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“That’s it?” he said. “You’ve come clear to town just to post that letter of yours? The weather being what it is?”

“No,” I said. “There’s this and that,” and then I turned and hurried out of the store before he could say anything.

Outside, the wind gusted, pulling at my coat and skirt. Across the street, the children waited for me, holding hands like I had told them. They stood close to the wall of the barbershop but held themselves tight pressed to each other as if that could break the wind. Mary held Emma, and the carpetbag was at John’s feet. The supper basket was between Liz and Alise. They wore their hats pulled low, and their neck scarves were wound tight across their mouths and knotted under their chins. Their coats were buttoned high. Mary’s and John’s were tight across their chests, though, and I knew their knobby wrists that showed above their gloves were raw from the cold. Their boots were tight, not that either of them complained, but I had seen how they winced when they walked. Nobody in Chicago, I thought, will believe that their father was a rancher. Our children looked like orphans from the poorhouse.

Low snowdrifts lined the south side of the street. Jumping some, I got over the drift and made my way across the dirt street that was mostly blown clear of the snow. Wind, trapped between the two rows of buildings that made Interior, whipped my clothes. I couldn’t imagine who had written Isaac. My coat and skirt caught around my legs, pulling me. I staggered, stumbling, sure that I would fall, the wind bigger than me. Put the letter behind you, I told myself. There were enough worries without taking on another one. I steadied myself and kept going, stepping around the street’s ruts that were covered with ice.

I stepped up onto the plank walk where the children waited. “Mama?” Mary said as I came near. “What’re we doing?”

I ignored her as I took Emma. “Come on,” I said, settling Emma on my hip.

John pulled my arm. “Where’re we going?”

“Home,” I said. That was what I had told them that morning when they heard me tell Manny Franks to hitch the wagon. That was what I said after I told Manny Franks he was taking me and the children to town.

John said, “But you sent Manny back home, back without us.”

“Never mind that. Come on.” I started walking, the children hurrying to catch up. Our boots clattered on the wooden walk as we went past the Lutheran church, the bank, and the empty lot where the Interior Hotel stood before it burned down. We were the only people out. We walked past the Interior Saloon, and as we did, I put my hand to Emma’s head and tucked her face against the wool of my coat’s collar. I thought about our wood house, about how for the last three days I had worked harder than I ever had before, washing, polishing, and cleaning, getting it ready for the winter. Carrying Mrs. Fills the Pipe’s words about the dead in my mind, I had gotten the cradle from the barn and put it by my bed. I put the baby quilt in it, tucking in the corners. Feeling foolish but willing to do it anyway, I took a scrap piece of paper and wrote “Chicago” in big letters. I put it on top of the baby quilt. “That’s where I’ll be,” I had whispered, “should you come looking.”

Me and the children were at the depot office by then. “John,” I said, nodding my head toward the door, my way of telling him to open it.

He looked at me. “What’re we doing?”

“Mama,” Mary said. “Tell us. Please tell us.”

I couldn’t. There were no words for what I was doing.

“The door,” I said. John hesitated, working up an argument. I gave him my hardest look. Wincing some, he opened the door; it nearly flew when a gust of wind caught it. I put my spare hand to it and we went inside.

A man with yellow hair stood by the open stove. He held a bucket under one arm. I didn’t know him. I nodded a greeting. He nodded back, then reached into the bucket, getting a handful of cow chips. “Well,” he said, “you must be DuPree’s family.” He threw the chips into the stove. Small red flames jumped and crackled.