Hjelmer reached out with a long arm and snagged the running boy. “Here, now you can do to him whatever you want.” He smiled at her distress. “And you are not a mess.”
He loved the way her cheeks flared red, the way she tried to smooth her hair and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at her young cousin flailing in Hjelmer’s grip. I could lose her! The thought made him drop the boy.
“Please, can I talk with you for a few minutes?”
“Of course.” She studied him from serious eyes. “You are going somewhere?”
“Ja, I must.” He took her by the arm and together they walked out toward the prairie.
“She did what?” Penny spun around and faced him when he finished telling her the story. “That . . . that witch! Mary Ruth, I could scratch her eyes out. To think she would accuse you of—” She stopped and looked up at him. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s not true, is it? I mean, I could understand if—”
Hjelmer clutched her shoulders with both hands. “No, I never even told her I liked her, not ever. She wanted me to, but I never did. Oh, please, Penny, you got to believe me.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Hjelmer, I believe you. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Haakan said I should go work on the railroad for a while. I will do that, and when I come back, I will have money to start a blacksmith shop. Ingeborg said she will deed me five acres by the school and . . . and . . .” He wrapped both arms around her slender body and buried his face in her soft neck. “Penny, when I come back, will you marry me?”
“Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!”
When he kissed her, she melted into his arms. A few minutes later, they pulled apart and stood breathing hard. “I love you, Penelope Sjornson, and I always will. You remember that, you hear?”
“I will. I love you too much to forget.”
“Then I best be going.” He touched the tip of her nose with the tip of his finger. “Tell your aunt and uncle what has happened. Tell them good-bye for me.”
“For now. The good-bye is only for now.”
He nodded and turned to leave before the moisture in his eyes brimmed over. Why was he feeling so desolate? He’d only be gone for a short couple of months after all. Wouldn’t he?
The next afternoon when Paws announced a visitor, Metiz could be heard talking to the dog. Before Ingeborg could close the lids on the stove and greet her, the old woman appeared in the door.
“Berries me bring.” She held out one of her hand-woven baskets full of plump, purple-blue June berries.
“Metiz, how good to see you, and what a wonderful present. Where did you find them ripe already?” Ingeborg popped one of the juicy berries in her mouth and closed her eyes, the better to savor the sweetness.
“Plenty more.”
“Good, perhaps I can send the boys out to pick tomorrow, if you will show them where. These will make delicious jam.”
“Good pemmican.”
“I should dry some, shouldn’t I?” Ingeborg nodded. “Perhaps Kaaren and I can go, too.”
Visiting with Metiz was growing easier all the time, with them both learning new words of the other’s language and understanding the signs better too.
“Strand come?”
“You heard?”
“He loud voice. Mean.”
Ingeborg poured them each a cup of coffee and set the leftover cornbread on the table. “Ja, that he is.”
“Lars’ foot?”
“He’ll be able to put his boot on soon, I think. Thanks to you, that man can walk.”
“Thank Great Spirit.” She finished her piece of cornbread and drained her coffee. “Takk.”
“You are welcome.” Ingeborg got to her feet. “Come, I have something for you out in the root cellar.” A few minutes later, she shaded her eyes as she watched Metiz trot back toward the river, the basket now containing six eggs and a hunk of cheese. She would have given her friend more, but Metiz turned it down. Thank you, Lord, for Metiz. Guess we could call her our prairie angel, she’s helped us so much. Ingeborg sighed. She’d better get going in the garden before the weeds took over.
Hot July ran into a hotter August, and the uncut prairie grass stood tall as a man’s chest. Ingeborg spent much of her days weeding the garden, caring for her livestock, and keeping Andrew out of trouble. “I don’t remember Thorliff being such a problem,” she said one afternoon to Kaaren.
“You didn’t know him at two, but he wasn’t as busy as Andrew. Thorliff could sit and play with a couple of sticks and a pile of dirt by the hour. I would hear him telling the sticks what to do, as if they were humans. I think he started telling stories before he could really talk.”
