An Untamed Land (11 page)

The next day, saying goodbye to the New York skyline from the ferry to Jersey City didn’t bother Ingeborg a bit. But much to her surprise, the thought of never seeing Mr. Gould again brought a twinge of sadness. Their hurried wagon ride to the ferry dock on the Hudson River had passed with prescribed stern orders from Roald, encouraging murmurs from Carl, and fussy cries from the baby. Thorliff kept his thumb in his mouth, despite his father’s command to stop that babylike behavior.

In the interest of trying to help things run smoothly, Ingeborg tried to anticipate her husband’s needs, but her efforts only seemed to make him more demanding. When she took Thorliff’s small hand in hers and went to stand at the rail, she could ignore Roald’s black looks and muttered comments. She knew very well what was bothering him: she hadn’t told him she was sorry for leaving the boardinghouse the day before.

But she wasn’t sorry. Not one whit.

If Roald had done as she asked, she never would have ventured forth. She never would have met David Jonathan Gould, her guardian angel. His kindness made her feel like . . . like . . . Ingeborg couldn’t come up with a word to describe her feelings. Imagine her, an immigrant only one day off the boat, riding around New York City in a horsecab. The day before, she’d been dragging bundles through the streets. Riding in a horsecab with leather seats was certainly far better.

She tried to not think about what it must have cost, but it was like trying to stop a windstorm. Imagine, having the money to hire a cab to assist someone you’d never before met and never would see again.

“Mor, Mor,” Thorliff cried.

She ignored the sudden pang brought by the thought of never seeing her guardian angel again and bent down to answer Thorliff’s question. She could tell by the way he tugged on her skirts that he’d been trying to get her attention for a long while. “What is it, child?”

“Look, we’re almost there. Far called us.” He pointed to the squared-off prow of the dingy white ferry.

Now Ingeborg did feel a stab of guilt. She should have been helping Kaaren with the baby and their valises. “Mange takk, den lille. You are good to remind your mor this way. Now let’s go see what we can do to help. We have lots of things to carry.”

By the time they transferred their belongings to a cart, crossed to the Pennsylvania Railroad station, and boarded, a thick silence,
punctuated only by the grunts of the two men stowing their belongings, had fallen on the group. Even Thorliff, creator of a myriad of questions, had discovered that staying out of his father’s way and keeping quiet made good sense.

Ingeborg kept him close to her, finding little things for him to do to ease the tension and pass the time away. She slipped him a cookie out of the well-filled basket provided by Mrs. Flaksrude and winked to let him know he should keep the treat a secret.

Kaaren had done her part by shooing other passengers away from the facing double seats. Carl had claimed them for his families when he carried the first load on the car. When they finally could all sit down, they sighed in unison.

“Thanks be to God.” Kaaren shifted little Gunhilde in her arms to free one hand to clasp that of her husband.

“Ja, you have said that right.” Carl leaned his head on the seat back. “Why is it that we who have so little right now seem to have so much?”

“It will seem like blessed little when we reach our homestead.” Roald drew a long list from his breast pocket and studied it for the hundredth time. “The way our funds are dwindling, I don’t see how we will ever buy all that we need to get started. The money slips away like grain draining out a hole in the sack.” The frown deepened above his bushy eyebrows. He shook his head and traveled one finger down the paper. “We are going to need all of these things if we’re going to get crops in next spring.”

Ingeborg knew the list by heart, having been a part of all the family discussions around the oak table on what to bring with them and what to buy when they arrived in Amerika. But there had been no more money to be found anywhere in the family. All the relatives had donated everything they could earn, beg, or spare. The immigrants would have to make do with what they had. There was nothing new in that.

Ingeborg glanced up at the sound of angry shouting. At the far end of the car, a huge man in black pants and a once-white shirt held another by the jacket front; he lifted him clear off the wooden seat. A frightened woman beside the strung-up person appeared to be pleading for mercy. Ingeborg was beginning to realize how much she could tell about others just by watching them and listening to their tone of voice.

