been about last week? You forgot to ask him that.”
“You can be a trying person, Mourning Free. A most trying person. Anyway,
you were the one who started asking questions,” she said as she scrambled back
onto her mattress. “Good night.”
Chapter Fourteen
“That gotta be Fae’s Landing over there on the other side,” Mourning said the
next day when the road brought them to a narrow, swiftly flowing river. “And that be poor little Fae’s raft.” He pointed at the rack of decaying wooden slats that bobbed in the water.
A mill stood on the opposite bank, but there was no buzz of saws or smell of
freshly cut lumber. Olivia stood up and craned her neck, looking for someone to
call out to. “The whole place looks deserted,” she said, sitting back down.
“Maybe they all late risers. Or maybe they havin’ a town meeting or
somethin’.”
“Hmm.” She kept straining to look behind her as Mourning drove on.
The road followed the river and soon narrowed into a grassy trail that was just
wide enough to accommodate the wagon. They couldn’t always see the water
through the trees, but they could hear it. Not far downriver the woods thinned and they glimpsed an equally silent gristmill.
“You’d think there’d be somebody about,” she said, ducking a branch.
“That fellow said it ain’t much of a town.”
“Even so.”
Soon they were facing the river and a large clearing, with open space and
gently sloping banks on both sides of the water. Here the river was twice as wide, but looked shallow enough to cross.
“This must be the place he was talking about,” Olivia said. “I think I see a trail over there.” She squinted into the sun, scrutinizing the buffalo grass waving
on the other side.
“We best get out of the wagon,” Mourning said. “It be easy enough for the
team goin’ down, but gettin’ up that other side … We maybe gotta take some things out and carry ’em over. But first we give it a try.”
They climbed down and removed their shoes and stockings. Olivia tossed
hers into the back of the wagon, but Mourning shook his head and told her to put
her stockings in her pocket and tie her shoelaces to something. She was glad that
while Mourning was still asleep she had changed out of her heavy traveling
clothes and petticoats, into a plain green work dress with a green and white striped apron over it. She hitched up her skirts and stepped in.
“Uncle Scruggs wasn’t kidding about this water being ice cold.”
Mourning waded in a few steps, leading the oxen by the yoke and making no
attempt to keep his pant legs dry. The team willingly followed him and he
shouted to Olivia, “You grab the wagon and hold on. River can fool you. Watch
out for holes.”
She obeyed. The swift current sparkled over slippery stones and she would have fallen on her backside had she not been holding on tight.
“We gotta wait up,” Mourning said, raising a hand. “They thirsty.”
The oxen were straining to lower their heads and Mourning freed them,
allowing them to drink. Then he put them back in harness and gave Dixby a
friendly slap on the rear as he yelled, “Hyahhhhh!” Olivia’s arm jerked forward
