Stands a Calder Man (Calder Saga 2)

“Calder?” The look that had been on Franz Kreuger’s face vanished.

“Yeah, him and his men drove us off. Me and the boys tried to make a fight of it, but I had the wife and the little ones to think about. There wasn’t much I could do.” The man shook his head. “No man’s got a right to own that much land. I told him I just wanted a small place where I could grow food for my family, but he looked at me with those eyes black as the devil’s and told me to get out.”

Franz Kreuger’s attitude changed completely. “Stefan, didn’t you say you needed a good, hard-working man to help you with your farm?”

“Yeah.” Stefan took his lead from his friend. “I cannot pay much vages, but you vould have a place to stay and a little room for your vife to plant a garden.”

“My sons, maybe they could work, too.” The man brightened at the idea.

“We know many people,” Franz stated. “We will tell them about your sons. Always someone is needing help for a short time. If they are good workers, they will be hired.”

“They’re good workers, all right,” the man said as he took the bucket of water from the tow-headed Kreuger boy and offered it to his horses. “I was countin’ on them helpin’ me when we got a place of our own, but I guess that’s not to be.”

“Next year Stefan and I will help you find some good land,” Franz promised. “We must all of us stick together, help each other; then we are all stronger.”

When the horses had drunk their fill, the man handed the bucket back to the boy and turned to Stefan. “Where is that place your daughter described?” Lilli winced, knowing how sensitive her husband had become to their age difference.

Stefan pulled his slightly stooped frame to its full height, his expression cold and forbidding. “She is my vife.”

The man reddened and cast a vaguely stunned glance at Lilli, then quickly dropped it. “Beggin’ your pardon,” he apologized immediately, mumbling his embarrassment over the mistake.

After Stefan had given directions to their place, he said, “You vait at our house. My vife and I vill be home soon. I vill show the place for you to camp.”

The wagon made a tight circle as the family headed down the lane to the road. Lilli was transfixed by the brand on the steer’s flank. Her gaze ran to the family who had seen Webb Calder. A wretching envy tore through her, filling every part of her body until she thought she would burst.

“Come. Let us eat before the food grows cold,” Helga Kreuger urged them.

Slowly Lilli turned to accompany the others into the small shack, no larger than theirs although it accommodated three times as many people. Nothing showed on her face. She, who had always let her thoughts and feelings run free, now kept them contained and secret. Sometimes she wondered if she weren’t becoming more like Stefan every day. It had been so long since either of them had smiled.

After the meal was finished, they set out for home in their wagon. Stefan sat hunched over the reins, swaying with the rocking motion as the wagon jolted over the hard ruts in the road. Lilli was beside him, sitting stiffly erect and resisting the rough motion. Her sightless gaze was fixed on the distant horizon while Stefan watched the trotting horses.

“Mrs. Kreuger’s baby should come before the harvest.” Stefan made a rare attempt at conversation, “That is good.”

“Yes.” Lilli had a cynical moment when she

thought how inconvenient the men would find it if Helga Kreuger went into labor when the threshers arrived.

“This is her second baby since they come here,” he said, drawing a glance from Lilli as she puzzled over his reason for this subject.

“Yes, it is,” she replied.

For the space of several minutes, there was only the clopping of trotting hooves and the creaking of the wagon to fill the silence. Stefan adjusted his grip on the team’s reins.

“Vhen ve go to town again, you go to the doctor and find out vhy you have not had any babies,” he stated tersely.

“Oh, Stefan.” She breathed out his name in irritation and looked anywhere but at him. “It isn’t necessary to father a child to prove to the world—or to Franz Kreuger—that you’re a man.”

An hour ago she had been priding herself on how well she kept her thoughts and feelings to herself, and here they’d just burst through. It didn’t matter that what she had said was true. Her careless remark had hurt Stefan. He was angry with her. She was learning a lot about men, and how sensitive they were about this thing called manliness. Her problem was she had never really thought of Stefan as a man such as Webb Calder. Stefan was her friend, her uncle, her father. She hadn’t realized there was this other side of him.

“Is it vrong for a man to vant a child?” His voice was thick in its angry demand.

“No, it isn’t wrong.” Lilli frowned in helpless frustration, ashamed to discover she did not want Stefan’s child. “But this is not the time to have one—not now when we are barely able to feed ourselves.” She’d said the wrong thing again. But it was true. The additional wheatland had only put them further in debt. They sold more wheat, but more money was spent for plow horses, equipment, hired help, and seed. It seemed they had less and less money, instead of more.

“Stefan, I didn’t mean that you haven’t done everything you could to provide for us.” Lilli attempted to take the sting out of her previous remark. “You have. It’s just that things haven’t worked out quite the way you thought they would.”

“Ve vill have a better harvest this year,” he insisted.

“Of course we will.” They were empty words, issued for his benefit. But Lilli knew the rains had come late this year. The stand of wheat was not nearly at good as last year’s.