Larkspur (3 page)

The gray dress she planned to wear for the trip hung over the back of a chair, her good black shoes sat under it. On the seat were her undergarments, her hat and a dark shawl she thought wise to wear because Cousin Gustaf had said the train would be smoky and dirty. Her clothes were in the trunk along with family photographs Ferd did not care for, personal items, sheets and towels. On top of all were her sewing equipment and writing materials. Everything she owned was in the trunk, the box, and a tapestry bag containing toilet articles and a pistol Gustaf had given to her and insisted she carry. He had taken her out to the woods and shown her how to load and shoot the gun. He cautioned her to keep it with her at all times.

“If you need it, it’ll be there,” he had said. “And don’t be afraid to use it. If a man comes at you and refuses to back off, he’s going to hurt you. It’ll be you or him.”

“I don’t know if I could shoot anyone, Gus.”

“You could if you had to. Keep the gun loaded. Unloaded, it’s no use at all. Hold it straight out and pull the trigger slowly.”

They had practiced until Gustaf was satisfied she at least knew how to handle the gun. Now Kristin felt safer knowing that she had the weapon. And Gustaf was right; she would use it if she was forced to do so to protect herself.

Kristin had planned to have a tub bath, but after the unsettling set-to with Ferd and Andora, she decided to carry warm water from the kitchen and wash in her room. Afterward she put on her nightdress and, standing before the small mirror above her washstand, looked at herself. She didn’t think she was pretty, but neither was she ugly. Kristin took the pins from the braids that wrapped around her head. She had washed her hair that morning in fresh rainwater, not knowing when she would have the chance again. Silvery blond hair was not unusual in this Swedish community, but it was her most startling feature. Her eyes ran a close second. They were large and blue-gray, deep-set, under well-defined brows only a shade darker than her hair.

She leaned closer to the mirror. Faint lines of worry had appeared lately between her brows and at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her face had a pensive look. The shadows beneath her eyes told of sleepless nights. Her wide mouth, its lower lip fuller and softer than the upper one, was turned down at the corners, reflecting her less than happy mood.

Ferd had called her a spinster. She guessed she was, but she had not thought much about it. She had been courted by several men when she was younger. None suited her brother, which had not mattered because none had suited her either. Now word was out that a man had to go first through Ferd to reach his sister, and lately not one had thought the effort worthwhile except for a couple of widowers who had been left with young children and little else. The thought of bedding with either of them made Kristin’s stomach heave.

She had not settled as happily and as gratefully into the life of sister-servant as Andora and Ferd had believed. The girls, ages six and eight, were resentful of her authority. Andora indulged them in whatever they wanted to do, and of late they had begun to follow their mother’s example and treat their aunt as a servant in the house.

Many times, when resentment bubbled up in Kristin, she longed to have something of her own and to see some of life other than the small confines of her brother’s house here in River Falls, Wisconsin. Cousin Gustaf had helped to feed that ambition. He had told her of life beyond this small town and had even urged her to consider taking a position as governess or housekeeper in Eau Claire or St. Paul. Until now she had not had the courage to make the break.

Her life had taken a sudden change when the letter had come from Yarby Anderson’s solicitor, a Mr. Mark Lee, telling her that after his being missing for a year, Yarby’s remains had been found and identified. In a will dated twenty years earlier, when Kristin was four years old, he had left her all of his worldly possessions, which now consisted of ranchland called Larkspur.

To Kristin, who had never had more than five dollars of her own to do with as she pleased, it was a miracle. She had been elated until Gustaf had explained that several thousand acres of land in Montana might not equal forty acres of good farmland in Wisconsin.

Nevertheless it was something.

Kristin sat down in her mother’s rocker. She would have liked to grieve for this uncle who had remembered her in his will, but she was not very successful. She had never seen him and all she knew of him was from what Gustaf remembered about him and that he had written her mother two letters after her father had died. She had searched the trunk for them, but they seemed to have disappeared. It gave Kristin a warm feeling to know that somewhere there had been a man who had cared enough about her to bequeath her some property.

