Tinsmith 1865

by Sara Dahmen

  “We need to make money,” Al puts in a word, though he sounds uncomfortable. “And … we like doing what we please, Father, without all the planning. We’re not your young boys anymore.”

  I take the other kettle from Jimmy’s inert hand, our fingers brushing. He gives me one of his grins, but it is distracted, and he moves closer to the conversation while I am left with the stew. Damn. I hope I don’t ruin it.

  “If Carrington is to be going to Fort Laramie, and if the Army is being looking for volunteers, you still are having no need to go,” Father insists, his tone harried. “You are all each a good tradesman. You should not be wasting such skill. Craftsmen should to stay in the towns, to be creating. Officers at the Fort Randall won’t be wishing to be losing local metal workers to some crazy march out west and beyond. You are not even knowing where you will be sent!”

  “So then, this is true.” Walter finally speaks. “The talk is they plan to establish more forts in Indian Territory. And while I am sure they will need some sort of rudimentary crafting, it’s not like they need artisans to do it.”

  “Pfft. They’ll want us,” Tom says confidently, nodding at Thaddeus, who nods back. “Not only are we tradesmen, but I at least have some fighting experience.”

  “You’re being głupi foolish,” Father complains. “For what? Stay here, where it is being safe and you’ll be making a good living.”

  “Not really. Not until we get ahead. It’s not working, Father. I’ll come back and pay off the debt. Marry. In the meantime, you can take care of the new materials when the tin order comes in, and Marie can do any tinkering repairs.” Tom’s reasoning stops the conversation once more. I feel all the eyes in the room settle into my shoulder blades. They twitch under the scrutiny. What does Tom mean by this announcement? It goes against the grain of everything he’s said since he discovered the broken machine.

  I am afraid to turn around. I have not had a single moment to practice since we’ve arrived in Flats Town. There are so many preparations for winter from candle making to spinning, and I thought Al kept most of our teaching moments quiet.

  There is a thick clearing of throats, and then Walter speaks calmly.

  “So, then, Marie knows something of the trade?”

  “Both the tin and the copper,” Father says, and I turn to look at him directly. He stares at me, a softness to his eyes and to his voice. Is he actually proud of me?

  “I taught her most of it,” Al says, unwilling to be left out of his place. “She’s even used the machines.”

  “Is she any good?” This is Thaddeus, incredulous and skeptical.

  “I haven’t had nearly as much time to practice as I’d like,” I shoot at him, lifting my chin.

  He raises a hand in defense against my zeal. “It is just not common—anywhere—for a woman to … choose to be a smith.”

  “I haven’t chosen anything. There’s no choice.” I wave my hand at the meal bubbling over the fire and shrug.

  “I’d like to see how you do,” Jimmy inserts. He beams at me, and a smile traces itself across my face and a warmth flutters in my chest. I nod once and turn back to the stew. So far, it still looks edible. I focus on that, and hope the speculation about my crafting slips away.

  There is another fat pause in the room, then Al pipes up.

  “If Tom and Thaddeus are going to help the Army build a new fort, I want to go too.”

  “You’re being too young,” Father dismisses.

  “I’m sixteen!”

  “Who will be helping me and Marie around the shop? I cannot be letting all of you go.”

  I feel Al’s displeasure pour out of his energetic bounce, which is only magnified when Jimmy adds his voice.

  “I would also like to go.”

  “What have you to prove?” Walter sighs. “So then, besides, you too are young as well.”

  “I’m almost eighteen.” The admission is embarrassed, and I am surprised. He is younger than me. I am nearly nineteen. It is not so strange a match, though. Then I feel myself blush darker while I bend over the food.

  I’m speculating on a future with Jimmy!

  Walter sighs loudly, and my heart sinks as fast as it has risen. “I have no hold over you in your adulthood, Jimmy, though I’d say you shouldn’t. We’ve put in enough time to train you. I’d not like to see all the years go to waste.”

  “They won’t. I’ll use the trade.”

