Years (4 page)

He was still pondering the thought when his brother drew up.

John reined in and called, “Whoa, girls,” then ponderously stepped down from the iron seat. The horses shook their heads, filling the still afternoon with the jingle of the harness.

“You’re back,” John said, sliding off his straw hat and wiping his receding hairline with a forearm.

“Yeah, I’m back.”

“Did you get him then?”

“Yeah.”

John nodded his head in his customary accepting way. He was a content man, not particularly bright, and not particularly minding. Thirty-eight years old, a little thicker than Theodore at the shoulder, thinner at the pate, and much slower at everything: from finishing chores to angering. He was built big and sturdy and moved with a singular lack of haste at once awkward and graceful. His frame was well-suited to bib overalls, dometoed boots and a thick flannel shirt. On the hottest of days he
kept his shirt buttoned to the throat and wrist, never complaining about the heat as he never complained about anything, ever. His interests ranged only as far as the edges of the fields, and in them he earned his daily bread at his own unhurried pace. As long as he was able to do that, he asked little more of life. “Mowin’s goin’ good,” he observed now. “The three of us oughta nearly finish this section before nightfall.” John hunkered down, balancing on the balls of his feet, letting his eyes range over the field while he chewed a stem of wheat.

As always, it perplexed Theodore that his brother lacked curiosity about the goings-on around him. Yet he did. His contentment was such that it did not occur to him to question or defy. Perhaps it was because of this vagueness that Theodore loved him unquestionably and felt protective toward him.

What goes on in that mind of yours, John, when you hunker all motionless and gaze at the horizon?

“He
turned out to be a
she,”
Theodore informed his older brother.

John raised uncomprehending eyes but didn’t say a word.

“She’s a woman,” Theodore explained.

“Who’s a woman?” The question came from Kristian who’d drawn abreast and was jumping down from the seat of his machine with a quickness totally opposite that of his uncle. Like the other two men, he was dressed in striped overalls, but beneath them his back was bare and on his head he wore no hat. He had wiry brown arms with dips at the biceps that had only become defined during the past half-year. The sudden spurt of growth had left his neck with a gangly appearance, for his Adam’s apple had developed faster than the musculature around it. His face was long and angular, becoming handsomer as each day added flesh to the lengthened bone and brought him closer to maturity. He had his father’s brown eyes, though they lacked the cynicism that often stole into Theodore’s, and his mother’s sensual lower lip, slightly fuller than the upper. When he spoke, his English pronunciation held the slight distortion of a Norwegian who has grown up speaking bilingually.

“The new schoolteacher,” his father answered with an even more pronounced accent. Theodore paused and considered before adding, “Well, not exactly a woman. More like a girl pretendin’ to be one. She don’t look much older than you.”

Kristian’s eyes widened. “She don’t?’ He swallowed, glanced
in the direction of the house, and asked, “She stayin’?” He understood, without ever having been told in so many words, that his father had an antipathy toward women. He’d heard the old folks talking about it many times when they didn’t think “little ears” were around.

“Your grandma took her upstairs and showed her her room, as if she was.”

Again Kristian clearly understood — if Grandma said she was staying... she was staying!

“What’s she like?”

Theodore’s chin flattened in disapproval. “Wet behind the ears and sassy as a jaybird.”

Kristian grinned. “What’s she look like?”

Theodore scowled. “What do you care what she looks like?”

Kristian colored slightly. “I was just askin’, that’s all.”

Theodore’s scowl deepened. “She looks puny and mousy,” he answered cantankerously, “just like you’d expect a teacher to look. Now let’s get back to work.”

Supper started late during harvest, for the men stayed out in the fields ‘til the last ray of sunlight disappeared, stopping in the late afternoon to do the milking and eat sandwiches to tide them over until they came in for good.

Though Linnea had politely offered to lend a hand with the suppertime preparations, Nissa wouldn’t hear of it, brushing her off with a terse declaration: “Teacher rooms
and boards
here. It’s part of your pay, ain’t it?”

