An Untamed Land (19 page)

“Grace of God, my friend. How do you think my sea-loving brother is going to like this flat land of ours?” The three men studied the horizon now smothered in black clouds. The restless wind blew shards of ice and jerked on their coats as if seeking warmth itself. “Here, let me take your horses, and you go on up to the soddy. Marte will be so glad to see a new face. She’s probably already set the table. The coffee’s always hot.”

“Can I help you?” Carl asked.

“Nei, nei, I did the chores early when I saw that cloud begin to swell. I’ll feed your horses while you get warmed. We might be snowed under for a couple days again.”

“I thought spring was here.” Carl handed the reins to the giant. “Could have fooled me.”

“It’ll come, but winter has to battle back a few times yet. The first year we was here, we had snow flurries on the first of May. But by mid-May the garden was up. You’ll find that when the sun shines and the ground thaws, things grow so fast you can see it, just like they do at home.”

The biting wind whistled through the bars of the corral and moaned at the eaves of the sod barn. “You two go on now. Marte and the little ones will skin me alive for keeping you out here.” He turned and clucked the horses to follow.

Carl and Roald, quilts and bags bundled under their arms, made their way to the solid wood door, the slabs obviously having been cut by a hand that knew wood and knew how to form it. One knock and the door flew open as if by itself.

“Company!” A little girl, with braids so white they nearly matched the snow and a grin that showed one front tooth missing,
danced in place, one arm waving them in while the other tried to keep the door from banging all the way open.

A woman’s voice from the dim interior ordered with a laughing tone, “Don’t just stand there letting the storm freeze them and us, invite them in.” A tall woman, still tying a clean white apron in place, met them as they ducked under the doorframe and stepped into the soddy. Two candles on the table and the flickering flames from the fireplace lit the dark room. As Carl and Roald had already learned, the black windowless walls deepened the gloom, making one feel as if they were closed in a box.

“God dag. We are Roald and Carl Bjorklund, recently of Valdres, Norway, and we know your brother-in-law. We worked on the same fishing boat.”

“Well, imagine that.” Even before the introductions were finished, she had poured two cups of steaming coffee and set them on the table. “Here, let me take your coats, and you make yourselves to home. Supper will be ready as soon as Ole finishes with the stock.”

The two brothers took places at a plank table lined by benches on both sides. The little girl who greeted them drew her younger brother from behind his mother’s skirts and plopped him down beside her on the bench next to Carl.

“Do you have children?” Her blue eyes crinkled at the corner exactly like her mother’s.

“A baby girl born on the boat over, and my brother has a five-year-old boy named Thorliff. How old are you?”

“I’m six, and when we get a school closer to home, I will go to it.”

Roald looked at his brother over the rim of his cup. Children were always drawn to Carl, and not only children, but adults as well. He looked around the sparsely furnished room. A rope bed covered with quilts and a buffalo robe sat in one corner, and the narrow bed in the other was obviously for the children. A spinning wheel sat next to a bag of wool with carding paddles on top of it. Looped and tied skeins of yarn hung from the rafters, as did bunches of dried herbs and bags of food, to keep them away from the varmints. Shelves lined one wall above a trunk decorated with the rosemaling of the Valdres region. Every inch of space showed the hard work and ingenuity of the couple.

Our house will look like this next winter
, Roald promised himself.
And we will hang a bed from the wall, like we do on the ships. Between
us, Carl and I will accomplish much
.

Discussion over the delicious deer stew and thick bread Marte served ranged from life on the prairie to what they had heard from home. When Carl asked about land to be homesteaded, Ole nodded around the wreath of smoke from the pipe he clenched in his teeth.

“Ja, there is good land to the north and to the east of us. The Little Salt River is about eight miles to the north, and we are about four miles from the Red. The town of St. Andrew is located on the north side of the mouth of the Little Salt. There aren’t very many settlers in the area yet. This part of the country was a no-man’s-land between the warring Indians.

“Indians? I thought they were all on reservations.” Roald propped his elbows on the table.

“They are, but folks have been slow to settle here, anyway. We see some Metis and a wandering brave or two.”

“Metis?”

“They’re neither Indian nor French but a combination of the two from the days of the fur traders.”

“Half-breeds.”

“Yes, but you don’t want to call them that. I don’t see no harm in them. I heard tell that the Metis shot all the buffalo around here, but I don’t always believe everything I hear. I traded wheat for that buffalo robe you see over there. Robes like that help keep out the cold better’n any quilt or blanket I’ve seen.”

In the pause of the conversation, Roald could hear the wind howling at the door and the chimney. The cold outside made him appreciate both the warmth of the stove and the warmth of the family that welcomed strangers.

“We do appreciate your taking us in like this. I’d hate to be caught out on the prairie in weather like that.” He nodded toward the door.

“Ja, I learned early to string a rope from the house to the barn when a blizzard blows up. Men have been known to wander off and not be seen or heard from again. If the wind don’t get you, the wolves will.”

Roald felt Carl shudder beside him. As a young boy, Carl had had a run-in with a wolf. The wolf had taken the lamb they fought over, but Carl had saved the remainder of the flock.

Later, when he and Carl were bedded down on a pallet in front of the fireplace, visions of home blew through his mind. He could see it as if he were standing right in front of it—the two-story log
house built securely into the hillside, grass growing from the roof, and the lower level held up by a solid rock foundation. Here the wind would blow away a house like that. The mountains of Norway stood tall and white, and the fjords were deep and blue, reflecting the white clouds passing overhead and the pines and aspen in the high pasture. He tucked the quilt more firmly around his shoulders. This was home now, this windblown prairie, and here he would stake out his land.

