The Endearment (10 page)

For so long he had thought of her as "my Anna" that the term had slipped out without warning.

Anna flashed him a quick look of surprise, but she felt the heat creep up her cheeks.

Karl quickly concerned himself with the hops again. He picked a large, perfectly formed leaf, saying, "Here, study it well. If ever you find another like it, mark the spot well. It would save time if we did not have to come this far for the hops. Maybe you will find some nearer to our place."

Our place, she thought. She peeked up to find a band of deeper color rising from his open, white collar. She stared at the hollow of his throat. Suddenly, his Adam's apple jumped convulsively. He was playing with the leaf, staring at it, twirling it by its stem as if he had forgotten he'd picked it. She reached out a palm, and Karl twitched as if waking up. Guiltily, he laid it on her hand. Her eyes lingered on his for a moment longer, then she dropped them again and smoothed the leaf.

He was beguiled by her freckled nose. Standing there studying his Anna while shadows dappled her brow, he pictured his sod house and the sheaf of sweet clover lying on the bed in welcome. His chest tightened like new rawhide. Why did I dream up such an idea, he wondered miserably. At the time it seemed gracious, but now it just seems foolish and misleading.

"I think we had better go," he said softly, glancing briefly at James who was exploring big beige mushrooms. Karl suddenly wished that the boy were not here at all so he could touch Anna's cheek.

She glanced up then. Her heart started thumping and she immediately took up leaf studying again.

Karl cleared his throat and called to James, "You pick a leaf, too, boy. It will be your second lesson." Then he turned and led the way from the woods, while thoughts of freckles on Anna's perky little nose dotted his mind.

            
Chapter Five

 
It was near day's end before they finally swerved off the main road and turned into a trace where the trees formed a closer tunnel overhead. Here there was room for only one wagon to scrape through the infringing forest. The underbrush pressed so close that the horses sometimes snuffled when the weeds touched their noses. The horses made the harness sing again, throwing their great heads in exaggerated nods of recognition. "Ya, you are impatient. You know we are nearly home, but I cannot let you run away with us. Slow down."

Neither Anna nor James had ever heard a person speak to beasts as if they were human. Unbelievably, Bill angled a blinker at the sound of his name. "The lane is as narrow as it was yesterday," Karl said, "so slow down, Bill."

In a way much like the horses, James and Anna raised their heads, sensing home, wondering what it would be like. Karl had announced this was his land, and already every leaf, limb and loam took on greater importance to her. It even seemed to smell more pungent, of things burgeoning, ripening while others decayed, adding their own secret scent of nature's continuing cycle.

This is my road, thought Anna--my trees, my wildflowers, the place where my life will be joyous or sad. Come winter, the snows will seal me in with this man who speaks to horses and trees. Her eyes tracked over everything as fast as they could take it all in. The space broadened and before them lay the home of Karl and Anna Lindstrom, this place of plenty about which the bride had heard so much.

There was a wide clearing, with a vegetable garden planted within a split rail fence. Anna smiled to see how sturdily the fence was built so their pigs would not root up Karl's turnips. Turnips! she thought ... yukk!

The house lay off to the left, a nearly rectangular dwelling made of large cubes of sod, pasted with mortar of white clay and buffalo grass. A stone chimney ran up its side, and it had a roof of split logs, covered with blocks of sod. It had two small windows and a plank door against which a large length of wood was wedged. Anna's heart sank as she looked at this place where Karl had already lived for two years. It was so tiny! And so ... so crude! But she could see his eyes scan it to make sure all was as he'd left it, the look rife with the pride of ownership. She must be careful not to hurt his feelings.

Beside the sod house stood the most enormous woodpile Anna had ever seen, its rank and file as straight as if a land surveyor had shot it with his transit. She marveled that the hands of her husband had chopped all that wood and piled it so precisely. There were smaller buildings, too. One looked to be a smokehouse, for it had a clay chimney sticking out of its center. The enclosure for the horses was made of vertical split wood, its roof of bark secured with willow withes. Anna experienced a queer thrill of pride because already she knew that withes were cut of willow. But, looking around, she knew suddenly how much--how very, very much--she would have to learn to survive here and be any help to Karl.

The clearing extended to the east to include tilled patches where new corn, wheat and barley sprang up. Directly opposite where the road entered, a broad avenue had been cleared of trees, and upon it lay a double track of logs with their bark removed, running up a gentle slope like a wooden railroad track, disappearing into the trees around a wide curve in the distance.

Never did Karl Lindstrom leave this place without returning to it filled with wonder and pride.

His sod house hovered in welcome, the vegetables seemed to have grown immeasurably in two such short days, the corn clicked in the wind as if asking where he'd been while it had been busy growing, the barn seemed impatient to gather in Belle and Bill between its bark walls. The skid trail beckoned like the road to his dreams.

It was difficult for Karl not to throw his chest out and crow like a rooster upon seeing his place again. His place? No, their place now. His heart beat with gladness at the sight of it, and at last he let Belle and Bill have their heads and hurry the last fifty yards to the barn. When he stopped them just short of it, their heavy hooves pawed the earth, impatiently. And suddenly it was far easier for Karl to speak to his horses than to face Anna.

Suppose she does not like it, he thought. He jerked the brake home, tied the reins to it. It will not seem to a woman what it seems to me. She will not feel the love with which I have done all this. She will perhaps see only that it is very lonely here for her with nobody near enough to be a friend to her except the boy and me.

To the horses he said, "I think maybe you will be jealous because I make you wait, but first I must take Anna and the boy to the house." She saw Karl nervously wipe his palms upon his thighs, and read the silent plea for her approval in his eyes. Softly, he said, "We are home, Anna."

