“Come.” She clutched Kaaren’s hand and strode across the planted rows, girl in tow, head high. “Never show fear,” was her father’s advice for dealing with both strangers and animals. Nora fought to hang onto those words of wisdom.
“Sit.” She motioned to the porch steps and, without looking back to see if they obeyed, strode with Kaaren across the porch and through the door, letting the screen door slam behind her. She untied the sling contraption from around her shoulders and laid Peder in his cradle. Back in the kitchen, her hands shook so much she could scarcely pick up the knife. She sneaked glances at the door, sure that it would slam open at any moment and they would come to . . . She sliced bread and poured milk into cups. With bread, milk, leftover chicken that she had planned to have for supper, and cookies on the plates, she paused at the door.
The dark-skinned men sat on the stairs like she had ordered, leaning against the posts with their arms draped across their bent knees. One carved on a piece of wood with a knife that glinted in the sun. The gun rested against the outside of the porch, right near the owner’s leg.
Please, God . . . Nora never finished the prayer as she pushed the door open and crossed the porch. “Here.” She handed each of them a plate, then dug into her apron pocket for forks. When she held the silver out, they ignored her and ate with their hands.
Nora eased her way backward and, fumbling with her hands behind her, opened the screen door and slipped inside. She stood watching them through the screen.
The taller man scraped his plate clean with the bread and raised his cup in her direction.
“M-more?” If she could just quit stuttering.
He nodded.
She brought the jug out and refilled both their cups.
When they drained the cups, they set them and the plates on the floor. Slowly, they stood. The tall man picked up his gun. The shorter one slid his knife back into its sheath.
Nora now knew what the rabbit felt like when facing a fox.
“Thank you, Carl’s new woman.” The tall man spoke in better English than she did. He nodded—once. Their long strides eating up the ground, the two Indians headed east.
Nora felt a gurgle of laughter churning in her middle and pleading to be let out. She stepped out onto the porch and bent to pick up the plates. As she stood again, she looked out across the land. The taller Indian raised a hand high in the air—and waved.
When she told Carl the story that night after dinner, she watched his face carefully. His lip twitched, his eyes crinkled. He had a dimple in his right cheek. When she repeated the Indian’s “Thank you, Carl’s new woman,” Carl bent over double. The laughter exploded from him like a shot from a cannon; the kitchen echoed with his chortles.
Kaaren giggled along and banged her spoon on the table.
Nora sat back and let the music of his mirth flow over, around, and through her. She was not sure which she was laughing at more—her story or his enjoyment of her story.
When he wiped his eyes with the heel of his hands, she said with a lift of her chin, “He say better English than me.”
Carl dug into his back pocket for a handkerchief, then he blew his nose and shook his head, laughter still quivering in his shoulders. “The tall one is called One Horse and his shorter brother is Night of the Fox. They’ve been walking through here ever since I bought the farm. Sometimes, I find a deer carcass as a gift. Sometimes, they sleep in my barn. You could say we’ve become friends the last few years.” The grin split his face again. “All Indian stories you’ve heard, that was long ago.”
“Next time I’ll know.”
The corners of his mouth remained tipped up all through the English lesson and while Nora tucked both Peder and Kaaren into bed. When Nora returned to the kitchen, she took her place in the rocker and picked up the pieces of blue-flowered material she had cut out for Kaaren’s dress. In between stitches, she sneaked peeks at the man caught in the circle of lamplight. His smile had faded but so had the lines from his nose to his mouth and those in his forehead.
“Thank You, Father,” she prayed that night on her knees. “He is so beautiful when he laughs.” She rested her chin on her clasped hands. “But, next time, maybe he could laugh with me instead of at me.” Her lips curved up at the thought. “But thanks, no matter what. I’m not choosy.”
Before she drifted off, the rest of a Bible verse her mother used to recite floated through her mind. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Funny looking angels, she thought. And I was so scared. She pictured the scene in the garden again. But, it was worth it.
