Historical Fiction
Date Published: 10-07-2025
Publisher: NorthStar Press
December 1888
Digger Dancy paced back and forth across his soddy, ten
steps from door
to stove, eleven steps from table to bed. He had survived
four long winters,
and he would survive now. It was a matter of mental
discipline. He focused
on pleasant things: playing baseball in July, a keg of beer
cooled in the river,
turning the crank at the ice cream social, dancing to a
polka band. Don’t think
about Christmas coming. Don’t count the months until spring.
Don’t worry
about your brother. Read. Sing. Recite poetry. Read some
more. Remember
the poems you memorized in school. Listen my children and
you shall hear of the
midnight ride of Paul Revere. And the Bible verses
you learned in church. Jesus
wept. God is love. The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want. Get ahold of yourself.
Digger cracked open the door and peered out into the storm.
A white
curtain of blowing snow wrapped the world into a cocoon. He
couldn’t see
a thing. Yesterday, the storm roared out of Canada and
dumped three feet of
snow across Dakota Territory. Snow was still coming down.
Icy cold robbed
his breath. He slammed the door and added kerosene to the
lamp. The earthen
walls absorbed the light, leaving only a feeble glow.
He had sweet-talked his brother into homesteading the
adjoining claim.
They would share work and keep each other company. They
would build their
own life, away from their bossy mother and relatives.
Sitting on a claim for five
years was worth the title from Uncle Sam, in his opinion,
but George suffered
from melancholia. Dark winter days pushed him to the edge of
sanity. George
always snapped back in the spring, but even so, Digger
worried about him.
Lately he had been withdrawn and morose. As soon as the
weather cleared, he
would go check on him. Dear God, don’t let him do anything
rash.
He pulled his chair next to the stove, rested his feet on
the open oven door,
and opened a Fargo Argosy that was almost old enough
to vote. He reread a
report of a baseball game. Homesteaders were too busy and
too isolated to play
much ball. Next summer he would convince his neighbors to
play a game once
in a while. It was the only thing he missed about Iowa. He
didn’t miss his bossy
mother or the town gossips. He didn’t miss everyone trying
to tell him how to
live his life.
The door burst open, banging against the wall, and sagging
on leather hinges.
George barged inside in a swirl of artic air and driving
snow. He stood wildeyed
and gasping for breath, swathed in snow-covered blankets.
His slate blue
eyes stared out from a face so coated in ice that it hid his
carrot-colored beard.
“You red-headed-son-of-a-biscuit.” Digger jumped up with a
clatter, tipping
his chair. He lurched toward the doorway and fixed the
latch. A skiff of
snow covered the floor in front of the door. “Have you lost
your mind?”
George staggered to the stove and held his hands to the
heat. His eyelashes
melted into plops of snow that sizzled on the stovetop. His
teeth chattered
clickety-clack.
“Couldn’t see a damn thing.” His words came out between
shivers. “Faced
into the wind until I bumped the side of your barn and found
the guide rope.
Could have missed it. Wouldn’t that have been something to
write Ma about?”
“It’s not funny.” Digger could have wrung his brother’s
neck. Folks froze to
death in blizzards all the time. “Take off those wet
clothes. Check for frostbite.”
“I know.” George gathered a handful of snow from his coat
and rubbed his
face with a trembling hand. His teeth clicked so hard that
his speech came out
in uneven rhythm. “Big brother, always the straw boss.”
Digger draped the wet clothes near the stove to dry. The
smell of wet wool
filled his nostrils. “Ma would blame me if you died, no
matter how it happened.
You’ve always been her favorite.”
George grinned through a mustache long enough to cover his
crooked
teeth. “There’d be hell to pay. She never wanted us to
homestead.” He donned
Digger’s extra union suit, mostly clean, and a pair of
Digger’s dirty socks. He
buttoned Digger’s buffalo coat around him and wrapped
himself in the blankets
from Digger’s bed.
