Caroline: Little House, Revisited(53)
“We’ll camp here a day or two,” Charles said when she came back to the dishpan. “Maybe we’ll stay here. Good land, timber in the bottoms, plenty of game—everything a man could want. What do you say, Caroline?”
Everything a man could want. Caroline’s hands stilled beneath the cooling dishwater. And a woman? Caroline did not dare look inside herself to ask such a thing. She did not want to be inside herself at all, did not want to be part of a person who had been so selfish. After this day, it would be mercy enough simply to arrive.
“We might go farther and fare worse,” she ventured. Asking without asking.
Charles knew her better than that. He waited for the rest, watching her over the glow of his pipe as she scrubbed guiltily at the dishes. “Anyway, I’ll look around tomorrow,” he answered when she said no more. “Get us some good fresh meat.”
Caroline nodded. She rinsed the dishcloth and walked out of the bright ring of firelight. When her hem rustled against the tall grass, she stopped and laid the dishcloth to dry over the long yellow blades. Caroline looked out into the wide open darkness. All this time, was this the place they had had been moving toward? She imagined the little campfire with a roof and walls around it, the heart of a small house with Charles smoking and the girls yawning drowsily in the flickering light.
A howl wavered into the air, the sound cutting a thin line into the blank space around her. Caroline felt it slide through her, too, tickling the gaps between each bone of her spine as though she were no more solid than the sky. As she turned from the prairie to the campsite the darkness became palpable against her back. Caroline refused to let it make her shiver, or hurry. The girls must not see their ma flushed from the grass like a frightened grouse, not by a sound as familiar as thunder. Anyway, she was not truly frightened. Charles’s rifle and pistol were loaded, and there was the fire just steps away. She only wished again for something thicker than a shawl to mark the boundary between herself and all that dark and shapeless space.
“About half a mile away, I’d judge,” Charles said.
Mary and Laura looked at each other. Both of them knew well by now how little time it took to cover half a mile.
“Bedtime for little girls,” Caroline sang out softly.
Her fingers were down to Mary’s fourth button when Laura cried, “Look, Pa, look! A wolf!”
Charles had the rifle butt notched into his shoulder before Caroline saw what Laura was pointing to. Two molten globes hovering in the long grass where she had just been standing, each reflecting the firelight like the brass disc behind a kerosene lamp. Eyes. Creeping closer. She heard the click of Charles cocking the rifle and held her breath for the shot. None came. The animal had crept another step, then stopped still—a perfect target.
Charles did not fire. He lifted his cheek an inch from the stock and peered over the tip of the barrel at those motionless eyes. “Can’t be a wolf,” he said, “unless it’s mad.”
Caroline hefted Mary into the wagon without feeling it happen. She leaned down for Laura and Charles shook his head. His finger was loose on the trigger now. “Listen to the horses,” he murmured. Caroline cocked an ear. Nothing but their teeth snipping at the grass. Nor was she afraid, Caroline realized. Her body was poised for it, and yet she felt no sensation of fear. Alert, yes, and cautious, too, but though she kept herself and Laura held safely back, her mind seemed to lean forward, curiously drawn toward the riddle of what that creature might be. “A lynx?” she guessed aloud.
“Or a coyote,” Charles said, picking up a scrap of firewood. “Hah!” he shouted, and pitched it toward the shining eyes.
Any sensible animal should have bolted. This one dropped to the ground. To spring, or cower? Quicker than bullets, Caroline put herself between Laura and the animal as slowly, inexplicably, it began to crawl toward Charles.
Caroline felt so strange. The animal’s eyes seemed to scrape the ground. Please, those eyes said. It was pitiful enough to make her wince. No wild creature would humble itself so, unless it were sick or hurt.
Charles walked toward the edge of the firelight, the gun out before him.
“Don’t, Charles.” Whether she meant don’t shoot, or don’t move, Caroline did not know. The darkness around the creature began to thin as it continued forward. The swirl of a shining black nose took shape. Then a bone-yellow glint of teeth, pointing straight to the sky.
The burst of sound came from all around her. Charles shouting, Laura screaming. Everything moved in the wrong direction. Caroline reeled forward as Laura and the creature tumbled together in the dirt.
And then, “Jack! Oh, Jack!”
The surprise struck her like a blow. Only Jack, filthy and bedraggled and thrashing with glee. Caroline threw up her hands as though she might hold back the shock, fearful that she had not the strength to feel one more thing. She could not speak, could not laugh until all the guilt and worry rolled from her at the sight of his waggling stump tail. Then she wanted most to cry and could not do that, either. The instant Jack saw her he sprang to her, nearly bowling her over. He scrabbled and pawed until she bent down to try to touch him. But he did not want petting. He licked and licked her wrists and palms and plunged his snorting nose into all the folds of her skirt until Caroline knew—it was her smell he wanted. Wanted to coat himself in it, so that he might never lose it again. Somewhere out on the open prairie he must have scented her, standing alone in the tall grass outside the campsite, and he had followed.