Berserker Series, Book 1

by Emmy Laybourne

  When their mother left nearly two years ago, Hanne had been forced to assume her work. Hanne did the work. She did not do it well. She did not keep a house that was sparkling clean. The wooden beams of the ceiling housed spiders and their webs, old and new. The floor was swept, but not twice daily and never sprinkled with spruce boughs, to give the house a lovely scent. Clothes were washed and mended. Not as quickly or as well as Hanne would have liked, but there was so much to do, she simply could not keep up.

  If Hanne had taken on the physical work of a mother, then Stieg had taken on the emotional work. He was the one who encouraged them, who scolded them to do their chores, who heard their lessons in the winter, and who kept any hope at all kindled in their hearts.

  Stieg could make learning anything interesting. The veins of a leaf. The way crumbs clump together if the bread is good. The idea of electricity. He loved to learn and loved to teach.

  Once he’d set his mind on going to America, he’d brought English into the house, with its wonderfully silly round B and P sounds and the clunking Ds.

  The only new memories Hanne had worth keeping since her mother had left were the ones of Stieg teaching them English around the table on winter nights when their father went to town to drink.

  “You’re good at this,” Stieg had told her once. She had read a paragraph from Stieg’s copy of Great Expectations. “Hanne, you’re bright.”

  She had flushed at the compliment. Then he had said, “You should come back to school.”

  Hanne had risen abruptly from the table. She crossed over to the washbasin to finish scrubbing the soup pot.

  “And who would do the washing and the mending and the cooking?” She’d felt like throwing the pot through the window. “What use is there in educating a girl, after all?” she’d groused.

  “The reasons to educate a girl are the same as to educate a boy! Because learning leads to a fulfilling and productive life.”

  “I should not bother to learn English. You’ll never send for us.”

  “I will send for you!” Stieg insisted.

  Hanne had been scrubbing the pot, her body bent over the task, when Stieg grabbed her by the arm. She’d been startled by his urgency.

  “You must stop blaming yourself for what happened,” he’d said. “Mother chose to leave us. That is her fault. And you did not choose to be a Berserker, Hanne.”

  “Be quiet!” she had shouted. That was the last time they had spoken of the Nytte aloud.

  Stieg’s plan was to find a teaching job once he reached America, then send money back for their journey.

  Together they would file on a claim in Minnesota or Dakota—one of the American territories where the government was practically giving away land to encourage settlement. Stieg had copied down the contents of a flyer that had been passed around their town. It was from an American railway company and described the Great Plains, ready and ripe for planting. The ground was nearly free of stones. It had to be true, for it was printed there in the pamphlet.

  Already there were towns there filled with Norwegians, with Norwegian churches and schools.

  During the dark winter, Stieg had kept them fed with stories about the life that awaited them all in America. But that life was at least two or three years away. It would take time to find a teaching job, and then he must save up for their fares. Each of them must first travel to England, to a city called Liverpool, to catch the steamers headed toward New York City. The steamship fare alone was 250 kroner, not to mention the expense of the “feeder” ships to get to England.

  To make it worse, he would have to save up until he had enough to send for the three of them together. They could not travel separately. Knut wasn’t clever enough to travel on his own—he became confused in busy, loud places—and Sissel was too weak. Hanne was terrified by the thought of the long journey. What if someone tried to hurt her or one of her siblings? What might she do to them? She had never hurt a person. She’d never had cause to, and she prayed to keep it that way.

  No, Hanne did not see them emigrating. Stieg was leaving them behind forever. Knut and Sissel might marry and move, but Hanne was stuck on the farm. She would have to care for their father. His woodworking days were over, but it hardly mattered, as his drinking had ruined the name he had built for himself. Their income was whatever they could make butchering, and whatever they could get for their excess grain and vegetables.

  Knut was not a smart boy, but he was bighearted and gentle. Sissel was terribly lazy, but she was still young and had been babied. She would likely straighten out, once she undertook real work, and might make a good wife.

  But Hanne would not allow herself to marry, lest she bear children with the Nytte. Any man she married might have the Nytte in his bloodline and not know it. The gift was dormant in many. Had Hanne’s mother known, she would likely not have married Amund.

