Blessing in Disguise (11 page)

Should she ask him to sleep under the stars instead? And maybe get hailed on? She decided against that. After all, there was space between them.

After heading the opposite direction and wishing for an outhouse with an actual seat, she returned before he did and took off her shoes, tucking them under the quilt farthest from the fire. Then, with her legs bent underneath her, she undid the net that confined her hair and finger-combed it over her shoulder so she could begin braiding it. The wagon bed above didn’t give her enough room to brush the waist-length waves well, but even so, the nightly ritual added to the sense of peace.

She had the quilt well tucked around her shoulders as she faced the other way when he came to bed.

Even so, every nerve end she owned stood at attention and saluted as he tugged off his boots and, with a deep sigh, settled into the other bed.

“Good night, Augusta.”

“Ja, god natt.”

Long after he’d settled into the even breathing of sleep, she lay wide awake, hearing every rustle and sigh, listening to the horses graze, and finally, tucking her head under the covers to get away from the pesky mosquitoes.

The fragrance of boiling coffee brought her awake when the sun was just cracking the eastern horizon. She turned on her side and watched the man squatting beside the fire. He was turning something in a pan that smelled delicious.
Someday
, she thought, half praying,
I’d like a man like Kane to be my husband. That is, if marriage is what you have in mind for me, Lord. After all, you’ve taken two almost-husbands from me already. Someday, ah yes, someday
.

Throwing back the covers, she adjusted her skirts around herself before crawling out from under the wagon. How had he gotten up, started the fire, fetched the water that she could see steaming at the side of the crackling blaze, and cooked breakfast all without her hearing a thing?

She smoothed her hair back, fearing she looked like one of the trolls in Norway emerging fresh from a life under the bridge. Come to think of it, the bed of the wagon did look something like a bridge.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.” She repeated his words back, they being so similar to the Norwegian she was sure she knew what he meant.

“Breakfast is almost ready.”

She smiled and nodded in return. Oh, to know what he said. He lifted the pan and motioned her to sit. Ah, so that was it. She smoothed her hair, tucking strands into the braid again, and stooped back under the wagon for her jacket that she had rolled carefully and placed under her head for a pillow. The air felt like fall had sneaked in overnight. After shaking out the wrinkles as best she could, she slid her arms into the sleeves and took her seat.

“Coffee?” He raised the pot.

“Ja, please.”
Now if he would just teach her the words for please and thank you
.

This time his fingers touched hers when he handed her the full mug of coffee. Like a flash, her arm was warm clear to her shoulder. “Mange takk.”

“You are indeed welcome.” He smiled at the question that crossed her face.

When she nodded, he continued. “Mange takk.” He pointed to her. “Thank you.” He pointed to himself.

“Thank you.” She nodded with another smile, this one wider than the last. Now if he would just tell her the word for “please.” How did one ask for words like this? She blew on her steaming coffee, grateful for something in her hands to keep busy.

By the time they’d finished breakfast, put out the fire, and harnessed the horses, the sky had filled with long Vs of honking and quacking waterfowl on their migration south. The wild song made her stop brushing her hair and watch in wonder. Never had she seen such numbers of flying birds at one time.

Kane stopped in the act of setting the collar on the off horse to watch the wonder on her face. Her high cheekbones were pink from the early-morning chill, and her hair rippled liquid gold down over her shoulders as she paused in her brushing to stare at the sky. When she looked toward him, he could have sworn bits of summer sky came down and smiled from her eyes.

His breath caught in his throat. He started to say something but smiled instead to give his heart time to flutter back to where it belonged. When he could speak, he hooked the last trace and motioned toward the seat. “We’d best be on the road. Home is still a long way off.” He watched as she deftly worked her hair into a bun at the back of her neck.
What a beauty she is. Thank you, Father
.

Language lessons continued sporadically as the trotting horses ate up the miles up and down rolling hills and past flat valleys where sod houses told of other settlers. Herds of cattle could be seen once in a while and farmers either finishing harvest or plowing fields.

One thing Augusta realized early on was that the farms were few and far between. Shouldn’t they be getting close to Blessing sometime soon? Every time they crested a hill, she hoped to see the town ahead or the flat land she read about in the letters back home. And each time she kept in a sigh of disappointment.

Kane watched her, wondering at the sadness he sensed more than once. Was she not happy with the land they were crossing? If not, the ranch wouldn’t appeal to her either. His land looked much like this.

Black clouds piled on the horizon again, and the wind kicked up, bringing with it a chill that seemed even colder after the heat of the day. Dusk fell early as the clouds drew nearer and lower. Kane reached behind the seat and pulled up the elk hides he had rolled and set there. He handed one to Augusta and motioned for her to put it over her head while he did the same with the other.

The rain hit with drops the size of the hail the day before and almost as cold. Knowing they had only about five miles to go, Kane kept the team at a trot, all the while fighting with his other hand to keep the hide from blowing away. Rain poured down the hair side and soaked every bit of them not covered by the hides. Mud splashed up from the horses’ hooves and splattered the hem of her skirt and his pants.

But when he motioned for Augusta to climb over the seat back and huddle down in the wagon bed, she shook her head and clamped the hide covering more tightly.

If the horses hadn’t known where to turn off, he might have missed the track to the ranch in the rainy dark. The dog barking brought Morning Dove to the door, and the golden opening looked good as heaven’s gates to the weary and drenched travelers. Together Morning Dove and Lone Pine helped Augusta from the wagon seat and into the house.

