Her Believing Heart Page 6

  For some strange reason that Evan couldn’t understand, his throat swelled as he watched the parting scene before him. His mother had gotten up to fix his breakfast and see him off, but he had left his home before the break of day, too early for any of his sisters to be awake. His father had never been there to see him off on a job that he could remember.

  Evan pursed his lips. There was no point in thinking about what he didn’t have. He had a job to do and he was thankful for it. In fact, he was thrilled for this particular job, and to be a part of this family for this moment in time.

  “I’ll drive the first team,” Mr. Gardner said. “Charlie, you take the second, Evan the third, and Nellie the chuck wagon. Alice, you can ride with Nellie. We’ll pick up Nelson at the crossroads. Nelson, the blacksmith’s oldest son, had helped Mr. Gardner with his survey jobs for several years now.

  Evan watched Nellie and her sister climb into the chuck wagon. His natural instinct was to go help her into the wagon, but he realized his help would be out of place today. She was as important to the work crew as any other person, but she was also independent and competent. She wouldn’t appreciate his help today. He swallowed and forced himself to stop watching her like a besotted boy. Swinging into his wagon, he tugged his hat lower on his head, and waited for Mr. Gardner’s signal to move his team forward.

  Finally, Mr. Gardner gave one last wave to his family, and spoke to his horses. The horses leaned into their harnesses as one and moved on down the road. Charlie followed in his wagon, and Evan picked up his lines. “Okay boys,” he said to his team. “Let’s go.”

  The first wagon held the brass transit for taking measurements during the survey. The delicate instrument with its glassed-in compass was stored safely in a wooden box. Two metal clasps held the door to the box shut and kept the instrument from jostling around during the bumpy ride. The wood and brass tripod that supported the transit once the work began lay in a canvas bag on the floor of the wagon. The long red and white ranging rods used for sighting points and lines lay next to the tripod. Other instruments like the chain, plumb bob, and graphometer filled the rest of the wagon. In addition to the equipment, Mr. Gardner’s wagon also carried a large heavy tent, bedding for the men, two rifles, and extra ammo.

  The second wagon held crow bars, shovels, picks, axes, hatchets, tape, and twine, along with two sawhorses and wooden planks to construct a makeshift table. The third wagon carried spare wheels, ropes, more tools, and an abundance of spare parts in case any of the wagons broke down.

  Nellie’s chuck wagon, with its canvas bonnet, held a Dutch oven, frying pans, boiling pots, roasting spits, a coffee grinder, and other supplies for cooking for the crew. There were dishes, first aid supplies, and mending supplies. The wagon had a small make-shift bed for Nellie and Alice, and crammed in next to the bed was a wooden pie safe with five apple pies on individual shelves.

  Every wagon seat was covered with a folded blanket or two, making the hard seats more bearable as they traveled over the rugged, rutted roads. The previous sunny day had dried the roads for the most part, but there were still muddy sections here and there.

  When the wagons rolled to a stop at the crossroad, Evan expected to see the blacksmith delivering his son to the survey crew. Instead, he saw Nelson jump down from George Jepson’s buggy. Mr. Gardner climbed down to talk to Nelson. Charlie, Alice, and Nellie climbed down from their wagons, so Evan did too. The four of them stood out in the sun, talking and laughing, until George climbed down from his buggy and took Nellie aside. Was that a small bouquet of flowers he handed her?

  George and Nellie talked for several minutes while Evan watched and fumed. He hoped George couldn’t sweet talk Nellie into thinking that his behavior at the dance was forgivable. Evan had too many memories of his father being rough with his mother when his father used to come around. As far as Evan was concerned, behavior of the sort George portrayed Saturday night might be forgivable, but never acceptable. Evan might not be good enough for Nellie, but neither was George Jepson. George had money and prestige going for him, but in Evan’s opinion, that didn’t count for much.

  The weather promised to be another scorcher like the day before, and Evan hoped George’s flowers wilted quickly and died in the hot sun. After their big rainstorm on Saturday, there wasn’t a cloud left in the sky.