Within a week, Nora had her garden planted. New growth on her rosebush jutted out several inches with more new leaves unfolding every day. When she looked toward the horizon, newborn grass sprouted, cloaking the unplowed land in green velvet.
“When you look across the prairie,” she wrote her sister Clara, “you can see clear into next month. While I miss the mountains and fjords, I can see the beauty in this part of God’s creation, also. It is not a forgotten land as I had first thought.”
When Carl drove into town one day, he took her letter and returned with another. This one was in answer to his advertisement for a housekeeper.
“Bah. She can’t speak English, either,” he growled after dropping the letter onto the table. He flicked the paper with his fingers. “Why did she even bother to write? I said specifically that the woman must speak English.”
When Nora brought out her papers for their lesson, he waved her away. “I’m too tired to concentrate on that tonight.” He heaved himself out of his chair. “Good night.”
Nora could hear his weariness in the measured tread with which he climbed the stairs.
Sitting under the lamplight, stitching away on Kaaren’s dress, Nora searched her heart. Was it joy she felt when he said the woman would not work out? Surely not. Her dream was to return to Norway, and she would not be able to do that until Carl found someone to take her place.
Each day Peder seemed to do something new. He not only smiled now, but laughed when Nora blew on his round tummy. He waved pudgy arms and, when he reached for an object, sometimes he got it. When Nora laid him on a quilt either on the floor pleading or outside on the grass, Kaaren would dangle a rubber jar ring or the bright red stuffed dog Nora had sewn for him. Hearing them laughing together always made Nora smile.
Carl ignored them.
“How can he?” Nora fumed one night after seeing him take a wide track around the two little ones on the floor. Kaaren was on her tummy, legs waving in the air while she and Peder laughed and chattered, her mimicking Peder’s cooing.
One evening, Nora sat rocking and feeding Peder his bottle when she heard a thump, bump . . . silence . . . and then a scream to strike fear in any mother’s heart.
Carl leaped to his feet, picked the screaming Kaaren up off the floor at the foot of the stairs, and tried to comfort her.
“No!” She arched her back and screamed louder. “Ma-a-a! I want my ma!”
Nora could see blood streaming from a wound above Kaaren’s right eye. She stood, handed Peder along with his bottle to Carl, and took the little girl over to the sink. With a cold cloth pressed to the site to stop the bleeding, Nora murmured words of comfort. She turned to see Carl, wooden-faced, holding the baby stiffly in his arms.
Peder began to whimper, wanting the remainder of his supper. Without looking at his son, Carl walked into the bedroom, laid the bundle on the bed as if it were no more than a package from the store, and stalked out the door.
Nora struggled between vexation and pity. She wrapped a bandage over the tiny cut above Kaaren’s eye. Then she retrieved Peder and resumed feeding him, still petting and comforting Kaaren.
Vexation swelled into fury. That man! That insufferable, hard-headed, coldhearted—she ran out of words harsh enough to describe him. Who does he think he is anyway? Other people in this world lose their loved ones and they still love those left. How co
uld he not love such a darling baby as Peder?
“I will not pray for him tonight.” She knelt by the bed, hoping to hear Carl’s footsteps returning but was almost glad when they did not. “God, You don’t really want me to pray for him, do You?” She listened to the silence. Outside somewhere, an owl hooted in its nightly hunting forays. The breeze fluffed the lace curtains at the open window.
She started to climb into bed. “Oh, fiddle.” She knelt back down and scrunched her eyes closed, her teeth snapping together between words. “Please bless Carl and help him get through this time of sorrow. Make him love his sweet little son and . . .” She stopped to think. Nothing more came. “Amen.”
She climbed back into bed and pulled up the covers. “So there.” The silence crept back into the room. Was that God chuckling on the breeze? Nora turned over to sleep, a smile curving her lips.
With May, the beans leaped from the ground. Carrot feathers waved in their rows and the potatoes pushed up corrugated leaves to find the sun.
