Spring for Susannah

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Spring for Susannah Page 22

by Catherine Richmond


  Susannah kicked the loose dirt. “Ivar says there could be potatoes here. Dogs are good at digging. Why don’t you find them?”

  Jake flopped at the edge of the garden, panting.

  “Not even pointing me in the right direction?” She dragged the potato fork along the furrows. Morning sun warmed her shoulders and evaporated the dew from the row of stubs that had been cornstalks. “All this good food, gone. Lord, Jesse said it was all right to be angry with You, so let me just say, I’m furious! I worked hard on this garden, planting, weeding, watering. And Jake kept it free of rabbits.”

  The dog stood, scanning for invaders.

  “Why? What did we do wrong?” At the far end of the furrow, she turned over a finger-sized piece of rind, all that remained of her watermelon crop. “You said You’d provide for all our needs. You said ask and we’ll receive. I’m pretty sure Jesse asked You to provide for us, so I’m asking again. Please—”

  A leafless woody vine marked the former pumpkin patch.

  Orienting herself, she guessed the location of the row, stabbed, and levered down on the handle. Up popped a potato. The next forkful brought up three. Then five.

  By noon Susannah had filled the root cellar.

  She turned her face to the sky. “Thank You, Lord,” she said. But in the back of her mind, the truth gnawed at her: Jesse hadn’t needed to leave after all.

  Susannah? Jesse reached for his wife but felt only grass and hard ground. His lungs burned from coughing and his muscles ached from shivering with the cold. And the smell! Someone had a bad case of Confederate’s disease.

  He heard a drumbeat, a steady rhythm. People sang but not in English. Somewhere a dog barked. Jesse managed to get his eyes open. The darkness was complete. Had he gone blind? No, the moon shone through an opening in the roof. He felt around. A tent, with leather walls, he guessed. No clothes. A wool blanket lay next to his feet. He covered himself. Water would taste good about now, to get this bitter taste out of his mouth.

  Then he remembered. Grasshoppers. Susannah. Money. How long had he been gone? He had to—

  An elderly woman leaned over him. He couldn’t understand the words, but she gave him a chewing out that would have scared the toughest sergeant in the army. Moonlight caught on the silver circle hanging from her neck.

  Another person came into view, a man with straight long hair, an Indian. Sees-the-Tatanka, maybe.

  He tried to speak but the effort exhausted him, and he couldn’t stay awake to hear what the man would say.

  Susannah swung the scythe at the tall slough grass. The blade bounced, cutting only two stems. She tightened her grip, raised the handle over her left shoulder, and put all her weight into the swing. The impact vibrated up her arm to the base of her neck. Three stalks fell. She took the sharpening stone from her apron pocket, ran it along the blade, and tried again. The results were no better.

  “I’m just tired from hauling all those potatoes.” Susannah stepped on the hub of the wheel, pulled herself into the box, and lay down. “Five-minute nap,” she told Jake, “and then you’ll see some hay cut.”

  When Susannah finally stretched and sat up, the shadows angled long against the prairie; her nap had lasted more than a few minutes. “So much for making hay while the sun shines.”

  Her hands, swollen and tender from the morning’s work, burned on the scythe handle. She hacked away, but dented more grass than she cut. During one vigorous swing, she heard a rip and felt cool air on her shoulder blade. Her sleeve had separated from the back of her bodice. She dropped the scythe, grabbed the pitchfork, and stabbed the small pile of grass. Most of it slid off before she reached the wagon. “Forget it,” she said aloud. She threw the tools in the wagon and loaded the hay by hand. Four handfuls and done.

  “Ivar was right,” Susannah told Jake, “this is man’s work. I’d have more success using my sewing scissors. Then I’ll split firewood with my letter opener. Let’s go home.”

  Jake’s low growl broke into her reverie. A man stood in the shade of the house. As she approached he stepped into the sunlight and lumbered toward the wagon. A plaid shirt, pattern blurred by grime, stretched across the girth of Abner Reece.

  “Lord, help,” she whispered. Foolish girl, she’d left the gun in the soddy. The pitchfork? No, she’d most likely hurt herself. Halting the oxen just inside the draw, she hurriedly draped her shawl over her ripped dress and jumped down.

