Chapter 31

Sam: Preparing for the trip to St Joseph

I awoke snuggled up to Delia again. I guess I must be related to a puppy as I really enjoy cuddling. When Becky awoke and started making her needs known, I held her to me and fed her a nipple. I'll swear it felt like the love was flowing out of my body and into hers. Feeding our little one was one of the greatest feelings I have ever had.

At breakfast, Andy said they were going into town to pick up four wagons. I reminded him to check with the wagon maker about hired hands and he assured me he would. All of the men, except for Rawhide and Ab went to retrieve the wagons. Ab was still gone on his recruiting expedition.

After breakfast, Maddy said she was wondering what we were going to do with all of her canned goods. I asked her how much she had and she took me down to the root cellar and showed me. I was floored.

What I saw was not what I expected. Her "canned" foods were mostly in crocks. These were straight sided crocks with lids to match and they were sealed with wax. There must have been fifty crocks ranging in size from about two quarts to two gallons each. There were also several kegs, two of which Maddy said were filled with kraut and two more that contained pickles.

"Well," I said as I looked over the collection, "I'll get Andy to get some wooden boxes for the smaller crocks. We'll put straw all around the crocks inside the boxes. That should keep them safe enough."

Maddy nodded. "If they put tops on the boxes we can even stack them up," she said.

Stu showed up with the four freight wagons just after noon. After the men had all eaten, I went out and looked them over. Delia was happy to babysit Becky. The freight wagons were larger than I thought they'd be. They also looked to be very sturdy.

Andy wasn't with them and Stu said he was going to talk with some men about going to Oregon with us. Stu knew what to do and soon he had a crew tarring the outsides of the wagons. They put the oxen they had used in the corral and Stu said they had pulled well.

Andy came back around the middle of the afternoon with three new men. It wasn't long after that when Ab came back with four men. All of us sat down and talked about it later and we decided we needed at least four more before we started.

"You know," Maddy said, "Hatty Vencille has a couple of growed boys that she told me wanted to go out west and do some trapping. She says she knows she's not gonna be able to keep them home much longer, but she worries about them. Maybe she'd be willing to let them go with us."

"That sounds good, Maddy. Do you know how old they are?" I asked.

"They're either fifteen and sixteen or sixteen and seventeen," Maddy said.

"Anywhere from fifteen on up would be okay," Rawhide said. "Kids that age have a lot of stamina."

"Would you ride over with me in the morning to see about them, Rawhide?" Maddy asked.

Rawhide nodded. "Reckon I will. Keeps me out of having to work."

Even with having Delia to cuddle with, going to bed at night is a lonely business. Ed and Cassie and Kate have only been gone a couple of days, but I miss them something terrible. I wonder what they're doing right now.

Sunday, February 27, 1848

Ed: - Day 3 of the Dayton to Boston trip

I awoke with my lovely naked wives cuddled up to me. I laid there for a while and wondered what Sam and Delia were doing and how Becky was doing. After a while I looked at Cassie and her eyes were open, watching me. "You were thinking about Sam, weren't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, I was just wondering about her and the baby. I hope everything is okay with them."

"You know, there's not a person there who wouldn't lay down their life for her, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know that. Especially Andy and Rawhide. I know they're safe, I guess I just miss them."

"Sure, and don't we all miss then?" Kate asked from the other side of me.

I put my arm around Kate and we all cuddled together for a while. When we went down stairs for breakfast a little later, I saw that the guy who had come on to Kate the night before was there with two of his friends. I kept my eye on him, but he didn't approach us.

We had a nice breakfast and then hit the road. We were only a few miles out of town when I heard horses coming up behind us at a gallop. I looked back over my shoulder and to me it looked like the guy from last night and his friends.

"Ladies, it looks like we are going to have visitors," I said. "Try to get your guns out without anyone behind us seeing you."

I eased my revolver out of its holster and slid the barrel between my left leg and my saddle. Then we just waited until the men caught up with us. When they did so, we reined in and waited for them to say something.

"Well, now," Bill said. "If it isn't the lovely lady from last night."

"What would you be wanting, mister?" Kate asked.

"I'd be wanting to spend some time with you, young lady," Bill said. "I'd like to get to know you a lot better."

"As I told you last night, I'm a married lady. I do not want to spend time with you, nor do I want to get to know you better."

"I don't believe you about being married," Bill said.

"You should believe her," I said. "She is my wife."

"That, I don't believe either," Bill said. "I saw you lollygagging with the other girl here last night."

"She's my wife too, Bill. It's none of your business, but the three of us are very happily married. Now, I think you need to ride along."

"Oh, I don't think we're going to do that. Even if you are married to both of them, it's not fair for one man to hog two pretty women. Maybe we should just take both of them to teach you a lesson."

"I don't think you're going to be able to do that, Bill. I'm telling you true that you are in serious danger right now. If you don't go about your own business, all three of you are going to end up dead."

One of the other men with Bill laughed. "Right, you're gonna take on all three of us?"

