Caroline: Little House, Revisited(37)

Caroline’s stomach grumbled at her, and she set to work. She fried bacon, quick and sizzling. Hot pinpricks of fat spat onto her hands, and she did not flinch from them. The iron spider hissed as she spooned corn dodgers into the drippings. Her mouth watered. Much as she craved the fleecy white meal in her mind, she could not keep hold of her imagined feast with those smells and sounds before her.

In between turning the food she steeped two great mugs of tea for herself and Charles. Each golden swallow ringed her throat with its warmth. For Mary and Laura there was nothing but plain hot water. Filled straight from the kettle their tin cup would blister their hands as well as their mouths, so they squatted patiently beside it and took turns blowing ripples across the steaming surface. Such good girls. Caroline wished again for milk, to cool their cup and treat them to cambric tea.

It did no good to warn them of the bacon, nor Charles. Sparkling hot, the strips of meat branded their mouths and salved their chapped lips with fat. Mary and Laura grinned at each other as their tongues juggled the hot meat. Caroline felt her own smile glistening as she watched. What potato, what bread could fill her as much as the sight of them all warm and dry at last? Caroline set her plate aside and stretched out her legs to toast the soles of her shoes.



“I’m leaving the Colt with you and the girls,” Charles told her. “Under the carpetbag. You remember how to fire it?”

Caroline nodded.

“Good. If you need me for anything in the night, fire a shot,” he continued. “But don’t worry if you hear the rifle before daybreak. Going to see if I can find us some fresh game.”

Caroline raked the last flatiron from the coals and wrapped it in flannel for him. He pocketed the hot bundle.

“Good night,” he said.

She did not reply.

Charles took her softly by the shoulders. “Caroline?”

Her eyes flickered away from his face. What might he ask that she could answer? If it were all right for him to leave them without door or walls? If she were frightened? True or false, she could not answer him. She could barely smooth the trembling from her lips. There were tears gathering uninvited, tears she could not press back alone. Before she shamed herself Caroline looped her arms under Charles’s, laying her palms over his shoulder blades, and pulled herself into his chest.

His hands slid down her sides. Those broad firm hands that had once spanned her waist. Could they feel the laces at the base of her maternity corset now? As if his touch melted through the knots, her body gave a great shiver, then slackened. Caroline pulled in a breath. Nothing hampered its way. Her chest felt spongy as though from crying, but the trembling had gone.

Not a word passed between them as she stood with the crown of her head notched under his chin. Only breath. Her chest rode his inhales, then carried back his exhales.

Charles moved one hand up her back, to the nape of her neck. Caroline felt his heartbeat deepen as his knuckles brushed her chignon.

“Charles,” she whispered. She tilted her head to meet his gaze and the whole coil of her hair tipped into his palm. He kissed her then, chastely, in the space between her brows. The warm print lingered after his lips had left her skin, a seal against whatever fears might reach for her in the night.

Caroline brought her palms to his chest and gently eased herself from him. “Good night,” she said.

She lifted the blanket flap and went in. Mary and Laura lay at her feet with the quilt’s red binding pulled up over their noses. She knelt to kiss each of them as Charles had kissed her, then undressed, said her prayers, and lay down beside them.



The rifle shot woke her. By the time Charles came over the rise with a white bird dangling from his belt, she had smoothed her hair and put the coffee pot on.

“Snow goose,” Charles said. “Must be a straggler, it’s so late in the season. Or maybe it got caught in the storm. Should I fetch the tin kitchen from the wagon?”

“No thank you, Charles. I’ll fry it in the spider for breakfast.”

It was better still than the hot bacon the day before, rich and fresh and running with juice. A hint of salt and pepper made the savory flavor bloom in her mouth.

Laura lifted her drumstick to nibble the last shreds from the bone and said, “Look, Pa.”

Caroline looked up as well, ready to address Laura’s manners. Little though she was, Laura never would have flaunted her table scraps that way at home. But Charles and Laura’s attention was not where Caroline expected to find it. She looked beyond the bone in Laura’s fist and saw a man on a black pony emerging from the trees. Charles rose, plate in hand, as the rider approached.

Caroline sat still as a rabbit poised to run, watching. The stranger was strung together like a ladder—perfectly straight up one side and down the other. His horse was lightly built, slender through the back and face. “That your wagon down there in the dale?” the man asked.

“Certainly is,” Charles said. He handed Caroline his plate and propped his fists at his hips. “This your land?”

“Nearly.”

Caroline blanched at the two plates in her hands. Not only had they set up camp on another man’s stake, but their mouths were half-full of his game. Quietly she stacked the dishes onto her lap and swallowed.

“We’re only passing through,” Charles said. “Be on our way just as soon as I can dig out and ford that creek.”