A Land to Call Home (41 page)

Back at the house, Mrs. Peterson had water steaming on the stove, heated by twists of hay.

“Sorry, I have nothing better.” She set a cup of weak coffee before him, a small child clinging to her skirt. When he took a sip, he knew it to be made from roasted grain of some sort. “The cow went dry, so I hope black is all right.”

“This is fine. Hot is what helps.” He heard a weak cough from the bed on the far wall. At his glance in that direction, she sighed.

“That’s Hans, my son. He has outlived his far, but I don’t know . . .” She squared her shoulders that slumped for a moment.

Hjelmer thought to some of the stories Ingeborg had told him of the terrible life some settlers endured. This was indeed the worst he’d seen, and two of the farms he bought hadn’t been a whole lot better. But at least there, those husbands were still alive.

“Mrs. Peterson, what are you going to do?”

She shook her head. The cough came from the bed again, deep and wracking. She got up and took the boy a cup of warm water, spooning it between his lips. The smaller child stared at their guest out of eyes sunk so far back in her head they looked black. Under
the bulky sweater that covered her to her knees, Hjelmer was afraid she had arms and legs of sticks. Either she had been terribly sick or she was starving.

The woman came back to the table and slumped to the stool that served for a chair. “I don’t know. S’pose I better butcher the cow before she dies, ’cause we been burning the hay. That’ll at least give us something more to eat.” She sighed. “I hate to butcher the cow. She’s all we got left.”

“You have any family to go to?”

She shook her head. “In Nordland.”

Hjelmer studied the weak dregs in his cup. He couldn’t leave these people here to die.

“I can pay you cash money for your land. How many acres do you have?”

“Half a section, 180 acres. Only busted about forty, though. My Elmer, after that terrible flu in ’82, he weren’t a strong man. We should never have come here.” She wiped the child’s runny nose with the edge of her apron, then looked across the table to Hjelmer. “What good would the money do until spring? I got no way out of here.” She gestured to the boy in the bed and the child at her knee. “We can’t walk through the snow.”

“You won’t have to.” Hjelmer counted out the money and laid it on the table. “I have some supplies on my horse. You have enough hay to last for two days?”

She nodded, looking at him again out of the side of her eye. “Ja, why?”

“Give your cow a good feeding. And bring in whatever you need for fuel. Is there any wood?”

She shook her head.

“How about the sawhorses and planks in the barn, the mangers too?”

As if afraid to hope, she let her fingers reach out and touch the money. “I hate for the rats to feed on my Elmer.”

“Okay. I’ll put the body in the grain bin and make sure nothing can get in there.” Hjelmer got to his feet.

“Where you going?”

“Out to the barn. If you want to come, you can bring in the beans, and—”

“Beans?”

“Ja, I have some in my saddlebag. You have any flour?”

“A bit. Been making gruel out of it so my children got something to eat.”

Hjelmer closed his eyes for a second. Never in his life had he gone hungry for more than a day or so, and then it had been his own fault for not packing enough on a hunting trip. “Come with me.”

“You mean it about buying my land?” she asked when they reached the barn.

“Ja, I’ll buy it, but first we need to get you and your children out of here.”

An hour later, Hjelmer declined her offer to share the beans she now had cooking and headed north for the Bjorklund farms. Ingeborg would take these poor souls in, and perhaps, if the boy made it that far, she would use her herbs and knowledge to keep him alive.

He passed the other farms he had planned to visit without a backward glance. With the drifts frozen solid, his horse trotted on, not even breaking through the snow.
Will they run me off?
he wondered as his breath plumed in the frigid air.
What if Ingeborg won’t take these people in? What if they are sick too? How will I tell them where I’ve been? What do I say when she asks why I’ve never written?
The questions plagued him as the miles passed and guilt rode heavy on his shoulders like a yoke carved of green wood. They made good time and trotted into the farmyard with dusk turning the skies and snowfields luminous with lavender hollows.

Paws met him with a stiff-legged stance and the deep-throated bark that announced a stranger.

