Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02]

by A New Day Rising

  “My land, what could you be doing out on such a night as this?” A woman, as cheery as she was round, bobbed into the kitchen and immediately pulled the blue enameled coffeepot to the front burner.

  “I was hoping to cross to St. Andrew, but—”

  “I know, I know, that lazy son of Sam’s didn’t bother to answer your halloo. But not to worry, you make yourself right to home here while I get something warmed for your supper. You look like you could use a good feed.”

  Haakan shifted his gaze to the man—he’d said his name was Ernie—who stood grinning in the doorway. Ernie shrugged and dug in his pocket, removing a carved pipe and placing the stem between grinning lips. He shrugged again as if to say, “She’s always this way, just be comfortable.” Haakan raised an eyebrow, but his attention immediately returned to the bustling woman when she shoved a mug of hot coffee in his hand and pointed to the table.

  “Unless you’d rather stand here to get warm?” Her dark eyes smiled up at him, then she quickly bent and opened the oven door. “I know just the thing.”

  Before he had time to offer to help her, she’d dragged a chair over to the oven door and almost pushed him down onto it.

  Haakan felt as though he were caught in the middle of one of those twisters he’d seen one summer. But with all her goodwill, he could only do as he was told and murmur “mange takk,” chasing it with a thank-you as he recovered his new language.

  “Not to worry, we understand some Norwegian too,” Ernie said with a wave of the pipe he’d not bothered to light. He took a chair at the table, and a cup of coffee appeared almost miraculously in front of him.

  Haaken felt the warmth of the oven seep through the blocks of ice he called feet. No more had the thought of wishing he could take off his socks floated through his head than Mattie—he still didn’t know their last name—left her skillet and turned to her husband.

  “You go get him some dry socks out of that drawer in the spare room. Yours would be far too small for feet of his size.” She shooed her husband out of the room. “Now we can put your boots on the oven door for the night, and I can see your coat and hat need some drying too. Anything else?” She stopped her stirring and put a hand to her mouth. “Ach, I done it again, ain’t I? Just take over and order everyone around.”

  Haakan looked up into her merry eyes and couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “No, ma’am, you remind me so much of my mor that I feel like I just walked into the door of my own home. And I’ve not been there for over fifteen years.”

  “And where was that?” She turned the bread she’d set to toasting over the fire under the open front lid.

  Rich, meaty fragrances rose from the now steaming skillet and tantalized his nose. His mouth watered while he sipped on the hot coffee. He could feel the heat clear to the heart of him. “North of Valdrez, Norway, in a little hamlet where no one who lives more’n twenty kilometers away has ever heard of.”

  “Ach, you miss those you love, I’m sure.” She took down a plate she’d had on the warming shelf on the rear of the stove and ladled beef stew with carrots, turnips, and potatoes onto the plate. “You can eat here or at the table, depending on how your feet are warming.”

  Ernie charged back into the room and waved three pairs of hand-knit woolen socks at his wife. At her nod, he handed them to Haakan. “Put these on before you eat, and I can guarantee the food’ll taste better. Hard to appreciate anything when your feet feel nigh unto freezing.”

  With another murmured thank-you, Haakan did as he was told. Then he got to his feet and took the plate and cup to the table. Ernie followed with the chair, and after settling their guest, the two older people took the two chairs on the other side of the dining table. Mattie set the kerosene lamp to the side, and with coffee refilled for all of them, they both took a cookie from a filled plate set in the center of the table.

  “Now, we can just visit.” Mattie dunked her cookie in the coffee and rolled her eyes as if this were her own bit of heaven.

  Haakan felt sure it was. By the time he’d cleaned his plate after the heaping refill Mattie insisted he accept, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I’m thinking you saved my life this night.”

  “I doubt it. You look to be pretty self-sufficient to me. But you surely made our evening brighter. Until the spring work starts, we live pretty much by ourselves. Once we can get out on the fields, the men make their way back, and then we have a full bunkhouse and a cook to help Mattie, besides.”

