[Return To Red River 01] - A Dream to Follow

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Then we’ll have to try to chop on it.”

  “I’ll go first.” Knife in hand, Baptiste sucked in a huge breath and dove again.

  Thorliff counted the seconds. One minute passed.

  “Did he drown?” Hamre’s eyes looked big as plates.

  Baptiste’s head broke the water. After he got a breath, he held his finger about three inches apart. “That far below his foot, I cut on that side of the root. Feel it with your fingers. You can’t see nothing. I cut downward like slivering kindling.”

  Thorliff nodded. He took two deep breaths and dove, his ears popping as he followed Hamre’s leg down. Thanks to Baptiste’s instructions, he found the cut, and digging the knife blade in, he tried to slice the strips off. The waterlogged root seemed hard as granite. His lungs screamed for air. He made another slash, pushed against the root, and headed for the surface. His head broke the surface just as he thought he’d suck water.

  Gasping and floundering, he felt the blessed air fill his starving lungs. “We’ll never get through that with these knives. I’m going for that willow tree. Hang on, Hamre.”

  Thorliff swam to the bank, beckoned Trygve and another boy, and pointed to the willow. “I’ll go climb up the tree first. You come if we need more weight.” He climbed the trunk hand over hand up the branches until the tree began to bend. “Come on, we need more.”

  “Thorliff, what are you doing?” Haakan ran down the shallow bank with Lars following right behind him.

  “Got to bend the tree over for Hamre to hold on to while someone saws off the root that’s holding his foot.”

  “Andrew, go get a saw.” Haakan started for the tree. “Get two.”

  Thorliff climbed higher. The tree bent, but not enough.

  Baptiste reached for the nearest branch and missed. Hamre went under again. Baptiste yelled to Trygve. “Get a reed, up there.” He pointed upriver. “A dry one that’s hollow.”

  Trygve slipped and slid on the black mud bank, but he reached the cattails and picked a dry stalk from the last winter.

  Thorliff inched further out, Haakan behind him.

  “Be careful. This thing lets go, and it could throw you clear to Grafton.” Haakan’s head was now even with Thorliff ’s feet.

  “You too.”

  “Nei, I’m too big. I’d only go as far as the barn.”

  Thorliff glanced back to see Ingeborg standing on the upper bank. Good. Now they had someone who could be praying too, although his mind screamed for supernatural help between breaths.

  Lars stood in the river up to his chest. He ripped off his shirt and moved upstream. “Here, Baptiste, hang on to this and then Hamre.

  Maybe we can keep him stationary that way.”

  The shirt floated to Baptiste, and he grabbed hold. He reached for Hamre, who’d gone under again. When he struggled back up, the two joined fingertips.

  “Closer.”

  Lars took another step and down he went. He came up sputtering. “Hole there. Maybe I can do this from the other side.”

  “Here.” Trygve waded out to his waist, handing the reed to Lars.

  Baptiste took it to Hamre. “Breathe through this.” He put it in his mouth to show how. “Breathe through your mouth.”

  Hamre did as shown and leaned back in the water. When his face went under, the reed stood up. He floundered up again. “It works. I can breathe.” Lying back, his face inches under the surface, he breathed through the reed.

  “Thank God. Good thinking, Baptiste.” Haakan tapped his son on the knee. “Thorliff, you come down even with me, and we’ll go down together.” When they were both standing on the ground again, Haakan threw his arm over his son’s shoulders. “No wonder my mor used to go white when she saw us up in the pine trees. Bending them for fun is one thing when you’re young and foolish, but knowing what could happen to your son is quite another.”

  Andrew ran down the bank, the saws clanking against his side. “I brought the crosscut too.” He doubled over, trying to catch his breath. “Where’s Hamre?”

  “Breathing through that stalk under the water.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Ingeborg clenched her young son’s shoulder.

  Haakan took a saw and swam out to where Baptiste paddled. “Now where did you start the cutting?”

  Baptiste explained, and on three the two of them dove under.

  “We will go next.” Lars looked to Thorliff.

