“Happy eleventh birthday,” Charlotte said.

“I made it,” Brewster said solemnly, which gave Charlotte pause.

“Eleven going on twenty-five.  I think you ought to run for an office of some sort.  We’ll find one that takes eleven-year-olds.  But in the meantime…”

Charlotte reached under the bed and brought out one of the Henrys.  “I know you have your Pa’s shotgun but this is different.  It’s from my father again.  He gave this rifle to me on, well, another occasion, and I’m giving it to you for your birthday.”  She retrieved a box from the sideboard.  “Ammunition.  And plenty more where that came from.  I’ll tell you what I know about the gun, which is about two sentences’ worth, and then you’re on your own.”

Brewster laid his hands on the rifle and suddenly blinked back tears.  Ada and Charlotte found themselves doing the same.  Jeremy moved closer hoping that he would at least get to touch it.

33

September arrived, the moon when the calves grow hair.  Summer died and the grasses went to seed.  The days grew shorter and Charlotte couldn’t get her skirts to close.  She was aware that she had grown temporarily gaunt from losing too many breakfasts and a few dinners as well.  Now, as that particular siege relented, she realized that in places where she’d been pleasingly slender before, she’d somehow become disconcertingly wide.  In order to appear decently clothed, she kept carefully inching up the waistbands to where they would come together.  Then she found another solution.

“Why are you wearing an apron?” Ada said.

“Didn’t all those women on the wagon train wear aprons?  I know they did.  It’s what women do.”

“But not you.  You’re not like them.”

“Here’s what,” Charlotte said.  “I cook over a fire, I haul in my own wood and bake in that smoky oven in the mess hall.  I keep running into all those carcasses they hang up in there.  I do laundry.  I’m out in the garden.  How many decent clothes do you think I have?  That’s what an apron does, it protects them.  And I’ll have you know, I actually have two.”  She’d found them in the wagon, a miracle, though it summed up her father’s wishes for her, even with her appearance back then, to be like the other women.  If they had aprons, she should have aprons.  She’d cut up the bonnet to make part of a dress for Grace.  But the aprons, what else was she supposed to do?

Charlotte could feel Ada studying her, dwelling on the issue.  The answer hadn’t come to her yet, in part, Charlotte knew, because Ada couldn’t discover any way that such a thing would be possible.

Ada looked perplexed when Charlotte finally broke down and announced the news.

“You have questions.  That’s understandable, given the situation.”