  “Mr. Reece, it’s an honor to have you pay us a call.” She sidestepped to stay upwind of him. Since last spring, he had ripened, like a fresh manure pile on the hottest day of summer.

  Jake circled the man, then loped off to the creek. Some protection he was.

  “Heard you got chickens.” The big man reached inside his shirt and scratched. “Been hungry for eggs.”

  Why hadn’t he walked to the store? Then she realized: He had. And Mr. and Mrs. Rose, the town criers, had spread the news of Jesse’s departure. Worthington wouldn’t need a newspaper as long as they were around.

  “Yes, I have eggs. I’ll fix a basket for you.”

  He scratched his beard. “Well, I was wondering if you’d cook them up for me.”

  All she wanted to do was rest, but she couldn’t risk angering him. “How do you prefer them?”

  “Scrambled’s fine, half dozen or so.” He unhitched her team.

  Susannah stirred the fire, then cracked six eggs into the skillet. Mr. Reece watered the oxen and stowed the wagon. His heavy steps echoed across the draw. The room darkened and she heard a snuffling sound. His head bobbed under the lintel.

  “Mr. Reece, if you’ll take a seat in the yard, please. It’s awfully close in here.”

  With a grunt, he lowered himself to the chopping block. Thank heavens he didn’t come inside. If he had squeezed through, he would have collapsed anything he sat on and suffocated her with his odor. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, “this would be a good time for Jesse to come home.”

  Susannah heaped the yellow curds into a mixing bowl, stuck a fork in, and filled a coffee mug. Should she carry the gun? Not unless she grew another hand. She slipped her sharpest knife into her apron pocket, for all the good it would do.

  “They might have the grasshopper taste still.” She couldn’t stand here watching him eat. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get that basket.”

  Nodding, he palmed the fork and dug in.

  Susannah collected four new eggs from the shed, padded them with a layer of straw, and added eight more from the root cellar. Mr. Reece watched as she moved between the house and the shed.

  “How are you set for potatoes?” She put the basket on the ground beside him.

  “Got enough.”

  Susannah sat on the threshold, within reach of the shotgun. Would it stop this buffalo-sized man?

  “Got sisters?”

  “I’m an only child.”

  “Guess you’re lonely out here with Jesse gone. I can stay until he gets back.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but that’s really not necessary.”

  “You could wait over to my place.”

  “I’m expecting him at any moment.”

  “Can’t find a wife of my own, nor borrow someone else’s.” A belch reverberated from deep within, echoing off the soddy. “Change your mind, I’m eight miles west of here. Ford the river on the section line.”

  “Eight miles! You’d best be on your way so you can make it before dark.” Susannah took the bowl and mug from him. “Thank you for calling.” Inside the soddy she barred the door, leaning against it for support. She watched as Abner Reece ambled up the slope toward the sunset.

  And the truth struck her like a blow: Ivar was right. She couldn’t stay on the homestead alone.

  Chapter 25

  Dying is so cold . . . It hurts so bad.

  Mrs. Rose flapped out the door like an agitated duck, her russet and umber dress reminiscent of a female mallard’s plumage. “Mrs. Mason! Woe is me! Sorrowful times!” Tears dripped off her
beaklike nose onto her heaving breast. Susannah could make out only a few words among the sobs. “Gold-field widows . . . regret the day . . . Black Hills . . . scalp-hungry savages . . . trailing your husband.”

  Susannah frowned. The day’s entire agenda depended on whether or not she could drag this woman from the pit of hysteria. Susannah wrapped an arm around the older woman’s shoulders and shepherded her into the deserted store. When Mrs. Rose paused to blow her nose, Susannah jumped in. “Mrs. Rose, perhaps you could settle an argument between Mr. Mason and me.”

  The transformation was instantaneous. The woman’s face lit up in anticipation of a recitation of marital discord.

  “Mr. Mason thinks your husband runs the store and you merely help him out. I think Mr. Rose is the brawn, but you’re the brains behind this emporium.” Susannah discarded her mental picture of Mr. Rose, rail-thin and pale, and offered up a brief silent prayer of remorse for the fib.

