Caroline's Westward Compass

Chapter One

Westward Trail

Caroline Whitaker woke to the sound of her eldest sister laughing in the wrong place.

For twenty-seven years, Eleanor's morning voice had come from the bed beside hers, the next room, or—during the past month—from a bedroll beneath the lead Whitaker wagon. This morning it came from beyond the wagon circle, where a small canvas tent had been raised for the newly married couple.

Caroline lay beneath the second wagon with Charlotte on one side and Lydia's elbow pressed against her ribs on the other.

Grace and Lucy had managed to turn their blankets sideways in the night.

Martha was already gone, which meant the fire would be lit and breakfast halfway prepared before anyone else admitted to being awake.

Rebecca snored once beneath the neighboring wagon, stopped, and said, “I do not snore.”

“No one accused you,” Caroline said.

“Someone thought it.”

Lydia opened one eye. “I thought a small ox had become trapped under the wagon.”

Rebecca threw a rolled stocking at her.

Caroline pushed aside her blanket and sat up. Her back objected to the ground, the wagon, and possibly the entire Oregon Territory. She had discovered that trail life made a person aware of bones she had never considered in Missouri.

Eleanor laughed again.

All five sisters who remained beneath the wagon went still.

Lucy whispered, “Do you think she knows we can hear her?”

“She does now,” Charlotte said.

Silence fell beyond the circle.

Lydia covered her mouth with both hands. Her shoulders shook.

Caroline crawled into the cold morning before the family could create a difficulty that would require Eleanor to murder someone on the first day of her marriage.

The fading bruise along Caroline's hip protested when she straightened, a last reminder of the wagon accident.

Across the camp, Eleanor moved carefully around ribs still tender from the river crossing, while Nathaniel guarded the right shoulder strapped beneath his coat.

The injuries were healing. None had vanished merely because a wedding had occurred between one camp and the next.

The sky had only begun to pale. Fires glowed between wagons, and the oxen stood as dark shapes in the grass.

Mr. Daugherty was already walking toward the animals with a bucket.

Mrs. Bell sat beside her wagon wrapped in a shawl, holding her walking stick across her knees as if she had been awake all night waiting to observe poor decisions.

“Good morning,” Mrs. Bell called.

Caroline looked toward Eleanor's shelter. “You might say it more quietly.”

“I might,” Mrs. Bell agreed. “I will not.”

Martha stood over the fire, stirring cornmeal. “Coffee is nearly ready.”

“Then civilization continues.” Caroline took the second spoon from her and checked the mush's consistency.

“I have it.”

“I know.” Caroline stirred anyway.

Martha looked at her. “Eleanor is married, not dead.”

“I am aware.”

“You have checked the fire twice, the breakfast once, and the water bucket three times.”

“The water remained in it every time.”

“A triumph.”

Caroline set down the spoon. Everyone had become unusually observant since Eleanor's courtship. It was an unfortunate development.

The shelter flap opened. Nathaniel stepped out first, his right arm still held close by the sling beneath his coat. He looked rested, pleased, and far too amused with the world for a man who had married into the Whitaker family.

Eleanor emerged behind him wearing both garnet earrings. Her hair was pinned neatly, though one dark strand had escaped near her cheek. She saw all seven sisters watching her and stopped.

“Good morning,” Grace said with exaggerated innocence.

“Not one word,” Eleanor answered.

Lydia lifted her hands. “I have said nothing.”

“Your face has.”

Nathaniel looked at Caroline. “Is breakfast always this dangerous?”

“Usually more so.”

Eleanor came to the fire and reached for the coffee pot with the authority of a woman who had never required permission for anything. Nathaniel took it first with his left hand and poured a cup for her.

Eleanor stared at the cup.

He held it out. “This is the part where you accept help without treating it as a military defeat.”

“I learned that lesson yesterday.”

“Marriage requires review.”

She accepted the coffee. The softness in her face lasted only a moment, but Caroline saw it.

Something inside her shifted. Eleanor was still Eleanor. She was also Nathaniel's wife now, and the two truths occupied the same patch of morning as comfortably as the coffee between them.

Caroline should have been happy without reservation. She was happy. The reservation had simply arrived on its own.

Nathaniel glanced toward the wagons. “We will move in an hour. The ground ahead should be firm enough if the rain stays north.”

“I will take the rear division,” Eleanor said.

“You will eat first.”

“I can do both.”

“Not with one hand occupied by coffee.”

They began an argument so familiar that marriage appeared to have changed nothing except the distance between their blankets.

