by Sara Dahmen
Have I broken his heart so deeply? Will he forever shove a grudge against me? Will he never look at me with kindness in those blue eyes again? The thought strikes me hard. I suppose that’s true.
Remorse tickles at me, but it is not strong enough that I will take a step toward changing what I’ve told him. At least, not tonight.
I watch the dancing and the skirts, and hear the laughter and the music. My feet start to ache with standing so long. By now I have usually put up my legs after a full day of marching on the shop floor.
Instead, I let the visions wash over me. Fortuna and Dell are drunk, dancing and arguing at the same time, and Sadie has clasped Tom Fawcett to her tightly, her head on his chest. They are completely off the rhythm of the music but don’t seem to care. Horeb argues with Gilroy about a lost wager that has something to do with somebody’s bosom, and Bess and Franklin Jones are half-hidden next to the livery and her skirt is certainly not where it should be. I grin in spite of myself.
“Marie! I’ll dance with you the next one if you’ve a wish!” Harry Turner calls out as he whirls past with May, and Doc Gunnarsen stumbles through the dancers with an entire bottle of whiskey in his hands. Toot Warren chases him and Elaine chases her. Everyone parts and laughs and then all four Brinkley brothers toss their wives and dance partners to an old jig only they know the steps to, except Young Henry drops his wife Marta just before the Zalenski family shoves them away to show off their own version. Dag Andersen argues with Orville Pavlock about which grain of wood is better to use for cabinet doors and which for boxes, while Nels Henderssen loudly boasts over their chatter about the number of children he and Clara plan to have. Marion Andersen, Dag’s wife, catches my eye over Clara’s red face, and we both end up laughing so loud that she snorts.
The fiddle and the jaw harp twist the songs and edit them, now missing Doc’s banjo twang, the tunes familiar and lively or low and romantic, and suddenly my spirit feels very tired.
I’ll sing you a song though it may be a sad one,
Of trials and troubles and where they first begun
I left my dear kindred, my friends and my home,
Across the wild deserts and mountains to roam.
I don’t like this particular ballad; it reminds me of death. Perhaps no one will notice if I disappear into the evening.
Taking a step backward, I dig my heel into the hard dirt of the road, but a heavy hand stops me. It is a familiar one, and I sigh to myself before answering for my attempted break.
“I thought I might head home. It’s been a long day, and I am not well suited for such—”
“You think I am?” Thaddeus looks incredulous. “Fine then. One more spin and we’ll find Father to leave.”
He takes me up for the ballad in a loose-armed embrace, his fingers grazing my waist and his face averted. I want to ask him what Danny told him, to explain myself, but he doesn’t bring it up or speak of his lengthy conversation with his old friend. The silence balances in between us.
“The song’s almost done,” I say, grasping desperately.
“I know,” he says tersely. “Then we’ll finish the next one.”
My mouth tightens, and I find I’m unable to fight him. Perhaps tomorrow I will ask him what he thinks I should do about the rest of my debts, my loans, and leaving the property. But then I’ll have to explain myself, and why I told Danny I won’t wed him. I don’t know if I can handle Thaddeus’s rancor about my romantic tangles. It’s all too new and raw.
The next ballad begins, and I look out across the crowd, letting the patterns of the calicos and the dull leathers of the cowboys and wool of the Army men blur and soften. Somewhere between my daze and the middle of the song, I realize my cheek is only an inch from Thaddeus’s chest, and his hands are firm on my hips. He is as calm as always, and he still will not look at me, so I’m not sure if I am the one who drew near, or if he has pulled me tighter.
Many times I have wondered what it would be like to push myself close to the blacksmith. The attraction to Thaddeus, which flickers and ebbs, is unlike Jimmy’s fumbling embrace or even Danny’s careful and gentle kisses. But I allow myself to grip his shoulders tighter and lean in so that my face just brushes the brown flannel of his shirt. It smells of him and the forge, and I smile. There is comfort here, in the familiarity of him and that he thinks of me as his family.
