Dakota Dusk (3 page)

“Get outa here before I . . . I . . .”

“Before you what?” The voice held a trace of a leer that she was sure matched the face hidden in the dimness. “There’s no one to hear you. Ma and Pa are gone for the night, remember?”

Rebekka Stenesrude swallowed to dislodge the fear clogging her throat. She could feel the perspiration running down her back under the flannel nightgown. Why hadn’t she gone to stay in town when she learned that Mr. and Mrs. Strand were going to be gone? She listened carefully, waiting for the man—if you could call him that—to move again so she could determine where he was standing. Why, oh why, had she drawn the heavy draperies? If only the moonlight were lighting the room. But then he could see her more clearly, too.

A devilish chuckle echoed from the darkened corner. The sound caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand at attention. Why hadn’t she been more alert? She’d noticed his smiles and secret glances, but fighting off advances of young men had never been a problem as there’d never been any to fight off or even brush away.

Her antennae strained to sense the attacking man. What could she do? She felt carefully behind herself, seeking something with which to strike her attacker. Her fingers closed over the handle of the heavy pitcher on the commode.

“You can’t run fast enough to get away and if you scream, well, who’s gonna hear you?”

The voice sent shivers rippling up her back again, but at least now she knew which way the attack would come from. She took a deep breath in an attempt to slow her thundering heart and then flexed her fingers so she could grip the handle more firmly.

Suddenly, he came with a rush, shoving her against the commode. She swung with all her might. The pitcher crashed against him. Both the man and the shards struck the bare floor at the same time.

The scream died in her throat. She leaped for the door, expecting him to follow, but only silence and her tortured breathing filled the room. Was he dead?

Rebekka grabbed her clothes off the hooks on the wall and ran down the stairs. When she paused to listen, she heard a groan. Relieved in one way but furious that she hadn’t permanently silenced the oaf, she darted out the door. “Please, God, let a horse be in the barn.” The muttered prayer matched the rhythm of her pounding feet.

In the darkness of the barn, she ripped a bridle off the wall and, with outstretched hands to guide her, made her way to the horse stalls. “Thank You, Lord.” She took in a deep breath so she wouldn’t panic the horse in the stall. Murmuring gentle words, she shuffled carefully to the animal’s head and slipped the bridle on over the halter. Each action seemed to take an hour as she fumbled in the darkness. After untying the slipknot, she backed the animal out of the stall. Then, after retrieving her clothes from where she’d laid them on a bar by the door of the stall, she led the animal outside.

A roar of pain and anger could be heard clear from the house to the barn as Rebekka led the horse over to the edge of the watering trough, stepped up, and swung herself astride the horse, her nightgown and housecoat bunched up around her knees.

Adolph Strand crashed the screen door against the wall and staggered out on the porch, clutching his head.

Rebekka dug her heels into the horse’s ribs and galloped down the lane. Where would she go in the middle of the night? Thank God Mr. and Mrs. Strand were driving the team and there was no way Adolph could follow her.

A mile or so from the farm, she pulled her horse down to a jog. A full moon directly overhead bathed the land in silver and each leaf and blade of grass shimmered with the heavy dew. A sleepy bird called from somewhere, perhaps the brilliant light of the moon confusing his inner clock. Rebekka drew in a deep breath, the aroma of a steaming horse mingling with some night-blooming flower.

“What a shame not to enjoy a night so marvelous as this.” She tipped her head back, luxuriating in the feeling, but shivered again at the thought of what had nearly happened to her. Stirred by the breeze and the night scents, she inhaled again. If only she could keep riding forever.

Rebekka shook her head and made an unladylike snort, matching that of the horse she rode. Forever would be a long time, and she had school in the morning. No matter what had happened tonight, all twenty-one of her students would greet her in the morning with bright and shiny faces. And the schoolmarm must be above reproach. Not riding around the country in the moonlight—in her nightgown and housecoat.

She shuddered again at the thought of how close she’d come to losing that purity required of schoolmarms. That . . . that, she couldn’t think of a name vile enough. But to whom could she talk? Who would believe her? She clamped her lips together.

Willowford had been her home now for two years and surely, in that time, the parents of her students must trust her. They must—she shook her head. But they could never be told. The Strand family had lived in the area for twenty years or more, and it would be her word against theirs.

