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 morning 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.