Page 56 of Caroline’s Compass

“I rejected asking you to become someone else.”

“And then considered leaving without asking whether there was another choice.”

Thomas looked toward the company moving around them. “I do not yet know the other choice.”

“Neither do I. That was why honesty mattered.”

The anger between them was not born from the job itself. Caroline could have respected a choice she disliked. What wounded her was discovering that Thomas still treated uncertainty as a private country only he was permitted to map.

They stood in silence long enough for the anger to lose its sharpest edge and reveal the grief beneath it. Caroline had allowed herself to imagine a courtship with an honest ending, even if that ending was separation at Fort Kearny. Learning of Thomas’s offer from Avery made her feel foolish about trusting the agreement.

Thomas said, “I did not intend to make you wait outside my decision.”

“Intent does not change where you left me.”

He accepted that without argument. Caroline wished he would offer an excuse she could easily reject. Instead, he named the truth: solitude had always protected him from having to disappoint anyone face-to-face. The habit had followed him into a courtship he claimed to want.

“Then decide whether you want a courtship with another person in it,” she said.

The cruelty of the line struck her as soon as she spoke, but she did not withdraw it. Thomas flinched, then nodded. An apology could acknowledge the wound. It could not demand that she trust him again before he learned to stay present amid uncertainty.

Caroline reached into the wagon and drew out his field notebook. She had kept it near the supply ledger since the cutoff survey, adding water depths, grazing notes, and bearings in the margins.

She held it toward him.

Thomas did not take it at first. “What are you doing?”

“Returning your work.”

“Our work.”

“Not today.”

He accepted the notebook. His hand closed around it, leaving the compass in Caroline's pocket suddenly heavy.

“Are you ending the courtship?” he asked.

Caroline wanted to say no. She wanted him to put the notebook down, take her hand, and produce a map with an obvious line that kept both duty and desire intact.

“I am pausing it,” she said. “Until we remember what honesty means.”

Thomas's face revealed nothing. “Very well.”

He walked away carrying the notebook and the unopened future inside his coat.

Caroline returned to the flour barrel. She had measured the remaining supply correctly the first time, but she began again.

Chapter Thirteen

May 10, 1854

The Long Road

The established road climbed for most of the morning and offered no apology.

Wagons creaked up the grade in low gear. Men and women walked to spare the teams. By noon, the company had covered fewer miles than Caroline had hoped, and the grass near the trail had been cropped by every westbound animal that came before them.

Mr. Daugherty mentioned the cutoff four times.