by Sara Dahmen
“True.” He considers me. “Well, then.” He yanks me to him, rubbing the charcoal onto my leathers and the back of my dress, pluming it into the folds of my skirt. His arms are iron, and his mouth is warm and hard, and I know he wants me in the way a man desires a woman.
There is a deliciousness in knowing we are married, for all we only touch lips. The same fire sizzles through my arms and down my stomach, and I swim light-headedly in longing. The sharing of air, of tongues, of soot, magnifies with the knowledge that no one will bother us here, and no one will think we are wrong to caress so. When his hands fill with my breasts, I press toward him, wishing so many fabric barriers didn’t hinder his explorations. He seems to feel the same, for his fingers inch up my outer skirts until only a thin fabric separates his hands from my flesh, and his strong fingers press at the curves of my waist.
“Moje serce, my heart, Marya!” He pulls away, and drops his head to the top of mine. “If I am not careful, I’ll take you to the sheets before we wash, and one of us will have to explain to Berit why your set is so black and dirty.”
He peels himself away and heads to the bucket, glancing around as he does. “We’ll have to move you out soon enough and build onto the forge for your tinshop. I’ll get the lumber from Mikey O’Donnell as soon. I figure we’ll knock out a wall so the heat of my coals will reach to you.”
“You say you are not romantic, but your planning for all of that is so,” I tell him, smiling at him fully.
“Only you, Marya, would think that the addition of a metal shop is romantic,” he snorts, but I can see I’ve pleased him. That I can do so warms my heart and sends ribbons of desire curling in my stomach.
Thaddeus’s back is to me, but he strips down to his shirt, where it hangs long and low to his mid-thigh. I am intrigued at the sight of his wide legs and stout hips, outlined against the thin cotton as he bends to remove his socks. That his skin will soon touch mine sends me flurrying around the tiny kitchen, tidying up in my nerves and excitement. When I turn from stoking the fire in the small old potbelly, he’s standing and waiting.
“Now, to bed, or I’ll drag you,” he says. “Though I admit I’ve still no hand at undressing a woman’s things.” He waves fluttering fingers at my layers, turning to the bed easily and comfortably, getting in and thumping the covers over his long frame. I hear a mutter about the unimpressive height of my brothers who cut shorter beds than he prefers, and I want to giggle.
When I slide next to him in nothing but my chemise, the roughness of his legs chafes, and the solidness of his body sinks the mattresses. His hands, while bumpy and tough, caress and brush my skin, and somewhere during our kiss he manages to slip them up my garment to touch the rest of me. His frankness leaves me room to be as forward, and I run my own chipped hands along the strong, thick muscles rolling off his bones. His entire body is one of tall power, broad and wide.
He pulls the strings of my neckline, stretching it wide. Trailing fingers down my collarbone, he dives a hand below the fabric and fills it with my bare breast. The anticipation of his touch melts with contact, shooting both shivers and blazes of flame in my blood.
“You’ve a good bosom,” he says. “Full, and heavy.” He kisses me again, gently, and with his heart in it, and I relax against his mouth and the familiar tickle of his beard against my neck.
Naked, his own form is beautiful. He is handsome, and he is mine. And he burns for me. He wants me. He desires me. I want everything we do to be slow and beautifully savored, while at the same time I wish to eat his lips and squeeze his chest and become his immediately, wantonly.
Thaddeus guides our bodies inexpertly, but his clumsiness is matched by his kindness and his willingness to let me actively participate in the touching. I’m no stranger to the notion of sex itself, and I yearn for him deeply and honestly, so that when he presses up and into me, I feel only pleasure. He is still for a moment, as if relishing our connection, and then he moves. For some strange reason, the rocking of our bodies and the memory of his caressing hands create a blinding flash, and I succumb gladly and thrillingly, trembling with it, sweating with it.
