[Return To Red River 01] - A Dream to Follow

by Lauraine Snelling

  Mrs. Sam turned from storing flour and beans, her dark face nearly disappearing into the shadows. “You gonna drive de team, or me?”

  “I will.” He leaped to the ground, ignoring the step that folded up when they traveled.

  “Breakfast is ready,” Ingeborg called from the kitchen door.

  “Tell her we already et.” Mrs. Sam leaned her head out the door, referring to herself and her daughter, Lily Mae. Between the two of them they would cook for the traveling crew. Haakan and Lars had built the compact house on wagon wheels several years earlier so that they could have good food all the time. Some of the places they’d set up the threshing machine as they traveled from farm to farm had fed them so poorly, their stomachs rebelled.

  Haakan finished the blessing as Thorliff slid into his place. He’d hardly slept between spending a late evening walking along the river with Anji, then going to bed and dreaming of never finding home again. He filled his plate with sliced ham, fried eggs, and biscuits dripping with butter and strawberry jam. He licked the jam from his fingers and caught his mother’s gaze.

  “Sure is good.” He took another bite. “No one makes biscuits good as you.”

  “Astrid made these.”

  He glanced at his sister, who stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, I guess you’re getting to be a good cook too, but only because you have a good teacher.”

  “All right, Thorliff, what is it you want?” Ingeborg poured her husband another cup of coffee.

  Thorliff flinched. How did she know? “I . . . I was just wondering if you could invite Anji over once in a while. She’ll get lonesome with me gone.”

  “Ha.” Astrid wrinkled her nose. “We’re all too busy to miss anyone.”

  “I sure hope that’s not true.” Haakan looked up at his wife.

  “W-e-ll.” Ingeborg appeared to consider both sides, then laughed as Haakan shook his finger at her. “Letters would be nice, on a regular basis I mean, not one a season.”

  “Last year I sent you two telegrams.”

  “Ja and scared the life near to out of me with them. I thought sure someone had been hurt or killed or something.”

  Haakan shoved back from the table, shaking his head. “A man can’t win.”

  “I put paper, pencil, and envelopes, already addressed, in your kit. Just as a hint, mind you.” Ingeborg handed her husband a tow sack.

  “What’s this?”

  “Something special for the journey.”

  “For me?”

  “If you don’t want to share.”

  “Um. I don’t share very good.”

  “Thorliff, you saw the sack.” She turned to wink at her eldest. He grinned and stretched his arms above his head, then stood and pushed his chair back in place.

  “Come on, Far, we got miles to go.”

  Lars had the boiler nearing the pressure for them to leave. Ever since they had bought the new steam tractor and put the separator up on wheels, they’d needed fewer horses and men to keep in business. Traveling around the countryside, the machine looked like some gigantic monster, belching steam and smoke with a racket to be heard for miles. The rear wheels on the tractor were nearly as tall as Thorliff and the cab perched above that.

  “Go with God,” Ingeborg yelled above the engine noise.

  Haakan and Lars waved from the iron-roofed cab and shifted gears, and the beast lumbered forward, the treads in the wheels gouging holes in the road as it passed. Thorliff waved from the seat of the cook wagon, and Hamre drove the wagon that carried barrels for water and other supplies.

  Hanging back enough to miss most of the dust, Thorliff let his mind wander. Anji. He was already missing her, and it wasn’t like he saw her every day anyway. He thought back to the night before, his last visit with her. . . .

  “I’m going tomorrow, and when I get home, I leave right away again for school,” he said, taking her hands in his and facing her in the brilliant moonlight. He wanted to touch her face, her hair. Her lips, parted on a soft breath, smiled in that special way she had just for him.

  “I know, but that is the way life is.” Anji sighed and leaned her forehead against his chest.

  His heart thudded as if he’d been running five miles. He dropped her hands and cupped his palms along her jawline, lifting her chin so she had to look up at him. “I . . . I love you, Anji Baard.” There, he’d said the words that had been drumming in his heart and mind for months. Her smile made him want to run and jump and shout for joy.

