XII

It was a hot day. Svartan was sleeping at a shadow behind the porch, hiding under a bush so deep in the darkness that he literally lived up to his name. Hoss dismounted and unsaddled his horse, and let it wander without its bridle. Carrying the saddle to the barn to protect it from the sun, he wondered how it was possible that most of the time when he was at the farm, the animals were there or were not there, and as often as not he saw the fences open or closed. Never had any of the critters been missing or on the run. As much as the sheep seemed to be guarded as much as forgotten by Tor and Sigrid, it seemed to be of abundance how their wool was enough to spin yarn and bring meat to the pot. Chubb took the advantage and stretched its neck, finding shade from the voluptuous trees nearby and scratching his itching shoulder on their trunks.

Stepping out of shade, Svartan turned back to its normal sand-coloured self and came to greet Hoss lazily. "Hey, Swore-tan, ain't this day a blazing hot one?" Hoss scratched the dog behind his ears and saw him squeeze his eyes shut most cordially. Yawning, the dog pushed his head to Hoss' leg, walked few steps towards the water trough to fill his thirst and then returned to its sanctuary in the shadows.

Hoss tried to hear any normal sounds from the house or from the clearing around it, but all he could spot were the faint chirps of the little birds and the bored sniffing of the dog. He took a look inside, but could see only a portion of bread dough rising in a bowl at a considerable rate under a tea towel, and from the tools and chores that had clearly been left out in the air in the middle, he deduced that the lot would be back soon. Perhaps they had gone swimming.

He took one of Fredrik's books in his hands, and flipped through it with a gentle smile on his face. He had become less afraid of these intricate sketches and drafts, as the more he stopped to look at the beauty of the nature that Fredrik had seen in the surrounding country, the more he started to like and appreciate what Fredrik had captured on the paper. Seeing a dandelion ready to be blown in the wind, or an autumn apple tree heavy from the dangling fruit curving its arms over two toddlers running away from each other, or a jumping trout large and fat enough for a demanding bear made him reflect his own land from an angle that was not his but yet so familiar.

The melodic speech in the odd language coming from the path leading to the house interrupted his thoughts, and he closed the book in order to put it back on the shelf. If he had looked a bit longer, he may have seen little feathers to dust off from the book, coming from the little bird's nest from inside its covers. But some things were better left as secrets.

Hoss came to see the family to the front door, and saw them all walking together in plain white shirts and wet hair. They had been swimming, just as he had guessed. Probably talking of who dared to swim the furthest, dive the deepest or jump the longest from the bank, they didn't see Hoss right away, and this gave him an opportunity to just watch how the sun caressed the delicate features of the kids, their pale skins and the golden undertone of Elin's fine hair where the droplets of water shone like little crystals sprinkled on a veil.

"Howdy", he said, trying to keep his tone so soft that it wouldn't break the atmosphere. Elin looked up to him and smiled a wide smile, pretending to be bashful for her garments and childish behavior, and knowing in her gaze how little he also cared of the rules that said she shouldn't be walking with her hair open and dripping wet. Holding her hems a bit up to stop them from getting dirty from her bare feet made her look like she was waving a flag to challenge anybody who'd dare to say that ankles were beyond improper.

"This time you caught us by surprise, Erik", she said without a bit of remorse for the condition. "It's a hot day, you should have tried the water too."

There was a lot of regret in Hoss' voice, though, when he admitted that she was right. Elin laughed at his expression, which the children couldn't comprehend. She sent the young ones inside to change to their working clothes, and lifted her hand to touch Hoss's cheek. "You'll catch us next time", she said with a promise in her voice.

Hoss took her hand and touched her knuckles very gently with his lips. "I'll do my best to remember, Ailynn."

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The evening was approaching, but the sun hadn't started to go down. Sigrid was combing her hair that had been messed by the water and plants of the afternoon swim. Rebecka was still outside, playing some sort of game with Svartan which only the two of them could understand, and Tor was concentrating mending his socks, sitting cross-legged in the askew light that came from the window.

Sigrid kept gazing to the horizon from the window and keeping her thoughts fixed in somewhere distant. "Kan vi bada bastu, Mamma?" she asked, suddenly.

"A moment", her mother replied. She lifted a coffee pot from the stove in the kitchen and pushed her head to the living room. "What did you say, sötnos?"