  “I do not be thinking you all must be going,” Father says again, as if making the decision for Walter and Jimmy and Al altogether. “There is being no need.”

  No one answers, and I look down at the soup again. It looks done. I hope it’s done. Does he add seasoning? I can’t remember, and have no notion of what would taste best. Seasoning is something every good Polish woman should understand, but I’m at a loss. As I stare at the chunks of potato and venison, parsnips and onions bobbling like hopeful boats, there is a presence at my back. Jimmy’s eyes smile at me once more, a laugh and twinkle in the green.

  “We should add something. Thyme or some oregano for the meat.” He reaches above me to take a sprig from the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling upside down over the hearth. The action inadvertently brings him closer, and I feel his chest brush my shoulder. I blush again, and am thankful the fire glow hides it.

  He brings down the seasonings and adds them, breaking them up in his hands. Burn marks—fresh and pink—scamper along the outside planes of his palm with the whiter lines of old scars from the forge along his forearms. I think of my own slim scars, still healing to white from tin edges. Jimmy and I seem more alike each day. At least he does not think it odd that I’ve tinkered.

  “How does that smell, then?” he asks, and I lean over the hearth to take in a whiff of the dinner.

  “It’s delightful.”

  “Yes. Delightful.” Is he teasing? Yes, delightful. I realize he is gazing at me instead of the meal. How has he been so quickly captivated? It is not as though I have many charms to recommend me. His attraction washes over me, drenching me with earnestness, and I want to both draw away and lean into it. Should I feel flustered? Should I feel more certain of my own response? Believing he might truly like me blooms fresh and buoyant in my stomach. I don’t know if I care about him romantically; I just know I’d prefer to be wanted the way Father wanted Mother.

  In a strange, unexpected flash, I remember walking around the corner of the wagon once, and seeing Tom pressed against one of the unmarried girls, her skirt high above her hips. I do not know why this memory floods me now, but as Jimmy’s eyes run over me, I wonder if such a passionate embrace is in my future.

  “Jimmy! Stop ogling Marie and serve us the damn food,” Thaddeus thunders from the table, and we jump in unison. The note of anger in the big man’s voice cuts hard.

  Jimmy takes over the heavy pot of stew for the table, and I pull out the three-day bread and break it out across the men. When I finally sit, Walter raises his glass.

  “It is not just Stanisław who will be changing things around in his shop, then, it seems.” He juts his chin toward Tom, who nods back gravely. It seems it is already understood that he will join the militia and march toward Fort Laramie and Indian Territory. “It is my Tadeusz who bears congratulations. He is now the master smith.”

  Thaddeus sets down his beer suddenly. He looks winded and wary at once.

  “Ojciec. Father. You are the master smith of this house.”

  “Not anymore, mój syn my son,” Walter says, and while there is fondness in his voice, I see he slides his glance away from Thaddeus. “So then, I have decided to retire.”

  “Just like that?” Thaddeus’ voice is generally louder than most, but now it booms, mellifluous as one of the brass bells we wish we could forge. “Today, you’ve decided you’re through? You’re going to stop working the bellows, and leave the work to me?”

  “You do nearly all of it anyway,” Walter says, and then lifts his glass higher, as if trying to close the argument. I cannot
help but stare first at Walter, then at Thaddeus. He is winded, breathless, and, unsurprisingly, very angry. My brothers, who have come to know Thaddeus well over the many weeks, look between father and son, their glasses stuck at various heights. Father recovers from the uncomfortable moment first.

  “That is quite … timely … Wladisław,” he observes, and clinks his mug with his friend. The two older men drink deeply, and each of my brothers takes a sip as well. Only Jimmy and Thaddeus remain motionless until the bigger smith turns, his long, large torso contorting on the bench to do it.

  “I suppose that means you are no longer the apprentice. Congratulations, Jimmy.”

  Thaddeus does not drink in celebration yet, though Jimmy himself slowly raises his beer in a small salute to Thad and takes a moderate sip.