So Linnea decided to explore the place, though there wasn’t much to see. Tucked behind the L formed by two granaries she found a pig pen not visible from the house. The chicken coop, tool shed, corncribs, and silo offered little attraction, and it wasn’t until she entered the barn that she found anything remotely interesting. It was not the immense, cavernous main body of the building that arrested her, but the tack room. Not even at the livery stable in Fargo had she seen so much leather! There seemed enough to supply a cavalry regiment. But for all the hundreds of loops and lines strung upon the walls, saw-horses, and benches, it had an orderliness and functionalism to rival that of a spider’s web.

The tack room was glorious!

It had character. And redolence. And a fettle that made her
wonder about the man who kept it so religiously neat. Not a single rein was draped over a narrow metal nail on which it might crimp or crack in time. Instead, they were hung fastidiously on thick wooden pegs with no loose ends allowed to touch the concrete floor. Smaller individual leather lines without hardware were coiled as neatly as lariats — no tangles or snags in sight. An assortment of oval collars trimmed one wall while a pair of saddles straddled a sawhorse wrapped with a thick swath of sheepskin to protect their undersides. A rough bench held tins of liniment and oil and saddle soap arranged as neatly as a druggist’s shelf. Hoof trimmers, shears, and curry combs were hung upon their designated nails with fanatic neatness. Near a small west window sat an old scarred chair, stained almost black, with spooled back and arms. There were two paler spots worn in the concave seat, and its legs had been reinforced long ago with strong, twisted wire. Over one of its arms hung a soiled rag, folded precisely in half and draped as neatly as a woman drapes a dishtowel over a towel bar.

Punctilious person, she deduced. All work and no play, she imagined.

Somehow it was irritating to find perfection in such an irascible man. Waiting for him and his son to return from the fields, her stomach growling with hunger, Linnea imagined how she’d put him in his place some day.

With that thought in mind, she went to her room to wash up and recomb her hair before supper. Holding the brush in her hand, she leaned close to the oval mirror in the painted tin frame and whispered as if to more than just her reflection.

“You treat your horses better than you treat women. As a matter of fact, you treat your horses’ harnesses better than you treat women!”

Linnea looked indignant at the imagined reply, then she cocked a wrist and touched her fingertips to her heart.
“I’ll have you know, Mr. Westgaard, that I have been courted by an actor from the London stage and by a British aviator. I’ve turned down seven... or was it eight... ”
For a moment her forehead puckered, then she flipped the brush back saucily and flashed a gainsome smile over her shoulder.
“Oh well,”
she finished airily.
“What difference does one little proposal make?”
She laughed in a breathy whisper and went on brushing the hair that fell to her shoulderblades.

“The British aviator took me dancing to the palace, at the special invitation of the queen, on the night before he flew away to bomb a German zeppelin shed in Düsseldorf.”
She hooked her skirt up high and swayed while tipping her head aside. A dreamy look came over her face.
“Ah, what a night that was.”
Her eyes closed and she dipped left, then right, her reflection flashing past the small oval mirror.
“At the end of the evening we rode home in a carriage he’d assigned especially for the occasion.”
She sobered and dropped her skirt.
“Alas, he lost his life in the service of his country. It was ever so sad.”

She mourned him a moment, then brightened heroically, adding,
“But at least I have the memory of swirling in his arms to the strain of a Vienna waltz.”
She stretched her neck like a swan while lissomely stroking the hair back from her face.
“But then, you wouldn’t know about things like that. And anyway, a lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”
She dropped the brush, picked up a comb, and parted her hair down the middle.

“And then there was Lawrence.”
Suddenly she spun, bringing her hips to the edge of the commode stand and leaning back provocatively.
“Have I ever told you about Lawrence?

The crash of splintering china brought Linnea out of her fantasy with chilling abruptness. The commode stand teetered in its angled place; the pitcher and bowl were no longer in sight.

From downstairs Nissa yelled, “What was that? Are you all right up there?” Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Horrified, Linnea covered her mouth with both hands and bent over the commode. When Nissa reached the door she found the girl peering into the corner at the pieces of pottery that had been a pitcher and bowl only seconds before.

“What happened?”

Linnea whirled to face the doorway with a stricken expression on her face. “Oh, Mrs. Westgaard, I’m terribly sorry! I ... I’ve broken the pitcher and bowl.”

