Racing Home

by Adele Dueck

  “Just one,” said Erik, puzzled. “That’s all I could hold at once.”

  Olaf glanced at Erik sideways. “You might try the sort you don’t have to hold. You can set more than one and you don’t have to wait around.”

  Erik was thinking about how to set a snare to tighten on its own, when Olaf stopped the horses and shoved the reins into his hands.

  “Hold them still,” said Olaf. He reached back for the rifle, then stepped off the stoneboat and moved soundlessly a few feet away. Dropping to his knees, he aimed toward the spring and pulled the trigger.

  Several brown, chicken-like birds lifted off the ground. Some flew into the bushes by the spring, others fluttered across the prairie.

  The horses started at the sound of the rifle. Erik pulled hard on the reins to keep the horses from moving.

  “Let ’em go.” Olaf walked beside the horses, stooping to pick up a dead bird.

  “They make good eating,” he said, dropping it onto the stoneboat.

  “What are they?”

  “I call them wild chickens.” Olaf nodded to Erik. “You did a good job with the horses.” He set the rifle down and picked up his pail.

  The trip back with the full barrels was slower, but the stoneboat moved more smoothly. They dropped two barrels off at the sod house, then Erik drove on with Olaf to get Elsa.

  After unloading the water, Olaf got a piece of wire about a half-metre long. “I snared rabbits in Minnesota,” he said. “Now I shoot them, but it’s more expensive, especially if you miss.” He made a small loop at one end of the wire, pulled the other end through, then made a loop at that end. The resulting circle was big enough for a rabbit’s head to slip through easily.

  “Rabbits are most active at night,” Olaf said as he tied a string onto the second small loop, “so check your snares each morning or a coyote might get the rabbit first.”

  “Coyotes look like small wolves?” guessed Erik.

  “That’s right,” said Olaf. “Watch your chickens. They’ll eat them, too.”

  He dug a large stick firmly into the ground and tied the string to it. “When the rabbit gets caught, it struggles. The string tied to this stick is what makes the snare tighten.” He used a couple of smaller sticks to hold the snare open and in place.

  “Understand?” asked Olaf. At Erik’s nod, he removed the sticks and tossed the snare to Erik. “Find a good spot to set it.”

  Erik set three snares that day. In the morning they were all empty, though one had been sprung.

  After resetting the trap, he took the milk pail into the shed. Tess still refused to stand still. He had to find a way to tie her in place, but today his concern was finding grass. When he looked around, the grass was eaten to the ground on every side of the house.

  Rolf, leading the oxen to the plough, glanced at Erik.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “Ja,” said Erik. “There’s no more grass, not close by.”

  “So we just tether the animals further away.”

  “Maybe,” said Erik tentatively. “Maybe we don’t need to tether them.”

  Rolf looked at him blankly.

  “We could just let them roam on their own,” said Erik. ”They should come back here for water.”

  “But what if they don’t? Or if they’re far away when we need them?”

  “We can try it first with Tess,” said Erik, knowing he would be the one searching if the cow didn’t return.

  “Fine.” Rolf lifted the yoke over the oxen’s heads. “We need to put up hay for the winter,” he said. “You can cut grass while I break land.”

  Erik nodded, then led the cow to the slough and slipped the rope off her neck. “Don’t get lost,” he said warningly. “We want your milk.”

  Back at the shed, Erik dragged the scythe outside. It was a large tool with a long curved blade and a wooden handle. Two handgrips stuck out of the handle at right angles, one at the top, one about halfway down.

  Erik sharpened the blade with a whetstone. Taking both the scythe and the whetstone, he set off for the slough with the saskatoon bushes.

  Though he’d never used a scythe, Erik knew how it was supposed to work. He swung it from the right to the left, trying to skim above the ground, leaving a tidy swath by his side.

  Whump! The scythe dug into the soil, coming to an abrupt halt. Erik tried again, missing the ground, but cutting taller than he wanted. He swung one more time, glad no one was watching.

  Whack! The scythe hit a half-buried stone.

