Berserker Series, Book 1

by Emmy Laybourne

  “Two pounds of flour, two of cornmeal, and a half of sugar. Brown’s fine.”

  “And do you have any dried apples?” Stieg asked.

  “Nope. Got some raisins, though. You like raisins?”

  “Well enough,” Stieg answered.

  “I got ’em in a sack like this. Five cents,” said the shopkeeper. Owen nodded, and the man set the small brown bag on the counter.

  “We’re looking for a man who lives nearabouts,” Owen said. “Wonder if you know him.”

  “Well, ain’t but one way to find out,” said the shopkeeper. “Ask away.”

  Owen smiled at that, but it didn’t ease his wariness. “His name is Håkon Thorson.”

  “Hmm,” said the shopkeeper. “He a Swede?”

  “Pretty much,” Owen answered.

  “I think there was a Swede the name of Thorson working a little claim up the creek about three miles.”

  Stieg flashed Owen a smile.

  “He bought it off another Swede named Peterson. Or might have been a Russian German. That claim’s shifted hands a bunch of times.”

  “Just head up the creek?” Owen asked.

  “Look for a little fork in the creek, about two miles up. Then follow it off to the left. It’ll go up a ways, then you’ll see a cabin in a clearing up there. Pretty enough, in a meadow. But not a lot of gold, from what I hear.”

  Stieg was grinning broadly. The shopkeeper’s eyes flitted to his face, then back to Owen’s.

  “Anything else I can do for you boys?” he asked.

  “I reckon not,” Owen said. “And thank you.”

  * * *

  “SIT DOWN,” Sissel said. “You’re wearing a path in the forest floor.”

  It was true. Hanne’s footsteps had created a small furrow in the shrunken snow, revealing the soft pine needles and dry earth below. But she could not stay still.

  She could smell the wood smoke drifting off the town. They were in the woods to the east, decamped just off the trail.

  Owen had left Daisy with them, asked them to try to get her to eat. Hanne offered the dog some hardtack.

  “I know,” Hanne had told the dog in Norwegian. “It doesn’t taste good, but you need to build your strength.”

  Daisy licked at the hardtack, but wouldn’t take it into her mouth.

  “She doesn’t want it because it tastes horrible,” said Sissel. “You want some meat, don’t you, Daisy? Poor, sweet thing.”

  Sissel knelt down on the snow and pulled Daisy into her arms, cuddling the dog. Daisy allowed herself to be coddled and petted, though she did not seem to enjoy it much.

  “Don’t smother her,” Hanne told her sister. “I’m glad you like her, but she’s a working dog, not a plaything!”

  “She’s my friend, aren’t you, Daisy?” Sissel said, snuggling into the dog’s ruff.

  Then Daisy growled. Sissel sat back, utterly surprised, fear ignited in her eyes.

  The hair on Daisy’s neck and shoulders stood up—her eyes focused on the trail behind them where two men came on horseback.

  The men looked trail worn and weary. Their clothes were stained and brown. Hanne’s chest tightened. Was this the threat she’d felt drawing near?

  The man in the lead had a disfigured face. It looked as if he’d suffered a bite from an animal as a child. A dog? A horse? The second man was fat and had a ruddy face and red hair.

  “Looky here, Barnabas,” the bit-faced man said. “We got some young’uns. You ladies playing at rangers and Indians?”

  Knut made a movement as if to rise, but Hanne made a motion for him to stay.

  “We are waiting on our father,” Hanne said. “You may pass us by.”

  “Oh, I may, may I?” the ugly man laughed.

  He did not dismount, but took a good look around their small campsite. The second man had small, unsmiling black eyes set in his red, fleshy face. He was large set, but not so large as her brother.

  “Why’dnt you head on into town, I wonder,” the man asked. “You all shy or somethin’?”

  Hanne stiffened her back and did not dignify him with an answer to his question.

  “Move on now. We want no trouble,” she said.

  Hanne’s eyes took inventory of all the available weapons: The men had a rifle on each saddle; the ugly man had a bowie knife in a leg scabbard; there were two big sticks in easy reach. There were rocks under the snow. She had her fingernails.

