Spring for Susannah (31 page)

Susannah backed through the door and tossed the broom and its rider into the grass.

“I did it!”

The creak of a wagon carried into the draw, and Jake raced up the ridge. But at the crest, the dog's tail uncurled, his head drooped. Not Jesse. Susannah's heart thudded in her chest.

“Susannah!” Marta, her radiance startling against the bleak landscape, jumped off when Ivar stopped. Susannah hugged her.

“She worried all week about you.” Ivar climbed down, then retrieved her broom. “Why—” Then he saw the reptile. “Ah! Where is your hoe? I'll kill it for you.”

“No. It's just a garter snake, not poisonous. It was chasing the mouse who chewed through my cornmeal sack. I suppose they're eating my food since the grasshoppers ate theirs.” Susannah turned toward the soddy. “Come on in. I've got hot water for tea.”

“No coffee?” Ivar asked.

“All right, I'll make coffee for you. I've been drinking ginger tea. Must have gotten a touch of the grippe.” Susannah emptied ground beans into the pot. “Looks like you've all recovered.”

Ivar settled onto the stool, baby Sara on his knee. “Yes, we're over it. But you? This all you eat?” He flicked the toast crust with the back of his broad hand. “You don't look so good.”

Marta poured water from the ewer into the basin, wet a cloth, and handed it to Susannah.

“I was going to clean up before meeting you at the river.” She washed, then ran damp hands over her unruly hair. When had she last combed it? If Jesse saw her like this—

Marta touched the muslin tacked over the window.

“Empty windows didn't bother me when Jesse was here.”

“No eating. No washing. Hanging curtains, against what?”

Ivar frowned. “Have you done any work this week?”

“The grasshoppers ate everything. There is no work.”

“No?” Ivar thumped his fist on the table, making Susannah jump. His face darkened in various shades of scarlet and crimson. He was heading for an attack of apoplexy if this temper kept up. Speaking slowly as if she might have difficulty understanding English, he said, “Susannah, this is why you should not be alone.”

“All right then, tell me.” Susannah sat on the trunk next to Marta and hid her shaking hands under the table. “What should I be doing?”

“Have you mucked the stable? You know the cattle's hooves will rot if you don't. The potatoes need to be forked up, also any turnips and carrots the hoppers missed.” He shifted his weight. The stool squealed in protest. “This seat needs tightening. Firewood and slough grass must be cut, and there's back setting, plowing under the stubble. It's too much.”

“Of course I cleaned the stable. Soon as I shake this—”

“It does not matter how you feel. You are a woman. Not strong enough. Heavy work will cripple you. You won't be able to take care of yourself or the stock. A woman should not homestead alone.”

“Jesse thought I could.”

“He left you at our place and expected you to stay.”

“If I leave, we'll lose the claim with only a year to go.”

“The claim? Who cares about the claim? Do you see anyone from the Fargo Land Office out here checking on the claim?” Ivar pounded again, making Susannah wonder if she'd have to add table repair to her list. “If anything should happen to you, you stubborn woman—” He lapsed into Norwegian.

Stubborn? He was calling her stubborn? Ivar, that high-handed despot, could stand in for Napoleon. Why Jesse ever picked him for a friend—

Marta grabbed their hands, lowered her head, and spoke in a calm tone.

Ivar's deep sigh ruffled his mustache. “She's praying from Thessalonians, peace among the brethren.”

Susannah added her silent prayer, then apologized to Ivar. “I appreciate your concern, but I really am all right. What if I sold the calves? Maybe Mr. McFadgen or one of the hotels in Fargo would buy them. If I could pay my way, I wouldn't feel like such a burden to you.”

Ivar studied her under his eyebrows. “
Ja
, and I wouldn't have to add on to our barn and wouldn't need so much credit for grain. Good.”

Susannah opened Jesse's Bible. “Before we start church, do you remember the song Jesse taught us last Sunday? The chorus has been buzzing through my head all week.”

Ivar frowned. “It was about a lamp.”

“Psalm one-one-nine,” Marta said. “Foot lights.”

“Footlights?” Susannah turned to the chapter, one of many with chords written in the margins. “Here it is: ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.' So the Bible is the script?”

“Scrip? Like army pay?”

“No, a script as in a play, acting out a story. The script tells the actors what to say and do.”

“
Ja
, the Bible tells us what to say and do. Good lesson, Susannah. Much better than the one I'd planned on grasshopper plagues.” Ivar snapped his Bible shut. “Before we pray, we half a surprise for you.” He set Sara on her feet. She toddled over to Susannah, face glowing, blond tendrils bouncing with each deliberate step.

“You're walking!” Susannah swung her into a hug. “Jesse will be so proud of you!”

“And of you also,” Marta said to Susannah.

