Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  “Vera,” Kristin asked the governess, “would you ask Haakon to come in here please? Sheriff Bonwit wants to talk to him again.”

  In a minute the boy edged into the parlor, his great blue eyes wide and appraising. A change had come over him since that afternoon by the river. It was not that he had grown fearful, but he seemed immensely puzzled, as if the world he had come to love had suddenly turned on him, revealing itself to have been an impostor all along. His wounded expression tore at Kristin’s heart. In time the world breaks almost everyone. Why did it have to happen to Haakon so soon?

  “Come on in, son,” said Sheriff Bonwit gently, reaching for the ransom note on the table.

  The boy edged away from the door, collected himself, and walked forthrightly toward the sheriff, offering his hand.

  Gravely, Bonwit shook it. “Sit down, son,” he said, motioning to a chair next to Kristin.

  Haakon glanced inquiringly at his mother. She nodded and smiled. He sat down.

  “Now, son,” Bonwit began, “you are probably going to think I’m an old man whose memory is going lickety-split over Minehaha Falls, and I know you told me the story before, but I’ve got to hear it again. All right?”

  Haakon nodded.

  “Good. Now what you tell me will help us find your sister, and we will find her, make no mistake about that. Take it real slow. You and Elizabeth and Ned went into the trees to play bear. Real slow, now. We’ve got all afternoon. Tell it just the way you remember it.”

  Haakon closed his eyes, concentrating. His intense expression reminded Kristin of Eric, when he was lost in thought.

  “We went into the trees…” Haakon began.

  “Don’t think too hard,” Bonwit said softly, “just let the memory come. Tell me what you saw. Heard.”

  “I was walking in front of Elizzie. Because she didn’t like to trip on the vines. Ned was behind us. Then we turned around and Ned was gone. Just like always when we played the bear game. First Elizabeth and I hid for a little while, because Ned had taught us to be very quiet and wait. If you wait, the prey will give itself away. So we waited, and then we heard a sound.”

  “What kind of a sound?”

  “A long soft scraping sound.”

  The sheriff glanced at Kristin. They had heard this detail before. The scraping sound would have been the canoe being pulled out of the water and up onto the riverbank.

  “So we Started down through the trees toward the water. I couldn’t see anything at first, then I thought I saw Ned and another man behind some bushes.”

  “How did you know it was another man? Are you sure you saw a person?”

  “Yes,” Haakon decided. “I saw the first man then, through the leaves. And I saw Ned’s face. He looked surprised.”

  Now Kristin gave the sheriff a glance. At first Bonwit had reasoned that Ned must have been in cahoots with the kidnappers. What else could one expect from an Indian. But if Ned had been surprised…

  “Elizabeth and I were going down the slope,” Haakon continued. “It’s steep and we were going fast. We couldn’t stop. Then the man said something foul to Ned. It’s a word I’m not supposed to say. And the man pulled out a knife. Then I saw the other man with him.”

  “Their faces? What did they look like?”

  The boy shook his head. “It was shadowy there. It all happened so fast. They had beards, and…and they were wearing hats.”

  “That’s a new one,” Bonwit cried, excited. “Hats! You didn’t say that before. What kind of hats? Fur? Buckskin?”

  “No,” Haakon cried, pleased to have recalled something that the sheriff considered valuable. “They were…they were shiny, like the one Papa wears sometimes when he dresses to go out. But they weren’t tall hats. They were…round. Roundish.”

  “Very good, son,” said the sheriff. To Kristin he said, “Bowlers or derbies. City men. These fellows knew what they were doing. Had it planned. And, like I said, I doubt it was for ransom, either.”

  I wish Eric were here, thought Kristin. “Then what happened?” she asked her son.

