Chapter Fourteen
Rolling Prairie
The missing oxen were discovered at dawn by the simple method of counting noses.
Turner's ox was gone. So was one of Mr. Hall's younger animals. A night rope lay loose beside the picket line, its knot pulled open rather than cut.
Samuel Turner stared at the empty place. “I tied it.”
Rebecca examined the rope. “You tied something.”
“It held yesterday.”
“Yesterday it may have been frightened of you.”
Caroline stopped the exchange before Samuel's face could redden further. “How long?”
Rebecca touched the manure near the line, then studied the grass. “Several hours. They went northwest.”
The company could not move without Turner's team. Nathaniel assigned searchers while everyone else watered animals and prepared a late departure.
Caroline divided the ground into four sectors. Rebecca would follow the clearest tracks northwest. Mr. Hall would search the creek line. Coleman and two men would circle south in case the oxen had turned toward the previous camp.
Thomas waited near his horse.
He did not assume a place beside her. He did not offer advice. He waited until Caroline said, “Take the western rise. Mark any muddy draws before you cross them.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The title held no teasing this morning. It was acknowledgment.
Caroline carried the compass. Each searcher took a bearing from camp and agreed to return along it at noon. Rebecca led northwest with Caroline beside her.
The tracks crossed hard ground, vanished among prairie-dog mounds, then appeared again beside trampled bluegrass. Rebecca read every bent stem with a concentration Caroline had once mistaken for stubbornness.
“You should lead this search,” Caroline said.
Rebecca glanced over. “I am leading the tracks. You are leading the people.”
Caroline accepted the distinction.
They found Thomas's horse tied on the western rise shortly before ten. He stood below it, studying a mud-choked draw.
“Tracks,” he called. “Two animals entered from the east.”
The draw curved northwest between steep banks. Fresh hoofprints sank deep near the water. Caroline opened the compass and took the return bearing before they descended.
Half a mile farther, they heard an ox bellow.
Both animals stood on a patch of higher ground beyond the mud.
Hall's ox grazed placidly. Turner's had wrapped a trailing rope around a willow root and appeared offended by the result.
Reaching them required crossing a strip of ground that shivered beneath each step.
Rebecca tested the edge and declared it capable of swallowing a boot to the knee.
Mr. Hall considered that an unnecessarily precise measurement.
Caroline set the return bearing before anyone entered the draw.
Thomas cut two poles for balance. Rebecca crossed first, freed the rope, and turned the animals one at a time.
When the second ox balked, Caroline moved left to open its view of firmer ground instead of pulling harder. The animal followed.
Thomas obeyed each assignment without inserting himself into command.
Only when every person and ox stood on solid earth did he mention that the direct route back crossed a shallow wash.
Caroline checked the compass, compared his observation with the slope, and altered the line.
Their cooperation returned before their courtship did: cautious, useful, and increasingly difficult to separate from trust.
Once the oxen were freed, the greater challenge was persuading them they wished to return. The Turner ox followed Rebecca's grain pan. The second animal had discovered a patch of sweet grass and considered rescue unnecessary.
Mr. Hall pushed from behind. The ox did not acknowledge him.
“He is ignoring me,” Mr. Hall said.
“An unusual experience,” Rebecca replied.
Thomas advised approaching from the side. Caroline advised Thomas to remain on firm ground until assigned. He obeyed, which Mr. Hall observed was evidence of either deep feeling or a recent blow to the head.
Rebecca looped the rope around the animal's horns while Caroline opened a path away from the grass. Mr. Hall shook a feed sack. The ox finally moved, stepping directly on the tail of Mr. Hall's coat and pinning him in place.
“Do not laugh,” Mr. Hall warned.
Three people looked away with varying success.
Thomas freed the coat with a stick. “The cloth has suffered a measurable loss.”
“You will suffer one if you record it,” Mr. Hall said.
The walk back took twice as long because the oxen stopped whenever the company came into sight, perhaps reconsidering freedom. The foolish struggle gave Caroline and Thomas room to work side by side before speaking of the future. Shared purpose rebuilt the path that anger had damaged.