She placed her hands over Thorliff’s ears and bent her head to rest her cheek on his curly hair. After the early morning rising and
all the excitement of the streets of New York, he lay curled in her lap, sound asleep, his forefinger and thumb slipping out of his mouth. Ingeborg felt her heart swell with love for the child. One day he would have land of his own because of the long, hard journey they had endured. The struggle was for their children, for a new life for all of them. She had to remind herself of their dreams, for at the present moment, if offered the chance, she would climb right back on the ship and head home to Norway.

Oh, to see Tante Maria again, her far and mor, brothers and sisters, the hills behind their house, covered with pine trees still trimmed with snow. To breathe the clean, nip-your-nose air. She unintentionally drew in a deep breath and carefully hid a cough. The smell of damp wool, unwashed bodies, wet babies, and burning coal was almost more than she could bear.

The whistle blew and the train jerked forward. As they pulled out of the soot-stained station, Ingeborg craned her neck for one last look at the large city across the water. When a fleeting thought of a tall man in a gray wool topcoat intruded upon her reverie, she quickly shut the door on that particular memory. She had met him, enjoyed their brief time together, and would be forever grateful for his generous treatment of a lost immigrant. And that would be that.

Carl reached for the basket. He removed the jar of coffee and poured each of them a small cup. He handed them all a cookie and said, “I propose a toast.” He held his coffee up. “To our new life in our new land. And to a change. We have been spelling Amerika with a k. That is not the way it is spelled in this country. America is spelled with a
c.
We will learn many other new words, and from now on, we will be Americans.”

Roald shook his head but added his “here, here” to the others.

Kaaren and Ingeborg clanked cups and drank their treat, letting Thorliff dip his cookie in their coffee. He giggled and said, “Here, here,” raising his cookie just as the adults had.

Ingeborg leaned back against the seat.
Bless you, Carl, for giving us some joy on this journey. We all need to be reminded about the joy
.

By late afternoon, they all felt as if they’d been on the train forever. If Thorliff had asked, “When will we get there?” once, he’d asked it a hundred times. And they were stiff and sore from hours of sitting on the hard wooden benches.

“Here, you take the baby, and I’ll entertain Thorliff.” Kaaren roused herself from the much needed nap she’d collapsed into and
extended the closely wrapped infant to Ingeborg. “I need to go to the necessary, anyway.”

Ingeborg watched as the younger woman adjusted to walking down the swaying aisle. Despite the few days of rest, Kaaren still looked a little pale, and Ingeborg recognized the flinches of pain, no matter how hard her sister-in-law tried to disguise them. While Ingeborg had never had a baby herself, she’d watched her mother massage her stomach in that same way when she thought no one was looking.

The infant in her arms whimpered, so Ingeborg set to rocking against the back of the seat. “Hush now, den lille, your mother will be back soon, and it wasn’t that long ago that you ate, anyway.” She looked out the sooty window to see the outskirts of a small town before the train passed clickety-clack by. A blanket of snow covered the ground, and it appeared to be falling again. Maybe they should have waited until spring to travel, as they’d been advised. But Roald had insisted they be on the land, their own land, by the time the snow melted.

She caught back a sigh. Right now, spring seemed as far off as eternity.

By evening, Thorliff had made friends with the two dark-eyed boys across the aisle, and the car rang with the merry shouts of children. Ingeborg smiled at the boy’s mother, for, unlike the playing children, their only method of communication was to smile at each other.

Roald and Carl returned in time to share the basket of food Mrs. Flaksrude had fixed for them. But other than that, they spent most of their time with a group of men from the next car who were also heading west to homestead. When the train stopped, as it so frequently did, Ingeborg could see the men striding up and down the station platform, their breaths creating puff clouds as they walked and talked.

“Next time they are going to take Thorliff with them,” Ingeborg muttered.

“You know men, they don’t like to be bothered with small boys,” Kaaren said, then shifted on the hard bench, trying to get comfortable.

