Fields of Grace (25 page)

“Good night, Lillian. I—” His shoulders squared sharply. “I will pray you see Reinhardt clearly in your dreams.”

Eli slapped aside the canvas door flap and stormed into his little sod house. He wanted to pace, to unwind his tangled thoughts and expend the hurt that weighted his chest, but there wasn’t room to take more than a couple steps.

With a groan of frustration, he flopped onto the quilt covering the mound of dried grass that served as his bed and covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow. Behind his closed lids, he envisioned Lillian from moments ago, moonlight barely tingeing her features. But even in the scant light, he had read the truth in her eyes.

She would never stop loving Reinhardt. What a fool he had been to imagine that he could build a family with Reinhardt’s wife and sons. In their busyness to establish themselves on this land, their talk had been on the present and future, not on the past. But the past still lived in Lillian’s heart. Lillian belonged to Reinhardt and always would.

He kicked off his boots. The solid
thunk
of the heels against the hard-packed floor echoed against the sod walls and pounded home the realization that he was married, but slept alone. Married, but unloved.

“Why, God?” The words rasped from his tight throat. “You took my first family—my
Mutta
and
Foda
. I had a substitute family all those years of growing up. Then I spent my adult life alone. Is it too much to ask for my own family now?”

Eli listened, but the Voice of God didn’t reply from heaven. Only wind—whistling Kansas wind—filled his ears. He released a heavy sigh, the big expulsion of breath carrying away a bit of the hurt Lillian’s words had inflicted.

He had vowed before God and witnesses to honor Lillian, and he would keep the vow. He would provide for her and her sons, build her a home that would shelter her, continue to be her friend. But when the others came, and they established a village on this prairie, she would no longer require his presence. As had been the tradition in Gnadenfeld, the men of the community would see to the needs of a widow and her children. When the others came, Eli would move her off this farm and into town.

He nodded, a plan forming in his head. There would be no dishonor in dissolving their marriage. A marriage that was not consummated could be disjoined by the church. A dissolution would free Lillian to live with Reinhardt’s memory, unbothered by the presence of her husband’s foster brother. And it would free Eli to seek a wife who would love him. At his age, he probably would never have children, but perhaps God would bless him with stepchildren who— A picture of Joseph waving the string of catfish intruded into his thoughts, bringing with it a pain so sharp it doubled him in his bed. He crunched his eyes closed, willing the image to fade, and forced his thoughts onward.

If God blessed him with stepchildren, he would love and nurture them, just as he had tried to do with Joseph and Henrik.

Rolling to his side, he offered one more whispered plea: “
Mein
Gott
, let me honor my vows, but put a shield around my heart. Only let me feel love that will result in good . . . for me and for Reinhardt’s family.”

22

L
illian covered her mouth with her apron and coughed. She and Henrik had built a fire pit well away from the sod houses and her clay oven, but the wind snatched the smoke and carried it to her while she went about her chores. Henrik stood guard beside the fire, steadily feeding green twigs on top of the dried buffalo droppings. With each addition, a new cloud of gray smoke billowed. How could he tolerate standing so near when from a distance the smoke choked off her breath?

A rack constructed of slender boughs from scraggly berry trees that grew along the creek, now denuded of their fruit, arched low over the fire. Strips of deer meat, cut only that morning from the carcass, which survived its night in the tree, draped over the boughs. More strips lay in uneven rows on a bed of dry grass, waiting their turn to be placed over the smoking pit. Before heading to the field with Joseph, Eli had given instructions on drying the meat.

An uncomfortable feeling wiggled down her spine as she remembered Eli’s unsmiling face at the breakfast table. His tone when instructing Henrik hadn’t been unkind, but neither had he sounded like Eli—not the Eli they had come to know over the past months. Although Joseph had come in for the noon meal, Eli hadn’t, claiming he had too much work to do to take time to eat. But Lillian suspected he intended to avoid her. His distant treatment pained her more deeply than she could understand. Especially on this day when Henrik prepared his first large kill and the red wheat kernels carried from their home in Russia would be placed in the waiting soil—both events worthy of a family celebration.

She scooped up the pile of clothes for washing and called to Henrik, “I am going to the creek. Will you be all right?”

He lifted a hand in reply, waving her on, before tying a bandana over his nose like a bandit. She hugged the pile of dirty clothes to her chest and made her way to the creek. Setting aside the clothes, she removed her shoes and stockings and placed them on the bank. On bare feet, she crept into the water. The shock of cold sent shudders through her frame, but she quickly adjusted.

Piece by piece, she scrubbed the clothes against a large rock half submerged in the water. Her skirts soaked to the knee, clinging to her legs and making movement awkward, but she worked the clothes up and down against the surface of the rock until every item was as clean as she could make it.

She bemoaned the lack of soap for scrubbing the soiled articles of clothing. With no store nearby where she could purchase soap, she needed to make lye soap for the family’s use. She would check how much lard remained in the crock. She sighed as she spread the week’s laundry over bushes and along the sandy creek bank to dry. The work here was never-ending. But at least the washing was finished for the week.

She picked up her shoes and gingerly followed the path back to the sod houses. Henrik remained beside the fire, and Lillian joined him. They pinched several strips, removed those they believed were dry enough to keep from spoiling, and added more to the timber frame. By then her skirts were dry, so she replaced her socks and shoes. A glance at the sky confirmed the dinner hour was approaching, so she returned to the creek with buckets in hands to retrieve water for cooking and washing.

