Spring for Susannah (14 page)

Susannah dug her fingers into the mattress and braced her feet against the frame. Her heart raced and her eyes strained against the darkness. “What? Who—”

“Reinforcements! Pull back, pull back! Where's James? Hey, anyone seen Lieutenant Mason? All this smoke. What a way to run a war.” A hard-soled foot snagged her ankle. “Man down! Stretcher-bearer! Over here! Oh my God! It's James! Don't you die on me! Move it! Out of the way!”

A heavy arm smashed into her back, ejecting her from the bed. Her head glanced off the stove. She landed on hands and knees.

“You got to save him, you got to—” He stopped in mid-yell. “Susannah? What are you doing on the floor?”

She swallowed, trying to get her dry throat to work.

“Come on back to bed now. I know you're excited about seeing Marta and going to the store, but it's not morning yet.” He untangled himself from the quilts, sat on the edge of the bed, and extended a hand toward her.

She flinched with an involuntary gasp.

Even in the dark he didn't miss her reaction. “What happened?”

“Nightmare,” she managed to whimper.

“You had a nightmare?” He gathered her like an infant, pulling her onto his lap and rubbing her arms. “Hey, you've got the cold sweats. Poor heart's galloping away. Hush, you're safe. No more bad dreams. I've got you now.”

He pulled her down into the warm curve of his body. Within minutes his breathing evened to a deep rumble that continued uninterrupted until sunrise.

Safe here? Hardly.

Clear-eyed, Jesse bounded from bed, gave Susannah a kiss, and hurried out. She rinsed the dirt from her scraped palms and palpated her skull. A tender spot but no swelling. Seconds later a strangled yell split the morning. Another nightmare? Insanity? Indians? Susannah grabbed the Winchester and ran to the stable. The prairie chickens circled Jesse, diving and squawking. The oxen sliced the air with their horns. Jake barked and raced among the animals, his hunting and herding instincts fighting each other for dominance.

Susannah propped the gun against the doorjamb and grabbed the shovel. She swatted two birds, dazing them. The third made his escape.

Susannah leaned against the wall and caught her breath as Jesse dispatched the birds with the ax. “You're bleeding!” She touched his chin, turning his face toward the sunrise. Scratches crossed his forehead and ran down one cheek. “I am so sorry. You told me they were wild, but I didn't listen—”

“Nothing to apologize for.” Jesse blotted his face with his bandanna. “Army had a few fellows like these prairie chickens, in a
fowl
mood when they're recovering from a drunk.”

She smiled at his play on words. “You're not mad at me?”

“How could I be mad at the woman who saved me while wearing only her chemise and drawers?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Medicating the birds is a great idea. We just need to wring their necks while they're still tipsy.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Can't have people in town thinking I'm
henpecked
after only three weeks of married life.”

Susannah's smile froze as her fingers caught on a line of glue in the shovel handle.

For once, Jesse didn't make eye contact. “What I'd like to do to that banker.” He set the tool against the wall.

Susannah crossed her arms to cover herself and hurried back to the soddy. “I'll wash your wounds.”

“Sit beside me.” Susannah slipped onto the trunk and pointed to a spot in the sunlight.

“Anytime.” Jesse slid in and grinned. “Now I've got you where I want you.”

“Hold still.” She daubed his head with some sort of medicine. This close, he had a wonderful view. And a wonderful chance to steal a kiss. He leaned forward and she winced.

Why was she still afraid of him?

A memory rushed back: the sharp bite of gunpowder, cannons booming, his rifle grip slick with blood. “The nightmare last night. It was mine, wasn't it?”

She nodded.

He slumped against the cold wall. The scream of the wounded man he'd tripped over, the bugle sounding charge, the smell of the summer sun on the dead. “I thought I was done with that when I stopped drinking.”

“I shouldn't have asked you about the War.”

“Don't take the blame for my mess.” Whose sons had he shot? Whose brother took his bayonet in the gut? Jesse turned toward her and she braced. “What did I do? Did I holler? My sister said I'd wake the whole house.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

She wadded the cotton. “You yelled about your brother.”

“Gettysburg, then.” He groaned. “What else?”

“You pushed me off the bed.”

He gathered her stiff body to his chest. He'd started to make some progress with her and now this. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Here I thought you were the one with the secret.” He pried her chin from his shoulder, forcing her to look him in the eye. He had given her a fright. “I am sorry. And if I ever do anything like that again, you have to speak up. Promise me.”

She nodded and looked away. Susannah would never keep that promise. She'd bury it—the same as she did with all other pain.

The rising sun outlined the Volds' soddy, sitting in a shallower draw than Jesse's but otherwise its duplicate. Freya and Thor barked their greeting. Ivar hailed them from between his oxen. While Jesse gave him a hand with the harnessing, Susannah knocked on the door to see if Marta needed help.

“Come in!”

“Well said, Marta,” Susannah complimented her. She stepped over the threshold and gasped in wonder. “Jesse, look at this!”

“At what?” He joined her in the doorway.