  The silence is thick and demanding. I wonder truly if my brother means to go further west to enlist and meet up with Carrington, and I wish he wouldn’t. We need Tom here to help make wares. What if the Army doesn’t send money for a year or more? What good will his absence be then? Father and Al will have a hard time keeping up with the orders even with my measly help.

  Then again, I have no choice in it, no matter how I’d like to worry or argue. The knowledge of this doesn’t help my mood.

  “So then, the Wells Fargo will be here this spring as soon as the snow clears, early enough, should you want to send further instructions to your bride before you go,” Walter mentions to Tom. “Since they bought out Butterfields Overland, they’re the only ones who come through as the weather allows.”

  “I’ll write Sonja from where we’re sent. Wives usually can come out, so we’ll marry at the fort. Or we’ll send her here, and when I get back we’ll have a wedding. We’ll have the money for it by then. Pah! For doing anything we want.”

  “Weddings indeed,” Jimmy murmurs, and presses his thigh next to mine. I pretend not to feel it, but I smile into my cup.

  “I don’t like it,” Father says sullenly.

  “Can’t stop me. It’s the Army life for me yet, and I’ll be plying our trade as it is, Father, just getting paid by the government to do it,” Tom says loudly, and pours himself and everyone else more beer.

  Suddenly, my older brother is boisterous, as if happy to have a prosperous plan away from Father’s tinkering, though Al carries a pensive light. Jimmy joins in the conversation about what he might expect while serving in the Army, and Walter and Father dive into the stew, tossing low mutters to one another. Jimmy, it seems, has decided to go, too.

  Perhaps Father does not fully understand. By forcing us to journey out here without a moment to adjust, forced to follow the tools and stick under Father’s roof … well, my brothers will take any option if it means they actually have one.

  My own dinner mate sits across from me, stoic and silent as always, but tonight with the gleam of discontentment and frustration.

  “Are you not pleased to become the master now? It is a great honor,” I say, but Thaddeus only glowers.

  “A timely honor. Father is a fool. He has left me no option.” He stabs the rest of the stew, then sets down his fork with undue care, as if he is holding himself in check. His grey eyes meet mine, briefly and with tightness. “The soup sufficed.” It is one of the few times he directs his attention at me, and I nod silently in return. He stands, his height and size making the movement more formidable than perhaps it is meant, but his words are heavy.

  “I’ll check the fires.” The announcement seems unnecessary, and he walks out, leaving anger in his wake. The lively talk falters for a moment, and Jimmy starts to clean up. This is where I can be truly useful, so I pull the dirty plates toward me, catching up crumbles of bread with the cup of my hand. Outside where I empty the slops, the air feels cold and catches my breath. We likely only have a few weeks left before spring should start. I can feel it in the dampness of the breeze.

  “Marie.”

  I look up, surprised Jimmy has followed me out. He has the last of the potato peels in a shallow bowl. In a moment’s breath, he comes next to me, our shoulders and arms brushing as he pours them into the bucket. The pigs snort and grunt at our feet.

  “Marie,” he says again, and his voice is quick and hurried. “If I go—you will wait for me, won’t you?”

  He speaks as though we have an understanding between us, as if somehow our slow flirtation has become something greater. Is this how it goes, then? One day I am nothing but a sister, and the next day a man is asking me to consider him? Is it always so immediate and hasty, with no time to truly speak to one another of romance, of preferences, of future plans? I know in some cases it is so quick, but I had always thought there’d be a sense of deeper affection, or at least, a chance to talk about our dreams.

  “You won’t be gone too long,” I say, hedging. “I will wait for you all to come home. Do you truly wish to go? Now that your position here—”

  “She’s right.”

  We jump. How long has Thaddeus watched us from the inky shadows next to the front forge? He steps closer, invading our space.

  “Does it not change your decision, Jimmy? Don’t you want to stay and work the bellows?”

  “I can be missed, I think, for the sake of our country’s needs, to build forts,” Jimmy lifts his face to catch Thaddeus’ height. “And then I’ll be back.”

  “Lord knows that there will be many orders for arms and horse shoes from Fort Randall come spring. Father won’t—can’t—be expected to take your place if you go on some damnable fool’s march.”