“Ja, I’m not surprised.” Ingeborg studied the woman before her. “Why don’t you lie down and put your feet up for a time. Look how swollen your ankles are.”
“It’s this little one.” Kaaren stroked her burgeoning belly. “You’d think there were two of them fighting it out in there.”
“Are there twins in your family?”
“Ja, now that I think of it. Wouldn’t that be a miracle?”
“A miracle all right. And I can’t keep up to one little one.”
“Mor, get Andrew please. He’s eating the grasshopper.”
Ingeborg leaped to her feet. “Carl Andrew Bjorklund, put that down this instant.” She flew out the door. “Be glad yours are still safe inside.”
She dusted her son off and stuck her head back in the door. “Take a rest, there’s no law against it. I’ll cook supper for tonight.”
“Inside what?” Thorliff paced beside her.
“What?”
“You told Tante Kaaren to be glad hers were still safe inside. Inside what?”
“Thorliff, sometimes grown-ups talk about things that are not for little boys to hear. Can you understand that?”
“Oh.” He thought for a moment, then asked, “Like when you and Haakan laugh in bed?”
Ingeborg rolled her eyes toward heaven. How could she ever keep ahead of this child? These children? And to think Haakan wanted more.
The next time family immigrated from Norway, it was going to be a girl. One who could help with the young children.
A couple of days later, Ingeborg settled Andrew down for a nap, determined she would finish the hides she had salted while she had some peace. Thorliff and Baptiste were out with the sheep, and the men were breaking sod to the west. She carefully set the bars in place across the doorway and headed for the barn. Deep in her task, she failed to keep track of the time.
Paws yipping with joy meant the boys were back with the sheep. She stepped from the barn and waved to the boys on her way to the house. Andrew rarely slept this long. Was he coming down with something?
“Mor, we’re hungry,” Thorliff called.
“Come get some bread and sugar after you corral the sheep.” She stopped for a moment to smell the white roses that twined now to the top of the door. Each blossom beckoned her attention, and she spent a few moments picking off the spent flowers. She left the rose hips on the pink one, planning to use them for her medicinals since they were the wild kind that grew to thumb size.
Silence from in the house. She bent to remove the bars and stepped inside. Blinking to adjust her eyes to the dimness, she crossed to the stove and lifted the lids to check the firebox. Out.
“Thorliff, could you bring in some wood?”
“Ja, we will.”
Ingeborg crossed the room and stopped by the bed. No little body mounded the covers. The bed was empty.
Andrew, Andrew, where are you?” Ingeborg spun around, frantically searching each nook and cranny. “If you are hiding, come on out, I have bread and sugar for you.” But Andrew was not in the soddy.
“Thorliff, go call for Andrew, will you? He must have climbed over the bars. You and Baptiste search the barn.” Thoughts of what could happen to a little one who climbed into the boar’s pen tore through her mind. Or what if he fell in the well, o
r the mule kicked him? All the possible tragedies raced through her head. Perhaps he went out to find Haakan. Or over to Kaaren’s. As each place on hei own homestead yielded no laughing little boy, she grew more desperate. Her heart thundered in her ears as she ran across the field to Kaaren’s house.
“No, he’s not here. I haven’t seen him.” Kaaren left the house and headed for their barn. “I’ll look around here. Send Thorliff out for the men.”
Oh, God, dear God, watch over my son. I failed to keep close watch on him. Please don’t punish such an innocent child for the carelessness of his mother.
“Andrew, Andrew, where are you?” she called, her voice ringing out across the prairie. She called again. But there was no answering giggle. No “Mor, see me.”
She ran to Haakan’s arms as soon as he drove the team into the yard.
“When did you see him last?”
“When I put him down for his nap. I put up the bars, but he must have crawled over them or through them or something. Haakan, he is gone, and we cannot find him.” She looked out across the waving grasses of the prairie, beyond the area immediately around the house and barn. The hayfields stood knee-high again and beyond. A man could, and at times had, gotten lost in the sea of rippling grasses. If a man could get lost, so much more would a little boy be swallowed up.
