Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02]

by A New Day Rising

  “Your wagon didn’t fare so well.” Haakan gestured over his shoulder at the skeleton with wheels.

  “Wagons can be rebuilt.” She couldn’t drag her gaze from his, seeming locked in the blue depths.

  “Did you by any chance bring us something to eat?” Lars pointed toward the sacks she had slung in front of her.

  “Oh, ja, my goodness.” Ingeborg glanced once more at the decrepit wagon, then swung off the mule and promptly collapsed on the ground.

  Haakan was off his horse and to her almost before she hit the ground. “Ach, woman, how long since you’ve walked? Your feet are probably frozen clear through.” Clutching her elbows, he raised her to stand in front of him, holding her against his chest for support.

  Ingeborg prided herself on standing on her own two feet. For the past year, she’d proven to herself and the world that she could. But now the comfort of this man’s arms drew her like a candle burning in a window to welcome home a long lost traveler. She tried stamping her feet but felt nothing from the knees down. She moved them again, leaning into the strength of Haakan’s arms to hold her upright. Wriggling her toes in her boots did her in. Each movement brought the stabbing of miniature knives.

  “Oh.” She clamped her teeth against the pain.

  “Feeling is returning?” She nodded, unable to talk for fear she would cry.

  “Good.”

  Good that the feeling was returning but not good the pain. God in heaven, please help me. She clutched Haakan’s coat and buried her face in his lapels.

  “Here.” Lars took one of the quilts from the mule’s back and wrapped it around her. “We can be thankful your feet have feeling. Last night Haakan kept me walking to get the blood returning. I know how painful it is.”

  “Ja.” Ingeborg blinked her eyes. She would endure it, such a minor price to pay and such rejoicing she felt. The men were alive! “I brought you coffee. It is cold by now, but there are coals and some wood if you want to start a fire. There are biscuits in the sack, too.”

  “Inge, you are a woman above women.” Lars kissed her windburned cheek and retrieved the tied sacks. “What made you come out to look for us?”

  “I couldn’t let you die if I could do anything about it.” A mighty shiver racked her from head to toe.

  “Well, let’s put this wood to good use. We’ll all get through the trip home better with something hot in our bellies and a little warmth on the outside, too.” Lars kicked a patch of ground free of snow, removed the bucket with the coals, then set it to the side while he used Haakan’s ax to shave some curls off the wood. Within minutes he had a fire blazing merrily.

  Ingeborg hated to leave the warm strong arms of the man who held her. She looked up to see Haakan Bjorklund’s eyes gazing down at her. A smile lifted the corners of his mouth and crinkled the edges of his eyes.

  “Better?” he asked softly.

  “Ja.” She took a step back, and he released her but kept one hand on her arm to steady her. The wind buffeted her, making her realize anew the shelter he’d provided.

  “You . . . you . . . ah . . .” Where had her tongue gone? She couldn’t even string six words together. Was her brain frozen as bad as her feet?

  “The coffee will be hot in a moment.” Lars squatted by the blaze, the coffee pail nestled against the blazing wood. He’d set the biscuits on the last piece of wood so they could warm, too.

  “Sorry I didn’t bring any cups.” Ingeborg kept wriggling her toes in her boots as she held her hands out to the blaze. How wonderful the heat felt. She moved around the fire to stay out of the smoke. The horses stamped and snorted, then dropped their heads to push the snow away and find the grass beneath. The mule did the same, and the sound of grazing along with the snap of the fire and the jingle of the harness as the horses moved made Ingeborg take in a deep breath of relief. Thank you, God in heaven. We have so much to be thankful for.

  “Be careful you don’t burn your mouth on that tin rim.” Lars handed the coffee pail to Haakan. “I tried to keep this side cool enough to drink from, and I know the coffee could be hotter, but why wait?”

  Ingeborg felt the heat of the drink puddle clear down to her middle and send tendrils out to the rest of her body. Between the fire outside and the fire within, she felt ready to take on the driving cold of the north wind. Looking up, the thinning clouds allowed the sun to brighten the prairie.

