Anything You Can Do...

Most Historic accounts of western trailblazing are written by men, about men, to eulogize their feats.

—Catalyst that provoked the wagon train reenactment.

CHAPTER ONE

NOLAN CAMPBELL, professor of history, stared woefully at a skinny white Christmas tree standing in one corner of the staff lounge at his Columbia, Missouri, college. The tree was virtually smothered in pink ornaments and cellophane bows. Several strings of hot-pink bulbs flashed intermittently, and every few seconds his conservative blue tie turned a ghastly shade of green.

Two colleagues brooded beside him. Camp, as he was known by his peers, gestured toward the tree with a glass cup too dainty for his masculine hand. Fake or not, Lyle, Christmas trees should be green. What’s wrong with the world today?

Plenty, snorted Lyle Roberts. Especially with the people in charge of this party. Did you get a load of those dinky sandwiches at the buffet table? No crust and less filling. Takes four to make a decent bite.

Who planned this do? asked Jeff Scott, economics prof. Invaders from another planet?

Yeah, Lyle said sarcastically. Aliens. In other words, our women’s studies department. Hey, that reminds me of a joke I heard. How do Columbia housewives call their kids to dinner?

Camp and Jeff shrugged.

They say, ‘Come on, kids, get in the car.’ Lyle tittered. Women don’t cook anymore.

Unlike his associates, Camp didn’t laugh. I eat out a lot, too, he said, recalling all the evenings he stopped at a café near his home rather than face a solitary meal. It’s a sign of the times, I guess. Home is no longer the focal point of a family. Camp’s gaze traveled to a huddle of women instructors. Eight-plus hours at a job doesn’t allow time for domestic chores.

Are you kidding? Roberts exclaimed. "Modern women have erased the word domestic from their vocabularies. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—my great-grandmother’s generation spawned the last real women. In her era they cooked tasty meals on wood stoves. No boxed crap of undetermined origin. She planted a garden and sewed for herself and the kids. And she was happy doing it."

Get a life, Lyle. Camp’s sister, Sherry, department chair for women’s studies, left her group to confront the men. Try stepping into this century. Women pioneer in a lot of fields. Politics, medicine, corporate America—to name a few. And Lyle, she added sweetly, we live longer than Great-grandma did.

Lyle wagged a finger in her face. If settling the West depended on coddled women like my ex-wife, civilization would be permanently stalled east of the Ohio.

She batted his hand away. Those so-called historic facts about the West are fantasies dreamed up by men. And if you think women today are all pampered, spend an hour in the Women’s Hub listening to the battered ones left penniless by well-heeled exes. -

Really? My ex spends the child support I pay her on cosmetics and manicures.

Camp insinuated himself between the two. Sherilyn, you missed the crux of our conversation. Lyle’s referring to basic evolutionary changes—like, if modern women had to wash without a machine, cook without gas or electricity, they’d have difficulty surviving.

That’s right, Jeff interjected. Economically speaking, women still expect men to be the hunters, the main breadwinners in the family.

Oh, pu...leeze! Like you three men could skin a bear and put him in a pot. Sherry thumped her chest. "I could live primitively. Thank goodness I don’t have to."

Camp lifted a brow. Toss your electric toothbrush, hot comb and microwave, sis. Then we’ll talk.

"Horse feathers. You history types always lament the loss of the good old days." Her sarcastic sneer was suddenly replaced by a wide smile. The other day I received a brochure at the Women’s Hub advertising a wagon-train reenactment along the Santa Fe Trail. Led by a woman, incidentally. Her train leaves Boonville, Missouri, in June, if I recall. Sponsor a few women on that trip, brother dear. See how they compare with your precious pioneers.

Lyle hooted. Don’t waste your hard-earned money, Camp. I daresay they wouldn’t make it as far as Independence.

Oh, yeah? Sherry met him glare for glare.

It’s a silly notion, Camp said impatiently. Just accept that today’s women are softer.

Camp’s spouting sour grapes, a woman behind them shouted. "Because Greta Erickson refused to spend her life shackled to that hundred-year-old house he’ll be restoring for the rest of his life."

Pain licked ever so fleetingly through Camp’s brown eyes.

Sherry dealt the speaker a dark look. She could grumble at Nolan and call him bossy. That didn’t mean she’d stand for others picking on him. Greta had hurt him.

Yet it was Lyle who spoke up. Greta thought Camp’s house was fine until she met Mr. Gotbucks, who upped the ante with a fancy new rambler in a gated subdivision. Man isn’t important to a relationship anymore. Only the perks he provides.

Bull, Lyle. One of these days you’ll have to eat your words. Sherry thrust out her jaw pugnaciously.

