months of hard physical labor had thickened the muscles across his chest and down his arms. When he lifted his mouth from hers, she felt herself drowning at the look in his eyes. “I’ll be gentle.” And at first he was, until her response gave them both the freedom they needed.
Pulling the blankets up over them, Niclas tucked her against his body. He let out a long, deep sigh of contentment. “I was afraid you would never come. You had everything you wanted in Montreal.”
“I didn’t have you.”
“So you missed me?”
She raised his blistered and callused hand and kissed his palm.
He nuzzled her neck. “God has answered my prayers.”
“For now. We’d better both start praying the seed you planted will sprout and the weather will-”
Niclas put a finger to her lips. “Let’s not worry about tomorrow.” They both went still as Bernhard cried softly in his basket. Niclas gave a soft laugh. “Today’s trouble is enough.” Flipping the covers back, he walked naked across the room and lifted their son from the basket.
Every mile that passed furthered Marta’s dismay. As Niclas snapped the reins over the horses and clicked his tongue, she could only stare at the flat land before her. She didn’t see a hill anywhere, but endless prairie that reminded her of the ocean crossing. She felt a little queasy.
“Are there any trees where we’re going?” She removed her jacket and wished she could unbutton her shirtwaist.
Niclas glanced at her. “We have a tree in our front yard.”
“One tree?”
“Right where we need it.”
She wiped beads of moisture from her forehead. Dust chafed her skin beneath her clothing. She glanced over the seat at Bernhard in the basket behind her, sleeping contentedly in the wagon bouncing over the dirt road. Marta remembered the canyon of buildings in the heart of Montreal, the trolleys and a few of the new automobiles.
“There it is!” Niclas pointed, face beaming.
She saw a small house in the distance, squat and sturdy, shaded by one tree. A barn and shed stood nearby. Four horses grazed in an enclosed pasture while a thin cow stood, head drooping, inside a corral next to the barn. “That cow is sick, Niclas.”
“Madson said she could give milk.”
“Has she?”
“None so far.” He shrugged. “I don’t know much about cows.”
“One rooster and four hens.”
“Where are they?”
“Off somewhere scratching for food, I guess.”
He guessed? “Are they laying eggs?”
“I haven’t had time to look.” He pointed. “There’s the rooster now.”
The rooster strutted out from behind the barn, two hens following. She waited, but the others didn’t appear. Annoyed, she imagined a very happy fox sleeping somewhere close by. The chickens scattered again as Niclas drove the wagon into the yard. As the rooster flapped away, the hens gave chase.
Niclas jumped off the wagon and came around to help her. She put her hands on his shoulders as he lifted her down. “The first thing we have to do is build a henhouse. Otherwise we’ll lose them all.”
He lifted the basket and handed it to her. “Why don’t you go on in the house while I unload everything?”
She looked around, fighting the sick feeling in her stomach. No mountains anywhere, not as far as she could see. And Niclas hadn’t lied. They had one tree, and it was too small to cast a shadow over the house.
“Oh, cold enough.” He hefted the trunk onto his shoulder. “The creek freezes so thick you have to make a hole in the ice so the livestock can get to water. Liam Helgerson, our neighbor, showed me how to do it. He has cattle.”
She looked around again and followed him inside the house. “What’ll we do for firewood?”
“We don’t need wood. We have prairie chips!”
“Prairie chips?”
“Dried cow dung.” He put the trunk on the floor. “Helgerson has a herd. He told me to take all I need. I pick them up by the wagonload and store them in one of the stalls in the barn. The chips fuel the stove, too. It makes the meat taste peppered.”
“Peppered?”
“What’s in the trunk that makes it so heavy?”
“Books.” She had spent hard-earned money trying to prepare for any eventuality.
“Books?”
“On farming, home medicine, animal husbandry.” She followed him outside as he headed back to the wagon. She put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t write anything to me about chips. Any more good news you have to tell me?”
Managing a boardinghouse had been easy compared to farming. Marta carried Bernhard in a shawl tied around herself while she put in a vegetable garden and tended the chickens. Niclas worked all day in the fields, coming in only for a noon meal before going out again. His hands blistered and bled. He didn’t complain, but she would see him wince when he pulled the work gloves off at night. She gave him a pan of warm water with salt to soak his hands and then wrapped them in strips of cloth. After dinner, while she nursed Bernhard, Niclas read to her from his Bible.
Liam Helgerson came over to meet Marta. He was a big man, lean and weathered after years in a saddle overseeing his landholdings. He had turned over much of his land to sharecroppers like Niclas, but still had enough to run a small herd of fine cattle. His wife had died five years before Niclas arrived. Both lonely, they had struck up a friendship. Marta knew after a few weeks that Niclas wouldn’t have a crop to harvest if not for Liam Helgerson’s good advice.
“Niclas shot a pheasant this morning, Mr. Helgerson. Would you like to stay for dinner?”
His leathered face wrinkled in a broad smile. “I was hoping you’d ask, Mrs. Waltert. Niclas has told me what a fine cook you are.”
He came once a week after that, usually on Sunday. Other than seeing that the animals and chickens were fed, it was the one day Niclas rested. Marta served dinner midafternoon so Liam wouldn’t have to ride home in the dark. While Bernhard played on the rug, Niclas read portions of the Bible aloud as Marta sewed or knitted and Liam sat, head back, eyes half-closed, listening.
“I feel like I’ve been to church when I come over here. Margaret and I went a couple of times a year when we went into Winnipeg. She got some kind of cancer. It’s a long, mean kind of dying. I…” Liam shook his head and looked out toward the fields. “Been a long time since I’ve felt any peace.” He raked his hand back through his gray hair and put on his hat. He looked like a lonely old soul.
That night she mentioned her observations to Niclas, as he held Bernhard on his lap. “Liam seems so alone.”
“He is alone except for the men who work for him.”
“He and his wife never had children?”
“They had three, but they all died before they reached adulthood. They lost two in the same week to measles; the other got kicked in the head by a horse.” He set Bernhard on the floor with a pile of blocks. “I’d better see to the animals.”