  She forced herself to breathe. She put her hand on Knut’s arm. It would look, to the men, as if she were restraining him, but what she was doing was grounding her energy into his. She breathed out slowly, pushing her anxiety into Knut’s earthbound warmth.

  “Oh, we’re moving on, missy,” said the one with the bitten face. “Don’t you worry about us.”

  The men rode right through their little assembly, making them move out of the way. Knut had to step back so the first man wouldn’t trample him.

  The second man made Hanne’s heartbeat spike. He looked at Knut, studying his features with beady black eyes. He kept his eyes on Knut as they passed by, rotating his head.

  “Oh, I hate it here,” Sissel said when the men were well away. “I want to go home already!”

  “Come back, Stieg,” Hanne prayed aloud. “Come back now.”

  “I wish we had never come.”

  “Get up,” Hanne told her sister and brother. “Get on your horses.”

  “Why?” Sissel asked.

  “We must go to meet Stieg and Owen.”

  “Why?”

  Hanne glared at her sister. Limp, white-blond hair hung down around Sissel’s peaked face. Her skin was sallow, but her expression fierce and obstinate.

  “Because my Nytte tells me we must!” Hanne said severely. “It is hard enough to keep you alive! Do not make it harder!”

  Sissel’s gray eyes glinted with resentment. “We should have stayed with Frau Gerlinger!”

  “And risk their lives?” Hanne snapped back.

  “Girls, please do not fight,” Knut said. “I cannot bear it.”

  He looked tired. Under his eyes were dark circles Hanne had not noticed before.

  “We must head to town,” Hanne said. “Come, both of you. We will meet Stieg and Owen on their way to us. I did not like the look of those men.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rolf lay on his belly in a grove of gnarled scrub oak, not two hundred feet from the ramshackle claim deeded to one Håkon Thorson.

  Rolf was praying all the time. He had no doubt that all of Æsir was listening to him. He finally understood a fragment of poetry that had always evaded him. Golden-oiled swim on troubles. Those favored by the Gods, anointed by their oils of gold, could surrender their worries and float past them.

  He would have missed the train, but it had been held in the station, waiting on a bag of mail. Once he arrived in Helena, Rolf had met a trapper who was headed to Wolf Creek and had room to give him a ride in his wagon, which was empty except for a comfortable bearskin the trapper had decided not to sell.

  Over breakfast at a broken-down hotel, Rolf had inquired discreetly to the proprietor about a Norwegian named Thorson. He hadn’t heard of him, but then a miner with teeth the color of moss bumped into Rolf when he was leaving. He knew Thorson. He told Rolf exactly how to get to Thorson’s claim shanty, several hours up valley from Wolf Creek.

  At the livery, the stable master had no stock for sale, but offered to rent him a horse. Every obstacle was surmounted even as it presented itself. Rolf felt favored indeed, the path golden-oiled.

  The dead autumn grasses had overgrown the meadow around the house. The snow had melted away, except for patches near the knotty, gnarled scrub oak stands and a couple of lone pine trees.

  There were no chickens or signs of other livestock. Everything was still inside the house. If it had not directly matched the description the miner had given Rolf, he would have thought he was in the wrong place.

  All was quiet. He was ahead of Ketil, it s
eemed. And ahead of the Nytteson.

  Rolf hid his rented horse in a stand of aspen trees nearby. He wanted to see what kind of a Nytteson this Håkon Thorson was before he made his move. So far, he’d seen no sign of the man.

  Rolf’s shoulder wound ached without reprieve. The skin was starting to scab, and when he moved, it broke open anew. Despite his discomfort, his eyes closed.

  * * *

  WHEN HE AWOKE, it was late morning. Noises came from the path leading to the meadow from the creek. It was the Nytteson. Rolf gave a silent thanks to Odin.

  First in the party was an American cowboy, identifiable by his hat and poncho, and the rifle protruding from its scabbard. He must be acting as their guide.

  Next came the Norwegians. Rolf was grateful for the opportunity to study them unobserved. He had much to learn about these youngsters if he was to help them.

  In front was the tall, thin young man. He must be the Storm-Rend who had built the ice cave. The young man’s eyes were bright as they took in the sight of the little house.

