The Prairie

Lynn was the first to wake, that morning. She often was. Just as the gray light of dawn began to filter through the closed shutters of the little house where her family lived.

The single room was cold in the morning, even in summer, but it held almost everything the Ashfords owned. Along one wall, sturdy shelves held tin plates and cups, folded towels and table linens, and a single row of books on the bottom shelf. The beds and pallets were arranged wherever space allowed, with a few blankets hung to provide some semblance of privacy. Near the hearth, a heavy table stood surrounded by four chairs and two stools, along with a wooden chest that served in turn as storage, a seat, or a work surface. It was a modest home, but well built, practical, and carefully kept.

For a while, Lynn remained beneath her blanket, listening to the familiar sounds of her brothers and sister sleeping. Robbie’s breathing was slow, while Elias shifted beneath his covers, prompting a few sleepy protests from Madeline. Lynn knew those sounds by heart. At twenty-one, and the eldest of four, she had spent enough years helping care for them to know the rhythm of their breathing almost as well as her own.

Her family had arrived in the spring of 1869. Back North, the years following the war had been difficult, and work had been irregular for her father, Jonas, a carpenter by trade. The rising cost of food and the unforeseen hardships of life—not least her mother Hazel’s fragile health—had gradually eaten through their meager savings. Word had reached them of land available in the West, of settlements rising by the hands of pioneers, and with them the promise of what Jonas called 'a second chance' at a better life. They had hesitated, mourned the last ties they still had in Ohio, and finally taken to the road. The road that led them to the first timber frames of Independence.

Independence had sprung up in the prairie, first as a scattering of isolated cabins, then as a handful of buildings and houses still separated by broad stretches of open grass. The streets still existed mostly in people’s intentions, but within a year, what had been little more than a dream had officially become a 'village', now with a hotel, a general store, several sawmills, and a flour mill. There was no shortage of work for Jonas, and at last the family could breathe again.

The house itself bore the mark of her father’s craftsmanship, and Lynn was fond of its walls, sturdier than those of many of the homes their neighbors had built. The door fit squarely in its frame, and even the table had been planed smooth enough for Hazel to run a cloth over it without the fabric catching on splinters. Jonas had made with his own hands nearly everything they owned that could be made. What could not, the Ashfords still somehow managed without.

Jonas spoke of the future as though it were something that could be fashioned like a chair or a roof, measured carefully, fitted together, made solid by persistence, and Lynn wanted to believe him.

In her parents’ bed, Lynn’s mother coughed. Her health had never been robust, and unfortunately, the life they led demanded that it be. Some mornings, exhaustion remained visible on her face long after she woke; at other times, spells of weakness forced her to put down her work and sit. Every day, she and Lynn’s father still made sure the family lacked for nothing, especially Elias and Maddie, who, after all, were not yet ten. Even so, Lynn had learned early to notice what needed doing and see to it before anyone had to ask.

One advantage was the trust her family placed in her, and with it came a certain freedom. Lynn could linger by the river, listening to the rush of the water, or stay a little longer in town: her parents knew she would do her share of the work, as she always had, and often more. Hazel had taught her to read when she was very young, having once worked in a library back in Ohio. Lynn loved novels as much as travel accounts, but more than anything, she loved understanding people.

She lay still for another moment, her eyes open toward the ceiling. From outside came the clear song of a meadowlark, as though it too were announcing that the day had begun. Out on the prairie, their house seemed so small, almost insignificant. All around it, the tall grass stretched as far as the eye could see beneath endless skies, with distant lines of trees marking waterways she now knew well. She loved this landscape, even though she had come to know the harshness of its winters and the danger of prairie fires. More than most, perhaps, Lynn understood how little they were in the midst of such immensity. And deep down, she was at peace with that.

After finally pushing back her blanket, she slipped into an everyday dress, loosely braided her hair, and crossed the room, deliberately barefoot. She cast one last glance at those still sleeping, then lifted the latch as quietly as she could. Once again, she would be the one to draw the morning water from the well.

The meadowlark sang again, and all at once the still-cool air of the summer morning caught at her cheeks. Before her, the prairie stretched beneath a thin veil of mist. She breathed deeply, taking in the scent of damp grasses and earth still cool from the night, mingled with the acrid smell of ashes from the previous evening’s fire. Yet there was something else in the air. Something she could not name.

For a few moments, Lynn simply stood there, the bucket tucked beneath her arm. Then a low rumble rose from the prairie. Hooves, pounding the turf in a steady rhythm.