  “And I you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you, back when our wagon was heading west.”

  “And my far invited all of you to homestead here. We were so little then.” His thumbs caressed the curve of her cheeks. Her skin felt soft as pussy willows in the spring. His eyes memorized her face—the slightly tipped nose, eyebrows that could say more with one arch than a page in a book, eyes that looked at him with such love he could feel his heart clench.

  “Can you—will you wait for me?”

  “Yes. Four years is nothing. Besides, I can’t leave my mother.”

  “I know. Someday though, I pray you will go to school to become the teacher God meant for you to be.”

  “Someday.”

  Her breath teased his lips. He leaned forward. Their lips met in a trembling kiss that whispered of love and yearning and . . .

  “Thorliff, you sleepin’ up dere?” Mrs. Sam rapped on the wall behind the seat.

  He jerked upright. “No, not at all.” But when he looked ahead, the distance between him and the metal monsters had widened to nearly half a mile. The horses pulling the wagon had slowed to a shuffle. He flipped the lines, and they picked up their feet to a slow but jingling trot. He could feel the heat creep up his neck, and it wasn’t from sunburn.

  They pulled into the first farm just in time to set up to serve dinner, which Mrs. Sam and Lily Mae had been preparing as they traveled. Since they couldn’t light the fire, they had laid out sandwiches and potato salad, which Ingeborg had helped prepare the long night before. The threshing crew ate quickly so they could get started to work.

  As soon as they had the steam engine up to pressure, had checked all the belts one last time, and Hamre had filled all the places needing oil, Haakan released the lever, and the long belt began to turn. Thorliff waited for the signal and threw the lever for the bed of the threshing machine to pull sheaves of wheat into the maw of the dragon. Within minutes golden wheat streamed into the gunnysack hooked under the chute.

  Each wagon pulled up to the carrying belt, the men forked sheaves, and straw blew out the arched spout into a growing stack. Wheat spears snuck inside shirt necks and under overall straps. Sweat poured from the bodies as the sun burned down. Besides taking care of the oiling, Hamre kept water in a covered barrel for the men to drink.

  Always on the watch for sparks, they kept buckets of water near all sides of the machinery. Sparks could fly from the smokestack of the steam engine in spite of the metal roof on top.

  By dusk, when the last wagon left empty, the threshing crew collapsed in the shade of the monolith called steam engine.

  Mrs. Sam brought cold drinks around for all of them. “Supper ready soon as you wash up.”

  Thorliff groaned. What would it hurt to eat dirty for a change? He slapped his hat against his bent knee and watched the dust fly.

  Haakan finished checking over the machinery and dumped a bucket of water over his head so that it sluiced down his whole body.

  “Good thing we’s near de river yet and can refill de barrels. Dat man say some wells be dryin’ up,” Mrs. Sam said.

  “You’re right. Bad enough the harvest is so light, but to go without water too . . .” He shook his head, water drops splattering the thirsty earth, rock hard from lack of moisture.

  Thorliff watched his father joke with the others, but when it came to him, the silence ached. All because he wanted to go to school. He thought back to the worst fight he’d seen in his family. Usually if Haakan and Ingeborg had a disagreement
, they went to the bedroom or out for a walk. Not this time. . . .

  “Where will you be when Thorliff needs to come home?” Ingeborg poured another cup of coffee for her husband, her hand resting on his shoulder.

  “Thorliff will come home with the rest of us.”

  “Then you think you will be done by September tenth? Is the harvest that bad?”

  “I hope to heaven not.” Haakan shook his head and twisted to see his wife’s face. “You aren’t going to back down on this, are you?”

  She shook her head. “No. This is too important. Thorliff must have this chance.”

  “And it doesn’t matter that we sweat our blood for him to have this farm?” Haakan lowered his voice with great effort.

  Thorliff wanted to slide right under the table. Veins corded on his father’s neck. The handle snapped on his coffee cup, and he threw it toward the woodbox, but it pinged off the side of the stove. When Thorliff started to get it, Haakan roared. “Leave it be. Why isn’t this farm enough for you? Are you better than the rest of us?”

