Sophia pointed at a smudge underlined by red on the horizon. “What is that?”
“Prairie fire.”
Unbroken dry grass burned with frightening speed. “What ignites it?”
“Dunno. Lightning, Indians. We see them a couple times a week hereabouts. Should stop once we get good snow cover.”
Lt. Higgins had led her a considerable distance, far beyond a courtesy jaunt. Should she be concerned? All her life, her father’s reputation had ensured her safety among soldiers. But no longer. Sophia touched her pocket where her pistol rested. She ought to conduct herself in a more circumspect manner.
A dreary thought.
“We shall need to turn back soon,” she said. “I must return to the Agency before dark.”
“I was hoping to show you Fort Randall.” A look of disappointment spread over his face. “All right. Let’s go up on the ridge, then, before heading back.”
Sophia led the way on the plodding mare. The view was more than worth the limited pleasure of the officer’s company. From that height, the immense prairie spread to all compass points. Golden-brown grass waved in the westerly wind. Who could see such a vista without acknowledging the presence of a gracious and creative God? She vowed once again to try harder to please Him.
Sophia gave the sun a deliberate glance, then reined the mare eastward.
“Perhaps we can ride again another day.” Lt. Higgins tipped his head, leading into his true purpose. “We’re having a Christmas ball at the fort. I’d be pleased to escort you.”
It was not the most awkward invitation she had received, but it was certainly far from polished.
“I am so sorry, but the Agency is planning a celebration at the church.” Or they would be, as soon as Sophia returned. “For the children. You are welcome to attend, you and the entire post.”
They rode back along the same path, sending long shadows ahead of them. A hawk spiraled above, searching for supper. Sophia’s stomach growled in agreement.
She tightened her knees, leaned forward, and whispered encouragement, but old Pumpkin had no intention of moving any faster than a plod. They arrived at the Agency as the moon rose over the trees.
“Lieutenant, it has been a lovely ride.” Sophia gave the mare a pat for effort, then dismounted before the officer could assist her.
“Hope we can go again sometime.” He stepped forward as if looking for a more physical expression of gratefulness.
Sophia slapped the reins into his hand. “I do so enjoy riding, but perhaps a livelier mount next time.”
“Yeah. You have a good seat. I mean, you ride real good.”
“I did my share of falling off as a child. Good evening, Lieutenant.” Sophia pulled off her gloves, washed in the basin, then entered the kitchen.
“Where have you been?” James asked.
“We’ve been worried sick,” Henry said, although fretting had evidently not impaired his appetite, as witnessed by the pile of chicken bones on his plate.
Will’s brown eyes scanned her head to toe, then he returned to his pie. A thought surprised her, that the ride would have been much more enjoyable in his company.
Nettie moved a full plate from the warming oven to the table. “We saved supper for you. Sit down and tell us about your ride.”
“It was inspirational!” Sophia took her place and smiled at them all. “I have the most glorious idea for a Christmas celebration!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Did you see the fog rising off the river?” Sophia asked as she made her entrance for breakfast. “It is quite beautiful.”
It was one of the things Will appreciated about Sophia, her ability to find beauty in the everyday.
The rev, on the other hand, took a darker view. “Nothing good about this weather.” He stomped in, shook the rain off his slicker, and hung it on a hook near the door.
Sophia fingered the shiny black material. “This sheds water well. Is it leather?”
Henry shook his head. “Rubberized fabric.”
She turned to the agent. “Could we—”
“No chance. They’re so expensive, I can’t imagine how Henry could afford one.”
The reverend gave a little snort. “Donated by a widow as payment for her husband’s funeral.”
With a rattle on the roof, the rain changed to sleet.
“School’s off.” James toasted Sophia with his coffee mug.
“But I told the students we would practice our Christmas performance today.”
“Too dangerous.” Will glanced out. He’d have to spread ashes on the path to the outhouse.
