you're headed to Portland." The marshal explained.

Hoss tipped his hat to the lady and the marshal alike and guided Wendy out the door for the trudge back to the wagons.

"I suppose that means you'll want to press on with us?" Hoss said as they walked.

"I have to find her. I'm terrified to meet her, but I have to find her."

"I sure can understand that feeling."

That night Hoss pulled Adam, Tom and Dan to the side and told them about the trip into town.

"There's some other things, Adam. Things I been hearin' from Wendy, about the other kids. Wendy was askin' about the people they're gonna meet up with in Portland. Sounded like the kids maybe aren't willing to go along with the plan."

"And they're planning to run away before we get there." Adam finished.

"How'd you know that, Adam?"

"The kids have a rat amongst them." Adam said.

"Who?"

"Aleen Davis. She overheard Catherine and Wendy talking, and she was part of the planning meeting they had at Cascadia."

"Well, why'd she tell you?"

"She likes me." Adam shrugged.

"Oh...what are we going to do about it?"

"Deliver the kids like we promised." Adam said.

"But you already know they're gonna try somethin'. What makes you think they'll go?"

"Because they didn't run away from New York, even though they had a means of supporting themselves. They didn't run away from the train trip west, and they haven't run away from here. They see Portland as an end to the journey and they've convinced themselves it's the proverbial land of milk and honey. They're confident." Adam tilted his head to the side and said, "What they don't know is that Portland is just as dangerous, and frightening as New York, or Nevada, or the middle of Paiute country."

"Huh." Hoss said, his hands in his pockets, toeing at the ground for a moment. "That don't change the fact that them youngin's are gonna be split up. We got a..a big ol' family out here now. It's gonna be hard partin' ways."

Adam stared at the tips of the flames, his eyes unfocused. The lights flaring in his vision looked like fingers, waving frantically for attention. "We can't take 'em with us." Adam said softly.

"Yeah." Hoss said. "Sure would be fun though." Hoss finally sat down on the logs that had been carved out and placed around each fire pit.

"Until Pa had had enough and murdered us all." Adam said.

"Sure wish Pa could meet these kids, how they are now, I mean. They sure have changed."

"Who's changed?" Martha asked, coming up to them with cups of coffee balanced on a cutting board. She handed one to each of the men around the fire, waiting for a response.

"You have, you sweet, angel of mercy." Hoss said, smiling. He sipped from his cup, then his eyes widened. "Sugar...by golly, real sugar."

Adam took a deep whiff of what was in his own cup and smiled at Martha. "That's where you girls disappeared to today."

Hoss raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Dan was smiling. "We took the girls into town after you left with Wendy. They visited a couple of shops and chatted up the locals like they belonged here."

Martha blushed a little and turned a full circle. "Got me new ribbons, too." She said showing off the additions to her hair and the hem of her dress.

The men complimented her accordingly.

"Anyway, with the sugar I thought I'd give you fella's a treat. I'm goin' to take this off to Lil Joe and Bucky, and you gentlemen have a very good night."

They bid her goodnight and the men sat back, coffee cups in hand. Adam set his by the fire, to keep it hot, and went back to staring at the flames. He thought about Black Butte Ranch, as he had been for a few days.

The value of the land alone was great enough to set Jamie and Wendy up well. They could buy a smaller acreage of land and build a house, start a smaller farm or ranch. He'd be happy to spend a few weeks gentling the stock on the old range and rounding up whatever strays were spread out over the mountain side. He could help them hire a few hands, and get a summer garden in. They could live that way, comfortably, with or without Wendy's mother, with plenty in the bank to see them through the winter.

The problem was Jamie and his mercurial temper. The boy was so wrapped up in his bitterness and need for revenge that he hadn't yet discovered what he could do with his life. Only what he couldn't because of the accident. That would take much more time. It would take patience and love and treatment. Those things would be much harder to find. And until Wendy saw that Jamie no longer needed her, she was tied to Jamie and only Jamie. Until she broke free of that tie, Adam was afraid that she would soon be right back to being the lonely girl running a house and a ranch into the ground, made to bear the guilt for something she didn't do.

Adam's thoughts were interrupted by Dan paling a little. Adam could see sweat breaking out on his forehead until Dan stood from the fire, excusing himself quietly. A few minutes later Tom quietly said that he was going to bed, but Adam caught the pained groan as the man stood. He recognized the look on Hoss' face.

"Hoss?"

