Boister and Mari struggled under the weight of the huge skin. They’d cleared a place in the snow where they intended to stretch and peg the hide, hair side down. Scraps of fat and tissue still adhered to the hide, and their next job was to remove them by scraping the inner surface with smooth rocks. But for now, they were having a time of it trying to drag the heavy skin over to the prepared spot.
“Need some help?”
“Jan!” squealed Mari. She dropped her end of the bearskin, and ran through the snow.
“Tildie, Tildie!” yelled Boister, abandoning the skin. “Jan’s back.”
Evie and Tildie rushed out of the cabin, running to throw their arms around Jan. He kissed them all around, even Boister, then kissed Tildie once more for good measure.
“Oh Jan,” exclaimed Tildie. “You’re so thin and pale. What happened?”
“Where’s Gert?” asked Boister. Boister looked with disdain upon the borrowed horse and then beyond, to the trees expecting his Gert to come through the thicket.
“Gert’s probably running with some Indians’ herd by now,” explained Jan.
“You lost Gert?” Boister sounded hurt. His face began to crumple. “We lost Gladys, too. She just went off one day and didn’t come back. I looked for her, Jan. I tried to follow her tracks, but I lost them in a thick wood.”
“She’s an old dog, Boister,” Jan began.
“She never would’ve run off,” Boister said through a sniffle.
“No, son, you’re right,” agreed Jan. “She knew a lot about taking care of herself, but sometimes things happen even to those who are good at taking care of themselves. She may be dead, and if she never returns, we have to remember what a happy life she led.”
“Let’s take Jan inside and have his story,” suggested Tildie. “It looks to me like we almost lost him.”
They led Jan into the cabin, where Tildie’d been slicing thin strips of bear meat to dip in boiling salt water in preparation for drying.
Jan gladly sat and rested while Boister took the horses into the stable and unloaded them.
“Don’t you be looking too closely at those bundles, Boister,” instructed Jan. “I’ve got surprises in there that’ll have to keep ‘til Christmas.”
“Presents, Evie,” Mari explained.
The little girls’ eyes perked up as they turned to carefully watch their brother, hoping something would accidentally fall open. They even rushed to help carry the different bundles when Jan began directing Boister as to where to put them. Tildie sat on Jan’s lap, where he’d pulled her when he first sat in the chair by the table.
“Here,” Jan said as he shifted her from one side to the other. “Sit facing this way and lean against the other shoulder.”
“Why?” asked Tildie, looking closely at his face. She didn’t like the lines of pain she saw around his mouth. She tried to get up, but he held her.
“No, Tildie, be still.” He firmly gripped her. “I’ve waited over a month to hold you again, and as long as you don’t squirm, I’m okay.”
“Jan,” she spoke softly. “Tell me what happened.”
Before he could begin Boister and Mari launched into the tale of the bear, starting with his marauding around the cabin and stealing their meat.
“I’m glad you’re back, Jan,” said Boister with a big grin. “Now I don’t have to do all the work around here anymore.”
“Shame!” exclaimed Tildie in mock indignation. “As if that were the only reason we’re glad he’s back.”
“Stories!” Evie clapped her hands together.
Mari was silent. She came to stand beside Jan and put her little hand on his big arm. “I’m glad you’re back ’cause I love you. You don’t have to tell stories if you don’t want to.” Big tears welled up in her eyes. “You don’t have to do work. Just, please, never go away again. I missed you.”
Jan wrapped his free arm around her little shoulders and kissed her on the top of her head. “I don’t ever want to go away again, Mari,” he said. “But I can’t promise that. I may need to go for supplies. But I want you to know that I missed you, too. I tried my best to get back here as soon as I could.”
Evie moved closer and gave Tildie a push as she had often done before. “Tildie, move. Evie’s turn.”
Tildie relinquished her spot on Jan’s lap. As soon as Tildie sat in her chair next to him, Boister surprised her by coming to stand close. He leaned against her leg, moving it aside, and then sat on the edge of her chair with her. Mari crawled into Jan’s lap to sit with her little sister.
“Now tell us,” Mari commanded.
Jan laughed, happy to be with his adopted family. He told of his uneventful trip to the fort, then listed some of the things he had purchased. He left out his unpleasant encounter with des Reaux, but detailed an account of his friendship with Henderson. He told how Henderson feared open spaces and mimicked his English accent making them all laugh as he relayed how often Henderson had served him tea. Then he told how he’d been shot and minimized the painful trip back to the fort and the days of being weak and helpless.