Nettie dried her hands on a towel. “Well then, let’s unpack those new boxes.”
“I hope they contain useful items this time.” Sophia followed her into the front room. James and Henry disappeared into their offices.
Will settled back with a second cup of coffee and listened to the sounds coming from the front room. Every box turned Nettie into a kid at Christmas. He heard a thump as the lid he’d loosened earlier was set on the floor.
“Here’s a letter for you,” Nettie said. “Oh my. I’ve never seen the like. It’s sized for an adult, but . . .”
“It looks like a frock a child would wear?” Sophia groaned. “That is dear Annabelle, in a nutshell. We shared a suite at the College. She taught English until marrying a congressman. Since we are blessed with her old wardrobe, she must have ordered new.”
Nettie muttered, “Four, five different types of lace, chenille ball trim, fringe, tucks and pleats, two dozen bows. All in baby-bottom pink.”
In the kitchen, Will suppressed a laugh.
“And soutache trim,” Sophia said. “Although it is not quite the same effect without her jewelry.” Paper rustled. “Ah. This is useful. A list of senators and congressmen, with addresses.”
“Please tell me this isn’t the fashion.” Fabric rustled.
“Here’s another, in butter yellow. How could she teach dressed like an infant ready for christening?”
“Our students were well behaved in the extreme. But our lady principal was sorely vexed, as she had directed the students toward simplicity in dress.”
More swishing of cloth. Will considered going to see what the fuss was about, but his coffee had just cooled to the perfect temperature. And after cutting wood all week, he needed to sit a spell.
“Merciful heavens, look at this needlework. A life-sized doll’s dress. How will she cope as a legislator’s wife?”
“Hosting dinners, navigating the social scene in Washington as well as New York, managing households in two cities?” Sophia paused. “The dress speaks for itself.”
“My word. He should have married you, Sophia!”
Will stopped breathing.
“My thought exactly,” Sophia said, her tone light. “Unfortunately, the congressman made other plans.”
Will’s hands tightened on his cup. That bigwig must be an idiot to pass over Sophia.
Nettie murmured, “You poor dear. Did he break your heart?”
“Certainly not. My heart was never involved. Only my pride, my ambition to be a woman of influence. Which God clearly put to an end by sending me here.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You’ve had a good influence on your students, and on your former roommate, sending her clothes here. Although these light colors will show dirt.” Cloth swished, like a whole collection of petticoats. “Still, you must have been mortified. Did anyone else know you’d set your cap for him?”
“All 370 students, and most of the faculty, teachers, and servants. Everyone counted us a match. I was not alone in my misreading of Montgomery’s intentions.”
“Sophia, no thought of marriage should enter your head unless your heart is involved. All the way.”
“My heart?” Sophia made a short sound, a choked-off laugh.
“Do Russians believe in arranged marriages?”
“Peter the Great put an end to that. Although fathers remain quite involved.”
<
br /> “But your father . . .”
“Being out of the tsar’s favor limited my suitors.” Her voice sounded sad for a moment, then returned to her usual take-charge briskness. “So. If we disassemble these, perhaps the fabric can be used to make underclothes for my students, do you think?”
Will finished his coffee and slipped out the back door. So she wanted to be a woman of influence? Then she’d hitch her star to James. The agent had aspirations for a job with the Indian Office in Washington. Or she’d choose the army officer—influence and travel.
Anyone but a small-town carpenter.
Will pulled on long johns and two flannel shirts. Maybe this afternoon it would warm up enough to work on furniture in the warehouse. He sent up a desperate prayer: Please, God, no more coffins. Especially not for a baby.
Last week they’d buried Julia’s son, Timothy. With the bitter cold and shortage of food, more deaths could be expected. He never got used to it. In fact, the longer he stayed, the more it hurt.
Sophia arrived for breakfast with pink cheeks and a red nose. She scraped a hole in the ice covering the window. “Just a flurry. Will I have many students today?”
