Escape to Fort Abercrombie

by Candace Simar

  Ryker paused at the edge of the corn patch for a long moment and gathered courage to step away from the tall stalks, exposing himself to whoever might be watching. Crows squawked and bickered over the field like a gaggle of old women.

  He followed the trail of moccasin prints. The path wove north-westward toward the fort. Footprints showed in patches of bare ground. Mingled among the moccasins tracks were Klara’s and Sven’s small prints. It seemed others walked with them. A larger shoe print might be their mother’s. He saw no dog tracks.

  Maybe they were friendly Indians who took the children to the fort for safety. But maybe they were the Indians who had killed Papa. Maybe the ones who had so cruelly mistreated Johnny Schmitz. It was Ryker’s fault the twins were taken. He should have listened to Sven.

  Ryker crouched behind a bush to watch the trail behind him. The grass swayed in the breeze, and meadowlarks sang. Overhead a gray sky threaded with bands of clouds like gray wool. He searched the horizon for any sign of movement. A sudden burst of swallows exploded from a scraggly clump of bushes.

  The prairie took on a sinister feel. The air grew hot and steamy. Clouds thickened overhead. It felt like a storm brewing. Klara was afraid of thunder. His arms ached from carrying the heavy pack.

  An Indian could be hiding nearby. His legs ached, and he felt the burn of stretched muscles as he searched for higher ground where he might see over the tops of grass. Funny about the prairie that way. Though it looked flat as a pancake, it hid buffalo wallows and small ravines. There were a million places to hide. Maybe the Indians waited in ambush to capture him.

  A hawk cried. Flies buzzed and tormented.

  Without the sun to guide him, Ryker lost his sense of direction. He kept walking, though he had lost track of the trail and did not know where he was going. Maybe he should stop until sundown. Even clouds could not hide the western sunset. He stopped and drank from the jug.

  Without warning, Beller exploded from the grass and planted dirty paws on Ryker’s chest, almost knocking him over in his excitement.

  “Beller!” he said. A surge of gladness welled in Ryker’s chest. “Where have you been?”

  A bloody ear dangled from Beller’s head by a thread of skin. The rope hung around his neck. His coat was matted with chaff and burrs. Beller smiled his huge dog smile and panted into Ryker’s face.

  “Where are they, boy?” Ryker said. “Where are the twins?”

  Beller wagged his tail in response.

  Hot tears ran down Ryker’s face. Beller lived. Ryker pressed his face into Beller’s stinky coat. He pulled away and rummaged in the pillow slip for a summer squash found at the abandoned farm.

  “It’s not much,” Ryker said. He tossed it to Beller, who crunched it down in a single gulp and looked expectantly for more. “Sorry, boy,” Ryker said. “It’s all I can spare.” When Beller realized there would be nothing more, he bounded off into the grass.

  “Beller,” Ryker called. “Come back.” Ryker picked up the sack of supplies and raced after the dog, running through the tall grass until he came to an enormous rock. Beller lay in its shadow, eating a baby rabbit.

  “Beller,” Ryker said. “Don’t scare me that way.” He leaned back against the cool surface of the rock and caught his breath. His throat parched, and he pushed his hand against a stitch in his side. “We have to stick together until we find the twins.”

  Beller looked at Ryker with a tilted head, the rabbit skin hanging out of one side of his mouth.

  “You’re vonlaus,” Ryker said. Of course he didn’t mean it. He bent low and hugged Beller again. Sven was right to insist they bring Beller along. “You’re a good boy,” Ryker said. They sat for a while, leaning against the rock, until anxiety compelled Ryker to climb the rock and search again for signs of Indians or the twins.

  The sun dipped in the western sky, making a low ribbon of light on the horizon. Ryker marked the western edge of the rock with a small stone, scraping an arrow pointing west. He would know the right direction, even if clouds obscured tomorrow’s sun.

  He saw no sign of Indians, the twins, or trees that would indicate Whiskey Creek. An Indian campfire would show in the night. He would climb the rock later. Until then he must keep hold of the dog lest he escape again. He started to climb down but missed his footing and slipped, banging his shin against a sharp edge.

