That Certain Spark (7 page)

Eight

T
hat’s where I draw the line. A man has to have some pride.” Karl gritted his teeth and pushed away from the new table they’d put in the smithy for him. He’d champed at the bit to come back to work today, but not for this. “I’m not repairing it.”

Piet looked at the ugly contraption through the wide-open shop door. “I don’t know. It has some charm, don’t you think?”

Karl snorted. “Charm?”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Piet sounded far less certain now that he’d come over and had a chance to see the swan-shaped silver wall sconce up close. The fact that he hadn’t picked it up spoke volumes.

“The beholder is Mrs. Cutter.”

“Ja, now it all makes sense.” Piet shrugged. “She’s willing to pay for you to repair it.”

Prodding it with the dull end of a pencil, Karl muttered, “I’d pay her to take it away.”

“You made a bargain with the doctor that though you could not yet do all work, silversmithing was reasonable.”

“Reasonable? That woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

“If the deal you struck is not to your liking, you can stop and go lie down.”

“Of course it’s not to my liking.” Karl scowled. “But I’d do anything to get out of that surgery!”

Smirking, Piet looked at the sconce. “Anything?”

“You made your point.” Karl grumbled, “It was a deal I didn’t want to make.”

“You are a man of your word and you said—”

“Don’t remind me. All of this broken garbage is reminder enough.” Karl looked at the array of pieces everyone in town came up with the very moment word went out that he’d be doing this kind of repair work. Silver, that he could do. The gold? Ideally, it would go to a goldsmith, but there wasn’t one. Tapping out dents, straightening kinks, repairing chains, and tidying engraving—that was all doable as long as he kept in mind gold was much softer than silver.

But this wall sconce? The beak had fallen off the swan in protest of being attached to something so ugly. Karl shoved aside the project. “I’m not going to do it. I refuse.”

“Your word has always been your bond, so there is no doubt that you’ll meet your obligation.”

“Condemned by faint praise.” Karl grabbed it back again. He went over each step mentally as he got started. He filed the edges until they came together smoothly again and cleaned them with the “pickling” solution, carefully joined them with the flux, and then added the solder. Using the torch from inside the swan’s narrow neck demanded his complete concentration. He finished the job, cleaned it up a little bit, then polished the silver so that it would look good—well, as good as anything that awful could look, anyway.

The next piece was a dandy little item. It deserved his attention, and he wanted to get it done right away. Doc Enoch had slipped it to him. It was a chatelaine that the doctor wore clipped to the waistband of her skirt all of the time. Whether anything was hanging from it or not didn’t matter; she always had it clipped there. Most chatelaines had a simple bend of metal that tucked into the waistband, but hers bore some kind of interesting latch to secure it.

Karl now studied the mechanism. When flipped down, it locked, securing the chatelaine to the waistband more closely, or it would—but at present it was broken. He’d have to figure out how to fix the piece. If he added a semicircular tension spring, maybe that would take care of the problem, but he’d have to manufacture one . . . but exceptionally small, and of very strong wire, too. The challenge energized him. Anything to make the time pass quickly. He’d told the doctor he wouldn’t do any blacksmithing for the next three days if she let him out of that place. Having Doc Enoch and Piet flanking her as she extracted those words turned a purposefully vague comment into a solemn promise.

The smithy’s soot didn’t allow for proper jewelry soldering, so some of the men had taken canvas and configured a three-sided structure for him just inside the smithy, but outside the forge area. After two more days of doing this soldering, he would make up for lost time, wielding his hammer on the anvil from first light until the kerosene in the lanterns gave out at night.

Grudgingly, he had to admit silversmithing was a good use of his time until he gained more strength. His leg was healing nicely, and each day he could feel it growing stronger. Truthfully, he was thankful to the doctor for having done all of the work she had. Grateful—but not convinced that a woman ought to be a physician.For all the orders she gave, she would have done well to enter the military and aim to become a general.

But the one good thing that developed from this whole affair was that his brother hadn’t a drop to drink ever since Karl got hurt. Indeed, Piet suddenly turned a corner. He seemed . . . well, different. Karl hadn’t mentioned it—wasn’t sure he wanted to—but he was praying and waiting. Piet wasn’t a man to be pushed or pestered. Contrary as he’d been, saying something might very well send Piet straight back to the saloon.

