“It’s barbaric out there.” Willie’s grip on the shovel slipped. “You, by yourself—”
“Alone, on my own homestead?” I said. “You know I’ll handle whatever comes my way.”
Willie groaned and rubbed his face, his palm dripping translucent brown creek water onto his mustache. “You’re fixin’ to catch yourself an alias, like Little Britches or the Bandit Queen.”
“Mayhem Minnie?” I gulped water from a canteen. “I’ll snatch my land. You two, yours. Meet at the land office at sundown.”
Ezra wiped a fleck of soil on his pocket watch with his handkerchief. “Shouldn’t be off on your own, anyhow. Women, owning property.”
“Just watch me.” I clicked to Cricket and turned upstream, done wasting time.
A gust of wind slapped my face, cold where silt coated my skin, and as I climbed the rise, I felt bygone days drop away.
Chapter Three
As Cricket galloped, a red froth blurred the space between his ankles and the earth. The sunburnt expanse of bluestem grasses stretched and stretched until prairie faded away. I saw not a soul, yet I felt the press of bodies, rushers scrambling throughout the land. Cricket vaulted over a dry creek bottom, then leapt over a knee-high line of flame. We were close to the claim I’d scouted—half a mile, perhaps.
It was hushed, alone in the wide unknown.
My life before chattered with voices. In the stillness, remembrances of moments bursting with noise settled over me. Growing up, it’d been the three of us dashing across the prairie: Magnolia and me and our neighbor Lark, a boy born the month after me. Lark, always with some new shenanigan; Magnolia with her eager goodness; and, off yonder, the muted tones of my parents and brothers. That first autumn day, after Magnolia’s birth parents had passed on from the grippe, I’d sat on the bough of an elm and waited for my orphaned cousin. My scraped, six-year-old knees pulled against my chest. Lark leaned against the trunk below, his boots crossed at the ankles, the mahogany leather worn and unlacing from the soles. He pushed off the tree and rocked forward, then back onto his wooden heels, tiny puffs of dust clouding, his energy never containable.
Our buggy rolled up the path. Black lace shadowed Ma’s face, mourning for her sister and brother-in-law. Pa halted the wagon, and Ma lifted Magnolia, her toddler face blanched, petal-pink dress dingyand torn along the hem. I’d expected a baby, eyelids swollen and red, but the line of Magnolia’s profile was elegant, her demeanor almost serene.
“Her hair’s so shiny.” I picked at a scab on my elbow, scowled at Magnolia’s glossy, blond ringlets.
Lark bumped back against the bole and pulled apart the length of an oat stalk. Ma lowered Magnolia to the grass and clasped her tiny hand, leading her uphill. Ma palmed the sway of her own back, realigning her posture.
“Why isn’t she crying?” I asked.
Lark tossed the stems away and grinned up at me, his smile quick and lopsided. “I’ve some burr acorns we can shove beneath her quilt.”
I scooted to the edge of the branch, readying to hop down, when Magnolia tripped and collapsed into nettle. She pushed herself up, eyes wide, face white—but she didn’t cry. The sugarberry canopy above her swayed, scattering shadows and light across the grass, and a bucketful of yellow leaves cascaded down. My heart tumbled in my chest, and I just knew: I’d forever care for Magnolia with everything that was within me.
“No.”
“Alright,” Lark said, “suppose we could—”
“Look at her.” Ma scooped Magnolia up and slipped inside our home, Magnolia’s tiny pink fingers clutching Ma’s sleeve. “She’s so delicate.”
Lark rocked back onto his heels. “Yeah, she’s a baby.”
I swung from the branch. “We protect her. No matter what.”
Lark shoved at his tawny hair. “Sure enough.”
“Promise. None of our usual nonsense and horsefeathers.” I swept bark fragments off my hands with a loud clap. “She’s ours now.”
I’d held out my palm for our secret handshake. He took my hand, and ever after it’d been Lark and Magnolia and me exploring our little realm, dreaming of what could be beyond. But then they’d both chosen to stay back in Kansas. Now it was only me, headed into the frontier.
A copper pot rattled against my long gun, Cricket’s shoulders rippling with sweat and movement. I pressed my calves against his flank as we dartedinto a thicket of blackjack oaks. Brambles clawed my hair, and sunbeams got tangled up in the canopy. Below, a luster rippled in the taupe water of the stream. I was so thirsty, but first I must stake claim. Cricket’s hooves crunched over a layer of walnuts, and deep in the forest was the blur of scarlet hawthorn apples, the silver bark of a hackberry, the gnarled twist of a mock orange. This land could sustain me during winter. Most nesters would starve, freeze, or just plain wither under the tumult of the prairie wind. Without time to plant crops before winter, my horses and I needed access to food and water if we’d survive until spring.
Beyond the woodland, the earth swayed in slopes and rises. Eastward, the prairie lifted to a hillock perfect for a few cows. I glimpsed no one—this prairie could become my home. Most claims were a stretch of sandstone red dirt. The meadow here was cider and fawn, ivory and the deep emerald of evergreen. There were scrubby wild grape bushes and holly berries, and under the glow of Oklahoma sunshine, all imaginable shades of gold.
I withdrew my claim flag: the linen coarse in my palms, ends thrashing in the wind. A surveyor’s cornerstone marker sat between a ragged thistle and some wild oats. I charged forward, flag thrust high. At the stone, I vaulted off Cricket, pulled my stake from its rope fastenings, and jammed the pole into the ground. It didn’t budge a fingernail into the hard, dry earth. I yanked off my iron skillet and pounded and pounded and pounded until the rod finally sank into the soil.
My hands shook as I tied my flag to the stake. The russet lettering rippled in the wind, a proclamation stamped into the fabric:
This claim is taken by