  Alternating so that one hand was always on the saw, holding it in place, the four finally sawed through the root and dragged Hamre with his foot still bound but floating free to the bank. “M-mange t-takk.” Hamre stuttered through trembling lips. “You saved my life—all of you. Baptiste, how did you think of the reed?”

  “Grand-mère told me of braves who did that long ago. I just remembered.”

  “But all of you risked your lives for me.” Hamre shook like he had the palsy.

  “You would have done the same.” In spite of the heat Thorliff grabbed his shirt and pants. “If I’m freezing, what about you?”

  Hamre shivered and nodded.

  While pulling on his pants Thorliff mentally shook his head. In all the years they’d lived on the same farm, he’d never heard Hamre say so many words at once. Thorliff ’s second cousin, Hamre Bjorklund, had come to America with Thorliff ’s grandmother, Bridget, in 1886, after his mother died of consumption. Though strongminded, Hamre was not one for much talk.

  “Ach, look how swollen.” Ingeborg probed the ankle with careful fingers. “We must pray the swelling is only from the root. Your poor foot has been mauled.”

  “Let’s cut the rest of the roots off, and we’ll carry him to the house.”

  “No, to the icehouse. We’ll pack the foot in ice for a time after we’ve scrubbed it clean.”

  Sawing the last section of root took care, but they managed without cutting the skin. With his arms over their shoulders and their arms around his waist, the two men and Hamre made their way to the icehouse, where Ingeborg filled her apron with ice chips to pack around the injured ankle.

  Teeth chattering, Hamre shook all over.

  “Get some blankets,” Ingeborg said. Andrew ran for the house. Trygve, carrying all the pants and shirts from the tree branch, held them out so they could get dressed again.

  “At least you didn’t swim in your birthday suits,” Haakan muttered, pulling his pants over his soaking underwear.

  “Ja, I thought that’s why you didn’t let the girls go along.” Ingeborg checked the boy’s skin under the ice pack.

  “Just didn’t seem right, that’s all.”

  “Perhaps you listened to God’s good advice.”

  Hamre coughed, then threw up. When he finished heaving, he lay back with his wrist over his eyes. “And I still dream of going fishing.

  On the ocean. At least the water will be clean.”

  Thorliff snickered, Baptiste chuckled, and Haakan laughed. Ingeborg shook her head as all the males around her laughed until they hiccupped.

  Thank God they could laugh instead of cry. So different the ending could have been, so terribly different.

  When Andrew carried in two quilts, he looked a question at his mother. She shrugged and took the quilts to wrap around the shivering Hamre.

  Later when they all returned to the house, Astrid, Ilse, and Kaaren had the ice cream all churned and packed in ice chips.

  “It’s nearly ready to eat. Sounds to me like we have something wonderful to celebrate.”

  “That was too close a call.” Haakan took off his hat and smoothed his hair back before setting his hat back again. “We all smell like river water, that’s for sure.”

  “Right now, that’s a right good smell.” Lars hugged Trygve between his knees. “Took all of us working together to keep that boy alive.” He stroked his son’s head. “Didn’t matter how little, huh, Trygve?”

  The boy leaned back against his father’s chest. “I never been so scared.” His lower lip quivered.<
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  Astrid handed Hamre the first bowl of ice cream. “Here, this should make you cold on the inside too.” She glanced at his apron-bound foot, his toes red with cold. “That still hurt?”

  Hamre nodded. “Some.” He nodded again, this time at Baptiste. “He thought of breathing through a cattail reed.”

  Astrid’s eyes grew wide. “And it worked?”

  “Ja, right good.”

  They finished the ice cream just in time for everyone to leave for home to start the chores. With good-byes and God blesses ringing like church bells, the wagons raised a cloud of dust driving down the lane.

  “How did your talk go with Manda?” Kaaren asked as she set the bowls into a pan of soapy water.

  Ingeborg shook her head. “She’s about as closemouthed as can be. If she and Baptiste do marry, there won’t be much conversation in that house.”

  “You think that will happen?”

