“He’s dead somewhere, isn’t he?”
Agnes Baard laid her cheek against Ingeborg’s hair. “I’m afraid so. No one for ten miles around has seen him in over ten days. We checked in St. Andrew and at all the farms we know of. The last to see him were the Polinskis.”
The softly spoken words snapped Ingeborg’s last thread of hope.
“I prayed and prayed for him, except when I was too sick to be aware, but I think even then I was praying.”
“I know.”
“But God took him.” The words lay flat in the silence. Ingeborg stared across at Kaaren sitting still frozen in the rocker. “And Carl and his two babies. What kind of loving God would do such a thing? If that is love, I want no part of it.”
“Ingeborg! Do not say such things. God knows best. This was His will, and we must accept His will for us. The Bible says . . .”
“I do not care what the Bible says! Is the Bible going to bring Kaaren back to us? Is the Bible going to milk the cows, birth the lambs, plow the soil, plant the wheat, and break new sod?” She turned fiercely to her friend. “No! I must do all that. This land is for Roald’s and Carl’s children . . .” She stammered to a halt. “For Kaaren’s children, if she should ever have any more, and for my children. I will not lose it. Not after all the blood and sweat we’ve poured into this earth.”
She drew away from the comfort of Agnes’s arms. “We will farm this land. I will farm it myself.” Her vow echoed in the quiet room. The ring of it woke Andrew with a start, and he began to whimper. Ingeborg rose to her feet and crossed the room. Bending over the cradle, she lifted the baby and buried her tear-stained face in his sweet chest. “Sorry, den lille, but you are not ready to eat yet.” She changed his diaper and crossed to the rocking chair, laying him in Kaaren’s lap. She picked up the limp hands and wrapped them around the baby, locking them together. “Kaaren, you rock this baby. Now.” Authority rang in Ingeborg’s voice.
She stepped back, ready to leap forward if Andrew should start to fall.
Slowly, ever so slowly, one foot pushed against the dirt floor and set the rocker in motion.
“Thank you, God,” breathed Mrs. Baard.
Ingeborg shot her a withering look. “I will pour the coffee if you want to call your husband. There are cookies and milk for the children.”
As the company left to get home before sundown, Ingeborg stood in the door and waved a last goodbye. She sent her vows into the sky, painted all the colors of flames by the setting sun. The time for grief had passed. I will make it here. I will farm this land and Carl’s land, and I will prove up the homesteads. I will! And there will be no more tears.
I have been in a far land, ja?” Kaaren asked, her voice a cracked whisper.
With her mouth open in shock, Ingeborg looked over at her sister-in-law. Kaaren had been putting on her own clothes when they were laid out for her. She ate when food was put in front of her, and someone, usually Thorliff, put the spoon in her hand. She had even been rocking Andrew when the baby was placed in her arms. But these were the first words she had spoken since the terrible sickness.
“Ja, that you have.” Each day Ingeborg had been hoping for a response, but every time she studied Kaaren’s eyes, she felt as though she were looking into an empty abyss. She stepped to the door and threw out the dirty dishwater. A warm wind blew from the south, even now just before bedtime. While winter surely wasn’t over, at least they were having a reprieve from the howling rage of the bitter northern storms.
Ingeborg finished putting the dishes away, banked the stove, and closed the draft so the fire would leave coals for the morning. Her nights were so short; she didn’t allow the stove to go out anymore. She sat in Roald’s chair for a blissful moment. If she sat too long, she would fall asleep right there and wake up freezing before morning. She knew, for she had done that more than once.
Kaaren kept the chair moving, the squeak of the rocker the only sound but for the dripping of the icicles. “How long have I been gone?” Kaaren spoke again, stronger of voice but still staring into space.
“Since right after Christmas. That was when the influenza struck.” Ingeborg picked up her knitting. No sense letting her hands stay idle. “That was more than two months ago.”
The rocker sang its song.
“Carl and my babies?”
“Gone.”
“And Roald?”
