Chapter Two
Wet Prairie
The trail divided before breakfast had settled comfortably in anyone's stomach.
The northern trace curved toward a stand of cottonwoods. The southern line was fainter, no more than two wheel ruts pressed through damp grass. Between them lay a low stretch of shining mud.
Nathaniel stopped the lead wagon and lifted his left hand. The company halted in a long creaking line.
Caroline climbed down before he called her.
“The old notes say north,” she said.
Thomas dismounted nearby. “My information says south.”
Mr. Daugherty, who had approached carrying the expression of a man prepared to dislike both choices, pointed at the deeper ruts. “The northern road has seen more wagons.”
“It has also seen more water,” Rebecca said.
Nathaniel studied the ground. His right arm remained held close beneath his coat. He had learned to keep the injury still until he forgot himself and reached for something. Eleanor watched him with the tireless suspicion of a wife who knew exactly how often that happened.
“We need eyes on both traces,” he said. “Thomas, take the south. Caroline, go with him.”
Caroline looked toward the Whitaker wagons. “Rebecca can hold the line, but—”
“Rebecca can hold the line,” Eleanor repeated.
“Charlotte will need the mileage.”
Charlotte raised the inventory book. “I own a pencil.”
“Martha—”
“Can make breakfast without your supervision,” Martha called.
Lydia leaned against the wagon wheel. “This is difficult to watch.”
Caroline ignored her. “I will go.”
Thomas held out the reins of his spare horse.
She stared at the animal. “I can walk.”
“You can. The horse will be faster.”
“I have not ridden since we left Independence.”
“You rode before that.”
“How do you know?”
“Your father packed a sidesaddle until Eleanor made you leave it behind the second week.”
Caroline looked toward the wagon.
Charlotte called, “He reads the inventory.”
Thomas waited.
Caroline mounted without accepting his hand. The horse took three steps sideways, apparently offended by unnecessary independence. Thomas caught the bridle before she could correct it.
“Do not say anything,” she warned.
“I admire your command of the situation.”
“That was something.”
They rode south. The faint trace crossed higher ground for nearly half a mile. Grass grew thick between the ruts, but the soil beneath held firm. Thomas stopped near a lone cottonwood and took out his surveying compass.
Caroline removed Father's pocket compass. “They do not look alike.”
“Mine is designed to take more exact bearings. Yours is easier to carry and less likely to make every child in camp ask whether you are hunting treasure.”
“Do they?”
“Samuel Turner believes my tripod conceals a cannon.”
“Have you corrected him?”
“Not yet.”
She smiled despite herself.
Thomas stepped beside her. “Hold it flat.”
“It is flat.”
“It is tilted toward you.”
“Only slightly.”
“North does not become more accurate because the error is slight.”
Caroline adjusted her hand. Thomas reached beneath her fingers and lifted the case until the needle moved freely. The warmth of his hand passed through her glove.
She noticed the quiet around them. The halted wagons were hidden beyond the low rise. There was only grass, wind, two horses, and a man standing close enough that she could see the faint line beside his mouth where he resisted smiling.
“Now wait,” he said.
The needle swung.
“I am waiting.”
“You are attempting to force it by staring.”
“I do not believe that is possible.”
“Your family has unusual abilities.”
The needle settled. Thomas showed her how to align the mark on the case with the cottonwood and read the direction. Her first answer was several degrees wrong because she had moved her wrist.
The second was exact.
“Good,” he said.
The single word warmed her more than it should have. Caroline closed the compass. “We still need to examine the northern trace.”
“You dislike praise.”
“I do not.”
“You fled from it.”
“I proceeded to the next duty.”
“At considerable speed.”
They returned to the fork and rode north. Within two hundred yards, the ruts deepened. Water gleamed inside them. Thomas dismounted and pushed a measuring rod into the mud. It sank nearly to his knee.
Caroline looked toward the cottonwoods. Beyond them, the ground fell lower.
“A loaded wagon will settle to the axle,” she said.
“Possibly deeper.”
“The south is longer.”
