Dakota Dream
Authors: Lauraine Snelling
Tags: #Soldahl, #North Dakota, #Bergen, #Norway, #Norwegian immigrant, #Uff da!, #Clara Johanson, #Dag Weinlander, #Weeping my endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,, #regret, #guilt, #forgiveness Lauraine Snelling, #best-selling author, #historical novel, #inspirational novel, #Christian, #God, #Christian Historical Fiction, #Christian Fiction
Dakota Dream
LAURAINE SNELLING
Published by eChristian, Inc.
Escondido, California
To today’s sons and daughters of the pioneers.
May we always remember those who came before us.
To call Jude Weinlander a scoundrel was painting him with the brush of kindness. Bully and cheat were equal approbation. Blond, curly hair, blue eyes, the face of an angel, but within his broad-shouldered physique lodged the soul of Lucifer himself. As with all of his ilk, his degree of impunity increased in direct proportion to the weakness of those he harassed.
He’d been hounding his brother Dag since Jude’s first squall while in the cradle.
One night in 1910, when fall first nipped the Red River Valley of North Dakota, Jude and his bunch were slapping cards and slugging whiskey in their favorite haunt, Ole’s Saloon.
“An’ I’ll raise ya two.” Jude shoved his money toward the growing pile in the center of the green felt-covered table. He rocked back until his chair teetered on two legs, tapping the top of his cards with one finger. “Come on, Shorty. Make up your mind; we don’t got all night.”
“Na-a-a, too high for m’ blood.” Shorty threw down his cards and leaned forward so his shoulder blades stuck out of his shirt like wings, bird wings, definitely not those of angel type.
“Henry?” Jude tossed back the brown liquid in his glass and swiveled around to look for the bartender. He raised his glass. “ ‘Nother one, Ole. Whyn’t ya just leave the bottle?”
“I’ll play the next hand.” Henry dumped his cards and reached for the bottle the bartender had left. His hand shook, sloshing the liquid over the edges of his glass. His high-pitched giggle belied the broad chest and ample girth.
“Ah-h, you’re drunk.” Jude fanned his cards again and squinted through the cigar smoke. His chair squalled in protest at the angle it was forced to maintain.
“I’ll take that and call you.” The dealer laid his cards facedown on the table and pushed his money into the center. He turned his cards. “A flush.”
“Hah!” Jude thumped his chair upright and spread his cards on the table. “Full house. Aces high.” He reached out and pulled the pile of bills and change over. “Thank you, boys. Sure can use this extra cash. Ya done me a good turn, ya did.”
He sucked in on his cigar and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “ ‘Nother hand, just to see if’n ya can bet some back?” He stared around at the five men gathered within the circle shed by the hanging gaslight.
“No?” He poured a shot into the glass at his elbow. “Don’t say I didn’t give ya all a chance.” He set the bottle in the middle of the table where his stack of winnings had presided. “Have a little to warm ya on y’r way.”
While the others poured and passed the bottle, Jude chuckled to himself. “ ’Member I tol ya I had an ide-e?” At their nods he continued. “This’un’s a real winner. Dag’s gonna be so flummoxed he’ll never show his face in Soldahl again.”
“What’er ya thinkin’?” Shorty leaned forward, his pencil-sharp elbows digging grooves in the green felt.
“We’re gonna get him a woman, that’s what.” Jude waited for their responses. At the men’s quizzical looks, he snorted. “What woman would look once at him, let alone twice? See, this here’s how we’ll do it.” They all leaned close, shoulder to shoulder. “We’ll send a ticket to a woman in Norway.”
“Hey, how you gonna get’er name?”
“Easy, stupid. I jist happened to read the name and address offa that Detschman woman’s letter to her baby sister.”
“Oh.” The men nodded in admiration. Trust Jude to think of something like that.
“Along with that ticket, we’ll send a picture of me and a letter from Dag.”
“He can’t write no letter. He can’t even read.” Henry thumped a limp fist on the tabletop.
“I know that. But I can write—and read. The letter’ll tell her about what a successful man he is—”
“He is that. Dag’s the best blacksmith in six counties.”
“Don’t remind me! An it’ll say how handsome—”
The men guffawed and slapped their knees.