  “Ouch,” Ryker said, fighting back tears. He rubbed his leg and wrinkled his nose at the stinging pain. “Darn it!” He could have broken his leg with such foolishness. Who would know or even care if he lay out on the prairie with a broken leg?

  Beller licked a bloody drip on Ryker’s leg and laid his shaggy head on his lap.

  He had never kissed a girl, been to a dance, or satisfied his thirst for knowledge. He wanted to grow up, marry, and have children of his own. He couldn’t die now. There was much to learn. Besides, his family needed him. “Beller, we have to find them.”

  He tried to pray, but the Lord’s Prayer tangled in his brain and refused to come to mind. He calmed himself by repeating Jesus’s name. He prayed for his father’s soul, although he wasn’t sure it was right to pray for the dead. The prayer came naturally from his heart, and, if it were wrong, he figured God would understand. Then he prayed for the twins, his mother and Elsa, the new baby in his mother’s womb, and lastly for Martin.

  A cooling breeze stirred the falling shadows. The butcher knife and quilt had been taken along with the twins. He kicked himself for allowing such important items out of his sight. Maybe Klara was using it to keep warm.

  He gnawed an ear of raw corn and tossed the cob to Beller. They huddled for warmth, but Ryker couldn’t sleep. He tried to remember one of the poems he had learned back in Dodge County, but the only line he could remember was from Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride: Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. He repeated it several times, but it was no use. The words evaporated as surely as his family.

  He tried to understand what drove the Indians to attack innocent people. Mrs. Tingvold said America broke the treaty. No one Ryker knew had anything to do with the treaties or breaking of them.

  Fears pressed from all directions. Just when Ryker thought the mosquitoes would keep him awake all night, his eyes drifted closed. “Wake me if there’s trouble, boy,” he said before slipping into a heavy, fretful sleep.

  A cold rain woke him in the dark of night, sweeping in from the west with roaring thunder and flashes of lightning. Ryker clung to Beller in the pouring rain, praying that Klara would not be afraid, knowing she would be terrified.

  “Protect us Lord, as we stay awake; watch over us, as we sleep,” Ryker murmured aloud. Beller whined until Ryker prayed the rest of the prayer. As Ryker said the words, he imagined the faces of Sven and Klara, Mama, and Elsa. He repeated the prayer again for Papa, Mr. and Mrs. Tingvold, and Martin. In spite of the rain, he drifted asleep while praying for all those he loved, both living and dead.

  CHAPTER 15

  * * *

  Beller’s whine woke Ryker before dawn. Ryker rubbed sleep from his eyes and climbed the rock again, careful of the slippery spot and holding a firm grip on Beller’s rope, his clothes still wet from the rain. He shivered in the cold morning fog that clung to the prairie in drifts of cloud. Martin had described how gunpowder left a rolling fog over the field of battle.

  Rainwater puddled in the grooves of the rock. Beller drank his fill as the morning birds sang their first peeping songs. The rising sun burned off the fog, and the smoke of a distant campfire glowed on the horizon, maybe where Indians held Sven and Klara. Then he noticed several more campfires around him. He wiped a stray tear from his eye and pushed back waves of panic. He was surrounded.

  Beller jerked away, almost pulling Ryker off the rock. The dog yipped and disappeared into the tall grass.

  “Beller!” Ryker said. “Come back.”

  The idea of wandering alone on the prairie filled Ryker with such terror that he could do nothing
but follow the dog, slinging the sack of food over his back. Beller headed toward the sunrise, away from Fort Abercrombie. Ryker was losing control, confused and traveling in the wrong direction, and failing again. Still he followed Beller as the gloom turned into morning. He was far from the rock when he realized he had forgotten the water jug.

  A cheerful yip and a child’s voice caused Ryker to break into a run. He’d know Sven’s voice anywhere.

  “Beller!” Sven said. Ryker heard the tears in his brother’s throat. “What took you so long?”

  Klara curled on Sven’s lap in the bottom of a small gulley, asleep. Johnny Schmitz slept in a tangle of arms and legs beside them. Sven kept watch with his knife in hand.

  “Thank God,” Ryker said. Tears of joy leaked from his eyes. God had answered his prayer.

