Years (21 page)

W
HEN THE COAL SHED
was full, he sailed the shovel onto the empty wagon bed and flexed his tired back. He wiped his forehead with an arm, checked the gray streak left there, tossed his gloves aside, and ambled across the school yard to the pump. Unhooking his suspenders, he sent them swinging, stripped off his shirt, and tossed it aside, then started pumping. With widespread feet he leaned over the stream of pure, icy water that splattered onto the dirt below. Alternately pumping and washing, he doused his face, splashed his chest, arms, and neck, then drank from his cupped palms.

When he straightened and turned, he found Linnea on the steps, watching him. She stood still as a stork with the fingertips of one hand lightly touching the iron handrail, the other palm clasping her elbow. Their gazes met and locked while he slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then became conscious of his bare, wet chest and the suspenders hanging down his thighs. He leaned from the hip and grabbed his flannel shirt from the ground, did a cursory toweling, then slipped it on and began buttoning it, all the while wishing she would move or at least stop staring.

But Linnea was intrigued by the sight of him. There were times she had seen her father’s chest bare, but it hadn’t nearly
as much hair as Theodore’s. And though her father, too, wore suspenders, they’d never dangled at his knees like dropped reins. And watching a father wash up was nothing whatever like watching Theodore pelt water over himself with such heedlessness that it went flying through the air, ran down his chest, and dripped from his temples and elbows.

But Theodore’s heedlessness stopped abruptly when he spotted her.

She grew bemused by the sudden haste he showed in getting the shirt on and buttoned. He hung his head and half-turned away while stuffing the shirttails into his britches, snapping the suspenders back into place, and combing his hair with his fingers. At last he turned.

“Are you ready to go?” he called.

She flashed him a saucy smile. “Are you?”

She could have sworn Theodore began to blush, though he managed to hide it behind a wrist as he again swept a hand through his hair and broke into a purposeful stride.

“I’ll bring the wagon around.”

When they were sitting side by side, heading home, all was silent. Theodore rode with his back sloped, elbows to knees, thinking of how strangely self-conscious he’d felt when he’d turned around and caught her watching him wash up. Linnea balanced her grade book on her knees and glanced at the passing countryside, thinking of how dark and curly the hair at the back of his neck became when it was wet. Neither of them looked at the other, and neither said a word until they were past John’s place. Then, out of the clear blue sky, Theodore stated, “Kristian caught a cold today. That’s why he didn’t come along to help unload the coal.”

Her head swiveled around, but he stared straight ahead, offering nothing further. How odd that he felt compelled to explain why he’d come alone. She searched for something clever to fill the gap, but her thought processes seemed to be confounded by the memory of that well water running into the hair on his chest. “Oh, poor Kristian. It’s much too beautiful a time of year to have a cold, isn’t it?”

With the barest turn of the head he watched her study the landscape while she breathed deeply of the rarefied, fresh-washed air as if each breath were a blessing.

And he thought of how differently she studied the wheat than Melinda had.

Back at home he pulled up near the windmill. A soft breeze turned the vanes and a loose board rattled rhythmically above their heads. She craned to look up.

“There’s something restful about a windmill, isn’t there?”

“Restful?” His eyes made the same journey hers did.

“Mmm-hmm. Don’t you think so?”

He always had but would never have dreamed of saying so for fear of sounding silly.

“I reckon,” he admitted, ill at ease with her so close.

“I see John planted morning glories around his,” she recalled, while they both squinted up at the revolving blades behind which the sky was tinted the same vivid blue as John’s flowers.

“I remember John and me helping Pa build this one.”

Linnea’s gaze moved down the derrick to discover him still looking up. She found herself wondering what he’d looked like then, perhaps in the days just before full maturity set in, before he had whiskers and muscles and the brittle aloofness he preferred to display most times. Now, with his chin tilted, his jaw had the crisp angle of a boomerang. His lips were slightly parted as he squinted skyward, sending the fine white lines around his eyes into hiding. His eyelashes seemed long as the prairie grass, sooty, throwing spiky shadows across his cheek.

“Mmm... beautiful... ”

“Melinda always said — ” Suddenly his lips clamped, his head came down with a snap, and he shot her a cautious sideward glance. Enjoyment fled his face. “Got to fix that loose vane,” he mumbled, then tied the reins and vaulted over the side of the wagon.

