An Untamed Land (12 page)

P
lease, God, no, I want this baby. Don’t take it away before it even has breath. Please,” Ingeborg pleaded. She hadn’t even told Roald the good news yet, and now it may be too late.

After adjusting her clothing, she poured a few drops of water from the bucket into her handkerchief and patted her mouth, wishing for the pure, clear water that flowed in the mountain streams back home. The thought of drinking out of this communal pail made her gag again.

By now, most everything made her gag: eating, not eating, the smell of other people’s food, the sway of the train, the stench of drying wool from the coats hung about the stove. Grabbing the backs of the seats, she slowly made her way back to their seats. Fear settled in the middle of her breast and wrapped its tentacles around her heart.

Was this a harbinger of things to come? She shuddered at the thought.

She tried to put a composed look on her face, but when she sat down, she couldn’t help noticing Kaaren’s worried look.

“What is it? What is wrong?” Kaaren whispered urgently.

Ingeborg glanced at the sleeping men and children and shook her head, placing a finger on her lips. “I’ll tell you later,” she whispered back, so softly that she wasn’t certain Kaaren had heard her. The younger woman nodded but didn’t take her gaze off Ingeborg’s face.

Ingeborg slipped into a troubled sleep, with Thorliff leaning against her. It seemed only moments before she awoke with a start, sure that the scream she’d heard had been her own. The dream had been so vivid she could still feel her heart pounding. In it, Roald
had been furious with her. He had even raised his fist.

His voice still echoed in her ears. “You never told me, and now you lost the baby. I need more sons. What is the matter with you?”

She glanced to his sleeping form beside her, soft snores puffing his lips. When could she tell him? Here? Amidst all the restless immigrants and their squalling children?

Ingeborg closed her eyes again, hoping to stem the queasiness already welling within her. Like all else she’d tried lately, that too failed. Gently moving Thorliff, she headed for the necessary once again.

As she staggered down the aisle, she thought of her mother. Had she been sick like this when she carried her babies? Oh, to be at home and feel her mother’s gentle healing hands on her forehead.

She shoved against the closed door. Locked. Someone was in there. She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the vision of their home high above the fjord. The snow lay crystalline about the house, bending the pine boughs low with the weight. The air sharp, clean. Her attention jerked back to the railcar. She must have breathed deeply by accident, for the heavy odors from the car started her to gagging again.

Oh, would this journey never end?

Roald awoke to find his wife curled in her corner of the seat, pale and shaking. “Ingeborg, what is the matter?” He laid a hand on her forehead to check for fever, but she shook her head. “Are you ill?”

Ingeborg shook her head again as tears leaped up her raw throat and threatened to spill from her eyes at the kindness and concern in his voice.

“Then, what is it?”

“I . . . I wanted to tell you at a better time, but this child of yours seems to be causing all kinds of problems.”

“This child of . . .” The light dawned on his face like that of a bright sun rising. “You are carrying my son?”

Leave it to a man. Ingeborg shook her head and smiled in spite of her misery. “Bear in mind that this one could be a daughter. But yes, we will have a baby before fall.”
If I carry it that long.
She refused to allow the thought to take root. She would bear this child. She
would
.

She watched her husband’s strong face as he thought through the news. He nodded his head, and when he turned to look at her again, the smile she’d always dreamed of lifted the corner of his mouth.

“That is good.” He nodded again. “That is very good.”

Ingeborg’s tide of emotion burst, but she hid her tears in his shoulder. He had smiled! A smile that rode an arrow directly to her heart and spread throughout her chest. Within moments, her stomach settled, and she fell back asleep, exhausted, but peaceful.

They reached Chicago six hours past the designated morning arrival time. Coming in, they’d passed acres of stockyards filled with thousands of cattle raising a cloud of steam on the frigid air.

“Look, Far. See all the cows. We are going to have cows on our farm and sheeps, too.” Thorliff bounced in front of the window as if during the night someone had filled his pant legs with springs. “So many cows. Why are they all in the pens?”

“They are ready to be butchered so people will have meat to eat.” Carl set the child back on his feet after a particularly hard jolt of the train sent the boy careening into his uncle’s knees.

“We will have milk from our own cow. I’m going to learn how to milk it, Far said.”

“Don’t you want meat too?”

Ingeborg watched the wheels turning in her small son’s mind. He’d been part of the butchering that fall before they left and understood that to have meat, the animal must die.

“Ja, but”—a grin stretched his rosy cheeks—“we will have to have two cows and calves too.”

“You are a smart one, you are.” Carl tousled the boy’s curly hair. “How about we go out on the platform so you can see better? Get your coat and hat; it’s cold out there.”

Ingeborg watched them go, grateful for the reprieve from Thorliff’s unending questions.

“Now, you will tell me what frightened you so terribly.” Kaaren had shifted Gunhilde to the opposite arm and was carefully keeping the nursing infant covered with a quilt over her shoulder.

“I found bleeding.” The stark words stabbed anew.

“Has there been more?”

Ingeborg shook her head.

“Then you needn’t worry.”

Ingeborg shot her complacent sister-in-law a look of total disbelief.

Kaaren shook her head again. “I know, I know, it’s frightening.
But many women show spots sometimes. You must take life easier for a time.”

