The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  Haakan wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. “He threatened to kill any of us who would cut off his arm.”

  “Uff da.”

  “I figured that was the pain talking. You say about anything when it hurts like that must. I poured both the whiskey and the laudanum into him, so he is sleeping now.”

  “The bleeding?”

  “Stopped it with the tourniquet.” He rubbed his chin on her hair. “After I been in that room, you sure do smell good. Like roses and sunshine.” He cupped her chin with two callused hands. “Promise me that if something like this ever happens to me, you’ll take no mind of a pain-crazed man’s ranting and raving, but just go ahead and do what needs to be done.”

  Ingeborg looked deep into his eyes, searching his soul. Finally she nodded. “Ja, I will do that.”

  When they entered the sickroom, Hildegunn looked up from where she sat, back straight as if someone had stuck a steel rod up her spine. “Just do it now,” she said.

  An hour later the arm lay in a bucket, and Haakan laid a red-hot poker against the stump.

  Ingeborg raced outside at the stench of burning flesh. After throwing up in the flower bed, she returned to the room.

  “You all right?” Haakan and Lars, both still dripping sweat from holding Anner down, looked at her from their tableside positions.

  “Ja, I will be.” She stitched the gaping wound closed and, after wrapping it in whiskey-soaked cloths, stepped back. “Now we can only pray.”

  “You think we ain’t been already?” Lars wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “I hope I never have to do anything like this again.”

  Olaf nodded. “Nothing more I can do here. I better get back to the sack house. Where’s the missus?”

  Ingeborg looked around. “I don’t know. She was boiling water last I saw.” She kneaded her fists in the middle of her back. Looking down, she made a face at the blood-stained apron. “He has lost so much blood.”

  Olaf patted her shoulder. “You done the best you could. We all did. Now we have to leave it and him in the Almighty’s sure hands.” He headed for the door. “I’ll send Goodie right back. She’s champing at the bit, wondering how she can help.”

  “Someone needs to be with him all the time.” Ingeborg looked around the kitchen. “So much yet to do here.”

  “We’ll let someone else do the cleaning up. I think it is time I take you home.” Haakan looked up at Lars. “Let’s move him to the bed. He’s likely to start thrashing and fall right off this table.”

  The four of them each took a corner of the long oak table and carried it to the bedroom door.

  “Too wide,” Olaf said as they set the table back down. “Let’s roll a blanket under him and use that to carry him.”

  “Where’s Hildegunn?” Ingeborg asked, pushing past the table and going to the bed. She started to pick up the quilt folded across the footboard and stopped. No sense getting that all bloody unless they had to. Looking around, she spied several sheets folded and stacked on the shelf above the clothing pegs along one wall. Taking down two, she unfolded them, matched the corners, and put them together. Why isn’t Hildegunn here doing these things? Where in the world has she got to?

  They rolled the snoring man onto the sheets, and with each again grasping a corner, they carried him to the bed.

  Ingeborg stared down at Anner. “If we can just keep the infection out . . .”

  “That is God’s job now. We done all we can.” Olaf headed again for the door. “Goodie will be back soon’s she can be.”

  Ingeborg and Haakan exchanged looks.

  “You better go find Hildegunn,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll stay here for now.”

  The man in the bed groaned.

  Ingeborg rested the tip of her index finger against her bottom lip. “You get the whisky. The longer we can keep him out, the better off he’ll be.”

  “If he starts to puke, there’ll be a heap of trouble.”

  Ingeborg wanted nothing more than to go home, wash, and put on clean clothes. She laid a hand on her belly. Now that the tension had lessened, she could feel the roiling that presaged a possible eruption of her own. “I’m going outside.”

  The crickets were tuning up for the evening concert when she stopped on the top step of the porch. A breeze cooled her forehead now that the sun had gone to bed, leaving clouds tinted in every shade of red imaginable and then some. It seemed as if they had been there for days instead of hours.