She clambered down right behind him and stood with her grade book against her breasts. “Who is Melinda?”

Refusing to look at her, he busied himself loosening harness so the horses could drink. “Nobody.”

She scratched on the red book cover with a thumbnail and rocked her shoulders slightly. “Oh... Melinda always said. Only Melinda is nobody?”

He knelt, doing something under the belly of one of the horses. The top of his hair was flattened, messed, and dulled by coal dust, but still damp at temple and nape. She wanted to touch it, to encourage him to confide. He seemed to take a long time deciding. Finally he stretched to his feet. “Melinda
was my wife,” he admitted, still refusing to meet Linnea’s eyes while fussing with a strap just behind the horse’s jaw.

Her shoulders stopped rocking. “And Melinda always said... ”

His hand fell still, spread wide upon Cub’s warm neck. Linnea’s eyes were drawn to that hand, almost as brown as the sorrel’s hide, wider than any she remembered, and certainly far stronger.

“Melinda always said windmills were melancholy,” he told her quietly.

Countless questions popped into Linnea’s mind while the sound of the loose board rattled above their heads. She stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with Theodore, watching his blunt fingers absently comb Cub’s mane. She wondered what he would do if she covered the back of his hand with hers, ran a finger along the inner curve of his thumb where the skin was coarse from years of diligent work. But, of course, she couldn’t. What would he think? And whatever was making her conjure up these fanciful thoughts about a man his age?

“Thank you for telling me, Theodore,” she offered softly, then, discomposed, swung away toward the house.

Watching her, he wondered if he knew another woman who could turn her back on such a topic without prodding further. And he knew she’d been as aware of him as a man as he’d been of her as a woman. Woman? Eighteen years old was hardly a woman.

But then that was the trouble.

At supper that night, Kristian was absent, but Linnea announced to the others, “I’ve decided to visit all the homes of my students. Superintendent Dahl told me I should try to get to know them all personally.”

Theodore looked at her squarely for the first time since they’d been in the schoolroom together.

“When?”

“As soon as I get invited. I’ll send letters home with the children, telling them I wish to meet their families, then wait to see what happens.”

“It’s harvest time. You won’t be meeting the men unless you go after dark.”

She shrugged, glanced at Nissa and John, then back to Theodore. “So I’ll meet the women.” She spooned in a mouthful of broth, swallowed, then added, “Or I’ll go after dark.”

Theodore dropped his attention to his soup bowl while Linnea did the same. All was silent for several minutes, then to Linnea’s surprise he spoke up again.

“You expect to be staying at their houses for supper?”

“Why, I don’t know. I guess if I were invited I would.”

Still giving all his attention to his soup bowl, he declared, “Dark sets in earlier these days. You’ll need a horse.”

Linnea stared at him in surprise. “A... a horse?”

“For riding.” His eyes flicked to hers, then immediately away.

“If the children can walk, so can I.”

“Clippa should do,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Clippa?”

John and Nissa were observing the exchange with illconcealed interest.

“She’s the best horse we got for riding. Calm.”

“Oh.” Linnea suddenly realized her folded hands were clasped between her knees and she didn’t recall setting her spoon down. Jerkily she picked it up and lit into her vegetable soup again, the words
hothouse pansy
cavorting through her mind.

“You ever saddled a riding horse before?” Theodore asked presently.

They braved a quick exchange of glances.

“No.”

Theodore reached across the table, stabbed a thick slab of bread with his fork, started buttering it, and didn’t look at Linnea again. “Come down to the tack room after supper and I’ll teach you how.”

There was still some fading light left in the sky as she walked down to the barn. Across the prairie she made out the silhouette of John’s windmill, and from somewhere far off came the lowing of a cow. The chickens had gone to roost, and the chill of evening had begun settling in.

The outer barn door was open and she stepped inside to the mingled scents, both pleasant and fecund, that were now a welcomed familiarity.

“Hello, I’m here,” she called, peering around the doorway of the tack room before entering.

Theodore stood at the wall, reaching up for a piece of equipage. He was dressed as he’d been earlier, in black britches, a red flannel shirt, suspenders, and no hat. He glanced over
his shoulder, plucked down a halter, and handed it to her, backwards.

“Here. You bring this.”

