Passage West by Ruth Ryan Langan Page B

should put Emmaline to rest as quickly as possible.”
    “I’ll stay and help.”
    “No child.” Vi lowered her voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “Stay close to your pa today. This death will remind him of his own loss. He shouldn’t be alone.”
    Or he’ll get drunk, Abby thought, feeling her stomach begin to churn. Aunt Vi didn’t need to say it out loud. They both knew. Whenever Pa started talking about his wife and stillborn son, he turned to his jug for comfort. And for days afterward, he would be sullen and abusive.
    Hearing her father moving inside the wagon, Abby squared her shoulders and started a fire. She’d see that he had a hearty breakfast. It might be the last food he’d take for a while, if he started drinking. If her pa and Flint Barrows should band together to drown their sorrow, there’d be no living with them.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Word of the death spread through the train at first light. After breakfast the men fashioned a wooden casket while the women finished cleaning the Barrows wagon. Flint had said that he wanted no trace of his wife’s clothes or precious belongings. Though Abby found his request strange, Aunt Vi argued that every man grieved in his own way.
    “Maybe the sight of her things would keep opening the wound,” Aunt Vi said, folding the few faded and patched dresses that lay in a chest. Except for a few simple undergarments and a shawl that had seen better days, Emmaline Barrows seemed to have few possessions.
    “What will you do with these?” Abby asked.
    “I thought Evelyn Coulter might like to use them to make some infant clothes. Though Emmaline had a few things ready, they weren’t nearly enough.” Handing the pile of carefully folded clothes to Abby, Violet climbed down from the Barrows wagon. In a low voice she sighed, “I’m glad to be finished, child. Though Flint seems to have enough money for whiskey and guns, they lived poor. That young woman barely had enough to keep herself warm. I don’t know how she planned to care for a baby.”
    Leading the way, Violet directed Abby to the Coulter wagon, where the sound of a baby’s cries could be heard.
    When the reverend’s wife poked her head from the wagon and saw Abby and Violet, she smiled warmly. Though barely thirty, Evelyn Coulter’s hair was already shot with gray. She was as wide as she was tall, and when she hugged Abby, the girl felt herself engulfed in warm, baby-scented flesh. The fine lines around her eyes deepened with her smile. “Come on up and have a look at our little Jenny.”
    “Is that what Flint named her?” Abby asked.
    “It’s the name we chose. My mother’s name,” Evelyn said proudly. Opening the blanket, she cuddled the baby close for a moment, then laid her on her lap to be admired.
    The baby was so tiny she reminded Abby of a newly hatched bird. Her skin was red and wrinkled. Her arms were as spindly as little sticks. Her fist curled tightly around Evelyn’s finger. Her eyes squinted shut as she bleated in hunger.
    Placing a twisted corner of handkerchief dipped in water and sugar into the infant’s mouth, Evelyn smiled as the baby’s eyes opened.
    “Oh, she’s so sweet,” Abby cooed, watching in fascination as the baby began to suck.
    “And hungry,” Evelyn added. “Later on today I’ll start giving her a little cow’s milk diluted with water. If she tolerates it, she’ll soon be plump and pink and sleek as a kitten.”
    Abby had her doubts that this tiny creature could ever look plump and sleek, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
    “We’ve brought you Emmaline Barrows’s things,” Violet said. “They aren’t much, but we thought you ought to have them.”
    “How nice.” Rummaging through the meager pile, Evelyn suddenly smiled. “I know what I’ll do with these. I’ll make a patchwork quilt out of Emmaline’s things to save for Jenny. That way, when she’s older, she will have something of the mother she never knew.”
    Abby felt a lump in her