Jen woke with a start, sitting abruptly upright in her seat. She stole a quick glance at her traveling companions, but none seem to have noticed either her nap or its sudden end. Reverend Moreland was still deeply absorbed by his Bible. She didn’t think the Chamberlains had moved during the entire expedition. The elderly woman had knitted half a sweater since their departure and her husband never seemed to wake up, his stout form swaying easily with the uneven and rocky movements of the coach. The fifth adult in their party, a young man with darting eyes and roving hands, had made it his business to stay as far away from Jen as possible once she had set him straight - with a right hook - back in St. Joe. With shaking hands, she ensured the lid on her ink was tightly capped before replacing both it and her journal back into her carpetbag. Obviously she wouldn’t be writing anything on this journey.
Buck.
It had been six years since his death. Six years since Black Wolf’s bullet had torn him from her. They’d spent one night together, and that night still burned in her memory despite the time that had passed and the people and places that she’d encountered since then. The coach was stifling, yet Jen found herself shivering. It’s only natural, she told herself. Returning to Sweetwater again, it’s reasonable to remember your lost love. But that didn’t stop the pain in her chest or make her head hurt any less. And truth be told, she didn’t have to return to the town of her father to have unanticipated memories and unexpected daydreams of Buck Cross inflicted upon her. She only had to look at Jack for that.
Most little boys would probably have been bored on the long coach trip, but Jack had been good as gold. She smiled down at her son and resisted the urge to ruffle his hair. He was almost five, after all, and tended now to frown upon such doting. She settled for putting her arm around his slim shoulders instead. His hair - dark brown and long as befitted a Kiowa - rested on her arm; his skin was the colour of golden bronze, so vastly different from her own pale complexion. At the movement, he gazed up at her for a moment with twinkling blue eyes - her eyes - and a bright smile before returning to the toy train that had enraptured him ever since it’s purchase in New York. Oh yes, he looked very much like his father, and he grew more like Buck as the years passed. With a jolt of surprise, she realized that the similarity wasn’t just physical; he was already developing the same intensity and concentration that she remembered in his father.
The ‘Train Game’ was a case in point. Leaning down so that her long blonde hair was brushing his own, she could just make out his small voice over the creaking of the carriage. “All aboard… yes ma’am I can help you with that… Tickets please… All aboard now…” He kept up the constant patter, using his fingers as people, all the while moving the train about on his lap, up his arms, across his legs.
Jen let her gaze drift back out the window, suddenly overcome by doubts. Was she right to be uprooting her son yet again? And more to the point, was she right to bring him to Sweetwater, a place that held such bittersweet memories for his mother? In New York, it hadn’t seemed like she had a choice. After working 12 to 14 hour shifts washing dishes at the slop-shop that passed for a restaurant where she was employed, and then walking a dozen blocks back to the only ‘home’ she could afford - a cheap tenement, part of a row of shacks in the worst part of town - she felt like collapsing. Striving to keep the place clean and to keep Jack away from the influence of “undesirables” sapped the remaining strength she had left. But even the miserable job and the slum would have been tolerable if only her son had been accepted. She had chosen New York as their latest abode simply because she knew that it was the stopping point for many immigrants. Certainly those people - people that came from other lands, perhaps to escape intolerance of their own - certainly they could accept the idea of a half-breed child? She was wrong. Even in New York, Jack Cross did not belong.
The wire to her father had been sent in desperation after returning home from work to find her four-year-old child covered in mud, bloodstained and crying. The halting story she got out of him - between bouts of sobbing and then sad yet valiant attempts to be a ‘big boy’ and stem the tears - was simple enough. The details didn’t even matter… it simply boiled down to the fact that he was Not White. To the people they encountered in cities and towns too numerous to name, Jack was not a little boy. He was an Indian, and thus the object of derision and contempt.
She’d gone to the telegraph office that very day and sent a short message to her father: Need to come home. Jennifer. She’d wanted to say more. Wanted to explain that she’d tried her best, but that Jack needed more than she could give him in New York. Wanted to explain that she was returning to Sweetwater for her child’s sake. Wanted to… mention the fact that she even HAD a child. Before now, it hadn’t seemed necessary that her father KNOW that he was a grandfather. He had never respected Buck; he had regarded her brother Two Ponies as nothing more than a half-breed. Despite their attempt at reconciliation after Buck’s death, deep down Jen had feared that her father’s prejudices would cause him to denounce Jack as well. That would have destroyed her, even if the baby was too young to understand the rejection of his grandfather. And, if she was going to admit truths here, she might as well confess this one too: part of her had enjoyed punishing her father by withholding the knowledge of Jack’s existence.
She’d wanted to say more. But telegraphs cost money. So she’d kept it simple.
William Tompkins reply was short and concise: Will expect you. Wire again if you need money. She did need money, but she hadn’t wired again. Instead, she’d taken their meagre savings and bought two train tickets for St. Joe. Jack was thrilled at the prospect of another train ride, and less than thrilled when they transferred to the stage for the latter part of their journey.
And now they were but a few short hours from Sweetwater. From the people that had turned their backs on her mother when she needed them. The people who had refused to stand against Running Bear and the Lakota. The people who had often scorned the father of her child.
Jen shivered again as she caught sight of Independence Rock in the distance. Sweetwater was but an hour away, two hours at the most, and it was too late to change her mind. There were good people in Sweetwater, if they were still there. Rachel Dunne had been nothing but kind and patient; the Marshal had loved Buck like a son. And Ike… she thought that Ike deserved to know Buck’s child. From Ike, Jack would have the opportunity to learn things about his father that Jen couldn’t begin to imagine.
“Are we almost there, Mama?”
Looking down at her son, Jen gave in to the urge to ruffle his hair, then giggled as her son rolled his eyes and squirmed indignantly. She made herself sound as cheerfully optimistic as possible. “Almost.”
“Woulda been quicker to take the train,” the little boy said matter-of-factly.
“Well yes, but I told you Jack, there is no train to Sweetwater.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully, the judgment behind his eyes clearly readable. No train to Sweetwater? those eyes said. Inconceivable. In Jack’s world, there were trains to China. Jen found herself grinning and was pleased when her son smiled back eagerly before settling again into the Train Game. She watched him for a moment before turning her attention back to the passing scenery. Independence Rock was even closer now. Beyond that was the stream, and beyond that… Sweetwater.
She leaned back against the cracked padded seat and closed her eyes. The long sweetgrass that had seemed to welcome her back now rustled ominously against the side of the carriage, every turn of the wheel causing them to whisper a steady and monotonous “No”.
Jen shifted slightly and forced herself to relax. This HAD to work. For Jack.