  “Oh, Mrs. Mason, I knew from the moment I first saw you. Smart as a whip, I said, A-1.” Mrs. Rose dried her face and wadded her handkerchief into her apron pocket. “Just between us ladies, Mr. Rose isn’t much help around here, other than bookkeeping.”

  With a swish of her bustle, Mrs. Rose resumed her place behind the counter. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Mason? I thought you’d have gone back to Detroit by now, city girl. Surely you don’t plan to stay out on that claim by yourself while Mr. Mason goes prospecting?”

  “Prospecting? I’m sorry, ma’am, but I believe you’re misinformed. Jesse went to Jamestown for carpentry work.”

  “Ha!” A crumpled slip of paper flapped from the woman’s apron. She crossed her arms over her bosom.

  “Dearest Susannah,” Jesse had scratched on the back of a used ticket. “No work in J’town. Carpenters make $5/day in Bismarck. —J.M.”

  Her heart sank. He had gone even farther away. “But this says nothing about gold.”

  “Humph.” This time the apron produced the August 12 issue of the Bismarck Tribune.

  “GOLD!” the headlines shouted. “Expedition Heard From!

  Gold and Silver in Immense Quantities, Gold Bearing Quartz Crops Out in Every Hill, Custer’s Official Report!”

  Susannah scanned the front page. “Sounds like there’s gold just lying around.”

  “Hear tell they’re bringing out a hundred dollars a day. Which is why our foolish husbands went chasing after it.”

  “But Jesse’s not a miner.”

  “Neither is Mr. Rose.”

  And neither was the neighborhood dairyman who left for the Montana gold fields in 1860, or the milliner’s husband who lit out for Virginia City in ’63. Susannah held her breath. Don’t cry. Don’t think. Concentrate on this moment. “I need to find out if Mr. Mason ordered grain before he left.”

  “You poor girl, so brave.” With a dramatic sniffle, the older woman slapped open an account book. “No grain orders this month. How much do you need?”

  “Fifty bushels of middlings, please. Also, do you know where I might sell a steer?”

  Mrs. Rose extended her bottom lip sympathetically. “Seems like everyone’s trying to sell and no one’s buying. That comes to $45, leaving the Mason account with $14.93.”

  What? Jesse had nearly sixty dollars’ credit with the Roses? Susannah handed over her letter to Ellen. “Have I received any other mail?” she asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice.

  “As a matter of fact, you have.” The shopkeeper hefted a large box. “Looks like your sister-in-law sent books for your school.”

  “What school?”

  “Mr. Mason told us, and we told those new people north of here. They’re Norwegian, so like as not they didn’t understand. I thought for sure you’d want the money, seeing as how Mr. Mason has no income from wheat. We settled on twenty-five cents a week for each child. That would be eight dollars a month, but I doubt we’ll have that long before the snow hits. We went ahead and fixed up the army mail station.”

  Jesse volunteered her to teach? No, more likely Mrs. Rose had run the idea over him like a locomotive. Susannah swallowed. “Army mail station?”

  “Before the railroad, the army carried the mail through here. They left the building behind. Nothing fancy, just some benches and a stove, and a loft for you to sleep in. I said we could put you up.” She tossed her steely curls in the direction of the family quarters upstairs. “But Mr. Mason insisted you stay at the school.”

  “Did my husband happen to say what I should do with the livestock?”

  “As if I’d have any idea.” Mrs. Rose waddled to the back door. “Robert? I know you’re out there. Come help your teacher with her books.”

  The freckle-faced boy who had driven Jesse’s wagon back to the Volds’ hauled the box across the hard-packed dirt yard, then ran off. After the soddy, the army shanty seemed almost too bright, too loud. Sunlight streamed in through windows on three sides and reflected off whitewashed walls. No musty odors or spider-webs; the building had been aired and swept recently. Someone had nailed together a couple of pine benches and topped them with a stack of broken slates. A squat two-lid stove, rusty from insufficient blacking, emptied its pipe into the north wall. A ladder led to a loft with a new straw pallet.

  Susannah settled on the only chair and studied Jesse’s note. He had dashed it off in pencil, probably as the eastbound pulled into the station. How had it gotten here? If one of the men from the section house had brought it, he could tell her if Jesse was in good health and sober. When did it arrive? And what else had Mrs. Rose hidden in her apron?

