“Would it be all right if I kiss you, Anna?”
“A man doesn't need permission to kiss his own wife,” she whispered.
But he took it—slow-leaning on an elbow beside her, grazing her lips with the thumb, wishing she was not so afraid.
Anna lay rigidly, waiting for the bad part to begin. But it didn't. Everything was different about Karl. Different, the way he waited and touched her gently first, as if assuring her he meant well. Different, as he leaned so slowly closer, making the corn husks rustle in hushed tones. Different, as he hovered on an elbow, pausing, giving her time with his thumb still on her lips to say no. Different, as he touched his lips to her lightly, lightly.
There was no force, no fight, no fear, only a light lingering of flesh upon flesh, a blending of breaths, an introduction. And her name, “Anna . . .” whispered upon her mouth in a way no person had ever before spoken it. His fingers slid into her hair at the back of her head, tenderly, not clutching, while she understood new things about this man. Patiently, he waited for some sign from her. It came in the tiniest lifting of her chin, bringing her lips closer to his. Again, his lips touched hers, warmer, nearer, a little fuller, letting her ease into the newness of him.
For the first time ever, Anna found a willingness to let a man know this much of her. But when he moved his hand slowly to her ribs, she stiffened, quite unable to control the reaction. He raised his mouth from hers, anxious to do the right thing with her, for he could feel the way her forearms were tightly guarding her chest.
“Anna, I would not hurry you. We have time now, if we did not have before.”
Reprieved, Anna nevertheless felt silly and inadequate. Her heart raced wildly while she searched for the right thing to say. He still hovered above her, and she felt his warm breath caressing her face. He smelled of clean shaving soap and tobacco, but he had tasted faintly of rose hips.
How can I be afraid of a man who tastes like roses? she thought. Yet she was. She knew very well what it was that men did to women. This man, with his might, could do it with tolerable ease, should he choose. But instead, he backed farther away, so she could no longer feel the touch of his breath on her nose.
“I . . . I'm sorry, Karl,” she said, then added, shakily, “and thank you.”
Disappointment swept through Karl's veins. But he touched her jaw with the back of a callused index finger, a brief, reassuring brush upon her downy flesh.
“We have plenty time. Sleep now, Anna.” Then he lay back on his own side of the bed, but unrelaxed, for now he knew what her skin felt like.
Anna rolled onto her side facing the wall, curling her spine and tugging the buffalo robe up securely between shoulder and jaw. But a strange feeling crept over her, as if she'd done something wrong but she wasn't sure what. She felt much like just before she started to cry. Finally, she rolled slightly backward, looked over her shoulder and whispered, “Goodnight, Karl.”
“Goodnight, Anna,” he said thickly.
But for Karl it was not a good night. He lay stiff as a board, wanting to leap from the bed and run into the dewy damp night air and cool off, talk to his horses, dip his head in the icy basin of water in the springhouse—something! But he lay instead like a ramrod—sleepless—for now he knew the feel of her skin, the taste of her tongue, the tug of her diminutive body making its furrow into the other half of the husk mattress. How long, he wondered miserably. How long? How long must I court my own wife?
Chapter Six
In the morning Karl was gone to fetch his goat before James and Anna awoke. By the time he returned, they were up and dressed and already making nuisances of themselves. They heard a bell tinkling, and looked at each other hopelessly through the billowing smoke. Anna fanned her hand before her eyes and nose uselessly.
“Oh, no, I think he's back,” she wailed.
“It's a good thing, too,” James observed.
A moment later Karl stepped to his doorway. “What are you two doing? Burning our house down?”
“Sod doesn't—” Anna coughed. “Sod doesn't burn.”
“And so I am a lucky man or I would be homeless by now. Have you ever heard of a damper?” Of course they'd heard of a damper. All the cast-iron stoves had dampers in their pipes, but they hadn't considered that Karl's fireplace would have one. He stepped to the smoking mouth of the fireplace, made the necessary adjustment, then herded the two of them outside while the air cleared.
