by Kate Whitsby
On the morning of July 31, the Goodkind sisters rose at the first light of dawn as they usually did. But instead of saddling their horses and hitting the trail to tend their cattle, they went to the barn and hitched up the old wagon.
Alma took the job of brushing down the horses as Amelia and Allegra rolled the wagon out of the barn and organized the harness and its fittings. They loaded the wagon with food supplies, a cooking pot and pan, and piles of blankets.
They would get to the town of Eagle Pass in about four hours if the trip went well, and they hoped to be home before dark. But they always went fully prepared for unforeseen circumstances when they left home. They never knew what might happen out in the middle of the desert. Even one night in the open could be fatal without the right supplies.
Amelia piled up the blankets into a soft throne just behind the wagon seat. Then she rigged up a sheet over the top of it with two corners tied to the ends of the seat and the other two corners tied to the sides of the wagon. The sheet made a little tent over the throne.
Alma backed first one horse and then the other into place next to the wagon shaft. As she and Allegra put on the horses’ collars and hitched up their harnesses, Amelia escorted their father out of the house and seated him on the throne under the tent.
He leaned on her shoulder when he climbed into the back of the wagon, and he leaned forward at the hips before collapsing into the pile of blankets. In the end, he settled himself into his nest under the shade and waited for his daughters to finish getting ready to go.
Amelia climbed into the seat. Alma double checked all the harness fittings and Allegra doubled checked the provisions, including a supply of grain for the horses. She glanced back toward the barn. “Do you think we should bring an extra saddle horse for your man to ride home? Do you think he’ll have a horse of his own to ride?”
Alma followed her gaze toward the barn. “I didn’t think of that.” Then she shook her head. “No. If we take another horse, that’s another mouth to feed that he might not even use. If he doesn’t have his own horse, he can ride in the back of the wagon with Papa and Allegra. Then he can ride one of our horses when he gets here.”
Allegra nodded her approval.
“And you can stop calling him ‘your man’,” Alma continued. “That goes for all of you. He has a name, and his name is Jude.”
Allegra ignored her. “Just think. By the end of the day, you won’t be Alma Goodkind anymore. You’ll be Alma McCann. What do you think of that?”
Alma blinked. “I didn’t think of that, either. It doesn’t sound like me at all. It doesn’t sound like a Mexican woman at all. It sounds like some Irish washerwoman.”
“All except the ‘Alma’ part,” Allegra pointed out. “And anyway, you’re not Mexican. You’re Mexican, Apache, and Irish. So you could be an Irish washerwoman after all.”
Alma shook her head. “I don’t know. If I wasn’t on my way to the church to get married, I might say I didn’t like the sound of it, but I guess it’s too late now.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Allegra replied. “You’re about to get into the wagon to go to the church.”
Alma blushed. “That reminds me. I forgot something.” She ran inside while the others waited for her.
She came out with a bundle wrapped in a white sheet. Amelia gasped up on the seat. “You didn’t! You didn’t almost forget to bring your wedding dress!”
Alma kept her eyes down and busied herself with tucking the bundle into a corner of the wagon next to her father’s throne. “Don’t tell Jude.”
Allegra laughed and climbed into the back of the wagon. She stretched out on her back on the bare boards and pulled her hat down over her eyes. Alma got into the seat next to Amelia.
Alma took the reins from the brake handle and spread them out in her hands. “All set?”
No one answered her. She clucked to the horses and the wagon creaked away from the barn. A minute later, the wheels slotted into the ruts in the dry cracked road. Alma relaxed and let the horses pull the wagon along the well-known path toward Eagle Pass.
As soon as the sun cleared the eastern horizon, the heat bit into their skin and brought out the sweat on the horses’ backs. Alma glanced back over her shoulder. Allegra hadn’t moved, but kept her face hidden under her hat. Clarence dozed under his shade. Amelia stared away into the distance, unresponsive to everything.
How she wished she could talk to one of them right now! But none of them would appreciate her breaking in on their private worlds. The only way they tolerated one another’s company was through diligent respect for one another’s private mental space. Alma knew them all well enough to know that.
More than anything else, Alma longed for a husband to have someone to talk to, someone all her own, someone to share her experiences with. With every passing year, her sisters slipped farther away from her. Now, they didn’t share experiences with each other at all, even though they spent every waking moment of their lives together.
When something happened, when they saved their herd from flash floods or shot wild cats stealing newborn calves, the sisters never shared their thoughts. Each sister kept her experience of the event to herself. If the three women hadn’t been present together when it happened, Alma would wonder if Amelia and Allegra experienced the same event at all.
Chapter 7