  “It may clear.” She nodded to the heavens.

  “We better be on our way. I’d like to come back for our supplies before the vermin help themselves.”

  “Or someone steals them,” Haakan added.

  “That, too, but folks are pretty honest around here. If you get caught on the prairie and find a house with no one home, you are welcome to help yourself to what is there. That’s the law of survival out here. With everyone living so far apart, visitors are always treated like long lost relatives, or better,” Lars said with a grin. He looked inside the coffee pail. “There’s a last swallow here; you take it.” He handed the pail to Haakan. “Amazing how good coffee and a biscuit tastes after a night in a blizzard.”

  “I know one thing, I’ll make sure there is a bucket or some such along whenever I travel this prairie again. If I could have gotten some hot liquid into you last night, you’d have fared better. And the horses too.” Haakan scooped snow into the pail and set it in the middle of the fire. “Even a swallow or two now will help them along.”

  Before long, they were on their way. Ingeborg looked back to see the black circle left in the white prairie. They would have made it home without her, but she didn’t regret coming to look for them. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t lose any toes either. Frostbite happened so quickly. Lars might lose the end of his nose and his toes as well. Then they would have to keep the gangrene from setting in. She thought ahead to her store of medicinals. What herbs and barks and roots might restore circulation to frostbitten flesh? If only Metiz were back, she would know. Onion or bread poultice for drawing? Soaking in salt water?

  About an hour later, Lars made them all dismount and walk around. This time the knives returned as soon as her feet hit the ground. That was good news no matter how painful.

  As they neared home, Paws came bounding across the prairie to greet them, his joyful barking bringing Kaaren and Thorliff out the door in a rush.

  Kaaren flew across the melting snow and into Lars’ arms, knocking him backward into Belle’s bay shoulder. “Easy, woman, easy.” He held her close, murmuring into her ear as she clung to his waist.

  “What happened to the wagon?” Thorliff looked up at Haakan, his eyes round with wonder.

  “We cut it up for firewood.” Haakan dismounted from Bob’s back and stood for a moment to get his feet working. He handed the reins to Thorliff. “I’ll get these two unhitched, and you can take them over to the well for a long drink. If there’s enough water in the reservoir, we’ll pour it over their grain and maybe even add some molasses, if there is any. These two deserve a treat.”

  “Where are all the supplies?” Thorliff held the reins but followed Haakan around the traces.

  “In an abandoned soddy.” Haakan snapped the traces back up on the harness ring and crossed the tongue to do the other horse. “There now, off you go. I’ll be right with you.”

  “Dinner’s ready when you are.” Kaaren wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron and sniffed once again. “Oh, poor Andrew! I left him tied to the chair, eating a crust of bread.” She darted back to the soddy door and disappeared inside.

  Ingeborg led the mule after the team, her feet feeling like lead weights now.

  “Here, let me take him.” Lars took the reins from her.

  Ingeborg nodded. She lifted the quilts and the sacks from the animal’s back. Silly, she chided herself. Now that all is well, I wish I could cry for a week. Silly is right. But that old fear was gnawing at her mind. If she started crying, would she ever be able to stop?

  Hjelmer hated the foundry from the first moment he saw it.<
br />
  “It is just a job,” he promised himself. “For only a short time. You can endure anything for a little while.” He sniffed and coughed on the smoke-saturated air. “As soon as you have the rest of the money for a train ticket, you can leave for Dakota.”

  The man that walked past him and into the foundry gave him a look that questioned his sanity for talking to himself.

  Hjelmer felt like returning the rude look with one of his own. So he was talking to himself. Better than running for the river and throwing himself in as he’d seen someone do from the bridge the day before. This time he didn’t try to save the man. If the fellow wanted a quick entrance into the next world, so be it. Life or death, that was his own choice.

  And if he hadn’t played the hero in saving the child, he wouldn’t be trapped in New York without enough money for his train ticket. He’d be on his way to the Bjorklund homesteads in Dakota Territory, where the grass grew green and the sky wore a gown of blue, not smudged gray. Here the only way to tell the sun was shining was to locate the silver disk hanging somewhere in the sky. It gave light but little warmth. He pulled his coat more tightly around him.

