Chapter 63
“The trip is hard enough without a woman carrying a child. That baby’ll come early if it gets to come at all,” Garrett said, shaking his head. “These wagons aren’t for ridin’ in…they’re for carryin’ goods.
“Can’t they take a buggy or spring wagon for her to ride in?” Todd asked.
Gus laughed derisively, “Them rigs won’t make it to the foothills, let alone through the mountains. Not built for it.”
Sam looked over to where the young couple was happily loading supplies in their new covered wagon, blissfully unaware of the perils that lay before them.
Two days before departure, the oxen were delivered to the train. The drovers trained those making the trip to handle the beasts. The animals seemed tractable enough, but Sam was glad he had a horse to ride and wouldn’t have to walk to California beside some lumbering behemoth. He thought again of the young woman who would have to endure the journey on the wooden seat of an unyielding prairie schooner.