  “Hildegunn.” She waited and called again. “Hildegunn.” Now, where can she be? She’d checked the parlor on her way out. The rocker sat empty. She walked behind the house to the garden but found no Hildegunn. Was this too much for her? Did her mind snap? “The barn, of course,” she said aloud.

  The barn cats were already cleaning their whiskers, the flat bowl in front of them empty again. A bucketful of milk sat on the closed grain bin, and Hildegunn had her head firmly nestled in the flank of the middle cow of the three in the stanchions. The song of milk flowing into a bucket, cows munching, and chickens squabbling about roosting places made the mess in the house seem the unreality. Peace reigned here.

  “I’ve one to go,” Hildegunn said when Ingeborg stopped in the hard-packed dirt aisle.

  “You want Haakan to finish?”

  “No.” Twin streams of milk kept the rhythm of pull and release.

  “You have other chores?”

  “I already fed the pigs. The horses are still over to the threshing.” Her hands stopped.

  The cow swished her tail at the flies. The plop, plop of manure released from the adjacent cow made Ingeborg step back.

  “How . . . how is he?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “You took it off, din’t you?”

  “Ja. We had no choice.”

  “Anner . . .” Hildegunn sighed deeply enough to rock the three-legged stool under her. “He’s going to be terrible mad.” She sniffed. “Terrible.”

  Ingeborg thought to argue with the grieving woman but stopped. Hildegunn knew her husband better than anyone else did. And Anner had ordered that they not remove his arm. Had they done the right thing? “He would have died otherwise.”

  “Ingeborg, he still might die. Men have died from far less injuries than a mangled arm. And we both know he has lost a tremendous amount of blood.”

  The milk swished into the bucket.

  “And now . . .” Silence but for the milk and a purring cat. Hildegunn shook her head slowly, grinding her forehead into the cow’s flank. “He won’t want to live.”

  “Surely you can’t mean . . .” Ingeborg let the words trail off. The desolate tone of the woman’s words echoed in her mind. There had been times after Roald died when she had wondered if she wanted to live, if death wasn’t preferable to the killing grind of salvaging the land.

  But Anner had his land. He’d proved his homestead and built a fine home. He and his wife were leaders in this small community of Blessing. Of course farming with one arm would be difficult, but so much so that he’d rather die?

  “Goodie will be here any minute. Haakan will finish milking for you so you can be with Anner.”

  Again Hildegunn shook her head. She stripped the last of the milk from the cow’s udder and, setting the bucket out of the way, got to her feet. “You’ve done enough. I will finish here, and then Goodie can go on back home. We will manage.”

  Ingeborg studied the woman’s face in the dimness of the barn. While they weren’t the closest of friends, still they’d known and helped each other through both tragedies and triumphs.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow to check on you.”

  “No need. Haakan has threshing to do, and I know you got more’n enough to keep you busy. We will manage.” She set her stool by the last cow, clamped the bucket between her knees, and began the squeeze and pull of milking again.

  Ingeborg cast around in her mind for something else to say, but everything sounded banal in
the face of the stoic acceptance before her. “It’s God’s will,” some would say. She remembered wanting to slam the words back down their throats. “I know how you feel.” So what? “You must be brave.” Hildegunn was nothing if not brave, but courage sometimes could only stretch so far.

  “God will always be with you, knowing both you and Anner and not letting you go.” She whispered the words, hoping the woman could believe them now and in believing could gain strength from the only one able to give it. She waited a moment longer, hoping for a response, but a sniff, not the kind in pride but one soaked with unshed tears, was all she heard.

  Ingeborg turned and left the barn, pounding and beseeching the gates of heaven for solace and healing for the Valderses, both of them. She just shook her head when Haakan made a move to go to the barn.

  “Goodie is here. She asked if the children could come to our house for the next couple of days, and I told her we would pick them up on the way home.” Haakan took Ingeborg by the arm and led her to the wagon. “I thought to stop by and ask Reverend Solberg if he would come.”

  “Ja, maybe he can get through to Anner once he wakes up.”

  But over the next days, in spite of their careful nursing, infection set in, and Anner sank deeper into the fever.