Winding the wire for the tension spring, Karl considered the inevitable mental and physical descent that overtook drunks.
If wounding my leg helped spare my brother that fate, it was worth it.
Karl leaned forward and glanced at his brother.
Even if Piet had been right and the doctor had to cut off my leg, I would have agreed to it if I knew the result would be him turning his life around.

Snap! The end of the spring he’d been forming suddenly broke off. Deep in thought, he’d formed five coils when the application called for three or four. Setting down the delicate pliers, he reached for more wire.

“I’m taking these over.” Piet loaded cross braces, hinges, hitching posts, and a variety of hardware for the vet’s barn raising into the wheelbarrow.

Squinting out the smithy doors at the almost barren trees, Karl nodded. “The weather will be good.”

Piet slugged him on the shoulder. “I sent word that the doctor would call on some folks this week. As pledged, you will drive her.”

“We pledged a buggy, not a driver.”

Piet scowled. “We don’t know if she can drive a rig, and she doesn’t know where she’s going. Even if that were not the case, there are bad feelings about a woman doctor.”

“I’m not getting in the middle of that.”

Jaw dropping, Piet stared at him. “Your life—she saved it.” He shook his head. “The least you can do is protect her in return for what she has done for you.”

What kind of idiot am I? Though I paid for my surgery, I didn’t consider that some debts cannot be canceled with mere money. It is true. I owe her.

While Karl thought, his brother sustained his tirade. “If the doctor was a man, after he saved your life, you would ride with him. Even if you do not approve of a woman doctor, it is not like you to be ungrateful and unfair.”

Karl held up his hand. “You made your point. Many points. And all of them are right. I’ll drive her. I neither approve or disapprove of her.”

“You should be ashamed.” Piet turned and walked off.

Karl turned back to the doctor’s chatelaine.
There’s nothing wrong with being neutral on an issue. Not everything has to be a fight; instead of the extremes, some things can be in the middle. So it is with how I feel about the doctor. I have no call to be ashamed. I’m grateful for what she did—but she lacks modesty to do her job. If she limited herself to treating women, perhaps that would be a good thing.

He returned to his work and by the time he was done, the clasp would secure just about anything. Certainly it could hold whatever little frippery the doctor might want to put on it. The old latch must have given way out of sheer exhaustion. Some of these pieces got handed down for generations. Judging from the heavy patina of the silver, this was one such treasure.

The convex oval shape was common enough, but instead of the usual floral pattern, Dr. Bestman’s bore an intricate Celtic knotwork engraving around the edge. A faint engraving in the center of the metal piece demanded a closer look. At the foot of the cross lay a sideways heart.

Lay my heart at the foot of the cross?
Karl found himself wishing such an act were as easy as it was to retrace the engraving, refreshing the design.

Gritty paste oozed through the cloth as he prepared to polish the silver. No piece left the smithy unless it was perfect. The inside came first. A shepherd’s crook–like hook that hid inward from the bottom of the chatelaine allowed women to attach all sorts of things from it. Tender memories of his mother and cousin assailed him. Women in Texas didn’t seem to wear chatelaines much, but
Moeder
had put hers on each and every day.

The hook gleamed to his satisfaction. They never needed to bear much weight. On marketing day a tiny coin purse would dangle from it. Other days, a quartet of fine chains held a set of sewing and needlework necessities: a silver thimble, a little triangular holder for delicate swan thread scissors, a fan-shaped pincushion the size of his thumbnail, and a slender needle holder. The pieces would lie silent in the folds of a woman’s skirt when she walked, but as she turned, they’d tinkle. For church or to go visiting, the chatelaine would hold a clip for a frilly handkerchief or gloves. Moeder and Annika always had something else hanging from theirs—the tiny book and pencil. Thinking that would be a useful addition for the doctor, he’d created a second hook and painstakingly balanced the piece. He hoped she’d be pleased. After all, she’d saved his leg.