"Don't feel well at all, Adam." Hoss said, his hand over his belly.

Adam leaned forward and dumped the coffee out of his cup then tilted it toward the fire and ran a finger tip through the fine white grains at the bottom of the cup. Sugar, yes, and magnesium citrate. Adam tasted it, recognized the bitter flavor and spit even the taste out of his mouth.

"What...what is it?" Hoss asked, growing paler and more uncomfortable every minute.

"It's a laxative. They put the sugar in the coffee so we wouldn't taste the citrate."

"What d'you mean?" Hoss asked, moaning already, feeling like his entire belly had turned to liquid.

"I mean they've planned their jail break for tonight." Adam said, wishing now that he hadn't been staring into the flames all that time. Behind him, each of the wagons still had a lit lantern hanging from the center of the middle canvas support, but that was all he could see.

"I gotta go, Adam."

"Go, go!" Adam urged his brother before he let out a faked moan and lay down on the log by the fire. He rolled from the log to the ground then crawled to the end of the log so that he could look around it toward the wagons. He caught a figure running to the line of wooden outhouses at the back of the field and figured it to be Joe. Bucky wouldn't be far behind.

The mules were loose in the pasture beyond the wagons and Adam waited, watching them. Beyond getting away from their babysitters Adam wasn't sure what plan the kids had, if any. He didn't know if the plan would start now, or later in the evening, or if dosing all the men with magnesium citrate was just a prank that they were supposed to laugh at come morning.

When he heard footsteps coming toward the log, Adam lay his head down and closed his eyes.

"Adam?"

Another set of boots came to rest near his head and he felt hands gently rock his shoulders. "Adam?"

"You were supposed to give him the runs, not kill him." Jane whispered harshly.

"I done this hundreds'a times, Jane. I know how to give a man the runs." Martha whispered back. Adam felt a hand block the flow of air coming from his nose. "He breathin'. He ain't dead. Just unconscious."

"You gave him the runs so bad he fainted." A new voice accused.

"No, I ain't. Somethin' else must be wrong." Martha said, "Help me turn him over."

"Martha, leave him be. His brothers can take care of him. We gotta get them mules hitched and skedaddle." Jane hissed.

"I won't leave him to die."

"He won't die." Jane argued. "There's a town right over there with a doctor. And his brothers will be just fine in a couple of hours."

"It don't feel right."

Adam heard what sounded like a brief scuffle before Jane's voice rose in volume. "None of this is right. That ship going down wasn't right. Our parents being dead wasn't right. My brother bein' buried in the middle of the desert isn't right. Us bein' sold off to people we don't know...so's we can pay off our parent's debt ain't right."

Wendy gasped. "What?"

A cloth, damp with water, came into contact with Adam's forehead and it took everything in his power not to flinch. Wendy's voice was closest to him and he assumed she had knelt down to tend to him.

"Not all of us came in on that ship." Martha told Wendy, her voice low and bitter. "But all of us are the property of Johnson Shipping Company. And Mr. Edmunds don't lend property, or let it go free. He buys and he sells it. We been bought by them people in Portland. Only...some of us got a fancier word for it."

"Adoption." Jane spat out. "But they expect to put us to work, mark my words."

"How can you know that?" Wendy asked.

"Because they tried it in New York. They tried separating us, giving the babies to rich women to coddle, and sending the rest of us to the same houses to be maids. How do you think we met Martha?" Jane said. "They were going to ship the older boys out as sailors and the younger boys were supposed to be fine young gentlemen someday. Martha said she had a way to get us all out of it. A way to get her brother and sister, and ours together again."

Jane turned Adam over with a grunt and slapped his cheeks lightly, before shaking her head. "He's out cold. And we got wagons to hitch. Wendy...if you still mean to come with us, you best turn him loose."

Adam listened to the footsteps get softer and farther away before he popped his eyes open. Wendy gasped and Adam shot his hands up, one going behind her neck and the other gently covering her mouth. He pulled her head down low enough that the log bench would block it, and locked eyes with her, keeping his hand over her face until she relaxed.

"What's their plan?"

Wendy bit her lip, glancing in the direction the girls had gone before she looked back down at Adam.

"If you try to stop them, they may hurt you." Wendy said, shaking her head. "They're desperate. I...I thought they were just crazy, but now I understand...they're better off together, Adam."

Adam shifted, staying low enough that he couldn't be seen over the log bench. "They're children, Wendy. And you aren't that old yourself. They just drugged five men and are stealing property they don't own. Mules they don't own. Out here that could get them killed, dead."