  Erik dropped the scythe and threw himself on the grass.

  He looked up at the sky. The same sky he’d seen over Norway, he thought. It was still there over his grandparents.

  The world seemed smaller suddenly.

  After a while he picked up the scythe. He sharpened the blade again and went back to mowing.

  After he cut the last strip of standing grass, he looked at the slough. All that work, and so little hay. They were going to need much more to feed four animals all winter.

  The next morning Erik found a dead rabbit in one of the snares. He moved the other two to new spots and set them all again.

  “Look what Erik has,” said Elsa when Erik brought the rabbit to the house.

  “That will make a good meal,” Inga said. “Thank you, Erik.”

  “Where shall I put it?” he asked.

  “After you skin and clean it,” his mother said, “hang it in the shade till I’m ready to cook it.”

  Erik stared at his mother. He’d hoped she would clean and skin the rabbit.

  Elsa grinned and handed Erik a sharp knife. He went outside, crouching down behind the house. He could do this, he told himself. Just like all the other new things he’d done since coming to this empty land. He could do this.

  Afterwards, Erik scrubbed his hands in the basin and went to cut more hay. Rolf was off to the east, breaking prairie. He did as much as he could each day, whatever the weather. Erik thought he would plough all day if the oxen could work that long.

  A few days later, it was drizzling outside when Erik checked his snares. He brought two rabbits into the house, skinned and cleaned.

  “Manga takk,” said his mother. “They’re nice and plump, aren’t they? Please cut them in pieces for me, Erik.”

  Cut them up! Cleaning was bad enough, but cutting them was women’s work!

  Angrily, Erik knocked a bug off the table, grinding it into the dirt.

  “Can’t you do it?” asked Inga, giving him a surprised look.

  Elsa touched his arm. “I’ll show you how,” she said. “It’s not hard.”

  Erik glared at her, then at his mother, but neither seemed to care. “Thanks, Elsa,” said Inga, turning back to the sock she was darning.

  Afterwards, Erik dug a hole in the shed ready for a branch or tree trunk to use for a post. He hoped tying Tess to it would keep her from moving so much when he milked her.

  When he came out of the shed, the sun had come out. Rolf stood between the house and the slough looking at the ground.

  “We’re going to dig a well,” said Rolf. “Right here.”

  “How do we do it?” Erik asked.

  “With a pick and a spade. When it gets too deep to throw the dirt out, I’ll put it in a pail and you’ll pull it up with a rope. Then we’ll build walls inside the well to keep it from caving in.”

  Erik didn’t know what to say. Digging the garden had been difficult enough.

  “Since our slough hasn’t dried up like most of the others,” said Rolf, “I’m hoping there’s underground water here.”

  Erik watched Rolf push the spade into the ground.

  And thought of the man who dug fifteen wells without getting water.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Trees

  One day in August, Erik took a different route to the river, further north than he’d gone before. Some of the land he crossed was native prairie, but other pieces had been broken and seeded to grain, now turning from green to g
old.

  Further on, he found himself at the edge of a cliff. Looking down, he saw, not the river, but a small valley with more hills on the other side. Where the hills met, someone had built a corral and a small wooden building.

  Erik thought the corral was big enough for forty or fifty animals, but it held only two horses. There were no people in sight.

  He cast one longing glance at the horses, then headed south along the top of the cliff. He finally reached the river by the same route he’d gone in the past.

  Other times when he’d come to fish, he’d hurried back to work, but today it was too hot to cut hay and Rolf was gone. He was building a granary with Mr. Johnson in return for borrowing his sod-cutting plough.

  That meant Erik could finally do what he’d wanted to do ever since Gunnar Haugen had mentioned the valley of the trees.

  He placed his rod and pail under a bush and walked south. He followed the river for a while, then moved further up the bank. The brush soon gave way to trees – real trees that towered over his head.

  The ground felt spongy under his feet from years of fallen leaves. Erik’s heart beat faster. It was just like the forests in Norway!

