II

"Adam, will you ride to the north pasture today?" Ben poured coffee into a small red-and-white cup and leaned over to reach for the sugar.

Adam glanced quickly at Hoss and raised his own coffee cup to his lips. He eyed the cup and then his father casually. "I was thinking I could see to that wagon wheel today and rest my old bones."

Ben's cocked eyebrows were not as quick as the mouth of his youngest son. "Your old what?" Joe gulped, with part of his seventh biscuit in his mouth, ending the inquiry in a small wailing sound and a spray of crumbs. Adam shifted slightly to return his feet back to his side of the table.

"Old bones and old bones... telling me of his old bones as he were some... something with old bones..." Joe muttered barely audibly, and served himself another portion of eggs. "At least I won't have to listen to these crazy old brothers of mine if I pick up the supplies in Virginia City."

"I'll ride with you, Joe." Ben took a sip of his coffee and eyed Joe levelly, as if he wouldn't be able to make up his mind whether to keep the look stern or playful. "I have to send a wire about a contract. Besides, it's springtime and nobody knows what that brings to the heads of young men."

"Oh, quit laughing", Joe grunted at smirking Adam and helped himself with coffee. "It's about time somebody in this house had some springtime in his head."

He returned a wink at Hoss' roaring laughter and sipped his coffee. "Older brother."

"Very funny." But the snark in Adam's voice was more from habit than intention.

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Hoss had ridden a long way to the northeast. He carried all he needed to be able to camp for the night, but the journey had been pleasant and the landscape merciful, so it felt like no time had passed since he started in the morning. Looking at a thickening growth of trees and remembering the joy of just satisfying his curiosity, he reined Chubb quicker to the neatly stamped path that he knew to lead to a little household right at the border area. It was a border in many ways. Lands were dividing, and the landscape changed from rocks to woods and again to grass land, and Hoss had heard a legend that even animals and the wind decided around that area, whether to go east, to go west, or to go back.

Soon Hoss could see a small house painted in red and a little child of five or six years of age looking very intensely at a sleeping dog. He dismounted and loosened the cinch, and looked at the neat yard, appreciating what he saw. It was small, but well taken care of.

"Howdy, li'l gal."

"Shhhh." The girl pressed her forefinger to her puckered lips and kept her pale blue eyes fixed on the dog. Hoss examined her two very blonde plaits that were tied into two ringlets, and the air of determination around her little body that was curled down so that she was almost like a little frog staring at the animal.

"Is that your dog?"

"Shhhhh!" This time the hiss was a bit angrier.

To his relief, Hoss heard another person coming over and found himself looking at the widow Nilsson, a smiling woman of not long past her thirtieth birthday. She opened her mouth for a greeting, but saw the little girl with her intense study, and decided otherwise.

"Svartan!" she shouted and clapped her hands. The dog woke up and sprang of to his feet, leaving the little girl to look at her mother quite warily. "I was almost there, Mamma." She pronounced her 'mama' so long and soft that it emphasized her melodic accent.

"Rebecka, can't you see we have a guest? Behave." The same melody rang clear and appealing in her accent. "I'm Elin."

"Ailynn." Hoss twisted his mouth, as if to taste the sound of his own interpretation. "I'm Hoss Cartwright, just plain Hoss, ma'am." Hoss squeezed the offered hand, which returned the gesture a lot harder than he would have expected. "And this I reckon is Rebecca."

"Come and shake hands with Mr. Hoss, Rebecka." The girl came closer, looked at Hoss from under her eyebrows and gave her hand as if she hoped it had been ten feet long. At least.

"Rebecka Nilsson." The soft sounds in the middle of the name made Hoss smile, and he bent low to shake hands with the girl most carefully.

"Miss Rebbeca. Nice to meet you."

The girl seemed to hold a lot more suspicion in the tone of her voice, and eyed with more suspicion her new acquaintance, but she accepted the greeting in silence. "Off you go, play with Svartan", her mother told her. Turning to Hoss, she went on. "Sorry for her behavior, we don't have much joy of guests at Linden's Creek."

"It is a bit far off, if you don't mind me saying."

"But I'm glad your curiosity brought you over." Her eyes narrowed to give way to a sparkling smile, which softened the features of her face and made her pale gray eyes glitter. "Isn't it a long ride from Ponderosa?"

Hoss took his hat, examined its rim and returned the smile over the open question. "I reckon it is, ma'am. But as you said, curiosity is a mighty powerful thing. And I just thought if I could ride over to see... if you need anything. Or just to say hello, ma'am."

"Just Elin."

"Ailynn."

