Amethyst (12 page)

“Miss O’Shaunasy, I am Carl Hegland.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.” Amethyst managed a smile. She felt that she should curtsy. She’d met more strangers since she got on that train than in the whole of her life. Should she extend her hand? With a slight hesitation she did just that, to have her hand overwhelmed by her host. For that brief instant, the calluses of a man who created beauty with his hands and wood rubbed against her own. She looked into dark eyes that smiled back at her. A man sure of himself, whose Norwegian accent added another depth of quiet charm. Like his wife, he had a gift for making her feel welcome.

“And this is our other guest, Major Jeremiah McHenry. He used to be stationed here.” Hegland motioned to a man who, even by the way he stood, said military.

Amethyst smiled and nodded, her hand extended. To her shock and surprise, he bowed slightly over her hand, his grasp sending a warmth flowing up her arm. He smiled, reminding her slightly of pictures she’d seen of General Robert E. Lee, though without the full head of silver hair. Major McHenry wore silver sideburns, while the rest of his ear-length hair was touched by a first fall frost. The eye patch made him look even more distinguished.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss O’Shaunasy, but I need to make a correction here. I am no longer a major. I have retired, and now I’m plain Jeremiah McHenry.”

In spite of the black patch over his left eye, the smile he gave her fell into well-used crinkles around both eyes and mouth.

“I see.”
But there is no chance you could ever be plain anything. Don’t be a ninny. You must have something more appropriate to say
. But in spite of her efforts, her tongue remained glued to the roof of her mouth. She slowly withdrew her hand from his, wanting nothing more than to flee back up the stairs.

CHAPTER NINE

“And where are you from, Miss O’Shaunasy?” McHenry leaned forward in his chair.

“Pennsylvania. Near…” There was no sense giving the name of her little village. It was so small no one had ever heard of it. “And you?”

“I was last stationed in Arizona. But my family home is in Kentucky. My favorite post was here in the badlands, so when I retired, I came back.”

“I see.” Surely she could be more creative than that. But Amethyst realized she’d never really talked with a man she hadn’t known since childhood. If someone came to the farm, her father did all of the talking. And when she took things to town, she visited with the women who bought her wares. At church on Sunday she’d dutifully followed her mother as she chatted with the other women, the men usually gathering a ways away.

Amethyst held herself stiffly, passing the bowls and platters back to Pearl, who was dishing up Carly’s plate along with her own. “My, this looks so delicious.” She feasted on the smells of roast goose, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, and rolls still warm from the oven. To sit here and be waited upon—she half expected her mother to show up and ask what was wrong with her feet that she didn’t get up and help.

But when she’d offered, Pearl had declined, saying she was a guest and recovering from a terrible ordeal.

“Ma? Tree?”

“Yes, we’ll light the tree after supper.” Pearl smiled at the look on Amethyst’s face. “We made candles especially for the tree. Carl made us holders, so after supper we will light the candles. Have you ever done that?”

Amethyst shook her head. She’d read about such a tradition, but at home if they cut a tree from the woods and brought it in to decorate, that was a miracle in itself. Pa didn’t hold much with such foolishness, or so he said. They’d not had a tree or even much of a celebration since her mother died. Melody had invited them to their house until Patrick died. So many deaths in her family.

“And what brings you to Dakotah Territory in the middle of winter like this?”

The major’s question caught her with food in her mouth. She finished chewing and wiped her lips with a napkin. Should she tell them? Why not? “I’ve come searching for my nephew.”

“Oh, really?” Carl Hegland looked up from spreading jam on his roll. “What is his name?”

“He is Joel O’Shaunasy. He was seven when I last saw him. He came west with a man named Jacob Chandler.”

Pearl turned to her husband. “Sounds like our Mr. Chandler. He’s working out at Robertsons’.”

“He’s a fine man, that Jacob Chandler. He used to be a minister. Hope he’ll be doing more of that for us out here.” Carl rocked back on the chair legs, caught the look from his wife, and let the chair legs settle down on the floor where they belonged.

“A lot of people have moved in since I left,” Jeremiah commented. “Thought I was coming back to Little Missouri, but Medora’s a real town now.”

“Thanks to de Mores and his big dreams of icing the freight cars to carry hanging beeves back to the big cities, where they need the meat, and of underselling the big packing houses. He’s earned himself some enemies.” Carl turned his head. “That the baby crying?”

“I’ll get him. Carly, you may come help me.”

“Why don’t I clear the table?” Amethyst stood before Pearl could turn down her offer and picked up her plate and the child’s.

The men talked while she carried the plates and serving dishes to the kitchen to set on the table. Three kinds of pie waited there. Amethyst rubbed her midsection. Full as she was already, the pie didn’t even look appetizing. She moved the coffeepot to the hotter part of the stove after checking the firebox. Even if it wasn’t her kitchen, it felt good to be in one. Never would she have thought she’d feel that way. She glanced around at the white cupboards lining the light blue walls. Yellow-and-white-checked curtains matched the tablecloth. One door led to the pantry, where the temperature dropped due to the pie safe in the window. Should she whip the cream? Instead, she set a pan on the stove, filled it with hot water from the reservoir, and shaved soap into the water from the bar she found on a shelf behind the stove. After scraping the plates, she set them in the dishpan.

“You didn’t need to do all that.” Pearl, baby on her shoulder, returned to the kitchen. “But I appreciate it. I need to feed this young man, and then I’ll serve the pie.”

