Years

by LaVyrle Spencer

  LaVyrle

  Spencer

  YEARS

  1

  1917

  LINNEA BRANDONBERG WAS neither asleep nor awake, but in a whimsical state of fantasy, induced — this time — by the rhythmic clatter rising through the floor of the train. Her feet rested primly together and often she glanced down to admire the most beautiful shoes she’d ever seen — congress shoes, they were called — with shiny, pointed patent leather toes giving way to smooth black kid uppers that hugged not only her foot but a good six inches of ankle as well. Miraculously, they had no buttons or ties, but slipped on tightly with a deep gusset of stiff elastic running from mid-shin to below the ankle bone on either side. But best of all they were the first shoes she’d ever owned with high heels. Though the heels added scarcely an inch to her height, they added years to her maturity.

  She hoped.

  He would be there at the station when she arrived, a dashing superintendent of schools who drove a fancy Stanhope carriage for two, drawn by a glossy blood-bay trotter...

  “Miss Brandonberg?” His voice was rich and cultured, and a dazzling smile broke upon his handsome face as he removed a beaver top hat, revealing hair the color of rye at sunset.

  “Mr. Dahl?”

  “At your service. We’re all so delighted you’re here at last. Oh, please allow me — I’ll take that valise!” As he stowed the suitcase in the boot of the carriage she noticed the sleek fit of his black suit coat across nicely shaped shoulders, and when he turned to help her into the buggy, she noted the fact that his celluloid collar was brand new, stiff and tight for the occasion. “Careful now.” He had marvelous hands, with long pale fingers that solicitously closed over her own as he handed her up.

  A reed-thin whip clicked above the trotter’s head, and they sped away, with his elbow lightly bumping hers.

  “Miss Brandonberg, to your left you’ll note the opera house, our newest establishment, and at the first opportunity I hope we can attend a performance together.”

  “An opera house!” she gasped in ladylike surprise while delicately steepling five fingers over her heart. “Why, I didn’t expect an opera house!”

  “A young lady with your looks will put the actresses to shame.” His smile seemed to dim the sun as he approvingly scanned her narrow shoes, her new wool serge suit, and the first hat she’d ever owned without a childish wide brim. “I hope you won’t think me too bold if I say that you have a definite flair for clothes, Miss Brandonberg...”

  “Miss Brandonberg?” The voice in her fantasy faded as she was roused by the conductor, who was leaning across the empty aisle seat to touch her shoulder. “Next stop Alamo, North Dakota.” She straightened and offered the older man a smile.

  “Oh, thank you!”

  He touched the brim of his blue cap and nodded before moving away.

  Outside, the prairie rolled by, flat and endless. She peered out the window but saw no sign of the town. The train lost speed as its whistle sounded, then sighed into silence, leaving only the clackety-clack of the wheels upon shifting steel seams.

  Her heart thumped expectantly, and this time, when she placed a hand over it, there was no pretending. She would see it soon, the place that had been only a word on the map; she would meet them soon, the people who would become part of her daily life as students, friends, perhaps even confidantes. Each new face she’d meet would be that of a total stranger, and for the hundredth time she wished she knew just one person in Alamo. Just one.

  There’s nothing to be frightened of. It’s only last-minute nervousness.

  She ran a hand up the back of her neck, checking the hairstyle she wasn’t yet adept at forming. Within the crescent-shaped coil around her head, the rat seemed to have slipped loose. With shaky fingers she tightened several hairpins, then checked her hatpin, smoothed her skirt, and glanced at her shoes for a last dose of confidence just as the train huffed out a final weary breath and shuddered to a halt.

  Dear me, where is the town?

  Lugging her suitcase down the aisle, she glanced through the windows, but all she could see was the standard small-town depot — a wood-frame building painted the color of a rutabaga with six-over-six windows flanking a center door that faced a waiting platform whose roof was held up by four square posts.

  She eyed it again as she emerged from the dusky depths of the passenger car into the bright September sun, the metal steps chiming beneath her smart new heels.