“None at all,” James said. “Your students don’t have coats.”
Will set down his fork. The previous teacher had canceled at the first flake and spent the day lounging about the house, smoking cigars and trying to coax him to shirk his job for a card game. “How cold was it in your room?”
“A bit.”
“I’ll work on the stoves today,” Will said.
The Indian Office’s theory was that the stoves in the first-floor bedrooms would heat the upstairs rooms. Like the rest of their ideas, it didn’t work.
“Hmm.” Sophia studied the scene from a different window, almost dancing with excitement. “Well then. If my students will not come to me, I will go to them.”
James sprayed coffee over his shirt. “I don’t have time to haul you—”
“Are there snowshoes?” she asked.
“What for? Not enough snow to cover the grass.” The rev gave her the glare that frightened lesser men. It only made Sophia bolder.
“I’ll hunt up a pair,” Will said. Best be prepared. Those low gray clouds could dump a foot before night.
Nettie got up from her breakfast. “I always wanted to try snowshoeing.”
“Perhaps you could go with me.”
Nettie smiled. “I’ll bring the yarn, do a knitting lesson. Then let’s check on Julia.”
Sophia went to bundle up and returned looking like a princess in her fur coat. “I am sorry to overdress, but I have no other.”
Nettie wrapped up in a knitted scarf and her wool ulster. She ran a hand down the fur. “Oh, it’s as soft as it is beautiful.”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“Is it warm?” Nettie got Sophia’s nod. “Then wear it in her memory and thank God for His provision.” They hurried out into the cloud of snow.
“I wish we had a thermometer,” Nettie said. Their breath puffed white as they hurried across the village. “How cold do you suppose it is?”
“Well below freezing,” Sophia said. The water in her ewer had turned to a solid block. A layer of ice coated her window, which cut down on the drafts. Frost glazed the walls. She could only imagine how uncomfortable the Poncas must be in their similarly built homes.
“Zlata! Your troika is growing almost as big as you.” Sophia unwrapped a scrap of paper holding pieces of pork. All four dogs sat in unison and waited their turn for their treats.
“Will told me you had them trained, but I didn’t believe it. Sophia, you’re amazing.”
“Dogs are easy. Children are more complicated.”
“And men,” Nettie huffed, “are a lost cause. Although food does help.”
The women reached their destination.
“Do we knock or hail?” Sophia wished she had asked Will more about calling customs; his expertise in Ponca culture was unrivaled. A brown dog announced their arrival with all the decorum of a royal butler.
Thomas Jefferson answered the door. It was not much warmer inside. The entire family huddled in blankets around the stove. Were they interrupting? What did the Poncas do during the winter? More questions she should have asked Will.
“Good morning, Mrs.—”
She hesitated. What was this woman’s name? If Thomas Jefferson was her son, did that automatically give her the name of Mrs. Jefferson? Or, since her husband was named Walks in the Mud, did that make her Mrs. Walks in the Mud? The woman did not supply another name, so Sophia applied one to her. “Mrs. Jefferson. I am Sophia Makinoff, the teacher. How are you today?”
The woman patted the baby in her lap and replied in Ponca. She did not seem to know any English.
“She says good morning,” Thomas said. “And asks if you would like soup.”
“No, thank you.” They had been warned by Will about Ponca hospitality. Guests must be fed, even if the family did without. “We are not allowed to eat while we teach.”
In the absence of chairs, the family sat on woven bulrush mats. Removing only her mittens, Nettie squeezed in next to the mother and began the knitting lesson.
“Where is Martha?” Sophia asked.
“She went to play with Susette.” Thomas patted the spot between him and his little brother and she sat.
Walks in the Mud expressed great interest in her coat. The pelts reminded him of the weasels he used to hunt. Sophia told him it was sable, similar to a weasel.