  No, Hanne knew she and her father would die on the farm, after a life of farming and butchering and hiding their “gifts” from their neighbors.

  * * *

  THE LAMB AND CABBAGE STEW was done. Hanne used the leather mitt to push it to the back of the stove. The lefse was finished and waiting in its large round basket. Hanne put a dish of butter on the table. Stieg liked the sweet butter, but there’d been none available to trade for. The potatoes were ready. The meal was complete.

  Stieg and Knut came in, laughing, cheeks rosy.

  “Ah! What delicious smells!” Stieg said.

  “Yes, and see the table,” Sissel said.

  “It is lovely. Just as lovely as you, little sister!” Stieg bowed to her and she curtsied back, giggling.

  “And how fares the big sister?” Stieg asked.

  Hanne turned her face to the stove. “Fine.”

  “The father?” Stieg asked.

  “Down at Johan’s,” Hanne said.

  Amund was visiting with their neighbor, a sour-smelling man who lived alone in a cottage at the waterfront. He made his living repairing fishnets and liked company while he worked. Especially when the company brought a bottle.

  “Oh, Father won’t be late, will he? He can’t be late tonight! He can’t ruin this dinner!” Sissel said.

  Then the door swung open and there was their father, shuffling in on his crutch. He gave off the smell of flat ale and old seawater.

  “Move in, you great ox,” he said to Knut. “Make some room.”

  The living room had felt cozy before his entrance. But now that their father was home, it felt dark and claustrophobic, as if someone had dimmed all the lamps at once.

  Hanne hurried to her father’s side as he shucked off his coat. His bristly face rubbed against Hanne’s cheek for a moment. Their eyes met askance. They had both remembered their old ritual at the same time.

  Back when he had all his digits, back when he was a renowned shipbuilder and Hanne was his little girl, she would come running to greet him at the door at the end of the day. She would jump into his arms, and they would rub faces together, his brown-and-red beard tickling her smooth cheeks.

  That was before Hanne’s Nytte had made itself known. They had both hoped, assumed, even, that she would be a Shipwright, like her father. She had been his favorite child—he made it clear for all to see. And she had adored him.

  Hanne had always been able to calm him when his temper rose, just with a smile or a joke. They could work together for hours in a companionable silence.

  But then Hanne had flowered into a young woman, and her Nytte had revealed itself. She was a Berserker, cursed to fly into action whenever anyone she loved was in danger. A killer who would be compelled to murder elegantly, viciously, and without remorse. Until she regained her senses.

  Now she and her father looked away from each other.

  Amund’s eyes were yellowed and bloodshot. “Is that lamb stew I smell?”

  “Yes, Father. It’s for Stieg’s going away,” Sissel said.

  “Ah yes,” he said, hobbling to his seat at the table.

  “C
ome to the table, then,” Hanne said to her siblings. “Sit down.”

  They all took their usual seats. Amund had made a chair special for Knut three years ago. It was thick and wide, to accommodate his great size.

  Hanne dished out the servings, and they ate in silence.

  “It’s good,” Amund said.

  “Yes, very,” Stieg agreed. Amund silenced him with a look.

  After a while, Stieg cleared his throat. “I would like to say a few words.”

  Amund snorted a laugh. He shoveled another bite of stew into his mouth. “When do you not?”

  “We do not usually speak of the Nytte openly, but tomorrow I leave, and this is something I must say to you,” Stieg said. “You always told us to keep our gifts a secret, and I see the reason for that, Father. But that secrecy has created shame. And I believe we are not meant to feel shame about these gifts.”

  Hanne’s blood was pounding in her ears. No! This was not something to speak of so directly. She did not want to discuss the Nytte in front of her father. Never!

  Stieg looked at Hanne. “We must not be ashamed, Sister. Our gifts are meant to give glory to the Gods.”

  “Glory?” Their father grunted. “The Nytte was given to the Vikings so they could rape and pillage!”

  “That’s not what Aunty Aud has told me. She says that the different types of Nytte are each an art.”

  “What is artful about your brother’s brute strength? Or your sister’s ability to gut a pig? Your lofty ideas are nothing but vanity!”