  She glanced around for someone who might look like a superintendent of schools and quelled her dismay upon discovering only one person in sight, a man standing in the shade of the depot porch. But judging from his mode of dress, he was not the man she sought. Still, he might turn out to be a parent of one of her students: she flashed him a quick smile. But he remained as before, with his hands inside the bib of his striped overalls and a sweat-stained straw hat shielding his eyes.

  Forcing a confident air, she crossed the platform and went inside, but found only the ticket agent, busily clicking the telegraph behind his caged window.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  He turned, pushed a green celluloid visor higher on his head, and smiled. “Yes, miss?”

  “I am to meet Mr. Frederic Dahl here. Do you know him?”

  “Know who he is. Haven’t seen him around here. But have a seat — he’ll probably show up soon.”

  Her stomach began to tighten. What shall I do now?

  Too nervous to sit still, she decided to wait outside. She took up her station on the opposite side of the veranda from the farmer, set her valise down, and waited.

  Minutes passed and no one came. She glanced at the stranger, caught him studying her, then self-consciously snapped her attention to the train. It huffed and hissed, spit out funnels of steam with each breath, but seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time to be on its way again.

  She chanced a peek at the man again, but the moment her eyes turned his way, his quickly darted toward the door of the train again.

  Theodore Westgaard studied the train steps, waiting for the new teacher to emerge, but a full three minutes ticked by and the only person to alight was the thin young girl playing grownup in her mother’s hat and shoes. His eyes were drawn to her a second time, but again she looked his way and self-consciously he shifted his attention toward the door of the train.

  Come on, Brandonberg, let’s get going. I’ve got harvesting to do.

  From a pocket on his bib he withdrew a watch, checked the time, and shifted his feet impatiently. The girl glanced his way again, but their eyes barely met before her attention skittered down the train track as she crossed her wrists beneath a folded coat she was holding.

  He studied her covertly.

  Sixteen or so, he’d guess, scared of her own shadow and hoping nobody could tell. A cute little thing, though that hat with the bird wings looked ridiculous and she should still be in pigtails and flat-heeled shoes.

  To Westgaard’s surprise, before anyone else got off the train, the conductor picked up his portable step, stowed it inside the car, and waved an arm at the engineer. The couplings started clanging down the length of the train and it slowly groaned to life, then rumbled away, leaving a magnified silence broken only by the buzzing of a fly about the girl’s nose.

  She flapped a hand at it and pretended Westgaard wasn’t there while he grew irascible at having made the trip to town for nothing. He took off his hat, scratched his head, then settled the brim low over his eyes while cursing silently.

  City boy. Got no idea how a wheat man values every hour of daylight this time of year.

  Angrily he stomped inside.

  “Cleavon, if that young whelp comes in on the next train, tell him... aw, hell, forget it. I guess I’ll just have to wait for it myself.” Alamo offered no l
ivery stable, no horses to rent. How else would the new teacher get out. to the farm when he finally got here?

  When Theodore clomped out the door again the girl was facing him with stiff shoulders and a frightened expression on her face. Her hands still clutched the coat, and she opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, swallowed, and turned away.

  Though he wasn’t one to speak to strange girls, she looked all bird-eyed and about to break into tears, so he stopped and inquired, “Somebody supposed to meet you?”

  She turned back to him almost desperately. “Yes, but it seems he’s been detained.”

  “Ya, same with the fellow I was here to meet, name of L.I. Brandonberg.”

  “Oh, thank heavens,” she breathed, her face suddenly rekindling a smile. “I’m Miss Brandonberg.”

  “You!” Her smile was met with a scowl. “But you can’t be! L.I. Brandonberg is a man!”

  “He is not... I mean, I am not.” She laughed nervously, then remembered her manners and extended a hand. “My name is Linnea Irene Brandonberg, and as you can see, I most certainly am a woman.”

  At that his eyes made a quick pass over her hat and hair, and he gave a disdainful snort.

