A Land to Call Home

by Lauraine Snelling

  Hjelmer dug his carving sack out from his pack and brought it to the circle. One of the other men moved over so the carver could use the dim light from the hanging kerosene lantern. In the close quarters, the reek of burning kerosene almost disguised the odor of hardworking, unwashed bodies.

  “Watcha makin’, son?” a black man with shoulders about as broad as Hjelmer’s asked in a gentle voice that still echoed his southern beginning.

  Hjelmer took out the bird he’d begun carving a week earlier when he found a chunk of elm wood that had been cut off a railroad tie. Trees, branches, anything of a near size made up most of the ties, but when one was too big, they split it or cut it for firewood. He’d wanted to salvage the entire piece but grabbed a chunk small enough to keep in his sack.

  He held the half-formed creature up to the dim light. He’d debated carving a flying eagle like he’d seen soaring over the Red River during the summer, but unless he inset the wings, the piece was too small. Instead, he’d shaped the bird sitting on a post or snag, not sure yet which it would be. He’d gotten it roughed out, so the shape was evident.

  “An eagle?” At Hjelmer’s nod, the grizzly-headed man flashed a smile so bright against the darkness of his face that his teeth glistened in the light. “My pappy used to carve, but his tweren’t nothin’ like this.” He raised a long finger to touch the bird’s head. “We had eagles back to home so big they’d take your breath away. Old tales said eagles done carried bad chilluns away, so we was best we could be. I see’d one take a lamb right outta the field. Took him some flap-pin’ to get into the air again, but he done it.”

  “That must a been some sight.” Hjelmer spit on his whetstone and commenced to sharpen his knife blade, using the circular motions his father had taught him long ago. The action always brought back thoughts of home in the Valdrez region of Nordland. He still had trouble calling his homeland Norway in the way of the Americans, but here on the crew he was picking up the strange language faster than he thought possible.

  When the knife was sharpened to his liking, he dug into the wood, bringing wing feathers to life with each minute stroke. The voices of men swapping yarns around him lulled him into a near dreamlike state. A stream of tobacco sometimes rang in the spittoon, but mostly it missed. A laugh burst out once in a while, or a curse, when two men got to arguing over the relative merits of one cook over another. Rain drummed on the roof, sometimes leaking down around the stovepipe and sizzling on the black metal.

  Penny strolled into his mind, and with a pert smile over her shoulder, she beckoned him to follow. What was she doing now? Had they finished the harvest? Were they able to build the school? Haakan had been promising Ingeborg a wood house before winter, but she wanted a new barn instead. What of Mary Ruth Strand, the lying chit who got him in this fix? Why had he ever paid her any attention when he knew from the first that he’d follow Penny to the ends of the earth and beyond if necessary? He flinched at the vow he’d made to Penny, the one that said he’d never even kissed the Strand girl. He hadn’t lied—exactly. Mary Ruth kissed him out behind the haystack that day they were leaving. But then, if he were honest, he knew he had kind of kissed her back, and somehow his arms had found their way around her slim waist.

  But that was all. He didn’t give her any reason to accuse him of getting her in the family way, and deep in his heart he felt sure no one else had either.

  He was tired of running.

  When he left the land of dreams and returned to the smoke-filled sleeping car, most of the men had gone to bed. A few still smoked their cigarettes, and another licked the paper on the one he finished rolling. Leif’s chin bounced on his chest when he snored. How he kept upright on the chunk of wood for a chair was more than Hjelmer understood. He put his knife and carving things back in the sack, wrapped the eagle in a piece of leather to protect it, and after slipping it in the sack, too, he poked Leif.

  “Bedtime, before you take a header off that stool and crack your head on the stove.” He’d said the same thing every night for the last week.

  Leif blinked and yawned, stretching his arms over his head and yawning again. “I weren’t sleeping, ya dolt.”

