Long Way Home (A Secret Refuge Book #3) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Lauraine Snelling

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168 pages

English

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Will the War's End Bring the Highwood Family Together Again?When a disastrous decision by the new wagon master forces Jesselynn Highwood and her companions to separate from the wagon train, she races back to Fort Laramie to find a guide to take them to Oregon. But the guide has a far different plan, and following her heart, Jesselyn agrees to join him, her rag-tag band in tow. The ensuing journey is fraught with hardship and danger. Is hope for the future sill a prospect?Back in the East, Louisa Highwood and brother Zachary are captured by Union soldiers for smuggling medical supplies into Richmond. Can Louisa find a way to obtain her brother's freedom before it's too late?Rare courage and dogged determination will be hallmarks of the Highwoods' long way home. Their futures--and that of their beloved Twin Oaks--hang in the balance.

Sujets

Historical romance

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 juin 2001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441212412
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2001 by Lauraine Snelling
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-1241-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services
The Long Way Home is dedicated to
the glory of God and to the gift
He has given me in my Round Robin Circle.
These friends help keep me sane and on track.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38
Epilogue
About the Author
Books by Lauraine Snelling
Back Ads
Back Cover
1
West of Fort Laramie on the Oregon Trail Late June 1863
Gray Wolf Torstead, long dark hair tied back with a piece of latigo, topped the hill on his blood bay Appaloosa as the sun broke the horizon. Turning to look over his shoulder, he could no longer see the smoke from the campfires of the wagon train. Looking east he knew he could make it back to the fort with some days of hard riding, gather his supplies, and head home.
Home. Would his mother’s tribe’s tepees feel like home, or had he lived with the white men too long? Like he’d been trailing the wagon train too long. They didn’t need him. Jesselynn didn’t need him. Jesselynn a much better name than Jesse. But he’d had to make sure the new wagon master knew what he was doing. They’d camped in the right places, kept watch at night, and grazed the herd. He’d even heard the fiddle singing one evening.
He knew the scouts had seen him, but then he hadn’t been trying to hide. Just making sure they were safe.
He nudged his Appaloosa into a mile-eating lope and promised himself to put Jesselynn Highwood out of his mind. Out of his heart was another matter entirely. Questions that kept time with his horse’s hooves circled round again. Why had he let her go? Why had he not at least asked her to stay, to marry him?