He swung the smaller of the two saddles off the sawhorse, nodded toward the door, and said, “Let’s go.”

“Where?” She preceded him into the main part of the barn, casting questioning glances over her shoulder.

He grinned — just barely. “Got to catch the horse first.”

He placed the saddle down beside a box stall, looped a lead rope in his hand, and ordered, “Grab that pail.”

Carrying a galvanized pail of oats, she followed him outside into the dusky twilight, across the muddy barnyard with its strong scent of manure and damp earth. He opened a long wooden gate, waited while she stepped through, then closed it behind them. They stood now on firmer ground bearded with short yellow grass. Near a barbed-wire fence some distance away, a dozen horses clustered, feeding. Theodore whistled shrilly between his teeth. Their heads lifted in unison. Not one took a step.

“Clippa, come!” he called, standing just behind Linnea’s shoulder with the bridle behind his back. The horses disinterestedly stretched their necks and returned to cropping grass.

“Guess you’ve lost your touch,” she teased.

“You try it then.”

“All right. Clippa!” She leaned forward, clicking her fingers. “Come here, boy!”

“Clippa’s a girl,” Theodore informed her wryly.

She straightened and clutched the pail handle with both hands. “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

He grinned teasingly. “All you have to do is look.”

“I was born and raised in town.”

Behind her she heard the ghost of a chuckle, then over her shoulder came his long arm. “Cub,” he observed, pointing to the big sorrel workhorse that Linnea had never looked at closely. “Now he’s a boy.”

This time she looked closely, and even before Theodore’s arm withdrew she felt her cheeks grow as pink as the streaks coloring the western sky behind them.

“Clippa, come here, girl,” she tried again. “Sorry if I hurt your feelings. If you come over here I’m sure Theodore won’t hurt you with that rope he’s hiding behind his back. All he
wants to do is take you to the barn.”

Still the horse declined the invitation.

Greenhorn, Theodore thought, amused, watching as she leaned forward and talked to the horse as if it were one of her students, and all the while probably afraid the mare might decide to saunter over after all.

His eyes wandered down her slim back and hips. There’s probably plenty I could teach her, he mused, and not only about catching horses.

Linnea straightened and declared petulantly, “She won’t come.”

“Bang the handle of the pail,” Theodore whispered, almost in her ear.

“Really?” Her head swung around, catching him off guard, so close her temple almost bumped his chin. Her heart lurched at his nearness. “Will that work?”

“Try it.”

“Here Clippa, come girl.” At the first clatter of metal on metal, the horse came trotting, nose to the air, head bobbing. When Clippa’s mouth hit the oat bucket, she caught the greenhorn unprepared and sent her thumping backward against Theodore. Instinctively his hands came up to steady her, and they laughed together, watching the horse bury her velvet nose in the grain. But when their laughter stilled and Linnea glanced over her shoulder, Theodore became aware of the warmth seeping through her sleeves. He dropped his hands with punctilious swiftness, then hastily moved around her to catch Clippa’s bridle and snap the lead line to it.

Walking on either side of the mare, they led her back to the barn.

Inside, the shadows had grown deeper. Theodore lit a lantern and hung it safely above their heads, concentrating on the lesson at hand instead of the girl who seemed able to distract him far too easily. She stood close, watching intently, frowning and nodding as he demonstrated.

“Always tie the horse before you start ‘cause you never know about horses. Sometimes they take to disliking the girth or the bit and get fractious. But if they’re tied, they ain... they won’t go no place.”

“Anyplace. Go on.”

He glanced at her sharply. She seemed unaware of having
corrected him. Her concentration was centered on the lesson at hand.

“Anyplace,” he repeated obediently before proceeding. “Make sure you pull the blanket well up past the withers so it pads the whole saddle and doesn’t slip.” When it was smoothed into place, he knelt on one knee, folded a strap back over the seat of the saddle, then looked up. “When you throw the saddle on, make sure the cinch isn’t twisted underneath, or you’ll have to take it off and throw it again. I reckon since this’ll be the hardest part for you, you won’t be wantin’ to do it twice.” He nodded at Clippa. “She’s not as tall as some of the horses, so you oughta be able to handle it.” He straightened with the saddle in his hands and tossed it on the mare as if it weighed no more than the horse blanket.