“Hey, Paws, you know who I am.”

The dog changed to wagging from his nose to the tip of his tail. He whined in apology and darted toward the house, returning as if to say, “Come on, what are you waiting for?”

Hjelmer stared at the new barn rising like a monolith from the land. Here the yard was tramped solid and the front of the soddy cleared of snow. Sheep bleated from the corral of the sod barn and cows bellered from the big barn. Smoke plumed from the house chimney and one at the end of the new barn too.

“Who is it, Paws?” Thorliff called as he pushed open the smaller door on the front of the two-story barn.

“It’s your onkel Hjelmer.” He rode his horse toward the boy. “Things sure look good here.”

Thorliff turned and shouted over his shoulder, “Onkel Hjelmer is come home!”

“Tell him to get his sorry hide in here before he freezes,” Haakan called back. “Then go tell your mor to set another place at the table. The prodigal has returned.”

Hjelmer had trouble swallowing.

“Here, I’ll take your horse. Far and Onkel Olaf are milking.” Thorliff reached for the reins. “You want I should feed him too?” He looked at the sweaty neck of the horse. “I’ll give him a drink later.”

“Mange takk, Thorliff.” Hjelmer laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You look like you grew a foot while I was gone.”

Thorliff stared up from eyes that crinkled when he grinned, so like Carl’s. “We missed you.”

Hjelmer nodded. “Me too, son, me too.” He entered the barn, pulling the door shut behind him.

A line of cows stood in their stanchions facing the wide center aisle, chewing their hay. A shallow ditch to catch the manure had been dug in the dirt floor between the end of the stalls and the rear aisle. From the side of a cow up the way, Haakan rose, a foaming milk bucket in his hand. He reached down to grab the three-legged stool, stepped to the aisle, and setting both bucket and stool down, strode toward the guest with hand outstretched and a smile wide as the prairie creasing his cheeks.

“We were afraid we’d never see you again. Thank God, you are all right.” When their hands clasped, he clamped his other hand on Hjelmer’s upper arm and squeezed. “Thank God. Come, let me introduce you to Kaaren’s onkel, Olaf Wold. He immigrated years ago.”

They walked down the length of the barn to the last stanchion, where Olaf was milking. He looked up and nodded.

“Good to meet you.”

At that moment the outer door flew open, banging against the wall and startling the cows, let alone the men.

“Hjelmer, you have come home!” Ingeborg ran down the aisle and threw her arms around her brother-in-law. “Uff da. I thought never to see you again this side of heaven.”

Hjelmer, driven backward at the force of her greeting, planted his feet and hugged Ingeborg back. “I was afraid you would not want to see me,” he whispered in her ear.

“Ja, well if you were smaller I would take you out to the woodpile and whale you good, but since you are a grown man, you have to live with the mistakes you make. That’s sometimes punishment enough.” She stepped back and looked at him, her eyes drilling into
his very soul. “You are in trouble?”

He coughed out a “huh,” all the while shaking his head. Laughter glinted in his eyes. “No, I’m not in trouble, but I came here earlier than I thought because there is someone in terrible trouble. Someone I hope you can help.”

“What is it?” Her tone changed to concern. “Who is it?”

“Do you know a Peterson from south of here about half a day’s ride?”

Ingeborg thought a moment. “Ja, I think we stayed there one night on our way to find our homestead.”

“That explains how she knew you. She wasn’t about to let me off my horse until I gave my name.”

Ingeborg’s brow wrinkled. “That doesn’t sound right. They were very friendly and gave us a hot meal.”

“Ja, well . . . things have changed there. Mr. Peterson died three days ago and the place was pretty run down, what I could see. Maybe he’d been poorly or something. Anyway, they are out of food, with no wood for fuel, so she was burning hay twists, and a cow she is about to butcher. I got the feeling that all the other livestock had already been eaten. Her older boy is terrible sick, and the little girl don’t look much better.” He looked down to see his one gloved hand pulling on the glove of the other and then up at Ingeborg. “Can I take a sleigh and go get them?”

