Inga had found the fishing gear and made sure each pole had a line with a cork bobber with an embedded hook. “I couldn’t find the lead sinkers,” she muttered. “And a couple of the hooks are rusty, but we can rub it off with sand. Didn’t Grandpa have extra hooks and lines?”
“I thought so.” Ingeborg kissed Martin’s cheek and handed him back to his mother. “Did you check in the cellar?”
“No.” Inga shook her head, setting her braids to swinging. “Where’s the tackle box?” Her eyes narrowed as she puzzled. “Manny’s room.” She pelted up the stairs. Manny had kept as many of Haakan’s things as he could find, as if the treasures might keep him closer to the man who had taught him so much in the brief time they’d had together. A couple minutes later, she came down the stairs triumphantly. “Under the bed.”
“Surely they have enough worms by now.” The two gathered the gear, and after waving at Clara, who sat in the rocker with a dish towel covering the loudly nursing baby, headed for the barn—and the worm diggers.
“We have enough,” Carl announced and jammed his pitchfork back in the aging edge of the manure pile. “Some are really big, they’ll catch a big fish.”
As they followed the path to the river, Ingeborg listened to the cousins chatter, the meadowlarks heralding their way. What better way to spend an early June day than going fishing with these little—well, no longer quite so little—ones of hers?
Inga dropped back to walk beside her. “Grandma, will Pa ever get over his sad eyes?”
“Ja, I think he will.”
“You did.”
“Takk, I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Sometimes he smiles now, but not often. Not even when Roald is so funny. Me and Astrid, we—” She shook her head. “Whoops, Astrid and I can get him giggling so hard, and then we are laughing too and even Thelma, but sometimes I think Pa isn’t even there. I mean he is sitting right there but . . .” She shook her head again. “I want him to be like he used to be. Before Mor went to be with Jesus.” She heaved a sigh. “I sure miss her. Do you think she is happy in heaven?”
“Ja, I do. God promises us that heaven is beautiful beyond what we know here and there are no tears or pain in heaven.” As they followed the path into the shade of the trees and down the riverbank, they all sighed in pleasure.
Carl put his finger to his lips to shush them. “Don’t scare the fish,” he whispered.
“Pa said,” Inga added in a whisper. Carl was certain his pa knew everything and was always right. The girls giggled very quietly and Carl frowned at them anyway, which made them giggle all the more, which made Ingeborg nearly choke, suppressing her own laughter.
To Carl, fishing was serious business. But then, he was a serious little boy. Had Andrew been like that? Ingeborg pondered her son’s boyhood and couldn’t come up with an answer. Andrew was the son of Roald and Ingeborg. Then along came Astrid, Ingeborg’s only child with Haakan. There had been no more children, something Ingeborg had at times lamented but finally accepted as God’s will for them. Since then, she’d learned that often when men have mumps as adults, as Haakan did, they could no longer father children. Sad, but she’d finally come to acceptance and was grateful instead for all the other children God brought to her, often the needy and the broken, for her to love.
“Grandma, aren’t you going to throw your line out?” Carl whispered to her. He handed her a pole with a wriggling worm already on the hook. The others had already cast theirs out and were sitting on a log, waiting.
“Thank you for taking care of your grandma.” She reached to hug him and then took her pole. “Where do you think I should cast?”
Carl studied the river. “Try near that snag over there.” He pointed across the river.
“Okay, I will.” Ingeborg cast her line and watched the bobber eddy along. Before she even had time to sit down, she had a strike.
“Set the hook!” Carl cried.
Ingeborg jerked her pole, and a fish came flying through the air to land behind them. Patches barked, dancing around the flopping fish.
“Grandma got the first fish!” Inga danced in place, making sure she kept one eye on her own bobber.
“Shush!” Carl scowled at her.
Ingeborg settled down on the bank in the shade of a gnarled old willow. How many fishermen had this willow seen and shaded? At least the elephants had not reached it. When the circus was in town last summer, the elephant keepers had brought the huge animals down to the river shore to browse. What a mess the poor starving animals had made. The bank where they had been was not yet beginning to return to its old self.
