Chapter Six
Westward Trail
At first light, Caroline stood on the creek bank and tried to decide whether six inches of fallen water counted as an answer to prayer or merely a discouraging joke.
The creek had narrowed during the night, but it still hurried through its changed channel with enough force to bow the willow branches caught along the opposite bank.
Mud glazed both approaches. Yesterday's ford remained useless, and the shelf Caroline and Thomas had found downstream looked less friendly in daylight than it had in the rain.
Thomas came beside her with Father's compass in one hand.
“You kept your promise,” she said.
“I make an effort not to begin a partnership with theft.”
He offered the compass. Caroline offered his notebook at the same moment, and they exchanged them with exaggerated care.
“The water has dropped four inches at the shelf,” Thomas said. “The current is strongest near the center, but the bottom is firm enough for teams if we angle downstream.”
“And if we do not cross?”
“We lose another day. Perhaps two.”
Behind them, twelve wagons waited among damp bedrolls, dripping canvas, and people pretending not to watch. A day's delay sounded harmless until Caroline counted the flour barrels, the healing ox, Mrs. Bell's cough, and the miles still lying between the company and Fort Kearny.
Nathaniel rode down the bank, his right arm held close beneath his coat. He had insisted on saddling his own horse. Eleanor had insisted on watching him do it, which had slowed the process considerably.
“Can we cross?” he asked.
Thomas nodded toward Caroline. “She found the line.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
Caroline understood what he was doing. He had not asked Thomas for the decision. He had asked them both, and now he waited for her answer.
“Yes,” she said. “But not in the order we usually travel.”
She gathered the company beside the Whitaker wagon and arranged the crossing by load and team strength.
Avery's lighter wagon would test the shelf.
The Whitakers would follow with the lead wagon, carrying the heaviest reserve rope.
Hall and Turner would cross next. Coleman, whose rear wheel had begun to wobble, would go between two stronger teams instead of near the end.
Rebecca leaned against the second Whitaker wagon with her arms folded. “Coleman should go before Turner.”
Caroline felt the old impulse to defend her first decision simply because it was hers. She pushed it aside. “Why?”
“Turner's off ox favors its left foreleg. If he has to pull Coleman's wagon from behind, he cannot do it. Put Hall behind Coleman and Turner behind Hall.”
Caroline studied the teams, then nodded. “Change them.”
Rebecca's brows rose.
“Do not look so surprised,” Caroline said.
“I was deciding whether to faint.”
“Wait until we reach dry ground. I have enough trouble.”
Lucy whispered to Grace, “She accepted correction.”
Grace whispered back, “The world may end before breakfast.”
Caroline pointed at both of them. “Carry the spare coils downstream.”
Their amusement vanished.
Thomas and two men stretched a guide rope from a cottonwood on the near bank to a stout willow downstream on the far side.
The line followed the bearing Caroline had taken the day before.
Nathaniel placed riders along the water, though he remained on the near bank where his injured shoulder would not be tested by the current.
Avery's wagon entered first. Water climbed to the hubs. The oxen lowered their heads, strained, and followed the diagonal line. When the wheels rolled onto the far bank, a cheer rose from the company.
“One,” Caroline said. “Do not celebrate eleven wagons early.”
Martha smiled. “You have a gift for improving a happy moment.”
The first Whitaker wagon crossed next. Caroline walked beside the oxen until the water reached her thighs. Thomas remained on the upstream side of the team, one hand on the lead rope. The current shoved hard enough to make her skirt pull around her legs.
“Step where I step,” Thomas called.
“I found the path.”
“Then step where you stepped yesterday.”
She almost laughed and swallowed creek water instead. Thomas caught her elbow without disrupting the team. Together they guided the wagon onto the far shelf.
By the time Rebecca brought the second Whitaker wagon across, Caroline's boots held enough water to sustain a small garden. She stayed at the far landing, directing each driver toward firmer ground.
The Hall wagon followed the two Whitaker wagons. Mr. Hall insisted he could drive without assistance. Mrs. Hall insisted that his success finding the creek did not prove he could cross it.
Caroline shifted two riders downstream and placed Rebecca at the lead team while Thomas checked the guide rope.
Halfway through, Hall shouted that the wagon was drifting. Mrs. Hall shouted that he had been drifting since their wedding. Rebecca corrected the oxen, and the wheels found the gravel shelf.
On the far bank, Hall raised both arms in triumph. Mrs. Hall climbed down and told him to check the axle before celebrating survival.
“Marriage appears useful in emergencies,” Thomas said.
“Marriage appears loud,” Caroline replied.
“The qualities may overlap.”
Turner's wagon crossed next without trouble. The Bell wagon followed. Mrs. Bell carried her china cup in both hands and refused to place it in the wagon because she no longer trusted crates. Mr. Bell said a river was a poor place for tea. She said this was why she had not poured any.
Coleman's wagon entered seventh.
The repaired rear wheel struck a buried stone. The wagon lurched, and the oxen turned their heads downstream. Mr. Coleman hauled the line in panic. His left wheel lifted as the current caught the box broadside.
“Do not pull upstream!” Thomas shouted.
Coleman pulled harder.
Caroline saw the reserve rope tighten from the far bank. If the men held it another moment, it would drag the wagon against the current and turn the whole box over.
“Release the rear rope!” she yelled.
No one moved.
“Release it now!”
Rebecca slashed the half hitch free. The wagon swung downstream, frighteningly fast, then straightened behind the oxen. Thomas ran along the bank with the guide line while Caroline waded toward the team.
