The Settlers (42 page)

Cash
—to him it was the most annoying word in the English language. Cash—it was what he lacked. No cash, Mr. Nilsson? You must pay cash, Mr. Nilsson! How many times hadn’t he received that reply like a humiliating box on his ear when he had asked for credit in a store.
No Cash?
Those two words could be used to sum up a settler’s situation in Minnesota.

Yet here he was, handling two bundles of crisp cash—four thousand American dollars, fifteen thousand Swedish riksdaler! After five years on the new place, these bundles would now end all his worries about cash. But these bank notes had fallen in his lap too unexpectedly. How could a man, from one day to the next, grasp that he had become rich? That was why each morning he needed to feel his riches and see the money with his own eyes.

Karl Oskar pinched the black and green bills. Were they worth their stated value? Could he trust the gift even though he could not trust the giver?

For only one more day must he control his impatience. Tomorrow he would get the information from the bank. Although he had agreed with his neighbor to drive to Stillwater on Saturday, after the discovery of Arvid’s watch in Robert’s possession his suspicion of his brother flared up anew. By going to the bank on Friday he would cut down his uncertainty by one day; by tomorrow he would know the truth!

Karl Oskar would have to be a little late for his work on the church building this morning; he must have a talk with Robert before he set out. He put the money back in the chest and went out to do the morning chores in the stable.

Meanwhile, Kristina began to prepare breakfast. She had been thinking over what Robert had said to her yesterday, and the more she thought of it, the greater riddle it became. She had known her brother-in-law for ten years but yesterday he had seemed to her an utter stranger.

She wondered that Karl Oskar and Robert could be brothers. How could two people of such opposite natures have been begotten by the same father and carried in the same mother’s womb? As long as she had known these two men Karl Oskar had been the big brother and Robert the little brother, but there was a difference even greater than the ten years that separated them. It was their natures—their characters and dispositions—that made them so unlike. Karl Oskar was like most of the hard-working, enterprising settlers out here, but Robert was not like any other person she had ever known. There was something both stimulating and disconcerting about him; he held his own with his clever talk but at the same time he was unpredictable—no one could guess one moment what he would do the next. And at times he behaved as if he himself didn’t know what he ought to do here on earth—as if it didn’t matter one bit how he whiled away the time, as his life flowed to its end.

Karl Oskar had often said that he regretted having brought along his younger brother to America; Robert fitted this country like a square plug in a round hole. He was too soft and lazy and lacked persistence, insisted the older brother. But Robert had succeeded so well that he had become rich before any other settler from Ljuder! What would Karl Oskar now say about the little brother he had considered useless? Monday evening Robert had silenced Karl Oskar with the black pouch; as soon as he had displayed his money, the roles of the two brothers were reversed. The older one could no longer reproach and scold the younger one. Now it was Robert who did the talking, now it was he who knew what was what. The younger had become more important than the older, and who could now say that Robert didn’t fit in America?

Since last Monday evening Robert had been the big brother and Karl Oskar the little brother. It was strange the way things had changed between the brothers!

Yet Robert, this new big-brother who had returned from the gold-land, had not said twenty words about his riches. No one could say that he bragged about them, no one could accuse him of big talk. And Kristina—like Karl Oskar—felt that there was something wrong and perhaps frightening about his silence.

On Thursday morning Robert was up earlier than had been his wont since his return, and he came into the kitchen before Kristina had put the food on the table. His eyes were pale and bloodshot as if he hadn’t slept. She had noticed that he slept badly; a few times she had heard him go to the kitchen to get a drink.

She put the food on the table and called Karl Oskar, who was surprised that his brother was up already; this was the first time since his return that he had shown up at the breakfast table. He yawned broadly, exposing the tooth-empty upper jaw. His appetite was poor; he chewed slowly and had trouble swallowing. Kristina urged him time and again to eat some more; he ate less than the little boys, Johan and Harald, who ate their breakfast standing up at the table—children were said to grow faster if they ate standing upright. For Robert’s sake Kristina had baked a big corn omelet but he took only a small piece of it on his plate.

