Healing Montana Sky

by Debra Holland

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “Don’t know that neither. Pa said I was born during the first snowfall. He was stationed at Fort Ellis.”

  “In Montana, could be August, September, or even October if we had a long Indian summer that year,” he said in a joking tone. “But we should probably stick to September. Mine is March twenty-fourth. I’m twenty-seven. But you need a birthday so we can celebrate. Why don’t you pick a date in September, and we’ll use that?”

  “Celebrate?”

  She doesn’t know about birthdays. A glimmer of an idea entered his mind, and he decided not to tell her. Better to surprise her when the time came. “What about the boys?”

  “My Henri be a winter baby. Born smack in the middle of the darkest nights.”

  “Late December, then. What about Jacques?”

  Once again, she counted on her fingers. “End of summer. There be a fat moon in the sky, for the light be comin’ through the window as I labored.”

  “We can look up the moon’s cycle on the almanac later, so we can pinpoint the date from last year.”

  “Why be it—” she corrected herself “—does it matter?”

  “Good catch on changing the word. I hear you doing that more often now.” He reached over and tugged on the end of her braid. “You wait and see what happens on birthdays.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Then why be you askin’ now?”

  “You learn these kinds of things when you’re courtin’, Antonia. I never had a chance to court you. And, there’s precious little time to do so now with the little shavers around and all the work to be done.” And our trials of grief. “Courtship is a time to dream about your future. Do you have dreams?”

  Her eyes shadowed. “Just for my children to have an education.”

  “Henri is certainly on his way. He’s losing his French accent, and I rarely hear yours anymore.”

  “I didn’t have one before. Only came from living with Jean-Claude. He preferred to speak French and taught me.” She tilted her head in askance. “What ’bout you?”

  “I want a dairy farm.”

  She looked sideways at him. “You have that.”

  “A big one.” As always when Erik talked about his goals, enthusiasm took him over. “Not just to produce milk and butter, but to make cheeses. Sell them in the mercantile, but also ship to other towns to sell. Get out from under the yoke of the Cobbs.” He remembered the death of Annabelle Lee and her calf, and he inwardly winced. Heavy losses.

  “Do you know how to make cheese?” she asked, gazing at him with earnest concentration.

  “Yes, my family in Indiana produced several kinds we were known for.”

  “Why don’t we make ’em cheeses?”

  “I’ve been working to get other things in place. Figured I might be ready to start after Camilla was born.”

  “We should start.” Her tone sounded firm.

  We. He liked the sound of that. Daisy used to be more enthusiastic about the cheese making, but with her pregnancy, she’d been too exhausted to contemplate new endeavors. Couldn’t even manage all the work she’d normally done, much less take on a new business.

  Erik smiled at Antonia. “See, this is what courtship is—sharing dreams and making plans.”

  She gazed at his lips. “We already be married.”

  “You still deserve a courtship.”

  She watched him, an uncertain look, almost a question, in her golden eyes. If we hadn’t needed to get married, would you still have chosen me?

  Erik knew the answer was no. For Antonia wasn’t at all the kind of woman he preferred—too tall, too independent, not a blonde with blue eyes. . . . But. . .maybe my tastes were formed by my dainty Daisy, the epitome of femininity. He pondered that idea. If I’d never known Daisy, would I still have been drawn to petite blondes? Or would other types of women match well with me, too?

  Realization glimmered. . . . Perhaps no was the wrong answer, for as Erik adjusted to Antonia’s hard-working nature, how she took on tasks usually done by menfolk, and to her kindness and strength, he found her attractive. He gazed over the windrows, seeing all the work they’d accomplished together. Antonia does suit me in unexpected ways.

  On impulse, he set a fingertip to the pulse beating in her throat, and then brushed up and across her jawline, to let his touch linger under her chin. Slowly, he tipped her face toward his, giving her time to pull away.

  His gaze lingered on Antonia’s mouth. Her lips were fuller and darker than Daisy’s. He’d given her quick kisses before, but hadn’t lingered to explore, to become acquainted with the taste and feel of her. This time, when he lowered his mouth to hers, Erik allowed himself to experience every sensation.

