Free Katie and the Mustang, Book 4 by Kathleen Duey Page A

shot. It was awful.
    Mr. Silas butchered the poor animal and we all ate fresh meat for a few days. I was ashamed that we had driven the poor animal to its death, but like everyone else I was starved for fresh meat. Everyone’s bacon was rancid, plain and simple. It stank. But everything else was long gone.
    I had a dream one night, about eating a salmon supper. When I woke up I was so disappointed that it had been only a dream that I nearly wept.
    One chilly morning, we woke to a ground frost that coated the pines and crackled beneath our feet when we started off. We had followed a deep rutted trail all the way. But more and more we were sure that whoever had run wagons down to—and over—that rock ledge had been lost. And so were we. We all kept walking, and no one talked about it much. I was grateful. Talking about it would have only made it worse.
    We saw deeper ruts on a road we came upon, and so we turned down it. That must have brought us back on course, because we saw wagons ahead of us two days later. And Mr. McMahon had a name in his guidebooks for the big, lovely valley we came into shortly thereafter.
    Grand Round was a pretty place. There was a wide valley surrounded by country as pretty as anything we had seen in the Rocky Mountains. The soil was dark and smelled like farmland. And the hillsides were covered with tall, stately pine trees. It was beautiful, and everyone slowed to breathe in the soft air and gaze at the hillsides.
    I was walking the Mustang beside the wagon. “You have to wonder why this isn’t far enough,” Mrs. Kyler said, looking around. She climbed down off the wagon, jumping off the step as the oxen went on. Mr. Kyler frowned and watched to make sure she’d landed safe, then turned back to face the road ahead of the wagon.
    â€œWhy should we go another step?” Mrs. Kyler asked the sky, stretching, then pressing her hands against her back.
    I nodded and stopped with her. It was a wonderful place. Even the air was fine, scented with the pine needles. I could see two creeks, looking down the wide valley.
    The Mustang tossed his head and pranced a little. I pulled him off to one side. I shivered, and Mrs. Kyler noticed.
    â€œYou have a heavy jacket?”
    I nodded.
    â€œDoes it still fit?”
    I nodded again. “I think it will. Hiram bought it too big. I need to get it out, I guess.”
    Mrs. Kyler went silent for a while, and I wished I hadn’t mentioned Hiram. Thinking about him could only make her think about Annie. All the hard and weary miles behind us lay between her and her daughter.
    Mrs. Kyler finally turned to look at me.“I suppose we’ll have to keep on all the way to Oregon City.”
    I smiled at the resigned tone of her voice. “I suppose we will.”
    She sighed and pressed her hands against her back again. “The menfolk talk about Oregon City like it is heaven on earth.”
    We both pulled in a deep breath at the exact same moment, then let it out as if we had counted ready, set, sigh! It made us laugh, and the laughter helped us keep walking. Sheer habit kept us going, too. We were so used to it that it was hard to imagine stopping sometimes.
    A few days later two men on horseback caught up to us. They had been visiting friends near Fort Boise and were on their way home to Oregon City. Mr. Kyler called a greeting, and they reined in. He handed the reins to Mrs. Kyler, then turned sideward and jumped off the bench without reining the oxen in. They plodded onward. Mr. Kyler lifted his knees high for a few steps, getting the kinks out of his muscles, then strode along, talking, walking alongside the strangers.
    I was saw Mr. Taylor climbing down, too, then Mr. McMahon and Mr. Le Croix. Within a few minutes, all the wagons were still moving and all but three had women at the reins: Mr. Swann and Mr. Dillard kept driving Miss Liddy’s second and third wagons, of course, and Mr. Silas had passed the reins to one