“The river!” Suddenly remembering the river, Ingeborg wrenched herself from Haakan’s arms and raced across the garden, heading for the meandering Red River.
“Ingeborg, wait!” Haakan tore the harness from Belle and leaped aboard. He swerved to miss the garden and galloped after the running woman. When he caught up with her, he pulled the horse to a halt and braced his foot for her to use as a step. “Come, get on.” She put her foot on top of his and grasped his proffered hand. With a grunt, he swung her up behind him. “Has anyone sent for Metiz?”
“Baptiste went after her.” Ingeborg scanned the ground, the grasses, the trees, but nowhere did she see any sign of the missing child.
They entered the trees at the road cleared for hauling wood and water, but before they reached the water’s edge, Metiz waved them back. “He no here. I look.” She waved up and down the riverbank.
“How far could he get? He wasn’t alone that long. Oh, how could I let him get lost like this?”
Dusk was falling by the time the neighbors arrived. Thorliff had taken Jack and gone to tell the Baards and the others. Within each arriving wagon lay a pile of quilts and hides, lanterns and food. People brought whatever they had on hand, for no one knew how long the search would last.
Haakan sent groups out combing the fields and woods and the prairie grasses. Hours later, they returned empty-handed. No little boy in a calf-length dress accompanied them.
“We can’t see anymore tonight, and the mosquitoes are driving everyone crazy,” Joseph said in an undertone to Haakan. “We’d best start again at dawn.”
The mosquitoes, poor baby, the insects would be eating him alive—if he was still alive. Oh, God, I can’t stand this. Where are you? Don’t you care about my son?
One by one as the searchers returned, they ate a sandwich, drank some hot coffee or cold water, and fell asleep on whatever was handy, the ground, the haystacks, wagon beds.
“What are you doing?” Haakan laid a hand on Ingeborg’s shoulder.
She shrugged him off. “I’m lighting a lantern, what does it look like? I will go look again. Surely if he hears my voice, he will answer.”
“Where will you go? Do you think you can see better than all the others?”
“No, but maybe they frightened him, their strange voices and all. Maybe he’s hiding, too afraid to come out.” She slid the glass chimney in place on the lantern. “Oh, Haakan, he’s all alone out there. I want my baby” Her voice broke as he took her in his arms and held her close.
“I know, I know.” When she quieted, he tipped her chin up with gentle fingers. “Promise me you won’t go out tonight. Your lantern could go out, and we could lose you too. Please, it isn’t long until dawn, and then we will begin the search again. One thing to be grateful for—it isn’t cold, so he won’t freeze to death.”
“Ja, but it might rain.” She glanced up at the starless sky. “Oh, what if he’s caught in the rain?”
“Ingeborg, listen to me. We prayed for Lars’ foot and God healed him. Would He do less for our beloved son?”
“Sometimes God doesn’t answer prayers like that. I should know.” The pit of despair yawned before her, threatening to suck her into its whirling depths as it had before. “If I lose Andrew, I know I shall lose my mind.”
“Oh, Inge, no. We are one now, you and me. We are stronger together. You don’t have to bear this alone. I am here, and God never left.”
Ingeborg raised her lantern and blew it out. The yard fell dark, the wind blew, and the howl of a hunting coyote could be heard in the distance. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her sides. “You go sleep, if you can. Tomorrow, or rather today, may be the longest day of our lives.”
“Inge—”
“No, I need to be alone now.” She listened as he made his way back to the house. He wouldn’t find a bed there, she knew. Someone else had already usurped that soft surface.
She wandered around the barn listening to the sheep, restless at the coyote’s song. Was the animal finding a new kind of prey? Oh, God, please keep my child safe. Metiz hadn’t returned either. Was she far up the river searching? A little one like Andrew would drown so easily. Why hadn’t she taught him to swim? The whys drove her around to the corral. The horses slumbered, the hogs snorted in their sleep. All appeared peaceful, but for a small child lost in the miles of never-ending prairie grass.