  “Ach, how those men love to eat.” Mattie’s smile of reminiscence said as much for her love of cooking as it did for the men who enjoyed eating it.

  Haakan could tell she liked having others to care for. The socks warming his feet said as much for her knitting skills. There were no bumps to cause blisters on unwary feet in the smoothly turned heel.

  “How many men work here?”

  “During the winter, just us and our foreman. As far as Bonanza farms go, we’re pretty small, but the owners let us run it like it was our own. We repair machinery all winter long and get it ready so breakdowns won’t slow us down come spring.”

  “What really is a Bonanza farm? I’ve heard all kinds of tall tales about the tons of wheat grown.” Haakan leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table.

  “There are hundreds and even thousands of acres in one farm. We can handle it since the machinery got so much better. The farms are usually owned by someone back East and managed by folks like us. We made them rich, we did. You be looking for work?”

  Haakan shook his head. “I left logging in the north woods to come help some relatives of mine over on the Dakota side. Their husbands died a winter ago.”

  Ernie and Mattie swapped glances. “What did you say was your last name?”

  “Bjorklund. Why? Do you know them? Kaaren and Ingeborg Bjorklund?”

  “Well, I never . . . Small world we live in, for sure.” Mattie leaned her elbows on the table. “Such a tragedy, them two young women left all alone like that. And that Ingeborg. She’s some worker, that one.”

  “How do you know them?”

  “Why, Ingeborg and her sister-in-law bring us cheese and butter, chickens, and produce in the summer. They sell to the Bonanza farm to the south of us, too. I don’t know how they do it. And that little Thorliff, he’s taken on a man’s job, and he’s only seven, or is it eight now?” Mattie turned to her husband for confirmation.

  He’d finally gotten his pipe drawing and nodded around the fragrant smoke that wreathed his head. “Eight, I think. I surely hope they stood the winter all right. Of course, it helps now that Lars Knutson—he used to run a threshing crew—and the other Miz Bjorklund married last fall. They surely did need a man’s help if’n they was to keep the land. Those two Bjorklund brothers was working fools, too. I told ’em they could come work for me anytime, but they was too busy breakin’ sod.”

  Haakan nodded, grateful for the information. “I’m not surprised. Their father, Gustaf, has a fine reputation at home, and I’m sure he trained his sons to be like him.” I could have stayed in the north woods, he thought, or gone back to the farm I worked at last summer and saved myself a trip.

  “Yah, you Norwegians be good workers, that’s for certain sure. As I said, if’n you want work, you come to me.”

  “I will think on it, but my mor would be mighty put off if I don’t help out our relatives. I have a job back in the Minnesota north woods come winter, so perhaps I will stop on the way back.” Haakan took one of the cookies when Mattie pushed the plate closer to him. “Thank you.”

  “Or you could come with the women when they bring their wares. I sure am hoping they keep coming. That Ingeborg makes the best cheese this side of heaven.” Mattie smacked her lips and dunked another cookie in her coffee.

  The three visited a bit longer, and then Mattie led the way to the spare room that looked more like home than any spare room Haakan had ever seen. A colorful nine-patch quilt covered the double bed, and a braided rag rug lay beside it on the
dark painted wood floor. She set the lamp on the dresser and looked around.

  “There are towels there in the commode, and there’ll be hot water in the reservoir, should you be wanting to shave and wash in the morning. Heat will come up through the register in the hall, so you might want to leave your door open to let it in. Now, you have anything that is damp in your pack, you hang it on the rack to the side of the register. Ernie stoked the fire good so it won’t be out by morning.” She headed out the room and stopped at the door. “You sleep well now, you hear? You got nothing to worry about.”

  “Thank you, Miz Danielson.”

  “Mattie.”

  “All right.” Haakan dropped his arms to his side. “But thank you, and I hope I can do something in return for all this bounty you’ve been so kind to share with me.”

  She shook her head and tossed a smile over her shoulder. “You already did.” She went out, a chuckle under her breath.