  Her lips trembled, then yielded, warm and soft.

  He hesitated, pulling away a few inches to see her eyes.

  Instead of the pain or disinterest he’d expected to see, her eyes looked wide and dreamy. He kissed her again, allowing his lips to explore hers and coaxing her mouth to open for him. When her tongue touched his, tentative yet welcoming, heat spread through him. His other hand cupped her face.

  Henri stirred, shifted, in the process kicking Erik’s leg and reminding him of their circumstances and the work still to be done. He drew back from Antonia and took a steadying breath.

  She looked down, a flush suffusing her face, adding a becoming dusky tint to her cheeks.

  From this angle, he could see her long eyelashes, her vulnerability, and wanted to gently press his lips to her eyelids. Maybe when we’ve become more intimate. “Have you ever kissed anyone but Jean-Claude?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He took her hand and played with her fingers. “Same for me. Only Daisy.” He brought her palm to his mouth and nibbled kisses in the center, watching her flush deepen.

  She moved as if to pull her hand away, and then she stilled, gazing over the prairie. “Be calm. . .peaceful here.”

  “A farmer can never have enough peaceful days,” he said ruefully. “Unless his crops are in need of rain.” He paused, reluctant to move. “Guess we’d better get back to work. We have to turn the windrows again so the hay will dry enough to take home with us tonight.”

  Still keeping her face averted, the color in her cheeks high, Antonia nodded and shifted to rise.

  Before she could get to her feet, Erik placed their joined hands on her thigh. “You don’t mind me kissing you?”

  She shook her head, gave him a quick look, and then her gaze skittered away. “Different it be. . .but good, eh?” Her lips quirked into a smile, and she finally met his eyes. She touched her fingers to his lips. “’Spect we’ll soon be used to each other, then just be good. Be no more different.” She lowered her hand. “Makes me be feelin’ sad and alive at the same time.”

  “I think you’ve just summed us up. Sad and yet alive. Different and good. I suspect about now, we couldn’t ask for more.”

  “Guess you be right.”

  But Erik found he did wish for more. He rose to his feet, extended a hand, and helped Antonia up. Instead of releasing her, he shifted her to face him and circled her waist with his arm. He didn’t have to bend far to reach her lips for another exploring kiss, languid and deep.

  She placed a hand on his shoulder and slid her palm around the back of his neck to pull him closer.

  Erik’s arm tightened around her waist. He wanted to lay her back down on the blanket, to explore her body. Reluctantly, he lifted his head. “I’d forgotten how good kissing feels. I mean. . .the specialness of first kisses. I feel so alive right now, like I could scythe the whole prairie.”

  She chuckled.

  The rare sound tickled inside his ribs. “Someday, maybe even soon, eh, I hope we both will be only alive and good.”

  One by one, they moved the sleeping children into the back of the wagon to keep them safe and donned their head coverings to shade their faces. They walked over to turn the windrows, so the afternoon sun could reach the hay on the b
ottom. By unspoken agreement, each took the one opposite and farthest apart from the other.

  Even though Antonia didn’t watch Erik, or at least not much, she had a heightened awareness of his presence. When she wasn’t sneaking glances at him, she heard scratching sounds from his rake and knew his location. His straw hat hid his face from her, and she wondered if he was thinking of those kisses just as she was.

  Remembering the touch of his lips. . .her body tingling. . .made the turning of the windrows easier. As she separated and lifted the hay with her rake, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from whirling around. She relived the kisses with Erik, the sensations in her body—ones she’d never thought to feel again, made more intense by newness and unfamiliarity.

  She and Jean-Claude had always engaged in satisfying marital relations, although not so much after Jacques’s birth. She’d assumed intimacy wasn’t as important to either of them as before and figured when the baby was older, they might once again find their old patterns. Now she wondered if that would have happened.

