Owen twisted in his saddle.
The Hemstads were strung out behind him. Stieg was stooped in the saddle, and shading his eyes with his hand. The girls rode in the middle, and last was Knut, the horse plodding on valiantly under his weight. It was Knut who had shouted.
Owen looked where Knut was pointing and saw it. A lazy plume of smoke drifting up from a stand of pine about half a mile down-valley.
A homestead.
“Good eyes!” he called to the boy.
Knut grinned.
Owen pointed his horse in the direction of the chimney smoke.
* * *
AS THEY APPROACHED the farm, a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced woman came hustling out of the house. At her heels was an old but handsome black dog.
Daisy perked up somewhat in the saddlebag. She gave a little whine to be let down.
After sizing them up, the woman spoke at them in a foreign language without pausing for breath. Owen placed it as German. She came right up to their horses, patting Pal’s neck and nose, clearly giving them all directions, though none of them could understand.
Stieg, weary as he was, had a smile for the woman. “Is she a friend of yours?” he asked Owen.
“Never laid eyes on her in my life,” Owen responded, nodding and smiling to the woman as she made motions to usher them inside. “Kommt essen!” she said loudly, while she mimed eating. Owen nodded.
“Yes, please,” he said.
She put out her hand, tapping her palm, signaling he would pay her. Owen told her he would pay whatever she asked.
She thumped her chest. “Ich heiße Frau Gerlinger.”
“Ich heiße Stieg Hemstad,” Stieg said, then turned to Owen, “but that’s the last of my German, I’m afraid.”
Frau Gerlinger called to someone within the house. A short, bald man came out to squint at them. He looked distinctly displeased to see them.
Owen helped Sissel dismount, careful not to jolt her injured arm. She was even paler than usual, and she kept her arm cradled into her body. Her eyes looked glassy. Finding this homestead had been providential.
Frau Gerlinger took one look at Sissel’s pale face, torn sleeve, and makeshift bandage and put her arm around the girl protectively.
She scolded Owen, asking him questions in rapid German. Owen shrugged. He mimed the action of a great cat clawing.
Frau Gerlinger tutted as she led her new charge toward the house. She barked some instructions at the short man, who had to be her husband. Hanne and Stieg followed the woman, after Owen indicated he and Knut would get the horses stabled.
There was work to be done, and Owen was grateful for it.
The horses needed to be fed, watered, and curried. He wanted to check their hooves for stones and their legs and ears for any signs of frostbite. He was glad he’d be away from Hanne for a while. Chores would help him set his mind in order.
Knut began unloading the mule.
The husband led the way to the stable. His old black dog accompanied them at the man’s heel, eyes on his master. The dog had been trained well.
It was one of the largest and cleanest barns Owen had ever seen, even with the flock of brown bantams and fat barred Plymouth hens clucking about underfoot.
The floor was hard-packed dirt, and might have been swept clean, it was so tidy. Brushes and tack hung on nails from the log walls of the barn, and a handsome trough ran the length of the back wall. Nesting boxes were set in the wall at hip height for easy collecting of the eggs, with roosting perches set below.
There were two doe-eyed milch cows chewing their cud in the first of six large stalls. A fat sorrel mare stood in the next enclosure. The rest of the stalls were empty. The husband did not explain where his livestock had gone to, just pitchforked some hay down from the loft above onto the center of the floor, while Owen led the horses in.
The German man watched, hands on hips, while Owen eased Daisy from the saddlebag. He made a sniff of approval when he saw Owen’s neat, tidy stitches on Daisy’s leg. Owen set her down. She tried a few steps, but sat down, whining.
Owen patted her head. “Good girl,” he told her.
The black dog came near. Owen straightened up and ignored the two dogs, hoping for peace, but knowing better than to interfere. They sniffed each other, then came easily to the agreement that they’d be friends. Tails began to wag.
The old dog walked over to what seemed to be his bed, in a corner of the barn, a wooden frame heaped with straw. He climbed in and sat up, wagging his stumpy tail. Daisy limped over and sniffed at the straw, then heaved herself over the edge of the bed. Both dogs curled up, as if they’d been littermates.