  Thorliff straightened his spine and looked straight into his father’s eyes. “Not better, no, never that, but different. Andrew is in love with this farm, not me.”

  “You hate this good life of tilling God’s good earth?”

  “No, Far, that’s not it at all. I love the land and all of you. I just want something else, that’s all. Something else.”

  “Haakan, never have I gone against your will. . . .” Ingeborg paused for a moment, obviously thinking back to the time she’d been working the fields against his express wishes and lost a baby due to an accident. Then taking a deep breath, hands strangling her apron, she continued. “But this is what is right. Our children must be given every opportunity that we can give them. Not everyone in this great land will be a farmer; we need teachers and writers and doctors and . . .” She let her hands drop to her side. “Please, don’t make him go against your wishes.”

  Haakan shoved back from the table and headed for the door. “You will do what you must, but I cannot give my blessing. I cannot.”

  Thorliff fought the tears that burned at the back of his throat and watched his mother dry her eyes on her apron.

  “Mor, I cannot go then.”

  “Yes, you will go. He will come around. Just give him time.”

  But they were running out of time, and each farm they left brought that time that much closer. Sometimes if he let himself think of it, rage simmered low in his belly. Why did this have to be so difficult? Why did his father have to be so stubborn?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “We need to go.” Metiz stood in the doorway several days after the threshing crew left.

  “Where?” Ingeborg turned from the jars of string beans cooking in the copper boiler. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Whew, this is hot.”

  “To Agnes.”

  Ingeborg untied her apron. “Did someone come for you?”

  Metiz shook her head. “Just know.”

  Oh, God, please let this be a false alarm. Please, Lord, don’t take Agnes. And yet as she tied on a clean apron and her sunbonnet, she knew she didn’t want Agnes suffering any longer. Each time she’d seen her, she’d looked more of another world than of this one.

  “Let me send Astrid over to Kaaren’s.” Outside, she shaded her eyes with her hand. The oxen were plodding back from the river, drawing the wagon bearing the barrels of water that kept the garden producing. Andrew and his helpers were laughing as they came. No matter how hard they worked, they always seemed to find something to laugh about.

  “I’ll get the buggy hitched.” Ingeborg went to the fence and whistled. The grazing horses raised their heads, and when she whistled again, they ambled toward the barn. By the time she had a rope around one neck, Metiz had swung the gate open, then closed it as they passed through. Within minutes Ingeborg had the horse harnessed and backed into the shafts of the two-wheeled buggy Haakan had purchased at an auction south of town. Due to the drought, there’d been too many auctions, and always Haakan came home with items they didn’t need as much as the seller had needed the money.

  She buckled the shafts to the belly band and threaded the lines back to wrap around the whip stock.

  “Where you going?” Astrid came running across the yard.

  “Metiz said we are needed at the Baard’s. Watch the clock. The beans will be ready to come off at ten.”

  “All right. You want me to finish dinner?”

  “Most likely. Go tell Tante Kaaren what has happened.”

  Andrew ran up in time to hear the last instructions. “We’ll take care of things here, Mor. You needn’t worry about us.”

  “Thank you, son.” Ingeborg stepped up into the buggy on one side, Metiz on the other. “I will send someone to let you know.” She clucked the horse forward and into a fast trot.

  They turned into the Baard lane as young Gus came trotting out. “I was just coming to get you. Ma is asking for you.” Tears streaked his tanned cheeks.

  “Jump in.” Ingeborg had stopped the horse to talk.

  Metiz scooted over, and Gus climbed in. Before he sat all the way down, Ingeborg had the horse moving again.

  “Tell me what’s happening.”

  Gus sniffed and scrubbed under his nose with the back of his hand.

  Shirtless, he wore his overalls with one strap unhooked. “She . . . she woke up so weak she could hardly talk. Anji tried to get her to eat, but she wouldn’t. Not even drink her coffee. After she slept again, she asked for you.” He hiccupped and looked out over the wheat stubble. “Is . . . is she going to die?”