Thaddeus grabs up my mouth, gasping. “And again, Marya. With me!” He crushes me, rolling his hips, pressing on my body with his, which seems to trigger a carnal response. We are alone here, so I am free with my voice. I feel him give in too, hear his hoarse shout, the wetness of our lovemaking spilling onto the sheets.
We are silent, panting, and he shifts slightly so his elbows brace his face inches from mine. His body is shivering, and I feel buttery.
“That was exceptional,” I tell him. “Might we do it again soon?”
“Tomorrow?” he offers, and then chuckles. “Later tonight?”
He kisses me soundly, melting me into him and deeper into the bedding.
“Tadeusz,” I sigh into the side of his face. “I must have loved you without knowing what it was. I thought it was a friendship—a good one, a true one—but nothing more. That perhaps my attraction to you was simply my desire to be with a man.”
“I’m glad you didn’t wed Danny, then,” he says, serious.
“Me too.”
Our night is restless, as with only a week of marriage, neither of us is used to another body in the bed. It will take some adjusting. Once Thaddeus wakes me as he rolls. He touches me strongly and with purpose then, and joins his body to mine again. The next time it is me who urges, though he is more than willing and falls into my body as though it was made for his arms and his lips.
At the last, we lie in the dim muddle that heralds another day, sated and unable to sleep. I run my fingers through his beard and up along his jaw, pressing against his forehead and his skull while his own hands lazily circle my hip and thigh. He says nothing of my ministrations, but does not shift away.
“Well then. The sun’s up enough.” He rises, bringing me with him.
Practical, short with words, and a bit rough. He is the same, though he now has a wife. It is comforting, the sameness. And he is mine. I am no longer alone. I have family again. He reaches for his shirt, and I watch the broad muscles move as he pulls it on, and then he stands for his trousers and stockings. My body sings with the remainders of him, and I am loath to get out of bed.
“Marya?” He glances back, his eyebrows raised. “You should get up.”
I rise, feeling the ghost of his hands on me, and his seed inside. Someday he will get me with child. To my surprise, the idea fills me with excitement, and I smile to myself. Thaddeus might be beyond pleased with such news. In fact, he may laugh. I hope he laughs with happiness.
“I will likely work late again. May as well use as much light as I can before January,” I say.
He nods, belting his pants and tugging on his apron. “I’ll help if I can. I know what it will take.”
We look squarely at one another. I realize we both are content with our choices in this moment, and it is satisfying in a way that fills up my spirit. Perhaps this is what fulfillment is—somehow both fleeting and solid.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
2 March 1868
The wood is brittle from the years of fire heat, and the residue of old dust from the blacksmith forge falls onto my shoulders and Thaddeus’s beard. What is it about taking a hammer to something meant to crumble? I find strange pleasure in smacking the iron against the wood, and Thaddeus does more than his share with something I can only describe as glee. Still, we are careful to hit only where the old nails rust in their holes, to hopefully reuse as many pieces as possible. I didn’t get out of debt only to dive back in.
The early spring air whistles over our shoulders as we break the planks, and behind us, Walter is offering instructions if only to keep everyone else quiet. It doesn’t work, though, and Horeb is the most audible with his nasal tone.
“Not gonna tear down the whole wall, is it?”
“Ain’t.”
“Aw, shut it, Gil, you ain’t never broke down a wall in your own life.”
�
��There’s supposed to be a new drill they use in the mines,” Trusty Willy offers helpfully. “If you have to go into the foundation maybe.”
“They’re not going into the foundation,” Sadie says, her voice tighter than usual today. She must still not be pregnant. “Even an idiot could see that.”
I am surprised at the sweat on my forehead, and wipe away the grit and dust from my skin. I’d follow my husband’s lead and roll up my sleeves at least, but then our audience would see the deep red lines on my forearm, and even Thaddeus hasn’t spoken of them. I could not bear a reminder of my weakest moments today.
