Caroline

by Sarah Miller

  “The bundle of extra quilts is at the foot of the small straw tick,” she told him. Still his eyes rested on her, asking her to do no more than fill his gaze. He could make her feel full as the moon, looking at her that way, and she was too tired to allow herself to melt into it. Filaments of heat were already drifting along her edges.

  Caroline rustled her voice softly between them. “Charles.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Will you reach the scrap bag for me, please?” she asked, snipping the moment short.

  He got to his knees on the spring seat, leaning so far to reach the bag on its peg that he ought to have pitched over. It was thick through the middle and nearly as tall as Laura. Caroline shifted the bundle to her hip and reached one hand up to the lip of the wagon box. He took her hand in his, kneading her palm with his thumb. “Call if you or the girls need for anything,” he said. “I’ll be sleeping with one ear open.”

  Her smile crept into the dark. “Rest yourself, Charles.” She felt the brush of his whiskers against her fingertips before he floated her hand back down to her. The wisp of movement carried her back to the bunkhouse without another murmur.

  The girls did not stir at the clack of the latch. Mary lay with her rag doll up under her chin, her arms folded close as hens’ wings around her calico darling. Caroline let her shawl back down to her shoulders and carried the scrap bag to the bunk nearest the hearth. Loosening the drawstring, she unfurled the bag into her lap. It was not a sack, but rather a circle of denim that would spread itself flat with the cord fully unlaced. Seven deep pockets, each holding one color, pinwheeled from a center humped with plain cuttings of flannel, buckram, and the like. Caroline chose two remnants of muslin to veil the windows, then felt her way into the pocket of browns until she found a swatch of felt, small and nearly triangular. A few nips with the scissors would turn it into a shawl for Nettie. She laid it on a bunk with their wraps, then bolstered the fire with slim maple logs before finally undressing.

  She found herself standing before the hearth in the place where her rocking chair would be, were this their own fireplace. Without it she was not sure how to settle the day’s many layers into herself. She turned to the straw tick, hunkered on the floor like a patchwork raft. The coverlet puffed softly up and down over Mary and Laura. Caroline watched them as she had that morning. Their tempo was so like a hymn, a strand of scripture encircled her.

  Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

  With all that the day’s travel had wrought, and all that the days still to come would bring, she had never felt so keenly beholden to the Lord’s mercy. Caroline knelt where she stood. Her chin tipped down to meet her folded hands.

  No prayer came to her. Eyes closed, she wavered like a solitary taper until in place of her own words of praise or supplication, a fragment of the 24th Psalm rose through her voice.

  Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?

  He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

  He shall receive the blessing from the Lord . . .

  Caroline’s brow furrowed and her heart pressed forward as she pledged the words into her clasped hands. It had not the usual shape of a prayer, but it was no less binding; she would do all that she could to keep her family within the sight of Providence.

  The straw tick whispered around her as it always did, raising tufts of fragrance as she shifted into place beside Mary and Laura. In the anonymous room, the bedding smelled more of home than the cabin itself had. Traces of kerosene and rosemary mingled with something so familiar Caroline could not name it. Caroline wondered if it was the girls themselves. She had not slept alongside either of her daughters since Laura was weaned, yet their nearness saturated her with comfort.

  Her hands slipped under the covers and met at the low mound of her navel. Soft creaks and burbles turned beneath them, as though her supper still simmered there. No swish or flutter. Perhaps, if she could not yet feel the small creature inside, she need not worry over whether it was sensible to the jostling wagon or the flood tides of her emotions. Within its cushion of waters, perhaps it felt nothing at all. Caroline shut her eyes and imagined herself enveloped in such a warm and fluid cradle—every sound and movement diluted, graceful. If she could not shelter herself from this journey’s vagaries, there was some satisfaction at least in knowing she was a shield for the budding child. Beside her, the rise and fall of her daughters’ breaths led her gently toward sleep.