  But Erik’s kiss stirred her in ways she’d never experienced. Antonia spent some time pondering why that might be and finally concluded that at age fifteen, as crazy as she’d been for Jean-Claude, she’d been young and virginal—her only kiss the one her husband had given her when he proposed. She’d been shy about her body and inexperienced in the ways of both marriage and intimate coupling.

  Now, after years of marriage, living with a man in the close confines of small cabins and tents, birthing and nursing two children, Antonia was older, comfortable with nudity, and her body was riper for pleasure. She’d grown wise in the ways of men. A shiver tingled down her spine at the thought of intimacy with Erik.

  She snuck another peek at him.

  Erik straightened and stretched. When he caught her looking at him, he grinned. “You doing all right over there?”

  Her cheeks heated. Grateful he was too far away to see the heightened color in her face, she flipped him a reassuring wave.

  Yes, I be wanting more with him.

  But at the same time, Antonia wasn’t quite ready to step over the intimacy threshold into a real marriage, for when doing so, she’d be leaving Jean-Claude behind. At the thought, guilt and sadness haunted her.

  Erik be not pressuring me. The realization made her relax. She’d come to trust this new husband of hers. She thought about the men she’d known—mostly soldiers and Indians, a few other hunters who were friends with Jean-Claude—and couldn’t imagine one of them she’d want to be married to. She’d been lucky in the husband she’d ended up with.

  A breeze blew tendrils of hair across her face, and she brushed them back. Maybe our marriage be not just luck. Maybe we be brought together for a purpose. Antonia imagined Jean-Claude as a puppeteer in heaven pulling the strings that attached him to his family, like a marionette performance she’d once seen. Or maybe God himself had taken pity on their plight and arranged matters. In her gut, the awareness felt right. A different kind of tingle—one of awe—slid over her skin, giving her goose bumps.

  Antonia reached the end of her windrow at the same time Erik finished his.

  He grinned again.

  The man be full of grins since that kiss.

  “Looks like yesterday’s batch of hay is coming home with us tonight.” He tilted his head in the direction of the rows of hay they’d raked from this morning’s cutting. “Now to turn those.”

  The sun was dropping low when they finally rolled the dried windrows into large piles for the night.

  They took the children out of the back, setting Camilla on the blanket, while Jacques and Henri were finally released to play a safe distance away. They took down the canvas top and then removed the ribs.

  She changed the baby while Erik hitched up the team and drove the wagon to the two nearest haystacks, setting the brake. He only had one pitchfork, so he used it on the first pile, impaling the hay and tossing the forkful over the side of the wagon.

  After nursing Camilla and setting down to play with her fingers, Antonia checked on the boys, playing hunting games nearby. With the children taken care of, she went to help Erik. She stooped and gathered huge armfuls of hay from her mound and threw them into the wagon, relishing the sight of the rising level. Several times, with Erik’s help, she scrambled inside the wagon bed and stomped on the hay, enjoying the springy feel under her feet.

  From time to time, her gaze would meet Erik’s, and she saw a new awareness of her in his eyes—as a woman, not just the person who’d stepped in to take care of his baby and his home. And, she supposed, he could read something similar on her face. She saw him differently now—the solid way he stood, strong legs slightly apart, rooted into the earth, the play of muscles on his back and arms when he lifted the hay and threw a pitchfork full over the side.

  Erik be like a mountain. Jean-Claude be a stream. Neither be better. Just different.

  When they finished the first two piles, Erik moved the wagon down the rows. The load of hay grew higher, even with Antonia, and Henri—who left Jacques playing with Camilla’s spoon—and came to join her, stomping to flatten the heap. Finally, the wagon bed could hold no more, and they threw the canvas covering over the hill of hay and anchored the sides to the wagon.

  When Erik finished, he stopped to gaze at the boys.

  Henri stood in front of Jacques, holding his hands. He’d let go of the little boy and back away.

  With a wide grin, Jacques toddled toward his older brother until he caught him. Then the two would start all over again—release, step back, toddle. Eventually, Jacques’s legs gave out, and he plopped on his bottom. “Haari!” Obviously pleased with his accomplishment.