Digger fetched a heated stone for George’s feet and motioned
for George
to take the chair. He poured a cup of coffee stiff enough to
stand a spoon. “Ma
will eat her words when we prove up on our claims next
fall.”
“If we make it,” George said.
“You won’t, if you go tramping around in blizzards.” Digger
scooped soft
coal into the firebox. The stovepipe glowed red hot. “Fool
stunt to leave your
soddy.” The wind rattled the stove pipe and shutters,
howling a low moan
around the roofline.
“I was out of smokes.” George propped his feet on the oven
door and pulled
the blankets tighter around him. His teeth no longer snapped
together.
Digger fetched the tobacco can and threw it in George’s lap.
George lit his pipe, inhaled, held the smoke, and exhaled a
perfect ring.
The fire crackled, the sweet smell of tobacco, and the
stench of dirty feet filled
the dwelling.
“Out with it.” Digger knew George had plenty of tobacco.
“You didn’t risk
your life to fill your pipe.”
“Damn it,” George said. “I can’t take it anymore. Alone in
the soddy day
after day, no one to talk to, sleeping cold.” A look of
anguish crossed his face.
“I’m throwing in the towel and heading back to Iowa.”
“You’re cooped-up crazy, that’s all. The worst is behind
us.” Digger scrambled
for words that would prevent George from throwing away four
years of
labor. “Only a fool would give up now.”
“No woman wants a soddy in the middle of the prairie.”
Digger sighed. That again. Every time they got together, the
talk shifted
to women, or rather, the lack of them. “There must be
someone who wants to
marry a farmer.”
“Ten men to every woman out here on the prairie, and the
good ones already
taken.”
It was true. How was a homesteader supposed to go courting
when he had
to sit on his claim for five years? Taking leave for a few
months to find a wife
left a homesteader open for accusations when the time came
to finalize the
deed. Why, a man just west of them went to Fargo for his
father’s funeral and
stayed through the winter to help his mother. A neighbor
disputed his claim
and bought out the options from under him. All his work for
nothing, just because
of a greedy neighbor.
George might sell his land later when he held clear title.
Then he would
have money to start somewhere else if he wasn’t satisfied
with Nickelbo, Dakota
Territory. Digger couldn’t let him ruin his life.
“Maybe there’s a girl back home in Iowa. Send her a train
ticket and meet
the preacher in town when you pick her up.” Digger named
single girls they had
known in Iowa. Ina Bunch was too sickly to last on the
prairie. George said the
last letter from Ma said she had married Percy Simonson.
“That panty waist?”
“That’s what she said.”
Gladys Nelson was an old maid set in her ways. Twyla Kennedy
was promised
to a man from Arkansas.
“That’s the rub. Out-of-towners swoop in and skim the cream.
Twyla
would be a perfect wife,” George said with clenched fists.
“I’d like to meet that
Arkansas scoundrel on a deserted road sometime.”
They commiserated about their bad luck. Digger poured shot
glasses of
blackberry brandy. “We should have courted before leaving
home.” Digger felt
the brandy burn down his throat. “It didn’t seem important
at the time, and
now look at us. We’ll end up bachelors.”
“Not me. I’m getting married,” George said. “I want a dozen
boys to help
with the farm.”
“Mathilda Jones is single and sturdy, but she’s ugly as a
mule, and owly even
on a clear day,” Digger said. “But she can cook. Remember
her coconut cream
pie at the ice cream social?”
George shuddered. “I’d have to blow out the lamp to stand
it. She’s the type
of woman who looks better in the dark.” He laughed at his
own joke. “I’m looking
for a beauty. One who cooks and bakes and keeps a tidy
house. Someone to
tend flower beds and vegetable gardens. A quiet girl who
knows her place and
lets me rule the roost.”
“Neither of us is the best catch,” Digger said with a snort.
“You, a redhead
with a temper, and me going bald on top.”
“You still have a little hair,” George said. “Even if it’s
the color of mud. What
about that new teacher in Fingal ?”
