Caroline tucked her pinky into the corner of Carrie’s mouth and gently broke the baby’s grip on her nipple. The little mouth yawned as Caroline eased her from the crook of one elbow to another.
At the sound of footsteps Caroline looked up, expecting Charles, anticipating his smile at the sight of her in her rocking chair, the way his eyes would sweep across her face, down her neck and open bodice, to Carrie.
“Gracious!” she cried.
Two brown men stood in the doorway. They headed straight toward the locked cupboard as though the smell of flour and lard had lured them in off the prairie. Quickly Caroline buttoned up. Her fingers fumbled, mismatching the holes. They must not see the key on its string.
The baby was only half-fed. She whimpered and squirmed. This day of all days, her appetite chose to be impatient. Caroline put her finger in Carrie’s mouth. Carrie sucked and bawled, and Caroline felt the prickle of her milk letting down. Her cheeks flared as the stain warmed the calico of her bodice. Furious with shame, she slipped an arm between herself and the baby, clamping the heel of her hand against her breast to hold the leak steady.
The injustice of it was scathing—that she must withhold food from one child to protect the provisions for the others.
At least the children were all within sight this time, within reach, even. The girls were at her sides, Mary with her rag doll—Caroline did not know how or when she had gotten it—and Laura clutching her half-finished fur cap. She heard a quick hiss of pain from Laura and knew that the needle she had left poised in a seam had stabbed her daughter’s palm. Laura did not make another sound.
One Indian, the one wearing a dingy green calico shirt above buckskin leggings, lifted the corner of the dishtowel from the pan of cornbread on the table. Green Shirt motioned to the other man, who came over and snatched the towel away so sharply it cracked against the air. He laid it out and tied the loaf of cornbread in it, to take. The Indian’s dusty hands snagged the fabric as he knotted it to his belt.
Caroline swallowed hard. Mother Ingalls had given her that towel, its corner embroidered with a pine tree that had once been green. It was so threadbare now it was good for nothing more than screening leftovers from the flies, but she did not want to let it go this way. If that is the most valuable thing they take, she promised herself.
Caroline did not finish the thought. As she watched their eyes probed every niche of the house. She saw them study the mantel shelf, the windowsills. Green Shirt squatted down to reach into her work basket. Mary and Laura skittered backward. One by one he inspected every one of her crochet hooks and knitting needles. Looking for the key, Caroline thought, and hugged Carrie closer. They had not seen it on her neck, she realized. If they were looking for it, it was because they did not know where it was.
Before she could feel any relief, Green Shirt made an exclamation and held up a triumphant hand. Caroline jolted at the sight. The key to her trunk.
“Oh,” she said without meaning to. The Indians’ faces lit up as her hand flew to her lips. Without a word they set upon the lock of the provisions cupboard.
The key would not fit. The shaft was round instead of flat. The tip would not reach far enough inside to give them even the satisfaction of a hopeful jiggle. Towel Thief smacked the padlock so hard the hasp rang out. Green Shirt made a sound that sounded like swearing. Could they swear, Caroline heard herself wondering somewhere far inside her mind, in another language, against a heathen god?
Green Shirt turned, the key pinched in his fingers. Looking for the hole that it would fit into. He raised his eyebrows at her, and his wrist pivoted in the air. Back and forth, back and forth. A question.
If she so much as exhaled in the direction of her trunk, he would go to it. Caroline lifted her chin to point her eyes straight over his head. I will bake them a cake, she thought. A cake with white flour and sugar, and a roast prairie hen apiece if only they will not open that trunk. Both men turned, following her gaze. She saw their attention move to the empty pegs over the door, and she watched their lips spread wide as they understood that Charles’s rifle was not in the house. Caroline shivered as though a bead of hot lead were rolling down the back of her neck. They might take anything they wanted now.
Green Shirt gave his wrist a violent flick. The key flew, glanced off the basket, and clattered against the toes of Mary’s shoes. Mary yelped and ducked behind the rocker. Carrie screeched, and Caroline’s stomach chilled with the realization that her grip on the baby had tightened so hard, she could feel Carrie’s thigh bone.
One of them—Towel Thief—picked up the pile of pelts.
No. Caroline was on her feet. She did not step toward them, did not speak, only let the force of the thought vault her out of the chair and billow from her skin like steam until it filled the room.
Carrie stopped crying. The men stopped moving. They spoke in what sounded like half words. Towel Thief shook his head. Green Shirt struck his palm with the side of one hand, swiping as though he were brushing away an insect. Towel Thief glowered. Green Shirt jabbed a finger in Caroline’s direction. The entire core of Caroline’s body recoiled as he spoke, his hands making motions she did not want to interpret. Towel Thief dropped the furs in a heap and stalked out the door.
“All’s well that ends well,” Charles said when she told him what had nearly happened.
No, Caroline thought, it is not. She could not say so. If she opened her mouth, she would cry. Her every muscle was fixed with the task of holding the corners of her lips steady. The very sight of a man in green calico, even her husband, wearing a bright, clean shirt she had made with her own hands, made her almost dizzy. The only scrap of consolation was the absence of Charles’s usual blitheness. But the resignation Caroline heard in his voice instead was no comfort. The Indians would come and go as they pleased. Charles would do nothing about it, because there was nothing to be done.