Prairie Rose

by Catherine Palmer

  “Ah, Hunter, You have Frau! Vife, ja?”

  Seth swung around. Seeing Rosie behind him, his eyes darkened. “Wife? No. She’s going to work for me. Work.”

  “Sehr schön! Beautiful, ja? Pretty.”

  Rosie stopped. She stared up at the hulk of a man, her heart pounding. Unmarried. Hardworking. Friendly. And he thought she was beautiful. Had she just met her future husband?

  “Name?” he asked. When Rosie said nothing, he placed a hand on the rock slab of his chest. “Ich bin Rolf Rustemeyer.”

  “I’m Rosie,” she said. “Rosenbloom Cot … uh …”

  “Rose Mills,” Seth finished when she faltered. “She’s come to look after my boy. Clean a little. Cook.”

  “Ah, die Köchin!” Rolf rattled off a long string of unintelligible words as he gestured toward his land and the ramshackle dugout in the distance. Then he finished with a grand smile. “Ja?”

  “I don’t know what you said!” Seth shouted, as though talking louder might somehow make Rolf understand. “I … want … to … build … a … bridge! Will … you … help … me?”

  Rolf frowned. “Helfen?”

  “What?”

  “Ach!” He turned to Rosie. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Fräulein Mills?”

  “A bridge,” she said. “Over water. Bridge.”

  “Britsch? Über dem Wasser?”

  Rosie looked at Seth. He looked at her. “This puts me in mind of the time Tommy Warburton came to live at the Home,” she said. “He was as deaf as a fence post, poor little fellow. We had to draw pictures and point to things just to try to make him understand.” She paused. “Look here, Mr. Rustemeyer. A bridge.”

  Hiking up her skirt a little, Rosie knelt to the ground. She drew her fingers through the soft, rich dirt. “This is the creek. The water.”

  “Das Wasser?” Rolf asked.

  “Das Wasser.” She set a pebble by the stream. “This is you, Mr. Rustemeyer. And this pebble is Mr. Hunter. Over here across the Wasser is O’Toole. Ja?”

  “Ja! Bluestem!” He was grinning like a coyote that had just gotten into the chicken coop. “Ja, ja, ja!”

  Rosie picked up a stick and broke it in half. Then she laid it across the line she had drawn. “Bridge. To go across, see? Across the Wasser.”

  “Eine Brücke!”

  “Ja!” Rosie said. “Eine Brücke!”

  “Sehr gut!” Then Rustemeyer rattled off another string of German that seemed to indicate he understood the idea very well. And he liked it.

  Rosie glanced at Seth. “What’s he saying?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  She studied the big German. “Come to Mr. Hunter’s house. Tomorrow. Build the Brücke.” “Am Morgen früh? Ich kann nicht. Ich habe eine Kuh die krank ist.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll come,” Rosie said.

  “I’d say it’s doubtful.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and turned back toward the wagon. Suddenly from behind, Rolf Rustemeyer grabbed her arm and swung her around. Rosie clapped a hand over her mouth, her breath in her throat.

  “Fräulein very pretty!” he said, falling to the ground on one knee and sweeping his frayed straw hat from his head. “Beautiful.”

  Before Rosie could suck air into her lungs, Rolf Rustemeyer planted a firm kiss on the back of her hand. She jumped back, bumping into Seth.

  “Oh my!” she gasped as Seth caught her shoulders. “Gracious, what are you doing, Mr. Rustemeyer? What’s he doing?”

  “Looks to me like he’s courting.” Seth stepped up to the kneeling German and lifted him by one suspender. “Listen, Rustemeyer, she’s mine. Understand? The fräulein belongs to me.”

  “Für vork, ja?”

  Seth paused. “That’s right. She works for me. I brought her all the way from Kansas City. You leave her be.”

  “Ja, ja.” Rustemeyer nodded as Seth took Rosie’s arm and started back across the field. “Goot-bye, fräulein! Beautiful!”

  Seth helped Rosie onto the wagon beside Chipper. As she arranged her skirts, she took a peek at Rustemeyer from under the brim of her bonnet. The German wasn’t bad to look at, though he did need a haircut and a wash. He was a hard worker. He seemed kind enough. And he thought she was beautiful.