  A sound like the crack of gunfire shot through Caroline’s consciousness. Motionless in the vibrating air, Caroline groped with her senses for her bearings. Nothing fit. The ceiling above her was peaked rather than flat, the bed too near the floor.

  The tiny muscles along her ears strained into the silence. Only the dwindling embers whispered to themselves. No voices. Not a whicker from the horses; no movement behind her makeshift curtains.

  Another shot brought her to her elbows. The sound seemed to cleave the air. It stretched too long and deep for the pop of a bullet, yet she could make room in her mind for nothing else. Caroline sat up and patted her hands across the straw tick, searching for the fiddle box. “Charles?” she called in a whisper. Beside her, Laura stirred.

  The latch rattled. Caroline froze. Bolts of alarm unrolled into her thighs and down the backs of her arms.

  The door seemed to peel open. “It’s the ice cracking on the lake,” Charles’s voice said. Thankfulness loosened her so thoroughly, she could do nothing but spread herself back over the mattress. Charles came to the hearth and nudged another length of hardwood into the fire behind her.

  “Are you warm enough?” she asked.

  With a creak of leather, he squatted down and leaned over to kiss her, whiskers softly caressing her skin. “That’ll help,” he said. He stood and went out, easing the door shut behind him.

  Caroline laid her forearms across her ribs. Each crack of the ice scored a cold line across the hollow places in her body, like a blade that would not cut. The sharpness of the sound almost tickled down in her depths.

  At the next report, Laura gasped. Caroline rolled to her shoulder. Laura’s eyes were casting about the room, desperate to light on something she recognized. Caroline leaned into her view. Their gazes met, and Caroline saw her daughter’s face curve with comfort. A pool of warmth opened behind Caroline’s heart as she watched. She glided her fingertips over the peak of Laura’s cheek. The baby roundness that had faded from Mary’s face still lingered in Laura’s.

  “Go to sleep,” Caroline soothed. “It’s only the ice breaking up.” Laura held fast to Caroline’s gaze until another crack snapped her eyes shut. Caroline cupped her palm over Laura’s ear, stroking the little girl’s temple with her thumb. Laura smiled drowsily.

  There is a happy land, far, far away, Caroline hummed. Her teeth clenched with the effort of holding back a quiver from her chin. They had traveled hardly ten miles from home, but in a heartbeat the breaking of the ice had driven a wedge a week wide into the distance back to their own little cabin.

  Under her fingers, Laura’s pulse had slowly quieted into a beat of feathery kisses. Caroline drew up her knees, making a nest of herself. Laura was too big now to fit inside it as she once had, but her breath, still tinted with maple sugar, filled the small spaces between them.

  Six

  By morning, Caroline’s hip and shoulder could feel the floor through the straw tick. Soreness warmed the backs of her thighs when she rose. She rubbed the heels of her hands down the muscles along her backbone and winced. There was only so much she could blame on the spring seat. The rest was her body retaliating for being kept so tightly clenched the day before. Caroline closed her eyes and released as much of the lingering tension as she was able. Today there would be no more goodbyes, she reminded herself, no reason to hold herself so rigid. Today they could go cleanly forward.

  To her hands, the mo
rning was hardly distinguishable from any other. Caroline dressed and washed, laid the girls’ clothes to warm before the fire, put fresh water over the beans, and swung the kettle into the heart of the fire. She fried up a dozen strips of bacon, then laid four thick slices of chilled mush into the drippings. The edges crisped like cracklings in the grease.

  Charles came whistling in to his breakfast, as he so often did. His tune tickled her. A perfect match to the day, as usual. “Wait for the wagon! Wait for the wagon! Wait for the wagon and we’ll all take a ride!” he sang for Mary and Laura.

  His cheeks gleamed from the cold, and their eyes were bright with excitement. In the pan the fat popped and sizzled merrily around their breakfast. The whole morning was beginning to shine.

  “Wouldn’t wonder if the ice broke up today,” Charles said to Caroline. He doused his mush with syrup. “We made a late crossing. Lucky it didn’t start breaking up while we were out in the middle of it.”