  “Hey!” he called. “Hey! Uncle!”

  Next came a small, pallid-looking girl. Yet to come into her gift, Rolf theorized, if she had one at all. Her face was thin, her expression miserable. Children so sickly seldom received the Nytte.

  And then came the Oar-Breaker accused of the murders. He was so much an Oar-Breaker, wide shouldered and barrel chested.

  Last was the Berserker. She was on edge. Her body was so tense in the saddle, it looked like she might launch herself out at any moment. Her light blond hair was whipping around her face, but Rolf could see how intelligent and alert she was. And how untrained.

  “Uncle!” the Storm-Rend called again.

  The Nytteson came close to the house and dismounted.

  The American guide took the reins to the horses. He led the stock to a nearby tree to tether them, and the siblings approached the front door.

  * * *

  THE MEADOW THEIR uncle’s home stood in was very pretty. Mountains rose behind the yellowed grasses. A waterfall could be seen cascading down a gulch. It could almost have been Norway, except for the clumps of dwarf bushes and the sage.

  None of that put Hanne at ease. She felt as if her nerves were being drawn out of her body. Every part of her jangled with alarm.

  As they drew up to the homestead shack, she saw the boards were weathered and uneven. Between the boards were great gaps and cracks. The backside of paper could be seen through the gaps. Shingles blown off the roof littered the dead grass around the shack.

  “Uncle Håkon,” Stieg called. “It is your nieces and nephews, come all the way from Øystese!”

  There was no answer.

  “He is not here, Brother,” Hanne said.

  “Then we will wait,” decided Stieg.

  She dismounted, and Owen took the reins of her horse. He did not look into her face, but she could read from the thin line of his pressed lips that he was not encouraged by the looks of the place.

  “I’ll keep watch,” he said.

  Owen had not liked the sound of the men from the woods near town when Hanne had described them, especially once she described the man with the bitten face.

  Stieg knocked on the door and found it unlatched. He looked over his shoulder at Hanne and offered her a weak smile.

  She felt a deep pang of love for her brother at that moment. He had led them to America to find this man. The only one who might help her. She patted him on the shoulder and tried to return his smile.

  Then Stieg pushed the door in. It grated on the floor, hanging unevenly in the frame off leather hinges.

  The inside of the cabin was very dim. Smelled dark and foul. There were no windows and the walls had been papered thickly.

  There was a form in the corner. Horror crawled up from Hanne’s gut through her veins. It was the desiccated form of a body.

  “No,” she gasped.

  A shotgun lay on the floor, near the body. The wall behind was splattered with dark, dried blood and bits of tissue.

  Stieg grabbed Hanne in shock and dread.

  “No!” Stieg said. “This cannot be. This cannot be! We have come too far!”

  “Where is he?” Sissel asked, stepping in with Knut. “It’s awfully dark,” she said.

  Then Sissel saw the body and moaned. She cried out.

  Owen was standing at the door. “Dear God,” he said.

  Sissel sank to her knees near the door. She put her forehead on the earthen floor.

  “He shot himself!” Hanne said. Despair was choking her throat.

  “Stieg,” Knut said. “What does it say?”

  And Hanne saw Knut had his hand on the wall. His fingers grazed over a word written on the wall. Håpet, it said. Mistet håpet. Lost hope.

  Hanne then saw, as her eyes adjusted, that the walls of the shack were covered in writing. Every inch was scratched with inky scrawl or pencil marks.

  I will not kill.

  How can I distinguish between the good and evil? Only God can. Then how does he allow me to live?

  Jesus, remove this affliction.

  Hanne spun in a circle, taking in the words her uncle had scrawled over every inch of the heavy cream-colored paper covering the walls.

  Death comes. I cannot hide. How can I hide from myself?

  I am a monster and I wish to be a monster.

  Into society I can go no more, for I wish to kill all I see.

  Large and small. Sane and disturbed, the handwriting told a grim tale.

  I hunger. I hunger.

  Lord, help me! Help me or kill me!

  Jesus, do not let me pass from this house. I pray. I beseech. I beseech you from my knees.

  And over and over was written: My blood for their blood.

