Caroline

by Sarah Miller

  Laura gasped and their eyes flickered toward the sound, breaking the spell. Caroline swayed to her feet and went to kneel beside her daughters. The girls had both slipped from the wagon tongue into tired little heaps of calico in the grass. “What is it, Laura?”

  Her blue eyes were wide, full of the sky. “The stars were singing,” Laura whispered.

  Under her skirts and steels, the still and silent baby seemed to twirl like a key turning, as if it had been waiting, all this time, for this night and those words. A deep pulse of thankfulness radiated through her body before her mind could form the words. Caroline blinked tears from her lashes as she said to Laura, “You’ve been asleep. It is only the fiddle. And it’s time little girls were in bed.”

  The firelight shone in their sleepy eyes and blushed all the round and dimpled places on their bare skins as they crawled into their nightdresses. Such plump and sturdy little girls. Anyone could see they had never known a moment’s want, never dreaded the bottom of the flour barrel as she once had. Perhaps in a place like this they never would. Caroline tucked them into the wagon, leaving the canvas open so they might see the stars as they drifted off, and returned to the fire. She sat down close beside Charles, too full for words, and looked out into the wide open night. It was not hard to imagine that darkness stretching all the way back across the long way they had come. And the fiddle sang, low and rich now, its melodies swaying in an easy back-and-forth rhythm until the home they had left and the home they would make seemed within reach of each other.

  Neither of them tied down the wagon cover. There was no need. The night was pleasantly cool even as they undressed, and Caroline had no desire to separate herself from it.

  Nor did Charles. He lay down beside her and unfastened the yoke of her nightdress, tucking it back so her bare shoulder stood out white in the moonlight.

  “Charles,” she warned.

  “Shhh,” he said. “Just this.” His hand traveled across her skin, stirring the downy hair along the peak of her shoulder. The inside of his wrist came to rest along the slope of her breast, and his warm pulse reached inward to meet her own.

  Only his thumb moved now, so lightly Caroline felt as though she were rising like cream through milk. She opened her mouth to quiet her breathing and closed her eyes. Her fingers found a soft little gully between the corded muscles of his neck. With her thumb she stroked the whiskers along his jaw. “Caroline,” he whispered, and she felt the word with her fingers. There was no need to answer.

  Fourteen

  Once more into the wagon, with the sun just peeking over the rim of the earth. All of them looked ahead now—not just Charles—watching as if the land that was to be theirs would be waiting to greet them. Charles whistled one tune after another as Pet and Patty strolled briskly through the swishing yellow grass. Away from the road it was tall enough to brush their bellies.

  Caroline hummed along, her heart fluttering. Today was different. Each one of them down to the horses knew it. No road stretched before them, demanding that they strive ahead. They had been harnessed to that endless brown line, Caroline thought, just as surely as Pet and Patty were harnessed to the wagon. Without it the drudgery of trudging ever forward had lifted, and she felt such a lightness. Nothing pressed them—not the weather nor the time of day nor the distance—nothing but their own eagerness. They hurried, but only a little, only for the joy of it.

  Before their breakfast had begun to wear off, Charles pulled back on the reins. “Here we are, Caroline. Right here we’ll build our house.”

  Here. Caroline blinked at the suddenness of it. So many long weeks and miles, ended in a single syllable.

  The others felt no such jar. Down Mary and Laura went, their bare toes curling over the spokes of the wheels. “Ready?” Charles held up his hands for her, as he always did. Caroline leaned down into them as though it were the first time. The house was not even paced off, yet she had the unmistakable sense of crossing its threshold as Charles put his hands to her waist and swung her to the ground.

  No matter where the wagon stopped these last few days, there was always the feeling of being at the very center of the world. And now this would be their center, their world. It was beautiful, this pale, bright country with its blue-white sky, as beautiful as anything they had seen along the way.

