Page 9 of Caroline’s Compass

“You dislike praise.”

“I do not.”

“You fled from it.”

“I proceeded to the next duty.”

“At considerable speed.”

They returned to the fork and rode north. Within two hundred yards, the ruts deepened. Water gleamed inside them. Thomas dismounted and pushed a measuring rod into the mud. It sank nearly to his knee.

Caroline looked toward the cottonwoods. Beyond them, the ground fell lower.

“A loaded wagon will settle to the axle,” she said.

“Possibly deeper.”

“The south is longer.”

“By less than a mile if it rejoins where I believe.”

“If.”

“All maps contain an if. Honest surveyors merely draw it very small.”

She laughed. Thomas looked up too quickly. Caroline turned her horse. “We should return.”

“Immediately?”

“Already late.”

*****

THE WAGON COUNCIL CONSISTED of Nathaniel, Eleanor, three experienced drivers, Thomas, and—after a moment that Caroline tried not to notice—Caroline herself.

Mr. Daugherty stood just outside the group, which was where he placed himself whenever no one had invited him but he intended to speak.

Thomas described the ground. Caroline gave the bearing and estimated distance to the southern track where it rejoined the road.

“You took the bearing?” Mr. Daugherty asked.

“Yes.”

“With that little trinket?”

Caroline opened the compass in her palm. “With this instrument.”

“Your father's notes say north.”

The words struck more sharply than they should have. Caroline glanced toward the leather pouch on the wagon bench.

Thomas spoke before she could. “Her father's notes were correct when written. The creek shifted.”

Mr. Daugherty frowned. “Then how do we know the south line does not end in the same mud?”

“We rode it,” Caroline said. “The ground rises. The grass is firm, and the wheels that passed there did not cut deeply. We can take the twelve wagons south, or we can spend the day hauling them out of the northern trace one at a time.”

Silence followed.