"I'm sorry we didn't get us an antelope."
"So am I."
"But we'll get one, huh?"
"Sure we will. Don't talk any more now. The kids are going to sleep."
"All right, Pa."
Joe tried to sense whether, on the other side of the curtain, Emma still lay awake. He had a feeling that she did, but he did not want to whisper to her and risk awakening her if she was asleep. He stared at the blackness over him.
Grandpa Seeley had told him as much as any man could tell another about going to Oregon. But no man could really know unless he tried the journey himself; how could Grandpa Seeley have forecast the rain and the sea of mud? Joe stirred uneasily. He had, in a very real sense, appointed himself the guardian of seven lives and he knew very well that those lives were now in danger. Their supplies were dangerously low and it was still an undetermined distance to Laramie. In that moment Joe wished mightily that they had never come, and he knew that, if he could, he would turn back. Now they might better go on. Laramie was certainly closer than Independence or Kearney and there was nothing for Joe at Kearney. The die was cast. They had made their choice.
The curtain rustled and Emma's hand came through, searching in the dark for her husband. Tenderly, Joe took the proffered hand, and she whispered,
"Joe, it will be all right."
He whispered back, "Yes, darling."