“An’ she’ll expect to fall in love and marry him—” The laughter raised a decibel or two. One chair screeched in protest when its occupant shoved it backwards, laughing fit to split his britches.
“An’ Dag’ll ‘bout die of embarrassment.” Jude raised his refilled glass; the others followed suit. “To the end of Dag.”
“The end of Dag.”
The way lay long between Norway and America. Clara Johanson tapped the edge of her sister’s letter against her teeth as she strode up the last hill before the home farm. While she glanced up at the newly snow-dusted peaks that rose in ever steeper ridges to the east, she failed to appreciate their grandeur this time. All she could think about was America. How would she get to America?
She leaned against a pine tree to catch her breath from the steep climb. Her sister, Nora, had written about how flat North Dakota stretched, about a plague of grasshoppers, two small motherless children, and a silent, German farmer who was stealing her heart away. But she had no money to send a ticket yet.
Clara removed her wool scarf from her head and smoothed her deep honey hair back into its combs. She shook her head and the waves of gold rippled like wheat across her shoulders. Even in the brisk wind off the fjords, moisture dotted her forehead from the climb.
A squirrel chattered in the branches above her.
“Ja, I know, I’m bothering you. But what would you do in my place?” She stared up through the soughing branches to locate her scolding audience.
“Most of my friends are already married but me . . . for me there’s no one.” Pieces of pinecone dropped around her. She tightened her dark skirts around her knees and sank to the ground softened with pine needles.
“Maybe I should volunteer to the government to be an immigrant bride. You know the Norwegian government is sending marriageable women out to different parts of the world to the men who want families.” More cone pieces dropped, one landing on her shoulder. “You don’t think I’d make a good wife?”
The squirrel chattered. One answered it from another tree.
Clara caught a flash of red as her comrade leaped from a branch above her to the tree across the track. “Well, I hope you do. See, God, even the squirrels have mates.” She shifted her conversation partner without missing a beat. “But I don’t. You know I am well-trained to be a wife and mother. Just ask Mor. She started teaching me when I was but a babe.”
She thought again of the letter from Nora. Her words spoke of such love between her and Carl Detschman. It hadn’t been easy, in fact, Carl had nearly died; but the love shone now from her sister’s pen. Oh, to love and be loved like that.
With one fingertip Clara traced a cross in the duff. “I know you have a plan for me . . . for my life. Please let it be in America.” She dug the lines deeper. “I’m trying to be patient, really I am.” Her sigh lifted and tickled the bows above her. Her prayer rode the sigh to the treetop, begged a ride on the wind, and wafted upward to her Father’s ears.
“
Uff da!
” Dag Weinlander grunted from the force of the kick. “Enough!” He slapped the horse’s gray rump with a heavy gloved hand, and then wiped the sweat dripping from his brow. He leaned over, grasped the horse’s rear off fetlock, and dragged the bent leg between his knees to rest on the platform created by his gripping knees.
“Dag?”
He ignored the familiar voice, instead checking the symmetry of the iron shoe. A knee-length, split-leather divided apron protected his legs from the hot iron shoe that raised a tendril of burned-hoof smoke when he set the iron against the wall of the horse’s hoof. With iron nails clenched between his lips blackened by the forge smoke and his muscles bulging, he raised the hammer and tapped each nail into position. Dag set the shoe and cramped the nails puncturing the outside of the hoof. With the easy strokes of long practice, he rasped each head down and formed the hoof even with the shoe.
With a grunt, he dropped the horse’s rear leg and straightened up, one hand pressed against the small of his back. Only one more to go.
“Dag!” A hint of a whine laced the demanding tone.
“Ja?” Dag peered out from the locks straggling over his brow.
“You won’t forget?” Dag’s younger brother, Jude, leaned against the post.
“Said I’d meet her.” Dag picked up the iron flat tongs and shoved the final shoe back into the glowing forge. After a couple of cranks on the blower, the iron glowed red, then white-hot. He set the shoe on edge on the anvil and, with the hammer, pounded more of a curve into the heels. Sparks flew, bright red and orange, against the dimness of the cavernous shop. He dunked the shoe into the water bucket.
“And you’ll drive her out to the Detschman farm.” This time it was more an order than a question.
“Ja.” Dag brushed an intrusive lock of hair from his eyes, using the back of his wrist. Sweat muddied with soot streaked across his cheek.
