Caroline did not count how many trips it took Charles to ferry the necessary materials and supplies to the campsite on horseback. Each load loosened the space inside the wagon so agreeably, she hated even more to think of leaving it. Then he came for the planks that formed the sleeping loft.
One by one Charles levered them up and carried them out while Caroline kept back, silently folding her pillowcase curtain. That small stretch of planks had let her mind divide the wagon box into three room-like sections—one for traveling, one for sleeping, and one for everything else.
Until now, they had been only paused. But with their living space dismantled and their things strewn between the wagon and the campsite, the sense that they were stranded rushed in to fill the empty places.
Only one thing appeared unmoved—her trunk, standing off to one side. The moment her gaze fell across it Caroline steadied. She had not seen it in weeks.
Caroline waded through the sacks to spread a hand over the peak of its belly. A picture of what lay inside built itself layer by layer in her memory. Everything rich and fine and delicate, all of it sleeping beneath her palm—untouched since Wisconsin.
“Mary, hand me my work basket, please.” With one hand still on the lid, Caroline fished into the compartment that held her steel crochet hooks and pulled out the key to her trunk. There was no reason to open it, except that she wanted to. Caroline turned the key and lifted the lid no wider than a slice of bread. The smell of newsprint, dry and crackling, met her nose. Caroline inhaled softly. That reassuring scent and all the others behind it unfurled into her lungs. It was like stepping back across her own threshold—home, packed tight and snug and waiting.
There was no more she needed to take from the trunk than that. Caroline latched the lid and slipped the key into her pocket.
“Aren’t you going to put the curtain in?” Mary asked.
“It would not fit,” Caroline said.
“You didn’t try,” Laura said.
“You must not contradict, Laura,” Caroline said as she lifted the girls onto the lid. She stood by a moment, held by their upturned faces. It made such a pretty picture—all the precious little things she loved best in the world, stacked together.
“It’s not far, but the first half mile isn’t fit for you and the girls to walk,” Charles explained. “Ground down here’s so waterlogged it’ll swallow you to the knees if you step in the wrong places.” He lifted one heel to show the slick of brown streaking his calf. “Ben and Beth have been back and forth enough they’ve got the shallowest route pretty well figured. If you ride with Mary, I can lead both horses and still carry Laura on my arm.”
“Aw, Pa,” Laura cried. “I don’t wanna be carried.”
“Laura, be still,” Caroline said. She did not care for Charles’s plan any more than Laura did. Or Mary, for that matter, who silently telegraphed her reluctance through the clutch of her mitten. Caroline squeezed back, disguising her own jitters as reassurance.
There was no other way. They owned but one saddle, and so she must ride Beth astride while somehow keeping hold of both Mary and the saddle horn. She lifted her chest and leveled her chin. If this is the way it must be done, then she would do it.
Caroline let go of Mary’s hand and kilted up the front of her skirts. Holding to a wagon bow she felt with her right foot for the stirrup. When her heel snugged tight against the loop she eased her left over Beth’s back. The horse’s girth opened a wide wedge of space between her knees. Caroline’s hamstrings twanged.
“All right?” Charles asked.
Caroline nodded, and Charles lifted Mary into her lap. Her daughter’s knuckles turned pale as they clenched the saddle horn.
Caroline put her arm around Mary’s waist. Her other hand reached for the saddle horn. With her calves she hugged Beth’s flanks, gripping her thighs against Mary’s.
“Beth’s not going to have sure footing,” Charles warned both of them. “She may lurch and sway, but she won’t fall.” He caught Caroline’s eye. “I wouldn’t put either one of you up there if I didn’t trust her.” Of course not. She knew him well enough to know that. Still, hearing him say it eased her mind even if it did not loosen her grip. “You be a big girl and hold fast,” he said to Mary.
Mary nodded, huddling closer yet over her handhold.
Charles crooked his arm into a seat for Laura. “Climb on, Half-Pint.”
“Please, Pa?” Laura asked, looking longingly at Beth. “I won’t be scared.”
“Makes no nevermind who’s scared and who isn’t. I can’t lead Ben and Beth and carry more than a little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up.”
Laura obliged. Charles shouldered the tailgate back into place and cinched down the canvas one-handed before clucking the horses forward. Beth began to walk, her careful gait rocking Caroline from the hips.
Behind them the wagon stood beached like a small ark. Caroline wished she could have sewn a keyhole or a latch string into its cover. Anyone who happened by might untie the ropes and see plain as plain what they carried. All that remained of their provisions, her trunk, the fiddle. Good heavens, Caroline thought—the fiddle box and its secret lining of greenbacks. If anyone helped themselves to that it would leave them doubly bereft.
“Charles,” Caroline called, her voice pitched high enough to stop him midstep. “The fiddle box?”
He patted his breast pocket. Caroline nodded, only partially eased. Her shawl slipped with the movement. Every step tugged it a little lower. It was not pinned high enough, but she could not let go of Mary to adjust it.
“Wait, Charles.”
Caroline let go of the saddle horn to unpin her shawl, opening it wide. “Lean back into me, Mary,” she said. Mary hunched her spine backward, still clinging to the saddle. Caroline put her palm to Mary’s chest and hugged her gently in. “Let go now,” she coaxed. “Hold on to me instead.” Mary uncrimped one fist and latched it to Caroline’s arm. Then the other.
Quickly Caroline swathed the long ends of the shawl around her, bundling Mary close. She anchored the knot with the pin and said, “All right, Charles.”
Again her hips rolled with Beth’s steps. Secured against her ma, the tension left Mary’s body, and as the terrain began to steepen she and Mary buttressed each other like a pair of hands pressed together in prayer.
How long had it been since she last held Mary swaddled like this? The shawl, the rocking, the small body finding ease against hers—all of it carried her back to that first winter with Mary.