Escape to Fort Abercrombie

by Candace Simar

  Ryker had almost decided to open the remaining can of baked beans from the Jacobs’s family when he spied a path leading away from Whiskey Creek. Above the prairie grass flocked blackbirds circling and diving.

  “It might be a homestead,” Sven said. “Looks like birds stripping a field.”

  A farmer would be vigilant to keep the blackbirds out of his crops, but there was an outside chance there might be someone left to help them. Maybe water. Ryker decided it was worth a try, but he wouldn’t go beyond sight of Whiskey Creek.

  They soon came upon a corn patch. The children chased away the blackbirds and scavenged the few remaining ears. It wasn’t exactly stealing. The log house next to the field had been ransacked, and mostly burned. They rummaged through the fallen timbers but found only charred furniture and half-burned clothing. They found nothing to eat, though Johnny thought they might find a trapdoor into a cellar if they moved the debris from the cabin floor.

  “We don’t have time,” Ryker said. “We need to be on our way.”

  The cabin had nestled against a small rise. Wild flowers surrounded what remained of a barn and hen house. Prairie grass had been scythed for hay, as evidenced by the charred remains of a stack and a stretch of shorter grass. A snake hissed next to a gopher hole. A bobolink sang. How peaceful it looked—except for the destroyed buildings and broken dreams of whomever had lived there.

  Johnny spied the remains of a vegetable garden behind the outhouse. Klara set Elsa under a shady bush and searched the rows for vegetables missed by the scavengers. Sven found an overgrown cucumber and a handful of carrots. Johnny pulled a huge beet out of the soil and took a bite, grinning with purple lips and teeth. The potato patch remained undisturbed.

  “What do you think happened to the people?” Johnny said, as he stuffed a tomato into his mouth. Johnny was always hungry. He picked another tomato off the ground and pinched off a spoiled part, fed the good piece to Elsa, and ate the rotten part himself. Elsa made a face but swallowed. Then she lay in the shade and dozed.

  “Maybe they went to the fort,” Sven said.

  “I hope they are safe,” Klara said. She found a wooden doll on the ground beside the potato patch. “There were children.” Her mouth crimped, and her voice lowered to a whisper. The doll wore a carved face with lips stained red, and a cloth dress and bonnet. Klara handed the doll to Elsa, who grasped it with her little hand but did not raise her head.

  “You hold the dolly for now,” Klara said, “but we’ll give it back to the little girl who it belongs to when we get to the fort.”

  Sven retrieved an old spade with a broken handle from behind the outhouse. He dug huge shovelfuls of earth around the wilted potato plants, while the others lifted the spuds hidden in the soil. They sifted through the dirt with their fingers to find as many possible. They scrambled to fill their sack. Klara wiped a potato with her skirt and took a bite. Then she woke Elsa and held the potato to Elsa’s mouth. Elsa took one lick and turned her face away with a scowl.

  “Milk,” Elsa said, her fussing turning into full-fledged crying. “Mama.”

  “Taste, Sistermine,” Klara said. “It’s good. You have to eat something.”

  “No!” Elsa said. She hid her face under her arm.

  “Can’t you do something to keep her quiet?” Ryker said in alarm. “Any Indian within ten miles will hear her caterwauling.”

  “She’s tired and hungry,” Klara said. “She wants milk. She doesn’t know any better.”

  Klara chewed a bite of potato and smeared the chewed mess into Elsa’s mouth. Elsa sucked Klara’s fingers and reached for more.

  “Hurry,” Ryker said. He glanced at the sun and figured it was almost noon. The sooner they got to the fort, the sooner Elsa would have milk. “We have to leave.”

  “She’ll get sick without something in her stomach.” Klara glared at her brother. “And I can’t chew any faster.”

  In the end, they worked together, chewing mouthfuls of raw potato and spitting into the empty peach can. The baby ate as fast as Klara could spoon the chewed potatoes into her mouth. Then, when Elsa had enough, she dozed.

  “Can we go now?” Ryker said, impatient with his sister. He was hungry, too, and tired to the point of exhaustion. The fort was not far away. “Or do you have something else you need to do first?”

  Sven stepped over to her side as if to fight for his sister if needed.