  As Seth started the mules, Rosie brushed a hand across her cheek. Her skin felt hot. Her mouth was dry. She thought she might be sick.

  Beautiful? Nobody had ever said a word about how Rosie Mills looked—one way or the other. When she happened to catch her reflection in a window, she saw nothing but two big brown eyes, a tall gawky body, and the same blue dress she had worn for three years. Beautiful?

  “Rustemeyer ought to learn some English,” Seth said in a clipped voice. “And if you ask me, he needs to take a bath more than once a year.”

  Rosie felt a grin tug at her lips. For some odd reason, the big German’s attentions to her had irked Seth. Of course, if she found someone to marry right away, she wouldn’t be able to look after Chipper. Maybe that was what bothered him.

  “Mr. Hunter,” she said. When he turned his head, his eyes shone as bright blue as the sky. Her heart stumbled over a beat, but she lifted her chin. “I’ll have you remember the war is over, and Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I don’t belong to you, Mr. Hunter. Not my arms for the working. Not my words for the speaking.” She paused. “And not my heart for the courting.”

  Seth searched the trail for the first sign of his house. He had always liked that view—the roof coming into sight, and then the wall, his cows, the chickens, the fence, and finally his barn. For some reason, his pulse was pounding like a marching band. He couldn’t wait to show off his place. And it wasn’t just his son whose eyes would shine.

  He glanced at the woman on the bench beside him. Ever since their encounter with Rustemeyer, Rosie had ridden in silence, her head held high and her eyes scanning the horizon. Pretty, the German had called her. Beautiful.

  Seth gave a snort and studied the woman a little harder. Truth to tell, Rosie Mills wasn’t half-bad to look at. For one thing, she had those big brown eyes. In her eyes, a man could read everything she felt. Happiness, anger, fear, sorrow—her emotions were as obvious as the sun in the sky.

  When Rosie was happy, her joy was about as hard to keep from catching as a case of hiccups. Anger flashed like lightning from those eyes of hers. And sorrow—Seth didn’t know when he’d ever seen such pain as that written on her face when Holloway bad-mouthed her background. No matter that Rosie Mills was stubborn and willful and a lot more jabbery than Seth liked, nobody deserved the kind of abuse she’d taken from the stationmaster.

  But pretty? Her nose was straight enough. Her cheekbones stood out high and sharp. Of course, a month or two of good food might fix that. And her mouth … her mouth … Rosie’s lips—

  “There it is!” she cried, turning those big chocolate eyes on him. “I see a roof! Is it your house?”

  Seth cleared his throat, glad she had diverted his attention. “That’s it. I built it myself.”

  As the mules pulled the wagon the last hundred yards, he couldn’t deny the pride of ownership he felt. He had dug every inch of soil out of the ground with his own two hands. He had cut the blocks of prairie sod and laid them one atop the other to build the half wall that fronted his dugout. He had chopped two of the scarce trees on his land and split them into boards. He had laid out his slanted wooden roof and covered it with more sod. And there it was. Perfect.

  As he sat gazing on his dream, his future, Rosie stared in silence. Finally, she turned to him. Her brown eyes were luminous.

  “Oh my,” she whispered. “You live in a cave.”

  “I don’t wanna live in no hole in the ground with no stinkin’ Yankee,” Chipper announced. “I wanna go back and live with Gram and Gramps.”

  Seth stared at the two of them, his face rigid. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His farm—
the labor of his hands, the legacy he would leave behind him—

  “This is it, like it or not,” he snapped. “This is where we stay.” Rosie stared at the dugout, her face as pale as winter prairie grass. “Home,” she whispered.

  Never in her life had Rosie seen anything quite so forlorn, so unwelcoming, so dispiriting as the cave in the ground Seth Hunter called home. Truth to tell, it was more like a three-sided cutaway into a low hillock than a house. As she walked up to the door, she noted that he had sided the front of the soddy with long planks. He had installed four long windows—though they had only oiled paper for panes—and a semblance of a front porch with an overhanging roof. The house itself was tucked into the hill, its roofline even with the ground. In fact, should anyone want to, he could drive a wagon right up the hill and over the sodded roof of the house without a pause.

