She obliged, and their mouths met softly, each of them slightly open, hesitant, hopeful, yet infinitely childish in their slowness, their willingness to let the other move first. There had been only that chaste kiss the first night. But this kiss had been born on the rising sun, had been foretold by their first "good mornings" while Karl stood holding an armload of wood and Anna stood holding her curtain. Through the day the certainty of this kiss had grown, enriched by their teasing and good humor and their growing sense of familiarity with each other.
He slowly straightened his knees to move nearer. This time he took her lips fully, undemandingly at first, but his wet, warm tongue came seeking, riding upon the seam of her lips as
if dissolving some sugar stitches he tasted there. Dissolve them he did, feeling beneath his tongue a first opening of her own mouth. Emboldened, he cradled the back of her neck, pulling her into the kiss, using his tongue to tease her away from passivity. What Karl waited for was some first sign, a movement, a touch of encouragement. His exploration touched a response in Anna and she, too, straightened her legs.
Cautiously, she laid her hand upon his cheek. Never before had she caressed him in any way. The touch of her hand upon his skin raised an ardor in Karl that became difficult to control. Beneath her palm Anna felt his cheek muscles stretch as his mouth widened. His tongue entered her mouth more forcefully while she felt the strokes of it through her palm and his cheek.
Never had Anna experienced kissing as an enjoyable thing. Now was awakened in her the knowledge that things like this could be different from the way she had always thought them. About this there was nothing sordid or ugly. There was no compulsion to push this man away, no crawling of skin, no stinging of tears. There was instead a feeling that he honored her, and thereby honored the act upon which they embarked. She sensed in Karl the unfolding wonder he
experienced in taking her nearer fulfillment one slow step at a time. Anna felt herself unfolding, too, like the petals of a flower until the full beauty of the blossom is revealed.
With a slow relaxing of muscle, he lowered his chest across hers, resting there upon her breast to see what she'd do. But she only laid her hand on the bare skin of his shoulder blade, testing again the rightness of what she felt, training her hand to move down the ridge beneath her palm. How well she remembered it after watching it flex in the sun these two days.
Karl collapsed with his face buried in the pillow he'd filled for her with cattail down, basking in the first tentative exploration of her hand upon his back. Needing more, he arched away, freeing her pinned hand. But when she didn't seem to understand what he needed, he found the hand there beneath him and nudged it onto his shoulder, then settled down upon her, his face lost once more in the pillow beside her head.
Anna could not help vividly recalling the expression on his face when he had told of bringing Nanna inside the house for company during winter. She remembered, too, the way Karl's hand had toyed with the goat's ear. She had never known before that men needed simple touching.
The years of aloneness slid away with each pass of her hands along his skin. Their hearts, pressed tightly together, spoke of the human need both had harbored for so long. Within Anna, to whom such a feeling had also been denied for long years, a desperate voice warned she could lose all this warmth that radiated to her once Karl carried this act to its climax. But it was a good thing to feel so at one with another human being. She could not stop her hands from playing upon his back just a little longer.
"Oh, Anna, what you do to me," he said huskily, suddenly raising up, pinning her down with both hands on her arms. "Do you know what you do to me?" he whispered with a kind of vehemence that warned her she had perhaps already gone too far. But at Karl's movement, the cornhusks rustled, and they heard James make a sound as he rolled over. Karl's head jerked up in alert.
They waited a moment before Anna whispered, "I think I know, Karl, but ..." She had received the reprieve she needed, from James. She was confused herself, liking everything so far, still afraid to let it go further. "Karl, I wish ..." Never before had she felt such dread of hurting someone's feelings. It was a new thing to Anna, this concern she had for Karl. She knew she must pick her way carefully. "It's only been three days. I feel like each day we've gotten to know each other a little better, but I think we need more time."
He'd done the thing he most wanted to avoid: he'd pushed her too fast. By now Karl liked Anna so much, and felt she liked him, too. Still, he tried to look at it from her point of view. She was perhaps afraid of being hurt. For this Karl could not blame her. "I should not have pushed you this way," he admitted. "I only thought to touch you, but I find it is hard to hold back."
"Karl, please don't be so hard on yourself. I liked it and it's all right you touched me and kissed me. I'm only getting to know you better when I return the touches, like any woman wants to know her husband. Please understand, Karl ..."
She wondered exactly how to say what she meant. She wanted him--yes--yet she wanted to put off the time of consummation because she feared afterward
he would find her repugnant, and that would be the end of this interlude of adjustment she was so enjoying.
Also, Anna wanted more time to be wooed. It had nothing to do with whether or not she was a virgin. She was a woman, and as such had had dreams of soldiers with braids and epaulettes. How could she make him understand that braids and epaulettes mattered little, but that she wanted the joy of anticipation to go on a while longer? She wanted to be courted when she was already married. How absurd it sounded, even to her. Still, she had to try to explain.
"Do you know what I want?"
"No, Anna, what?" He thought he would give her anything if she would only not deny him interminably.
"I want some more days like today ... first. I want laughing and teasing and looking at each other across the way and ... oh, I don't know. The things we'd have done if we had met in
Sweden
and you had bought me that hair ribbon, I guess. All girls want that sort of thing, like we talked about the other night. Do you understand, Karl?"
"I understand, but for how long do you want such a thing?" The intensity was waning from his voice, and she thought perhaps she had succeeded in keeping from alienating him.
"Oh, a little while, Karl. Just a little while for you to be my suitor instead of my husband. A little while to enjoy getting to know each other."
"So you like some teasing and some ..." Karl could not think of the right word.
"Flirting?" she filled in.
