Weayaya: The Sunset Woman

Chapter 13

Yvonne
1868?

The wagon chucked on through the prairie in ruts created by people who had come long before us. I had seen them in pictures and heard people talk about them...I had only first seen them when I first came through the water...I had followed one to the family I had somehow joined.

It was hot, sticky, and gross in the beating sunlight. There were no trees, and therefore no shade. They wouldn't give very much water either, in an attempt to conserve it until we reached somewhere.

I recalled reading in a book that, at least until we reached the halfway point, there were consistent forts along the way.

I will admit to a significant amount of annoyance on the part of Gideon.

He wouldn't shut up, and he kept calling me Posh Girl.

"So where are ya from Posh Girl?" Gideon piped up as he caught up with Nettie and I. He threw his arm around me and I cringed at once. It was difficult to throw him off, he latched on like a flea.

"Gideon," Nettie called her older brother in a chiding voice.

"What? It's not a bad question! Is it posh girl?" He smirked at me and jostled my arm.

"I'm from back East." I answered vaguely.

"Well where then?" Gideon pestered me.

"Pennsylvania." I shrugged my shoulders.

"What made you come all the way out here then?" He kept going.

I knew I couldn't very well tell him the real reason I had come out west back in my own time...it would've been a stupid reason.

"My mother died. My father married someone knew, and packed me away with a relative....There was something about it being ripe for businesses out here." I made up a lie on the fly.

"Well if you came out here with them where'd they go?" Gideon poked me.

"They are gone." I deadpanned, trying to make him leave me alone.

"What got 'em? Disease? Injury? Indians?!" His voice raised at the thought of Indians.

"Gideon!" I heard his mothers shrill voice. "'Mind your manners boy!"

He rolled his eyes, "Yes, Ma!"

The sun was an ever present man in the sky as we walked. I never realized the reason it took months to reach the west was because the wagons were so damn slow...and walking sometimes seemed even slower. That also wasn't mentioning the problems people encountered along the way.

Already in the short journey, someone had fallen from the wagon and broken their ankle, a child had fallen and spilt open their head, an animal had gone lame, and an axle had broken...leaving one of the families stranded.

We passed them along the trail, the woman was crying, holding a baby, while another child clung to her skirts. Her water filled eyes stared at us as we rolled past.

Nettie was quick to punch my arm.

"Don't look!" She whispered harshly.

"Why?" I was taken aback.

"If ya look they gonna expect ya to help, but the truth be we can't help none. That axle ain't no good." She linked her arm in mine and we walked on by.

"But..." I began.

"Nah ah." She shushed me. "All we can do, is pray for em. And they gonna need it."

"Why?" I asked again.

"Because, there are Indians out here. Like the ones who took your folks. Just cause you ain't see em don't mean they ain't there." She patted my arm as we walked on.

I don't know how long we went on, but the sun was nearly gone by the time we stopped and circled up with the remaining wagons.

Jim walked off toward a group of men as Muriel directed Nettie and I to pull out the big pit to cook with.

Muriel of course, did nothing, and it was Nettie and I who cooked the meal for the entire family. Salt meat and a root vegetable all mixed up together.

It reminded me of a terrible stew from back home and as much as it turned my stomach to eat it, I forced it down. Food was food and I remembered reading somewhere about how malnourishment, accidents, and disease were the main killers on the trails west...not Native Americans or Mexicans or anything else these people may have thought.

It seemed that their biggest fear was Native American people.

I desperately wanted to tell them all these things, but I dared not. I was, after all, not in my era, and I did not have any idea how the people around me affected history or anything, so it was best to just keep to myself.

"So," Muriel piped up, "what say you about your Ma and Pa?"

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"What they do to survive?" She rephrased.

I looked at her for a minute, I definitely couldn't tell her that my divorced parents were a plastic surgeon and a software developer. They wouldn't know what the hell I meant. So, I decided to lie, like I had to Gideon before.

"My father, was a doctor. My mother stayed home with me." I half-lied through my teeth. There was truth in it, my father was some sort of doctor.

"Why West?" Jim spoke to the air, I assumed it was aimed at me.

I had to quickly think of a lie while also incorporating the fact that I had called the name Aunt Lizzie earlier...more than a few times.

"My mother, passed away." I averted my gaze. "My father didn't know how to raise me so he sent me with my Aunt Elizabeth...Lizzie. She was going west with her husband, so I had to go west too." I gulped a little.

I knew how far fetched it sounded, but as I peered at the faces of Jim and Muriel, I seemed to be getting away with it.

"Where are they now?" Muriel's voice came out.

"I-don't know." I shrugged a bit.

"Muriel," her husband spoke to her sternly, "leave the girl be."

They got up and walked off. Nettie and I washed up to the best of our abilities before putting the materials back up.

Gideon started a fire as the sunlight drained away in the sky and stars appeared. Other the fires sparked up, illuminating the night.

Gideon was fast asleep by the time Jim and Muriel came back.

"Keep first watch Evie," Jim pointed from me to the fire. "When you get tired, wake Gideon." He kicked the bottom of his son's boots. The boy just rolled over.

I shook my head in the firelight as he joined his wife on the ground. Nettie was asleep beside me.

I poked and prodded the fire a minute.

I felt my eyes drift closed, but suddenly they burst open to the sound of hollering in the night.