Free Stands a Calder Man by Janet Dailey Page A

grayness in his hair, he was iron-strong, yet kind and good.
    In her own way she loved him. If the emotion lacked passion, Lillian wasn’t troubled by it. Romantic love was a luxury of the rich who could afford such things. A common woman had to be more practical and pick a man who could provide her food, shelter, and companionship. Lillian was satisfied with her choice.
    â€œYou have waited a long time to have land you could call your own.” Lillian watched the pride of possessionsteal into his eyes, then turned to make a sweeping gesture with her arm. “Here it is, three hundred and twenty acres.”
    â€œThat Mr. Vessel, he said he vould show us the best.” He nodded in satisfaction, his stoic features altering their expression not at all, but the look in his eyes was very expressive.
    Yesterday they had filed the homestead claim, made arrangements at the bank for a loan with Mr. Wessel’s help, and purchased seed, equipment, and the supplies they needed to start a new life. With the team of draft horses and a used wagon, they had picked up the belongings they’d left at the train station and driven here to their property where they would build their home. It was twenty miles from town and six miles from their closest neighbor, but after traveling so far, they were undaunted by these distances.
    â€œLook at this, Lillian.” Stefan indicated the ground at his feet and nudged the grass aside with the toe of his high-topped leather shoe. When he crouched down for a closer study, Lillian did the same, smoothing her skirt close to her legs so it wouldn’t be in the way. His callused and blunt-fingered hand exposed the tangle of grass stalks that held the soil together. “Ve vill make to grow the vheat dis thick.”
    â€œYes, we will.” She knew he was seeing it happen in his mind’s eye, the transformation of this sea of grass into an ocean of waving wheat.
    His hand closed around a clump of grass and gave a steady pull, muscles straining to break the tenacious grip of the grass’s roots in the soil. That Stefan Reisner succeeded in ripping it out of its earth bed was a clear measure of his physical prowess. He tossed the clump aside and clawed out a handful of dirt. With smiling eyes, he looked at Lillian and offered her the soil. She cupped her hands while he crumbled the chunks into them.
    â€œOur land,” he said simply.
    The brown dirt was cool against her palms. Sheclosed her fingers around the dry earth, feeling its roughness and reminding herself that this soil was a source of food for plant life. This was fertility in her hands, the first chain in nature’s cycle.
    â€œOn this spot, ve vill build our home,” he said as he pushed to his feet. “First, ve must plow the ground and plant our vheat.”
    â€œWe’ll need to plow a space for a garden, too, so we can grow our own vegetables,” Lillian added.
    Behind them, one of the horses stamped the ground, rattling the harness chains. Lillian straightened and brushed the dirt from her hands without getting it all. While Stefan walked to the wagon to begin unloading it, she lingered to make another slow study of the rolling grassland sprinkled with wild flowers.
    For so long, this land had been unproductive, solely the domain of cattle and the men who tended them, the cowboys. The corners of her mouth were edged with a faint smile by the latter thought. The first one she’d met in the flesh hadn’t turned out to be anything like what she had expected a cowboy to be. She had thought they were wild and rowdy, always ready for a fight, but the one she’d met had been polite and friendly.
    She could still remember his dark eyes and the way they looked at her, frankly admiring and alive with interest. He’d always had elbowroom, never confined or crowded. It showed in his manner, the way he carried himself, so loose and at ease with his surroundings, accustomed to the