Years (47 page)

Theodore looked up.

She might have been one of the unbridled creatures, reveling in her freedom. He had the feeling she’d forgotten he was beside her as she stood on the lower rung of barbed wire with her knees pressed flat against the upper rung, neck stretched, nosing the air, straining for a last glimpse of the disappearing herd. He wondered if she even realized she’d climbed up there. She looked more childish than ever, with a plaid wool kerchief over her hair, knotted beneath her chin.

But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she saw the majesty in the horses just as he did.

It struck him afresh, how much he’d missed this poppet of a girl in the childish scarf, whose nose was as red as a cherry and whose mitten rested on his shoulder.

He chuckled, hoping it would relieve the sudden tension in his loins.

She glanced down.

“Come down here before you topple over to the other side and I lose you in a snowdrift.” He took her by the waist and she leaped down. They stood for a moment with her mittens resting on his breast pockets.

“Wasn’t that something, Teddy?” She glanced wistfully after the horses once more. All had grown silent, as if the herd had never appeared.

“I told you we’d see them sometime.”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me it would be this beautiful... this... ” She searched for an adequate word. “This awesome! How I wish the children could draw them, just as they looked, all mighty and snorting and throwing snow up everywhere!” Without warning she bent and scooped up two handfuls and tossed it over their heads. It drifted down on her upraised face while he laughed and backed off to avoid it. “Chicken, Theodore!” she taunted. “Honestly, I never saw such a chicken.”

“I’m no chicken. I just got more sense than some teachers I know who’re gonna end up in bed with the sniffles, like John.”

“Oh, phooey! What’s a little snow gonna hurt?” She stooped over, scooped again, and took a bite. He could gauge almost to the exact second when she changed from woman back to
child. It was part of why he loved her so much, these quicksilver changes of hers. Nonchalantly she began shaping a snowball, patting it top and bottom, transferring it from mitt to mitt, arching one eyebrow with devious intent.

“You just try it and you’ll find out what it’s gonna hurt,” he warned, backing off.

“It’s just clean snow.” She took a second taste and advanced lazily. “Here, try a bite.”

He jerked his head back and grabbed her wrists. “Linnea, you’re gonna be sorry.”

“Oh yeah? Bite... here... bite it, bite it, have a b — ” They began struggling and laughing while she tried to push the snowball in his face. “Come on, Teddy, good clean
Nort
Dakota snow.” She mimicked the Norwegian accent that sometimes crept into his words.

“Cut it out, you little twerp!” She nearly got him this time, but he was too quick, and much stronger.

“Don’t you call me a little twerp, Theodore Westgaard. I’m almost nineteen years old!”

He was laughing unrestrainedly as they continued struggling in hand-to-hand combat. “Oh, how about that — she goes off for two weeks and comes home a year older.”

She gritted her teeth and grunted. “I’m gonna get you yet, Theodore!” He only laughed, so she hooked a heel behind his boot, gave one mighty shove, and set him on his backside in the snow. There he sat, with an amazed expression on his face, sunk in up to his ribs and elbows while she covered her mouth and rocked with laughter. He picked up one hand and peered into the sleeve. Snow was packed against the lining. He gave it a slow, ponderous shake, all the while skewering her with a feral gleam. He picked up the other hand, dug the snow from around his wrist, and eased to his feet with deliberate slowness. Linnea started backing away.

“Theodore, don’t you dare... Theodore... ”

He dusted his backside and advanced, leering wickedly. “Now she begs when she knows she’s in for it. What’sa matter, Miss Brandonberg, you scared of a little good clean
Nort
Dakota snow?” he teased.

“Theodore, if you do, I’ll... I’ll... ”

Unfazed, he advanced. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll tell your mother!”

“Tell my mother! Ha ha ha!” He came on steadily.

“Well, I will!”

“Yeah, you do that. I’d like to know what she’d say.” Suddenly he lunged, caught her wrists, and tried to knock her backward. She squealed and fought. He pushed harder and she braced deeper, struggling, laughing. “I didn’t mean it, honest!”