  “Don’t be mean. I want Mama, too,” Klara said. “And I miss Papa.”

  Of course she did. They all did. Ryker didn’t know how to take care of the family. He didn’t know the way to Fort Abercrombie, and he didn’t know how to protect them from the Indians. He had failed at everything Papa had asked of him.

  “Look,” Johnny pointed to the sky.

  It might have been an angel. Ryker looked at the clouds surrounding a patch of blue sky. The blue held the shape of a bird, or maybe a parasol. Maybe there were wings.

  “I see it,” Sven said. “Look, Klara. Everything is going to be all right.”

  Klara smiled through her tears and wiped her face with the back of her hand. She collected the wooden doll from where Elsa dropped it and stood to leave. Johnny hefted the sleeping baby onto his back. She rested her head against the back of Johnny’s head and slept. Ryker hosted the sack of potatoes over his shoulder. Sven filled the empty can with well water. Then they were on their way again.

  They traveled alongside Whiskey Creek through the heat of the day, struggling against flies and fatigue, footsore and weary beyond description. Johnny stubbed his toe on a stob sticking out of the ground, stumbling, cursing, and almost dropping Elsa. She jolted awake with a howl. He dropped beside her and bent to suck his bleeding toe.

  “You are lucky to have shoes,” he said after spitting blood to the side. “I might get blood poisoning.” He sucked again.

  Klara ripped a strip of fabric from her petticoat and wrapped Johnny’s toe. “Don’t be a baby. You’ll be all right,” she said. “You can soak it in vinegar when we get to the fort.”

  “It’s hopeless,” Johnny said. “We might as well give up now. Every Indian we’ve seen was heading toward Fort Abercrombie,” Johnny said. He rubbed his aching toe through the bandage. “Everyone there is already killed.”

  “I’ll fight you for saying that,” Sven said. “My mama is not dead.” He leaned toward Johnny and jabbed a clenched fist under his nose. “Take it back, or you’ll wish you had.”

  “No fighting,” Ryker said. “We have to stick together.”

  Though the fort might be a false hope, it was their only hope. He didn’t know where else to go. No settlers remained on their homesteads. Walking to Breckinridge would be impossible for the smaller children. Elsa needed milk. Klara disappeared a little more every day. His own clothes hung on him until he felt like a scarecrow. Even Breckinridge might be under attack by the Sioux.

  Unless they were discovered by soldiers or ox carters, picked up by the stagecoach or caught a ride on a riverboat, they had no recourse but Fort Abercrombie.

  Ryker had promised his father that he would report his mother’s kidnapping—this he must do. If Mama was at the fort, she would be worried. If she was not at the fort, they must send someone to rescue her. Everything hinged on the fort. Surely the Indians were no match for the howitzers and cannon.

  “A short rest,” Ryker said. He had to turn things around. They couldn’t give up. “You can stay here if you want, Johnny, but we’re going to the fort.”

  “No,” Johnny said hurriedly. “I don’t want to be out here alone.”

  “Good,” Ryker said. “We need your help.” Whiskey Creek grew increasingly wider as they neared the fort. It would mean a hard swim to cross now; good thing Ryker had listened to Johnny about crossing the river where it was shallower. How much harder it would have been to come this far without him. “We’d miss you if you stayed back.”

  “I didn’t mean anything,” Johnny said. “Just letting off steam.” He looked at the g
round and then into Ryker’s eyes. “If my folks didn’t make it,” he sniffed and gulped hard, “I was hoping I could stay with you.” Small drops gathered in his eyes, and he blinked several times before continuing. “Just until my brother . . . our brothers,” he corrected himself hurriedly, “get back from the war.” He gulped again, and his voice strained. “I don’t have no one else.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ryker said. “We can do anything if we stick together.”

  “Your mother was good to me,” Johnny said. “She couldn’t speak American, but she kept me beside her that first night when it was so scary.” Johnny pulled off his bandage and soaked his feet in Whiskey Creek. “I couldn’t understand the words, but she prayed that night.”

  Ryker’s heart swelled. “Mama ends every day with prayer. No redskin could stop her.”

  “Think how happy Mama will be to see Elsa again,” Klara said.