She lifted her face to the moon, staring beyond the silver disk to the star-studded midnight expanse of the heavens. “Father God, what do I do? Where can I go? Your word says You look out for widows and orphans. How about an old-maid schoolmarm?”

She waited, her body relaxed and swaying with the moving horse. Would the stars sing for her, bringing the message she needed? She pulled the horse to a halt to listen better.
Moses had his burning bush,
she thought.
How will God talk with me?

A bird twittered in the brush in the ditch. A breeze lifted the horse’s mane and billowed her nightgown and housecoat. She smoothed them down and dropped her chin to her chest. How silly she was being. God didn’t talk to people on earth anymore. Did He?

She nudged the horse into a slow jog; its tapping hooves drowned out the night music. A picture of the Widow Sampson’s boxy white boardinghouse came into her mind. Maybe she could at least stay there until she spoke with Mr. Larson, the school superintendent for the district.

“One thing sure,” she promised the trotting horse, “I won’t go back to the Strands’, no matter what anyone says. I’ll be on that train for . . . for anywhere first.” The horse’s ears flicked back and forth, and he snorted as if in perfect agreement.

When they entered the darkened town, she slowed the animal to a walk. Music echoed from the saloon and bright light formed a square clear out to the middle of the street. Rebekka edged the horse to the other side of the packed-dirt street and nudged him back into a trot. She couldn’t be seen in dishabille like this and still live and teach in Willowford.

After following the picket fence around to the back of the widow’s boardinghouse, Rebekka slid off the horse and onto the ground. She tied her mount to the rail and opened the gate. Rebekka froze as the screech of the hinges echoed loud enough to wake the sleepers halfway down the block.

Then, a dog barked on the other side of the street and her horse rubbed his chin on the picket, sending his bit a-jingling.

Rebekka tiptoed up the walk, her hand at her throat. She paused again when the first step squeaked beneath her bare foot. How could she rouse the Widow Sampson without waking all her boarders?

She tapped lightly on the back door. When nothing happened, she tapped again more firmly. “Please, please,” she whispered to the heavens. But, instead of a welcome from within, she heard someone making his way down the street, singing, if one could call it that, a barroom ditty.

Rebekka formed a fist and raised her hand. She paused just before banging as a disgruntled voice came from within the house.

“Just hold on to your britches. I’ll be there soon’s I can.” Other grumbles followed, along with the slap of carpet slippers on a wooden floor. “Who’s there?” The words were matched by the door’s opening just enough for a mobcapped woman to peek around the door.

“Widow Sampson.”

“Why, if’n it ain’t the schoolmarm. Miss Stenesrude, what are you doing here this time of night—and in your nightclothes? You’re not needing a nurse, are you?” When Rebekka shook her head, the door opened all the way. “Get yourself in here before you catch your death.”

“Thank you, I . . . I can explain.” Rebekka looked over her shoulder to where her horse tossed his head and tried to reach the tips of the grass growing along the fence. She clutched her spare clothes to her body and then handed them to the older woman. “But first I better see to the horse. Do you have a place I can put him for the night?”

Widow Sampson accepted the clothing and pursed her lips. “Why, I s’pose you can put him in the shed there. We’re a mite low on coal right now, so there should be room. He your horse?”

“No. I’ll explain as soon as I return.” Rebekka started down the steps and turned back. “Have you a rope or something I can tie him with?”

“Uh, just a minute.” The older woman shut the door.

A shiver attacked Rebekka now that the danger was nearly past. She could hear the singing coming nearer. Did the man have to come down this street? What if he lived in the next house? Rebekka wrapped her arms around her shoulders to quell more of the bone-rattling quakes.

The door reopened and Widow Sampson stepped out on the porch. “Here you go. Think you can see well enough or should I bring a lantern?”

They both paused in response to the off-key serenade. “Oh, that man! He would choose tonight to drink himself silly. How Emma puts up with that, why, I’ll never know. You get into the shed and keep that horse quiet until Elmer goes on by. Of course he wouldn’t remember if he saw you or not, but best not to take any more chances.” She handed Rebekka the coiled rope as she talked and shooed her toward the waiting animal.

