Spring for Susannah (15 page)

While Mr. Rose weighed the harvest, his wife winged her way in, chattering continuously. Susannah leaned against the wagon, her knees rubbery from the verbal barrage. She'd had a sudden attack of panic when Mrs. Rose asked about a parson. Susannah half expected the storekeeper to demand the proxy certificate.

Marta emerged from hiding behind the wagon and honked like a goose. Yes, with her long neck perched on sloping shoulders, her flapping arms, and the way her bustle accentuated her pear-shaped figure, Mrs. Rose did indeed resemble a Canada goose. Susannah giggled, linked arms with her friend, and followed.

Susannah stopped just inside the door. What colors! Yellow-handled tools, red cooking implements, green farm equipment, a rainbow of fabrics, a riot of canned goods. She inhaled and almost choked on the smells: coffee, spices, leather. After the muted hues and silence of the prairie, the store overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes and tried to get her bearings.

Marta squeezed her hand and led her through the maze of barrels and bins to the counter. The storekeeper poured tea into mugs and yelled, “Good day, Mrs. Vold.”

“Mrs. Vold is learning English,” Susannah said quietly.

“Her husband sure learned fast. I can understand near everything he says.”

Susannah suppressed a smile. When had the Roses let Ivar get a word in edgewise?

“How's that baby?” she bellowed at Marta.

Marta unwrapped Sara, who, rather than expressing dismay at the shouting, dazzled Mrs. Rose with a single-tooth smile. After agreeing that this was one of the prettiest babies she had ever seen, the storekeeper began working on Susannah's list.

“Never had any trouble with Mr. Mason when it comes to money. Won't accept credit. Real careful sort,” Mrs. Rose confided. “What nice handwriting you have. Bet you went to one of them fancy ladies' schools out east. School's another thing we're short on here in the territory. Let's see: sugar, cinnamon, raisins, ginger. Sounds like you'll be doing some baking, although it don't look like Mr. Mason has starved cooking for himself. Some men do just fine in the kitchen, you know, like those fellows over to the hotel.”

Jesse carried in empty barrels, pulled the list from Mrs. Rose's hand, added three items, and took a sip of Susannah's tea. With a wink, he rolled out full barrels.

Mrs. Rose continued, “I'm checking off molasses and pork. You go ahead and pick out your piece goods, dear. Wool on the top shelf, calico on the second, denim next, flannel on the bottom. Mr. Mason's got some sewing planned for you. Now, what's he want with clothesline, plaster, and cheesecloth?”

Since Mrs. Rose didn't need any response to her soliloquy, Susannah concentrated on choosing fabric and yarn. The blue worsted was a little thick for shirts, but there wasn't anything else suitable. And the red twill had a few defects. Maybe next time. No, the next trip was months away. She set her selections on the counter.

While Marta shopped, Susannah escaped with the sleeping baby. She found Jesse on the platform, teaching the Rose children a singing game. One grimy-faced youngster hung from his shoulders. Three others, street urchins worthy of
Oliver Twist
, circled him. Jesse sang a line, clapping and stomping out the rhythm. When he called their names, the children echoed back, laughing as they bungled the complicated pattern.

“Jesse Mason, me favorite pettifogger!” With the trilled
r
of a Scottish burr on his tongue, a man wearing a mattress-ticking shirt ambled over from the tent hotel. His wavy dark hair lay flat against his skull from a recent wet-combing. The slicked hair accentuated his most prominent feature, ears set perpendicular to his head.

“Thieving bairns,” he mumbled, and the children scattered under his gaze.

The man seemed loosely put together. His eyebrows snaked over his forehead and his mouth formed strange shapes as he spoke. When Jesse reached out, hoisted him onto the platform, and shook his hand, Susannah half expected the man's arm to come loose at his shoulder.

“Who are you calling a pettifogger?” Jesse asked him. “Last May you kept me up all night debating Adam's and Eve's navels.”

“Since you refuse to drink yourself into oblivion like the rest of us, I must talk you to sleep. Planning to sneak away without stopping in to see me, were you? Well, I can hear you singing clear across town. Sounds like you're sharpening a saw. Abner said you'd roped some lass into—” He caught sight of Susannah. His mouth dropped open, flattening his full beard onto his shirt placket. “And a baby already!” The man slapped Jesse on the back. “It's not been a month. You'll be crediting your fancy springwater, I suppose.”

