An Untamed Land (23 page)

“Here!” Roald thrust the reins into Ingeborg’s hands and leaped onto the wagon tongue, working his way up to the horses’ heads. “Easy now, Belle, Bob, easy. You’re going to be fine.” Roald spoke in soothing tones, trying to keep the animals from panicking.

“Just keep a firm hand on those lines,” he cautioned Ingeborg.

Carl waded back, up to his pockets in the frigid water. “Throw me that lead rope, and I’ll pull from here. We have to get them out of the water before they freeze to death.”

“Ja, and you too.” The water crept over the tops of Roald’s boots and up to his knees.

Ingeborg could hear Kaaren in the back praying and comforting Thorliff, who had begun to scream.

“All right now, let’s get out on solid ground again.” Roald swung on top of Belle’s broad back and slid off into the water. He grabbed the lead rope that he’d tied to her collar and pulled her forward. The mare took one step, then another, forcing the wide-eyed gelding to follow suit.

“All right, now, give ’em a touch of the lines,” he instructed Ingeborg.

Ingeborg flapped the reins over their backs. “Gee-up,” she hollered at the same moment. With the men scrambling backward up the bank trying to keep from being run over, the horses threw themselves into their collars and, hooves scrambling for a purchase in the slime, rocked the wagon out of the slew and up onto solid ground.

“Thank you, God.” Kaaren said aloud what they all were thinking.

Ingeborg stepped down from the wagon, then clutched the mud-dripping wheel when her knees threatened to give way. Mud had splattered her skirt, coat, face, and into her hair. As soon as her knees stopped quivering, she reached up to lift Thorliff down.

“You go get us some wood, small pieces for a fast fire. Kaaren, hand out the winter coats and dry clothes for the men. They must change right away. We can rub the horses down with that sacking we saved.” As she spoke, Ingeborg unhooked the traces on one side and rehooked them up onto the harness as Carl was doing on the other. Roald led the horses away from the wagon tongue.

“Here, take these and I’ll get the rest.” Kaaren handed out the men’s clothing and turned back inside the wagon.

Carl and Roald shivered so badly they could hardly speak. Ingeborg handed them the warm clothing and took the lead lines for the horses. Tying them to a nearby tree, she turned back to assist Thorliff in his hunt for dry wood. He’d been on the trail long enough now to know to break dead branches off the trees and bushes, since anything on the ground was saturated with the melting snow.

“I’ll help him. You start the fire.” Kaaren handed Ingeborg the knife for shaving tinder and the flint box.

Thorliff brought in an armful of dry sticks and immediately Ingeborg began the tedious job of shaving the wood fine enough for the spark to catch. She could hear Kaaren caring for the men, the horses stamping and blowing, and the snap of tree limbs as Thorliff continued his search. Her hands shook so she could hardly aim the sparks. Finally, a spark caught and a tiny eye of red appeared. She blew on it gently until the eye turned into a minute spiral of smoke, and the fire caught. Carefully she added tiny twigs, increasing their size as they flamed, then added larger sticks, all the while blowing on it and nursing it along.

“I have the coffeepot ready.”

Kaaren appeared at her elbow, startling her. She’d concentrated so on the fire, she hadn’t heard the younger woman approach.

“Ja, that is good. Bring their boots here so they can dry, too. Hurry, Thorly, our fire is gobbling up your sticks too quickly.”

Roald and Carl spread the quilts like wings to trap all the heat from the fire. They didn’t wait for the coffee to finish boiling but drank the hot water first.

“Heat some for the horses, too,” Roald said, stamping his feet. “We’ll mix it with the oats and give them a real treat. I hate to stop this soon, but we’d better.” He eyed the sun which was just beginning its afternoon descent.

“That was close.” Carl glanced over to where Kaaren was rubbing down the horses. She’d pulled in some willow branches so they could eat the tender tips.

“Ja, a good thing we took the time to tar the seams in that old wagon. I don’t think anything got soaked.” Both men looked up as the train whistle mourned across the prairie. By the looks on their faces, they all were dreaming how simple the trip would have been if only they could have afforded the train fare. But “if only” were words they must forget.

“We should be on our own land tomorrow,” Roald declared, greeting the day two mornings later. He stood facing east, watching the horizon for the first gold rim of the rising sun. The cloudless sky brightened from cobalt to lavender to flaming gold when the sun finally burst from its bed to begin the upward climb.

“If all goes well.” Carl stopped beside his brother.

“Ja, God willing.” The two watched the sun rise for a few moments more, then turned as one. “Let’s be on the trail.”

The next afternoon, Roald knew how Moses felt when he stood with God and looked over the promised land. Only this land was Roald’s to give to his descendants. He would not be kept from taking possession of it as had the patriarch. He looked to the west, shading his eyes with his hand. One mile square, he and his brother would be filing on. Bjorklund land. Free of ice now, the Red River flowed behind him north to Winnipeg. Once the surveyors arrived, he could place cairns of stone at the four corners of their land, and then return to Grand Forks to file the official papers.

He picked up one small stone and tossed it in the air a couple of times.

One of the horses whinnied and, with ears pricked, looked toward the river.

I
f the woman who stepped out from the trees was as old as she looked, she’d have been a compatriot of the Moses Roald had been thinking about.

He stood beside the horse’s head, watching her stride across the winter-flattened prairie grass. Hair gone nearly white and tied back with a string, a face so seamed it resembled nothing more than a dried apple left too long in the barrel, and a stocky build somewhat stooped by age but still spry all blended to create a character similar to the trolls he’d heard of as a child. Bright black eyes returned his scrutiny as she approached.