“Ja, of course.” Haakan and Ingeborg spoke at the same time.

“The moon’s full tonight, I could—”

“We could leave right after supper.” Haakan bent down to pick up his oak bucket. “I’ll take this up. Olaf and Baptiste can finish in here. Do you think the boy will make it through such a trip?”

“I don’t know,” Hjelmer said with a shrug. “But he’ll die there. I thought maybe some of Ingeborg’s simples might help him.”

“I will get some things ready.” She strode down the aisle to the last two cows where Olaf sat on a stool, head against a cow’s flank. “Supper will be on the table as soon as you are finished here.”

Within two hours, the wagon sleigh was loaded with elk robes and quilts covering the straw that padded the wooden planks. They added a bag of grain for the horses. Ingeborg explained how to use the medicinals she included and wrapped several heated rocks for their feet.

“You can warm them again and pack them around the boy to come home. Remember, you have to keep him warm and the cold air out of his lungs. We will all be praying for your safe trip and for
God to heal that dear child. Poor Mrs. Peterson. Losing a husband is bad enough, but a son too? Uff da. We will do all we can.”

Haakan slapped the reins, and the horses trotted off. “Thank the good Lord the thaw hasn’t set in or we wouldn’t make it this night.”

Hjelmer nodded and pulled the elk robe closer around his head and shoulders. “This cold ain’t fit for man or beast.”

“Ja, I am sure that poor woman feels the same.”

Miles later, Hjelmer finally worked up the courage to ask the question that had been pestering him. “How is Penny?”

“Good, I guess.”

Hjelmer waited but nothing else was forthcoming. Haakan wasn’t making this easy for him. “Is she . . . did she . . . ah . . .” He sighed a heavy sigh. “Are the Baards well?”

“Had a bad time of it earlier but they are coming back. Agnes had a stillborn baby, and they took it hard.”

“Oh.” Silence again but for the jingling bells and click of the horses’ hooves on the solid snow. He took in a deep breath, the air torturing his lungs as the silence tortured his mind. “And Penny?”

“What’s that you said?”

“How is Penny?”

“As I said, good, I think. Leastwise I ain’t heard no different.”

“You don’t see the Baards?”

“Sure, we see the Baards, but Penny left for Fargo before Christmas.”

“Fargo! What is she doing in Fargo?”

“Going to school and working for her board and room.”

“Oh.” What could he say? Silence again. “Is she . . . did she. . . ?” He felt like a blithering fool.
For goodness sake, just speak up! You’re a grown man
. He made another attempt after taking a deep breath through gloved hands over his nose and mouth. “Is she walking out with anyone?”

“Don’t know.” Haakan turned on the seat. “Penny helped Kaaren with the twins and then did something she’s always wanted to do, go to school. She threatened to go looking for you, but we talked her out of that foolishness.”

Hjelmer felt his heart leap with joy.
Penny still wanted him. She even thought about looking for him
. “She wouldn’t have found me. I’m in St. Paul now. Why didn’t she never write after that first letter? I thought maybe she found someone else.”

“You’ll have to ask her, but it is my understanding she wrote to
you every week, even after she never got more than one letter. She is a faithful little thing.”

“I never got them!”

“Did you write?” The question froze his heart like the cold air paralyzed his lungs.

“No.” He didn’t make any excuses. Those he thought of never sounded worth the air it took to say the words.
I had thought to ride over to the Baards’ tomorrow. Fargo. How will I get to see her there? No time now till spring when we head west again. Will I be too late by then?

They arrived at the silent soddy as the moon melted to the horizon.
Are we too late here also?

H
e’s still alive.” Haakan lifted the bundled boy out of the wagon box.

“Put him right there.” Ingeborg pointed to Andrew’s bed. “How did he fare?”

“I dosed him good last night, or rather, early this morning and then again just before we left. He hardly coughed at all on the ride.” Haakan laid the boy on the bed and unwrapped him. “Ingeborg, this is Mrs. Peterson.” He nodded to the women on either side.