  “I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.”

  “Harvest is going to come early.” Haakan, Lars, Andrew, and Thorliff stood on the edge of the wheat field, which was already turning yellow, but not the rich gold of regular harvest and only half as high. Dark earth could be seen in patches and between the sparse rows.

  “Is it this bad everywhere?” Thorliff stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “Some worse out toward the west.” Haakan tipped his hat back. “I heard all the water holes are dried up, and those cattle ranchers are in worse trouble than we are. At least we’ve been able to keep our livestock watered, and while the pasture is grazed down, we have enough land to move them around. We’ll graze the sheep on this field as soon as harvest is finished.”

  “Thanks to the young’uns, we have gardens too.” Lars kicked at a clod of dirt. “Thank God we got the loans paid off. If we have to, we can grind some of the wheat for feed.”

  “What makes no sense to me is why the thistles grew better than the wheat.” Andrew pointed toward a clump of thistle. “They had the same rain.”

  “God only knows,” Lars answered. “I thought to go chop it out, but we’d kill some of the precious wheat in the meantime.”

  Haakan leaned down and, thumb and forefinger around a stalk of wheat, pulled the length of the stalk so that the kernels slid into his cupped hand. He rubbed the wheat between his hands and blew off the chaff. He extended his hand to each of the others. “Help yourself.”

  They chewed one kernel at a time, testing for moisture content and ripeness.

  “Still tastes some green.” Andrew chewed another kernel.

  “Right. It’s not ready yet, but it will be in less than a week if this heat continues.”

  “We’ll be lucky to get enough seed for next year.”

  “I read about a new wheat strain in the Grange News.” Andrew pulled a wheat stalk and chewed on the end, the twitching wheat spears shimmering gold in the sunlight. “It’s not supposed to get the blight.”

  “Got to have rain to get blight.” Haakan turned with a sigh. “Let’s go work on that steam engine. Get it in top shape so we are ready to roll as soon as the wheat turns.” He clapped a hand on the shoulder of each of his sons. “Thorliff, how about you take a list in to Hjelmer so he can order us some belts. We put one more patch on that long one, and it’ll be more patch than belt.”

  “Take my wagon. He can reset the rims on that.” Lars shaded his eyes, looking toward the houses.

  Thorliff chewed another kernel of wheat that seemed more shell than heart. They always kept the finest wheat for seed. This poor stuff might shrivel during the winter and not even sprout come spring. Let alone feed all the cattle. Then what would they do?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Northfield, Minnesota

  July 1893

  “How soon will you be ready?” Annabelle Rogers stood in the doorway of her stepdaughter’s bedroom. Dawn had yet to lighten the sky.

  “Ten minutes?” Elizabeth turned from the small trunk she had set up on the bench at the foot of her bed. She most likely should have chosen a larger trunk, but taking too many clothes seemed such a waste of both time and money.

  “Why didn’t you pack a larger trunk?”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Leave it to her mother to ask the question she’d just been asking herself. “I hate to take so much along. After all, we’re not touring Europe or anything.”

  “But we will be dining in places that require evening dress, and hot as it’s been, you might want to change more often.”

  Elizabeth threw her hands in the air, her shoulders sagging in defeat at the same time. Why didn’t I just let you pack for me in the beginning? “Now I need more than ten minutes.”

  “I’ll help you.” Annabelle Rogers pulled the cord in the corner, another thing Elizabeth tried never to do. She had two feet and a strong constitution made more so by running up and down the stairs. With the larger trunk ordered, Elizabeth returned to her armoire, pulling out frocks to hang on the doors for her mother’s approval. Sometimes giving in was the better part of valor.

  “I can’t help how much room hats take,” her mother said with a sniff when Elizabeth complained about the amount of luggage they were loading onto the back of the hackney. “After all, we are going to be gone for ten entire days.”

