Dakota Dream (7 page)

“Now?”

“Now!”

Whatever could she want Dag for? Mrs. Norgaard peered at Clara over the spectacles perched on her nose. “Well?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Clara turned and hustled out of the room. She stripped off her apron and hung it on the hook, at the same time reaching for her gray wool shawl. While her hands went about their chores, her mind worried at the question like a dog with a bone. What would Dag have to do with her picture? She thought again of the taciturn blacksmith. Hopefully he talked to others more than he did her.

She flew down the stairs and out the door, catching her breath at the bit of the breeze. Her nose tingled and began to run as quickly as her feet. While the sun was gorgeous, winter not only nipped her nose but bayed hard on the heels of fall.

Clara paused a moment at the wrought iron gate and raised her face to the sun. Eyes closed, she savored the hint of warmth and freshness of the world outside the silent house. She would have to get outside more, that’s all there was to it.

She felt like skipping down the street and, after checking to see no one was watching her, did just that. Back in Norway, she might have been racing Lars over the hills or riding their pony up to the summer hut where they took the cows to pasture in the warm season. Thoughts of home killed all desires for skipping.

What would Mor and Far be doing now? She scrunched up her eyes to think better. What part of the day was it in Norway now? She shook her head, letting the shawl fall back on her shoulders. Home was so far away, like another life. She rolled her lips together and looked up to the sky above. Her prayer winged upward like the steam rising from the rooftops.
Keep them safe
, she prayed,
and let us be together sometime again. Mange takk, for this wonderful day and the new friends I am making.

The picture of Else, her best friend since beginning school, took over her mind. But Else was already married and expecting her first baby.

Clara sighed and turned the corner to the blacksmith’s shop. She’d just have to make a new best friend along with the new life in this new country. She glanced up the street to the fields beyond. This new, extremely flat, and amazingly huge country.

She had her smile back in place when she stopped in front of the weathered building, open to the street, with BLACKSMITH in black iron letters across the face. She wrinkled her nose at the distinctive aroma of trimmed horse hoof. A gray horse stood on three legs, its rear fourth clamped between Dag’s knees.

“Hello,
froken
Johanson,” called Will from his place holding the horse’s head.

“Hello, Will.” Clara smiled at the lanky lad and waited, expecting Dag to join in the greeting.

The man bending over the shoe, tapped home another nail, set down his hammer, and picked up the crimper.

Clara waited.

“Fine day, isn’t it?” Will shifted to the near side of the horse.

“Ja, that it is.” Clara looked back to Dag. He finished crimping the nails over, set aside the crimper, and picked up the rasp.

“Can we do something for you?” Will looked from Dag to Clara. He caught her gaze, glanced back at the man bending over the hoof, and shrugged.

Clara felt a little fume begin about her heart region and make its way to her mouth. She clicked her tongue against her teeth.
Had the man no manners at all? After all, it wasn’t as if they were strangers.

Dag eyed the final balance of the hoof and straightened. With a gloved hand he stroked the horse’s haunches and made his way around to the other side.

He could feel a burn rising from his chest and up his neck.
What could she possibly want? Was this a social call? Who made social calls to the blacksmith? Mercy, but she was beautiful. The sun setting her hair afire above eyes the green of a newly risen, field of wheat.
He clamped a lid on his thoughts with the same strength he pounded iron.

He also forbade himself to peek around the horse’s rear to see if she were still there. Why couldn’t he just say “Hello” like Will did? Such an easy thing—for most people. If he dusted off his shirt and walked over to her, would she smile at him, like she had the boy?

The horse snorted, breaking a silence that stretched like a spider web between two blades of grass.

Clara cleared her throat. Why this urge to yell at him?

Dag rubbed his chin with the back of his pigskin gloves. Just a simple “Hello.”

“Tell your master that Mrs. Norgaard would like to see him, if he can find the time.”
Or the words
, she wanted to add but nearly drew blood biting her tongue.

“Yes ma’am.” Will ducked his head.

Clara spun around, her skirts swirling about her legs. Her steps jarred her knees. Insufferable—rude—crude. Each word matched each stomp.

“Tell Mrs. Norgaard I’ll be there as soon as I finish shoeing this horse.” The deep voice echoed up the dirt street after her.