“Ha ha!” He took another step and she grabbed his jacket to keep herself from going over, but she was too late. Whoosh! Back she went, hauling him with her into the puffy pillow of snow, landing in a tangle of arms and legs and skirts, with Theodore sprawled over her like a human quilt. He fell to his side, one leg trailing across her knees while they laughed and laughed and laughed.

As suddenly as it started, it ended. The world grew silent. The weight of his leg across hers grew heavy. A pulse seemed to rise up out of the earth itself, through the snow, into their bodies.

He braced up on an elbow and looked down at her. Their gazes grew intense. “Linnea,” he uttered in a queer, strained voice. Snow clung to the back of his collar, his shoulders. She saw him for a brief moment, his blue hat gone, his face framed by the pewter sky above him, his breath labored through open lips. Then his mouth took hers and his weight pressed her deeper into the snow. Their tongues met, mated, warm against their cold lips while he settled full length upon her and she drew him in with eager arms.

When he lifted his head, their hearts were crazy, erratic, and they knew an impatience to make up for lost time.

“I missed you... Oh, Teddy... ” He kissed her again, holding her head in both gloved hands, and it felt as if the herd galloped by once more and made the earth tremble. The kiss ended with the same reluctance as the first.

“I missed you, too.”

“I kept thinking of how I was home, but it didn’t seem like home anymore because all I wanted was to get back here to you.”

“I wasn’t fit to live with so I spent most of my time in the tack room.” A dollop of snow fell from his collar onto her cheek and as he licked it away her eyes closed and her lips opened. His mouth slid back to hers, reclaiming it with a fervor that vitalized both of their bodies.

Reluctantly he rolled from her and lay on his back.

“I even thought you might not come back,” he confessed.

“Silly.” She felt denied with his weight gone, and rolled across his chest.

“Am I silly? I don’t think I’ve ever been silly before.”

She kissed his eye, then lay with her lips there, breathing on him, smelling him — leather, wool, snow.

“Did you mean what you said at the station?”

“Oh, God, Linnea.” He clutched her tightly, closing his eyes, wondering what to do.

She pushed back to see his face. “Y... you mean, you didn’t?” Her fear sent another shaft of love to his heart.

“Yes, I meant it. But it’s not right.”

“Of course it’s right. How could love be wrong?”

He took her arms and pushed her up, and they sat hip to hip. He wished he could be young again, plunging into life with the same recklessness she had. But he wasn’t, and he had to use the common sense she hadn’t grown into yet.

“Linnea, listen. I told you I didn’t know what to do about it and—”

“Well, I do. I’ve thought about it a lot and there’s only one thing
to
do. We have to get—”

“No!” He lunged to his feet, turning away. “Don’t go getting ideas. It just wouldn’t work.”

She was up and at his shoulder in an instant, insisting, “Why not?”

He picked up his hat from the snow and whacked it against his thigh. “Linnea, for heaven’s sake, use your head.”

She swung him around by an arm. “My head?” She gazed into his eyes, forcing him to look at her. “Why my head? Why not my heart?”

“Have you thought about what people would say?”

“Yes. Exactly what my mother said this morning. That you’re too old for me.”

“She’s right.” He settled his cap on his head and refused to meet her eyes.

“Theodore.” She clutched his arm. “What do years have to do with this feeling we have? They’re just... just numbers. Suppose we had no way of measuring years and you couldn’t say you’re sixteen years older than I am.”

Lord in heaven, he loved her so. Why did she have to be so young?

He took her upper arms in his gloved hands and made her listen to reason.

“What about babies, Linnea?”

“Babies?”

“Yes, babies. Do you want them?”

“Yes. Yours.”

“I’ve had mine already and he’s sixteen years old. Almost as old as you.”

“But, Teddy, you’re only thirt—”

“What about Kristian? He’s sweet on you, did you know that?”

“Yes.”

He’d expected her to deny it. When she didn’t he was nonplussed. “Well, don’t you see what a mess that could make?”

“I don’t see why it should. I’ve made it very clear in every way I know how that I’m his teacher and nothing more. I’m the first infatuation he’s ever had, but he’ll get over it.”

“Linnea, he
told
me. I mean, he came right out and told me the day we went to get coal together how he felt about you. He trusted me for the first time ever with his feelings! Imagine what he’d feel like if I tell him now that I’m going to marry you.”

