by Sarah Miller
Don’t be afraid.
Caroline could not say it, not when her only comfort had been to subsume her own fear.
“Lie down, Laura, and go to sleep,” she managed instead, with only a hint of a quaver.
“What’s that howling?”
A flutter of panic pierced Caroline’s belly. Could they see her hands trembling, how her jaw clenched as she struggled to answer? Silently, she uncoiled her fingers from the stock and flattened them against her thigh. Don’t frighten them, Caroline willed herself. She imagined the way her voice needed to sound before saying the words. Gentle enough to soothe. Firm enough to end Laura’s questions. “The wind is howling,” Caroline told her. “Now mind me, Laura.”
Laura inched back under the quilts, and Caroline refastened her gaze to the china shepherdess. She wanted to smile back at that serene china face and felt a strange urge to apologize for being unable to do it. Caroline looked and looked at the painted blue eyes, and tried to wonder what the shepherdess would see through them if she had the power of sight. The single room she faced, day and night, with only a glimpse through the open door now and then? Caroline winced at the idea. Perhaps her painted gaze would turn inward instead, to someplace entirely different and belonging only to herself. The faraway shelf she had occupied, in Detroit or Chicago, before Henry Quiner had chosen her to carry home to his not-quite-four-year-old daughter. Could the little china woman remember what Caroline herself could not—did she recall the moment Pa had placed her in Caroline’s hands?
Caroline nearly smiled then and began to sing softly. To herself, to the shepherdess, to the children, still wide awake behind their closed eyes.
There is a happy land, far, far away.
Where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day.
The jolt against the door ought to have frightened her, rousing Caroline as it did from a fretful doze. But she recognized the sound as surely as if Charles had called out to her. The instant she heard it Caroline wondered how she could have taken the wind’s purposeless clattering for anything human.
“Didn’t you think I might have been an Indian, Mrs. Ingalls?” Charles’s voice scolded as she flung open the door.
He was teasing—she could hear the twinkle in his eyes even if it was too dark to see beneath the brim of his hat—but Caroline’s mouth dropped open at the thought of her own foolishness. “No,” she said just as suddenly, and bold as brass. “Jack wasn’t growling. He knew it was you, too.”
Charles grabbed her up in his arms and laughed. His coat was stiff with cold. Clumps of frozen mud dropped from his boots and iced her toes. She did not tell him she had been afraid; the half-cocked pistol lying on the seat of the rocker spoke more freely of that than she ever would.
Charles knew. He would not speak of it any more than she would, not with the children suddenly awake and eager to claim their places on his knees, but Caroline heard it in his cheerful boom as he told Mary and Laura about the wind and the rain and the freezing mud that had seized the wagon wheels and slowed Pet and Patty to a crawl. Everything is all right, his manner was saying, even as Caroline picked up the pistol and laid it on the mantel shelf without a word about it.
And it was so. The little house was full in every way it could be filled—with the scent of coffee bubbling on the hearth, the sound of her husband and daughters, the sight of all the provisions Charles piled on the table. Oh, those fat, heavy sacks. Cornmeal. Salt pork. Coffee and tea, flour and sugar, molasses and lard. Everything, down to tobacco and nails. Even, Caroline saw with a smirk and a shake of her head, a pound of sparkling white sugar, as if Charles could not help thumbing his nose at the prices in Independence. Caroline put her hands on each keg and sack and parcel, patting the way she patted Carrie’s little belly after a feed. With the milk and dried blackberries and the game, it would surely be enough see them through the winter.
Enough. Caroline had never yet tired of the word, perhaps never would. As a child, plenty had been too grandiose a term for anything but berrying time, but when Ma had had occasion to pronounce There will be enough, even when it was just barely true, that was a feeling ofttimes more delicious than the food itself.
“Open the square package,” Charles said over the girls’ heads.
It was wrapped so neatly, with its crisply folded corners and a knot of white string. Her first thought was of a book, or writing paper—extravagances that made no sense. She lifted it and the weight puzzled her. Even Charles’s big green book was not so heavy.
“Be careful,” he said. “Don’t drop it.”
