“You’re way more generous than I’d be in believing he’d get that far, but stranger things have happened.”

“He’s gone for a while though.”

“He is?” Charlotte said.  “How do you know?”

Ada blushed.  “He came and said goodbye.”

“Bastard.  When I wasn’t there.  Did he propose again?”

“Oh good, a new swear word.”

“No it isn’t and stop keeping track.”

Then Ada ducked.  “It’s possible he did,” she said.

Charlotte pursed her lips, thinking.  “We might have to enlist someone stronger than me if he really does want to keep up with the schooling.”

Ada stood up and held out her hands to try and help Charlotte up.  It was a struggle.  “We may have to enlist someone stronger than me if you keep deciding to sit on the floor.”

“Have I told you how I feel about thirteen-year-old girls?” Charlotte said.

36

Charlotte began taking long walks outside the fort in the afternoons.  She felt the need to keep moving and the cold air was a balm, freshening her senses that dulled with too much time spent over hot stoves and handiwork.  The flocks of geese had begun their migration in earnest, rising up out of the fields, their calls carrying far into the night.

The leaves turned more quickly, leaving the forest dark and bare. The rushes along the riverbanks withered and bent.  The fort’s vast kitchen garden offered up only stubble and faded debris from the summer crop.  Now the winter vegetables took hold, the pumpkins huge on the vines, the potatoes and turnips maturing in their own time, buried in the cold earth.  Autumn winds blew fierce some days across the plains, coming from the north, touched with the frigid breath of winter ice and snow.

Charlotte tried to take someone with her whenever possible.  She realized that it was neither seemly nor prudent for a woman to be alone so far outside the gates, though there had been no trouble from any quarter and all around lay only silence.  Ellis, Miller, Brewster all accompanied her when they could, as glad as she was for a break in the day.

On Sunday, Charlotte grew restless earlier than usual.  It being the Sabbath, the routine of the fort was suspended and the chaplain attempted to gather at least a handful of the faithful for services, though he didn’t always succeed.  The card tables and refreshments of an alcoholic nature provided him with unfair competition though he never complained.  The rest of his life was easy, far from the strictures of the mother church.

Brewster and Jeremy bent over their books on the floor by the fire.  Charlotte considered that they bore a perfect resemblance to the children she’d imagined living in the abandoned cabin.  The thought was pleasing to her.

“Ada,” she said.  “Walk with me?”

“I hope it won’t rain.  You go out in any weather.”