“Susannah!” Ivar roared. The Volds had said their good-byes, then stopped just out of the draw. Ivar stood in the wagon, one foot propped on the seat, his face a pre-apoplectic red. When Susannah ran up, he pointed to a scorched strip twice the width of the wagon and running parallel to the draw for a hundred feet or so. “You burned firebreak by yourself. That's a job for men, a crew of men. You could half burned the whole territory!”

“You think I set a fire?” she sputtered. “I would never—We nearly lost everything in that big fire last fall. Don't you remember Jesse telling—” Choking with fury, Susannah spun away to inspect the line where singed prairie met unburned bluestem.

“Enough! Come with us. Now!” He flung down the reins and raised his arms, looking every inch a direct descendant of Thor, the god of thunder.

Thunder? The word stirred an idea in Susannah's mind, and she marched over to the cottonwood sapling she'd transplanted from the river. It had been stripped of leaves by the grasshoppers and split in two by . . .

“Lightning.” Ivar traced the charred path down the trunk. “The storm Wednesday.” He tipped his head back, studying the sky. “God give you a firebreak. So. You're not alone after all. See you next Sunday.”

Every step took Jesse farther away from Susannah. He hadn't found any work in Bismarck, so he had no choice but to cross the river to Fort Abraham Lincoln.

“Where's the ferry?” Jesse called to a boy fishing upstream.

The kid stuck his pole into the muddy bank and raced off on bare feet. Jesse sat on a crate and waited. What was Susannah doing today? She'd be all right; she handled lonesome easier than most. And what a farmwife she turned out to be with her animal doctoring. Today was Sunday; she'd be meeting the Volds at the river for church. They were praying for him, he was sure of it.
Lord,
keep an eye on them
,
especially my Susannah
.

About the time he'd swatted his weight in mosquitoes, two bandy-legged men tramped down the bluff. They wore knitted caps and flannel shirts in spite of the heat. “
Allo
, sir. You are in need of the ferry?”

French, Jesse figured, with a healthy dash of Indian. “I'm heading for the fort.”

They settled on a price. Their boat turned out to be a buffalo hide stretched across a wicker frame to form a bowl. It looked about as cozy as a coffin and as stable as a pig on ice. The men held the tub for Jesse, then squeezed aboard.

“Bull boat,” the one in the blue hat explained, as if having a name made it seaworthy.

Three feet out, the trouble started.

“Eh, where is the paddle?” Red Hat asked.

Blue Hat lifted his feet, then looked under Jesse.

“I'm not sitting on it.”

These fools didn't have any way to steer? What had he gotten himself into? This was Jesse's first experience with the Missouri, and everything he'd heard about it was, unfortunately, true.

“Out. Go.” Red motioned for Blue to walk the boat back to shore, but the current spun them into midstream.

“No, the boat will tip,” Blue said. “It was your turn to bring the paddle.”

“Your squaw used it to stir the laundry.”

Judging by their stink, the paddle hadn't helped much. The discussion continued in another language or two complete with wild gestures. The boat bucked like an unbroken horse.

“Hey, what's that?” Jesse pointed. The water rippled unevenly around something. And they were headed straight for it.

“Help!
Au secours! A l'aide!
”

The boat slammed into the stump and flung the men into the air. The river came up to swallow them.

No stage curtains graced this sunset. The clear sky glowed with a pearly mix of grayed yellow and pink, like the breast of a mourning dove.

Escorted by Jake, Susannah trudged up the slope and plopped down on a patch of gravel. “So this is Your script.” She held up Jesse's Bible. “Two thousand years ago, maybe. But today? We've got railroads, husbands who leave, grasshoppers—”

Wait a minute. Ivar had planned a sermon on grasshopper plagues. An old Sunday school lesson rang in her head like a distant church bell. Moses and locusts.

Susannah lowered her head. “Jesse said You know all my thoughts, Lord. So You know I'm just up here with the Bible hoping to bribe You into bringing Jesse back.” The frayed ribbon marked Psalm 119, so she read the next chapter, tilting the book to let the last rays of sun light the page. “‘In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.' Well, that certainly applies to this week.” She read on. “‘I lift my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.'”

She looked up, hoping to see Jesse strolling home along the ridge. Instead, the fading dusk brightened with a shimmering, ethereal light, purer than sunlight. The grasshopper-eaten wasteland vanished, revealing a ripe-for-harvest farmland portioned by a grid of straight gravel roads. Each square contained crops: oats heavy with grain, velvet green wheat, shiny emerald corn, and yellow-orange sunflowers. Columns of trees sheltered well-kept frame houses and barns. A steeple and school bell tower reached toward the sky. Cattle grazed on the slope to the north.

The scene blurred. Susannah blinked, bringing her world back into focus. She knew what she'd seen. It was Jesse's vision of the future. God's vision. And now, Susannah's vision too.