Page 1 of Wild Sweet Wilderness (Missouri #1)

The trail had been long, endlessly winding through a tunnel of leafy trees that reached enormous heights.

The train of wagons, carts, and men on horseback, with women and children trudging beside the wagons, came out of the forest and stopped on the ridge overlooking the river.

Eyes fastened with fascination on the gap in the forest beyond the wide Mississippi, through which flowed the muddy Missouri River.

Every man, woman, and child on the wagon train had heard about the expedition led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, which had set out in the spring of 1804, just a year ago, to explore the vast continent west of the Mississippi.

The company of thirty-two men had descended the Missouri in a flotilla and nothing had been heard from them yet.

Berry Rose Warfield leaned on the back of the weary oxen that pulled the light wagon and glanced over her shoulder to see if Rachel was awake.

Her eyes softened tenderly as they rested for a moment on the sleeping face, before she turned to rap the ox smartly on the rump with a stick and put the beast into motion to follow the wagon driven by the Negro man her father had purchased before leaving home.

Somewhere beyond the frontier settlement of Saint Louis, through thick forest stretching dark and silent, would be her future home.

She and Rachel had been reluctant to leave the snug cabin in Ohio.

They had argued and pleaded with Berry’s father and cajoled to no avail.

Asa Warfield had been determined to join the caravan of families going west to the country beyond the great river.

He had been fired up by the promise of five hundred acres of good forest land that abounded in game and was rich enough to grow a tobacco crop.

It was time for Asa to move on because his whoring and drinking had earned him the contempt of all his neighbors.

He had unleashed his explosive temper once too often and was no longer welcome to spend his evenings in the local tavern.

Berry slowed her steps and let the wagon catch up with her so she could look once again at the pale face of the light-haired woman lying on the feather bed.

Rachel was flushed with heat and her hands cradled her large, protruding stomach.

This was her third pregnancy since Asa had brought her home to the Ohio cabin after buying her bond from the tavern owner.

He had told his eight-year-old daughter, Berry, that he had married the girl and insisted that she call her “Ma” although there was less than eight years’ difference in their ages.

Love had grown between the two, and now, ten years later, they were as close as sisters.

“How do you feel?”

Pale and pretty, with light blond hair that framed a face dominated by haunted blue eyes, Rachel lay unmoving. She had been ill throughout most of the journey. “Better.” She smiled at Berry with affection.

“Mr. Benson wants to push on until we get to the place where we’ll be ferried across the river before we stop for the night. He thinks we can get there before dark.” Berry spoke quietly, but the sparkle of excitement shone in her gray-green eyes.

“Glory! Won’t it be grand to be put once again?”

Berry wiped the sweat from her face with the end of her apron and laughed with delight. “When we’re put, we’ll have to live in the wagons until we get a cabin built.”

“At least we won’t be moving,” Rachel said with a grimace.

Berry’s eyes searched Rachel’s face anxiously for signs of pain. “We’ll make camp soon and you can get out and walk a spell. That ought to make your back feel better. You’re not going to lose this little ’un like you did the other two,” she said with determination.

Rachel watched the slim girl move up to the ox and give the beast a friendly pat on the back.

Berry grows more beautiful every day, she thought.

I couldn’t love her more if she was my own.

How long will it be before Asa works out a scheme to sell her to the highest bidder?

He’ll separate us if he can. I know he will!

I’ll kill him first! Her heart beat wildly at the thought of Berry’s being subjected to the brutality Rachel had suffered at Asa’s hands.

Since Berry had grown to womanhood their roles had changed.

She now protected Rachel. Asa no longer dared to cuff her or throw her down behind the curtain and satisfy himself on her body as he once had done.

Long ago she had moved into the loft to sleep beside Berry, and Asa spent more and more of his time at the tavern.

Rachel was pregnant now because he had caught her in the cabin alone and forced her to submit to him.

She had been sick at heart when she discovered she was going to have his child.

Now she was resigned to it. Within her was a little life. If it lived, she would love it.

Fortunately, Berry had inherited none of her father’s personal characteristics, except for his mid-night-black hair.

And although she wore hers braided and swirled in a coronet on top of her head, she couldn’t conceal its rich luster.

It sparkled in the sunlight as if embedded with a thousand stars.

Small wisps of curls broke free and framed a face of high sculptured cheekbones, a complexion like alabaster, and a full, soft mouth that was quick to smile.

Her gray-green eyes gazed frankly and inquiringly from beneath curving dark brows, but it wasn’t her facial beauty and long supple body that made her striking.

It was her bearing. Her head rode on her slim neck proudly, as if she were a princess.

She was slender to the point of appearing fragile, but the set of her chin, the candor in her dark-lashed eyes, and her carriage all combined to show strength of character.

Rachel watched the slim body that was undeniably shapely beneath the worn dress.

Berry is totally unaware of the eyes that follow her, she thought with a stab of fear.

Asa is plotting something. I’ve seen him watching her, him and that crowd of no-goods he rides with.

I’ll not let him ruin her life. I’ll not!

The wagon train reached the outskirts of Cahokia and their camping area at dusk.

The town was one of the three old French towns that George Rogers Clark and his frontier militia had wrested from the English back in 1778.

The English had inherited the towns after the French and Indian wars and used them as a base for Indian raids south into Kentucky.

Now, Cahokia was used as a trading center and a ferrying port for settlers crossing the Mississippi to Saint Louis, the gateway to the West.

The slave, Israel, unhitched and hobbled the team and came back for the ox.

Berry helped Rachel to get down from the wagon, then began to build a cookfire.

The bugs and mosquitoes swarmed about her face and she waved them away impatiently.

A welcome gust of wind from the river whipped a curl across her temple and billowed her skirts, giving momentary relief from the insects.

With slow patience Berry squatted beside the stones left by a previous camper and arranged dry leaves as tinder.

On top of this she spread rotted, crumbly pulp from the center of an old, weathered log.

She took a scant handful of gunpowder from a leather bag, closed the neck carefully against the damp air, then squatted down and poured the gun-powder over the rotted pulp, being careful to leave a trail.

She took a flint from her pocket and struck expertly, igniting the powder.

The blaze raced across to the leaves and punk.

The fire caught. Berry hunched her shoulders and nursed the tiny blaze, feeding it handfuls of leaves, then twigs.

Smoke billowed up and she squinted her eyes against it.

Soon she heard the crackling of the burning twigs.

When the blaze was steady she laid larger pieces of wood over them, building them into a pyramid so there was room for a draft underneath.