The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Ja, well, you got to be in high spirits when you see our heavenly Father just dumping blessing on top of blessing on you.” Ingeborg grunted as she lifted the heavy harness off Bob. The big horse shook, sending dust flying everywhere. “You could have waited till you got to the field.” Ingeborg slung the harness over its pegs on the barn wall and went back for the other. “You want to bring the oxen up and give them some oats before dinner? We’ll see how Mr. MacCallister does with them.”

  “Is he really going to stay?” Katy led the horses toward the well, where she’d already dumped buckets of water into the trough.

  “Ja, he says so. Don’t let them have too much, then they can go roll in the field.”

  Ingeborg stopped by the well house on her way to the washbasin. Sure enough, there was plenty of milk to set for cheese. And the latest batch of chickens was ready for butchering. Another couple of days and she could take a wagonload to the Bonanza farm. Or maybe she should let Kaaren go so she could visit with Solveig. The two sisters hadn’t seen each other since July. Had it really been that long since they’d taken over a load of produce?

  “You ever driven oxen?” she asked Zeb over the meal a bit later.

  “No, ma’am, only horses and mules. But I learn fast.”

  “More coffee?” Bridget bustled around the table, making sure everyone had plenty of the mashed potatoes, venison roast, late squash, and fresh-baked bread.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Zeb held up his cup. “You have no idea how much we appreciate a meal like this. Been a long time since the last one.” He looked over to catch Manda glaring at him.

  Ingeborg watched the exchange, her curiosity growing by the minute. “Manda, there’s plenty more where that came from. You help yourself.” She turned to the child next to her. “You aren’t eating. Is something wrong?”

  The little girl shook her head. “Too much.”

  “Ah.”

  “She’s been sick,” Manda said, with her lower lip stuck out. “She runs out of strength before she can eat enough. I usually feed her.”

  “Oh, I think we can remedy this.” Ingeborg scooped Deborah up and sat her on her lap. “Now, we better hurry before Astrid thinks someone is taking her place.”

  “Who’s Astrid?” The pale little face looked up to Ingeborg.

  “My baby. We try to get her to sleep through dinner so we can all eat in peace.” While she talked, Ingeborg spooned food into the mouth that opened and closed obediently.

  Manda cleaned her plate and refilled it. “Can I please have more bread?” she asked when the plate was empty.

  “Ja, of course.” Bridget hurried to cut more.

  Manda thanked her and buttered the thick slice. Then after glancing around as if hoping no one was looking, she sprinkled sugar over it, folded the bread, and put it in her pocket.

  Ingeborg and Bridget shared a glance of astonishment. Was the child that starved? Or was it for later?

  Ingeborg rested her cheek on the silky hair of the child in her lap. The little one surely was older than her body weight suggested. “We’re going to have to fatten you up,” she whispered.

  “I been bad sick.” Deborah looked up into Ingeborg’s face. “Are you going to be my mama?”

  Questions chased each other through Ingeborg’s mind like children playing tag.

  “She’s my mor.” Andrew left his chair and came to stand at his mother’s side. His lower lip protruded and his usual sunny smile hid out.

  “Andrew!” Ingeborg put her other arm around his sturdy little body. “I’m sure there is enough of me for everyone. Besides, don’t you want Deborah and Manda to feel welcome in our home?”

  He nodded. “Ja, but . . .”

  Manda interrupted. “It don’t matter none. Just cause our mama died, we ain’t looking for another. We do just fine by ourselves.”

  “Manda.” Zeb spoke softly but firmly.

  “It don’t matter. We can work here, but we ain’t stayin’ forever.”

  “Would anyone like some eggekake?” Bridget interrupted the discussion.

  “Don’t know what it is.” Manda sat back in her chair. “She don’t talk the way we do, and I can’t get a word she says.”

  “Manda!” This time the order cut the air.

  The girl slumped back in her chair, sending Zeb a look that should have melted his bones. But she ate every bite of her cake and accepted a second helping, muttering a “thank you” at the end.

  “I’ll help you get started with the oxen, then,” Ingeborg said to Zeb when they’d finished the meal.

