Spring for Susannah (10 page)

When they returned they found Ivar stretched out, snoring. Jesse carried on a deep conversation with the baby in his arms.

Marta smiled. “Is good man.”

At the sound of her voice, he turned. “Sara really listens, like she knows what you're talking about.”

Ivar rose on one elbow, rubbing his face. “You will half one of your own soon, then you'll see how much work it is.”

“I'm looking forward to it.” Jesse winked at Susannah and passed the baby back to Marta.

The Volds headed north, along the bluff. Susannah followed Jesse east.

“I need your help with the wheat this week,” Jesse said as they swished through the grass. “Ivar says the crew'll be by Friday, to thresh what we've got cut. They take bags of wheat in payment. Save us a couple weeks' dusty work, give me time to build a chicken coop before we go to town. Ivar will help me pitch sheaves. Marta can give you a hand with cooking. She makes the best lefse—it's like a thin pancake made from potatoes. You can make sourdough and baked beans. Use up whatever's in the brine barrel. I'll go hunting Saturday; I'm hungry for fresh meat. How's the coffee holding out?”

Jesse turned and stopped. Susannah dipped her head and motioned for him to continue walking. Too late. He'd noticed her tears. He set down the lunch basket and guitar and opened his arms. Closing her eyes, she steeled herself for his touch. One hand rubbed her back, the other pushed her hat off and guided her head to his shoulder.

“Go ahead, cry it all out.” He kissed the top of her head.

The wind wrapped her skirt around his legs. She gulped. “I'm sorry. I'm not usually like this.”

“You're upset because Marta doesn't speak English.”

This man. Could he read her thoughts?

He continued, “Ivar learned pretty quick. We got along fine. So will you and Marta.”

She nodded. “Foolish of me to assume she'd already know.”

“Guess you've missed Ellen.” His warm fingers rubbed a knot in her neck. “Know what Dakota means? It's Sioux for ‘friend.' All this week I've talked until my throat's sore, but you've hardly said a word. I'll be your friend, if you'll talk to me.”

She shook her head. “I don't know what to say to you. I've never had a male friend before.” Truth be told, making friends with women wasn't easy either.

“Well, start with what you were planning to say to Marta.”

She tried to pull away, but he held on. She condensed her thoughts to the briefest answer possible, a statement she hoped would make him retreat. “Just woman things.”

The mere suggestion of “woman things” would be sufficient to deter most men. Not Jesse. “Like what? With my pack of sisters, I got more than a passing acquaintance with woman things.”

“It's nothing.”

“You're all wound up, and I want to know why.” He leaned down to look her in the eye, but it seemed safer to burrow into his shoulder. “Going to make me figure it out on my own, are you? I'm guessing it's marriage, what a husband and wife do in bed.”

She flinched.

“Bull's-eye. Now, what were you going to ask Marta?”

Might as well tell him. He'd figure it out soon enough. “My mother . . . maybe she didn't think I'd ever get married. I don't know . . . what to do.”

“I've never done this before either, if that's what you're asking. Sometimes parents explain spooning in funny ways, based on their own experiences. So maybe you're better off not talking with your ma about this.” He rested his cheek on her forehead. “Judging by the number of people on this planet, I'd say plenty of men and women have figured it out just fine. We will too.”

He didn't release her. “Susannah, one of the reasons I like living out here is getting away from the ‘shoulds.' Back east, you should be wearing mourning clothes, I should be sitting in your parlor a couple nights a week. But reality is, the sun would bake you if you wore black, and there is no parlor. There's just us. So let's leave behind the ‘shoulds' and enjoy what we've got.”

“But I'm asking so much of you. Patience, self-control—”

He sighed. “With the threshers coming Friday, we'll be lucky if we do any sleeping, much less anything else in bed this week.”

This week
, Susannah thought.
But what about next?

Chapter 9

Lord Jesus, were You ever too tired to pray?

B
ang! Bang, bang!

Susannah sat up in bed, her heart pounding. The banker! No, it was the door of the soddy in Dakota. She covered her mouth, stopping a scream.

Jesse's warm palm squeezed her shoulder. “It's the Volds.”

From the other side of the door, a hoarse voice yelled, “You spend all day in bed now you half a wife?”

“It's still dark. How did they get here?” Susannah groaned. The week had flown by in a blur of cutting wheat, binding wheat, stacking wheat, without even time to change clothes. She tugged at her waist where stale perspiration had stuck her drawers to her skin, and her neckline where chaff formed a crust. “At least we don't have to worry about getting dressed.”

Jesse grunted in agreement, lit the lamp, and opened the door.

“Threshers on their way,” Ivar announced. He carried in an armload of firewood. “Coffee will get you moving.” He sounded far too cheerful for this early in the morning, but then, he already had his crops harvested.

In the light of the lamp, Ivar caught sight of Susannah's windburned face. “You half worked outside!” He stomped to the doorway and spit out a Norwegian word, drawing a hiss from Marta.

Susannah shrank into the corner. She hadn't minded the hard work. At home, she took care of her mother, managed the house and garden, and helped with her father's patients. Here, harvesting the wheat kept Jesse too tired to talk and Susannah too tired to worry about his staring.

“Just this one time.” Jesse rooted under the bed for dry socks. “Next year I'll buy a reaper, hire a man.”

Ivar snorted. “If you married Norwegian—”

“Too late. The only one she knows is already hitched.” Jesse knocked off his neighbor's hat on his way out.

Susannah followed. Stars twinkled in the dawn air. A sliver of pink glimmered on the eastern horizon.

“Isn't it early for frost?” Their breath puffed white.

“We usually get a light freeze this time of year.” Jesse handed down Marta and the sleeping infant.

Susannah settled Sara in the middle of the bed. “Oh, to be a baby and sleep all day.”