Clara straightened her spine and her shawl. “Tell her yourself.” Her mutter carried no farther than her shoulder.

Even though she’d smiled at a woman on her way to the store and nodded at a man in a wagon who raised his hat in greeting, Clara smacked her hand against the latch on the gate. The gate flew open, clanging against the fence. The sound jerked her back from casting dire consequences upon the head of the man who couldn’t be bothered to be civil.

She carefully closed the gate behind her and switched her stomping to a normal gait while at the same time forcing herself to search the two naked elm trees for squirrels. A crow chastised her from the peak of the second-story dormer.

Clara inhaled a deep breath of the sparkly air, mounted the steps, and, by the time she entered the house, had herself totally under control. After trotting up the stairs, she hung up her shawl, retied her apron, and peeked in on Mrs. Norgaard.

The bed stood empty. Clara opened the door all the way and discovered her employer sitting in a rocker in front of the window. Clara swallowed her amazement.

“Could you please fix my hair before he comes?”

Clara nodded and picked up the brush and pins from the dressing table. As she brushed the long hair, she tried to think of something to say. Should she tell Mrs. Norgaard that Dag had been, well, less than helpful? But then he had said he’d come. She heaved a sigh and continued her ministrations.

“Wouldn’t you rather tell me about it?” Mrs. Norgaard leaned into the rhythmic strokes of the brush.

“About what?”

“Whatever upset you. I watched you come through the gate—and up the walk.”

“Oh.” Clara tucked several hairpins in her mouth—to keep from answering or to be more efficient? She braided the long strands, looped the braid into a figure eight and inserted the pins. That left her with an empty mouth and, after thinking about her trip to the blacksmith’s, with an empty smile.

“I—” The bell pealed from the front door.

“Show him up and bring us a coffee tray in about fifteen minutes.” Mrs. Norgaard patted Clara’s arm. “We’ll talk later.”

On the way down the stairs, Clara considered. Had that last comment been a threat or a promise? Either way why did that man have to be so infuriating? Her heels clicked on the stairs, each step reminding her that now it was her place to be polite—or not.

She opened the door, her normal welcoming smile tucked safely away.

Dag stood there, porkpie hat clutched between his hands.

Clara motioned him in and led the way up the stairs. She could feel his eyes burning holes into her back. She held herself rigidly straight, her chin at an angle that brooked no appeal. Only the slight trembling of her fingers as they trailed up the banister revealed the effort it took. If he could be silent, so could she.

Dag knew the way. He’d been to the house often, repairing the stove and installing the pump and piped-in water. The iron fence surrounding the property had been hand-formed in his own shop. He sniffed appreciatively. A fragrance of lavender drifted back from the starchy figure ascending the stairs before him. The rustle of her skirts made him conscious of the trim anatomy, rounded where it should be and slender, especially in the ankles.

He jerked his attention to the hand trailing the banister. That, too, slender, with long fingers, dainty but very capable. How gentle those hands had been with the children on the Detschman farm.

Enough! He focused his gaze on his boots. Dusty, bits of mud, and probably—oh, if only he could go outside, clean them off, and start all over again. If only he could fly back to the smithy and answer the blond angel that had said “Hello” in a way that set his heart to hammering. Hammering louder than the sledge upon steel to sharpen a plowshare.

She pushed open the door and motioned him through. “Mr. Weinlander.” He heard the sheet of ice tinkle and crackle around him as he walked through.

“Good morning, Dag.” Mrs. Norgaard called from her window seat. “Please, come sit with me while Clara brings us some coffee. And make sure you bring three cups, my dear.”

Dag sat, dwarfing the chair with his broad shoulders and tall body. He glanced back in time to see Clara glare daggers at him one more time before she turned and, after closing the door with a definite snap, tap away down the hall. If she’d called him a vile name, he wouldn’t have felt it more.

He sighed and turned his attention to his hostess, who gave away her awareness of his turmoil by a gentle smile.

Her words however were, as always, politely correct. After asking about his health, the weather, and the state of the smithy, Mrs. Norgaard leaned forward and picked up a picture from the table. “Please look at this and tell me who you think it is.” She handed the stained and faded likeness to him.

