LITMIR.BIZ

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his wife and child to the influenza, and Elijah knew Gideon wasn’t expecting a reply.

      Precisely at six o’clock—Elijah checked the time on the silver pocket watch that, as the eldest, he had inherited from their father—the men walked down one row of tents and up another to where Lars had told them the Brinkerhoff tent was located. Since Lars’s sister would be present, they’d washed, shaved and put on clean shirts—not that they didn’t do such things regularly, but the prospect of being in the presence of a lady certainly gave them additional motivation.

      Their noses told them before they reached the Brinkerhoff tent that they were in for a treat, for the air was redolent with the smell of cooking meat and baking bread and some sort of additional sweet scent.

      A tall, well-built man arose from a hay bale on which he had been sitting and came forward. Dressed in fringed buckskin and knee-high leather boots, he had hair that fell to midshoulder and was so pale a yellow it was almost white. “Velkommen—welcome, gentlemen. I am Lars Brinkerhoff.” He looked at Clint. “I am glad you and your brothers could come.”

      The men shook hands, and Elijah and Gideon introduced themselves.

      “And this is my sister, Katrine,” Lars said, gesturing. A young woman of middle height with the same sparkling blue eyes and flaxen hair—hers was confined in a long, thick braid down her back—straightened from where she had been bent over a cast-iron pot. When she smiled, dimples bloomed in each cheek, and Elijah supposed she could be considered beautiful, but he couldn’t help wondering if Alice Hawthorne had anyone to dine with tonight, or if she had to eat her supper alone.

      “Sister, may I present the Thornton brothers,” Lars said, then pointed at each in turn, “Elijah, Gideon and Clint.”

      “I am very pleased to meet you,” the young woman said, smiling at each. “I am happy that you could dine with us.”

      She had the same thick Danish accent, but coming from her, it sounded charming.

      “Miss Brinkerhoff, it is our very great pleasure,” Elijah said, stepping forward and bowing to her.

      “Ah, but you won’t really know that until you have tasted my cooking, will you?” she teased. “Perhaps you will not like it.”

      “But in such pleasant company, how could any food be less than wonderful?” Clint responded with a smile.

      Elijah shared a look with Gideon, both of them clearly amused at their brother’s unaccustomed gallantry.

      “Well, let us put it to the test, shall we?” Lars said. “Gentlemen, will you have a seat?” He gestured to a low table made of a wide, flat board set atop bales of hay. They would have to sit on the ground, but provision had been made for that, with a folded blanket set at each place.

      “It is not how I would like to serve guests,” Katrine apologized, indicating the tin plates and eating utensils carved from wood, along with a crockery pitcher and wooden cups. “For now we travel light, yes? But Lars has promised me proper china and silverware once we build our house.”

      “Please don’t worry about that, ma’am. Our eating utensils aren’t fancy, either, but they get the job done,” Gideon assured her politely, surprising Elijah that Gideon had spoken. He was quiet, even with his brothers, but usually talked much less when in the company of others.

      “Mr. Elijah Thornton, since you are the sognepraest—the minister—will you say the blessing, please?” Lars asked.

      Elijah did so, thanking God for the privilege of dining with their new friends and for the delicious food of which they were about to partake.

      Lars began to carve slabs off the savory antelope haunch that had been roasting on the spit and placed them on a tin platter, which he passed to the men, while Katrine lifted the lid from the thick pot and brought out a golden-brown loaf of bread.

      “This is kartoffelbrot, potato bread, so it may taste a little different from what you are used to, gentlemen,” she said as she sliced it. “I was fortunate to be able to trade for some fresh-churned butter, too,” she added.

      For the first few minutes, no one spoke except to exclaim at the deliciousness of the food. The antelope had been done to a turn, and Elijah wondered about what herbs Lars’s sister had used to give it such an exotic flavor. The potato bread was hearty and satisfying.

      “So how did you and Lars meet?” Elijah asked Clint. “You promised to tell the tale when we got here. Something about an antelope you both shot at?”

      A grin spread across Clint’s tanned face. “Yes, and I was mighty upset at him for a couple of seconds for killing my antelope. I was out on the prairie east of here, lying on a bluff next to some rocks, drawing a bead on a prairie antelope down below. But before I could shoot, Lars, here, shot from the bluff across from me at the rocks right next to me.

      “Well, I jumped up, mad as thunder, sure this fellow here was trying to murder me. But then he pointed below the rocks, and curled up amid them, there was the body of a rattlesnake, split right in two. I hadn’t spotted it when I’d settled in there. If I’d shot at the antelope or maybe even moved the wrong way, that snake was close enough to strike me easy. I might’ve died!”

      Clint’s recital had been dramatic, but there was sobering truth in what he’d said. Clint might have been found on the prairie later, after he’d gone missing, dead of snakebite, but for the Dane’s quick action.

      Elijah had been sitting next to Lars, and now Elijah laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Mr. Brinkerhoff, we are most deeply in your debt. I can’t thank you enough.”

      “Please, you must all call me Lars,” the other man said, grinning. “I was—” it came out vas “—happy to do it.”

      “Better yet,” piped up Clint from across the table, “Brinkerhoff didn’t let the antelope get away, either. While I was still gaping at the rattlesnake and pondering how I had almost died, this fellow shot the antelope that had run fifty yards away! Then after he had retrieved it, he was kind enough to offer to share the meat with us tonight,” he said, pointing his fork at what remained on the spit.

      “Why did you brothers decide to come to Oklahoma? If you do not mind that I ask, of course,” Lars added.

      “Of course it’s all right,” Elijah said. “We hail from Virginia, originally. Our parents had a plantation there before the war, Thornton Hall. You’re familiar with our American Civil War?” he asked.

      “The Northern states fought to free the slaves that the South held, ja?” Lars asked.

      “Basically, yes, though there were other issues, as well,” Elijah said. “Our pa sent us North to live with a cousin to avoid the unpleasantries of being loyal Unionists in the rebel South.”

      Elijah and Gideon were the only ones who clearly remembered leaving home. Clint had been only four, but Elijah and Gideon had told him stories of the middle-of-the-night flight from Thornton Hall, leaving behind all they knew, including their playmates, the Chaucer boys from the neighboring plantation. Elijah felt a twinge of pain as he always did when he thought of their former friends, but it seemed worse now because of the incident today.

      Perhaps because Elijah had been lost in thought, Clint now picked up the story. “Pa died in battle, so we went on living with Cousin Obadiah in Pennsylvania,” Clint went on.

      Elijah saw the involuntary twist of distaste on both Clint’s and Gideon’s mouths at the mention of their father’s distant cousin, who’d hated all things Southern, including the innocent boys. He’d grudgingly allowed them space in his home, but not his heart.

      “Then we sold the plantation for a good profit,” Clint said, “since we were no longer welcome in Virginia, and bought a place in Kansas, where Elijah went to seminary, Gideon worked on a ranch and I became a sheriff. It was all right...but when we heard about the opportunity opening up in the territory, we knew we wanted to come here and start over on our own homesteads.”

      “You

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