Tinsmith 1865

by Sara Dahmen

  I think, sometimes, the metal saves my sanity.

  “Captain Bush is coming in to discuss the sword design,” Thaddeus explains. “He’s been in from Fort Randall as the weather holds—his annual trip into town for the season.”

  My heart beats with thuds ripping my ribs. The Captain has not met Father, who was supposed to be the one working on the decorations of his sabre commission. Since Father’s illness dropped into him like a stone, and he lies with half his body frozen, I have taken on all the work, including the drawings for this decorative weapon. I’m ill-prepared and unwilling to meet the Army officer.

  The doorway, which is halfway open, darkens again, and two men in deep navy blue uniforms step in. I take in the brass of the commander’s buttons—well made, I see—and the stripes of banding on his cuffs and collar. His boots look as though they were polished before he left the fort, but now are covered in mud splashes from the last of the early spring rains.

  It hurts to look at his eyes. They are bright and feverish and unnaturally focused on whatever he sees. I glance up at him, and feel inadequate to do so again. His eyes are too much.

  “I’ve heard you’re the one who will do the work on my sword.” His voice is low, but it is not deep. It has a patina of off-handed swagger. Next to him, the lieutenant’s chest swells importantly but silently.

  “Just the decorating of it, sir.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve seen Salomon’s work. His father trained him well enough.”

  “Did you want to see the drawings?” Before he can answer, I pull out the fine vellum papers waiting and layered under the counter. My hands tremble, and I clench them into the leather of my apron and press my lips together before striking into the conversation with as much confidence as I can muster.

  “There is floral, or leaves and scrollwork. And of course, any Latin you’d prefer.” I ask, knowing Father would do so, but hope he does not ask for suggestions. My Latin non-existent.

  Captain Bush ambles over, his hands behind his back, his uniform smelling like warm wool and whiskey. He bends over and peers closely, squinting hard at my sketches, which are drawn out in graphite and charcoal and not very perfectly. I hope he will understand the drawings for what they are: scribbled thoughts, done in my own haste, and with a mind half-gone with worry.

  “The scrolls and leaves are by far my favorite,” he decides. Thaddeus and I let out a single breath simultaneously. Captain Bush spins around.

  “You’ve said you’ll have it etched, or inlaid, or some other such beautification.”

  “We will. The design you’ve chosen will be the theme,” Thaddeus says curtly. I want to soften his tone, to remind him that I, at least, need this man’s money and his favor.

  “Hm. Well, do try to have it to me by midsummer as discussed, Salomon.”

  The men walk out, and I sigh. Panic settles into my bones. I have no idea what I am going to do about the sword. I want to shake Father out of his stupor and beg him to take this project.

  If only old Doc Gunnarsen understood what ails him. He’s been by twice, shaking his head, jiggling with too much whiskey. He has no idea what it is, only that he cannot heal Father, and I wonder how he calls himself a doctor if he knows so little of the body.

  The terror of my Father collapsing and crumpling on the floor still stalks my dreams. Has it already been a month since he fell, holding his head strangely, never to rise or speak again? And now, when he cannot speak, cannot move, the left side of his face sagging and melting off the bones … now I am at a loss.

  Damn that Doc Gunnarsen! What good is a doc if he cannot heal?

  It’s my brothers’ fault. It’s their choices that have led me to this: the uncertainty. They should have stayed and made money in the way we all know. Not some quick-rich idea!

  How dare they leave?

  How dare they die?

  Now I must try to make a living doing something I still don’t understand fully. Now I must support myself and father, and try to pay off loans, make rent, and somehow keep living.

  Instead, I live my days as a strange, half-finished artisan, who knows next to nothing about making a sword decorative.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  29 April 1867

  Danny takes the letters from my hand, and glances at the names on the backs, his lips moving slightly, before passing them over to Douglas to post.

  Dear Sonja,

  I do not know if Tom’s death has reached you …

  Do not come West …

  He wrote for me, and I am grateful. I went chilly every time Danny put ink on paper, copying down my words. It was a grueling task, one that froze my bones and made me weep again at night. I won’t sob, though. I won’t let my sorrow loose. My stubbornness can be good for something.