A thrill went through her, of delight and dread as she understood. It could be only one thing. “Oh, Charles,” she gasped, aghast at the expense, “you didn’t.” She laid it back down on the table, fearful now of damaging what must be inside.
“Open it,” he insisted.
Caroline untied the string and folded back the paper. Eight panes of window glass.
She could not keep the figures from chalking themselves up in her mind. Eight panes of glass could not be less than twelve dollars back East. But here—a place where white sugar went for a dollar a pound? No, she assured herself. That was why Charles had driven forty miles to Oswego. That was why she and the girls had spent four days alone on the high prairie. He had saved the overland freight, at least. Still, the cost amounted to no less than the equivalent of nine and a half acres. The single square pane in her hands represented more land than it took to hold the house and stable and well. It was a foolish, frivolous thing to do with so much money.
But gracious, it was beautiful, that glass. Clear and cool and smooth, and ever so faintly blue, like ice. Caroline lifted the top pane to the firelight, and the edges seemed to glow. She put a hand to her chest, to keep from floating away. Four panes for the east, four for the west. He had bought her sunlight and moonlight, sunrises and sunsets. She would be able to see clear to the creek road and the bluffs beyond, all winter long. Come spring she could look out at her kitchen garden and see Charles working the fields of sod potatoes and corn.
He should not have done it. Every cent he had saved by going to Oswego had surely gone into this glass. Caroline could not get air enough into her to properly thank him.
Twenty-Six
Had she known how many Indians she would see through those window panes, Caroline thought as she glanced toward the Indian trail for the dozenth time that day, she might have quelled her delight. She tried to tell herself that it was only the novelty of looking through the glass that made her more aware of the passing barebacked riders, but that was as good as a lie. She told herself that the way they rode, without ever so much as glancing askance at the cabin, there was nothing to worry over. But that did not feel much like the truth, either. They might as well have turned their heads away entirely, they pointed their eyes so resolutely forward. I refuse to see you, that posture proclaimed.
It seemed an indecent thing to envy an Indian, but Caroline did. No matter how she tried, she could not replicate their willful indifference. Every Osage on that trail claimed her attention. And Jack—Jack plain hated to see an Indian pass. All day long he snarled and barked and scrabbled against his chain, until the bare ground was scored with slashes. Charles had to nearly drag the bulldog in for his dinner, he was so reluctant to leave the trail unguarded.
“I can’t say I blame him,” Caroline said. “I declare, Indians are getting so thick around here that I can’t look up without seeing one.”
Charles leaned down at the window to survey the trail. It ran almost through the dooryard before angling away to the northeast. “I wouldn’t have built the house so close if I’d known it’s a highroad. Looked like nobody’d ridden it in months when we got here. They must not use it, spring and summer.”
Caroline would not say that she did not mind. But there was no use in complaining, either. “That can’t be helped now,” she said. She put a bowl of jackrabbit vitals on the floor for Jack, then dredged the remaining pieces with flour, salt, and
pepper. The lard in the skillet had begun to crackle. She turned, lifting the plate of meat, and nearly dropped it.
An Indian stood in the doorway. “Goodness,” she gasped. Jack looked up from his bowl and lunged. His jowls were bloodied with jackrabbit, his teeth bared. Charles leapt forward and snatched the dog back by the collar. The Indian had not moved one step, but Caroline saw him draw himself up, his chin and chest both lifting in a kind of internal backing away. “Ho-wah,” he said.
“How!” Charles answered.
The Indian seemed to smother a smirk at Charles’s reply and stepped into the house. He was tall, taller yet than Charles, so that he reached up to gently bend back the feathers on his scalp lock as he crossed the threshold. He walked the length of the house and squatted down beside the fire as though he’d been invited. Charles pulled his belt from its loops and used it to buckle Jack to the bedpost by his collar. Then Charles squatted down alongside the hearth. The two men said nothing. Behind them, the melted lard gave a pop. Mary and Laura sat on their little bed with their backs against the wall, watching.