  Caroline turned slowly, looking all around her for something to mark this plot of ground off from the boundless land around it—something to fix in her memory and recognize as their own if she ever needed to find this place again, as the two big oaks and the sumac along the fence back home had done.

  Here there were no marks upon the land itself. No fence or road, no hedge or furrow. Only bluffs rising to the north, an endless span of grass unrolling to the south. Between them, the rumpled line of a creek. Even the path the wagon had made through the grass was already melding back together.

  For a moment she was adrift in the sameness of it all. There was nothing but the wagon to fasten to, and a wagon could never be trusted for such a task. Caroline swept her eyes across the breadth of the horizon. East to west, west to east, and back again. The more she looked, the more she steadied. No one thing had grasped her sight. It was everything at once, the whole contour of the view—the particular curve of the creek, the rougher edge of the bluffs against the sky—and the emerging knowledge that none of it could look quite the same from anywhere else. She could learn to recognize those lines the same way she recognized a familiar line of handwriting. It would only take time.

  They unloaded the wagon right then and there, everything onto the ground with the canvas to spread over it. Then the wagon box itself came off the running gear and rested beside its freight. Goodness, it was small out in the open, all bare and swept and only a little more than knee-high in the tall grass.

  Then, perched on the running gear, Charles rattled away toward the creek bottoms with his ax.

  For most of the next two weeks there was little but the sound of that ax. Felling, chopping, hewing. The creak and tear of the bark and sapwood splitting away from the pale yellow heart of each log as he squared them off. They were lovely to look at, all neatly stacked and waiting to be joined together. The sun warmed the freshly hewn logs and every day Caroline could smell the smell of the house they would become, imagining it all around her. But she did not wait for the house to begin feeling at home. Each day the sun rose and set on the same sides of her bed. Good oak kindling piled up by the hour, and every bucket of water came from the same clean, sweet creek. And there was the unutterable luxury of a necessary, built of poles with a door and a plank seat.

  With their daily movements they wore grooves into the land—to the creek, the necessary, the dishpan and washbasin, and around and around the growing stack of logs. Even Mary and Laura had their paths to their favorite little hills and hollows. First the grass parted, then it leaned and bent until at last it laid down in the dirt and was trampled under bare feet.

  A day or two and the week returned to its accustomed shape. There were gaps where the churning and the baking ought to have been, gaps Caroline filled with the blandest of the preparations for the child. She cut squares of linen and painted them with boiled linseed oil to make fresh oilcloth, then fashioned flannel covers for them—one for each night of the week to guard the straw tick from leaking diapers. To protect her dresses she oiled rounds of silk trimmed to fit her breasts and backed them with linen. There was no wheat bran for filling, so there would be no proper pad to keep the leavings of the birth from soaking the bedclothes. More oilcloth would have to answer for that purpose. Caroline eyed the wagon cover briefly, then thought better of it. She boiled more linseed oil and painted the oldest of her tablecloths instead. In the scrap bag she found plenty of flannel rags to double her supply of sanitary towels.

  Each of these small tasks drew her inward. Away from the land and yet strangely nearer it, for the child she prepared for would be a Kansan. Indeed, it already was so. Every time Caroline looked up from her work
she could see the square Charles had paced off for the house, and inside that square was the place where the child would be born. Charles and the girls must work at making the land their own, but the child would emerge belonging to it.

  In one day Charles built the house as high as Laura’s head. Two dozen logs, notched and hoisted and fitted. After supper they leaned their elbows on the short walls, admiring the neat square space. Charles pointed out where the door and windows and fireplace would be, while inside Mary and Laura ran gleeful circles. Jack barked and wagged outside, trying to lick at them through the chinks. Caroline ran her hands across the topmost log. Good oak, just as their house in Wisconsin had been, but younger, slenderer. A youthful little house.

