in the white woman’s two large skillets. While the meat went to frying, they set about showing Amanda how to chop up some of the liver and heart into fine pieces, then sprinkle the cubes with a dusting of flour before they stuffed it inside short sections of slippery intestine. Raking aside some of the gray ash and half-dead embers at the outer extreme of the fire, Waits and Shell Woman laid more than two dozen of their greasy treasures in the hot ashes, then promptly covered them with coals to slowly sizzle while they tended the steaks.
“This ain’t the first you’ve et venison, is it, Lucas?” he asked his grandson.
The boy glanced over at his father. “My pa takes me hunting sometimes.”
“You a good hunter?” Titus asked. “Like your pa?”
“We get some birds and rabbits, a few squirrels sometimes.”
Roman cleared his throat self-consciously. “Don’t always bring down big game. S’pose I ain’t near as good with a gun as you’ve got to be all the years you been out here.”
“Gran’papa gonna teach you how, Pa,” Lucas declared.
A bit self-consciously, Roman reached down and pulled the boy against his leg, tousling his hair. “Yep, I s’pose your gran’pa can teach me ’bout hunting, son.”
He instantly felt a stab of sadness for the man, having his own son point out his flaws and shortcomings to his face. But Lucas didn’t know any better. He was just a sprout, a pup who didn’t know any different, a child who would one day come to realize no man could be all things to his son.
Dropping to his knee, Titus said, “I can teach your pa to hunt in this country, I’m sure, ’cause he pretty damn good at ever’thing else, Lucas. Back where you come from, I know your pa was far better at ever’thing he done than I ever could be. An’, when you get to your new home in Oregon country, your pa’ll be the best at what he’ll do out there too.”
As he stood again, he glanced into Roman’s face, finding deep appreciation written in Burwell’s eyes.
The women had dragged the skillets off the flames to cool and Amanda had just put some water on to heat for cleaning when a trumpet sounded faintly at the far end of the long camp scattered and strung out through the cedar grove.
“What’s that horn for?” Shadrach asked.
“They’re calling the council meeting,” Amanda said as she stood, kneading her hands into her apron, her eyes anxious as she stared into her husband’s face.
Roman said, “That’s the way they let everyone know Hargrove is getting ready to start.”
“Fixin’ to start in on Shad an’ me,” Titus replied.
“Maybeso we should leg on over there,” Sweete suggested. “Since these doin’s got to do with you an’ me.”
“Got everything to do with me too,” Burwell said as he stepped around the edge of the fire pit. “Your families are with mine—so I think I got some say in this vote.”
“Vote?” Titus repeated.
Amanda stepped up to loop her arm inside her husband’s elbow. “Hargrove loves to take a vote on everything.”
“Least he did when we was forming up our company back at Westport,” Roman grumped. “But after he got hisself made captain of this train—”
“And after he got us to vote for all these rules he wanted for the journey,” Amanda Continued, “Hargrove hasn’t had many meetings. And he hasn’t called for any votes since we voted to give the lash to one of the men.”
“The lash?” Shadrach asked.
She turned to him, her cheeks blushing slightly. “One of the married men, they caught him sneaking a look at the women while we was bathing in the Platte, back yonder by the Chimney Rock.”
Titus asked, “So Hargrove give that poor fella some lashes?”
“Mr. Kinsey,” Roman said. “From the look on Hargrove’s face as he laid into Kinsey’s back, I’d say our wagon captain would make a damn good hell-and-brimstone preacher!”
“He didn’t stop till Mr. Kinsey passed right out,” Amanda explained as she smoothed the front of her apron. “That’s when they let Mrs. Kinsey and a couple of her husband’s friends come and untie him from the wagon gate.”
Titus ground his teeth in anger. “Tied the man to a wagon gate an’ whupped him?”
Roman Burwell nodded. “Mrs. Kinsey, she knowed I had some salve along to put on the cuts our oxen or mules get. I give her some for them bad cuts on her husband’s back.”
“They out-an’-out whupped him like a dumb brute?” Scratch growled.
“I know he had some punishment comin’,” Amanda confessed, “but Hargrove didn’t need to cut the man to a bloody ribbon neither.”
Burwell drew in a long sigh. “We all know how you gotta have rules, and how you gotta punish when the rules is broke. But, that was the first time Hargrove whipped anyone.”
Shadrach asked, “He have the whole camp watch the whippin’?”
Roman nodded. “Women and children too.”
With a wag of his head, Sweete commented, “After he cut that poor nigger’s back up with his whip in front of every mother’s child, growed or pup, he sure as hell didn’t have to whip no one else from there on out, I’ll wager.”
“C’mon, Shadrach,” Titus said as he stuffed a second pistol in his belt. “There’s no telling what this Hargrove gonna do with us, if’n he’ll whip a man half to death for sneaking a look at some gals takin’ their bath in the river.”
They took a few steps away from the fire before Scratch stopped and said, “Hol’ on, Amanda. You ain’t comin’ along.”
“You can’t stop me,” she argued. “Every other wife and mother gonna be there to see what goes on.”
“But you can’t vote,” Titus said. “Maybe it’s better you stay here … if’n there’s a li’l trouble.”
“If there’s trouble, that just gives me an even better reason to come along.”
“Titus,” Roman used his father-in-law’s name for the first time, “best you realize you aren’t gonna talk her out of this.”
“I ain’t?”
Amanda wagged her head. “No, you aren’t, Pa.”
He snorted in disgust, but a grin crept onto his face as they started off again. “Lot of respect a father gets around here.”
“Haven’t you figgered it out yet, Pa?” she asked as Titus and Shad waved back at their wives, who were staying behind with all the children.
“Figgered what out?”
Roman jumped in to say, “That your daughter’s just as mule-headed as you.”
Bass smiled at Amanda. “Are you now?”
“Leastways,” Shad said with a chuckle, “the woman’s fortunate she got her mama’s purty looks an’ not your bird-dog face!”
“You best be careful who you call a dogface, Shadrach,” Titus warned, squinting one eye at the tall man as they neared the assembly. “You damn well may need all your friends when you go up against a vote by preacher Hargrove.”
A cool breeze stirred the air as Roman Burwell stepped through the women and children who parted for them. It was clear to Scratch how the lines had been drawn and solidified across the last day of travel. Those who had cast their lot with Phineas Hargrove now tended to cluster close by the wagon captain and his hired men at the right side of the circle, while the majority of the train comprised the other two thirds of that milling ring, with no clear leader to throw the weight of their votes behind. All they had to hold on to was that they knew far, far more about Oregon country than they knew about California. Most every pamphlet and news story published back east, most every backer of emigration, spoke only of Oregon. These settlers had cast their eyes on Oregon. They trusted the dream of
As they entered the assembly, more than a dozen men made a point of crowding around Burwell to shake the man’s hand, and that many more nodded or murmured with approval as Bass and Sweete followed Roman around
