The Brushstroke Legacy (21 page)

She added more wood to the fire, opened the oven door to feel if it was hot enough, and slid the pan of gingerbread in to bake. It was nearly time to milk the cow and gather the eggs.

That evening, when she served huge squares of gingerbread with vanilla sauce, Mr. Peterson actually smiled. It wasn’t the kind of smile that caused creases in his cheeks, but it did more than just bare his teeth; it gave life to his eyes.

“Tusen takk.” A thousand thanks. Now that was something to remember, along with a smile. Perhaps there was a real person lurking
in that hard-working body after all. At least she now knew something that would bring him pleasure—gingerbread.

Sunday rolled around again, and there was no mention of church. After the men headed out to work, Nilda left the breakfast dishes soaking in the pan and brought her Bible out of the bedroom. “Come, Eloise, lets read a story.”

Eloise left her place on the stoop and came to stand by her mother. “Story? I like stories.”

“Yes, from the Bible.” Grateful she’d finally gotten the big chair scrubbed and oiled, she settled the two of them in it and leaned back with a sigh. How nice it would be to have a chair outside, even if she rarely had time to sit down in it. Perhaps she’d mention that one of these days.

“Lets pray first.” She waited while Eloise folded her hands together; getting all the fingers laced in the right places sometimes took extra time. “Father in heaven, thank You for this day, for this home and house, for the people who live here. Thank You for Eloise, that she is healthier than she ever has been, for all the good food, fresh air, and sunshine, just what the doctor ordered. Thank You for Your Word. Amen.”

Eloise echoed with her own, “Amen.”

Nilda turned to the book of Matthew in the New Testament and read about Jesus welcoming the children into His arms. After reading the verses, she closed her eyes. “Just think, if you got to meet Jesus, and He took your hand or held you in His lap, just like I am. He’d
put His arms around you and maybe tell you a story.” As she spoke the words, she put her arms around her little one and started to sing,
“Jesus loves me, this I know…”

“Sing more.”

“You sing with me.
Jesus loves me…”
Together they strung the words into a necklace of peace. “Now, again.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Nilda finished the verse.
“Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.”

“More, Ma.”

They sang it again, then Eloise scooted off her lap. “Potty.”

From the sublime to the daily.
Thank You, Father, that You love me and my daughter and these men I take care of.
Nilda smiled down as Eloise put her hand in her mother’s, and they walked out into the sunlight. At least she was getting back in the habit of Sundays. Now to convince Mr. Peterson.

“Ma, come see,” Eloise called a few days later.

“Where are you?”

“In garden.”

Nilda wiped her hands on her apron and strolled out the door. “What is it?”

“Here.”

When Nilda rounded the corner of the house, she smiled at the sight of a barefooted Eloise, squatting down, her bottom nearly on the ground. She was pointing at a bean sprout that had broken through the soil. “See?”

“I see. Come here.”

Eloise stood and joined her mother.

“See, the whole row, all those are beans you planted.” Green plants looked like huge rounded staples driven into the dirt, ready to pop their first leaves up and reach for the sun.

“My beans?” Eloise looked up at her mother.

Nilda scooped her daughter up in her arms and kissed her rosy cheeks. Never had her child looked so healthy and full of life.

She stared over toward the trees along the riverbank. This house needed some shade trees to keep it cool. Two rabbits Hank had brought in were baking in the oven, bread was rising, and dinner was several hours away. Mr. Peterson and the team were mowing the hay field, so now was as good a time as any.

“Come with me.” She set Eloise down, took her hand, and headed for the machine shed where the garden tools were stored. She took a shovel down from the rack on the wall, then stepped into the barn for a gunnysack and a scoop of oats to throw to the chickens— Eloise loved to have all the hens come running and cluck about her feet, scratching in the dirt to find every last grain.

“Look, Ma.” Eloise pointed to a burnished red chicken lying in a small hollow, fluffing her feathers and wings, raising a small cloud of dust around her.

“She’s taking a bath.”

“In dirt?”

“Yes, she wouldn’t like a bath in water. Here.” She held the scoop down so Eloise could take out a handful. “Call them.”

“Chick, chick, chickens.” Eloise tossed the grain through the wire fence as she called. The hens came running, some with wings spread
to speed them ahead of the others. The big red rooster with glorious tail feathers of dark brown and black pushed out his breast and crowed a mighty “cock-a-doodle-do” before strutting over to join the pecking hens, all the while keeping a beady eye on Nilda and Eloise.

Eloise finished throwing the grain and grinned up at her mother. “Will we get eggs?”

“No, we’ll do that later. Right now we have something special to do.”

“What is it?”

