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Chapter Two

A
merican Falls, next stop,” the conductor announced from the rear of the coach.

Karola looked out the window, wondering when the station would come into view. After several days of train travel, she was weary, dusty, and rumpled—not unlike when she’d arrived in America on the steamship the week before—but this time her arrival meant the end of her journey. In a short while, she would see Jakob. By tomorrow, she would be Mrs. Jakob Hirsch, and she would live in a fine house and have all the things she’d wanted. No one would ever again have the right to whisper and titter about her.

She tried to picture Jakob but failed. She remembered thinking him the most handsome of all the young men in Steiger-hausen. She’d known the other girls in their village had been green with jealousy because he’d chosen her. If she concentrated, she could almost hear his laughter, a sound that she remembered had risen from deep in his chest.

Was he still as handsome? Did he have that same laugh? What was he like now? Would she recognize him when she saw him? And, the most persistent questions of all: Why had he stopped writing to her? And why, after so many years, had he written to her again?

Her mother had told her to ask him those things and more before she accepted his offer, but Karola hadn’t listened. She’d wanted out, and Jakob’s letter had provided the way. As far as she could tell, there was no good reason to refuse his proposal of marriage. Jakob had always adored her. He wouldn’t have sent for her if he didn’t adore her still. Whatever the cause for his long silence, it was in the past now. He would love her, she would forgive him for abandoning her, and all would be well.

“Miss Breit?”

Karola gave a start, pulled from her thoughts.

“We’re almost there,” her elderly seatmate, Mrs. Rankin, said. “You must be excited to see your fiancé

Excited? She supposed so. Or was it trepidation that caused Karola’s pulse to race?

“My goodness,” Mrs. Rankin continued, “I can only imagine how overwhelming this must all seem to you. Did I tell you I came west over the Oregon Trail when I was a bride of twenty?”

Ja,
she had. The woman had rarely stopped talking since she’d boarded the train in Chicago and taken the seat beside Karola.

“My, what a wilderness it was back then. The wide-open prairies and the Indians and the forests and the rivers. No trains, you know. Not like it is today. It was wild, I tell you. The Wild West, just like that Buffalo Bill’s show called it. Well, maybe not exactly the same, but near enough.”

Karola looked out the window. What would she do if she saw a wild Indian?

“Perhaps I mentioned this already, but my niece lived in Shadow Creek for a time. She said it was a nice town, although much too small for her liking. Quite the little organizer, that girl. All involved in the suffrage movement.”

Karola turned to the older woman, unable to translate the word
suffrage
from English to German.

Mrs. Rankin seemed to understand the question in her eyes. “
Suffrage.
A woman’s right to vote. That’s why my niece moved to Oregon. Idaho women have had the right to vote for quite a spell, but Oregon hasn’t seen the light yet.” She laughed. “Land sake, I can see that’s buffaloed you. Young woman, the West is chock-full of opportunities if you aren’t afraid to try.”

The train began to slow, drawing Karola’s gaze once more to the window. Her heart pounded hard as she wiped the palms of her hands against her skirt. This was it. The time had come. Her journey was about over.

Amid hisses and creaks—sounds she had heard countless times as she crossed America—the train rolled to a stop.

“American Falls,” the conductor called.

Karola stood and reached for her two battered suitcases.

“I’ve enjoyed talking with you, my dear,” Mrs. Rankin said. “I wish you and your intended every happiness.”

“Danke,”
Karola replied. Then with a suitcase clutched in each hand and her satchel pressed against her ribs beneath her right arm, she made her way toward the exit.

She paused before stepping from the train, scanning the platform. And there he was. She would have recognized him even if he hadn’t been the only person waiting for passengers to disembark. He was, indeed, as handsome as ever. Not that he hadn’t changed. He had. A little heavier, perhaps even taller, and he had grown a beard, something she hadn’t expected. It made him look … older. She realized she hadn’t expected that either.

Their gazes met. She forced a tight smile; he nodded in recognition. The conductor placed a hand beneath her elbow and assisted her down to the platform.

Karola swallowed hard, then said, “
Guten Tag,
Jakob.” Her greeting sounded more like the croak of a frog.

Jakob moved toward her. “Karola, you look well.”

When they were young, he’d told her she was beautiful.

“As do you,” she answered.

Now that he was closer, she could see tiny lines around his mouth and at the outer corners of his hazel eyes, eyes that used to sparkle with excitement but now seemed humorless. His neatly trimmed beard had a reddish tint, unlike the light brown color of his hair.

Jakob’s hand brushed against hers as he took one of her bags. It was the touch of a stranger.

Her mother’s words rang in her ears:
“He is no longer the boy
who went away. He cannot be.”

Sudden panic urged her to get back on the train, to flee as quickly as possible.

