Walk by Faith by Rosanne Bittner Page B

problem?”
    â€œYes, in fact, she is.”
    â€œThen tomorrow I will bring both of you something that will help.”
    He turned and vanished like a shadow. Clarissa stood there for a moment to collect herself. Mr. Dawson Clements continued to surprise her with his mystifying ability to change moods as readily as a chameleon could change its colors, although she had no doubt that whiskey had played a role in the Dawson Clements she’d just talked to. She found herself wondering what the man was really like. Which Dawson Clements was the real Dawson Clements—the bossy, grouchy, demanding one who hated preachers and beat up men who hit their children; or the soft-spoken, apologetic man she’d just talked to; or the robust, almost jolly man who’d laughed so hard when she fell in the mud, as well as just now? Did it always take whiskey to get him to open up even a little? And why had he made a point to come and talk to her alone tonight? He could have come forward when she was sitting with Michael and Carolyn.
    She finally found her legs and climbed into the wagon to nestle beside Sophie. She kissed her daughter’s hair, and Sophie sleepily said, “I love you, Mommy.”
    â€œLove you, too,” Clarissa answered, pulling Sophie into her arms. She wished Carolyn had not heard Dawson laugh, although everyone in camp had probably heard him. Now Carolyn knew he’d been here talking to her, and she and Michael would both be full of questions in the morning. She didn’t feel like being teased about something that was becoming much too serious a matter. Worse, what might the other travelers be thinking?

Chapter Twelve
    May 11, 1863
    C larissa tied Sophie’s slat bonnet, determined that her daughter’s fair complexion would not be destroyed by the prairie sun. The hats also provided wonderful relief from the sun’s glare, and she wore one herself during all daylight hours, as did most of the women along the journey.
    Today would be exciting but long. All wagons would first be floated across the river one by one. Clarissa would have her job cut out for her helping Michael tend the eighteen oxen, two draft horses and Trudy the cow along with her calf, while Carolyn’s job today would be to keep watch on the two girls and take the ferry across with them.
    â€œYou and I will take turns going across and coming back until we get all the animals across,” Michael told her, handing her the leather straps that were buckled to the bridles of the two draft horses. “On the other side young Stuart Clymer will help watch those we deliver over there.”
    Neither Michael nor Carolyn had asked one question this morning about Dawson Clements having been at her wagon last night, something Clarissa deeply appreciated. Michael Harvey always seemed to know when to talk and when to say nothing. She suspected he’d told Carolyn not to bother her about the visit. Clarissa could just hear the man telling his wife that Clarissa would tell them about it in her own good time. She had to smile at the suspicion that Michael feared pressuring her might disrupt something good that was happening between her and Clements.
    The trouble was, she had no idea if last night meant anything at all, either good or bad. If she’d not caught the scent of whiskey on Dawson Clements’s breath, she might make more of his visit, but she’d grown up being told that whiskey was a demon drink and made men do things they would not normally do, making them feel brave when they really were not, and stirring sinful desires in them. Thank goodness she did not know firsthand if that was true or not. Neither her father nor Chad drank a drop, one of the few good points she could score for Chad Graham. At the moment she wondered if a drink now and then would have been much less a sin than cavorting with another woman. She thought about Stanley Swenson, a shoemaker across the street from her