Dandelions on the Wind (4 page)

Woolly bolted upright, his hands clasping the splintered edges of a cot. Sweat drenched his long johns. A nightmare, but different from all the others. He rubbed his eyes. Where was he? The deep breath he drew filled his nostrils with the pungent blend of hay and horse manure, and an even deeper realization dawned. He was in the barn on the Missouri farm, safe. Gabi was safe. Mother Brantenberg had survived the war.

He pulled his knees up and rested his elbows, cradling his head in his hands. The fighting may have ended, but the wounds had cut deep, leaving him to doubt they’d ever scar over.

***

An hour later in the corral, Woolly pulled a bristle brush through the old plow horse’s mane. Dawn’s first light sketched crisp shadows against the side of the barn. A robin trilled in the oak between the barn and the house. The very tree where he and Gretchen had carved their initials the day he’d asked her to marry him, six years ago. The same tree he’d sat under, praying while she lay dying … birthing his baby girl.

How could he have left sweet Gabi and his bereaved mother-in-law? And the Ransoms. Only God knew where they ended up. Were they even alive? If only he’d been here. He should’ve protected the women and families in his life.

Snorting, Duden stomped the ground near Woolly’s foot. He jumped back, remembering the gelding’s spirited response to having his mane brushed. That’s all Woolly was doing too—snorting and kicking at the ground, and neither action brought him any closer to peace. “Whoa, boy.” He patted the horse’s withers and stroked his back. Woolly wanted to stay, to do what he could to make Mother Brantenberg’s life easier. Although he knew words would never be enough, he needed to talk to her. But even if he could convince Mother Brantenberg to let him stay, with Miss Jensen living here, he held no hope of moving into the house with his family. As the horse calmed, so did he. Sleeping in the barn didn’t matter, not if he was home to stay.

Setting the brush to the horse’s tail, Woolly looked up in time to see Miss Jensen walking the path toward the barn. Her steps set at a snail’s pace, the young woman looked neither left nor right, apparently focused solely on her destination. He thought to call out to her, but decided the distraction would likely not be welcomed.

***

When Maren arrived in America, she was surprised to find that Thursday quickly became her favorite day of the week—the day the quilting circle met on the farm. To her mother’s dismay, Maren had little interest in textiles and could barely work a needle before immigrating. But since her move to the farm, she’d come to cherish the company of women who gathered here for stitching and companionship.

This morning, Maren was intentionally running late. A man had slept in the barn, and it wouldn’t have been proper for her to enter it in the dark. If at all. But she had morning chores and didn’t
wish to delay breakfast. The first rays of morning sun at her side, she stopped outside the open barn doors and poked her head inside. “Mr. Wainwright?”

No answer. She hadn’t thought to look for the man outside.

Blinking and squinting to force her vision, Maren listened for any hint of his presence. Usually the sheep, cows, mules, and horses greeted her with impatient calls for breakfast. Not this morning. Instead, the sound of their chomping was nearly deafening. The feed had been dropped.

Maren reached to the hook for the egg basket and found it heavy, with nine eggs nestled inside. The bucket she kept by the hogs’ grain bin was gone, and apparently Woolly was too. The milking bucket still sat empty outside the cow pen, so she grabbed it and the stool, settled beside Bootsie, and ran her hand down the cow’s side to the udder. “Morning, girl.”

The Jersey greeted her with the turning of her head. Hay stuck out of her mouth like uneven whiskers, and Maren couldn’t help but giggle as she positioned the bucket. “I see you have been well fed this morning.” She squeezed with one hand and then the other, creating a staccato rhythm with the milk spray. The man had certainly lightened her early morning workload. She could easily grow accustomed.

“Miss Jensen.” The now-familiar voice filling the barn didn’t startle her in the least.

Neither did the footfalls approaching the cow stall. “Miss Jensen, it is Woolly.”

Maren angled toward the gate and willed her eyes to bring him into focus. Shafts of light spilling in through the gaps in the barnboards spread like thin fingers across the barn. The sling was gone from his arm. “Good morning, Mr. Wainwright.” He wore a yellow work shirt, and he had tamed his hair under his cap.

“It is a fine morning.”

“Was it you who gathered the eggs and fed the animals?” Not that she didn’t know the answer, but she didn’t want to assume.

“I was pleased to help.”

“Thank you.” Bootsie shuddered, and Maren returned to her task under the old cow.

“I may not be able to mend fences or shore up the barn just yet, but I want to do more to help around here.”

“So long as you do no further damage to your arm.” Woolly obviously intended to stay. That meant Gabi would too. “In the old country, PaPa would have suggested a mint poultice.” Her words followed the rhythm of the milk splashing into the bucket.

“My shoulder is better today. Thank you.” He rested his elbows over the rail between them and looked at her. “Your chin? How is it faring?”

She resisted the impulse to touch it. “Slightly sore, but fine. Thank you.”

“Mother Brantenberg wasn’t pleased to see me. Do you think she’ll let me stay?”

The milking rhythm continued. She wanted to tell Woolly that Mrs. Brantenberg had to let him stay, that he had to persevere until the widow softened toward him. She wanted to tell him that what he did—whether he stayed or left—could change the course of her life.

“I don’t know.” And, even if she did, it wasn’t her place to second-guess the woman who had been so kind to her. Like a mother, in many ways.

Maren stilled her hands and looked up at him. He was staring at the far wall, looking broken in spirit. “You want to stay?”

When Bootsie swung her head, Maren had to regain her balance on the stool.

Woolly burst out with a laugh. “She doesn’t appreciate the distraction.”

Shaking her head, Maren resumed her task. She understood the cow’s frustration and lack of patience. She also agreed that the man was distracting.

“To answer your question … yes, I want to stay.” He slid his worn boot onto the lower rail. “I want to be a father to Gabi, or at least try.”

“Then you must persuade her that you belong here.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Mrs. Brantenberg had a good heart, if he had the patience to wait for her to come around.

Finished with the milking, Maren carefully lifted the bucket from under the cow and stood. She hung the stool on a hook, then walked to the open stall gate, the gate where Woolly now stood. He smelled of soap and fresh hay instead of years on the road, and he’d trimmed his beard.

“How long ago did you arrive from Denmark?”

“I left there nigh onto four years ago.” And she would rather not say why. She stepped through the gate and closed it.

“A corporal I met had come from Denmark.”

Orvie Christensen? She wanted to ask, but what good would it do her to know? Even if he were alive, he didn’t want her. If he did, he would’ve married her … come home to her.

Woolly held his hand out to her. “May I take that inside for you?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” In the exchange of the milk bucket his hand brushed hers, sending a shiver up her cotton-clad spine.

At the barn door, Maren lifted the basket of eggs off the hook and stepped out into the morning sunlight. Curious, she looked at the man beside her. She knew what it was like to be away from home for four years and had thought a lot about what it would be like to return. That’s what Woolly had done. “How does it feel to be home?”

He removed his cap, then set it back on his head. “Like I’m waking up from a long, restless sleep. A sleep filled with night terrors.”

Maren slowed her steps. The man could be intense, and she didn’t know how to talk to him. His experiences in battle would no doubt make her struggles here seem small.

“The first of this year, the army sent me to Arizona Territory to protect the settlers from Cochise and the Chiricahua Apaches. The warriors had burned out a settlers’ camp.” He scrubbed his cheek. “The whole tribe paid the price. A little girl lost her parents and two brothers in the raid.” He blew out a deep breath. “I was at the creek when I heard whimpering. The child, about Gabi’s age, cowered in the reeds.” Another deep breath, this one accompanied by a fluttering exhale. “Her family got killed in the raid ordered by our lieutenant.”

Maren blinked back tears. “That poor girl.”
And this poor man
. He knew personal sorrow in losing his wife and had seen even more pain in two different wars.

“My child still had a father, and she needed me.” His voice cracked. “And I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed her.”

“You were blinded by your grief.”

He nodded, bouncing a brown curl at his forehead. “I was.”

Although the sun had risen bright this morning, the night’s chill persisted. Maren pulled her cape tight. “Family is important.”

“You left your family in Denmark?”

“My mother, my older sister, Brigitte, and my younger brother, Erik.”

“Is it too personal for me to ask why?”