I’m returning it to her brother. He sneaked it to me, and he can give it back to her. I don’t want her to think I have feelings for her—especially after I caught her singing to me. Appreciation and affection are two very different kettles of fish.

“Ouch!” Karl jerked back his hand. The smaller hook jabbed beneath his fingernail. Though no polish remained on the back of the chatelaine, plenty of the paste had seeped into the tiny hole beneath his nail and made it feel like a wasp sting.
I could get stung by that doctor who hummed to me just as easily if I don’t keep my guard up.

“What did you do now?” Piet shouted at him.

“Something stupid. My hands are too big for all these small things. Silversmithing for me is like when we went to the circus and saw that clown riding the baby’s rocking horse.”

The whoosh of the bellows amplified the roar of Piet’s laughter. After he finished with the bellows, he trundled over to the edge of the canvas, right at the opening that led toward the work area in the smithy. Chin high, he inspected the array of items on the table. “Complain all you want, but this is a need of the people here we never knew of. I’m thinking it would be a
goed idee
for us to do this sometimes.”

“You must have hit your head with the hammer.”

Folding his arms across his chest, Piet’s brows slammed together with disapproval. “Opa was known for his silverwork. Just because you’re chafing to do something different, you complain like a thwarted child. You shame yourself acting thus and insulting Opa’s profession.”

Astonished by his brother’s reaction, Karl rose and hobbled toward him. The pain in his thigh didn’t matter. “I didn’t mean to insult his profession. I was speaking of my own incompetence. As far as us stopping business and taking up silversmithing every once in a while—” he reached over and smacked his hand on an inch-thick stack of orders—“I see no practical way to do so. The other night, when we argued, there was contention over who was getting enough done. Right now, everything is falling on your shoulders, and—”

“It is my place as the older brother to care for you.” Piet’s arms opened all of a sudden and yanked Karl to him in a desperate embrace. “You are my
broeder
. You are all I have. Nothing else matters. If I had lost you that night, I would have died along with you. Once was bad enough. Never again.”

Karl’s arms flexed just as securely. “There is nothing like the love I bear for you.” Years ago their little brother’s brutal death had shook them both to the core. The bands of grief were starting to fall away for him. If only Piet could have a scrap of that comfort. “No one loves you more—” he paused just a heartbeat and added—“except Father God.”

Piet stiffened and his arms fell away.

Quickly curling his hands around Piet’s shoulders, Karl stepped back and shook his brother. “You should know I’m too ornery to die.”

Piet batted one hand away. “Enough talk. We both have a lot of work to do.” As Karl turned to walk away, his brother tacked on, “Opa always waited until noontime to polish everything he’d done in the morning.”

“Then I will, too.” Hating to admit just how much he needed it, Karl eased back onto the stool. The doctor told him his leg would be weak, but it still alarmed him.

The one compensation for having the makeshift silversmith tent was that Skyler’s favorite place to flop down happened to be near the far edge of the table. He’d sit right at Karl’s side, but when Karl needed to use chemicals, his collie would trot back to his bed. Odd how that extra bit of contact and companionship enriched Karl’s morning.

It wasn’t much later that Skyler sprang to his feet and gave his someone’s-coming yip. In swept none other than the doctor. Karl rose at once. “Dr. Bestman, what are you doing here?”

“I should ask the same of you, Mr. Van der Vort,” she said, “only I know we struck a deal.”

“Not a good one, but I’ll live with it.”

“I agree it was not a good deal. I would rather you were not working yet at all. Since we live next door, I thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing and see if you needed anything from me. I thought perhaps we could go upstairs so I could examine you—”

“My leg is good. You no longer need to care for me.”

She gave him a quizzical look, then understanding crossed her features. “I see. I’m glad you’re feeling much improved.”

“Ja. I stand very good now.”

“I’m not sure how you manage that feat.” Humor enriched her tone and sparkled in her eyes as Skyler circled her again, brushing heavily against her leg.

“Skyler! Nee!”

“He can’t help it. He’s bred to herd. I understand.” She came over of her own accord, but Skyler seemed quite proud of his accomplishment, and she praised his dog. “If you would please sit down on that stool there, I can show you some exercises that would help strengthen your damaged muscles.”