She sank down on the washstand at the side of the house. “Oh, God, how can I bear this?” My grace is sufficient for thee. The verse stole softly through her mind, followed by another, Lo, I am with you always, and bits of another. She leaned her head against the rough slabs of dry sod and swatted a mosquito away. They seemed to come in swarms, their whine louder than the wind singing through the grasses.
Behold, I am thy God . . . The Lord is my Shepherd. “Dear God, tend your little wandering lamb tonight.” She breathed in the stillness, redolent with the smells of a summer night. The roses sent their fragrance wafting around the corner, the earth damp with dew, the moisture of a storm in the distance, all part and parcel of their land. But where was Andrew?
Slowly the sky lightened, so faintly at first she thought she might be imagining it. But the band in the east brightened and broadened, giving promise of the returning sun. She could hear someone bustling around inside the soddy, the clank of stove lids, the thud of wood.
The sky lightened further, chasing the clouds so a few stars directly above glittered in their perfect splendor. Far away, beyond time and help—like God. She shook her head. No, I will not go back to that. God is here and now, as He says He is. She stumbled to her feet and followed the path to the outhouse. On her return, with Paws padding beside her, she walked around the barn and looked to the south, to the prairie grasses bending before the breeze, illuminated with the dawn.
The prairie. It hadn’t broken her before. It wouldn’t break her now. As God holds my hand, she promised the flat land, you will not break me. She shook her fist at the rising sun as it painted the few remaining clouds in shades of purple, lavender, and pink. “You will not!”
She retrieved a hayfork from the barn and began forking hay from the middle stack into the sheep pen. Today, no one would take them out to graze. They would all look for Andrew. But no matter what despair shattered the human heart, the animals still had to be fed and watered.
Paws yipped and streaked out across the pasture just south of the barn. Ingeborg stabbed her fork into the stack and wandered around to see what had excited the dog.
Stumbling across the stubble, a hand buried in the hair of the gray wolf padding slowly beside him, the little lost child arrived home.
“Andrew!” Ingeborg
screamed his name and flew across the ground separating them. “Thank you, God, thank you, thank you.” She babbled as she ran toward her son, and the tears she’d been too terrified to shed poured down her face. The wolf sat, and Andrew ran to her on his own. She swept him up in her arms, hugging him as though she’d never let him go again. “Oh, Andrew, Andrew, thank God, you are safe!”
“Mor, big dog.” He pointed back to the wolf, who sat panting quietly.
“No, Andrew. That is Wolf, Metiz’ Wolf. He is our friend.”
“Big dog,” Andrew insisted.
“Mange takk, Wolf.”
The animal blinked and faded back, disappearing into the morning mist just as Haakan ran across the field to stand beside her.
“Was that really a wolf?”
Ingeborg nodded.
“And he brought Andrew back?”
“Ja, he did.” Ingeborg kissed her son’s filthy cheek and brushed her hand over the welts on his face and arms caused by a myriad of mosquito bites. “Uff da, so terrible you are bitten.”
Haakan stared at the space where Wolf had been. “Well, I’ll be. God surely used a strange way to protect our son.”
Our son, how good that sounded.
“Mor, me hungry.” The little one shook his head. “No Tor, Mor.”
“You think he went hunting for Thorliff?” Haakan reached over to carry the boy, who went right into his arms.
“No doubt.” Together they entered the yard where all the rescuers waited.
“Praise God, He saved our boy.” Agnes called from the door, “Food’s on, folks. Come eat, and then you can all go home and do your chores.”
“The good Lord saved our boy”—Haakan pointed to the east—“just in time to see a new day rising.” He put his other arm around Ingeborg’s waist.
“Praise God, indeed.” She felt the strength of the man beside her, one more thing to be thankful for.
Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02] Page 32