“But all the time I was away from you, I wanted very much to hurry back. And while I was sick, I thought of a plan. It’s really an extension of a plan I already had, but I want to put it before you and see if it meets with your approval.”
Three little heads bobbed up and down. Tildie tilted hers with a look of inquiry.
“I’ve asked Tildie to marry me,” continued Jan. “That means she’d be my wife and the mother of my children.”
Mari clapped her hands. Boister cheered.
“But I feel like you three are already my children. I love you and want us to be a family. If we would agree to be a family, then I’d be your pa and Tildie’d be your mama. We’d live together until you’re all grown up and want homes of your own. When I go away on a trip, Mari, you’ll know that I’ll come back because I’d be your pa, and a pa would do anything possible to get back to his children.”
Mari had no second thoughts. She put her arms around Jan’s neck, making him wince a bit as she hugged tightly against his sore shoulder.
“Yes,” she pronounced enthusiastically. “Can I call you Pa?”
Jan smiled and nodded.
Mari released him and jumped off his lap to climb into Tildie’s and hug her. “You can be my mama,” she said.
Evie looked at the grown-ups with a puzzled frown between her eyes.
Jan spoke to her carefully, looking into her trusting eyes. “Evie, can I be your pa?”
She still looked unsure as to what was going on. “Pa,” she tried the word. Then she looked at Tildie, and a smile grew on her face. “Tildie-ma.” She laughed.
That seemed to settle that vote. Jan, Tildie, and Mari turned to look at Boister. He pulled away from Tildie and stood straight, a wary look on his face.
Mari watched him anxiously, then turned with a question for Jan. “Jan,” she asked. “Will my real mama and pa be mad because we got a new mama and a new pa?”
“No, Mari,” said Jan with confidence. “They’d be happy because families are a good thing, and God likes families.”
She turned to Tildie with the same question in her eyes.
“Your mama would be pleased,” said Tildie. “She was my very special aunt, and she helped take care of me when I was your age. She taught me how to love children, and she would be happy to know I was taking care of you as your mama.”
Mari’s face relaxed with relief, and she slid down to go to her brother. Cautiously, she took his hand in her own.
“It’s okay, Boister,” she spoke quietly. “We don’t have to say Mama and Pa unless we want to. But will you please say it’s okay? I want to be a family and we can’t without you. There’s nobody else to be the brother. You have to say yes.”
Boister didn’t jerk away from her or reply quickly with a harsh answer. He looked first at her, then at the others in the room, waiting. He nodded solemnly. “It’s okay,” he said.
“Hallelujah!” shouted Jan. He plopped Evie on the floor next to her sister and stood. “Let’s have a wedding.”
Everyone laughed. Mari grabbed her sister’s hands and began her own wild version of a polka with her willing partner. Jan pulled Tildie to her feet. He looked down at her with such ardent eyes that Tildie blushed. She ducked her head.
“Jan Borjesson, you said we wouldn’t wed until I could stand at the ceremony,” she objected with teasing in her voice.
Boister surprised them by answering, “Tildie, you were walking around the cabin without your crutches until the gun knocked you over yesterday. You can’t use that as an excuse. The real problem is the cake. You gotta have cake at a wedding.”
“How do you know that?” asked Mari.
“’Cause Mama told me about her cake and the dancing and the party at her wedding.”
“It’s too late to bake a cake tonight,” explained Tildie. “And I don’t know how tasty a cake would be without any eggs. We could wait until tomorrow to have the wedding.”
“No, we can’t.” Jan vetoed that idea.
“I could set the dough tonight, and we could have fried bread with sugar coating for breakfast,” suggested Tildie.
“Hurray!” cried Mari and Boister together.
“Jan, what am I going to wear?” asked Tildie.
“I brought you a whole bunch of material,” he answered.
“Jan, I cannot make a dress in an hour,” she objected.
“Don’t make a dress out of it,” he declared. “Just kinda wrap it around.”
“A toga, a toga,” squealed Mari happily.
“I’m going to get married in a toga, without a cake or a preacher, with a half-skinned bear on the table.”
“Not half-skinned, Tildie,” said Boister indignantly. “His whole skin is outside.”
“I’ll clean up the mess while you wash and fashion some kind of wedding dress,” promised Jan. “The girls and Boister will help me, and we’ll have bear steak for dinner. I’ll cook.”
“You really want to get married tonight, don’t you?” she asked.
He looked in her eyes and nodded slowly. She blushed.
“All right,” she said in a voice of resignation. “If this family is going to insist, I guess my only choice is to comply.” She stole a look at Jan, who was still watching her, and blushed again. “Where’s the material for my wedding dress, Jan Borjesson?”