Susannah looked for a place to hide.

“Hey, that's my baby.” Ivar hefted a sack into his wagon.

The man leaned forward, peering at baby Sara with his pale blue eyes. Susannah caught the sharp aroma of whiskey on his breath. “I should have recognized your wife's good looks, Ivar.”

“Mac, I believe you just insulted my bride.”

The hotel proprietor thumped his forehead with his hand. “I'll never be getting married if I cannot talk nice around women. Jesse, yours is ever' bit as bonny as Ivar's. In fact, had I seen her before you, she'd be Mrs. McFadgen now. How'd you slip her by?”

Susannah squirmed. Now she knew how a prize heifer felt at the county fair. Behind her in the store, Mrs. Rose plowed on at full volume. “Nice enough but a mite skinny, if you ask me.”

“Had her get off at Fourth Siding. Almost lost her to Abner, though. Susannah, this is Donald McFadgen, former Northern Pacific crew boss, virtuoso of vegetables, and first settler in—what's the name of your town this week?”

“Worthington.” He dried his hands on the towel tucked in his waistband, then shook Susannah's. “Morrison and McKinnon will be sorry they missed you.”

As Mr. McFadgen bent over her hand, a movement at the corner of the section house caught Susannah's gaze. A large man backed into the shadow, leaving his paunch in the sunlight. Abner Reece. Susannah inched closer to Jesse.

“So, where are your partners in crime?”

“They're off chasing rumor of a buffalo other side of the river. Much as I like haggis from buffalo, with the luck of the Irish, we'll dine on potato soup tonight. Speaking of luck, Jesse Mason—” Mac tipped his head toward Susannah. “Though you'll say she's an answer to prayer.”

“You don't know the half of it, Mac. Susannah learned animal doctoring from her pa. She got twins out of my cow.”

Mac gave her a head-to-toe looking-over. “Let's see, your homestead is eight miles southeast of here. I'd best make a visit, be sure you're treating her right.”

“You do that. Much as I'd like to stay and jaw with you—”

“Aye, lad. Married men have better things to do.” He gave her a grin that made her blush, then strolled back to his hotel.

Jesse handed his letters to Mrs. Rose.

“Writing your brother again? Here's his. Best fix that address. He seems to have moved. And here's one from New York. Looks like your sister's penmanship. Give this to the Volds. All the way from Norway. Don't those foreigners write funny?”

Rechecking the arithmetic, Jesse signed off the ledger book. “Ready? This is it 'til spring.”

Susannah eyed the section house. “Let's go.”

As the wagons crossed the river, Susannah and Marta exchanged glances, then collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“Marta says please, no more English lessons,” Ivar interpreted. “She doesn't want to understand the Roses.”

“Ask if she will teach me Norwegian. I don't want to understand them either.”

The wagons parted, and Susannah waved good-bye as the Volds turned toward their homestead. “Mr. and Mrs. Rose are so lonely.”

“They've got each other—no reason to be lonely.” Jesse squeezed her knee. “I've got big plans for this winter, plans for coaxing you into talking, maybe even rouse you into an argument if I'm lucky.”

“Wives are supposed to respect their husbands, not argue with them.”

“That what my brother says?” Eyebrows raised, he handed her an envelope.

“Mail!” She tore it open, finding only one sheet of paper in Reverend Mason's writing. Nothing from Ellen. She'd been counting on hearing from her. Susannah turned away, letting the wind dry her eyes.

Jesse pulled her close and nuzzled her ear. “What's my little brother have to say?”

“‘Dear Jesse and Susannah,'” she read. “‘Hope this finds you all in good health, and that Susannah arrived in the Dakota Territory without incident.

“‘We have been through a time of trials here. The Detroit congregation was reluctant to make the necessary addition to the parsonage. In September, the Bishop assigned us to a station more in keeping with the ever-increasing size of our family. The move was an ordeal for Ellen, leading, I believe, to a difficult confinement. However, we are now settled in Ann Arbor. We welcomed Benjamin James to our family on September 12.'”

“Another nephew I haven't met.”