Again, the look, this time accompanied with raised eyebrows.

The train slowed, and the women glanced out to see the brick station looming ahead of them, the tiled mansard roof thrusting above the surrounding area. A huge American flag, flying high above the flat roof, snapped in the wind off Lake Michigan.

Bedlam broke out in the car, with children racing from one end to the other, passengers grabbing their belongings from the overhead shelves and from under seats, and a cacophony of languages, all shouting to be heard.

Baby Gunhilde jerked in her mother’s arms and let out a wail fit to be heard above all the noise. Thorliff, returned by Carl, clutched Ingeborg’s skirts with one grubby hand and watched the goings-on from the safety of his mother’s skirts.

“You sit right here.” Ingeborg picked him up and set him on the seat. “And don’t you move. I’ll not have you wandering off again.” The finger she shook in front of his eyes made him cower back against the seat.

By the time they had all their belongings gathered, unloaded, and reloaded on a four-wheeled handcart with Kaaren and baby perched on the side, Ingeborg wished desperately for a cup of coffee. They had run out of food the night before, with only a crust left for Thorliff’s breakfast. Her stomach growled in protest.

She straightened her spine by rubbing her lower back with kneading fists. At least she wasn’t throwing up, thank God for that. To take her mind off the hunger gnawing in her belly, she studied the vaulted room with its marble floor patterned in alternating square black-and-white tiles. Long wooden seats, set in orderly rows and filled with waiting passengers, took up the center space, while the ticket booths were all off to the sides of the cavernous station. If only the voice calling over the loudspeaker spoke Norwegian so she could understand what was being said. Perhaps they’d missed the train they were to take and would have to wait overnight. Would they stay here and sleep like some of the others stretched out on the hard wooden pews?

“Carl should return soon with something to eat.” Kaaren patted her own midriff to still the growling that dueted with Ingeborg’s. “He said he’d bring coffee too. Surely he will find a loaf of fresh bread that won’t cost so dear.”

Ingeborg snorted. Everything edible anywhere near a train station
cost enough to make the angels cringe. She could tell by the look in Roald’s eyes that he hadn’t been prepared for quite such robbery, no matter how many people had warned him.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait for our next train?” Ingeborg asked.

“Too long,” Roald said. “I will go and see.”

As Roald walked off, Ingeborg studied the picture on the front of the handbill Carl had handed her. If only she could read American. Pictures of birds and plants were covered by a white scroll with words on it. She traced the letters with her finger.

“Next stop, Minneapolis.” Roald strode back across the marble floor toward them, his boots ringing against the stone. “We won’t leave until four o’clock in the afternoon, so we might as well find a place to be comfortable.” He picked up the T-bar iron handle and leaned into pulling the cart. “I saw some empty seats over in that other section.”

Before Thorliff could ask, Ingeborg lifted him onto the few remaining inches on the wagon so he could ride. The grin on his face more than thanked her.

When Carl finally arrived, dusted with snow but with a bundle under his arm, they fell to the simple meal with the hunger of a twenty-four-hour fast. Ingeborg closed her eyes in bliss. Without the constant rocking and smells of the train and its occupants, the bread and milk settled in her stomach, and its contents stayed where they belonged.

The next thing Ingeborg knew, Roald was shaking her gently. “Come, our next train is here, and we can board now.”

Ingeborg blinked her eyes and raised herself from the carpetbag she’d nestled against. “Thorliff?”

“He’s with Carl.” Roald hefted the remaining bags and strode over to the cart, tossing them aboard, making Thorliff laugh.

Ingeborg struggled to get her bearings. She must have slept for hours. How could that be? She licked her dry lips and smoothed her hair back into the coronet of braids that had needed rebraiding for the last two days. She had wanted to use the necessary in the station to get herself back into some semblance of order, but now it was too late.

She thought of the unfinished letter in her reticule for the families
left behind in Norway. She’d started it at the boardinghouse in New York and planned to finish it on the train to mail in Chicago. One thing for certain, she had plenty of exciting news to share. She would have to write later, that was all.

“Are you coming?” Roald returned to her side.

“Of course.” Ingeborg got to her feet, only to feel the queasiness in her middle join forces with the dizziness in her head. She took the cup of cold coffee he handed her and sipped, hoping the liquid would settle her stomach. Where was the necessary? Could she make it to the passenger car and use the one there? If only she could read the signs.

By the time they found Carl, who was stowing the remainder of their baggage above two facing seats, Ingeborg felt her knees buckle. She clamped her fingers around the back of the seat with the force of a drowning victim around a life preserver. She
would not
collapse here in front of all these strangers.

So much for force of will. When Ingeborg came to, Kaaren was wiping her brow, and Ingeborg was lying on a seat padded with their own quilts. If she hadn’t felt so terrible, she might have appreciated the comfort more.

She reached a trembling hand out to Thorliff, who looked as if he’d been crying and might burst into tears again at any moment. “It is all right, den lille, Mor will be better soon.” The whisper rasped on the raw surface of her throat. She smiled as reassuringly as she was able and let her eyes drift closed.
This must be one stubborn baby
, she thought,
to be causing such an uproar
.