Chapter 10

We did double the guard for the next four days and Bart and I made it a habit to ride out and check our back trail. We saw no signs of being followed and we slowly relaxed.

We were getting closer to our destination and the women took it as a sign to get me married off quick. Over the course of the next weeks they set every girl they thought I might be interested in on me. Their families would invite me to supper and it was usually a pretty nice spread for trail food. The girl would be dolled up and would flutter around in a tiny apron while the families went on and on about what a good cook she was when we all knew she would never get close enough to the fire to ruin her outfit. They would flutter their eyes and giggle over every dumb thing I said, sit next to me while we ate, and offer to go on a stroll down by the creek or along a ridgeline, to settle our food. They were all attractive in their own way, most above average. I wasn’t that old, but I was old enough to not get caught. I could hear Melody laughing her butt off in my head.

Most would keep a respectable distance while we walked, but a couple wanted to get up close and personal, and one suggested a quick dip in the creek would be just the thing to cool us down. Of course she’d have to take her dress off to keep it dry, but it was a sacrifice she was willin’ to make if we kept it to ourselves. She stepped beind some brush to get naked and I faded into the trees. I heard her call me, then go into a cussin’ fit when she realized I was gone. I made damn sure I was back in the camp as quickly as possible, just in case she had a story about smooth talk and lost virtue while insisting I do the right thing.

I must have been reading her mind because she didn’t come back for ten minutes, prepared to tell her tale. It died on her lips when she saw me sitting with Becky and Anna. She never spoke to me again and I learned to deal with it.

My situation didn’t keep the rest of the unattached men and women from sparkin’. Four of them decided to tie the knot when we reached our destination, including one of the Mennonites and one of the young ladies in Mack’s group. She was three quarters white but there was still evidence of her Negro heritage in her face. If anything, it made her that much more attractive. She put him off for a while but his persistence paid off and soon he’d take a few meals a week with her family, and she would join him with his. He came to me a week before we got to our destination wanting rings, and I sent him to Herr Straussman. I wondered what kind of difficulties they would face but they would be living among his people, and they didn’t have the ingrained attitudes of Americans. I wished them happiness, gifting them with a set of cookware when they tied the knot.