  In and out went the needle. In and out and in and then the ax struck wood and she was looking up at Charles again. He stood halfway up the wall with his boot toes wedged between the chinks, chopping a notch into the topmost log. Look, look, look, the ax seemed to say each time it bit into the wood. Watch, watch, watch. Caroline pulled her needle through the flannel. In the time it had taken him to raise that log, she had sewn no more than a half dozen stitches. Perhaps if she sewed in time with the ax she could manage to keep her eyes on her own work. Chop-and-stitch and chop-and-stitch and chop-and-whizz! came a little chip of wood sailing down to land at her feet, and there she was, watching again. She forced her eyes back into her lap. Rags. Flannel rags she would not need for months yet. Impatience crackled in her elbows and all up and down her back. She could not do such tedious work. Not with the whole house going up ten feet from her face. She would fly apart. Caroline jabbed her needle into the half-finished pad and dropped it into her work basket.

  Out of the scrap bag came the long curtain made of pillow cases she had fashioned for the wagon loft. Cut in quarters, it would likely serve as curtains for the new house. Caroline fingered the pretty red blanket stitching along the hem. That would just match her checked tablecloth. She rummaged through the bag again and came up with a handful of snippings from Laura’s red summer calico. Enough, perhaps, for curtain ties—if she were careful. Caroline smoothed the pieces across her lap and smiled at the thought of crisp red and white curtains against freshly hewn oak walls. Her needle would fly so much faster if it were making something beautiful. Faster than Charles’s ax. But she could not measure and cut curtains for windows that did not exist. Not with so little fabric to spare. Carefully Caroline folded the calico and muslin together and tucked them back into the scrap bag. She took up the flannel pad again and her throat swelled with frustration.

  Always, the scale of Charles’s work dwarfed her own. In the time it took him to build a wall or plant an acre, she might knit a sock or churn a pound of butter. One task was no less vital than the other; he could not build or plant barefoot and hungry. Charles knew that as well as she did and never failed to thank her for a new shirt or a good meal. But to have a hand in fashioning something that would not be consumed, worn out, outgrown—something as grand as a house? To be able to lean against that solid wall for years to come and know that she had helped put it there? Caroline thrilled at the thought.

  But it was hard, muscled work, even for Charles. More so than the day before. Caroline could see it in his neck and shoulders, hear it in his swift exhale as he thrust each log upward. Yesterday his legs had borne the brunt of the lifting. He had only to squat down, take hold of one end of the log, and straighten himself up again. Today that was barely half the task. Now the height of the walls demanded the strength of his arms to hoist each log into place. His pace had slowed enough that even the girls’ interest flagged until they finally wandered away to play. Up went one end of a log, propped at the corner where two walls met. Then, tentatively, the other rose as he worked, shuffling and grunting, to bring the whole timber level without dislodging the first end. One nudge too far and the wood lurched from its place, bumping its way down each of the logs beneath it. Charles staggered back, dropping his end without a word. He whipped out his handkerchief in a flash of red and swiped his face.

  Caroline was beside him with the dipper and pail before he’d stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Let me help, Charles,” she said as he drank. His eyes popped up from the dipper. One, then two drops of water trickled through his beard. Charles put down the dipper and wiped his chin in the crook of his elbow, still looking at her. Her empty hands reached for each other, then fled behind her back. She could not fold them before her as she usually did without drawing attention to her belly. There was no hiding it these days, but nor was there any need to proclaim it, either. Perhaps with no other women in sight he had grown accustomed to her shape. Perhaps, if she stood quite still and made no mention of it herself, he would not take it into account.

  He considered so long her fingers began to wish for the needle and thread, if only to keep from fidgeting. She felt like one of the children, standing there so earnestly. Caroline watched the corners of his eyes narrow with thought and knew he was wondering how to accept without making more work for himself, as she did when Mary and Laura begged to lend a hand in her chores. She ought to have treated him to a jug of ginger water and sat back down to her sewing instead of trying to elbow in.

  “I won’t have you lifting logs,” he said at last. “But do you think you could brace them while I lift the other end and square the join?”