“He went to check on the neighbors, and we never saw him again.” If she spoke carefully, the words no longer carried feeling. They were just words.
“Was there a funeral?”
“No. We will have one when the ground thaws. Nearly all of the families in this area lost someone. We are among the fortunate. Some entire families were wiped out.”
The rocker faltered to a halt.
Ingeborg looked up to see a solitary tear slide down Kaaren’s face.
“God help us.”
“No. We will help ourselves. God is too busy elsewhere.” Putting her knitting aside, Ingeborg went to undress. After pulling on her nightgown, she checked on Thorliff and Andrew, tucking the covers more securely around them. “Are you coming?” She leaned over the lamp chimney to extinguish the light.
“You can blow it out. I don’t need a light for getting into bed.” Kaaren got to her feet, undressing as she went.
As the weeks passed, Kaaren returned more and more to her former self, but a sadness remained in her eyes, even when she laughed at the antics of Thorliff as he entertained Andrew. The sickness hadn’t altered the baby’s deep belly laugh, sometimes so infectious that even Ingeborg smiled.
Slowly Kaaren took over more of the household chores, especially when the lambing began. She also returned to her job as schoolmarm, allowing Thorliff to spend several hours a day at the books he so loved.
“Read this,” Kaaren said one afternoon, handing Ingeborg a piece of paper, precious since it was so scarce. “Thorliff wrote it.”
Ingeborg stepped to the window to see better. She looked up after reading the closely printed words of the poem. “He draws pictures with words.” She read it again. “But he is only seven. You are a very good teacher.”
“I believe Thorliff has been given a gift. It will be our place to see that he develops that gift.”
“Ja, someday. Right now he needs a new pair of pants, and his boots are too small. It is a good thing spring will soon be here, and he can go barefoot. I never did learn how to make boots.” Thoughts of Roald, who did all things so well, flitted through her mind, but she snapped the window shut on the memories immediately. Thinking of Roald only made her day weigh heavier.
Ingeborg spent half her nights out in the lean-to that housed their flock of fifteen ewes. The ram was locked in the other barn for now. She had moved the oxen, the dry cows, and the horses over there to make room in the lean-to so she could separate the ewes in labor from the others. Only one cow had any milk left.
Thorliff helped by feeding the animals in the other barn and by leading the livestock down to the river to drink so they didn’t have to haul water for them.
“We have twenty-five healthy lambs,” Ingeborg announced one night.
“And one bummer.” Thorliff sat cross-legged by the basket where the lamb that had been rejected by its mother lay sleeping near the stove’s warmth.
“Now if we can just keep the wolves away, we will have a cash crop come fall, maybe earlier. If only we had been able to cut wood this winter as the men did last.”
“Are you keeping any lambs for breeding?” Kaaren sat rocking Andrew to sleep. He’d been fussy lately because he was teething.
Ingeborg glanced up from the journal where she kept the farm records. A pang made her catch her breath. The only time she held the baby anymore was when she nursed him.
“Ja, I’m keeping the finest of the lot. And I’ll trade the best ram for another so we will have a new bloodline.” She couldn’t breed the young stock back to the old ram who was their sire, so she would have to find anot
her stud. Not many people in the area raised sheep.
This year they would also have wool to sell, and Ingeborg hoped the sale of it would bring enough money to pay back the bank. If only she could afford to buy more cows. There was still a big demand for oxen, and she knew she would be able to sell all that she could raise at a good price. But a cow took nine months to calve, and then the calf needed a year to grow before it could be sold. It was nearly two years before it was strong enough to pull a wagon or a plow. Horses needed the same amount of time or more. The return was definitely faster with sheep. Over and over, the many decisions to be made ran through her mind. She needed Roald. How dare he leave them?
“I think we’ll raise more chickens this spring,” Ingeborg announced, making a sudden decision.
“Chickens?”
“Ja, we can sell all the eggs the hens can produce, and come spring planting and harvesttime, the bonanza farm across the river will take all we can supply for frying. If we had a ferry or a raft, I could take the food stuffs over there without the long trip to St. Andrew . . .”