“We’re going to dig two holes.”

“I like to dig.” Eloise understood
dig.
She’d taken a spoon from the house and dug holes in the garden, as if the trenches her mother dug with the hoe were not sufficient.

Once she’d dug two holes between the house and the road, Nilda wiped the sweat from her forehead and neck, then took her daughter’s hand and headed for the riverbank. Even though the sand was softer than the dirt around the house, the cottonwood saplings took effort to dig up because she needed to make sure she got enough roots. Perspiration dripped from her forehead, demanding she repeatedly wipe it dry with her apron. When would she find the time to sew sunbonnets?

As each sapling came loose from the earth, she stuck it in the gunnysack, wishing she’d thought to come out and water the ones she wanted so more soil would cling to the roots. On the way back she picked up a dried cow pie and put that in the sack also.

“Stinky,” Eloise announced.

“Good fertilizer. It will help our trees grow.” Back at the house, she knelt on the ground to plant her trees, first breaking the cow pie
into smaller pieces and laying the pieces in the bottom of each hole. She set a sapling in the first hole, held it upright with one hand, and shoveled dirt into the hole with the other. “Here, you can help me.” Together mother and daughter pushed and patted the dirt into the hole around the tree trunk, leaving enough space at the top of the hole for water.

“Baby tree.”

“That it is.”

“Ooh.”

Nilda turned to look over her shoulder at her daughter’s sigh of delight. Three cows and their calves stood in a row, watching them at work. Were they dangerous? Should she jump up and shoo them away? Was it better to remain still and not frighten them?

“Pretty.”

They
were
pretty, with the sun glinting on their red coats. One of the white-faced calves took a step forward, watching Eloise. Did offspring of one species recognize the children of another? The thought gave her pause. What a drawing that would make, Eloise and the calf, staring at each other like that. She stood slowly, and the cows backed away.

Two weeks ago her daughter would have hidden behind her mother’s skirts at the sight of the big animals. And here she stood, so brave, so curious.

Nilda debated. Plant the other tree or shoo the cattle away? Daisy was taming with the attention; would these do the same?

The calf took a step closer. Eloise did the same.

“Come, child, let’s plant the other tree.”

When she dug in the gunnysack for the other sapling, the cows
backed up again, and when one started up the road, the others turned and followed, the curious calf the last to leave.

Eloise took three steps after the calf before her mother realized what she was doing. “No, you stay here. Those cows are big, you could get hurt. Here, hold the little tree.”

Eloise did as she was told, but when Nilda glanced up from pushing the dirt down around the tree roots, her daughter was eying the ambling cows.

Nilda picked up two buckets, and they headed for the pump. When she’d poured a bucket of water into the holes, she set the buckets back under the wash bench and leaned the shovel against the house. Perhaps tomorrow she could dig another hole nearer the southern side of the house.

“Who left the shovel here?” Mr. Peterson growled when the men came in for dinner.

“I did. I’ll put it back.” Nilda set the platter on the table. “But I had to finish cooking dinner.”

“Leaving tools out like that is when they get lost or broken.” The tone of his voice sent Eloise scampering to hide behind her mothers skirt.

“I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.” She squared her shoulders. I’
m not a child to be scolded.
She set the bowl of baked beans down with a little more force than necessary.
Uff da. Men.

“Are you hurt?” Ragni’s heart thundered so loud she could hardly hear his answer.

“I’ll live. My foot just fell through. Take my hand so you don’t slip.”

Ragni looked to the proffered hand. Since attempting to scoot down to the edge of the roof had gotten her in all this trouble, perhaps doing as he suggested…or was it more than a suggestion? The tone sounded closer to an order. She never had taken orders well.
But then I’ve never been stuck, literally, on a roof before.

When she threw caution over the roof peak and glanced at him standing downslope from her, she saw a face now bordering on stern that looked to be losing patience. Sometimes accepting a hand was the better part of valor. She reached out and connected—pure electricity. She might as well have grabbed a lightning bolt.

Did he feel it too? Looking in his eyes might tell her, but she didn’t dare look at him again. Instead, she hung on and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Only a slight ripping noise told her that her pants had suffered on the aging shakes. At least there was no stinging from a cut.

Taking baby steps and making sure each one was firmly planted, she followed him back to the stepladder. But when he climbed down
and looked to see why she wasn’t following him, she balked. Standing right below her, he’d know sooner than she did how bad the rip was. “I’m coming.”

“Just sit down and…”

“That’s what got me in trouble last time.”

His eyebrows headed into his hatband. Gritting his teeth erased his smile lines.

“Just let me do it in my own time, and I’ll be fine. Hang on to the stepladder, Erika. Please.” She added that as an afterthought.

