By the time Metiz returned with a bundle on her back, Ingeborg and Kaaren had all the supplies ready. Haakan had come in from the field to help hold Lars down if need be. Ingeborg had put Andrew down for a nap with strict instructions to Thorliff that he must stay by the house to hear the baby when he woke.
“I’m not drunk, yet,” Lars sang, a silly grin belying his words. He hefted the bottle and took another swig.
“I think I could use a swig of that, too,” Haakan muttered for Ingeborg’s ears alone.
She shot him a nod of agreement. Her stomach was doing small flip-flops at the thought of the work ahead. Would it be enough to just remove the toes? Or would they have to repeat it with the remainder of the foot? God, help us, guide us, and bring healing to this son of yours. And please, I’m so frightened. Give me strength. She caught Kaaren’s eye and knew she’d been thinking and doing the same.
“Drink more.” Metiz sat on a chair by the bed. “We use table?”
“I know,” Kaaren answered. “I have a sheet ready to put on it. We can get more light over there. I have all the lamps ready to light.”
Ingeborg looked around and saw that it was so. The room felt stifling with the fire going to heat plenty of water. The poker she’d brought back with her lay on top of the stove, ready to insert in the firebox. She closed her eyes at the sight of the knives, their edges gleaming in the lamplight, newly ground on the whetstone to a fine edge. Dear God, please get us through this.
“Are we ready then?” Haakan asked. At their nods, he leaned over the bed and slipped his arm under Lars’ shoulders. “All right, my friend, let’s get this over with. You use your strength, and I’ll use mine, and we’ll get you on that table before you pass out.”
Lars mumbled some kind of answer but did as ordered. Once they had him standing on his good foot with his arms over the shoulders of Haakan and Ingeborg, they half carried, half walked him to the table, and he crumbled onto it. He slipped into unconsciousness from the alcohol and the pain of the jarring.
“You hold him.” Metiz nodded to Ingeborg and Haakan.
“How about if we run a rope around him and the table from chest to foot?” Haakan asked.
“Good. You do.”
Haakan wrapped a rope around the snoring man and the table. Then he and Ingeborg took their positions, Haakan beside the diminutive woman. With a quick slash, Metiz began the operation.
Behind them, Kaaren gagged and rushed out of the house.
Ingeborg was torn between caring for her sister in distress or for the man beneath her hands, but she held to her post. She turned her face away from the sight of the welling blood. By the time the toes and part of the side of the foot were cut off and another area cut open to bleed and drain the poison, she felt dizzy from the heat and the smell of blood and putrefaction. Don’t you dare faint, she ordered herself. This is no different than butchering a deer. If only she could believe that. But the deer were always dead, and this was a living, breathing human being cut.
Metiz motioned for Haakan to retrieve the poker from the stove where it now glowed white at the end. “Place there.” She pointed to the cut side of the foot.
Haakan did as told but looked across the man on the table and into Ingeborg’s eyes, as if asking permission. She nodded slightly and shut her eyes against the sight. The stench of burning flesh made her gag, but with all the strength she possessed, she held her place. She gripped Lars’ leg till her muscles screamed in protest as, in spite of the rope binding him, he bucked beneath their hands.
Sweat poured down her face and into her eyes. The tears streaming down her cheeks added to the flow. She peered across the table to see Metiz spreading a paste on the ravaged foot and gently wrapping clean cloths around it.
“Now, him we put in bed.”
“Let’s carry the table over there. It will be easier on him.” Haakan, too, wore rivers of sweat, the hair draped over his brow glistening dark with it. Together they lifted the table, and once it stood by the bed, they untied the unconscious man and laid him on the bed.
“Make high place for foot. Evil drain away.” Metiz piled the quilts and propped up the leg.
“I’ll bring in the feedbox. That should work better.” Haakan dashed the back of his wrist across his forehead. He laid a comforting hand on Ingeborg’s shoulder as he passed and headed out to the barn.
“I . . . I’m sorry.” Kaaren crossed the room and stood shivering by the table. “I couldn’t keep it down. I’m so sorry.”