During the two-hour return, they chose a longer slope rather than force the animals through the deepest part of the draw. Caroline checked their bearing twice, though she knew it was right the first time.
Thomas respected the silence until Rebecca and Hall moved ahead with the oxen.
“I owe you an answer,” he said.
Caroline kept her eyes on the compass. “About the fort?”
“About what I want.”
She closed the lid.
Thomas stopped beside a stand of willow. “I want you. I want your questions in my notebooks and your calculations correcting mine. I want to hear you tell your sisters what to do and watch them do something else. I want to know what home looks like when it does not disappear.”
The words struck every defended place inside her.
“But?” she asked.
“But I do not yet know how to build a life that does not demand your surrender. The mapping work means travel. Your family means continuing west. Wanting you does not make those facts vanish.”
“No.”
“I should have told you about the letter immediately.”
“Yes.”
“You could make forgiveness less painful.”
“I could. I am choosing not to.”
His mouth moved at one corner. “Fair.”
Caroline looked toward Rebecca and Hall. The oxen plodded steadily up the slope, neither aware that it had delayed twelve wagons and one courtship.
“I wanted you to bring me an answer,” she said. “A complete one. Fort or trail. Work or family. As if you could solve our lives while I measured flour.”
“I would have tried.”
“I know. Wanting the answer immediately is another way of carrying everything alone. I do it to my sisters. I nearly demanded that you do it for me.”
Thomas stepped closer. “What do we do instead?”
“Finish the decision together.”
“Is the courtship still paused?”
Caroline considered him. “Partially.”
“What does a partial courtship permit?”
“Walking.”
“We have been doing that.”
“Then you are succeeding.”
He laughed, and the last of her anger loosened.
After the oxen reached camp, Samuel Turner attempted to thank the recovered animal with half his breakfast biscuit. The ox accepted the biscuit, Samuel's sleeve, and nearly the entire boy. Rebecca extracted him by the back of his trousers.
“He likes me,” Samuel said.
“He likes biscuits,” Rebecca replied.
“I had the biscuit.”
“That made you adjacent to affection.”
Mr. Turner repaired the failed night rope while Caroline reviewed the picket system. Thomas suggested a second line between the teams. Rebecca added a bell to the least reliable ox. Lydia named the animal Liberty because he had escaped once and would undoubtedly discuss it forever.
The bell rang each time Liberty chewed. By supper, the older Mrs. Bell threatened to put cloth around the clapper. Mr. Bell said the ox was performing public service. Mrs. Bell said the public had heard enough.
Caroline assigned rotating stock checks and included herself only once. Rebecca noticed but did not comment. Thomas noticed and smiled. Caroline told him partial courtship did not permit smugness.
“What portion permits admiration?”
“A very small one.”
“I will measure carefully.”
The silly exchange did not resolve the Fort Kearny question, but it let them stand together beside the newly secured animals without pretending their shared future was either impossible or decided.
Nathaniel ordered the company forward for a shortened afternoon. Caroline assigned Charlotte to drive the lead wagon.
Caroline walked, and Thomas rode beside her—not too close, not distant, and no longer pretending the direction belonged to either of them alone.
The partially resumed courtship confused Lucy more than it confused either participant, which was an accomplishment.
She walked backward in front of Caroline and Thomas until Caroline caught her by the shoulders and turned her around.
“If the courtship is partial, which part is missing?” Lucy asked.
“Privacy,” Thomas said.
“That was missing before.”
“Then perhaps dignity.”
Grace, walking nearby, said, “That has also been missing.”
Thomas looked at Caroline. “Your family offers stern evaluations.”
“At no charge,” Caroline said.
“We should charge,” Charlotte called from the wagon seat. “We need lamp oil.”
Rebecca brought the second wagon alongside them. “Does partial mean he is permitted to carry things but not kiss you?”
“Why is everyone concerned with the kissing portion?” Caroline demanded.
Seven expressions answered her.
Thomas adjusted the bundle he had already taken from her. “For accuracy, I have not been given the full terms.”
“Keep speaking and the carrying portion will also be removed.”
He fell silent.
Lydia sighed. “Courtship has made him trainable.”
