by Sara Dahmen
“Well, what does that make me otherwise? Already a spinster at eighteen?” The complaint is out before I can stop it, and I bite my tongue afterward. It does no good to moan about my lot in life, and truly I have no men who seemed interested me in Chicago—nor on this wagon trip west—but the knowledge that no man pays me mind is disheartening. Perhaps Mother was overly kind when she would say I had a smooth face.
“I suppose we could let you marry, eventually,” Tom considers aloud.
Al nods thoughtfully. “Once we settle down and are able to meet most of the men.”
Their seriousness makes me pause. Surely, they are giving me trouble to make me rise to argue. I try not to take the bait, but it’s no use.
“Of course, you’d be the ones to manage who I marry.”
They turn to me together, one pair of eyes wide and the other narrowed.
“Of course,” Al echoes. “What else do brothers do for their sisters?”
“It’s Father’s job to worry on that,” I say. Tom shakes his head.
“Maybe he gives permission, but we can be sure to control who courts you, Marie.”
I scoff, and move toward the dishpan. “Well, thankfully your job at protecting me from suitors does not overtax you.”
Tom actually chuckles, and Al grins.
I turn from the sudsy water and stare. “What’s so damn funny?”
“Oh, Marie! Pfft! If you only knew! There were three fellows in Chicago and at least five here on the wagon train who have wanted to court you.” Tom’s voice is almost merry.
Surprise yanks at my gut, and I round on them.
“What is this? You’re teasing awful.” It does not do to explain to my brothers how much it hurts when I am not noticed by any of the available young men. Their gaze always slides over me, as if I’m unworthy. If only they knew how lusty my dreams can be. If only they stopped to speak to me! And in Chicago? I was lucky to get more than a polite greeting even from the other Polish boys in our neighborhood.
“Oh, yeah, there’s lots of men asking about, so. At least five here on the trip west. Maybe six?” Al glances at Tom. “But one was quite old. Forty, was he?”
“At least. And then there was the one looking for a wife to manage his five children.”
Al raises his fingers, closing two. “And there was the one younger than me wanting a bride to prove his manhood. And the bald one who wanted a wife before he reached his destination as he’d heard women were scarce where he was heading.”
“And don’t forget the pretty one.”
“You two must have been dreaming up this little tease all day yesterday. Very nice. It’s not nearly as funny as you thought.” The whole discussion makes me grumpy.
“We’re telling the truth, Marie,” Al says earnestly, and his tone takes me aback.
“These men? They ask you to court me?” The dynamics of the male realm are beyond me, but I would think anyone who is truly interested in marrying me will approach Father.
Tom twists his thick mouth into a smirk, but he is not unkind. “Pah! Of course they do. We’re the brothers. Easier to ask. Until they realize neither of us are going to approve of them. Lou did the same, back before the war. Keeps Father from having to tell everyone to stay away.”
“But …” This is a morning of revelations, it seems. They cannot be serious, though there can be no other reason for their confession. “But … why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should you tell the men here to stay away from me? Or the ones back in Chicago, whoever they were? What if I want to get married?”
“You don’t want to marry any of them,” Tom says dismissively, and gets to his feet.
“Isn’t that for me to decide?” The men they list certainly don’t sound like solid matches I might desire, but to have the choice taken from the start is what sets my blood to boil.
Tom sighs. “We’re getting to Flats Town in a matter of days. I’m sure there will be men there who will marry you. Just don’t tell them how horrible you are at cooking—ha!”
“Oh, I see it, then!” I snap a dishtowel angrily in his direction, barely missing his back as he moves off toward the oxen. “You just wanted to keep me around until you married, never mind I might want a beau of my own!”
Tom does not bother to answer my accusations. He walks away, as stoic as ever, but Al comes up and slides his plate on top of Father’s dirty one.
“It’s not that at all, Marie,” he says quietly. “It’s that none of them were truly good enough for you.”
