Racing Home (6 page)

“I need to mix up some more.”

“Then you better do it,” said Rolf, lowering himself into the hole.

“I’m about to,” said Erik stiffly. Did Rolf think he wasn’t going to finish the work? “I was just seeing if you needed anything.”

“What should I need?” asked Rolf, raising the pick high and driving it into the hard grey subsoil.

Instead of answering, Erik swung around and headed for the house, hot anger burning in his throat.

He avoided talking to Rolf for the rest of the day. It wasn’t hard, because Rolf didn’t talk to him either. The next day Rolf acted as if nothing had happened. He even smiled when he saw the finished walls. “Good work,” he said.

They moved the furniture into place and assembled the pipes for the small, round stove.

“I guess we can sleep in here now,” said Rolf.

Erik looked at the bed they’d put together for Rolf and Inga. There was no bed for him or Elsa. “I’ll stay in the tent,” he said. “At least for now.”

“If you like,” said Rolf.

Erik moved to the doorway, anxious to get out of the dim house, so different from their home in Norway.

“When are we going to get
Mor
and Elsa?”

“I need to finish the outhouse,” Rolf said.

“They would want to be here.”

“Ja.
You’re right about that.”

Rolf passed Erik, going out into the sunshine.

“Soon,” he said. “Later this week.”

Erik wondered what day it was, how many days were left in the week. Since they’d left Hanley, every day had felt the same.

Rolf picked up the canvas that had covered the wagon and dragged it over to the hole. He dropped it to the ground nearby, then went back for the few pieces of wood left by the house. He looked at the pile, nudging the pieces with his foot.

Erik watched him silently. Finally Rolf looked up. “Why don’t we see what’s in that river?” he said. “Maybe catch us a fish for supper?”

They walked straight west from the sod house. Erik carried the fishing poles Rolf had bought in Hanley; Rolf had flatbread and tin cups in a pail.

The prairie was as flat as the land around their sod house. The grass grew thin and dusty green.

Erik kicked at a clump of grass. Unexpectedly, a flash
of purple caught his eye. Looking closer he saw miniature
flowers mingled with the grass. Further on he found scattered bones, bleached white, half buried in the sod.

Buffalo bones! Hoping for more, Erik was startled by a pale brown bird flying out of the grass right in front of him.

After crossing several quarters of land, Erik noticed the land changing. It fell and rose, then seemed to come to an end, just ahead, where Rolf stood without moving.

Erik stopped beside him.

Below lay the river – wide and swift and clear, the banks on both sides green with bushes. Erik hadn’t seen any sign of the trees Mr. Haugen had mentioned, but this was almost as good.

“What a strange land,” said Rolf after a long moment. “So plain, yet it hides such beauty.”

Erik agreed silently as he scrambled down the hill after Rolf. The slope was covered in bushes, most not reaching his waist. Birds watched from the brush, flying up when Rolf and Erik grew close.

Only a few minutes after throwing his line in the river, Rolf pulled out a striped olive-green fish. He killed and cleaned it, then gathered twigs and small branches for a fire. Erik watched curiously as Rolf drove half a dozen forked twigs into the ground around his fire, then cut the cleaned fish in half. He wove the fish onto sticks and propped them on the forked twigs so they hung over the fire.

Feeling a tug on his rod, Erik found himself wrestling with his own catch. Twice he thought he’d lose it, but after several minutes he landed a large, spotted green fish, its mouth full of pointed teeth.

“A pike,” said Rolf with satisfaction. “We had pike in Norway. What we can’t eat now and for breakfast, we’ll smoke.”

Erik smashed a rock onto the wriggling fish, crushing its head. He cleaned it and dropped it into the pail. Picking up his rod, he caught one more fish before the supper was cooked.

The fish made the best meal Erik had eaten in weeks –
if not forever.

They walked home in the cool of the evening, the long shadows from the setting sun stretching ahead of them. Erik filleted the fish, putting them to soak in salted water overnight. Rolf dug around in their scraps of wood and built an improvised smokehouse over a shallow hole in the ground.

Erik dragged a bench outside and sat on it, leaning against the sod wall. One by one, stars appeared. In the distance an animal howled.

Erik had never seen a sky so wide.

T
hey ate fried fish for breakfast the next morning, then Erik put the rest of the fish to smoke. Afterwards he helped Rolf with the outhouse. They had wood for the seat and the frame, but used the canvas for walls and a roof.

“I guess we can’t move again,” Erik said, handing Rolf the last section of canvas.

Rolf looked at Erik, his eyebrows raised.

“Nothing to cover the wagon with.”

“That’s right,” said Rolf. His eyes rested briefly on the posts Olaf had dug into the ground. “We’re here to stay.”

That evening Rolf filled his jacket pockets with flatbread and
gjetost.

“I’ll walk to Lars’s in the morning,” he said, “then take his horses to Hanley. It’ll be quicker.” He met Erik’s eyes, then looked away. “I’ll need you to stay here and tend to the animals.”

Disappointed, Erik nodded, saying nothing.

When morning came it was windy and cool. Erik watched Rolf set off across the prairie. He dropped to the ground, leaning against the house, feeling it solid and warm against his back. He watched a hawk swoop through the air, nearly touching the ground as it picked up a rodent. The oxen grazed nearby while Tess and her calf dozed by the slough. The chickens were scattered around the yard, scratching for insects.

Flat and unfriendly, that’s what the country felt like. Flat and unfriendly and lonely. It had been lonely enough when Rolf was there. It was worse when he was gone.

But he couldn’t sit all day. If they were going to live in this place, he’d have to make it work. They needed a garden patch for vegetables. Erik jumped to his feet and grabbed the spade. As he dug, he occasionally glanced at the grazing oxen, wishing he was strong enough to hold the plough in the ground.