  Erik turned to her. “Tonight, when I do the milking, I want Henri to come with me. Time to start teaching him. He’s a responsible boy.”

  The note of pride in his voice made her heart swell. She placed her hand on his arm. “Thank you.”

  “No need for thanks, Antonia. That’s what a father does.”

  Camilla let out a hungry squawk.

  Antonia moved toward her. When she stooped to pick up the baby, her muscles protested. She held in a groan. Later tonight, I’m getting out the liniment bottle. If she hadn’t been so tired the previous evening, she would have thought to apply an herbal salve she’d learned to make from the Indians. When applied the liniment eased aches and pains.

  But then again, it might not have been tiredness at all, but the bittersweet memories of rubbing the salve into Jean-Claude’s muscles, or he into hers, and how the massages often led to marital relations. She hadn’t been ready to touch Erik in such a familiar way, even if they’d kept to simple shoulder and neck rubs.

  Be I ready now?

  She wasn’t sure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Carrying a pail of grain and a large milk jar, Pa led Henri toward the trees in the pasture where the cows had already gathered waiting to be milked. “These ladies are docile enough.” He shook his head. “When I was a boy, we sure had some ornery ones. Kick you. Kick over the pail. We had to tie their hind legs together.”

  Henri also carried an empty pail. In his haste to match Pa’s wide strides, he banged the pail against his leg.

  A few cows stamped and stared at him, so he held the pail away from his body lest he make noise again.

  Pa motioned for Henri to come closer, gesturing toward the first brown cow. “This is Grandma Belle. She’s a gentle old lady, matriarch of my herd.”

  Henri didn’t want to ask what matriarch meant.

  “Approach her slowly,” Pa said softly. “Speak in a low voice and pat her side so she knows you’re there. You don’t want to scare her, so keep your movements slow. Then you can rub her head and nose like you would a horse.”

  “Hiya.” Henri borrowed a greeting Daniel used each morning when he saw his friends at school. But instead of sounding friendly like the older boy, the word came out more like a mouse squeak. He tried again. “Hiya, Grandma Belle.” He looke
d at Pa to see if he’d done it right.

  Pa winked and jerked his thumb toward the cow, urging Henri ahead of him.

  Reluctantly, his stomach cramping, he sidled toward Grandma Belle’s head. Up close, the animal appeared much bigger than she did out in the pasture.

  Pa set down the pail and lowered a hand to Henri’s shoulder. “You made friends with my horses, Henri, and you’re real good with the mules. You’ll be just fine with these ladies.”

  Somewhat reassured, Henri moved to pet Grandma Belle.

  The cow turned big brown eyes toward him.

  Henri decided she didn’t seem so scary after all. He stroked her nose, thinking that she smelled sort of like a horse, although with some mud and manure added in, and her hide felt rougher.

  They moved into the barn through the back and filled a long shallow bin with small piles of grain, topping each mound with plenty of hay. After they opened the barn doors, in stepped cow after cow, right up to the bin. There was some head butting over the food, so Pa nudged each animal along until the five were evenly lined up and tied each animal to a post.

  Pa pointed to a low stool. “This is where I sit to milk.” He took a seat. “Place the bucket like so.” He set the pail under the cow’s udder and motioned for Henri to come closer. “Sit on the ground next to me so you can see everything.”

  Henri dropped into a cross-legged position. With a sinking feeling, he stared at four long teats drooping from Grandma Belle’s distended udder. From this angle, the cow seemed even bigger.

  “We wash off the udder.” Pa dipped a rag in the warm soapy water in a pail he’d brought on an early trip to the barn and wiped off the cow. “Now watch.” Pa took hold of two teats. “See my hand, like this?” He demonstrated with the teat nearest Henri. “Squeeze downward. With your smaller hand, you’ll probably have to slide down like this. Keep your grip on the top, so milk doesn’t flow back into the udder. Got that?” He glanced at Henri for confirmation.