  “I wish they had let you help.” Ingeborg and Metiz sat on the stoop, relishing the evening breeze.

  “Only go where wanted.”

  “I know.” Ingeborg gingerly rubbed the back of her neck. She’d gotten sunburned again while picking beans in the garden. When would she remember to wear the sunbonnet Kaaren had made for her?

  “Bad time ahead for them.”

  “I’m afraid so. I should go over there and see if I can help.”

  “Don’t want help.”

  Ingeborg closed her eyes. She remembered times like that. “So stubborn we can be.” Had she thought that or said it aloud?

  “Yes.” Metiz turned to her with a chuckle lighting her obsidian eyes. “But men worse.”

  Ingeborg couldn’t resist laughing.

  Paws’ barking drew her gaze to the horse and rider coming up the lane. She shaded her eyes against the bright glory of the setting sun.

  “Company, Mor.” Andrew strolled from around the house, shadowed by Ellie.

  “Thank you, son, I never would have guessed.”

  He leaned against her knee and smiled up at her, twin curves of dirt bracketing his mouth.

  “You’ve been eating carrots.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “A little dirt told me.” She touched his cheek. “You ever thought of washing them before you eat them?”

  “I did.” He showed her the grubby streaks on his bloomers. “Ellie too.”

  “I know. You two are a matched pair.”

  The rider stopped at the hitching post by the well. “How are you, Mrs. Bjorklund?” Reverend Solberg tipped the brim of his hat with one finger.

  “Good. The coffee can be hot in a couple of minutes.” She nudged Andrew. “You and Ellie go draw some water for his horse.”

  “That sounds just right. Metiz, you look well.” His gaze flitted to the back door and returned to Ingeborg.

  “Katy is over to Kaaren’s.” Ingeborg got to her feet. “Why, Reverend Solberg, I do believe you are blushing.”

  “I . . . ah . . .” He removed his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Warm for this late in the afternoon, wouldn’t you say?”

  “For September? No, not really.”

  He put the handkerchief back and shook his head. “Can’t get much around you, can I? Yes, I would like to see Miss Bjorklund, but I really came to tell you that they took Anner to the hospital in Grand Forks. Left on the afternoon train.”

  Ingeborg raised a hand to her cheek. “Ah, poor Hildegunn.” “Only through the grace of God will he make it.”

  “Did she go with?”

  “Yes. Goodie said she will take care of their livestock.”

  “Either that or we could bring them all over here. Or,” she stopped. “Bridget and Katy could go over there.”

  “Let’s leave it as it is for right now.”

  “Your horse is watered.” Andrew and Ellie joined the adults.

  “Thank you, young man.” Solberg patted Andrew on the head.

  “Cookies, Mor?”

  “Ja, come on in, all of you. We’ll eat dessert first. Can you stay for supper, Reverend? Bridget will have it ready in a short time. The boys are nearly done with chores.” She threw a last tidbit over her shoulder. “Andrew, after a cookie, will you please go fetch Tante Katy?”

  With the garden pretty well harvested, the itch to get out in the field irritated Ingeborg even more. Bridget was spending more time knitting, teaching Andrew and Ellie how to card the wool that she had washed and dyed and was now ready for the spinning wheel. Thorliff and Baptiste spent all their spare time hunting and splitting wood to keep the smokehouse in business.

  But with Lars and Haakan out with the threshing machine, the fall work had come to a standstill.

  “What are you doing?” Bridget asked, shock rounding her eyes and mouth.

  Ingeborg glanced down at the men’s britches she had altered to fit her a long time before. “Pants make plowing much easier.”

  “P-plowing?” Bridget visibly straightened her spine. “Inge, does Haakan know about this?”

  Ingeborg met her stare for stare. “He knows I used to do the fieldwork.”

  “And he approves?”

  “He knows that getting the fall work done is necessary.”

  Bridget clasped her hands together on the waist of her apron. “Couldn’t Thorliff and Baptiste do that for you?”

