A Light in the Wilderness Read Online Free Page B

So would everyone else. She’d be straddling freedom and different kinds of chains. Every day. They might be in new territory, but it would be with the same people bringing what they knew to wherever they were going.

    “But you can’t do that!” Sarah wailed. “I need your help, Tish. You were promised to me. And with the children and the baby coming, I have to have you along!”
    “Don’t harsh on me now, Miss Sarah. I have my paper and maybe this be the best time to let it speak.” It was dusk and they remained at the staging area amidst the hustle of other wagons pulling in, toddlers crying, men riding from the port area where they’d all be boarding a ferry to cross the Missouri in the morning.
    “Talk to her.” Sarah struck at her husband’s shoulder. “Make her come along.”
    “I don’t know how she’ll make it here on her own.” He glared at Letitia but spoke to his wife. “These people think better of themselves than they are. My daddy did wrong freeing her afore he died. Me?” He shook his head. “I’m glad not to have the extra expense of her coming. Already have a driver I’ve got to wage.” He sounded disgusted. “Her leaving is better all around.”
    “You’ll have help with driving and the cattle, but I’ll be on my own with the children? That isn’t fair. It is not.”
    “You expected fair, woman?”
    Sarah blushed a deep red. She cast a begging glance at Letitia and then, as though catching herself, lifted her chin, set her jaw, and said: “I will contest her paper and the court will make her come.”
    “No you won’t.” Mr. Bowman tore a plug of tobacco from the twist and pushed it into his lower lip. “We’ve no time for courtdoings, and besides, I heard my daddy say he gave her freedom. For the work she did. For her losses.”
    “What about my losses? What about what I’ll have to suffer without her along?” Sarah stomped her foot, casting a puff of dust onto the white leather shoes.
    Artemesia stamped her foot too and giggled, letting the dust puff up. The sound of the child’s laughter caused an ache in Letitia’s heart. Maybe she couldn’t stay behind, not with the children tugging at her.
    “You’ll find a friend or two. Got your mother.” Mr. Bowman patted his wife’s shoulder. “Got to meet up with the wagon master. They’ll be choosing up captains.” He tweaked his daughter’s chin, then turned and walked away.
    “Can I go with?” Artemesia ran along beside him and he allowed the girl to join him.
    Sarah turned back to Letitia, her dress with the pillars swinging over her crinolines. “Then go now. I can’t abide the sight of you. I thought you cared about me and the children, I truly did. But now—just go.”
    “I care, Miss Sarah. I’ll miss the children. I loves them like I loves my own before they taken from me. But I survive that, so I ’spect I survive this leavin’ too.”
    “I never ever imagined you’d do this to me.” She cried then, tears marking the powder on her cheeks. “Please . . .”
    That root-bound knot tightened in Letitia’s stomach. To be the cause of someone’s sorrow was not what she’d been taught by her mother. It was not who she was and yet . . . “You’re stronger than you know, Miss Sarah. I watch all your movin’ from Kentucky to here. This Oregon be the biggest journey, but you got your faith and you got your chillun. You be all right.”
    “Just because I have my parents with me doesn’t mean I’ll have help. I’ll be helping them out. Her baby’s younger than mine!”
    “Mistah Bowman right. Your sisters and mama take good care of you.”
    Sarah’s sobbing grew louder, drawing a woman from another wagon.
    The new neighbor put her arms around Sarah. “There, there. It’ll be all right whatever it is this colored woman’s done to bother you.” She glanced at Letitia, dismissed her, and turned back to Sarah. “You come over here with me now. I’ve got hot mint tea brewing against this