Wild Heart on the Prairie (A Prairie Heritage, Book 2)

by Vikki Kestell

  Jan held Elli as tightly as he could, Kristen and Søren sandwiched between them. He drew the canvas over all of them, pulled it in as tight as he could, and prayed for morning.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 9

  Jan climbed out from under the wagon. He was wet, stiff, and cold. A chilly breeze ruffled his damp hair. He shivered and looked around in the dripping morning light. Here and there patches of hail remained.

  “Ach!” he moaned. The chicken coop and pigpen were destroyed. He ran to them. Dead chicks lay motionless in puddles. The little chicken hutch rested on its back; he looked inside. Nothing.

  He strode to the demolished pigpen. The pig’s shelter lay flat; the fencing had been taken by the wind. No, there it is, across the garden spot against the empty wagon!

  Jan ran toward the wagon. Molly raised her head and bawled pathetically. She had not been milked last evening. He slowed as he drew near to her . . . and heard a wonderful noise, the muffled grunting of two piglets rooting for a warmer, dryer spot against Molly’s back.

  O thank you, Lord! Jan rejoiced. Of all the animals, he would hate most to lose his father’s pigs. He scratched the piglet’s backs. They would be safe with Molly for a bit.

  Jan saw Karl emerge from behind the wagons, saw him run his hand through his wet hair. “The pigs?”

  “They are here, Karl. With Molly.”

  “Thank you, God in heaven!” Karl replied. He saw the dead chicks and shook his head. An ox bellowed, begging their attention.

  Jan and Karl strode toward the oxen together. One of the oxen bellowed again, and Jan heard pain in its call.

  The oxen were lying on the ground, bunched together, something unnatural in their arrangement. Jan and Karl approached the oxen cautiously, careful of their horns and hooves, but trying to figure out what was wrong.

  As the oxen saw them coming, they struggled to stand—and could not. With the struggle another bellow of pain erupted from one of them. The closer Jan and Karl came, the harder the oxen struggled, and the louder ox bawled.

  The rope Jan had strung from the two stakes had come loose, and somehow the hobbled oxen had tangled themselves in that rope and the one that tied them together.

  Jan reached the first ox and placed his hand on its head, speaking calming words. The other oxen still struggled in agitation. Jan could not loosen the wet knot that held the ox, so he pulled his knife and sawed through it.

  A moment later he removed the ox’s hobble and the beast struggled to standing. Jan and Karl, working as quickly as they could, loosed each ox in turn until they came to the last one.

  It was the temperamental ox, the one that had given them some trouble. He bellowed piteously but lay still. He could not rise, and the reason was apparent. His near foreleg pointed in an unnatural direction.

  The brothers looked at each other and shook their heads. They could do only one thing for this poor animal.

  Søren, Kristen, and Sigrün picked up the dead chicks and placed them, one by one, in a hole Elli dug. Five dead chicks.

  “Who knows what has become of the rest?” Elli sighed. She glanced at Amalie with concern. Her sister-in-law sat on one of the benches with her arms wrapped tightly about herself, haggard from lack of sleep.

  Elli heard the report of a rifle and knew that Jan or Karl had dispatched the poor ox. Jan walked toward her, his face grim, and hung the gun on the side of the wagon.

  “Søren, set the tools upright to dry in the sun, ja?” Jan asked. He saw Elli tip her head toward Amalie.

  Ja, I see, Wife. He shook his head and set his mouth. Lord, what are we to do? Such a storm he had never experienced—and he did not intend for his family or his brother’s family to suffer through another like it again, uncovered to the elements.

  The tarps covering the packed wagons had held against the wind, rain, and hail; the food and other things were safe and dry. Karl and Jan quietly re-erected the tent while Elli and Amalie hung soaked and muddy bedding out to dry. Amalie’s movements were stilted, mechanical. She had not spoken yet.

  Elli wanted to warm the stew from the night before, but could not get a fire started. All their fuel was drenched. She crossed her arms in frustration.

