Charlotte

When the least likely person in your life becomes the one who means the most.

Charlotte’s father left her alone on the prairie with her own wagon, a team and the mare. She was to wait for Ellis Gray and the wagon train he was leading. Charlotte understood that her father was paying Ellis Gray to see her to Fort Randall where she would meet her uncle and go to live out in the desert with a new husband. That she didn’t want a new husband didn’t matter. They were going to hang you, her father said. She knew this was true.

Charlotte joined the wagon train at the back where they meant for her to stay. She made molasses bread in her tin oven at night and passed it out to the small hands that reached for it. She befriended Ada, the wild-haired barefoot girl too young for the burdens placed on her, and Fiona, whose husband Charlotte knew just by looking at his hard face.

Then members of the tribes appeared along the ridge, a line of them sitting astride their horses, wrapped in blankets, looking old and sad. Charlotte’s fate was sealed when Ellis rode out to meet them.

Because one of them was neither old or sad.