  Susannah pried open the box. On top was a recent issue of the Ann Arbor newspaper with a question mark inked beside an article about the grasshopper plague. The insects had eaten everything from Dakota Territory to Kansas. Their bodies had piled up on the tracks, stopping trains. Perhaps this wasn’t a curse from God after all but simply the kind of challenge that comes to both the just and the unjust. She wished Jesse would come home so she could talk to him about it. Or about anything.

  The box contained a book of poetry, ten novels, and assorted back issues of Harper’s and Leslie’s. Bless Ellen; no materials for teaching but a welcome respite from reality. Her letter shared about their children and new church but no mention of Susannah’s inheritance.

  Susannah had never taught, not even Sunday school, and never helped with the younger grades, but she had been a student for ten years. How difficult could it be? And the location couldn’t be better. She’d be near the railroad when Jesse returned. And far from Abner Reece.

  Susannah stood and headed back to the store. She’d need slate pencils, a lamp. A map would be nice—

  “Ivar!” Susannah almost bumped into her neighbor.

  “Come.” He grasped her arm above the elbow and steered her to his wagon. “There’s to be a burying. Those people north of here, their baby died. Marta’s with them already. Get in.”

  “But I don’t know them.”

  “No one does. So. Everyone will come.” As soon as she took her seat, he shouted and slapped the reins. They climbed the ridge above the river, cutting through unbroken prairie grass.

  “They’re Norwegian. Perhaps only you and Marta should go.”

  “What? You think Norway is some puny country where I know everyone?” He made a growling noise in his throat. “They are from Iowa. Marta and I are from Wisconsin.”

  Susannah’s teeth rattled as one wheel jolted through a hole. “Jesse said you didn’t speak English when he first met you, so I thought you’d—”

  “Just got off the boat?” Ivar finished. “Good storyteller, your husband. No, I left Norway eleven years ago. I was too old for school in America. Served in Wisconsin’s Fifteenth Volunteer Regiment, most all Scandinavians. Didn’t learn much English until I came out here. Jesse talked like a river in spring flood. I had to learn or drown.”

  He eased up on the reins and the team settled into a steady walk. “Work all day, talk all night. Everything from how to build outhouse
to how to get to heaven. Sometimes laugh, sometimes cry. Why are we born? Why do bad things happen? What kind of woman is best?”

  “I disappointed him, didn’t I?”

  Ivar growled again. “No. Sundays after lunch, while you and Marta walked, Jesse bragged on you. No afternoon nap for me until I heard how smart, how brave, how good you are. I half never seen a man more proud of his wife, or more in love.”

  “Mrs. Rose thinks Jesse caught gold fever.”

  Ivar’s bushy eyebrows twitched. After a long moment, he conceded, “Maybe, ja, the way he is about money.”

  Susannah’s heart sank even further. “But that area’s full of Indians. General Custer took hundreds of soldiers for protection. How far away are the Black Hills?”

  Ivar shrugged. “Past where the railroad ends, but not so far as California.”

  Two white shapes broke the horizon line. One became the cover of a heavy wagon, similar to a prairie schooner, the other a tent, pitched in a neat square of cut grass. Their oxen and a Guernsey milk cow grazed with two horses. A chestnut stallion and mare, their sleek conformation more appropriate to racing than farmwork. A breeding pair? These people must be well-to-do.

  “Jesse should be here. He would know what to say, what verses to read. These people expect me to talk at the grave.” Ivar retrieved his Bible from under the seat and shoved it into her hands. “Look up some verses for me.”

  “I can’t read Norwegian.”

  He snatched the book from her and slapped the reins into her hands. “You drive, then.”

  “Try Job, the Psalms, Isaiah 49, First Thessalonians.”

  “The Psalms? There’re 150 of them. Which one?”

  Susannah parked the wagon so the oxen would be shaded by the tent. Introductions and directions swirled around her, the unfamiliar names fusing with other incomprehensible words. After a whirl of activity, she found herself alone inside, holding a basin of water and a washrag.

  There on the pallet, under a drape of netting, lay the baby. Balancing the basin between clumps of grass, Susannah knelt, touching her finger to the tiny fist already drained of warmth and color.

 

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