Page 61 of Caroline’s Compass

Rebecca glanced over. “I am leading the tracks. You are leading the people.”

Caroline accepted the distinction.

They found Thomas's horse tied on the western rise shortly before ten. He stood below it, studying a mud-choked draw.

“Tracks,” he called. “Two animals entered from the east.”

The draw curved northwest between steep banks. Fresh hoofprints sank deep near the water. Caroline opened the compass and took the return bearing before they descended.

Half a mile farther, they heard an ox bellow.

Both animals stood on a patch of higher ground beyond the mud. Hall's ox grazed placidly. Turner's had wrapped a trailing rope around a willow root and appeared offended by the result. Reaching them required crossing a strip of ground that shivered beneath each step. Rebecca tested the edge and declared it capable of swallowing a boot to the knee. Mr. Hall considered that an unnecessarily precise measurement.

Caroline set the return bearing before anyone entered the draw. Thomas cut two poles for balance. Rebecca crossed first, freed the rope, and turned the animals one at a time. When the second ox balked, Caroline moved left to open its view of firmer ground instead of pulling harder. The animal followed.

Thomas obeyed each assignment without inserting himself into command. Only when every person and ox stood on solid earth did he mention that the direct route back crossed a shallow wash. Caroline checked the compass, compared his observation with the slope, and altered the line. Their cooperation returned before their courtship did: cautious, useful, and increasingly difficult to separate from trust.

Once the oxen were freed, the greater challenge was persuading them they wished to return. The Turner ox followed Rebecca's grain pan. The second animal had discovered a patch of sweet grass and considered rescue unnecessary.

Mr. Hall pushed from behind. The ox did not acknowledge him.

“He is ignoring me,” Mr. Hall said.

“An unusual experience,” Rebecca replied.

Thomas advised approaching from the side. Caroline advised Thomas to remain on firm ground until assigned. He obeyed, which Mr. Hall observed was evidence of either deep feeling or a recent blow to the head.

Rebecca looped the rope around the animal's horns while Caroline opened a path away from the grass. Mr. Hall shook a feed sack. The ox finally moved, stepping directly on the tail of Mr. Hall's coat and pinning him in place.

“Do not laugh,” Mr. Hall warned.

Three people looked away with varying success.

Thomas freed the coat with a stick. “The cloth has suffered a measurable loss.”

“You will suffer one if you record it,” Mr. Hall said.

The walk back took twice as long because the oxen stopped whenever the company came into sight, perhaps reconsidering freedom. The foolish struggle gave Caroline and Thomas room to work side by side before speaking of the future. Shared purpose rebuilt the path that anger had damaged.

During the two-hour return, they chose a longer slope rather than force the animals through the deepest part of the draw. Caroline checked their bearing twice, though she knew it was right the first time.

Thomas respected the silence until Rebecca and Hall moved ahead with the oxen.

“I owe you an answer,” he said.

Caroline kept her eyes on the compass. “About the fort?”

“About what I want.”

She closed the lid.

Thomas stopped beside a stand of willow. “I want you. I want your questions in my notebooks and your calculations correcting mine. I want to hear you tell your sisters what to do and watch them do something else. I want to know what home looks like when it does not disappear.”

The words struck every defended place inside her.

“But?” she asked.

“But I do not yet know how to build a life that does not demand your surrender. The mapping work means travel. Your family means continuing west. Wanting you does not make those facts vanish.”