Kaaren shook her head. “As if we don’t already have enough to do!”
Several nights later, Ingeborg awoke with shivers coursing up and down her body and the hair on the back of her neck rising. She listened to one long howl and then another, followed by the yips of a wolf pack on the hunt. Closer they came, and then there was silence.
She started to settle back down, but something made her get up and grab the woolen wrapper she kept at the foot of the bed. She went to the window but, even in the bright moonlight, saw nothing. Was it safe to open the door? Wolves had been known to burst into a soddy if they were hungry enough.
She shoved her feet into boots, put on her coat, and picked up the rifle.
“Inge, what is it?” Kaaren’s low voice came through the darkness.
“Wolves, a pack of them. I’m going out to stay with the sheep.”
“But, you . . .” Kaaren stopped. Ingeborg could hear her admonition without the words.
“I’ll be careful.” She slipped open the door and let her eyes adjust to the brightness. Moonlight on snow carried much of the brilliance of early day. Her boots crunched in the snow crust, her breath creating a cloud as she tried to breathe without making a sound.
A snarl sounded from close by. Much too close. She stepped around the corner of the soddy in time to see four shadows slinking toward the sheep shed. She raised the gun, but before she could fire, another shadow flew across the drifts, snarling like a beast gone mad. The dark form leaped on the leader of the pack, and within a breath’s time, the barking, snarling, and growls sounded loud enough to wake the dead.
“Inge, are you all right?” The call came from the half-open door.
“Ja, but I sure don’t know what is happening. You stay inside.”
She could hear the sheep bleating and charging around the pen. The fool things didn’t need a wolf to attack them. They could die of fright or trample the lambs in their fear.
The fight was out of her sight, behind the barn. If she could get to the barn door, she could get in and calm the sheep. Suddenly the snarls turned to yips, and three wolves streaked off across the prairie. She turned the corner of the barn and found one wolf lying motionless on the bloody snow. Another sat nearby, looking at her with that same steady yellow gaze she’d seen before.
“Wolf?”
He whined just a bit in his throat. Then, as if leaving her a gift, he turned and trotted back toward the river and Metis’ cave. Ingeborg stared after him, not sure when she was only seeing shadows. She entered the barn and went through the barred gate into the sheep fold. The cow lowed and the sheep bleated. Small bars of moonlight came through the opening between the sod walls and the roof. She walked among the sheep, talking to them in a soothing voice. As they calmed, she tried to check for injuries but without a lantern found nothing. At least there were none lying trampled on the floor.
She paused for a moment longer, savoring the night barn sounds. A chicken must have fallen off her roost in the other lean-to and was squawking her disgust. One of the lambs bleated softly, and its mother answered. The cow lay down again with a grunt and a whoosh of breath. Ingeborg closed the door and dropped the bar in place. She would have to see about getting a dog to warn them. She thought again of the avenging Wolf. He’d nearly cost her her life at one time, and now he’d saved a major part of her livelihood. Strange.
Back in the house, she removed her outer clothes and then her nightgown, the hem and halfway to her knees now sodden with snow. As she dug in the chest for a dry one, she told Kaaren what had happened.
“God sent us a guardian.”
Ingeborg snorted and pulled her nightgown over her head. If Kaaren wanted to believe God was watching over them, she could. “It was just Metis’ Wolf.”
In the morning, she dug again in the chest, this time removing Roald’s woolen pants that she’d packed away. She held them up to her waist. They would need major altering, but that she knew how to do. She would begin as soon as she’d finished the morning chores.
“But, Ingeborg, you can’t wear those.”
“Ja, I can and will from now on.” She hung her skirt on a peg in the wall. “You can use this for yourself or make something for the boys. The wool is still good. But I will never trip over my sodden skirts again. If I have to do a man’s work, I will dress like a man.”
