Thorliff raised his hands to calm the heating discussion. “I know we have a motion on the table, but since we are not an organized governing body, it seems to me that we need to postpone a decision like this until we talk with others in the town.”
“Like their wives,” Penny whispered, especially since Hjelmer seemed to be siding with the hiring-help faction.
Pastor Solberg stood up and waited for the turmoil to quiet. “I know I have no more say than the others, but I do want to suggest that this is something that needs to be prayed about, diligently. We all know the verse that a soft answer turns away wrath. I am not saying either way here, but the wisdom of sitting quietly before our God and listening for His voice makes a lot of sense to me. We have seen God’s miracles so many times in our little town. Let’s expect another.”
The temperature in the room had cooled considerably, even while he spoke.
“Almost a hangin’ mob here,” Sophie said from behind the fan she had taken from her bag.
That’s what was happening, all right. Astrid gave her cousin a wide-eyed look. “How did you recognize that?”
“Saw it happen one time. Not something I ever want to see again.” She looked over her fan to where her husband was sitting. Garth Wiste gave her a slight nod. “You think we can go home now?” she asked Astrid.
“I think they have more business or at least some announcements.”
Thorliff stood beside Reverend Solberg. “Thank you, Reverend. As always, you are the voice of wisdom.” He turned to the others. “While we have a couple of other things to bring up, I suggest we meet back here tomorrow night after the praying and discussion we need. A show of hands please.”
When most of the hands went up, some halfheartedly at best, he nodded again. “Good. Now I have some other news. We have heard from more job seekers, including several who are married. Some of those women agreed they would like work too, so perhaps this will help.”
“Where are we going to house them?” Sophie asked. “Two rooms at my boardinghouse already have four bunks in them. I can’t handle any more boarders.”
“Hjelmer suggested we order army tents. We can build a frame for each rather quickly and erect them out south of the tracks. That would give us until winter to get more housing up.”
“What about a couple of apartment houses? We can do two-story, like the boardinghouse. And that new wing on the boardinghouse could be rushed into occupancy more quickly.” Toby Valders glanced at the others. “I know our construction teams are being pushed to the maximum, but we will have more help soon.”
“And here I was hoping to get my well-drilling team back on the road.” Hjelmer said his piece so mournfully that the others laughed, helping to lighten the tension in the room.
Sophie stood and waited until Thorliff nodded to her. “I hate to add fuel to the fire, but many of these new families may have children, so we can count on needing an addition to this school building too . . . before school starts.” She gave a slight bow. “And thank you, gentlemen, for the promise that the new wing at the boardinghouse will be usable more quickly.”
Garth rolled his eyes, and Thorliff slid into the look he sometimes gave Inga when she had been especially outrageous.
“And on that cheery note, I am now closing this meeting.” He smacked his hand on the table. “Done.”
“Good thing, before all the women take it upon themselves to . . .”
Astrid didn’t hear the rest of the comment due to the hum of conversation fast growing louder than a hum as the group disbanded.
Small groups visited outside in the deepening dusk, and others left immediately.
“You did well, Thorliff,” Mr. Valders offered on his way past. “I thought it was going to go worse than that.”
“Thank you. And thanks too for being a voice of reason, especially since you manage our bank.”
“No money is worth getting shot over.” Anner tipped his hat and headed toward home, leaving Astrid with a sense of growing admiration. It was a shame his wife had not been there. The idea of Mrs. Valders sitting still through a meeting like that made Astrid chuckle on the inside. Actually, she was surprised Hildegunn had not come, but then women were not invited. Those that showed up did so without an invitation, and the men were too polite to run them out.
She hooked her arm through her husband’s, and they accompanied Elizabeth and Thorliff back toward the Bjorklund House, as theirs was on the way. “I’m glad that’s over,” Astrid said to no one in particular.