  “What about your ability to carve and make beautiful boats? Boats that can nearly fly—”

  “QUIET!” Amund yelled. “What do you know? You have the weakest Nytte of all. A Storm-Rend! You can do nothing. Make the winds twist a little. Blow hot air out of your mouth like a bellows—”

  “We are not meant to feel bad about our gifts. They are not something ugly to hide away.”

  “Not ugly?” their father said. He unwound the cloth that covered the stump of his left hand, revealing the fingerless palm. The nubs of the finger stumps were chapped and chafing, the skin red and scabby. “Have you ever seen something as ugly as this hand?” Amund stood, his chair falling down behind him with a clatter.

  “If the Nytte is a gift, and not a curse, then why must we pay such a dear price for using it? Why did I have to lose most of my fingers so that I can no longer build the damn boats my Nytte shows me?”

  “Father,” Stieg said, his voice gentle and full of sympathy. “We know how hard it has been for you—”

  Then, WHAP! Amund reached across the table and struck Stieg with the back of his left hand. Stieg’s head snapped back, and Hanne was seized with clear, direct energy.

  She was up and over the table and had her father by the throat in a heartbeat. His eyes bugged out as he beheld her, her hand gripping the collar of his shirt tight. A butter knife was in her other hand, the dull blade aimed at his eye.

  Amund began to make a dry, rasping sound. Was she choking him? No. He was laughing.

  Hanne realized now that Knut had one of his giant arms around her waist.

  “Let me go,” she said. Knut let her go, and she in turn released her father. He fumbled for his crutch, which lay against the wall.

  “Your Nytte reveals your affections, Hanne,” he said. “At least I know where I stand.”

  He took stock of them, standing around the table. The plates broken, stew spilled on the table.

  “What a family I have,” Amund spat. “A gift, indeed.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHOUTEAU COUNTY, MONTANA TERRITORY

  Owen Bennett tried to stay as far away from the trail boss as he could. The cowboys were pleased with their progress except for the boss, Harold Mandry, and his lanky, lisping yes-man, an unpleasant fellow everyone called Whistler.

  The team of ten men had brought the Herefords, nearly twelve hundred of them, down from Bullhook Bottoms, Montana, at a respectable pace, grazing along the way. They’d lost only three, and those had started the journey with bellies crawling with gut worms.

  Nevertheless, each night, as they gathered up at the chuck wagon to collect the day’s portion of chicken stew or rabbit stew or the stewed version of whatever game they’d scared up along the way, Mandry would be in a foul mood.

  Mandry didn’t like Owen; that much was clear. The rancher Wilson, a friend of Owen’s father, had forced Mandry to hire him, but Owen knew there had to be more to it because Mandry disliked Owen with a vengeance.

  Owen couldn’t figure it out. He was quiet and kept to himself. Didn’t complain. He was a good cowboy, knew how to calm the cattle, and handled his rope well. He kept his Winchester handy and frequently handed over a rabbit or some grouse to the chuck wagon. True, Owen did prefer the company of his dog, Daisy, to that of men, but she was a trusted friend, and these men were all new to him.

  Owen held the bowl from his kit out to Old Eben, the cook. Old Eben gave Owen a generous portion of dried venison stew. “Take some biscuits, too,” Old Eben said. “Only let ’em soak a bit. Fire got the best of me.” He winked.

  This had become a running joke around the evening campfire. Old Eben was an admittedly lousy cook. He’d only signed on because he wanted to get down to Helena, to meet up with his brother.

  Besides the boss Mandry and Old Eben, all the other men were drovers. At eighteen, Owen wasn’t the youngest. The youngest was a kid named Billy who would have been handsome but for his two front teeth, both gray from a goat-butt to the face.

  “Dear Lord, you gone and burned the biscuits again?” Whistler cried, grabbing a biscuit off the stack Old Eben had on a tin serving plate. “Is burnin’ them a part of your damn recipe?”

  Whistler looked around, closed one eye, and chucked the biscuit at Daisy, who was minding her own business, sitting near the lodgepole pine where Owen had dropped his saddle and his bedroll. Daisy flinched as the missile landed near her.