Caroline stood completely still for a moment before she realized that she was not frightened. She was not entirely at ease, but she was not afraid. In fact, she thought, having the Indian in the house was not so very different from sitting down to milk a new cow for the first time. Caroline had the same sense now of being nominally in charge and at the same time acutely aware of her own physical disadvantage. If the man poised on her hearth had a mind to, he could spring up and harm any one of them. Yet if he had a mind to, he gave no indication of it. The silence between Charles and the Indian seemed almost amicable, and gradually Caroline understood that if she did not carry on with her task, her hesitation would tip their tentative accord out of balance.
So she picked up the plate and a fork and strode to the fire. One by one she laid the raw pieces of rabbit into the hot fat. Everyone watched. They listened to the frying meat bubble and snap. They watched her turn each piece up golden brown and dish a helping onto five plates. She gave one to Charles and one to the Indian. She handed Mary and Laura their portions, as though they ate dinner on their bed every day of the week. Then Caroline picked up Carrie from the big bed and held the baby in her lap while she ate one-handed at the table. No one spoke.
When Charles finished eating, he slowly unkinked his legs and took his pipe and a new paper of tobacco down from the mantel shelf. He filled his pipe and offered the packet to the Indian, who did the same. Thin tendrils of smoke rose up from their two pipes. Caroline wished the smoke might spell out the men’s thoughts. They puffed at the tobacco until the rafters were hazy and their pipes were empty. Then the Indian spoke.
Caroline tilted her head in surprise. He sounded nothing like the two men who had come into the house before. These sounds were so smooth and languorous, they seemed a single long word. French? she wondered.
Charles shook his head. “No speak,” he replied.
The Indian lifted a hand in acknowledgment, and no more was said. After a moment, he stood and walked out the door. Jack pulled against the belt that held him to the bedpost, straining forward with his nose and teeth, but he did not growl.
“My goodness gracious,” Caroline said. She stroked Carrie’s back again and again, as though it were the baby who wanted comforting.
“That Indian was no common trash,” Charles remarked.
Caroline looked around the cabin. Her dredging boxes of flour and salt and pepper all sat on the table in plain sight. The door to the provisions cupboard stood partway open, revealing its cache of bulging sacks and crates. The Indian had not peered inside, but Caroline had no reason to suppose he had not seen them. “Let Indians keep themselves to themselves,” she said, “and we will do the same.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Charles said. “That Indian was perfectly friendly. And their camps down in the bluffs are peaceable enough. If we treat them well and watch Jack, we won’t have any trouble.”
Caroline agreed, but she did not say so. She did not know how to explain to Charles how she could be thankful they were friendly and still not want them inside her house. It did not seem a thing that should need explaining.
“Ma, Baby Carrie’s hungry.”
Caroline did not argue. Mary knew. She had set to learning her baby sister’s signals by rote and could decipher them nearly as well as if Carrie were her own. This once, Caroline was grateful for the interruption. Her fingertips ached from pushing the needle through the rabbit skins. Mary and Laura could hardly wait for their caps to be finished. Each time Caroline laid aside her sewing, they came to kneel beside the work basket and stroke the fur. She herself favored the beaver pelts. Their rich brown underfur was deeper than the lushest velvet; you might sink a finger to the first knuckle into its improbable softness. But those pelts, along with the mink and wolf, they could not afford to keep—not if they were to have a plow and seeds for planting.
Charles had done well, so early in the season. The stack of pelts reached nearly to Laura’s knees. If Charles’s traps kept yielding this way, all the cash in the fiddle case might go toward proving up on the claim.
Caroline stood and stretched and went to stand a minute in the doorway. The air was pleasantly brisk, yet lacked the familiar scent of leaves bronzing in the sun. Autumn here had a golden, grassy smell, dry and soft, like a haymow. She reached for her shawl—its red the color of a sugar maple at full blaze—and pulled it comfortably about her shoulders. This was the welcome stretch of weather that turned the fireplace into a boon companion. Soon enough it would become a ravenous mouth to feed. For now, though, it demanded little in return for the comfort it gave.