  “That’ll be right fine. Is there something you can find for Manda to do? She likes to earn her own way.”

  “You know how to butcher chickens, girl?” Bridget asked Manda.

  Ingeborg translated for Bridget and Manda nodded.

  “I can shoot too if’n you need some huntin’ done.” Manda got up from her chair.

  “Thank you, Manda, but that won’t be necessary today. And tomorrow, I think you should join Thorliff—he is my older son—and the others in school. How old are you, twelve or so?”

  Manda nodded. “But I ain’t goin’ to school.”

  Ingeborg rubbed her lips together. “We shall see. Are you ready, Mr. MacCallister?” She glanced up just in time to catch a look passing between Katy and Zeb MacCallister. Katy appeared to have been struck by lightning or some such. So that is the way of it. Ingeborg tucked the thought away to share with Haakan when he came home. If he would still be talking to her, that is.

  Pa is coming! Pa is coming!” Thorliff hit the screen door at a dead run.

  “Oh, thanks be to God.” Ingeborg dried her hands and, untying her apron with one hand, reached for a clean one with the other. “How do I look?”

  Sarah studied her. “While that cut is healed, the bruise around it still shows. Other than that, beautiful.”

  “That isn’t the only bruise that still shows,” Ingeborg muttered while she tried to stuff some loose strands of hair back in her braid coronet. Haakan is home, Haakan is home. While her mind chanted with joy, her stomach clenched and her hands shook.

  After the third failed attempt to make the last stubborn strand stay put, she stuck her tongue out at the face in the mirror and headed out the door. She almost made it when she realized that the face she’d observed had a smudge of flour on the tip of the nose. She dashed to the water bucket, dipped a finger wet and rubbed her nose, drying it on her apron as she fled out the door. Should she go back and get Astrid? She paused. No! Leaping off the front step to the ground just like her son did, she ran up the lane. She caught up with Andrew, grabbed his hand so he could run faster, and kept on going.

  Thorliff was already aboard the horse-drawn steam engine by the time Ingeborg and Andrew made it. She laughed up at her husband, the blond giant with eyes of the summer skies. He laughed with her and swung Andrew aboard with one hand, keeping the reins in his other.

  The twelve horses it took to pull the machine plodded on with Ingeborg running beside them until Haakan had Andrew settled. Then he leaned down and gave her a hand. Safe on the platform beside him, within the circle of his arm, Ingeborg knew with all certainty she was home. She hadn’t realized what a hole his being gone had created in her heart until just now when he filled it back up again. Six weeks was such a long time.

  She looked up at him, tears blurring her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” Even the sound of his voice made her heart sing.

  “I’m so happy.” She reached up and planted a kiss on the corner of his mouth. He turned just enough and kissed her back. Her heart settled into its accustomed place, and she took in a deep breath. “Welcome home, husband mine. We have indeed missed you. More than you will ever know.”

  “Oh, I know how much. Never did I dream I would miss you and the children and this farm so.” He looked into her eyes. “You, most of all.”

  She swiped away the moisture blurring her gaze. She didn’t want to miss any bit of him. “You a
re thinner.”

  “Not only was this hard work, but not everyone cooks as good as you. I think next year, if we do this again, we will take a cook wagon and make sure we have a good cook. You interested in the job?” He studied her face and touched the bruise with one gentle finger. “What happened here?”

  Ingeborg couldn’t look him in the eye. She stared straight ahead, out over the backs of the six teams of sweaty horses. “I will tell you all about it later.”

  “Pa, look at me!” Andrew crowed from the front of the smokestack.

  “Okay, son, come on down from there. Thorliff, hang on to him so he doesn’t fall.”

  Haakan handed the reins to Ingeborg, turned, and reached with both hands to retrieve Andrew, who wrapped both arms around his father’s neck and threw back his head, laughing and giggling. Haakan hugged his son close, then set him on a shelf directly behind the fenced platform on which he and Ingeborg stood.

  “Let me drive, Pa.” Andrew reached for the reins.

  “Who’s that plowing over there?” Haakan set Andrew on the railing and let him hold on to the reins under the cover of his father’s hands.

  “Zeb MacCallister. Penny sent him over two days ago, since he needed work. Has two little girls with him, but I haven’t gotten much more than ‘please’s’ and ‘thank-you’s’ out of any of them. He’s a hard worker and good with the animals.”

  “He sure got a lot of plowing done for two days’ work.” Ingeborg pretended she didn’t hear his comment, listening to something Andrew said instead.

  “Anner came home a few days ago. Reverend Solberg said he looks like a walking skeleton. Won’t hardly talk at all.”

  “Is Reverend Solberg becoming a regular visitor?” Haakan’s eyes twinkled.

  Ingeborg nodded. “Ja, and Petar too. But I have a hunch—”

  “You have a hunch?”

  “Katy always manages to be at the barn to help unharness the team at noon. And I noticed Zeb’s plate is always full of the choicest meat.”

  “Ahhh.” Haakan turned and grinned at her. “Love in the air, huh?”

  Ingeborg could feel her brow wrinkle in the frown that came every time she thought of Katy and Zeb. “I just wish I knew more about him, that’s all. Wait until you hear his accent. I’m sure that’s what Katy fell in love with first. It’s just like warm syrup on pancakes, so smooth and drawly.”

  “Drawly? What kind of word is that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Pa.” Thorliff clambered down and stood beside Haakan. “Can I drive now?”

  “Sure enough.” Haakan handed Andrew to his mother and the lines to Thorliff. He tucked his hands in his back pockets and said, “See how it feels? Six teams is a lot of horse power, and right now, they are tired beasts. But you never take your attention away from them. Horses can spook at some of the strangest things.”

  “Onkel Lars lets me drive sometimes.” Thorliff looked up at his father.

  “I know. You got to start off slow and easylike. Two is sure different than twelve, isn’t it?”

  Ingeborg leaned out to the side to look back on the train of farm machinery following them. Behind them came Lars with the separator machine that separated the grain from the straw. Behind him came Joseph with one wagon, Petar driving a remuda of horses, and another wagon following at the end.

  “Bet you caused a stir when you went by the farms and towns on the way.”

  “You can’t begin to think how much. In western Dakota the only thing bigger is the land and a train engine. Little boys like Andrew here”—he poked Andrew in the belly to hear his laugh—“their eyes near to popped out of their heads. Thorliff, take the steam engine right on down to the sawmill. No sense having to harness this bunch up again. And it’s not like we have this many horses anyhow. Tomorrow we’ll get them all back to their rightful owners.”

  He turned to Ingeborg. “That’s one thing we need. More horses. I hate to borrow from our neighbors. Had one horse break a leg, and we had to shoot him. Thank goodness it belonged to Joseph.” He shouted over the squeaks and squeals of the rumbling rig. “Not that Joseph could afford to lose one either.”

  Ingeborg leaned into the curve of his arm. How would she tell him?

  “Draw it up right beside the pile of sawdust, Thorliff. We’ll have to skid it back in the shelter once the ground freezes.” With the horses still, Haakan leaped to the ground and started the unhitching process, wheel team first. The other men joined him, and within minutes the horses were unharnessed and ready to turn loose in the pasture.

  Haakan tossed Andrew and Thorliff aboard the team he led, and with Ingeborg beside him, they walked back to the barn. “Everything looks real good,” he said. “Guess maybe I’m not as valuable around here as I thought.”

  She poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Just shows what women can accomplish when they work together.”

  “M-o-o-r,” Thorliff said.

  “Oh, and big strong boys. We couldn’t have kept up without them. Thorliff and Baptiste did most of the milking until school started.”

  “Wait till you see the set of horns on the elk that Baptiste brought down.” Thorliff leaped to the ground and took the reins from his father. “I’ll put them out.”

  “You better fill the water trough later.”

  “I will.”

  “I’m sure Bridget has coffee ready. Joseph, you want some before you start home?” Ingeborg called to the scarecrow man loosening a couple of teams.

  “Never was one to turn down coffee,” Joseph called back. “Let me get my teams in the corral first.”

  “Lars?”

  “No thanks. I’m sure Kaaren has some waiting. She waved when we drove in so she knows we’re back.”

