While the girls cuddled down to sleep, Caroline smoothed the leftover hasty pudding into a bread pan and covered it with a dishcloth to set up overnight. For breakfast there would be the fried mush, and bacon; the rest of the cold white bread and molasses would serve for next day’s dinner.
Crouching by the hearth, she heated water in the dishpan and wiped the dishes clean. Into the kettle she quietly ladled a half dozen scoops of dry beans, then covered them with snowmelt and put the mixture to the back of the fireplace to soak.
She was unpinning her hair when Charles came in to pocket the two flatirons she had laid on the hearth to warm for him. “Asleep already?” he whispered, pointing with his whiskers toward the girls.
Caroline nodded.
“Good. Come on outside. I want you to learn how to load that Colt.”
A wrinkle traveled up her spine. Caroline gave herself a moment to mute the sensation against her shawl, then followed him out.
The wooden box lay open beside a lantern on the wagon tongue. Compartments lined with red felt surrounded the revolver and its accoutrements. “It’s an 1860 army issue—the same as your brother Joseph would have carried at Shiloh,” Charles told her, as though she might be afraid of it. She was not frightened of the thing itself; she was only afraid of needing it.
“It’s not so much different from the rifle. Tip the powder flask to measure out a charge, then pour the powder into the open chamber on the right. Drop a bullet in on top. No patch cloth. Last comes the cap.” He pinched a bit of brass shaped like a tiny dented button from a tin with a green paper label. “This fits over the percussion nipple at the back of the chamber. Now watch.” Charles pulled the hammer to half cock and twisted the cylinder so that the loaded chamber rested above the trigger. Then as if husking an ear of corn, he pried a lever loose from the underside of the barrel and bent it back until it clicked. “This tamps down the loaded charge in place of a ramrod,” he said. “And that’s all there is to it.”
Charles let the hammer down softly before handing her the pistol. Caroline stripped off her mittens and tucked them under one arm. The revolver was cold in the places he had not touched, and heavy as the family Bible. “Go ahead,” Charles said.
She could not push the latch of the loading lever straight down as Charles had done; it bit into the tips of her fingers until she rotated her grip and pulled it free of the catch from below. “That’s fine,” Charles said when she finished. “You’ll need two hands to fire it—hold your arms out straight ahead and lace your fingers around the stock, the way you do to pray.” Caroline’s tongue rose to object to the juxtaposition, then halted. If ever she had cause to fire this gun, there would indeed be a prayer behind it.
“That’s right,” Charles said, “steady and even, just like that. We’ll only keep five of the chambers loaded with caps while we’re traveling. Safer that way. Just remember to twist a loaded chamber up to the barrel as you cock it.”
Caroline cupped her elbows beneath her shawl as he packed the pistol away again and climbed up over the sideboards. “It’ll ride up here, under the seat,” Charles said. “I’ll still use the rifle for hunting. With any luck that’s the last time we’ll need to open the box.” He sat facing her with his hands laced between his knees.
She handed him the lantern. In the instant before he blew it out, the glow framed him in a halo of canvas. Firelight from the bunkhouse windows dusted over them. “Will you be warm enough?” she asked.
He patted his coat pockets. “Be snug as a tent in here with the canvas cinched down at both ends and these flatirons all to myself.” His eyes slid down the curving length of her braid. Caroline felt the pinking of her cheeks and lifted her shawl over her head. She could not let him put his hands to her hair. There was neither time nor place for what would surely follow.
“The bundle of extra quilts is at the foot of the small straw tick,” she told him. Still his eyes rested on her, asking her to do no more than fill his gaze. He could make her feel full as the moon, looking at her that way, and she was too tired to allow herself to melt into it. Filaments of heat were already drifting along her edges.
Caroline rustled her voice softly between them. “Charles.”
“Hmm?”
“Will you reach the scrap bag for me, please?” she asked, snipping the moment short.
He got to his knees on the spring seat, leaning so far to reach the bag on its peg that he ought to have pitched over. It was thick through the middle and nearly as tall as Laura. Caroline shifted the bundle to her hip and reached one hand up to the lip of the wagon box. He took her hand in his, kneading her palm with his thumb. “Call if you or the girls need for anything,” he said. “I’ll be sleeping with one ear open.”
Her smile crept into the dark. “Rest yourself, Charles.” She felt the brush of his whiskers against her fingertips before he floated her hand back down to her. The wisp of movement carried her back to the bunkhouse without another murmur.
The girls did not stir at the clack of the latch. Mary lay with her rag doll up under her chin, her arms folded close as hens’ wings around her calico darling. Caroline let her shawl back down to her shoulders and carried the scrap bag to the bunk nearest the hearth. Loosening the drawstring, she unfurled the bag into her lap. It was not a sack, but rather a circle of denim that would spread itself flat with the cord fully unlaced. Seven deep pockets, each holding one color, pinwheeled from a center humped with plain cuttings of flannel, buckram, and the like. Caroline chose two remnants of muslin to veil the windows, then felt her way into the pocket of browns until she found a swatch of felt, small and nearly triangular. A few nips with the scissors would turn it into a shawl for Nettie. She laid it on a bunk with their wraps, then bolstered the fire with slim maple logs before finally undressing.
She found herself standing before the hearth in the place where her rocking chair would be, were this their own fireplace. Without it she was not sure how to settle the day’s many layers into herself. She turned to the straw tick, hunkered on the floor like a patchwork raft. The coverlet puffed softly up and down over Mary and Laura. Caroline watched them as she had that morning. Their tempo was so like a hymn, a strand of scripture encircled her.
Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
With all that the day’s travel had wrought, and all that the days still to come would bring, she had never felt so keenly beholden to the Lord’s mercy. Caroline knelt where she stood. Her chin tipped down to meet her folded hands.
No prayer came to her. Eyes closed, she wavered like a solitary taper until in place of her own words of praise or supplication, a fragment of the 24th Psalm rose through her voice.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord . . .