Blessing in Disguise (7 page)

So huge a country. One could surely get lost easily.

Chapter 6

Ipswich
September 1

Kane studied the black clouds mounding on the western horizon. They looked like rain, but then so had many others, and right now with harvest in full swing, the farmers didn’t want any rain. Wasn’t that just the way of it?

He should have been at home helping to cut and bind the oats. Instead, in another hour or two he’d be in Ipswich, and a couple hours after that, if the train was on time, he’d meet up with his soon-to-be bride. He’d left the ranch before daybreak the day before and had camped at a spring off the road, the same place he camped every time he came to town.

His stomach knotted. Would she be happy here? Well, she surely wouldn’t if mountains were important to her. While he’d heard of sky-piercing mountains out to the west, mountains that carried snow all year, he’d never been farther than Pierre, and that only once. He clucked his team into a trot. Be good if he could beat the rain to town. No sense appearing like a drowned rat.

But like the blackbirds flitting and singing from the brown cattails in the dried-up swamp, his mind took wing and dreamed ahead to the woman arriving on the train. How would he recognize her?

You’re a sorry sort
, he scolded himself.
Borrowin’ trouble like that.
Just how many women traveling alone are going to get off that train looking around for someone to meet them?
When the team lagged, he clucked them up again, this time flicking the reins so they knew he meant business. Dust bloomed from under their feet and added another layer to his boots propped against the footboard. He’d better give them a rubdown too, or his new clothes wouldn’t look quite so good.

Again he shook his head. “Why in tarnation am I buying new? These are all still hanging together.” He studied the patch on one knee and the about-to-need-one state of the other.

The horses swiveled their ears to listen and kept up their steady pace. One snorted and tossed his head, adding to the jingle and squeak of the harness. One wheel groaned, reminding Kane that they needed greasing. Always something to fix. And if he weren’t home harvesting, he should be home repairing machinery and fixing fences.

“Instead, I’m about to get married.” He sent a glance heavenward. “I sure do hope you know what you’re doing here. Why did I let myself get talked into this?”

But he knew why. The letter that he found of his mother’s, written years earlier, had laid a load of guilt bigger than any hay load he could haul. Then Lone Pine and Morning Dove had started in. It seemed that everybody who ever had a wife and baby wished them off on everyone else. Even in his Bible reading it seemed that everyone had children, lots of children if the lists were accurate. The patriarchs needed sons to pass on their land to, and so did he. He reminded himself that though the Bible didn’t list all the daughters born, he could have those too. Girls were good for helping their ma about the house and all. At least, so he’d heard, never having had a sister of his own. Being an only son, an only child, had never seemed a hardship to him, but he knew his mother had wished for more children.

A meadowlark trilled and another answered. Were they a pair? The Bible said God made mates for his creatures; otherwise everything would have died out long before. And now it was his turn.

He swallowed again. Must be the dust that was making his throat so dry.

Heat lightning slashed the approaching black clouds, but there didn’t look to be any rain falling. A breeze kicked up, bending the black-eyed Susans that frilled the roadside. Sunflowers shuddered and grasses bowed. A crow’s black shadow crossed the road ahead of them, his raucous cry grating on nerves already stretched with apprehension. It almost sounded as if the bird was laughing—or warning him.

“Good a reason to laugh as any. A man marrying a woman he ain’t never seen.” Maybe he should have taken his mother’s advice and traveled back to Pennsylvania, where his folks came from, and looked up some of his relatives. They might have had friends and neighbors who knew of a comely young woman wanting to go west.

“Yes, they might have. But this is what you did, and this is what you live with.” The horses snorted again, their ears twitching to pick up all the sounds, including his voice.

What will it be like to have someone to talk with in the evening? Someone to wake up to in the morning?
He rubbed his hand over his face. Better leave that part of thinking alone.

A rider on horseback nodded and tipped his hat as they met. Off to the east, he could see a dust cloud. Must be another wagon on the way to town. Dogs barked from a farm alongside the road, a twolane track where wheels had worn off the grass, showing the way to the boxlike house and white hipped-roof barn. Like most places, the available money was spent on the barn, not the house.

Sweat darkened the hides of his team as he trotted them into town and halted them in front of the livery. He wrapped the reins around the brake handle and stepped down to the dirt street, grunting as his legs warned him they’d been in one position far too long.

“Can I help you, mister?” A towheaded boy with one overall suspender hooked and the other missing a button greeted him.

“You work here?” Kane stretched, trying to get the kinks out. He’d rather ride a horse than a wagon seat any day.

“Yep. Pa’s shoeing a team right now. I can unharness yours for you, brush ’em down, and water and grain them, all for two bits. How long till you need ’em again?”

“Oh, couple hours. Got some things coming in on the train.” Kane dug in his pocket and flipped a quarter in the air. “You make sure they don’t get too much water till they’re cooled down.”

“Right, mister.” The boy caught the quarter and shot Kane a cheeky grin. “And if ’n you feel like tippin’ me ’cause I did such a good job, I wouldn’t be one to turn it down.”

Kane shook his head and smiled back. “We’ll see about that.” The picture of the boy stayed with him as he headed for the hotel, if you could call it that. If and when he had a boy, he hoped his son would be sharp like that. Taking the three steps in one, he pushed open the double doors and strode up to the desk.

“How can I help you?” The clerk looked up with a smile.

“I need a bath, a shave, a haircut, and new clothes.” He almost added
because I’m getting married this afternoon
but clipped that off in time.

“All right. You go two doors down for the shave and haircut, across the street for the clothes, and we can have a bath ready in between the two.”

Kane nodded. “You get it hot, and I’ll be back.” He started out, then turned to ask, “Is there a pastor in town?”

“Sorry, no. Not regular. Itinerant preachers come by, though.”

“Thanks.” Kane continued on out the door.

Some time later, clipped, scrubbed, and sporting everything new but hat and boots, he turned in his long list at the general store, checked with the stationmaster to make sure his windmill was on board, and headed for the livery to get his team and wagon. He also inquired to make sure the justice of the peace was in town. Since the judge was itinerant but based in Ipswich, the chance was good he’d be available.

There was no way he could head out across the rolling prairie with an unmarried female in tow.

Contrary thoughts kept stabbing at him as he helped the boy harness his team. What if the justice wasn’t there? What if his Norwegian bride changed her mind and didn’t want to marry him, at least not right away? What if she wasn’t on the train?

He ignored his wayward thoughts the best he could, handed the boy a dime extra, and touched the brim of his hat at the exuberant “Thankee, sir.”

At least he’d made one person happy today. The train whistle wept from a distance. He took in a deep breath and stepped up into his wagon, then clucked the horses forward. The station was only a short block away.

He stopped the horses in the shade of an elm tree and, snapping a tie rope to one bridle, knotted it to the hitching post. Was it really this hot or . . . ? He lifted his hat to wipe his forehead with a new red kerchief. He walked on over and stood in the shade of the wide-roofed station house, which looked about as tired as the rest of the town.

The train eased into the station, steam billowing and wheels screeching. A uniformed man stepped out of the first passenger car and set a metal stool on the platform for the passengers to step down.

Kane’s breath caught in his throat.

A man in a black suit swung down with a portmanteau in his right hand.

Kane took a step forward.

A woman with a small boy came next. She hadn’t said anything about having a child, so that left them out.

Two more men, both in the uniform of the United States Army.

He saw another dress in the shadows of the car. He gulped. A woman, round as she was tall and with hair the color of clean sheep wool, beamed at a young couple who rushed forward and hugged her.

Kane breathed a sigh of relief.

The conductor waited. Kane waited.

A woman’s face remained in the shadow for a brief second, and then the conductor reached up a hand to help her down. A dark skirt topped by a dark jacket and a bit of white at the neck appeared. She was slender but with a strength about her, straight shoulders, long neck, and a face that . . .
Oh, thank you, Lord. She is more than comely.
She is beautiful!

He glanced around the platform. Maybe there was someone else to greet her. But the look on her face said that wasn’t the case. He strode forward, hat in his hands.

“Miss Borsland?” He had to clear his throat and say her name again. He hoped he was pronouncing it right.

She turned and looked at him with eyes the blue of a summer sky, only more so, if that were possible.

“Ja, Miss Bjorklund.” Augusta looked around. Now what should she do? The conductor had never said Blessing or Grand Forks or anything she recognized. And since he hadn’t spoken Norwegian, she couldn’t make her questions clear.

Who was this man? Had Mor sent him to fetch her? How far away was Blessing? The letters on the front of the station didn’t look anything like the ones on the letter in her reticule. She looked up again.
I-p
surely didn’t look like a
B
.

The man stepped forward and, smiling, reached for her carpetbag. “I’ll carry that for you.”

He seemed to expect her. “Mange takk.” She let him take the bag, grateful for the courtesy. Her legs felt as though she still rode the swaying train, and the platform took on life beneath her feet. Oh, what she would give for a bath or at least a chance to wash up. She’d done her best in the tiny bathroom on the train, but a dipper of water didn’t go very far.

“Right this way.” The man motioned toward a team and wagon off under a tree.

If only she could understand what he was saying. “Will you be taking me to Blessing, then?”

“Ah yes, indeed. Your being here is surely a blessing.” He wished he had been able to learn some Norwegian. How in the world were they going to talk with each other? And those eyes, never had he seen such color. She was tall—tall enough to fit just under his chin, a Nordic princess, for certain sure. It was all he could do to keep his feet from dancing.

He led her to the wagon and, after helping her up, motioned for her to stay there. When she started to stand again, he shook his head and smiled.

She smiled back and sat down.
He must be in a hurry to get going. How long until I see my family? What a joy that will be. Thank you, heavenly Father, for a safe journey, even though this looks nothing like Mor’s descriptions of the flat prairie. I thought sure from what she said that the train stopped right in front of Penny’s store and Hjelmer’s blacksmith shop. But then, I never saw Grand Forks either
. She shook her head and drew a handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe the sides of her face and neck. Perhaps those black clouds would bring cooler air with the rain they must be carrying. Would they arrive in Blessing before the storm hit?

She watched as the man who’d come for her strode back from the station house.

A cool wind blew at her skirts and rustled the leaves above. The horses flicked their tails at the flies. She turned her face to the breeze, wishing she could take off her jacket and raise her arms. But that wasn’t seemly in the least, not in this place where she knew no one, grateful as she was that someone seemed to know her and to expect her.

He smiled at her again as he untied the horses and climbed up in the wagon. He turned them in a tight circle and headed back for the station.

Surely he was going for her trunk.

Thank God the crates came in
, Kane thought. He glanced at the clouds again. They seemed to be staying south of the town. Maybe they’d clear by the time they were ready to head out. He backed the wagon up to the loading dock and wrapped the reins around the brake handle. Motioning her to stay seated, he gave her a smile that evoked one in response.

At least they could smile at each other. Augusta wondered if anyone in town spoke Norwegian. If only she had taken her brother’s advice and learned American. Some of it, a bit, anything. She felt as if her face might crack from smiling. She buried the nigglings of fear under an avalanche of smiles. She watched as they loaded wooden crates into the bed of the wagon, all the time wondering what it was. The two men shook hands, and her stranger returned to the seat of the wagon.

“We are going to Blessing now?” she asked. If only he could understand her.

“I agree. Such a blessing.”
Why is she so locked on blessing?
Kane wondered. “As soon as we pick up the supplies from the general store here, we’ll go to the justice of the peace.” He accompanied his words with a broad smile, grateful for the one in return. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, her dark lashes accenting the blue. Oh, the blue of her eyes.

He drew his gaze away with an effort.

More things were loaded into the wagon, filling up the spaces in and around the machinery.