A Heart for Home (5 page)

He watched her hustle back to the kitchen. If he weren’t so pieeyed over Astrid, this young woman would have made a fine wife. He thought of his younger brother, Aaron. Aaron wasn’t married and wasn’t courting anyone either, as far as he knew. Joshua smiled to himself. He’d write to Aaron and invite him to come work in Blessing, where the lack of help was slowing the building down. Aaron had never complained about working on the home farm or hiring out to others when the work slacked off. If only both of his brothers would come to Blessing, and his sister too. He’d have a real family again. He nearly snorted on that thought. Thanks to his father, they’d never been what one would call a close family. But they’d sure welcomed him home last Christmas when he went back to Iowa. Good memories to replace the bad.

Verses from Thorliff ’s talk that morning slipped through his mind.
Whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is
pure, whatever is worthy of praise, think on these things.
He knew that wasn’t a direct quote, but he couldn’t remember all of it. And besides, too many of his memories didn’t fit the criteria.

“Here you go.” Miss Christopherson set down a tray and placed one plate in front of him and the other across the table. She added a plate with warm rolls in a napkin and then set the empty tray on another table before sitting down. “The others are already eating in the kitchen. They said to go ahead.”

“I could have come back there.”

“I know, but you know Mrs. Sam. Right is right and there is no swaying her.” She placed her napkin in her lap and glanced up to find him watching her. “Can I get you something else?”

“No, no.” He bowed his head. Saying grace was another growing habit. He silently thanked the Lord for his meal and looked up to see her dropping her gaze. Had she been watching him or praying? Should he have asked if he could say the blessing? What was proper? Ignoring his thoughts, he smiled. “This looks mighty good, as always.” Roasted chicken had become the standard Sunday meal at the boardinghouse, unless it was a holiday, along with mashed potatoes and gravy. Today, the vegetable was canned green beans combined with bacon and chopped onions.

“This week we’ll start serving fresh vegetables from the garden,” Miss Christopherson said with a smile. “The peas are coming in nicely.”

“Do you work in the garden too?” He usually saw Lemuel and Lily Mae, Mr. and Mrs. Sam’s grown children, out working in the half-acre patch that supplied the boardinghouse.

“Not unless there is a rush. Trying to fit the canning and drying in along with the usual duties takes long hours. And since Mrs. Sam isn’t as young or as well as she used to be, we all have to help out.”

“You need more help here, like every other business in town?” Joshua asked.

“We do. Especially as more people are staying here longer. That nice Mr. Jeffers has reserved a room for his mother when she comes. They should be here any day. Whoever thought we would have a housing shortage in Blessing?” She passed him the rolls. “Mrs. Wiste said we might have to ask the men to double up in the rooms, the way we are going. Some places build bunk beds and sleep four to a room.”

“If my brother comes, he can bunk with me.”

“Your brother?”

“Aaron, he’s the youngest. My sister Avis is the eldest, then my brother Frank, then me and then Aaron. I’d like them all to come out here, but Frank will probably stay on the home farm. He doesn’t mind being a farmer.”

“But you did?”

He nodded. “Pa expected us to stay there and farm, maybe eventually build a house when we got married. When I homesteaded the first time I was here, I realized I just didn’t want to farm any longer. I went back home and worked in town. Pa wasn’t happy with that, and he really gave up on me when I came back here.”

“What brought you back to Blessing?”

He couldn’t tell her it was Astrid. He had memories of a girl with golden hair down her back and eyes that captured bits of sky and sparkled when she laughed. Joshua mopped up the remainder of his gravy with a roll. Looked like that dream needed to do some dying. After the way he’d acted, she’d probably never speak to him again. Maybe it was time he moved on.

4

R
OSEBUD
I
NDIAN
R
ESERVATION
S
OUTH
D
AKOTA

“The baby died.”

Astrid stared at her father, the words barely registering. One more gone. Even though she’d not had much hope for the little one, the thought of another dead baby lay heavy on her heart. The youngest and the oldest were usually the first to die. Right now she was fighting to keep the young brave alive. While the old woman, called Shy Fawn, was changing the wet cloths, his fever was so high that they dried almost instantly. If only they had some ice to nest him in or at least a tub large enough to hold him.

“We have to find something to hold enough cold water so he can be immersed. Ice would be best, but – ”

“But we have no icehouse here, like we do at home.” He thought a moment. “I wonder if they have boats around here. We could put the water in a boat.”

“Or lay him in the creek.”

Haakan nodded. “I’ll get some help to carry him there. Perhaps there is a deeper pool nearby.”

Astrid studied those in the sickroom. Who else would benefit from such a radical procedure? The real question: Why had she not thought of it earlier?
Thank you, Father, for the idea now.
She checked her packets of simples. Willow bark was running low – that could easily be remedied – as was echinacea. But that would not be available until the roots had matured enough to dig up, usually in the fall.

Taking a cup of broth mixed with willow bark tea, and a spoon, she knelt by the brave’s pallet and, nodding to one of her helpers to raise his head, spooned broth into his mouth. It ran out the side and down his cheek. She motioned for the woman to raise him a little higher and tried again. This time his throat moved as he swallowed. Smiling at her helper, she tried to give him more. Success. The first nourishment they’d been able to get into him.

Her father and Mr. Moore hustled into the room.

“Dr. Bjorklund, are you sure this is what you should do? If he dies under your care, the men will accuse you of killing him.”

“If you can think of a better solution, I’m ready to listen, but we have to break his fever. Ice would be better, but the creek is what we have, so it will have to do.”