“All aboard!” the conductor shouted, even though there were no departing passengers in sight.

I will not be afraid. I will not run away. I will not go back. I
will not. I will not. I will not.

Jakob took her other suitcase. “It’ll take us a few hours to reach the farm. We’d better begin. Do you have more than these?” He didn’t sound like Jakob; he sounded like an American.

“Ja.”
She glanced behind her and saw the large trunk that had accompanied her from halfway around the world now resting on a cart near the caboose. “There it is. That is mine.”

The train hissed and jerked into motion.

Jakob raised his voice to be heard above the noise. “The wagon’s over there. I’ll put your suitcases in it, then come back for the trunk.”

All will be well. This is what I have wanted and waited for
all these years. We will marry and be happy. All will be well. It
will. It will. It will.

Jakob turned and walked across the platform. Clutching her satchel, Karola took a deep breath, then followed.

The ground at the bottom of the platform steps was uneven with deep ruts carved over time by wagon wheels. Karola held up her skirt with her free hand and hoped she wouldn’t trip and fall on her face. She kept her gaze fixed a few strides in front of her.

“Maeve,” Jakob said in a stern tone. “Bernard. What did I tell you?”

Karola glanced up.

“Karola,” he said, “these are my children.”

The earth seemed to tilt beneath her feet as she looked from Jakob toward the wagon. Three children, one barely old enough to walk, stood near the rear wheel, holding hands, the smallest between the two older ones.

Jakob carried her bags to the back of the wagon and tossed them onto the bed. Then he turned to face her. “This is Maeve,” he said, motioning toward the child farthest from him. “She’s going on six.” He touched the boy’s shoulder. “This is my son, Bernard. He’ll be five soon.” He stooped and lifted the toddler into his arms. “This is my daughter Aislinn. She turned a year old last week.”

Karola’s mouth was dry as cotton. There was a whirring noise in her ears.

His children.

“Say hello to Miss Breit,” Jakob commanded.

“Hello,” the two older children responded obediently.

He had children. He’d been married. All these years, and he’d been married. She’d feared him dead while he’d been siring children. He’d had a life while she’d been left behind, unwanted, in Germany.

Again she heard her mother’s voice:
“Oh, Karola, Karola.
You always have your head in the clouds. I fear the pain it will
bring you.”

Jakob set the toddler into the wagon beside Karola’s bags. Then he picked up the other two children, one in each arm, and deposited them beside their little sister. “Sit down,” he told them. Turning to Karola, he motioned to the bag in her hand. “Want that in the back, too?” He reached for her satchel.

“You did not tell me, Jakob.” She took a step back from him, clutching her bag close to her bosom. “Why did you not tell me you were married? Why did you not tell me you have children?”

A look of surprise crossed his face. “But I
did
tell you. I wrote you all about them.”

She shook her head.

“Karola, it’s true. I swear to you.” He rubbed his forehead with the fingers of one hand, as if trying to rub away a problem. “As soon as you replied to my first letter, I sent another that told you everything about my marriage and my children. I said if it made a difference to you that I’d understand.” His gaze pleaded for her to believe him. “I said you didn’t have to feel obligated to come.”

“I never got that letter.” How she spoke around the tightness in her throat she didn’t know. “I never got it.”

When Karola first appeared on the passenger car’s steps, Jakob had felt a surge of confidence. For the first time, his decision to bring her to America to be his wife had seemed right.

But now the doubts returned.

She hadn’t known about his wife and children. She hadn’t received his letter.

Karola stared at him, her blue eyes swirling with emotion. She looked both confused and frightened.

What was he supposed to do? He didn’t have the money to send her home. Not now. Maybe come harvesttime, if the weather stayed good and there were no calamities or setbacks. But not now. Not today. He’d spent all he could afford to pay her passage here.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t deceive you. I assumed you got my letter.”

“You needed a mother for your children. That’s why you asked me to marry you.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact. A lengthy silence ensued before she asked, “What was your wife’s name?”

“Siobhan.” Saying her name conjured images of the fiery-tempered Irish girl who’d loved him, wed him, borne his children, and left him too soon. “Siobhan Gaffney.”

“Tell me how it happened, Jakob.”

“She died in childbirth.”

“Nein.”
There were tears in her eyes now. “Tell me why you married her instead of sending for me.”

He heard the words Karola had not spoken:
As you promised.
He knew he owed her an explanation. It had been easier writing it in a letter than it would be saying it to her face.

“I waited for you,” Karola whispered. “I waited. I trusted you. And then, when your letters stopped coming, I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry.” The words rang false, even in his own ears.

“Tell me what happened.”

He sighed softly, knowing he must do as she asked. He owed her that much. “I will, but we need to get started for the farm. Otherwise, we’ll be on the road after dark.”