She’d had no idea the furor that would result when she showed the letter to Ferd. He railed against Uncle Yarby for being so stupid as to leave an estate to a woman, railed at the time it would take to get the estate settled and the money in the bank.

After a week of hearing about the wrong done in her favor to the rest of the family, Kristin began to get not only stubborn but angry. She decided that if it was the last thing she did on earth, she was going to see this land that was hers now and stand at the grave of the man who had left it to her. She had every legal right to go there, and she was backed by her cousin, who insisted that he finance the trip. She accepted after promising to return the money as soon as the estate was settled.

Kristin and Gustaf had been born on the same day on adjoining farms. They had played together as children and had gone to school together. At sixteen Gustaf had left the farm to work on the boats carrying freight up and down the Mississippi River. Since then he had come home, at times, to help his brothers put in the crops or to harvest them, considering it his duty to help provide for his mother and unmarried sister.

Ferd considered Gustaf a man without substance, but her cousin had always been dear to Kristin, and she looked forward to his visits home. Without Gustaf’s urging, Kristin doubted that she would have had the courage to defy Ferd and set out on this long and uncertain journey.

Heavens!
The farthest she had been from home was Eau Claire, and that was only one time when Ferd wanted her to tend the children while he and Andora mixed with the social set.

The lamplight threw Kristin’s shadow on the wall. She watched it as she rocked. It was very strange to be sitting here, ready to leave this place where she had spent the past ten years. It didn’t seem that any of this had really happened. She wished with all her heart that she wasn’t leaving with an irreparable rift between herself and her brother.

What in the world would she do if this turned out to be a hoax and there was no inheritance?
She would do as she had always done, she told herself sternly. She was not helpless. She could cook and sew and . . . milk cows.

I’m sure they have dairy farms in Montana.

Chapter Two

D
awn came.

Kristin had slept only fitfully all night. For the last hour she had been awake and listening for the birds to chirp in the trees above the house and for the roosters on the next street to announce the new day. At the first sound she got out of bed, went to the window and looked out. The sky was clear. This was the first day of her new life. She would be starting it in fine weather.

After lighting the lamp, Kristin used the chamber pot. She usually waited until she was dressed and then went to the outhouse, but this morning she felt defiant. She smiled knowing that her bit of revenge was childish.

How long would it be before Andora thought to empty the pot?

Last night anger and hurt had vied with one another in her heart, but this morning she felt as brave as an angry lioness. During the night the fear of the long journey and what she would find at the end of it had left her. Come what might, she would at least see another part of the world. She washed her face and hands in cold water from the pitcher, not bothering to fetch warm from the cookstove reservoir. She dressed, braided her hair and fastened the coils around her head with the large ivory hairpins Gustaf had brought her from some faraway place. Her stomach growled as she put the small-brimmed straw hat on her head and secured it with a hatpin. She had been so nervous last night that she had scarcely eaten anything at all.

She had been careful with what she packed to take with her. Besides her clothes and a few mementos, she took only what she had brought with the dollar a month Ferd had given her for her special use after she had nagged him for weeks because she wanted to buy a
real
toothbrush.

The house was quiet as she carried her baggage out to the front yard. She struggled with the small trunk, returned for the box and then for the bag and shawl she would carry on the train. Gustaf was coming to take her to Eau Claire to catch the train.
Train.
Never had she imagined that she would be going to a distant land on a train. With her baggage piled just inside the yard gate, she returned to the house one last time to pause in the front hall and listen. No footsteps sounded from the upper rooms. All was still.

Ferd was not coming down to say good-bye.

By the time she returned to the front gate, Gustaf had arrived. Dear Gustaf. What would she do without him? He hopped down from the buggy and tied the horse to the hitching post. The cousins could have passed for twins though Gustaf was a half head taller than Kristin and his blond hair was a shade darker. It matched the rakish mustache on his upper lip. He wore a smile on his handsome face. His eyes went past Kristin to the darkened house.

“Ole Ferd still got a kink in his tail?” Gustaf picked up the trunk and carried it to the boot of the buggy.

“He’s terribly angry.”