  Haakan stood there, questions ripping through his mind like a freshly sharpened saw through green wood. Never one to let things lie, he headed out the door after her. She was halfway down the stairs but turned when he called her name.

  “What did I do but impose on your good graces?”

  She looked up at him and shook her head. “Why, you’re going to help out my friend, Ingeborg. And who knows what manner of good will come of that.” She quirked her head, her round face beaming. “Would you rather have pancakes or johnnycake for breakfast, Mr. Bjorklund?”

  “Ah, pancakes, I guess. Though whatever you make is fine with me.”

  “Good night, now.”

  Haakan stood at the top of the stairs shaking his head.

  By the time he’d looked at the rows of plows, disks, seed drills, mowers, and binders the next morning, Haakan felt as though he’d been run over by three of the draft teams housed in the long hip-roofed barn next to the machine sheds. Never had he seen so much machinery in one place, and most of it he’d never heard of. No wonder the Bonanza farms were able to produce such enormous crops of wheat. The tales he’d heard weren’t exaggerations, after all. Still, the truth was hard to believe.

  Much to Mattie’s dismay, he didn’t wait for dinner but struck out midmorning.

  “You just holler good and loud when you get to the ferry there at the river. Long as you’re coming in the midday, old Sam will make that lazy son of his come across for you. It’ll cost you two bits though.” Ernie extended his hand. “Been fine meeting up with you, son.”

  Haakan grasped it and shook it, feeling as if he were leaving his family, and he’d only known these people less than a day. “I will see you in the fall, then. And thank you again.”

  The two men stood on the edge of the snow-covered road. While only a couple of inches had been dumped on the area, small drifts still ridged the white expanse and covered the fields as far as the eye could see. Off to the west, the trees lining the river shortened the endless horizon. In spite of the sun sneaking in and out of the high mare’s-tail clouds, the ever present wind tried to blow their breath back down their throats.

  “And I thought spring might be here with all the melting going on.” Haakan shifted his pack.

  “No, winter hasn’t let go its hold yet. But you watch, tomorrow might be like a summer day. The icicles still be dripping.” Ernie slapped Haakan on the arm. “Go with God, young man. I hope you learn to love this flat land as I do.”

  “Not much chance. I like hills and trees too much.” Haakan raised a hand in farewell and started down the road. You’re a logger, he reminded himself as he trudged along. And that’s what you plan to be until you have enough of a grubstake to get your own land. And it surely won’t be in this flat stuff.

  As Ernie had said, when he hollered good and loud, a sturdy boy set out with a canoe to get him. While the current carried him some downstream, he paddled back to the road along the bank, ducking branches as he made his way toward Haakan.

  Haakan dumped his pack in the middle of the craft and climbed in the bow. With the extra weight, the current didn’t carry them as far, but again the boy returned close to the riverbank. Other than a grunt in response to Haakan’s hello, he said not a word until they snugged up to the floating dock.

  “That’ll be two bits.”

  Haakan climbed out, retrieved his pack, and after fishing them out of his pocket, he dropped the coins in the boy’s palm. “Thank you.”

  A grunt answered him as the boy tied the craft, prow and aft, to the cleats on the dock.

  Haakan shook his head as he shouldered his pack and strode up the muddy, rutted street. He stepped out at his usual pace only to find himself flailing the air with his arms to keep from landing in one of the ruts. Never had he seen such slippery mud. And what he didn’t slide in clung to his boots till his feet felt as though they weighed fifteen pounds each.

  When he made it to the porch of the general store, he sat down to scrape the gooey black stuff off his boots. When banging them against the step failed to accomplish the feat, he picked up a stick and scraped it all away.

  “Ah, yup. That’s why we call that stuff gumbo. Sticks right to anything moving. Why, I seen horses drop from carrying such weights round their hooves.”

  Haakan looked up, then up some more to see the face of the man leaning against the post above him. He stood tall and thin like a tamarack with a face to match, his beard scruffy as tree limbs in the fall.

  “Mud is gumbo.”

