you,” said Mrs. Spruill, but she and her husband had their own farm and five children.
The next morning, Kate hitched a mule to the plow, and she and Olivia took turns tilling the earth. Their father had hired men to help with the planting and harvesting, and the girls and their mother had put up food for the winter. This was so much harder. How could there be so many stones, when the ground had been plowed before? It was as if rocks grew out of the dirt. Over several weeks, Kate and Olivia planted potatoes, onions, cabbage, radishes, and peas. At night, they stripped off their soiled clothes and crawled between icy sheets. There was no time to keep house. They waited until the middle of May, when there was no chance of frost, to plant squash and beans. Corn was last. They counted groups of four kernels into tiny hills of earth and recited the old rhyme: “One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the weather, and one to grow.”
The harsh, sloping land filled Kate’s vision even in her sleep. Would she and Olivia find husbands, or would their family line simply end? The thought saddened her, but she vowed to be grateful for the life she had.
It was a dry spring, and many of the vegetables failed to sprout. Varmints ravaged the radishes and peas.
“I can’t bear it,” Olivia said.
Kate took their father’s gun and managed to shoot a groundhog. She put it in the stewpot and was glad for the meat. Occasionally, in the spring and the sweltering summer, Mr. Spruill came over with his son Billy, who was thirteen, and they helped hoe the weeds. Those days were easier.
Kate tended the beehives her father had established. One day she and Olivia woke to a great buzzing. A dark mass tapped the windowpanes. The bees were swarming. The sisters gathered tin pots and spoons and rushed outside, making a racket, hoping the noise would cause the bees to return to the hives. Instead, they flew away.
“No getting them back,” Olivia said.
* * *
THE harvest was scant, with corn so tough only the mule could eat it. Neighbors left a ham and sacks of meal on the porch. At Christmastime, two young men appeared at church—Andrew and Martin Sibley from Henrico County.
“We’re heading west,” said Martin, with a smile for Kate. “Plenty of free land in Oregon.”
“And gold in California,” Andrew said.
“Nobody gets rich in a gold rush except the people who sell things,” Martin said, and Kate saw that even though he was the younger brother, he had the cooler head, and they’d likely talked about this before. “We’ll be better off farming in the Willamette Valley.”
Yet Sunday after Sunday, they showed up. They had found work with Mr. Cole, and they promised to help the sisters at planting time. Kate prayed her thanks to God. When Andrew walked Olivia home from church, it was only natural that Martin would fall into step with Kate. When Andrew and Olivia vanished into the brush, Martin drew Kate into his arms.
“Why shouldn’t we?” He kissed her.
Later, when the brothers were gone, Kate faced her sister on their porch. Courtship was flattering, and the blue-eyed men were as handsome as princes. Olivia had high cheekbones and dark, winged eyebrows, but Kate was plain as a biscuit, and uneasy.
“He’s better-looking than I am,” she said. “Is it us they want, or the farm?”
“Who’d want this?” Olivia swept her arm toward their bleak acres.
It was a double wedding. The Sibley brothers fidgeted at the altar as the sisters stepped into church, wearing their best dresses. After the ceremony, neighbors wished them health and long life. Mrs. Spruill had baked a cake, and everyone had a slice, along with blackberry cordial.
That night, Kate led Martin to the room she’d had since childhood. She felt shy, although they’d been together those times in the woods.
“Are you mine?” he said.
His embrace was as warm as a rug. She fell in love with him at that moment.
* * *
RIGHT away, Andrew started saying, “It’s not enough land.”
“I like it here,” Martin said.
Andrew pulled out maps and reminded Martin about the thousands of acres out west, free for the taking. Kate was terrified by the fate that had befallen white settlers. Everyone knew about Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, missionaries whose Oregon compound was attacked by Cayuses.
“The Cayuses was hung,” Andrew said, “and the army’ll send out more soldiers.”
“I won’t go,” said Olivia, her face like stone.
One raw spring day, Mr. Cole came over. He stood on the porch in his long black coat and made an offer to the four of them. Kate looked to Olivia, who hesitated.
“You used to talk about going west,” he said to the brothers.
“We’ll think about it,” said Martin.
“We’ll take it,” said Andrew.
Olivia went into the house and banged the door behind her. Kate’s heart beat like wings. This was what change felt like. Mr. Cole counted out money into Andrew’s palm. The porch needed paint, and winter snow had warped the railing. Why notice these things now, when the place was passing out of her hands?
“I’ll live here,” Mr. Cole said. “I like it better than my house. Will you leave the beehives, Kate?”
She read his solemn eyes and straight mouth. If she’d waited, he’d have asked her to marry him. The realization filled her with regret. It would have been all right. At her parents’ funeral, she’d been afraid he would ask, when she should have been encouraging him. She should have gone to him the day the bees swarmed.
“Oh, yes,” she said, as she might have replied to a proposal. The passion she was finding in the nights with Martin—would she have found it with Mr. Cole? Maybe not, but still there’d have been children, and she wouldn’t have had to leave.
“We can’t take beehives in the wagons anyway,” Martin said. He put his arm around her.
“Good luck to all of you.” Mr. Cole went down the porch steps.
“Look after the barn cats,” Kate said.
He turned with his hand on the railing. “I will.”
* * *
ANDREW and Martin used the money to buy oxen and extra-strong wagons made of cypress, with hickory bows and waterproofed canvas covers.
“It’s April. We’ve got to hurry,” Andrew said.
Kate and Olivia bundled clothing into trunks. They packed cooking supplies and food.
“I wish I hadn’t married him,” Olivia said. She was crying. “Aren’t you sorry?”
“No.” Kate loved Martin too much to believe the brothers had plotted to get their farm and sell it, but she also believed that in marriage, some sort of bargain was struck. “It’ll be
