Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  “Is that the man?” asked Gustav Rolfson of the sheriff, as Eric dismounted and started toward his house.

  “Yes. Gunnar Starbane’s son.”

  Gustav was surprised, and not pleasantly so. Knowing himself to be handsome, strong, even suave, should such a quality prove useful, he had always thought of country people as rather doltish, when they were not downright spavined or ugly. But now, seeing Eric, he was forced to revise his casually held prejudice. Eric Starbane was no bigger than Gustav, but he looked somehow stronger, more intact, more there. Gustav felt a tremor that carried with it things that required a moment to decipher, things with which he was largely unfamiliar: the feelings of being challenged, threatened, jeopardized. Yet how could that be? Starbane had no chance against the Rolfson wishes. None at all. But Eric Starbane did not seem to know this as he strode purposefully toward his house, sweeping the eight men with his piercing, dark-blue eyes, obviously holding in check a strength—and an anger—formidable indeed.

  “Well, Eric Gunnarson,” drawled Gustav, addressing him in the common way.

  Eric halted, at the base of the steps to his own house, entrance to which the men blocked. He fixed Gustav Rolfson with a sure, straight stare. “Starbane,” he said.

  “Well, for a little while more,” admitted Gustav, in a slow, mocking voice. “But those who do not pay their loans on time cannot retain the land from which they take their name.”

  “The loan my father signed is due in September,” Eric said.

  Once again, Gustav was made uneasy by this young farmer. He seemed too unafraid, too independent. Perhaps it was simply a form of country naiveté, but Gustav had the instinctive feeling that such was not the case. Yet, what did it matter? There was work to be done.

  Old Adolphus realized, too, that delay in presenting the official papers would give time for a larger crowd to gather. That might mean trouble. Also, he wanted to get on to the other farms. Even now it was late; the foreclosures would have to carry on tomorrow.

  “Give it to him,” he told Thorsen.

  The solicitor, sweating, keeping his eyes off Eric, took from a leather satchel an envelope sealed with the stamp of crafty Judge Amundsen, of Dovre. He handed it to Subsheriff Johanson.

  Eric, and all the watching villagers, saw the transmittal. While they well knew that acts ordered by law were to be enforced by the Oppland sheriff or his designates, they also knew that Thorsen, who had drawn up the loan papers in the first place, was now acting on the side of those who would foreclose the loans. And from this crowd of mountain farmers, honest, trusting, unsophisticated, there came a quick, sudden rumble of anger, like that first, faint sound of far-off thunder, which can be heard even before the dark clouds of the storm scud threateningly into view.

  Joining that crowd now were Kristin, her father, Piet, and several of her older siblings.

  Eric, who had noted that Johanson, even while holding the envelope of foreclosure, seemed a bit unsure of himself, now saw the subsheriff give Kristin a long, knowing look.

  Lord, thought Eric, he is going to use that against us. I cannot let him humiliate Kristin by telling what he witnessed at the fjord.

  Until this very moment Eric had not thought he would believe a man capable of so low a thing. Yet he knew that Johanson had seen the lovemaking. And so the subsheriff—who had undoubtedly told Thorsen about it—would use what he had seen to his purposes. Almost everyone in Lesja, moreover, knew how the graceless, domineering, red-bearded solicitor yearned for Kristin, panting after her even to the point of absurdity. Underestimate neither a scorned woman nor a humiliated man.

  “Give him the papers,” old Adolphus growled again, inspecting a huge gold watch that he’d yanked from his waistcoat pocket. Time was running.

  Eric saw young Gustav Rolfson’s eyes move over the crowd. He saw Rolfson’s gaze stop, resting on someone. That quickly, he knew. Turning, he saw. Gustav Rolfson was staring at Kristin Arnesdatter, born a Vendahl. Knowing the look of his own desire, it was not difficult for Eric to decipher that same look in another man. A raging wave of possessiveness took hold of him, but he pushed it back. Now was not the time to become emotional. And, anyway, Kristin would never, not in a thousand years, accept this arrogant citified scion who stood on the ancient steps of the Starbane house.

