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.