the beginning of chapter 8…
“Louis, do you know where Willi is?
“Flora is coming down the road to the stable, that old gelding is a going a bit lame.” Amanda was minding the business for her husband, Louis, who was busy with the upcoming feed order. Their livery business, Schleuter and Abraham, was at the site of what was once an important outpost for travelers west from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul on the Mississippi. Carver, Minnesota, the last flatwater before the headwaters of the Minnesota River heading west, was the final steamboat stop for transfer of supplies for the great land rush of 1850, as land was made available for homesteading by immigrating Europeans looking for a new life in the Americas. Mostly newly arriving Germans, they spread ever westward, taking advantage of the 160 acres made available to settle by the recent treaty of the United States with the Dakota.
Declaring new communities like ‘New Berlin, Heidelburg, Bismark and Young America’, the immigrants flowed toward the great plains like a glacier of white. Each new village tried to outdo the last with its claim of Teutonic heritage. Meanwhile, the outpost of Carver and its Temperance Hotel on the river bank had recently gone into a bit of a decline, with first the laying of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway, then the Dakota uprising of 1863, and most recently as countries around the globe dealt with the aftermath of the Great War.
“I haven’t seen him for about an hour, probably down by the river again” Louis replied. “Darndest thing, since he got back he sure spends a lot of time down there, just staring at that grey water. He still knows animals better than just about anyone around, but….” Louis grew quiet for a moment.
“Go fetch him to the barn, would you, Deloras? Someone’s got to look to Gunnar.”
“Yippee!” the young girl cries, and bounds down the hewn pine stairs out into the cold November air, out to the field back of the stables, “Uncle Willi, Uncle Willi!”
Amanda looked up from her ledgers, and asked, “Are you sure it is safe, Louis?” Her husband answered, “Of course it is, Mandy. It’s just Willi. He’s just been a little distracted lately. It’ll pass.”
Corporal William Samuel Abraham, 4th Pioneer Infantry, was standing on the bank of the cold Minnesota River, ice flows swiftly moving by heading east into the late afternoon darkening sky. The surrounding hardwoods, long ago having shed their green, slowly turned dull orange in the approaching twilight. Corporal Abraham, or ‘Uncle Willi’ as young Deloras knew him, was still dressed in work coveralls and leather apron, appropriate for the life of a liveryman, but in his thoughts he was dressed far different, and in a far different place than on the banks of a peacefully flowing river in the upper midwest prairie of the United States.
Alternately pacing and crouching by the river, William was quite unaware of the young girl as she tried to get his attention. He seemed to be muttering something like “But the horses. Oh God, not the horses”, until finally he jerked up, startled, at the gentle touch of the 6 year old’s hand on his arm.
“Wha? Oh, it’s you, Dede! Thank God!” And shaking his head, the furrowed brow gradually changes to his familiar smile, with just a residual hint of, well, something else. Something deep, and old, like the river.
“Uncle Will, they need you back at the barn!” , Deloras pled. “ I think Old Flora’s horse Gunnar has something wrong with his leg! I hope he is OK! Can you help him?”
“Old Gunnar, hmm? I do believe I heard him clop clop clip clop down the lane a minute ago”. A bit of color has returned to his face, and a bit of life returned to his voice as well. “Tell you what…. Go ahead and ice down that right hind hoof, and I’ll be there in a minute, huh Dede?” With that, William dusted off his apron, and with the briefest of glances behind, and a briefer yet cough at the cold wind, made his way back to the warmth and purpose of the horse barn.