“There is the last of it,” he says, the stanza ending on its mournful refrain. We sway with the rest of them, but he slows. For a moment, we stand still while the others finish the song, and I unwittingly step toward him just as he pulls away and drops his arms.
The loss of his nearness is a slap, and my chest plunges to my feet while chills sweep up my shoulders, freezing them. His refusal, however simply meant, draws me up severely. I look for his eyes, but Thaddeus is already turning away.
“There they are,” he says. “We might all leave. It’s enough frivolousness for me, anyway.”
He stalks off, and I trail him, wondering at my newfound attachment. Likely it is just that he is accustomed to me, and one of the only men who has no qualms to offer me a dance. I am only reacting to the plainness of contact.
We find Walter, who waits patiently next to Berit. She’s circled her daughters and daughters-in-law around her and the coiffed and braided heads bob and twitch with words.
“But I told Larry what with him so good at impregnating animals and getting them to mate that he should have expected the same to happen to me!” Grete complains. “I am going to end up with a brood!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Anette asks. “It’s fun to get a brood!”
“Not everyone is as lusty as your Jacob,” Mary Andersen giggles.
Anette grins. “No, but thankfully he’s mine.”
“We’re all thankful he’s yours.”
“How is this helping me tell Larry he’s not to touch me after this one is born?” Grete wonders, but she’s laughing.
Berit laughs too, and links her arm with Walter. The old blacksmith grins around, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and then he notices us and nods. I smirk at Anette, but Thaddeus pokes me in the arm.
“What are you going on about?” he asks. “It’s not like you can add into the conversation.”
“Someday I might.”
“How?” he snorts, and his derision strikes my chest hard, choking back any type of joking reply, cutting off my smile.
Does he truly think I’m so unmarriageable?
Walter extracts Berit with surprising speed so we can all walk toward the north edge of town where our smithies and fires sit dark and quiet. Berit talks about the dancing. How it was livelier this year, how there seem to be more of the Army men. She wonders if it means more offensives or more skirmishes. Will they wish for men from Flats Town to build the Fort up? Will it mean more supply trains? That promised railroad? Or is it true it won’t come, now?
Walter listens attentively, but doesn’t offer much by the way of conversation. I stride next to Thaddeus, trying to match his wide pace.
I need to let myself cool from the heat of our last dance, when somehow my blood and heart seemed to cleave to Thaddeus, if only for a moment. What a silly thing, and impractical too. I’ve no need for a man as I’ve said to myself many times these past days, explaining to myself once again why I told Danny no. It’s likely my loneliness begging me to think of such things. But it is indeed a strong thing, this attraction blooming and weighing on me. I find my whole body pulling toward him, and I resist the urge to bind my arm in his as we walk. Instead I slow my steps.
It will all pass, same as my interest in Danny and Jimmy. I have my smith work, and a life to build, and a confrontation with Percy Davies to come. There is a sword to finish, and a new house to barter for from Berit.
“Daj spokój! Come on!”
In the dark, I nearly run into Thaddeus as I mull, and I’m at once thankful the night doesn’t reveal my bright eyes and flushed cheeks.
He is terse and tetch
y at me, so I bite back in the same tone, regardless of my wonderings. “I’m coming!”
His hand clamps on my elbow in a most unromantic way, and we scurry to catch up with his father. At the blacksmith’s place, I bid goodnight as quick as I might, and escape to the deep shadows of the tinshop. The stove in the kitchen is still warm. With a fast swirl I light the embers and open the iron door so I have an orange glow to see by.
As I slide under the blankets, I wonder once more what it might be to share a bed with a man. My thought first goes to Thaddeus’s powerful frame and the wide smith’s chest, but just as quickly I dismiss him. Instead, I focus on Danny, and what it would be to turn back to him, to beg him to take me back. He said he loved me. Would that love be enough? He is handsome, and he is doting, and he is ever so kind about my own needs as long as, it seems, it does not entail smith work. I am foolish to toss his declared affection aside for my pride.
