Page 48 of Caroline’s Compass

“It has similar force.”

Mrs. Bell heard and gave him a second. Thomas hid it beneath his bread until Samuel Turner asked why his meal had a tail.

The company lingered over supper. Nathaniel discussed the morning survey party. Rebecca repeated the horse assignments. Charlotte recorded who had borrowed rope and discovered Mr. Avery had signed for twenty feet but held thirty. Avery said rope stretched in damp weather. Thomas explained that it did not stretch by half. Avery returned ten feet.

Caroline watched Thomas participate in the small life of the company—pickles, rope, children, and all. His Fort Kearny decision remained unresolved, but he was already less separate than he believed.

Near supper, Thomas joined her on the wagon tongue.

“A proper courtship should probably involve something other than mud calculations,” he said.

“I have no objection to mud calculations.”

“I suspected as much. Still, I was told there are questions.”

“Who told you?”

“Mrs. Bell. Her knowledge of courtship may be unreliable, but she presented it firmly.”

Caroline opened the compass and set it on her palm. The needle quivered, then found north.

“Very well,” she said. “Why did you consider the position at Fort Kearny?”

Thomas rested his forearms on his knees. “It is steady work. The Army wants routes mapped west of the fort. Pay every month, a room when I am there, and enough travel to keep me from feeling trapped.”

“Do you always feel trapped when you stay?”

“I have never stayed long enough to find out.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No.” He glanced at her. “The honest answer is that leaving first has always been easier.”

Caroline absorbed that. “My honest answer is that I do not know how to leave at all.”

Camp noises surrounded them: Rebecca correcting Lucy's knot, Charlotte complaining that Grace had stolen the dry spoon, Eleanor laughing at something Nathaniel murmured. Home, in all its noisy and inconvenient forms.

Thomas pointed to the compass. “Your turn to ask a less cheerful question.”

“If you accept the position, would you expect a wife to remain at the fort while you traveled?”

He did not answer quickly, and Caroline appreciated it.

“I would expect my wife to decide with me,” he said. “But I have not yet learned how to put another person's needs beside mine without converting both into a calculation.”

“You are admitting that during courtship?”

“You requested honesty.”

“I did.”

“My question. If one of your sisters no longer needed you, would you believe her?”

Caroline looked toward Eleanor. She helped Nathaniel adjust the strap that supported his shoulder, not because she was helpless without Caroline, but because she had built a new partnership of her own.

“Eventually,” Caroline said.

“An inspiring beginning.”