Lauraine Snelling - [Red River of the North 02]

by A New Day Rising

  The first thing she asked of Mrs. Mackenzie, the wife of the proprietor of The Mercantile, was a drink of water.

  “Of course, of course.” She trundled off to the living area behind the store and returned with a cup of cold, fresh water.

  “Mange takk,” Ingeborg said before draining the cup. “That surely was good.”

  “I have the coffeepot on. Would you like to take a few minutes and join me in a cup?” The woman with hair the color of a robin’s breast, and the same habit of cocking her head to see better as a robin on a worm hunt, smiled and motioned to the door leading to the parlor.

  While Ingeborg had enjoyed the ride, the thought of a chair rather than the ridged back of the mule sounded mighty tempting. “Only for a minute. I need to get home before dark.” She followed her hostess around the counter and through a curtain into their living quarters. She sank into the indicated chair and leaned back with a sigh. Oh, how good the cushioned seat with a back felt.

  “Here we go.” The woman returned with a tray that held two steaming coffee cups and a plate of cookies.

  Ingeborg raised one of the cups and sniffed, her eyes closing in bliss. “Ah, coffee. The smell alone makes the heart brighten.” Taking one of the cookies, she dunked it in the coffee and bit off a hunk. “Now this is perfect.” She gazed around the room, comparing it to the dark soddy in spite of herself. Real glass windows on two walls let the sun in, and white wallpaper with blushing peonies trailing in stripes made the heart glad. A braided rug lay in front of each rocker, and another with an orange cat curled on it fronted the round heating stove.

  “Such a cheerful home you have made here.” She listened in delight to the bonging of a grandfather clock that stood tall by the door to the kitchen. “So long since I’ve heard a clock. Funny, the things we used to take for granted have so much more value now.”

  “That is so. Mr. Mackenzie gave me that clock for our anniversary. Fifteen years we been married, ten of them here in St. Andrew.”

  “You came when the town was nothing but a dream, then?” Ingeborg sipped her coffee. She shouldn’t be here enjoying herself when Lars needed the laudanum so desperately. One more minute, she promised herself. That is all I’ll take.

  “Yes. My husband believed the settlers would come, and when people come, they need a store. He didn’t want to homestead, too backbreaking he said.” She looked around the room and then back at Ingeborg. “ ’Sides, he’d been raised in a store, and his daddy gave him a start for this one. I thank the good Lord for bringing people like yourselves to settle here. We will have a fine town here, lessen the railroad passes us by.”

  “The railroad is coming this far north on the west side of the river?” All thoughts of staying for only one more minute flew out of Ingeborg’s head. “I knew they went to Canada on the east side of the river, but will they be coming over here, too?”

  “That Mr. Hill, he plans to cover Dakota Territory with railroads. The farmers can ship their crops easy that way. You mark my words, there’s big changes coming.”

  Ingeborg set down her cup. “Well, I thank you for the coffee and the information, but I better be on my way. Lars Knutson, my brother-in-law, is suffering from frostbite and the chilblains mighty bad. He and Mr. Bjorklund got caught in that last blizzard on their way home from here.”

  “Oh, my. We wondered about them when the storm hit. Land sakes, bad frostbite is nothing to joke about.” She rose to her feet. “Come, Mrs. Bjorklund, let’s get you on your way. What is it you’ll be needing today?”

  Ingeborg followed the bustling woman back into the store. “I need medicinals for treating his foot. A bottle of laudanum, and . . .”

  Ingeborg stared at the bottle of whiskey Mrs. Mackenzie set on the counter. Should she take that along with the laudanum? Her far always swore by the disinfecting power of liquor in addition to its medicinal properties to help pain. But then, he liked a drop or two on occasion, besides.

  Mrs. Mackenzie set the small bottle of laudanum beside it. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  Ingeborg looked at the jar with peppermint sticks. “I’ll take two of those, both the bottles, and please wrap them well so they won’t break in the sack on the way home.”

