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Allison Kohn Author
Category:
Historical Fiction
Publisher: Allison Kohn
ISBN-10: 1480251879
Type: Fiction
Pages: 325
Copyright: 2012
ISBN-13: 9781480251878
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Three of the older baker girls are off to California for a bit of culture, but the culture they encounter isn't quite what they expected.
The girls are drugged, tied up and dumped in a cabin; from where they escape only to find the parents in charge of their safety and well being have disappeared, they get a ride, they think to go north, but end up south instead. from there they are offered the help of a woman they don't know - but she knows them. They spend the year trying to get back to the Willamette Valley and get acquanted with more cultures they aren't atuned to before they finally make it back into the arms of their mothers and sisters. the men have gone to rescue them and the fathers are mising themselves.
Excerpt
As the vehicles traveled steadily along, with the passenger carriage sandwiched in between the two baggage wagons, the girls watched closely for signs of imminent peril; Alice with excitement, Donna prayerfully, and Rose with mounting fear.
Joanna put her hand on her daughter’s trembling one. “Rose,” she said soothingly, “we will be alright. You father will protect us and, what he can’t do, our heavenly father will. The three wagons are better than one; your father is sure the Indians won’t try to attack all three.”
Rose seemed to relax a bit and uttered a sigh. “Of course. Father will protect us.” She smiled softly.
“Of course he will,” Alice agreed, but spoiled the vote of confidence by adding gleefully, “And if they do try to attack, we will just fight them off, that’s all. There are five of us in this wagon alone.”
“Alice Mae!” Donna gasped. “We can’t fight them.”
“I can,” Alice assured her cousin with a tight-lipped smile and bright eyes.
“You wouldn’t want to kill anyone,” Donna insisted.
“It would be a great deal better than letting one kill me,” Alice answered with asperity, reflecting that after traveling in this wagon for a week it would be rather good be out on the ground shooting Indians. “After all, they certainly couldn’t expect to get away with trying to kill people without being shot at could they?”
“Of course, if it comes to that,” Joanna said, “we will do what we have to, but I’m very sure we won’t have to.”
“I couldn’t kill anyone, Mother,” Rose said in a tiny voice.
“The Lord will keep them away,” Donna said with a conviction that made Rose relax. “He has always taken care of us and won’t stop now.”
Alice’s attention was diverted from Indians, and the possibility of killing a few, to the farms they were passing. They were scattered in amongst the woods; here and there she could see a small animal scurry about with an occasional larger animal darting past.
“I wonder what they are doing at home,” she said, suddenly wistful. She watched the woods pass with the eye of an artist; the colors and sounds of spring made her lonesome for freedom more than ever. “Oh to be riding through these woods and hear the crackle of twigs under Twilight’s hoofs; to hear her soft whinny and feel the trembling muscles under me while the breeze caresses my skin.”
Donna gave her an understanding smile and Rose nodded.
They traveled in silence until Alice began to imagine she had a piano in the woods and could play the song of the forest to the wind and listen to it answer back. Her fingers were moving on imaginary keys as she told her cousins about the music and the answer of the wind in the wood.
Rose sighed. “I don’t see how you could know what the wind says and anyway, it’s hot and I can’t hear music played on imaginary keys. Tell us a story.”
“Well alright; how about a story about Indians?”
“No!” Rose said with a glare that told Alice not to fool around.
“I guess I could do better than that,” Alice said contritely and began to weave a soothing tale out of her memories of stories her grandfather used to tell.
No one saw any sign of Indians and they became as a long forgotten nightmare to Rose and Donna as the miles passed. The story had ended and the only diversion was the passing scenery. Both girls joined Alice squirming in their seats.
Alice and Donna both gasped as a lady rode by on a beautiful and spirited blue-grass thoroughbred. Alice gripped Donna’s hand and they leaned out of the window to see her better, longer.
“Oh how I yearn to be out there on that animal’s back instead of this stuffy carriage,” Alice said and Donna sighed.
When the rider was out of sight, the girls settled back to fidgeting until Rose sat up and pointed out of the window. “Look! Mother, what are they?”
“Turkeys,” Joanna said. “A whole farm full of them. Phew! What an awful smell.”
“Look up there,” Donna said, “Fruit trees. Hundreds of them! Why they must ship the fruit down to California too.”
“Oh aren’t they wonderful?” Rose said. Don’t you think they look just like a big huge conservatory though? Wouldn’t it be something to have all that on your third floor, Alice?”
“Wouldn’t that make a wonderful lane to walk down to get married?” Donna asked. “That would have made a beautiful setting for Grandmother’s wedding.”
“Yes,” Alice agreed. “Those blossoms look like Grandmother, don’t they?”
“I think it would make a beautiful setting for my wedding,” Rose said. “When I get married I think I shall … no, come to think of it, I wouldn’t want to travel all the way down here for a wedding. I shan’t do much traveling from now on. I should think this would be enough, don’t you agree?”
Her cousins agreed whole-heartedly. Even Alice couldn’t think of anything she wanted less right now than more traveling. As the miles passed slowly by, she longed for her horse and her piano at intervals. The girls had no idea how very little control they were going to have over traveling before they would see the Willamette Valley again.
Joanna pointed out Joseph Lane’s house as they passed it, but they just said, “Oh,” and yawned. By the time they crossed Myrtle Creek and prepared to ferry across the Umpqua River, the girls were ready to stretch their legs and help, but they weren’t allowed to. Rose pouted and Donna tried to sooth her. Alice said something impolite under her breath, but Rose didn’t hear her and Donna pretended not to. “It is fun to watch the wagons cross from this vantage point, don’t you think?” Donna asked her cousins as they crossed.
Alice reveled in the feeling of the swaying wagon under her feet, as she stood on the ferry deck. “Yes,” she answered Donna. “It is fun and I am sorry I got cross before. Doesn’t the breeze from the water feel good though? It is so nice to be standing up while we move.”
The freedom was over all too soon and the wagons crossed Canyon Creek Pass and entered a little open valley surrounded by forests of white, yellow, tan, and brown mingled with every shade of green imaginable.
Alice caught her breath. “Oh it’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s as though nature couldn’t get enough beauty with what was already there and had to cover the whole area with Azalea plants.”
“Is this what California looks like?” Rose asked excitedly. “Are we almost in California?”
“We are closer,” Stephen said. “It is lovely, isn’t it? I’m sure Ray said the trees in California were bigger around than these though.”
“Oh it’s beautiful!” Donna said. “I hope it lasts.”
“I don’t think we should count on it,” Alice said, and added with determination, “I shall take advantage and walk.”
Stephen stopped the carriage and let the women out and they walked until they were tired before they asked to return to their seats.
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