  “Well, Elizabeth and I were running downhill. We couldn’t get stopped right away. The man pushed his knife at Ned, and I came through the bushes and the other man had a knife, too. Ned saw me. ‘Run! Run!’ he said. I grabbed hold of a sapling, and stopped But Elizabeth, she was going too fast, she couldn’t stop. And she ran right into the arms of the second man. He was close to the canoe. Ned and the other man were wrestling. I wish Ned had had a knife. Ned got hurt, but he kept fighting. ‘I’ve got the kid, I’ve got the kid,’ said the man who had Elizabeth. But the man who was fighting Ned said, ‘Not her. The other one.’”

  Haakon stopped talking and looked at the sheriff.

  “You’re sure that’s what he said? Absolutely honestly sure?”

  Tears pearled in the corners of Haakon’s eyes. He nodded.

  “And then what happened?”

  “Then I ran, and the next thing I knew I saw Mama running toward me on the lawn.”

  He began to cry.

  “Hey, now,” said the sheriff, getting off his chair and going over to the boy. “It’s all over, and we’ll get your sister back. What’s wrong?”

  Haakon sobbed quietly, holding back the full flood of his hurt. “I…I was a coward.” He choked.

  Kristin came to comfort him, but the sheriff’s big arm was already around the child.

  “What’s this coward talk?” he asked with gruff tenderness. “You got in a battle you couldn’t do anything about, so you followed orders and got the hell out of there to warn everybody else. Now, that’s not cowardice by my book, not by a long shot.”

  “It isn’t?” Haakon asked, doubtfully.

  “Not by a hell of a long shot,” Bonwit repeated, “and I don’t want to be hearing any of this cowardice business anymore. We may be needing you plenty before we find Elizabeth, and I want you to keep your wits about you, just like you did down by the river.” He gave Haakon a gentle sock in the shoulder. “Can I count on you, now?”

  Haakon dried his tears. “Yes,” he said, in a small voice. “Yes,” he said, louder.

  “Good. That’s fine. You run along now. Your mother and I have some other things to discuss.”

  “Damn hard on him,” said Bonwit sadly, when Haakon had left the room.

  Kristin agreed, then thought of Elizabeth. She was on the verge of tears herself.

  Bonwit unfolded the ransom note, written in longhand on a half-sheet of white paper. For perhaps the hundredth time, he read it aloud.

  To get the girl back leave five thousand dollars paper money in a waterproof sack in the forked oak behind Rotley’s tavern, St. Anthony Falls, on the night of August 10.

  “We left the money in that exact tree,” Kristin said without spirit “No one touched it. And we didn’t get Elizabeth back, either.”

  “Just the point I’m trying to make. Point I been trying to make all along. I never thought this was a regular kidnapping. And now, after what your boy told us about those hats, I’m sure I’m right.”

  “But why do you think that?”

  “Stuff doesn’t fit together right. Not at all. First, consider the timing. Elizabeth was Snatched on the afternoon of the fourth. We don’t even get the note until the ninth, when it turns up not here but in the mail at your husband’s Hudson Bay office. And here it is the eleventh. Know what I think? They didn’t want money at all. Only wanted to make it look like a kidnapping. Rotley’s tavern is the goddamn busiest place in St. Anthony Falls. Them fellows in the derby hats, or whatever they were, didn’t know any real good places to stash ransom cash, and they didn’t know any because they weren’t looking for any.”

  Kristin followed his reasoning, but she didn’t accept it. Her daughter was gone, there was a ransom note, so it must have been a kidnapping.

  “They didn’t even want Elizabeth,” Bonwit added.

  “What?” cried Kristin.

  “Just recollect what your boy said. ‘Not her.
The other one.’ That’s what he said. Those bastards in the city hats got more than they bargained for. Probably were figuring on sneaking up into the house, maybe even waiting until night to do it, and taking Haakon—”

  Rolfson! thought Kristin.

  “—but instead they find a fighting Indian, and a whole muddle they couldn’t handle. Haakon runs away screaming, they make sure Ned won’t talk, but yet they figure they can make some use of the little girl.”

  “That’s why they wanted a ransom!” Kristin declared, still trying to make him see her point.