  Rosie let out a breath. This was no Kansas City cottage. There was nothing even to lend an air of beauty. No white paint. No pink-flowered curtains. No brick walkways. No picket fences. No roses or daffodils or tulips. It was … a burrow.

  “I bought a stove from a fellow upstream who couldn’t prove up his claim,” Seth said, lifting the wooden bar across the front door. “He sold it cheap. You’d better light it if we’re to have any supper tonight.”

  Rosie swallowed and stepped around a chicken on her way toward the door. Chipper sidled up against her, one thumb stuck securely in his mouth. Taking his free hand, she gave the little boy the bravest smile she could muster. “Your father built this,” she whispered. “This is a prairie house.”

  “Looks more like a mole’s house to me.”

  “You—!” Seth swung on the child, his finger outstretched. “I’ll have you know my place is twice as big as Rustemeyer’s, and I’ve got a better stove and a bigger bed than O’Toole—” He caught himself. “Just get your hide in here and start peeling spuds.”

  Rosie stood just outside the doorway. She easily read the hurt that ran beneath Seth’s anger. And she understood it. He had built this house. It was his pride. His only possession.

  Dear Father, she prayed silently, bowing her head under the open sky. Please help me to see the beauty in this place. I know you can make good of all my willful mistakes. I’m almost sure you wanted me to stay back at the Home, but here I am with Seth Hunter—and I don’t know why, nor what I’m to do for you. Oh, Father, please make a godly plan of my terrible mistake. Please bring joy and peace—

  “Are you coming inside?” Seth called, leaning one shoulder against the frame of his door.

  Rosie breathed a quick “Amen” and hurried toward the house. As she brushed past Seth, she looked up into his eyes. They were as hard and blue as ice, and she suddenly knew she must do all in her power to soften them.

  Not just his eyes, a voice spoke inside her. Soften his heart.

  “I’m going to check on my cows,” he said. “I’ll bring in some meat from the smokehouse.”

  He started out, but she caught his arm. “Wait, Mr. Hunter. Please … will you show me around?”

  “I thought you knew how to light a stove.”

  “I do. But … this is your home. You built it. Please, I’d like you to show it to me.”

  He looked down at her, his jaw tight. She saw a flicker of some emotion cross his face. And then he stroked a hand down the door.

  “Walnut,” he said. “You won’t find a harder wood in these parts. Took me three days to build.”

  “And the hinges?” Rosie said. “They’re leather. They look strong.”

  “Deer hide.”

  “I can’t imagine anything that could break down such a sturdy door.”

  She gave him a bright smile as she walked inside. But there, her heart sank further. Darkness shadowed the cavernous room. A filmy cobweb stretched across one corner. A dank, musty smell mingled with wood smoke permeated the air, and the few pieces of furniture stood around on the uneven dirt floor like lonely soldiers.

  “Here’s the stove,” Seth said, striding across the room. His head nearly touched the low ceiling. “I’ve only had it a couple of weeks. I reckon it could use a good cleaning.”

  Rosie swallowed at the sight of the large sooty stove with its rusted pipe and blackened burner lids. Half-afraid of what she might find, she gingerly opened the oven door. A brown mouse lifted its head, gave a loud squeak, and jumped out at her feet. Rosie gasped and leapt backward as the mouse fled across the floor with Chipper racing after it.

  “Mr. Hunter,” she said, setting her hands on her hips. “Have you ever used this stove?”

  He took off his hat and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, uh, not exactly. I figured I’d get Sheena over here one of these days to teach me how to work it.”

  Rosie brushed off her hands. If there was anything she knew, it was cooking and cleaning. Maybe God could use her to set up this household—if only for little Chipper’s sake. In fact, the more she looked around the place, the easier it was to imagine what she could do with it. Scrub the table. Air out the mattress. Polish the stove.

  “I built this table out of pine,” Seth was saying. He stroked his hand down the three smooth boards of the long trestle table. “And the chairs. If you know anything about caning …”

  “I do,” Rosie said, studying the four seatless chairs. Obviously, Seth had been using a set of stumps assembled around the table for his perch. Those would have to go.

  “And here’s the bed.” He cupped the ball on top of the foot post. “It’s got a straw mattress. No bugs.”