She swallowed, wanting to say something to please him, but all that she could think of was if the outside of the house was so miserable, what was the inside going to look like? She might spend the rest of her life there. And, if not that long, at least her wedding night, which was fast coming on.

Karl's eyes skittered to the house. He was remembering that sheaf of sweet clover and wishing to high heaven he had never put it there! It was a stupid move, he was sure now, made when he had thought to please her. It was meant as a symbol of welcome only, one which spoke not only from the heart of the man, but from his land and his home, which had no voices of their own.

But would she know his intention? Or would she perhaps see the clover as only a decoration of a bed and the eagerness of the man to take her to it? There was little he could do about it now. It was there, and she would see it as soon as she walked in.

He leaped from the wagon, while James went off the other side and gawked at the surroundings.

Anna stood up, again finding Karl waiting to help her down. As usual, his shirt-sleeves were rolled up to the elbow as he raised his arms to her. She avoided his eyes and let herself swing down to his grasp. The touch of his hands on her waist made the coming night loom up before her in a formidable way. She would have turned quickly from Karl, but he gently held her, the butts of his hands resting lightly on her slim hipbones. He glanced quickly at the boy, but James was paying little attention to them.

"Anna, do not be afraid," Karl said, dropping his hands. "It will be good here, I promise you. I welcome you to my home and to all that is mine. All of it is yours now, too."

"I have a lot to learn and to get used to," she said. "I probably won't be good at much and you'll be sorry you brought me."

There were things that Karl, too, had to learn and he thought with racing heart of the coming night. But, he thought, this we will learn together. "Come, I will show you the house, then I must tend Belle and Bill."

He wished he could take her into the house alone, but the boy was running toward them. It was his home, too, and he was eager to see inside.

Crossing the clearing, Anna noticed a bench beside the door with a bucket on it, a leather strop hanging on a peg above, apparently where Karl did his washing and shaving. There was a stump beside the woodpile where he must do the chopping.

He walked just behind her. When they reached the door, he leaned around her to remove the chunk of wood wedged against the outside of the door. "It keeps the Indians from stealing everything in the place," he explained, and walked to the side of the house to fling it toward the chopping block. "Indians have a curious sense of honor. If you leave and they discover you gone, they will take whatever they can lay their hands on. But if you place the block of wood before the door to tell them you are gone, they would not take so much as a wild plum from the bush beside your door."

"Are there many Indians around here?"

"Many. But they are my friends, and you need not fear them. One of them is taking care of my goat while I am gone. I will have to go fetch her."

But he'd avoided taking Anna inside as long as he could. He reached for the latchstring. She'd never seen such a thing before. It hung outside the door, leading from a small hole in the puncheons, tied to the latch itself which was on the other side. When he pulled the string, she heard the klunk as a heavy oak bar lifted, then the door swung open. He leaned with the door, his shoulder blade against it, letting both Anna and the boy pass in front of him.

The interior was dark and smelled of musty earth and wood smoke. She wondered how he had stood it to live in such a burrow for two years! But he quickly found a tallow candle, his flint and steel, while she stood waiting to see what was beyond the arc of fading afternoon light created by the open door.

She heard the scratch as the tinder lit, then the candle flared. She saw a wooden table and chairs with pegged legs; another bench like the one outside; a curious thing that appeared to be a section of tree trunk on four legs; a fireplace with its iron cauldron suspended above the dead ashes, brass containers hanging on hooks, various earthenware dishes on the hearth; barrels raised off the floor on wooden slabs; dried foods hanging from the ceiling; an earthen floor with fresh swirls telling her he'd swept it last thing before he left.

Karl stood expectantly, watching her glance from one thing to the next. His throat filled with heartbeats as he saw her slowly turn in the opposite direction and find the bed. He wanted to reach out and take her slim shoulders and say, "I meant it as a welcome, nothing more." He saw her hand go up to her throat before she looked quickly away to his clothing hanging on pegs behind the door, then to the wooden trunk nearby.

James turned, too, to eye the bed, and Karl longed more than ever to snatch up the sheaf of sweet clover and run outside with it. Instead, he excused himself, saying, "Belle and Bill are anxious to be free of the harness."

When he was gone, James explored the place further, saying, "It's not so bad, is it, Anna?"

"It's not so bad if you're a badger who expects to live in a burrow. I don't see how he could live here all this time."

"But Anna, he built it all by himself!"

James was intrigued by everything, examining the set of the stones in the fireplace, the way the legs of the table were set into the puncheon boards, the windows covered with waxed sheets of opaque cloth that let in only negligible amounts of light. While Anna wondered how anyone could possibly mistake them for windows, James seemed pleased by everything. "Why, I'll bet this place is as snug as a rabbit's nest in the winter. He's got these walls so thick that no snow or rain could ever get in."

She took their rolls of clothing and laid them on the bed and began untying them, trying to pretend she wasn't crestfallen. James charged out the door saying he was going to help with the horses. She sat down on one of the chairs and clasped her hands between her knees, staring at the bed across the room, at the flowers that were drying there on their stalks. Something at once inviting and foreboding flooded her veins at the sight of them.

She thought about Karl, his first displeasure with her, his later acceptance and forgiveness, his hesitancy at times, his seeming kindness. She imagined him picking these flowers all alone, getting this hut ready for her. She remembered how he had

slipped and called her "my Anna" and it raised goose bumps on her skin. She shivered and hugged her arms, still wondering about the clover, the sight of it somehow prompting a surge of guilt in her.

This was not a man who took a wife lightly to his bed with no thought of what it all meant. His words of welcome by the wagon came back to her now, telling her again how he felt about sharing all that was his. These were words of a man who was doing his best to please, who offered all that he had as a kind of dowry to his bride. But the only dowry she brought was deceit.