  “Ja, and my bestamor can’t bake lefse.” Hjelmer made his way between the narrow bunks, which reminded him strongly of the bunks in steerage on the voyage over. None were built for comfort, only to see how many people could be crammed into the least space. He shivered when he stripped off his outer clothes and crawled under the covers. He needed another quilt or blanket before winter came or he’d freeze to death. He listened. The rain had finally stopped. He heard Leif turn over on the bunk above him and resume his puffy snorts. Full-blown, deep-throated snores came from other parts of the car. Hjelmer turned on his side and closed his eyes resolutely. Morning came much too soon for lying here awake.

  He’d not been surprised to see puddles everywhere in the morning, but there weren’t enough to slow down the laying of track. By noon, mud coated all the workers to their knees. Some slipped and cursed the gumbo, as the black muck was called. It clung to boots and tools like a hundred-pound second skin. Grateful that he worked above it all, Hjelmer bent steel rod and bars into the shapes needed to repair broken tools and forged parts for the track-laying equipment.

  Arnie pumped the bellows for the two forges that stood side by side—Hjelmer’s and Gunther Mueller’s. Gunther was a stout German who had come directly from the old country without a lick of American to pass his lips. Of course not many other words passed that rigid mouth either. When Hjelmer tried to talk with him since he understood some German, and Norwegian and German were much the same, he got an icy stare and a guttural “nein.” No sounded the same in many languages.

  When the supper whistle blew, Hjelmer joined the line of plodding, mud-slathered men on their way to the cook car. Just when he turned to look for Leif, he felt himself sail through the air and land splat in the mud. He rose to his feet amid the hoots and hollers of those waiting in line.

  Wiping mud from his face and brushing it off his clothes only made it smear worse. Snickers rippled farther down the line when he stepped back into his place. “Did you see who did that?” he asked the man behind him. The fellow shook his head but kept his eyes anywhere but meeting Hjelmer’s. “What about you?” He tapped the shoulder of the man in front. Without turning, the man shook his head.

  “What happened to you?” Leif roared when he saw Hjelmer.

  “I took a ride through the air.” Hjelmer spoke from between clenched teeth.

  “Ja, he been flying like ta birds.” A man in front of them a couple of spaces flapped his arms and grinned, showing teeth rotted at the gums. He spat a quid to the side, mute testimony as to what happened to his teeth.

  “And you didn’t see who shoved you?” Now Leif spoke for Hjelmer’s ears alone.

  Hjelmer shook his head, wondering who he could have made mad enough to do such a thing? “Shoved me? No! Had to be someone pretty big to pick me up and toss me like that. These men know who it was. They just ain’t talking.”

  They finally reached the door to the cook car, but when they tried to find a seat, none seemed available unless they sat at the far end of the car. Frequently there was little food left on the platters by the time it reached the latecomers.

  But they hadn’t been late.

  “We shoulda gone to the poker game last night when we was invited.” Leif grabbed a full platter from a passing server and was glad they at least still had meat. When the young boy howled, Leif smiled and handed the platter back. “Mange takk,” he said with a grin. The boy shot a look laden with fear over his shoulder.

  Hjelmer tried to follow his gaze, but far as he could see, no one glowered in return. “You really think this could be coming from Big Red?” he asked after the boy scrambled out of earshot.

  Leif nodded. “I heerd about things like this before. Just never been on the receiving end. That man has some power in this camp.”

  The two had lapsed into Norwegian, as
if hoping they could talk privately. When Black Sam, as everyone called him, sat on the bench across from them, both young men flashed him smiles. “Y’all gwan ta play poker this night?” His soft voice could only be heard by leaning forward.

  Hjelmer shook his head. “You don’t really think that’s what this is all about, do you?”

  Sam nodded his head. “Dat Big Red, he bad one to cross. He say jump, most men say, “how high.’ ”

  Hjelmer sighed. “Just because I turned down a poker game. That don’t make no sense.”

  “Dey like to fleece the new hires. He gave you time to ask to join, and you din’t. Now he invite, and you say no. Now he get ugly.”