At least threshing day meant variety in the menu. To free her time for fieldwork this week, Jesse had started a kettle of beans on Sunday. Every dinner since featured them: beans with corn cakes, beans with sourdough, beans with crackers. Fieldwork made her so hungry not even last night's dinner, bean mush, went to waste.

The four adults crowded into the soddy, bouncing off each other like croquet balls.

“Ut!”
Marta pointed to the door. Jesse complied. Ivar continued to rifle the food baskets. Marta repeated her command, swatting him on the seat of his pants. Slinking out, he mumbled two words from the corner of his mouth. Countering with a remark of her own, Marta flicked her apron at him and sent him howling into the yard.

Susannah busied herself with unpacking and tried to conceal her shock. Marta had touched her husband—on his buttocks! How could she be so familiar, so relaxed, playful? Had she known Ivar a long time, perhaps growing up on neighboring farms, perhaps marrying him before she came to Dakota? Susannah could not imagine bantering like that with Jesse.

Marta handed Susannah a sack of potatoes. Donning her cleanest dirty apron, Susannah sat on the trunk to work while Marta unpacked and started a second pot of coffee. The Norwegian woman moved efficiently, never hurried, pausing only to hold up an object for Susannah to name. She was a quick student, but it would be a long time before meaningful conversation would be possible.

Jake's bark proclaimed the arrival of the threshing crew. Ivar assembled a table from the soddy door and a pair of sawhorses. Marta set it with muffins, sausage, a kettle of oatmeal, and the coffeepot. Susannah tended the stove while Marta served. The men devoured the meal, then hurried to their machine. Setting the dishes to soak, the women ate breakfast. When Susannah reached for the dishrag, Marta motioned for her to wait, then held up a mirror.

Susannah groaned. “No wonder you kept me inside.” She covered her rat's nest with her hands. In Michigan, neighbors gossiped about women who neglected their appearance. Only ten days into her marriage, Susannah had joined the ranks of the slovenly. Why didn't Jesse say something? Father certainly would have.

Marta seated Susannah on the stool and brushed the tangles, hairpins, and wheat chaff from her hair. Then she wove a long braid and secured it with a thread. The simple plait running down Susannah's back fit this land better than her chignon. Even a dozen hairpins were no match for Dakota's wind. “Thank you,” she told her new friend.

Susannah started dinner, then joined Marta in the doorway where she nursed the baby. The breeze carried the low cadence of the threshing machine.

Baby Sara cooed from her mother's lap. The infant had given Jesse a smile. Would she smile again?

Marta touched Susannah's waist. “Baby?”

“No.” She shook her head, then took a deep breath. “Who helped you . . . when the baby came?”

Marta shrugged. Susannah asked again, with pantomime.

“Ivar help. Marta help Susannah.”

“Did it hurt? Ow?”

Marta nodded. “Ow. Marta help Susannah.”

Susannah knew a good deal about breeding stock and, as with Ma Ox's twin calves, had midwifed the delivery of animals. Her knowledge of human birth, however, was less complete, cobbled together from vague medical texts and whispered horror stories. Every girl in school knew about boys and babies, but the information was hidden behind a veil of giggles and hints. The sisters next door had been present at the arrival of their last sibling, and they claimed knowledge about how babies started.

No, Susannah decided, if it had not been for the language barrier, she would have set aside her manners and asked questions.

Marta reached an arm around her and murmured a quiet word. The Norwegian woman's peace highlighted her own nervousness. Could Susannah ever find such tranquility?

Jake's barking heralded the arrival of the men at midday. The women loaded the table with pork and beans, sliced sourdough, cookies, coffee, and the Norwegian potato flatbread called lefse, which was rolled out with a large grooved rolling pin and cooked on a griddle.

The crew sprawled on the grass to eat. They were a scraggly lot, dusted in wheat grit, a mix of ages, national origins, and attire. One wore an entire Union cavalry uniform. Jesse caught her eye and winked. After ten days, his was the familiar face.

Jake wandered under the table, foraging for scraps. Susannah leaned over to scratch behind his ears.

“Know something, Jake?” she whispered. “He might not be so bad after all, that master of yours.”

His curly tail wagged in agreement.

Late afternoon a shout came from the field, indicating the end of threshing.

Marta sliced the corned beef, and Susannah set out the rest of the meal. After supper, Jesse brought out his guitar.

“‘Jeanie!'” the men shouted. “‘Oh, Susanna!'”

Jesse honored a few requests, then launched into a railroad ballad with the crew joining in on the chorus. Despite the grueling harvest, Jesse reveled in the gathering. Between songs he told jokes and absurd stories, many about the War. To the delight of the men, Jesse stopped a song in the middle to try to find a note the crew chief could sing in tune. Calling each by name, he divided the men, lining out harmonies and counterpoints for the halves. Now he resembled his brother, Jesse the minister and the crew his congregation, exhorting, encouraging, directing.

Susannah drifted to the creek where a boy watered the team. The horses stood with straight backs, weight even on all four legs. At her approach, first their ears, then their heads turned, eyes bright and curious.

“Watch yerself, ma'am,” he said. “Them are ornery cusses, not family pets.”

Susannah stroked the withers of the buckskin, feeling his ribs and an adequate layer of fat. Dust and hair stuck to her hand; the horse needed a bath as much as she did. Chipped hooves and long toes showed they were overdue for a visit to a farrier. “Hardworking foursome you've got here.”

“Boss gets his money out of the brutes, for certain.”

Susannah brushed flies from a wound. “What happened here?”

“Them all have it, from turning power for the thresher.”

Susannah threaded her way between the animals, finding identical lesions on each right shoulder. “I have some gall remedy.” She hurried to the soddy. When she returned, the boy was gone. The driver blocked her way.