Inga caught a fish and so did Carl, so apparently everyone had been quiet enough that the fish were not frightened away. Ingeborg’s bobber disappeared, but she did not try to set the hook. Let the children catch fish. In a few moments it came to the surface, so she drew her line in and replaced the worm that had been stolen.
Haakan used to love to take the children fishing. Back when his son and daughter were this age, there had not been enough help in the fields for him to take time off, but in his later years, he had whopper fishing and hunting stories to tell.
Ah, Lord, how he would have treasured a day like this. Is there fishing in heaven?
No, of course not. If you were happily swimming around in a heavenly river and someone caught you, cleaned you, and had you for dinner, that was not heaven, at least from the fish’s point of view. Fishing must be done here in this life.
Ingeborg smiled and let the glory of the day and muted chatter of precious children surround her with joy. For a moment, this moment, nothing in the world could possibly go wrong. Right?
Her mind and memories drifted. She had to be careful not to fall asleep. Sometimes it was hard to believe this placid river could break over the banks and threaten the lives of both animals and humans along the entire Red River Valley. Her mind drifted back to the last of the great floods in the ’90s. Every year she prayed against such devastation. They had moved the cows to higher ground a few times, and the muddy water made it up to the porch, but pumping out the cellar was nothing compared to rebuilding houses and burying the dead.
A fish whizzed by her head as Emma giggled and Carl hushed them all. Within moments another flopped on the bank. They might have a fish fry after all. When Ingeborg reached to help Inga, her own cork bobbed and her pole snaked down the bank toward the water. She grabbed for her pole, slipped in the muck, and plunked down on her rear—with no pole.
“Grandma, you got a fish!”
“I know. Grab my pole!”
Patches barked at the rapidly fleeing fishing pole, and Inga got the giggles. But Carl was the hero. He ran over and stomped on the end of her pole just as it was about to slide into the water. He handed his pole to Emma, grabbed hers, and another fish flip-flopped beside her.
“That’s a big one.” She looked from her fish to her eldest grandson. “Takk. Carl, you saved my pole.”
“And the fish. Grandma, you gotta pay better attention.”
That did it! Ingeborg tried to keep a straight face, but Inga and Emma’s giggles did her in. “Ja, Carl, I will try but . . .”
“Carl, you better land your own fish.” Inga clutched her pole and tried to pull his in with her other hand.
Emmy whooped. “I got one too!” Biting fish and laughing grandchildren left Ingeborg no more time for thinking of past floods.
Inga jerked her pole, and a large fish whistled by Ingeborg’s head.
“We have a new rule here. No hitting your grandmother with a fish.”
“Sorry.” Inga picked up her flopping fish, removed the hook from its mouth, and instead of handing it to Ingeborg, added it to the stringer herself.
“You did well.”
“I watched you.” Inga grinned and dug another worm out of the bucket. “Rolly ate a worm yesterday. Thelma was not happy. She said he might get sick and it served him right. She said ishta. Ma once told me not to say that. What’s wrong with saying
ishta?”
Ingeborg wanted to hug her little granddaughter to her side and keep her there. “It’s just not a word that proper ladies use.”
“Isn’t Thelma a proper lady?”
“Well, that’s not what I meant. Of course she is, but . . .” How to explain the difference between common language and polite language? “Uh, some things just are not as polite as others.” She could feel all their eyes on her. She glanced out at the water. “Your bobbers.”
Even as they returned to fishing, Ingeborg knew Inga would not let go of this. She landed another fish of her own and started a new stringer. If they wanted a proper fish fry, she should contribute her share. Good thing they were all getting stronger to help carry their fish home.