  She felt the blood rush to her face, but stubbornly kept her hand extended, inquiring, “And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  He ignored her hand and answered rudely, “The name’s Westgaard and I ain’t havin’ no... woman livin’ in my house! Our school board hired L.I. Brandonberg, thinkin’ he was a man.”

  So this was Theodore Westgaard, at whose home she was to board and room. Disheartened, she dropped the hand he still ignored. “I’m sorry you were under that impression, Mr. Westgaard, but I assure you I didn’t mean to deceive you.”

  “Hmph! What kind of female goes around callin’ herself L.I.!”

  “Is there a law against women using their initials as part of their legal signature?” she asked crisply.

  “No, but there should be! Little city girl like you, probably guessed the school board would rather have a man and set out to deliberately hoodwink them.”

  “I did nothing of the kind! I sign all—”

  But he cut her off rudely. “Teaching school out here’s more than just scratchin’ numbers on a slate, missy! It’s a mile’s walk, and buildin’ fires and shovelin’ snow. And the winters out here are tough! I don’t have time to hitch up no team and haul a little hothouse pansy to school when it’s thirty below and the snow’s howlin’ out of the northwest!”

  “I won’t ask you to!” She was enraged now, her face sour with dislike. How dare they send a garrulous old man like this to greet her! “And I’m not a hothouse pansy!”

  “Oh, you ain’t, huh?”

  He eyed her assessingly, wondering how long a little thing like her would last when an Alaskan northwesterly smacked her in the face and the snow stung so hard you couldn’t tell cold from hot on your own forehead. “Wall” — he drew the word out in a gruff note of disapproval — ” the fact remains: I don’t want no woman livin’ at my house.”

  He could say the word woman the way a cowpoke said sidewinder.

  “Then I’ll board with someone else.”

  “And just who might that be?”

  “I... I don’t know, but I’ll speak to Mr. Dahl about it.”

  Again he gave a grumpy, disdainful hmph that made her want to poke sticks up his nose. “Ain’t nobody else. We’ve always had the teachers livin’ with us. That’s just the way it is — cause we’re closest to school. Only one closer’s my brother John, and he’s a bachelor, so his place is out.”

  “And so what do you propose to do with me, Mr. Westgaard? Leave me standing on the depot steps?”

  His mouth pinched up like a dried berry and his brows furrowed in stern reproof as he stared at her from beneath the brim of his straw hat.

  “I ain’t havin’ no woman livin’ under my roof,” he vowed again, crossing his arms stubbornly.

  “Perhaps not, but if not yours, you’d best transport me to someone less bigoted than yourself under whose roof I will be more than happy to reside, unless you want a lawsuit brought upon you.” Now, where in the world had that come from? She wouldn’t know the first thing about bringing a lawsuit upon anybody, but she had to think of some way to put this uncouth ox in his place!

  “A lawsuit!” Westgaard’s arms came uncrossed. He hadn’t missed the word bigoted, but the little snip was throwing threats and names out so fast he had to address them one at a time.

  Linnea squared her shoulders and tried to make him think she was worldly and bold. “I have a contract, Mr. Westgaard, and in it is stated that room and board are included as part of my annual salary. Furthermore, my father is an attorney in Fargo, thus my legal fees would be extraordinarily reasonable should I decide to sue the Alamo school board for breach of contract, and name you as a—”

  “All right, all right!” He held up two big, horny palms in the air. “You can stop yappin’, missy. I’ll dump you on Oscar Knutson and he can do what he wants to with ý’. He wants to be head of the school board, so let ‘im earn his money!”

  “My name is Miss Brandonberg, not missy!” She gave her skirt a little flip in exasperation.

  “Yeah, a fine time to tell me.” He turned away toward a waiting horse and wagon, leaving her to grouse silently. Dump me on Oscar Knutson, indeed!

  Reality continued to make a mockery of her romanticized daydreams. There was no fancy-rigged Stanhope carriage, no glossy blood-bay trotter. Instead, Westgaard led her to a double-box farm wagon hitched behind a pair of thick-muscled horses of questionable ancestry, and he clambered up without offering a hand, leaving her little choice but to stow her grip in the back by herself, then lift her skirts and struggle to the shoulder-high leaf-sprung seat unaided.

