The Children's Blizzard

by Melanie Benjamin

  And still they came, those seekers and dreamers and swallowers of lies. Every day during the warm months, the train disgorged parties of them, families with grannies and babes in arms, wary bachelors. The depot was filled with the cacophony of other languages and the cries of hucksters trying to rob them of whatever meager savings they had brought with them—Wagon for sale! Mules for transport! Claims filed here, no questions asked!—and then they’d take the money and run. Or the wagon wouldn’t have wheels. Or the mules would be tubercular.

  But they all, eventually, left Omaha for points west, north, or south, sometimes on foot, sometimes on those sorry mules, sometimes in wagons that creaked and swayed and jolted. They left with paperwork in their hands, a promise that many would never fulfill.

  And every day, the trains heading east filled up with those who had given up, had discovered the truth and been defeated by it: that this land of grasshoppers and fires and drought and monstrous blizzards would not be as easily tamed as Gavin and his fellow brothers-in-crime had promised.

  Still, more came west than returned east. Land, no matter how hard and unyielding, was never short of those who wanted to own it. It was infantile, this belief, infantile and stupid, Gavin thought. Just like the rubes who believed it.

  Just when had Gavin grown so cynical? Just when had he lost his love for his fellow man?

  “I think I’ll go for a stroll,” Gavin said. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear being inside a stuffy bar full of cynics like himself. He stopped, turned around, and left Forsythe at the door of the Lily.

  “What?” Forsythe looked puzzled, as well he might; Gavin was not one for taking exercise of any kind save for inside the bedroom of the closest bordello.

  “It’s nice, the weather.” Gavin shrugged. “Warmer. I just want to walk around a bit, maybe go down to the river and walk across that new bridge myself, check in on the party.”

  “Suit yourself.” Forsythe waved at someone at the bar and shut the door behind him.

  Gavin turned, but he found himself tugged in the other direction, away from the river and toward the prairie. Something called to him—maybe it was the wind, gently stirring the few flat, lazy flakes; maybe it was the desire to get away from the stuffy indoors where he’d been cooped up the last week or so. Maybe it was the ghost of his conscience.

  Whatever it was, he turned. And followed it.

  CHAPTER 3

  •••••

  ANETTE THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING to cry.

  Only once had she done so. Only once in the time since her mother sent her away to the Pedersens’. Not when her hands blistered from the lye soap Mother Pedersen made her wash the floor with. Not even last week, when she saw and heard—

  Not even last week.

  But the moment that Tor Halvorsan slammed the door to the schoolhouse, she stuffed her fist into her mouth, stifling a sob; every nerve strained to erupt, the atmosphere was so suffocating, she was suddenly fretful, fearful. This, she thought, is how it is when the world ends.

  The sun had vanished, swallowed by the cloud that wasn’t a cloud, but a black wall of fury—sparks of lightning preceded it, bluish flashes of electricity tumbling over the snow like wagon wheels. She’d felt that shock, when she and Fredrik touched in the schoolyard; she swore she’d heard a hissing sound when she felt the jolt. They’d fled from it, leading the children back into the schoolhouse just in time.

  And now, inside, the air was too close, squeezing her chest, and the howling sound wasn’t just the fury of the winds pounding the rickety building; it was also the strangled cries from the smaller students, tiny Sofia Nyquist sobbing uncontrollably, wrapping her arms around Teacher’s legs.

  Teacher, too, looked shaken; she stared out the window, at the blackness, the electric sparks—even the little stove in the middle of the room was giving off eerie flares. What was it that was so crushing, that made Anette want to clamp her hands over her ears and fall to the floor? It was a blizzard, for sure—but every one of them had seen prairie blizzards. Every one of them had witnessed the furies of prairie weather; the tornadoes in the spring, the fires, even grasshoppers forming living clouds and marching across the land eating everything in their path. Floods when all the year’s rain fell at one time, and when all the snow melted.

