Spring for Susannah (23 page)

She staggered to her feet. Jake greeted her with a wag of his tail. Jesse coiled the rope.

“I'm sorry—”

“Go.”

“But—”

He turned her around and gave her a push in the direction of the soddy. “Go. Run. Now!”

Susannah looked up. Another blizzard raced down from the northwest, headed directly toward them. The wind roared. The temperature plummeted, and all the early melt turned back to ice.

The cold sucked Susannah's breath away; driving snow obscured her vision and scraped her skin. She lowered her head into her scarf. Gusts whipped her skirts around her legs. She tripped and skidded on the ice. Jesse tucked her under his arm, giving her the protection of his body, and somehow guided them into the draw. He opened the door and stood her by the stove.

“
Look at me
,” she almost said, then changed her mind and kept silent. She didn't want to see the damage she'd done. The square set of his shoulders and the slant of his head deep in his collar said enough. She wanted to throw herself at his feet, but fear held her back.

“S-s-sorry—” she said between chattering teeth.

The lamp had not been lit. The faint light coming through the ice-covered windows showed the tremor of his hands as he held them over the stove. When he finally spoke, his quiet, deliberate words barely penetrated the storm's noise.

“Toward the end of the War,” he said, “we were running short of horses and mules for ambulance duty. We got a shipment of wild ponies from Maryland. On the march, with no time to break them, we teamed each with a harness-broke mule. The ponies'd kick, put up a good fight, then settle down to business for the most part. We had one, though, who fought until she died.”

He shoved his hands into his gloves. “Got to feed the stock.” He angled past, then paused at the door.

“Susannah, if it's so bad for you, we'll unhitch.”

Chapter 19

You hear my heart, even when it's shot to smithereens.

T
he wind screamed through the door as he jerked it open and slammed it shut behind him.

What had she done?

He planned to send her back. Divorce her.

An emptiness opened up in Susannah's heart, wider and colder than the crevasse into which she had fallen. What would she do without Jesse? Never seeing his playful smile across the table, never feeling his warm body curl around hers on a cold night, never hearing his songs and hymns carried on the prairie wind in his beautiful rich baritone.

A future without Jesse? Unimaginable. A tear stung her scraped cheek as it slid down her face. She had to pull herself together, to patch up this marriage.

With stiff and aching fingers, Susannah lit the lamp and peeled the wool socks from her feet. Her skin prickled with the pain of a thousand needles, but her toes glowed crimson. Good, no frostbite. She changed into dry clothes and started supper.

The blizzard howled, piercing three feet of sod. It carried voices, snatches of music. It rang in her ears like the sound of some lost Atlantis of the Arctic. If the wind would quiet just a little, Susannah might make out the words. Instead she heard only a torrent of syllables, chords from trumpets or an organ, garbled by the wind.

Susannah clanged the stovepipe with the ladle. That was the culprit. Like blowing over a narrow-necked bottle.

After a long time, Jesse returned. He hung his coat on the peg next to the door, wiped snow from his face, and sat on the trunk to unfasten his boots.

Susannah cleared her throat. “Jesse, please. I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I started thinking these thoughts, preposterous, ridiculous thoughts. Then the words slipped out of my mouth, foolish things that aren't true. Please forgive me.”

At last he turned. Exhaustion dragged down the corners of his eyes. “Are you all right?”

Susannah exhaled. He was still talking to her. He hadn't given up completely. “Yes. Please forget every word I said this morning. I don't know where all that nonsense came from.”

“I do.” He jerked his boots off, studiously beating them against the wall to dislodge the caked snow. “This has been my best year ever, so I didn't think how it must seem to you—stuck, no way out. No break from the cold and snow, no entertainment. Some people come unhinged, drown in homesickness, can't think straight. Felt it myself. Changes in weather, like today, seem to fire it up.”

“What did you do to get through it?”

He pinched his shoelaces, stripping them of ice. “Stayed busy. I can see now, sparing you from work isn't doing you any favors. Jake is starting his spring shed—you wanted to try something with his fur. You could braid a rug with the scraps you've been saving. If the straw's still good, you can make hats. We can have a dance in the grand ballroom.” He rested his fist on the Bible she'd left on the table. “You could read this.”

“You're right.” Susannah bowed her head. “I need to keep busy.”

Jesse continued, ticking off each item with a rap of his knuckles. “Let's plan the garden, sort the potatoes, figure out how much seed to buy. And our house. How big do you want the rooms? How many windows? How many doors?”

He stopped. “You said it. I'm a bossy son-of-a-gun.”

“It's all right. I'm getting used to it.”

The truth was, his energy terrified her at first. She had never known anyone with his full-throttled, red-hot enthusiasm. Her parents, with their constrained actions set to measured words, were at the opposite end of the scale. Even his brother seemed reserved by comparison, held in check by the responsibilities of his calling.

“So you're not sending me back?”

“If that's what I have to do to keep you alive, we'll go.”

Jesse's eyes, more brown than green tonight, glistened in the kerosene's flame.
“We' ll go,”
he'd said. He would give up his homestead for her. She slid her arm across the table and rested her fingers on his wrist. His pulse flowed into her fingertips, up her arm, and through her body like a potent elixir. He reached for her other hand. “You sure gave me a fright, sweet Susannah. Second time I almost lost you. Promised God I'd take care of you and I will. Tell me everything, all about your life and what you like. Start from the beginning. Who were you named for? Susannah Wesley?”

Susannah smiled. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“Don't change the subject now. Anyone ever call you Susie? What is your middle name?”