“I can see I will have to watch you two every minute to keep you out of trouble,” he said good-naturedly.
“We thought it'd help if we got the fire going.”
“Ya, it would help if you built a fire instead of a smudge. But you will come in handy when the mosquitoes need chasing away.”
Karl, it seemed, was prepared to practice the patience he'd promised to exercise. “Tonight I will teach you to build a proper fire. Now, come and meet Nanna.”
James took to the goat at once, and there seemed an answering friendliness in the animal.
“Nanna, this is James,” Karl said affectionately, folding the goat's ear backward. “And if he milks a goat like he builds a fire, I would run back to the Indians, if I were you,” he whispered into Nanna's ear.
Anna laughed, and at last Karl looked directly at her, his hand still toying with the soft, pink ear. Smiling, he said, “Good morning, Anna.”
“Good morning, Karl,” she replied, her eyes sliding back to his fingers, which scratched affectionately as the animal nudged and bent her head for more. But while he scratched, Karl's eyes stayed on Anna.
“Can you make biscuits?” he asked.
“No,” she answered.
“Can you milk the goat then?”
“No.”
“Can you fry salt pork and make corn mush in the drippings?”
“Maybe. I'm not sure.”
“Now we are getting somewhere!”
And this is how it became James' job to milk the goat in the mornings, once Karl showed the boy how. And to Anna fell the chore of cooking mush in drippings, while Karl brought water from the springhouse for the horses, for use in the house and for washing outside.
He washed at the bench by the door. From the beginning it intrigued Anna how he would strip off his shirt and suffer the freezing water without so much as a shiver. Karl brought out his straightedge razor and honed it on the strop while the boy eyed his every movement.
“Does it hurt to shave, Karl?” he asked.
“Only if the blade is not sharp enough. A sharp blade makes all cutting easier. Wait till I show you how to sharpen the axe. Everywhere a logger goes he should carry his stone and use it perhaps once each hour. I have much to teach you.”
“Oh boy! I can't wait.”
“You will have to. At least until we finish your sister's cornmeal mush and salt pork.”
“Hey, Karl?”
“Ya?”
James lowered his voice. “I don't think Anna ever cooked that before. It'll probably be pretty bad.”
“If it is, you must not tell her so. And if your first sharpening is bad, I will not tell you so, either.”
It was bad, all right. The poor salt pork had had the life fried out of it, and the cornmeal was lumpy. Amazingly, Karl made no comment. Instead, he talked of what a beautiful day it was, and of how much he hoped to get done and of how pleasant it was to be eating his meal with company. But Karl and James seemed to be enjoying some private little joke Anna was not asked to share. Still, she was pleased the way Karl seemed to be accepting her brother.
It was a jeweled day of brilliant color—blue of sky, green of tree, bedazzled by gilt the sun lay upon them. The sun had not yet topped the periphery of the clearing before the three went out. From hooks above the mantel Karl withdrew his broadaxe, handed the hatchet to Anna. James proudly accepted the rifle once again.
“Come,” he said. “First I will show you the place where our cabin will be.” He stalked across the clearing to the basework of stones laid in a rectangle of
some sixteen by twelve feet. As he stepped to the foundation, he placed a foot upon one of its stones and pointed with the sharpest tip of his axe. “There will be the door, facing east . . . due east. I have used my compass, for a worthy house should sit square with the earth itself.”
Turning his head toward Anna, he stated, “No dirt floors in this house, Anna. Here we will have real plank floors. I have hauled the stones from the fields and along the creek, the flattest I could find, to hold the foundation logs.”
Then he turned, flipped the axe up until the smooth, curved ash handle slipped through his hand. Pointing again with it, he said, “I have cleared that path and put down the skids from here to the tamaracks.” The double track of skinned logs led away like a wooden railroad track running north into the trees. “On my land I have the straightest virgin tamarack anywhere. With logs that straight we will have a tight house, you will see. No half-timbers for us. I will use the whole log, only flattened a little to make it fit tight so the walls will be thick and warm.”