Perhaps she should suggest to Thorliff that he bring the children fishing instead of burying himself in work so that he didn’t have to think. She remembered doing that herself after Roald died. Kaaren had accused her of trying to kill herself with work. All she knew was that when she was idle, the pit came closer to sucking her in. She tipped her head back and stared up through the tree branches, which were mostly leafed out. Back then she didn’t understand that God really meant it when He said He would keep her from the miry pit and put her feet on solid rock. The pit had tried to come for her after Haakan died but with nowhere near the strength, as she had learned to stand on God’s promises—at least most of the time.
Her pole twitched, she jerked, and another fish landed on the bank. After accompanying her to the stringer, Patches lay back down beside her, nose on his paws, watching the children. He took his job of protecting them very seriously.
“I need to go,” Inga whispered to her grandma.
‘Okay, but be careful of poison ivy.”
“I will.” She headed for the big tree the girls often hid behind for this purpose. Patches sighed as he rose to go with her.
Ingeborg puzzled on remembering how old Patches was getting to be. He was their third dog since coming to North Dakota, and this was 1908, so he must be six or seven. She’d need to ask Thorliff.
She heard Patches growling before she saw him, ruff raised, tail not wagging, staring up river.
“Patches, what is it?”
As if the dog could say.
“You all stay right here,” she said softly as she flipped her line out of the water, rose, and staring at the brush beyond the big tree, made her way toward Inga. She picked up a big knobby stick lying where the high water had left it.
“Inga, are you finished?” She kept her voice soft.
“Ja.” Her skirt settled back in place as she came around the tree.
“Come stand behind me.”
“What is it, Grandma?”
“I don’t know, but Patches does, and he’s not happy.” She stopped beside the quivering dog and tried to see what he saw.
Emmy appeared and pressed hard against her. “Grandma, we’re in trouble. I know, because wild dogs were a real problem in our village.”
“So it is wild dogs.”
Emmy nodded, still pressed against her. “They hunt like coyotes hunt, but they’re meaner and stronger. See that dog halfway up the bank? Over there! See?” She pointed, but though Ingeborg followed her pointing finger, she saw nothing.
Until it moved.
It was huge, gray, and shaggy.
Inga asked, “Could it be a wolf, Grandma?”
Ingeborg’s mind flashed back to the time she had seen a wolf here, but that had been Metiz’ wolf. Not that she’d known it at the time. But Metiz’ wolf had not returned after it brought its family back to introduce them—and later, Metiz died.
Inga whispered, “Grandma, I’m scared. Could this be the dog pack the men were talking about?”
Ingeborg heard a snarling growl. “Inga, go tell the others to wrap their poles up and pull the stringers. Quickly! I’ll try to chase it off.”
“No!” Emmy wailed. “Don’t! That’s the decoy. It wants us to chase it. Then the rest of the pack closes in behind us and traps us in the middle!”
Patches slunk forward. Emmy grabbed his collar and held him back.
Inga didn’t have to tell Carl what to do. He had already gathered the poles and stringers together. He had a big knobby club too. They clustered in close to Ingeborg.
Inga’s voice trembled. “Are they gonna eat us?”
“They’ll take Patches for sure, and maybe a little child. Not Grandma or Carl or . . .” Emmy shuddered.
“Emmy, hang on to Patches if you can so he can’t chase them. Carl, give me three or four of those fish. Hurry!”
Carl unthreaded three flopping fish from his stringer.
“Let’s get home.” Ingeborg gripped the fish behind the gills and started up the bank.
The children moved quickly, scrambling up the bank and out into the meadow. Emmy hauled Patches along with her.
“Don’t run!” Emmy ordered. “Don’t anybody run. If you run, the dogs will chase you and they’re faster. They can pull you down easier if you’re running. Walk in a straight line.”
Fear grabbed Ingeborg’s breastbone. They can pull you down easier if you’re running. Emmy’s warning almost turned her knees into melted butter. But Emmy obviously knew a lot about wild dogs, a lot more than Ingeborg or these children knew.
Lord, our lives are in your hands. Please, Lord God! Please!
Ingeborg stopped, wheeled, and threw a fish toward the big gray dog. The dog lunged forward and grabbed the fish as two other dogs appeared out of nowhere. Emmy was right; they had been hiding, waiting to ambush their prey from behind. The dogs fought viciously for the fish. Ingeborg threw the other two fish as far as she could.