Camp felt the discussion was getting out of hand. I might consider your experiment, Sherry—if you’d agree to drive one of those wagons. He knew his sister’s penchant for luxury and figured that’d end the argument.

Go for it, girl. Show him. The other women egged Sherry on.

Sherry mulled it over. Spending a summer vacation plodding across the dusty prairie was the last thing she wanted to do. However, she knew a couple of women who were capable of making these men eat their words. Gina Ames, a freelance photographer who last year backpacked across the Sierras. And Emily Benton, Sherry’s counterpart at a college nearer St. Louis. Widowed young, Em had returned to the workforce to pay off a philandering husband’s debts rather than take one penny from wealthy in-laws determined to drive a wedge between her and her two kids.

Deciding to settle the argument once and for all, Sherry hooked her arm through her older brother’s and steered him toward the stairs. At six foot two and leanly muscled, he cut a dashing figure. Too bad these guys from the history department were all several generations too late. I’ll grab that brochure on the wagon train before I leave on Christmas break. We can discuss my proposal some more at Mom and Dad’s. I assume you’ll be there for Christmas dinner.

A forty-year-old man should have someplace more exciting to spend Christmas than with his parents, Camp said glumly.

You’re not forty—you’re only thirty-eight. She punched his arm playfully. If you add years it makes me older. I prefer to think that at thirty-one, I’m in the prime of life.

"Prime, huh? Then why are you spending the holiday with Mom and Dad instead of serving plum pudding to some lucky guy?"

She smacked him harder. Very likely for the same reason you’re not fixing stuffed goose for a special lady.

Nolan rubbed his shoulder. So Lyle was right—you can’t cook.

You really are a Neanderthal moron sometimes, Nolan. Women are quite capable of surviving without a man. I certainly don’t need one around.

He frowned as she stomped off. Nolan had forgotten how bulldog-stubborn she could be. Wasn’t she ever lonely? He was. Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he clattered down the stairs. I’d just like to find a woman who enjoys the simple things in life, he muttered as his steps faltered on the bottom landing. Wrenching the door open, he stepped out and breathed in a lungful of noxious city fumes.

Ugh! For a minute Camp stared at the cars whizzing past and actually recognized merit in his sister’s challenge. Give women a chance to prove they could cope as well as their pioneer ancestors. The real question, though: could anyone today, man or woman, give up modern conveniences for an entire summer? Hmm, the answer to that does have the makings of a great academic paper.

Absently, Camp dug out his car keys. For two years his department chairman had been hounding him to write and publish. A comparison-and-contrast piece on modern versus pioneer women might be the ticket. Although, if such a comparison was to be real and valid, information would have to come directly from the women involved.

Driving home, Camp played with the idea. What if he leased and stocked a few wagons in exchange for the participants’ feedback? That’d work. But to remain an impartial observer, he’d have to dissociate himself completely. By following the train on horseback, say, and sleeping in a tent. Except he hadn’t ridden a horse in—how long?

Bad idea. Okay, what if he stopped at motels along the route, instead? That way, he could input the women’s findings every night on his laptop computer and all but have the paper written by trip’s end. Suddenly, what began as an irrational dare sounded pretty darned good.

With a grin, Camp turned off the highway onto the graveled lane leading to his old farmhouse. What better opening for this paper than to point out the author’s dependence on a most modern convenience—a computer? Both witty and modest, if he did say so himself.

Sherry would never know what a coup she’d handed him.

BY THE TIME Christmas dinner was over—a dinner during which her brother talked of nothing but what he now referred to as his summer project, Sherry regretted having butted into the men’s conversation, no matter how irritating. All she’d been trying to do was shake them out of the past. Now here was Nolan reading excerpts from his stupid history books about the he-men who’d tamed the West. The simple fact was, her brother needed some modern woman to boot him into the twenty-first century. Him and his pals.

Suppose the wagon train does still have room? Sherry asked as they stood together on the porch, preparing to make mad dashes to their separate cars through the falling snow. How will you choose your guinea pigs?

Camp chucked her under the chin. "Did you see Field of Dreams? The movie where Kevin Costner cleared his cornfield and put in a baseball diamond? I’ll lease Conestogas and women will wade out of the corn rows to volunteer."

Dream on. Sherry jerked away. You may look a little like Kevin, but even he had to work to entice players to his field.

Camp flipped up his jacket collar. Let’s have it, Ms. Nineties Organizer. How should I attract female adventurers?

Advertise in the local newspaper and neighboring college papers. Of course, you’ll need an application form that’ll weed out kooks. To prove I’m a good sport, I’ll help with that. Heck, I’ll even mail your applications.