It was unusually quiet around the table in the kitchen this morning. But when everyone had finished Karl Oskar pulled the nickel watch from his pocket and placed it beside Robert’s plate.

“Why do you have Arvid’s watch?”

Robert showed no surprise or confusion when he saw the watch, which appeared near his plate like an extra dish of food that he must eat before he left the table:

“I put it under my pillow. I noticed it was gone.”

“Why do you hide the watch? Why don’t you dare tell us the truth? Why don’t you dare tell us that Arvid is dead?”

That was three questions at one time. But Robert only replied:

“You have a right to ask, Karl Oskar. That you have.”

He was interrupted by an attack of persistent, hollow coughing.

“The first evening you said Arvid had remained in the goldfields.”

“Yes, I said he remained out there. He did.” Robert’s coughing spell was over.

“But you didn’t say he was dead. That he had sacrificed his life.”

“Who doesn’t sacrifice his life on the Trail? Everyone does—one way or another . . .”

“You talk in riddles! Tell us the truth right out!”

Karl Oskar was getting impatient and loud, but his younger brother remained calm. He picked up the watch and coiled the broad brass chain slowly around his forefinger. Kristina rose and began to clear the table; without interfering in the conversation between the two brothers she was listening intently. She told the children to leave the table.

Robert twisted the chain of Arvid’s watch tightly around his finger until it resembled a thick golden ornament. He squeezed the watch inside the palm of his hand. Kristina noticed his elbows were beginning to tremble.

Roberts eyes looked so big and glassy today; she felt his forehead with her hand.

“You’re burning hot! You have a fever!”

Karl Oskar had sounded angry and she whispered to him not to cross-examine his brother in this way; they could see he was sick.

Her cautioning had its effect. Karl Oskar rose, and put his next question in a milder voice.

“We two are brothers—why don’t you confide in me?”

“The very first evening I came home you said to me, ‘Stop lying!’ I had just begun to confide in you. But you didn’t believe me. You said, ‘I know you’re back without a single nickel!’”

Robert had risen too; he straightened his narrow, caved-in shoulders. They stood shoulder to shoulder and as Robert straightened up it was apparent that he was a couple of inches taller than his older brother.

Not even physically was Karl Oskar any longer the big brother. And his cheeks reddened slightly as he remembered that on Monday evening his “little” brother had got the upper hand: This is just a little pocket money!

“But couldn’t we be honest with each other again? Why did you hide the watch? No one is going to think that you killed Arvid to take his possession!”

Robert turned his face quickly toward Karl Oskar and his reply came as a sudden thrust.

“Maybe you have guessed it! Perhaps I did kill Arvid! Perhaps it was my doing . . .”

“Are you out of your senses?!”

“He wanted to return . . . once . . . but I . . .”

Robert stopped suddenly, his shoulders caved in again, as if he were defending himself against a blow. He pressed his hands against his head and panted:

“I can’t . . . Leave me alone . . . I’m not strong enough . . . Please, Karl Oskar . . . leave me in peace . . . dear brother . . . forgive me . . . I can’t stand it . . .”

He rushed to the door and opened it with a heavy jerk of the handle. While they stood there, perplexed at his sudden outburst, he ran out of the kitchen as if he were pursued. They looked after him through the window—he had thrown himself face down on the ground near the newly planted gooseberry bushes. There he lay, unmoving.

“Leave your brother alone,” advised Kristina. “You can’t do anything else . . .”

“No,” Karl Oskar sighed irresolutely. “What else can one do? Nothing, I guess . . .”

He knew that Robert would never take back a single word of what he had said, never admit one of his lies, never would admit that he did lie. Would they ever know the truth about Arvid? Would they learn what had happened to the two old farm-hand friends after that day four years ago when they set out on their journey to California?

But
one
piece of clear information they would get—by tomorrow they would have the truth about the gold-seeker’s riches.

—2—

Karl Oskar left to work on the church building. A few moments later Robert came back in, like himself again. Today, once more, he wanted to take a walk to the Indian, he said. And Kristina watched him stroll off through the pine grove to the west.