Wendy was crying again, hugging herself under the shawl, torn by her guilt pushing her one way, and her fear pushing her another.

"They want to go to a big city. The bigger the better. They want to sell everything they can and buy a piece of land. Live together." Wendy sobbed.

Adam scrambled to his feet, drew his gun and unloaded it into the sky. The noise drew the attention of the kids and terrified the mules, most of whom hadn't been hitched yet.

Adam took in a deep breath and broadcast his voice across the dark clearing. "Those shots will bring the town marshal around!" He shouted, striding toward the wagons. "If all of you are tucked into your blankets I can tell him there was a bear cub going after the stock, and I fired into the air to scare it away. If you're not, I'll have to tell him I caught a thief trying to steal from the wagon train. If even one of you sets foot out of this corral before we leave tomorrow, I will send a posse of armed men after you. Now get to bed!"

By the time the marshal arrived the wagons were quiet. Joe, Hoss, Ben, Dan and Bucky were a sore sight, moaning in their bedrolls, but Adam blamed it on a batch of bad beans, apologized for the racket and spent the rest of the night patrolling the wagon train.

When the sun rose he let the kids take care of their ablutions before he sat every one of them down on the rows of log benches that he had put together the night before, school house style, for a good old fashioned family meeting.

He felt like the mayor of Lilliputia.

"Most...if not all of you, know what went down last night. You know why my brothers, and those two soldiers are still lying sick in their beds. You know why the mules aren't hitched, and breakfast hasn't started."

"It's cause you think you got somethin' to say!" Shouted Jamie.

"Wheel chair or no, I will take you over my knee and swat any part of you that you can feel, in front of the whole wagon train. I've had enough of your mouth."

Adam did his best not to smile when Axle stood up and sent a meaningful glare back to where Jamie was sitting, going red as a branding iron.

"I get the idea that you kids would like to be treated like adults." Adam said, waiting a few minutes for a response before he gritted his teeth and said, "If this were a trail drive, and you had done what you did last night you would be left in this town with the property you owned, the wages you had earned and the clothes on your back, and that's it. And given that the mules, and the wagons and the supplies were all bought with either Cartwright money or Johnson Shipping money, that leaves next to nothing for you. You've got babies you won't be able to feed, and the world isn't going to want a passel of snot-nosed, skill-less orphans."

"We got skills." Martha shouted.

"Trail skills. Common skills." Adam returned without skipping a beat. "You girls could be hired as cooks, laundresses, saloon girls...you wouldn't be teachers, you wouldn't be scientists, you wouldn't be doctors. You boys...you know how to hitch teams, drive mules, and play poker. I hope you're looking forward to working in mines for the rest of your lives."

Adam watched them each exchange glances, watched some of what he was saying sink in.

"Each one of you is capable of ten times more than that. Miles! With that appointment to the military and the education it would bring you...you could inspire a generation of kids just like you to achieve more than they could dream. Martha, Jane, Maudie, Catherine...I've watched you teach entire lessons while walking by a wagon. I've watched you design experiments to demonstrate gravity, electricity, steam power, with out books, or higher education and nothing more than camp tools. I've read your essays. I've kept them!

Harry has done more for sick and hurt animals on this wagon train than any kid I know. He could be a veterinarian someday with the right backing, the right education. Every one of you is an essential part of getting this train safely to the west coast...including Tom, Dan, Bucky, Hoss, Joe, Fovey and Wilson, Albertus. We've built a community out of this train and last night you decided that six of us weren't needed anymore. Instead of talking it out, reasoning with us, and treating us like adults, with the respect that we've damned well earned...you tried drugging us and sneaking out with property you don't have a right to."

Adam straightened his shoulders. "If you still think that childish, selfish, foolish act was the right way to go, then you can line up for your punishment behind Jamie there. I'll get the rounders bat and make this quick and easy.

If you'd like to return to this community, and act like a mature member of it, you will sit there and we will discuss this problem like men and women. Like a community. We will propose solutions to the problem at hand, we will vote on those solutions and we will agree on a course of action that benefits all of us and remains within the confines of the law!

If you're in agreement, we can eat, hitch up the mules and head out. If not...say so now. We'll leave you here with your property and let the shipping company deal with you.

I have coffee and breakfast on that fire back there. Anyone staying with the train is welcome to eat before we get back on the trail."

By the time the last mule was hitched, every child in the train had been fed.