An Untamed Land (31 page)

That afternoon the babe slept in her aunt’s arms.

Ingeborg awoke to the sight of Metis bending over her. Startled, she jerked and woke the baby, who instantly yelled as though she’d been pinched. “Sorry,” Ingeborg muttered. Did the woman always move without making a sound? Metis nodded and laid a hand against Ingeborg’s forehead. When she shook her head, Ingeborg agreed. “There’s no fever. You have been a good doctor.”

Metis smiled, her dark eyes hooded by lids so papery they looked transparent. The deep wrinkles that grooved her face could have been sculpted with a knife, so precise they lay. And when she smiled, Ingeborg could not help but smile back.

Ingeborg thanked her again. Metis said something, raised a hand in farewell, and slipped out the back of the wagon. Ingeborg could hear her and Kaaren talking by the fire. The fragrance of bread baking made her stomach rumble. With one hand she rocked the now gurgling infant, and with the other she fingered the long golden plait that lay across her shoulder. It was time to get up and about, but she didn’t know if her legs would even hold her if she tried to stand.

They didn’t.

She grabbed for the hoop above her, banged into the trunk, and sat down heavily on a box.

“What are you trying to do?” Kaaren appeared at the open wagon end and, after one look at her patient, climbed in without seemingly touching the endgate. “You should know better than to get up without help. Have you no idea how sick you’ve been?” All the while she scolded, Kaaren bustled about, righting the quilts and pallet and
easing Ingeborg back down. “And what did this do to your head, may I ask?”

Ingeborg didn’t answer—she couldn’t. Between trying to keep her head from falling off and her stomach down where it belonged, she just kept her eyes closed and moved whatever way Kaaren indicated. When she was prone again, and the world had quit spinning, she opened one eye. Kaaren stood over her, hands planted on her hips. Keeping her eyes closed seemed the wiser of actions for the moment. And safer.

“Ah, Ingeborg, please be patient. Metis says head injuries take some time to recover. You will be dizzy and suffer headaches for even weeks, let alone be weak from all the blood you lost losing the baby.”

“What does Metis know about all this? Is she a doctor? You treat her as if she’s the voice of God.” Ingeborg regretted the words the minute they were out of her mouth. She was acting like a spoiled child.

“No, she’s not a doctor, but a very wise woman who is becoming a good friend, even though we are homesteading the land she says the government had given her husband.”

Ingeborg tried to pay attention, but a lassitude stole up from her feet and circled her head, alleviating the pain and bringing the blessed relief of healing sleep. Her last thoughts were of Metis. God brought angels in different disguises: David Jonathan Gould in New York and Metis in Dakota Territory. Was this really the old woman’s land?

I
ngeborg, Kaaren, where are you?”

Silence reigned in the Bjorklund camp. Neither woman was busy bustling about the campfire. Where were they? What was going on?

Roald searched for clues as to their whereabouts. Off in the distance he could see Carl and the horses with a small figure astride Belle. So Thorliff was with Carl. The cooking fire had burned down to the coals, but since patches of red heat were still visible, he knew they hadn’t been gone too long. The coffeepot sat on the edge but would probably still be warm. The long trench where they had dried the meat now lay cold in gray ashes. Then he saw the water bucket was missing.
Ah
, he thought,
they must be down at the river
.

Knowing the oxen needed a drink from their long walk, he slapped the reins on their backs with a strong “gee” to turn them toward the river.

“Who’s there?” a quavery voice called out. “Roald, is that you?”

“Ja, Ingeborg, what is wrong?” He halted the oxen and tied their reins to the rim of the wagon wheel, tangling the leather lines in his haste. With one foot on the wagon gate, he swung into the shaded interior. “Oh, Ingeborg! What has happened to you?” Instead of the rosy-cheeked woman he had left a few days ago, his wife now lay on a pallet with a drawn face the color of pale milk, and eyes huge and lost above pronounced cheekbones. She still wore her night-clothes in the middle of the afternoon.

He slumped to his knees beside the makeshift bed. With one finger he stopped the trail of tears that seeped from her eyes. “You are crying.”

The softness of his voice melted her resolve to be strong. “Oh, Roald, the baby. I lost the baby.” Ignoring the headache at the abrupt
movement, she flung herself into his arms and sobbed great, heart-wrenching cries against his chest.

Roald held her close, letting her cry and stroking her back. His son, there would be no son. When the sobs subsided to hiccups, he asked, a catch in his throat causing him to stammer, “How? What happened?”

Ingeborg told the story between hiccups and gasps, wiping her tears on his shirtfront. “The wolf, he didn’t move, but he frightened me so.”

“A wolf?”

“Ja, he sat looking at me, and when I threw the fish at him, I slipped and fell.” She finished the story to his silence.

“Did Carl kill the wolf?”

Ingeborg shook her head.

“Why?”

What a strange question to ask. Doesn’t he care about the baby?
She closed off the question
and me?
before it could be completed. The storm spent, she drew back and looked up into his face. Brows met over his eyes, but of his thoughts and feelings there was no other sign.

“We must thank Metis. She saved my life.”

“Metis?”

“The woman who says she owns this land. She came to talk with you, but we did not understand her, remember?”

“Ja, but she doesn’t own this land. It is ours. I will file all the necessary papers as soon as the surveyors come through, and then we must prove it up.”