  Please don’t remind me. How father and the doctor are going to get along without help is beyond me. While Dr. Gaskin now had two fulltime employees, he was still running behind in seeing his patients, something that had never happened when his wife was alive. Even with Elizabeth taking care of the accounts, the office was still in a muddle. Caring for accounts had not much helped her learn medicine. However, ordering supplies and restocking his cabinets did send her thumbing through his pharmacopoeia books. The thumbing turned to studying as she memorized which potion treated which malady.

  Once they were safely ensconced on the train, Elizabeth took a slender volume from her reticule and, leaning into the corner of the wall and seat, read about the latest findings in delivering infants and caring for postpartum mothers.

  “What are you reading?” Annabelle fanned herself with the black silk fan she always carried in the summer. “My, but it is warm.” She patted her upper lip with a handkerchief.

  Elizabeth showed her the cover, keeping her place open.

  “My word, child, couldn’t you find something more . . . more . . .”

  “I could have brought any number of books, Mother, but this is what I want to learn.”

  “But . . . but such a topic is not proper for a young woman of your sensibilities. And to be reading it in public like this.” Annabelle looked around as if every eye might be locked on the title of her daughter’s reading material.

  Elizabeth glanced around the car. Three businessmen were playing cards at one table. A mother with two small children was reading them a story. Two ladies were conversing in the seats across the aisle from her. One elderly lady looked up from her knitting to smile when she caught Elizabeth’s gaze.

  As if they could read the title anyway. She was careful, however, not to let her mother see the diagrams and drawings. Now that would set her off for the entire trip. Perhaps bringing this specific book was not such a good idea after all. With a sigh she closed the offending volume and tucked it back into her reticule for later study.

  “Are you happy now, Mother?” Keeping the sarcasm from her voice took a strong act of will or acting skill, she was never sure which.

  “Yes, dear.” Annabelle turned back from gazing out the window. “The country surely is dry, is it not?”

  Droughts do that. But Elizabeth kept her thoughts to herself. Her mother had not been out treating farm families, had not been for a ride in the country for some time, as she felt her house and garden took too much time for much gadding about. Due to a good well and the services of the gardener they shared with the neighbors, the gardens were nearly as lovely as ever. Except for the dust on the leaves of shrubs and trees. Only a good rain would wash them clean.

  Elizabeth stare
d out the window, her fingers itching to return to her book. Rather than offending her mother again, she took out a bound journal and pencil, writing down in outline form all she could remember having read. She included her experiences in assisting the doctor in birthings, fitting them into the information from the book. She’d helped in a breech, a stillbirth, and a dozen or so normal deliveries. In one case the mother had died due to excessive bleeding. Of all of them the stillborn was the most difficult, the second, losing the mother.

  When her mother opened the basket Cook had prepared, Elizabeth ate without paying much attention, other than giving a vague smile and the requisite thank-you. She dug another book from her reticule, this one on childhood diseases, and only glanced up when her mother pointed out something for her to see.

  “Next station: Chicago, Illinois.” The conductor repeated his call as he made his swaying way down the aisle.

  Elizabeth closed her book to watch as they rode between three- and four-story brick buildings with washing hanging from lines on pulleys attached to the walls. Broken windows, trash in the handkerchief-sized yards, fences with missing slats, children playing on an empty lot. A woman, heavy bellied like those she’d been reading about, sat on an iron fire escape, her hair hanging in clumps, fanning herself with a folded newspaper.

  Elizabeth shivered in spite of the heat. While she knew from reading that many people lived in squalor like she’d just seen, she’d not noticed it on the train to Chicago before. Was it only that because of the heat people were outside, or had she just not looked with eyes that wanted to see? She glanced at her mother. Serene, stylish, and with total absorption, she plied her needle in and out, the burgundy yarn adding to the flower petals on a needlepoint canvas. She’d made needlepoint seats for eight of the twelve chairs in the dining room. Most likely she’d finish another on this trip.

  I wonder . . . Surely there are medical facilities for these people. Will that woman have someone help her when her time comes? Midwives had been around for centuries, in fact only recently had doctors had anything to do with childbirth, believing it a natural occurrence beneath the dignity of a man trained for better things. And besides, seeing a woman in such a state was not really proper.