the morning Sunny awoke to Dawn’s hungry whimpering. She stared up at the cloth covering of the Conestoga wagon, illuminated with sunlight, and stifled a sigh. She touched the rumpled blanket at her feet that Noah had slept upon—when he wasn’t tossing with another awful nightmare. She heard him already outside, stirring up the cook fire. Lassitude gripped her.
Dawn began to cry and that moved Sunny. Noah had crafted a kind of hammock just inside the front opening of the canvas top. Sunny lifted her child down, changed her soaked diaper and then put her to nurse. The breeze blew warm and gentle.
Tears slipped down Sunny’s cheeks. She clamped her eyes closed. Loneliness was stripping away her peace. Weeks had passed since she’d had a simple conversation with another woman. The faces of her mother’s friends, her only friends in the world except for the Gabriels, came to mind. She’d left them all behind. How would she handle this loneliness, keep it from destroying her peace?
“Good morning, wife.” Noah looked in from the rear opening.
Sunny blinked rapidly, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tears. “Good morning,” she replied, forcing a smile.
“I’ve got the coffee boiling.” His words revealed little but the mundane. Didn’t he ever long to sit with another man and talk of men things? Men came to saloons to do that, just to jaw and laugh. Not that she wanted Noah to go to the saloon in town.
But, Noah, why don’t you want to talk with other men?
She patted Dawn, who wore the seraphic smile she always had when nursing. When Sunny looked up, she glimpsed a look on Noah’s face that she hadn’t seen before.
He looked away quickly.
She sensed such a deep loneliness and hidden pain in him. But she also keenly felt the wall he kept between them. “I’ll be out soon.”
“No rush. We have a good day. Perfect for felling trees.”
Sunny tried to look happy at this news. He turned away and she heard him unloading tools from the storage area under the wagon.
This won’t last forever. We’ll go to town from time to time. I’ll meet local women, become part of this community. Again she pictured Dawn dressed in a fresh white pinafore, running toward a little white schoolhouse, calling to her friends. And they were calling back to her, happy to see her.
I can do this. This is Dawn’s future, not just mine.
* * *
After breakfast Noah picked up his ax and headed toward the edge of the clearing.
“Please be careful, Noah,” his wife said.
Her concern made him feel...something. He couldn’t put a name to it, but it wasn’t bad, whatever it was. “I’m always careful with an ax in my hand.”
She didn’t look convinced, but in time she would be. He looked at her for a moment, at the way her lush blond hair flowed down her back as she brushed it, getting ready to pin it up for the day.
His wife was beautiful.
Turning away to shut this out, he studied the trees at the edge of the clearing and chose which one would be the first for their future cabin. He selected an elm thrice as tall and wide as he. He gauged where he wanted it to fall and took his position. He swung and felt the blade bite the bark and wood, the impact echoing through his whole body. He set his pace and kept a steady rhythm.
Finally at the right moment he swung and the tree creaked, trembled and fell with a swish of leaves. It bounced once, twice and shivered to a halt. Wiping his brow with a handkerchief, Noah grinned.
Sweat trickling down his back, he began to chop away the branches so he could roll the first fresh log aside and start on the next tree, a maple. Then he heard something unexpected. He stopped, checking to see if he’d actually heard it.
In the distance came the sound of another ax. And another.
Irritation prickled through him.
“Do you hear that?” Sunny asked from behind him. “Sounds like someone else is felling trees. Maybe they’re building a cabin not too far away.”
Hoping she was dead wrong, he glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed her smile as she listened intently. She’d obviously just walked back from the creek, a dishpan of washed breakfast dishes in her arms.
“Might be loggers. Or someone cutting wood for winter so it has time to cure before then.” He turned back to the maple. “You need to keep back from me. When I take a swing, I don’t want to hit you.”
“I’ll stay back. I’m setting up my outdoor kitchen and such,” she said, moving away.
The sound of the other axes on the clean spring air echoed around his own swings, making it harder to concentrate and keep his own rhythm. He fumed. I chose this site because it was miles from town and any other homestead. Whoever you are, go away.
As if the logger had heard his thoughts, the distant chopping stopped.
He shook his arms and shoulders, loosening them. With renewed purpose, he swung his ax, eating into the corn-hued wood pulp, sending chips and bark flying.
In between swings he overheard Sunny singing to Dawn. He’d made the right decision. Sunny always kept cheerful, never complained and worked hard. They’d make do.
Noah was sizing up the third tree when something startled him.
“Hello, the wagon!” called a cheerful male voice.
Noah was puzzled for a second, then realized the greeting was a twist on the usual frontier salute of “Hello, the house,” which people often said to let the inhabitants of a house know someone was approaching, giving them time to prepare to welcome rare visitors.
Just what Noah didn’t need—clever company.
“Hello!” Sunny called in return. “Welcome!”
Her buoyant voice grated Noah’s nerves. He lowered his ax, trying to prepare himself to meet whoever had intruded. With one swift downward stroke he sunk the ax into a nearby stump.
Two men, both near his age, were advancing on him, smiles on their faces and their right hands outstretched. He didn’t smile, but he did shake their hands in turn.
He wanted to be left alone, but he didn’t want people talking behind his back, thinking him odd. He’d had enough of that in the army and in Pennsylvania. In the army his Quaker plain speech had marked him as odd and back home, he was a Quaker who’d gone to war. He hadn’t fitted in either place. And he’d given up trying.
“We heard your ax,” the taller of the two said. “I’m Charles Fitzhugh and this is Martin Steward. We’re your closest neighbors.”
“I’m Noah Whitmore.” Then he introduced the men to Sunny and Dawn, his wife and child. “Your claims must not be very far away.” He clenched his jaw. He’d checked every direction but one—northeast—since he’d been told that no claim lay in those rolling hills.
“Mine’s a little over