  And there is too much to do, anyway.

  We walk out of the postmaster’s into the chill of the late spring afternoon. I forget to buckle the clasp of my cloak, so Danny does it absently, and with a calm familiarity both comforting and exasperating. Sometimes I cannot bear his kindness, for it only exacerbates how much I wish to scream, to cry out, to give in to the appalling mess of my existence.

  But for Danny, I will still be calm. I should not repay his sweetness by turning into a wild, sorrow-filled, half-mad woman. Those moments are caught in my pillow, silent and wrestling and black.

  “How is the sword coming along?” he asks as we descend the steps. “Trusty Willy has been bragging how he has seen the finest in the world back in New York, except everyone’s pretty sure he’s never been there, and his wife won’t say. The bets are on in the Rusty Nail that there will be gold on the handle, and they say Captain Bush boasted how he will have it for summer, and it will be the most decorated weapon in the territory. By the way, have you figured out how to use the acid yet?”

  My hands clench at my sides, and I feel the roughness of the acid burns that never seem to heal against the water and cold and metal. I shake my head, and watch the ruts ahead of us.

  Danny leans into the silence. “Well, have you asked Mrs. Andersen if you might join us for Sadie’s taffy pull? By us, I mean the handful of unmarried folk in town. It’s tonight.”

  “I know.” To think there are jolly parties yet is beyond me, and I’ve put off answering Danny for weeks. I truly don’t think I’ll be good company, but he is insistent and I feel myself giving in. “I’ll ask her. Likely she will be fine nursing Father by herself for an hour or two. It’s not as though he takes much work,” I say softly, and with bitterness.

  “It’ll be good to talk with friends again.”

  “You say all the unmarried people in town? It sounds suspicious.”

  The corners of his mouth tilt up at my attempt to be light-hearted. “It’ll be perfectly chaperoned. You know Sadie. I hear she’ll have refreshments, too.”

  “Very well. If it will stop your harping,” I sigh.

  Danny grins, the brightness of his blue eyes sparkling against the grey and pale brown and early green of the land around Flats Town. “You’ll like it. I’ve got to run back to the near pasture for the afternoon to see if any grass is up, but Thaddeus can walk you over to Sadie’s house at the right time.”

  This actually pulls me to attention.

  “Thaddeus is attending a taffy-pulling?” The idea almost makes me laugh, a strange bubbling I barely remember.

  Danny’s eyebrows go up. “He says he might. I’m sure old Walter has a hand in suggesting it.”

  The dust of the first wagon train, arriving a week earlier than expected, sifts over us. Some families are peeling off to go further north, and others are pushing west. I wonder if any will stay, and pass by Horeb, who has taken his lunch break to speak to one of the ladies.

  “All fancy, is it? You know, this town is fancy, too. We use golden-colored rope to hang the outlaws.”

  “Outlaws!”

  “Sure. And there’s only been … oh, about ten killings.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yup. Ten
killings just this week. Pretty tame and all, don’t ya think?”

  “My word! Pansy, find your father! And quick!”

  Horeb sees me and winks, and I enjoy the panicked fluttering of the greenhorns myself too much to put him off his joking. If anything, it reminds me I’m not so green myself anymore.

  I return home. It is acutely quiet in the shop now, punctured only by Mrs. Andersen’s bubbling chatter when she comes in to help. Father himself only mutters and gurgles. His eyes do not focus, and his body is withering.

  All my actions are just distractions. Everything I do is simply to numb my own disbelief and my own sorrow. It helps to be busy, as then I can give the semblance of stalwart strength to anyone who looks. No one questions my feelings overmuch when I am busy and if I am stoic. I hope to be accepted as simply the smith, and nothing more. Perhaps people will forget I had a big family, and they will cease to look at me speculatively when they drop off an order, and the Henderssen and Brinkley ladies will stop fluttering over me after church as if I am fragile. No one will see me for a woman, or for a spinster, or a girl without kin. I won’t be a lost soul in the wilderness of a western town. When Lara O’Donnell speaks to me about church picnics, she sees Marie the tinsmith. Every time Toot or Elaine Warren ask for a repair, they only see someone who can fix their leaking pots. Douglas Ofsberger comes in drunk and yelling at everything and everyone, but he won’t see me flinch.

