Spring for Susannah by Catherine Richmond

Author:Catherine Richmond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Lord, she’s so different . . . thank You.

The plopping of muddy drips drove Susannah from her sleep. She wiped her face with the corner of the sheet and sat up. Every bucket and cook pot had been assigned a different leak and now sounded discordant notes with each splash. The air hung heavy with dampness. “Now I know why the Chinese use dripping water as a torture method.”

Jesse rolled over to nuzzle her neck. “Ah, but the soft April wind in your hair, the warm sun on your back, the prairie bursting into bloom . . .”

Her melancholy dissolved in the flood of his exuberance. “And you’re sowing magic fairy dust, not seed wheat.”

He pulled on his boots. “Is there a song about that?”

“You compose one while I make pancakes.”

He left the door ajar. A fresh breeze carried the honking of migrating waterfowl. Tough as their meat was this time of year, it would be a welcome change from salt pork. Removing the shotgun from its rack, Susannah settled the butt into her right shoulder and braced her feet. Swinging just ahead of the flock, she squeezed the trigger. A duck dropped into the yard. Jake barked in approval.

Jesse burst from behind the apple tree. “You scared the you-know-what out of me, woman!”

“I’m sorry.” She pointed. “I thought you might like duck for dinner.”

Jesse ran his thumb along her right collarbone and slipped her nightgown off her shoulder. “No bruise. Not even a red mark.

You know how to handle a gun. What else haven’t you told me?”

She brushed the wisps at his collar. “Did I tell you I have scissors?”

“If you barber as well as you shoot, I’d like a shave too.”

“Gladly.”

“But first I have a duck to clean before church.”

“Do you think they’ll come?”

“Nice day like this? I’m sure of it.”

Jesse and Susannah hurried through morning chores and breakfast, then went off to the ridge. The wind and sun had firmed the mud. Tomorrow Jesse would worry about adequate rainfall, but today Susannah would enjoy the easy walk through the pasqueflowers.

Without the coverings of grass and snow, the contours of the prairie were visible.

“This is the edge of a glacier.” Susannah set down her violin and fought the wind to spread a blanket on the bluff.

Jesse rubbed his freshly shaved chin. “What?”

“A glacier pushed down from Canada, like the scraper used to build the railroad bed. It pushed rocks in front of it into this ridge and pulverized the rocks underneath into soil.”

“You can tell all that just by looking?”

“Not me, a geologist named Louis Agassiz. When I received your first letter, I wanted to learn about where you lived. There wasn’t much information. Lewis and Clark and Audubon went up the Missouri River, quite a bit west of here. Mr. Agassiz’s writings and General Sibley’s military account were all I could find about the eastern part of the territory.”

“Here’s your piece of Dakota history: Sibley’s trail.”

Susannah leaned her cheek on Jesse’s shoulder, sighting down his arm to faint marks of wheel ruts from ten years ago.

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