Lenoir

Scott's Bluff

The next major landmark on the trail was 800 ft tall Scott's Bluff. The area was home to over 400 species of plants, and to animals like coyotes, rabbits, burrowing owls, pronghorn, and prairie dogs.

Clarence had brought back a large string of rainbow trout that they processed and smoked that night. Hoping to cure it enough so it wouldn't spoil on the road. He had plans to get them a mule deer soon. He had seen them by the river while fishing. He would have bet his last dollar those deer would be there again in the morning and bedding down by the relative cool of the river for the night.

Mr. Cross had gone with Clarence. As had young Jeremy Huff, the new husband of Elizabeth Huff. She had also recently been blessed with the pregnant condition for the first time. Lenoir and she had a lot to talk about while their men were away.

The men had decided to go deer hunting the next day.

The trail side accommodations the Mrs. had put together included a thin mattress lay on the ground with a patch of cloth spread over it and secured to the wagon, like a lean-to that looked under the wagon and across the landscape.

Their little tent was snugg and their handmade patchwork quilt warm. He pressed against her back, spooning her. His mind wandered to s*x, but he was a religious man with strong beliefs about self control. s*x was for procreation. And self indulgent pleasure could be sinful.

Self indulgent behavior was sin when it came to things like sloth, also known as laziness, and that could kill you and your family in a survival march like theirs. Greed could doom your party, as could the divisions created by wrath and envy. There wasn't much chance for gluttony on the trail for most, but there probably were a few gluttons driven to thievery when their body fat started disappearing. Hunger drove a lot of people to do things they would not have normally done.

Still, she was his wife and he had hungers. These were the thoughts that swam in his mind as he drifted in and out of dreaming.

He had a dream that he was at sea. It was bitter cold and windy, the spray of the blue green waves cascading over the sides of the ship like hard rain. He followed a light through the storm in his dream and the boat took him to shore. As he approached the light he saw that it was a lantern. Closer, and he could see the person holding the lantern looked like a beautiful blonde woman. She sat the lantern on the wet rocks next to her and jumped into the sea, not human after all, but a mermaid swimming for the stary horizon.

In the middle of the night he woke with his unapologetic member taking liberties with Mrs. George's body. Already hard, he decided to quietly shift the skirt of his wife's night dress. From the rear, as they both lay on their sides, he was long enough to reach her innermost attainable layer.

She moaned in her sleep and squirmed against his lap. He reached around her form to take a breast in hand, and it was full.

As coyotes howled under the distant sunset she softly called Clarence by name. He exploded inside her in quivering release. At the same time she came to climax, then fell back asleep in his reassuring arms. Let's face it, he would risk his soul to be that close to her.

In the early morning but not yet time to rise, Lenoir dreamed. In her dream she had six children. Three boys and three girls. She took them to a pond to swim. Everyone laughed and had fun. Then one of the little girls disappeared. The sky grew darker, the clouds drew in, and the wind picked up. They searched the water and the shore for the little girl but they could not find her. Lenoir called and called for the little girl..." Then waking up with a start she suddenly couldn't remember her name. Much of the dream turned fuzzy as she reorientated herself on her surroundings and real circumstances.

Clarence was still there, she felt safer immediately upon recognizing his strong arm over her. But she had heard something that woke her from her dream. She was glad because it was growing into a nightmare. But what was it. She held still and listened, trying to focus through the darkness for signs of movement.

To the right of the wagon she heard a scrape and saw the wagon tilt some. Perhaps one of the oxen, most likely Dilly, was using the wagon as a scratching post.

Now the creaking of the wood boards and a shuffle of things in the wagon woke up Clarence. They looked at each other and Clarence grabbed his gun. Something or someone was in their wagon looking through their food.

Clarence backed out of their tent towards the front, quickly looking around before leaving the shadows in case there were more robbers lurking. Their oxen were on the other side of the circle of wagons sleeping with another team, like a heard.

A pot or pan shifted in the wagon and he could hear it tink against glass. The canning jars. Taking a deep breath Clarence motioned Lenoir, who had emerged wrapped in her day dress, to take cover behind the neighbors wagon. She handed him his pants.