“By less than a mile if it rejoins where I believe.”
“If.”
“All maps contain an if. Honest surveyors merely draw it very small.”
She laughed. Thomas looked up too quickly. Caroline turned her horse. “We should return.”
“Immediately?”
“Already late.”
*****
THE WAGON COUNCIL CONSISTED of Nathaniel, Eleanor, three experienced drivers, Thomas, and—after a moment that Caroline tried not to notice—Caroline herself.
Mr. Daugherty stood just outside the group, which was where he placed himself whenever no one had invited him but he intended to speak.
Thomas described the ground. Caroline gave the bearing and estimated distance to the southern track where it rejoined the road.
“You took the bearing?” Mr. Daugherty asked.
“Yes.”
“With that little trinket?”
Caroline opened the compass in her palm. “With this instrument.”
“Your father's notes say north.”
The words struck more sharply than they should have. Caroline glanced toward the leather pouch on the wagon bench.
Thomas spoke before she could. “Her father's notes were correct when written. The creek shifted.”
Mr. Daugherty frowned. “Then how do we know the south line does not end in the same mud?”
“We rode it,” Caroline said. “The ground rises. The grass is firm, and the wheels that passed there did not cut deeply. We can take the twelve wagons south, or we can spend the day hauling them out of the northern trace one at a time.”
Silence followed.
Nathaniel looked at Eleanor. Eleanor looked at Caroline.
Caroline waited for the correction. Eleanor would improve the order, add the missing concern, or ask the question Caroline should have anticipated.
Eleanor said, “South.”
Nathaniel nodded. “South it is.”
The drivers returned to their wagons.
Caroline remained beside the road. “You did not ask about water.”
Eleanor adjusted her reins. “Did you find water?”
“A shallow run beyond the rise.”
“Then I did not need to ask.”
“You usually do.”
Eleanor studied her. “You are leading the Whitaker wagons now. I cannot give you authority and then take it back every time you use it.”
Caroline looked toward Nathaniel. “Did marriage make you reasonable?”
“No,” he said. “I have been trying for weeks.”
Eleanor glared at him, but her mouth softened.
Caroline climbed onto the driver's bench. Thomas rode beside the front wheel as the company turned south.
“You were right,” he said.
“I know.”
“You accepted that praise quickly.”
“I have practiced.”
Before the first wagon committed to the southern trace, Caroline walked the opening hundred yards again. She pressed a stick into the wheel ruts, checked the cottonwood bearing, and studied where standing water thinned along the grass roots. Thomas followed without correcting her.
“You may say something,” she told him.
“I am waiting to learn what you see.”
She explained the firmer soil and the slight rise beyond it. When she finished, he asked what would make her change the recommendation. Caroline named deeper mud beyond the rise, a sharper grade, or fresh wagon damage. He nodded as though her answer mattered as much as his own survey.
The south trace held. Wheels pressed into damp earth without sinking. At the rise, Caroline checked the compass again. Thomas did not guide her hand this time.
The bearing was correct.
She felt the truth of it before he spoke.
For the first time since leaving Independence, Caroline chose the road and watched twelve wagons follow.
*****
AT THE NEXT brEAK, Caroline attempted to teach Lucy how to record supply use. The lesson began with eight candles and ended with nine because Lucy found one beneath a blanket.
“The total improved,” Lucy said.
“The record was wrong.”
“It was pleasantly wrong.”
Charlotte took the pencil and explained that finding an item required a correction, not celebration in the margin. Lucy had drawn rays around the new candle.
Thomas examined the page. “It is clearly a significant candle.”
Caroline told him not to encourage her. He asked whether accuracy and artistic recognition were natural enemies.
The inventory continued through salt, coffee, beans, lamp oil, and soap. Lydia disputed the soap count because one bar had become too thin to inspire confidence. Grace argued that thin soap remained soap until it vanished. Rebecca suggested weighing it. Thomas offered his scale.
Caroline watched eight people turn one worn bar of soap into a scientific inquiry. “We have four bars.”