Sigrid turned her head to her mother and repeated her question in Swedish. Elin returned to the kitchen, took two cups and two small plates from the cupboard and carried to the living room to a small coffee table, setting the table for her and Hoss. Finding a small pitcher with cream and a little jar with sugar, she served them both a cup of hot and strong coffee for dessert. She sat opposite to him and crossed her legs.

"She's asking if we should bathe. Do you feel tired, Hoss?"

"Bathe?" Hoss raised his eyebrows, wondering.

"It's a steam bath, Hoss. It will take some time for the bathing house to be ready, but if Mamma says it's okay to bathe at night, we could warm it up." Tor explained the bathing to Hoss as he was a child, but it didn't make Hoss any wiser. Elin looked at Tor appreciating his try, and crossed her hands over her knees.

"I think in this heat the whole idea is quite silly... but why not? We only couldn't, but we should warm the steam house. After all, we do have a guest. But Tor, I can't see him understanding if he has never tried." Tasting her steaming coffee she had strengthened with a heavy dose of sugar and cream, she directed her gaze at Hoss this time. "It's a tradition... from my grandparents, and my parents took it here. My father's folk came from the north where no maps existed, and they had kin and family in the east. Bathing in steam was as normal to them as bathing in sunlight is to us."

"Mamma, let's go light the fires." Sigrid came to her mother and pulled the hem of her mother's dress to pursue her to go out. "We will be right back, Hoss."

"Calm down, sweet girl of mine. We have our coffee to finish." Elin shooed her hand away and created a vexed, annoyed look on her daughter's face. She winked at Hoss. "The girl will overcome that", she said and took another sip. "Isn't this just wonderful, Hoss."

'Quite so, Elin', he thought, but didn't say a word as he knew that around Elin it was usually not that necessary.

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"Normally we should bathe in the daytime, but it's summer. And in the summertime the time isn't counted as it is normally." Elin's soft voice evaporated in the unexpectedly warm air, and when she was leading Hoss to a little house further away, the whole forest seemed to change. Trees were a bit different from the Ponderosa pines, and the spruces and birches unfamiliarly close to each other. Smoke was coming out of the chimney and escaping to the sky that was turning dark blue.

"I will just show you how to, before I leave you alone." Elin and the children had been the first to bathe, and her hair tied in a bun was still dripping wet. "Here." They entered the house that was dark and shady, and Hoss wondered about the stools and the buckets and the two stoves in the corner, the other filled with stones and the other with water.

"Here. You should take hot water from the container and mix it for washing." Elin poured cold water from a large bucket to a smaller one, and ladled hot water from the other stove to warm it up. "And this one..." she pointed at the other stove filled with stones. "You should put some water on it and let the steam clean you well." She ladled again some water on the stones, and sent a biting cloud of steam up in the house, making Hoss duck. Laughing at him, she led him to the door and let him breathe the fresh air outside. "A good host should bathe her guests personally, but knowing your habits and how much they differ from mine, that would ask too much."

He looked at her in astonishment and shock.

She tossed her head back, laughing, and her braid escaped from its ribbon and started to unravel. "Don't worry, Erik, you can have your peace. Leave your clothes out here on the benches and take your time, and don't add any wood if you don't like it. Me and the children are done already, and when you've had enough, just see that the wood will burn to its end. We'll wait in the house."

When she strolled away, Hoss was left at the doorway, wondering again about the world he had been introduced to, and finally decided everything was worth a try. Leaving his clothes outside, he climbed to the benches close to the low ceiling. The fragrance of birch twigs soaking in a bucket in the corner filled the air and worked to clean the pores of his skin. Being troubled by the heat, but allowing the steam and the water to relax his muscles, he slowly felt the relaxing power of the warmth and let it remove all the tension and dust of the past days away from him.

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Going back to the house after the sun had gone down, not being troubled by the odd-placed trees and the pulsating shadows after the meditative steam, Hoss saw the lamps still shining their light from the inside. He was glad the kids were still up, as much as he would have been glad if the only company for him would have been just Elin. Guiding his bare feet through the grass and shamrocks that were covered in dew and mist, he opened the door and came in.

Tor had fallen asleep in the rocking chair, his body having been twisted so that for any human awake it would have been considered as highly uncomfortable and very much impossible. Elin sat on a chair and combed through Rebecka's pale white hair, parting it into small strings and starting to plait it into an intricate figure. Sigrid saw Hoss at the door first, and clapped her hands in delight. "Hoss can do my hair, Mamma!"

