Page 3 of Wagon Train Honor
“Can I ask where you folks are headed?”
Gabe and Ma answered in unison. “Fort Taylor.”
“My other son is stationed there,” Ma added.
“Carson Woods?” Surprise gave the Mountie’s voice a ringing timbre.
“You know him?” Ma sounded excited. Of course, she would be. They all missed Carson.
Bertie must have scrambled from hiding. “You know Carson?”
“I do. He’s a good friend. A good man. A good Mountie.”
Well, if Constable Davis wanted to do or say anything to earn him favor, he’d just done it. They now plied him with questions about Carson and his well-being and about the journey yet to be taken to reach the fort. Bertie even introduced his pets.
“Alice. She a good goat. Limpy, my dog. And Fluff and Smoke, my cats. They in the wagon, sleeping. You wanna see ’em?”
She didn’t intend to miss watching the constable talking to Bertie, her brother who’d never grown out of childhood. Many people found his simple ways upsetting.
Ruby eased up to a peephole. The constable was almost the same size as Bertie, who was a big man. A big man with a child’s mind. A sweet, gentle person.
The two of them looked into the back of Ma and Gabe’s wagon.
“Can I pet them?” Constable Davis asked.
Guess if he asked permission he couldn’t be all—well, she didn’t think he was bad. Only scary in that he snuck up on people.
Bertie nodded. “They likes pets.”
“They’re very soft. I always wanted a cat.”
Huh? An odd thing to say. Especially for a grown man.
“Maybe you get one.”
“Maybe I will.”
They lingered at the back of the wagon a couple more minutes before the constable turned back to Ma and Gabe.
“Carson will be pleased to see you. He’s been telling everyone who would listen that his family is coming.” There was a question in his tone. “He said family friends were accompanying you.”
Gabe chuckled.
Ruby couldn’t see him or Ma, but he’d be giving Ma one of those looks and maybe pulling her to his side, his arm warm and possessive.
“My two sons and I—the Millers—didn’t like to think of them traveling on their own, so we joined them.”
Humph. Ruby sat back carefully so as not to make the wagon move or sigh. They’d joined in more ways than one. Ma had married Gabe. Irene and Hazel’s best friend, Louise, had married Gabe’s sons. Even Hazel had decided to get married. To Joe, the scout. Only Ruby, herself, and her adopted sister, Angela, escaped the matrimony bug. Not that she objected to any of their marriages. But they might as well have named the wagon train the wedding train.
Gabe was explaining to the Mountie where everyone was. “Seems they’ve all found something to do.”
Ruby didn’t dare breathe when he got to her and Angela. What if they drew attention to her spot?
“I don’t know where the two youngest girls have gone. I suppose they’re off enjoying this beautiful spot.”
“The Cypress Hills are nice. Some have called the area an oasis in the midst of dryland prairie.”
An oasis! A perfect description. The flora Ruby discovered held many wonderful surprises. Plant life she’d never seen before. She’d been drawing one of the many flowers when the constable frightened her away.