She went into the gable room to make up his bed and there she discovered large dark red spots on his pillow slip which hadn’t been there yesterday. The spots could be nothing but blood oozing from his bad ear during the night.

She began to wonder if Robert didn’t suffer from some consuming inner illness; he had a nasty cough, and sometimes he couldn’t eat their food—such troubles were not caused by a bad ear. Did he perhaps have chest fever? When she was alone with him she would ask him about this; he seemed to confide in her rather than in his brother. For the moment the red spots on his pillow slip told her more about him than he himself had done so far.

Kristina sat down to her sewing and picked out the basting from a pair of pants she was making for Johan. It was still early in the day but the heat was already pressing perspiration through her skin. The older children had gone down to the lake and must be splashing about in the inlet. Outside the chickens cackled; she now had a score of laying hens, all from the eggs of the hen Ulrika had given her two years ago. The cow, Miss, had lately calved but was not yet recovered and stood tethered down in the meadow. She had already had time to fill her belly and sought shade under a tree where she stood and chewed her cud.

Just then the oppressive, heavy stillness of the summer day was broken by loud cries from the children. Kristina dropped Johan’s pants on the floor and was outside in a second.

Johan and Marta came from the lake carrying Harald between them. Harald’s face was red and his eyes wild-looking, as he screamed loudly. The mother took the boy in her arms, carried him inside, and put him on the bed in the gable room. There was no use questioning the little one—he couldn’t talk; he panted for breath, groaned and puffed, bubbling foam escaping from the corners of his mouth.

The mother felt a sudden pressure across her chest.

“What happened to the boy? Did he fall and hurt himself?”

“It’s the wildcat! A great big wildcat!”

Johan and Marta were talking at the same time. While they had been out in the water Harald had crept in among the bushes on the shore. Suddenly he had come rushing back, yelling at the top of his voice, and they had heard a horrible growling and hissing: Harald had come across a big wildcat that was hiding in the thicket. They too had seen the evil critter that had frightened Harald; it was gray and had a thick cropped tail and thick legs. They had seen his head sticking out from the bushes, an enormous head with long whiskers—exactly like an ordinary cat but much bigger.

Johan and Marta had been so scared when they saw him they too had yelled, and the screaming of the three of them frightened the cat, who sneaked back into the bushes again. They had rushed home but had to carry Harald, who was so frightened he couldn’t walk by himself.

Kristina pulled off the boy’s clothes to see if the wildcat had wounded him, but she could find no claw marks on the little one’s body. It must have been the scare that affected the boy. But she felt sure the littlest of the brats had been in danger of his life; these big cats were said to kill children of his age. She had heard that those treacherous wildcats got right into houses. Karl Oskar had once shot such a beast down at the lake.

Kristina went to fetch some sweet milk from the spring where she kept it sunk in a bucket to preserve it in this heat. She tried to make Harald drink.

“Dear sweet love, don’t be afraid—that ugly cat . . .”

A little child could lose its voice from sudden fright. But by and by the boy’s voice returned; he stuttered a few syllables; soon he managed an occasional full word.

“The cat . . . he groaned . . .”

“Horrible creature!”

After a while Harald seemed all right again and could talk fairly well, but she had better keep him in bed for the rest of the day. Kristina warned the other children not to go near the lake. The big wildcat might still be there, lurking in those heavy bushes that hung over the water in the shallow inlet.

Kristina had barely sat down to her sewing again before she was interrupted by a caller—a dear caller: Ulrika Jackson had come to visit New Duvemåla.

Ulrika was on her way home from St. Paul, where she had caught a ride on a cart and decided to stop in since she was so close. She hadn’t seen her namesake for several months. Kristina’s naming her lastborn Ulrika had pleased her more than a proposal from the President of the United States would have—if she had now been unmarried.

The first thing she asked was how much the girl had grown since her last visit. Ulrika herself had had a new baby last winter, her second child in wedlock—again a girl. It seemed to be her lot to mother females only. She still hoped to bear a male who could be consecrated as a holy preacher. Why didn’t the Lord wish to make her worthy to carry in her womb a future servant of his church? She supposed she had in some way annoyed God. But in what way?