Nora leaned on her hoe, pride in her handiwork evident in the smile on her face. She pushed back the straw hat she had found in the cellar and wiped the sweat from her forehead. What her garden needed now was a slow-falling, soaking rain. She eyed the gray clouds mounding in the west. A lightning fork stabbed the sky.
“At least a storm can’t catch you by surprise here,” she said with a shrug. “And here I am talking to myself again. Better start giving myself orders, too. So get over there and take the wash off the line. It’s been wet once today. It doesn’t need to be wet again.” She suited actions to her words and paused only long enough to watch rain fall in gray veils across the land. She dashed to the house with a full basket just as the first drops pelted the dust.
Carl galloped the team up to the barn, the harrow left in the fields. Nora stood on the porch. “What happened to him?” Brownie whined at her feet.
“Are you all right?” she yelled above the rising wind.
At his wave, she turned back into the house. Expecting him to come up for coffee, she stoked the embers and added coal to the fire. Maybe she should start an early supper. Even though the clock said four, the sky said dusk.
She crossed to the open door and through the screen door watched huge, fat raindrops pound the earth. She shook her head. “Doesn’t this country ever do anything gently?”
“Ma?” Kaaren meandered out of the bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She leaned against Nora’s skirt until Nora picked her up and set the little girl on her hip.
Lightning forked beyond the barn and in a few moments thunder crashed. Nora stood in awe at the heavenly display. She heard the rain gurgle in the downspouts and into the cistern under the house. Lightning lit the sky again.
“Pretty.” Kaaren leaned her head against Nora’s shoulder. When the thunder boomed, she flinched, then giggled. Nora could already hear that the storm was moving to the east of them. Now, the rain fell in billowing skirts, gentle and kind. The cool breeze felt good.
She left the doorway and finished grinding the dark beans for coffee. By the time Carl stepped onto the porch, the aroma of coffee brewing floated out to meet him.
“Smells wonderful.” He sniffed appreciatively and hung his hat on the rack.
“Pretty lights.” Kaaren pointed out the window. “Big boom.”
Carl tousled her hair with one hand before picking her up. “Did you like it?”
She nodded, her blue eyes grave. “Hungry, Pa?” At his nod, she smiled. “Me, too.”
“Sit down. I have cookies. Supper will be soon.”
This time, when Nora rested her hand on Carl’s shoulder, she felt a tremor go up her arm—he had leaned into her gentle pressure. She finished pouring the coffee and took her own chair. When Carl smiled at her it was as if the skies had parted and the sun beamed down to melt the frost that had stilled the heart.
“Thank you,” was all he said but, with the smile, it was enough.
Nora rejoiced in the moments Carl spent with Kaaren. Though few and far between since he was in the fields at dawn and did not return to milk the cows until dark, the little one now met him at the door with a welcome grin. Even though he was so tired he would fall asleep at the table, he took time to listen to Kaaren’s chatter and admire her new dress.
Of Peder, he never questioned or mentioned.
One afternoon, Nora moved the rocker and cradle out to the porch so she could sew and enjoy the sun at the same time. For a time, Kaaren played quietly at her feet but soon demanded a song and a story. Nora stuck her needle into the material of the bodice for her new dress and set it in the basket at her feet.
“Here we go.” After hoisting Kaaren up onto her lap, Nora picked up the Bible written in English that she had in the same basket and turned to the Gospel of Matthew. Slowly, she read the story of Jesus and the children. Softly, she began singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” Kaaren joined in and together they finished the chorus.
“More.” Kaaren leaned back against Nora’s shoulder and Nora closed her eyes. They sang it again. “Yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus . . .”
“What are you doing?” Carl’s voice cut like a knife.
Nora felt like she had been stabbed. Her eyes flew open to clash with his, limpid pond against glacier. Confusion to fury.
Kaaren stuck her finger in her mouth and whimpered, her chin quivering as she stared from her father to Nora.
“Pa-a-a!” Her wail floated on the breeze spun up by his leaving.
“Shhh.” Nora comforted her. “You sit here in my chair and take care of Peder. I will come back.”