There should be another man or two awake, on guard duty. Where were they? He hoped they would come running as backup if this adversary was too much for him.

When Lenoir was away he spoke loud and abrupt, announcing that he knew someone was in there and they had better come out with their hands where he could see them. He circled the wagon so he could get further behind it, keeping his rifle aimed at the opening of the bonnet. Suddenly there was a growl and furious explosion of brown fur as a bear came ripping out of the back of the wagon, a chunk of pork in its massive jaws.

Clarence fired but the young bear had already made off to the other side of the wagon and kept running. It had been separated from its mother and was desperate, so it had found that robbing wagon trains was better than eating the average picnic basket and picnicer.

In the morning they found that it had not gotten into much, but it had taken the pork and helped itself to most of the honey. The remainder was a sticky mess that Lenoir would have to take the time to clean.

..............................

Claudia sat in the shadow of Courthouse Rock and felt judged. The huge monument brooded over her tiny, fragile, human body with its insignificant dramas and ephemeral lifetime. She glared at the rock in defiance of its age and what she could learn from its patient example.

She was a creature of instant gratification with the inheritance to get her most of what she wanted when she wanted it, as long as it was available. But out here what was available was overpriced and often a scam.

Back in Baltimore she had lived in sumptuous apartments with a cocktail party thrown at least weekly. She always wore flashy everything, but had the bubbly outgoing nature to pull it off. She sparkled.

A party at the heiress's place was where she met Clarence. He escorted his sister to the party, which was not his normal sort of environment. He drank and ate and mingled, rather bored by conversations about politics and business. Then he saw her and she glanced at him. Their blue eyes locked and they both felt a white hot spark.

She played hard to get at first, flirting and leading him on. Claudia liked games and got bored easily. The autumn after they met she found that he was her favorite game. She fell for him and became obsessed with his every attention to her.

For Clarence she was a temptation, a vice, and isn't everybody allowed one vice since no one can be as perfect as God? She drove him crazy at first, in a good way. He loosened up and had fun. Relaxed.

She was a widow without much family, because almost everyone in it had died and left the inheritance to her. So she carried on. She had never had children, and she wasn't sure why since her husband and her had never had marital problems before he died. Now she guessed it had been something wrong with her husband that kept her from getting pregnant.

She sat by the rocks on her dark mule, sure she was pregnant and not sure where the father was. That was a huge problem for an unmarried woman in 1849. Even for a wealthy white lady it was going to be more than an inconvenience.

Claudia wasn't sure what she would say to Clarence, but if he didn't choose her and their baby over his wife, or at least keep her as a mistress, then she and her baby were almost surely going to have miserable lives. She was miserable without him.

She had quickly settled her affairs in Baltimore. She rented her apartments to her cousin with a hefty up front deposit. She sold off many of her designer dresses and much of her furniture. She found a large group going to Oregon, most of a German neighborhood, and talked her way onto their train. She said she was meeting her husband in Oregon. So she lied. Maybe she would fake receiving a message of his death on the trail so she wouldn't need to be seen meeting him.

Feeling sinful and rather ashamed she slid off of her mule with a thud. She was starving. In the wagon her maid from home was getting her biscuits ready to be baked and the man who had been her carriage driver and now served in driving her oxen, repaired a bridle. They would have been unemployed had they not come along. She wasn't going to walk and someone had to help her bring her things.

Her maid, Rebekah Arbredale, fed her quail and baked potato with butter and milk. It was delicious. She hoped her old maid would make it across the plains and through the deserts. Her hair was dusty blonde with streaks of grey, the wrinkles on her face were starting to get deep.

Her driver, Bill Remington, was younger, dark haired, tanned skin, perhaps thirty five. Strong and good with horses and livestock. He preferred the company of animals to the bonds of brotherhood or the attention of females. He was shy.

Claudia considered having a fling with Bill and claiming the child was his. Recoiling from the idea she put her thoughts toward Clarence. His muscular body, his blond sweep of hair over sky blue eyes, the way he had looked like he desired her more than anything.

If he only knew she was pregnant things would be different she thought to herself.