The Reaper's Song (41 page)

On Palm Sunday a plain hammered-iron cross hung above the new altar, which was fashioned from a slab of maple burl that Olaf salvaged from the sawmill. The gleam of the burnished natural wood looked nothing like the intricately carved altars they were used to in Norway, but as Petar said, “It suits us.” A cross was carved through each of the three-inch-thick sides that supported the altar, and Olaf had curved the fronts and backs of the legs.

“Now ain’t that beautiful?” breathed Agnes.

“We dedicate this altar to the glory of God, with thanks to Olaf Wold and Hjelmer Bjorklund, who so willingly have used their gifts to fashion such beauty for us.” Reverend Solberg looked from the altar to the congregation. “How blessed we are. And now let us sing.” The music rose triumphant as they celebrated Jesus’ ride in majesty into Jerusalem.

“I think this Easter means more to me than any other,” Ingeborg said.

“Why is that?” Katy asked.

“One of our own has come back from looking into the grave, and we can truly rejoice. Thanks be to God. That was a close one.”

“I heard that Anner isn’t the only one to have seen the pit,” Agnes said with a barely perceptible wink.

“No, and probably not the last. So thank God for Easter every day.”

With the coming of warmer days, Zeb took over the training of the young horses, breaking them for both riding and harnessing. He’d already done much of it over the winter, but now he had two teams of young oxen and six horses.

“They’ve still some to grow, but they look to be settling in,” he told Haakan one afternoon. He had one of the young oxen yoked with an older, and the same with the horses, older teaching younger.

“You have a good hand with them. You ever think of going into the horse-raising business?”

“Costs too much.”

“But have you thought about it? If you had a place, what would you do?” They both leaned against the corral, their backs to the sun.

“If I had a place, I’d go west and round up some of the broomtails I been hearing about. I’d bring back mares and young stock, then buy a heavy stallion back east somewhere and begin breeding and
training. I heard you can sell horses to the army too. Back home . . .” He stopped. “Ah well, it is all just a dream, anyway.”

“Anything else?”

Zeb gave him an appraising look. “I’d ask Katy to marry me and make her the happiest woman this side of heaven.” He looked down and scuffed a ridge in the dirt. “Fine dream, but dreamin’s for fools and simpletons.” He looked back at Haakan. “You got a dream?”

“I’m living my dream, only when I came here, I didn’t know this was what I wanted. But God gave me a good shake and said, ‘Open your eyes, son. I have this home and woman for you and two strong sons.’ So I turned my back on the north woods, opened my eyes, and here I am.”

Zeb nodded. “Wish to God all lives could be like that, but sometimes . . .” He heaved a sigh. “Sometimes things just happen.”

Come on, tell me.
Haakan waited.

“Well, I better get back to work. That young filly won’t learn to pull on her own.” He turned away, then back. “Thanks for listening. And asking.”

“Anytime.”
Ask him
. Haakan willed his tongue to say the words, but nothing came of it. A man’s business was his own, and until Zeb either volunteered or asked for help, he wasn’t one to intrude.

“Zeb, I . . .”

“Yes, sir?”

“Ah . . .” He couldn’t do it. “You’re doing a fine job with those animals. I appreciate it.”

“Thank you.”

Haakan strode off to the house, calling himself all kinds of names on the way. What if that had indeed been the prompting of God and he hadn’t followed through?
What kind of a spineless, lily-livered so-and-so are you, Bjorklund?

“Whatever is wrong?” Ingeborg asked after one look at his face.

“Ja, do I wear my feelings on my sleeve or my face too?” The tone of his voice brought Andrew on the run.

“Pa, are you mad?” His eyes rounded and his lower lip quivered.

“Only at myself, Andrew, son.” Haakan picked the boy up and held him high to touch the ceiling.

“Again, Pa,” Andrew shrieked in glee. “I can touch the ceiling.”

Haakan held him up so he could touch the ceiling. Looking down, he saw Deborah in the doorway. “You want to touch the ceiling too?”

She shook her head but her eyes pleaded for him to pick her up.

Haakan set Andrew down on the floor, swatted his rear to make him giggle, and knelt down. He held his arms out and Deborah shuffled over to him, as though afraid if she ran like Andrew he would disappear. “You ready?”

She nodded.

Slowly, clasping her close to his chest, he stood. “Reach up high now.”

As he raised her with his hands clasped firmly about her waist, she clutched his neck, then his hair. Slowly, her grin as wobbly as her hands, she reached up and touched the ceiling. He lowered her a bit, then raised her up again. Her eyes rounded. Her face split in a smile wide as the sun.

“I touched the ceiling.” She laughed down at Haakan. “Again.”

Haakan swallowed around the lump the little girl so often brought to his throat. Life had been mighty hard for her out on the prairie, up to now anyway. He looked over to Ingeborg to see her eyes glistening.

Andrew wrapped his arms around his father’s leg and sat down on his boot. “Ride me?”

“As soon as Deborah gets set.” He put the little girl down and she copied Andrew, sitting herself on his boot toe. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” They hung on to his knees and he walked across the room.