Caroline took bowls to Grace and Lucy, checked that Charlotte had recorded the remaining cornmeal, reminded Lydia to tie her bonnet, and found Rebecca tightening the lead team's yoke.

“You are driving the second wagon,” Caroline said.

Rebecca looked up. “I know.”

“Keep the Coleman wagon behind you if the ground softens. His ox is still favoring the sore beneath its yoke.”

“I know.”

“And—”

Rebecca straightened. “Caroline.”

“What?”

“I drove yesterday.”

“Yes.”

“The wagon remained upright.”

“I noticed.”

“Then go worry about your own team.”

Caroline opened her mouth, considered the wrench in Rebecca's hand, and went to the lead wagon.

Father's leather pouch rested beneath the driver's bench where Eleanor had placed it the night before.

Caroline touched the flap but did not open it.

For nearly a month, the pouch had belonged to Eleanor as surely as the garnets did.

Father had written the route, Eleanor had carried it, and Caroline had made certain everything around Eleanor continued working.

Now Eleanor rode with Nathaniel.

Caroline lifted the pouch onto her lap.

“You look as though it insulted you.”

Thomas Reed stood beside the wagon, his map board tucked under one arm. Morning light caught the brown in his hair and the serious line between his brows. He was thirty-one, though Nathaniel called him young whenever Thomas was correct in an inconvenient manner.

Caroline lowered the pouch. “It has not spoken.”

“That has never prevented insult.”

“Is there something you need?”

Thomas's gaze moved toward the leather. “Your father's notes, if you are willing. The crossing we passed yesterday was nearly half a mile from where he marked it. The next fork may have moved as well.”

“Roads do not move.”

“Water does. Travelers follow.”

Caroline knew this. She also knew Father's hand filled every page in that pouch, straight and certain. He had planned their future with the confidence of a man who believed preparation could defeat death if it worked hard enough.

It had not defeated his.

“You may look,” she said. “I will look with you.”

Thomas nodded as if she had offered exactly what he expected. “After the noon break?”

“Before. We may need the information sooner.”

His mouth curved. “Of course.”

“What does that mean?”

“Only that your family has two settings. Immediately and already finished.”

“We are efficient.”

“Terrifyingly.”

Before the company could form, the Whitakers had to determine which sister had packed the morning coffee beneath a stack of winter quilts.

Charlotte produced the inventory book. Martha produced an accusation.

Lydia produced the coffee from beneath her bedroll and claimed she had rescued it from damp.

“It was beside your head,” Caroline said.

“The safest place in camp.”

Rebecca pointed at the hoofprint three feet away. “An ox nearly stepped on your safest place.”

“Then I also rescued it from an ox.”

Thomas arrived while Caroline stood with the coffee sack in one hand and the route papers in the other. “Should I return later?”

“Yes,” Caroline said.

“No,” the seven sisters answered.

Thomas removed his hat. “I recognize a divided council.”

The sisters demanded to know whether Thomas's maps could expose a dishonest man. Grace suggested testing them on Mr. Avery. Lydia preferred Mr. Daugherty because the result would be less uncertain.

Thomas explained that maps recorded ground rather than character until Martha handed him coffee. He drank, paused, and said, “This cup appears to point west.”

“That is because Lydia made it,” Caroline said.

Lydia objected that coffee did not require directions. Thomas said hers might. By the time the company finally formed, every sister had offered him mapping advice, and none had remembered her assigned breakfast dish.

The company formed up shortly after sunrise.

Caroline climbed to the driver's bench of the lead Whitaker wagon and gathered the reins.

The leather pouch rested beside her. Behind, Rebecca settled at the second wagon while Martha, Lydia, Grace, and Lucy arranged themselves for the morning's walk.

Charlotte climbed in beside Caroline with the inventory book.

Eleanor rode past on Nathaniel's spare horse.

“You have the lead,” she said.

Caroline waited for the rest. Watch the left ox. Keep the spacing. Do not let Lucy ride if the ground becomes rough. Eleanor had given those instructions every morning since Independence, even after Caroline proved she knew them.

No instructions came. “I have it,” Caroline said.

Eleanor smiled. “I know.” She rode toward the rear division.

Caroline looked ahead as the first wagon began to move. The road stretched west through grass silvered with morning damp. She clicked her tongue to the oxen. The team leaned into the yoke, the wagon creaked, and the Whitakers took a new place in the line.

It should not have felt different. It did.

*****

THOMAS HAD SPENT MOST of his life drawing lines other people trusted.