  Mama would be overjoyed to see them, if she were at the fort as they hoped. But Ryker faced another, most unpleasant task. He must tell Mama about Papa’s death. He imagined the way her face would crumple, remembering how she had screamed when learning that Martin was missing. Hopeless. He couldn’t imagine her reaction now. He must confess how he had left Papa in the root cellar without a decent burial. She wouldn’t like it.

  No, Mama wouldn’t like it at all.

  CHAPTER 23

  * * *

  Klara slouched on a mossy rock near Whiskey Creek. She folded her knees until her feet were flat on the rock. Then she laid her head on her knees. “I have to rest,” she said. “Can’t go any farther.” Her thin shoulders shook, and she let out a wail. “I miss good old Beller.”

  Her face looked thinner than ever, and her small shoulders drooped.

  “We’re almost there,” Ryker said. “Let’s push on and get there as soon as possible.”

  Ryker had been thinking of a good meal, a soft bed, and finding his mother. He rehearsed words to tell of Papa’s death. He must remember to tell her how he had planned to ask Mr. Tingvold to bury Papa’s body, but the Indians messed up his plans. There hadn’t been time to dig a grave. Surely she would understand.

  Elsa joined her sister in loud crying.

  A heavy layer of gloom settled over them. They were alone, worn out, and done in. Ryker had to do something to cheer them. They were so close. He pulled the can of baked beans from the bottom of the sack.

  “We won’t be needing this,” he said. “We’ll be at the fort by dark.” He doubted they would be there by dark, but he needed to cheer them. He jabbed the folding knife into the lid and pried it open. Then he used the knife blade to divide the beans so each had a portion. They tasted sweet and good. Elsa gobbled them in her mouth, smearing her face with sticky fingers and cooing in delight. Klara said she was too tired to eat, but Sven coaxed her into eating her share, whispering that Johnny would get them. Johnny inhaled his beans and licked the can, careful to avoid cutting his tongue on the sharp edge. Ryker finished his portion and ate a small potato. Johnny ate two.

  They washed grimy hands in Whiskey Creek. Klara lay in the shade behind some bushes, and Elsa used Klara’s stomach as a pillow. They sucked their thumbs and fell asleep at once. The boys crept behind the brush, while Ryker tidied the shoreline of any trace of their presence. Then he pulled dead branches around him, as he leaned against the trunk of a small oak tree, not wanting to take a chance of being seen by passing Indians. He scoured the shores, looking for any traces of the Sioux. Nothing. The only sound was lapping water and singing birds.

  Exhaustion heavied Ryker’s eyelids. He would rest his eyes for a minute and then wake the children to be on their way again. He dozed and dreamed of thunderstorms rumbling in from the west. In his dream, Mama’s face showed across the skies through lightning flashes and black swirling clouds.

  “Guns,” Sven said, shaking Ryker awake. “Wake up. Cannon fire.”

  “Indians attacking Fort Abercrombie?” Ryker said.

  “Can’t see,” Sven said. “But it sounds like just around the next curve in the creek.”

  CHAPTER 24

  * * *

  Ryker must discover what was happening. He didn’t want to stumble into the middle of a shooting war.

  He eyed the cottonwoods towering alongside Whiskey Creek. It seemed impossible to climb their slippery bark to get high enough to see anything. Their lower branches must have been twenty feet above the ground. Other trees grew along the creek, but only the cottonwoods were tall enough to see over the trees and brush ahead of them.

  Perhaps they would have a better view if they traveled a little farther west. Ryker crept closer to the water’s edge and peered in both directions. No sign of Indians.

  “Come,” he said and motioned to the others to join him. “We’ll wade in the creek to save time.”

  “What about Indians?” Sven said with a suspicious expression on his face.

  “We’ll be seen for sure,” Johnny said.

  Ryker’s heart raced, and he struggled to catch his breath. Things were happening too fast. He hadn’t thought it through. Panic rose up within his throat.

  Ryker forced himself to slow down, to take a breath, to think. They might be hit by the soldier’s guns unless they used common sense. Not to mention the Sioux.

  “Look,” Sven said, pointing to a deadfall leaning against a tall cottonwood. “That dead tree is a ladder reaching the crotch of the taller tree next to it.”