Lynn froze.

In the year since their arrival, she had also come to understand that some of the trails here had not been made by the people of Independence. That some of the campfires had not been lit by them. Hoofprints regularly appeared in the earth beyond their enclosure. When they had left Ohio, her father had spoken of this place as 'a blank page waiting to be written', but Lynn allowed herself to wonder whether the expression truly fit when one settled in a place where other people already lived.

Gradually, shapes emerged from the mist. At first they were only dark forms, tall and shifting with the horses’ gait, the animals breathing white clouds through their nostrils. Cream-colored and piebald coats, black or chestnut tails, lean yet powerful bodies moving in a long file. Then, as they drew closer, the men began to distinguish themselves from their mounts.

Some wore breechcloths and leggings, leaving their chests bare despite the morning chill, while others kept blankets or hide garments drawn around their shoulders. Moccasins, fabrics, and ornaments varied from one man to the next, as did their hairstyles: some shaved close except for a carefully preserved section of longer hair, others arranged or adorned with a feather. All were dressed to ride, walk, and hunt, each carrying in his own way some expression of who he was.

One older man held a long lance upright beside him, another rested his bow across his thighs, his arrows arranged behind his shoulder. Some of the horses carried tightly secured bundles or rolled hides brought back from the hunt. Bodies and faces - young or weathered, often tired - were painted on some, left bare on others. Their eyes occasionally passed over the Ashfords’ house before returning to the trail, their glances brief and measured.

This was not the first time Lynn had seen them: she had occasionally glimpsed riders crossing the prairie, usually far enough away to appear only as dark silhouettes moving between the grass and the sky. She knew that their villages and camps lay beyond the familiar paths her family traveled, and that these hunting grounds, rivers, and trails had belonged to them long before the first houses of Independence were raised.

In town, the Osages were regarded with fear, contempt, or sometimes a wary kind of respect. Deep down, everyone knew that the newcomers here were the settlers. But most had left poverty or uncertainty behind somewhere else, and very few chose to return to what they had fled.

Lynn’s gaze dropped briefly to the grass. She knew all of this, too. Yet this morning, closer to the house than ever before, the Osages became something more to her than distant presences. They had faces marked by the weariness of the hunt, but also, as they passed the house, by a gravity she could not ignore. Some looked solemn, almost somber.

One of the oldest men turned his head. His gaze traveled slowly over the planks stacked for the construction of their new barn, then finally came to rest on Lynn.

" Xuháaska ," he said quietly.

The word meant nothing to Lynn, but from the man’s gaze she understood that he meant her, or perhaps everything that stood behind her. None of the other riders answered. The old man had already turned his eyes away and continued on his way.

Suddenly, however, one of the hunters turned his head. His eyes, outlined in dark pigment, met Lynn’s, and she held her breath.

He didn't seem to be more than a year or two older than her. Of average height among the riders, lean and straight-backed on his horse, he had bare shoulders and long markings traced across his dark skin. His hair was shaved close in places and left longer in others, carefully dressed and adorned with a few feathers that sharpened the severity of his profile. Yet his face was young, almost paradoxically so for the expression he wore.

His dark eyes remained on her for a moment, and Lynn found herself unable to hold his gaze: perhaps because of the dark pigment that made it so arresting, perhaps because there was no friendly curiosity in it. Her eyes dropped instead to the stride of his horse, which he rode with easy grace, without the slightest stiffness, horse and rider moving as one.

No other word was spoken. Troubled by a sense of guilt she could not yet quite name, Lynn remained staring at the ground, where hoofprints were gathering one after another.

When she finally dared to raise her eyes, the riders were already moving away. Of the man who had looked at her, she could now see only his straight back, swaying gently with the gait of his piebald horse. Among all the others, she could still pick him out, and she watched him for as long as she could. Until the mist swallowed him too, and carried away the sound of hoofbeats.

Lynn remained motionless in front of the house, the bucket still tucked beneath her arm, her eyes fixed on the tall grass. Behind her, the door creaked.

"Don’t just stand there."

Her father stood motionless in the doorway. His voice was sharper than usual, and he too was looking toward the place where the riders had disappeared.

"They don’t like seeing us here."

Lynn turned toward him.

"I think they have good reason not to."

Jonas placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Go inside."

She wanted to protest, but something in her father’s face stopped her: that expression he wore when he was afraid but would never admit it. She clenched her jaw, gripping the handle of her still-empty bucket, and he added:

"Now."