“I left Denmark because of a letter.”
And because of a longing for a family of my own
.

Maren stilled her steps and met the man’s gaze. “You mentioned you met a corporal from Denmark.”

“I did. An Orvie Christensen. Said he lived here in Saint Charles for a short while.”

Maren nodded, swallowing the bitter bite of regret. “Mr. Orvie Christensen’s uncle lived in Silkeborg and was a carpentry apprentice with my PaPa.”

“You knew the corporal?”

She drew in a deep breath. She’d already said too much, but felt compelled to answer the question arching Woolly’s eyebrows. “I met him here, after I arrived in America.” She drew in a deep breath. “When PaPa died, we all did our best, but my little brother was sick and we couldn’t keep the farm. Orvie Christensen heard about our fate and sent me a letter. He was ready to marry, and he sent money for my passage.”

Maren climbed the steps to the porch and paused outside the kitchen door.

He glanced down at her empty ring finger. “You married him?”

She slowly shook her head. “I was a mail-order bride who arrived with postage due. My blindness worsened in the trip and when I told Orvie, he couldn’t—”

“See past his own nose?”

She nodded and covered her mouth, but a giggle still escaped.

Orvie Christensen had never done her chores. Nor had he ever made her laugh. Woolly was a good man, who belonged in the house with his family.

“I worked as a nanny for a family in Saint Peters until they gave up on trying to subsist in battle-torn Missouri during the war and returned to Philadelphia. That’s when Johann Heinrich at the dry goods store talked to Mrs. Brantenberg, and she took me in to help with Gabi and the farm.”

“She’d already lost the Ransoms?”

“Yes. The month before.”

“She’s a good woman.”

“Yes.” Like a mother, at times.

Smiling, Woolly held the kitchen door open for her.

Mrs. Brantenberg slid a ham butt into the oven, then turned as they entered the kitchen. “I see you found him.”

“Yes, uh—”

“I was in the corral, brushing the plow horse.”

“He had fed the animals and collected the eggs.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Brantenberg’s voice carried surprise … or was it satisfaction?

As she and Woolly set the basket and bucket on the worktable under the window, he leaned toward her, mere inches from her ear. “Orvie’s loss. The man is a fool.”

At a loss for words, she moistened her lips. Woolly Rutherford was quite likable. She turned toward the table and silently counted the place settings. Four.

He was staying, at least through breakfast.

Five

B
reathing in the rich aroma of fresh baked
milchbrötchen
, Emilie Heinrich pulled her favorite teapot from the kitchen shelf in the upstairs apartment over their dry goods and grocery store. The sausage was cooked and on the table. Another two minutes and the breakfast rolls would be ready as well. Just in time for PaPa’s timely morning appearance. She poured steaming water over imported Earl Grey. In Saint Charles’s German community, a tea drinker was a rarity. Among Germans anywhere, actually, but Emilie preferred the soothing taste of tea to the stout coffee boiling on the stove.

Emilie was sliding the pan of bread from the oven when she heard the door click open on PaPa’s bedchamber. At six feet tall, he was in the habit of ducking his balding head on his way under the door frame, even though here he had several inches of clearance.
“Güt morgen, tochter!”

“Güt morgen, PaPa. It is a good morning.” Thursday—Mrs. Brantenberg’s quilting circle day. Emilie filled his favorite mug with coffee, then carried it and the bread rolls to the table.

PaPa took the mug from her and planted a soft kiss on her forehead before seating himself.

She draped a small cheesecloth square over her cup and poured tea through it, then carried her cup to the table and slid onto the chair opposite him. Wearing his white tucked blouse under a red dragon vest, Johann Hermann Heinrich was one of the most dapper men on Main Street, and one with a reputation for kindness and fairness. Yet he remained alone, with only her to care for him. Not that she minded. She loved him and had a full life caring for their household and working in the store. She’d never understand why her mother left him, and for a steamboat captain, no less. At least that’s what she’d heard. She was only two when it happened.

PaPa sniffed the fragrant air, pulling her thoughts back into the present.
“Hunger ist der beste koch.”

Hunger is the best clock
.

“And my stomach and your good cooking have the timing down to a science.”