Ingeborg snatched one of the quilts and wrapped it around the quivering woman. “Here, sit in the rocker and drink something hot. You needn’t feel bad. Things affect you more when you’re increasing.” She poured a cup of coffee and laced it with honey. “Drink this.” Placing the cup in Kaaren’s hands, she watched Metiz move silently about the injured man, settling the covers, laying a hand on the green-tinged brow. The old woman seemed to be listening as she moved, as if sensing the inner workings of the man she cared for. She’d stop, close her eyes, then lay her hand on the foot, the knee, the shoulder.
The sound of Kaaren sipping the sweetened coffee kept time with the stentorious snoring of the man on the bed. Lars sounded more drunk than wounded, and for that, Ingeborg was glad. She had the laudanum ready if he should begin to stir. Surely the pain from his mutilated foot would intrude on his drunken stupor soon.
“Here.” Haakan returned with a feedbox from the barn. He wrapped it in a blanket and slipped it under the foot when Metiz raised it. Lars snored on.
Metiz looked up from her study of the injured man. “We done all.” She nodded and looked at each of the others in the room, waiting until they met her gaze. “Now we pray. You to your God, me to Great Spirit. Me”—she touched her chest with her thumb—“me, I tink one and same.” She raised her hands above her head and, face looking upward, began a chant in a language all her own.
Ingeborg took Kaaren’s hand in hers and reached out for Haakan. “You take hold of Lars’ hand,” she said softly. When he had done that, she bowed her head, waiting silently for the man beside her to begin praying. When he didn’t, she looked up to see a look of total consternation, fear, resentment—she had no idea which was plastered on his face. When he caught her gaze, he shook his head.
Oh, my. Ingeborg bit her lip. So the man doesn’t pray? Doesn’t he believe either? She was sure he did. Hadn’t he joined in on grace at the supper table? Yes, he had.
The soft words of Metiz bathed them like a song.
Ingeborg bowed her head again. “God in heaven, our Father. You have commanded that we pray for what we need, and healing Lars’ foot is surely that. Please, we ask that you restore life to the frozen flesh and heal the part that was cut.” She could feel herself begin to shake. Never had she led prayer like this, with a group of both men and women, and for healing.
“Father, forgive my weakness and give my husband the strength to mend and the grace to ask you for help.” Kaaren’s gentle voice whispered the pleas of her heart.
Ingeborg could feel Haakan’s hand begin to relax in hers.
Lars shifted on the bed and slipped into the easy breath of one asleep.
Ingeborg knew that if she looked up, she would see their prayers winding heavenward like tendrils of smoke or the incense she read about in the Bible. Never in her life had she felt such peace, such an absolute certainty that God heard their prayers, that He cared beyond human understanding. She kept her eyes closed, suddenly afraid that if she looked at the foot of the bed and Jesus wasn’t standing there like she saw in her mind, she’d break down with sobs too deep to stop.
“Amen.” Haakan’s strong voice broke the spell. Only at that instant did she realize there had been a male voice adding words of prayer.
Like a cloud on a mountain, silence rested upon the room.
When Ingeborg opened her eyes, Metiz was gone.
Haakan wiped away the tears that had overflowed and streamed down his tanned cheeks.
Kaaren blew
her nose and leaned her head against the back of the rocker.
Ingeborg could hear her pastor from Nordland as if he stood beside them. “The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord lift his countenance upon thee and give thee his peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” she whispered in return. “Amen.”
“Mor,” Thorliff called from outside. “Can we come in now? Andrew wants you.”
“Ja. We will have some dinner now. I know everyone is hungry.”
Kaaren levered herself up from the rocker. “I have soup hot on the back of the stove. Inge, you cut the bread, and, Thorliff, you go out to the cellar and bring a jug of milk out of the water tank.” She swept Andrew up in her arms and, squeezing him tight, plunked him on his raised chair.
Ingeborg looked over at Haakan, who still hadn’t said a word. He raised one eyebrow in a question mark. She shook her head and shrugged. She really didn’t know what had happened to them all either. But time would tell. Indeed, time would tell.
