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Over the first few weeks on the prairie, Emily felt the distance between Kansas and Chicago expand, her former life blurring and fading as new chores and responsibilities, and her love for Henry, absorbed her energy and thoughts.

She felt the distance grow between her and Annie, too.

She’d telephoned from the store to let Annie know she had arrived safely, and to ask how baby Dorothy was doing, but the conversation was strained, interrupted by a crossed line and eventually cut short by Dorothy’s furious hungry howls in the background.

“I’m sorry, Em. It isn’t a good time.” Frustrated by Annie’s lack of interest, Emily had written a long letter to Nell instead, telling her all about her new prairie home.

Dearest Nell,

I wanted to let you know that Annie had a lovely little girl—Dorothy. She is the image of her, and they are both doing well. And I am now (at last) with my dear Henry in Kansas. I wish you could meet him. You would love him so. Promise you’ll visit soon. It has been too long since I last saw you.

Henry has built us the most perfect little home and our land stretches for miles. How we will ever turn it all to wheat and corn I don’t know, but I am excited by the prospect, if more than a little terrified.

Please send words of encouragement and advice. How long was it before you felt settled, or that you had any idea what you were doing? Everything is so different here. So new and strange. It feels like learning to write with my other hand…

There was much to learn, but Henry was a patient teacher and Emily was an eager pupil.

During the day she worked hard at the many physical tasks: feeding the animals and cleaning out the barn, collecting eggs, sweeping the floors, cooking meals, fetching water, cleaning and oiling saddles and tools, and anything else that was needed.

At night, she swapped her beloved novels of Woolf, Wharton, and Fitzgerald for titles like Soil Culture Manual , How to Get Rich on the Plains , and Yearbook of Agriculture , which she borrowed from the town library.

She remembered Nell’s early letters from California, and how she’d talked about there always being so much to do on the ranch that she often fell into bed at night with her boots still on, she was so exhausted.

She’d presumed her sister was being dramatic—she’d always been considered too pretty to get her hands dirty—but Emily understood that physical exhaustion now, understood Nell’s life now.

She had more in common with Nell than Annie, and often found her thoughts and letters traveling in the direction of California, rather than Chicago.

“You’ll make a great farmer’s wife,” Henry said as he found her poring over pages on crop management and irrigation and cotton weevils.

“I’ll make a great farmer ,” she corrected. “I’m not here to just bake pies and darn your socks, Henry Gale!”

“I wouldn’t dare to suggest it!”

“I’m serious, Henry. I want to learn everything. Do my share of farm work. Ride the tractor and turn the plow.”

Henry crossed the room and kissed her cheek. “I know how much you want to make this work, Em. Truth is, I only married you for your stubborn determination and the way you scowl when you don’t get your own way. How could a man resist?”

She laughed and tossed the book at him.

“But the first thing to learn is what’s safe around here, and what isn’t,” Henry continued, becoming serious. “It’s no use knowing how to plow a hundred acres if you get yourself bitten by a rattler.”

Emily listened carefully as Henry taught her how to identify the rattlers and copperheads, cottonmouths and scorpions, black widow and brown recluse spiders. It felt as if everything on the prairie wanted to kill her or hurt her.

“Is there anything not venomous or deadly?” she asked.

“Plenty! Prairie dogs and antelope, and wild mustang thundering by. The prairie is like any living thing, Em. If you respect it and treat it well, it will be good to you in return. I believe that with every fiber of my being.”

She believed it, too. Her mother had instilled a deep love of nature in all her children. Emily could feel her at her shoulder, guiding and encouraging her, urging her on.

As if the prairie had listened to their conversation, it delivered a gift that evening—a pair of antelope, grazing just beyond the picket fence as dusk fell. Emily and Henry watched from the porch.

“They’re a symbol of new beginnings,” Henry whispered. “A sign to trust your instincts.”

Only when a distant howl pierced the silence did the animals twitch and startle before bounding away into the long grass.

Emily was determined to harness her instincts, to learn what was safe and what was a threat.

She would make a success of things, prove that she was as capable as any third- or fourth-generation farm woman, like Laurie Miller at the general store who seemed to know everyone in Liberal, and everyone who’d come before.

And although she would never admit it to Henry, Emily was also determined to prove to Annie that she had been wrong to doubt them.

That, perhaps, was her greatest motivation of all.

The words “I’ll show you, Annie Gale” were always on the edge of her lips as she struggled through some other, unfamiliar task.

New farmers and homesteaders were a source of great interest among the Liberal locals, and Henry, with his machines, caused more interest than most. He’d bought the best he could afford with his savings—an International 22-36 tractor, a Case combine, a twelve-foot Grand Detour one-way plow—and invited the other farmers to take a look and have a go.

They were all astonished by the speed and efficiency with which the machines could do the hard, physically demanding work.

“It’s a technological miracle. In three hours, I can plant and harvest an acre,” Henry explained. “A job that would take several men, a race of horses, and three days to complete. And the combine cuts and threshes in one pass!”

But not everyone was impressed. The older farmers eyed the new machines with suspicion. For those like Ike West, an old-timer who’d always worked the prairie by hand, the new farming techniques raised eyebrows and suspicion. Ike lurked at the barn door, reluctant to even step inside.