She laughed at his way of saying her name and dusted her apron. "Could I offer you a cup of coffee, Hoss Cartwright?" Without waiting, Elin whirled toward the house, and a moment after Hoss realized he was expected to follow. He took his hat off as he entered the red house, and scraped clean his boots at the door, which he never did at any other place.

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"How come you named the place Linden's Creek?"

The silver bells of her laughter filled Hoss' ears, while her eyes glimmered their mystical light to him. "You don't believe we have water in this land, do you?" she asked, setting her hand rather teasingly on her hip as she set the water on the stove.

"As a matter of fact we do have water; we have a little stream deep in those woods behind our house. But the name Linden comes from my family. My parents were named Lind, my husband wanted to honor them and here we stand." She tapped her foot on the firm floor and smiled. "Linden's Creek. The little stream was our secret hideaway with my husband when my husband was still alive."

Hoss had listened very carefully, but the faint layer of very blonde freckles on her nose and cheekbones kept disturbing him. He could comprehend nearly a half, though. "Mr. Nilsson... how... sorry." Hoss blushed. "I'm being too intruding."

"Not at all. My husband passed away six years ago, when I had just discovered to be with Rebecka." The woman said the last without a blush, smiling proudly while looking through the window at the little girl, who was patiently teaching the sand-colored dog to shake hands with her. "He was hunting. It was a snowy winter at the mountains and he lost his step at a bad place – he was found much later by other men on that trail."

The gray eyes were filled with a sequence of moods, from pride to happiness, then to sorrow, deep longing and coming back to this moment, and pulling back from the mists of the past so quickly, it made Hoss wonder if he had seen the emotions at all. "He wasn't much of a hunter, but a hunter enough for our little family. He was more excited to find new plants and critters and draw their pictures. I've kept the books if you want to see them one day." Her smile was directed straight at Hoss disarmingly, and her eyes shone bright as the spring sun for Hoss. "Would you like to have another cup?"

While Hoss accepted the offer, they could hear more sounds coming from the yard. In a moment, a boy of roughly ten years of age rushed into the kitchen and was followed by a younger girl.

Whereas the little one Hoss had met in the yard had been almost as pale as a ghost, the boy and the girl had darker complexions, very similar to their mother's sweet brown hair and her level gray eyes; nevertheless, Hoss could recognize them as siblings of the reserved little girl by the tone of their suspicious glare. Two pairs of level gray eyes inspected him with care.

He smiled at the touch of freckles on the nose of the girl, and thought she would become a very attractive young woman in just six or seven years' time. He held his hand out to the children before their mother made a gesture to introduce them. "My name is Hoss Cartwright, but you can call me just Hoss."

"Thor." The boy shook his hand and appeared to have forgotten how to blink. "Tor Emil", her mother corrected. "But I guess it's easier to call him just Thor."

"Sigrid", the girl said as she took her turn to shake his hand.

"Thor and Siry." Hoss smiled at the children in front of him.

"Sig – Rid."

"Secret?" The girl didn't seem to be amused at all, although Hoss could see behind her head that her mother was holding her hand over her own mouth to stop from laughing. "Maybe I'll call you just Syrup, what'ya say to that?"

"I'd rather be just Sigrid."

"Seeg-reed – I'll try to remember." Hoss bowed his head to show his respect to the young lady.

"Go on; go tell Rebecka I've set some biscuits on the table. Go, go!" Elin touched the children on their shoulders and pointed at the door. "Hurry, before we finish all the milk with Mr. Hoss."

Hoss observed the slightly convex arch of her nose, which ended in a pointy little top from which fairies probably slid down and flew off into the air. He wondered how long her braid was, when it was not curled into a bun in the nape of her neck.

"I hope you like children, as mine tend to think they rule the world", she laughed, without seeming at all ashamed of the state of the matter as such. "But indeed, they can spend their days in the woods without seeing adults for a long time; they forget their manners."

"Ma'am... " The look from the gray eyes warned him. "Ailynn." The eyes filled with stars again and her eyebrows eased to give way to a smile. Hoss grinned. "They are very fine kids as they are. You can be right proud of them all."

"Thank you. You saw it's not just the children, but the little farm. Not so many animals... but a living to take care of." Again she laughed. Hoss could have listened to her melodic laughter all day, and watch her eyes curling even more upward from the outer corners as she smiled. Sunlight seemed to dance on her high cheekbones.

"I'm sure your little farm is one of the best taken care of I've seen around here", Hoss admitted. He might have named it the best establishment in any direction from Ponderosa, if he had been asked right at that moment.

The magic of the spell called Ailynn had started to work.