"A true American word--flirting."
"Yes, Karl, maybe I do. For both of us."
"You are a strange girl, Anna, writing letters to me to agree to be my wife sight unseen, now demanding me to flirt with you. What am I to do with such a whiskey-haired girl anyway?"
"Do as she asks," Anna said coquettishly, something quite new to her.
"You will have your way, Anna. But before you do, let me have another kiss like the last one. Just one."
·
Chapter Nine
·
If Anna wanted flirting, she got it in subtle ways during the following days. Karl could do things in the most off-hand manner, making her turn red, or away, or look quickly to see if James saw. Karl could draw his oversize red handkerchief out of his hip pocket and dry his neck and chest in the sun, never laying an eye on Anna, but knowing full well she watched his every shimmering muscle.
Anna could bend to pick up a load of branches and point the hind pockets of James' britches at Karl in as equally an innocent manner. He could remove his straw hat--she had taken time to stitch a sunbonnet for herself realizing Karl needed his hat--and wipe his forehead with his forearm, then, squint at the sun and say, "It is hot today." Guilelessly?
Anna didn't think so.
Raising the hair from the back of her neck, she would agree casually, "It sure is."
In the pond their frolicking became sensitized by more frequent brushing against each other, under the guise of dunking, learning to swim, being teacher and student.
Those sun-splashed days in the tamaracks were harbingers of more to come. But one day when the three awakened to rain, the tamaracks were forgotten for the time being. Karl checked the gray drizzle after breakfast, lit his pipe thoughtfully, then went to the barn to fetch a pitch-fork and dig worms. Soon afterward he and James left with fishing poles in hand.
Anna was alone in the springhouse washing vegetables, displeased at being left behind. She muttered to herself and threw the beans from pail to pan in irritation. Beans! she silently griped. I'm left to clean beans while those two go off to fish bass!
Suddenly the light from outside was dimmed even more. Anna looked up and screamed. A bunch of Indians stood crowding around the doorway of the springhouse, somber faces impassive while she jumped up and spilled green beans everywhere. They all had oiled hair, pulled back into braided tails, and were dressed in fringed buckskin.
The one nearest the doorway smiled in a toothy grin at the sound of her fright.
They all acted like they were waiting for her to step outside. What else could she do? She squelched her fears and stepped into the misty day.
"Foxhair," Toothy Grin grunted.
She stood in the drizzle, wondering what to do, while they all stared at her hair. Should she act as if it were totally natural to stand in the rain carrying on a conversation with an Indian, or stalk off toward the cabin where they were sure to follow?
"Anna," she corrected. "Anna Lindstrom." The name surprised even her.
Toothy Grin shot a curious glance to one of his friends who had the face of an old buffalo on the body of a young deer.
"Foxhair," Toothy Grin repeated, nodding now.
Buffalo Face grinned. He had magnificent teeth for such an ugly face. "Foxhair marry Whitehair, together make baby striped like skunk kitten."
They all laughed in great amusement at this.
"What do you want?" she snapped. "If all you've come here to do is make fun of my hair, you can leave! If you want to see my husband, he's not here. You'll have to come back another time." She was trembling in her britches, but she was damned if she was going to let them come sneaking here into her own yard and ridicule her!
"Tonka Squaw!" one of them said, in a tone she could have sworn was approving, although why was beyond her guess.
"What do you want?" she asked again, none too gently.
"Tonka Squaw?" one Indian asked Buffalo Face. "How you know she squaw?" They seemed to be amused by her britches, all pointing and jabbering in their unrecognizable jargon while eyeing her clothing. She grew angrier by the moment at being talked past like she wasn't even there.
"Talk English!" she spit. "If you're going to come around here, you can just by-damn talk English! I know you know how because Karl told me!"
"Tonka Squaw!" one said again, with a broad grin.
"Spit fire!" another said.
Then they laughed again at her britches.
"Well, if you weren't all so rude, I'd invite you inside to wait for Karl, but I'll be darned if I'll have you in when all you came to do is laugh at me!"
She spun and headed for the cabin, and they all silently followed. In the doorway, she turned to challenge them. "Anybody who comes in here had just better forget about my britches and keep his smart comments to himself!"
But in they came, right behind her. Silently, they squatted and sat cross-legged on the floor before the fireplace. She wondered what she was expected to do to entertain them.
She decided the best course of action was action. She would pretend to be very busy preparing dinner, and maybe they would get tired of watching her and go away. She had struggled once before through the making of a kind of mince cake, baked in the spider instead of in an oven. She struggled to remember the ingredients Karl had taught her, and in her preoccupation thought she was probably ruining it entirely. But she didn't care. Anything to look busy and distract the Indians. But they muttered among themselves, now and then breaking into laughter, as if what she did were the funniest thing in the world.
She began mixing the cake ingredients, found the mince made of pumpkin and vinegar and put the crock on the table while she reached for a clean spoon. Turning around, she found an Indian, with a nose like a beaver, reaching into her jar with his bare hand. Without thinking, she whacked him a good one across the knuckles with her wooden spoon.
"Git!" she spit at him. "Where are your manners? You don't come into my house and reach your big dirty hands into my mincemeat and eat it behind my back! Sit down and keep out of my way and maybe, just maybe, I'll give you some cake when it's done! Meanwhile, keep your hands where they belong!"
Beaver Nose's companions had a jolly good laugh at that one. While he held his smitten knuckles, the others held their sides and rocked in raucous laughter, repeating over and over, "Tonka Squaw, Tonka Squaw."
"Quiet! You're no better than him," she warned the rest brandishing her spoon, "you all came in here uninvited!"