“Oh, Mama,” Ryker whispered. He kissed her forehead. She must have been so scared. He swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat refused to leave.
“Angels stirred the clouds,” Mama said. “She had the kindest eyes.” She dissolved into wild weeping. “They couldn’t find her.” She clutched Ryker’s arm and cackled like a crazy woman. “I wouldn’t tell. Couldn’t make me tell.” Her laughter was worse than her crying.
“You did the right thing. Elsa is safe at the fort.” Someday Ryker would tell her that he saw angels, too, and about his climb up the cottonwood when Beller came to him. “And the twins.”
“We all made it,” Martin said. He put the eggs on to boil. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and turned away, stirring the fire until the metal pipe glowed red hot. Hannibal returned with the bedding, and they covered Mama and the baby as best they could. Mama lay back on the bed. Ryker folded his jacket for a pillow.
“Thank God.” Mama grew very quiet. Her sobs ended. She looked around with a furtive glance as if they were in danger. Then she motioned Martin nearer.
“What about your father?” Mama whispered. “Where’s Johann?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Martin said. “Now you must rest.”
“Nei,” Mama said. “Tell me. I can’t rest until I know.”
Martin avoided eye contact. Then he turned away and slouched by the door with Hannibal.
Martin, always so brave, left Ryker to tell Mama what had happened. There was no way around the impossible task. Ryker must be the one to break his mother’s heart.
Ryker took a deep breath and told her what happened, watching Mama flinch with grief and pain.
“Did he suffer?” Mama whispered. “Don’t spare me. I want to know.”
“He lasted one night, with time to say good-bye and give each of us his blessing.” As Ryker spoke the words, he remembered again the instructions Papa had given him about keeping the farm at all costs.
“We should have stayed in Norway,” Mama said in a flat voice. “We’d be together in Norway.”
The baby shrieked like an attacking Sioux. The baby’s cries changed to contented sucking noises as he found Mama’s breast.
“Your new brother,” Mama whispered, her voice barely audible, and her eyes almost closed. “What do you think of Baby Johann?”
The knot loosened in Ryker’s throat, and he kissed the top of the baby’s fuzzy head. “Named for Papa.”
“Ya,” Mama said. Then she began mumbling again, about Norway and angels, Beller, and needing to hide Elsa. “I had to let her go,” Mama pleaded. “I had no choice.”
“Hush,” Ryker said. He smoothed Mama’s forehead. Mama’s frantic murmurs turned to silence. She lay back on the bed, gripping the baby to her chest. Her eyes closed, and her breathing slowed.
“Mama,” Ryker said. There was another story to tell. “How did you get away from them and find your way back home?”
“Why, Good Person and Finds the Knife,” Mama said as if surprised that Ryker didn’t already know. “She brought proof you were alive.” She pulled the tattered copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin from underneath the edge of the cornhusk mattress. Ryker recognized the torn cover.
“A true friend.” Mama’s voice was so weak that Ryker bent his ear to catch her words. “I owe her my life.”
A million questions swirled through his mind, but they had to wait. Mama slept.
CHAPTER 49
* * *
“Look at her!” Martin said. “Damn the skraelings.” He stomped around the little dwelling, cursing the Sioux and vowing to get even. He acted just like Papa.
Ryker bit back his words about Good Person rescuing Mama, that all Sioux were not murderous, and that the whites had broken the treaty in the first place. But Johnny Schmitz’s death loomed too fresh in his mind for him to defend the Indians.
Ryker stayed with Mama as Martin and Hannibal left to dig vegetables from the garden. Martin seemed relieved to get away and slammed the broken door on his way out.
Ryker pulled the door closed and retied the leather hinges. He pulled the scratchy wool blankets tighter around Mama’s shoulders and made sure the covers tucked around the baby. Little Johann slept in the crook of Mama’s arm, making sucking noises in his sleep. Like Ryker, the baby had Papa’s chin. Dark hairs were plastered on his scalp. Maybe Baby Johann would be a black Norwegian, too.
“I wouldn’t have trusted Good Person,” Mama said. Ryker had thought she was asleep. “Feared trickery, but then the book.”
“How could you understand her?” Ryker said. “She doesn’t speak your language.”
“A missionary woman translated.” Mama lay back on the mattress. “Or a preacher’s wife.”
Ryker pressed again, anxious to understand.
She paused and took a long breath before continuing. Ryker helped her sip hot tea. “They took me with the Jensen girls, they . . .” Mama paused again, and her voice drifted off. “They were unkind.”
Mama shifted the baby to her other arm, looking away and almost forgetting to speak. “Finds the Knife traded me for a fresh bear hide,” Mama said. “The bad men wanted me, but he talked them into selling me.” She slipped into silence again. “Told a wild story of my children living in trees by Whiskey Creek.” Mama took a breath and pulled the blanket around the baby’s head. “Said my dog fought the bear with the quill beard, gave his life for my return.”
Ryker poked another handful of corncobs into the firebox. They sparked and flamed like the Tingvold farm on the day of the massacre, like the flames racing toward the river during the windstorm.
“He convinced them that I had strong medicine because of the bear,” Mama said, and her hysterical laughter startled the baby. Her laughter quieted. “Good Person brought me home after the baby came.”
Mama asked Ryker to start at the beginning and tell the whole story. Ryker agreed, if she would eat an egg and finish her tea. She nibbled as he told about gunshots during school and finding Papa wounded. He told of their wild escape across the prairie, finding Elsa alone, seeing Beller in the clouds, and how Good Person rescued the girls from warriors. He left out the part about Johnny’s death and the Tingvold massacre. He spoke instead of safety at the fort, the kindness of Captain Vander Horck, and Auntie Abigail’s invitation to stay with her over the winter. He ended with their glorious reunion with Martin, who came with the Exterminators.