He saw that she wrestled with her decision, even understood the resigned look that finally entered her eyes, a look that said,
What choice do I have?

At last, without a word, she stepped to the side of the wagon and allowed him to assist her to the seat.

“I’ll get your trunk,” he said and strode away.

Chapter Three

K
arola didn’t immediately insist upon Jakob’s explanation once they were on their way, and he was more than willing to wait until she did so. But after an hour of silence—even the children seemed to know not to speak—she said, “Tell me what happened, Jakob.”

His thoughts drifted across time, back to Germany and that snowy February day in 1897. He remembered kissing Karola good-bye, promising he would send for her soon, declaring his undying devotion. He’d been young and filled with dreams, certain that only good fortune lay before him. Nothing was impossible for him then. He remembered his farewells to his four older brothers and to his father, a stooped and beaten man, wearied by life, worn down by hardship and poverty. He remembered the arduous journey—most of it made on foot—from his remote village to Hamburg. He remembered his surprise when he’d discovered himself feeling homesick.

“When I first got to America,” he began at last, “I found work in a factory in New York City. I hated it. I only stayed until I had enough money saved to strike out for the West.”


Ja,
I remember. You wrote to me about it.”

What he hadn’t told her in his letters was how near impossible it was to save anything from the meager wages he’d earned, how often he’d gone to bed hungry in that miserable room he’d rented, how more than once he’d wondered if he’d traveled all that way for nothing.

“After I left New York, I found work on a farm in Pennsylvania, then I moved on to another farm in Ohio, and after that, I went to work in Minnesota.”

“You liked it in Minnesota best of all.”

He nodded, remembering the many nights he’d sat at that rickety table in the farmhand’s quarters, a candle flickering nearby, penning his letters to Karola.
I’ll send for you soon,
he’d written. He’d never meant for it to be a lie.

“I worked hard, Karola, and I saved almost every dollar I earned so I could buy land, so I could have a farm of my own, be my own man, make my own way. I planned to stay in Minnesota. There were many German immigrants there. But then I met a man who told me about California. It sounded like heaven on earth, so I decided to see for myself.”

This part was more difficult to tell. How he set out for the West in the spring of 1901, traveling by rail and on foot. How he was robbed of all his money and possessions, including the pocket watch that had been his grandfather’s, the one with her photograph inside. How the thieves had beaten him afterward and left him for dead.

“Sweeney Gaffney and his daughter, Siobhan, found me lying on the side of the road.”

Siobhan. Different from any woman Jakob had ever known. She’d been as strong as a man of equal size, and her Irish temper had been
twice
that of any man, large or small. Siobhan, with her red hair to match her fiery temper and a passion for life that burned bright and hot.

Siobhan had been there to nurse him back to health. She’d been there to listen as he poured out his loneliness and despair. His dreams for a farm of his own seemed to have vanished forever, and with those dreams went his hope. He had failed. He would never have the things he’d once wanted.

But Siobhan had lifted his spirits again, encouraged him, made him laugh, made him forget. The old country—as well as his old promises—had seemed distant, unreal, dreamlike. As had Karola. Siobhan, her good-natured father, and a hardscrabble farm in Wyoming—those were what were real.

Jakob had been twenty-four and lusty; Siobhan had been twenty-two and willing. They’d got on well enough, and so they’d wed.

Looking at him for the first time since they’d left American Falls, Karola asked, “Did you love Siobhan?” Her voice was barely audible above the creak of the wagon wheels.

He hesitated only a moment before giving his answer. “Yes. Maybe at first I married her for other reasons, but I grew to love her.”

Karola nodded, then looked away again.

Jakob continued with the story, thinking it best to get it over and done with. “Maeve came along nine months after we married. Bernard ten months after that. Siobhan lost the next two.”

His wife had mourned those babies with the same fervor with which she loved their two surviving children. Jakob had mourned them, too, in a private corner of his heart. The same year as the second miscarriage, things worsened for the family when the bank took possession of Sweeney Gaffney’s farm. They had been forced to pick up stakes and move to Shadow Creek, Idaho, where Sweeney’s brother, Tulley Gaffney, lived. Not long after they got to Idaho, Sweeney had died.

Loss heaped upon loss heaped upon loss.

“I borrowed money from Siobhan’s uncle to buy our farm. The soil is rich, and the crops were good those first two years. We paid off the loan the same day Siobhan discovered she was expecting another baby.”

He hadn’t been happy at the news. He’d told Siobhan they were just getting their heads above water. For the first time in a long while, Jakob had felt real hope for the future. It hadn’t been a good time for their family to grow. Not right then.

“Sure, and what would you have me do about it, I’m wonderin’,”
she’d said, her eyes sparking in defiance.
“’Tis a bit late
for you t’be wishin’ for no more wee bairns.”

