An Untamed Land

by Snelling, Lauraine

  When the sun finally shone again, the men left for the riverbank to cut more wood. Ingeborg took the rifle down from the pegs. “Come, Thorliff, you can go hunting with me.” She gave Kaaren a brief nod and headed out the door.

  She could hear her mother’s voice as clear as if she walked right beside her. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Then she would quote the Scripture passage. Ingeborg shook her head at the memory. The sun hadn’t even shone its face, let alone gone down. The days had run together, but she was sure it had been a week since the shouting match.

  And neither woman had spoken to the other.

  “Mor, are we going to get a deer?”

  “I pray so. Fresh venison would taste real good, don’t you think?”

  Pray. That was part of the problem. Why pray about a petty problem like this? With time, all would be right again. Perhaps they could go see Agnes tomorrow. That would help.

  “When do I get to shoot?”

  “When you are bigger.”

  “I am bigger.” Thorliff walked beside her on the frozen crust of snow. “I snare rabbits and catch fish. Why can’t I shoot the gun?”

  “Thorliff, if you want to be a hunter, you have to be quiet.” One glance at the woeful expression on his face and she regretted her sharp tone. Maybe she should have left him with Kaaren, but she wouldn’t ask any favors. He could have helped his father cutting trees, though.

  A deer jumped up in front of them and bounded through the trees before she could raise the rifle to her shoulder. Could she do nothing right?

  They returned home tired, cold, and empty-handed.

  “The men aren’t back yet?” She hung up her coat.

  “No.”

  “Mor, listen.” Thorliff opened the door again.

  Faintly they could hear someone calling for help. Ingeborg reached back in for her coat and ran toward the river, shrugging into the garment as she ran.

  Roald waved at her from the edge of the trees. “Get Belle. Carl is hurt.”

  Blood soaked the right leg of Carl’s pants and ran into his boot.

  Ingeborg stopped the horse right beside the injured man. She looked to Roald. “How bad is it?”

  “Would have bled to death but for the belt I cinched around it. We will get him to the house, and you can stitch him up.”

  Carl groaned, his face the color of the snow.

  Ingeborg helped Carl to his feet, and between them, she and Roald set the injured man on Belle’s broad back. “How did it happen?”

  “Ax slipped. Not surprising on frozen wood, but . . .” He shook his head. “You lead and I’ll hold him up there.”

  “I will make it.” Carl spoke around gritted teeth. “Stupid dumb-fool thing to do.”

  Ingeborg took the lead and headed for home. One look at the gash had been enough. The bone glinted white in the bloody cut.

  Carl passed out just as they stopped at the house. Roald caught him and carried him inside. He laid his brother on the bed and turned to Kaaren. “Get your sewing supplies. Can you stitch him up, or do you want Ingeborg to?”

  Kaaren looked at all the blood and sucked in a deep breath. “I sew better than she does. I will do it.”

  “Good. Is there hot water?” At her nod, he continued. “We’d better heat that poker to cauterize the wound. Can’t have him getting infection and losing the leg.”

  Ingeborg hurried into the house after putting Belle out in the corral. “How is he?”

  “Still out. That is for the best.” Roald waited to loosen the belt until all the supplies were at hand. “Ready?” He looked to the women. “Thorliff, you go on out to the barn and look for the eggs. We do not want any to freeze before we can eat them.”

  Ingeborg shot him a grateful look. Thorliff did not need to see their repairs on the injured leg.

  Roald breathed a sigh of relief when he let loose the belt. No blood spurted out from a severed artery. If only they had some spirits to deaden the pain. “Hurry.”

  Ingeborg brought the white-hot poker and handed it to Roald. “You do it. I cannot.”

  Kaaren turned her eyes away, both of Carl’s hands clamped tightly in her own. “Please, God, please help us do what is best.” Carl raised up with a scream as the poker burned his flesh. The smell made Ingeborg gag. She forced the contents of her stomach back where they belonged and took the poker back to the fireplace.

  Roald held Carl down while Ingeborg held the edges of the wound firmly together. Kaaren, tears streaming down her face, stitched the seared flesh together and bound the leg with clean strips of cloth.