  Caroline did not say one word. All her childish excitement would spill out if she opened her mouth to say so much as Yes, Charles. She simply nodded and followed him to the west wall.

  The logs that formed the northern corner jutted toward her like oversized pegs. Charles lifted the end of the fallen timber onto the highest one and propped it with the heels of his hands. “Hold it this way. Don’t try to grip it when I lift the other end. It has to be able to move some while I position my side—just lean so it can’t slip off.” Caroline planted her feet and slanted her body forward to put her hands beside his. “That’s it. The notch in the wall underneath will keep it from sliding the other way.” He went to the south corner and hoisted the other end. “Now hold steady while I fit this into the notch.” The log rocked, then wobbled and dropped squarely into place. Caroline pushed herself back from the wall. As she did her end slid into its notch.

  Charles propped his fists on his hips and bobbed his head in approval. “That’s all there is to it.”

  Together they built the house one log higher, then another. Each time Charles squatted down and took the end of the log in both hands, levering himself back up with a thrust of his calves. Then he bent his knees and with a grunt, hoisted the end up to his shoulder. Caroline never tired of watching—the swoop of his knees, the spring from the balls of his feet, the deft flip of his palms as the log reached his chin. He grinned at her each time.

  There were moments he was like something out of a book, that man, too grand and vivid to be fully real. With him, there were times when life had the feel of a story larger than themselves. All winter as he talked of going west, Caroline had caught glimpses of it as he saw it—a current pushing forward with purpose and momentum. What else could account for why she stood on this blank square of map with one end of a log in her hands? For his part, she did not know what he saw in a woman such as herself, what made him look at her the way he did, as though she were a song he had sung, come to life. Caroline shied a little to imagine what kind of song anyone could make out of her. It would be akin to exalting something as commonplace as a quilt, or a pan of milk.

  Caroline did not see what happened. She only felt the jolt pass through the timber and down her elbows. Raw wood scraped, and suddenly the log was nosing down toward her.

  She hitched herself sideways, going up on tiptoe to boost the log from beneath with her shoulder. Her foot caught in a hollow and one knee buckled. The log’s weight shifted toward the notch of her neck, pressing her down. Caroline’s thigh muscles surged upward. Too late—her knee could not straighten under the load. Her shin threatened to splinter like a matchstick. Ever
y hinge in her body wavered as though it were on the verge of melting.

  “Let go!” Charles called. “Get out from under!”

  It was not a matter of letting go. Her hands bore none of the weight. It was her shoulder. She could not lift it from her shoulder. Her only hope was to throw her body down faster than the log could fall. Caroline let both knees buckle fully and thrust her hands up against the wood, hurling herself outward.

  All the points of her body struck the ground—knee, hip, elbow, shoulder.

  She lay waiting for the crack, expecting to be split like a pitcher and feel herself spilling out onto the grass.

  No crack came. Only the steady weight of the log on her foot, and, smothered somewhere beneath that, pain. She was not sensible of the pain itself, only a strange sensation pushing hard against the log, impatient to be felt.

  “Caroline!” Charles was beside her, and Laura.

  “I’m all right.” Her voice was a gasp, the words nearly a lie. She was hurt, that was certain. How badly she could not tell. But she would mend or manage without; Caroline knew that already. Nothing vital in her had broken.

  Charles lifted the log free. Pain bulged up into the space it left behind, so large for an instant she feared her shoe might burst. Caroline pulled herself tight. If she could hold her body tightly enough, she thought, she could shrink the pain down small enough to fit back inside her.

  “Move your arms,” Charles demanded. “Is your back hurt? Can you turn your head?”

  Caroline did not want to move anything. Simply exhaling sent flames of hot and cold racing through her ankle. But she had never seen such a look on Charles’s face. Not even with the creek rising nearly to his ears had he looked so horrified—white and trembling, and hardly an inch from tears. Gingerly she moved and turned. He looked to her middle, too frightened to ask aloud.