Everything went where she wanted it—the broom in one corner, the churn in the other. Charles’s gun over the door, of course, and the beds against the back wall, leaving space between them for the fireplace. Every decision belonged to her. Charles and Mary and Laura would not put one thing down without looking first to her for approval, as though the map of the inside of the cabin existed in her mind alone.
So she pointed out places for pegs to hang their clothing, the dishpan and dish towel, and Charles drove them into the walls. He hewed out narrow slabs for shelves and wedged those in between the logs in the corner that she designated as the kitchen. Caroline could have spent the afternoon admiring those plain, serviceable shelves. No longer would she have to bend double for a scoop of flour or cornmeal from a sack on the ground. Nor would her neatly packed crates be jumbled and jostled into disarray. She had accommodated so many trifling inconveniences over such a long time that she had not felt their accumulating weight. Now, so many lifted all at once that it seemed she might rise from the floor. If not for the inevitability of cooking supper over the campfire, she might have.
But the campfire itself was more pleasant, too, because of the house. Because of the house, outside and inside had become distinct from each other once more. It was a rich feeling, sitting outside after supper for no better reason than because they wanted to. There was something absurdly delightful in the knowledge that behind those walls their beds lay ready and waiting, with the nightclothes hanging neatly on their pegs. Nothing need be dismantled or rearranged.
A warm, nectary scent glided by on the breeze. “I wonder,” Caroline said, “if the cherry tree back home is budded out yet.”
“I wonder what Polly will do for her cherry preserves if the Gustafsons don’t share the fruit with her,” Charles answered.
Caroline smiled. She could just imagine Polly scheming for her usual share of those good tart cherries. Perhaps she would simply send one of the children over with a basket, as she’d always done. Those poor unsuspecting Swedes would open their door to find three-year-old Charlotte beaming up at them. Wouldn’t that be just like Polly. “Eliza and Peter’s family must have increased by now,” Caroline said. She ran her hands along her own sides. She was still not so big as Eliza had been when they left Pepin. Niece or nephew, Caroline wondered. Live or stillborn? In a few months, Eliza would be wondering the same of her. No, Caroline realized with a pang—she had not told Eliza before they left, had not told anyone but Charles.
“I should have had a letter ready to post when we stopped in Independence,” she said aloud. All she’d been able to think about was whether any news awaited her. How selfish. The home folks would be lucky now to have word from her before snowfall. Write, Eliza had said that last morning. Write.
“I’ll have to make a trip into town one of these days for nails to finish the roof,” Charles said. “Soon as our stable and Edwards’s house are raised, I’ll tan those rabbit hides and take them in to trade. Be plenty of room in my pockets for all the letters you want to send.”
Caroline nodded. It meant more weeks, but that could not be helped. At least now, with her trunk at the end of their bed, she could pull out her lap desk and pearl-handled pen any time she pleased.
She sat a few moments on that trunk after tucking the girls into bed, taking in the feel of the place. Moonlight tinged the canvas roof a soft pewter. Already Caroline knew she would miss that luster when Charles finished the roof with wooden slabs.
“Come out here, Caroline, and look at the moon,” Charles called softly. Caroline rose and ducked under the quilt Charles had tacked up for a door. He sat sideways on the spring seat, arms open for her. Caroline sat down on his knee and settled in against him. Charles pushed the heel of his boot into the ground, bobbing the spring seat comfortably beneath them almost like a rocking chair. His thumb caressed her upper arm in slow harmony.
Caroline looked at the round white moon hanging free in the sky. Without trees or clouds to frame its light, there seemed to be no end to its reach, no end to anything at all. Darkness had melted the horizon; only the faint border of stars made it possible to separate earth from sky. Caroline closed her eyes and all of it melded together—the sphere of the child floating inside her, the circle of Charles’s arms around her. Bounded and boundless.
Seventeen
“Mary! Laura!” Charles called. “Come and see what Pet has to show you.”
Caroline followed them to the little log stable at a distance. She knew what it must be, but she had not expected it to be so new. The spindly black filly was still glistening, the meaty smell of the afterbirth unmistakable in the cool morning air.
The girls were oblivious, having eyes only for the creature’s delicate legs and long, long ears. Caroline could smile at their wonderment, but she herself felt none of it. The sight of that pony, entirely unruffled, with her new little filly standing on one side and her own twin sister on the other turned Caroline all slack inside, disappointed, almost. For the hundredth time, she found herself wishing for Polly. Charles and Edwards had raised the stable in a single day, finishing only the night before. It was as if that filly had been waiting for the stable to be built—waiting until everything was ready to welcome her and then stepped out into the world the very next moment.
It would not be so simple when her time came.
Charles would have the cabin finished by then, of course. There would be a bedstead and a hearth and her own crisp-ironed curtains fluttering at the windows well before summer faded. All the same, Caroline knew she would rather lie on the floor, behind a quilt door and a canvas roof, if only Polly could be there with her.
Caroline did not say a thing when Charles saddled Patty and set off toward the bluffs. It was not that she wanted to gallop across the open prairie under that hot white sun. Given the choice she would much rather spread a quilt on the grass in the shade of the house and have a Sunday school with her girls. It was only that he had these chances to unhitch himself from everything, and she did not. There was never the extravagance of an afternoon all to herself, to do no more than sit down with her desk in her lap and write a letter to Eliza without a single interruption. Envy, pure and simple, and nothing she said to herself would snuff the resentful flicker in her throat. If she spoke aloud Charles would hear it, too, and so she only waved as he trotted away. No sense in marring his pleasure simply because she could not partake of it.
“What’s the matter with Jack?” Laura asked.
Caroline looked up from the bake oven. The hair on the back of the bulldog’s neck was bristling. Pet ran a nervous circuit and whickered for her foal.
It was as though a wind passed, touching only the animals. Caroline had felt nothing, not the least stir of unease. That in itself sent a little shiver across her arms. “What’s the matter, Jack?” she asked. He seemed to raise his eyebrows at her. Caroline turned a slow circle. Nothing, as far as she could see. Nor a sound. She watched Jack’s nose quiver into the wind. A scent, then?