“Three and a doubt,” Lydia corrected.
Caroline entered four. The experience prepared her perfectly for Mr. Daugherty's later claim that six oxen had moved ahead by accident.
The water-order disagreement began when Mr. Daugherty moved his team ahead of the Turners and described it as an accident.
Caroline described six oxen and a wagon as a very large accident.
He argued that his animals had been thirsty first. Mrs. Turner said every animal had been thirsty since Missouri.
Caroline divided the watering time by team, condition, and wagon position. Thomas stood near the trough with his watch. Each time Daugherty attempted to prolong his turn, Thomas announced the minute in the tone of a courthouse clerk.
“You enjoy this,” Caroline accused.
“Measurement should serve justice.”
“You are timing oxen.”
“Justice takes many forms.”
When the last team drank, Caroline found Martha rationing sugar for the evening meal. Lucy wanted an extra spoonful because she had walked without complaint. Six sisters testified that this was false. Lucy revised her claim to having complained less than usual.
Caroline repaired Lucy's bonnet ribbon while settling the dispute. Thomas copied the mileage figures beside them and watched Caroline answer three questions, mend two stitches, and prevent Lydia from stealing a sugar lump without looking up.
“When do you perform only one task?” he asked.
“During sleep.”
Charlotte looked over. “She gives instructions then too.”
Caroline denied it. Seven sisters supplied examples. Thomas began a new line in his notebook titled Night Commands until Caroline threatened to throw it into the water barrel.
Along the southern trace, Caroline practiced bearings whenever the road bent. Thomas chose a distant object and asked for its direction. Caroline chose increasingly inconvenient answers to prove she understood the instrument.
“The dead tree is west northwest.”
“Correct.”
“Mrs. Bell's bonnet is south.”
Thomas looked behind them. “South-southeast.”
Mrs. Bell called, “My bonnet is traveling west.”
“The bonnet faces south-southeast,” Thomas corrected.
“It has always been independent.”
Lucy asked to hold the compass while walking. Caroline refused because Lucy had already dropped a cup, a comb, and one shoe that morning. Lucy said those objects lacked sentimental value and therefore did not inspire care.
Thomas let her sight along the closed compass case while Caroline held it. Lucy announced a cottonwood directly ahead. Charlotte noted that the cottonwood was a mile wide because it was an entire grove. Grace congratulated Lucy on discovering trees.
Lucy refused to be discouraged. She sighted again and announced an ox behind them.
“That is Mr. Hall,” Lydia said.
Mr. Hall, walking close enough to hear, said, “I have been called worse by people who knew me better.”
Lucy apologized. Mr. Hall accepted, then asked whether the compass had offered any opinion about his better side. Thomas said an instrument built for direction could not perform miracles. Caroline had to take the compass back before Lucy dropped it while laughing.
The lessons made the miles pass quickly. Caroline began reading direction from sun and shadow before opening the case, then using the needle to check herself. Thomas praised only what was accurate. Because he did not flatter, every quiet “correct” warmed her more than it should.
At the noon resting place, the new entry in the route book became public knowledge because Lucy considered ink a community matter.
“Mrs. Caroline Whitaker,” she read over Thomas's shoulder. “Why are you Mrs. if you are not married?”
“It is a respectful form of address,” Charlotte said.
“Then why does no one call me Mrs. Lucy?”
Rebecca handed her an empty bucket. “Because respect must be earned.”
Lucy accepted the bucket. “How much water earns it?”
“Enough to fill that.”
Grace examined Thomas's notation. “You have made Caroline official.”
“She made herself official,” Thomas said. “I recorded it.”
Lydia brightened. “Can you record that I have driven farther than Rebecca this week?”
“Only if you wish me to record why.”
“The ox sneezed.”
“Three times?” Rebecca asked.
Caroline rescued the route book before family history replaced geographic fact. “Mr. Reed records miles, water, grades, and hazards.”
Thomas dipped his pen. “I am considering a separate category for Whitakers.”
“Under hazards?” Grace asked.
“It will require its own volume.”