  Johanson stepped forward, holding the envelope out toward Eric. Johanson was grinning. “Got all your clothes on now, I see,” he hissed, too quietly for anyone to hear.

  “Say one word about it and you die,” Eric promised, in a cold, deadly whisper he could not, at first, believe had been his own. It was as if a mysterious current, buried deeply within himself, had suddenly pressed into quick channels, come up into the light of day.

  Johanson paused. He did not know Eric Starbane, but had heard of him, had sometimes observed him from a distance at the festivals, as Eric, time and time again, won contests of strength and endurance. The envelope in Johanson’s hand seemed quite a lot heavier than it had only moments before.

  And the low mutter of the villagers was rising, dropping, rising again into a sustained and unmistakable suspiration of anger.

  Eric fought down an impulse to swing out at Johanson, fought down an equally strong but less explicable desire to vault up the steps and smash the leering grin of arrogance from Gustav Rolfson’s handsome face. Keeping his wits, he recalled something his father had told him once, upon returning from a trip to Oslo, where he had seen Parliament. “They talk and talk, they ask questions and talk some more,” old Gunnar had said, with a shake of his head. “But the more they talk, the less happens.”

  Perhaps that rueful yet amused observation offered a useful lesson. “Wait!” Eric said, so that everyone could hear. “By whose authority are these foreclosures tendered?”

  The townspeople were not surprised by Eric’s words. They knew his intelligence as well as they knew his strength. But on the farmhouse steps, the Rolfsons and solicitor Thorsen looked at one another. They had not expected defiance in this way. They had counted upon a physical display from young Starbane. That was why the four deputies were present.

  “This is one foreclosure, yours,” explained Johanson, jittery, too, now.

  “But it is only the first, is it not? After which all of my neighbors, gathered here in my yard, can expect to receive theirs?”

  Old Adolphus cursed beneath his breath. Gustav, who fought to keep his eyes off Kristin so that he could follow the conflict, felt again a twinge of insecurity in the face of Eric’s courage. Were he in the same position, Gustav was doubtful that he would be so steadfast. Well, what did it matter? he asked himself. He was not in Eric’s position.

  Subsheriff Johanson was licking his lips. “I’ll tell everyone about the girl,” he threatened again, hissing maliciously.

  “I do hope your wife can afford a fine stone for your grave,” Eric said, “you spying piece of offal.”

  Johanson, slow witted but cunning, now thought he saw a way to induce Eric’s acceptance of the envelope. “Thorsen put me up to the spying,” he said. “It’s his business. I’m just doing my job. Here. Take this damn thing.” He winked. “Take it and maybe I can get Judge Amundsen, down in Dovre, to find a job for you.”

  “I don’t want a job. I already have my farm.”

  “Look, son. Be reasonable.”

  But Eric did not have the opportunity, just then, to respond, because the silvery glint of harness bells announced the arrival at the Starbane farm of Pastor Pringsheim. The elderly cleric had come forth in his buggy to take a hand in things, having given some thought to the scene in front of the stavkirche earlier in the afternoon. He was, by nature, a rigid man. And, as a figure of authority himself, he routinely sided with the powers-that-were, be they secular or ecclesiastical. But upon learning that Eric Starbane was to be evicted, recalling dimly the talk a year ago regarding a September repayment date, he felt vaguely alarmed and somewhat puzzled. These were his people after all, he the shepherd, they the flock, and not
hing evil was going to happen to his people if he could prevent it.

  “God damn it all to Christ,” old Adolphus groaned. All priests were idiots; they did not understand how the world worked.

  “What is the matter?” inquired Pringsheim, disingenuously.

  “There is a misunderstanding about the foreclosures,” Eric told him. “I believe them to be fraudulent.”

  The crowd quieted. The minister stood up in his buggy, as if it were a pulpit. Kristin, in the group of people, remembered when a much younger Pringsheim had threatened Eric with a beating, only to learn that a Starbane spoke the truth. Clearly, Pringsheim still thought so.