Jakob swallowed the hot lump in his throat. “Aislinn came a month early. It happened fast. There was no chance to send for the doctor. This birth wasn’t like the others.” He swallowed again. “Siobhan died the next morning.”

Loss heaped upon loss heaped upon loss.

Karola wanted to scream, to rage, and to weep. She wanted to hate Jakob for what he’d done and to rail at herself for her own stupidity. She was sorry his wife had died. She was sorry for his troubles. But she had plenty of troubles of her own.

What do I do now?

She had little money left, a few dollars tucked in a pouch inside her corset. She knew no one in America other than Jakob. Her parents wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of passage home, and even if they could, she couldn’t bear the thought of going back, of knowing people would be laughing at her.

She stiffened her spine. “There must be women here who were willing to marry. Why send to Germany for me?”

Jakob glanced over his shoulder into the wagon bed. Karola followed his gaze. The children slept, draped across one another like newborn puppies in a basket.

“I couldn’t trust their keeping to just anyone, Karola. I remembered how loving you were with the children in our village. You’d said you wanted a large family. I remembered that, too. I thought I could trust you to care for them, no matter what you felt about me.” He pulled on the reins, drawing the team of horses to a halt. “Karola?”

She looked at him.

“I’ll find some way to pay for your return to Germany if you choose not to stay and marry me. I won’t hold you against your will.”

She thought again what would await her if she returned to her parents.

“Nein,”
she whispered. “I will stay, Jakob. I will marry you.”

Jakob’s farm—land that gently rolled and dipped—lay in the shadow of mountains. The house had two stories and a slate roof. A wide porch stretched across the front of the house, and there was a second, smaller side porch off the kitchen at the rear.

Jakob jumped down from the wagon seat, then came around to help Karola to the ground. As her feet met earth, he said, “We’ll let you rest tonight, then go into Shadow Creek to see Pastor Joki in the morning. He’s expecting us.”

She nodded.

He glanced into the back of the wagon. “They’re still asleep. Come on.” He grabbed her suitcases. “I’ll show you the house.”

Again she nodded before following him up the path to the front door.

The ground floor of the Hirsch home held a spacious parlor, a dining room, and a kitchen with a large pantry. A stairway near the front entrance led down to the basement and up to the second floor where the bedrooms were, three in all, plus a bathroom. Karola was amazed by this last luxury but didn’t comment upon it, not wanting to appear ignorant. For all she knew, every home in America had indoor plumbing and bathrooms.

Jakob showed her through the house hastily, not giving her time to linger in any one room. Even so, Karola noticed the many touches that only a woman brought to a home. She suspected he hadn’t changed anything, that he’d left it all as it had been on the day his wife died. Looking at Siobhan’s things, Karola felt like an intruder. She’d come here, expecting to be loved, and instead she was to be a stand-in for the woman Jakob had loved and lost.

“You’ll sleep in Bernard’s room tonight,” Jakob announced as he opened that bedroom door. “Would you like a bath? I can heat some water for you.”

“Ja.”
Anything so she could have time to herself to think.

Jakob seemed just as anxious to leave her alone. He excused himself and hurried away.

The instant the door closed, Karola sank onto the bed near the window. Giving in to her vacillating emotions, she lay on her side, hid her face in the pillow, and wept.

“How long’s she going to stay, Da?” Maeve asked as she walked beside Jakob.

“How long’s she gonna stay?” Bernard liked to repeat whatever his sister said.

“She’s staying for good,” Jakob answered. “I told you that before.”

Maeve frowned. “The others didn’t stay.”

“They didn’t stay,” Bernard parroted.

“This is different. After tomorrow, Karola’s going to be my wife and your mother. That means she’ll stay here for good.”

“But our ma’s in heaven. Uncle Tulley says so.”

“Yeah, Ma’s in heaven.”

Jakob pictured Siobhan, riotous hair swirling around her as she spun in a field ablaze with red and orange wildflowers. He could almost hear her laughter floating on the clouds. Oh, she must be setting heaven on its ear.

“But, Da, what if she—”

“Maeve.” Jakob stopped on the front porch and looked down at his elder daughter. He understood her uncertainty. There’d been little permanence in her life this past year. “I know it isn’t easy to understand. Just trust me. This time it’s different.”

Bernard gave his sister a little shove. “Yeah, it’s different, Maeve.”

She shoved him back, then the two raced inside ahead of their father.

Jakob carried the still sleeping Aislinn into the parlor where he laid her on the sofa. Before straightening, he caressed the child’s soft cheek, feeling the swell of love in his chest as he did so. When he looked at her …

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

He would not—could not—regret asking Karola to come to America. It had been the right thing to do because he was certain she would care for his children no matter how she felt about him.

The rest would have to work itself out over time.

BOOK: Robin Lee Hatcher
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