  Rosie inspected the frame. To her surprise, the bed revealed skilled craftsmanship—its joints solid, its pegs tight, and its posts carefully carved, sanded, and polished. Curious, she returned to the table. It, too, displayed even planing and careful joinery. The chairs—though they lacked seats—stood level and rigid. And in the center of each chair’s back a design of flowers and scrolls had been carved.

  “You did this work?” she asked, straightening. “You built these things?”

  Seth shrugged. “My uncle taught me carpentry. I always liked working with my hands.” Before she could marvel aloud at the handiwork, he turned away. “See what you can do about that stove, Miss Mills. I’ll be back in a few minutes with some meat.”

  “Eggs, too, please!” she called after him. “If you have any.”

  As he disappeared through the door, Rosie let out a breath. “Well, Chipper,” she said softly, “here we are at home. How do you like it?”

  “I hate it.” He picked up a potato from the basket at his feet and hurled it across the room. “Hate it, hate it, hate it!”

  Rosie gathered the little boy in her arms and held him tightly as he began to sob. Never mind what Seth Hunter wanted, she thought. This child needed love—and she intended to see that he got it. If not from his father, then from her.

  Seth decided Rosenbloom Cotton Mills’s real name should have been Twister. The skinny little gal was a regular cyclone around the house. Declaring the stove too filthy to use, its chimney blocked with creosote and its ash pit jammed, she fixed a lunch of cold smoked venison. She boiled greens on an open fire, along with a few potatoes and some coffee. After lunch she broke down the stove, dragged it out the front door piece by piece, and began to scrub and polish.

  While Chipper wandered the creek bank picking up kindling, Rosie scoured every pot and pan in the house. She hauled the mattress outside and threw it on top of a spice bush to air. Then she toted the sheets and bedding down to the creek and washed them in the cold water—declaring that she would do it again with hot water after she had the stove put back together.

  By the time evening rolled around, she had reassembled most of the stove and all of the bed. Along the way, she had managed enough chitchat to wear out any man’s eardrums. “Don’t you have a broom, Mr. Hunter? Never mind, I’ll make one tomorrow. I’m so glad you have a well. I thought sure I’d be obliged to make that trip to the creek five times a day. You need some new paper in your windows, Mr. Hun
ter. These oiled panes are all fly speckled. We had real glass panes at the Home, but I don’t see how a person could ever bring glass out here to the prairie. It would shatter the first time the wagon hit a bump, wouldn’t it? Don’t throw those ashes away! I’ll want to make lye for the soap. Have you seen any beehives around here, Mr. Hunter?”

  As he went back and forth from the house to the barn, Seth couldn’t help but marvel at his new employee. While he cleaned the cow stalls and checked on his chickens, the little brown-eyed twister sashayed around like there was no tomorrow. By the time she banged two pots together to call him to supper, he had to admit bringing Rosie Mills from Kansas City might not have been such a bad idea. The delicious aroma drifting through the front door of his house made his stomach groan in anticipation.

  Seth washed his hands and face in the pot of warm water Rosie had set on the front porch. Still dripping, he walked inside to find the long table spread with wilted poke salad boiled with chunks of salt pork, fried sweet potatoes, and a mountain of steaming scrambled eggs. Seated on a stump at the table, his hair combed and his cheeks scrubbed, Chipper regarded the feast with wide blue eyes. Slowly, half-unbelieving, Seth walked across the room and stared. He hadn’t eaten a meal like this in … in years.

  “Did you wash up, Mr. Hunter?” Rosie asked, breezing into the house carrying a plate piled high with turnovers. “I put a bowl of hot water—” She stopped and looked Seth up and down, breathless, as though the sight of a wet man had cast a spell over her. “I see you found it.”

  He raked a hand back through his damp hair. “Where did this come from? All this food?”

  “Here and there.” Coming out of her trance, she set the turnovers on the table. “You have a wealth of greens right outside the door. Poke, dock, plantain. I found some dried apples in the cellar. I hope you don’t mind—”

  “No, no. It’s fine. Use anything you want. I’ll make sure we always have fresh meat. Rabbits and quail, if nothing better. Anything in the smokehouse is yours. I dug a cellar when I moved out here late last summer. It still has a few things I managed to winter over.”