  Klara awoke with empty eyes. Her face was burned red, and blisters showed on her scalp. “I want Mama,” she said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. Then she popped her thumb in her mouth.

  Ryker broke a hole into the shell of an egg and held it to his sister’s mouth. She sucked a bit and then returned to sucking her thumb. Johnny sat up and rubbed his eyes. His face and neck were bruised black and blue, and both eyes puffed red and swollen above a split lip. A large bruise covered his arm.

  “I’m thirsty,” Johnny said. His words were muffled through swollen lips.

  The can of peaches held a little sweet liquid. Sven’s knife and a small rock opened the can. They held it first to Klara’s lips. She sipped and then put her thumb in her mouth.

  “Just a little more,” Sven said. “You can do it.”

  But Klara drooped back on the prairie grass and closed her eyes.

  The boys passed the can around, and each took a careful swallow. Sven stopped Johnny from drinking more than his share. Then they fished out the peaches with the tip of the knife and divided them evenly, saving a large piece for Klara. They wiped sticky hands on their clothing. Flies buzzed around the sweetness, and Beller whined for something to eat.

  “I’m still hungry,” Johnny said. “Do you have anything else?”

  “Lots of fish in Whiskey Creek,” Ryker said but reluctantly reached for an egg. He came up with a handful of runny yolks and whites. The eggs had mostly broken during his race across the prairie. He must conserve what few things were left. “We’ll have more to eat when we get there.”

  “Sven,” he said in a low voice, “what happened?”

  “Told you not to leave us,” Sven said in a whisper. “Skraelings came right after you left.” He pointed at sleeping Klara with a finger before his lips. “We were gathering corn, and Beller growled.” Sven clutched Beller’s neck. “Don’t be mad. He’s a good dog. It was your fault for leaving us, not Beller’s.”

  Sven spoke the truth, and Ryker knew it. “Did you see Mama and Elsa?”

  “Johnny did.” Sven nodded for Johnny to explain.

  “The Indians grabbed me on my way home and brought me to your ma and sister, and others.” He looked at Ryker with an eager expression. “Have you seen my folks? Do you know where they are?”

  Ryker shook his head. He expected they had met the same fate as his father and the Tingvolds. Todt.

  “I need to go home,” Johnny said. His mouth twisted into a knot. “Ma will be worried sick.”

  “What happened to Mama and Elsa?” Ryker said.

  “We were together the first day, but then some of the Indians headed west.” Johnny shook his head. “The Sioux who took them wore paint and feathers. The ones with us were mostly old people.”

  “Where did they go?” Ryker said.

  Johnny shrugged his shoulders. “They took your ma and sister along with the Jensen girls from Breckinridge.” Johnny paused. “Took all the women.”

  Ryker recalled the plump, pretty girls who had blushed when Martin complimented their fresh-baked cobbler. He let out a sigh of relief. They were nice girls who would help Mama with Elsa. At least Mama wasn’t alone.

  “I think they headed toward the fort,” Johnny said. “At least they went in that direction, and one of the Indians said the word Abercrombie.”

  “The soldiers will rescue them,” Sven said with certainty. “We don’t have to worry.”

  Ryker let out a breath. It was unlikely, but the more he thought of the soldiers rescuing them, the more he was sure it would really happen. The children would go to the fort and find their mother and sister safe. It felt better to believe than to worry.

  Sven whispered how the Indians had dragged them across the prairie, shooting Beller’s ear with an arrow when he tried to protect Klara, who couldn’t keep up, and how Beller had yelped as he ran away.

  “I didn’t know but they had killed poor Beller,” Sven said, flinging his arms even tighter around the dog’s neck. “They were mean to Klara.” His lip quivered, and he clenched his thin fists. “They put a rope around her neck when she couldn’t keep up and dragged her behind.”

  Ryker noticed for the first time the red marks around Klara’s neck. A cold fury settled in his gut to think of the Red Men mistreating his little sister.

  “They had a bottle,” Johnny said. “Started drinking after dark. Got drunk and made a lot of noise. Then they slept like stones.”

  “It was our chance to get away,” Sven said. He told how he had used his knife to cut the binding ropes. They sneaked away under cover of the storm.

  “How did you keep your knife?”