  And as for gentlemen in beaver hats — ha! This rude oaf wouldn’t know what to do with a beaver top hat if it jumped up and bit him on his oversized sunburned nose! The nerve of the man to treat her as if she were... as if she were... dispensable! She, with a hard-earned teacher’s certificate from the Fargo Normal School! She, a woman of high education while he could scarcely put one word before another without sounding like an uneducated jackass!

  Linnea’s disillusionment continued as he flicked the reins and ordered, “Giddap.” The cumbersome-looking horses took them through one of the saddest little bergs she’d ever seen in her life. Opera house? Had she really fantasized about an opera house? It appeared the most cultural establishment in town was the general store/post office, which undoubtedly brought culture to Alamo by means of the Sears Roebuck catalogue.

  The most impressive buildings in town were the grain elevators beside the railroad tracks. The others were all false-fronted little cubicles, and there were few of them at that. She counted two implement dealers, two bars, one restaurant, the general store, a hotel, a bank, and a combination drug and barber shop.

  Her heart sank.

  Westgaard glared straight ahead, holding the reins in hands whose fingers were the size of Polish sausages, with skin that looked like that of an old Indian — so different from the long, pale fingers of her imagination.

  He didn’t look at her, and she didn’t look at him.

  But she saw those tough brown hands.

  And he saw her high-heeled shoes.

  And she sensed how he hunched forward and glared from under that horrible-looking hat.

  And he sensed how she sat like a pikestaff and stared all persnickitylike from under those ridiculous bird wings.

  And she thought it was too bad that when people got old they had to get so crotchety.

  And he thought how silly people were when they were young — always trying their best to make themselves look older.

  And neither of them said a word.

  They drove several miles west, then turned south, and the land looked all the same: flat, gold, and waving. Except where the threshers had already been. There it was flat, gold, and still
.

  When they’d been traveling for half an hour, Westgaard pulled into a farmyard that looked identical to every other one they’d passed — weather-beaten clapboard house with a cottonwood windbreak on the west, the trees only half-grown and tipping slightly south by southwest; a barn looking better kept than the house; rectangular granaries; hexagonal silos; and the only friendly looking feature reigning over all: the slow-whirling, softly sighing windmill.

  A woman came to the door, tucking a strand of hair into the bun at the back of her head. She raised one hand in greeting and smiled broadly.

  “Theodore!” she called, coming down two wooden steps and crossing the patch of grass that looked as golden as the fields surrounding them. “Hello! Who do you have here? I thought you had gone to town to get the new schoolteacher.”

  “This is him, Hilda. And he’s wearin’ high-heeled shoes and a hat with bird wings on it.”

  Linnea bristled. How dare he make fun of her clothes!

  Hilda stopped beside the wagon and frowned up at Westgaard, then at Linnea. “This is him?” She shaded her eyes with one hand and took a second look. Then she flapped both palms, pulled her chin back, and smiled as if with scolding humor. “Oh, Theodore, you play a joke on us, huh?”

  Westgaard jabbed a thumb at his passenger. “No, she’s the one who played a joke on us. She’s L.I. Brandonberg.”

  Before Hilda Knutson could respond, Linnea leaned over and extended a hand, incensed afresh by Westgaard’s rudeness in failing to introduce her properly. “How do you do. I’m Linnea bene Brandonberg.”

  The woman took her hand as if not actually realizing what she was doing. “A woman,” she said, awestruck. “Oscar hired us a woman.”

  Beside her Westgaard made a throaty sound of ridicule. “I think what Oscar hired us is a girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes, pretending to be a woman. And she ain’t stayin’ at my house.”

  Hilda’s face sobered. “Why, Theodore, you always kept the teachers. Who else is gonna keep her?”

  “I don’t know, but it ain’t gonna be me. That’s what I come to talk to Oscar about. Where is he?” Westgaard’s eyes scanned the horizon.