What Once We Loved by Jane Kirkpatrick

was that two of them was worse than tying cougars together at the tail.”
    “They act fine to me,” Ruth said. “And I have full plans to keep them separated on the trail. Once we're north, we won't be sharing pasture. Not that it's any of your account.”
    Seth raised an eyebrow but didn't speak. Ruth wondered if she sounded spiteful. Men often raised an eyebrow when she spoke more forceful than she meant to. She was just sharing information, that was all, telling things to peoples eyes. Men did that all the time and expected people to just accept it. When a woman spoke her mind, they acted as if she was some kind of…wild one. People took her wrongly, but she couldn't account for how other people listened. She had things on her mind, and they'd just have to accept that.
    She motioned for Jason to join her. The boy came, along with Jessie. They stuck their heads in the back of the wagon and with Ruth scanned the trunks and boxes there, a wooden rake, pack boxes with tack. Her eye lit on the one she knew held a few bones and the tail hairs of Jumper. Taking you with us. She was glad again for her decision. Everything they needed was loaded, including Lura's knife sharpener and flour and salt to last them a couple of months.
    Koda stood saddled and tied to the wagon along with two other green-broke mares that Mariah and the boys would ride. Jessie had chosen the wagon seat where Lura and Sarah would sit, a move that surprised Ruth. She'd always been so willing and wanting to ride. Now it appeared she preferred sidling up next to Lura.
    “Let's head out,” Matthew said then, and Ruth shot him a grateful glance.
    Matthew moved toward his mother who was hugging Adora and patting little Ben on the head and making the rounds to Elizabeth and the rest. He touched her elbow, and the woman nodded. Sarah approached and Matthew lifted her like a paper fan, her little pinafore billowed out as she stepped down into the box. Then he unhitched his big gray gelding named Sailor and said, “Step along, boys. Ma. Come on now.”
    “I don't believe I'm ready to leave just yet,” Lura said. She lifted a mug of cider she'd placed in the box and drank from it. Lura's cheeks were pink. Perhaps from her singing “Pop Goes the Weasel” with thechildren not long before. “Got my pipe to chew on. I'm ready. Feels like I been living out of a wagon for over a year now.”
    “Let's be mounting up, children,” Ruth said.
    A kind of frenzy began then, with David helping Seth check the harnessing of the oxen, Elizabeth carrying last-minute food bags from the cabin. Mazy, too, busied herself, scraping butter from the mold and wrapping it in wet cheesecloth and placing it in the wagon.
    Matthew sat with his hands crossed over the saddle pommel.
    “I thank you,” Elizabeth said. “For the laughter and the special thoughts and all the rest you gave us to ponder by your presence. And we ask for traveling mercies for you all.”
    “We'll think of you every time we make angel pie,” Sarah said, waving down at Elizabeth. “Won't we, Jessie?”
    Ruth thought the girl would be crying any second, and she cleared her throat, hoping she wouldn't do the same. She brushed up against Mazy setting the butter into a camp box. Ruth heard her sniff.
    “Let's just get these hugs and holds and good-byes said fast as we can,” Mazy said then, stepping away from the wagon, nearly stumbling over Jessie who'd slipped out and come to wrap her arms around Mazy's apron. The woman knelt down so she could pull the child to her, kissed her head. Ned came next to brush against her, stick his hand to Seth's to shake.
    “We'll float that wagon away if we're not careful,” Mazy said, dabbing at her eyes with her apron. “You wont be able to drive it off.”
    “Thought that might be what you had in mind,” Mazy's mother said.
    “I can accept the inevitable,” Mazy said, pushing against her knees to stand. Her eyes glistened. “But I don't have to like it.”
    Mazy