  “Hid it in my shoe,” Sven said. “They didn’t look there.”

  Then Sven reached under his shirt and pulled out Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “Kept it safe,” Sven said with a triumphant grin. “Mrs. Tingvold wouldn’t want it lost.” Then as if remembering what had happened to their teacher, Sven hid his face in Beller’s neck.

  “I’m proud of you.” Ryker slipped his arm around his brother’s shaking shoulders. “You’re smart. I should have listened to you.”

  Sven lifted his face. How small he looked with his thin face, so filthy and sunburned.

  “You’re as smart as Martin,” Ryker said. “I was wrong to investigate alone.”

  He showed them the food he had scrounged from the homestead. Johnny wolfed down a raw potato. Sven tried to push a bite of potato into his sister’s mouth but soon gave up in defeat. She was asleep.

  “I hope they don’t come looking for us,” Sven said. “The mean ones would never have let us get away alive. But the ones we were with weren’t as bad. A nice old lady doctored Klara’s rope burns with grease.”

  Ryker peeped over the edge of the ravine and scanned the horizon. Klara needed rest before they could go on. He would let them sleep for a short while, and then they must be on their way.

  “I’ll keep watch,” Johnny said.

  Ryker didn’t know if he could trust Johnny or not. Johnny’s suspenders were missing, and his trousers hung low around his waist. He was barefooted and blistered from the hard travel. Although he was a larger boy than Sven, he somehow looked younger and more vulnerable.

  “Your mother was real good to me,” Johnny blurted out. “Held my hand and let me stay right by her when the Indians were mean.”

  Ryker could remind the boy how he made fun of his mother for being a Norskie square head, and all the hurtful things he had said about her kerchief. But it seemed unimportant after all that had happened. All that mattered now was to get to the fort.

  “All right,” Ryker said. “Keep watch.” Johnny’s face turned into a grin. “But call me if you see even a blade of grass moving in an unexpected way.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Klara croaked.

  They would have to find Whiskey Creek soon.

  “They didn’t give us no water, no food, nothing.” Sven clenched his fist and fingered his knife. “They pushed us around. I wish the soldiers would come and teach them a lesson.”

  “Mama says they’re just poor folks trying to feed their families,” Klara said in sleepy voice.

  Her eyes closed, and her breathing slippe
d into the heavy rhythm of sleep. Sven hugged Beller’s neck and scratched his belly. The sun warmed as it climbed the eastern sky. Ryker dozed a little until Sven spoke.

  “An old Indian woman let us get away.” Sven frowned. “She saw us cutting ourselves free but didn’t sound the alarm.”

  “Maybe she was asleep.”

  “She was looking at us,” Sven said. “Her eyes were open.”

  Ryker tried to push from his mind the image of the Indian beating Johnny when he tried to escape.

  “Maybe the angel made her blind,” Sven said.

  “Klara saw angels in the clouds,” Johnny said from his watchman’s perch. He had lost his bravado. “I couldn’t see them.”

  Ryker remembered the cloud bank from the night before, the swirling mountains of black and gray. “How far did you walk?” Ryker said.

  “Not sure,” Sven said. “Walked all night and didn’t dare stop.” Sven laid his head on the ground and closed his eyes. “Clouds covered up the stars . . . we just walked.”

  Sven was asleep before Ryker could ask anything else. Ryker stood watch to let Johnny nap before they started out again. Ryker decided they would leave when the sun stood straight overhead. With luck, they might reach Whiskey Creek by night time. Beller stood guard with him as cicadas zinged by their ears. They were lost. Every direction looked the same, grass and more grass.

  He let the children sleep. Though sleep pressed hard upon his eyelids, Ryker didn’t allow himself a nap. The Indians might return. He kept watch though the hot sun felt like a cozy blanket. Blackbirds cackled; meadowlarks trilled. A striped gopher peeked at them from the edge of the wallow. Across the prairie sounded the cry of a hawk. Or maybe it was an Indian. Ryker couldn’t keep awake. Then he remembered the book.

  He read through the morning. Topsy struggled to find her freedom from the wicked overseer. Old Tom suffered and died. Mrs. Tingvold had been right. Reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin taught Ryker more about the evils of slavery than anything he had learned at school.