“Prairie ain’t s’posed to be farmed this way,” he said as Henry showed the men the steel blades that would slice through the ancient prairie and buffalo grass. “Tear up all the grass and y’all got nothin’ holding down the earth.”

Those who’d worked the old cowboy ranches echoed Ike’s concerns. Others, like Hank Miller, shared Henry’s belief that there was great prosperity in the new plows and combustion machinery.

“We have to move with the times, Ike. Take advantage of progress. If you don’t, someone else will. Our hesitation will only become some Last Chancer’s gain.”

But Ike wouldn’t budge. “Prairie ain’t s’posed to be farmed this way,” he repeated. “Gives me a bad feelin’.”

“Be careful not to offend the men, Henry,” Emily cautioned when they’d all gone. “Ike West was here long before us. Maybe you should listen to his concerns.”

Henry disagreed. “Old-timers like Ike West are stuck in their ways. He’ll come around, in time.

He’s afraid of change, is all. Afraid of doing things differently.

And besides, I’m not inclined to listen to him, of all people.

The West family aren’t well liked. Ike’s nieces are meddlesome busybodies.

Wilhelmina West, especially. That woman causes nothing but trouble. ”

“I’ll be sure to keep away from her, then.”

“Glad to hear it!” Henry helped Emily as she climbed up into the seat of the tractor.

“We’re sitting on a gold mine, Em. Wheat might not be selling at wartime prices of two dollars a bushel, but with the amount we can sow and harvest with these machines, we’ll soon be burning dollar bills for fuel! ”

His exuberance was infectious, his confidence a fever that burned like a prairie fire in his eyes.

Emily ran her hands over the tractor’s steering wheel. “You’d better show me how to work this thing then.” She insisted on learning how to operate the farm machinery, just as she’d insisted on learning how to drive the motorcar.

“It’s powerful,” Henry cautioned. “Different from being behind the wheel of the Model T.”

“Just show me, will you. I’m not made of fairy dust!”

It took a while to get used to. She made a disastrous first attempt at plowing a straight furrow, but within a couple of days she’d mastered it.

“What’s next?” she said as she jumped down from the combine and brushed dust and dirt from her hands.

Henry shook his head and smiled. “You’re some woman, Emily Gale. You’ll make a wonderful mother for our daughters to look up to someday.”

Emily stiffened, the sudden talk of children catching her by surprise. She laughed to conceal her disquiet.

“Mother! Daughters! Where did that come from?”

He reached for her hands. “I’ve been thinking. Wondering if I’ll be a good father and imagining how nice it’ll be to have little ones running about the place one day. Two of each. Plenty of extra hands to help out on the farm when they’re old enough.”

The memory of Emily’s loss surfaced as the guilt of keeping the truth from Henry sat like a boulder in her stomach.

She hadn’t told him about her lost pregnancy because she’d wanted to preserve the happy optimism of their new start, but as the days had settled into weeks, she hadn’t found the right time or words. Now, it seemed impossible to tell him.

She laughed lightly to hide her discomfort. “Well, if we are to be blessed with children, I hope they might give us a little time to get settled first. See out our first harvest without anyone else to worry about. There’s no hurry. Is there?”

Henry wrapped her in his arms. “I suppose not. I just want to make the most of our life together, Em. Not waste a single second.”

“Then let’s enjoy every moment without thinking too far ahead. Life happens how and when it is meant to, not how and when we want it to. Nature will do its thing.”

“Just like the land.”

She offered a smile. “Exactly. We have to trust it. All of it. Follow our instincts.”

That afternoon, as she drove into town, she thought again of the truth she’d kept from Henry, and the note she’d left behind in Chicago the morning she’d slipped away.

Dearest Annie,

I’ll be on my way to Kansas by the time you read this. You looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake you.

I know you think I’m making a mistake, but I know where my heart lies and I have to follow its pull. Henry is my future—my north star—and although it doesn’t make sense and I can’t fully explain it, I know that Kansas is where I belong.

I’ll think of you and Dorothy often and hope you can visit when we are settled.

Don’t be a stranger, Annie. My home is your home. Always. If you ever need me, you can find me at Gale Farm, Liberal, Kansas. My door, and my heart, will always be open to you.

Tabhair aire duit féin, a chroí.

Emily xx

As the Model T juddered over the uneven road to Liberal, Emily wished she could confide in Henry, to share the heavy burden of Annie’s secret.

Like the weeds that grew in her vegetable garden, secrets thrived if ignored, wrapping themselves around everything within reach.

They had to be pulled up by the root, before they took hold.

John was Henry’s cousin, after all, even if Henry didn’t especially care for the man.

But Annie was her sister, and she hated the thought of betraying her.

She drove on, weighing the pros and cons like sacks of grain on the scales.

If she shared Annie’s secret with Henry, perhaps she would feel absolved from keeping a greater truth from him.

Of course, if John ever found out that another man was Dorothy’s father, the consequences would be awful.

But if Henry discovered there’d been a child that Emily hadn’t told him about, it would break his heart.

And if there was one person Emily couldn’t bear to hurt, it was Henry.

Annie’s infidelity was the easier secret to share.