Mr. Moore swallowed and blinked before inhaling a breath of courage and nodding. The second time he nodded more firmly. “There is a spot where the women used to wash their clothes. I will show you. But how will you keep him from drowning?”

“Someone will sit with him and hold his head above the water.”

“Er, someone?” her father asked.

“I will do it if I have to, but it would be better if someone in the tribe would do it. Let me talk to the women.” If only she could actually talk with them, instead of using the rough signing and hand signals, which took far too long.

“I will talk with them,” Mr. Moore said. “I know a few words.”

As Mr. Moore and Astrid communicated their idea, Shy Fawn nodded her understanding. She held up a hand as if to say
Wait
and hurried out the door. She returned in a few minutes with an elderly man who had already had a light case of measles and was regaining his health by the time Astrid’s team had arrived at the encampment.

Mr. Moore and Far moved the younger man to a litter and then carried him to the creek. Shy Fawn waded into the water and beckoned the elderly man to sit, legs crossed, in the water. They lowered the litter until the sick man’s head was cushioned by the old man’s legs.

“Let’s remove some of the rocks so he can be in deeper water,” Astrid instructed.

Shy Fawn shook her head and instead backed into the stream, gently pulling the spotted man’s legs. The old man inched forward until the water was over his legs and the brave was floating.

Astrid dipped a cloth in the water and laid it over the brave’s hot forehead and eyes. Glancing at Pastor Solberg, she mouthed,
Are you
praying?
His emphatic nod told her he understood.

How long do I leave him there
? Astrid wondered.
Till the fever
breaks
?

The patient’s body twitched, and he mumbled something.

She glanced around to see a circle of Indians of all ages watching and muttering, exchanging apprehensive glances.

“Please, God, let this work,” Solberg whispered, leaning close to her.

“Amen to that.” She soaked the cloth again.

The old man shivered.

At least someone was cooling off. “Mr. Moore, if you could suggest that the people go about their business . . .”

After a good soak in the stream, Astrid had the men lift the brave from the water, but instead of taking him back to the infirmary, they moved the litter to the shade of a tree and had them brace the poles of the litter on rocks so air could flow under it. With one of the children set to fan the flies away, she returned to inspecting the remaining tepees, with Mr. Moore in tow.

She found an elderly couple who were both comatose and burning with fever, the telltale spots all the evidence she needed. This time she had them taken directly to the creek and set to soaking while still in their filthy garments, soiled not only with grease and dirt but the effluvia of illness. As the creek washed the filth away, caring for the ill took more able bodies.

“I think you are on the right track,” Pastor Solberg said, leaning close so others would not hear. He nodded toward the first brave. “Check on him. He seems better.”

Sure enough, the heat emanating from his body was greatly reduced. As she watched, his eyelids flickered. A deep sigh relaxed his body, and he settled into sleep.

Astrid swallowed the lump named fear that had strangled her for a moment. “Far, see if you can get some more broth into him, please, while I check another tepee. Mr. Moore, can you find us some more help? Those tepees need to be cleaned out.”

“Usually the tribe moves on rather than cleaning.”

“I see. Well, these people are too weak to move unless they choose an area nearby, like that meadow over there, and just move one tepee at a time. Is that a possibility?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but it is the work of the women to move the tribe.” Doubt rode his shoulders and dogged his steps. “Mrs. Moore said to tell you that supper would be served at six.”

And the tribe? Astrid kept the question inside. “Mr. Moore, what has happened to the supplies promised these people?”

“I am looking into that. Part of the problem is that these people did not want to move nearer the main station. The supplies are shipped there and then sorted out and distributed. After the fighting this group hid and then settled here on the southeast corner of the reservation, far away from the settlement.”

“Can they not go to the station and bring food back?”

“They no longer have their horses, and as I understand it, their old chief refused to become slaves to the white man, as he put it, by living over there.”

“And where is he?”

“He died early on. That is when Dark Cloud became the temporary chief.”

“I see. So if we took our wagons to the station, we could bring back supplies?” Astrid asked.

“I believe so, but I have not been here long enough to rectify all the situations I have been slowly discovering.” He drew himself up, as if ashamed at having disclosed this information. “I will see if I can find more help.”

Astrid watched him stalk off. She heard her mother’s voice saying,
“You can always catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
Men did not respond well to accusations from a woman, especially a young woman with such a forthright manner. “Sometimes I wonder if stubbornness isn’t more of a sin than all the others combined,” she muttered, then hoped no one had heard her.

Shy Fawn beckoned her over to the stream, where they were washing the two new patients. Both appeared to be resting and relaxed, floating in the water.

Astrid nodded and smiled her appreciation. She then made her way back to the tepees yet to be inspected, observing that Mr. Moore was attempting to talk with a small group of men sitting around a fire pit of ashes.

Late in the afternoon, Astrid found a family of four alive but too weak to walk. She also found three young children hiding in another tepee, not wanting to leave their dead mother – two of them recovering but one very sick that needed the creek. How many of these people had died from the measles and how many had starved to death? The question, like so many others, had no answer.

When Pastor Solberg came to escort her to supper at the Moores’ house, guilt that she could eat while others starved almost made her refuse. But she knew she didn’t want to antagonize the Moores. She was there to help, not cause more problems. Yet when Mrs. Moore served canned peaches for dessert, Astrid nearly choked on them. Instead, she reminded herself that canned food was probably all they had too, because there was no game left to hunt. Since Mr. Moore had been in the military, surely he knew about living off the land.