An Untamed Land (17 page)

Ingeborg bid her sister-in-law a quiet “good night” and tucked little Thorly into his pallet bed. Together they folded their hands and began their prayer. “Nu lukker seg mitt øye, Gud Fader i det høye, i varetekt meg tag, og takk for denne dag. Amen.” Thorliff drifted off before the amen.

Ingeborg sat with her back against the wall and her arms around her raised knees. She rested her cheek against the wool fabric of her skirt.
Father in heaven, please protect Roald and Carl on their way tonight. I know they are impatient to find our land, and I am too, but here we are safe from the wind and snow, and our money is being replenished. Is it wrong to want to keep them safe?
She paused in a rare moment of introspection. Was it because they were earning more money than any of them dreamed possible? Was she putting money and safety above owning their own land? She scraped her cheek back and forth on the fabric, comforted by the warmth.
Thank you for all you have given us. Amen
.

The cold from the unheated room seeped through her clothes, making her shiver. She’d not started the stove because she knew they would be in the other room. Now she wished she had done so, or that she could take her pencil and paper in the other room and write the long overdue letter home. Had Kaaren written? If so, that letter would have been passed around to all the relatives. She’d ask tomorrow. With a sigh she undressed and crawled under the quilts. She could have brought in a warmed brick to put by her feet. But before she could make the effort, she’d fallen asleep.

When Ingeborg awoke in the predawn chill to get ready for work, she reached beside her and panicked. The place beside her was empty and had not been slept in. Where was Roald?

W
hat had happened to Roald and Carl? Ingeborg threw back the covers and grabbed her wrapper from the bottom of the bed as she shoved her feet into her slippers. When she entered the other room, Kaaren and the baby were still sleeping.

Had she slept only a short time and something had awakened her? But the room was chilled and the fire nearly out, so it must be morning. Where were the men?

God in heaven, protect them
. Her mind played the phrase like a litany without end. She tiptoed out of the room and back to her own. She had to be at work, and there was no sense letting Kaaren worry longer than necessary. Ingeborg dressed quickly with the lamp on dim and, picking up Thorliff’s slate and chalk, wrote Kaaren a message.

“When the men return, ask them to let me know they are all right.” She set the slate just inside the door and hurried out into the darkness.

Her litany for their protection kept time with her feet as she headed toward the hotel. Had they found the farmer? Did they stay there because it got too late? Were they lost on the prairie?
Oh, dear Lord, be with them
. The black sky, pinned in place by a myriad of stars, brought a cold comfort of its own; at least there hadn’t been a snowstorm to trap them. To the north, the aurora borealis flared and subsided in a dance of celestial splendor, all the colors of the rainbow more brilliant against an ebony sky.

Ingeborg kicked the snow off her feet outside the back door of the hotel kitchen and gratefully stepped into the warmth that penetrated even out into the enclosed porch. “Good morning.” Ingeborg pronounced her greeting in English carefully. But she had to revert
to Norwegian to ask the question burning in her mind. “Is the boy Daniel here?”

Mrs. Johnson shook her head. “And to think I trusted that young whelp. Here it is the first morning, and he is already gone.”

“Nei, it is not his fault. Roald and Carl took him back out to his father’s farm last night so they could talk to Mr. Mainwright about buying his horses. They have not returned.”

Mrs. Johnson stopped in the act of adding more coal to the firebox in the larger of the two stoves. “Oh, land.” She finished what she was doing and turned to Ingeborg. “You needn’t worry. There was no storm. It probably got late, and so they spent the night. Mark my words, they’ll be by here on their way to the bridge. Those men of yours wouldn’t miss a day’s wages less’n they were dead or nearly so.”

While the words were meant for comfort, Ingeborg didn’t need a reminder about the alternative. She clutched the message of hope to her breast and tied her apron around her waist. As her mother had always said, “Busy hands keep the mind at peace.”

Soon the bread was in the oven and more set to rise; a large pot of oatmeal simmered on the back of the stove, and she was slicing thick slabs of ham when the door banged open and Daniel burst through.

“Please, I am sorry I weren’t here to start the fires. My pa said we was to spend the night so the Bjorklunds and me wouldn’t freeze to death on the way back to town. We started way before daylight.”

Ingeborg listened with surprise and a sigh of relief. Last night the young fellow hadn’t said one word.

Right then Roald stepped in behind him. “I’m on my way to the bridge. Carl has gone to tell Kaaren we are safe.” He nodded to Mrs. Johnson. “God morgen.”

Worry died as soon as Ingeborg saw her husband’s face. Questions bubbled like the porridge on the stove. “Mange takk, did you . . . ?”

“I will tell you tonight.” He touched a mittened hand to his cap. “Goodbye.” With that he was gone out into the silvering blackness.

Ingeborg shook her head. He was not a man to waste words, that one. But she had to know how they fared. Would asking Daniel be discussing their private business with strangers? As if Mrs. Johnson was a stranger, for that matter.

“Here, have something to eat and warm you up before you start your chores.” Mrs. Johnson handed Daniel a thick slice of bread and
butter, which seemed to disappear into the boy’s mouth in one bite.

As if sensing her curiosity, Daniel continued. “Mr. Bjorklund, he bought the horses offen my pa and said he’d take the wagon too, after my pa kin haul everything to town. My pa said those Bjorklunds are sure good men.” The words were a bit difficult to understand, mixed as they were with half-chewed bread, but it was enough.