  But this was different and Anette couldn’t begin to figure out why; she only knew that the furious cloud that had now completely blotted out the sun and was pummeling the schoolhouse until the boards creaked and the windows rattled seemed to have overtaken her heart, too, and made her want to howl with terror.

  She was shivering, but it wasn’t only from the fear; the temperature had plummeted. Teacher shooed them all away from the window toward the stove. But it didn’t seem much warmer there.

  “Go put on your cloaks, children,” Teacher said, her voice unnaturally high and singsong.

  They shuffled into the cloakroom—even colder there—and hurriedly bundled themselves up before rushing back to the stove. Anette looked around; hardly any of them had worn their usual winter layers, heavy cloaks and coats and wool stockings and petticoats, knit hats, mittens, scarves. Only one or two children were adequately dressed; the rest of them, like Anette herself, had gleefully left most of the layers behind this morning. It was so warm—

  It had been so warm.

  “Good,” Teacher said, but her pretty blue eyes betrayed some fear. Probably only Anette saw it, though; she’d seen it before, many times, back at the Pedersens’. “Now, Tor, can you fetch the rest of the wood?”

  Tor went back to the cloakroom, where the sticks of wood were stored; he came back with one armful, dropped it, and when Teacher looked at him expectantly, he shook his head.

  “It’s all we have.”

  “Oh” was all that Teacher said. She went back to the window. Snow was swirling from all directions, violently enough that it pinged the thin glass. The heavy curtain of snow blocking the view only added to the stifling feeling pressing down on all of them inside.

  “Well, let’s sit down. It will probably blow over soon.” She turned abruptly away from the window and went to the cloakroom, where she put on her own heavy shawl—all she’d worn this morning, Anette remembered. Teacher came back and opened the McGuffey Reader on her desk, but then she slammed it shut and went back to the window.

  Anette wanted her to say something, anything. She looked around; all the students were gazing hopefully at Teacher, who must have felt it like a pressing weight on the back of her neck.

  But Teacher was strangely silent.

  * * *

  —

  RAINA WAS TRYING TO THINK, but the swirling snow and ice outside seemed to make the same swirling mess of her mind; thoughts whirled about but she couldn’t grab any one of them. A blizzard. Fine. We’ve all seen blizzards before. But not at this time of day, during school. Wait it out. That’s the thing. But the wood. The wood isn’t enough. Burn the desks if we have to. But then what? No food. Little children crying—Enid, now little Sofia, weeping at their desks, weeping for their mothers. The boys. Send them out? Try to get help? They’re big, especially Tor. He’s bigger than I am. He’s a good, sturdy boy and his farm is only, what—half a mile away? But people get lost in blizzards on the plains. Even patient, sturdy people.

  And above the chaos in her head, one thought, one sentence, one promise stood out.

  I will take care of you.

  It was the promise he made last week. After Anna Pedersen caught them—doing nothing but looking.

  No, that wasn’t true.

  He had waited until Raina was in bed, trying to sleep but unable to, imagining his sure, strong hands touching her in places she herself hadn’t ever been able to touch, for the shame of it. Anette was quiet, hopefully asleep, when he crept up the stairs and knelt beside Raina’s bed, and he put his hand upon her shoulder—the only time he’d ever touc
hed her—and he whispered, “I will take care of you, no matter what happens.” And he leaned closer, his lips grazing her ear, she trembled, she quaked…

  She believed him. Then she didn’t. Then she did again—a chain between their hearts, that’s what it felt like; it was so heavy, it tugged, then went slack, then tugged again. Yes, she believed him—his eyes were wet with emotion, his touch so gentle. Opportunity had presented itself before then and he’d never taken advantage of his desire to do more; at times, she’d ached for him to, and she’d been so angry when he hadn’t, she’d wanted to slap him just to feel him beneath her hand.

  But his honor invited her trust that night; it was like the fragile hope of peace that comes before a war. Peace destined to be shattered.