  Caroline opened her mouth and then closed it. Had it truly come to him only now? She could not help herself. “I thought about that yesterday, Charles,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her as though he had spotted her lathering her chin with his shaving brush. Not angry, only puzzled by what earthly use she might have for such an idea.

  Laura’s fork had stopped moving. A long bead of syrup trickled down her chin and onto her plate. Caroline could see the terrible picture widening behind her eyes as Charles’s words sank in. “You’re frightening somebody, Charles,” she murmured.

  He hugged Laura up against his side. “We’re across the Mississippi!” he sang out as though they had just now stepped from the ice. “How do you like that, little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up? Do you like going out west where Indians live?”

  Caroline winced. Why must he stoke Laura’s eagerness so? The child would be smoking with curiosity by the time they reached the Territory. If the western tribes were as bold as Concord’s Potawatomis, such eagerness would not bode well. A brush or two with the Chippewas might have nipped Laura’s appetite in the bud, but their cabin had been mercifully free of Indian intruders.

  “Yes, Pa!” Laura chimed. “Are we in Indian country now?”

  Caroline steered the conversation with a low, steady voice. “‘Indian country’ is a long, long way off. We must drive across Minnesota, and Iowa, and Missouri first,” she said, making the names sound long and foreign. “It will be spring before we see the Kansas line.”

  “Oh.” Laura ducked her head and poked at her mush. She looked embarrassed, as though she had done something wrong but did not understand what. Caroline’s appetite faltered. She had not meant to subdue Laura quite so thoroughly. Caroline dismissed her schoolmarm tone and tried again. “The sooner we all finish our breakfast,” she coaxed, “the sooner we will be in Kansas.”

  Caroline checked over the room one last time. Nothing showed that they had been there except for the neatly swept floorboards and a few lengths of leftover maple added to the kindling pile. She opened the door to go.

  Outside, the air was poised on the edge of freezing—moist, as though the lake had spent the night exhaling through the cracked ice. Charles’s voice boomed out to greet them:

  Where the river runs like silver, and the birds they sing so sweet,

  I have a cabin, Phyllis, and something good to eat.

  Come listen to my story, it will relieve my heart.

  So jump into the wagon, and off we will start.

  Laura let go of Caroline’s hand and ran ahead to be swung up into the wagon box. Mary waited while Caroline carefully latched the bunkhouse door.

  “I don’t like riding in the wagon very much, Ma,” she said. “Can’t we stay and make this house pretty?”

  Caroline held out her hand. “Pa will build us a pretty new house in Kansas.”

  Mary lingered. She seemed anxious, as though she did not like the feel of disobeying yet could not bring herself to move. Caroline reached into her pocket for the little triangle of brown felt. “See what I’ve found for Nettie to wear? A traveling shawl.”

  Caroline helped Mary wrap the fabric over the doll’s shoulders and lap its ends together. “Nettie says thank you,” Mary said. A flush framed her polite smile, as though she were suddenly feverish. “Ma?”

  Caroline squatted down and touched her forehead. No warmer than a blush, but Caroline knew something was wrong. Mary had not resisted like this in leaving their own cabin behind. “What is it, Mary?”

  Mary did not look at her. Her whisper steamed out in a hot, high-pitched little wail. “Nettie doesn’t like crossing lakes.”

  What a splash of relief. Caroline smiled. “You tell Nettie she has nothing to worry about. There are no more lakes to cross.” Mary took her hand and squeezed. A soft little squeeze, yet the depth of reassurance it contained watered Caroline’s eyes. Caroline gave a gentle press back and together they walked to the wagon.

  “See Nettie’s new traveling shawl, Pa?” Mary said. “Ma made it.”

  “Finest traveling shawl I ever saw,” Charles said, and hoisted Mary over the sideboards. Traveling shawl? he mouthed to Caroline.

  She felt her cheeks dimple and put a mittened finger to her lips.