Behind her, the baby fussed. Caroline let her. Carrie had nearly grown out of her newborn cry, and Caroline enjoyed listening for the little voice that was beginning to emerge between the growls and shrills. Next autumn there would be no leisure, not with corn and sod potatoes to pick, and Carrie to mind. Next autumn, Carrie would be walking.
Caroline tucked her pinky into the corner of Carrie’s mouth and gently broke the baby’s grip on her nipple. The little mouth yawned as Caroline eased her from the crook of one elbow to another.
At the sound of footsteps Caroline looked up, expecting Charles, anticipating his smile at the sight of her in her rocking chair, the way his eyes would sweep across her face, down her neck and open bodice, to Carrie.
“Gracious!” she cried.
Two brown men stood in the doorway. They headed straight toward the locked cupboard as though the smell of flour and lard had lured them in off the prairie. Quickly Caroline buttoned up. Her fingers fumbled, mismatching the holes. They must not see the key on its string.
The baby was only half-fed. She whimpered and squirmed. This day of all days, her appetite chose to be impatient. Caroline put her finger in Carrie’s mouth. Carrie sucked and bawled, and Caroline felt the prickle of her milk letting down. Her cheeks flared as the stain warmed the calico of her bodice. Furious with shame, she slipped an arm between herself and the baby, clamping the heel of her hand against her breast to hold the leak steady.
The injustice of it was scathing—that she must withhold food from one child to protect the provisions for the others.
At least the children were all within sight this time, within reach, even. The girls were at her sides, Mary with her rag doll—Caroline did not know how or when she had gotten it—and Laura clutching her half-finished fur cap. She heard a quick hiss of pain from Laura and knew that the needle she had left poised in a seam had stabbed her daughter’s palm. Laura did not make another sound.
One Indian, the one wearing a dingy green calico shirt above buckskin leggings, lifted the corner of the dishtowel from the pan of cornbread on the table. Green Shirt motioned to the other man, who came over and snatched the towel away so sharply it cracked against the air. He laid it out and tied the loaf of cornbread in it, to take. The Indian’s dusty hands snagged the fabric as he knotted it to his belt.
/>
Caroline swallowed hard. Mother Ingalls had given her that towel, its corner embroidered with a pine tree that had once been green. It was so threadbare now it was good for nothing more than screening leftovers from the flies, but she did not want to let it go this way. If that is the most valuable thing they take, she promised herself.
Caroline did not finish the thought. As she watched their eyes probed every niche of the house. She saw them study the mantel shelf, the windowsills. Green Shirt squatted down to reach into her work basket. Mary and Laura skittered backward. One by one he inspected every one of her crochet hooks and knitting needles. Looking for the key, Caroline thought, and hugged Carrie closer. They had not seen it on her neck, she realized. If they were looking for it, it was because they did not know where it was.
Before she could feel any relief, Green Shirt made an exclamation and held up a triumphant hand. Caroline jolted at the sight. The key to her trunk.
“Oh,” she said without meaning to. The Indians’ faces lit up as her hand flew to her lips. Without a word they set upon the lock of the provisions cupboard.
The key would not fit. The shaft was round instead of flat. The tip would not reach far enough inside to give them even the satisfaction of a hopeful jiggle. Towel Thief smacked the padlock so hard the hasp rang out. Green Shirt made a sound that sounded like swearing. Could they swear, Caroline heard herself wondering somewhere far inside her mind, in another language, against a heathen god?
Green Shirt turned, the key pinched in his fingers. Looking for the hole that it would fit into. He raised his eyebrows at her, and his wrist pivoted in the air. Back and forth, back and forth. A question.
If she so much as exhaled in the direction of her trunk, he would go to it. Caroline lifted her chin to point her eyes straight over his head. I will bake them a cake, she thought. A cake with white flour and sugar, and a roast prairie hen apiece if only they will not open that trunk. Both men turned, following her gaze. She saw their attention move to the empty pegs over the door, and she watched their lips spread wide as they understood that Charles’s rifle was not in the house. Caroline shivered as though a bead of hot lead were rolling down the back of her neck. They might take anything they wanted now.