The soil was hard and dry, the digging difficult. After a while, Erik set the spade aside and walked east. As he walked he was aware of rises and falls, but after the
mountains of Norway he couldn’t call it anything but flat. No matter which way he looked, everything was the same.

How easy it would be to get lost.

Lost.

Heart thumping, Erik swung around.

There it was, in the distance, the sod house, small, brown, hugging the ground.

After that Erik looked back often.

He saw survey stakes in the corners of their quarter and caught a glimpse of a building further east. In a hollow he found an almost dry slough, thick with grass. Bushes grew along one side, some of them taller than Erik. As he approached, birds flew out, clutching berries in their beaks. Erik ate some of the purple berries, finding them juicy and sweet.

In the distance he could see a wolf walking across the prairie. No, not a wolf. It was too small. A dog, maybe.

Erik set off after it. The animal turned away, breaking into a run. Not a dog.

Hungry, Erik headed back to the sod house. He checked that the chickens were still alive, then heated a tin of beans. After eating, he used the pickaxe to break up the hard sod of the garden, but looked around often in case the wolf-dog returned.

By the fourth day, Erik knew their quarter section almost as well as he knew his grandfather’s farm in Norway. He spent the morning digging in the garden, then loaded one of the water barrels onto the wagon.

The oxen stood quietly while he fumbled with the yoke.

“You’re not horses,” said Erik, patting Black’s neck, “but for oxen you’re not bad.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Reunited

When Erik returned to the sod house with the barrel of spring water, the door stood open. He jumped down from the wagon just as his mother stepped outside. She caught him in a hug.

“Ma!” exclaimed Erik “You’re here!”

“We arrived about an hour ago,” she said. “Rolf just left to return the horses and wagon to Lars. How are you? Rolf tells me you’ve been working hard.”

“There’s much to do,” Erik said uncomfortably. “How – how do you like the house?”

“I was glad to get out of the wind.”

“We filled all the cracks so the wind couldn’t get inside,” Erik said quickly, noticing she hadn’t said she liked the house. And how could she? It was made of dirt.

He dipped most of the water from the barrel on the wagon to the barrel by the door, then carried the last pail inside. An embroidered cloth covered the wooden table and there were shelves against one wall. Elsa was arranging wildflowers in a cup.

“Did you see my hen?” she asked eagerly.

“The chickens are all over,” he said. “I see them every day.”

“Not those chickens!” Elsa ran to the door. “Come, little hen,” she cooed. “Come here.”

A chicken pecking the ground near the tent ran toward Elsa, who dropped a few kernels of corn on the ground.

“She knows me.”

“She knows the corn,” said Erik. “Did you get this hen to replace the one that died in Hanley?”

“She didn’t die,” Elsa said indignantly. She knelt down and smoothed the glossy brown feathers. “She was sick, but I made her better.”

Erik went to move the wagon, leaving Elsa trying to making friends with one of the other hens.

His mother watched as he tethered the oxen. “I need you to start milking the cow again.”

Erik stared at her. Though he’d milked Tess when they first bought her, she hadn’t been milked since they’d left Minnesota.

“The calf drinks all the milk. Tess won’t let me milk her.”

“Then you’ll have to separate them, won’t you?”

It sounded so easy. And it might be if they had a barn or corral.

Erik met Rolf when he walked into the yard after returning the horses.

“I was wondering,” said Erik, “while we still have Mr. Johnson’s sod-cutting plough, if we should make a shed.”

“A shed?” repeated Rolf.

“Ma wants me to milk the cow,” said Erik. “If we lock her up for the night so the calf can’t drink, Tess might let me milk her in the morning.”

“Oh.”

“And we could store things in the shed, too, like chicken feed and tools.”

“I wanted to start breaking land,” said Rolf, “but I guess it can wait a few days.”

They marked off the site for the shed that evening and began cutting sods in the morning.

“We’ll have lots of food,” Elsa told Erik over flatbread and soup at noon. “Today we planted asparagus and rhubarb and potatoes and onions, and even a baby apple tree that Mama brought from Norway.”

“It’s the middle of July,” her mother said. “That’s late to be planting a garden.”

“It will rain,” Elsa said confidently, “and everything will grow fast.”

Erik hoped she was right. It hadn’t rained since the day after he and Rolf left Hanley, and the ground he’d dug was dry and hard.

“To be sure, we’ll ask God to bless our garden,” Inga said, “He knows we need food for the winter.”

After supper, Erik saw that his mother wasn’t waiting for the rain, but carrying the dishwater out to sprinkle on the seeds.

Three evenings later, Erik closed Tess into the new shed. In the house, Inga was heating water.

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” she said, “and we’re going to church. Tonight we’ll all have baths.”

“Sunday?” repeated Erik “Church?” Then it hit him. “Baths?” In a one-room house?

Inga had Erik hang a blanket in the corner by the stove, then pour water into the washtub behind it. Elsa had the first bath. Inga added more hot water to the tub, then disappeared behind the blanket.

When she came out, she pointed to the dish by the tub. “Don’t forget to use the soap,” she told Erik, “and dry your feet well so you don’t turn the floor to mud.”

Erik sighed and emptied the kettle into the tub. He added more buffalo chips to the fire, then refilled the kettle to heat water for Rolf.

The next morning there was no sunshine on the tent when Erik woke. The canvas whipped in the breeze and heavy clouds hung low in the sky. Erik grabbed a pail from the house and went to see if Tess would let him milk her.

The calf was standing outside the shed, bawling. Erik shoved it out of the way and slipped into the shed.

In the dim light from the small openings they’d left in the walls, Erik steered the cow into a corner. He slipped the pail beneath her and dropped onto a short-legged stool.