Hmm. I thought maybe word of mouth around our campus would be easiest.

"Taking all your participants from one pool will skew results, Nolan. Besides, aren’t you afraid colleagues will steal your idea? You know how much pressure there is to publish these days. Which reminds me—what about professional liability? Participants should sign a release giving you permission to use their input. And that would be easier if you offered a small stipend. I mean, you are asking women to give up vacation plans or work."

I hadn’t thought of liability. What makes you so savvy?

I am woman, Sherry said smugly. So...shall I put together an application?

Sure. I guess, he muttered. Although sending defenseless women on the trip outlined in Maizie Boone’s brochure will probably give me nightmares.

Poor baby. Gritting her teeth, Sherry stepped into the driving snow and left him standing there. She hurried home to call Gina Ames, the wilderness photographer. After twisting Gina’s arm and making her promise not to reveal their friendship, Sherry said that her friend should be on the lookout for an application.

Next morning, Sherry decided to visit Emily Benton.

Sherry, what a delightful surprise, exclaimed the attractive redhead who answered Sherry’s knock. I thought you were my kids. They’re at a neighborhood snowball fight. Come in and warm up. I was just making tea. She released the chain and opened the door to one half of a small duplex. Emily hung Sherry’s coat on a wrought-iron coat tree, then skirted a shiny new bicycle, two boxed TVs and the components for two or more computers as she led the way to a tiny kitchen.

Wow! Whistling through her teeth, Sherry absently handed over a box of homemade cookies she’d brought. Fencing stolen goods are you, Em?

Emily frowned. My in-laws’ presents to the kids. It doesn’t matter that our house won’t hold all this stuff. It’s their latest ploy to convince me to move in with them. Her blue eyes frosted. As if I’d let them get their hooks in Megan and Mark after the way they overindulged Dave.

Sherry slid into the compact eating nook. Maybe they feel bad because their son turned out to be such a rat. Guilt does funny things to people.

A Benton suffer guilt? Hah! It’s always someone else’s fault. Dave’s backers lacked vision. His womanizing was my fault. Don’t you know I spent too much time volunteering at church and at the kids’ schools? She poured water over tea bags with a trembling hand. Sorry for dumping on you, Sherry. The holidays have been a trial. If I didn’t owe Toby and Mona so much money, I’d take the kids and move to Alaska or Timbuktu. I told you Dave’s folks literally own this town. I had to look long and hard to find a place to rent that didn’t belong to them or one of their companies. I desperately need the job at the college here, but...

I wish we had an opening in our department. My dean may retire at the end of the school year. New deans almost always hire additional staff.

What if he doesn’t retire? She gave a small shrug. "I’m checking the ads in the Chronicle of Higher Education . So far, nothing."

At least let me offer you a short-term reprieve. Sherry dropped a brochure on the table and quickly described her brother’s project.

Before Sherry had finished talking, Emily was shaking her head. There’s more to this, right? Something you’re not saying. Oh, no—I hope you’re not planning to set me up with your brother. You’re one of the few people who know what a nightmare my marriage was. I’m sure your brother’s a nice man, Sherry, but I’m not interested. I don’t care if I’m thirty-four and life is passing me by, I’m just not interested. Okay?

Boy, have I bungled this. I’m not setting you up, Em. I love Nolan, but I wouldn’t wish anyone that chauvinistic on a friend. I’m doing this because...well, you could call it gender rivalry.

Do I ever understand that. Megan just turned fourteen. She’s constantly lording it over Mark, who’s only twelve and still pretty much of a kid. To tell you the truth, Sherry, a wagon train in the middle of nowhere sounds like heaven. A whole summer without grandparents, shopping malls and TV. She fingered the brochure. Will your brother want children in his study? What makes you feel he’d choose me? Oh, I can’t go, Sherry, I really need to teach summer school and earn some money. Jumping up, she began to arrange cookies Sherry had brought on a plate. I heard through the grapevine that Dave’s parents want me to default on my loan. It’ll give them leverage to petition for custody of the kids. You wouldn’t believe how many times they bailed Dave out of bad land deals. On the last scheme, he lost all the front money for building a casino.

Sherry got up to hug Emily. Those creeps. Hey, I forgot to mention that Nolan’s trip comes with a small stipend. You need a break, Em. Fill out this application exactly the way I’ve penciled it in. Then mail it. Just don’t tell Nolan we’re friends. With a final bracing hug, Sherry left her to chew on the idea.

CHRISTMAS WAS a dim memory in Camp’s mind and spring break loomed on the horizon before he got around to selecting candidates for his trip. Today, in spite of a drizzling rain, he was set to interview prospects. Not that he had many.