  When Mr. Gardner finally walked back to Evan and the group standing in the road, he had rearranged the driving order. “Nelson will drive the third wagon,” he said. “Evan, I’d like you to ride with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Evan said. Once the wagons started rolling again, he twisted around in the wagon seat to watch George walking alongside of Nellie’s wagon. Evan smiled as Nellie slowly but surely moved her horses along, eventually leaving George behind.

  Evan would have preferred to keep driving the wagon in front of Nellie’s, but he didn’t say anything to Mr. Gardner. He could handle a heavy wagon and a team of horses, but he was the least experienced of anyone on the survey crew and he knew it. His title was ax man, and he had heard from Charlie that being the ax man was the lowest and worst job on the crew. Evan didn’t care. He planned to work hard at whatever Mr. Gardner asked of him, no matter how difficult or how miserable the work might be. He was simply thankful for the job and for the opportunity to learn.

  “I surely appreciate your help during the past week,” Mr. Gardner said as the horses plodded along.

  Evan straightened in the wagon seat. “I was happy to have the work,” he said. “And it helped my family that you already paid me for those days. Ma was able to make up some back payments to the bank and stock up on food stuffs.” Evan looked down at his new boots that he had ordered through the mercantile. His only regret was that he hadn’t had enough money to pay for new gloves when he ordered the boots. He planned to make do with the gloves he had.

  “I thought of you when one of the members of my survey crew moved away a few months ago,” Mr. Gardner said. “Nellie told me you had a gift for math in school.”

  Evan felt heat spread to his face. “I, uh, I don’t know about a gift, but I’ve always liked math and numbers.”

  Mr. Gardner kept talking as the wagon rattled along, taking off his hat and waving it at a bee that nearly hit him in the face. “Math skills are essential for a surveyor,” he said. “Not that you’ll need the skills this trip. You and Charlie will be doing the grunt work, so to speak. Charlie hates surveying. He’d rather farm, and that’s a good thing for our family. But if you enjoy survey work, Evan, I’ll be happy to teach you how to take measurements and calculate the terrain for the best route. There’s a lot to learn, but there will be other surveys if you’re interested.”

  Evan couldn’t believe what he heard. “I’m interested!” he said, not holding back the excitement he felt.

  “For this job, you’ll mostly be dragging the chain through sagebrush or carrying a bag of stakes and pounding them in the ground. You’ll also be doing a lot of bushwhacking, chopping down trees and bushes so we can cut a line through. Not easy work.”

  “I’m happy to have it,” Evan said, looking at Mr. Gardner with a sense of wonder.

  “That’s one of the other reasons I hired you for the survey. I’ve noticed over the past few years that you’re not afraid of hard work.”

  Evan felt heat fill his face again, but the feeling that came with it felt like an explosion of pride inside of him. Not many people commented on how hard he worked. He always felt most people regarded him as the offspring of his father.

  “Sleeping on the ground isn’t the most comfortable place you’ll ever sleep,” Mr. Gardner said. “But you’ll be so tired at the end of the day, you’ll sleep like a baby. And the grub will be good. Nellie’s a good cook like her ma. She even brought along some apple pies she stayed up late to bake.”

  Evan looked out to the distant mountains and sage brush hills in front of him. He didn’t dare look at Mr. Gardner when the man mentioned Nellie. He was afraid his face would give away his
feelings for the man’s daughter. “How long do you figure it will take us to get where we’re camping tonight?” he asked.

  “Oh, not long,” Mr. Gardner said, guiding the horses to the left to avoid a big mud hole on the road. “The valley on the other side of these hills isn’t far away. We’ll have plenty of time to set up camp and get our equipment in order for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a long day I’m afraid.”

  Within moments of saying the next valley wasn’t far away, Mr. Gardner and Evan heard a shrill whistle and looked back to see Charlie motioning to them. The third wagon in the caravan, the one with the heaviest load, had bogged down in the mud hole. The whole caravan came to a halt.

