Page 59 of A Rugged Beauty
The coffee had warmed, and she carefully poured a cup, moving around the fire to offer it to Hollis. The earthy scent must've overcome his hesitation because he took it with a murmured, "Thank you."
She sat where she could attend the biscuits and watched him in the firelight. The quiet all around them made their interactions seem more intimate.
He glanced up and caught her looking. Stuck one finger in his book. "What?"
"Was... was losing your wife the reason you started leading wagon trains west?"
She'd been wondering ever since he'd revealed his past. She'd lost a parent, but not a spouse. Surely that grief had to run even deeper. Was that what'd sent him on this journey?
"In a way." He stared at the fire.
She was surprised he'd answered her impertinent question.
"After I lost Dinah and the baby,Iwas lost."
Dinah. Hearing the name knotted Abigail's stomach.
"I couldn't stay in the house where we'd lived. Memories of her haunted every room. Every single thing inside of it was full of pain."
She understood that. She'd been grateful for the job after her mam had passed, but being in the same kitchen where they'd worked side by side was like working with a ghost. She couldn't count the times she'd turned with a word on her lips for her mam. Almost with the shadow of mam in the corner of her eye.
And then she'd remember. Mam was gone. And every time brought a new cut of grief.
"I read a newspaper article about the Oregon Trail, the need for men to guide families along the route. So I came."
There was more behind his words. She was sure of it. “But why not settle?” she pressed. “Why do you keep on?”
He was slow to reply, his words measured and thoughtful. “Making the journey is like a part of my past that keeps calling me. When I was very young, my pa and ma took me and left—they escaped from a slaveholder and ran to the north. I only have snatches of memories from the journey. All that way on foot, with nothing to their names,” he shook his head, eyes distant. “My pa never spoke of it, but sometimes, even when I was grown, he’d watch over his shoulder with a haunted expression.” He shifted slightly. “The only things I remember are running down a dirt-packed road in the night and a belly so empty, a hunger so deep?—”
He snapped himself out of the memory and sipped his coffee. “Part of me still carries that. Will always carry those memories.”
A silence unfolded as his story settled between them. He’d shared not only the words, but a deeper vulnerability. She barely breathed, not wanting to ruin the moment.
He went on, “I didn't plan on taking the journey more than once. But I realized folks needed someone and that I could do it."
"You're a good leader." The praise slipped past her lips easily, because it was true.
His eyes went downcast and he hid his face behind another sip of coffee.
Another question had been wearing at her ever since he’d mentioned his late wife.
"What was she like?" she whispered, unsure she actually wanted to hear the answer.
He stared over the fire now, his gaze far off. "She was... stately. There was a refinement about her, no matter what menial task she might be doing.” His voice went husky as he spoke these words.
Abigail glanced at her palms in the flickering firelight. She certainly wasn't elegant. She had the hands of someone who worked in the kitchen—calloused, with scars from nicks that'd healed over and old burns.
As if he’d noticed her looking, Hollis said, “She had her own scars. She came from a free family, but they’d been driven out of the town where she’d grown up. There was a mark, just here.” He indicated a spot at the left side of his jaw. “She’d been struck by a rock thrown by a man who hated her family simply for the color of their skin.” He blinked, and tipped his head. “You’ve never met a woman so determined.” His eyes flashed to Abigail and away again. He went quiet.
“My mam was like that,” Abigail shared. She smoothed invisible lines in her skirt as the sun began to lighten the sky. “Determined. She taught me to keep on, keep smiling. Keep singing. Even when she was sacked without cause, she kept singing.”
The first silver from the rising sun crested the horizon and Abigail blinked in the light, hiding the moisture of unexpected tears. She sensed Hollis watching her and averted her face as she knelt on the ground near the fire. She used her apron toprotect her hand as she pulled the biscuit tin from the fire. She'd overcooked one side. They were dark brown instead of pale gold.
Abigail remembered Hollis’s words when he’d announced to the company that she was his wife. He’d called her optimistic. But Abigail wasn’t like Mam. Abigail’s joyful spirit was a mask. Every moment out here in the wild was a moment of fear. Fear that she’d lose everything she held dear. But she couldn’t admit that to him.
“I think Dinah would’ve liked you,” he said quietly.
When she straightened from the fire, he had already ducked his head.