  “I …” Jimmy looks at me, and even in the dark I see the plead in his eyes, caught by the lamplight from inside. He wants me to go in, and gives a subtle flick of his hands. I glance between the two, and duck in, but not before I hear his full rejoinder.

  “I must prove myself a man, Tadeusz. You must understand.”

  The blacksmith’s voice is a low, strained, response, and I cannot make it out. I wish I were able to stay by Jimmy and hear the whole discussion. If I were promised to him, would I be part of each decision? Would I be an equal? It’s what I have always expected in a match, what I know of the marriages of my parents and others in our Chicago Polish community. A woman’s stubbornness usually had some merit, her voice and preferences heard.

  Now, my stubbornness feels oddly out of place.

  When I come back in, I finish the rest of the tidying and my mind wanders over what Tom’s departure will mean. Will I truly take over in the shop? The notion seems silly and unreal. Uncertainty snakes through my chest. Suppose they realize how unworthy I am to be working the shop? My fingers itch to try, anyway.

  My brothers have lapsed into a satisfied, anticipatory slump, and Father and Walter lean toward one another, lost in conversation mostly in the old language. Father’s eyes float and land on Tom and Al, sitting stoically side by side. I wonder how much this notion of the militia eats at him—my father, who craves the whole family together.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  6 May 1866

  “And then remember the one—what was it, that hilt? It was supposed to curve around the back of the hand and then twirl long. Pamiętasz? Do you remember?”

  “Tak, tak, yes, but it was always to be breaking.”

  “So then. We ended up making the traditional kind—long and broad, and Stanisław made the handle look coiled with a round stamped end.”

  “Engraved.”

  “Yes, tak. But then we worked on the sabres.”

  Father and Walter delve deep into their memories, fondly swapping stories about swords. It is Sunday, and the boys leave in two weeks. They plan to arrive at Fort Laramie to enlist, and God knows when they’ll be back. Before they go, Tom is scrambling to finish some tinkering for cash for the journey, and Al is sorting leather jigs for patterns. Sunday is anything but restful today, save the morning’s Mass.

  “You made Szablas? For the szlachta?” Al leans in. “You never told us, Father.”

  Jimmy shifts over to me, where I keep my hands busy
on old darning. Tom’s shirt is the worst of it. That hole from the journey west has only gotten bigger.

  “What’s a Szabla?”

  I glance up at him, and then back down at my lap, feeling dizzy with his bright, earnest eyes.

  “A particular type of sword, usually for the hussar cavalry back in Polonia. Many of the nobility—the szlachta—used them, too. They were very fancy.”

  “Oh yes,” Walter folds his long frame deeper into the sheepskin-lined chair. He and Father have the best positions next to the hearth, and Walter smokes his long pipe thoughtfully. “Likely some of the szlachta used our swords. Stanisław made a very good handle from soft metals. One time even of gold.”

  Thaddeus snorts from his brooding corner, where he is taking out his frustrations by scraping down rust from old pliers, and pretending not to care or listen to the old stories.

  “Did you keep patterns?” Tom wonders.

  Father shakes his head. Unlike Walter, his hands are busy oiling snips.

  “No. The patterns were belonging to our masters. But they were beautiful. The leaves and rosettes on the gold … they were like what Marie is drawing in the margins of the ledger.”

  Seven pairs of eyes swerve to me.

  “It’s a bad habit,” I say.

  “Hah! And cluttered,” Tom agrees.

  “You are having a fair hand, daughter,” Father says mildly.

  It is a fine and generous compliment, and I can feel everyone weigh and consider it. Jimmy’s presence is strong next to me, and I glance up at him. His face is, amazingly, full of pride, and the unexpected joy of his approval shoots through my chest.

  “What I would give to make another sword,” Walter sighs. “A beautiful one.”

  “You still are having a few on the wall,” Father reminds him, but Walter shakes his head.

  “They’re done. It’d be something to be able to take up the iron and create just one more.”

  “Perhaps we will be doing it. One more time.”