“It might be good for her to get more schooling,” Hannah said. “And to see how others live. You keep her so sheltered.”
Jenny sighed. “I suppose. Maybe I’ll talk to Mac again.” But she didn’t intend to do so any time soon.
Mac walked to his town office early on the morning of Jenny’s birthday. He’d left her to sleep as late as she could—Andrew didn’t give them much rest. Mac would be glad when the baby slept through the night. As it was, the infant fed every two hours, day or night. That made for very long nights for his parents—or short nights, depending on one’s perspective, Mac thought wryly.
He’d heard nothing about Will since the one telegram Drew sent from Fort Boise. That had been almost a month ago. He wondered whether the expedition was near Fort Klamath yet. Surely if they had arrived, Drew would have telegraphed Mac again.
Mac thought he and Daniel should travel to Klamath to meet the returning militia. He wanted a word with the colonel to complain about the Army hiring young boys for a military expedition without their parents’ consent. But Daniel said he needed to finish the harvest.
Mac grew bored with his paperwork and returned home to saddle Valiente. When he found Esther and Hannah about to leave after visiting Jenny, he offered to escort the ladies back to their farms. “I want to talk to Daniel, so I’m headed in your direction.”
“We have shopping to do in town,” Esther told him. “You go on ahead. You should find Daniel with Zeke cutting corn today.”
Mac rode to the country and found Daniel and his father Samuel reaping Daniel’s fields with the help of Zeke and his brothers. “I’ve a mind to start for Fort Klamath soon to find the boys,” he said. “By my reckoning, they should arrive there by the end of this month.”
“What makes you think so?” Daniel said, leaning on his scythe.
“If they left Boise shortly after September 10 when I heard from Colonel Drew, they could easily make Klamath by the end of October. They might be there already if they pushed it.”
“Wasn’t they lookin’ for a new pass through the Sierras?” Zeke asked.
“Yes,” Mac said, “but they’ll want to beat the snows in the mountains. Remember the Donners were caught in mid-October in the Sierras.”
Samuel Abercrombie spit a long stream of tobacco juice. “That were a lot farther south, weren’t it?”
“Not that much farther,” Mac said. “And the whole of the Sierra range can be treacherous.”
Daniel gestured at his crops. “I can’t leave yet.”
“Your fields is almost done,” Zeke said. “I’ll help Samuel finish your land and his. Me’n my brothers have enough brawn amongst us to get it done afore the first freeze.”
Daniel looked at his father. “That all right by you, Pa?”
Samuel eyed Zeke. “What’s to guarantee Pershing’ll keep his word?” he asked. “What’s to say he won’t welch the way he done on the ditch?”
“I ain’t—” Zeke began.
“Zeke did exactly what he was supposed to on the ditch, Abercrombie.” Mac was tired of Samuel turning every conversation into an argument. “Your lawyer agreed and refuses to represent you any longer.”
Zeke picked up his scythe again and moved to the next row of corn. “If you don’t want Daniel to leave, Abercrombie, I’ll go in his place. Jonah is my brother as much as Esther’s.”
“I raised the boy, Zeke,” Daniel objected. “It’s my place to go.”
Mac turned to Abercrombie. “See what you started? One of them is going. You decide who it should be. Will you let Zeke help you so your son can do the right thing, or will you stand in his way? I’ll take either man as a companion.”
After hemming and hawing, Samuel agreed Daniel should go and Zeke could help finish the Abercrombie harvest.
When Mac returned from the country, he settled Valiente in his stall, then went inside. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said to Jenny, kissing the top of her head as she nursed the baby. “Daniel and I plan to leave Thursday for Fort Klamath. We’ll bring our boys home.” He reached out to touch Andrew’s fuzzy hair.
“Oh, Mac,” Jenny said, taking his hand and laying it against her cheek. “Thank you. Next to having William home already, that’s the best present you could give me.”
At supper that evening, Mac told the other children of his plans to go after Will. “We know he’ll return to Fort Klamath soon,” Mac said. “I hope to be there before he arrives.”
“I want to go, Pa,” Cal announced.
“Oh, Caleb—” Jenny murmured.
“No, Cal,” Mac said, seeing Jenny’s crestfallen face. “You must stay with your mother. You’ll be the man of the house while I’m away.”
After supper, Cal came to see Mac in his study. “I need to go with you, Pa,” Cal said. “Will won’t come home unless I do.”
“Whatever do you mean, Cal?” Mac asked, putting down his cigar.
“Before he left, he told me he didn’t want to be here as long as I was.”
Mac frowned. “Why would he say such a thing?” Brothers argued, as he well knew. But they didn’t usually tell each other they wouldn’t live in the same household.
“After I broke Maria’s horse,” Cal said, stifling a sob. The boy was trying to act grown up, but he was still a child, Mac realized. Only twelve, his voice as yet unchanged, his cheeks still round and soft. “He said he hated me. I said I hated him, too. And then he said he had no place here, that I’d taken his place, that I broke the best whittling he’d ever done, and he didn’t want to live around me anymore. Then he ran away.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” Mac said.
“But he did,” Cal insisted.
“Regardless, you cannot go with Daniel and me to Klamath.”