At Kaaren’s nod, Nora rose to her feet and set the little girl back in the chair. Then, she gathered her skirts and ran down the path to the barn.
Carl had the horses backed up on either side of the wagon and shaft and was hooking the traces when she stopped in front of him.
“Why are you angry?” She stumbled over the words, wishing she could use Norwegian instead of English.
He ignored her, continuing the harnessing.
“Carl!” She might as well have been talking to the barn door. When he lifted a foot to mount the wagon, she placed a hand on his arm. “Carl, what did I do?”
He spun around, reins in his hand. “Do? The Bible. That song. How can you sing and worship a God who kills innocent mothers and children?”
Chapter 11
“But your son lived!” Carl stepped forward, towering over her in his fury. “But his mother didn’t! She died and he might as well have.”
“What are you saying?” She clenched her hands in the sides of her skirt. She would rather be pummeling his chest.
“I’m saying I don’t want you teaching my daughter those songs and filling her head with lies about a God who loves her.”
“But Jesus—God loves us all. He will help you, if you ask.”
“I don’t need His kind of help.”
“But, Carl.” She placed her hand on his arm.
He threw her hand off, the wind of it whistling by her cheek. Leaping up onto the wagon, he flicked the reins. “Ha, boys.” Without a look back, he drove down the lane.
Nora stared after him, tears burning behind her eyes. “Oh, God help you, poor, poor man.” She bit the knuckles on her right hand, her left pressed against her throat. “Only God can help you. Father, please take away Carl’s bitterness. Bring him Your love. Restore his faith. Father, forgive me. I cannot do what he asks.”
Dust from the wagon’s churning wheels hung in the still air. It smelled like despair.
Nora opened the barn door and wandered inside. Clean floors, harnesses draped over pegs in perfect order—all showed a man who cared about his farm. Outside, the fat cows switched their tails in the shade of the barn, a newly replaced fence post anchored a gate that swung smoothly on oiled hinges. She wandered over to the pigpen. The cow and her piglets lay on a pile of straw under a roof to keep off the hot sun. Carl loved his animals.
On the way up to the house,
she thought about him . . . tossing Kaaren in the air to make her laugh . . . of his sitting with the chattering child, answering her myriad questions. Yes, he loved his family . . . the fields, green and growing . . . the rosebush he had brought her. Here was a man with love locked away in his heart, with wounds deep in his soul. Where was the key to that lock? What salve would heal his hurt?
Back in the chair with Kaaren on her lap, she rocked and thought—and prayed.
May flowed into June and Carl continued working from before dawn until long after dark. With the fields planted and up, the cultivating began. Endless hours of riding the metal seat of the cultivator pulled behind two sweating horses, their heads bobbing in time to the plodding of their hooves.
Nora walked everywhere with Peder in the sling and Kaaren clutching her hand or running ahead. One day, they found wild strawberries along a fencerow. She made preserves from the berries and baked biscuits for shortcake.
Carl only grunted when served the treats.
Nora was not sure if the grunt meant “Thank you” or “Give me more.” She didn’t.
The temper she had prayed so earnestly over for so many years, simmered and, once in a while, spit.
Haying season began. One evening, Carl drove the team up after dark and found Nora milking the cows. Kaaren was playing in the aisle; Peder was sleeping peacefully on a mound of hay.
“I didn’t ask you to do this,” he said.
Nora continued to squeeze and pull, the milk singing into the bucket. “I know.” She kept her forehead against the cow’s red flank.
“Take the children up to the house. I will finish.”
“Carl Detschman, you are the most stubborn, bullheaded, prideful man I have ever had the misfortune to know.” Nora reverted to Norwegian. She did not know enough of the right words in English. She pulled a bit too forcefully and got a mouthful of cow’s tail.
“Nora.”
“No, you take Kaaren and your son Peder to the house. Maybe you’ll have time to soak your head before I get there.” She stripped the last of the milk from each teat and, setting the bucket aside, rose to her feet. “I have one more cow to milk.”
Dakota Dawn Page 11