  Ryker looked at a deadfall hooked into the crotch of a towering cottonwood growing on the edge of Whiskey Creek. The dead tree had grown so close to Whiskey Creek that its roots had pulled out in a storm. It lay like a narrow bridge to the cottonwood branches. The cottonwood had no branches for the first twenty feet. Once in the crook, it would be possible for a climber to scale to the top of the giant tree, surely an eagle-eye view of Fort Abercrombie.

  “The lumberjacks called them widow makers,” Ryker said. “Said gusts of wind blow them loose. Anyone unlucky enough to be underneath leaves a widow.”

  The top of the tree latched onto the lowest branch of the cottonwood. It might hold. It also might give way with his weight. He would be clearly visible to any passing Indian as he scaled the long trunk of the pine. Ryker imagined the zing of an arrow and how it might feel to fall to his death. The deadfall stretched partly over a sharp curve in Whiskey Creek, hanging over the water. Rocks and ragged tree stumps covered the shoreline.

  Too many things might go wrong. It was too risky to consider. There must be a better way to discover what was happening at the fort.

  “I’m going to the fort,” Ryker said. “It’s too dangerous to bring Elsa. You wait here until I get back.”

  A ferocious volley of shots rang out closer to the fort. They ducked behind the roots of a fallen tree, huddling together and trying to shush Elsa, who feared the noise.

  “I’ll sneak close enough to see what’s going on and be right back.”

  “No,” Sven said. He folded his arms in front of his chest and pinched his lips into a thin line. He looked like Papa, with such a grimace. “Not this time. We stay together, no matter what.”

  “Papa is dead. Mama and Martin are missing,” Klara said. “We can’t risk losing you.”

  “I’ll climb the tree for a look,” Sven said. “I’m not scared.”

  Ryker squinted toward the top of the tree, calculating how far it was to the ground if Sven fell. “I’m the oldest.” He squinted again, as a gust of wind caused the deadfall to sway. “I’m not sure it will hold my weight.”

  “I’m smaller,” Sven said. “Let me do it.”

  “Mama wouldn’t like it,” Ryker said. He had enough to explain to Mama without adding a dead brother to his list.

  “I’ll do it,” Johnny said. He squared his shoulders and stuck out his lower lip. “You have to find your mother.”

  The sun hung halfway down the afternoon sky. Gunpowder hazed over the tree line where the shots had sounded earlier. A ribbon of gray cloud
rippled overhead like a roiling snake. Ryker couldn’t imagine Johnny scaling the deadfall, clumsy as he was, and with a sore toe. He shook his head.

  Ryker thought hard. He had left them before, and things had turned out badly. It would be impossible to sneak all five of them safely into the fort, especially under fire. But maybe Indians were only on one side of the fort. Maybe there was a way for them to cross in spite of the Indians. He had to see what was going on before he risked their lives.

  Papa always accused Ryker of not listening, of having his head in his hinder, thinking of something other than the task at hand. Papa had been right. Ryker had always been preoccupied with his own thoughts.

  Something had changed during this long journey. He had more to learn. Listening to Sven when he insisted on fetching water from the Tingvold well allowed them to survive. Listening to Johnny about crossing the river made it possible for them to get this far. Listening to Klara when she had insisted on following the baby’s cry on the prairie had saved Elsa’s life. He needed to listen again. He would weigh all the options.

  A pair of swans paddled upstream, rippling the water of Whiskey Creek. It smelled of drying leaves and fish. Ryker wiped his face with the back of his hand. It was a risk. He might make the wrong decision and cause the death or capture of his family.

  What should he do?

  CHAPTER 25

  * * *

  “I’ve decided,” Ryker said. He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. “We’ll stay together. I’ll scale the tree to see what lies ahead.”

  Ryker slipped out of his shoes and rolled up his sleeves. “If I fall . . . or something bad happens,” he said quietly, “you’ll be in charge, Sven.”

  “You’re not going to fall,” Sven said. “Let me do it. The girls need you more than they need me.”

  “That’s a lie,” Klara said. She handed Elsa to Johnny and hugged her twin around the neck. “I couldn’t bear to lose you . . . or any brother.”