by Sarah Miller
Caroline clambered over the spring seat and straw tick into the aisle. Standing on solid ground, she had only begun to feel the child’s downward pull on her balance, but in the moving wagon, tension ricocheted between her heels and the balls of her feet as she fought to keep upright. Staggering, she made her way to the tailgate and cinched down the ropes, closing the back into a keyhole. Still the wet canvas shuddered and snapped between the wagon bows.
She turned, barking her shin against the provisions crate. Its edges were damp with spray. She tugged, but the crate would not move—pinched by the boxes of kitchenwares crowded around it. Caroline snatched up the dish towels and blanketed the bags of flour and meal.
With a sound like a spank, the wind broadsided the wagon. “Ma!” Mary and Laura wailed.
Behind her, rain was hissing up over the sideboards to spit at the girls.
They had left too much slack between the bows; the row of knots along the wagon’s sides were not drawn fast enough against the weather.
Two solid feet of boxes and bundles stood between Caroline and the sideboards. She hinged at the waist, putting her hands out to catch the wooden lip.
From either side of the bows, the wagon cover bellied toward her. Caroline tucked her cheek to her shoulder and thrust one hand down between the wagon box and the cover, searching for the rope. A whiskery wet knob of jute met her fingers. The knot was already so fisted with water and wind, she could not feel its loops and strands, let alone part them. Every crack of the canvas kicked a spray of rain into her face. Defeated, Caroline shifted her weight to the heels of her hands and vaulted herself backward.
She stood panting a moment in the center of the wagon, mopping her face in the crook of her arm while lightning flared and Charles shouted calm to the horses. Then without a word to the girls she stripped the gray blanket from their knees and began bunching it into the gaps as best she could.
With every ram of the blanket she upbraided herself for being so ill prepared. She had known it must rain. Of course it would. On the trek she and Charles had made from Jefferson County to Pepin it had rained every afternoon for a solid week. As she sewed and oiled this wagon’s cover she had thought of little but the wind and rain and sun that would strike it.
But she had not considered all the ways in which a storm such as this could reach beneath it. Thunder vibrated the boards at her feet. Lightning backlit the canvas as though it were the wick of a kerosene lamp.
In the midst of it all, the girls cowered at the far end of the straw tick like two doused kittens. Mary clutched Laura, too frightened herself to be any comfort to her sister.
Looking at them, Caroline felt meager as the wagon cover. No matter how she tried to put herself between her girls and the storm, she would not be able keep its rage from touching them. She wished she could cocoon them both close against her breastbone, as she had when they were babies. The soft thunder of her heart had been enough to soothe them then, but she could not gather them near enough to hear it now.
Nor did she know which of them to reach for first. She had not arms enough to shelter them both at once. Laura was still so little, but Mary was plainly smothering in her own fear. It did not seem fair that each could have only half of her, nor that her heart should favor one side of her chest. Not since Laura was newly born had Caroline felt so keenly that she might not be mother enough for two. And soon there would be a third. The thought made her want to cry out for her own ma.
Aside from the vanity of new hair ribbons, Caroline realized, she had given hardly a thought to Mary and Laura when she agreed to go west. She had bundled them into the wagon like the blankets and sheets. Now she must answer for it.
Doubtful though she was, Caroline could stand apart from them no longer. Their faces were unthreading her chest. Whatever thin comfort she could offer belonged to them, and nothing but the press of her daughters could assure her she was equal to her task.
Caroline kneed her way onto the mattress and put her back to the spring seat. “Come here my girls,” she urged. They broke loose from each other and came skittering toward her with an eagerness that spread the edges of her heart.
Mary and Laura huddled so close against her sides, the tips of her steels dug at the soft flesh under her arms. At once Caroline saw that it did not matter what she did, so long as she was there for them to cling to. Their trust in her was built of thousands upon thousands of moments already past. She was Ma, and that in itself was enough. Just pressing against her seemed to sand away the edges of their fear, and Caroline’s own flesh yielded to welcome them.