  So surely, he would come for her now? Come for her and Anette—he loved Anette, he did, that was another sign of the goodness in him, he treated the little girl much more kindly than his wife did—he would come. To take them home, and then he could take the rest of the children, too. And although she cringed at the idea of bringing these innocents into that spider’s web, right now she could think of no better alternative. They would freeze to death if they stayed here overnight. There was enough fuel to last a couple more hours, including the desks and books. But who knew how long this storm would last?

  So. She had decided—just as she had decided upon him last week; she had decided.

  He would come for them. For her.

  “Children.” She turned from the window. “It looks like we’re going to stay in school late today, because of the storm. Let’s pass the time by playing a game!” Maybe if they ran around, they’d stay warm. “Let’s play tag—I haven’t played it for so long! Tor, tag—you’re it!” Tor, his eyebrows drawn together with worry, leapt in surprise when she tapped his shoulder. He looked startled, then shy; his face turned ruddy. She understood—she wasn’t supposed to play games, she was Miss Olsen. They all looked embarrassed, but she nudged Tor and he obeyed, running slowly around in circles until the other children got into the spirit, began to giggle, began to run, too.

  All except for Anette. Anette stood still, even when Fredrik shouted at her to run. She chewed her lip and she shook her head. She would not move. Her wary pale blue eyes that saw everything that went on in the house with an intelligence that shocked Raina, yet always looked so confused and slow here in the schoolhouse, were turbulent. The little girl kept looking out the window, then over at the cloakroom, then back to the window, which continued to shake and rattle, as did the entire schoolhouse. At one point a gust hit it so assuredly that it seemed as if the two-by-fours—such a proud sight on the treeless prairie, signaling an investment by the homesteaders for they had to be brought in by train—might lift off the foundation.

  Raina wished for a soddie all of a sudden, that symbol of poverty that yet was so much more sturdy, insulated, than these store-bought and tar-papered wooden planks. A soddie wouldn’t blow over in a blizzard. A soddie, snug to the earth—made out of the earth itself, walls that were stacked mud and roofs that were strips of sod—was warmer.

  But a soddie was a signal that a community was still transient, not permanent. And the homesteaders near Newman Grove were too proud for that. So this schoolhouse, while it looked fancier than the surrounding farmhouses, was not as warm nor as sturdy, because it was merely a place for children to spend whatever meager time they were not forced to spend working at home.

  Raina clapped her hands, both to keep warm and to inspire the children to continue at their game, as they’d fallen silent once more, as if mesmerized by the howling wind. She consulted her watch, pinned neatly to the breast of her calico dress; it was one forty-five. Almost forty-five minutes since the blizzard had started. And still not a sign of rescue.

  But he would come. She knew it.

  “You are the most important thing to me in the world,” he’d said last week, in those stolen moments they clung to whenever his wife—in all her golden-haired glory, so bright, so fierce, it was like looking at the sun itself, only no warmth emanated from her—had her back turned. Flying about the small two-story house like a fury, her hair in those elaborate coils, it must have taken her an extra hour each morning to arrange it so. Her vanity on display.

  “You are the light, she is the dark,” he’d whispered. He wrote it on a scrap of paper and handed it to Raina once. When they believed she wasn’t looking.

  He would rescue her.

  But she needed an affirmation all the same. She whirled around and asked, “Anette…”

  The girl was gone. She wasn’t at the desk, nor was she running around with the others.

  Then a blast of cold air froze everyone in their tracks; Raina dashed to the cloakroom. Anette’s pail was gone, and there was fresh snow inside the door, which wasn’t quite closed; the wind was too fierce.

  “Anette!” Raina opened the door, gasped, shrank back from the howling wind, the snow as hard as pebbles against her bare skin and inadequate dress. She grit her teeth, tried to open her eyes, which had shut against the assaulting snow; she peered out, caught a glimpse of a red shawl, Anette’s shawl, before it was swallowed up in the whirling, blinding void.

  “Anette!”

