Dear God, what had she done? Ash thought numbly as she glanced at the heavy wood wheel beneath the wheelwright's hands.
It would've been more merciful if the ship had sunk, she thought, fighting back tears. Then she would have been spared the pain of realizing what an idiot she had been for believing the awe-touched tales she’d heard in Ireland—stories of riches for the taking, oceans of verdant land fairly crying for the plow, and so much food one need never be hungry again.
America.
Heaven.
They had almost seemed one and the same.
But no one had mentioned that even in New York and Boston the Irish were starving—starving for a single taste of the prosperity America offered. Starving for a tiny snippet of the glorious plenty that flourished all around them. Barred from jobs, barred from the future they had risked their very lives for by signs that warned "No Irish Need Apply."
Refuge had become but another kind of hell—one into which she had plunged not only herself, but the children as well.
And it seemed as though their suffering had only just begun.
"Ma'am?" the gruff voice of the wheelwright broke through Ash's despair, and she steadied herself, peering with faint hope into the broad, honest face. The fleshy cheeks reddened, this man of thick arms and burly chest obviously disconcerted by a decidedly weepy woman. He cleared his throat, unable to meet her eyes.
"I'm afraid I’ve got bad news for you. The wheel—well, even patched, like I done, it might not make it to Oregon. The wood shrinks in the heat, see, and swells up in the water—and the rocks and ruts beat the very devil—I mean blazes—out of it. Now, if there were a wheelwright every twenty miles from here to the Pacific, I'd tell you to chance it. But once you're on the trail..."He shrugged, holding scarred hands palms-up in surrender.
Ash gritted her teeth. She would not disgrace herself by bawling like Liam. "Mr. Logan, I... I have to get on the trail. As soon as possible. I've put all my money into outfitting this wagon. Buying food. Supplies. If we're delayed, the provisions will never last."
" 'Scuse me for askin', ma'am, but how long do you think they'll last if you're stranded in the middle of the open prairie with hardly a scrap o' civilization for a hundred miles?"
Ash winced at the harsh picture Logan's words painted in her mind, icy fear trickling down her spine. As if he sensed her dread, Logan rushed on.
"Ma'am, I don't mean to frighten you, but I got me two young'uns of my own. When I think of my Sarah and the boys trapped in a broken-down wagon in the middle o' nowhere... well, it makes my blood run cold."
Ash's fingers clenched, the nails digging deep into her palms as the man echoed her worst fears. "Mr. Logan, we have no choice. I should have pulled out with the wagon train that left at dawn. I can't afford the time or the money to wait and hook up with another. As it is, I'll be lucky to catch up with the train before nightfall."
The thought of being alone in the wilderness made Ash shudder, visions of marauding cougars, grizzly bears, and war-painted Indians writhing in a macabre dance in her head. Impatient, she crushed the clamor of a too-vivid imagination. For heaven's sake, she thought, she had bought an old Hawkin rifle to defend her and the babes—if she could just remember how to load it. And there would hardly be hostile war chiefs so close to St. Joe... would there?
Loathing herself for what she deemed cowardice, Ash stiffened her spine, her chin jutting out at a pugnacious angle. If the whole Comanche nation descended upon her, so be it. But they'd not find her trembling in fear, hiding in some little town in Missouri.
"Ma'am," Logan broke in, his voice touched with a wisp of condescension, "you're such a little slip of a thing. Plenty of full-grown men don't have it in 'em to make the westward passage. I don't see how you can—"
"Just fix the wagon!" Ashleen snapped, clinging to a sudden fearsome anger. "I managed to bring these children all the way from Ireland. Across the ocean. Halfway across the country. I'll see them settled in Oregon, by all the saints, I will. If the wagon should break down... well, the children are—are strong. We would get along somehow."
A low chuckle from behind her made Ash spin toward the door, the opening seemingly dwarfed by a giant of a man. Impossibly orange hair wreathed a face as craggy as a mountaintop, while a full beard blanketed a barrel chest. But it was the eyes beneath that shaggy crop of hair that arrested Ashleen—dark as blackberries and shiny as beads, but holding such an innate kindness that Ash felt a sudden, unwelcome urge to go to the burly giant and cast her troubles into his capable hands.
"I think ye'd best surrender an' be done with it, Logan," the man chortled, smacking his belly in delight. "I've seen friendlier eyes in a Tonkawa war party."
Logan bristled. "Well, the lady'll be seein' plenty of those where she's headed, Kennisaw. That is, if she's bullheaded enough to charge out onto the prairie with a wagon that's fallin' apart."
"That wagon out yonder?" The man called Kennisaw scratched at his chin. "Aw, Logan, it ain't so bad as all that. Gave it a look-see 'fore I came in. Some little tyke on a crutch was showin' it to me. Right proud of it, he was."
"Liam," Ash muttered, glancing out the window once again to where the children clambered in and out of the wagon bed in some game. From the moment she had bought the rig in St. Louis Renny, Shevonne, and Liam had viewed the old wagon as if it were some magic carpet from a fairy story, sent to spirit them away to an enchanted kingdom. Even Meggie had burrowed into it like a tiny mouse in its nest. Ash had dreaded the day when they learned the stark realities of a wagon trek—dirt, heat, and backbreaking work.
"Them your young'uns, ma'am?"
Ashleen started, her eyes locking with Kennisaw's. "They're..." She almost said orphans, almost launched into an explanation of how she'd come to be in charge of the brood. But a sudden surge of possessiveness and love washed through her. She smiled, unaware of how vulnerable she looked at that instant, how disarmingly lovely. "They're mine," she said softly.
The bearded man's gaze rested on her face long moments, then he grinned, a gap-toothed grin that reminded Ash of sunlight after a storm. "You should be fair burstin' with pride over the lot of 'em."
"I am." Somehow the frustration and grinding responsibility drifted away, leaving in its wake memories of Renny tending Meggie's skinned knee, Liam giving a pretty stone to Shevonne. The hope in their eyes, the love, the trust would have made a journey to hell worth the misery.
Kennisaw reached out, enfolding her small hand in callused paws. "If I was a bettin' man, I'd lay a year's trappin' pay that this gal's got enough grit to make it clear to Chiny if she's a mind to. You jest put that wheel back on the wagon, Logan. And when you're finished, take this package over home." Kennisaw dug in voluminous pockets, dragging out a doeskin-wrapped bundle. "Got some genuine Oglala Sioux moccasins for those ornery boys of yours—jest like I promised 'em last time I was in town."
The thunderous expression on the wheelwright's face faded, a reluctant grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Damn you, anyway, Kennisaw Jones! You spoil the pair of them rotten!"