  He grabbed a branch and pulled himself up into one of the trees. Stretching for the next branch, and the one after that, he climbed till the branches were too small to hold his weight.

  The tree swayed as he gazed about. Through the leaves, he caught glimpses of the river to the west, but just the face of a cliff to the east.

  After several minutes he half-slid, half-climbed down the tree, dropping the last couple of metres. He lost his footing and tumbled, unhurt, to the ground. Right beside his face was a miniature tree, twenty centimetres tall, its leaves huge on its stem-like trunk. Erik dug through the decayed leaves with his hands, freeing the tree’s roots. He found another close by and slipped both inside his shirt.

  After wandering through the trees for a few minutes, Erik found himself among shrubs and grass again. He walked around the perimeter of the trees, amazed that a forest, even a small one, could exist next to so much flat prairie.

  With an eye on the sun, Erik went back to his fishing rod. He cast, then leaned against a rock, watching the birds on the water.

  A sharp pull on the line almost caused Erik to drop his rod. Clutching it tightly, he hung on as the fish jerked and pulled. He dug his heels into the ground, determined not to let go. Suddenly, the line went slack and Erik fell to the ground.

  Close to the shore, a huge pike jumped high above the water, the sun glistening on its scales.

  Erik tied a new hook to his line but just caught two small fish before climbing back up to the prairie.

  The grass where he usually walked had been flattened. Further on, Erik could see that while he was in the valley, animals had cut across a field of grain, breaking the stalks.

  Cattle? Erik wondered, or maybe one last herd of buffalo. Squatting down, he looked closely at the tracks.

  Horseshoes! But who would ride through a field of grain?

  They’d been travelling north, Erik saw. One day he’d follow their trail to see if they went to the corral.

  At home he planted the trees in front of the sod house while Inga fried the fish.

  “This is so good,” Elsa said, taking a second piece.

  “Our meals have improved,” agreed Inga. “I’m glad we have a hunter and fisherman in the family.” Erik glanced at Rolf, hoping he would say something, but he ate without comment.

  The next morning the wind was blowing when Erik crawled out of the tent. He fetched the milk pail from the house, then slipped into the shed to milk Tess.

  She surprised Erik by standing quietly – until the calf bawled outside the door. Her head jerked and her ropelike tail switched, hitting him right in the face with a dirty, stinging slap.

  Erik looked at the pail clutched between his knees, half full of the foamy milk. He wanted to quit right then. Let Tess out. The calf could have the rest.

  But if he did that, the cow would win.

  Clenching his teeth, Erik reached for the udder and squeezed the way his grandfather had taught him long ago in Norway. A stream of milk shot into the pail.

  “I can do this,” he muttered, squeezing again. “I can do this.”

  His mother was making breakfast when Erik brought the milk into the house. She smiled as she handed him a clean cloth to lay over the pail.

  “You’re such a good helper, Erik,” she said smiling. “Your father would be so proud of you.”

  Erik dropped onto the bench by the table, surprised to hear her mention his father. She hardly ever did, especially since marrying Rolf.

  He picked up a piece of the heavy dark bread and gazed at it sightlessly. Would his father be proud of him? Or would he take all his work for granted, like Rolf? How could he ever know?

  “What are you going to do today?” Inga asked.

  Erik shook his head slightly and reached for the butter. Butter they wouldn’t have if he didn’t milk Tess.

  “Look for more winter feed, I guess.”

  The door opened and Rolf came in along with a gust of wind that lifted dust on the floor. Inga poured him a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.

  “I saw Lars yesterday,” said Rolf. “He was just back with a load of lumber from Hanley.” He took a sip of his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The auction sale is only a couple weeks away, and he wants to be ready.”

  “Auction sale?” repeated Elsa. “Are they auctioning the wood?”

  “Don’t you remember what Mr. Haugen told us?” said Erik. “They’re selling the business lots in Green Valley at the end of August. Uncle Lars is hoping the people who buy lots will buy his wood, too.”

  “I thought Olaf was doing the hauling,” said Inga.