Otherwise this, then, will be my future: a shop, metal that glows, and an empty bed. Is it worth it for the freedom I have now?
Drifting into sleep, I dream as I had hoped. There is a man in the night, bending me into his lap. In my dream, we are in my own private space, sitting on the bench. His urgency is both demanding and desirable, and his hands run up the sides of my skirts, trailing along the untried flesh of my thigh and daring to cup my bare bottom. In the stillness of my imagination, I am firm and sure. I pull on the wooden buttons of his breeches in an act both intimate and certain. In my dreaming, I can glance down at my leg, gleaming white in moonlight, and I see the path of sooty fingertip kisses in the crease of my knee. I bubble to wake, still holding tightly to this fantasy. As I leap into the gentle awareness of my bed, I see the bearded face of the man who holds me, and my heart cracks.
Fatigue is a gift once more, spilling into my mind and giving me respite from my worries. The dream disappears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
2 November 1867
When I wake, it is the small hours of the day. Grey, quiet, and chill. The dance feels like it did not happen, though I recall enough of the night to make my cheeks go hot. As I tie on my clothing, there is a knock on the inner door. Someone has entered the shop without my knowing, so I go, expecting Berit.
Instead, it is Thaddeus, and he looks ferocious.
“Come on.” He’s urgent and brusque, and spins on his heel, leaving me to stand alone in the middle of the shop. “Well, pospiech! Come on!”
“Good morning to you, too,” I grouse. “What is it?”
“The damn Army. Come on, Marie. You’re dressed. We don’t want keep them waiting.”
I go out with him mutely, forgetting a wrap in my dizziness, and my breath sucks in at the cold air. We hike around the building with Thaddeus marching ahead of me, fuming and irritable. As we circle to the forge, a babble of voices ebbs and rises higher, Walter’s among them. It’s early for such heated discussion and for customers.
“I’m back with her. What do you need, now, exactly? And I promise you, it won’t be done in the speed you ask.” Thaddeus starts to speak as he crosses the threshold into the smithy, where men in uniform wait. My mind starts to clear from the fog of sleep, and my blood starts to thaw and pump overly fast. What now?
“Two weeks, then, at the most,” Captain Bush stands in the middle of the forge, where yellow lamps and lanterns blaze already against the morning dim. He has three of his officers with him, including Lieutenant Balsam. Their presence seems to give him additional mettle and prestige, for he puffs his chest as he speaks. “My orders are to move immediately toward Fort Sully before the Missouri thaws, but I won’t go back through any part of Indian Territory without the right equipment.”
“That’s not really Indian Territory you’ll travel,” Thaddeus counters.
Captain Bush looks smug. “You don’t know of all the attacks. The natives have even dared to sabotage the railroads this past fall. We’ll need the goods.”
“You’re asking the impossible,” Walter throws his own weight into the discussion. “One smith cannot build what you’re asking. And the new wheelwright, and the cooper—you want the whole town to stop everything and help you.”
“Well, government’s orders,” Captain Bush says pointedly.
Thaddeus himself does not sway from standing down Captain Bush, and he crosses his massive arms with irritation. “I will do what I can in two weeks. Pay me for what I do, no more and no less. If you’re fortunate, I’ll have it all done. If not, you’ll likely manage on what I finish.”
“Wheels and horse shoes and ammunition,” Captain Bush lists. “You won’t get paid without any of those, at the very least.”
“You shouldn’t get any of them at all until you pay for your sword,” Thaddeus counters, and Captain Bush loses a piece of his smugness.
“Yes, well. That, too. Too bad there’s such a wait, no thanks to you, Miss Kotlarczyk.”
The men all round on me, staring as if they have forgotten I am here, and forgotten I am a woman.
Now Captain Bush has me pinned with his crescent eyes. “You’ll have to do simple things anyway for us. I’ll need a set of spice boxes, and ten tin lanterns, a copper boiler, and two dozen tin cartridge holders. The standard. And the same amount in canteens. Ten mess kits and a half dozen tinder kits.”