“He’ll get over it.” Gustaf settled her box beside the trunk, then with his hand beneath her elbow, he helped her up into the buggy.

“No. He told me never to come back.”

“He said that?”

“And more.” Kristin flipped the shawl around her shoulders to ward off the morning chill.

“The man’s a fool,” Gustaf growled as they drove away.

Kristin, her heart aching, looked back at the house to see if Ferd or Andora had relented and had stepped out onto the porch to wave good-bye.

The door was closed. The porch was empty.

The streets of River Falls lay empty except for a few merchants sweeping the walks and porches as they prepared for a new business day. They turned to stare at the buggy and to wonder what Ferd Anderson’s sister and her vagabond cousin were doing out so early. Gustaf chuckled at their curiosity and saluted gaily as the buggy passed. The only sound was the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the brick-paved street.

Kristin gloried in a mounting sense of freedom. Was this how a small bird felt when it left the nest and flew for the first time?

“Hungry?” They had left the town and were on the open road to Eau Claire.

“You heard my stomach growl,” Kristin accused.

“Naw. I figured ya’d have a big ruckus with Ferd and be too upset to eat. Ma fixed a basket. It’s there under the seat.”

“Bless Aunt Ingrid.” Kristin lifted the basket up onto the seat between them.

“The fritters are on top. The rest is for ya to take with ya. It should last all day and part of tomorrow. By then you’ll be in Fargo, where you change trains. Ya can refill it there with food enough to last until ya get to Big Timber.”

“Won’t buying food at the station cost a lot of money?” Kristin took a bite of the fritter.

“Ya got to eat. Ferd didn’t give ya a dime, did he?”

“No.” Kristin would have been embarrassed to admit this to anyone but her cousin. “Gustaf, I’ll pay back every cent—”

“Hush about payback. Ya’ve got crumbs on your mouth.”

“Ferd will tell your brothers that you gave me the money. They’ll be angry knowing you had it and didn’t put it toward your mother and sister’s keep.”

“I give them money each time I come home, and I take nothin’ from the farm. Lars and Kevin will tell Ferd to mind his own business. I’d go with ya, Kris, but I promised to stay until Lars gets on his feet.”

“How is he?”

“He’s gettin’ around on a crutch. He should be all right in a few weeks.”

“I wish you were coming now.”

“Ya’ll be all right. Get a room in the hotel in Big Timber and look up that solicitor. What’s his name?”

“Mark Lee.”

“If ya need me, send a wire in care of Tommy Bragg.” He gave her an impish grin. She grinned back.

“You’re setting me up good and proper. Ferd Anderson’s spinster sister leaves town and wires the notorious town rascal.”

“Don’t sign it. I’ll know who it’s from.”

“So will the rest of the town if it comes from Big Timber.”

“Do ya care?”

“I thought I would, but I don’t. Oh, Gus, what if it’s all a hoax? What if the inheritance doesn’t amount to a hill of beans?”

“Then ya’ve had a grand adventure out of it.”

“But . . . I can’t come back.”

“I’ll come to wherever ya are and snag ya a rich husband.”

“Oh, Gus. Be serious. I haven’t heard a word from that Mr. Lenning who has been managing the property.”

“He’s probably an old goat like Yarby and can’t write. I betcha Ferd’s heard plenty from Lee.”

“No! You think he’d do that and not tell me?”

“Hell, yes! When we get to Eau Claire, I’m going to send a wire to Mark Lee and tell him to be expecting ya. I’ll also tell him that if he don’t treat ya right, I’ll come out there and bust his head.”

“You can’t say that in a wire.”

“No, but he’ll get the message.”

Kristin put the basket back down on the floor of the buggy. Aunt Ingrid had packed slices of bread and butter, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, apples and fritters.

“What time does the train go?”

“Eleven o’clock. We’ve plenty of time. Nervous?”

“A little.”

“Ya’ll be fine. Just remember what I said about not making eye contact with a man that’s giving you the once-over. Be alert and act as if you owned the world. A stuck-up woman will turn a fellow off quicker than anything if he’s got any brains. If he has none, use your hatpin. If that doesn’t work, use the pistol to discourage him.”