“Look how they've fixed up their house!”

Ivar clapped Jesse on the back. “Nothing like a wife to pry money from your tight fist, old man. Marta coated the walls with plaster; easy as frosting a cake she told me. Sure does make it lighter, not so much hole in ground. And she put cheesecloth on the ceiling. Won't stop the leaks in the spring, but keeps dirt and bugs from falling on us the rest of the year.”

Susannah raised a questioning eyebrow at Jesse. Their list of necessities was long already, but perhaps— Jesse gave Susannah a wink, then turned to Marta. “Looks good, Marta, but I want to see Sara's new tooth.”

Ivar interpreted for Marta, who handed him the baby while she boarded the Volds' wagon.

“We're off!” Jesse gave a rousing rendition of “Erie Canal.” Holding the reins between his right elbow and his knee, his hands played an imaginary guitar.

“Do you know ‘When Morning Gilds the Skies'?” If she could keep him singing, she wouldn't have to talk.

Shifting the reins to his left hand, Jesse kept time with broad sweeps of his right arm.

“‘A mighty fortress is our God.'” Hands busy conducting were not touching her. Ahead, in the lead wagon, Ivar and Marta sang alternate verses in Norwegian.

“‘My country 'tis of thee.'”

Nearly two hours passed before they descended to the Sheyenne River, shallow this time of year, and approached a cluster of unmarked structures beside the railroad tracks. Grass grew unabated between the buildings; not much traffic here.

Jesse pointed to a boxcar-sized tent with a stovepipe protruding from its peak. “The Western Hotel I told you about. The owner, Mac, used to run a trading post out of there before the Roses built their store.” Jesse nodded at the two-story structure next to the siding. Bright yellow pine clapboard showed the store had yet to face a Dakota winter.

“The long building is the railroad section house, and the little square one belongs to the army. Mac's log cabin is on the other side of the river, beyond the water tank. Can't wait to see his face when he finds out I got married. He was wailing a forlorn bachelor song last time I was in town.”

Town? What wild-eyed optimist, Susannah wondered, designated these few buildings a town? Where was the post office, dry goods, hardware, drugstore? It didn't even qualify as a crossroads; only one road ran through here, and it was more of a path. “What is . . . does this place have a name?”

“Several of them. Let's see, when I wrote to you, it was Second Crossing of the Sheyenne, or Sheyenne for short. Since then I've heard it called Fifth Siding and Wahpeton. I'm sure Mrs. Rose will tell you which is in use this week.”

She groped for something positive to say. “The trees are pleasant.”

The entire population turned out for their arrival at the store's loading dock. Overwhelmed, Susannah shrank on the seat.

“Mason. Vold.” Mr. Rose peered at Susannah. “Well, look here. Mrs. Rose, you've got another woman to chitchat with.”

Mrs. Rose stretched her neck to see over the teams. “This must be—”

Jesse attempted to introduce Susannah as he lifted her down. A whirlwind of barking dogs and yelling children separated them. Ivar busied himself with unloading the wagons.

“Another woman! What a blessing!” Mrs. Rose sighed with self-satisfaction, as if she had single-handedly brought Susannah to Dakota Territory. “You're Miss Susannah Underhill of Detroit, Michigan. Welcome!”

Mr. Rose shook her hand. “We got the telegram about you awhile back. Our son Adam took it. He's our oldest, real smart, knows Morse code.”

“We don't get many telegrams out here, you know.” Mrs. Rose took her other hand. “Most folks' families are in the old country, like Volds' here. Telegraph line don't run all the way to Norway.”

“Like as not Adam will have to mail order himself a bride too, seeing as how there aren't many girls out here,” Mr. Rose said. “Can't expect him to wait for the Vold baby to grow up. Not that he'd marry a foreigner, if you know what I mean.”

“Sara was born in American territory,” Susannah said.

Mrs. Rose's arms flapped, the fringe of her shawl jigging to her words. “The telegram read: ‘Miss Susannah Underhill arriving Tuesday.' We couldn't think, for the longest time, whatever a ‘miss' would be coming to see Mr. Mason for.”

“Then we remembered.” Mr. Rose raised his index finger. “Mason had a letter from you last spring and wrote back.”

“He must have quite the way with words.” Mrs. Rose fluttered her eyelashes, as if playing the ingénue onstage. “Although you lived in the same town as his brother, the parson. Maybe you'd met Mr. Mason before. But I won't pry into anyone else's business. ‘Keep to yourself ' is my motto.”

Mr. Rose's eyes gleamed under bushy brows. “So on that hot fly-swarmin' day, Adam rode all the way out to your place. It ain't easy to find, but the boy's got a good head.”

“Did you find a parson to marry you?” Mrs. Rose asked. “If we're short of anything more than females out here, it's parsons. I don't even know if Mr. Vold's properly married to his wife, and they have a baby now. Well, you never know with foreigners. Where are my manners? Come on in and have a cup of tea. Bring Mrs. Vold along too. Feels like winter coming on out here.”