Tim the farrier is standing on the other side of the wall, where his supposed property line extends, to be sure we don’t stake the walls of the new tinshop on his land. Percy is there to approve of the changes and Mikey O’Donnell is on hand to estimate the amount of lumber needed. Tina Brinkley, Lara O’Donnell, and Toot Warren have taken it upon themselves to bake up a storm to feed the group, and everyone is debating who made the best pie. So far, Tina’s dried apple confection seems to be winning.
My shop will most certainly not happen without the nosy influence of half of Flats Town, it seems, but that is beside the point. Thaddeus is doing as he said: giving me a real place of my own for my own trade. It is the type of wedding gift I never thought I’d receive, let alone be able to request.
“Another few planks, and the rest will need the handsaw,” he tells me, pointing with his hammer, and his brief smile warms me as much as the afternoon sun. Before us, the ground is nearly budding with the promise of new grass, my flowers are poking out of the ground around the smithy, and for the first time in quite a while, I rise every day without the same worries I’ve known for years.
Now I can see a future, and how it might grow. I can imagine the tinshop, with the grey-black shadowy corners, the raw oil slipping around my family’s machines, the soft curve of a new pot on the shelf, awaiting a sale. The space will be much smaller than I have had, with a low ceiling, and likely without a window, but it is worth it. And every morning and evening, I break my fast with Berit and Walter, and with Thaddeus, too. Every day, I will bang along the ridge of a strip of copper and hear the matching boom of his hammer and the huff of his bellows.
“Should be enough space to frame the entry,” Walter says, his gravelly voice cutting into my daydream. “May as well stop here for now. Berit has hot coffee on for everyone to take away the chill.”
Horeb fairly dances through to the Salomon kitchen and the rest of the onlookers either join him or disappear into the glow of the late spring afternoon. I can’t move at once, still stuck at the yawning hole that will soon lead to the shop. It makes me giddy with hope, and for once I know my hope is not misplaced.
“What are you doing, Marya?” Thaddeus wonders, slinging his hammer onto one of his benches. “Come on through for coffee.”
He pushes into the kitchen and I move to follow, glancing once more at where my future will build. I can imagine it so clearly, indeed. It will be my own shop, the way a proper trade should be housed. I will put the tinner’s bench in the middle, and use a wide, fat plank for the counter. The shelves will be sanded so they do not scratch the bottoms of my wares, and I will hang jumbles of tin cups from the rafters, to tinkle with the breeze from the forge’s open doors. I will be busy. There will be no time or reason to ever think I am not enough.
And at night, before I curl inside Thaddeus’s frame, I will make sure the doors to the shop are closed against the elements, so that the tools will not rust, and the tin and copper will gleam and glow and glimmer.
The End
Historical Note
Machinery for tinsmiths and coppersmiths first became available at the very beginning of the 1800’s. Pamphlets from the 1840’s show tools costing between $8.00 to $15.50, which was more than a single smith made in one month. Today, those same machines are available intermittently on Ebay or at tinsmith convergences. They still work very well if they’ve been well oiled and taken care of over the years, but now the price per machine is several hundred dollars.
In remote areas, pioneers would hobble together their own smithing as required, but because of the need for metalwork, towns and large settlements would have had a blacksmith (or five!) nearby. Most of the tin and copper work done in the Territories in the 1860’s would have been managed by those blacksmiths, such as the Salomon men. Summertime might have offered a peddler or tinker wandering around a given area to repair or sell tin and copper wares made over the winter. Eventually, tinsmithing stretched all the way through the territories, though the trade changed dramatically each decade.
Many Poles and Czechs settled in the Dakotas and there are whole communities there yet today who hold tight to their heritage. It’s also true that the same potato blight that hit Ireland in the 1840’s and 1850’s hit Poland extremely hard as well, and added to the diaspora of Poles to America. Polish pioneers were especially noted for their strength and work ethic, and Marya’s floral gardening hobby is a nod to the fact that flowers are an important part of their national identity. Beyond the traditional male/female roles of the time, Poles were recognized for the equality that balanced between husband and wife: women frequently helped with the family businesses, particularly in farming, and had a say in financial decisions.