  “That I will do. When will you be bringing cheese again?” the woman asked as she wrapped the bottles in several layers of paper. “I swear there must be a line from house to house here. When folks hear there are Bjorklund cheeses in the store, they line up on the porch.” She finished her bundling, wrote the list in her book, and smiled across the counter. “You come back soon. It’s time we women had a quilting bee, or some such, so we could all get to know each other. Oh—” She slapped her hands on the counter. “I have something for you.” She disappeared through the curtain and returned a minute later. “This here’s a slip of the geranium I have growing in my kitchen window. I thought you might enjoy a bit of color, too.”

  At Ingeborg’s “mange—” Mrs. Mackenzie raised a hand. “No, don’t say thank-you. That’ll put a blight on it. Just pretend you snipped this off yourself.” She passed the sack over the counter. “We’ll be praying for Mr. Knutson, too. You be careful going home, now.”

  “Mange takk for the coffee and cookies.” Ingeborg smiled and nodded in response to Mrs. Mackenzie’s raised hand. “I know. And one day soon I will have a start to give someone else.” Ingeborg left the store with the sting of tears behind her eyes. She sniffed as she unlooped the mule’s reins from the hitching post. Did she dare mount here?

  She looked up and down the street. There was no one in sight, so she led the mule to stand sideways beside the steps. Then she swung aboard and trotted west, out past the church and the few remaining houses. At the end of town, she kicked Jack into a canter and headed home, her treasured sack clutched in front of her so it wouldn’t get banged around and break anything.

  Cold, stiff, and sure she had sores where she’d sat, Ingeborg swung off the mule as the first stars poked holes in the heavens and winked at the earth below. A warm spot glowed around her heart at the lamp beckoning in the window. Paws yipped beside her, bringing Thorliff through the door to fling his arms around her waist.

  “What is this, my son? Is something wrong?”

  “No, I’m just glad you are home.” He hugged her tighter.

  “Did you think I would not come?” She stroked his hair back and tipped his face up to look at her. “I am here and all is well. You take the mule out to the barn and give him a good feeding, all right? No water yet, though.”

  Thorliff hugged her again. “I will.” He grasped the mule’s reins and swung up on his back. “Tante Kaaren has supper ready. We already ate.” With that he drummed his heels on the mule’s ribs and trotted across the field.

  Andrew met her at the door and clung to her skirts. Kaaren stood at the stove, already dishing up a plate of food.

  “You had a good trip?” She set the plate on the table and reached for Andrew. “You let your mor have some supper, now, den lille guten.”

  Ingeborg handed her the sack. “I bought some whiskey, too, and there is a treat in there for the boys when Thorliff comes back. How is Lars?”

  “Sleeping for now. I gave him enough willow bark tea to drown a cow. Thorliff read to him for a while after the men decided what needs to be done next in the fields.”

  Ingeborg squashed the instant flair of resentment that again they had decided farm matters without her. “He should sleep real well with some of this.” She raised the small brown bottle of laudanum. “You just put a couple of drops in a cup of water. I thought perhaps we could use the whiskey in between times. My mother used it for cleansing wounds. It might help on the open blisters.”

  “Mange takk, Inge, for going to town like this. I know that is a long ride by wagon, let alone on horseback.”

  “Horseback might not have been so bad, but that mule has a ridge for a backbone big enough to—” She looked up to see a smile curving Haakan’s mouth. The heat rushing up f
rom her neck flamed across her face. “Excuse me, I . . . I better wash.” Turning to bury her hands in the bowl on the cabinet counter made her wish she could bury her face as well. Anything to cool it off.

  She sat down to eat, composed at least on the outside. Haakan took the chair across from her and Kaaren the one on the end. Between them, they peppered her with questions until she raised her hands in surrender. “How am I supposed to eat and answer all you’ve asked?”

  Kaaren rested her cheek on Andrew’s soft hair. “Sorry, Inge, I didn’t think. Tomorrow we will plant that slip of geranium. It will bloom so pretty in your window.”

  Lars moaned from his bed. “Kaaren.” His voice sounded weaker than when she left in the morning.

  “Coming.” Kaaren dipped a cup of warm water from the reservoir, added three drops of the vile brown liquid, and crossed the room. If this didn’t work, what would they do?