  “As if anyone couldn’t know, the noise that thing makes.”

  Katy met them at the door, jiggling Astrid on her hip.

  Haakan leaned forward and took the little girl in his arms, but she would have none of him.

  “She’s hungry.”

  “Astrid’s always hungry,” Andrew said.

  Chuckling, they entered the kitchen, and Ingeborg kept on going till she reached the rocker in the parlor. With the windows open, it was cooler in there. Supper cooking on the kitchen stove added to the already warm room. With Astrid settled, she leaned her head against the chair back. She knew her husband. He wouldn’t let the unanswered question lie. He’d soon demand an answer. How does one say—“I lost our baby”? “I killed our baby. . . . The baby died. . . . I’m no longer carrying . . .” None of the words said it all. How about, “We’ll have another” or “We’re young yet. Life goes on.”

  She sniffed back the tears that thoughts of the baby always brought. All because of her stubbornness. As Bridget said, it could have happened anyway, but—

  That’s where she always stopped. On the “but.”

  If she hadn’t been plowing, if the yellow jackets hadn’t attacked the horses, if she’d stayed home like she was supposed to. Guilt burdened her beyond belief. As she already knew, guilt weighed heavier than anything on earth.

  Haakan brought his coffee cup into the parlor and sat down in the other rocker. “Ah, so good this feels.” He looked around the room. “I forgot how nice you have made our house. So good it is to be home.”

  Ingeborg tensed. Here it came.

  “So now, what happened that you got beat up?”

  Ingeborg took in a deep breath. “I was plowing the wheat fields.” “And?”

  “And an underground nest of yellow jackets flew up and stung the horses. Belle and Bob bolted, and I fell off the plow.” The words came in a rush.

  “There is more?”

  How did he know that? Ingeborg shifted Astrid to the other breast. When she was nursing again, she looked up at her husband. “The fall made me lose the baby.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Were you hurt otherwise?”

  “No, only small cuts and bad bruises.”

  “Thank the good
Lord for that.”

  “Haakan, how can you be so calm? I killed our baby.”

  “No, you didn’t kill it.” He leaned his head against the rocker back. “Accidents happen. We will have more babies, but there is only one of you.”

  Tears welled and spilled over, running down her cheeks. She couldn’t tell if they were of joy or relief or a combination of both and other things as well. “You don’t hate me, then?”

  “Ah, my Inge. How could I hate you? I know you. You’ve been tearing yourself apart because you went out and did the plowing even after I’ve asked you not to. I will not add to that.”

  “God is punishing me for disobeying.”

  “I don’t think God works that way and neither do you.”

  “Didn’t you want the baby?”

  He stared at her, a frown beginning. “Of course I wanted the baby. Why are you worrying about this like two dogs with a bone? Nothing I say is right.”

  Ingeborg bit her lower lip. He had a point. Did she need him to yell at her so she could get angry back? Would a fight make her feel better? “I’m sorry.” And with that the dam burst, and the tears she’d been fighting spilled forth, raining down her cheeks and splashing onto the sheet that covered Astrid. She cried for the baby lost, for the guilt, for the fears she might never have another baby. Tears flowed for Haakan and his disappointment, for the way she’d been acting, and for the load she’d been carrying around all alone.

  Haakan knelt beside the rocker, then putting both arms around her, he laid his cheek against hers. “Hush now. It is over. I’m here and I love you no matter what. You are my wife, and I love you. Hush. Shh-shh-shh.”

  Eventually the flood retreated and Ingeborg wiped her eyes with the corner of the sheet. “Some way to greet a man coming home after so long. Uff da.”

  Astrid smiled at her father and patted his cheek with her hands. When he blew on her hand, she chortled and reached for him to do so again. What if this were her last baby? She gulped and swallowed the sob that threatened to choke her. No more of that!

  But that night when Haakan lay sound asleep before she could even crawl under the sheet, she wondered again. Did he really forgive her? Was he so tired that he . . . he . . . She had missed his loving, and now she missed it even more. He hadn’t told her how bad he felt, how much he wanted a son just to keep the peace, had he?