“That’s at least three days,” Mac said.
“Most men take four,” the man said. “But a good horse can do it in three.”
“We don’t mind hard days,” Mac said. “We’ll rest when we get to Klamath.”
Daniel nodded grimly.
Despite their best intentions, Mac and Daniel were slow to leave Jacksonville the next day. The pack mule cast a shoe. “Might as well have a good breakfast while the blacksmith does his work,” Daniel said.
So they returned to the saloon for pancakes and ham while they waited for the mule to be re-shod.
That night they camped on a creek that crossed the trail.
“What’re we going to do with the boys when we find ’em?” Daniel asked drowsily as he lay on his bedroll after their supper of jerky and fried potatoes.
“I don’t know,” Mac confessed, then grimaced. “I told Jenny I’d bring Will back in one piece, but I’m tempted to whale his hide when I see him. How could the lads be so callous toward Jenny and Esther?”
“Not to mention you and me,” Daniel said. “Remember my plan to deed Jonah a corner of my land? That’s on hold now, until I see how he behaves back home.”
“And I don’t know whether to send Will to Harvard or put him to work in Oregon City.” Mac sighed. “We’ll have to see what they have to say for themselves.”
Mac and Daniel continued toward Fort Klamath the next day. They camped on a small lake nestled in the shadow of Mount McLaughlin. The mountain air was the coldest they’d felt thus far on their journey.
“Pretty place,” Mac said, gazing around the forested shoreline as waves lapped at his feet.
“But there’s snow on the peak already.” Daniel gestured at the mountain. “We’d best find those boys and head home quick. Country we’ve come through, it could see snow any day now.”
Mac remembered their trek around Mount Hood back in forty-seven. They’d encountered freezing rains and snow in October that year. Mount Hood was higher than Mount McLaughlin, but Daniel was right—winter could arrive at any time. Drew’s party only had to get to Fort Klamath to avoid the snows, but then he and Daniel still had to get the boys home.
October 15 was another long day in the saddle. Mac and Daniel left the idyllic little lake at dawn and rode until sunset. They saw Fort Klamath in the distance as dusk approached. “We can make it,” Mac said. “There’s a full moon tonight.”
Despite the full moon and myriad stars, it was too dark to see more than silhouettes of buildings by the time they reached the fort. Once the Army guards admitted them, they sought food and a place to camp. Talking to the fort commander could wait until morning.
Chapter 55: Jenny Waits
After Mac left, Jenny’s worries doubled. Mac could take care of himself in the wilderness, and she trusted Daniel as his traveling companion. Still, anything could happen in the untamed land they would travel.
These days, Caleb disturbed Jenny as much as Mac and Will. Something happened between Mac and Cal shortly before Mac left, but she didn’t know what.
“What’s wrong, Caleb?” she asked her son the afternoon after Mac left. The two of them were alone in the kitchen, the boy sitting at the kitchen table while she made him a sandwich after school.
“Nothing.”
“Something is bothering you,” she said. “Tell Mama what it is.”
Cal threw her a look of scorn. She sighed—he didn’t like her treating him like she did toddler Maggie. She would have to try again.
“I know you’re old enough to have secrets from me,” she said. “But maybe I can help.”
“I told Pa.”
“What did you tell him?”
“What I told you earlier. Will ran away because I didn’t want him here.”
“Oh, Caleb.” Jenny knelt by her son’s side. “It took more than a brotherly squabble to make William leave. I don’t know why he left, but I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” That was probably a fib—Will had almost certainly left because of what he’d learned about Jacob Johnson, but she wouldn’t tell Cal that.
Cal brushed away a tear. “If you don’t know why he left, how do you know I’m not the cause?”
“Because I know you and I know William.” She brushed Caleb’s hair out of his face. “You’re both good boys, and you love each other. Brothers fight, but they make up afterward.” She hoped with all her heart that her two sons would patch up the bitterness between them.
October 16 was another McDougall child’s birthday—Eliza turned nine. Despite Mac’s absence, Jenny tried to make the day special for her daughter. With every month, the little girl looked more and more as Jenny had as a child—same light brown hair, same stubborn mouth.
Jenny hoped to give Eliza—and all her children—a happier childhood than her own. She wasn’t much older than Eliza when her parents uprooted their home in New Orleans and moved to the farm outside Arrow Rock, Missouri. All her troubles started after that move. Her papa died, then her mama married a wicked man.
To celebrate Eliza’s birthday, Jenny invited Esther Abercrombie and her brood, as well as Zeke and Hannah Pershing and their two children, for cake and a party after Sunday services. When they gathered outside the Methodist Church in Oregon City, Zeke said, “I’ll feel mighty out of place without Mac and Daniel there for support. What if I take the lads down to the river for a spell? If’n you save us some cake, I think me’n the boys would call it square.”
Hannah laughed and patted her husband’s arm. “You wouldn’t enjoy our hen talk?”
He smiled at her. “My druthers’d be to escape it.”
Zeke took all the boys old enough to carry a fishing pole to the banks of the Willamette. The women and younger children went home with Jenny. They set aside a large hunk of cake for Zeke and the boys, then ate their fill. Afterward, Maria and Cordelia led the younger children upstairs to play, leaving the three women to talk.
