Page 14 of Eleanor’s Earrings

Near midday, an argument broke out behind the Whitaker wagons. Two men shouted about grazing rights for their animals, though Eleanor could not imagine how grass that belonged to neither of them had become a matter of honor.

Nathaniel rode back to settle it.

Before he left, he handed Eleanor a metal whistle. “Keep the spacing. Halt the rear wagons if the road narrows.”

She stared at the whistle. “You are putting me in charge?”

“I am asking you to keep people from running into one another.”

Competence did not prevent fear; it merely gave fear employment. Eleanor knew this in theory.

“That sounds like being in charge.” Eleanor closed her fingers around the whistle. It was warm from his hand.

“Do not let it ruin your disposition.”

He rode away.

“You look very pleased,” Charlotte said from beside the wagon.

“I look responsible.”

“You always look responsible. This is different.”

“Watch the road.”

Eleanor did not need to use the whistle until the train entered a stretch where trees crowded the trail. The first rear wagon moved too quickly. She signaled the driver to slow, then halted the wagons behind it until the spacing widened.

No one questioned her.

It should not have surprised her. She knew what she was doing. Still, when Nathaniel returned and saw the orderly line, she found herself waiting for his response.

“No collisions?” he asked.

“Not even one.”

“I expected at least two.”

“Then I have disappointed you.”

“Repeatedly.”

He took the whistle. Their fingers brushed.

Eleanor felt the touch all the way to her shoulder, which was ridiculous. She had touched men before. Not many men, perhaps, but enough to know fingers were merely fingers.

Nathaniel's fingers did not seem to understand that.

*****

NATHANIEL DID NOT INTEND to notice Eleanor Whitaker's earrings every time she moved her head.

He noticed anyway.

The garnets were modest, but they were entirely out of place among mud, canvas, and oxen. Eleanor herself sometimes seemed out of place, though not because she lacked the skills for the trail. She carried herself like a woman accustomed to managing a respectable home, not like someone who expected to sleep beneath a wagon and cook over a fire for six months.

Yet she did both without complaint.

At the noon halt, a woman ran toward him crying that her son was missing.