The Brushstroke Legacy

by Lauraine Snelling

  Paul hauled a rolled-up blue tarp out of the back of his track. “Come on, Erika, you can help hold it down while I nail it.”

  Ragni watched from the ground as the two of them climbed the slope of the roof and laid the tarp over the roof peak. Paul pounded in the roofing nails in spite of the wind tugging and billowing the tarp.

  “Grab the end of that. You can reach it from the ladder,” he called to Ragni.

  Ragni climbed the ladder, clutched the overhang with one hand, and reached for the flapping tarp with the other. The first drops of rain hit as Paul nailed off the end, and they all headed into the house.

  The purple and black clouds didn’t bother with sprinkles but cut loose at once with a downpour. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning forked the western sky. They stood in the doorway, enjoying the cool breeze and watching the huge drops splattering and forming puddles before the thirsty earth could suck them in.

  “Oh, the truck windows are open.” Paul dashed out to remedy the situation, Ragni right behind him, only heading for her car. She rolled up the windows but stopped on her way back to the house as Paul returned to shelter.

  “It’s warm.” She lifted her face to the sky, opened her mouth, and drank the rain. “Come on out.” But when they laughed and shook their heads, she raised her arms, hearing, feeling the beat crescendo, the steady thrum of the rain, beating in time with her heart. Slowly she waved her arms and moved her feet, her hips swaying, dancing to a song only she could hear. One of the smaller branches broke and went spinning by.

  “Stay away from those big trees,” Paul yelled over the roar.

  “I will.” She’d heard stories of lightning strikes, but for the moment, the delicious rain sluiced over her body and kept her dancing. Thunder rumbled in contrabass, lightning flickered a cappella. The rain filled her eyes so she couldn’t see, but her nerve endings vibrated like a tuning fork, alive to every sensation. When she finally headed for the house, water was running off the end of her shirt and had plastered her hair to her head. She palmed it out of her eyes, laughing in delight. “You guys missed out. That was the best shower I’ve had in years. Susan and I used to play in the rain out in our backyard. We’d splash in the puddles and do slippery slides in the mud. How come no one plays in the rain anymore?”

  Erika handed her a towel. “Cause you get wet.”

  Ragni dried her face and started on her hair. She glanced up to see Paul leaning against the counter, arms loosely folded over his chest, ankles crossed—but his position was anything but hostile. His eyes said it all, laughing, the corners crinkled. She caught her breath at the desire to walk right into his arms, lay her cheek on his chest, and listen to his heart thud against her skin. She was sure the towel sizzled steam from the heat of her face. What was the matter with her? She started to shiver.

  “Shame we don’t have that stove finished. We could make a pot of coffee.” Insert foot in mouth. If she’d not been trying to clean out the chimney, they wouldn’t have a chorus of pings from rain dripping into the pots that Erika and Paul had placed around the room.

  Paul glanced at the hole in the chimney where the stovepipe should be. “I could move the camp stove over to the other door and start it up.”

  “I can make the coffee while you go get some dry clothes on,” Erika volunteered.

  “You sound like your mother.”

  “Sometimes even she’s right.”

  Ragni grabbed her duffel and headed for the other room, wishing they’d gotten it cleaned before now. But asking Paul to either hide his eyes or step outside was unthinkable. She could hear them talking while she dried off, but when she closed her eyes to pull a dry T-shirt over her head, a huge painting in deep purples and reds, in layers and living swirls, flashed on the backs of her eyelids. The storm, I’ll paint the storm. She could taste the flowing water, smell the clean fragrance, feel the wind tugging at her hair, her shirt. Her fingers curved as if holding a brush, and her soul ached to paint what she saw. She sucked in a breath and swallowed the desire. I’m not an abstract painter—I do flowers and scenes. I’m much more a realist. But the painting only swirled around her mind, crying out for brush and palette knife, for layers of paint that would give depth and movement. I have to paint! The thought screamed through her mind with more force than the thunder that shook the house or the lightning that white-blued the world outside. I want to paint. Ragnilda digging by her rosebush, Erika with Sparky, the buttes, the cows at the water hole. She slid her feet into her sandals and wandered back into the living room, still drying her hair.