“Humph.” Ingeborg settled herself more securely into the corner, a blanket she’d drawn from their valise folded behind her. She rubbed her stomach and swallowed carefully. Was this queasy feeling gnawing in her stomach from something she’d eaten, or was it
because of Roald’s babe she carried?

“Are you all right?” Kaaren leaned forward to look more closely in the gloomy light. Kerosene lamplight gave everyone a yellow tinge and deep shadows.

“I will be.” Ingeborg gritted her teeth.

“You look terrible. See, you are even perspiring, and it is not that warm in here.”

Ingeborg bolted to her feet and flew down the aisle, careening off the seat backs in her desperation. She shoved open the door of the necessary and threw up.

“Are you all right?” Ingeborg heard Kaaren’s concerned voice as she knocked on the door.

“Ja, I will be,” Ingeborg called out.

“What?” Kaaren said, leaning her ear against the door.

Ingeborg raised her voice and repeated herself.

“Can I get you something? Water, perhaps?” asked Kaaren as she shifted Gunhilde to her shoulder.

“Nei, there is some here.” Ingeborg wet the bit of muslin she kept tucked in her sleeve for a handkerchief and wiped the beads of moisture from her forehead and her mouth. If only the train would stop swaying.

“Are you running a fever?” Kaaren asked when Ingeborg finally made her way back to their seats.

“Nei, I am not sick in that way. Remember when you were in the early months with her?” Ingeborg nodded to the infant sleeping in Kaaren’s arms.

“O-o-h.” Kaaren’s face lit up like a brightly burning candle in the dark. “You are with child. Oh, Ingeborg, I am so happy for you.” Kaaren clasped one of Ingeborg’s frigid hands in her own. “No wonder you . . . you . . .” Her mouth formed a perfect O. “Does Roald know yet?”

Ingeborg shook her head. “I planned to tell him as soon as we stepped foot on our new land, but you know what the last few days have been like. It slipped my mind in all the moving.” She shook her head. The guilt of keeping something this special from her husband made her squirm. To be honest, she just hadn’t felt like telling Roald. While there had been no good time, she knew she could have found a way.

She laid her hand on her still-flat belly and gazed at the sleeping babe in Kaaren’s arms. This certainly wasn’t the best time to be suffering from morning sickness, but maybe this one episode would be
the only incident. She couldn’t afford to be sick now. There was so much to do when they reached the end of their journey. And what would Roald say?

A day later, after countless trips up the aisle, Ingeborg thought maybe she really did have some intestinal disorder. But if so, it hadn’t seemed to bother anyone else, at least not as far as she could tell.

The train slowed and ground to a squealing halt. She stared out the window, but as for the past several hours, all she could see was blowing snow. The flakes glistened like flashes of white in the light from the kerosene lamp.

The uniformed conductor entered from the rear door and called out commands in what Ingeborg was beginning to recognize as American.

Several of the men got to their feet and, after donning heavy coats, caps, and gloves, followed the conductor out the door. A gust of wind sent a swirl of flakes into the car.

Carl and Roald reached for their coats.

“Where are you going?” Kaaren asked softly.

“I think they need help. We were told that passengers should assist the crew in shoveling when the snow drifts too deeply over the tracks.” Carl wrapped a long scarf around his neck and pulled on his mittens. “You sleep for a while. We’ll be back.”

Ingeborg watched the exchange from the warmth of her quilted cocoon. Snow or not, right now she felt deeply grateful that the train had ceased its swaying.

For what seemed like hours, the train intermittently waited, pulled forward a ways, and then waited again. Each time they cleared a drift away, the men came in, gathered around the potbellied stove at one end of the car to get warm, and then, when the train stopped again, headed back outside to clear the track.

While the men labored in the biting cold, a woman at the end of the car kept the stove stoked with coal and a large coffeepot boiling on top. They counted the hours from one drift to another.

Ingeborg awoke to another heaving attack. Afterward, in the necessary, she discovered bright stains of scarlet.