  Sweat ran down their faces.

  “It is up to the good Lord now,” Roald said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “You have any of that tea Metis brought to help him heal?”

  “Ja, and we will pack his leg in snow to help keep the fever off.” Ingeborg could taste blood where she had bitten through her lip. Was Roald beginning to appreciate Metis? “I have some seeds to brew that help deaden the pain too.” She left the bedside to dig in her trunk for her medicines box.

  “Can I come in now?” Thorliff stood at the door. “Is Onkel Carl going to be all right?”

  “Yes and yes. We will pray for him.” She gave him a quick hug and took the eggs he handed her from full pockets.

  “I found the nest the hens were hiding. It was under Belle’s feedbox.”

  “We will have eggs for supper, thanks to you.”

  That night, Carl tossed and turned, muttering strange words and groaning when Kaaren repacked his leg in snow. He drank the tea, making terrible faces but drinking it nonetheless.

  In the morning, he sat up for breakfast. The second day, he swung his leg over the side of the bed and sat up. Later in the day, Roald helped him over to the rocker.

  “Here, you can rock the baby.” Kaaren handed him a sleepy Gunny. She immediately tangled her fist in his beard, and, along with a gentle tune he hummed, she fell asleep. So did Carl.

  That evening Kaaren sat on one of the benches and faced Carl still in the rocker. Gunny stood between his legs, her arms hooked over his knees. She raised one foot, acted like she was going to take a step, looked up at him with a chortle, and put the foot back down.

  “Go to Mor, Gunny, there’s a big girl.”

  Kaaren clapped her hands. “Come, Gunny.”

  Gunny dropped to her knees and started to crawl. Carl picked her up and kept her vertical.

  The game went on. Thorliff ended up rolling on the bed from laughter. Carl lost his patience and let her use his fingers to hold on while she stepped across the space. Kaaren shook her head.

  “She just isn’t ready to walk yet.” She took the child in her arms and rubbed her face against the plump baby belly. Gunny’s laugh set them all off.

  Ingeborg looked across the lamplit table to where Roald worked on another of his carvings. His eyes met hers across the space and one side of his mouth lifted. Was that firelight dancing in his eyes or merriment? Ingeborg wasn’t sure which.

  After four more days of being housebound, Carl took the crutch Roald had fashioned from a branch with a crook in it and hobbled out to the barn.

  “If you make that leg bleed, I refuse to sew it up again,” Kaaren called after him.

  She and Ingeborg shook their heads. “Men.”

  But they all were grateful that over the next weeks the wound healed so well that Carl soon quit limping. It could have been so much worse.

  In March, Kaaren used some of the precious remaining flour and sugar to bake a cake in honor of their first year in America. She used the last of the dried plums for a sauce to pour over it.

  “Now, if only we had real coffee.” Roald made a face at the brew in his cup. “We should go to town before the frost leaves the ground. Right now we could take the sled.”

  “Well, I say here’s to all our years in this new land.” Carl raised his cup in salute.

  They echoed the sentiments and Roald’s opinion of the hot drink.

  �
��But we have food.” Ingeborg thought of the Polinskis who had come begging for stores the day before. How they made it this far through the winter was more than she could believe. From the sound of things, Abel had been out begging at other houses too. It wouldn’t be so bad if he offered to work for supplies, but when Roald suggested he come help them cut wood, the man said his back was too bad for such work.

  A week later, when Roald returned from St. Andrew, he not only had coffee, beans, sugar, flour, and cornmeal, he also had a letter from Norway. Ingeborg read it aloud, with all of them gathered around the fireplace. Tears streamed down her face as she read, making it difficult for her to see. Mor wished her blessings on the new baby that would be arriving in June. Far said the winter had been hard in Norway, too. Her brother Hjelmer was thinking of coming to the new land. There were greetings from the other families too. “And make sure you keep strong in your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, spending time with your Bible every day. I know that must be hard without a pastor to preach the Word, but God is faithful and so must you be.”

