Stands a Calder Man (Calder Saga 2)

The wind rustled through the green-growing grass, bowing its tall spring stalks and creating shimmering hues of emerald, jade, and turquoise under a sapphire sky. It seemed a jewel-studded land with wild flowers of ruby red and topaz yellow strewn all around and a horizon that was limitless. At last, the promises of riches that had lured her parents to America’s shores were about to be fulfilled.

With her head lifted high to the shining sun, Lillian Reisner filled her lungs with the freshly scented air. Blind hope had been her traveling companion for such a long distance. To be standing here in the middle of this vastness made her feel as if something wonderful were bursting inside. It was a sensation of freedom beyond expression.

No more buildings crowding in to block out the sun. No more smoke-clouded skies and air that choked the lungs with the stench of sewage and animal waste. No more living on top of neighbors, hearing all their quarrels and crying.

“Listen to the wind, Stefan.” She turned her shining face on the tall, square-jawed man. “I can’t ever remember hearing the wind before.”

“And the birds, too.” His speech was laden with the guttural accent of his native Deutschland. “My ears have so long heard only pigeons that the songs of birds in the meadow I forget. I vas a young man vhen ve left Germany—your papa and me. You vere only a gleam in your papa’s eye.”

It was a story Lillian had been told many times: the long ocean voyage in steerage, her parents’ ardent wish that their first child be born in America where the streets were paved with gold. She was a native citizen, raised in the German ghetto of New York City. Both of her parents had believed in the dream of America all the way up to their deaths within a few months of each other. It hadn’t mattered that the streets weren’t paved with gold. The markets held more food than they had ever seen, lb them, it had remained a land of plenty, untarnished with disillusionment.

Listening to Stefan’s thick accent, Lillian remembered how once she had been so ashamed of the way her parents talked, how intolerant she had been, unable to appreciate the strength and courage it had taken to leave their homeland for a strange, new country with a different culture. To her deep regret, it was a discovery she had made after they were gone.

Now she had made a journey so very much similar to theirs—traveling across this huge continent of America, eager, yet unsure of what she would find waiting for her. This big, open stretch of land was awesome—a long, lonely distance from anywhere. But she wasn’t intimidated by the empty landscape.

Her father and Stefan had shared a dream of owning their own farm in America. She was here with Stefan, taking her father’s place, to make that long-ago dream a reality. Respect and deep affection were in the look she gave the forty-three-year-old man who was her husband. Despite the grayness in his hair, he was iron-strong, yet kind and good.

In her own way she loved him. If the emotion lacked passion, Lillian wasn’t troubled by it. Romantic love was a luxury of the rich who could afford such things. A common woman had to be more practical and pick a man who could provide her food, shelter, and companionship. Lillian was satisfied with her choice.

“You have waited a long time to have land you could call your own.” Lillian watched the pride of possession steal into his eyes, then turned to make a sweeping gesture with her arm. “Here it is, three hundred and twenty acres.”

“That Mr. Vessel, he said he vould show us the best.” He nodded in satisfaction, his stoic features altering their expression not at all, but the look in his eyes was very expressive.

Yesterday they had filed the homestead claim, made arrangements at the bank for a loan with Mr. Wessel’s help, and purchased seed, equipment, and the supplies they needed to start a new life. With the team of draft horses and a used wagon, they had picked up the belongings they’d left at the train station and driven here to their property where they would build their home. It was twenty miles from town and six miles from their closest neighbor, but after traveling so far, they were undaunted by these distances.

“Look at this, Lillian.” Stefan indicated the ground at his feet and nudged the grass aside with the toe of his high-topped leather shoe. When he crouched down for a closer study, Lillian did the same, smoothing her skirt close to her legs so it wouldn’t be in the way. His callused and blunt-fingered hand exposed the tangle of grass stalks that held the soil together. “Ve vill make to grow the vheat dis thick.”

“Yes, we will.” She knew he was seeing it happen in his mind’s eye, the transformation of this sea of grass into an ocean of waving wheat.

His hand closed around a clump of grass and gave a steady pull, muscles straining to break the tenacious grip of the grass’s roots in the soil. That Stefan Reisner succeeded in ripping it out of its earth bed was a clear measure of his physical prowess. He tossed the clump aside and clawed out a handful of dirt. With smiling eyes, he looked at Lillian and offered her the soil. She cupped her hands while he crumbled the chunks into them.

“Our land,” he said simply.

The brown dirt was cool against her palms. She closed her fingers around the dry earth, feeling its roughness and reminding herself that this soil was a source of food for plant life. This was fertility in her hands, the first chain in nature’s cycle.

“On this spot, ve vill build our home,” he said as he pushed to his feet. “First, ve must plow the ground and plant our vheat.”

“We’ll need to plow a space for a garden, too, so we can grow our own vegetables,” Lillian added.

Behind them, one of the horses stamped the ground, rattling the harness chains. Lillian straightened and brushed the dirt from her hands without getting it all. While Stefan walked to the wagon to begin unloading it, she lingered to make another slow study of the rolling grassland sprinkled with wild flowers.

For so long, this land had been unproductive, solely the domain of cattle and the men who tended them, the cowboys. The corners of her mouth were edged with a faint smile by the latter thought. The first one she’d met in the flesh hadn’t turned out to be anything like what she had expected a cowboy to be. She had thought they were wild and rowdy, always ready for a fight, but the one she’d met had been polite and friendly.

She could still remember his dark eyes and the way they looked at her, frankly admiring and alive with interest. He’d always had elbowroom, never confined or crowded. It showed in his manner, the way he carried himself, so loose and at ease with his surroundings, accustomed to the bigness of the sky.

There was a difference in him that came from living his life in the outdoors. His features were browned by the sun, making Stefan appear pale in comparison. He looked proud and vigorous, his shoulders squared, not stooped like Stefan’s. He was strong and rugged, like this land, possessing an earthiness that Stefan didn’t have.

With a mute shake of her head, Lillian realized that it wasn’t fair to compare Stefan with the cowboy. Stefan was easily fifteen years older. Perhaps when he had been in his prime, the differences wouldn’t have been so marked. Besides, it wasn’t wise to begin building up images of that cowboy in her mind.

And it was equally foolish to stand around daydreaming when there was so much work to be done.

Riding fence was a lonely job, but Webb had never minded the loneliness of it, the long days with only his horse, the land, and a big chunk of sky for company.

While the mouse-colored dun horse walked along the fenceline, Webb reached out to check the tautness of the wire wherever it appeared to be slack, and test the posts to make certain they were solidly in the ground. His actions were automatic, leaving his mind free to wander along its own trails.

The horse’s stride made long swishes through tall grass already making its early-summer change from green to yellow. The sound and the color prompted Webb to try to conjure up a picture of this land covered with golden stalks of wheat. It was a tame sight that didn’t seem to belong in this wild, open range.

For the last two months, the grumblings in the bunkhouse had centered on the drylanders, the term being given to the homesteading farmers. They were being called a lot of other things by the cowboys, too—bohunks, nesters, and honyockers. Since spring, these immigrants had been arriving by the trainload. Homesteads were springing up on the plains like weeds, threatening to take over the rich grasslands that had been the ranchers’ domain.