Caroline

by Sarah Miller

  Charles knew it better than she, had likely reckoned it would be this way since before they crossed the Mississippi. He was so happy it was comical, very nearly indecent. Caroline had never seen him look at her so boldly—boldly enough to make her flush to the tips of her ears and turn her head so that her bonnet hid her face from him. Only the girls in the wagon box and the baby already in her womb kept his gleeful hands from straying from the reins to the delights of her body. After a mile she chanced a peek at him and noticed that whether he was looking at her or the prairie his expression did not change. Caroline sensed then that the two of them were curiously tied in his mind. He did not know how else to show his burgeoning love for Kansas, and so he wanted to do with her what he could not do with the land.

  Caroline slid closer to him, so that their hips touched. She could give him that much, at least. Pleased, he shifted the reins to one hand and with a glance that said May I? laced an arm around her waist. His warm palm rested softly on her flank. Caroline laid a hand over his and wished again that the child would move, for both of them.

  If she bore a son, she mused to herself, what a gift that would be to all of them in this vast place. A set of footsteps to follow Charles along any path he settled on, another pair of hands to share out the labor. And if it were a daughter, what then? Her mind flipped like a coin at that. It would be harder, without her brother Henry’s help, for Charles to manage a full quarter section alone, no matter how amenable the land.

  Caroline blinked. She was thinking of this child as if it were a tool, an instrument to help them stake their claim. What of the child itself, the person it could become? Beyond the near certainty of blue eyes, she still could not make her mind form a picture of this baby, nor the life it might lead. Caroline felt her thoughts taking that peculiar shift backward as though she were trying to remember the child rather than imagine it. Back to the Big Woods and the familiar image of herself in her rocker before the fire, Black Susan purring at her feet.

  None of it was right. This baby would be born not in winter, but on the coattails of summer. Not in the woods, but on the open plain. There would be no cat, no blazing winter hearth, no rocking chair. Caroline gazed out over the long clean grass, trying to picture instead the little house Charles had conjured before the campfire, with its blue and yellow calico curtains. How would it be inside that one room, with not two, but three little girls to bring up?

  That was a different view altogether. All in one great swoop, the same vastness that held so much promise for Charles revealed to Caroline how small the places that could belong to her and the girls were by comparison. The square corners of the imagined house, the neatly turned edges of the garden, seemed sharper, narrower. Their little house in the Big Woods had rarely felt cramped, but now, without the great dark trees partitioning her view, Caroline understood just how insignificant it had been.

  She turned backward to look at Mary and Laura, flushed and dozing on the straw tick. There was no place, yet, for her daughters to find room to expand in country like this—no churches, no schools, no community at all to speak of. Not even the narrow congregation of kin.

  One day, if enough women came, the land would open itself to the cultivation of such places, to crops that fed more than the body. Until then, Mary’s and Laura’s minds would be confined to a vista no wider than their own sunbonnets. Both of them needed more. Caroline had only to look at them to know it. Mary was already too bright, and Laura too spirited to flourish without that promise. For their sake she could not root herself to a place without it.

  Caroline said aloud, “The girls must have an education.”

  “Hmm?” Charles said.

  “The girls must have an education,” she said again.

  He nodded without looking away from the horizon. “That’s so. Any time you judge them ready.”

  “Mary is nearly ready now. I hate to make her wait.”

  “Why wait?” And with a wink, “Seems to me you were a schoolteacher once.”

  It was the wink that did it. Caroline saw no room for teasing in this; the breadth of their daughters’ learning could not ride on something so light as a wink. A wind rose up in her, strong enough to form a shout. For a moment Caroline could not think sensibly. It was all she could do to grip the rush of anger and rein it back. She would not let it go racing out at him. Her body went stock-still with the effort of speaking quietly. “Two terms, Charles. I taught just two terms and then I was married. That’s been better than ten years ago. Mary and Laura will have more capable instruction than that.”

  She could hear the muscled quiver in her voice. It pulled Charles’s eyes from the scenery and his arm from her waist. She felt the hard set of her face as his eyes met hers, saw it bewilder him so rapidly that he nearly looked hurt. “I’ve never known you to be incapable of anything,” he said.

  Caroline sat dumb. A compliment. Of course. He had no end of them—if not completely true then always sincere. Usually it was the sincerity that disarmed her.

  Not this time. Yes, she could teach them all she knew, but her learning was a decade old. She would not let her own limits be imposed upon their daughters.

  “Promise me, Charles,” she said. “No matter where we settle, Mary and Laura will have a formal education.”

  He slowed the mustangs to study her. She watched the small muscles around his eyes contracting as he searched for something that would tell him what he had done to light such a flare between them. When he spoke the words were stripped bare. “Caroline, I swear to you—”

  Caroline’s breath hissed back from the word. Even this was not worth making an oath of. “Please, Charles. Don’t swear it,” she said. “Only promise me.”

  “I promise you. Our children will have proper schooling.” He broke her gaze only long enough to sweep his eyes quickly over her belly. “All of them.”

  Caroline nodded. “All right,” she said, and her voice was her own again.