  It was written a thousand times. Two thousand times. Small and large. In ink and graphite and blood.

  Hanne stumbled. She had to get out.

  She fell into Owen, who was guarding the door. He helped her out into the cold air. Her chest heaved and strained. She couldn’t breathe.

  Owen had his arms under her arms. The golden grass and the sky were swimming.

  “It’s over,” she said. Owen helped her down to the ground. A chipped shingle lay by her foot.

  “No,” Owen said.

  “There’s no hope. We’re doomed. I’m doomed.”

  “No,” Owen said. “You’re gonna be all right.”

  “He was my only hope.”

  “Shh,” Owen said. He cradled her head to his chest. His arms felt so good around her. She pressed her face into his poncho and let her tears sink into the wool.

  “Don’t cry. You’re such … you’re such a good person, Hanne. You don’t need him. You don’t need to learn anything from anyone, do you hear me?”

  “No, no,” she wept.

  “You’re good,” he told her. “You’re good inside. I know you are. I know it in my soul, Hanne.”

  Then there came an unmistakable metallic CLICK-CLUNK—a rifle being cocked.

  “I hate to interrupt,” the man with the bitten face said. “But we’re here for the Norwegian.”

  He and his redheaded partner were stalking toward them through the meadow. A third man, considerably younger, stood off to the side with the horses, near a stand of scrub oak. A tin star was pinned on his jacket.

  Owen pulled Hanne into the house and kicked the door closed.

  “Yeah, go on in the house. That’s just fine with us. We know you got that Norwegian brute in there with you,” called the bounty hunter. “Now you send him out and we go away. This here’s a dead-or-alive situation, so don’t be cute about it!”

  Hanne felt herself inside a rising tornado.

  Sissel’s eyes were wide with panic.

  “Who’s that?” Knut asked.

  “Shhh!” Stieg said.

  “We got a deputy out here, too,” called the voice. “Official and everything, if he is a mite on the young side.”

  Hanne’s hands were cling
ing to Owen’s arms.

  “I don’t want to—I don’t want to,” she begged. She saw her reflection in Owen’s deep brown eyes. Her face was distorted and terrified. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “I have my gun,” Owen said to her. “I’ll try to scare them off.”

  The power, the rage was flooding her now.

  “Oh please,” she called out, falling to her knees. She grabbed her head. “Please! I don’t want to kill!”

  “Hold her!” Stieg called to Knut. “Help her!”

  Knut grabbed her. Around them, the words of her uncle taunted her. My blood for their blood. My blood for their blood.

  And then bullets blasted into the wall, up near the ceiling. Four shots. So loud!

  Hanne’s brothers and sister clutched at their ears. Dropped clumsily to the floor.

  The bullets punched stars of daylight through the dark shack.

  “We mean business out here. Got rifles and pistols trained on you and ain’t but one door. Come on out now, one at a time.”

  Light came streaming in through the bullet holes, illuminating the dirt floating in the air, and Hanne was no longer herself.

  She saw Owen looking at her, drawing back as her eyes went black. Hanne twisted easily from Knut’s large hands. A rusty knife was stuck in a cutting block and fit beautifully into the palm of her hand.

  “Hanne, you don’t have to go!” Stieg cried.

  But she had the door open and was out.

  * * *

  OH, THE JOY OF IT!

  The joy of the air and the sky and the quarry.

  The men were so slow. She was halfway across the yard before the ugly man even pulled the triggers on the two pistols he had pointed at her.

  The bullets came crashing through the air, and Hanne ducked them, one and two. Then she came within his arm’s reach. She smiled as she brought up the knife into his gut. She twisted it, through bowel, belly, and lung.

  Her senses sang. The creek water smelled good. She was alive with the rocks and the chickadees and the cold water. Now the hot pistol was hers, but she threw it away.

  She heard Knut call out to her, “Stop, Hanne! Stop!”

  She vaulted over the horse to where the beefy man cowered. He had a gun in each hand but moved so slow. He was so slow she could laugh.

  She flew up and brought her leg straight around, kicking him on the side of the head. He went down to hands and knees. Now she punched him in the kidney and he fell facedown into the dirt.