Thoroughly bolstered, Caroline swaddled her shawl around their shoulders and shielded their laps with a quilt. With long circles, she passed her hands slowly up and down their backs, kneading their taut spines with her knuckles. Cold needles of rain struck the back of her neck as she stroked. Caroline let them melt into her collar; she would not break her rhythm to slap them away.
Lightning slashed through a clap of thunder, and Mary’s body recoiled from the sound.
“There is nothing to be frightened of,” Caroline soothed. “It is only light and air bumping together.”
But the next crack sounded so near, it tingled the pit of her stomach. Reverberations cored through her arms and legs. Caroline cupped her palms over Mary’s and Laura’s ears and rocked the girls from side to side, tucking her chin close to their heads as she began to sing:
Wildly the storm sweeps us on as it roars,
We’re homeward bound, homeward bound;
Look! yonder lie the bright heavenly shores:
We’re homeward bound, homeward bound;
Steady, O pilot! stand firm at the wheel;
Steady! we soon shall outweather the gale;
Oh, how we fly ’neath the loud creaking sail!
We’re homeward bound, homeward bound.
“I want to go home, Ma,” Laura said. “Can’t we go home?”
All Caroline’s self-assurance washed straight down her throat. Lightning cut through the sky again before she could speak. “Our house belongs to Mr. Gustafson now. We had storms in the Big Woods, Laura. This one is no different.” If she pulled the truth any thinner, it would tear. There had been storms—storms that struck a roof and walls made of logs as big through the middle as Laura herself. All around the cabin the trees had sifted the raindrops and combed the wind into narrow strands. Here, they were neither out nor in, their roof no thicker than a hat.
“Is Mary crying?”
Caroline nodded and pushed her lips into a silent shhh. This once she would not scold Mary for her tears. The child was already as ashamed as she was afraid; Caroline could feel Mary’s hot face boring into her side.
Laura reached across to pet her sister’s arm. Mary sniffled and ventured to show half her face.
“I’m scared, too,” Laura said.
Caroline watched Mary wipe her cheeks and offer Laura her hand. Their fingers laced fast as corset strings over Caroline’s belly. Lightning scratched across the sky and both girls ducked, then peeped up to smile sheepishly at each other before chancing a glance up at Caroline.
In that moment Caroline’s love for them danced over the surface of her skin. If the child inside could not feel the warm ribbon of its sisters’ arms stretching overhead, she hoped these waves of affection might embrace it.
The wagon itself seemed to float with her, then the southeast corner pitched sideways. The slant was not more than a few inches, but her body tipped like a bowl of water with all her muscles pulling toward level.
“Charles?”
He was shouting to the team. The wagon hiccoughed forward, then dropped back. The reins snapped like thunder, and again the wagon leaned and slumped, less sharply this time. Caroline felt the catch of the horses’ next pull, the strain so strong her shoulders crept up alongside her ears. Then the release. They had not moved an inch.
“Charles,” she called again.
“That’s it,” he barked over his shoulder. “We
’re stuck.”
She heard the reins strike the floorboards before the spring seat bounced up, knocking the top rungs of her spine. Charles was on his feet, cinching down the ropes at the wagon’s mouth. It was dim as the inside of a flour sack.
“I’ve got to unhitch the team, chain them to the leeward side of the wagon,” Charles said. He stood mopping his face and whiskers in the crook of his elbow. “Caroline, I need your help managing the canvas so I can get the harnesses under cover.” The girls’ heads tilted up at him, their bodies furrowing against this news. “You girls will have to sit tight,” he told them.
“Are the horses scared, Pa?” Laura asked.
“No, Half-Pint, but they’re colder and wetter than they’ve ever been before. I haven’t got a chance of rigging a tarpaulin up in this gale,” he said to Caroline. “The best I can think to do is get them out of the wind. I need you to stand inside and hold the canvas closed while I unbuckle the lines. I’ll shout for you to open up when I’m ready to hand the harnesses in.”
“All right, Charles.” Caroline unwedged herself from the girls and unwound her shawl. She folded it into a neat triangle and laid it between them. “Mary, Laura, will you please keep this warm and dry for me?”
