Iowa - The Homeplace (Americana 15 - Iowa)

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOYER RIVER WAS FROZEN OVER. A blanket of snow covered the pasture ground. Out of the leaden sky came more flakes gently drifting down like white flower petals on a spring day. The wind was still, although there was a nippiness in the air. Except for the crystalline flakes, the whole world seemed to have come to a standstill. Nothing moved, not even the girl standing so silently on the knoll above the river.
Her jade-green eyes surveyed the scene, nostalgia gripping her throat over all the bygone memories, but Catherine Carlsen refused to cry. She was taking a walk back into the past one last time and she didn't want tears blurring her vision.
Below her, where the river made its sweeping bend, was the place where the gentle rapids began, the place that, as a child, she had been allowed to swim. At the bottom of the hill where she was standing, the water was deeper. It was there that she and Clay used to fish for bullheads and catfish with their bamboo poles and a can of night crawlers unearthed behind the machine shed. Farther on was an island, barely discernible now from the ice-covered river, but that was where they had launched their homemade raft. They had watched their visions of reenacting the adventures of Huckleberry Finn sink with their raft.
The memories were endless. Each place her gaze rested brought more recollections of her childhood days. The lone willow tree lay horizontally, almost covered by the winter blanket. It looked bleak and lonely with its limbs sheared of summer foliage. The tiny spring-fed stream that the willow bridged wasn't visible under the snow, but many times she had quenched her thirst in its icy-cold waters in the height of a hot summer day.
Although the majority of her memories came from the summer seasons, Cathie recalled, too, the ice-skating on the river when the ice grew thick and firm and sledding down the hill toward the river, always stopping a hair's breadth short of its bank. Or the time the adults built a bonfire at the top of the hill so there would be a place to warm themselves in between trips down the hill on a sled or a shovel. Cathie remembered so well how she had sat with her feet close to the fire so she could warm her freezing toes. She had warmed them, but she had also melted the soles off her brand new rubber boots.
How often had she visualized the day when she would bring her own children out here and show them all the places she had played as a child? Now it was never to be. The land no longer belonged to the Carlsen family. The Homeplace, as it had been affectionately called, was no longer home. And she, Cathie Carlsen, was at that very moment a trespasser.
Something brushed the side of her leg. As she turned her gaze down, Cathie's eyes met the earnest, imploring look of the English shepherd dog, Duchess. No matter what the circumstances there was always an apologetic look about the dog's face. The sad brown eyes were expressing their sorrow at intruding on Cathie's solitude even as Duchess inched closer for a reassuring caress of forgiveness. Obligingly Cathie removed a gloved hand from her pocket to fondle the red gold head.
"Hello, Duchess. What are you doing down here so far from the house?" Cathie noticed with sadness the collection of gray hairs around the pointed muzzle. Even Duchess was beginning to show her age, and it seemed like only yesterday that she had arrived on the farm, a frightened and bewildered puppy. "Did you get lonely up there, pretty lady?"
"She misses your grandfather."
Cathie turned toward the man standing a few paces behind her. "Hello, Clay," she said. "I didn't expect to see you here today."
Clay Carlsen studied her thoughtfully, choosing to ignore the vague ring of sarcasm in her low-pitched voice. He silently admired the way the brown fake fur coat enhanced the golden highlights of her honey-colored hair. The shoulder length cut curled beneath the strong line of her jaw and softened her high cheekbones. Yet her feminine features retained their look of strength and determination that was carried through so dominantly in her personality. The saving grace of her femininity was the vivid green of her eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes and the supremely sensuous line of her mouth. The vision of those lips, soft and yielding under the touch of his own, brought a smile to Clay's previously somber face.
"Like you, Cathie," he answered her quietly, "I thought I would make a sentimental journey over our old stamping grounds."
"Mother and Aunt Dana are up to the house packing the personal things that won't be put up for sale at the auction," she sighed, turning away from him to stare out over the river. "I'm supposed to be up there helping them sort through Grandpa and Grandma's things."
"It's a thankless job, but it has to be done."
"I know that." She flashed him a fiery look.
Her yellow gold hair was a gift from the Scandinavian ancestors of her grandparents, but her mother's Irish side of the family received the credit for her jewel-colored eyes and the blame for her quick temper. Clay had never known quite how to handle that spitfire temper even when they were children. He was twenty-six, nearly three full years her senior, yet he had always been the one to bow to her wishes rather than bear the brunt of one of her rages. Normally Cathie was a loving, generous person, and that was the side of her that he adored. Over the years she had learned to control her temper, but it was those odd times when it sprang to the surface that Clay liked to avoid.
"I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, Clay," Cathie apologized, but her voice was tinged with the bitterness that had been building inside her. "I can't get used to losing Grandfather and the farm in less than two weeks."
"I know it's a terribly trite thing to say, but it's probably better that it happened this way," Clay said. He wished that Cathie would cry and release some of the grief she had kept bottled up.
"Why?" she demanded.
"First, because ever since your grandmother passed away last fall, your grandfather has been lost without her. And secondly, I think it was a good thing that the farm was sold almost the very day it was put on the market. It leaves no time for uncertainties and doubts. Often it's better that the separation is swift and sure. There's no time left for agonizing and brooding over the coming loss.”
"We didn't have to lose it at all," Cathie retorted grimly. Her unseen hands were doubled into tight fists in her pockets.
"You didn't really expect your father to buy the farm, did you?"
"He could have." Her chin tilted upward as she cast him a defiant glance.
"Then what? Did you expect him to give up his professorship at the university? He isn't a young man any more. He couldn't have managed the farm by himself. Or would you have preferred him to lease it out as your grandfather did and have someone else farm it for him? With no one living in the house, it would have deteriorated in no time." There was an exasperated sound in Clay's voice. "Be sensible about this, Cathie."
"He could have bought it," she repeated. "And after you and I were married, we could have lived here and farmed it ourselves."
"I'm a lawyer, not a farmer," Clay stated emphatically. "I didn't spend all those years in college studying law to throw it aside because of some sentimental nonsense."
As soon as Clay had said it, he realized he had just waved a red cape in front of Cathie. Her reaction was instantaneous.
"It is not sentimental nonsense! And if you think it is, then I'm proud to be a sentimental fool! The very first plowshare that broke this ground when it was a wild prairie was held by my great-grandfather Carlsen. He was one of the first settlers in this area after the Civil War. Look at this land, Clay. It's one of the richest sections of bottomland in Iowa. The dirt is black and fertile, made to grow food and families. This is where our family began. This is the Carlsen home, our legacy given to us by our ancestors. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Of course it does," he placated. "All of the family is sad to lose it, your father and myself included. But family farms are a passing thing. And you just can't live in the past anymore, not if you want to succeed in life. It's progress, Cathie."
"Then progress be damned!"
"Don't swear, Cathie. It isn't becoming," he admonished gently, all the while thinking what a bewitching creature she was when she was in a temper, her eyes flashing green fires and her face alive with passionate zeal.
"Why? Is swearing strictly a masculine right? Surely we've progressed to the point where a woman can swear if she wants to," she demanded sarcastically. "Sometimes I wish I were a man!"