  “How long should that perk?” Erika asked.

  “My mother still says that coffee from a percolator is far superior to that from drip coffee makers.” Paul looked down into the glass top. “Its not ready yet.”

  “Nothing beats having the coffee ready when I make my first foray into the kitchen in the morning. Percolators can’t do that.” Ragni finger-combed her damp hair back and held it with a banana clip. “And I do the unthinkable for a Norwegian—I take cream in my coffee.” She bent down and rummaged in the ice chest for the carton of cream. “My father has never gotten over the shock of his daughter wanting cream.”

  “Or his granddaughter drinking espresso.” Erika pulled coffee mugs out of the thoroughly scrubbed cupboard and set them on the counter.

  Ragni’s gaze roved to the corner where the painting supplies were stashed. If only she’d listened to Erika and bought larger canvases. At least she’d given in on the one that was twenty by thirty. While it wasn’t the size of the one in her head, it would have to do. The huge one would have to be made and stretched by hand, something she’d not done for a long time. Would her fingers remember how to use ordinary tools after working on the computer for so long?

  “Ragni, earth to Ragni?” Erika snapped her fingers to catch Ragni’s attention. “Is it ready yet?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She checked the merrily perking coffeepot. “Looks strong enough now.”

  “Sure smells good,” Paul said. “This house needs the aroma of freshly brewed coffee in it again. I remember coming over here to visit with Einer—he could tell stories like nobody else. And he always had the coffeepot on the back of that stove. He’d check to make sure there was still coffee in the pot and pull it forward to heat. Sometimes it was pure sludge. He and my dad would start swapping tales, trying to outdo each other, but no one could top Einer.” Paul smiled at the memories.

  “Did he tell you anything about when he was a kid?” Ragni took the cup Erika handed her. I want to paint. I have to paint. I don’t have time to paint. This is pure craziness.

  Before Paul could answer, Erika planted herself in front of Ragni, hands on hips. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “You know when I was dressing in there?” Erika nodded. “Well, I saw this huge painting, and I want to paint it, but how can I get all this stuff done if I spend all my time painting?” Ragni described the picture in vague terms, but her inner eye still saw the whole thing.

  “Seems to me that when a person is on vacation, she ought to be able to play some, not work all the time.” Paul took another sip of his coffee.

  “That’s what I told her,” Erika said.

  “And it appears to me your vacation time is flying by,” he added.

  “It is, and there is so much to do.” Ragni stared at the bags of supplies, the standing easel legs poking out of the plastic. Have I ever felt like this before—that if I don’t paint, I might dissolve, become like those puddles out in the road? That if I don’t paint, I might quit breathing for the air would be gone? She went to stand in the open doorway, to inhale rain-washed air.

  “Does it all have to be done in these two weeks? Once the roof is replaced and the place is weatherproofed again, you can come back.” He cleared his throat. “If you want to, that is. I know this is nothing like the life you lead in the big city.”

  “The light is too poor to see well enough to paint.” It won’t be when the sun comes out again. Use
this time to get set up. Is everyone against me, or is it just me?

  “You’re welcome to come to my house. That big window overlooking the meadow ought to give you plenty of light.”

  But you don’t understand. The only other time I was even close to feeling like this, I painted around the clock. Standing in the doorway, the mist blowing into her face, she remembered.

  The riot of color in a flower garden—she’d taken a zillion pictures and had them blown up, cropped, push-pinned all around her, everywhere she looked was color and form, light and shadow. She drew the outlines on her easel, almost holding her breath at the thrill of it. A big canvas, three feet by five, vertical on the easel. She drew papery poppies, spikes of delphinium, red-hot pokers, and hollyhocks. Clumps of hostas and feathery grasses. A rock green with lichen. A birdhouse weathered silver.