Two days later, after the storm had blown itself out and the sun returned to melt the snow, they found their land.

M
rs. Bjorklund, is it really you?”

Ingeborg felt the tray shake in her hands at the same moment she heard the dishes rattle. She watched the man stand and, with a very private smile, remove the heavy tray from her hands and set it on an empty table.

“I am glad to see you again, Mr. Gould.” She stopped her hands from twisting in her apron. “Welcome to Headquarters Hotel. I hope your business is going well.” Only through a supreme act of will did she keep her voice steady. That same act of will kept her from reaching up to tuck a wayward strand of hair under her coronet of braids.

“Yes, it is. But if you are still in Fargo, you must not have found land to homestead yet?”

“My husband and his brother Carl are out looking for land now.” Ingeborg heard mutterings from the waitress and guests at other tables. “Excuse me, I have work to do.” She whirled around, took up her tray, and headed for the door to the kitchen.

“My land, child, what’s gotten into you?” Mrs. Johnson looked up from stirring more batter. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No, just a friend. No, I mean an acquaintance, a . . .” Ingeborg could feel herself making the situation worse. She picked up two plates and hustled back out to the dining room. No one liked to have cold food, not for the handsome prices they paid at Headquarters Hotel.

While placing the plates in front of two men, she scolded herself for acting like such a ninny. With a smile she pointed to their empty coffee cups and went to get the pitcher to refill them. She kept her
gaze away from the table where David Jonathan Gould sat with three other men.

Now, straighten yourself up and go fill their coffee cups. That is your job today, so do it
. She went from table to table, pouring coffee, nodding when someone said something to her in English. They could have been talking Russian for all she knew. All the English she had so laboriously learned had suddenly flown right out of her head. What was Gould doing here? Had he been here for sometime, and she didn’t know it? This kind of gentleman did not look in the kitchen for his friends.

“Mange takk,” he said softly.

“Velbekomme.” She let herself steal a glance at him and remembered New York, the cab ride, and his gracious helpfulness to a foreigner. Her spine straightened, her shoulders squared, and her chin lifted just enough to become . . . to be . . . “More coffee?” Her English returned and with it a smile that set her heart to thrumming and her feet skimming the floor.

He held out his cup. “Thank you.”

She filled his cup and the others at his table. “More food?”

The older man to his left nodded. Ingeborg took his plate back to the kitchen, filled it, and returned with a plate of biscuits hot out of the oven.

“Thank you, that looks delicious.” The man tucked his napkin back in his vest and helped himself.

“You are welcome.” A slight nod from Gould, along with the twinkle in his eye, let her know she was doing well.

By the time the early morning rush was over, Ingeborg was well into preparing food for the dinner menu. Stuffed chickens were in the ovens baking, potatoes were in the pot and ready to boil, and another batch of bread was rising. They had baked the pies and cakes the night before, so these stood ready on the sideboard.

“Here, sit for a moment and drink this.” Mrs. Johnson pointed to the chair opposite hers and handed Ingeborg a cup of coffee. “What was it that flustered you earlier this morning? You’d of thought you stole Pearl’s beau, the way she looked daggers at you.”

“Uff da, it was nothing. The kind man who helped me find my way when I was lost on the streets of New York was here to eat today.” Ingeborg sipped her coffee and leaned gratefully against the back of the chair.

“Um-m-m.”

“He was very good to me. I . . .” Ingeborg snapped her jaw shut. She was explaining too much.

“Um-m-m, I see.”

Ja, well I’m certainly glad you do, for I don’t at all
. Ingeborg rotated her head, trying to pull the kinks out. Those trays were heavy.

“Did Mr. Bjorklund get off this morning?”

Ingeborg nodded, a nagging guilt making her wince inwardly. Except for telling Mr. Gould the men had left, and after praying them into God’s hands for safe keeping, she hadn’t given them a moment’s thought. She drained her cup. “I better get back to the oven and check on those chickens. I’ll start the venison steaks too. They can simmer on the back of the stove.” When she rose to her feet, the familiar ache in her back twinged enough to make her dig her fists in it for relief.

“I have a personal question to ask.” Mrs. Johnson set her coffee cup down. At Ingeborg’s nod, the older woman continued in a soft voice meant only for the two of them. “Are you in the family way? What with your back so sore and all? I know’d you to turn green and run for the bucket a few times.”

Ingeborg nodded. “But that part seems to be over now.”

“And you’re fixing to drive north to homestead in the next month or so?”

Ingeborg nodded again.

Mrs. Johnson shook her head. “You heed my words. You need to take better care of yourself, so you can bring a healthy babe into this world of toil and tears. I seen you rubbing your back some, and I knows what it’s like.” She nodded again, her double chins bobbling with her motherly scolding.

“Thank you for your concern.” Ingeborg felt tears sting at the back of her throat. Mrs. Johnson had sounded so stern when she’d first started working here. Now, she’d become a dear friend. “I try to be careful.”

Mrs. Johnson snorted and rolled her eyes. “Ja, and I’m a German princess.”

The door to the dining room flew open and Pearl came into the kitchen, took a piece of paper from her apron pocket, and thrust it at Ingeborg. “This here’s for you. That swell you was talking to left it for you.”

Ingeborg glanced at the paper, grateful it was written in Norwegian so Pearl couldn’t read it.
Please tell me what time you will be
off work so we may talk before you leave for home. Sincerely, D.J. Gould
.

She looked up to find both Mrs. Johnson and Pearl studying her. She could feel the heat flaming into her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said in careful English and stuffed the bit of paper into her pocket. Whatever did he want to see her for?