  I have to make a Whitworth cartridge box for old farmer Simon Zalenski, who wishes to splurge on something fancy, and the individual ridges inside the shallow rectangle give me a terrible time. Eventually I give up with the tools at hand. Seeking out the shared wood pile, I crumble through the debris to find a stick with the right diameter to use as a jig for the curving interior slats. It is a cloudy spring day, smelling of wet earth and old manure and leftover rotting leaves. The thick muck sucks at my boots and an overcast, heavy, grey sky hangs like a moldy blanket. The damp chill seeps into the fabric of my dress, and I shiver.

  “I’ve been meaning to catch you, Marie.”

  Thaddeus surprises me, and I jerk slightly before twisting to look up at him, where he stands just outside the forge door.

  “My father says I ought to go to the damn little gathering tonight, and Danny is going as well,” he snaps, his arms crossed.

  “Danny mentioned it again this morning. I haven’t asked Mrs. Andersen yet, but I thought I might go,” I say.

  “I would sit with Berit.” Walter looms behind his son, his long arms and wide shoulders shadowing Thaddeus. “I’d do with some company.”

  That the quiet retired blacksmith seeks out my chatty housekeeper is odd, but people who are old are allowed their eccentricities. I shrug in answer.

  “I’ll ask her if I might go to the taffy pulling then,” I say.

  Walter nods, disappearing back into the gloomy depths of his house. Thaddeus still stands, his eyes matching the overcast sky, piercing between the darkness of his beard and his thick head of hair.

  “I asked if I ought to walk you. Shall I, or will Danny?”

  “You, please,” I tell him, and then quickly add amend. “Danny is busy. He’ll meet us there.”

  He doesn’t answer me directly, just nodding before jumping into work. “I know you’ve other jobs to fill, Marie, but will you be ready on the etching soon?”

  I sigh, fiddling with the stick I’ve chosen for the cartridge box. Our conversation on this thread is circular and repetitive.

  “Suppose I ruin the sword with the acid?” And then, because I’m feeling irritable, I finally admit, “I don’t want to make your work unsound.”

  “Do you really think you’d fail so badly?” he asks. “You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”

  “Well, yes. But it’s not perfect yet.”

  “We have only two more months. I’d like to have the sword to him by June.”

  “He wishes it in midsummer.”

  “Yes. June is just before.”

  “Damnit, Thaddeus,” I say. “If I don’t feel comfortable etching, might we try something else? Perhaps an inlay? You know I can make tinware, but this is altogether beyond my expertise.”

  “You don’t really have expertise on anything.”

  “I’m better at copper work than you are!” I shoot back, ignoring his barb. “And making things pretty!”

  “So then. What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t want to do the acid. I want to carve it in,” I tell him, standing from the woodpile to face him fully.

  “Why do you have to push back on everything?” he grouses, then presses his lips together. “We’d have to cut a cavity and do a true damascening, heating the soft metal into the design.”

  “Could we, if I don’t etch the iron?” My voice suddenly sounds desperate, even to me. “Would it be impossible?”

  He looks pained, and steps closer so we don’t have to speak loudly across the yard. Hooking his fingers into the copper loops of his apron, he rocks back and forth on his feet.

  “Not impossible, but I’d worry about taking the temper out of the metal. It’s some of the best steelwork I’ve done.”

  “It’s all about you and your work, is that it?” I shoot back.

  “I just don’t see the sense in trying an experiment on good steel.”

  I throw my hands up. “It’s all an experiment! What about simply cross-hatching the surface so I might just cover that, shallowly?”

  I’m glad for our sparring. It finally feels like we’re finding a conclusion.

  He pulls on his beard, his wide fingers squeezing his chin as he considers, then shrugs. “Work on the etching, Marie. Try the acid first. Please.”