  Ingeborg had the grace to nod. “They could, but they’ve never done so without Haakan. Besides, they can pick the field corn faster than I can. Both things need to be done.”

  “Then Haakan should be home and . . .” Bridget clamped her lips, cutting off the rest she’d been about to say.

  “He don’t trust anyone else with the steam engine and the thresher, especially after what happened to Anner.” Ingeborg clapped Roald’s hat on her head and tucked the string tie under her chin. “Andrew and Ellie are over to Kaaren’s. We’ll all be eating over there.”

  “Kaaren knows?”

  “Ja, and she’s no happier about this than you.” Ingeborg strode out of the room, already sorry she’d been so abrupt with her mother-in-law. But ever since she’d seen the darkness in Anner’s eyes, she’d felt it peering over her shoulder. Working in the fields, she could feel she was keeping it at bay. If something ever happened to Haakan, she needed to remember how she could keep the land, keep the crops coming in, and keep her sanity.

  Besides, riding the plow was so much easier than walking behind it. She would hardly be working at all.

  By noon, she knew she’d been lying to herself. Her arms and shoulders ached from holding the reins, and her right leg was sore from raising and lowering the double-bottomed plow blades.

  While the children chattered at the dinner table, the women were noticeably silent.

  By evening, she ached all over.

  Bridget’s look screamed “I told you so” when Ingeborg tripped on the top step because her legs were so tired. And by the time they’d finished milking all twenty-five cows, Ingeborg could hardly rise from the milk stool.

  But in the morning, she headed out again. The days fell easily into a rhythm. Milk the cows, eat breakfast that Kaaren prepared, plow until noon, eat, plow until the sun began to set, milk, eat, and fall into bed until she forced her eyes open at the first cock crow.

  Some days Andrew came with her and rode one of the horses for a while. He lasted longer when Ellie rode the other. Then the two of them would trot back across the fields, waving their thanks.

  “School is going to start next week,” Kaaren said one noon meal. “Reverend Solberg dropped by to tell everyone.” She glanced at Katy, who winked back. “Of course I believe that wasn’t his only purpose in callin
g.”

  “What has he heard about Anner?” Ingeborg looked up from sopping gravy with her bread.

  “Still alive. The doctors are giving some hope now. They had to remove the remainder of the arm, clear to the shoulder. Even taking the joint.”

  “Ah.” The single exhalation said so much.

  “I’ll be in early,” Ingeborg said as she went out the door. “I need to take the plowshares in to Hjelmer for sharpening.”

  “Mor, can I go with you?” Thorliff asked as he helped harness the horses.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, I do. I could do some of the plowing, and then you won’t have to.”

  Ingeborg came around the team and tapped the boy’s porkpie hat, tipping it off his head. “Mange takk, son, but I won’t be doing this much longer. The men will be back soon. Besides, Monday you start school.”

  “I could start late.” Thorliff looked at her, serious eyes never flinching.

  More and more he looks like his father, Ingeborg thought. And sounds like him. “Thank you for the offer, Thorliff, but I know how much you love school. I don’t want you to miss a moment of it.”

  She hooked the final snap to the ring on the leather pad high on the horse’s rump and gathered the reins. “Why don’t you and Baptiste go fishing for a change? Fresh fish would taste mighty good for supper.”

  Thorliff’s eyes lit up, the blue as intense as the sky overhead. “I’ll go get him.” He raced off, one hand clapped on top of his head holding his hat in place. Finally he snatched it off and ran faster.

  Ingeborg hupped the horses and, still smiling, followed them out to the plow she’d left standing in the field.

  Several hours and many furrows later, she measured the remaining distance with an avid eye. Two more times around and this field is finished. The thought brought a smile to her heart. While she still hadn’t gotten to breaking sod, at least these acres were ready for winter, the wheat stalks plowed under to rot and enrich the soil. She glanced up at the screech of a hawk that floated on the air currents above.

  One of the horses snorted and then the other. A strange buzzing sound reached her ears, growing louder than the stomp of the hooves.