  Owen frowned. Daisy padded forward and sniffed at the biscuit. She gave Owen a look: Can I eat it?

  “Leave it,” he instructed. He liked her to eat off a plate or from his hand, not just go eating any old thing. Daisy sighed.

  “Now, don’t you harass Daisy,” the next guy in line said. He was a wide, brawny guy named Hoakes. He was friendly to everyone, and easygoing in a way Owen much admired. Hoakes winked at Owen. “That bitch does more work in an hour than you do all day, Whistler.”

  Owen took his plate and two biscuits and headed away from the men, toward Daisy. She watched him sit and then put her head on her paws, regarding the lone biscuit sitting off in the dirt in a forlorn way.

  “Here you go, girl,” Owen said, trying to break one of his biscuits in two. It wasn’t easy. He had to put down his tin bowl in order to do it. He set one half in his bowl to soak and gave Daisy the other half.

  Daisy gnawed at her portion with gusto.

  Owen hoped Whistler would let him and Daisy alone. His strategy, when harassed, was to become as uninteresting as possible. He had three half brothers. He’d used this strategy frequently.

  Owen’s mother had died in childbirth. Catherine Ryan had been the cook at the ranch, a spirited if plain dark Irish girl. She had been hired and brought all the way from Chicago by Mr. Bennett on one of his business trips to the stockyards. He’d hired the girl as a surprise for Mrs. Bennett—a young woman to help in the kitchen and keep her company.

  Mrs. Bennett had been surprised, and even more so when, one year later, she learned her husband had gotten a bastard on the Irish cook.

  At the time, Catherine had gone to Mrs. Bennett, begging her mercy and for an advance on her pay that she might return to her people in Ireland. Mrs. Bennett provided neither and dismissed her from service. When Catherine Ryan died in childbirth some months later, the doctor, a kind and discreet man, brought the newborn child to the Bennett household.

  Mrs. Bennett saw, in that bundled quilt, a solemn dark-haired boy peering at her like a wizened sage. She also s
aw an opportunity.

  The infant was given the name Owen Bennett, he was raised with Mrs. Bennett’s three sons, and whenever her husband set a toe out of line, or found himself with the slightest complaint about the way his wife managed household affairs on the ranch, all she had to do was press her lips together and glance Owen’s way. Owen was a living reprimand to his father.

  From the start, Owen had been made aware of his position of half privilege. To all outsiders, he was a full Bennett brother, but in the privacy of the ranch house, his status was clear.

  He wore handed-down clothes of his half brothers, played with their discarded toys, and was even encouraged to eat their leftover food, in the kitchen with the new cook, who was exceptionally homely and gruff but kind, before he helped her do the dishes.

  It was a strange situation for a boy, and it was made stranger by the fact that he resembled his father more than any of his half brothers did. They were all fair, sandy haired, and gray eyed, like Mrs. Bennett. But Owen had his father’s big brown eyes, olive complexion, and lean frame, together with his mother’s near-black hair.

  Owen’s resemblance to his father curried no favor with Mr. Bennett. He could barely stand to be in the same room with Owen, and only seemed comfortable around him when he could treat him like any other ranch hand.

  Owen had worked the ranch, and worked hard, and on his seventeenth birthday his father had given him a new saddle and Owen’s favorite horse. They were all he could expect in terms of an inheritance, and he was grateful enough for them. He also got to take his gun, a ’73 Winchester he’d been carrying for so long he could clean and oil it blindfolded.

  His brothers all stayed on at the ranch, vying for their father’s attention. But Owen had never had much of a shot at that, so he’d left.

  No one outside the family knew his story, or that he was a bastard. It was a funny feeling. Liberating, if slightly disorienting. Who was he, when not examined in contrast to his rowdy blond “brothers”? Who was he, when not the subject of his father’s shame or his stepmother’s annoyance?

  He was tired, that was for sure. He was looking forward to turning in for the night. He’d done everything he could to stay out of Mandry’s way that day. There was no reason for him to assign Owen another half night of guard duty. He’d had it nine nights in a row. Each cowboy was expected to watch the cattle at night when his turn came.