He follows Tom off to the wagon, and I wipe my hands down my apron front, and a long line of water stripes the fabric along the seam. In my pocket a small round of tin rolls. A piece of solder must have dropped in this morning. Soon, I’ll have my last lesson from Al. Disappointment and uncertainty shatters into me. Will my brothers tease the same in Flats Town? Will I miss my tin lesson? I don’t know if I want to find out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
13 July 1865
The morning fills with mist again. It is unearthly and ethereal and effortless, floating around Al and me as we crouch by the fire. I feel hidden and ensconced in the cool dampness of it.
The tin kettle needs a new spout. The current one is bent and crooked from a tumble out of the kitchen box. Al uncovered the wide wood container of tin scraps last night while Father slept, and pulled out a piece large enough to cut the cone for this morning.
“It’s not really fair,” he tells me. “You’re trying to learn without the benefit of a shop—without all the right tools and patterns. But I’ll take off the solder from the old spout if you want to cut out the shape.”
He’s etched out the pattern on the tin, and I can barely make it out. It is a line of silver in the greyer metal. The spidery, flowery, blooms of hot-dipped tin over the surface of the steel sheet glimmer and roll. I hesitate. The yearning to make it perfect swings in my chest, but causes me to tremble and shake instead of holding a steady hand as I would wish. Pressing my mouth tight, and taking a deep breath, I start to cut.
“Do the excess first,” Al murmurs, his eyes on the kettle. The bubble of solder drags out of the seam that he’s heating.
The straight snips are unwieldy, but I’ve grown used to them. I prefer the many different pliers in Al’s leather tinker kit, but for this I must use the larger tools. The straight part of the pattern slices off in buttery softness, shearing away cleanly. I pause at the curved bottom, worrying again. I’ve managed the knack of pushing into the tin so I do not create any unnecessary burrs, but I know I’ve the wrong snip to do a good job of cutting the rounded base.
“Al. You should do this part.”
He shakes his head, still concentrating on removing the old spout. “You can figure it out. Keep the cuts short and small and tight.”
His confidence in me feels ill-placed. Doesn’t he realize I’m going to make a mistake? That I’ve a knack for wrecking work? That I’ll ruin it? The edge of the tin bites into my finger, cutting into the thick flesh at the base of my palm’s side, but pausing while I cut will certainly make for a rough piece of tin if I lose my place.
I finish, feeling triumphant, and then hold up the metal for Al to inspect. He peers at it. The milky white of the morning light makes everything feel close and warped. We are suspended in a land of cloud, and my sense of accomplishment is muted, too.
“That’s very nice, Marie. Now comes the hardest part.”
“Why?”
“We’ve got to form it, and I don’t have a way to get the blowhorn or needlecase stake out. Father’s sleeping on top of the trunk.”
“Well, we have to fix it now. You can’t make coffee in that.” I point at the deconstructed pot. The solder has started to pop apart down the main seam where Al has roasted the metal to break off the spout. The coffee kettle looks completely wrecked, though I know it isn’t.
“Why don’t we find a stick? There should be some twigs somewhere around here,” he offers.
“You’ll be scratching the cyna tin.”
We both jump and jerk around. Father materializes, a grey, looming, shadow through the morning fog. In his hand is the necessary tool, the long skinny end of the needlecase stake sticking out sideways from his fist. His face is unreadable, and he wordlessly hands it over to Al, who grabs the heft of it absently. We stare in unison at Father, who turns around immediately and disappears back into the wagon, somehow as soundlessly as he had climbed out. He rummages around, the scrape and scratch of boxes catching and protesting as he does.
Al and I stare at each other. How long has Father listened to us? All morning? Every day we worked the metal?
Al stabs the end of the stake into the tough ground, pushing at the center so he doesn’t warp the slender ends. Once it is deep and immobile, he shows me how to curl the sheet slowly so I do not create a bend that hardens the metal. It is careful work. By the time I finish, the mist is starting to clear, and Father appears once more, carrying a worn gunny sack.
My heart stops. The burring machine. He’ll see it!