  “The law states,” pronounced Pringsheim carefully, “that in the event of contention over a matter of law, the issue must be appealed to the judiciary.”

  “And what do you know of law?” snapped Gustav, his voice heavy with mockery. “Best remain with devils and brimstone, or—”

  Old Adolphus restrained his son with a harsh glance, and Gustav fell silent. Adolphus was determined to have the land and the minerals beneath it, but he wished to do so by using the law to his advantage, not by illegality. He did not consider bribes illegal, however, merely a part of shrewd business.

  Kristin, watching from the crowd, was growing more and more uneasy, not to say fearful, for a combination of reasons. First and foremost was her concern for the fate of those she loved best: Eric and her family. Everything for which they had worked, everything for which they lived, now lay in grave jeopardy. From Oslo, the great capital, had come these Rolfsons to threaten devastation in the little village that was her home. Second, there stood Johanson with the notice of foreclosure in his hand and in his mind the memory of what he had seen at Sonnendahl Fjord. With such a secret, he had power over her, over Eric. She did not care for the feeling of being subject to the crude caprice of the subsheriff. Third, and most unsettling, she felt the eyes of Gustav Rolfson upon her, and she knew what his gaze meant. A beautiful girl learns early in life what that particular male gaze means. When the look of raw desire is in the eyes of a man one loves, then it is wonderful. But otherwise…

  “The nearest justice is Amundsen, in Dovre,” Thorsen was explaining. “And since these foreclosures have already been signed by him, there is really no need for an appeal.”

  Pastor Pringsheim was not to be intimidated. “The law does not prescribe the identity of the judge who hears the appeal, merely that the procedure is the right of anyone desiring it.”

  The people were silent now, listening, hoping to find in their pastor’s words some hope of retaining their lands.

  “Why waste our time?” Gustav barked. “You think the judge who signed these papers will reverse himself? You amuse me.”

  But Eric, once again, saw the opportunity to buy time.

  “The law is the law,” he said. “If it works for you, then it may also work for us.”

  “Christ and St. Olaf!” Johanson swore. “Take this paper, Starbane, and get it over with. You can’t win.”

  “No,” said Eric. “I want a hearing. And,” he added, gesturing to the Rolfsons and Johanson’s deputies, “I want you off my doorstep. You have no right to be there.”

  For a long moment, everyone was stunned, the Rolfsons not least. “Why you disrespectful farmer…” Gustav began, making as if to come down from the steps and teach Eric a physical lesson in good manners.

  But Eric had had enough. Noting Rolfson’s aggressive intention, however attenuated it was, he sprang forward and grabbed the man at his collar, where the knot of the fine silk cravat lay like a scarlet fist against the white silk shirt. Rolfson was startled, and cringed momentarily, waiting for a blow. The two young men stood face to face, so alike in appearance, save for the wolflike quality Gustav possessed due to his bony bridge of nose. They were quite alike in appearance, true, but other than that they were opposites. Eric felt and smelled Rolfson’s breath, sensed the very odor of his soul, and at that moment he knew that he caught the stench of something hard and unyielding and evil. And he sensed, rather than understood, that this young man had come into his life not merely for the moment, but for a long, long time. The insight was unbidden and uncanny, but it was there, just as real as the feel of Rolfson’s solid neck in his hands.

  Kristin saw them there, facing each other. She had been surprised to see Eric, usually so self-contained, rush toward Gustav Rolfson, and even more surprised to see Eric reach out and grab the other man. True, he was angry because these men had presumed to take away his house, but the immediate threat had been removed, at least until a judge would hear the appeal and render a decision. Without knowing why, she, like Eric, experienced a hint of something ominous and foreboding, as if Gustav Rolfson were a harbinger of grief, and she remembered the feel of his eyes on her body. She shuddered.

  “Unhand him, Starbane,” Johanson was saying. “Or I’ll have to arrest you.”

  “Yes, let me go, Gunnarson,” said Gustav in an oozing manner. He realized now that Eric was not going to strike him. The knowledge served to restore his haughty grin.