  “Did they do this to you?”

  Sam nodded. “Don’t leave nobody out.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Lost all my money. Den dey not care.” Sam stuffed half a roll in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Now I make myself scarce after payday and send all money home soon’s I get it. Dey know I don’t got nothin’.”

  Hjelmer rested his elbows on the board slab table. Repeated scrubbing had worn the wood smooth and bleached it near white. He sipped at his coffee mug and thought hard about a way out. Like mice being chased by a cat, his thoughts flew everywhere. He could send the money home to Penny, but what if she didn’t get it? To Ingeborg? Certainly she would save it for him.

  “Are there any banks near here?” He knew the question was stupid soon as he asked it. Sam and Leif shook their heads. “So how come they don’t bother you?” He looked over his shoulder to his friend.

  Leif ducked his head but a glint in his eye gave him away. “They decided I was too stupid to learn and threw me out of the game.”

  “Ahhh.” Hjelmer nodded. Could he pull that off too? He loved the thrill of beating others at their own game, and the cards always loved him. Could he fake it? He found himself thinking about the toss in the mud while he fell asleep that night. Surely that little warning, if that’s what it was, would be enough for them to leave him alone. Maybe it really had been an accident. He turned over with a snort. A man his size didn’t fly through the air by accident.

  The next morning at breakfast before the sun did more than gray the eastern sky, Hjelmer managed to sit at the same table as Big Red, albeit a few seats down and on the opposite side. When Leif came in, Hjelmer held up a glove with a hole in the finger and shook his head.

  “Now what am I going to do? Ain’t got no money till payday.”

  Leif looked at him blankly. “Well, then you go charge a new pair of gloves at the store car.”

  “Then I’ll get even less money.” He slapped the glove on the table. “Ain’t fair.” Hjelmer snuck a peek out the side of his eye. “And here I thought to go join those fellers with the card games. Can’t win if you ain’t got money to start.”

  Leif shook his head in commiseration. “ ’Pears that way.”

  “Maybe I can patch this thing. You got any leather?” Hjelmer studied the ragged hole.

  Leif nodded. “You can borrow a needle and thread from Sam maybe. He’s got about everything in his kit.”

  “Ja, everything but money.” Hjelmer scraped the remainder of three fried eggs up with his biscuit. Munching on his last piece of bacon, he covertly studied Big Red and the two giants on either side of him. Obviously the man had found a way to make up for his lack of brawn. You never saw him without at least one of the men by his side.

  Hjelmer had yet to discover what Red did on the rail laying. But he knew the man must have a job of some kind or he wouldn’t be allowed in the cookshack. What would it take to get on the man’s good side rather than his bad?

  The whistle blew and all the remaining workers chugged the dregs of their coffee mugs and headed for the door. The dawn-todark workday had begun once again.

  While Hjelmer kept his eyes open, even to watching over his shoulder, life settled into a rhythm that suited him well. Other than the train whistle dictating when he awoke, ate, or slept, his reputation as not only a repairer of things metal but a creative shaper of useful items grew and spread among both the crew and the bosses. Sometimes he thought longingly of the Bjorklund farm in the Red River Valley, where a rooster crowed instead of a train whistling to arouse the hands, and where the food flowed plentifully from Ingeborg’s and Kaaren’s capable hands. And where five miles west lived Penny Sjornson. When would he see her again? Would he ever?

  One night, tossing on his bed to the wind soughing around the corners and plucking at the crevasses, thoughts of Penny twisted his heart to the point of pain. If it hadn’t been for the Strand chit, he and Penny might have been married by now. All the neighbors would have helped him raise a soddy after the school went up, and in his own shop by the side of the house, he could be repairing plows and all the other kinds of machinery that farmers, aided by avid salesmen, were moving into the valley. Perhaps by now he would have designed some new pieces that he could sell to a manufacturer or make himself. He finally fell asleep to the music of Penny’s voice lifted in song, as he remembered hearing it at the worship gatherings.