But Paul beat Erika to it. With a groan of dismay, Ragni sat down with one foot on the top of the ladder.

“I could go home and get a real ladder. Much safer than this thing.”

“No, I’m coming.” She turned and found the first step with her foot. A warm hand circled her ankle, planting her solidly. Once she had both feet on the ladder, she took four steps to the ground. Good, solid, safe, wonderful ground. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He bent down to pull up his pant leg.

“Are you all right?” Erika asked her aunt.

“All but my pride.” Ragni turned so Erika could see the back of her. “How bad is the rip?”

Erika held her fingers several inches apart. “Not bad.”

Ragni glanced over to see Paul staring up at the hole where his foot had gone through. Luckily some shingles and sheeting were all that was broken. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He waved a hand at her, hopefully signifying, “Nothing to worry about.”

But she saw the scrape on his shin. “We have antiseptic in the car.”

“Wasn’t the first scrape I’ve had, and most likely won’t be the last. I’ll go get some tarp to cover that with.” Paul pointed toward the roof. “By the looks of those clouds, we could be in for a storm.”

“Guess we’ll find out where the other leaks are too.”

His tight jaw implied that he was less than pleased.

“I’m glad you didn’t break anything.”

“Other than the roof, you mean?” He dusted off his pant leg and slid it over the top of his boot. “I knew that part was rotten too.” He glared up at the gaping hole.

The fact that he hadn’t sworn made an impression on her. She certainly felt like swearing. A few good old Anglo-Saxon phrases might lighten the guilt she felt. If she’d not gotten caught on the nail… Actually if she’d stayed off the roof like he’d warned—either way she was to blame.

He headed for his truck. “Erika, are you afraid of heights too?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Be right back.”

As soon as the truck headed up the road, Ragni headed into the tent to change her shorts. She could have slid right off that roof and broken an arm or a leg or worse landing on the ground. Then how would Erika have managed?

Since the coming storm was already cooling the air, she opted for jeans and a sleeveless denim shirt. With her feet halfway in the legs, she hollered, “Hey, Erika?”

“Here.”

“Let’s get our bedding into the cabin and this tent down so we don’t have to dry it out. We can sleep in there now that the main area is cleaned up.”

“We just put the tent back up.” Erika’s voice sounded resigned. “What about the motel?”

“We’ll be fine.” Ragni unzipped the entrance and crawled out so she could zip her pants. “Getting stuck up there like that was purely stupid.”

“Yep.”

“You don’t have to agree with me.” She took a fake swing at her niece.

Erika dodged and grabbed one of the air mattresses and sleeping bags, along with her own duffel. “At least the car doesn’t leak.”

They’d just finished dismantling the tent and stuffing it back in its bag when they heard the truck returning. The western clouds had darkened even more in those few minutes, and the wind now tossed the tops of the cottonwood trees.

Paul hauled a rolled-up blue tarp out of the back of his track. “Come on, Erika, you can help hold it down while I nail it.”

Ragni watched from the ground as the two of them climbed the slope of the roof and laid the tarp over the roof peak. Paul pounded in the roofing nails in spite of the wind tugging and billowing the tarp.

“Grab the end of that. You can reach it from the ladder,” he called to Ragni.

Ragni climbed the ladder, clutched the overhang with one hand, and reached for the flapping tarp with the other. The first drops of rain hit as Paul nailed off the end, and they all headed into the house.

The purple and black clouds didn’t bother with sprinkles but cut loose at once with a downpour. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning forked the western sky. They stood in the doorway, enjoying
the cool breeze and watching the huge drops splattering and forming puddles before the thirsty earth could suck them in.

“Oh, the truck windows are open.” Paul dashed out to remedy the situation, Ragni right behind him, only heading for her car. She rolled up the windows but stopped on her way back to the house as Paul returned to shelter.

“It’s warm.” She lifted her face to the sky, opened her mouth, and drank the rain. “Come on out.” But when they laughed and shook their heads, she raised her arms, hearing, feeling the beat crescendo, the steady thrum of the rain, beating in time with her heart. Slowly she waved her arms and moved her feet, her hips swaying, dancing to a song only she could hear. One of the smaller branches broke and went spinning by.

“Stay away from those big trees,” Paul yelled over the roar.

“I will.” She’d heard stories of lightning strikes, but for the moment, the delicious rain sluiced over her body and kept her dancing. Thunder rumbled in contrabass, lightning flickered a cappella. The rain filled her eyes so she couldn’t see, but her nerve endings vibrated like a tuning fork, alive to every sensation. When she finally headed for the house, water was running off the end of her shirt and had plastered her hair to her head. She palmed it out of her eyes, laughing in delight. “You guys missed out. That was the best shower I’ve had in years. Susan and I used to play in the rain out in our backyard. We’d splash in the puddles and do slippery slides in the mud. How come no one plays in the rain anymore?”

