Caroline: Little House, Revisited(51)
Pet’s collar jerked to the left and she seemed to stumble, though Caroline knew there was nothing solid beneath her hooves. Caroline pulled hard on Patty’s outside line for balance. Patty’s head swerved to the right and Pet’s came with it, yanked by the crossline, but the collar did not right itself.
Something was snagged in the harnessing. The trace or the belly band or the breast strap—she could not be sure.
Caroline did not know what to do. She could not keep pulling—the bit was already notched too deeply into Patty’s cheek—and she could not let up. Whatever it was had a firm hold. She could feel it herself in the lines. It took all her strength to hold them away from the drag. Then, oh then, the water beside Pet burst open, and there he was.
Charles.
Caroline saw his breath spray from his mouth in a mist of droplets and her own lungs unlocked. He had grasped the traces and was hauling himself up along Pet’s side. His shoulder plowed up a swell of water before him.
He took hold of Pet’s throat latch. All Caroline could see of him were his head and his fist, tight under Pet’s chin. His own narrow chin barely breached the surface; the creek had him by the whiskers. Then she heard him speaking. Not the words, but the sound of them, so light and calm, they buoyed Caroline just enough that she could begin to think more than one moment ahead.
The mustangs must not give in to their panic. Not with Charles in the water beside them. She could not steer. Her arms were no match for the push and thrust of the current. But if she held the reins up high and steady, Caroline thought, Pet and Patty might not have to struggle so to keep their heads above the water.
Slowly, Caroline began to feed the lines out straight. She heard a rustle behind her and her attention splintered. Laura had come out from under the blanket. When, she did not know. Caroline did not turn around. She could not take her eyes from Charles. Until he was out of that water, there could be no room in her consciousness for anything else.
“Lie down, Laura,” Caroline said, and Laura did.
Caroline honed all her focus back into the reins. Slowly she lifted the lines, searching for the right height, the right amount of tension. Too much would signal Pet and Patty to stop. Too little and they would flail. Higher, higher—there. Just below her shoulders their heads leveled, chins parallel to the water. Now, steady, she told herself. She pulled gently, firmly, backward until the graceful curve of the mustangs’ necks began to reappear. The roar of the creek fell away from her ears as Caroline concentrated. Her arms measured the ever-changing tension in the lines and matched the two sides to each other. With Charles encouraging her, Pet was pulling harder now than Patty. Caroline slid to the left end of the spring seat, cocking the reins to soften Patty’s bit so that she might swim ahead and match Pet’s pace. Suddenly both reins softened in her hands. She wrapped them double around her fists, quick, to take up the slack.
Something had changed. Caroline felt it immediately in the lines. The leather in her hands was no longer taut with frenzy. It did not pull at her arms, but hung balanced between herself and the team. She had done it. The horses had regained control of themselves, and Caroline was driving—driving them up the center of the creek. They made no forward progress against the current, but that did not matter to Caroline. Pet and Patty had stopped straining skyward, and that alone was enough to thank God for. All the power it had taken to fuel the mustangs’ panic returned to their chests and legs, and they charged stubbornly at the water.
There was no more time than that to be thankful. Again Caroline felt a drop in her stomach. This time the sensation hovered below her navel, rolling from side to side, unable to balance. It made her want to slip from the spring seat and spread herself flat across the floorboards. The whole wagon was moving in a way it had never done before. Two months of jolting and rattling, rocking and swaying, and this was both new and wrong, a sideways sort of teeter running right down the underbelly of the wagon. Like driving down a ridgepole, Caroline thought, and edged back toward the middle of the spring seat.
It happened too fast to brace for. The wagon tipped sideways and every muscle in Caroline’s body snapped inward. Crates and boxes shifted behind her. The carpetbag on its hook swung out at her. Just as quickly the floor leveled, but Caroline did not release herself. Everything in her held its place, striving toward her own invisible center. Only her eyes dared move.
She could see no cause. Nothing had struck them. The water had not risen nor become more turbulent. She could even make out what Charles was saying to the horses.
“Come on, Pet. Gee over, Patty.”
Charles. He was trying to coax the horses away from the middle of the creek. Of course. That was why the wagon had teetered. It was too light to stand upright with its broad side exposed to the strength of the current. But the wagon must be turned to face the bank if they were to make landfall safely. There was no other chance. The thought of all that water heaving again at the sideboards whitened Caroline’s knuckles. It would either turn them or topple them—right over onto Charles.
Caroline repelled the thought. She would not, could not allow that scene to unfold—not in her mind or before her eyes. There was not even time to think of such a thing. Once the wagon began to turn, those horses must swim faster than the water flowed or the current would overtake them. Charles could not do that alone, not up to his neck in the creek. Caroline coiled up her courage and hauled the reins sideways. As the horses’ necks angled toward land, Caroline felt her weight begin to shift from beneath and knew the creek’s hold on the wagon was tightening. She slapped the lines hard, again and again. One crackling spray of water after another shot up from Pet’s and Patty’s backs. The little mustangs jolted and the wagon swung.