Nissa bustled in. “How in tarnation’d it get back there?”

“I... I accidentally bumped the stand. I’ll pay for it out of my first month’s salary.” For only a second she wondered how much a pitcher and bowl cost.

“Lawsy, if that ain’t a mess. You all right?”

Linnea lifted her skirts and looked down at the wet hem. “A little wet is all.”

Nissa began pulling the commode out, but Linnea immediately took over. “Here, I’ll clean it up!” When the piece of furniture was turned aside, she saw the shattered pottery and the water running underneath the linoleum, wetting its soft underside. “Oh, my... ” she wailed, covering her mouth again while tears of embarrassment burned her eyes. “How could I have been so clumsy? I’ve probably ruined the linoleum, too.”

Nissa was already heading downstairs. “I’ll get a pail and rag.” While she was gone Linnea heard voices outside and glanced through the window to see the men had arrived while she’d been daydreaming. Frantic, she fell to her knees, gathering broken pieces into a pile, stacking them, then using the side of her hand to press the water away from the edge of the linoleum. But the puddle had already made its way underneath, so she lifted the corner... which proved to be a mistake. Water sailed down the curve of the linoleum, wetting the skirt over her knees.

“Here, let me do that!” Nissa ordered from the doorway. “Drop them pieces in the pail.”

Linnea set the broken pottery in the bottom of the pail with great care, as if gentle handling would somehow improve matters. She swallowed back the tears and felt clumsy and burdensome and disgusted with herself for letting childish whimsy carry her away again and get her into trouble, as it so often did.

When all the pieces had been picked up and Nissa sat back on her heels, Linnea reached to touch the woman’s forearm with a woeful expression on her face.

“I... I’m so sorry,” Linnea whispered. “It was stupid and—”

“Course you’re sorry. Nobody likes to look like a fool when they’re new to a place. But pitchers are — why, you’ve cut yourself!” Linnea jerked back her hand to find she’d left blood on Nissa’s sleeve.

“Oh, now I’ve soiled your dress! Can’t I do anything right?”

“Don’t fret so. It’ll wash out. But it looks like that hand is bound to bleed for a spell. I’d best get something to wrap it.” She jumped to her feet and disappeared down the stairs. A moment later Linnea heard voices from the kitchen and her mortification redoubled as she realized Nissa was probably telling the men what had just happened.

But the old woman returned without a word of criticism, and wrapped the hand in a clean strip of torn sheet, tying it securely before heading for the steps again. “Fix up your hair now, and be downstairs in five minutes. The boys don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Unfortunately, Linnea was inexpert at arranging her hair in the new backswept style with
two
good hands; with one bandaged, she was inept. She did her best but was still fussing when Nissa called that supper was ready. Hands still frantically adjusting and ramming hairpins against her skull, Linnea glanced at her skirt — wet knees, wet hem, and no time to change. A peek in the mirror showed that the rat upon which she’d wrapped! her hair was off-center. Blast it! She gave it a good yank to the left that only messed it further, and hurriedly reinserted! three pins.

“Miss Brandonberg! Supper!”

The boys don’t like to be kept waiting.

Giving up, Linnea headed for the stairs, hoping her clattering footsteps sounded jaunty.

When she came into the kitchen from the shadows of the stairwell, she was surprised to find
three
tall, strapping men turning to gawk at her.

The boys?

Theodore, of course, she’d already had the misfortune of meeting. He took one look at her red face, disobedient hair, and wet skirt, and a ghost of a smile tipped up one corner of his mouth. Dismissing him as an uncouth lout, she turned her attention to the others.

“You must be Kristian.” He was half a head taller than herself and extremely handsome, with a far kinder and prettier mouth than his father, but with the same deep-brown eyes. His hair was wet and freshly combed, a rich golden brown that would probably dry to near blond. His face shone from a fresh washing, and of the three, he was the only one without a shirt or white line across the top half of his forehead. She extended a hand. “Hello. I’m Miss Brandonberg.”

Kristian Westgaard gawked at the face of the new teacher.
Mousy and puny?
Cripes, what had the old man been thinking? He felt the color rush up his bare chest. His heart went
ko-whump,
and his hands started sweating.