Ingeborg heaved a sigh of joy and relief and gave the oatmeal an extra vigorous stir. The men were safe, Roald now had his team of horses, and . . . and they would leave any day for the north to find land. Her relief was short-lived at best. She straightened and dug her fists into her lower back. Here the morning had barely started, and already it was aching something fierce. Did she really want spring to come?

When she arrived back at the boardinghouse that night, the men had just finished eating and were sitting at the table enjoying their final cup of coffee.

“You are home early.” Roald greeted her.

“Ja, that young Daniel, he made the clearing away go so much faster today.” Ingeborg hung up her scarf and coat on the peg near the door. “Is there any coffee left?” She crossed the room to rub her hands over the heat of the stove.

Kaaren handed her a half-filled mug. “I could put some water in it. Most likely it is pretty strong by now, anyway.”

Ingeborg shook her head. Questions about the men’s trip the night before warred for first place. She turned to smile at Carl. “I heard the two of you made life easier for that poor man and his family last night.”

Carl nodded. “Ja, Roald made sure everyone came out ahead on that deal. I never would have thought of a plan like that.”

“Like what?” Kaaren asked the question Ingeborg had been dying to ask.

Roald gave a faint shake of his head, as if discouraging the discussion, but Carl ignored him and went on.

“We went out there to buy the team, you know, and perhaps some other tools and such if they were in good enough shape.” He leaned back in his chair, ever the storyteller. “Well, we got there, thanks to Daniel’s guidance. We never would have found the homestead without that young man, since it was already dark and all. Probably would have gotten lost and frozen to death.”

“Carl, get on with the story.” Kaaren grinned back at her husband.
They all knew how he could stretch out a good tale. Roald snorted and shook his head.

“Ja, ja, I’m getting there. Mainwright invited us into his soddy, and you’d of thought they were animals living in a burrow. No wonder the man can’t wait to get them out of there. But at least they’d had some supper that night; we could smell the beans he’d cooked. Daniel admitted they were nigh unto starving to death.”

Ingeborg clutched her elbows in both hands and stepped closer to the stove. Here in Fargo they had heat and food. Who was to say such a thing couldn’t happen to them? She shivered and leaned forward, wishing Carl would hurry.

“Ja, it was bad,” Carl said with a nod. “Can’t blame the man for wanting to move back east.”

Roald bent over and fished his sack of carving tools out from under the table. He drew a half-formed piece of oak from the sack and, knife in hand, began to shape the ax handle he’d been working on the last few days.

“First, he showed us his horses,” Carl continued. “The team needs some feeding up, but they look sturdy. His wagon will need a good bit of repair, and some of the equipment . . .” He wrinkled his forehead in thought. “There was a plow in bad shape but fixable—come to think of it, no wonder that man didn’t make it as a homesteader. He didn’t keep up his machinery. Right, brother?”

“Ummm.” Roald nodded and eyed the curve of the ax handle that was taking shape.

“So what did you do that made such a good deal for everyone?”

“We bought all he had,” Carl said matter-of-factly.

Ingeborg felt her body reel as if struck by a giant hand. Where would the money come from?

Carl smiled from one woman to the other. “But we only paid him a hundred dollars now, and we will pay the rest when he is ready to leave. For now, he will keep his wagon to load the things he plans to keep. We will have the horses for our trek north, and when we get back, we will hitch them to the loaded wagon and haul what’s left of his family to the train. He has food and money to pay off his debts, we have the horses when we need them, and everybody is happy.”

“Pity you didn’t buy the cow and chickens, too.” Ingeborg couldn’t resist the jibe.

“We would have, but they’d already eaten them all.”

“Not to worry, Inge, we will still have some money to start with.
And Mr. Adams on the bridge assures us that getting a loan at the bank in Grand Forks will not be difficult. Not once we have land to prove up. Credit is easy here, he said. Mr. Probstfield said the same.”

Ingeborg shuddered. She could hear her father’s voice as if he stood in the room.
Owe no man but the debt of love
. What were they getting themselves into?

“I thought the land here was free.”

“Ja, homesteading is. But we will need seed and oxen. And if we pay a portion, the land will be ours sooner.” Roald spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a wayward child.

That is why I think we should stay here longer; we need more money
. The thought never made it to the door of her lips. Squelching thoughts was a habit she’d developed years ago.

The warming weather held, and the following Sunday, Roald and Carl took the sacks of food Kaaren had packed for them, tied rolled quilts across their backs, and swung aboard their heavy-footed mounts. The two horses—one bay and one white—snorted in the predawn cold, sending clouds of steam into the air.

“Now, you are not to worry,” Carl reminded his wife for the third time. “We will return as soon as we can, but don’t begin to look for us before ten days have passed.”

“Be careful.” Kaaren clutched her elbows with both hands. “Go with God.”

Ingeborg looked up at Roald, who, like Carl, rode bareback with a wool blanket for saddle. “You have extra socks now?” She knew he did, for she’d tucked them in herself, but the question hid the words her heart wanted to say. Words she knew he’d not appreciate. Words such as “come back soon,” “I love you,” and “wouldn’t it be better to stay right here and keep adding to our savings for a while longer?”

She stepped back, pasted a smile on her mouth, and waved goodbye. She refused to think about the possible dangers that lay ahead for them. As they trotted up the street, Ingeborg turned the opposite direction and headed for the hotel as Kaaren hurried back inside to check on the sleeping children. Someone in this family had to be earning money.