  “Pappa! Pappa!” Søren’s cry for help roused them all. He was standing near the tools with a hoe raised above his head—and then he was striking the ground over and over.

  As they rushed to his side they heard the frantic cheep! cheep! of baby chickens. Huddled together among the fallen tools were six very bedraggled and frantic chicks.

  Near them was a snake, its head newly severed from its thick body. The tail of the snake twitched and Søren struck it with the hoe once more, separating the snake’s rattles from its body.

  No one spoke until Søren said in a tiny voice, “It was after our chicks, Pappa. I couldn’t let it get our chicks.”

  Jan laid his hand gently on Søren’s shoulder. “Well done, Sønn. Well done.”

  Elli swallowed, grateful for Søren’s courage, thankful for his safety. Amalie, behind Elli’s shoulder, moaned and her moan rose, turning to a keening wail.

  “Karl! You will move us to the soddy! You must! You must! Today!” Amalie’s words were shrieked; she was both hysterical and angry. “I-I cannot, we cannot stay outside under the sky! I-I, the sky is too big, Karl! You must move us to the soddy, Karl! Please, Karl! Please!”

  The children—and the adults—were wide-eyed and Sigrün began to cry. Karl pulled Amalie into his arms and away from the dead snake. He wrapped his arms about her and pushed her face into his shoulder.

  “There, there, my love! It is all right. You will see. It will be all right.” Karl spoke as if to Sigrün, his words soft and patient.

  “I don’t want to be outside in the lightning and the rain, Karl! Please!” Amalie sobbed. “Please!”

  “Yes, all right. I will do as you ask, Amalie,” Karl reassured her. His face was stricken and unsure when he raised his eyes to Jan and Elli.

  “We went into the Andersons’ dugout,” Elli said quietly. “She saw that it was safe. Please. It would be better for Amalie to live in one for now than under the wagons, ja?”

  Karl nodded and pressed his lips onto Amalie’s hair. “We will move into the dugout, Amalie.”

  Søren, Kristen, and Sigrün crowded Jan and Elli, seeking comfort. “Pappa,” Søren whispered, “Is Tante Amalie all right?”

  “She will be, Sønn,” Jan answered quietly, hoping he was right.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 10

  The morning was miserable for all of them. They could find no dry grass or chips to start a fire, so breakfast was cold bread and cheese with milk. No coffee. No tea. Nothing to warm them on this wet morning.

  Karl unpacked a dry quilt and wrapped Amalie in it. He sat her at the table under the canvas tent. He placed Sigrün on the bench cuddled up to her mor’s side. After a while Amalie laid her head on the table and slept. Karl, his face resolute, headed toward the dugout.

  Jan was about to follow when he looked west at the faint sound of “hallo!” The Andersons were walking toward them, Abel on his father’s shoulder.

  “We came to see how you fared,” Henrik said. He looked about with concern. “We saw the twister.” Abigael was carrying a heavy basket. She nodded to Jan and went to talk with Elli.

  “We did not think you would be able to start a fire this morning,” she said quietly to Elli, “so we brought some hot food. Just simple things—coffee and hot cereal.”

  “Mange takk!” Elli exclaimed. “You cannot know how we thank you. It was terrible!” She looked cautiously toward the tent and lowered her voice. “Amalie is having a very bad time of it. I did not know she was terrified of thunder and lightning. She is . . . distraught.”

  Abigael nodded slowly. “I am so sorry. We will pray for all of you. What is your plan for shelter?”

  Elli glanced toward the tent again. She took Abigael’s arm and they walked out of Amalie’s earshot. “Our husbands ha
d planned to build the barn first and we would also live in it until we have a crop and can build houses. But it will take some time to put up the barn.”

  She shook her head. “We thought we could live under the tent this summer while they built the barn, but oh! Never have we seen a storm like last night! This morning Amalie . . . insisted we move into the Gloeckner’s soddy.” Elli looked at Abigael. “She was so frightened, not in her right mind.”

  “What do you think you will do?” Abigael sounded concerned.