He refilled his coffee cup, sharpened several pencils and returned to his desk to frown at the three applications he’d received. Three! After weeks of advertising, only these few women appeared willing to spend their summers trekking the Santa Fe Trail.

He hadn’t expected a flood of would-be adventurers, but considering that he was providing a virtually free summer vacation and paying his participants for their time, Camp had imagined he’d have more than three.

He’d already leased four Conestogas through Mrs. Boone’s Frontier Adventures outfit. They weren’t cheap, so it was fortunate that he’d shamed Sherry into going or he’d be paying for an unused reservation as well an extra wagon. Yesterday, she said she’d talked her roommate, Yvette Miller, into going, too.

Camp smiled. Yvette had grown up next door. He knew for a fact that she traveled with a hundred pounds of luggage—half of it cosmetics. Maybe she’d have even more now that she repped for an exclusive line of women’s apparel. At this rate, his paper would write itself.

He sipped coffee and gazed out the window at the gloomy sky. Assuming the applicants were all suitable, that still didn’t allow room for last-minute cancellations or unexpected illnesses. The way it stood, Sherry’s wagon would have two drivers. Each of the other women would be forced to drive the entire route alone.

So? he said out loud. Sherry claims they’re as strong as pioneer women.

Unfortunately, Camp knew another of the applicants. Brittany Powers. A starry-eyed college sophomore better suited to modeling than anything athletic. She’d been in two of his history classes. Camp suspected she had a crush on him. Such things happened on occasion. He was very careful never to give these young women any encouragement, and most of them soon found boyfriends their own age. Brittany hadn’t as yet.

But perhaps he was reading too much into Brittany’s reasons for going on this trip. Maybe she really was interested in American history. Well, the list of questions Sherry had helped him design for the interviews should reveal how committed each of the women was. He’d conduct Brittany’s meeting with his office door open. That ought to give her the right message. Before telling the secretary to send her in, Camp donned horn-rimmed glasses that were like window glass. He figured they gave him a nerdy look.

Hi, Mr. Campbell. Brittany sashayed past the department secretary, tossing a tangle of blond curls over one shoulder. Camp simply pointed at the chair she was to occupy.

I’m so excited about this trip, she gushed. Summers are positively boring. Crack went her gum.

Camp shuddered as he sat behind his big oak desk. Lord, he hated gum-chewers who felt five sticks were a minimum. You don’t have a regular summer job you’re turning down then? he asked politely.

She scooted forward and batted heavily mascared lashes. Are you kidding? That’s why this is so perfect. Otherwise, I’d just veg out at the house.

Really? Nolan picked up her application, along with a sharp pencil whose lead he promptly broke. Grabbing another, he eased back in his chair. What’s your main goal after you graduate, Brittany?

She looked at him coyly. To marry somebody rich.

Ah. Camp relaxed. Everyone knew professors weren’t rich. Briskly, he worked through the remaining questions. Brittany’s answers weren’t as clear as Camp would have liked, but given her age and lack of focus, they were what he’d expect.

It was the way she hung on his every word and followed his slightest move with cosmetically enhanced baby blues that made him nervous. And yet they’d be well chaperoned when he collected the data sheets once a day. That fact let him continue. It’s not a vacation, Brittany. I’ll expect you to keep an accurate daily log, which I’ll incorporate in my academic paper.

Kind of like a diary, you mean? Oh, cool. My best friend says my diaries could be published as bestsellers.

Camp’s doubts concerning Brittany’s motivation tripled. But in the next breath, she made an issue of saying her parents wanted her to do this, so he handed her a release form to sign. Not that she needed parental consent—after all, she was nineteen. It just made him feel better knowing she’d discussed it with her folks.

Assuming his best teacher-to-student smile, Camp ushered her back to the door. I’ll be handing out more detailed information later, he said. Tomorrow, in class, I’ll lend you a book on the history of the Santa Fe Trail. The trip could take ten weeks. It’s no picnic. I want you to be prepared.

Oh, I will be, you’ll see. She gazed at him adoringly. Out there we’ll be more like equals—right? I guess everyone will call you ‘Nolan’?

Camp cleared his throat. He was infinitely relieved at the appearance of the department secretary, heralding Gina Ames’s arrival.

A suntanned, robust woman with blunt-cut brown hair, Gina steered the conversation to a professional level the moment she sat down. I’m a freelance photographer. Two national publications have expressed interest in a photo-journey like this.

Had a plum fallen into his lap? Gina...may I call you that? Ignoring the thinning of her lips, he said, Let your work support my scholastic paper, instead. Are you aware that the Santa Fe Trail was the first highway of commerce? A vital link to our past. And it was the last trail saved under the National Historic Trail Preservation Act.