If only humans could get along so easily, Owen thought.
The German man grunted with equal appreciation of the sight. Then he showed Owen where there were buckets and pointed to a stone well out in the center of the yard. Owen nodded that he understood. The slight little man grumped back toward the house.
After the horses had drunk of the clear water he put in the trough, Owen removed their blankets and saddles, one by one, as they crunched the fresh straw. He curried each of them with a brush he found hanging on the wall.
Knut entered the barn, carrying the mule packs. It would have taken Owen two trips to carry the heavy packs, but Knut could’ve handled twice the load.
Their work with the horses took over an hour. By that time Owen’s stomach was rumbling with hunger, but he was pleased to have this unexpected chance to care for their mounts. Once they started again, they’d make good time. He’d get the Hemstads delivered. Get paid. Find a place to hole up for the winter.
He would move on from these eerie people.
Maybe he would try out for Great Falls and see if he couldn’t find Hoakes. Hoakes had been a good friend to him, Owen saw that now.
He knocked at the door of the farmhouse. No one came. He knocked again, and then, with a shrug to Knut, he finally pushed the door open.
From inside came a clamoring of pots and pans and the Frau Gerlinger’s animated chatter. No wonder they hadn’t heard the knock.
“Howdy,” Owen said. “May we enter?”
“Ja! Komme rein,” came Frau Gerlinger’s voice.
The log home was cheerful and bigger than most. The husband sat grim faced in a rocking chair near a tidy stone hearth. Stieg sat across from him, still cradling his head in his hands.
Three doors led off the main room. There were two bedrooms, and there was a door near the kitchen area that Owen supposed led to a lean-to of some kind. This house had been built for more than two people, just like the barn had been built to accommodate more livestock.
Sissel was nowhere to be seen, probably having a rest in the bedroom. Hanne was helping Frau Gerlinger in the kitchen, and they were cooking up a feast.
Knut made his way directly to the table and sat on the most sturdy-looking seat. He took up the fork and knife in anticipation.
Owen crossed the room to Hanne. She was beating egg whites under the German woman’s direction.
“Shneller! Schneller!” the woman told Hanne.
Hanne whipped faster.
When she was satisfied, Frau Gerlinger took the bowl from Hanne and emptied a pitcher of creamy milk into the beaten whites. She stirred in sugar. Owen smiled, realizing they were making eggnog.
Hanne shook out her arm, her muscles stiff from beating the eggs.
“Is Sissel all right?” Owen asked.
“The lady bathed the wound and applied a paste of some kind. Then tied new cloths on it,” Hanne reported.
“I thought I would ride into town and see about a doctor after we eat,” Owen said stiffly.
Hanne nodded. “It would be a good idea. And a doctor might have headache powder for Stieg.”
The German woman shooed Owen to the table. The husband rose to come, too, but the wife scolded him back into his chair.
She commenced to lay out food. Each of them got a plate with a nice chunk of bacon. In the center of the table,
she set a platter heaped with fried eggs. She placed a loaf of bread on the table, along with a china dish overflowing with chokecherry preserves and another with good, homemade butter. She proudly brought the pitcher of eggnog to the table and poured them each a cup full. Owen could see specks of nutmeg floating on top. Frau Gerlinger also set a cutting board on the table with a round of white cheese and sliced them each a good hunk.
She exhorted them to eat, eat!
Owen had not seen a spread like this for some time. He wondered how much money it would cost, but she didn’t seem the type to cheat anyone. She seemed simply like the type of woman who couldn’t get enough of mothering, and liked to see young people eat.
Owen knew that homesteading could make people lonely. Mrs. Bennett had often complained of the lack of society at the farm. She had even tried to befriend Lucy, the cook. Owen remembered Mrs. Bennett once asking Lucy if she’d like to take a cup of tea, and Lucy asking, “Take it where?”
