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THE ECSTASY OF FREEDOM BOOK 2

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Book two begins with these still being  Slave Stories because Jasper, even though he felt fairly free at the Indian's summer camp, he was still an escaped slave and could still be recognized and taken back to Master Grorge. With these books being  Stories on Freedom, as well as being Realistic Fiction Books, book one left Jasper at the Indian camp agonizing over whether to stay there with Early Flower, this also being among Historical Romance Novels, or go with the wagon train that was leaving soon for California. These being Historical Fiction Books, he had decided the night before to stay there, but then he worried that no other wagon train would come that way and he would not have the supplies or equipment to go on such a trip alone.

                                                                                Beginning Chapter one

What a decision I have to make, Jasper thought as he sat on the log that he usually sat on while he was at the creek. He had been there most of the day after the pow-wow the Indians that he was staying with had the day before especially for him. The evening before he had been intent in his determination to stay with the tribe and when people settled nearby, to use the gold that he had to open a store or some other business so he could be with Early Flower, the chief’s daughter with whom he had convinced himself that he was madly in love.

After Early Flower had left, after a very passionate meeting the evening before, after a sleepless night he had decided that his education was more important to him than anything, even staying there with Early Flower, because he may never have another chance to go to California with a wagon train. And if he decided to leave later, these being Historical Fiction Books, he may not have enough nerve to attempt a trip alone of that magnitude. He had decided to leave early that morning for the train; but he had not done so.

His final plans were to go to the wagon train that morning and help them get ready for the trip to California.

His plans for that morning had been deferred; not intentionally but unconsciously through his desire to see Early Flower before he left although he knew that she would try convincing him to stay there and marry her.

With these being Historical Romance Novels, was he really in love with her? Maybe he was only infatuated, brought on by her kissing him the first time they talked; the first time he had been kissed by a girl. Or as the old slaves would say when someone thought they were in love for the first time, “it’s only puppy love.” In any event he had been stricken; to the point that he couldn’t decide to do something and stay with the decision, even for a day or two; no, even for an hour or two

                He knew that the most important thing in his life would be to prepare himself to make a living and he desperately wanted that; but he thought that he also wanted Early Flower, these being Historical Romance Novels, as much as he wanted an education. He knew that he had enough gold for them to survive for some time; maybe for a number of years and then to open a store or some other business but in the meantime they would be going up and down the river twice each year; to their summer camp each spring, these being Stories on Freedom, and to their winter camp somewhere down south near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico each fall.

***

          The following spring, after studying most of the winter with a schoolteacher and her daughter Julie--Jasper considered Julie and him to be only the best of freinds--after he had spent three days away from the wagon train, finding a route over the mountains that had kept them stopped during the winter, he was relating the route to the wagon master and Jim, the head scout.

           Although Julie was very efficient at cleaning up and putting away dishes and although her father and mother had gone their way, leaving the ones in charge for their business meeting, Jasper noted that she would look at a plate, wash it, look at it again, then wash it again. Jasper could see that she was stalling and was not about to leave while they were discussing the situation.

Jasper was suddenly embarrassed and at the same time elated because she was staring at him between plates. He knew that she was wishing that the meeting would be short and he knew without a doubt that when it was over they would be going for a walk alone, these being Historic Romance Novels, even though they would be alone in the dark for the first time in months.

“I know that it looks bad from where we separated. But if we go through that little clearing that we could see, up that steep hill to the right, after a half-mile of fairly level ground there’s a large open place before the route that I chose turns to the left and goes directly up the mountain. There’s a fairly level place with plenty of feed and water where we can stop the wagons, about five at a time while we prepare them for the trip over the crest.”

   “What do you mean by preparing them?”

“From that level area begins a long steep pull. It is so steep that we will need to hook four horses to most of the wagons and six to the heaviest ones for the trip up and then send two or four of them back down to rest while we hook another four to the next wagon. It’s so steep going down the other side that the brakes will never hold and the horses won’t be able to hold the wagons back. If we don’t have a way to hold them back to keep them from over-running the horses we will have a disaster. But I think that I have thought of a way. I’ll run it by you and you can be thinking about it while you go with me to check out the route.

“In order to prevent a disaster from happening, we can cut some small trees and chain one behind each wagon when it starts down the hill. The other side is steeper than this side but it’s only steep for a short distance. I marked the whole route both up this side and down the other. Once they’re down the steepest part on the other side they can unhook the log from the wagon and we can have a team there to remove the log from the road. I didn’t go much further to see what it was like but from what I could see it didn’t look too bad from where I turned around. We know that we must first conquer this mountain and then we can take the rest of the trip down as it comes, a mile at a time.

***

Julie sat out by the stream as Jasper and she had done so many times before; so many times, yet not enough times to suit her. She longed for his presence then but he had some work to do with the stock in preparation for leaving. And he was hewing out some spokes for the wheels that he anticipated breaking before they reached California. After traveling so many hundreds of miles in all kinds of weather and over all kinds of terrain wagon spokes tended to dry out and loosen; they needed almost constant observation and care.

They would be leaving the next day or the day after that.

Whatever day suited their fancy.

They could have left the day before or the day before that, but the weather had been so nice and it was so pleasant there, each day they decided to wait and let the horses rest another day, then another. They seemed to be doing a lot of loafing, goofing around and having a good time with the pretense of needing to check the equipment over and over.

Of course there needed to be many of them fishing every day, each of them trying to catch the largest fish. Each one of them complained about what a chore it was to go out every day and catch some of those elusive old wiggly trout. They surely wouldn’t waste their time on fishing contests or since the game was plentiful, on the great chore of going out every day looking for just the right buck deer or bull elk, seeing who could get the largest animal; or the one with the largest rack of antlers.

It was a great chore, to hear the men tell it, having to do those things just for the sake of having meat to take along. Then they had gotten so much meat that they had the added chore of drying a lot of it into jerky, which not one of them admitted to loving to eat. It might have been a great chore, but as one man said, “someone has to do it.”

Julie had been getting a little apprehensive about leaving for a few of those days that they had been having their fun. She had grown so accustomed to traveling each day that one day seemed to be like all of the rest, but she found that she had become intrigued with it. There was that anticipation of the next change in scenery, the next change in climate, the next change in timber and the wildlife that she had not seen at her former home.

But she also found herself in anticipation of reaching the end of the trail. Why was she feeling that way? She had decided long before that she would not like California in general because it would be so different from where she had lived and Sacramento in particular because of the crime supposedly caused by the riffraff there; those along with the miners, prospectors, gamblers and many others that she couldn’t remember, drinking and carousing every day throughout the community.

 Whether or not they were traveling Jasper would arise from his bed early each morning, either out in the enclosure under the stars or under the wagon if it had been rainy the night before. Julie knew when he was up and about each morning because she was either looking out of the back or the front of the wagon, wanting to get a glimpse of him as he went on his way to check everything. He would check all of the wheels because he was usually too busy the evening before. If they were traveling that day, after he was satisfied that they were ready to travel, he would saddle his horse and leave to scout ahead of them.

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