“The coffee is heating. How about if I pour the men some and promise them pie later? You feed the baby, and maybe Carly would like to help me by drying the silverware?” Amethyst smiled down at the little girl who peeked out from behind her mother’s skirt.

Carly nodded, eyes wide.

“You be careful, then,” her mother admonished.

“Carly, you can use the bench. We’ll put a towel down on it.” Amethyst motioned toward a bench pushed under the edge of the table. “You have the most practical kitchen I have ever seen.”

“My Carl watched me work and then figured out how to make things easier for me, what with cooking for guests so often.”

“He did wonders for a kitchen.” Amethyst thought of her kitchen at home. Almost everything was done on the old oak table. While there were shelves in the pantry, there were not nearly enough in the kitchen itself. When she got home, she aimed to remedy that. Pa wasn’t the only one who could saw a board or drive a nail.

The steam coming from the coffeepot spout said it was hot enough, so she looked around for towels to fold as potholders. Instead she saw squares of gingham, several layers thick, hanging by loops from hooks on the wall. “That what you use for holding hot things?” Amethyst inclined her head.

“Yes. Aprons and towels were never thick enough. I got tired of burning my hands, so I made those.” Pearl sat in a rocking chair near the stove, baby nursing sounds coming from under a flannel blanket she’d thrown over her shoulder.

“How old is the baby?”

“He’s almost seven months old, growing faster than a thistle in summer.” She lifted the blanket to check on her son.

‘ Carly leaned against her mother’s knee. “Tree?”

“Soon.”

“I’ll pour the coffee.” Amethyst took the pot and headed for the dining room. She poured coffee for each of the men. “You’re welcome,” she answered to their thanks and returned to the kitchen. What was it about that man? Most probably he still wore the air of command of an officer. In fact, he seemed to fill the room. But the twinkle in his one eye belied the idea that he was suffering from his wounds, though the limp and the flinch she’d caught when he wasn’t looking told her otherwise. He was a gifted storyteller, although her mother had always drilled into her that you do not ever listen to another’s conversations. But without any effort she could hear him talking at the dining room table. It wasn’t that she had her ear to a crack in the door, something she and Patrick had done as children.

The thought of Patrick whisked her back to Pennsylvania. What was the weather like there? Most likely there was snow on the ground, but not like here with the fences covered with snowdrifts.

“Miss.” A small hand tugged at her skirt.

“Yes, Carly?” Amethyst looked around. Here she was, daydreaming in the midst of washing dishes. “Sorry.” She quickly lifted the silverware from the rinsing pan and set it all on the towel on the bench.

The little girl pointed to the silver, dried and on the table. “Spoons?”

“You are a good dryer, Carly.”

“Yes.”

“Say thank you,” her mother prompted.

“Tank you.” She turned to her mother.

Amethyst chuckled. Ah, how she had missed Joel. She hadn’t realized how much until now that there was a real chance she would see him in the next day or so. Then they could buy his ticket and return to the East—and home.

Pearl fastened her bodice and set her son on her lap, rubbing his back. A hefty burp made Carly giggle and run to her mother’s knee to pat her brother’s back.

“Such a good helper you are.” Amethyst turned to Pearl. “What do you do with the dishwater?”

“In the summer I water my garden with it. Now I just throw it out the back door. We’ll use the rinse water for the next washing.”

“Just like home.”

“Tell me about your home.”

Amethyst shuddered from the icy blast when she threw the water out the back door. She wiped out the pan and hung it on a hook behind the stove. “We live on a small farm a couple of miles from Smithville. The farm used to be larger, but Pa gave part of the land to my brother Patrick, and now someone else lives there. Pa sold it after Patrick died and his wife disappeared.”

“You never mention your mother.”

“She died five years ago.”
Of overwork and mistreatment. She died far before her time
.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You must miss her greatly.”

“Every day. So I take care of the farm and my father.”

“Is he not well?”

Amethyst wanted to turn and run.
He’s as well as he wants to be. He likes his liquor a little too well. He’s well-versed in getting out of work
. Instead of answering, she shrugged.

Pearl laid her son on a pad on the floor with some toys and retied her apron. “Carly, please play with Joseph. There’s a good girl.” Turning to Amethyst she continued, “I’ll whip the cream, and you cut the pie and put the slices on the plates.”

“Shall I ask them what kind they want?”

“No, we’ll have the pumpkin now, the apple later tonight, and keep the mincemeat in case someone comes by. Usually we would have church tonight but not with this weather. Nor most likely tomorrow either. In years past on Christmas Day our friends and neighbors took out their sleighs and went house to house visiting one another. Ah, the songs of the bells, the laughter. I love Christmas in Medora. Actually, I just love living in Medora and the Dakotah Territory.”

“You came from somewhere else?”

“Oh yes. From Chicago. One day I’ll tell you the tale.” She whipped even harder to get the cream to stiffen. “Whew, this reminds me of why we don’t have whipped cream very often.”

“Let me help.” Amethyst reached for the bowl and the egg beater. Finally the cream began to stiffen, and within a minute they added the sugar and a dash of powdered vanilla.

Pearl plopped a spoonful on each pie wedge and nodded to the coffeepot. “We better bring that too.”

A short while later the family, with the exception of Joseph, who’d fallen asleep and been put to bed, gathered in the front parlor. Pearl sat down at the piano and let her fingers wander over the keyboard until she segued into “O Tannenbaum.” Carly stared at her father as he lit the candles on the tree that stood proudly in front of the window. It was decked with carved wooden ornaments, popcorn chains, and dainty crocheted bells, wreaths, and snowflakes starched to hold rigid shapes.