  It’s the ‘please’ that finally chokes my argument. “Fine.”

  He turns away, appeased for now, and I go back into the shop with the long stick of wood, which I clamp down and push the metal around, curving and bending as I worry over the upcoming night’s festivities, as well as the saber.

  I’m not much for chatting or dancing, nor playing a tease. Surely, I can speak to customers in my own way, and I can tease—could tease—my brothers. I am passable, but passable has a large arc of acceptance. And the ability to make happy, simple conversation has alluded me for months. A taffy pull. I grimace when I think of all the flirtations normally had which lead to marriages more often than not.

  I wish the true question was whether I wish to marry Danny—or anyone—at all. I’m almost a smith now. My independence, while at one time a burden, is now a strength. Suppose I might truly do something outlandish? Isn’t that why Father moved us out here? To do something different with our lives?

  That was before, when I might have had a choice. Soon, marriage to a rich man might be the only way to survive. It’s such a cliché I want to laugh, but my laughter is buried.

  “Marie! Dinner, and then I’ll feed your father while you and Thaddeus are out.” Mrs. Andersen calls, popping her head around the corner of the doorway.

  “Oh!” I look up from my work. “You know?”

  “I know, honning dear. Thaddeus already asked me of it, and of course I don’t mind. You need to have a moment away. It’ll do you good,” she smiles.

  I feel a slight relief to have had the matter settled, and am grateful Thaddeus handled the logistics. I bury the guilt of leaving Father. Should I enjoy myself at all when he is suffering and locked in some strange painful place, caught in an irreparable body? Will he notice I’m gone?

  Dinner is a quiet affair. Even Mrs. Andersen is prone to moments of silence tonight. Thaddeus looks annoyed and Walter satisfied.

  “Will you be ready after we eat?” Thaddeus breaks into my musings. “Do you need to do any womanly things?”

  I give him a reproachful look. “Really? You need to ask?”

  “How am I to know? Don’t girls always do … prettying up?”

  Walter chortles over his beer. “And that, my son, is why you need to go to some social things. Find a wife. It’ll do y
ou good.”

  Thaddeus glowers at his father and refuses to acknowledge the nudge, and instead keeps his attention on me.

  I shake my head. “No. I’ve no other dress, and no looking glass.”

  Mrs. Andersen pats my hand with her free one as she continues to eat. “That’s very nice, honey dear, but I’ll go get a ribbon or two for your hair at the least. Give yourself a few minutes to freshen up from the shop.”

  I glance down at our joined fingers before she pulls them away. Her long, strong hands, while rugged and raw and chapped, do not have the slices, burns, or scars of my own, nor does she have inescapable gummy blacking under her nails and in the deep creases of her palms. Will the men I’m paired with think me dirty and disgusting?

  Still, she puts some pretty ribbon on me. It is thickly decorated in the blue, white, gold, and red pattern of her heritage, with dots and swirls and flowery leaves. It looks fine in my hair, she tells me, and I must believe her. After she sets it in, I recall that I have my own ribbon, buried in Mother’s wooden chest and embroidered with the bright flowers of Poland. My fingers twist painfully against the new cuts on my fingers as I run over what I will say to the young men at the taffy pull, and what I will look like next to the fresh and pretty women.

  I feel foolish with ribbons, reminding me of my girlishness and my unmarried status. But I dutifully leave them in without further protest. It is something Mother would have done for me, too.

  “I’m ready,” I tell Thaddeus, poking my head into the forge. He’s fussing over the sword again, running his hands along the thin flatness of it. He nods but continues to finger the blade, considering and weighing.

  “I think you might etch here and here,” he says, without looking up. “On both sides.”

  I stare at the skinny metal. “I’m still not sure I can do it.”

  “It’ll be a work of art when we’re done,” he says decisively. “A mastery to be sure.”

  “We’ll see,” I say, and look up at him. His face in profile carries enough of the Old Country to remind me of my brothers. “But you’re stalling. Will you walk with me or no? You’re so reluctant I’d think you were afraid of girls.”