Her first thought, always: Indians?
Could Jack’s and Pet’s noses perceive the difference between one race and another? More likely they could scent the dead things the Indians adorned themselves with—the skins and feathers, teeth and bone. Caroline had not seen an Osage since that day on the street in Independence, but she remembered the tufts of hair that fringed their leggings.
All this time in Indian Territory, Caroline thought, and not one Indian. Even Charles had not seen them—only their deserted camping places. When she asked why, he had answered in that careless way of his. Oh, I don’t know. They’re away on a hunting trip, I guess.
And when they returned, Caroline wondered? Her breath shortened at the thought. Charles had made no proper claim on this land yet. They had not paid a cent for it, had not even filed on it. Supposing they did have papers from a U.S. land office—what weight would that hold with Indians? When the Osages found this house standing where nothing had been before, they would come for their rent as the storekeeper warned.
There was Jack, she told herself, already on guard. And she had the rifle, and the revolver, too, though Caroline could not think where it had been put. Under the wagon seat, her mind answered automatically, but that was not so anymore.
The pony came streaking up from the bottoms like a hawk diving straight for them. Caroline could not see the rider—only a brown blur hunched low against the animal’s straining neck. Fear pinned her to the ground, a cold stake right down her backbone. It did not matter. She did not have time to move. Pony and rider tore past her before she saw that it was only Patty, Patty and Charles. Patty’s hooves cut a great slash in the ground as he wrenched her to a stop just beyond the stable. The pony shuddered and panted, dripping with sweat. Charles jumped down and spun around to scan the bluffs.
Caroline turned and searched the horizon, too, expecting a war party with arrows notched. Nothing but the wind moved through the grass behind him. “What is it?” she said. “Why did you ride Patty like that?”
“I was afraid the wolves would beat me here,” Charles gasped. “But I see everything’s all right.”
“Wolves!” she cried. “What wolves?”
“Everything’s all right, Caroline,” he said. “Let a fellow get his breath.”
Everything could not be all right, not with the way his hand was shaking as he mopped the sweat from the back of his neck and out from under his whiskers.
“It was all I could do to hold her at all,” Charles panted. “Fifty wolves, Caroline, the biggest wolves I ever saw. I wouldn’t go through such a thing again, not for a mint of money.”
Caroline wanted to fold her ears shut, to pretend it was anyone but Charles describing how that pack of buffalo wolves had surrounded him, how he’d forced Patty to walk among them as they frisked and frolicked like dogs. If anything had happened to him, if just one of those wolves had taken a mind to— The thought loomed so large, she could hardly see around it. Widowed and pregnant like her own ma, his child a living ghost in her belly. Her whole life Caroline had carried the memory of how Ma had dropped where she stood at the news of Pa’s shipwreck, as though the weight of that fatherless baby had yanked her to the ground.
“I was glad you had the gun, Caroline,” Charles was saying. “And glad the house is built. I knew you could keep the wolves out of the house, with the gun. But Pet and the foal were outside.”
Caroline bridled so suddenly the fear fell right out of her. Why had he gone off at all if he had reason to worry about the stock? Did it never occur to Charles that it might behoove them all to worry about himself now and again? “You need not have worried, Charles,” she said, holding her voice exactly level. “I guess I would manage to save our horses.”
“I was not fully reasonable at the time,” he apologized, and some small part of herself Caroline hardly recognized was satisfied that he had been scared out of his wits. Perhaps he would remember that the next time he took it into his head to trot off toward the horizon.
“We’ll eat supper in the house,” she said.
“No need of that. Jack will give us warning in plenty of time.”
If they ate inside there would be no need of warning, but she did not bother saying so. That sort of logic held no sway with Charles.
“Caroline.” Caroline felt her mind stir, then sink back toward sleep. “Caroline. Wake up.”
His voice made no sense. She could hear Charles breathing heavily beside her, yet the words came from above. She lay in the near silence, listening to that rhythmic huff . . . huff until something prickled her awareness.
Caroline’s eyes sprang open. It was not Charles panting beside her. It was a wolf, the sounds of its warm breath leaking between the chinks in the logs.
Charles stood with the rifle over his bent arm. “There’s a ring of them all around the house,” he whispered. “Take this. Careful. It’s loaded and half-cocked.” The revolver. Caroline took the warm stock in her hand and leaned into a bar of moonlight to see the cylinder. All six chambers were full. Charles gestured toward the west window and went to stand beside the east window. Caroline knew he was watching the stable. She could hear the horses now, snorting and pacing.
Slowly Caroline crept to the end of the straw tick and began to raise herself from the floor. First to all fours, then she laid her free hand on the lid of her trunk and pushed herself to her knees. With the sound of the wolves’ breath so near, she dared not put her fingers into the chinks for balance. Another shove against the lid brought her eyes level with the windowsill.
Caroline paused to look through the window hole and the revolver in her hand became no more menacing than a popgun. Those wolves, she saw at once, could do as they pleased. Charles had said he’d never seen bigger wolves in his life, but these creatures were so impossibly large they looked like bears crouched beneath wolf skins. She counted fourteen of them before the ring curved out of her sight. Between the rifle and the revolver she and Charles might be able to discourage them. That was all. If that pack set its mind on breaching the cabin, it would.
The thought did not frighten her. On the contrary—if the wolves had wanted to come inside, Caroline judged, they would have nosed the quilt door aside and devoured all four of them in their sleep. But they had not. Until they did all she and Charles could do was signal their intent to protect themselves.