Erika handed her a towel. “Cause you get wet.”

Ragni dried her face and started on her hair. She glanced up to see Paul leaning against the counter, arms loosely folded over his
chest, ankles crossed—but his position was anything but hostile. His eyes said it all, laughing, the corners crinkled. She caught her breath at the desire to walk right into his arms, lay her cheek on his chest, and listen to his heart thud against her skin. She was sure the towel sizzled steam from the heat of her face. What was the matter with her? She started to shiver.

“Shame we don’t have that stove finished. We could make a pot of coffee.” Insert foot in mouth. If she’d not been trying to clean out the chimney, they wouldn’t have a chorus of pings from rain dripping into the pots that Erika and Paul had placed around the room.

Paul glanced at the hole in the chimney where the stovepipe should be. “I could move the camp stove over to the other door and start it up.”

“I can make the coffee while you go get some dry clothes on,” Erika volunteered.

“You sound like your mother.”

“Sometimes even she’s right.”

Ragni grabbed her duffel and headed for the other room, wishing they’d gotten it cleaned before now. But asking Paul to either hide his eyes or step outside was unthinkable. She could hear them talking while she dried off, but when she closed her eyes to pull a dry T-shirt over her head, a huge painting in deep purples and reds, in layers and living swirls, flashed on the backs of her eyelids.
The storm, I’ll paint the storm.
She could taste the flowing water, smell the clean fragrance, feel the wind tugging at her hair, her shirt. Her fingers curved as if holding a brush, and her soul ached to paint what she saw. She sucked in a breath and swallowed the desire.
I’m not an abstract painter
—
I do flowers and scenes. I’m much more a realist.
But the painting only swirled
around her mind, crying out for brush and palette knife, for layers of paint that would give depth and movement.
I have to paint!
The thought screamed through her mind with more force than the thunder that shook the house or the lightning that white-blued the world outside.
I want to paint. Ragnilda digging by her rosebush, Erika with Sparky, the buttes, the cows at the water hole.
She slid her feet into her sandals and wandered back into the living room, still drying her hair.

“How long should that perk?” Erika asked.

“My mother still says that coffee from a percolator is far superior to that from drip coffee makers.” Paul looked down into the glass top. “Its not ready yet.”

“Nothing beats having the coffee ready when I make my first foray into the kitchen in the morning. Percolators can’t do that.” Ragni finger-combed her damp hair back and held it with a banana clip. “And I do the unthinkable for a Norwegian—I take cream in my coffee.” She bent down and rummaged in the ice chest for the carton of cream. “My father has never gotten over the shock of his daughter wanting cream.”

“Or his granddaughter drinking espresso.” Erika pulled coffee mugs out of the thoroughly scrubbed cupboard and set them on the counter.

Ragni’s gaze roved to the corner where the painting supplies were stashed. If only she’d listened to Erika and bought larger canvases. At least she’d given in on the one that was twenty by thirty. While it wasn’t the size of the one in her head, it would have to do. The huge one would have to be made and stretched by hand, something she’d not done for a long time. Would her fingers remember how to use ordinary tools after working on the computer for so long?

“Ragni, earth to Ragni?” Erika snapped her fingers to catch Ragni’s attention. “Is it ready yet?”

“Oh, yeah.” She checked the merrily perking coffeepot. “Looks strong enough now.”

“Sure smells good,” Paul said. “This house needs the aroma of freshly brewed coffee in it again. I remember coming over here to visit with Einer—he could tell stories like nobody else. And he always had the coffeepot on the back of that stove. He’d check to make sure there was still coffee in the pot and pull it forward to heat. Sometimes it was pure sludge. He and my dad would start swapping tales, trying to outdo each other, but no one could top Einer.” Paul smiled at the memories.

“Did he tell you anything about when he was a kid?” Ragni took the cup Erika handed her.
I want to paint. I have to paint. I don’t have time to paint. This is pure craziness.

Before Paul could answer, Erika planted herself in front of Ragni, hands on hips. “Okay, what’s up?”

“You know when I was dressing in there?” Erika nodded. “Well, I saw this huge painting, and I want to paint it, but how can I get all this stuff done if I spend all my time painting?” Ragni described the picture in vague terms, but her inner eye still saw the whole thing.

“Seems to me that when a person is on vacation, she ought to be able to play some, not work all the time.” Paul took another sip of his coffee.