  Nothing to do but go find the man. Mrs. Holtensland had a friend that owned the foundry and had begged a job for her immigrant hero. He was to ask for Einer Torlakson. She’d said at least the man spoke Norwegian. Hjelmer pushed open the door to the cavernous building, the incessant clanging of hammer on metal from rows of forges creating a cacophony of sound fit to split one’s head or drive one deaf in short order. Smoke hung in the air, bellows pumped the acrid smell of burning charcoal, and bright eyes of blazing fire waited for the metal it tried to devour but only heated white-hot. Monstrous steam engines provided power for the drill presses, shears, and sizes, all run by the drive shaft that ran the length of the building. Belts slapping, clutches squealing of metal on metal; the noise shrilled of progress in its most basic form.

  Once his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room in spite of the two-story tall windows that formed the walls on either side, he saw a man walking from forge to forge and talking with the smiths. Hjelmer strode down the aisle between stacks of iron pigs and flat steel bars. The pigs would be melted for cast iron and the steel formed into implements and parts for machinery.

  How would he be able to work in a place like this? At home the forge had been on one wall of a three-sided shed, open to a view of the pastures and trees, where a breeze off the hills blew the smoke away and wafted in scents of pine and growing grass.

  He waited until the man finished giving instructions to the smith on the nearby forge and then cleared his throat to get the foreman’s attention. The man walked on. The man on the forge turned to draw out a white-hot steel bar.

  “Sir, Mr. Torlakson.” Hjelmer started after him.

  “Ja?” The man turned around, a frown creasing his forehead. “I am Torlakson. Who are you?” His voice rose in a shout to be heard.

  “Mrs. Holtensland sent me. She said you would talk with me, and perhaps I could be hired on here.”

  “Oh.” He nodded. “To be sure.” He turned back the way they had come. “Follow me.”

  Hjelmer did as ordered, keeping his eyes open so he didn’t get hit in the head by a bar being swung into place by the overhead hoist.

  He followed the foreman up a narrow set of stairs to an office on the second floor with windows that overlooked the work below. As soon as the door closed behind them, the roar subsided to a rumble. Hjelmer took in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.

  “Now then, young fellow, I told Mrs. Holtensland I was hiring if I could find a good man. You look to be but a boy, big though you are. What makes you think you could hold your own with the men you saw below. They have years of experience.”

  “My father trained me well, said I seem to have a natural bent for working with metal.”

  “Your father, you say. Have you not worked for anyone else, apprenticed perhaps?”

  Hjelmer shook his head. “I did some work for my uncle once, fashioned him an anchor for his fishing boat. I’ve sharpened plows, pounded out new plowshares, brackets for the wagon bed, refitted rims on wooden wheels, all things needed on our farm and for some of the neighbors.” Hjelmer could feel his heart sinking as the man shook his head. “Please, I need this job.”

  “So do all the men who come to me.” Torlakson studied the young man before him.

  “Please, let me work today, and if I cannot do what you need, you owe me nothing.”

  “A day’s free labor? I’d be a fool to turn that down. Get yourself an apron from those on the pegs and gloves if you didn’t bring your own. I’ll meet you back on the floor.” He turned to answer a question asked by a man sitting on a high stool in front of a slab of wood that made a writing surface.

  Hjelmer did as told. He had the knee-length cowhide apron tied in place and the gloves tucked into the strings and folded over like he’d seen the others wear before Torlakson made his way back down to the work area. When the man beckoned, Hjelmer followed. They stopped in front of a forge that was lit but not hot enough for reforming steel. A young boy, black with the dirt of the place, leaped to his feet and began cranking the bellow, adding its ascending scream to the torrent of sounds.

  At the end of the day, Hjelmer laid his hammer down and felt like following it to the floor. Never had his arms ached so, or his head rung, or his mouth been so full of grit. He spit but nothing came. He needed water to spit with, and the only water he’d seen all day was what he’d stuck his forged pieces in to cool.