Rebekka gladly did as Mrs. Sampson said, keeping her hand over the horse’s nostrils when it was inclined to nicker at the man weaving his way past them. As soon as the fellow turned into his own gate and stumbled up the stairs to his house and through the door, she stripped off the bridle and knotted the rope, both into the halter and around a post. “I’ll feed you in the morning,” she whispered. After a quick hug and pat in total gratitude, she hurried back to the house.

In the meantime, Widow Sampson had lit a lamp and seated herself at the oilcloth-covered table, where she’d set a plate of sugar cookies and two glasses of buttermilk. “Here, I thought some refreshment might be in order since I think your tale may take more than a moment or two.” She gestured to the chair,

Rebekka sank into it gratefully. Another shiver shook her frame as she wrapped her feet and legs around each other for warmth. “Thank you for letting me in.” She clamped her teeth against a shiver.

“My, my, child, you’ve gone and caught your death.” The widow pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll be right back. You need something to warm you right now.” Her carpet slippers slip-slapped into a bedroom just behind the kitchen.

Rebekka waited. She could hear the squeak of a chest lid raising and Mrs. Sampson digging around for something. In a minute the woman returned, her cheeks bright red from the effort and her white lawn mobcap set slightly off to the right, giving her the look of a merry elf. “Here ya be,” she said as she draped a blanket around Rebekka’s shoulders and handed her a pair of hand-knit woolen socks. “These oughta warm you up.”

Rebekka leaned forward to slip the socks over her freezing toes. She wasn’t sure if her last shudder was from the cold that seemed to penetrate her clear to the bone or if it was the residual fear with the same knifing intensity. How close she’d come to the brink of losing her life the way she knew it. “Thank You, Lord, thank You.” Her words kept pace with the carved clock standing sentinel at the door to the dining room.

She drained the last of the buttermilk and set the glass down carefully so as not to disturb the silence. When she looked up, Mrs. Sampson smiled and reached over to pat the younger woman’s hand.

“Ja, you are safe here, now. You know you can tell me what happened and it will go no farther than these very walls.”

Rebekka nodded. Did she want to tell? She could feel the flush of embarrassment flaming in her cheeks. What words could she use? What really had happened? She chewed on the inside of her right cheek and clutched the blanket closer around her.

“Our Lord says confession is good for the soul and that don’t mean only what we done wrong. Now, I know for certain you wouldn’t be here in the middle of the night in your nightclothes if something powerful terrible hadn’t happened.” She studied the face of the young woman before her. “And I know, too, you weren’t to be at fault. Not intentionally anyhows.”

Rebekka struggled to talk past the chunk of prairie dirt clogging her throat. Dirt, that’s what it was all right. What he was. She swallowed again. “I . . .”

“Take your time, dear, we’re in no hurry.”

“I’d gone to bed. This is my month out at the Strands’, you know, and Mr. and Mrs. are gone to her sister’s for a few days.” Tears burned at the back of her eyes and down her throat. She squeezed her eyes against the burning and rolled her lips together.

At the feel of the other woman’s hand on her own, the tears and fears burst forth and Rebekka laid her head on her arms, the sobs shaking her shoulders. “He . . . he came at me.” Great gulping sobs punctuated her words. She wiped her face on the blanket and tried to sniff the flow back again, but failed miserably.

Mrs. Sampson let her guest cry. She patted the younger woman’s arm, “there, there nows” a descant to the guttural sobs. As an occasional sniff replaced the storm, the widow pushed herself to her feet and crossed to the stove to dip a cloth in the warm water of the reservoir on the back of the iron-and-chrome behemoth.

“Here.” She handed the cloth to Rebekka. “Now wash your face and hands while I get you a glass of water. Then we’ll talk, if you feel up to it.”

Rebekka nodded and did as told. How wonderful it felt to be taken care of, like her mother had done back in the good years before—she slammed the door in her mind that had opened just a crack. Stay with the here and now; no good looking back.

The chair creaked as Widow Sampson sat back down. She had set two glasses of water on the table. “I could start up the stove and make coffee,” she said as she pushed one glass over to Rebekka, “but the noise might wake up my boarders and that wouldn’t be very kind.”