Frau Gerlinger ushered Hanne into the final seat. She hovered over the table and made Hanne a plate. Stieg still looked pale and weak, but he tried his best to keep a pleasant expression on his face. As for Knut, hunger was shining in his eyes.
“Greist zu!” Frau Gerlinger said.
Owen forked two eggs onto his plate. He helped himself to bread and spread it with butter and preserves. Delicious.
The husband grumbled something from the fireplace. The wife shut him up with a barrage of harsh-sounding German.
Never had Owen been in the presence of such a strong maternal force. This woman might well mother one to death.
“This looks real good,” Owen said, but she shushed him and motioned for him to eat. Owen watched Knut sample his eggnog and enjoyed the rapturous face he made.
Knut was humming with happiness. The woman ruffled Knut’s hair and chattered on. Though they didn’t understand her words, it was clear that she was talking about how healthy and able-bodied Knut was.
From her gestures and expressions, it was also clear she was complaining about her husband, who was glowering at the hearth. She brought a framed tintype down from the mantelpiece. It showed three sturdy, stone-faced farm boys, dressed in their Sunday best, against a linen backdrop. Frau Gerlinger kept pointing at the photo, then at her husband. She kept saying Herr Gerlinger this and Herr Gerlinger that. Owen decided she must be telling them that their own sons had left the farm after some kind of fight with her husband.
This explained both the large house and the empty stalls in the barn.
After a while, she set the tintype back on the mantel. Then she bustled back to the kitchen area, poured a cup of eggnog, and took it off to Sissel in the bedroom. On her way out of the room, she gave Herr Gerlinger permission to get up and make himself a plate. He did not look happy about it, but refused a seat at the table when Owen, Stieg, and Knut each offered up his own.
“I’ve never eaten so well,” Stieg said. He had some color back in his face and seemed to be recovering. Then, his eyes flashing to Hanne, “Sorry, Sister. I did not mean to insult your cooking. I meant to say, I’ve not eaten so well since we left home.”
“No,” Hanne said. “You’ve never eaten so well, because I’ve never eaten this well, either.”
“I’ve never eaten this well,” Owen said. “And I never met either of you before last Thursday.”
He wasn’t trying to be funny, but this struck all three of them as hilarious. Knut was surprised by their laughter, and hadn’t followed the exchange, but that didn’t keep him from joining in.
Owen couldn’t deny it felt good to laugh.
Herr Gerlinger harrumphed and stormed out of the house, taking his plate. This struck them as extra funny, and the four of them started laughing anew.
“Gut!” said the woman, hustling out of the bedroom. “Lachen ist gut!” She made a motion for them to continue laughing, which helped them to do just that.
Hanne was giggling. She had to wipe tears from her eyes. She smiled at Owen, and they laughed together.
Owen felt his anger at her dissolve. How could he hold what she’d said against her when the circumstances were so utterly bewildering? If their positions had been reversed, he would likely have expected her to leave him.
Owen let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He told Stieg of his plan to go for the doctor, and Stieg approved. He gave Owen five dollars to buy medicine and provisions for the rest of the journey. Hanne specified butter and sugar. Owen tucked the bills carefully into his vest pocket.
Stieg leaned his chin on his hand. Sleep seemed to be overtaking him. When his head bobbed and he jerked awake with a startled gasp, Frau Gerlinger shooed him in the direction of her own bedroom, to have a rest on the bed.
She made it clear that she wanted Owen, Knut, and Hanne to rest as well. For whatever reason, she seemed to have taken their wellness as a private mission. Anyway, Owen wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. They were all wiped out and needed to recover.
Frau Gerlinger ushered Hanne into the back bedroom where Sissel was resting. Then she took Owen and Knut outside, to the barn. She pointed up to the hayloft; she meant for them to sleep up there.
Owen told her he was going to town to fetch the doctor, but she shook her head.
“Wir brauchen keinen Doktor,” she said, thumping herself on the chest.
“No,” Owen insisted. He began to saddle Pal. The girl needed a real doctor, and the Hemstads had the money for it. And of course, there was Daisy to be considered—the doctor might take a look at her stitches.