Thomas’s little brother had been afraid of her when he visited the school last summer, but today his fear resolved into wide-eyed curiosity. Sophia opened her copy of Townsend’s translation of Aesop’s Fables. Their only lantern shone a tiny circle on the knitting lesson, so she raised the book to the faint light from the window and read the story of the Lion and the Mouse. An appropriate lesson, Sophia thought, of how someone small and weak could nevertheless become a hero to someone powerful and strong.
The father had a story to share too. Using motions and animal sounds, illustrations drawn on the slate, and Thomas’s emerging interpretation skill, Walks in the Mud told a cautionary tale about a wolf. It reminded her of the Russian tales of cunning wolves. Wolves were always at the door of those who were hungry.
“Next time,” Sophia told Thomas, who had crawled into her lap, “I will bring paper so you can write down your father’s story.”
The little brother raced into the next room and brought back a piece of wood. Close examination showed it was a toy steamboat with ten pegs as crew. Thomas and his brother counted the pegs while singing, “One little, two little, three little boatmen,” to the tune of “Ten Little Indians.”
“How clever. Did you make this?” she asked the father.
“Will help me. Will make song.”
An excellent teaching aid. She would have to thank Will. She had seen him whittling on several occasions, but, to be certain, she had no idea of his purpose.
Thomas held two pegs in one hand, three in another.
The little one said, “Two and three make five.”
Sophia applauded. “Thomas has taught you well. I look forward to having you attend school.”
The children brought out other toys their father and Will had made: rattles for the baby, a horse and wagon complete with a leather harness, and a buffalo, deer, wolf, cow, and chicken that fit together like a puzzle. So creative!
Nettie stood and rubbed her fingers. “We should go, so we have time to check on Julia.”
Thomas’s little brother wiggled out of his father’s lap and gave Sophia a big hug.
“Thank you!” Sophia hugged back. Then, much to her surprise, her eyes filled with tears. Unlike many women, she did not yearn for babies. She did not coo over them, or seek them out at church, or make forays into nurseries. But oh, these little arms around her neck, the soft cheek pressed to hers, that delightful smile . . .
Sophia wiped her eyes. The children of this village b
lessed her so.
“Thank you for letting me visit with your family,” Sophia told the parents. One down and two hundred some to go. She hoped winter would not last long enough to complete their visits.
Lazy flakes pirouetted in the air as Sophia and Nettie hurried across the village. Buffalo Woman answered their knock with a solemn nod and they hurried inside.
A faint odor tinged the air. Sophia seized the wall for support and willed the dizziness to pass. She recognized the smell from her father’s last days: impending death.
Her stomach mastered, she looked around. Where were the buffalo hides and the pouches of kitchen utensils? The house had been stripped of its accoutrements, leaving just a roll of blankets in the corner. Sophia closed her eyes, seeing her room in St. Petersburg, with its draped and canopied bed, parquet floor, tall windows, and crystal chandeliers. Why did some have so much, and others have nothing?
Buffalo Woman sat on the floor, pulled back the blanket, and unveiled the frail shell of what had been Julia. Her thick, shiny braids and clear complexion had been replaced by grizzled patches of hair and wrinkled-paper skin. All energy and humor were gone from her eyes. And worst of all, her arms had gone from being full of a lively toddler to being empty.
Nettie gasped and sank to the floor beside the widow. Buffalo Woman propped Julia up and put a cup of what appeared to be tea to her mouth. The patient closed her lips and turned her head. Buffalo Woman blinked away tears. She set the cup aside with a shake of her head.
Poor Julia had lost her husband in the Brulé raid in June, soon after Sophia arrived. Then last week Timothy, her only child, had died. Sophia could not be certain, as no doctor attended her, but she suspected malnutrition played a part in the baby’s death.
Nettie took a turn supporting Julia. Buffalo Woman held a cedar branch in the fire until it smoked, then passed it over her patient and sang softly, looking ever so much like an orthodox priest waving incense.
Through Rushing Water Page 15