  Mr. Gardner carried a block and tackle in the wagon that was bogged down, but found that it was useless in this location. There wasn’t a tree or boulder within reach to secure the ropes. Evan rolled up his sleeves after looking at the situation. He worked along with every member of the crew shoveling rock and dirt in front of the wagon wheels. Nellie and Alice gathered all the rocks they could carry, dumped them near the wagon, and went in search of more. Once Mr. Gardner felt they had enough rocks packed under the wheels and in front of them, he and the men doubled up the horse teams on this wagon to pull it free.

  Four hours from the time the wagon bogged down, it was out of the mud, and the extra horses were hitched back up to their assigned wagon. Every member of the crew was filthy and exhausted.

  Shortly after freeing the wagon, the caravan turned south and followed a nearly obscure wagon trail over low hills into the next valley. When they started a slow descent into the valley, Mr. Gardner told Evan more about the survey they were doing.

  “The original survey in this valley created a map with a few land boundaries. That was done by the government eight years ago. They’re just now ready to open the valley for homesteading. For our job, surveying for a main road through the valley, we want to see what’s really here for a road crew to work with. It’s more than just walking through the area. We have to measure each section of the land that we pass through for elevation, compass directions, grade, and distance. We have to decide if we want the main road to go in this direction or that direction.” He swept his arm to the left, and then to the right as he spoke. “Or straight through. It all depends on the terrain and obstacles we find, like that swampy area that we just passed through, or like lava rock outcroppings for example. We can chop down trees, but we can’t move swampy areas or lava ridges.”

  Mr. Gardner raised his arm to let the other wagon drivers know he was stopping. “My best assumption is that the main road should wind down to that clump of trees over there, and then bear left at nearly a straight line through the valley. We won’t know what obstacles might prevent that until we take some of the horses and ride over it, and more importantly walk it. Once we find the location of the original survey marker, we’ll work from there. Finding the original marker won’t be easy. A lot of snow, rain, and dirt have blown through this valley in the past eight years. But I have the measurements of where the marker should be.”

  They stopped by a meandering stream lined with a cluster of aspen trees, and Mr. Gardner announced that they’d set up their first base camp there. Evan and Nelson were assigned to take care of the horses. Charlie and Mr. Gardner set up the tent. Nellie and Alice got a fire going and started supper, a hearty meal of boiled ham, fried potatoes, cheese, and biscuits.

  “My back aches from that bumpy ride,” Alice said once they had finished eating dinner. She sat on one of two fallen trees that Evan and Nelson had dragged to the campsite. Evan had trimmed the branches with a hatchet, making a place to sit.

  “Everyone’s tired,” Mr. Gardner said. “It’s been a long hard day.”

  Nellie stood and walked toward the chuck wagon. “I have something that will cheer everyone up,” she called over her shoulder. After climbing into the wagon and kneeling in front of her mother’s pie safe, she removed the front panel and took out one of her apple pies.

  Five weary faces brightened as she climbed back out of the wagon and held out the pie.

  “You are an angel,” Nelson said.

  “Yes, you are,” Charlie added, holding out his empty plate.

  Nellie cut the pie into six pieces and placed a piece on each of the tin plates they had used for their dinner.

  “Hey, I think Evan got the biggest piece,” Charlie said, using a complaining tone. But he grinned at Nellie when he said it.

  Nellie blushed for a moment, but then retaliated. “You don’t have anything to complain about, Charlie Gardner. All you men got bigger pieces that Alice and I.”

  “Yeah, Charlie,” Alice said. “We won’t give you any more pie if you’re going to be a complainer.”

  “Who me?” Charlie said. “I was just commenting on the fact that it’s nice Evan came to help this year. And it’s nice that he’s been rewarded with the biggest piece of pie.”

  Evan grinned. “I might need more pie than Charlie because I’m the ax man. I’ll be working twice as hard as Charlie for the next few weeks.”

  “Exactly,” Charlie said, agreeing. “That’s why I stated that it was nice to have you with us. I was the ax man the last four years. I’ll happily give you more of my pie just for being here and working that position this year.”

