Part 31 (1/2)
Though he slept little, he remained alert to the things about him. No man should travel in this country without a rifle, and he had left the rifle with Tad. Should any personal emergency arise, he would have to meet it as best he could. He didn't expect any; they'd come all this way and needed the rifle only for food. Joe smiled wryly. It always seemed that, when one lacked something, the need for it arose. He cantered the mules around a knoll, and both came to a sliding halt while they p.r.i.c.ked their ears forward and blew their nostrils.
No more than sixty yards away, staring intently at them, was an enormous bear. Joe swallowed hard. He was familiar with the little black bears of Missouri, but this was no black bear. Joe remembered vaguely that he had heard of white bears, or western grizzlies, and the bear was of a pale color. They were savage things and enormously strong. Certainly this one looked as though it could kill one or both of the mules without exerting itself unduly.
Joe swung the mules, who needed no urging, and galloped them to the right. Glancing behind, he saw the bear running and for a moment he thought it was racing to cut him off. Then he grinned weakly and relaxed. All bears, he remembered, have rather poor hearing and sight.
They have a keen sense of smell, but the wind had been blowing from the bear to Joe. Probably the grizzly hadn't even been aware of his presence until the mules started to run, and then he was as frightened as the mules. Or, Joe thought, as frightened as one Joe Tower.
Reaching the abandoned wagon, he first gathered two piles of flat stones. One he arranged beneath the wagon's axle; the other he piled a few feet in front. He had remembered to cut a prying pole when he pa.s.sed the grove of trees in which they had camped. Using one pile of stones as a fulcrum, he inserted the pole beneath the axle and lifted. Raising the front end of the wagon, Joe drove a forged stick over the prying pole to hold it. Then he built higher the stones beneath the axle.
When the wheel no longer touched the earth, he took it off. Lifting the wagon's other side, he took that wheel too, and packed both on the horse mule. Should they break another wheel, he would not be caught without a spare.
On the return trip he rode hard, pressing the mules and stopping only twice. From a distance he heard Mike's bark, and he advanced cautiously.
Tad did have the rifle, and Joe had no wish to resemble, however remotely, a prowling Indian. Then he heard,
”It's Pa! Pa's come back!”
Joe threw caution to the winds and rode openly, and now his weariness seemed in some magic fas.h.i.+on to evaporate. He had been very worried about Emma and the youngsters; in his mind they had been the victims of raiding Indians, one or all of the younger children had fallen into the river and drowned, one of the great white bears had raided them, they hadn't known how to start a fire and thus were cold; these and a dozen other disasters had overtaken them. To know that none of his fears was realized drove worry from his mind and furnished complete relief.
He wondered at Tad as he put the mules to a trot. Back in Missouri, given a rifle and told to stand guard, Tad might have shot at anything, including noises, that startled him. Obviously the Oregon Trail, and perhaps the spanking Joe had given him, had taught the youngster much that he needed to know. Joe saw the wagon and his wife and son, and he called,
”Hi!”
”h.e.l.lo, Joe!”
Emma's greeting was a glad one, and her voice revealed none of the terror she had endured.
Lithe as a fawn, lovely even though she was dressed in c.u.mbersome garments, Barbara leaped from the wagon and waved excitedly,
”h.e.l.lo, Daddy!”
”Hi, Bobby!”
Joe rode up to the wagon and halted his mules. He looked down at Tad.
”Everything was all right, huh?”
”Yeah. Nothin' came.”
Joe laughed. ”You never have luck, do you?”
He looked at Emma, and saw in her eyes everything that she had not put into words. Traces of terror and loneliness lingered there, and he knew that she had prayed for him. But happiness because he had finally come back was driving the rest away as surely as the rising sun dispels morning mist.
”Have you had breakfast?” Emma inquired.
”Yup. Had a snack down the trail a ways.”
”But you're in here almost before daylight. I'll fix something for you.”
Emma built up her fire and put water over to boil for coffee. She made her spider--a skillet with legs--ready and laid three eggs beside it.
Joe looked concernedly at them.