He nodded when she stopped a few feet from him. He sensed Ingeborg to his left with Kaaren between her and Carl. Was this an American Indian? He’d been told all the Indians were confined to reservations. What could he say?

He nodded. “God dag.”

Her answer was incomprehensible. He shrugged to show he didn’t understand, then pointed to his chest. “I am Roald Bjorklund.”

“Metis” was the only word he could understand, so he assumed her name to be Metis. She spoke swiftly and gestured with one arm. Where had he heard that word before?
Ah yes, Probstfield spoke of the Metis, a cross between the Indians and French Canadian trappers. Is she one of them?

Roald shook his head and raised his hands, again to signal he had no idea what she was saying.

She spoke louder and more firmly, pointing to the ground and sweeping her hand in an arc. She finished with one finger pointing to her chest. Then she raised her hand palm out, nodded, and
turned, walking off with the pace of a younger person and holding her head high.

“What was that all about?” Carl stared after their strange visitor.

“I wish I knew. She certainly was adamant about something. But she didn’t seem hostile. If she’s an Indian, I thought all Indians wore skins, you know, tanned leather and feathers.” Roald rubbed the bridge of his nose, a sure sign he was perplexed. But he was afraid he knew what she had said. She thought this was her land.

“We must make our camp for tonight. Maybe tomorrow we can scout the riverbank and see if she is camping there.”

“Then what?” Ingeborg failed to stifle her question.

“We’ll tell her to leave. This is now Bjorklund land, or at least it will be when we prove it up.”

But what if her family has lived on this land for generations?
Ingeborg thought.
Can’t we all get along together?
She stared after the woman who disappeared into the trees as quickly as she had appeared. “I wonder what language she speaks?”

“I think some was French.” Kaaren stepped next to Ingeborg. “Remember the family I worked for a couple of years ago? They spoke French, and I learned a few words from them. But this woman’s words ran together so fast, I can’t be certain.”

“She gave me a strange feeling.” Ingeborg rubbed her elbows with both cupped hands. “I wish we’d had the coffee ready and could have offered her some. She might be our closest neighbor.”

Within a short time, they had a good fire going and supper started. Thorliff had refused to go after wood by himself, keeping a cautious eye on the woods in case the old woman might appear again. Carl accompanied him, while Roald took the rifle and set out to see if he could raise some game.

Within a short time, he returned from the swampy area with two ducks in hand.

“Oh, how beautiful.” Kaaren ran one finger down the shimmery green neck of one. “Let’s save the feathers. I’ll cut off the wing tips to use for dusters.”

“When will we need dusters out here, living in a wagon?” Ingeborg looked up with a smile.

“I know.” Kaaren smiled in return. “But I can dream, can’t I? One day we will have stoves again and shelves for the dishes, and then we will have need of a bird’s wing and a dustpan.”

The women set to plucking the feathers and stuffing them into a sack. They would make good pillows or eventually a feather bed.
By the time the ducks were spitted and sizzling over the fire, shadows stretched across the winter-brown prairie.

While supper was cooking, Roald and the horses dragged a dead tree out of the woods and up to the fire. The ring of ax against wood sounded comforting in the deepening twilight as Carl stripped off the branches for firewood.

Thorliff stacked the smaller pieces of wood underneath the wagon, all the while keeping up a barrage of questions. “How much wood will we need? Where will we build our house? Do other people live around here? Does that Indian lady have children? When will we get our cows and sheeps? Are there buffalo around here?”

The adults took turns answering him until Roald said, “Enough.”

When they sat down on the log to eat, Ingeborg cleared her throat. “I think we should say grace. We have much to be thankful for.”

Roald nodded and bowed his head. “I Jesu navn går vi til bords . . .” Everyone joined in, including Thorliff. The sound of their gratefulness rose like the smoke of their fire, an incense to their God.

“We will begin breaking sod in the morning,” Roald announced as they made their way to bed. “And as soon as the ground dries enough, we can sleep on our own land too. But in the meantime”—he turned over on one side so there would be room for all of them in the narrow space—“we’ll make the best of this.” Somehow the wagon bed seemed more comfortable on Bjorklund land.

The lilting song of a bird woke them well before sunrise.

Roald lay listening to the predawn hush. The bird sang again, music trilling from its throat. Unable to lie still a minute more, he picked up his pants and shirt, scooted to the end of the wagon, and pulled on his clothes over his wool long underwear. Carl joined him as he fumbled for his boots. The pearl gray tint of first light bathed all the earth in luminescence—the trees shimmered, the remaining snowbanks glittered. Even the horses’ coats shone as they calmly grazed on last year’s grass, hobbled by short thongs around their front legs to keep them close. He sucked in a deep breath of the chill morning air as if breathing for the first time. For him it was a first. The first morning on his own land. The new day bringing new life with every thrust of a blade of grass. If this prairie could grow such thick grass that the horses could find plenty to eat even now, surely it would grow the wheat and corn seed he had in the wagon.

Ingeborg joined them, and as they stood there gazing across the land, they could hear Kaaren murmuring to the nursing baby. Morning sounds, sounds of life both continuing and new. The bird sang again. Carl stirred the banked ashes from the night before and began blowing on the coals, adding small sticks. Ingeborg finished braiding her hair and tied an apron over her skirt and around her growing waist. Somehow the apron made her feel as if she were indeed in their own home, and this was a day like any other.