  “Apparently he found something else to fill his days,” said Rolf. His voice was stiff.

  Erik left to get the oxen, wondering what it felt like to have a son who wouldn’t talk to you.

  When he stepped outside, the first thing he saw was Tess standing in the garden, carrot tops hanging from her mouth.

  “You stupid cow!” Erik yelled, tearing toward her. Up till now she’d run loose without a problem, always coming back to drink at the slough, but he wasn’t surprised the garden had caught her eye. It was the greenest place around, even though the plants were still small. They’d eaten a few carrots as Inga thinned them, and one day they’d had fresh potatoes, but the vegetables needed weeks of sunshine to get full-sized. Rain wouldn’t hurt, either.

  Tess turned and ran into the prairie, stumbling over the uneven ground Rolf had broken. Erik let her go, but the next time he had her, she was going to be tethered like the oxen, though he’d be walking a long way to do it. He got the oxen from where he’d tethered them on the other side of the quarter and led them to the slough.

  Nearby, Rolf was building a tripod over the well hole.

  “This will make it easier to bring up the dirt,” he said. Erik nodded. They’d been working on the well in odd moments between other jobs, but progress was slow. This pulley should speed things up somewhat. Now they just needed something to make the digging easier.

  Rolf yoked the oxen to the plough while Erik watered his trees. The leaves on one were wilted and drooping, but the other stood straight and strong, as if it had never been moved.

  Picking up the scythe, Erik headed west, toward the river, looking for grass that no one else was claiming. He found a small patch at the bottom of a hill and cut it swiftly. Leaving it to dry, he moved on looking for another patch.

  The sound of hoofbeats caused him to swing around. Two horses and riders cantered toward him. One pulled to a stop a short distance away, the other rode in a circle around Erik, stopping right in front of him.

  “Hi, there, walking boy,” exclaimed Olaf in English.

  Erik stepped back instinctively, then stretched his hand out to pat the horse’s neck.

  “Is this your horse, Ola
f?” he asked, sticking with Norwegian. “He’s beautiful.” The horse was all black, except for a blaze on his forehead and the raw skin of the fresh Boxed Q brand.

  “Unfortunately not,” said Olaf. “One day I’ll have my own horse, but these belong to Pete. Jim and I are just trying them out.”

  Erik greeted Jim. The man with Olaf looked at home on the horse in his wide-brimmed grey hat, cowboy boots and leather chaps. Jim nodded at Erik without speaking. Pulling a pouch from his jacket pocket, he rolled a cigarette.

  “I heard you’re not hauling lumber anymore,” said Erik, turning back to Olaf. “Are you working for the man who owns these horses?”

  “Ja, I work for Pete some. I was tired of driving to Hanley and back.”

  Erik stared at Olaf. Tired of driving to Hanley? Erik was tired of working, too, but he didn’t have a choice. What would Ma say if he told her he hated cutting grass?

  “We best be gettin’ back,” said Jim. He lit his cigarette, then snuffed the burning match between his thumb and index finger. Turning his horse around, he dropped the dead match at Erik’s feet.

  As Olaf followed Jim across the prairie, Erik recalled the cowboys he’d seen in Hanley. One had been older, with a dark, drooping moustache. And the other? He’d had a wispy, brown beard, Erik remembered, and the older man had called him Jim. If he shaved off that beard, he’d look just like the man with Olaf.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sold!

  Throughout the night before the Green Valley land sale, rain drummed against the tent. Erik dreamed he was swimming and woke to find his feet in a puddle of water. After piling his bedding in the centre of the tent, he ran to get the milk pail, dodging raindrops all the way.

  Erik’s mother and Rolf were at the table when he brought the milk into the house. Erik filled the water pail from the barrel outside the door, then came back in, shaking rain from his hair. His mother handed him a towel, then poured him a cup of coffee.

  “You better eat,” she said. “Lars will be picking you up soon.”

  “I want to go, too,” said Elsa.

  She was curled up on a straw-stuffed mattress, watching them.