  “Nope,” he maintained. “The time factor belies that, it surely does. If they wanted money, we would have got the note right away. But we didn’t. I think they were working for somebody. They had to check with him, let him know they’d botched, gotten the girl instead of Haakon. He had to decide what to do. That’s when they concocted the ransom bit. It’s the time factor, just like I said. Also the money factor.”

  “Money?”

  “Mrs. Gunnarson, not to be blunt, but five thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket to your husband. Either these guys were about the dumbest kidnappers around, or someone who is not so dumb is trying to make us think catty corners.”

  “Just to confuse us.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “But”—and here Kristin’s panic flared again—“but what about Elizabeth?”

  The sheriff gave her a hard, straight look, but his eyes were not ungentle. “I figure she’s far away from here,” he said, “but I don’t figure she’s harmed or dead. Things didn’t work out right, according to their plan. But they’re smart, and they hold all the cards—”

  Exactly how Gustav always liked it, Kristin raged inwardly.

  “—and they got time to wait and see. What the hell do they want? Why, we don’t even know. Except they wanted Haakon. Now, you’ll forgive me, but I have to ask this.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I understand things are not so good between your husband and J. J. Granger?”

  Kristin was startled. Granger and Eric were cool, but unfailingly correct. It was clear that they were competitors in many areas of business, and the iron range loomed as a future bone of contention. But for Granger, who was increasingly powerful, to stoop to kidnapping…

  “I just don’t think so,” she told Bonwit. “I have known evil people. J. J. Granger may be hard and ruthless, even a liar and a cheat—”

  “Always thought them things you mention was sort of evil,” the sheriff drawled.

  Kristin smiled, in spite of the circumstances. “J.J. is in the north woods anyway,” she said. “He’s hunting for iron ore just like Eric.”

  “My God, iron,” observed Bonwit wearily. “What the hell is this country coming to? Used to be you could go out on the prairie with a rifle and a horse and a hoe and, if you got through the winters, live like a king. Or at least a prince. Now, though…oh, well. Let me see that stuff the Indian drew before he died.”

  Poor Ned, Kristin thought, as she went to get the Indian’s last message from the top drawer of the desk in the corner of the parlor. It had to be a message, didn’t it? What else on earth could it be?

  After she had found him wounded and dying on the riverbank, Kristin, two maids, and the gardener had carried him up to the house, putting him down on a makeshift mattress of blankets. He was still bleeding from the mouth, but the dangerous wound had been made by the knife in his back. Dr. Rubleson was immediately summoned, and arrived at a gallop within fifteen minutes. Ned lay on his stomach. Kristin had withdrawn the knife, which seemed only to increase the bleeding. Rubleson took a look, ascertained that Ned could not see his expression, and shook his head gravely at Kristin. No hope, his expression said.

  “Hey there now, Ned,” he drawled encouragingly, “you just relax. You’ll be back out currying those horses, no time at all.”

  Kristin told him what had happened, and that Elizabeth was gone.

  Dr. Rubleson’s face darkened. “Ned is the only witness?”

  “Except for Haakon. And whether he really saw the men who were there is doubtful. He’s beside himself, and…”

  Rubleson dropped his artificially casual manner. “Ned can’t talk, obviously,” he said. “But we’d best try to communicate with him if we can. There isn’t much time,” he added, with an emphasis on the word time that told Kristin Ned was in his final moments.

  She lay down beside him. He was too weak to spit now, but blood continued to leak slowly from his mouth. His eyes were still alert, however, although reflected in them was a knowledge that his life was fading.

  “Ned,” she asked, “did you recognize the men who took Elizabeth?”

  He gave a weak shake of his head.

  “Never saw them before?”

  Again, a shake.

  “Did they say anything? Did you overhear anything? While you were in the bushes waiting to surprise the children? Anything that might help us now?”

  Ned nodded.

  Rubleson was trying to stanch the flow of blood from Ned’s back wound, an attempt bound to fail. He motioned to Kristin that there was not much time left.

  So, she thought, Ned had heard something. But what? And, without a tongue, how could he tell them?