  Ingeborg said the last softly. How long had it been since she read the Scriptures herself? She depended upon Kaaren to read it aloud, and since the time of dissension, that had not happened.

  Roald slapped his hands on the table. “I am glad they are all well. Write and tell Hjelmer that if he can find passage, he will always have a home with us.” He turned to Carl. “We can always use another able body around here, can’t we, brother?”

  Spring finally came to the Red River Valley, and Ingeborg gloried in the warm sun. When she checked on her cottonwood tree by the house, each branch had leaf buds showing. Like the Bjorklunds, the cottonwood had made it through the winter. As soon as the snow left the ground, green shoots shot up from the black soil. When Carl and Roald set the plow to the busted sod that had been backset in the fall, the soil crumbled, ready for the drag and seeding. They sold all the wood they’d cut to the paddle wheelers and promised them more, as time permitted. The cash from that paid off their account at the store in St. Andrew and provided extra for wheat and oat seed.

  Ingeborg breathed a sigh of relief. They didn’t have to borrow more money. When fall came, they could use the money from the grain to pay on their notes at the bank. One step closer to owning their own land.

  In spite of her increasing girth, as soon as the garden was plowed, Ingeborg spent as many hours of the day as possible hoeing and planting. One of the hens turned broody, and they let her have a clutch of eggs to hatch. The lambs gamboled in the field, and Boss dropped another calf—a fine bull, this time, that they could trade, raise to eat, or train as an ox like its sire. How grateful Roald had been that one of the oxen he bought from St. James had not been castrated, so they could use it for breeding.

  “I have some good news for you,” Kaaren said one day when Ingeborg came into the house for dinner.

  “What?” Ingeborg reached for a towel to dry her hands.

  “I, too, am in the family way again.” Kaaren laid a hand on her middle. “Perhaps this one will be a son.” She looked over at Gunny, who walked now by holding on to every piece of furniture. She could get wherever she wanted to go that way, so it appeared she saw no reason to step out on her own. “Just think, two new babies.”

  Gunny clutched her mother’s skirt and babbled her request to be picked up. When they didn’t understand what she wanted, they asked Thorliff to translate. He would listen to her baby gibberish, and then tell the adults what she wanted. It worked every time.

  Kaaren picked up her little girl and nuzzled the wispy curls. “How would you like a baby brother, den lille?” Gunny smiled, showing her four new teeth, and patted her mother’s cheek.

  Ingeborg looked around the dark, cramped soddy. “That is wonderful. When is the baby due?”

  “Sometime in October, I think. We will have a fall celebration.”

  As soon as they had the broken ground seeded, the men started busting sod again. In spite of her big belly, Ingeborg took over the milking, turning the extra into cheese as she had before. “If we had another team, I would make a trip to town,” she said one day.

  Kaaren could do nothing but stutter. “But . . . but . . .”

  “We could both go. We drove to Baards. St. Andrew is only two or so hours farther. And just think, if we took our produce in, we would have a mite to put in our own purses as well. Wouldn’t you love to go into a store, look at the materials, smell the spices, or buy a pair of shoes?” She studied the cracked boots that needed new soles. Roald kept saying he would get to it, but somehow he never did. As soon as it grew warmer, she planned to go barefoot like the children.

  “I would buy thread and flannel to make diapers. And Gunny would look so pretty in a blue dress.”

  “And Thorliff needs . . .” Ingeborg shook herself. Here they were spending valuable time dreaming instead of working. But her son would love to have a new book. He had memorized the three they had. Why, he probably knew more scriptures by heart than the pastor back home did.

  Metis dropped by to say she was going north with her people again. She would return in the fall.

  Ingeborg watched her leave, wishing she would remain until after the baby was born. While she had Kaaren here, and Agnes would come if they asked, Metis and her medicinals were something she appreciated all the more now that she had learned how to use many of the local ingredients, thanks to the old woman’s tutelage.

  She ignored the cramping and low backache for as long as she could. Finally, she found herself clutching the back of a chair, her fingers imprinting themselves in the wood.

  “You’ve started, then?” Kaaren laid a comforting hand on Ingeborg’s shoulder.