  What should she do? Run after the girl? But what about the others, standing still, no longer at play, confusion and fear on every face?

  Oh, Gerda! Gerda would know. Gerda would do the right thing, the smart thing. But Gerda wasn’t here. Raina felt the weight of her responsibilities fall across her shoulders like an oxbow, and she stifled a cry. It wasn’t fair, she was so small, she shouldn’t have left home in the first place, she was too young—both for the dangerous games at the Pedersen home and for this. Children—some too young to do anything but cry for their mothers—in her care. When most of the time she felt unable to care for even the hardiest baby chick. It was only last year she was in braids! And now here she was, in a quaking, barely insulated schoolhouse with no fuel. And one of those children—the one most dear—running out into this storm that was unlike any other.

  Gerda would know what to do, Raina was sure of it.

  But Gerda was far, far away.

  DAKOTA TERRITORY,

  EARLY AFTERNOON,

  JANUARY 12, 1888

  CHAPTER 4

  •••••

  “LET’S GO!”

  Gerda shouted at Tiny Svenson; she cupped her hands around her mouth so that her voice might carry through the howling wind. She giggled, grabbed both girls by the shoulders, and pulled them toward her, then settled down in the sleigh, ready for the journey.

  Tiny waved a gloved hand at her—she could barely see it through the snow—and tightened the horse’s bridle. His prize bay horse, the horse she teased that he loved even more than he loved her. Then he climbed back into the sleigh and wound the reins around his wrists; the wind was pummeling the sleigh so that it swayed back and forth like a small boat on a turbulent ocean. “Hang on,” Tiny shouted at the three figures next to him, already shivering. The two little girls, Minna and Ingrid Nillssen, shuddered with cold; Gerda was vibrating with excitement.

  She had planned it all this morning. The house where Gerda boarded as the district’s schoolteacher would be blissfully free from the hovering presence of the Andersons. They were an elderly couple, one of the first homesteaders in this part of southeastern Dakota Territory not too far from Yankton, and they worried and fretted over Gerda more than her parents ever had. They did not like the fact that Tiny—not a thing like his name, a great, milk-fed oaf of a lad—had taken to courting the schoolmarm, despite the fact that both were of marriageable age. The Andersons had vowed to Gerda’s parents that they would safeguard her virtue like two bulldogs, and they had succeeded, limiting Tiny’s visits to a mere fifteen minutes after church, always supervised, Pa Anderson sitting in disapproval in the parlor or on the front porch, puffing on his pipe
, short, throat-clearing puffs whenever he felt conversation was lagging or there were too many moony looks flying between the two young people.

  But Pa and Ma Anderson were away today—the weather had been so nice and warm this morning, they declared that they would be in Yankton all day, laying in supplies. Ma Anderson even said she would look for a nice fabric, maybe lawn, so she could make Gerda a spring dress, something to look forward to during the endless prairie winter. And Gerda had turned her head to hide her joy at the opportunity before her. An opportunity that Gerda had revealed to Tiny when he arrived to take Gerda, along with the two little Nillssen girls who lived on the next farm, to school that morning. The Andersons allowed him this because of the presence of Gerda’s pupils. And because their farm was the farthest away from the schoolhouse, about five miles, and Pa Anderson couldn’t spare the time away from the farm. The Andersons had no son to help out; they had no children at all.

  “I’ll dismiss school early,” Gerda whispered that morning into Tiny’s red ear, so that the little girls wouldn’t hear. “Pick me up at lunch; we’ll have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. We can play house!” For this was Gerda’s latest weapon in the fight to keep Tiny from going west.

  He wanted to be a cowboy, did Tiny; he devoured dime novels about them. Wild Bill Hickok was his favorite. Tiny despised homesteading, longing instead for an open range that didn’t really exist any longer, except maybe farther west in Montana or Wyoming. He’d even trained the little bay to cut, like a cow pony; he had sent away last winter for an authentic cowboy hat from a mail order catalog. Gerda had to admit he looked quite dashing in it.