  You better cut if off,” Lars muttered a day or so later.

  “No, not yet. There must be something more we can do.” As Kaaren and Ingeborg stood by the side of the bed, Kaaren reached for the whiskey bottle.

  “If you’re going to pour that over my foot again, give me a swig or two of it first. What a waste of good whiskey.” Lars reached for the bottle, at the same time lifting his foot. “Looks awful bad, don’t it?” He tipped the bottle to his lips and chugged. “Whew.” With a grimace, he handed the bottle to his wife and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now, if I was a drinkin’ man, I might appreciate that, but as I ain’t, that burns something fierce both inside and out.”

  Ingeborg studied his swollen foot. “What if we made a dressing and soaked it in the whiskey. That would keep the alcohol in place and might do some leaching of the poison.”

  “Well, put me under first. I can hardly stand to have you touch the thing, let alone wrap it.”

  Kaaren went for the laudanum, while Ingeborg, with one finger on her bottom lip, continued studying the foot. Father God, I just don’t understand. I’ve been praying for you to heal this foot and also for wisdom to know what to do. Do you want Lars to lose his foot? That doesn’t seem fitting with what I read in the Scriptures. She looked from the foot up to Lars’ face. How could she ask him such a personal question?

  She sucked in a deep breath. This could be no more difficult than birthing the twin lambs with a fractious, frightened ewe. “Lars, you remember the stories of Christ healing the lepers in the Scriptures?”

  He shrugged. “Well, kind of . . . I mean, I heard them a long time ago when I went to church with my family and all. Ain’t been no church out here, you know.”

  “I know, but Kaaren reads out of the Bible every day.”

  “Sure, but we ain’t been reading about the lepers.”

  Ingeborg nodded. Knowing Kaaren, she was reading from her favorites, the Psalms or Proverbs. Whenever there was trouble, those were the first places she headed. “For some reason my Bible fell open to one of the leper passages, so I read it and then the others. In all cases, the lepers had to ask for Christ to heal them, and then do something He commanded.”

  “So?” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillows Kaaren had stacked behind him. “You think I haven’t been praying for this foot of mine? What kind of idjit do you think I am? Of course I’ve been praying.” He sat forward, wincing at the action. “I pray and pray, and my foot looks worse and worse. You got an answer for that? Do you?” He shook his finger in her face.

  Ingeborg stepped back. Was this what she’d been like when she had questioned God? No wonder people stayed away from her. “I don’t have an answer.” She softened her voice. “All I know is that God loves us and promised to be beside us through all the trials on this earth.”

  “Yeah, well, right now I think God is looking the other way, too busy with some other part of the world.” He laid the back of his hand over his eyes. “Thanks for trying, Inge, but I need to resign myself to losing this foot, and if we don’t take care of that soon, I’ll lose my life, too.”

  “If onlys” flashed through Ingeborg’s mind. If only they hadn’t gone to town; if only they had listened to her; if only . . . if only .. . She closed her eyes and mind against the memories. Blizzards, indeed, had taken their toll on the Bjorklunds.

  “We have to deal with what’s now.” She said the words as much to herself as to the man in the bed.

  “Mor!” Thorliff threw himself through the door and stopped in front of her, puffing heavily.

  “What is it?” Ingeborg looked from her grinning son to follow where he pointed. “Metiz!”

  The old woman, a descendent of marriages between the French Canadian trappers and the Lakota and Chippewa Indians, stood grinning in the doorway. She’d lost a front tooth to the winter, but her silvered hair was still pulled back in a single braid, her black eyes still snapped with delight, and the lines in her face resembled a dried apple more than ever. “We come back.”

  “We?” Ingeborg crossed the room and, extending her hand, drew her old friend into the room. “Oh, Metiz, I am so glad you came. We need your wisdom so desperately.”

  Metiz gestured behind her. A sturdy boy with the same bright eyes and dusky skin as hers stepped forward. He wore a combination of skin vest, bright red shirt, and leather leggings, while a thong held back his thick, black hair. “My grandson. Baptiste. He friend for Thorliff.”

  Thorliff wore a grin that would have split a more tender face. He looked up at Ingeborg.

