Free Threads of Change by Jodi Barrows

“can’t be good for us. It can’t be healthy!”
    “Why am I the one who has to tell Thomas we need a break?” Liz protested.
    “Well, you are the oldest, of course,” Megan said, as if it should be understood.
    Abby agreed. “If anyone were to talk with him, it should be you.”
    “I will speak with him.”
    “Lizzie,” Abby said, as she looked at her hands and wiggled her fingers. “Look at my hands! Are yours so swollen?”
    “Good heavens, dear lady!” Liz said, holding her cousin’s red and swollen hands. “Megan’s are faintly red, but nothing like yours.”
    “You don’t need to hold the reins so stiffly,” Megan said. “Only tug when the horses need to be commanded.”
    “I must have held them too tightly without realizing it.”
    “Let’s fill our canteens down here,” Liz told them, watching her steps as she made her way down to the water.
    The others followed her down to the creek, and they all washed their hands and chatted for a time.
    “We should get back to the wagons,” Liz said, looking up at the sun. “We left a while ago.”
    The ladies finished washing and made their way up from the creek, following their own trail of trodden weeds and grass that they’d blazed on their way to the water.
    The women strolled leisurely back to the wagons to find the men with their hats over their eyes, napping and obviously in no rush at all to start the wagons rolling again. The ladies giggled and, after a brief moment of whispering discussion, decided to wake them.
    Thomas looked up, his eyes half squinted from sleep. “Wha-what is it? Has Chet returned already?”
    “No,” Liz said, smiling at his sleepiness.
    John awoke and leaned forward, listening from underneath one of the wagons, and Blue groaned as he sat upright from against a thick tree trunk.
    “What if … he’s been bitten by a snake?” Emma speculated.
    “Ladies, please,” John said. “You’re only scaring yourselves. He hasn’t been gone long. There’s nothing to worry about.”
    John looked to Thomas, somewhat confused over the situation.
    “Well, what are we going to do about this,” Emma demanded. “What if he’s not back by nightfall?”
    “What would you like us to do?” Thomas asked calmly.
    “Well,” Emma said. “I would only hope that you wouldn’t be so passive if I were the one out there and had been gone for this long.”
    “Emma.” Liz looked at Thomas and stepped in. “Let’s not worry about it just yet. We must hope that everything is fine and he will return soon. We can’t worry like this every time Chet leaves to scout out our trail.”
    “Can’t we go look for him?” Emma pressed.
    Thomas pushed up to his feet and grabbed hold of the horse’s ropes and loosed them from the tree. “I will go and search for him.”
    “Where will you go?” Emma questioned.
    “I’ll follow the river a short way,” he said, and then he paused. “And I’ll come back a different route.”
    Blue and John stepped closer to Thomas’s horse as Luke listened in silence, half asleep.
    “Is all this really necessary?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “Do you want one of us to go with you?”
    “No, it’s best that you stay here. I need you to stay with the women and keep them calm,” he said, pulling himself onto the horse. “I will be back soon. Do not come looking for me.”
    Thomas left on horseback immediately and rushed through the thick area, disappearing at once.
    “I just know something is wrong!” Emma exclaimed. “I knew he had been gone for far too long! What will we do without a scout! We can’t …”
    “Emma, please!” Liz said. “It’s not certain that anything is wrong at all. Thomas will find Chet, if he needs to be found at all, and they will return soon.”
    “Yes, exactly,” Abby said before turning suddenly to Blue for reassurance.
    Liz swallowed her own worry, only pausing to look after Thomas’s trail for a moment. Nightfall would come soon. The sun had already dipped