  “Karl has promised he will move her into the dugout. It is very small, big enough only for them.” Elli sighed. “It is a ways from here, but we will manage. I suppose we can move the wagons and the tent.”

  She thought for a moment. “Unless Jan wants us to live in there, too. I don’t know how, but perhaps we could all sleep there for a time.”

  Elli looked toward the children. Søren was trying valiantly to put the coop back together. Kristen and Sigrün were “helping.” “We lost some chicks. Half of them. We thought we had lost our weaners, but we found them. Thank you, God in heaven!”

  Shuddering, she added, “Søren found the missing chicks just as a rattlesnake was about to get one of them. He chopped off its head!” She smiled a little. “I am very proud of my boy.”

  “Oh, that is good! I would be proud, too!”

  “Eh. One of our oxen also broke his leg. We will have to slaughter him today. I am sure we will give you some of the meat.”

  Abigael’s eyes shone. “That would be wonderful! Not that we are happy you will lose your ox, but still, to have as much fresh meat as one wants!”

  While Søren finished putting the coop and pigpen to rights and putting their residents within them, Jan and Karl asked Henrik if he would butcher the ox in return for a share of the meat. He readily agreed. This freed Jan and Karl to work on the dugout.

  The sun rose and the earth gradually warmed; the grasses all around them steamed in the sun. Abigael went home to fetch some dry fuel, and then Elli was at last able to get a fire started. The women, including Abigael, were roasting a great piece of the ox for dinner. Amalie seemed more like herself, chatting and working with a will.

  No one spoke of Amalie’s actions during or after the storm, but Jan suggested to Karl that perhaps it would be best to expand the dugout for both families. Karl was relieved.

  “We must shelter our animals this way, too, eh?” Jan added, “and after that get our crops in before it is too late this season. Perhaps we planned wrong; perhaps we must build the barn last.”

  “Ja, I think you are right,” Karl agreed.

  Søren found the men, bent on getting their families under a solid, safe roof as quickly as possible, marking the outline for additional walls. The outline they had marked was about 16 feet by 10 feet. When finished, the old dugout would open into the new soddy.

  “What will you do here, Pappa?” Søren asked, curious.

  “This house is dug into this hillside. We are going to build on to it, Sønn, making a new room on the outside.” Jan answered. “We will hang a curtain across the room so our family has a private place to sleep. The rest of the new room will be our kitchen and where we will eat. Onkel and his family will sleep in the dugout room. We will still build the barn where we decided, but we will live here until then.”

  The men dug down and cut out the sod where the floor and walls would be. They were building against the hillock, so they scraped its side flat to shape the back wall. They used the sod they removed for the floor and the sod cut from the garden spot to lay the first foot of the outside walls. They framed in a door about half a foot off the ground.

  The cut sod was very wet from the storm, but Henrik, who offered to lend a hand, told them, “It is good that it is still wet, ja? Sod that dries out before you use it does not grow together and make a strong wall. Then the walls do not last very long.”

  “I hope we will not need this house very long,” Karl muttered, “but we do not know what the future will bring. Thank you for telling us this.”

  At the same time, Elli and Amalie began to make mattresses. They spread a piece of canvas upon the ground near the wagons. Together they hauled a bale of hay to it and cut the twine holding it together.

  The women and their daughters spread the hay over the canvas so the sun would dry it. Amalie had the girls turn the hay to dry it evenly as the day wore on. Then she sent the girls to gather sticks and chips. They placed them in a box under one of the wagons. She and Elli would not be foolish and leave their fire fuel in the open again.

  “Every day it is the same: We have to gather more sticks and chips,” Kristen grumbled, digging in the dirt with her “snake” stick, the one she used to warn snakes of their approach.

  “Ja, I know. And every day it is the same: You wish to eat, eh?” Elli answered.

  Kristen sulked a little but quickly caught up with little Sigrün. She knew better than to let Sigrün wander into the grasses without her.

  Elli dug in the wagons until she found the striped ticking they had bought from Herr Rehnquist. She and Amalie cut lengths of the ticking for mattresses and began to stitch them together.