But she sensed what was really bothering him. “You’re scared, aren’t you, Teddy?”

“Y’ damn right I’m scared, and why shouldn’t I be?”

She held his face in her soft mink mittens, capturing his eyes with her own. “Because I’m not Melinda. I won’t run off and abandon you. I love it here. I love it so much I couldn’t wait to get back.”

But she was too young to consider that if they had children, by the time they left home he’d be a very old man — if he lived that long. He swung away and strode toward the wagon. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Teddy, please—”

“No! There’s no use even talking about it anymore. Let’s go.”

They rode in silence until they approached the driveway to P.S. 28.

“Could we stop at school for just a minute?”

“You need something?”

“No, I’ve just missed it.”

He looked her full in the face. “Missed it?” She’d actually
missed this little bump on the big prairie?

“I missed a lot of things.”

He adjusted his cap and tended his driving again. “We can stop for a minute, but not long. It’s cold out here.”

When they pulled into the schoolyard, she exclaimed, “Why, somebody’s shoveled the walks!”

He drew the horses up, went over the side, but avoided her eyes. “We had a little snow one day, and it drifted.”

“You did it?” she asked in pleased surprise.

He came around to her side to help her down. They both recalled the first day she’d come here, how he’d claimed he had no time to be looking after hothouse pansies. “How sweet of you. Thank you, Teddy.”

“If you wanna go inside, go,” he ordered gruffly.

He watched her trot toward the door and shook his head at the ground. So young. What was he doing, fooling around in the snow with her when nothing could come of it and he knew it.

He followed her in and stood near the cloakroom door watching as she made a quick scan of the room. She observed it lovingly, and on her way to the front, touched the stove, the desks, the globe, as if they had feelings. The place was frigid, but she didn’t seem to notice; her face wore a satisfied smile. What she’d said back there was true. She was nothing whatever like Melinda. But — hang it all! — she didn’t stop to think that when she was thirty-four like he was now, he would be gray and long past his prime.

She mounted the teacher’s platform, picked up a piece of chalk, and printed across the clean blackboard, “Welcome back! Happy New Year, 1918!”

She set the chalk down with a decisive click, brushed off her palms, and marched back to Theodore, then turned to inspect the message.

“Can you read it?” she asked.

He frowned, concentrating for several seconds. “I can read back and New.” He struggled with the first word. “Wwww... ” When it dawned, his face relaxed. “Welcome back.”

“Good! And the rest?”

She watched him trying to figure it out.

“The next word is Happy,” she hinted.

“Happy New Year, 1918,” he read slowly, then reread the
entire message. “Welcome-back-Happy-New-Year-1918.”

She smiled with pride. He
had
been busy studying. “By the end of which you’re going to be reading as well as my eighth graders.” As he returned her smile the buildup of tension eased.

“Come on. Let’s go home. Ma’s waiting.”

Stepping into Nissa’s kitchen was like taking off new dancing shoes and putting on worn carpet slippers. Everything was just the same — the oilcloth on the table, the jackets on the hook behind the door, the pail and dipper, the delectable smell coming from the stove.

Nissa was making meatballs and potatoes and gravy for supper, and the windows were thick with steam. The old woman turned from her task and came with open arms. “‘Bout time you was gettin’ back here.”

Linnea returned the affectionate hug. “Mmm... it smells good in here. What’re you cooking?”

“Heart stew.”

They laughed and Linnea pushed her away playfully. “I’ll tell Theodore to take me back to the depot.”

“Don’t think you’d have much luck. Think he was a little lost without you.”

“Oh, he was, was he?” She arched one brow in Theodore’s direction. “I wouldn’t have guessed. He pushed me into a snowbank on the way home.”

“A snowbank!”

Across the room Theodore scowled. Just then Kristian, fresh back from his trap line, came barreling down the stairs and careened to a halt before Linnea, wearing a smile so wide it seemed to lift his ears. His cheeks were still rosy, his hair stood in peaks, and the red toes of his wool socks belled out. Linnea could almost feel the strain as he held back from hugging her. She would marry his father. She
would!
And this entire family had better get used to the fact that she didn’t intend to tiptoe around Kristian feeling guilty every time she had the urge to touch him. She rested her mink mittens on his cheeks.