Thistles on the Prairie

Victorian Floriography

Thistle

Cirsium

Meaning:

Strength, bravery, devotion

July 1886

Colorado Territory

The wind swept over the endless prairie, whistling like a banshee, tugging at the hems of woolen skirts and rattling the canvas of creaking wagons. The horizon stretched vast and indifferent, a sea of sagebrush and pinyon pine, broken only by the silhouettes of weary oxen and the dust clouds kicked up by their slow, determined march. Among the caravan winding its way westward was the MacLaren family, Scots by blood, pioneers by necessity.

Isobel MacLaren sat on the wooden seat of their wagon, her fingers absently tracing the worn edges of a small brooch pinned to her shawl, a silver thistle, tarnished with age so the silver was dark now. The symbol of Scotland, its spiny leaves and defiant bloom a reminder that even the harshest lands could yield beauty. It had been her mother’s and her mother’s before that given to her by the leader of their clan. Isobel clung to that memory now, as the vast emptiness of the American frontier threatened to swallow the echoes of home. She took a steadying breath, wondering for the hundredth time what she’d gotten into.

Her husband, Ewan, walked beside the wagon, his broad shoulders hunched against the prairie wind, his gaze fixed on the endless stretch of trail ahead. The children, Alistair Catriona, dozed in the back, nestled among bundles of quilts and the few precious heirlooms they’d managed to bring with them. A fiddle wrapped in cloth. A tin of dried heather. And the brooch, glinting like a stubborn spark of another life.

It was late afternoon when Isobel first saw the clusters of spiky green leaves crowned with dusky purple blooms, standing defiant amidst the tall prairie grasses. She blinked, unsure if her homesickness was playing tricks with her mind, but as the wagon creaked closer, there was no mistaking it.

"Thistles," she whispered, her voice thin against the wind.

Ewan glanced up, following her gaze. His expression softened, the hard lines of worry and fatigue easing for the first time in days. Without a word, he veered from the rutted trail, stooping to pluck one of the stubborn blooms from the earth. The thistle pricked his calloused fingers, but he didn’t flinch. He brought it to Isobel, pressing it gently into her hand.

"They grow even here," he murmured. "Like us, aye?"

Isobel felt tears sting her eyes, unexpected and hot. She clutched the thistle, its sharp spines biting into her palm grounding her to the hot day. She’d never known it would be so hot. And dry. Water was something they were always searching for. The prairie was foreign and wild, but here was something familiar, something fierce and rooted, thriving where it had no right to be. Just like them. She longed for home’s cool rain and clouds but there was no going back now.

That evening, as the caravan made camp beneath a sky painted with streaks of pink and orange, Isobel sat by the fire, the thistle resting beside her, already shriveling from the heat. Other families gathered, sharing meager rations and weary smiles, their faces etched with the same mixture of hope and exhaustion. Isobel’s fingers found her brooch again, tracing the familiar design, her thoughts drifting back to the green hills of Ayrshire, to the scent of peat fires and the sound of her mother’s voice singing lullabies in Gaelic.

She wasn’t the only one drawn to the thistles. Angus MacDonough, whose thick beard and craggy face seemed carved from the very rocks of the Highlands, noticed it as he passed.

"Thistles, is it?" he rumbled, squinting down. "A hardy bloom, that one. They say it saved Scotland once, did ye ken?"

Isobel nodded, recalling the legend. Norse invaders, sneaking barefoot in the dark, had stepped on a thistle, their cries of pain alerting the Scots to the attack. A symbol of defiance, of protection.

"Aye," she replied softly. "And here it is, far from home."

Angus chuckled, settling onto a nearby log. "Maybe home’s not so far as we think."

His words lingered in Isobel’s mind long after the fire burned low. The prairie night was vast and unfamiliar, the darkness filled with the distant calls of coyotes and the soft rustle of grass stirred by the breeze. But as she lay beneath the canvas of the wagon, her children curled between her and Ewan, Isobel felt something shift inside her, a fragile seed of belonging taking root.

The days passed, the trail stretching ever onward, marked by rivers to ford and mountains rising like jagged teeth on the horizon. The land changed, but the thistles remained, scattered like breadcrumbs across the prairie. Isobel began to collect them, pressing the blooms between pages of her journal, their purple crowns fading to dusky violet but never losing their stubborn shape.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed. The other women began to gather thistles too, tucking them into their bonnets, weaving them into wreaths for the wagon wheels. Even the men, stoic and sunburned, would pause now and then to pluck a bloom, handling it with the same reverence they gave their rifles and tools.

One evening, as they camped near the Platte River, Ewan sat beside Isobel, his arm draped around her shoulders. The children played nearby, their laughter mingling with the crackle of the fire.

"Funny, isn’t it?" Ewan mused, watching the flames dance. "How something so small can feel like an anchor."

Isobel nodded, her gaze drifting to the thistle pinned to her shawl. "It’s not just a flower. It’s us. Stubborn and sharp when we need to be. Blooming where no one expects."

Ewan smiled, pressing a kiss to her temple. "Aye. Just like us."

As the days grew warmer and the trail turned westward toward the promise of Oregon’s green valleys, Isobel carried the thistles with her, not just the ones pressed between pages, but the invisible threads that connected her to a homeland she would never see again. The land had changed them, carved new lines into their faces, calloused their hands, but the thistle’s spirit remained; a reminder that roots run deeper than soil, that home is not just a place, but a story carried in the heart.

And in the end, when they finally reached the lush hills of Oregon, Isobel planted the last of her thistles in the garden behind their small cabin. The earth was different, richer, but the blooms took hold, their spiny leaves reaching skyward as defiantly as ever.

A piece of Scotland, thriving in the wild heart of the West.

Years before, little Eliza Mae Whittaker came across these very plains with her family, making a Wish in the Wind to arrive at their destination safely.