Free Home to Caroline by Adera Orfanelli

Chapter One
    The sun pounded the top of Caroline’s bonnet, sweat dripping beneath the collar of her dress. The unplowed field mocked her with clods and sparse patches of weeds, a reminder of things she couldn’t do. Plow the field. Carry a child to term. One shouldn’t follow the other but everything these days reminded her of her failing. Her husband was due home from the war any day now and he deserved a well-tended field and a family, or at the very least a wife who could give him a child. Sighing, Caroline shoved those thoughts aside. She didn’t have time for wool gathering. The clouds threatened rain yet again. She needed dry days to plant, then the rains could come and nourish the seeds in the ground.
    With renewed determination, Caroline tugged on the cheek strap of Dolly’s leather bridle. The big gray draft mare towered over her, one dinner plate-sized front hoof stamping the ground. She snorted and shook her head, wrenching the bridle from Caroline’s grip.
    “Oh, you no good nag.” Caroline snatched one of Dolly’s reins in her hand and pulled the end toward her. She lifted it in the air, intending to give the mare a strong whack. She couldn’t. Not when the mare was as hot and tired as Caroline was, and both their bellies rumbled with hunger. If Travis were here, she had no doubt he’d already have half the field plowed. With a sigh, Caroline sagged against the horse’s warm hide. Travis wasn’t home, hadn’t been since he’d enlisted in the Confederate army. He’d had kin in Tennessee, he’d said. He had to fight for them. Just like Samuel, her brother, had to fight for the Union, only to return home wounded. She had prayed her husband wouldn’t find a similar fate. Though as the days grew closer to summer, she prayed he would make it home.
    Dolly’s shoulder blade, visible beneath her silver coat, poked Caroline. She bit her lip. “We both need some vittles, girl. I know.” She smoothed her hand down the horse’s neck. “Come on. If I don’t get this field planted then neither one of us will eat.”
    The horse cocked her head. Her ears perked forward.
    Hope surged anew. Maybe Dolly understood. “Okay, girl!” Caroline hurried to the back of the plow, lest the horse change her mind. Grabbing the other rein—she really shouldn’t have let it drop—she gave both a hearty shake. “Hup!”
    Dolly snorted.
    “Go, damn you!” Caroline called. Samuel had always known how to make Dolly work. He’d lean on his cane and shout orders to the stubborn draft horse. She sniffed. No use thinking about him now, dead these three months. Not even the doc from town could save him. Gone, just like her father, just like her husband. Though her husband might return. The war had ended little over a month ago, and Travis’ last letter said he’d been stationed in Tennessee. One man surely could ride between here and Memphis in a month.
    She frowned. Unless he wasn’t coming back… Her hand fell to her flat stomach. He didn’t know. He’d come back, and then she’d have to tell him. He’d probably leave then. Maybe it’d be better if he didn’t come home at all, though her heart ached to think such things.
    She shook the reins, feeling like a chicken squawking behind the mare who paid her as little heed as her old dog, Blue, used to give those chickens. Which, considering how deaf and blind the hound had been in his declining years, wasn’t much.
    Storm clouds darkened in the west. Already the wind strengthened, teasing her with the scent of rain. The first clear day in two weeks, getting too late to plant. Please God, I’m a simple woman. Make this horse move and keep the ground dry for another day.
    Dolly’s tail swished. She stomped her hoof, the gathering storm making her uneasy. “Hup!” Caroline called again.
    The horse looked over her shoulder.
    Carefully, she gathered the reins, bringing them forward with her as she slid her gloved fingers around the bridle. “Come on,” she