Ella by Sadie Conall

Author:Sadie Conall [Conall, Sadie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

Independence, Missouri

May 1846

1

The town of Independence lay on America’s western border, the state line, just six miles north of the Missouri River and twelve miles from Indian territory. And because it was a landing stage for settlers heading west, it was a thriving crowded place with hundreds of men, women and children sharing space with horses, mules, cattle, oxen and dogs.

Ella and her team became aware of the town long before they saw it, as the sounds and smells drifted out across the prairie along with the distant bells and whistles of steamboats coming into berth at the wharves six miles below the town.

Marrok reined in his horse as he came up over a slight rise and as the town and settlers’ camp spread out before him, he looked down on it in astonishment. The number of people camped down there waiting to head west seemed to have doubled since he left here a month ago to find Martha.

He glanced over towards a distant stand of dogwood, a good mile from the town, where he’d left his team and animals grazing. He couldn’t even see them now, for too many other wagons and camp sites surrounded them. He turned as Jasper called out to Abe and Wilber, who were coming up behind him with the oxen.

“Maybe time to get Miss Ruby back in the wagon,” the older man called out where he sat on the buckboard.

Marrok glanced back the girl. She had been walking with Martha and Clara for some time but as the women made it to the rise and looked down on that massive camp, Marrok saw Ruby’s hands go to her throat.

Marrok nodded. He didn’t want to stop the oxen again until they set up camp, so might as well let Ruby climb up inside the wagon now. And better to hide her and be safe, until Ella could buy her a bonnet to cover that vibrant colored hair, than have another altercation with two thugs, just in case they’d come upriver in the past two weeks.

Ruby gladly climbed back into the wagon, pulling the calico curtains behind her as the oxen and wagon rolled on down the hill. Marrok rode alongside Abe and Wilber, showing them where to go.

“We’ll get as close to Willard’s camp as we can,” he shouted, glancing back at Martha. “He’ll be desperate to see her.”

On the outskirts of Independence, between the town and the camp of settlers, were rows of tents where mercantile stores, blacksmiths, carpenters, bakers and women making clothes did business. And clearly the town needed these seasonal stores, with the influx of settlers arriving daily.

Ella glanced away to the west. Twelve miles in that direction lay Indian territory. Untold acres of wide open country, inhabited by tribes who had called that land their own for centuries.

Although for the past sixteen years, other tribes had made that territory their own as well, after being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands east of the Mississippi River after President Jackson signed the Indian Removals Act of 1830.

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