"No, the three of us are going to take on the three of you. Believe me, you don't stand a chance."

I reached over as if I was going to scratch my leg and slid my revolver out from under my leg. It was still under the tail of my coat, so it wasn't visible to our tormentors. I cocked the pistol and felt a lot better with it in my hand.

None of the three had pulled a weapon as yet, so I slowly pulled mine out from under my coat. I turned it toward Bill and when they saw what I was doing, Cassie and Kate lined theirs up on the other two.

"You have two choices," I said as I looked in Bill's eyes. "You can turn your horses and ride away, or you can try to pull your guns. If you ride away and leave us alone, you'll live to find your own women. If you try to pull a gun, we'll leave your bodies laying in the road. It's up to you."

The two men with Bill turned their horses and were gone without having said another word. Bill stared at me for a minute, then he turned and rode away as well.

After they were gone, Cassie said, "You know I didn't think the guy was going to push it to where there'd be violence. I think he was just feeling a little miffed that Kate had turned him down and he wanted to show off to his friends."

I nodded and said, "Yeah, I was hoping for that myself. Thank goodness we were both right."

The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful. We did keep a lookout for Kate's would be suitor, but he didn't make another appearance. We ended up finding a tavern on the edge of Perryton, Ohio, where we had dinner and spent the night.

Before we went up to bed, we sat for quite a while in front of the massive fireplace and soaked up the heat. It was the last of February and all of us hoped it would warm up soon.

Sam: Preparing for the trip to St Joseph

Rawhide and Maddy rode over to the Vencille place after breakfast to talk to them about hiring their sons for a trip to Oregon. They were gone most of the day. Since it was a Sunday, none of us did much, so I used the day to catch up on this diary.

I guess I should say something about the men we hired to go with us. Since there are so many of them, I'll just write about a few of them each day. The first two men who came back to the ranch had worked for Rawhide's sister. They were Abner Hunt and Fred Nelson. Both of them looked like they had been made in the same mold. In their late twenties, both were around 5'9" tall. Both had sandy hair and blue eyes. If it wasn't for their different names I'd have thought they were brothers.

Two other men who had worked for Rawhide's sister came back during the winter. They were Silas Johnson and Amos Brown. Silas was probably somewhere in his mid thirties with black hair and brown eyes. Silas was around 5'11" and Amos couldn't have been more than 5'6" in his boots. Amos claimed to be in his early twenties, but he looked like a kid and everyone called him, Kid.

All four of these men seemed respectable and since Andy and Rawhide trusted them, so did I.

When Rawhide and Maddy got back, they looked like they couldn't wait to tell us what they had found out. We've got four more hands coming over tomorrow," Maddy said.

"You said there were two of the Vencille boys," I said.

"Yeah, but they've got a couple of cousins who'd like to make the trip too," Rawhide said.

"Did you get to talk to all of them?" Andy asked.

"No, just the two Vencille boys. We'll get to talk to all four of them tomorrow. I told their parents we'd be leaving within a week. That's not trying to rush you, Missy," Rawhide said, looking at me. "That's just making sure they're ready to go when we are."

I didn't even jump on him for calling me Missy. I did give both him and Maddy a hug though.

Monday, February 28, 1848

Ed: Day 4 of the Dayton to Boston trip

Breakfast in an ordinary or tavern is different in every one you go to. Some have very breakfasty type foods, like bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and eggs. Others have leftover stew or the like from the night before. The one we were in this morning had thick slices of bacon and johnny cake. It wasn't as great a meal as in a lot of the ones we had visited over the last year, but the bacon and johnny cake did make nice sandwiches for our lunch.

So far, at least, we seemed to be making fairly good time on our trip. I figured if we could average thirty miles a day, it'd take us twenty-two days of travel from Dayton to Boston. This would be day four.

The weather didn't cooperate well today. It was cold. No, it was damned cold. The horses and mules didn't seem to mind moving at all. I think it helped to warm them up. My wives and I huddled in the saddle, wearing all of the clothes we could put on and wrapped in blankets.

Luckily, by noon, it started to warm up some. This part of Ohio is relatively flat land. Not as flat as the prairie, but not hilly either. In the twenty-first century, it is almost devoid of trees. Luckily, in the nineteenth century, trees abound and that helps to break up the wind.

For the last three days, we had been following roads for the most part. Now, these weren't your modern super highways. For the most part, they weren't much better than two tracks through the woods. They were helpful though as you could go pretty much in a straight line rather than working your way through the trees and brush.

"Have you given any thought to what you would like our house to be like when we get to Oregon?" Cassie asked me after it had started to warm up some.

"Big," I said with a grin.

Cassie and Kate both laughed. "Yeah, I guess it will have to be big. You know, with as many people as we have in the family now, we can't expect to fit all of them into one house, don't you?" Kate asked.

"Yeah, we're all going to have to do some talking about that. We could end up with as many as five houses, if we have one for each individual family. Then, we'll need a bunkhouse for the hands."