Page 73 of Caroline’s Compass

Caroline sat with Thomas’s field notes on her knees. He had written numbers, bearings, soil descriptions, and one cramped line at the margin: limestone rise sound; western approach likely.

He had found the road. Now she had to find him.

She laid Father’s compass atop Thomas’s figures. One instrument bore the crack she had caused. The other record held the work Thomas had chosen to do despite every uncertainty between them. Neither was useless because it had passed through difficulty.

Across the little fire, Rebecca said, “You’re allowed to be afraid.”

“I am busy.”

“You’re always busy.”

Caroline looked toward the unseen rise. “Yes. I’m afraid.”

Rebecca nodded as if Caroline had reported the weather. “Good. Now you won’t have to spend strength pretending.”

Sleep never truly reached the little search camp. Caroline and Rebecca shared the first watch. Hall described the ridge from memory while Coleman dried rope near the shielded fire. They traced possible routes in Thomas's notes, rejecting any line that entered the creek bend.

Rebecca asked what Caroline would do if Thomas was injured. Caroline listed bandaging, litter construction, and the safest return bearing. Rebecca asked what she would do if he was not at the rise. Caroline had no list for that.

“Then we search the next mark,” Rebecca said. “One decision at a time.”

It was the advice Caroline had given everyone else for years. Hearing it from her younger sister felt strange and right. She allowed Rebecca to take the second watch without arguing and lay down for an hour. Fear remained, but it no longer had to keep her standing to prove its depth.

Before dawn, Caroline heard three faint knocks from beyond the channel. Metal against stone. A pause, then three more.

She was on her feet before the others woke fully.

“Thomas!”

The answer came weak but unmistakable. “Caroline?”

She closed her hand around the compass. “We’re here.”

Chapter Eighteen

May 15, 1854

The Limestone Rise

Daylight revealed Thomas on a narrow ledge below the limestone rise. A new channel, perhaps fifteen feet across, ran between him and the search party. The water was not broad, but it was fast enough to roll stones along its bottom.

Thomas sat with his back against the pale rock. His hat was gone, his coat torn at one shoulder, and his left boot cut open around an ankle swollen twice its proper size. The map case lay beneath his arm.

Caroline’s relief arrived as anger because anger could stand upright. “You promised to signal before dark.”

“I had planned a better performance.”

His voice was strained, but the answer was Thomas. Caroline breathed again.

Mr. Coleman tested the channel with a branch. It vanished from his hand. “Horse cannot cross there.”

Hall pointed upstream. “The bank narrows by that fallen cottonwood.”

They walked the edge until they found two rooted trees opposite each other. Caroline studied the current, the rope, the banks, and the four people available to hold weight.

“Coleman takes the first line across on horseback at the shallow angle,” she said. “Rebecca anchors here. Hall carries the second line upstream so the current presses Thomas toward us, not away. Once both lines are fixed, Thomas ties into the loop, and we bring him diagonally.”

Thomas called from the ledge, “The downstream bank undercuts sharply.”