“Me too.” Daniel gave her arm a quick squeeze. “When you four ladies showed up, I thought there might be trouble, but those disgruntled hid it well. Thorliff, I’ll bet you’ll get several letters to the editor over this.”
“Possibly. Then I won’t have to write an editorial, unless they all agree, of course. Dissension is good for the soul.”
“And that is in what Scripture?” Elizabeth asked.
Astrid knew Elizabeth’s right eyebrow had arched, even though she couldn’t see it in the deepening gloaming.
“I’m sure it must be somewhere.” Thorliff stopped, so the others did too. “I sure would love to have Far at the meeting tomorrow night. We could—”
Elizabeth and Astrid both groaned. “Thorliff.” They even said his name in unison.
“No one ever brought up a way to pay for help, should we go that route,” Daniel said. “The talk of money usually cools any hotheads, not that I really saw that going on tonight. The people of Blessing seem more level-headed than other places I’ve been to.”
“But things they are a-changing.” Thorliff shook his head. “We need to make sure newer people feel they are a part of this decision.”
“You men better talk with your wives too.”
“Or invite them along,” Astrid added to Elizabeth’s comment.
“We might not have a vote, but we do have opinions and valid ones, at that.”
“Astrid, I think we better hurry home before this turns into a suffragette rally.”
“’Night,” Astrid called over her shoulder as Daniel steered them down the street to their house, where candles waited in the windows on either side of the front door. Daniel’s mother insisted that candles always welcome those coming home, winter or summer.
Tonight, Astrid did indeed feel welcome as she climbed the steps to their front porch. What did her husband really believe in regard to permitting everyone to vote—either sex and any color? The thought made her realize there were many areas of life they had not discussed before their wedding.
Not that that would have changed anything.
Chapter 7
Anner Valders carefully lifted the front door latch and stepped inside. Had Hildegunn gone to bed yet? Apparently not. A light shone from the kitchen. He crossed the front room and paused in the kitchen doorway.
“So how did the meeting go?” Hildegunn was toweling a large bowl dry.
“Well, I think. We’re all aware of the possibility of a robbery. Forewarned is forearmed. They’re talking of hiring police protection, or at least a presence.”
“Did you stop by Toby’s for the molasses?”
Molasses! Of course. He scowled, not just because he had forgotten all about it, but because hers was a rather silly question. He wasn’t carrying anything, was he? “I’ll go get it. If they’re not up, can it wait until morning?”
“Not if you want sticky buns for breakfast. I’ve set the sponge.”
Mustn’t waste good flour and eggs. With a sigh, he headed back out the front door and up the street. If Toby was not still up, he would pound on their door until he was. After all, they would not hesitate to pound on his door if the need arose.
Someone’s dog barked as he passed the bank alley, which set someone else’s dog to barking in the distance. The air hung humid, dark, gloomy. In a way he felt dark and gloomy. What if no one caught those robbers? His bank was vulnerable. In the distance a horse sneezed.
Anner stopped, listening. The sneeze s
eemed to come from behind the bank. There were no horses stabled near there. Was a horse really back there, or were his ears deceiving him? His hearing was certainly not nearly as sharp as it used to be. He often had trouble discerning directions.
He would check, though, just to make sure. He crossed to the bank and slipped into its shadow. Cautiously he moved to the back alley, remembering just in time about the rain barrel against the wall. He groped until he found it, stepped out around it, continued to the back. He peeked around the corner.
There stood four horses near the back door of the bank. It was so dark, Anner could barely make out a small man sitting on one of them with his back to Anner. He held the other three horses’ reins. The horses seemed nervous. They moved about, their hind legs sidestepping, their ears going every which way.
They were here! Those robbers! Right now! Anner needed a gun! He needed Toby! He needed others! What to do? His mind charged off in six directions at once.
What could he do? By the time he ran to someone’s house to fetch help, those men might well be done with their thieving business and escaping on their horses. Even if the townsmen could be aroused, by the time they got their horses saddled, the fellows would be long gone. Why, oh why was he not carrying a gun?