“I know but . . .” She rubbed her forehead, the ache making her vision blur. Or was it the tears?

“There is no but. This land is mine.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I must water the oxen and . . .”

“You found a team, then?” She lay back against the pillowed box so she could sit up. She ignored the pain.

“Ja, but no plow, and the oxen are young.” He started to leave. “Kaaren is at the river?”

“Ja.”

“Does she have the gun?”

Ingeborg blinked to bring him into perspective. “Nei, you know she can’t shoot a gun.”

“Then she will learn. I will not have a wolf terrorizing my family.
If he stayed that close, he is not afraid of humans, and that is a dangerous thing.”

He stepped down from the wagon, the jolt of it making her close her eyes.
How strange. He’s been so adamant that women shouldn’t shoot guns, and now he is just as adamant on the other side. If I’d had the gun, would I have shot it?
She listened as he spoke to the oxen and drove them off to the river. The thought hadn’t entered her mind before.
Why didn’t the wolf run away? Why did it sit right there in the open as if it owned the land? What would I do if I saw it again?
The questions had no answers. But thinking back to Roald’s strange reaction brought the tears again, no matter how hard she fought them. Was her dream of seeing Roald smile dying like the baby before its time?

That night Roald lifted Ingeborg from the wagon and laid her on a quilt with the log to prop her back. She looked around the campfire, feeling a part of the family again in spite of the headaches.

“It’s only been four days since you fell,” Kaaren whispered in her ear as she bent down with a filled plate. “You must eat and rest and continue to drink the tea Metis left for you.”

“I know, and it helps the pain, so I look forward to the bitter stuff. But we have so much to do, and you cannot do it all.”

“You let me worry about that.”

“You never worry, that’s what bothers me.”

“I let God handle the worrying. He’s bigger than I am.” The last was said with a smile as the younger woman turned to answer a question from her husband.

Ingeborg shut her mind against thoughts of a caring God. Had she not prayed so long for a baby, and now it was gone? And she had believed He was a God of love. What kind of love was that? No. He was a God of judgment, punishing her for her many sins. And Roald going about the farming as if nothing had happened. Didn’t he care at all? She closed her eyes against the tears that seemed to lurk right behind her eyelids. Refusing to dwell anymore on the painful thoughts, she turned back to the discussion between the two men.

“I must go to Grand Forks in the next few days,” Roald said after a brief silence.

“But why?” Ingeborg asked.

The men looked over at her as if the log had spoken.

“We need to borrow money from the bank if we are to buy another plow and a cow, that is, if we can find one. We need seed, more
plowshares, the list goes on and on.”

“But we said we would not go so far into debt, and that we would pay as we go.” Ingeborg clutched her head to stem the dizziness that came from speaking so forcefully.

Silence fell around the camp, broken only by the snapping sticks in the cook fire. She could feel everyone’s eyes staring at her, even Thorliff’s.

“That is my decision to make.” The words came out flat and hard, bitten off.

Ingeborg felt as if she’d been struck. “But I . . . we worked so hard and . . .” She couldn’t continue against the glacial quiet that was her husband. She set her plate to the side and gathered her legs under her to stand.

“Ingeborg, no!” Kaaren tore around the fire and to her side. “Let me help you.”

Roald carefully set Kaaren aside and leaned down to lift Ingeborg. He hefted her up to his chest as if she weighed no more than Thorliff and without a word carried her back to the wagon and set her inside. Still, without talking, he climbed in, lifted her again and settled her on the pallet.

Ingeborg felt tears of frustration burning behind her eyelids. A newborn kitten had more strength than she. “Mange takk.”

Roald dipped his head in response and returned to the campfire and his meal.

Or at least, that is what she supposed. She tried to find a comfortable position, but the pain was unbearable. She turned again, only to find him beside her, holding a cup for her to drink. The bitter tea slid down easily, taking the tears with it. While she said the “mange takk” in her mind, she did not release the words. Surely a man who didn’t care would not handle her so gently. Comforted by the thought, she drifted off to sleep.

Roald threw himself into the sod busting as if to bury his sorrow under the turning earth. Perhaps pushing the plow through the matted grasses would keep him from thinking. No more baby. Of course his father would say, “There will be others. Ingeborg is strong and things like this are just God’s will.” Roald no more wanted to knuckle under God’s will than the prairie wanted to roll over and become wheat fields.

They had worked hard and prayed—for what? He shut off the dismal thoughts and turned the corner to start down the south leg of the ever-growing field. If his pastor knew what he’d been thinking, he would have thrown him out of the church for blasphemy. One did not question the Lord God of Hosts.

Uff da. He stopped the horses to check the plow and, after knocking the sod away, ran a practiced eye over the share rim. So dull already it wouldn’t cut cheese. With a glance at the sun peeking out from mare’s tail clouds, he could tell it wasn’t even midmorning yet. He wiped the sweat from his brow. The share was beyond filing; it would need to be hammered out again.

He slapped the reins. “Gee-up.” Bob and Belle, heads nodding, threw their weight into the collars, and Roald rammed the plow back under the sod. It would have to do until noon. They needed another plow, let alone a plowshare. So many things they had taken for granted in Norway, and here they did without and suffered. He batted a persistent fly from drinking the moisture around his eyes. He should be wearing a fly guard like the one he’d fashioned out of an old sack for the horses.