  The other workers made their way to the tall doors open now to the street in front of the foundry. Hjelmer followed them until he came to the stairs leading to the offices. They looked steeper than the rock faces of the Nordland mountains where he’d climbed as a boy. It felt like several life times ago.

  Was he to find the man or wait here? His stomach rumbled and his knees shook. Tomorrow, if there was to be a tomorrow, he would bring something to eat and drink.

  “We start at six.” Torlakson appeared beside him. Had he been dozing on his feet that he didn’t hear the man approach?

  “You mean—”

  “Ya, you be here. Payday is on Saturday. You’ll get five dollars a week. If you don’t show up one day, don’t bother to come back the next. I need men who will do a day’s work, every day.”

  “Mange takk, I will. You’ll see.” Hjelmer felt life flow into his limbs and hope into his heart. Five dollars in a week was more than he’d ever dreamed possible. Four weeks he would have to work, and then he could buy his train ticket west.

  By the time he walked the mile and a half to Mrs. Holtensland’s house, he could barely place one foot in front of the other. Everything hurt, and what didn’t hurt, he couldn’t feel. His hands looked like they’d been fed through a meat grinder, and his shoulders—his shoulders burned like he’d been beaten with his own hammer.

  “Uff da,” said Fulla, the maid, when she opened the door for him. Her nose twitched at the foundry stench that rose from his clothes. “Mrs. Holtensland is in the library. I suggest you don’t go in there like that.”

  Hjelmer nodded. He hadn’t planned to. “Is there hot water that I can wash?”

  “For certain.” Her look asked him what kind of house he thought she ran. She pointed to a room off the back porch. “In there.”

  “Mange takk.”

  “Supper will be served in one hour.”

  The sting of soap on his bloodied hands held little importance to Hjelmer. He scrubbed with both soap and brush to remove the filth of the foundry. Twice he threw out the water and started again with clean. After donning his only other set of clothes, he reentered the kitchen.

  “Do you have some strips of cloth I could use to bandage my hands?” he asked the cook who seemed more disposed to be cordial to a newcomer.

  “Land sakes, boy.” She dropped her stirring spoon and took his hands in hers. “Didn’t you wear gloves?”

  “Ja, but traveling
softens the hands.” He wished he could put them in his pockets and forget the favor, but he knew his hands were to be his salvation. If he couldn’t hold a hammer, he wouldn’t last at the foundry.

  Tearing an old sheet into strips, Cook wrapped his hands, tisking all the while.

  After a supper where he’d endured the sniffs of the maid, he joined Mrs. Holtensland in the library at her request.

  “How was it for you there? Can you understand the language well enough to make a go of it?”

  “Mr. Torlakson, he speaks Norwegian to me and many of the others.” A pang caught him midsection. Roald and Carl had written, telling him to learn the English language before he came, but he’d been working hard to earn passage money, and no one near home knew the language either. The thought of his sister who’d been exchanging washing laundry for English lessons nipped at his mind.

  “You are fortunate now to be in an area where many people speak Norwegian. That is why many of the immigrants settle here. It is easier than crossing the country without the English language. We have classes at the Settlement House in the evenings. You could attend there.”

  Hjelmer nodded while at the same time wanting to pull his collar away from his neck. Was it so hot in the room? Was she scolding him? He studied the edges of his fingernails where black crescents outlined the skin.

  “I will think on it.” Right now all he could think about was falling on the bed and never getting up. He stared into the fire where flames curled around chunks of coal in oranges and yellows, not the white hot of the coke fires at the foundry. There was something he’d been meaning to ask Mrs. Holtensland. What was it? He hardly remembered stumbling up the stairs and collapsing.

  The next evening when he dragged back to the house in the same filthy condition, the maid sent him around to the back door. “People such as you don’t use the front door,” she hissed. “People like you shouldn’t even be here. Mrs. Holtensland is too kind for her own good, bringing home filthy immigrants like stray kittens. And with just as many diseases.”