“Don’t you ever feel like a stranger?”

She waved a soapy hand around the room. “This is all I know. This is what made me.”

Will grunted in response. How could she believe it didn’t matter who her parents were? Her mother had been a prostitute and part Indian. Neither Mama nor Mac were her parents—though Will sometimes wondered whether Mac was in fact her father.

Then it dawned on him. Even if Mac was Maria’s father, he wasn’t Will’s. He and Maria had no common blood—both their mothers and their fathers were different. She was no more his sister than Cordelia Abercrombie or Meg Bingham.

He would have to think about what that meant to him.

The next morning after breakfast, Jenny carried a load of clean dishes from the kitchen into the dining room to put away. As she set them down on the table to open the cupboard door, a sharp pain sliced through her belly.

The baby! She immediately worried about another miscarriage. But the pain only came once. After that, she merely felt a slight tenderness across her lower abdomen.

It must not be serious. She’d borne most of her babies with no problems. In the course of eight pregnancies, she’d experienced every symptom possible, she told herself, and she’d only had one miscarriage. This pregnancy would go fine, she was sure.

But she took her time lifting the plates into the hutch, no more than two at a time.

Mac sat in his office reading his mail. A letter from Ladd in Portland, wondering when he would receive Mac’s funds to invest in the banking operation. A letter from Pengra in Eugene, asking for confirmation of Mac’s support for the Central Oregon road survey.

And now correspondence from the People’s Transportation Company, a steamship company operating on the Willamette. Mac had invested with the P.T. Company in 1862 when it formed. Asa and David McCully, the company’s founders, were long-time friends. When they wanted funds to compete with the larger Oregon Steam Navigation Company, Mac agreed. Competition was a good thing, and unless the P.T. Company grew, the larger O.S.N. Company would monopolize steam travel on the Columbia River. William Ladd was one of the principal investors in the O.S.N. Company, but Mac still thought the upstart P.T. Company was a good bet.

Now, however, the stakes were higher. The P.T. Company had added a boat on the Columbia River, operating between the Cascades and Celilo Falls, and the McCullys also contracted with other steamboat operators to transfer passengers and cargo farther up the Columbia beyond Celilo. But the O.S.N. Company had started a fare war that spiraled the P.T. Company into debt. The McCullys needed more funding, and they wanted Mac to increase his stake in their corporation.

He most definitely would invest, Mac thought, reaching for quill and paper to respond to the McCullys. But he wondered—would he be able to support all these new ventures or was he overextending himself? He had a large family to support, and that family was still growing.

Mac had been lucky in California—he’d arrived early at the gold fields and made a fortune when mining was profitable. Later arrivals faced slim pickings. And Mac left mining at the right time as well—he moved into storekeeping and transporting gold, more lucrative operations than physically digging ore from the ground.

He increased his fortune over the years in both California and Oregon. Until the floods. Never had he anticipated water would inundate both states in the same year.

Was Mac ready to expand after rebuilding his investments? Only time would tell whether taking on all these risks was wise. He set his pen to paper and drafted his agreement to the P.T. Company’s request.

As he sanded the paper to dry the ink, Mac remembered Samuel Abercrombie’s threats against Zeke Pershing. What would come of that? Would the old bully take Zeke to court again, as he had many years earlier? Once again, water caused difficulties—if that creek hadn’t changed course, Abercrombie would have no basis for his claim against Zeke.

Will worked all day with Jonah. They were lumbering today, and they had the help of old Mr. Abercrombie, along with Zeke Pershing and his three brothers.

At the noon break, Will and Jonah sat a short distance away from the others while they ate. Jonah grumbled about how hard Daniel made him work. “He ain’t nearly as hard on the other men as he is on me,” Jonah complained. “And they’s all bigger’n me.”

“You’re always saying you’re full grown now,” Will said. “Not like me—Mama says I’m lean as a sapling. I don’t have any muscles yet.”

Jonah sighed. “Daniel says if’n I want to farm, I need to do the work of a man. I try. But it’s hard.”

“Don’t you want to be a farmer?” Will asked.

“He treats me like I’m his slave,” Jonah continued. “I ain’t even his son.”

“He’s raised you.” It dawned on Will that both he and Jonah were being raised by men who weren’t their fathers. He opened his mouth to tell Jonah that, then decided against it. What would Jonah think if he found out Will was a bastard? If he knew a rapist had fathered Will?

Jonah whined on about how easy Will’s life was. “Your pa’s going to send you to some fancy school in the East. You’ll come back to Oregon with fine airs, won’t you?” He threw a pinecone at Will. “You won’t want to get your hands dirty no more.”

Will threw the pinecone back. “Or maybe I won’t come back at all.”

What would he do? Where did he belong in the world?

Chapter 17: Responsibilities

Jenny continued to feel occasional cramping over the next few days. One evening, when she gasped and grabbed her middle, Mac asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Just a little pain,” she said, sorry she’d let him see her wince.

“Is it the baby?” He crossed the room to her and led her to a chair.

Shrugging as she sat, she said, “I’m fine.” He couldn’t do anything to help, even if it were the baby—no need to alarm him.

“Have you seen the doctor?”

She laughed. “For a baby? This early? I’ll let you get him when the real pains start.”

“I’ll stop at his office tomorrow morning and send him to the house to see you.” Mac rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish Doc Tuller were still alive. I trusted him. I’m not as sure about the new doctor.”

Jenny smiled at the memory of Doc Tuller. Their Abram was born shortly after Doc Tuller died, and they named the baby after him. But tiny Abram followed Doc to the grave a few months later. Her only comfort had been the thought of the gruff old doctor watching out for his wee namesake.

“Let Will and Maria do more of the chores,” Mac ordered. “I’ll talk to them. They’re old enough to help—Will’s older than you were when he was born, and Maria’s already taller than you.”

“That’s not saying much,” Jenny said. She was short for a woman, and Maria had passed her up two years ago.

The next evening, after the doctor checked on Jenny and prescribed frequent rests, Mac took Will and Maria into his home study. “Your mother is having trouble with this baby,” he told them. “You’re old enough to understand what that means. I want you both to help her.”

“Yes, Pa,” Maria said, nodding. “I’ll do everything I can. I won’t let her lift anything.”

Mac turned to Will, who stood silently. “And you?” He almost called the boy “son,” though Will now cringed whenever Mac did so. Mac’s conversations with Will had been awkward since he’d brought the boy home after Johnson’s attack. Would they ever find their way to a comfortable relationship?

“Yes, sir.” Will said.

“Stay close to home,” Mac told Will. “No more gallivanting off to see Jonah. I need to be able to rely on you.”

“Yes, sir.”

He wasn’t likely to get any more out of the boy, Mac thought. But Will must still love Jenny and would care for her—surely he didn’t blame his mother for what had happened.