They nodded, hunkering protectively over her shawl, still crouched with fear, yet unwilling to cave to it.
“That’s my brave girls,” she said, and it starched them up some to be called so.
Caroline eased herself over the spring seat, where Charles stood waiting, and tucked her skirts back between her calves.
“All ready?” Charles asked.
She nodded and reached for the ties.
“Not yet,” Charles said. “I’ll cinch them up behind me from the outside and hand them in.” He turned up his collar, screwed his hat nearly to his eyebrows, and tipped himself out into the storm. The opening shrunk like a knothole behind him. Then his fist full of ropes punched down between the canvas and the wagon box.
Caroline crouched down and took the ties from him. Each gust rattled her shoulders as the wind tried to fillet the canvas from the wagon’s back. For forty beats the storm lashed its rhythm through her body before she heard Charles’s call, muffled through the wet canvas. The ropes burned across her palms as she loosened her grip, and a snarl of straps and traces came at her. She bailed them in one-handed, kneeing them into the corner, all while groping for the rope she had lost hold of. Rain planed across her face and into her ear. Then came Beth’s collar, a leather doughnut heavy with rainwater.
“Close up,” Charles shouted.
She had not the muscle to pull the canvas tight again, so she coiled each rope twice around her fists and braced her heels. “Mary, Laura, get back,” she called.
“Why, Ma?” Mary asked.
“Get back,” she said again, her voice cocked and loaded, and threw herself backward into the spring seat. The twists of jute crimped the skin on the back of her hands as the wagon clamped its mouth shut.
It was like driving a team of runaways, holding those ropes. They pulled so insistently, the joints at the base of her fingers scraped against one another. Before she could rearrange her grip, she felt the yoke strike the ground and Charles bellowed again. She stood and threw her arms wide, opening the wagon’s throat as Ben’s half of the tack spilled inward.
“I’ll be in soon as I’ve got them chained to the feedbox,” Charles shouted. “Can you hold a little longer?”
Caroline’s pulse thumped cold in the pads of her thumbs. She mustered up a shout and flung it out to him. “Yes, Charles.” Again she hurtled herself backward, and the canvas shrank shut.
In a moment the girls jolted at the sound of the chains rattling out of the jockey box and through the iron ring. Then Caroline felt the wagon jounce and knew Charles had climbed to the doubletree. His boot heels knocked against the falling tongue, and then his hands were parting the canvas.
“Give me some slack,” he called, and Caroline let loose the ropes. With a gust of wind the wagon cover seemed to inhale, raising Charles to his toes. “Great fishhooks,” he cried.
Caroline grabbed for the canvas flapping below his fists, and together they tugged it back down.
“Reel one end of the rope in taut and stand on it,” Charles yelled to her. “Clamp it under your heels.”
As soon as Caroline had done as he instructed, Charles tumbled in with the other end. He crouched on the floor and knotted his length around hers. Then he hooked the pair of horse collars onto his elbow and heaved them over. “Step back,” he said, and wound both ends of the rope through the collars until they were secure. When he let go, the wind pulled the knot tight against the weight of the collars.
Charles sank down into the bramble of wet tack. “Caroline, how did you ever hold against that wind?”
“I don’t know, Charles,” she admitted. She looked at him, and the girls. “I only knew that I had to.” She was so rigid with tension, she could not even shiver. “Girls, my shawl, please, quick.”
The fabric was warm as they were. Caroline swathed it close around herself and stroked the rain from her face with its ends. Wet streaks of hair channeled rainwater down her temples and neck. With her fingers she pried the strands from her skin and combed them into place.
“I tell you, that rain is falling every which way but down,” Charles said. He took hold of his whiskers as though he were about to milk his chin. With a twist, he wrung a fistful of water onto the floor.
Laura giggled first, then Mary.
“Think that’s funny, do you?” He did not quite snap at them, but all the expression seemed to have vacated his voice. The girls pinned their lips together.
Caroline could not cipher his tone, so she frothed up her own voice with cheerfulness. “Charles, let me take those wet things,” she said, hoping a layer of his frustration might peel away with them. “Mary, Laura, find Pa some dry clothes in the carpetbag and make room for him on the straw tick while I see to supper.”