“Already promised,” Digger said. “Skeeter told me.”
Skeeter Jorgenson, their neighbor to the south, had stopped
by earlier in
the week with a stack of old newspapers for sale. The papers
stank of cat piss
and crumbled around the edges, but were useful for the
outhouse and starting
fires. Digger plopped the stack in George’s lap.
“Maybe you’ll find a bride in the Montana Matrimonial
News,” Digger said.
“You selfish pig.” George’s eyes sparked fire. “Hogging
these all to yourself.”
“Settle down. I just got them a few days ago. Skeeter has
read them so many
times that he can quote them by heart, though the women
listed must all be
married by now, or in their dotage.”
Outside the wind howled. Digger scraped frost off the
window, blew on
the glass, and scraped again. Nothing but swirling white. He
moved the lamp
closer to his brother who thumbed through the papers. “You
won’t be going
anywhere tonight. Guess I’ll fix a little supper.” Digger
shoved George’s feet off
the oven door. “Have to bring the heat up for the biscuits.”
George was so engrossed in reading that he seemed not to
notice.
“Listen to this. There is a lad in Missouri with a foot
that’s flat, with seeds in his
pocket and a brick in his hat, with an eye that is blue
and a number 10 shoe—he’s the
bull of the woods and the boy for you.’” George
chuckled. “Seems he could bait his
hook a little better than that.”
“I’ll say,” Digger said from the dough pan. “Paying good
money about a
brick in his hat?”
“Wastrel,” George said. “And a braggart. Maybe he was
drinking.”
“I’ll bet he’s still single.”
“Here’s one from a woman. Is there a gentleman from 30-45
years of age,
weighing 170 to 200 pounds, measuring 5 feet and 10
inches up, honorable, and intelligent,
that desires a good wife and housekeeper? Let them answer
this number. I
can give particulars, photo, and best of references if
required. Christian preferred.”
“She’s old and fat. Read through the lines,” Digger said.
“Maybe I wouldn’t mind a fat one. She’d be warm on a cold
night.” George
wore a dreamy expression. “And a good cook.”
Digger slammed the dough in disgust. Finding a wife was more
than pretty
faces and warm beds.
About the Author
Candace Simar likes to imagine how things might have been. She combines her love of history with her Scandinavian heritage in historical novels that examine the early days of Minnesota and North Dakota. “I write historical novels to share painless history lessons about the fascinating and unique history of our region.”
Her historical novels include: Sister Lumberjack, book five in the Abercrombie Trail Series (North Star Press, March 2024) Follow Whiskey Creek (Sweet Honey Press 2023) Escape to Fort Abercrombie (Five Star Cengage 2018) Shelterbelts (North Star Press 2015), Blooming Prairie (North Star Press 2012) Birdie (North Star Press2011) Pomme de Terre (North Star Press 2010), and Abercrombie Trail (North Star Press 2009). Her short story collections: Dear Homefolks (River Place Press 2017) and The Glory of Ordinary Time (Wolfpack Press 2018). Farm Girls (River Place Press 2013) is a book of poetry co-written with her sister, Angela Foster. Candace’s short stories have been published in the anthologies: Spoilt Quilt (Five Star Cengage 2020), Librarians of the West (Five Star Cengage 2021); and Why Cows Need Cowboys (Two Dot Press 2021).
Simar is a Spur Award winner and Spur finalist from the Western Writers of America for her Abercrombie Trail series. Shelterbelts was a finalist in both the Willa Literary Awards in Historical Fiction and the Midwest Book Awards. Escape to Fort Abercrombie holds a Will Rogers Gold Medallion and a Peacemaker Award from Western Fictioneers.
Her short stories and poetry have received awards from the Bob Dylan Creative Writing Contest, Lake Region Review, League of Minnesota Poets, National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Dust and Fire, and the Laura Awards for Short Fiction.
Candace enjoys sharing her research and writing with groups and book clubs across the nation.
https://mybook.to/MontanaMatrimonialNews
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