Mid-May 1884
Hjelmer kept looking over his shoulder even as he mounted the train steps at the station in New Jersey. Every time he saw a big man with dark hair, his heart started to race. No matter how many names he called himself and how many times he promised he wouldn’t react like that again, the feeling persisted.
Swen wanted him dead.
He was well into Pennsylvania before he finally felt his mind and muscles begin to relax. Swen wouldn’t spend the cost of a train ticket to follow him. No man in his right mind would do that. He began to take an interest in the sights out his window, and soon the discomfort of the hard seats and the noise of the squabbling children and chattering parents faded from his awareness. The beauty of the land captured him.
When the conductor said that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was coming in two stops, Hjelmer struggled with a hard decision. As much as he loved working with metal, this city, the home of the steel mills, would be a good place to find a job. Dark had fallen by the time they entered the city, and all he could think of was the fires of hell. Mills lined the tracks, smoke and flames their heart. Flat train cars lined the tracks, piled high with lengths of steel waiting to be shipped to far-flung places.
Hjelmer got off the train at the next station. The smell of carbon and smoke and metal filled his nostrils. Did he want to stay here? He had ten minutes to make up his mind.
“All abo-a-r-d!” The conductor placed the step into its traveling position and swung his lantern.
Hjelmer grabbed his valise and leaped back aboard as the train began to move. He’d wasted enough time on his quest for land of his own. Dakota Territory, his family, his life. Another big city was not for him.
Five days later he still couldn’t sleep, not wanting to miss a single sight. He stared out the train window. They hadn’t been exaggerating. The letters home hadn’t begun to describe the flat expanse of the prairie or the immensity of it.
Surely there was room for half the inhabitants of the world to farm here and still have space for towns and cities. He shook his head. His brothers had been men of vision, but had they really learned to love this flat land after living in the mountain grandeur of home?
He checked the gifts he’d purchased at the stop in Chicago. Mrs. Holtensland had given him a valise with some of her husband’s clothes, along with her blessing when he had to flee New York for his life. On top of the pants he’d packed lay a book for Thorliff, a carved pony for Andrew, a crystal vase for Ingeborg who loved her flowers, and a book of poetry for Kaaren. He knew she loved to read. For himself, he’d purchased several carving tools to replace the ones stolen. He’d wanted to buy a forge and some tools, but he wasn’t sure what they had at the homestead. The dream of riding up on a horse had faded, too, when he checked the price. One could buy a hundred acres of prime farmland for far less than a horse.
The money remaining in the leather pouch Mrs. Holtensland had also given him had dwindled faster than the snow under spring sun. While he’d seen four men at a card game in the lounge car, he’d kept from joining in. You learned your lesson, he told himself. Gambling is not for you and never will be again. He shuddered at the thought of what his far would say if he knew his son, his only remaining son, had been chased out of New York on a death threat for supposedly cheating at cards. He shuddered again. If Swen ever did catch him, that would be the end of him for sure. One thing he knew with absolute certainty. He hadn’t cheated. He’d won fair and square. But one other thing he’d learned, size and rage counted for more than honest play.
He leaned back in the seat, letting his thoughts keep time with the clacking wheels. If he understood right, the land he now rode so quickly across his brothers had traversed with horse and wagon and much adversity. He glanced out the window facing east and leaped from his seat to cross the aisle and press his nose against the glass. A line of ten, no, more like fifteen teams were pulling the newfangled plows he’d read about. Plows one sat on instead of walked behind. The stair-stepped line of teams were turning over a wide swath of rich black soil. Roald had written of the wonders of the Bonanza farms, and this must be one in action. Hjelmer shook his head in total wonder. How many acres could be turned under in one day with such luxury? Did Ingeborg have such a plow? Could he make such a plow if she didn’t?
He threw himself back in his seat, visions of new machinery plowing through his mind. How much would one cost? He jingled the change in his pocket. More than he had, that was certain. He straightened in the seat. One thing he knew, if he couldn’t make one, he could sure repair them. They had to be metal, and he knew the repairing of iron and steel.