Susannah wished she could have been there to help. But Ellen's resourceful mother and an adept sister or two probably journeyed out from New York. They would have the household running like clockwork. Susannah would have been in the way.

She resumed reading. “‘Unfortunately, in our turmoil, I have neglected to execute the Underhill estate. Be assured, dear sister-in-law, I will attend to this matter expeditiously. No further correspondence from the bank has been received.

“‘All are well here. Hope to hear the same from you. Your devoted brother, Matthew.'”

“He writes like a pompous fool. Does he talk like that?”

“Maybe he's expanding his vocabulary for the new congregation. Ann Arbor is a college town.”

Jesse shrugged. “Not like here, then.”

“There's no Mr. and Mrs. Rose.”

“At least Mrs. Rose cooks as well as she slings the scuttlebutt.”

From the basket, Jesse produced two brown paper packages containing warm meat and potato pies. Susannah bit into the flaky pastry. Ah, seasoned perfectly with onion and pepper. During her first ride in this wagon, the biscuits had sat in her stomach like a lump. But today her appetite had returned. She glanced over her shoulder at the load of ingredients, including laying hens. She looked forward to baking as a pleasure, instead of another item on her list of chores. When they got home—

Home?
Was she calling the soddy
home
? Not quite home, perhaps, but no longer a prison. More like an exile.

Her mind formed a picture of her house in Michigan. She still missed her parents and wished the banker hadn't forced her abrupt departure, but the deep sadness had eased. That heavy lump in her chest had been replaced by an odd flickering in the vicinity of her heart. Could it be love?

“I guess I embarrassed you when I introduced you to Mac.” He brushed a flake of crust off her skirt.

“I'm sorry I'm not as pretty as Marta.”

He peered under the brim of her hat. “Maybe not when you first arrived. But now you've got a little color in your cheeks, meat on your bones.” He nodded. “Dakota agrees with you. You agree with me.” He stretched his arm across the backrest, snugging her closer.

“Do you think Mr. McFadgen will call on us?”

“He never has before, but then it was just me.”

“Have you had callers?”

“I'm sure we'll have more, once you train the parlor maid to receive them properly.” Jesse winked. “Let's see. Visitors. Year ago spring, a pair of surveyors came through to tell me I was squatting on the northeast corner of section 8, township 35. We dined on antelope.”

He reached for his hat as the wind gusted. “End of May, or early June, Fort Ransom closed. When the boys marched north to Jamestown, they stopped by for a buffalo roast. We stayed up all night. Had a sorry sort of dance without any ladies, but they were in high spirits anyhow. They were looking forward to being on the rail line: regular mail, companions of the female persuasion, better food.”

“What's buffalo taste like?”

“Good. Like beef, only more flavor.”

“And antelope?”

“You had to ask.” Jesse began the motions Susannah now recognized as guitar playing. “The surveyors brought a fiddle and a harmonica. We got so busy swapping songs, we let the beast burn. So I'd have to say it tasted like charcoal. I hoped to shoot another once I bought my Winchester, but they're too quick.”

Susannah watched cumulus clouds build into thunderstorms miles to the southwest and considered his visitors. Jesse had family and friends back in the States, a home he was born in and could return to. He was the one who craved company, the congenial host to assorted threshers, soldiers, and surveyors. The exile wasn't hers, it was Jesse's.

The folds of her cape parted as his hand searched for hers. Finding it, he worked his fingers between her glove and cuff, stroking the skin on the inside of her wrist, making her insides shiver. She drew her gaze from the hard white of the clouds back to the man next to her, sparking an eager smile from him.

Susannah had hoped he wouldn't be overly demanding, insisting on fancy meals, requiring a spotless house. Instead, he complimented her for the simple fare she cooked, approved of the linens she'd brought, and didn't ask for much in the way of housekeeping.

No, his demands were of a more frightening nature. He wanted to know her.

The rooftop barrel and stovepipe appeared on the horizon. Jake raced out of the draw. Susannah had just enough time to say “uh-oh” before the dog jumped in the back of the wagon and landed in the midst of six squawking hens. The surprised elkhound bolted over the seat into Susannah's lap. The air filled with feathers and fur.

Jesse brushed down off her shoulder. “You won't have to pluck them for cooking.”