The Lost Wagon Part 52

Both mules had started out briskly that morning, and he had given them only cursory attention, but now he saw that the mare mule was walking with her head down and ears drooping. She was unsteady on her feet, and when Joe slapped the reins she swayed from side to side. Emma saw it too, and the alarm she felt was plain in her voice,

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know."

The team halted as soon as he spoke, and the horse mule turned a questioning head toward his mate. He sniffed softly at the mare, and Joe hopped from the wagon seat to walk to the head of the team. The horse regarded him anxiously, but the mare stood tiredly in harness with her nose almost touching the Trail. Gently, Joe took hold of their bridles and led them into gra.s.s. The mare gasped for breath.

"She's sick!" Joe said. "We'll have to stop!"

Tad came over. His rifle, that had not been out of his sight since he'd owned it, hung in the crook of his arm and concern was written on his face.

"What's wrong, Pa?"

"I don't know."

As gently as possible he unhitched the team, and stripped their harnesses off. The horse mule he picketed, but the mare was left unhampered. She walked a few uncertain steps and halted. The horse followed anxiously, and stood very close to her. He moved aside when Joe came in for a closer examination. Soothing the sick beast with his voice, he lifted her flabby lips and looked inside her mouth. Her tongue was hot, her breath foul.

Joe stepped back. He had considered himself familiar with mules and the diseases of mules, but he was not familiar with this. It must be something peculiar to western country; maybe last night or this morning the mule had eaten something that poisoned her. Or perhaps it was the result of some poisonous insect's bite. It was not snake poison; Joe was familiar with snake-struck mules and he knew that, if they were rested, they would recover. He filled a bucket at the water barrel and held it under the mare's muzzle, but she took only a few sips and staggered away. The children watched concernedly and Emma asked,

"Is she going to die, Joe?"

Suddenly the distances again seemed vast and the Trail forlorn. For the first time Joe realized completely just how dependent they were upon the mules and how lost they would be without them. A broken wagon might be repaired, but one mule couldn't pull it. Joe turned to the medicine he carried in his tool chest and he shook the brown bottle. But even as he did so he felt the hopelessness of it. This was Missouri medicine and the mule had an Oregon ailment. Tad called,

"She's down!"

Joe turned to see the mule fallen in the gra.s.s and making a valiant effort to hold her head up. But even as he looked her head lowered, so that she lay prostrate, and the heavy rasp of her labored breathing was terrible to hear. Breath rattled in her throat and there were a few short gasps. Then silence. The horse mule raised his head and tail and delivered an ear-splitting bray. Very gently, walking slowly, the horse went to his dead mate and touched her with his muzzle.

Emma looked to Joe, and she saddened, because more than at any time during the entire trip, Joe now looked distraught and worried. She knew that these were not the rich, flat, well-watered meadows that Snedeker had talked about. They must travel farther, and to be forced to stop now, and thus lose precious plowing and planting days for the first season's crop, was a bitter disappointment. They were more helpless, actually, than they had been at any time before for how, in this vast uninhabited wilderness, did a person go about buying a mule? Joe squared his shoulders and tried to conceal his own worry. They could not stay here but, obviously, neither could they go on.

"Ellis will be back soon," he said. "We'll hitch his horse with the other mule."

The horse mule lingered near his dead mate, looking fixedly at her, and Joe turned away. For seven years the team had worked together in harness. They knew each other as no man can hope to know a mule, and mules are sensitive. The horse knew what had happened and there was none to share his grief. Emma said pityingly,

"Poor beast, poor faithful beast."

Joe muttered, "I wish Ellis would come."

But another hour pa.s.sed before Ellis and Barbara came riding back up the trail down which they had ventured so happily. Ellis drew the horse to a walk and the laughter that had been his faded.

Joe saw quick hurt flood Barbara's face and tears glisten in her eyes.

She slid from the horse and stood for a moment looking at the dead mule.

Then she disappeared around the wagon. Even while his heart went out to her, Joe knew misgivings. Barbara had never been able to see anything she liked hurt, but this was a new country where some things were bound to get hurt. How many more hurts would she have in the west?

"Lost a mule." Joe could not keep the worry from his voice. "I don't really know what happened. Let's. .h.i.tch your horse in with the other one and get out of here."