  She nodded. “Perhaps you’d like to show Baptiste your sheep.”

  “Come on.” Thorliff straightened his back, shot a grin over his shoulder at his mother, and walked over to the newcomer. “You want to see my new lambs? I have,” he wrinkled his forehead in thought, “twenty-three. Two black ones.”

  Baptiste nodded. He glanced up at his grandmother for permission and, at her nod, followed Thorliff out the door.

  Thorliff whistled. “Paws, come here. That’s my dog.” His words floated back into the silent soddy.

  “They be good together.” Metiz nodded. Her mixture of French, English, and her native tongue, along with a smattering of Norwegian made it possible for them to communicate. Sometimes they needed no words, using signs and actions to convey what they meant.

  “I am so happy you came. I don’t know what else to use to make Lars’ foot better.”

  “What happen?” She moved to stand beside the bed and looked the sick man in the eyes.

  “Frostbite. We got caught out by that last blizzard.”

  “Bad one, that.” She sniffed, leaning over the bed to peer at the swollen reddened foot, now seeping from the open sores. “Foot bad.”

  “Ja, that it is.” Lars shrugged his shoulders, but the furrow between his brows belied the lighter words. “I think we need to cut it off before it poisons the rest of me.”

  “What done?” She turned to Ingeborg.

  “Rubbing it, hot and cold soaking, willow bark tea for pain, now laudanum, and I poured whiskey over it to clean it again.”

  “I drink the stuff, too. Maybe it does more good on the inside than out.” Lar’s attempt at humor fell as flat as the lefse Kaaren had made the day before.

  Kaaren entered the house. She’d been outside hanging clothes on the line and stirring the wash in a kettle over the fire outside. “So good to see you, Metiz. Welcome home.” Kaaren’s knowledge of French made it easier for her to talk with the old woman.

  In French, Metiz asked, “Has he run a fever?” Kaaren nodded. “Out of his head at times?”

  “Only with the pain. He sleeps a lot now that we have the laudanum for him.”

  Metiz nodded. She cupped her hands over the foot, pressing gently, exploring the festering member.

  Lars blanched, sweat popped out in his forehead, and he clamped his teeth together. Kaaren took his hand, wincing at the force with which he grasped it.

  Metiz sniffed again, and closing her eyes, she pressed up the leg. She turned to see the man’s reaction. �
�Better?”

  “Up there, yes. I ain’t never had anything hurt like this.” He took in a deep breath and let it out, the air whooshing from his lungs.

  Metiz pondered the man in front of her, one finger tip massaging her chin. “I think not cut off whole foot. Two small toes, save rest. Put foot up high. I bring medicine.” She turned and headed for the door. “Boy stay with your boy?”

  “Of course.” Ingeborg followed the old woman out the door. “What can I do?”

  “Make him drink.” She mimicked tipping up a bottle. “We have the laudanum.”

  “Later. Make knife sharp. Very sharp. Heat poker.” She set out for her encampment at the ground-eating trot that Ingeborg had learned Metiz could endure for hours.

  Ingeborg watched her go and then headed across the field to her own soddy. She could hear the boys talking from the barn when she reached the door. Off in the distance, Haakan continued to widen the rich brown strip of field as the plow laid over furrow after furrow. “Thorliff,” she called, “I need you for a minute.”

  “Coming.” The two boys appeared in the barn door, Paws at Thorliff’s knee. The boy trotted up to his mother. “What do you want?”

  “Would you please go get Mr. Bjorklund for me? Tell him it isn’t an emergency, but I need help soon.”

  Thorliff nodded and with a “Come on, Baptiste,” the two boys raced each other across the rippling prairie grass.

  Ingeborg watched them go. How good it would be for her son to have a friend, someone that lived close enough to be with often and to do boy things with. She worried sometimes about this lad growing up with no one his age, always the oldest and responsible beyond his years. When she was eight, she had brothers and sisters both older and younger and went to school. They needed to get the school going, that was one sure thing. And now Kaaren’s husband might not live. “No, I will not even think such!” Her words rang loud and firm in the prairie silence.