“You two are heavy.”

“More, more.”

“What is all the noise?” Bridget called from the parlor, where she sat at the spinning wheel, her foot pumping the treadle while she fed the wool into the spinning wheel to turn it into yarn.

Haakan waddled into the other room, the two children giggling and urging him on.

“Looks like you got heavy feet.”

“Ja, think I better sit down before I fall down.” Haakan sank into the rocking chair. He patted each of the towheads. “You two go play again. Oh, I know, the woodbox needs filling if we want mor to make supper.”

The two little ones dashed for the door, grabbing their coats as they ran by.

“Zeb talked with you about his feelings for Katy?” Haakan asked Bridget after the children had left.

“No, and he better not bother. No drifter is marrying my daughter.”

“I’d talk with him if’n I were you. I think we can help that young man out. You know Katy’s daft about him.”

“Daft never hurt no one. Marrying a man with secrets does. When he comes clean with what happened in his life, then we can talk.”

“Lots of people put the past behind them and begin a new life going west. He wouldn’t be the first one and certainly not the last. Just a suggestion, mind you.”

With the arrival of spring, the Red River kept on rising until it overflowed the banks and filled every basement with silt and stink. Being only a mild flood, it receded within ten days and left behind enough mess to keep everyone busy.

“Good thing we built the house up high,” Ingeborg said for about the fiftieth time as they scrubbed out the basement. They’d already cleaned the springhouse and the smokehouse. Haakan had the boys out scrubbing the barn walls and trying to catch the chickens who’d taken refuge in the haymow.

“How is Metiz?” Katy asked.

“She says tepees are easier. When the floods come, you just pack up and move.”

“She’s right.” Bridget brushed a lock of gray hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “Spring cleaning will never seem hard again compared to this.”

“It doesn’t happen every year. All depends on how warm it gets in Winnipeg. With the river flowing north, the head melts faster than the mouth. Can cause all kinds of problems.”

“This dirt grows good food, but it sticks worse’n anything I ever saw.” Bridget picked a gob of gumbo off the doorjamb. With the cellar doors swinging upward, they’d had to scrape the wood before they could open the doors. They emptied the cellar, bucket by bucket, until only the ooze remained on the floor. They would let that dry by itself.

“Good thing the floodwaters didn’t get as far as the town. Cleaning the church and school would have been bad.”

“What about the store?” Katy shook her head. “Penny would have lost a lot of her supplies.”

“What with Hjelmer staying in Grafton for his training at the bank, she would have really been in a mess.”

Bridget put her hands on her hips. “I still can’t think of my son as a banker. Hjelmer is a fine blacksmith. Banking ain’t for him.”

“How do you know, Mor?” Katy asked. “He’s never tried. He was always good with numbers, and like Ingeborg said, he made good money off selling land to the railroad. I think he’ll make a fine banker.”

“So who’s going to run his blacksmith shop then?”

Ingeborg dumped her bucket of dirty water over the rose bushes, where the new sprouts were already three inches long. “Anyone else need clean water?”

“Ja, me.” They both handed her their buckets.

Ingeborg stopped at the well and kneaded her aching back with her fists. She always got soft over the winter and paid the price in the spring. She lifted her face to the sun, rejoicing in the warmth. How wonderful to have heat and light again. But this winter hadn’t been so bad. As Haakan had promised, many windows indeed made a difference.

The geese sang their song overhead. The meadowlarks couldn’t quit singing. Ah, to go for a walk and look for the first violet down in the shady places. She shaded her eyes to look across the prairie. The grass had already been coming up before the flood, and now it lay like a haze of green upon the land. She knew if she watched closely enough, she could see it grow.

The lambs gamboled beside their mothers, and two new calves bellered out in the barn. The sow was due to have her piglets any day. With all the babies already born or about to be, Ingeborg couldn’t help but think of herself. All this time and no quickening in her womb. There would be no new baby in this Bjorklund household.

Kaaren was a different matter, however. She was due in June.

“I wouldn’t care when it was,” Ingeborg muttered as she drew the water and filled the buckets. “God, are you listening? I really want to give Haakan a son of his own. Is that such a terrible thing to ask?”

As usual, there was no answer. But then, she really hadn’t expected one.

“This meeting will now come to order.” Haakan clapped his hands. When no one paid any attention, he raised his voice. “That’s
it, folks. Let’s get going on this.” He waited as the shuffling and twittering died down. “Good. Welcome to our first meeting to organize a community bank here in Blessing.”

A spattering of applause was cut off when Haakan glanced toward the altar, reminding them they were in church. No other building was large enough, and tonight the church was packed from wall to wall.

“Now, you’ve all received letters telling you about the process of beginning a bank and defining the terms so we can all be talking the same language.”

A harrumph from the back let loose a spate of twittering again.

“I know this is new for all of us. I never dreamed starting a bank could be so difficult. In my mind it should be like any other business, but far as I can tell, it isn’t. Now, I’m going to read to you—you have copies to follow along—the articles of incorporation, since we are going into this as a co-op. That means we all have a say in the matters, and there will be monthly meetings to make decisions.”