Caroline: Little House, Revisited(49)

Her stomach gave off an unexpected shimmer of unease. Close behind, Caroline felt her awareness rising of its own accord, as it had at the sight of the Osages on the street.

Strange. Nothing before her had changed. She had not felt the least bit wary until he asked. Puzzled, she studied the creek up and down, searching for whatever it was that might have put her senses on guard. The water was high and deep, as Charles had said. But she had known that before he’d said so. The swath of darker silver streaking its middle was perfectly plain. She looked at the ruts Charles had pointed out. If they were unlike any of the other ruts she had seen in the last seven hundred miles, she could not say how.

Caroline closed her eyes as she had done on the street in Independence. This time nothing leapt out at her in warning. The creek flowed no differently, no more menacingly in her mind. She opened her eyes. Charles was looking at her, waiting. Still she did not speak. The cold liquid feeling remained lodged in her middle, though there was not one thing in the scene before her that she could blame for it. It was as placid a spot as could be, with the soft green willow boughs swaying lazily above the surface of the creek.

Caroline thought again of the Indians and their scalp locks. She had not been fully right about them, but neither had she been fully wrong. In Wisconsin the flutter of apprehension they had triggered might well have saved her life. Here it had only made her look foolish and fearful. She squirmed inside, remembering how Mr. Wilson had looked at her when she asked about the Indians’ hair. The storekeeper could think her a silly woman if he liked, but Caroline could not abide the thought of her husband giving her that same look. She wished Charles had not asked.

There.

The little swell of recognition momentarily pushed her fear aside. That was it—not the creek at all, but the question itself. It was not like Charles to ask such a thing. Always he consulted her before deciding when and where to camp, but the roads with their forks and fords and bridges, those were his business. If the route confounded him somehow, he muttered only to himself over the map.

There was no mistaking his wariness now. It wafted from him like a scent. He was not just taking in the scenery as Pet and Patty drank, but scrutinizing it. Caroline watched him look at the horses, then at Jack, searching for a reaction to link with his own. Something, some tiny thing, must have whispered at him not to cross, so faintly he could not make it out.

Did you hear that, too? That was the question buried under what he had asked. She had not, and so she did not know what to say. She could not say yes and did not want to say no. All she could think to do was give him permission to do as he thought best.

Caroline spoke low and firm. The words alone would sound flippant if she were not careful. He must hear the trust embedded in them. “Whatever you say, Charles.”

Such a long pause. Even Pet and Patty stopped drinking to listen. Caroline heard the water dripping from their noses, the lapping of Jack’s tongue as it poked in and out of the creek.

“I’ll tie down the wagon cover,” Charles decided.

No. The word flashed through her whole body, bright and sizzling cold. Then, with a shudder, it flashed out again. Charles had jumped to the ground, leaving the spring seat jiggling back and forth behind him. He yanked at the canvas straps so harshly that Caroline could hardly keep hold of her thoughts with the wagon shuddering around her. He was only being careful, she told herself, by securing the cover so tightly. He had never in his life knowingly put them in danger. She must trust his intuition as she had trusted her own.

“They may have to swim, out there in the middle,” he said as he sat down beside her again. “But we’ll make it all right, Caroline.”

Another pinprick of unease struck her, and her body recoiled ever so slightly from the wall of her corset. She had not asked for reassurance. It could only be himself Charles was reassuring, and it had not worked. Everything about him was pulled taut as the wagon cover—his mouth, the grimacing muscles around his eyes. He had the reins wrapped so firmly around his fist as to make the skin stand out in little bulges between the leather. Caroline looked again at the line of ruts. They pointed so clearly into the creek, there could be no questioning this as a ford.

As the wheels dropped into the ruts Laura piped up behind them, “I wish Jack could ride in the wagon, Pa.”

If Laura took to the new baby half so quickly as she had taken to that secondhand bulldog, Caroline thought, she would count herself lucky. Charles did not answer. Had he even heard?

“Jack can swim, Laura,” Caroline said. “He will be all right.”

One by one the mustangs’ legs cut into the flowing water, carving wide V shapes across its surface. Then came a little sideways tug as the creek began wending its way between the spokes of the wheels like a needle pulling a thread through cloth. Charles slapped the reins again and the team continued gamely forward.

Caroline watched the water lap gently at their bellies with a sympathetic shiver. It crept steadily up the horses’ sides until their wet black backs shone patent leather smooth in the sun, then disappeared altogether. Beneath her, Caroline felt as much as heard the creek sloshing now and then at the underside of the floorboards.

They were already nearly halfway across. Charles leaned back a little and the rigid angle of his elbows eased. He smiled bashfully at her, a smile like that of a boy suddenly no longer frightened of the dark. Caroline unclenched herself and felt the gentle hug of her corset welcoming her back. Then the reins drooped. The mustangs had hesitated, their ears swiveling upstream.