“When you’re well enough to travel,” Ryker said, “we’ll go back to the fort. The twins and Elsa will be overjoyed.” He looked toward his mother, but she was asleep.
He opened Uncle Tom’s Cabin but could not concentrate on Topsy’s plight. The Norwegian Bible stood on the shelf.
Happiness surged through Ryker. Something survived. Something important. He turned to the family record on the inside cover of the holy book. One page listed wedding dates. Ryker traced the record of Johann and Marie Landstad’s holy matrimony on December 26, 1842. He turned to the pages listing family births and deaths going back five generations.
Each name showed birthdate, baptismal and confirmation dates, and cause of death. He saw his father’s neat record of Sissel’s and Bertina’s deaths by smallpox. He thanked God they had not lived to be mistreated by the Sioux. He looked over at Mama and prayed the Indians had not outraged her, or the Jensen girls. The thought made bile rise in his throat. And Papa—he had no words for how he felt about Papa’s death.
Mama cried out in her sleep. Ryker set the Bible aside and sat beside her, holding her hand and assuring her that everything was all right. When they returned to the fort, he would haul water so that she could have a full bath. Auntie Abigail would see to the nits in her hair.
Mama woke and clutched Ryker’s hand. He reminded her that everyone was safe, and Martin was in the garden digging potatoes.
“Do you know something?” Mama said. “I didn’t think of Norway while I was in the hands of the Sioux. I was homesick for this, our prairie home, and my dear fa
mily.” She kissed his hand, and her tears wet Ryker’s skin. “And now, just when it feels like home, I will lose it.”
“Why?” Ryker said. “We have shelter. The title is free and clear.”
“But how can we manage?”
“Papa made me promise not to give up the homestead.” Ryker calculated the coins in his pouch; the money promised by Martin; what he and Sven might earn at the fort over the winter. “I’ll plant your lilacs. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”
“I’m so sleepy,” Mama murmured. “I’ll rest if I hear your voice.”
And so Ryker told her about Mathilde Jacobs, and how Hannibal helped them on their journey to Fort Abercrombie. He told about Auntie Abigail, and the way Good Person and Mrs. Kelly shared milk with Elsa. “Your good deeds were returned a hundred times.”
He told her that he might start a small school for the children at the fort over the coming winter. Ryker had not thought of this before, but speaking to Mama always brought clarity to his mind. Though Ryker had much to learn, he would share what he knew with the others. Captain Vander Horck owned a whole shelf of books. Perhaps he would loan them to the children.
When he was sure Mama slept, Ryker rummaged for the ink pot and quill hidden behind the stove. He opened the Norwegian Bible and recorded the date of Papa’s death. It was more difficult to put into words the cause of death. Unlike smallpox or fever, typhoid or childbirth, the tangled mess about the Sioux war had no single description. Human greed, the War of Rebellion, broken treaties, and Norwegian stubbornness all played a part. If only they had stayed in Norway, if they had heeded the call to come into the fort for protection, if only . . .
Ryker dipped the quill and carefully penned the reason Papa’s life ended on September 6, 1862: Sioux arrow.
Ryker must ask Mama about Baby Johann’s birthdate before he added his brother’s name to the family record. He blew over the page to dry the ink. He would make sure Johann was baptized as soon as they could find a pastor. Then he closed the Bible.
It seemed Martin had made up his mind not to return to the farm, even after the war ended. Like Papa, Martin did not see the angels.
Ryker sighed. Nothing had turned out as expected. Papa must have felt the same way. At least they were not left as orphans. Mama would be there to steer the family in the right direction. He and Sven would raise this new brother. Klara would help them.
Ryker would tell Little Johann about their father and how happy he had been before life grew so overwhelming. Ryker would teach him how to make hay: cutting the prairie grass before daylight with a scythe honed razor sharp, raking the fragrant stems into windrows to dry in the hot sun, and how to gather haycocks into gigantic stacks compacted to shed wind and weather.
Ryker would teach Mama the American words, and in the cold winter days when outside work was impossible, Ryker would write their story. He would begin with the northern lights of Norway and their journey to frontier Minnesota. He would end with the brilliant colors of prairie sunrises and sunsets. In between he would paint the glory of tall grass and angels hidden in shifting clouds, intertwined with their escape to safety at Fort Abercrombie.
The baby squirmed and fussed. Ryker carefully lifted his baby brother and snuggled him against his chest. “Look,” Ryker said. He held Little Johann nearer the window and pointed to a swirling cloud. “Angels hide in the clouds,” Ryker said. “I’ll teach you to see them.”
The little one jammed a fist into his mouth and sucked the side of his hand. When he found no milk, he let out a howl as loud as any Sioux warrior.
Ryker kissed his forehead and looked into his eyes. “Don’t cry, Little Brother,” Ryker whispered. He kissed him again. “I’m here.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
Candace Simar nurtures a passion for history and the way things might have been. She is the author of the Spur Award–winning Abercrombie Trail series: Abercrombie Trail; Pomme de Terre; Birdie and Blooming Prairie. Her latest historical novel, Shelterbelts, was a finalist for both the 2016 Midwest Book Award and 2016 Willa Literary Awards in Historical Fiction. Candace lives in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. For more information see www.candacesimar.com.
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Escape to Fort Abercrombie Page 24