The wind whipped the fringe of Caroline’s shawl against her elbows as she stood waiting for the wagon to disappear. Behind her, Jack whined and pulled at his chain. The pressure against her corset told her it was time to wake the baby for her morning feed, before Carrie cried and woke Mary and Laura, but Caroline would not turn her back on the wagon.
Forty miles to Oswego. A span better measured by time than by distance. A day and a half, two days to get there. An afternoon or a morning to trade. Then back again. Charles could not accomplish it in less than four days. Four days, and no way around it. If there were to be enough provisions to see them comfortably through the winter, as well as repay Mr. Edwards the nails he had lent to finish the roof, they must be bought in Oswego.
She could feel her awareness expanding as the wagon dwindled from sight, much as it had the day Mary had learned to creep across the floor, and Caroline had fully realized the perils of the stove, the woodpile, the washtub. Just as she placed herself daily between the children and the hazards of the house and yard, Charles stood between all of them and everything beyond the bounds of their claim. Now, with Charles away, Caroline became conscious of that greater perimeter, of listening for sounds from the stable and the path to the creek as well as the house. Anything that approached—from an Indian to a jackrabbit to a hailstone—would come first to her.
So when Jack barked just before milking time that night, snarling so that Caroline could hear the snap of his teeth from inside the house, her eyes darted from the bowl of cornmeal in her hands to the pistol box, high up on the ledge above the bedstead. Wood clattered and the bulldog’s chain rattled. Someone yelped—a man.
“Call off your dog!” At the sound of English, Caroline exhaled. Another clatter of wood.
“Call off your dog!” the man yelled again, and Laura shouted, “Mr. Edwards!”
Caroline dropped the bowl and dashed out the door. Mr. Edwards indeed, crouched atop the woodpile, scrabbling backward from Jack and scattering stove lengths onto the ground. “He’s got me treed!”
Caroline grasped Jack’s chain as best she could with her meal-dusted hands and reeled the snarling animal toward her until she could reach his collar. “No, Jack,” she said with a jerk that cut his wind. The slant of the bulldog’s brow seemed to challenge her judgment, but he obeyed. Resentfully. “I’m so sorry,” Caroline said to Edwards as Jack continued to grumble. His collar vibrated beneath Caroline’s fingers so that she did not trust letting go. She twisted awkwardly to try to meet Edwards’s eye. “I declare, Jack seems to know Mr. Ingalls isn’t here. He’s gone to town. Oswego,” she added.
“Yes, ma’am, I know. Mr. Ingalls passed my claim this morning and asked me to come by these next few days and see that everything was all right. If you don’t mind, I’ll see to the stock for you while I’m here.”
“Mind?” was all she could say. Caroline was so taken by surprise, Jack seized the opportunity for one last half-hearted lunge at Edwards.
Edwards grinned, dancing backward from Jack’s teeth. “I didn’t suppose you would.”
The next day the knock came just as she was finishing the dinner dishes. Caroline’s heart bobbed, lifting and sinking almost simultaneously. Because Edwards was not Charles. And, if she was entirely honest with herself, because he had come too early for the milking. Of all things! she scolded herself. Caroline took a moment to smooth her face into a welcome. She had no right to show Mr. Edwards even a speck of disappointment for his trouble, no matter what time he arrived.
“Oh,” she said as she opened the door, “Mrs. Scott!” Caroline thanked her lucky stars Jack hadn’t treed the woman on the woodpile. Mrs. Scott did not reply, and Caroline recognized that she was out of breath. “Is everything all right?” Caroline asked, scanning the horizon off toward the Scotts’ claim.
Mrs. Scott waved a hand. “Just windblown,” she puffed. “Thought I’d stop in and see how you folks was making out.” She looked up and smiled. “My, but you do look well, Mrs. Ingalls.”
Caroline’s cheeks felt as though they might split with pleasure. A visit. Mrs. Scott had walked nearly three miles for no other reason than to pay a friendly call. “Come in,” Caroline said. “Come right in and let me fix you some ginger water.”
Theirs was a singular blend of ease and formality, Caroline thought as she mixed sugar, vinegar, and ginger into a pitcher of cool water for her guest. Mrs. Scott behaved as though she had never seen Caroline bare and trembling with pain or fever, never sponged blood from her thighs or rinsed her chamber pail, never shared her bed. Yet the knowledge of those things permeated their every word and action, for they knew almost nothing else of each other. They had never met on level ground before, and every comfort Caroline could provide Mrs. Scott now, from hanging her lavender sunbonnet on the peg by the door to inviting her to sit in the new willow-bough rocker, gave Caroline the greatest of satisfaction.
“I’m sure she’s grown since I saw her last,” Mrs. Scott exclaimed over Carrie. “Heavier than a pail of blackberries.”
“How heavy am I, Mrs. Scott?” Laura interrupted.
“Laura,” Caroline murmured, with a subtle shake of her head that said Mind your manners.
Mrs. Scott raised an eyebrow at Laura, even as she answered, “Oh, I’d guess you’re almost as heavy as a bushel of cotton.” To Caroline she said, “My husband’s people raised cotton in Kentucky. Mr. Scott and I tried our hand at it in Missouri. We kept ourselves quite comfortable for a few years. Up until the war, anyway. After that there wasn’t money in it anymore,” she added. Pointedly? Caroline wondered. Or was that her own ears, hearing more than what was said where the virtue of the Union was concerned, as she was so apt to do after her brother fell at Shiloh? The sound of Mrs. Scott’s voice dimmed as Joseph’s soft smile, so much like her father’s that she could no longer distinguish between the two, appeared in Caroline’s mind. How strange to think she was older now than her eldest brother had ever been. Or ever would be. She had long ago become accustomed to his absence, but not to these odd reminders of her lifetime eclipsing his.
“Mr. Scott reckons he’ll try planting a few acres here, too, if the Indians ever clear out,” Mrs. Scott continued, oblivious. “No telling what they’d do if they came across a field of cotton. They’ve just got no sense of personal property. The way they come in and out, it makes a body feel as though you didn’t own the place.”
“It was different in Wisconsin,” Caroline ventured. “In Pepin the Chippewas kept to themselves. When I was a girl in the eastern counties, even the Potawatomis weren’t so bold as the Osages.”
Mrs. Scott’s brow furrowed. “Pepin County? How far were you from the Minnesota massacre?” she asked, continuing without an answer. “I’ve heard the stories. Like to scare me to death. My brother wrote me how they—”
Caroline cleared her throat, cutting her eyes toward the girls.
“Anyway, I hope to goodness we won’t have trouble with the Indians,” Mrs. Scott said. “I’ve heard rumors.” She raised her eyebrows to show that she would not speak of them in front of the children and gave a smart nod.