Over the cook fire near the sod house, she fried thick deer steaks with wild onions and mushrooms. The good smell wafting from the pan caused saliva to pool under her tongue. Cleaning the deer had been distasteful, but eating the meat would surely bring pleasure. When the sun hung heavy above the horizon, Eli and Joseph returned from the field.

She looked at Eli’s dirty face and laughter bubbled upward. “You have dirt caught in every crease on your forehead. It looks like the map
Herr
Weins drew.”

Eli’s lips twitched into a weak grin, but he didn’t make a teasing response, and Lillian’s laughter quickly died. While Eli and Joseph washed, Lillian set the table. She smiled in satisfaction at the meal. The steaks sent an enticing aroma into the air. She had also fried thinly sliced wild potatoes and tossed them with fresh-churned butter. Eli’s palate would be well satisfied—the meal was fit for royalty.

Cupping her hands beside her mouth, she called, “Come and eat!”

To her surprise, rather than approaching the table, Eli stalked to the fire pit and spoke with Henrik. After a moment, Henrik ambled away from the pit, and Eli took Henrik’s place.

Lillian caught Henrik’s sleeve. “Is Eli not eating?”

Henrik glanced toward the pit and gave a one-armed shrug. “Someone must watch the meat. He said I should eat, and he will eat later. Leave a steak for him.”

Lillian sank onto her stool, defeated. Not even when Joseph volunteered to bless the food did her heart cheer. She ate, listening to Henrik and Joseph compete over who did the hardest work that day, but she contributed nothing. She might as well have been eating shoe leather for all the enjoyment she took in the succulent steak. Eli’s absence—both literal and figurative—created an aura of despondence she found difficult to shake.

When she and the boys had finished, Henrik returned to the pit and Eli sat alone at the table, methodically eating his now-cold steak and potatoes. When he finished, he carried his empty plate and fork to the wash pan and handed them to Lillian.

“That was a
goot
meal, Lillian. Thank you.”

The compliment, uttered in a polite yet emotionless voice and without the warm spark in his eyes to which she had become accustomed, made her want to cry. She managed to push her lips into a quavering smile. “You are most welcome, Eli. Tomorrow I will prepare a hearty stew with wild potatoes and onions and cabbage. Does . . . does that sound good?”

“Whatever you cook will be fine.” He took a slow backward step, lifting his arm toward Henrik. “I believe I will help Henrik with the meat. Excuse me, Lillian.”

Excuse me, Lillian
. The words echoed through Lillian’s head as Eli turned and strode across the ground to the pit.
Excuse me,
Lillian
—as courteous as could be. But he might have been addressing a stranger rather than his wife.

Spinning toward the wash pan, Lillian berated herself. What was she doing, trying to entice Eli to smile at her? Why, she behaved like a ninny! She scrubbed the plates and clanked them into a stack beside the wash pan. Just yesterday she bemoaned an inability to remember Reinhardt’s face, and today she missed Eli’s smile. Perhaps she was becoming senile. Her conduct made no sense—not even to herself.

The dishes done, she returned to the creek to gather the laundry. The wind had lifted a few items and tumbled them aside. A pair of Joseph’s pants had rolled down the bank; one pant leg trailed in the water. Huffing in annoyance, she yanked the pants up and shook them. Droplets of water spattered her, glistening in the waning sunlight. The tiny droplets resembled tears, and before she knew it, real tears flooded her eyes.

Collapsing on the creek bank, she hugged Joseph’s damp pants and blinked to chase away the tears. How she wished she had someone to talk to! In Gnadenfeld there had always been people nearby—Reinhardt, her cousins, her church friends. But here there was no one. Except Eli.

With a start, she realized the source of her frustration: how much she had come to rely on Eli’s companionship over their months together. In Gnadenfeld he had been Reinhardt’s friend; here, on the prairie, he had become hers. But now the friendship had drifted away like the smoke from Henrik’s fire. Left behind was the lingering scent of what used to be, leaving Lillian with stinging eyes and a bruised heart.

Not until that moment did she realize just how much Eli meant to her. Not as a provider or someone to guide her sons or even as Reinhardt’s beloved foster brother, but as a friend.
Her
friend. She wasn’t sure how she had lost his friendship. She knew it had happened last night, when they talked together over the dying fire, but she couldn’t understand why he had changed.

With a sigh, she rose. To her surprise, while she sat musing beside the creek, twilight had fallen, the sun a thin red line beneath a pale yellow glow on the horizon. Stars dotted the dusky gray-blue sky, and shadows lay long across the ground. Eli had cautioned her frequently about the danger of being at the creek after dusk. Wild animals came out at night to drink and hunt. She didn’t care to become prey.

Quickly, she piled all of the clothes into her arms and turned toward the path that led to the clearing. She moved as fast as her skirts would allow, her gaze darting back and forth through the tall grass. Her heart pounded harder and harder, fear creating an unpleasant tang at the back of her mouth, while she waited for an animal to leap out and attack.

Halfway up the gentle rise, a loud rustle sent her heart pounding in her throat. Suddenly, a large shadow loomed in front of her. She let out a cry of fright and tossed the clothes in every direction.

“Lillian!”

At Eli’s startled voice, she froze in place. She stared at him, her hands over her thudding heart. “E-Eli?”