“No, you start while I put dinner on. Tell me your middle name and who you were named for.”

He slammed both hands on the table, sending her skittering into the corner. “Can't you see—” He thumped his palms against the door. His shoulders heaved with uneven gulping breaths. Angry white huffs exploded from his mouth.

“I'm sorry.” Her throat ached with the strain of held-back tears. “I never . . . well, it isn't ladylike to talk about oneself.”

Jesse turned until his back rested against the door. “Is that what this is all about? Do you really believe some etiquette rule, written for schoolgirls attending their first social, applies to a marriage?”

Susannah hung on to the shelf for support, rattling the tin-ware. “But what if I say the wrong thing?”

“The only wrong thing is not talking, not saying what's on your mind. Not just for me, although it's mighty frustrating guessing what you're thinking, filling in the blank spots, talking enough for both of us. You've got to do this for you, Susannah.” Jesse frowned. “Why are you so afraid?”

Susannah sidestepped to the stove and served him a bowl of stew. “Please eat.” She wouldn't be able to choke down a bite, but at least she'd do her duty to him.

He squinted at her. “Maybe you're hiding some horrible secret in your past. Let's see—you're a member of the James gang? A spy for Jefferson Davis? Raised by wolves in the north woods? What is it?”

“No. You know my secret. You know what happened. There's nothing else. Nothing interesting. You children from large families have all the adventures.”

Jesse eased onto the trunk. “Why do you say that, about large families?”

The Russells had had all the fun in her neighborhood: building a tree fort, damming up the creek, pretending to be Daniel Boone and the Indians. Growing up she wanted so much to join their lively pack of two girls and four boys.

“Susannah.” Jesse's knuckles rapped the table and brought her back to the present. “Spit it out.”

“Large families—well, parents can't keep an eye on all the children all the time.”

“On the other hand, there's always someone to tattle on you when you wander off the straight and narrow.” He shrugged. “Being an only child must have its advantages. No hand-me-downs, no sharing your bed with a squirmy whelp who forgets he's out of diapers soon as he's asleep.”

“You always had someone to play with.”

Jesse slurped his stew. “You had school friends.”

“Yes.”

He leaned back, frowning. “If I've got to suffer for something they did to you, I have the right to know what happened.”

“It's silly. It's nothing.” She made figure eights with her spoon in the bowl.

“Must be something to twist your face all up.”

Susannah pushed a chunk of potato to the bottom of the bowl. She didn't know what brought more embarrassment—the snub or the fact she'd clung to the pain for twelve years. “The spring before we finished school, all the girls in my class went out to Belle Isle for a picnic.”

“Sounds like fun. What happened?”

“I wasn't invited. They didn't hide their plans from me. I heard all about whose carriage they were taking, which person was bringing what food. The week after they told me how much fun they had. No one ever said why I wasn't invited. I considered them my best friends, but maybe I'm not good at friendship.”

Jesse spoke gently, without the scorn she expected. “I can't imagine it had anything to do with you. Maybe it was religious or political differences. Feelings ran hot during the War. Perhaps they thought you couldn't afford it, or that your ma was too strict to let you go on an outing. What did your folks say?”

Susannah picked her bread into crumbs. “I couldn't tell them. They would have said I was childish or, even worse, demand that I be included. I am being childish, to remember it after all these years. I should forgive and forget.”

She took a deep breath. The wound had been lanced. The pain diminished.

“There, now, you told me something about yourself and the roof didn't fall in. Keep going.” Jesse mopped up the last of his stew with the heel of bread. “Why didn't your parents have more children?”

“Father slept on a cot in his office.” The words came out in a whisper.

“That's not something you should feel ashamed about. Tell me—”

He tilted his head to one side, studying her, then came around the table and pulled her into his arms. “Don't worry, Susannah. I'll never ask anything more about that bum who attacked you. I know all about it. Well, not all but enough.”

“How?” She tried to pull back to see his face, but his embrace tightened.

“When you . . . when we lost our baby, you went through it again.” His hands pressed her back as if he were trying to hold her together. “It happens after battles, soldiers fight in their sleep. Like when I pushed you out of bed. And how you fought! Made General Custer look like a leg case, a coward. Susannah, you don't ever have to talk about this again if you don't want to. Promise. So what's all this shaking?”

She leaned into his solid warmth, but the shivering increased. “I'm afraid.” She held on to him with her last shreds of strength. He felt safe, like . . . home. “I'm afraid once you get to know me, you won't like me.”

Jesse's large hands cradled her face. “Won't like you? Don't you know? I love you.”

Reveille echoed in the first light of dawn. Susannah opened one eye to see Jesse blowing on a bugle formed with his two fists. She pulled the covers over her head and rolled into a ball.

“None of that, slugabed.” He lifted the quilts from her legs. Air chilled by yesterday's storm hit her feet and she squeaked. He yanked the covers off. “Atten'hut!”

She glared at him. “What rank did you attain?”

“Oh, I've held a number of ranks. Busted out of a few too. This morning I'm your sergeant. Fall in!” He saluted her, then pulled her into his arms. “Soldiers aren't this beautiful to roust. Men look their worst in the morning, a night's growth of beard scabbing their faces, hair sticking up like rabid porcupines.”

Susannah snuggled into the curve of his arm. “That so?”

“Whereas women look all soft and lazy in the morning. Especially lazy.” He set her upright. “Private Mason, you have stable duty this morning.”

Susannah groaned. “I liked you better when your orders were for bed rest.”