  “Certainly I’ll let him go,” said Eric, with a smile of his own, and spun Gustav slowly in a half-circle that forced him from the steps onto the ground in front of the house. So easily did Eric move the other man, with no obvious show of force, that it seemed almost as if they were performing one small movement in a dance, the choreography of which was, as yet, incomplete. Then Eric dropped his hand and stood back.

  “You’ll pay dearly for your impertinence,” vowed Gustav, straightening his cravat.

  In response Eric just looked back at Rolfson, calm again, his blue eyes clear as a mountain lake in winter.

  Thorsen, old Adolphus, and the deputies clomped down from the steps, too. Thorsen was explaining to the elder Rolfson that he would dispatch a rider to summon Judge Amundsen to the village for the hearing.

  “It’s got to be held here?” grumbled the aspirant tycoon, dyspeptic and distressed that his plans for summary acquisition had been thwarted by a farm boy and a preacher. No, not thwarted, he corrected himself. Simply delayed.

  The Rolfsons followed Thorsen on horseback, riding to his house, where they would be staying overnight. The deputies stood around Eric’s yard for a bit, waiting until most of the people dispersed. They were trying to decide if they would have to pay some farmer to sleep in his hayloft.

  “Rolfson is paying for everything,” Johanson assured them, “just go on down to the inn and tell the innkeeper.”

  Eric, who was just about to enter his house, along with Kristin and her father, turned to say, “And is Rolfson paying the judge as well, Sheriff?”

  “Stick to matters you know something about, Starbane. Planting your fields and herding your cattle and—”

  He was about to say “ruining pretty young women in the grass,” but he held his tongue. In the first place he did not trust Eric not to stride right over and grab him by the collar. It was not a prospect he savored. And, secondly, he recalled seeing the look in Gustav Rolfson’s eyes when he first caught sight of Kristin. Since spying upon Eric and Kristin, Johanson had been wondering what best use could be made of what he had seen. Thorsen would pay him for his efforts, naturally, but that was a pittance. Embarrassing the couple might backfire: people would ask what he, Johanson, was doing, voyeur, in the hills, when he ought to have been attending to official duties. Jailing Eric and Kristin was too absurd to contemplate. If all the men and women who stole away to the mountains to make love were to be locked up, the country would collapse. There would be too few free people to carry on the business of the day.

  He guffawed to himself and swung up into his saddle. His deputies did likewise, to the creak and strain of harness leather, and the skittish prancing of the horses.

  “Are you coming with us to the inn?” asked one of the men.

  “I’ll be there in a little,” answered the industrious subsheriff. “I just remembered something I have to tell young Rolfson.

  II
I

  Arne Vendahl, fairly quivering with impotent fury, sent his son Piet home. “You and the boys see to the cattle,” he said, “and have Magda prepare supper for you all. Tell your mother Kristin and I will be home later. We have talking to do.”

  He said it with a show of optimism, as if by talking about disaster some means might be found to forestall it. But all spirit left him when he sagged into the chair by the fireplace in Eric’s kitchen.

  Eric drew three huge mugs of ale from an oaken barrel in the corner, while Kristin put several small logs on the fire that always burned beneath the porridge kettle. Two staples of the mountains: ale and porridge. The ale thick, foamy, very strong; the porridge half-soup, half-stew, composed of scraps, leftovers, and occasional fresh additions of vegetables, meats, milks, cheeses, and almost any spice. Even measures of ale were added to the porridge for flavor, and it was eaten from large bowls, steaming hot, and served with goat cheese and huge chunks of black bread.

  “What will we do?” moaned Kristin’s father, uncheered by several deep swallows of the powerful brew. “If I lose my land, we are lost. I have no other skills. I will not even have my name. Oh, we shall all starve, it is true.”

  “It may not be that bad,” said Eric, more to comfort the older man than to state his real feelings, which now, after the confrontation with Rolfson and its attendant excitement, had become rather gloomy. “It may still be that the judge from Dovre will listen to our story of the strange alteration in the repayment date on the notes.”