A Prairie Rose

Chapter 8

After four days of rain, the skies seemed to still. I thought that the worst had passed, and eagerly went outside to watch the trail for travelers. But nobody came. And within a few hours, the skies turned a frightening, angry purple color, with dark clouds brooding low. The first clap of thunder had me racing back home again, grateful that we were now in a house and not a wagon.

But the house did not offer as much comfort as I expected. The cracks along the highest part of the walls- the ones too far up for me to reach when I had been filling them with mud and moss- leaked constantly, leaving the dirt around the walls of the house nothing but splattered mud. And the hole in the roof from where Pa had started and never finished building a chimney let even more water in- I feared that a lighting bolt may come right into our little log home, smiting Pa and I both down.

Pa glared at me from where he was sitting on a wooden box- he had been watching me wince and jump at the sounds of the storm. 

"Stop that foolishness, Rose," He ordered. "Going on eleven years old, and scared of a storm."

I was only hardly going on nine- though I hadn't expected him to truly remember. Maybe I had grown on this journey, and that was why he thought I looked almost eleven. I certainly felt so different than I had just a year or so ago, when Ma had been alive and well, and we had all lived in a sturdy house with a chimney and table and chairs back East. I had just been a little girl then- with a Mother to comb my hair and wash my face and put me to bed.

Now I stole eggs and conned weary travelers into staying in a poor excuse of a home. What would Ma think if she saw me?

There was a sudden flash of lightening, and from the windows and hole in the roof, it lit up the whole house, seeming to turn night into day for the briefest moment. I startled again, flinching back against the chest that Pa and I used as a table.

"That's it!" Pa grumbled, pointing me off towards the sheet of canvas that separated my bedroom from the front room. "Bedtime for little girls who are too childish to handle a bit of blasted rain."

I ducked my head, ashamed. "Yes, Pa."

Tucked away in my little bed, I flinched again and again as the thunder boomed. The wind made a strange, shrieking sound as it whistled through the cracks higher up in the walls, and I feared that the storm may carry away our little house, with me and Pa right inside of it.

But the walls were strong. And when I finally fell into a restless sleep, I awoke the next morning to find the walls all standing, and the storm well-past. 

As usual, I prepared Pa his coffee and a quick breakfast. There was enough for me to have a bit of food, too, and I found myself smiling at how often I was eating now. Three small meals were becoming normal again. 

"Wear your good dress," Pa ordered me as he watched me step out from my room, struggling to do up the top button on my plain, blue dress. "And the pantaloons your Ma made you for church a while back- don't you get them even a little dirty, you hear me? You keep them neat and tidy. But you need to look well-kept if you're going to bring in the amount of visitors we need today to make up for lost time." 

I frowned- there was only so many people our little cabin could house. Still, I nodded. "Yes, Pa."

He watched as I pulled my dress off and turned to go find my Sunday dress. "And you get extra food today- to make sure we have enough for all the visitors."

"Yes, Pa." I was nervous now- I rarely brought back more than two travelers at a time. Would Pa be angry and take it out on me if we didn't get more than usual? And what if I found nobody at all who wanted to pay to come stay with us?

But I still obeyed, pulling on my nicest clothes and heading to the apple tree to pick fruit as I normally did to begin the day off. There were fewer apples to choose from now- most of the good ones had been harvested, and the rest were beginning to fall and go soft. But I still found the best ones that I could, and decided I would bake them- it was the best thing to do with rotting apples, Ma had told me once. 

To reach the apples that were still good, I had to climb high in the tree. I got distracted as I played in the branches for a few minutes, and forgot to be careful because I was wearing my good clothes. My stockings and pantaloons caught on a branch and ripped a little, and then the rip got larger when I leapt down from the tree, the white fabric staining from the wet grass and mud.

It wasn't until I turned to look at the tree one last time that I realized just how few apples there were left. They wouldn't last the week. 

I was too nervous to play my normal games and sing my normal songs as I waited for someone to come by the road. The apples were almost gone, and I had yet to see anyone come by in a wagon. It was getting colder again now- though not quite winter, surely the time for travelers was coming to an end. We were nearing the time of year when people would again set off of the journey West- most whom had left at the same time as Pa and I would have already arrived and started building homesteads.

That would mean several months with no settlers coming through. But I knew Pa was right- when that happened, surely we would starve. We didn't have all that much food saved up- we had been surviving on it day to day, though now we often had enough to feel secure for several days. 

But we couldn't last the whole winter.

As I sat there, I suddenly saw a flash of white through the trees. My eyes trained on that spot, wondering if I had just imagined it. I hadn't seen the rising dust that I always saw when a wagon was coming down the long stretch of dirt. But it had been raining, and I supposed it made sense that the dirt had become mud, and wouldn't raise up like that under the weight of heavy wheels.

I saw another flash of white, and I was almost certain that I saw the covered canvas top of a wagon above the smaller tops of the trees. But it never rounded the corner- not even after several minutes had passed, and a wagon should have been in plain sight.

I hesitated- what if I was wrong? What if it was a wild animal, or a lone hunter, or some kind of Native forest spirit? Pa had never actually answered me when I asked if there were Natives out here.

That was something I hadn't thought about in a long time now. Surely if there was a Native camp nearby, I would have known about it. Still, I shivered at the thought of an arrow pointed directly at me from somewhere among the trees.

I heard a horse whiney somewhere nearby along the path, followed by a man's voice. Slowly, I made my way down the hill, then followed the dirt trail to the sharp bend- I had never crossed that corner before. I had always waited near the bottom of the hill for any wagons to come to me.

But Pa had been in such a bad temper lately. I had to do anything I could to bring in more visitors, or I knew I would feel the sting of his hand. 

A bit frightened, I paused and took a deep breath before gathering my courage and rounding the corner of the pathway, prepared to face whatever was on the other side.