After some fussing, Frau Gerlinger relented. He asked her the directions to town; she pointed the way.
Knut asked if he could come. Owen didn’t see why not. It wasn’t far, and the boy seemed eager for some adventure. He didn’t see the need to tell Stieg or Hanne. They were resting and he was the trail boss, after all.
* * *
IT WASN’T HARD to find the road to town. Owen could make out the wagon wheel furrows even though the road was buried in snow.
With a full belly and the knowledge that his charges were safe and resting, and his dog was on the mend, Owen felt relieved.
Townsend was a small town, hardly more than a train stop. It had only one main street, though another street was shaping up behind the first one. The snow was being pounded into the muddy street by the teams of horses.
“Look,” Knut said. This was one of his most frequently used English words. He was pointing to a pair of beautifully matched draft horses, lifting their feathered forelegs in a way that was almost showy, as if they well knew their worth.
“Good horses!” Knut said. “Pretty.” He grinned affably.
“Very nice,” Owen agreed.
Passersby looked and then looked again at the giant boy wearing a horse blanket as a poncho, who gaped so unselfconsciously at the pretty horses.
While Knut waited outside, taking in the sights of the town, Owen inquired at the livery and was told the doctor’s office was located above the Barstow Saloon, down at the train station end of town.
Owen and Knut walked their horses down toward the train tracks. The mud outside the saloon stank of whiskey and vomit, and the planks that made up the clapboard building were stained from the ground up. The sound of rough voices inside carried out the poorly hung door.
“You stay here,” Owen told Knut. The boy nodded, his eyes big. “We don’t want trouble.”
A thick-waisted man with one eye crushed in came crashing out the door. He cussed over his shoulder at a short, dark man behind him.
“Lord!” the big one exclaimed as he got a look at Knut. “Look at this great big bruiser. Was your mother a bear, kid?”
Knut’s face flushed, and he looked down at his feet.
Owen cleared his throat. “We’re just looking for the doctor.”
“You’re not going inside, are you?” The big man ignored Owen, just talking to Knut. “’Cause if you ride our whores, you’ll wear ’em out!” He roared with l
aughter at his joke.
“Aw, leave him be, Kelvin. He’s just a dumb kid,” the short fellow said. His voice was whiny, like a pleading child.
Knut edged away from the men.
The big man came clomping down the steps, with the heavy feet of a drunk. He seemed to be looking for a fight.
Owen stepped in front of him.
“He’s a kid,” Owen said. “And we’re just here for the doctor.”
The man’s breath was foul, smelling of whiskey and tooth decay, but Owen held his ground.
“We mean no trouble and we want none,” Owen said.
The big man pushed him backward, hard.
“We mean no trouble and we want none,” he parroted, taunting. “What a couple of Nancys!”
“Come on, Kelvin. I want pie,” the smaller man said. He grabbed his partner and led him away from Owen and Knut.
After they’d gone, Knut offered Owen a shaky smile. Owen shrugged. “I thought it was a pretty good line, myself,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Hanne awoke, the cozy log room was painted gold by the midday sunshine coming through the window. She’d slept for an hour or more. She was lying on one of the two narrow beds, fully clothed, atop the quilt. She could not remember the last time she had rested in a bed during the daytime.
Hanne marveled at their good fortune of coming across the Gerlinger homestead. Now that she was inside stout log walls and resting on a real bed, she appreciated how much she had missed such comforts.
Sissel was asleep on the other bed. Her color had improved. Hanne leaned over and laid her hand on Sissel’s forehead. Her fever had lowered.
Sissel opened her eyes.
“Do you think there’s more of that milk punch?” she asked.
“That was good,” Hanne said.
“Heavenly good. Did you see how she made it?”
“It was eggs and cream and sugar, with milk, too. I’ll watch if she makes it again.”
“I’d like to learn it, too,” Sissel said.
Hanne bit back a comment—Sissel could pick and choose what she wanted to learn, because it was assumed that Hanne would make everything else.
Berserker Series, Book 1 Page 18