  When she started with the first stroke of phthalo green, she forgot time and the world that existed around her. When it was finished, so was she. She slept for three days.

  That was before I got that promotion. Before I worried so much about time. Before Dad… She’d never again captured that feeling, that joy in creating. Oh, she’d enjoyed working on advertising designs; after all, that’s what paid the bills. And she’d puttered with some landscapes, some never finished because she lost either the time or the inclination.

  Her coffee had gone cold. She made a face and crossed to the coffeepot for a refill.

  “Well, I better get on home,” Paul said, eying the brightening sky. “Erika, you want to come play with Sparky now?”

  “Sure.” She came and stood by Ragni who was back to staring out the south door, watching the patch of blue expand.

  “Mom always said that a patch of blue the size of a Dutchman’s britches meant the sun was coming back out,” Ragni said.

  “Grammy has some strange sayings.”

  “I wonder what Great-grandma would say?”

  “She’d probably say quit mooning around and get your chores done.”

  Ragni sighed. “So why did she hide her paintings?”

  “You found some of her art?” Paul poured water in his cup and rinsed it out.

  “Up there, on the backs of the cupboard walls.” Erika brought the stepstool out and set it in front of the cupboard where the rosemaling had waited all these years for someone to appreciate it.

  Paul climbed up and peered into the cupboard. “My mother’s mother used to do this. She and Nilda Peterson were good friends. My mother did a lot of sewing and gardening, never painting. I’m sure there’s stuff packed away in the attic. Next time you come over we’ll have to look.”

  “Do you know much about my great-great-grandma?” Ragni asked.

  “Not a lot, but there were some of her paintings on the walls when Einer lived here. I’m going to have to ask Mom and Dad if they know anything more. How about dinner on Sunday? I’ll get more of the family together so you can meet them, ask them questions. If things dry out, I should start haying, but Mom has a fit if she catches any of us working on Sunday. You’re welcome to come to church with me, if you like.”

  Erika rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut.

  Ragni studied the man, who so offhandedly planned a family gathering and didn’t miss church to do so. Who also obviously respected what his mother had to say. Was he a mama’s boy? She almost snorted at the thought. Not hardly.

  The blue patch outside doubled and tripled in size, melded with another. “Oh, look. A rainbow.”

  Erika joined her at the doorway. A dazzling arch, colors clear and crystalline, hung against the hills across the valley. Ragni closed her eyes to block out this new scene that screamed, Paint me, paint me!

  “You coming, Erika?” Paul asked.

  Ragni watched them file out the door, then raised her voice. “You got any lanterns over there that I could borrow?”

  “Sure do, we’ll bring ’em when we come back.”

  The truck hadn’t gone two yards away from the cabin before Ragni had the easel upright and was tightening the screws on the legs. Hurry, hurry, before you lose it. The orders drummed in her head like the rain had on the roof. Hurry was right. Why in the world have I been wasting my time arguing about it?

  He never said haying would be one of her chores.

  Nilda stared at the man giving the orders for the day and wondered if she’d heard right. How can I cook and clean if I am driving a wagon of hay?

  “I can’t get anyone else to help until tomorrow, and we need to get it stacked before it gets rained on.”

  “I see.” No, I don’t, I don’t see at all. Is it not enough that I need to weed the garden, and I had hoped to go to work on the floor with the sandstone? Along with cream to churn and… Her day’s list of chores was as long as her right arm.

  “Two days and we should be finished with this cutting.”

  Nilda glanced down at her daughter, who was playing with her fingers, throwing shadows on the floor in her spot of sunlight.

  “She can come too.” Mr. Peterson had yet to say Eloise’s name. “She can ride on the hay wagon.”

  He started to say something else, then snapped, “The cattle have to have feed in the winter.” He turned and stormed out the door.