My mouth hangs open. “In two weeks?”
“At the most,” he nods. “And all of it. No shirking on this. The lanterns and the water holders are needed, but the cartridge boxes are essential for our march as well.”
“But—”
“It’s orders from the government,” he reminds, walking out into the cresting morning so we cannot protest further. “Not really mine.”
The men file out, and I am filled with both panic and pain, shock and worry. It is too much for a single smith to do with too little time. And in the middle of it is some odd, frozen glee.
This means the end of my debt, if I can finish it all.
If I can finish.
“Marie.” Thaddeus plants himself in front of me. “You know they can’t make you do anything more than what is possible. If you don’t finish it all they’ll take what you’ve done.”
“I suppose we should both get our fires lit,” I say stoutly, caught in the frenzy of desperate hope and horrible worry piling into my throat, the cords strung tight to hold in the battling emotions. It is all I can do to maintain some dignity.
Thaddeus clears his throat and nods, glancing about the forge. “So then. No time to waste. I’ll take stock of the iron I have ready for forming.”
“Right,” I say, sliding past Thaddeus and out the door, tucking my hands against the freezing wind scuttling across the roads and the open yard between the forge and the tinshop. My feet crunch on the broken, rutted path and crash on the icy bits of snow.
When I get to the shop, it is still dark against the cloudy morning, and I light the lanterns methodically, stirring up the stove so I might warm the brazier. The straight sheets of copper and tin gleam and shimmer and rattle against the light.
Can I do this? Will I have enough time? Not only to finish the sword, but to manage such an enormous order? My family could have done this, together.
But will I be enough?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
13 November 1867
The afternoon stretches and contracts, and I bend backward from where I crouch over the fine cutting of copper. There is so much of it. My tidy shop is in disarray, covered with projects. Some are fully finished, and some partially so, and others are only traced sheets of metal. There is a method to some of my work. Heating the copper irons, for one, is best done when I can do all the soldering at once, so I must prepare all the copperware at the same time.
To add to my stress, an Army soldier comes around once a day to check on our progress. Captain Bush left Sergeant Ollin in town to keep an eye over all the craftsmen, and he comes gloating and boasting and speaking as if he owns my shop.
I have the door cracked against th
e sweat running down my back; I stoked the stove against the chill too much. The blacksmith’s hammer and bellows cuts through our yard, and the orange blast of the fire Thaddeus stokes seems to spurt onto the street as he labors over the wheel edges he’s making.
There is no understanding by the Army that our work takes time. They do not care for the other orders we must put on hold, or the people who must wait for their teapot or their washpans, or the horses needing shoes. They only think of their own order, and every time I list what I still must accomplish, I want to simply sit down and give up.
“And today?”
I jerk, and the end of the snips catches the soft spot of my left hand between forefinger and thumb, and slices into it. I curse under my breath, and yank my hand to my mouth, trying to stop the bleeding as well I might.
It’s Sergeant Ollin, his flat, cunning face a mirror of his commanding officer.
“I am making progress, as always.” I gesture around with my uninjured hand.
“Very good,” he sniffs, then takes it upon himself to step in and handle some of the finished lanterns.
“The longer you loiter, the longer it will take me to do my job,” I remind him finally, and he lifts his eyebrows and puts down the tinware.
“If you can finish it at all. I think you’re missing canteens.” He steps up to the counter and lays his elbows on it, looking up over the ceiling and across the machines before sizing me up. I’m glad I am messy and disheveled, and that the apron hides my shape.
He seems to think so too, for after a moment he sighs and languidly, insidiously, slides upright.
“Not worth my time anyway, to idle with you. You’re no sweet little lady to brighten my day.”
“She’s not.”
Thaddeus stands at the door, his arms black to the elbows, soot and ash threading through the creases of his pants and rolled shirtsleeves.