Skids and half-timbers meant nothing to Anna, but she could see by the density of the forest what it had taken him to clear that wide skid path.
“Come, we will harness Bill and Belle and get started.”
As they walked toward the barn, Karl asked, “Have you ever harnessed a pair, boy?”
“No . . . nossir,” James answered, still looking over his shoulder at the skids.
“If you want to be a teamster, you must first learn about harnessing. You will learn now,” Karl said with finality. “Your sister, too. There could come a time when she might need to know.”
They entered the barn, and Karl spoke in soft greeting to the animals. Nearing them, he patted them on rump, shoulder and finally on their wide foreheads, giving each horse a scratch between the eyes. It was a small building, and the space was narrow.
“Get over,” Karl said to Bill. But the horse stood contentedly, waiting for more scratching. “Get over!” Karl repeated more sternly, wedging his body between the animal and the wall, giving Bill a solid slap that commanded but did not hurt. Bill moved over, while Anna marveled at the man's assuredness in putting his mere body between the awesome bulk of the horse and a solid barn wall.
Karl seemed unconcerned, confident. To James he said, “A horse who does not know what 'get over' means, needs a wider vocabulary.” But even as he said it, a smile tugged his cheek, and his big hands smoothed the horse's hide affectionately. “Remember that, boy. And remember that you talk to a horse with more than words. Your terms are only as good as your tones. Tones say much.
“Hands talk most of all. A horse gets to trust a man's hands first, and the man himself second.” All the while he spoke, Karl's hands rode the horse's hide, resting on the withers, gliding over the shoulders, patting the flanks, returning to the high poll. He looked Bill in the eye as he said, “You know what I am talking about, ya, Bill?”
He led the horse near the wall where the harnesses hung on two thick wooden pegs. “A horse is nearsighted, did you know that, boy? This is why the horse shies away from movement that is a ways off—because he cannot see it clear enough to trust it. But you show him what it is, up close, and he rewards you by being still.
“First comes the collar,” Karl went on. He lifted the flanged leather oval. “This one is Bill's.” At his name, Bill jerked his head and Karl spoke to the animal. “Ya, you know I am talking about you. Here is your collar, my curious friend.” Patiently, he showed the animal the leather before placing it over the horse's head, all the while instructing the two novices. “You must make sure never to get the collars mixed up, for if you put the wrong one on a horse, he gets a sore neck and shoulders. A horse gets used to his own collar, just as you get used to your own shoes. You would not give a marching soldier someone else's boots now, would you, James?”
“Nossir, of course not,” James answered, his eyes never leaving Karl as the man buckled the collar beneath Bill's neck, then slipped it firmly back against the Percheron's massive shoulders.
Sliding his big hand between the horse and collar, he said, “It should fit snug. Make sure it is not too tight, for if it presses against his windpipe, the horse will choke. If it is too long, it will rub and chafe the poor boy and cause shoulder galls.”
From two hooks on the wall, Karl withdrew the first harness, his muscles straining as he lifted it down. Approaching Bill from the left, Karl seated the hames on the collar, buckled the hame strap, walked to the horse's flank, adjusted the breaching seat. Then he walked forward again to connect breast strap to hame. Never did he move without first running his hand ahead of him along the horse's flesh or pacifying Bill with low words. The animal stood motionless, only a slow blink of his eyes indicating he was even awake.
Karl instructed the watching pair in the same tone of voice with which he spoke to Bill. Instruction and lulling words blended into a feeling of serenity. Next, he adjusted the belly band, and through it all, Anna found she was mesmerized by the gentle movements of his hands upon horseflesh, his voice in the animal's ear, in her own. She found herself thinking of the coming night, of what it would be like should he handle her as he now handled the horse.
She came to with a start, realizing that Karl had put the bit into the horse's mouth. As he led the reins through the various checkrings, he was asking her if she thought she could do all that.