  Nilda watched him through the kitchen window. She’d not said no. He’d not given her much chance to say anything. Why was he so angry? While she’d questioned inside herself, she’d not even frowned—had she? He was the boss; she worked for him. Of course she would do what he said. But never having driven one horse before, let alone a team, she certainly hoped he would teach her how.

  “Come, little one, we are going to ride on the wagon.” She bound a kerchief over her hair, changed her inside apron to her outside apron, put a couple of cookies in her pocket for Eloise, and headed out. Good thing the rabbit stew was baking in the oven. She would put dumplings on it when they stopped for dinner.

  The flat wagon now had a high rack in front and one in back. It waited by the water tank where both horses were now slobbering water on Hank, who stood at their heads.

  “Hey, there, Eloise, want to pet the horses?” He beckoned her over and lifted her up to stroke the dark neck. “Good horse. Someday you can ride him.”

  Again Nilda shuddered inside at the thought of her little daughter so high up. She looked like a fairy sprite with her flyaway hair and faded red shift. Nilda stared at the wagon. How was she supposed to get up on that bed?

  “Come over here.” Mr. Peterson beckoned from the wagon. “You can climb up the rack and slip under this bar.”

  Nilda nodded, trying to swallow her heart back where it belonged. She was supposed to drive this wagon—piled high with hay. Dear God, be with me. She set her foot on the low bar of the front rack and, bracing one hand on the wagon bed, reached for the higher bar. Then just as he’d said, she swung herself up and under in one almost-smooth motion. One thing was certain, she had gained more strength with all the raking and hoeing she’d been doing. Hank set Eloise up on the wagon bed beside her mother and swung himself up by bracing his arms on the edge and lifting his body up and around. He turned to look at her over his shoulder.

  “Been doing this for some time.”

  “I see.”

  Eloise clapped her hands and ran across the boards to him with a giggle.

  “Back by me.” Nilda used the brace on the front rack to pull herself to her feet.

  “Come see how to drive the team.” Mr. Peterson nodded to the two long leather reins that attached to the horses’ harnesses.

  Nilda went to stand beside him at the front of the wagon, her arms through the tall rack that would brace the hay and matched the one attached to the back of the extended wagon bed. Looking down on the horses’ backs made her aware how big they really were. She closed her eyes for a moment, rocking with the wagon as the horses plodded toward the gate to the hay field. You can do this.

  “You hold the reins like this, one in each hand, and when you pull on the right rein, the team will tu
rn to the right. Same with the left. To make them go, you flap the reins like this.” With a flick of the wrist, he sent a wave down the reins. The horses picked up their feet a little faster. “To stop, you pull back evenly and say whoa. You don’t jerk the reins, you keep them even. Sam on the right side has a habit of hanging back and letting Ted do all the pulling so sometimes you flick his rein, show him you know what he is doing.” He handed her the reins. “Which rein will you pull to turn into the field?”

  “This one.” She lifted the right one. “But how much do you pull?”

  “Until they turn.”

  Don’t waste any words, Mr. Peterson, they are worth so much. As they neared the gate, she glanced at him. Do I pull now or wait until we get there? She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Now? Wait? What?

  “Pull now.”

  She pulled on the right rein, surprised that it felt so heavy. The horses turned and walked through the middle of the open space.

  “Turn left. We’ll start between those first windrows. All you have to do is keep up with us so that we can fork the hay up on the wagon.”

  “I see.” He must’ve meant the long rows of dried grass that had been turned and raked. She pulled back on the reins and told the team, “Whoa.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “So you could get off.”

  Mr. Peterson shook his head. “We’ll let you know when to stop.”

  By the time they’d crossed the field and back, she had it down fairly well, keeping both men in her side sights as they heaved huge forkfuls of hay up on the wagon. As the load grew, one or the other would climb aboard and distribute the hay more evenly. Hank always had a word of cheer for both her and Eloise, while Mr. Peterson just grunted.

  “We will be up for dinner as soon as we unload this one, so stop here at the house.”

  Nilda stopped the team and stared around. How do we get down?