The Misadventures of Maude March by Audrey Couloumbis Page B

then.”
    “John Henry?” Maude said. “You know who wrote them?”
    “No, no,” Marion said, pulling himself up straighter in the saddle. “It's just the name I give to those initials your sister told me.”
    This conversation only carried us into strong daylight, not that strong daylight was so easy to find under a sky the colorof pewter. By late morning the three of us were soaked to the skin and wishing for another pine tree. We hadn't bothered with conversation for two hours at least.
    The wind picked up and pushed darker clouds across the sky. “Looks like we're in for some weather,” Marion said. “I hope that's a cabin up ahead.”
    “Where?” Maude said, and stood in her stirrups to see. “I don't see anything but that wagon.”
    “Your eyes aren't adjusted to distances,” Marion said kindly. “Mine are adjusted, but don't get your hopes up; it might not be a cabin. It's just a bump in the flat as yet, even for my eyes. I reckon we're an hour's ride from it.”
    I kept shut. I couldn't even see the wagon.
    We picked up speed a little, but it seemed like the longest hour of my life. By the time we reached the bump, my teeth were chattering and so were Maude's. The bump in the flat was not a cabin. It was an abandoned wagon.
    “I guess you were right,” Marion said to Maude.
    A rocking chair sat next to it like an invitation. Or a cruel joke. The disappointment was severe. Maude choked back a sob. I understood. She thought he must have seen something beyond the wagon.
    “I told you not to get your hopes up,” Marion reminded her. “We could tip the wagon for a windbreak and get a little fire going. But that don't shelter the horses. I say we keep going.”
    “How far?” Maude asked him, shivering.
    “We can make Skunk Hollow by nightfall,” he said. “But I hesitate to take you gals in there, even looking like boys. It's a rough place. We'd best push for Des Moines.”
    Maude's teeth clacked, which I took for a kind of giving in. Marion was made of hardier stuff; his teeth kept quiet. His fingers were no less blue than ours, I noticed, so he understood that Maude was nearing the end of her rope. “It's not much further.”
    “Des Moines is not rough?” Maude asked.
    “Every place is rough, just some places are rougher than others.”
    “We're too cold,” I said, thinking warm thoughts about that fire he mentioned.
    “Get down and walk. If we walk fast, we'll warm up, you'll see. We'll warm up and then give the horses a little run to return the favor.”

M ARION WAS RIGHT ABOUT WALKING. HE WALKED US fast, and inside an hour we did warm up as good as sitting by the fire. I never would have thought of it myself, but then the cold numbs your brain, that's one thing I learned as well.
    We had another river to ford, but Marion was familiar with the territory and walked us alongside the rushing water in fading daylight. After an hour or more of watching the water boil and of me wishing we didn't have to face it, Marion brought us to a point where a ridge of land could be walked across it.
    I was filled with admiration for the man.
    “Wrap the reins around your hand a time or two. If you end up in the water,” he said to us before we started across, “don't let go of your horse. Stay on it, if you can.”
    The horses were underwater up to their bellies in fast-rushing water, however shallow it was at that point. It took some coaxing to get them to walk it in the dark. They kept wanting to give in to the flow of water around their legs and swim. But Maude and I were more able to bully them than weonce were, and we riders got no wetter for this crossing than any others.
    We rode till I had lost all hope of finding a place to sleep. When we saw lights in the distance, I thought it was a trick of my eyes. “How late is it?” I asked, instead of asking, was it real?
    “Past midnight, I reckon,” Marion said. “Not all cities sleep.” So I knew, it was real. I had been near the point of