Elin raised her eyes from the scalp she was hiding under swags and cages of little ribbons and twines, and smiled playfully at Hoss. "Sigrid, if you would be patient you would have your turn. But as you're not, maybe Hoss will!"

Hoss chuckled at the twinkling gray gaze that returned to its previous chore, and bowed his head in amusement. "No, Secret, I reckon I ain't the finest hair-dresser in this territory. You might regret the outcome."

"Mamma will show you how." The girl pulled another chair next to her mother, and sat cross-legged in front of it. "Sit."

Elin laughed in her chiming way and patted the chair. "Come. It isn't that hard."

Hoss felt embarrassed. He hung his hat and his vest and his shirt on a kitchen chair, placed his boots leaning against the wall near the doorway and folded the cuffs of his undershirt up a bit. He walked in and sat very carefully behind Sigrid. "I ain't sure if these big hands of mine are worth of even trying", he grumbled while holding his reserved and awkward stature.

Elin gave him a sideways glance from under her brow, and dropped the little braids she had been playing with with Rebecka's hair, tousled it all lose and free into locks as soft as cotton, and rested her other hand palm up to show Hoss. "Look at these, Erik."

Though knowing their touch but never having examined how they were in reality, Hoss was amazed by the fingers that were as long as any ordinary man's, and the fingertips and knuckles that were firm but fleshy, and despite the work she had to do in order to keep the farm in order, the skin on her large hands was even and bouncy unlike the calloused hand of Hoss which he lifted next to hers. Hoss looked in silence and examined the similar lines on the palms that crossed both Elin and his hands, and slowly his hands stopped to look clumsy and awkward.

"If I can do it, you can do it", Elin said with confidence, and patted Hoss's knee, assuring him to try. "Look. We start simply. Comb out three strands from the front..." her soft voice faded off and she encouraged Hoss to follow her lead, picking small strands from the little girl's hair and showing how to twine them into figures. Hoss felt clumsy to begin, being afraid that he'd hurt Sigrid by pulling her hair and making twirling tangles by accident; but Elin laughed at him and told him to try more. "There's nothing you can't undo, if it goes wrong", she said. "And don't try to pull the hair to where it doesn't want to go; then it will only look bad and beside hurt my Sigrid very much."

Hoss couldn't help his tongue from coming out from his mouth and traveling from left to right between his teeth, while the whole of his body was crunched awkwardly over the little girl, if only the exercise could have made it gentler for the girl. "Are you sure I ain't hurting you too much, Secret?"

"Your fingers are like big ants on my head, they tickle", Sigrid giggled, and leaned her body against his calf. "I will tell you if it hurts. Go on."

Combing and undoing the thick hair of the girl, so much different in texture than her mother's fine and weightless hair lest for the identical color, Hoss was able to relax slowly and start to enjoy the errand, seeing how his hands could replicate what Elin showed and feeling how the girls under their feet were almost purring like cats. When finally Sigrid yawned so hard that it nearly made her jaws crack, her mother decided it was the final plait and well time for the girls to go to bed. Tying the hair with ribbons and sending the girls to the outhouse, Elin smiled distantly before she returned her attention to Hoss.

"It wasn't so hard, was it, Hoss?" She took his hand in her own warm one and squeezed it a little. "You are a great learner."

Hoss examined her high cheekbones, her silvery pale eyebrows and her mystical gray gaze, and turned the lamp off leaving them both in the middle of curved shadows. "It made me nearly forgot for what I came here for", he said, and stroked the fine hair along Elin's face and wondered about its light appearance while it fell on her shoulders as a cloud of mist.

"Sit with me on the porch", she said, as they heard the sounds of the girls coming back. She sent the little ones under the blankets and guided Hoss to the porch by his hand, and sat down on the highest step, leaning her back against the door.

An owl hooted somewhere in the woods, and the whisper of small feet of the running mice was almost audible. Hoss sat next to Elin, and after hesitating for a moment, he reached his arm over her shoulders and pulled her tightly against him. Resting his chin on her head and stroking her hair with the hand, he spoke softly to her as the other hand searched to find hers and tangle their fingers together. "I want to take you to see my family", he said, and pressed his lips on her forehead.

"Speak tomorrow", she said in a whisper, and pressed even tighter against his body.