“Worryin’ gots you lower den a turtle belly.”
Jesselynn Highwood looked over at the smiling black face of Meshach, who used to be overseer at her home in Kentucky. Now he was a freedman and her friend. “I’m not worrying. I’m thinking.” She tucked her slouch hat, which looked to have been wheel fodder, between her britches-covered knees and finger combed her shaggy hair back off her forehead. The hat kept her hair out of her eyes at least, dark blond hair now barely stained by walnut dye. Masquerading as a male to keep her people safe took a lot of sacrifices, especially for a nineteen-year-old Southern woman.
I thought you gave up lying. That little voice inside woke from a nap and, smirking, tapped her on the shoulder.
Jesselynn, her elbows propped on her knees, the reins to the two span of oxen loose in her fingers, stared out over the backs of her trudging bovines. Dust from the wagons ahead of her wore her face dry and crunched between her teeth. She’d lost the juice to swallow with, and the sun hadn’t come on eleven yet.
“Whoa, son.” Meshach gentled Ahab, the Thoroughbred stallion that would be the foundation of their horse farm when they made it to Oregon Territory and a new start away from the war.
Right now, after weeks on the trail, Oregon seemed farther away than ever.
Meshach kept the horse even with the left front wheel of their lead wagon. “Looks like worryin’ to me.”
Jesselynn kept the bite out of her voice with great effort. “I said I’m not worrying.” The emphasis on the last word rang hollow even to her own ears. If this wasn’t worrying, what was it? She chewed on the thoughts like a hound dog with a knucklebone.
“I don’t trust Jason Cobalt.” She said the words loud enough for Meshach’s ears alone.
“They say he be a good man.”
“I don’t doubt that. I just doubt his ability to guide this wagon train through to Oregon. Last night they were talking about taking a shortcut.”
“I heard.”
“Wolf said that shortcut was short on water and the hills steeper.” That was her real problem Mr. Gray Wolf Torstead, better known as Wolf. She knew it down to the stitching on her boots. Why had he left the train and his job as wagon master? She thought she understood the answer to that too, thanks to a conversation with an Indian scout. Wolf had felt a call to return to the land of his mother, an Oglala Sioux who died when he was a youth. However, understanding and agreeing were two entirely different things. She wished she understood all the scout had said.
But if she dug deep enough, and she did that only in the still hours of the morning before the rising sun dimmed the starlight, she knew the real question. Why? Why had he left her ? Thanks to that one embrace they’d shared, she’d dreamed of more. More embraces, perhaps a life together. After all, she didn’t take embraces lightly, not when they made her breathless. Seemed like his had. She let her head drop forward like a heavy blossom on a slender stalk. Why had he left?
Meshach was entirely too perceptive. Aunt Agatha would be on her back next. Keeping her feelings from her nosy aunt would take some doing. Pious, upright, Southern to the smallest bone, Aunt Agatha would definitely not approve of the direction her niece’s thoughts were taking in regard to a half-white, half-Sioux man named Wolf. No matter how much Agatha had changed since the early days of Springfield, with these woman-man thoughts, Jesselynn was seriously transgressing.
Jesselynn forced her head upright and a smile to her lips. Wolf was a moot point anyway. He’d left the train, left her, and all she had to do was keep her sights on Oregon.
Am I not sufficient for thee?
At the gentle reminder, she shook her head. Of course you are, Lord, but you know what I mean. I . . . I thought maybe okay, I don’t know. The sigh came from the balls of her feet. He’s a good man, and I hope and pray he will be happy up there with his mother’s people. She glanced ahead to see that Meshach now rode beside the McPhereson wagon. Something Mrs. Mac said made him throw his head back and laugh, a hearty laugh that said more about the man than the joke. Meshach laughed a lot more on the trail than she’d ever heard him laugh at Twin Oaks. His body-shaking laugh drew in others like bees to blossoms. One would have to be carrying a huge lump of a heart to not laugh along with Meshach.
Jesselynn saw it all and tucked it away to ponder later. Is this what freedom did to a man once enslaved? He’d told her once that Christ set him free long before she did, but she knew she witnessed the change.
Do others see that joy in me? The thought made her flinch. The last three days had been particularly empty of any emotion that bore even a fleeting reminiscence of joy. “Sorry,” she said aloud and shook her head as she flipped a glance heavenward. Praise ye the Lord. Meshach had read that in a psalm the night before. She’d heard it with only half an ear. She had a feeling God would rather she not only heard but did as He commanded.
She could hear her mother too. “ No better time to change than right now.” Oh, Mother, such wisdom you had. What would you say to all this that’s gone on?
“Marse Jesse, you all right?” Benjamin, another of her former slaves, looked at her out of the corner of his eye, as if afraid of intruding but caring enough to want to know.
“Yes, I’m right as a June bug.” Jesselynn flashed him a smile that she’d dredged up somewhere out of her middle. “You want to drive awhile?” She grinned at the rolled-eye look he gave her. She knew he’d rather ride than drive any day, just like she would.
“Yes, suh.” His sigh made her smile again. “I go tell Miss Agatha.” He turned his horse and rode to the wagon behind hers. Jesselynn had become Jesse instead of Jesselynn and Sir or Suh or Marse to her family to keep them all safe when they were forced to leave Twin Oaks near Midway, Kentucky. When Benjamin returned, Jesselynn whoad the oxen and leaped to the ground, her feet sending tingles up to her knees. She swung easily into the saddle and waited while Benjamin climbed up on the wagon seat and hupped the oxen forward. The wheels creaked in protest. One of the oxen bellered.
Jesselynn dropped back to the end of the wagon train and crossed to the north side. No one had reported the Indian shadowing them in the last day or so. On one hand she felt the same relief the others expressed at his supposed departure, but on the other she wished she’d known who he was and what his purpose was. When Wolf had led the wagon train, she’d not wasted time thinking on such things.
Turning Ahab, she cantered back to the herd of horses and cattle that snatched grass along the way as they trailed the train. Daniel, another of her young freedmen, and two other young men from the train kept the herd moving, watching out for danger, be it Indian or beast.
“Anyone seen the Indian that followed us?” she asked as she drew even with Daniel riding Domino, her younger stallion. The two mares along with their foals kept to the center of the herd.
“No, suh.” Daniel stood in his stirrups to stretch his legs. “We ain’t seen nothin’, not even a coyote. This sure do be empty land.”
“Getting rougher too.” Jesselynn looked westward toward the undulating hills that grew ever steeper. Black clouds billowed on top of the hills like frosting piled high on a three-layer cake, the sun stenciling the rims with silver. The cooling breeze felt welcome to her dry skin, but the thought