Read Online Vow Unbroken by Caryl Mcadoo - Free Book Online Page A

High-and-Mighty would have had to keep going and keep up. Why hadn’t she thought of that and relieved Levi when the self-appointed czar first said something? Royalty, indeed! Did he think he was in Russia?
    And why did she always come up with the good ideas when it was too late to put them into motion? Stopping after barely more than two more hours on the trail! Ridiculous!
    â€œLevi, you get the mules hobbled, I’ll start a fire for supper.” Henry began scouting for wood. “Hey, Rebecca, you and Blue Dog can help me gather some kindling.” He noticed her coming around the corner. “If that’s fine with your mother.”
    And still he gives orders! Well! At least he didn’t bark any chores at her. She fumed inside. Men! Why did they automatically think that everything had to be done their way? Did they not think a woman ever had an intelligent thought?
    Did he not realize that she had plowed her field, planted the seed, chopped the cotton until her blisters had blisters, then helped to pick it in a timely manner, see to it that it got ginned and baled, then loaded into her wagons? Who did he think had carried it to the Sulphur Fork Trading Post, where she supposedly already had a buyer? She clenched both her fists.
    She went to the back of the wagon and laid her forehead against it. Pictures flashed across her mind’s eye of the lovely Miss Lizbeth and Henry laughing together. “Oh, stop it, Sue Baylor.” She took deep breaths. “Help me, Lord. Help me.”
    She remained there until her heartbeat slowed and her face cooled. Who wanted to start a big argument on their first day? And after such a sweet time at the Aikins’. There was a long trip ahead. Why had she said anything at all?
    Men. She was certainly glad she lived by herself and took care of her own business without the constant rule of a man.
    She went to the larder and fished out the cornmeal and fatback, grabbed her Dutch oven, then made her way to where Henry nursed the fire. A pot already hung from a limbheld over it by a sturdy forked branch on either side. He looked up.
    She pointed to her pot. “What’s that?”
    â€œBeans. Shouldn’t take too long. Already soaked ’em overnight at the Dawsons’.”
    â€œWell, of course you did.” She busied herself making corn bread, then sat the oven on the coals and scooted a couple of bigger ones onto the lid. “Mister Buckmeyer?”
    He looked up from stirring the beans.
    â€œI do not intend to be at odds with you the whole way.” She took a deep breath and shook her head slowly. “Eleven miles a day is unacceptable. We’ll never catch our neighbors, my friends, stopping midafternoon for two-hour dinners or making camp hours before sundown.”
    He shrugged. “With only five mules, we’ll do good to make eight or nine mile tomorrow.”
    She studied his face. Why did he have to be so stubborn?
    â€œSecond day’s likely to be their worst, ma’am.”
    â€œI don’t understand why you would say that. The mules did fine today. We should’ve kept going! We could’ve easily made Cuthand.”
    â€œYou ever been to the Cuthand Trading Post at night?”
    â€œNo, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
    He glanced over to where Becky and Blue Dog played chase the stick, then sighed. “I have. Trust me. You don’t want to be anywhere near that place after dark.”
    She wanted to protest, make him understand that she had to get her cotton to Jefferson, but her aversion to exposing the children to a den of iniquity stopped her short. One more time, he was right. But why couldn’t he just have told her that the first time he said he wanted to stop early?
    â€œFine, but tomorrow we have to pick up the pace. It’s absolutely imperative that I get my cotton to market before the buyers leave.”
    He nodded, then glanced again at the little girl and