  He moved to touch her and changed his mind, as though afraid she might singe him again. The last thrash of her anger went limp at that, and she felt too much at once. Grateful. Relieved. Repentant. And proud.

  Charles gave the lines a little flick and the wagon sped up. Caroline waited for the wheels to carry them ahead, away from that spot, then crooked her hand into the crease of his elbow, squeezing softly to steady herself, to thank him, to apologize. He pulled it in against his side, forgiven.

  Next day he was bright as ever. Caroline had sobered, troubled that she had so quickly managed to find limits in a limitless landscape. A pale scar from the hungry years, she thought ruefully, the same one that left her always mindful of the bottom of the flour barrel even when it was full to brimming. Never mind that she was plump enough now to dimple at the elbows. She still could not look at anything, it seemed, without gauging the needs it could satisfy and for how long. Not like Charles, who enjoyed everything the world laid before him right until the very moment it ran out. That alone was enough to tell her that his growing up had not been marred by want.

  She had no desire to begrudge him his cheer, but it got to be a little like sunburn, sitting there beside him with no way to shade herself as he radiated happiness. Beautiful as it was, the view no longer fed her in the same way it fed him, and the more he feasted on it, the more keenly Caroline felt the lack.

  What she felt was nonsensical, she scolded herself. Nothing had been taken from her. Nothing tangible would be denied her. Yet it pinched ever so slightly to watch Charles unfurling like a beanstalk beside her, knowing that Kansas offered her no similar satisfaction, no chance to reach beyond what she had been for the last ten years: Mrs. Ingalls, Ma. She could stretch forever toward that horizon and grasp nothing new.

  As if it had grown out of her thoughts, a dull ache meandered across her right side and descended into her belly. Caroline followed it with the heel of her hand, but the narrow cord of pain was too deep to reach. The only part of her that could be counted on to expand in this place was
her womb, she thought, and even that was half Charles’s doing.

  Caroline moved to fold her hands together again and found her left had formed a fist in her lap. She had fairly balled herself up with envy. Envy, of all things, when everything they shared was bound to increase. And after she had vowed in the bunkhouse that first night to do all she could to keep her family worthy of Providence’s care. She wiped the damp palm across her skirt, uncrossed and recrossed her ankles. It helped some to break that selfish thought up and brush it away, but she did not know what to do with her hands, did not like the empty feel of them, or trust them not to clench up again. They needed something of their own to hold besides themselves, the way Charles had his reins and the girls their playthings. But what? She did not want to sit there with a wooden spoon or a skein of yarn in her lap. Her books and slate came first to mind, but they lay at the very bottom of her trunk, and anyway, she was not a teacher anymore and never would be again. Perhaps if she had never taught school, Caroline thought, never held an envelope filled with dollar bills she had earned herself, she would not feel so empty-handed now. Not even Mary or Laura would fill that space in the way she wanted.

  Seeds. The little packets of seeds she had saved from the garden, and Polly’s, too. Those belonged to her in a way that nothing else inside the wagon did. Only she could not very well go digging through the crates to find them now. There was no call for it, no way to explain why she wanted them. The best she could do was fan out the handful of neatly labeled envelopes in her mind and imagine how the seeds folded safely inside would feel through the paper. There were the winkled round beads that were turnips, cabbages, and peas; the cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions with their sharp pointed ends; the flat squash seeds broad as fingernails; the tiny bearded carrot seeds. They had reached up out of the Wisconsin ground, and come spring she would work them into the Kansas soil so they could take root. Those lacy tendrils, finer than her finest crochet thread, would bore down through the dirt until they found something to grasp and hold themselves firm. Seeds always reached down before reaching up and out.

  There was comfort in that.

  Twelve

  The willows along the Verdigris River traced a soft green line over the prairie. Their trunks were slender, and their young leaves not thick enough yet to provide much shade. Through the haze of yellow-green, Caroline could make out the tops of a few dozen haystacks on the opposite bank. They seemed to stand in crooked rows and squares.

  “Must be the outskirts of Independence,” Charles said.

  Town. Caroline’s heart began to patter.

  Laura pulled herself up by the back of the spring seat. “Where, Pa?”

  Like Laura, Caroline wanted to stand up in her seat to see this town, this place so fresh it had not earned itself a spot of ink on the map. Caroline had only half believed it would be here at all. She took hold of the outermost wagon bow and stretched her tired back out long and tall, tipping her chin toward the horizon. The smell of the river skimmed past her nostrils, a clean, silvery scent.

  Somewhere just beyond the river were people, supplies, news. Perhaps, Caroline thought breathlessly before she could help herself, perhaps a letter. There had been waysides and whistle stops all along the road, but all that had mattered about them was how much they charged for feed, or how many miles’ travel they signified.

  “This is the last town before the Indian Territory?” Caroline asked.

  “So far as I can tell. Map’s no help for that anymore. I expect it’ll be the last town between us and the Territory, anyway,” Charles said.

  She had known the answer before asking. Today or tomorrow they would drive past the rim of the nation. No matter how far beyond Charles drove, this town would belong to them, and they to it, and so Caroline was anxious to learn what kind of a place it was, what kind of people inhabited it. She gave the wagon bow another gentle pull, craning as far as she could toward those haystacks without betraying her impatience. This once, she would not mind strange faces looking at her. What would they see in her, she wondered, what would the people of Independence expect of a woman come to claim a quarter section with her husband? Perhaps she would surprise them. Perhaps she would surprise herself.