  Over the next days they would sew mattress covers for themselves and their husbands and smaller ones for the children. As the sweet-smelling hay dried, they would stuff the mattress covers with it and then stitch them closed. During these days the families ate all the fresh ox meat they wanted; some of it Elli and Amalie sliced thin and hung over the fire to dry.

  Karl and Jan worked until dark that day cutting more sod and laying all the bricks they cut. The weather was calm that night; Amalie was calm, too, seemingly comforted by the progress the men were making.

  Early in the morning Jan and Karl returned to cutting more sod. They chose a new spot for the garden, closer to the dugout, and cut the sod from it. Jan finished plowing the garden while Karl laid sod.

  Then they chose their first field and began cutting sod from it. It was slow, backbreaking work, but they kept at it. By late evening, the outside walls of the soddy were four feet high.

  The next day was the same. The men and Søren cut and laid sod; the women and girls worked in the new garden and kept turning and drying hay for the mattresses.

  Jan and Karl spent an hour after lunch planting the “old” garden area in corn. “We will have one small crop of corn for sure before our other crops come in,” Karl said this with a satisfied air, but Jan fretted.

  He was anxious to finish the soddy so they could attack their first large field. Once their families and animals were safely under a roof, planting a good-sized crop was the next priority.

  While they were planting the small cornfield, Jan planted his two apple saplings. He wanted the trees to grow on a softly sloping rise not far from where he intended to build their house.

  This is a good spot, he told himself. We will be able to see them in the spring when they are full of flowers. And someday we will add more fruit trees here. He made two cages of chicken wire, placed them around the little trees, and staked the cages to the ground to keep them from blowing away.

  As the walls of the soddy rose to six feet, they framed in a small window with shutters in the common room wall. Now they were ready to build a roof.

  The roof did not have to be made of wood. Henrik had showed them they could save their precious lumber by placing poles across the walls, filling the spaces between the poles with thatch, and then laying long strips of sod crosswise over the poles and thatch.

  Before quitting for the day, the men and Søren drove the wagon to the slough and cut bundles of rushes. The women would tie rushes together to make thatch for the roof, but they would need a great many rushes for the job, more than the slough had.

  Pressing forward the next day, Karl and Jan hitched the wagon and loaded their ax, hatchets, and saw. With Søren in the back of the wagon, they drove far up the creek to a stand of saplings growing on the creek bank.

  They cut three dozen saplings and s
et to work trimming the branches from them. Jan showed Søren how to use the hatchet to bump little branches from the trunks. When they had the poles ready, they loaded them in the wagon. Then they scoured the creek banks for more rushes. After they had filled the wagon they returned to the women.

  Because the soddy backed against the hill, they dug holes for the poles in the hill just above the roof line. Jan and Karl hammered the poles into the holes until they were solidly anchored.

  It would not be a flat roof; they hammered the poles into the mound about six inches higher than the outside walls and rested the poles on the front wall of the soddy, making a slope. Rain would run off the roof toward the front of the house. After the roof was done, they would fill the gaps on the sides left between the top of the wall and the rise in the roof.

  Early in the morning, Jan and Karl began to lay the bundles of rushes between the poles. Elli and Amalie had worked tirelessly to tie enough bundles to fill all the spaces.

  About noon they drove to their field and began to cut sod in long lengths they would lay across the poles. It was difficult to handle the long, heavy swathes of sod. They wrestled them into the wagon and drove back to the soddy. Then the men stood in the wagon bed to hoist the thick lengths onto the roof. Little by little, they covered the roof’s frame with sod.

  When they finished laying sod on the roof, the poles stuck out about a half a foot over the edge of the walls but the sod stuck out only a couple inches. Karl mixed mud in a bucket. He and Jan filled the gaps along the top of the wall where the thatch lay between the poles. Then they chopped sod bricks to fit into the gaps on the side between the roof and the wall.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday,” Karl reminded Jan. “We should rest and spend time with God.”

  “Ja, sure.” Jan’s response was half-hearted. He wouldn’t admit it, but it irritated him to stop before the job was done.