Roald, too, had written that there was not a rock to be found on the homestead. What would it be like to plow without hauling off a sledge loaded with rocks? Norwegian soil grew rocks better than anything.
“Grand Forks, next stop.” The conductor stopped in the doorway and repeated his announcement. As he made his way down the aisle, he stopped at Hjelmer’s seat. “If you be wanting to take the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway to Grafton, you’ll cross the river here and walk to the other train station. Tain’t far for a young sprout like you.”
Hjelmer had been grateful ever since boarding in St. Paul that the conductor spoke Norwegian. There’d been a couple of times when he nearly got off at the wrong station because he didn’t understand the language. Once he did get off, but the conductor called him back. It seemed he’d never make it to his destination, so many were the miles he crossed. Seven days now he’d been cooped up.
“Mange takk.” He corrected himself, “Thank you.” With a grin he added, “Much obliged,” his latest phrase.
“You’ll do, son, you’ll do.” The conductor shook Hjelmer’s offered hand and went on down the aisle, his voice carrying the announcement of the coming stop to all ears.
Hjelmer swung down to the wooden platform after the train coughed and snorted to a stop. He swung the rope around his quilt over his shoulder, picked up the valise in one hand, and set out for the river, the bridge looming down at the end of the street. He stopped before crossing the steel-girded structure. It looked large from here, but compared to the long, massive bridges he’d crossed on his westward trek, this one rated low. He’d seen the long curved Rockville Bridge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which, according to the conductor, was the longest bridge in America. He’d been so impressed, he’d asked someone to translate what the conductor had said. Now that bridge was a work of man that challenged the elements. And the Brooklyn bridge, he’d been watching it grow the month he lived in New York. Nearly finished now, it was touted as one of the wonders of the world. He had seen some country, indeed, he had. He stopped in the middle of the bridge and looked over the side at the teeming brown water. Looked like nothing more than liquefied mud. Why in the world did they call it the Red River? Hawking a glob of spit, he sent it to join the murky water passing below. Give him the sparkling blue rivers of home any day.
Would he ever be able to go back? Mor wants to come ove
r here, he reminded himself. One day I’ll have enough money I can return to Norway and bring her back here with me. Far will never come, but Mor will. Why he knew that with such certainty didn’t bother his mind, but knew it he did.
At the western station they were unloading new farm machinery. He stood amazed. Green, red, and white, the bright colors gleamed on equipment he could only hope he figured out right. The one with the sharp teeth would be for mowing. It was easy to tell the plows because the shares were much the same as the hand models, and the wheels that carried what looked like skinny curved teeth could only be a rake, but what a job that would do. He stroked a loving hand down the cold metal. He would have one of these, yes, someday he would.
The sun had died a glorious death on the western horizon by the time he stepped off the train in Grafton. Miles of track were being laid at an astonishing speed, but for now, this was the end of the line. He knew the Red River lay to the east, and the Bjorklund homestead was somewhere to the north, so he began his walk back to the river. For certain he couldn’t get lost if he followed the river.
Walking felt good after all the hours of sitting on the train. Hjelmer strode out, quickly leaving behind the hamlet of Grafton. Birds sang good-bye to the day, and he marveled at the purpling of the land as the sky deepened to azure and the stars poked their way through the heavenly canopy. The wind at his back cooled the sweat that had beaded under his shirt and coat, and laid the grass on its side to rest for the night. Only the whine of the mosquitoes sounded discordant in the peace. Far off, a cow bellered, a dog barked, and another answered. Ahead he could still see the outline of the trees in the dimness. Strange that no matter how fast he walked, they didn’t seem to draw any closer.
He slapped at a mosquito on his neck. You’d think with the wind they’d be in hiding, but no such luck. He stopped for the night far short of the trees. Their being close was definitely an illusion of the flat land. One could see almost too far for comfort. He thought of angling south to the light he could see in the distance. Must be a farm, but knowing how far away he could see the trees, the light might be just as far off.
Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02] Page 17