Anner was suddenly struck by a horrific, paralyzing thought: Big-city banks insured their holdings. Blessing’s bank could not afford to. Any money lost was Anner’s responsibility, not some insurance company’s.
On impulse, because he couldn’t think, Anner slipped out of his jacket. Then he bolted forward toward those horses at a dead run, waving his coat frantically like a brakeman’s flag and shrieking at the top of his lungs.
All four horses flung their heads in the air, and as one they wheeled away from him, yanking the reins out of the rider’s hand. The rider’s horse squealed, reared high, and dumped the fellow off its back and down its rump before galloping away after its companions.
Anner was just reaching the back door as a large man came bursting out of it. The man let out a surprised cry, more a scream, and lashed at Anner with a huge fist, then swung a large and heavy carpetbag at him. Both connected, and Anner went tumbling to the dirt.
He lay there with no breath in him, listening to the boots running away after the horses. He desperately wanted to shout “Stop! Thief!” He desperately wanted to breathe. None of that was happening.
From out on the street, Trygve’s voice called, “What’s going on? Who’s there?”
Someone else shouted from what sounded like an upstairs window. Yet another voice called out.
Anner managed a feeble “Help!” The second “Help!” was stronger.
Here came Trygve. The sound of his voice told Anner he was in the alley. “Who’s there?”
“Help!” Anner was finally getting his breath back, sort of.
Now Thorliff was there and someone else, and the men were lifting Anner to his feet. His neck hurt mightily, and his ribs felt like they were broken. Maybe they were. The pain was intense all over.
“The robbers . . .” he gasped.
Now several others had arrived. “The door is standing open!” someone yelled. “They were here and they’re getting away!”
The pain was so bad, Anner dropped down onto his hands and knees, which only made his ribs hurt much worse. His hands landed on something like paper. “Bring a light!” he shouted with the little bit of breath he could summon. “There’s money here. Bills!”
Someone was running off with a hurried “I’ll get horses!”
Trygve came out of the bank with a coal-oil lamp. “Who has a match?”
Someone found a match. In the tiny flare and then the lamplight, Anner saw money lying all over the ground.
And Lars shouted, “There! There’s one of them right there!”
The lamplight revealed the robber who had been thrown from his horse. He had been trying to crawl away. Now he rolled to his back with his hands out. “I give up.” Instantly, two men were grabbing him and hauling him to his feet. He cried out in pain as his leg collapsed. Then he sank between them and fainted dead away.
“Hjelmer’s bringing us some horses,” Lars said.
“No moon. It’s too dark,” Trygve said. “We’ll never catch them. Let’s gather this money that got spilled, and someone tell Astrid and Elizabeth. That fellow and Anner here will both need attention.”
Ever since those two women set themselves up as doctors, Anner had been fervently hoping he would never get sick. The very thought of women, young women, at that, tending to him . . . Cheeky women with no qualms about speaking out of turn. No, he wanted to go home, let Hildegunn take care of him. He said so. He protested. They took him over to the hospital anyway, against his wishes.
They laid him out on a bed, and he found it was easiest to simply give up. If he closed his eyes and lay very, very still, his ribs hurt less. Footsteps entered the room. He turned his head to look. Elizabeth Bjorklund and Thorliff. People he did not particularly want to see just now. He closed his eyes again.
In an accusing voice, Thorliff asked, “Why didn’t you go for help?”
Anner did not sigh. That would have caused more pain. “I really have no answer for that.”
“Oh good! You’re here!” Elizabeth’s voice. “He is clutching his side. Would you undress the top half of him, please? I’ll go make certain Astrid doesn’t need me.”
Who was there?
Hildegunn’s voice. “Of course.” He looked at her. Yes, indeed this was Hildegunn, and her face was tear-streaked. She began fumbling with his waistcoat.