  By the next afternoon the wind had warmed and a second Indian summer settled over the land. The pace picked up even more, if that were possible, with the crew laying track as though Father Winter were biting at their backs. Which in truth he was. They would only work until the snow got too deep, and then they’d disband for the winter.

  One night a rumor buzzed through the camp. New washerwomen had arrived. While Hjelmer had heard tales of the joys and delights of visiting the tent camp that followed the train, he had done his own laundry, usually after dark because that was the only time available. The tales he’d heard had nothing to do with clean clothes.

  “So, you been south of the camp yet?” Leif asked one night, a droll, innocent expression raising his eyebrows just a hair.

  Hjelmer left off sopping his beef gravy with a thick slice of bread and looked at his friend, the sound of his voice raising suspicion just by its tone. The men across the table paused in the speed of fork to mouth and back to the plate again. Even the chomp of chewing ceased for a moment. Only someone being played the fool caught their attention so completely.

  Hjelmer let himself be set up. “Naw, can’t say that I have.” He bit off half the slice of dripping bread, chewed, and swallowed. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Ain’tcha got no dirty laundry?”

  Snickers rippled outward from around them.

  Hjelmer shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”

  “No sheets to wash?”

  Snickers grew to chuckles.

  “Nope.”

  “Not even wool underwear?”

  Chuckles exploded into guffaws.

  Hjelmer kept a sober look on his face and stared at each of the men across the table, one of which slapped the table with callused palms, setting tin forks to dancing on the dented metal plates. Empty coffee mugs added their peculiar thump-a-dees to the simple band.

  “Now, what’s got you fellers all in a twist about something so ordinary as dirty clothes?”

  “Leif, you better show your friend how easy it is to get washed down south of the track in them tents there.” The burly man wiped spittle from his beard, he’d laughed so hard.

  “That I will. Fact is, we better hightail it down there right now, soon’s we gather up our laundry.”

  Hjelmer ignored the winks and digs in ribs and finished his supper. When the serving boy came by with the coffeepot, he held up his mug. “I ain’t going nowheres till I get another cup of coffee. My long johns waited this long, they can wait some longer.” He ignored the snorts and splutters his comment caused and sipped his coffee. Across at another table, he could see Big Red and his cohorts looking their way, question marks all over their faces.

  The aroma of steaming coffee overlaid the stench of unwashed bodies, sweat-soaked wool, and spluttering kerosene lanterns. Hjelmer cradled the cup between his hands. If he could tune out the rumble of conversatio
n and the shouts, both obscene and otherwise, perhaps he could envision Penny. But when images of the auburn curls of the Jezebel, Mary Ruth Strand, her sea-green eyes, and her laughing lips replaced Penny’s Norwegian blondness, he shook his head.

  “Come on, let’s go see about the laundry,” Leif said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  Hjelmer rose willingly. Thoughts of Mary Ruth had gotten him in trouble in the first place. Amid the suggestive comments of the other laborers, they left the cook car.

  “Go get yours and I’ll meet you back here.”

  They returned in a few minutes, each with a bundle tucked under his arm.

  “Glad I could oblige you with such sport in there.” Hjelmer stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind whistling down his neck. Each night turned colder earlier than the last. At this rate winter would soon be on them.

  “Ja, you gave those men some good laughs.” Leif looked over at his friend. “You . . . you do know about the washerwomen, don’t you?”

  Hjelmer raised an eyebrow. “Know about the washerwomen? Is there something I should know? Tell me.” At the look of consternation on Leif’s square-jawed face, he thought, Let’s see how he likes the shoe pinching the other foot.

  “Well . . . ah . . . you see . . . ah . . . the women . . .”

  “Ja, I know, they are women.”

  “The women, they . . . ah . . .”

  “Spit it out, man.” Hjelmer could barely keep a straight face, but he knew Leif could see his expression in the brilliant moonlight, so he covered a cough with his hand.