  “Ah, yup. And turns to rock when it dries out. You got to work it into submission sometime in between.” A juicy glob flew past Haakan’s ear and plopped in the puddle near his feet.

  Haakan shifted off to the side. Where he came from one didn’t spit near a friend.

  “You here to take up farmin’?”

  “My name is Haakan Bjorklund.” Haakan rose to his feet and turned to face the leaning tree of a man. “I’m come to help out some relatives of mine, the Bjorklunds.”

  “They’s dead. Lost in the flu an’ the blizzard more’n a year ago.”

  “Ja, I know that. But I heard their widows can use some help. I come from the north woods in Minnesota.”

  “Ya look kinda like a logger.” The man nodded.

  Haakan waited, hoping the man would give him directions to the Bjorklund place. When none were forthcoming, he took in a deep breath. One could never fault the residents of St. Andrew for talking too much if Sam’s son and the tree here were any indication. “You know where they live?”

  “Ah, yup.”

  Haakan waited again. He quelled the rising impatience and rocked back on his heels. “Might you be willing to share that information with me?” He glanced to where the sun had hastened to its decline. Didn’t look like he would make it to the homestead today, either.

  “ ’Bout half a day or more good walkin’ to the southwest.” Tamarack pointed in that direction, and a second glob of tobacco juice followed the first.

  “How far before I can ford the river that flows in from the west?” Haakan was already wishing he’d had Sam drop him up river, beyond the mouth of the tributary.

  “Ah, that’d be the Little Salt. It’s runnin’ high right now.”

  Haakan stuck his hands in the front pockets of his wool pants. He paced his words to match this laconic purveyor of local information. No sense trying to hurry this. “So’s the Red.”

  “Ah, yup. Pretty nigh onto flood stage. Nothin’ much git through till they abate some.”

  “Are there any marked roads?”

  The tree looked at him as if all the sap must have run from his head. He shook his head and spit once more. “Ya foller the river till you git there.” With that he shambled off the porch and disappeared around the corner.

  “Mange takk.” Haakan raised his voice, then snorted when no polite response answered him. He scraped some more mud off his boots on the step and mounted to enter the store. A bell tinkled over the door, and a plethora of smells—the same of general stores worldwide—made him sniff in ap
preciation. Leather and spices, kerosene and pickles, tobacco and new metal buckets, to mention only a few. He stopped for a moment, caught by the variety of goods stacked on shelves, hanging from the walls and ceiling, filling crates and barrels. Clear out here in what seemed to be the ends of the earth, if he had the money, it looked like he could buy about whatever he could dream of.

  “Can I help you?” The man’s spectacles shone as brightly as the dome rising from his hair. His apron, perhaps white in the beginning, now hung in gray folds from the string around his neck. As he came to greet his customer, the storekeeper reached behind and tied the dangling strings so the apron fit like it ought to.

  “I . . . ah, I need two peppermint sticks and a pound of coffee.” Haakan looked around, wondering if there was something besides coffee he could buy for Roald’s widow. Perhaps that Lars fellow wouldn’t appreciate a stranger bringing his wife a present. What would they be out of now after a long winter? Sugar? Of course. “Give me a couple pounds of sugar too and add half a dozen of those candy sticks.”

  As the man wrapped the items in paper, he looked up at Haakan from under caterpillar eyebrows. “You new to the Territory?”

  “Ja, how can you tell?”

  “I ain’t never seen you here before, and I heard you asking Abe out there for directions to the Bjorklunds.” He handed the packet, now wrapped in brown paper and string, across the counter. “He ain’t one to volunteer much.”

  “I saw that.” Haakan dug in his pocket for his money. “Know where I could stay for the night and maybe get a meal?”

  “Well, Widow MacDougal runs a small hotel, but she took a trip down to Fargo for the winter. Won’t be back till the riverboat runs. St. Andrew kind of closes up in the winter ’cept for me and the blacksmith. Guess you could try over to the Lutheran church. If the pastor is around, he maybe could help you. That’ll be a dollar.”

  Haakan laid the money on the counter and picked up his parcel. “Mange takk.”