There were two more dogs, and another, and another. They fell upon the fish, snarling and snapping at each other.
“They can’t see us anymore,” Emmy cried. “Run!”
Once up on the open fields, they headed straight for home, saving their breath for running.
As they drew closer to the buildings, Ingeborg slowed to a fast walk, fighting to catch her breath. Her lungs ached. She glanced back; the dogs had not followed.
When they passed the back of the barn, Carl dumped the worms back on the manure pile.
“You even brought the worms back?” Ingeborg tried to laugh but coughed instead.
“We will need worms again, and besides, we didn’t leave the fish either. Just the ones you threw at them, and they were the smallest we caught.” Carl held up his string and each of the others did too.
Ingeborg’s cough turned to laughter, and one by one they joined in. Patches danced around them, yipping and whimpering. The danger was over, for now.
Finally, Ingeborg tipped her head back to stare at the sky. Leave it to her brave children. She was concerned about a pack of wild dogs, and they were more concerned about getting their fish home—and the worms.
Back at the house, Freda brought two knives out to the bench where they cleaned fish and often scrubbed vegetables. “I just sharpened these. How many you got there?”
“Not enough for all three families. Freda, that pack of wild dogs showed up.”
“And Grandma threw them some of our fish, and we had to leave real fast.” Carl’s tone was slightly accusing.
“You better take the rifle next time,” Freda said.
“There will be no next time until the men destroy that pack. They must live along the riverbank. It provides the only cover within miles. As soon as we scale and clean these, I’m getting on the telephone and making it clear that this has to be done now before more than a lamb or chickens are snatched.” She paused. “And if the men are reluctant, I’ll go track them myself.”
Freda made one of her noncommittal sounds, like a cross between clearing her throat and snorting. “I’ll take care of these and you go make that telephone call.” She frowned. “Who will you call?”
“My two sons to start with.” Ingeborg smiled slightly and shrugged at the same time. Her nerves were still tingling, agitated, u
nsettled. What if the children . . . What if Patches had not been there to alert them? “When I tell them the story, they’ll probably be out the door before I finish. After all, we are protecting their children.”
“Let alone their mother.”
When Ingeborg had finished telling Thorliff what had happened, he assured her the men would take care of it. Did they have any dead lambs or chickens he could use as bait?
“Andrew just had a litter of pigs, so he might. Do you want me to ask Lars?”
“No, I’ll take it from here. You better tie Patches up or put him in one of the box stalls in the barn. How far upriver from the path were they?”
“Maybe a hundred yards. Not far. But surely Patches would have smelled them earlier if they lived there. I think they live somewhere farther up the river and were hunting, and we just happened to be there.”
“I’m calling Andrew now, Mor. We’ll get them.”
They said good-bye, and after hanging the earpiece back on the prongs, Ingeborg joined Freda at the cleaning bench. “Where are the children?”
“Down at the barn. I told them to start sweeping out the haymow.”
“Do we have any swizzle made?”
“No, but there are still canned raspberries in the cellar.”
Ingeborg nodded absently. That would do. “Where’s Manny?”
“Lars has him helping repair machinery.”
Ingeborg smiled to herself. Lars had slowly stepped into Haakan’s place in teaching fifteen-year-old Manny all the skills needed to be a farmer. Just the way he had trained his own sons and some of the boys in the deaf school. Thomas Devlin had been teaching woodworking and carpentry to some of the deaf boys. Who would step into his place? Part of the training was homemaking for the girls and skills to prepare the boys to make a living. Surely with all the new folks in town, someone had those skills and would be willing to teach. Perhaps she’d put the word out. Ingeborg, it’s not your problem to solve.
Her jangled nerves brought her mind right back to the dogs. Emmy knew what to do, but most of the children, especially the small children, did not know. They would run away, and the dogs . . . Lord God, protect us all!
From This Day Forward Page 3