  The Verdigris was high enough to lap at the underside of the wagon bed, but calm, and they forded the river easily. With a snort and a splash from Pet and Patty the wagon emerged from the screen of willows and the western bank came into view.

  Had she been standing, Caroline would have sat right back down again. The haystacks were the town—little half-breed buildings, timber on the bottom, hay on top, no larger than sheds. Caroline felt the wagon bow slip through her hand as she sank into the shell of her corset. How could anyone properly call this place a town?

  Charles pulled up before one of the hay shanties. A faded sign in front announced Bred and Pize for Saile huar. Caroline winced at the attempt. This place was not fresh, but raw.

  Charles ducked through the low door and in a few minutes brought out a loaf wrapped in an old sheet of newsprint. “Here’s a treat for you, Caroline. Light bread.”

  It felt a trifle heavy to go by the lofty name of light bread, but it was warm and smelled of yeast, so she unwrapped it and sliced it thickly.

  “‘Immigration still continues to pour in,’” Charles read from the paper as she waited for the molasses to find its way from the bottom of the jug. “‘As many as twenty claims have been taken in this vicinity in one day. At that rate every quarter will have an occupant by spring.’” His face sobered some. “Sounds like we didn’t get here any too soon. I’d better inquire at the land office for the best prospects.”

  He did not wait to eat his dinner, but drove with his bread in one hand and the reins in the other past the clusters of hay-topped sheds toward what Caroline had taken for a house and barn from the riverbank. They stopped between the two, and she saw that the pair of buildings comprised the whole of Independence’s business district. A double-log structure, the hotel, proclaimed itself the Judson House. The store with its sawn-board walls and shingled roof looked like it might just fit inside their house in Wisconsin. Size notwithstanding, it was by far the neatest, most sturdily built place in town, and it bore its few months’ weathering almost boastfully. The proud little building was already the matron of Main Street, Caroline mused, a grande dame in her graying boards and shining glass windows.

  It was a fanciful idea, something like Laura might come up with, and Caroline felt it nudging her impressions of Independence into a more charitable light. The town was undeniably raw, but it did not intend to remain so. This was a place still becoming itself.

  “Huh,” Charles said, looking the street up and down. “Maybe the land office is sharing quarters with the store. Ought to stock up either way,” he said. “I’m short of tobacco and I better get more powder and shot while I have the chance. What else do we need?”

  Caroline weighed each dwindling sack in her mind. “We still have plenty of beans and dried apples. The cornmeal, flour, and sugar are all low, especially the meal. Coffee. Some fresh salt pork or bacon would be nice. Molasses. And maybe, if they have any—” she stopped. “No, never mind that.” He had already treated her to the light bread.

  “What? There can’t be a thing in this town that’s too good for you.” His eyes twinkled, and Caroline felt the quick bloom of pleasure warm her face. She wished she were not so prone to blushing at his flattery. He could turn her ears halfway to red talking that way, and he knew it. “Tell me or I’ll have to guess,” he teased, and Caroline’s earlobes tingled. The man had no mercy.

  If she told him now it would sound silly. And if she did not, Caroline knew he would buy her something far too extravagant. Tins of oysters or a yard of fancy trim to make over her old apron. She looked up from her folded hands. “Pickles. Just a small jar of cucumber pickles.”

  “Pickles,” Charles repeated. “That’s it?” Caroline nodded, wanting very much to wriggle out from under the bemused slant of his s
mile. “Laura, hand me the fiddle box.” He pocketed a twenty dollar note and went inside. Before Caroline could wipe the crumbs from Mary’s and Laura’s mouths, he was back again.

  “Nobody there,” he said.

  “What do you mean, Charles?”

  “Shelves are full of goods, but there’s not a soul inside.” He shrugged and walked across the street toward the hotel.

  Caroline turned again to the brightly polished window panes. How could a store keep itself stocked and spotless with no one tending it?

  A sort of grumble came up from under the wagon. Surprise lifted Caroline’s brow as the unfamiliar sound registered. Jack, who had been every bit as docile with the children as Jacobs promised, was growling. She looked out the back of the wagon and saw what Jack saw: a man with a hay rake over his shoulder was nearing. The man leaned the rake against the door jamb of the store in a way that suggested to Caroline that he owned the place before approaching cautiously. “Hey there, fella,” he said, and squatted down with his palm open for the dog to assess. “Take it easy, now.” And then to Caroline when Jack dismissed him with a snort, “Looking to stock up, ma’am?”

  “Yes, sir. My husband—” She did not want to shout or point with the girls looking on. “See him there, headed for the hotel?”

  The man stood and hallooed.

  Charles turned. “This your place?”

  “That it is. I’m Wilson. Sorry to keep you waiting. Irwin and I—the two of us run the store—we got so busy raking hay we didn’t see you pull up. It’s a mite early for haymaking, but come winter there’s no excuse to be short of fodder in this country.”