“Let them move!” she called to Coleman. “They know where their feet are.”
He dropped the reins. The oxen lunged. Hall's team took the forward rope, and both wagons strained together until Coleman's rear wheels found the shelf.
The wagon climbed out dripping but upright.
For a heartbeat no one spoke. Then Mrs. Bell began clapping. The sound spread along the bank until even Mr. Coleman joined, though he looked uncertain whether he was applauding Caroline or his continued existence.
Thomas came out of the water with mud to his waist and a broad smile on his face. “Captain Caroline.”
She stared at him. “Absolutely not.”
“Too late. The title has been earned.”
“I already have seven sisters who ignore me. I do not require a larger command.”
Lucy, safe on the bank, called, “Captain Caroline!”
Grace echoed her. Charlotte added a respectful salute with the wooden spoon she had brought for no useful reason.
Caroline laughed. She could not help it. Relief rose through her with the sound, loosening something that had been tight since the wagons left Independence.
Thomas's smile changed as he watched her. The noise of the crossing seemed to recede. Water shone on his hair and ran along the sharp line of his cheek. Caroline noticed his hand remained at her elbow.
He let go slowly.
By the final crossing, the company no longer waited for Nathaniel to repeat Caroline's orders.
Her sequence had become the plan. She revised it as teams tired, accepted Rebecca's judgment on the spare oxen, and kept Thomas informed of each change in bearing.
Leadership did not require pretending her first decision was sacred.
It required bringing twelve wagons safely to the other side.
The remaining wagons crossed without mishap. By midafternoon, the company had made camp on higher ground beyond the creek. Wet clothing hung from wagon lines, wheels were checked, and every available kettle held something warm.
Rebecca approached while Caroline inspected Coleman's axle. “You changed the order.”
“You were right.”
“I know. I wanted to hear you say it.”
Caroline nudged her with one shoulder. Rebecca nudged back.
Across camp, Thomas was copying the crossing into his notebook. He looked up as though he had felt Caroline watching.
Captain Caroline, he mouthed.
She shook her head, but she was still smiling when she turned away.
Drying camp became a contest between weather, wool, and human impatience. Every wagon had garments hanging from bows, ropes, wheels, and improvised lines. Mr. Avery walked into Mrs. Bell's petticoat and emerged apologizing to three different women.
Rebecca declared the picket line unavailable for laundry because oxen lacked respect for underclothes. Lucy argued that the oxen had seen them before. Caroline declined to ask when.
Thomas stretched a rope between two cottonwoods for the Whitakers. Lydia handed him a wet chemise. He accepted it, then recognized it and held it at arm's length as though it contained a legal objection.
“It is cloth,” Caroline said.
“I had determined that.”
“Then hang it.”
He looked toward seven watching sisters. “Where?”
Grace pointed to the center of the line. Thomas chose the far end. The sisters booed his lack of courage.
Nathaniel tried to help Eleanor lift a blanket and immediately favored his shoulder. Eleanor removed the blanket, handed him two stockings, and told him these matched his present authority. Nathaniel hung them with military precision.
By sunset, the company resembled a traveling washhouse.
Caroline walked the lines checking what must be dry before morning.
Thomas followed, making solemn observations about wind direction and the aerodynamic qualities of stockings.
She laughed hard enough to forget, briefly, how close Coleman's wagon had come to overturning.
Supper that evening required every dry object the Whitakers possessed and several that were only optimistic.
Martha hung stockings near the fire. Grace turned them. Lucy turned them back because she claimed the left sides were colder. Rebecca attempted to dry her boots by wearing them.
“You are making puddles,” Charlotte said.
“The puddles were already inside.”
Thomas arrived carrying a dented kettle. “Mrs. Bell says this belongs to you.”
Eight women denied it.
He looked into the kettle. “It contains one button, two beans, and something I hope was once a biscuit.”
Lucy raised a hand. “The button is mine.”
“That does not establish ownership of the kettle,” Caroline said.
Mr. Coleman called from the next fire, “Ours has a blue handle.”
The kettle had a blue handle.
Thomas returned it and came back smiling. “I have completed my first successful camp survey.”
“What did you map?” Caroline asked.
“The distance between a lost object and the person loudly claiming it is not his.”
“And?”
“Usually less than twelve feet.”
Caroline glanced at Lucy's abandoned spoon beneath the wagon. “Your finding is sound.”
After the last wagon crossed, the sisters tried to set up sleeping places beneath the two Whitaker wagons. Damp ground reduced the available space. Charlotte drew a line with a stick and assigned widths by shoulder width.
“You have given Rebecca more room,” Lydia said.
“Rebecca has more shoulders.”
Rebecca looked offended by the plural.
Lucy wanted the outside place so she could see stars. Grace wanted Lucy inside so the rest of the company would not hear her commentary on them. Martha wanted everyone far enough apart to prevent elbows.
Caroline spread the driest bedroll beneath the second wagon and announced that the first person to argue would sleep beside the wheel.
“Which wheel?” Lydia asked.
“The muddy one.”
The argument ended.
Thomas passed on his way to his own bedroll beneath a canvas fly. He looked at the seven sisters arranged like spoons in a drawer. “Is there a mathematical principle involved?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “No one sleeps.”
Caroline threw a rolled stocking at him. Thomas caught it, bowed, and returned it to the laundry line. When darkness came, the sisters whispered for another half hour. Caroline complained twice and contributed four times.