  “Only God knows that. We will do what we can.”

  He leaped to the ground when they stopped at the gate to the yard. “I’ll take care of your horse.”

  “Thank you.” Ingeborg and Metiz hurried into the house.

  “She’s in the bedroom.” Anji, red eyed and sniffling, led them across the kitchen.

  “How is she?”

  “Sleeping.”

  They stepped into the room to see Agnes still in her nightdress and lying so still Ingeborg caught her breath. Was she already gone? But moving closer, she could see the sheet move just slightly with the woman’s breathing. The thing that grew inside her mounded the sheet enough to look as if she were about to give birth.

  “Can I get you anything?” Anji looked from Ingeborg to Metiz. “Hot water, cold water, coffee, anything?” Her voice cracked.

  Ingeborg laid her hand on Anji’s arm. “Where is Joseph?”

  “Out at the barn. He was here until a few minutes ago. The boys were too.”

  “Let me listen. Is she running a fever?”

  Anji shook her head.

  Metiz sat on one side of the bed and Ingeborg the other. Taking Agnes’s hand, Ingeborg pressed gently.

  Agnes’s eyes fluttered open. “You . . . are . . . here.”

  “Ja, Metiz said you needed us.”

  “Good.” The word faded on a sigh so faint that Ingeborg leaned closer. She looked to Metiz, who shook her head so imperceptibly that had Ingeborg not been watching, she’d have missed it.

  “I . . . I am . . . going home.”

  “Ja. Our Lord is waiting for you.” Ingeborg heard Anji sob be–hind her.

  “Please, the psalm.”

  “Ja.” Ingeborg turned and whispered to Anji. “Call the others quickly.”

  “S-so hard . . .” A pause, each one longer than the last. “For them.”

  “Ja. I shall miss you so, dear friend.”

  Agnes squeezed Ingeborg’s fingers butterfly light.

  One by one the men filed in, Knute and Swen following behind their father, eyes red. Joseph took Metiz’ place at her motion. “She’s in no pain?” Joseph asked.

  Metiz shook her head. “Beyond pain.”

  Ingeborg laid her other hand over Agnes’s. “ ‘The Lord is my shepherd. . . . ’ ”

  “Ja.” Her eyes opened halfway. A smile touched the corners
of her mouth. “Ja.”

  “ ‘I shall not want.’ ” The others joined in, faltering one at a time. “ ‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’ ” Gus turned his head into his arm. Becky sobbed on Anji’s shoulder.

  Ingeborg felt the hand go limp as if life hovered on a breath. The lines smoothed out on her friend’s face. The smile deepened slightly.

  “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . . . ’ ” The words trailed off as each realized what had happened.

  Joseph choked on a sob but kept going. “ ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’ ”

  Becky ran to her father and threw herself in his arms. He hugged her close and reached for the others. Together they stood, arms around each other, tears streaming down their faces.

  “She is with God.” Joseph took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “I’ll go tell Pastor.”

  “I will, Pa. Let me.” Knute patted his father’s shoulder and left the room.

  “I didn’t think she’d go so soon.” Joseph sat back down on the bed and picked up his wife’s hand, stroking her fingers with the tips of his own. “She was the best wife any man could have.”

  “The best friend too.” Ingeborg wiped her eyes again. “She stood beside me through everything. After Roald died, she took me to task about forgiving and letting go and getting on with life. She told me my sons needed me. She said I was trying to kill myself with work, but that wasn’t God’s way. It took a lot for her to say all that to me.”

  “Had a healthy dose of gumption, she did.”

  Ingeborg looked around to see the others had left without her knowing. “So now we comfort the grieving and rejoice that she was here with us for as long as she was.” A sob caught her, and she sniffed again. “I know that’s the Christian way, but some things are almost harder than a body can bear.”

  Joseph blew his nose and wiped his eyes. “Until this thing took her over, I always thought God would take me first, me being older and all.” He laid Agnes’s hand across her chest. “I thank you for coming like you did.”