That evening, after the shortened afternoon's travel, Mr. Avery drew out his fiddle and declared the recovered oxen sufficient reason for music.
“The animals were missing for half a morning,” Caroline said.
“Then we shall play half a celebration.”
Mrs. Bell insisted that no one could dance properly between cookfires, so the company cleared a patch of level grass inside the wagon circle. Coleman stamped down a troublesome molehill. Martha moved two kettles. Grace rescued a line of drying stockings before Mr. Hall could waltz through them.
Before the dancing began, Mr. Avery attempted to tune his fiddle while Lucy tuned herself. Neither produced the intended note. Grace said the fiddle was closer.
Lydia organized partners with the authority of a general and the impartiality of a sister seeking amusement.
She paired Mr. Daugherty with the older Mrs. Bell, who warned him that stepping on her foot would settle several arguments at once.
Mr. Bell asked whether he should be concerned.
Mrs. Bell said he should always be concerned.
Rebecca refused three invitations until Samuel Turner asked her. She accepted, then spent the first tune lifting the boy whenever the steps required a turn. Samuel believed this made him the best dancer in the company.
Charlotte sat beside Martha and recorded nothing, though her eyes followed every exchange. Grace asked whether she was counting mistakes. Charlotte said the page required more space.
After Rebecca parted ways with Samuel, Lydia seized his hands and spun him until both of them staggered. Lucy tried to copy the steps with Mrs. Lawson's youngest boy, who possessed enthusiasm but no reliable sense of left.
Rebecca moved to the horses. “Someone should behave responsibly.”
“You may behave responsibly while dancing,” Eleanor said.
“I have never seen evidence of that.”
Nathaniel offered Eleanor his left hand.
His right shoulder still would not tolerate a proper hold, so they devised a slow turn that required little more than walking.
Eleanor's face changed when she looked at him—softened without losing any of its strength.
Caroline had once feared marriage would take her sister away.
Watching them, she saw again that love had not reduced Eleanor.
It had given her another person with whom to carry herself.
Thomas appeared at Caroline's side. “Does partial courtship permit dancing?”
“I do not remember listing it.”
“Then we have found a defect in the agreement.”
He offered his hand. Caroline looked at the circle. Seven sisters immediately became fascinated by her answer.
“One dance,” she said.
“I will try to survive the restriction.”
Thomas knew the steps in theory. In practice, he counted them under his breath and nearly guided Caroline into Mr. Coleman's back.
“You measure land better than music,” she said.
“Land does not change direction every eight beats.”
“You are meant to change with it.”
“A troubling principle.”
She showed him the turn. His hand rested at her waist with respectful care, but warmth passed through her dress all the same. They moved with the other couples beneath a broad prairie sky, neither speaking for several measures.
The courtship was only partially resumed. The future still contained Fort Kearny, his work, her sisters, and questions neither of them could answer alone. Yet when the tune quickened, Thomas followed her lead without resisting simply because it was not his own.
“You learn quickly,” she said.
“I have an exacting teacher.”
“Flattery is not measurement.”
“It is an observation supported by evidence.”
Mr. Avery changed tunes without warning. Lydia whooped. Grace stole Charlotte's intended partner. Rebecca was finally pulled into the set by Mr. Coleman and danced with such unexpected skill that all her sisters stopped to stare.
“What?” Rebecca demanded as she passed them.
“Nothing,” Caroline said.
“You look graceful,” Lucy shouted.
Rebecca missed the next step and blamed Coleman.
The dance ended in laughter. Thomas didn't release Caroline's hand immediately.
“May I claim the second half of the celebration?” he asked.
“Mr. Avery said half a celebration total.”
“An arbitrary limit.”
“You respected mine.”
Thomas glanced toward the fiddler. “Then I will wait.”
That answer mattered. Caroline squeezed his fingers once before letting go. “The next dance,” she said. “If there is one.”
Mr. Avery lifted the bow with suspicious speed.
Thomas smiled. “Providence appears favorable.”
They danced again while the sisters cheered, the children collided, and the wagon circle became, for one evening, something more than a defense against the dark.