She ignored the horrified look on Kaaren’s face, and feeling more free than she ever had, she headed for the barn. She’d fire up the forge and work again on the plowshares. How would she ever keep them sharp enough once the ground warmed up sufficiently to be turned over? And busting sod was worse. Roald had filed that iron monster every few hours and hammered it back into shape at night. So far, her hammering made dents rather than smooth, sharp curves.
She felt a familiar surge of fury. It had not been Roald’s job to take care of the entire world, for heaven’s sake.
Her milk ran out at the same time the cow calved.
“Andrew will have to learn to drink from a cup, that is all.” She glared at the whiny baby who could crawl across the room faster than a beetle could scoot.
“If you’d . . .” Kaaren stopped at the glare now directed at her.
“Well, at least we’ll have plenty of milk for him. When he gets hungry enough, he’ll take it.”
But Andrew had inherited stubbornness from both sides of his family. By the third night of his crying and fussing, Ingeborg was about out of her mind. They’d tried dipping a cloth in milk and letting him suck. They’d spooned in gruel made of cooked oats and milk. They added molasses, then sugar. He’d drink just enough to take the edge off his hunger and then turn away. He pulled at her shirt, nuzzling her breast and crying until Ingeborg didn’t even want to hold him.
She fled to the barn, now understanding why the men had sought solace out there the first year in the soddy. No babies cried in the barn.
After all the chores were finished, she and Thorliff returned with milk buckets brimming. Another cow was due to freshen soon. They would have plenty of milk.
When they entered the soddy, all was quiet. Kaaren sat knitting in the rocker that had become hers. Andrew played with a sock full of beans on the rug at her feet. The aroma of bread baking and beans cooking filled the air.
“What did you do?” Ingeborg set the milk pails on the table.
Kaaren smiled up at her. “A glove and honey.”
Ingeborg stopped. She looked from the smiling baby to the woman who also wore a smile.
“You know those deerskin gloves you made for Roald?”
Ingeborg nodded.
Kaaren held up a cup with a funny-looking cap. “I cut a hole in the thumb, sealed the seams and stretched it wet over the cup. See, here’s the thong I tied it down with. Now he can suck. The honey made him like the milk and”—she raised her hands in the air—“we have one happy baby who already has a sweet tooth, just like his father and his uncle did.”
“How clever of you.” Roald had never worn the soft gloves she’d made so carefully. Instead, he’d chosen the knit ones inside the deerskin mittens. Ingeborg pushed aside both the thought and the lump that swelled in her throat at the mention of Roald’s name. There was no time for any more useless regrets. Besides, she’d vowed never to cry again.
Spring finally did come, and as soon as the ground thawed enough, they had the community funeral. Kaaren sobbed as they lowered one long box and two smaller ones into the ground. But there was no raw timber box for Roald. Dry-eyed, Ingeborg stood beside Kaaren, holding Thorliff’s hand. They’d chosen the southwest corner of the Bjorklund land, the place where Roald and Carl had agreed that one day they would build a school. Kaaren had insisted they build a church also, and finally the brothers had agreed. But instead of the two buildings so needed by the growing group of settlers, they started with a graveyard.
The prairie wind carried away the voice of Joseph Baard as he read the words. “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes . . .” He finished with the Twenty-third Psalm. Everyone joined in, their voices drifting across the burgeoning prairie. All, that is, but Ingeborg. As soon as the men began filling in the graves, she turned and headed for their wagon. She had spring plowing to do. The acres closest to the river were dry enough to work. Let the others get together over food and talk if they liked. But she had no time; she had better things to do.
Day after day, Ingeborg plowed in the fields as though driven by an invisible force. She discovered that she could begin work with one team as soon as dawn lightened the sky, even before the first rooster crowed. She could drive them straight through until dinnertime, then hitch up the oxen and keep going until it was too dark to see the furrow. On bright moonlit nights, she could continue even longer. Her body grew hard as whipcord, and with the straw hat pulled down over her forehead, she could have passed for a man any day.
An Untamed Land Page 33