“Her name’s Clara, Clara Johanson.” Jude continued propping the center post.
Dag leaned into the ritual with the remaining hoof. The horse snorted and twitched his tail. “Hold ‘im.”
“Ja. Easy feller.” Will, the young helper, gripped the halter more tightly and stroked the horse’s arched neck.
The coarse tail hairs snagged on Dag’s head and one caught him in the eye. He brushed it away and clamped the hoof more tightly between his knees. The tearing of the injured eye blurred the hoof for a moment or two.
“I’ll be goin’ on then,” said Jude. “You’ll take care of Ma?” Dag nodded, mouth too full of nails to answer. Of course he’d take care of Ma. When hadn’t he? Or rather, when had Jude? Surprised at the unaccustomed thoughts, Dag concentrated on finishing off the hoof. The pungent odors of horse manure, cut hooves, horsehide, and smoldering coal all welded together, redolent of blacksmithing. He breathed it in like bellows himself, part and parcel of his life and livelihood.
He rechecked each hoof and, when he straightened his back and looked around, only he and Will remained.
“He left ‘bout the time you last answered.” Will slipped loose the rope tying the horse to the post. “Seemed in a powerful hurry.” He led the horse out the door and toward the livery barn. “You gonna do the other?”
“Ja.” Dag heard the two horses whicker to each other, the timeless greeting of friendly horses. Will’s voice joined in.
Dag removed his glove and rubbed the back of his neck with fingers so deeply grimed they looked like walnut bark. They matched his neck. He hawked and spit, then kneaded his protesting back muscles with ham-like hands. Outside he could see the daylight dimming.
Will trotted up with the remaining horse and tied it to the hitching post located in the arched doorway of the shingled building.
The train would be in anytime now. Dag stared from the horse to the tree outside. Not enough time. He shook his head. Why’d Jude make such a fuss over his picking up that woman? She could wait till he finished. Johnson’s team came first.
He bent to the job at hand.
“You gonna eat first?” Will asked later after stabling the freshly shod horse.
“Nah. You go on.”
“I can help you get the buggy ready.” Will shifted from one foot to the other.
Dag shook his head. “Go eat.”
The train whistle had come and gone long enough for the gaslight above the hotel entrance to be lit before Dag hung his apron on a nail. He shrugged into a black wool jacket, then brushed down his own bay mare. When her coat shone to perfection, he gently laid the harness across her back, careful to smooth every hair under the leather and adjust each snap and buckle. When he backed her into the shafts, it was a contest to see which shown brighter, the horse or the buggy.
He kicked his boots against a post to knock off any clinging mud or manure and stepped into the leather-roofed buggy. Jude had said to take the buggy. Dag shook his head. If that woman had many trunks and such, the wagon would be better.
He picked up the reins and clucked to the mare. The sooner he got this chore done, the better. His stomach rumbled. By the time he drove the nearly one hour out to the Detschman farm and another hour back, his belly’d do more than rumble. He rubbed a hand over a wall of solid flesh. In the dim light he picked a clump of dirt—or manure? —off his pant leg and flicked the matter out of the buggy.
His stomach grumbled again—louder.
He turned the mare in along the weathered train station and stopped beside the raised platform between the hunching building and the ribbon tracks. Two trunks squatted side by side.
With a sound of disgust, Dag levered himself from the buggy. He should have brought the wagon. Now he’d have to make another trip tomorrow.
“Uff da,”
he muttered as he knotted the mare’s lead shank around the hitching post.
Let Detschman come in and get ‘em. She was his sister-in-law anyway, wasn’t she? Why didn’t he meet the train? That Jude—what’d he have to do with this whole mess anyway?
Dag stomped across the wide beaten planks and jerked open the door. It wasn’t as if he had nothing else to do. And while Jude said he’d pay for the trip, getting the cash in hand was about as likely as a snowstorm in July.
“Froken
Johanson.” The words died aborning. Dag tried to swallow, but his mouth suddenly felt like a Dakota dust storm. That same storm left grit in his eyes. Was this what being struck by lightning felt like? Lightning didn’t usually accompany dust storms.
