Charlotte took the stark photograph out of her pocket and handed it to Ada.  They were beyond the gates of the fort, walking into the sunset.  Another wagon train had circled next to the fort and the smell of cattle was strong in the air.  Ada touched the photograph gently with her fingers.

“It’s not for the others to know,” Charlotte said.  “They’re too young.  But you’re close to being a woman now, so it’s time to talk more openly with you about these kinds of things.”

“Tell me,” Ada said.

“I was married to someone.  I didn’t choose him.  He was chosen for me.  Why doesn’t matter, but he was the wrong person for anyone to choose.  It got so we hated each other more than anyone could believe and one night he came after me.  There was a shotgun.  When I got the chance, I used it.  He’s buried now, dead and gone.”

“It’s so awful.”

“Please don’t cry.  There’ve been enough tears shed.  But obviously I’d done a horrible wrong and nobody asked questions about why.  The women held me down and cut my hair for disobeying my husband and the Elders decided I should be hanged for killing him.  My father, who’s important in that world, bargained for my life.  The wagon has everything my father put in it while I was on trial.  There were no wild horses, but no one wants to offer up such a truth to a twelve-year-old.  Can you see that?”

“Yes.  Thank you for treating me like an adult.  I am now, you know, whatever you might think.”

Charlotte put an arm around her.  “In some ways.  But you don’t want it to be in every way, not yet.”

“Will you tell me where you were?”

“I can’t.  But I will some day.”

“Soon?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte said.  “When the time’s right.”  When you’re eighty-two.

30

30

“I need to skip school this morning,” Brewster said.  “I have to see some people and I could talk about the bread if you want.”

“You’d negotiate for me?”

“I was thinking I would.”

“And you’d do a better job?”

“I might.”

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Charlotte said.  “When’s your birthday?”

“In fifty-seven days.”

“I meant approximately, but all right.  I’ll have to start looking now for something besides gold ear bobs.”

Brewster returned in the afternoon and they went out to the grass by the river, although the sky said rain was coming.

“I hope it’s okay to ask you this.  Could you make all those different kinds of breads you did before so I could show them to the quartermaster?”

“I’m always willing to make bread.  But why?  Is there trouble?”

“No, it’s not like that.  He was just curious and it’d be that much better if I had the bread with me.”