There never was a town called Flats Town between Yankton and Fort Randall, though it was a well-used path between those two settlements starting in the 1850’s. Later, the Milwaukee Road rail lines crisscrossed in the area where there could have been a town called Flats Town—or, later, Flats Junction. And though the Kotlarczyk family built their business in Flats Town, they would have likely tried their hand at farming or ranching in addition to a full tinshop or tinkering.
All the tools and methods of metalcraft mentioned in Smith exist now, and did exist, in the 1860’s. Women would, on occasion, become tinsmiths or coppersmiths under duress, such as the loss of a husband or father and no other male family members to take over the business. By the 1870’s, a woman who worked was not considered a “lady” in larger cities, but the pioneer mentality was more robust, forgiving, and centered around hard work, big families, and love. No one writes of them, but the women tinsmiths worked and survived, however few there were.
All of the songs mentioned in Smith are actual ditties sung during wagon trains west or in pioneer villages prior to 1870. Carrington’s march into present-day Wyoming truly did happen while the tribes were in negotiations with government officials. Fort Phil Kearney boasted up to 500 men at one point in its short history, including craftsmen and civilians, and was constantly under siege from combined Indian bands. Fetterman’s rash behavior outside that fort resulted in a complete massacre of his small force by over 2,000 braves, and catapulted the area to additional wars and skirmishes. Woodcutting excursions were necessary at Fort Phil Kearney but also ended badly for the Army. Still, history repeats itself every generation as our government continues to chip away at the rights and culture of the original Native American people that still hold tight to their land in the Dakotas. It is no wonder they push back.
Captain Joseph Bush was the commanding officer of Fort Randall during the mid-1860’s, though I have no way to know his personality. Likely he did have a sword. Etching steel does require a particular kind of acid, though it is poisonous to breathe, creating the same reactions Marya experiences when she is trying to use it. It’s akin to combining vinegar, water, and bleach, which even today is not recommended when cleaning. People who try to etch metal are warned of the side effects of the combination, and the need for proper ventilation and breathing equipment.
The kitchen tools, food, and even taffy pulling events are all historical, and I’ve included a bibliography of books I’ve used to research Smith. Some are short, full of photographs and illustrations, and are entertaining.
At the end, I hope you’ve had a good time growing with Marie—learning, enjoying, and fantasizing about the years our country was young and w
ild.
With joy—Sara Dahmen
in the copper shop, Wisconsin
Author’s Thanks
Tinsmith could not have been finished or even fleshed out without my apprenticeship under Bob, a master tinsmith and coppersmith, the support of his wife, Marilyn, and all the men who answered my random questions on the tintinkers weekly online chat. When I first started apprenticing under Bob, it was mainly to understand the workings of original smiths, to better respect and learn the background of the trade that transformed into modern cookware. I wanted to capture the essence of early smiths who were constantly striking out with new machines, new territory and new ideas. Since the apprenticeship began, House Copper & Cookware has grown into so much more, thanks to the incredible hands-on guidance.
A wonderful thanks to Ben and the team at Promontory Press, who believed in this novel and supported it from the first day. Without my mother, who gives invaluable insight, and Christy, Valerie, Katie, and Heather for always reading the earliest versions, this book would not have made it further than the first draft. To my first editor, Craig, who drove me to make Marya more intense, and Richard, who discovered all the archaic meanings of the old words during his edits, I am endebted.
I must also thank my husband for giving me the long nights of writing this book needed. I’m so grateful for the help of my parents and my in-laws so I could network, write, and learn. It takes more than a village, and I’m well aware of it.
Language Glossary
POLISH
Babcia – Grandma
Będę – I will
Będzie dobrze – It will be fine, It will be alright
Chodź teraz – Come on, now
Co to jest – what is this?