  Four o’clock? Or maybe half past, Caroline guessed by the thinning of the light between the evergreens. The way her breasts throbbed made her wish it were later. They were always tender at this stage, but this feeling was something altogether different.

  This morning she had left the top two hooks of her busk unfastened, as she sometimes did at home, to spare her breasts the pressure. By midday Caroline had promised herself she would not make that mistake again. Each frozen rut, each icy mudhole that shattered under the wagon’s weight sent an unwelcome burst of heat juddering through them. The daylong embrace of her corset would have been so much the better. For the last hour or more she had sat with her arms folded tight beneath her breasts, bracing against the jolts.

  “How far have we come today?” she asked.

  “Oh, fifteen, sixteen miles,” Charles said.

  It did not seem far enough, when the day before they had managed ten and all that time at the store besides. But Caroline was tired and sore, and with supper yet to fix. Her stomach was just beginning to scratch at itself. “It will take better than an hour to lay a fire and finish the beans,” she said.

  “Whoa there,” Charles called to the team.

  The wagon jerked to a halt. Caroline winced. Everything was instantly quiet. Behind her the girls’ heads popped up like two rabbits peeking from their burrow.

  “In that case, we’ll camp right this minute.” Charles scanned the roadside and shrugged. “It’s as likely a place as any. There’s enough snow, we won’t want for water no matter where we stop.” He turned to Mary and Laura. Their mittens made a dotted line across the back of the spring seat. “Unless you girls think we should keep on?”

  “No, Pa!”

  Every step across the board floor made Caroline’s numbed toes feel bigger than her shoes. Corners of crates and boxes poked into the aisle, catching at her skirts as she brushed past. Most all of her neat stacks had jiggled into raggedy looking piles.

  Caroline did not stop to set them right. She went straight for the kitchen crates and fished out one spongy wedge of dried apple from the sack. The water in her mouth began devouring it before her teeth had bitten it through.

  Outside, Charles cleared a place for the fire and hammered the irons into the ground on either side. While he laid the sticks Mary and Laura brought him, Caroline strung the crosspiece and chain for the kettle.

  It was an unruly little fire that flashed hot as sunburn on her face and hands, and no further. Her apron was warm to the touch when she tucked her skirt between her knees to stir the beans, but the heat did not penetrate. Everything from her earlobes back was left chill and clammy.

  Caroline circled her spoon through the mass of warming beans. The way some of them struck the wood made her wonder if s
he had waited too long to stop for supper. They had soaked all night and all day, with a parboiling at breakfast and another at noon, and still they were not soft. Some had not even split their skins. Caroline reached for another stick of wood, then changed her mind. The flames already stroked the bottom of the kettle. It was not the fire’s fault, then—it was her own. She had not accounted for how much heat the open air would steal away.

  Caroline listened to the bite of Charles’s shovel as he dug the latrine pit and pinched her lip between her teeth. He would be hungry after so much hacking at the half-frozen earth, and there was nothing she could do to hurry the beans without burning them.

  Charles stowed his shovel in the wagon, lifted the spring seat loose, and set it down before the fire. It stood no higher than a step stool. Caroline made a little show of scraping the edges of the pot rather than sitting. The last thing she wanted were those boards across her back and thighs again.

  Charles sat down with a little bounce. His knees sloped up higher than his hips, so he stretched out his legs and propped the heels of his boots—one, two—in the snow. He inhaled deeply and smiled. He would not rush her with words, but she knew he was hungry and waiting. Her own stomach had worn through the apple slice.

  She spooned up three beans and tasted them. None were quite done. One, the largest, was firm in the center like a fresh pea. She glanced up over the edge of the spoon. They were watching her, eager for a verdict.

  Caroline wavered. In the oven or on the hearth a bean like that might give up its bone in half an hour. Out in the open with unseasoned pitch pine, there was no telling how much longer. It was either tantalize them with guesses or serve almost-done beans now. Neither prospect suited her, but eating now would be less a hardship than waiting for a meal that might not improve with time. She swirled a drizzle of molasses into the pot, then dished up four platefuls.