  “Ja, some time ago. But this one seems to be in no hurry.” She stood upright again and returned to kneading her dough. “I thought to get extra baked . . .”

  “I’m surprised you aren’t out in the garden.” Kaaren’s gentle teasing made Ingeborg smile.

  “Anything I can do to keep my mind off it helps. My mor used to say that pacing helped. ‘Keep moving,’ she would say. So when I am done here, I will go out and hang up the diapers. I am glad we were able to get the spring cleaning done before this.” Ingeborg felt as though she was rambling but didn’t try to stop.

  By late afternoon, walking had become difficult.

  “What can I do?” Roald asked for the third time, the vein pulsing in his neck. So brave my Inge, but so big. Surely this babe will be hard to bring forth. He pushed back the fear that gnawed like a rat at his heart. Those years ago, another woman—his Anna—was in travail like this. And then their life together was over.

  “Take Thorliff and Gunny over to Agnes or at least keep them out in the barn. I don’t want them to see me like this.” She panted around the force ripping her apart.

  “We will go do chores and make beds in the hay.” Roald gathered up the sniffling Gunny and fled from the house as if wolves were snapping at his heels. Boss looked at him as if he were mad. The sun hadn’t even set, and here they were in the barn already.

  Carl and Thorliff came in from the field.

  A sound like a cutoff moan came from the house.

  “Her time?” Carl asked.

  Roald nodded.

  “Ahhh. Hey, Thorliff, I need you to help me here.”

  The boy stopped halfway across the yard. “But something is wrong, and I . . .”

  “Nothing is wrong. Come here.”

  Thorliff looked at his uncle with distrust written all over his sweat-streaked face.

  In the house, Kaaren laid out clean sheets, put water on the stove, and had baby things ready on the trunk. “Keep walking,” she commanded.

  Ingeborg grunted. Her jaw ached from biting back the groans. But after her water broke, the baby took the birthing into a race for daylight.

  Carl Andrew came into the world yelling of his arrival and causing his mother no further difficulties.

  Sometime later, all cleaned up and propped up against th
e goose-down pillows in bed, Ingeborg held him in her arms. She traced the curve of his cheek and put her finger in the palm of his hand so he could grasp her finger. She looked up to see a real smile on Roald’s face. One that not only tugged at the sides of his mouth but went clear to his eyes.

  Her own eyes brimmed with tears of joy. Roald was smiling! She handed him the snugly wrapped bundle. “Here, Far, meet your new son.”

  Father and baby studied each other as if memorizing faces. Roald jiggled the baby gently and sat down on the edge of the bed. “He is a true Bjorklund.”

  “Really? How can you tell?” Ingeborg shifted on the mattress. Sitting up was not very comfortable yet.

  “The eyes. Already they are blue, but soon they will look like mine.” He gazed at his wife. “Thank you for a strong and beautiful son.” Just then, Andrew, as they had decided to call him, whimpered, squirmed, and then squalled. “Listen to those lungs. He will have no trouble being heard. Maybe he should become a preacher—or a politician.”

  “Or a farmer like his father.”

  Thorliff sat on the edge of the bed. “You good now, Mor?” At Ingeborg’s nod, he snuggled against her side. “Baby Andrew sure cries a lot. Do all babies cry like that? Did I cry, Far?”

  Ingeborg and Roald exchanged the smiles of proud parents everywhere. Thorliff was back to normal with his questions, questions, questions. Carl Andrew was making his needs clearly known, and Gunny slept in her mother’s arms in the rocking chair.

  Ingeborg could no longer keep her eyes open. She accepted her son back to nurse and fell asleep while he did. Her last thought brought a curve to her own lips. Roald had smiled.

  “Mor, come see,” Thorliff called a couple of days later. Ingeborg dried her hands on a corner of her apron and stepped outside the door. The sun so bright after the dim soddy made her blink.

  “What is it?” After a glance at Roald’s face, she followed Thorliff’s pointing finger. Right by the door a rosebush now thrust three canes up against the soddy wall. One bud glowed pink against the dark earth.