Caroline spread the poncho across the spring seat before making her way to the back of the wagon. There, she unswathed the crate and picked over the provisions. There was the bake oven half-full of cornbread, but that she would hold until breakfast, to warm over a fire. If they must have a cold supper, Caroline decided, she would make a treat of it—crackers and cheese and dried apples—though what she wanted most just then was a mug of tea and a baking of light bread hot enough to melt butter.
To distract herself from useless wanting, Caroline fanned a handful of apple quarters like a flower on Mary’s and Laura’s plates. She planed long yellow strips from the wheel of cheese and layered them in between the apple petals. A few crumbles of cheese brightened the center of each plate, and a white ring of crackers framed it all. For Charles she made no such dainties, only neat stacks of apples and crackers, with a cut of cheese thick enough to make her wince as the knife’s handle pressed into her rope-roughened palms.
“What happened to your hands?” Charles said as she passed him his plate and a mug of water. He was hoarse from shouting.
Pink welts striped them from side to side. “Only a bit of rope burn,” she said. “Nothing that won’t mend.”
Charles put down his supper and reached for her wrist. “Let me see.”
He would blame himself if he saw them—no matter that he was not the one who had coiled the ties around her hands. “It’s all right, Charles,” she insisted. “I can manage.”
A sigh hissed between his teeth.
“Your cornbread won’t be any less sweet for it,” she ventured to tease. I never ask any other sweetening, he’d said since that first supper in Pepin, when you put the prints of your hands on the loaves.
A short snuffle—almost a laugh—escaped his nostrils. “All right, Caroline,” he said.
She saw from the way his movements loosened when he bowed his head to pray that it had been levity enough to oil his hinges. He cleared his throat for the blessing and winced.
“Rest your voic
e, Charles,” Caroline said. “I think Mary is old enough to say grace for us. ‘For what we are about to receive,’” she prompted.
Mary straightened up and refolded her hands primly. “For what we are about to receive,” she repeated and then took a careful breath, “. . . may the Lord make us . . . ,” another breath, “. . . truly thankful.” Her eyes popped open, looking to see if she had done right.
“Very nice,” Caroline praised her. Mary puffed up like a vanity cake, muddling Caroline’s pride. Had she sown the wrong kind of modesty in that child? From the day Mary was born, Caroline had known that warding off vanity promised to be the greatest task in raising her. She had felt it welling in herself as she gazed on those delicate blue eyes and stroked the first golden wisps of Mary’s hair. How, she wondered then and ever after, had she made anything so beautiful?
Laura sat in awe of her sister. Caroline watched her fork a crumb of cheese from the center of her plate and taste it carefully, as though the food might be sauced with a new flavor after being blessed by Mary’s voice. Caroline sat down beside Laura and smoothed her little brown braids. They were so waxed with the week’s dust and oil, they would likely hold their shape without ribbons.
Once again there would be no Saturday bath, Caroline realized, just as there were no fresh loaves of light bread. At this hour the inside of their cabin would be fleecy with yeast and the breath of bathwater—unless Mrs. Gustafson, being a Swede, did her baking and bathing by a different timetable. Caroline scanned the dim expanse of the wagon. She thought of how the girls’ small white backs glistened in the yellow firelight as she poured warm snowmelt over them, and the feathery feel of their clean toweled hair. Buttoned into fresh flannel nightgowns, they would stand at her knees to have their hair braided tight and damp to make it wavy for Sunday. The little house glowed orange in Caroline’s memory.
She nibbled steadily at her dinner while the thunder numbed their ears, determined to enjoy the fruit and cheese before her rather than pine for what was behind her. But Caroline could not keep her thoughts confined within the wagon. Often Saturday nights she found time to read or crochet by the fire while her own bathwater heated in pots and kettles on the stove, easing herself into Sunday with the sound of Charles’s fiddle or his whittling knife. Tonight there was little to do but wipe the dishes and go to bed, and she said as much as she collected their plates.