“I . . . I don't know. I suppose if I could lift that heavy thing down from the wall, I could do the rest.”
“I will have to feed you well to put some muscle on your bone,” Karl said. She found he could look at her in an amused way that made his comment playful instead of critical.
But James was confidently boasting, “I think I could do it, Karl! Can I try?”
With a silent chuckle, Karl turned the job of harnessing Belle over to the lad. James struggled beneath the weight of the harness, but with a little help from his teacher, made surprisingly few mistakes in dressing the horse in its loggingwear.
“You have a quick memory,” Karl complimented, when the boy had finished. James beamed at Anna as if he'd just invented the craft of harnessing.
Next, Karl patiently explained the why and wherefore of attaching the round oak singletree to the two smaller doubletrees. In the exact center of the doubletree went the clevis, and finally they were ready for the massive logging chain. It was an enormous thing.
Again, Anna realized the power behind the man as Karl hefted a coil of it and dragged it over to attach to the clevis. He knelt down, securing the slip hook up into a link of the chain. “When you are going out empty like we are now, never let the slip hook dangle at the end of the chain. It likes to catch on roots, and the horses can be hurt that way.” He rose, touching the nearest warm flank again. “Always, the horses must be your first consideration. Without them a man is powerless here.”
“Yessir,” James responded.
Karl's eyes touched Anna momentarily, and she gave a soldierlike salute, repeating, “Yessir!”
Karl smiled. She seemed a game thing, in spite of her narrow shoulders and willow thinness. Today she wore a dress no more suited to outside work than yesterday's had been. She would soon learn. Once the work began, she would realize that simple clothes suited best, and would choose differently.
Meanwhile, the moment Karl had dreamed of during the long winter alone had come at last—the time of turning toward his trees, husband and wife together, to work in the sun toward their future. The three of them headed out into the Minnesota morning. They walked behind the team in the heightening sun, up the skid path. The horses, with their nodding gait and long stride, set the pace. With sleeves rolled up to the elbow, Karl held the four reins, leaning backward from the waist against the tug and strut of the horses. There was a look of oneness about the man and his team, each of them well-toned and thick-muscled, with a big job to be done.
Anna, long-legged though she was, had to stretch her steps to keep up. Her long skirt swept the morning grass and soon wa
s wet to the knees. She ignored it, listening, smelling, tasting the day. The morning had a music of its own, played out by the awakening wildlife, the squeak of leather, the chink of chains, the clop of the horses' hooves. The dew was still heavy, and the earth redolent with summerscent. There was the ever-present mustiness of leaves decaying, and the crisp flavor of vegetation renewing itself. Birch, beech, maple, black walnut, elm, poplar and willow burgeoned with life.
Karl pointed and named each tree, saying, “A wood for each purpose a man could have,” as if he could never get over the bounty he owned, no matter how often he measured it.
“It's funny,” Anna mused, “I always thought before that wood was just wood.”
“Ah, how much you have to learn. Each wood has a personality. Each tree has a trait that makes it . . . like a man, an individual. Here in Minnesota, a man need not worry that he will not have the proper tree for each need.”
They came to the place of the tamaracks, tall, spindly pines with scaly trunks and tapering tips swaying into the morning clouds. “And these are my tamaracks,” Karl said with pride, looking up. “A full sixteen feet of log before the taper begins,” he boasted. “See what I mean? The best. Will a sixteen-foot cabin be big enough for you?” He eyed Anna sideways, wondering if she believed he could build her a house so big.
“Is that a big one?” she asked, leaning, also, to look at the top of the tamaracks.
“Most are twelve. Some fourteen. It depends upon the trees. Here, where a man has tamaracks . . . here a man has plenty.” Again Karl paused. “More than plenty.”
Dropping her gaze down the tamarack trunks, Anna found Karl's eyes upon her. Something warm and expectant fluttered through her limbs, making her concur. “Plenty,” she said softly. “Sixteen feet will be plenty.”