He stared at the vision that stood before him. Tendrils of deep honey blond hair peeped out from the sides of a feathered black hat. Eyes the blue-green of a hummingbird’s back peeked out from the black veil pinned in a swoop across an alabaster forehead. Turned up nose, lips ruby like the hummingbird’s throat and smiling as if they’d been friends for years. When she stood, she barely came up to the middle button on his faded and tattered shirt.
Dag tried again to talk. Breathing alone took an effort. Both failed.
“I’m Clara Johanson.” Her voice tickled his ears, which responded in a rush of heat.
Dag wet his lips, or tried to.
“And you’re . . . ?”
When had the Norwegian language been set to melody? He ordered his gaze to leave her face. To look up at the rafters or down at the floor. Instead, rebellious gaze. It traveled her length, from tip of crushable hat to toe of shiny boots—and back up. Now his ears burned like the forge he’d left behind.
Dag leaned forward and picked up the bag set beside her. He waved his hand toward the door and strode out in silence. He, who rarely chose to speak, now couldn’t.
He slung her gray-and-black bag into the small space behind the seat and climbed into the buggy.
“What about my trunks?” Clara paused at the edge of the station platform.
“Tomorrow.” Dag croaked out the word.
Clara climbed into the buggy and settled her skirts. What a strange man. Maybe he was a bit on the deaf side? She sniffed, her nostrils pinching against the odor. Did he never bathe? Or wash that rat’s nest of hair? She tried to ignore the fumes. Thank the good Lord above this wasn’t the man in her picture.
She clasped her purse in her lap, wishing the buggy were even a few inches wider. She shifted as far to the side as possible.
“Nice evening, isn’t it?” Maybe if she breathed through her mouth it would be easier.
Silence from the man beside her. The harness jingled with the trotting horse.
Clara peered ahead, Ja, like Nora had written, the land certainly was flat. A little bounce of excitement slipped past her mother’s orders to act like the woman she now was . . . or would be. The time sequence wasn’t exactly clear as to when a person left the exuberance of childhood and entered staid adulthood. She sneaked a glance at the man driving the buggy.
He stared straight ahead. Good. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. If only he hadn’t taken so long to come for her. Now it was too dark to see the fields and farms. Off to the right a light from someone’s house pinpointed in the darkness.
The mare trotted onward, her puffs of breath a counterpoint to the tattoo of her hooves.
“What did you say your name is?” Her willful stubbornness kicked in. She
would
get him to talk. How could anyone be so rude?
“Have you lived here a long time?” She waited for an answer that didn’t come. “Do you know my sister, Nora?” Waiting was getting harder. She wanted to ask him about the handsome man with curly blond hair, the one whose face she’d fallen in love with. The man who sent her a ticket and would be looking forward to claiming her as his wife. But she didn’t.
“How far from town do Nora and Carl live?” Pause again. Clara felt like grabbing the man by the ears and turning his face to look at her so he would be forced to answer. “I know you speak Norwegian, I heard you. So I must take it that you are a cruel person at heart who is enjoying my discomfort. Newcomers to America like me must be most entertaining to ignore.”
Was that a snort she heard? From the horse? No. Clara ran her tongue over her teeth and tipped her chin a bit higher. “Maybe you just want to hear me prattle away so you can tell all your friends what a simpering fool that new arrival is?”
“Uff da.”
Clara nearly clapped her hands in delight. “I agree. No one should be forced to carry on as I have just to get two syllables from her driver.”
“Dag. I am Dag Weinlander.” How he had fought to ignore her jabs. Dag bit his lip to keep from laughing aloud. What a feisty little thing she was.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Dag Weinlander.” Clara settled back against the leather seat. She’d won—the first round. Her forehead wrinkled. What a curious thought. Why should she think there would be other rounds?
Dag focused on the spot up the road between his mare’s ears so that his errant gaze wouldn’t turn to hers. The tips of his ears still burned or burned again, he couldn’t say which.
What did she want from him? He’d been hired to drive her out to her sister’s, not entertain her on the way. Once his ears stopped burning, they’d probably drop off from sheer overexertion. No one but Will had talked to him this much since . . . since . . . well, maybe they never had.
The clop of hooves, the jangling of the harness, and the creak of the ironclad wheels sang through the dark.
Clara nibbled her lip. As long as she turned her face slightly to the side, she could breathe the crisp night air, unimpeded by the odor of the man next to her. Her nose told her there would be frost before morning.