  “Personally,” Mr. Gardner said, “I’m just happy that Nellie brought the pies. You’re all going to earn your pay and your pie on this trip.”

  As soon as they finished eating pie, Nellie and Alice cleared away what was left of supper and washed the plates in the stream. Mr. Gardner spent about thirty minutes going over the men’s assignments for the next day. Then everyone prepared for the much-anticipated falling into their makeshift beds. It had started to cool down, and mosquitos began buzzing around, welcoming the weary travelers in their special way.

  Charlie, Nelson, and Mr. Gardner had opted to sleep in the tent with its mosquito netting. Evan chose to sleep out in the open near the tent, but he pulled his covers over his head. Nellie and Alice snuggled into their chuck wagon bed which had been placed a short distance away under a tree. Their bed was also outfitted with mosquito netting.

  Neither howling coyotes or mosquitos kept any of the survey crew awake for more than a minute.

  7

  Early the following morning, Nellie threw off her covers, and hurried to dress in the cool morning air. “Wake up sleepy head,” she said poking Alice gently on her shoulder. Alice groaned and rubbed her hands over her face. She leaned up on one elbow and watched while Nellie buttoned her dress and put on a clean apron. Because of the pie safe, there wasn’t room in the chuck wagon for both sisters to stand and dress at the same time.

  Alice groaned. “I’m still tired,” she whined.

  “You have to get up. You volunteered to come and help cook this year.”

  “But I’m so sore from that bumpy ride and helping get the wagon out of the mud.”

  “Think of it this way,” Nellie said. “You’re helping build the country. Without surveyors like Pa, this land would never get developed. It would just be miles and miles of mountains and sagebrush. Our job is just as important as President McKinley’s job.”

  Alice giggled. “Cooking for Pa’s crew isn’t as important as the president’s job.”

  “Well, maybe not.” Nellie tousled Alice’s hair, and then sat beside her sister to pull on her boots. “But cooking breakfast is important to Pa and everyone on the crew.”

  “Nellie, I just thought of something.”

  “What’s that, Alice?”

  “What if you and I have the need for rags out here?”

  “Oh, I brought a bunch of them. Just in case.”

  “But . . .” Alice scrunched up her nose. “Do we have to wash them in the creek? What if the men come back to camp while we’re washing them?”

  “Ma said not to worry about the rags. If either of us needs them while we’re out here, Ma said to just burn them when we get a chance.”

 
; Alice flopped back on the bed, and let out a squeal. “That’s the best news I’ve heard since we left home!”

  Nellie released her loose braid and pulled her hair back into a bun. “My hair is going to look terrible for the whole time we’re out here,” she said.

  “Your hair never looks terrible. Of course, you have to look nice for Evan.” Alice grinned and dragged out Evan’s name.

  Nellie threatened her with a pillow. “Don’t be silly.”

  Alice snuggled back under the covers. “I’m not being silly,” she chirped, peeking out with bright eyes. “I’ve seen you gazing dreamily at Evan all week.”

  “You need to hurry,” Nellie said, changing the subject. She had no idea her feelings for Evan were so transparent. She wondered if her parents had noticed. Would they even consider Evan for a son-in-law, or would they prefer someone like George Jepson who came from a good family and had a solid career waiting for him? Mr. Jepson was one of her father’s best friends.

  “I like sleeping outdoors,” Alice said, finally sitting up and stretching. “I just wish I could sleep longer.”

  “You weren’t scared, sleeping out here where nothing’s around except animals?”

  Alice shook her head. “I like animals.”

  Just as Nellie opened the canvas flap at the front of the wagon, she saw deer walking toward the creek not far from camp—a buck, several does, and two young fawns. She reached back and nudged Alice, motioning for her to get up and look.

  “Oh . . . look at the babies,” Alice whispered. “Aren’t they cute?”

  The deer weren’t the only wildlife about. When Nellie went to start the fire, a skunk scampered away from the campsite. Nellie almost screamed, but quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Now you know why your pa insisted we clean the campsite last night, and burn any food that dropped.”