"Right."

Ellis slid from his horse and unsaddled him. The horse stood quivering, a little afraid, when Joe approached with the mare mule's harness. He was a saddle mount and had never worn a harness, but he had complete faith in Ellis. The horse pushed a trusting muzzle against his master while Joe adjusted the harness to fit. Joe said,

"Bring him over."

Joe leaped just in time to avoid the mule's lunge, and the bridle was jerked from his hand. The animal went berserk. His ears were back. Eyes blazed and his awful mule's mouth was savagely open as he leaped at the horse. Coming to the end of his picket rope, he was brought up short and reared to paw the air with furious hoofs while he squealed his rage.

The horse was plunging too, dragging Ellis as he sought to avoid the fury coming at him. He snorted and reared, and allowed himself to be halted only when a hundred yards separated him from the enraged mule.

The horse rolled his eyes and shivered. He eyed the mule, ready to run again should it come again. But once the horse was chased to a safe distance the mule merely returned to his dead mate and stood quietly near her. He did not resent Joe's presence and he made no protest when Joe stroked him softly. But the horse could not come near.

Joe said, "Well have to get another mule."

"Do you think he'll work with one?"

"He won't work with the horse."

"I'll get a mule," Ellis said.

"Where?"

Ellis set his jaw. "Ride down the Trail until I find one."

He took the mare mule's harness from his horse and put the saddle back on. Barbara came from behind the wagon and Joe looked wonderingly at her. There had been tears, but there weren't any now. She walked straight, her shoulders braced as Tad braced his. Joe had a curious feeling that he no longer knew this lovely youngster. She had left Missouri a young girl; now she was a young woman. Joe knew suddenly that she would never again throw herself, sobbing, into his arms. She had learned to cope with her own fears and heartbreaks. There was a touch of almost wifely solicitude in her voice.

"You be careful, Ellis."

"Don't you be worrying about me."

"Here." Joe took out his wallet. "You'll need money."

"I've got some."

He kissed Barbara, mounted, and set off down the Trail.

Joe watched him go, and as the young figure sitting jauntily astride his horse disappeared over the horizon Joe knew a twinge of apprehension. If Ellis found a mule pretty soon, he'd likely bring it back. But if he had to go very far, and a mule was too hard to find, and if he came upon some other traveling family in which there was a pretty girl and he received a warm invitation or a good offer--No, no, Joe told himself.

Ridiculous. Ellis was made of better stuff than that. And then, in order to rea.s.sure himself, he turned to Barbara and said, "He'll be back, Bobby."

Her voice was calm. "Of course he'll be back. And he'll bring a mule."

Joe turned away. Bobby's love and faith shamed him but frightened him, too. If anything went wrong between Ellis and Barbara--but nothing could go wrong. Nothing would dare to go wrong. He felt himself fully capable of wringing Ellis's neck if he were to cause Bobby any unhappiness, and at the same time he recognized that wringing Ellis's neck was not likely to insure Barbara's happiness.

Joe set himself to the tasks in hand. "I'll get firewood," he said.

Their meal was a silent and listness one, for the loss of the mare was deeply felt. For endless miles she had been one of their party, and now she was no more. She had helped pull the wagon all this way, but she would not share the home they were to have at the end of the Trail.

Darkness fell. Emma and the children sought their beds in the wagon. But Joe was restless and he had no wish to sleep. He stood under the star-dappled sky and let the soft spring wind caress his cheek. The wind whispered to him and the earth seemed to pulse around him. There were no other sounds save the cow moving about and the occasional shuffle of the horse mule's hoofs. He still stood watch over his dead mate and Joe felt sorry for him. But such things did happen and there was nothing anyone could do about them. People had to weather their own misfortune and prove stronger than ill luck, because if they did not they were lost.

Mules, Joe supposed, must do the same.

He sat on the wagon tongue feeling himself in tune with this new land that he had decided to call home, and knowing it for a good land. Mike padded up to crouch beside him, and Joe reached out in the star-lit night to pet the dog.

There came the sound of hoofs from down the Trail and Joe reached inside the wagon for his rifle. He stood quietly, the rifle ready, and waited for Mike to bristle or challenge. But the dog remained quiet and Joe relaxed. An enemy would not approach openly. He heard Ellis's,