  “Did they say who they worked for?” she asked.

  No.

  “Why they were doing it?”

  No.

  “Did they say where they were headed?” she asked, close to hopelessness now. How would she ever communicate with him?

  Yes, he nodded.

  “Where they were going?” she asked, in disbelief.

  He nodded again, and burst into a spate of coughing. Blood poured from his insides out of his mouth.

  “It’s coming now,” Rubleson said, with immense calm. He meant that death was coming.

  From some wellspring of reserved strength Ned moved his hand over the blanket, as if writing something. But that made no sense at all. He couldn’t read or write. Yet writing was the only means by which he could communicate with them. Had he been able to put down words all along?

  “Do you want paper and pen?” she asked.

  He gave her a very weak nod, and closed his eyes. Kristin thought for a moment that all was over, but he coughed again. She raced for a tablet and a pen. The inkwell sloshed over onto the rug as she hurried back to where Ned lay, but she didn’t care at all. Kneeling down beside him, she laid a sheet of paper beneath his hand, and dipping the pen into the well, placed the quill between his trembling fingers.

  “They were talking about their destination,” she reminded him, “and you overheard?”

  Ned had hung on to his clarity of mind. He grasped the pen and made a line on the paper.

  Then he made another line beneath it.

  This was followed by a long, looping curve.

  Finally, he made another curve, but it ended abruptly. His hand fairly leaped from the page, and his entire body entered upon an intense, terrible spasm. For a full minute he shook and jerked, every muscle throbbing. His eyes were on Kristin the whole time. He knew what was happening to him, right up until the last instant. She did, too, and she was crying. But there was not a shred of fear in Ned’s black eyes. Suddenly the convulsions ceased. And his hand fell upon the paper, as if he were giving her a reaffirmation of the importance of the lines he had drawn.

  “It’s over,” Rubleson said, covering Ned with one of the blankets.

  Kristin took the piece of paper and stared at it.

  “What do you think it means?” she asked Sheriff Bonwit now, yet again.

  He turned the paper in his hand, regarding it from every angle. “You say you asked him where the kidnappers said they were headed, and this is what he drew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Beats me. Aren’t any roads or trails in these parts that look like this. Unless it’s some sort of Chippewa shorthand. God, I don’t know. These Indians know the lay of the land for a thousand miles in all directions, though. It’s i
n their blood.” He studied Ned’s final testament awhile longer, intrigued but bewildered. “Got to have something to do with the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Those fellows had on city hats. The ransom note, such as it was, came written on good paper, not cheap foolscap. And the writing was stylish. It was not put down by some half-literate scoundrel looking to pick up some quick money by snatching a rich man’s child.”

  Rolfson, Kristin thought. Even though she knew he was not within five hundred miles of Minnesota, and probably farther away.

  “I still think it’s Granger behind this somehow,” Bonwit reiterated. “Of course there’s not a lick of proof to go on.”

  “What do we do now?” Kristin implored.

  “We keep on hunting. We hunt and we wait. You ever done much waiting, Mrs. Gunnarson?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Kristin. “Oh, yes, I have, indeed!”

  IV

  “It was Rolfson who did it,” Eric raged. “I don’t need proof. I know it. He hired men to kidnap Haakon, but they fouled the plan and got Elizabeth instead.”

  Kristin’s messenger had located Eric at his base camp, on the Pike River in the Mesabi Range. Professor Sperry had been wrong. Eighteen seventy-one had not been the year to find a major iron deposit. Eric cut short his stay in the woods, and raced back toward St. Paul, his heart full of rage, terror, and loss. Everything that is special between a father and a child is a little extra special between father and daughter. He returned to Windward bent on blood and revenge. No sooner had his clothing and gear been cleaned than he ordered it packed again.

  “Where are you going?” Kristin asked him, fearfully.

  “The last word we had put Rolfson in Chicago,” he said. “That’s where I’m going. If he’s not there, I’ll find out where he’s gone. I’ll follow him. And when I find him, I’ll kill him on sight.”