Palming the iron deftly, Father peels the fabric back, revealing the black gleam of the machine, and wonderment at the perfection of its gears enthralls me once more, for all I know it’s broken. My instinct is to reach and caress it, to see if I dreamed the damage, but I curl my fingers around the band of my sleeve.
“You be needing a burr once you are soldering the edge,” he nods toward me, focusing first on the tin in my hand, and then meeting my eyes directly. “Go ahead.”
Al, still tongue-tied, hands me the box of rosin pieces while I hold a lap seam together to flux it. We’ve already put a small clay bowl of tin into the fire, and it is curdled and molten. I spoon in the tin, watching it run downward and drip into the flames. A single bead of it is caught at the edge and I shake it slightly, satisfied when it plops and fizzles off.
“Very nice, Marya.” Father’s voice is low, affection apparent as he uses my Polish name. Turning, I watch him carefully unwind the rest of the burlap, and the burring machine is completely revealed in all its expensive glory. The round curving slope of its handle, and the tight click of the gearbox is slickly glossy. None of this beauty hides the bent handle and jumpy gear box.
“What is this?” he exclaims, and though he’s obviously, immediately, distraught, he still has the presence of mind to keep his voice quiet. His outburst is a rasping choke.
Al jumps up. “What?” He freezes as he stares over Father’s shoulder. “It’s ruined!”
Misery collides with guilt in my head and I close my eyes, willing the scene to be different. If I’d not been so clumsy, or carelessly curious, the machine would be whole! What a horrible excuse for a woman I am! I can’t cook or bake. I can’t do my family’s trade …
“Marie—look at this!” Al motions, but I’m stuck, my bottom sewn to the earth. I don’t want to see it again. I don’t want to look at what I’ve done.
“Marie—”
“You are knowing of this, corka daughter?” Father fires at me. My silence is palpable and tactile; I’d usually be the first to speak of such a worrisome issue. The dagger in his words makes me want to cry, but instead I push my palms into my eyes and keep my lips together.
“Damn it, Marie! It’s our one machine!” Al says, stating the obvious and sounding panicked. “Did you … how did you break it?”
“I didn’t mean to.” The admission scorches my mouth as I give in, unable to lie, unable to think. There’s no fix to this, no way to take it back, and no point in giving any false story. Why? Why did Father bother to bring out the machine right now? He could have left it there, safely packed, until we arrive in Flats Town. He’d believe, maybe, that it happened on the journey …
“You are breaking this machine, and are not thinking to tell us?”
“Pierdolić! Fuck! Tom will—”
“That is enough bad words,” Father cuts into Al’s frenzy, and the pause hanging between us is so heavy I must look up. When I do, I wish I hadn’t. Both of them stare at me, rampaging anger, disbelief, and hurt flickering between them and blasting into my body. I sink my head down again, but I cannot ignore the weight of the iron as Father places it on my toes slowly. It presses on them even through my sturdy leather boots and the gears inch into the bones of my feet.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say. “I didn’t mean to drop it.”
“You dropped it?”
“You are thinking only now to be telling us?”
I nod, resignation pouring through me in a cascade. “I was … I was too afraid.”
“Too stubborn, you mean,” Al mutters.
“I’m not!”
“You are!”
“You are dropping this machine. When?”
I stare up at Father’s deep brown eyes, and look past the heavy lines of his mouth, and the creases of his forehead. Honesty cancels desperation, and I sigh.
“The first week of the trip,” I admit. “I was … I wanted a chance to touch it. I didn’t think I’d ever get to use it, and …”
“You dropped it,” Al finishes, looking forlornly at the machine, which is still a mystery to all my brothers, the workings of it a puzzle half the time.
“The wagon hit a rut, and I was just putting it back, and—”
“You should be telling us this,” Father shakes his head. “You should not be hiding such a story.”
That he’s right makes me feel all the worse.
Al runs a finger along the iron, and then plops glumly next to me. “So it’s a waste.”