Thorliff sounded excited, and he was not an excitable sort. “I just talked to the sheriff. He wants me to get some information from you and call him back. What did they look like?” Another silly question.
“Dark gray shapeless forms. A small one and a large one.”
“Only two?”
“Four horses, so probably not.”
“What do the horses look like?”
“Dark gray shapeless forms.”
Thorliff was beginning to sound impatient. “Were they armed?”
“I’ve no idea.” Anner shuddered. What if they had been? He could be dead now, a bullet in his heart. What could have possessed him to do such a fool thing as to give chase?
“Trygve said he heard someone shriek. Did you wound one? Was one of them slumped over in the saddle or something?”
“The miscreants and their horses departed the scene separately.”
“Sep—” Thorliff hooted. “So that was the shrieking! You drove the horses off! Wonderful! Anything else?”
“The large person was carrying a heavy valise or carpetbag. He swung it at me, struck me with it. I would surmise that it was stuffed full of bills, and when he hit me, the clasp gave way and it gaped open, dumping its contents. Or some of its contents.”
“And you’ve no idea how much was taken?”
“If they broke into the till chest, perhaps a hundred, a hundred fifty dollars. It seemed to be mostly small bills on the ground, so that would be the till chest. If they managed to compromise the safe, heaven knows.”
Heaven knew. God knew. Or maybe not. Right now, Anner did not know, and the pain and frustration and sorrow weighed him down so horrendously, he doubted God knew or cared.
Astrid stood near the head of the operating table, watching the boy’s breathing become slower and deeper. The anesthetic was taking hold.
Annika Nilsson, the only student nurse at the time, stood ready to assist, and over in the corner, Daniel stood with arms folded. “In case you need help,” he had said. Help as a doctor or help keeping the boy from attempting to escape? She didn’t ask.
A boy. Fourteen at most, certainly not near his full growth. A boy. Robbing banks. She wasn’t sure she could deal with this. Any of this. She so wished she were treating Anner instead, but she and Elizabeth had dashed into examining rooms at random, and the men who brought the two in happened to put the boy in here.
He w
as under far enough. She asked Annika to cut his trousers leg open. It was worse than she’d feared, much worse—a compound fracture that could kill, if the bleeding didn’t kill him first. The lower end of his broken right femur was visible. It had pushed through muscle and skin and now protruded over half an inch, and its shattered, bloody end was drying out. If the bone end of a compound fracture dried out, it would die. It would not knit as a normal broken bone would do. It would cause infection, then gangrene, and invariably would be fatal. This child not yet a man faced an agonizing death within the week.
And a horrible thought flashed through her mind. Keep him anesthetized, keep him on heavy morphine, allow him to die comfortably. That would be the most merciful treatment. Medicine is all about mercy, for the patient and for the relatives, assuming there were any.
No. She would amputate the leg. This boy-child would go through life—and probably through jail after jail—with only one leg. But she could do no less. “Get the bone saw ready, please.” She wrapped a tourniquet around the thigh above the break and tightened it down.
The amputator’s maxim: Save as much of the leg as possible. That wasn’t much. She poised her scalpel. Dear Lord, guide my hand. She paused. Fourteen. Or younger.
Maybe . . . possibly . . . why not? “Daniel? Can you run to the shop, quickly, and grind the head off a six-penny nail? Sharpen both ends. Please?”
He looked puzzled for only a moment and then ran out the door.
Annika looked puzzled too. “You aren’t going to nail his leg back together, surely.”
“Not exactly.” Astrid picked up the scalpel. “While Daniel’s gone I want to remove the dried portion of this bone end. It will take some doing, and we’re going to have to dig into the flesh here. I will cut; you irrigate.”
“I haven’t done much in surgery.”
“You’re here to learn. If my idea fails, you will have learned a way of treating a compound fracture that simply will not work. In any case, you’ll learn how to assist a surgeon.”
But please, merciful Lord, help this to work!
To Everything a Season Page 6