Dag studied the curly haired man in the photograph. He looked up, puzzlement wrinkling a brow barely peeping from behind the wild hair. “It is Jude, my brother, as you well know.”

Mrs. Norgaard nodded. “Yes, I thought as much.”

“But where—” Dag studied the picture again. “Where did you get this?”

“That I’ll tell you another time. But for now . . . where is he?”

Dag shook his head, the matted and twisted hair swinging in the force of it. “I don’t know. He stopped one day—” Dag wrinkled his brow remembering, “to tell me to take care of Ma. He was going to be gone for a while.”

Silence but for the ticking clock filled the room. Mrs. Norgaard waited.

Dag nodded. “He told me to pick up a woman,
froken
Johanson, at the station and take her to the Detschman farm. That is all.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

Dag shook his head again. “Is something wrong?”

Mrs. Norgaard reached for the picture and laid it face down on the table. “No, I think not.” She clasped her hands loosely in her lap. The silence returned. “Did he marry that woman over in Hammerston?”

Dag started. Did she know
everything
that went on? “Maybe that’s where he went, but he’d have invited Ma to the wedding at least—I think.” He twisted the hat in his hands. What was going on here?

Mrs. Norgaard sighed and nodded at the same time, as if she’d come to a decision.

Dag waited, expecting her to either continue the discussion or tell him what to do next. He’d learned long ago that one didn’t rush Mrs. Norgaard and that no one in town or the surrounding counties treated him with more care and civility.

Clara entered the room, carrying a tray laden with coffeepot, cups, and a plate of apple cake.

Dag nearly tipped the armless, needlepoint chair as he leaped to his feet to take the tray from her. She relinquished the ebony handles, losing her hands in his for just a moment. She resisted the urge to dust them off on her apron. Funny, a tingle like a spark had gone up her arms. She moved the picture of her man off the table so Dag could set the tray down. What was her picture doing here? Had Mrs. Norgaard shown it to Dag?

Her thoughts chased each other like squirrels in an oak tree. All the while, her hands poured the coffee, and passed it and the cake around with the napkins, before she took her own chair. She glanced up in time to see a look of pleasure cross Dag’s face as he chewed and swallowed her cake, then sipped the coffee from a cup nearly hidden in his hand.

“More, Mr. Weinlander?” She offered the cake plate again. And again. Until there were only crumbs. Goodness, had the man never had apple cake?

When the coffeepot, too, was empty, Dag set his plate and cup on the tray and, picking up his hat again, stood to go. “
Mange takk
.” He nodded both to the old woman sitting so straight in her chair and the young one rising to escort him out. “Is there anything else, ma’am?”

“No, I think not. Thank you for humoring an old woman and coming so quickly.”

When it appeared her attention had turned to the window, Dag bobbed his head and turned toward the door.

Clara, trying to determine what the undercurrents in the room meant, let him get ahead of her. Well, of all the—again her mind found something to blame him for. Didn’t he know it was her place to show him out? Her shoes tapped out her displeasure on the hardwood floor. How could she go around him? The hall wasn’t wide enough. She glared at the back of the man. She’d have to find some new names to call him, the ones she’d used so far were wearing out!

Dag stopped at the head of the stairs. Clara did, too, with her nose in his back. Would he
never
do what she expected?

“Excuse me,” she muttered, her head down to hide the blush she could feel flaming up into her face. She passed in front of him and preceded him down the stairs. Right now she could do with one of those fans she’d seen in a lady’s book.

When she opened the door for him, she looked not higher than the missing button on his shirt. Wool underwear that might have once been white but had forgotten the experience long before showed through the gap of the shirt. Neither had had a recent acquaintance with a washtub.

Dag paused, as if to say something, then mashed his hat on his head, strode out the door, and down the walk.

Clara watched him stride away. For such a big man, he walked with the grace of . . . she couldn’t think of a word. The picture of her father, head and shoulders above most of the Norwegian giants of home, whirling Mor around the dance floor in a spirited polka came to her mind. Ya, Dag moved with that same grace. She corrected the thought—Mr. Weinlander. The bell summoned her from upstairs. She gently closed the door and made her way back up the staircase.