“Oh Father—I’m so sorry! I’m—”
“It is done, Marie,” he says shortly. “I am not knowing what to tell you. I am being very disappointed in you. This is being a horrible thing you did.”
“I know. I know!”
“It is being so much lost. I cannot easily be buying a new one. The West—”
“I know!”
Father stands, and his heavy bulk, and the wide, fleshy shoulders slump. “I am not able to be speaking to you, Marie. Not now.”
He walks back to the wagon, the machine hanging from his hand like a piece of old used iron instead of the wonder it is. The horror of what I’ve done eats me alive inside, and Al’s silence is almost as painful as Father’s reprimand.
Finally, Al sighs. “Well, we still need to fix the spout, I guess. I’ll do it.”
So I’m found out, and watch with disappointment of my own and despair as Al does the work I’d hoped to do.
I knew eventually it would happen, but to have my mistake discovered burns even more than the slices on my fingers. The shame of it near paralyzes me. I don’t believe I will ever touch the trade again with confidence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
15 July 1865
The clattering of the wagons, and the hustle and shout of many men combine with sidestepping horses and plodding oxen. Chaos swirls around us as we peel through the line of bodies and animals when we jumble into Flats Town. Most of the wagon train will camp on high ground on the northeast end of the town. Franks told Al that it is an old buffalo jump, where the Sioux would run the bison off to their deaths. For the wagons, it is one of the safest vantage points from all directions to make a long two or three-night camp, and is, to the best of my figuring, the reason Flats Town exists in the first place.
There is an overwhelming scent of wood. The air pulses with sawdust. It lies finely across every surface. Maybe I have traded the dust of the prairie for the dust of the trees. Everywhere there is construction and bashing activity. Father is certainly correct about one thing: this is a town that is determined to grow.
Father says he will return once he finds Walter Salomon, and has taken Tom with him. Al is with the oxen. My job is to stay inside the wagon to guard our things against the press and rumbling wheels. But no matter my duty, I still wish to be outside and see more of Flats Town. I wish to see what the women are wearing, to get a peek of the main street.
I’m trying to keep my willfulne
ss in check. It is the least I can do so Father will forgive me for bashing in the burring machine. My anxieties gnaw at me, though, and I remind myself how we survived the entire trip without anyone getting eaten by a wild animal, or even sustaining an injury. There wasn’t an Indian raid. If we can manage all that, perhaps we have luck enough to survive and be successful. Will I find satisfying work? Happiness? A home? A place to call mine?
Maybe I will find friends, and Father will continue to be happy even though he misses Mother, and the boys will get their women and build their shops. These hopes whirl within me, a maelstrom of uncertainty and worry.
“Marie.” Al’s head, downy and bright, sticks around the corner of the fabric flap. “Father’s on his way.”
Clambering down from the back of the box, I instinctively draw near Al as we wait. Father seems misty and soft-edged within the pillows of dust. He is not alone. Tom strides too, a wide wall of prideful thickness, and beside them is another. Walter Salomon is older than Father, his hair and beard a sooty, snowy, white, and he is even taller than Tom. His shoulders, arms, and torso are thick and round, and his black eyes glitter.
“Welcome to Flats Town,” he says, surveying us carefully. He looks like a giant, and his words trip over themselves. Like Father, Walter Salomon did not learn to disguise his accent, though his English seems pure.
We wait, thinking there will be more to this abbreviated speech, but he seems disinclined to be talkative.
Tom steps forward. “Dziękuję Ci. Thank you for your welcome. This is my youngest brother, Wojciech, and our sister Marya.” I stare at Tom. He notices, and gives a grimace. The formalness feels as awkward as it sounds. Why bother with our official Polish names? Isn’t the west supposed to be American and new?
Walter nods at us but does not rejoin.
Father jumps into the stretched silence, and rubs his hands together, the old energy roaring through his wiry strength.
“Well then, we can be going. Walter says he was putting a stove in for the winter. When we are hooking up ours, we will be cozy.”