Augusta’s teeth were chattering so hard, she couldn’t talk, and the shaking consumed the remainder of her body as well. It wasn’t until she saw their faces by the lamplight that she realized they must be of another race. Perhaps these were the Indians she’d heard so much about. But it didn’t matter. All she cared about was the heat that emanated from the fire in a stone fireplace big enough to roast an ox whole.

Kane and the two were talking together, but since she didn’t understand a word they said, she just turned to face the fire, warming her hands and face. If only she had dry clothes to change into. Even a blanket to put around her while her clothing dried. She heard the other woman leave the room, and Kane came to stand beside her.

He nodded to the man with mahogany skin and black hair that was braided much like she did hers at night. “Lone Pine.” Kane bobbed his head just a mite, so Augusta repeated the name. When the woman returned, he nodded at her and said, “Morning Dove.”

Morning Dove brought blankets with her and a garment over one arm. “You men, go now.” She waved for them to leave, and when they did, she turned with a smile to Augusta. Motioning for her to take off her wet things, she held out a blanket to warm by the fire and then wrapped it around the still-shivering woman when she had stripped to her underthings. “Now take off rest.”

Augusta shook her head when she realized the meaning of the gestures and clamped the blanket more tightly around her.

“Nei, I will be fine.”

But Morning Dove ignored the pleading and gestured again. “You take them off.” Her words carried a warning that made Augusta fear the woman would follow through if she didn’t do as asked. While Morning Dove held the blanket, Augusta stripped to her skin, letting her wet garments pool at her feet.

The Indian woman guided her to a hide-covered chair she had pulled nearer the fire and gently pushed her into it, then she proceeded to remove Augusta’s boots and stockings. Her dark eyes radiated nothing but friendship, and by this time Augusta was too tired to care.

She ate the food they put before her, each bite taking an act of will, for she only wanted to go to sleep. Even the steaming coffee did nothing more than lull her into the twilight of near sleep. When Morning Dove took her to the bedroom and handed her the nightgown she’d found in the carpetbag and dried at the fire, Augusta murmured a thank-you and, after slipping it over her head, crawled beneath the covers of the bed.

Thank you, Father . . .
was all she managed before falling into the depths of sleep.

Sometime in the night she almost surfaced enough to feel heat coming from near her. She turned to the source and slipped back under the waves of rest.

A rooster crowed and another answered.

Augusta smiled at the comforting sound and stretched as she yawned herself awake. Her hand thumped into a decidedly warm and solid body beside her. She looked to her right, directly into warm golden eyes.

With a shriek Augusta flung herself from the bed and stared at the smiling man in openmouthed horror. “What do you think you are doing in my bed?”

Chapter 9

Blessing
September 2

Augusta was not on the next morning’s train. Nor the next.

“You don’t really mean for me to go try and find her?” Hjelmer stared at his mother, not doubting for a moment that was what she really meant.

Bridget shook her head, a wisp of snowy hair waving on one side of her heat-reddened face.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“No, you will not just try. You
will
find her!” Bridget clapped her hands on her roundly padded hips and glared at her recalcitrant son. “She is the only sister you have left, after all, and she might be in terrible trouble. How would you know?”

She had him there. Never would he share with her some of the horror stories he’d heard of lost immigrants, women especially. “But, Mor . . .”

“No ‘but, Mor.’ ” She even imitated his voice. “Which train will you be leaving on?”

“Look.” Hjelmer held out his hands palms up in a peace offering.

“I never said I wouldn’t go, but it seems foolish to me to run off on a wild-goose chase when she could be coming tomorrow.”

“Then why hasn’t she sent a telegram?” Bridget had visited the sad man behind the green eyeshade, Gunnar Erickson, at the sack house both morning and afternoon since her daughter failed to arrive.

“Maybe she has run out of money.” He recognized his mistake before the words finished passing his lips.

“Oh, well, that makes your staying here in your comfortable home all right, doesn’t it? What if she is starving to death?”

Wisely he refrained from answering
that
question. “All right.” He raised his hands in the air and let them fall in surrender. “I will wait today, and if she doesn’t come, then I will go to St. Paul tomorrow to see if there is any knowledge of her there. Since the trunk got here, that means it was transferred to the St. Paul and Pacific. Going to Chicago didn’t bear thinking of. How in the world was he supposed to find her anyway? While the flood of Norwegians to the new land had slowed the last year or two, still, one young woman—or rather not so young, he thought a bit spitefully—who didn’t speak a word of English and had foolishly started out on her own rather than waiting for a group, well . . . It certainly wasn’t going to be easy to find her.

Leave it to Augusta!
He conveniently forgot the many times she had bailed him out of trouble in his growing-up years and only remembered her tendency to order her baby brother and the others around. Augusta had always thought she knew best.

Bridget stared down at hands clenched in her apron. “Mange takk, and go with God.”

It might just take one of God’s miracles to find my sister
. Hjelmer shook his head. “I’ll try to stop in to see you in the morning before I leave. Better get back on over home and get things caught up before I go.” He thought of the stack of letters he needed to answer and the area people he needed to talk with to determine how people wanted him to vote on upcoming issues of the Congress. He should have already been back in Bismarck, but between the bank, the smithy, and his machinery sales, he had more than enough to occupy three men, and now he had to head east on what he hoped was not, but feared was, a wild-goose chase.

Should he contact the police in Grand Forks and St. Paul? How did one go about searching for a missing relative? Or a missing anyone for that matter. Hjelmer left the boardinghouse and strode up the newly installed boardwalk, walked past the general store, and turned in at the shed he’d built to house the smithy and what machinery he had in stock. With harvest about done and fall fieldwork starting, he had purchased several plows, discs, and harrows. If anyone wanted something else, he could order it for them.