A Breath of Hope

by Lauraine Snelling

  Gerd stood in the kitchen, her apron clutched tightly in her hands. “I—I—he was out on the porch, and—and I was busy in the house—and Signe took coffee out to him, and—and he was gone.” She blinked often, but a tear escaped in spite of her efforts. “Nilda and Signe are out looking for him. Rune, where could he have gone?”

  “The shotgun?”

  Gerd looked up, as did Rune. The gun was not on the hooks. “Out on the porch, I guess,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Nilda said from the doorway. “He is not anywhere around the buildings.”

  Signe came in behind her.

  “Gerd, you stay here with Kirstin and Leif, just in case he comes back,” Rune instructed, “then Leif can come let us know.”

  “I will help search,” Nilda said with a look that brooked no argument.

  Rune turned to the door. “I’ll go talk with the others. We will need lanterns soon.”

  “I’ll refill the lanterns from the barrel.” Signe followed them outside.

  “He’s not in any of these buildings nor outside of them,” Benson said when they gathered by the porch.

  Rune turned to his sons. “Knute, go see if any of the horses are missing.” He darted off.

  The men talked among themselves. “He had that head injury. . . .”

  “Maybe he’s gone crazy?”

  “Ja, remember the gunshot yesterday?”

  “Not looking good.”

  “You think he’d go down the lane to the road?” one asked.

  Rune shook his head. “I have no idea, but as obsessed as he is with the big trees, I would think the woods are more likely. But how could he get there? He must be fallen someplace. Let’s fan out and go through the pasture toward where we cut down the trees. It’s all I can think of. He can’t have gotten far. He is just too weak.”

  Signe handed three lanterns to the search party as they passed the machine shed. “Should we follow with the wagon?”

  Knute ran up to them. “Far, Rosie is missing and so is the cart.”

  “The harness?” Rune asked.

  “How else could he use the cart?”

  “How could he harness Rosie to the cart?”

  “If he is really as weak as you say, how could he do anything?” one of the men asked. He shook his head and spat on the ground. “You got to admit, he always has been devious.”

  Einar couldn’t have faked his weakness, Rune knew that for certain. “Maybe, but he has a will of iron when he really wants something. Let’s go.”

  A couple of the men headed out to search the hay, oat, and corn fields while the rest of them strode down the lane to the big woods standing dark sentinel ahead.

  “Einar! Einar! Einar Strand!” Rune could hear the others calling as they searched. They spread out when they reached the stacks of cut wood and piles of branches. Dusk had slipped in among the trees, cutting down on visibility.

  Rune cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Einar! Einar, where are you?”

  “Up ahead, isn’t that the horse and cart?” Bjorn tore off to make sure. “He’s not here!” One man brought over a lantern. “Far, the shotgun is here.”

  “Okay. Takk.” At least Einar had not shot someone else or himself. Rune realized he’d been thinking that. But the Einar he knew would never shoot himself, at least not on purpose.

  The men kept walking and calling, holding the lanterns high as darkness overtook the forest.

  Ivar, Bjorn, and Knute forged ahead.

  “Rune, over here! Bring a lantern!” Ivar’s voice echoed through the dark.

  The men thrashed through the downed limbs and branches and stood in a half circle at the base of one of the big trees. With the lanterns lifted high, they could see Einar crumpled on the ground, his cane to the side, his ax handle still in one hand.

  “Is he alive?” someone asked.

  Rune knelt beside the still form and felt for a pulse at the side of his neck. Shaking his head, he whispered, “I think he’s been gone for some time. Even with the heat, he is getting cold.”

  “Let’s turn him over and straighten him out while we can,” Joe Benson suggested.

  Rune’s head kept wagging. Einar Strand, you died doing what you lived for, at the foot of a big tree. He glanced up to see a slash on the tree trunk. He pointed. “See that?”

  Bjorn held the lantern closer. “He hit it once. Chopped at it. Far, he was so weak, how could he do this?”

  “Pure ornery willpower,” another man answered.

  Several of them laid the body straight, and Rune closed the staring eyes. Onkel Einar, it didn’t need to end this way. You could have . . . Eyes shut and one hand on Einar’s shoulder, all Rune could even think was, Dear God. He swallowed against the shock.

  Joe Benson said softly, “Must have been his heart that took him. No blood anywhere.”

  Rune agreed. “Or apoplexy. With all those falls, he had a couple of strokes, we think.” He patted Leif’s shoulder as the boy clung to his side.

  “Darn fool,” someone else muttered. “Let’s get him back to the cart.”

  Together, four of the men lifted Einar while Bjorn and Knute held the lanterns, and they stumbled and staggered their way through the branches and detritus of fallen trees back to the cart, where they laid him in the bed.

  Rune blew out a sigh that carried all the ache in his soul with it. Now he had to tell Gerd. Whoever would have thought Einar’s story would end like this?

  Chapter

  31

  We will bury him at the foot of one of those big trees he was so obsessed with.” Dry-eyed, Gerd stared blankly at her coffee mug, her face cut out of stone.

  “Ja, Gerd, if that’s what you want,” Rune said with a nod. “I know just the one, where his grave will not be disturbed.”

  “In the morning.”

  Signe couldn’t help her shock. “Don’t you want to—to prepare him?” she asked.

  Gerd shook her head. “Bury him the way he lived, boots and all.” She stopped. “I guess we should wrap him in a sheet.” Looking to Rune, she continued, “You want to read some words over him?”

  “I—I thought to bring out Reverend Skarstead.”

  “Makes no sense. Einar despised the man and all he stands for.”

  Signe laid a hand on Gerd’s arm. “Are you sure? I mean, sure of what he believed?”

  “All he wanted was to fell trees.”

  “To earn money for this farm and for us to live here,” Rune added softly.

  “I think he hated those trees.” It was as if she’d not heard him.

  Signe stared at the woman caught in the circle of lamplight. The young ones had gone to bed, leaving the adults around the table. Ivar had included himself with the younger set and gone upstairs to sleep. “Hated the trees? That’s what he lived for.”

  “He wanted to farm, but the trees were in the way.”

  “But . . .” Rune shook his head. “I guess that is not important anymore, is it? He did what he did.”

  “And now I—” Gerd looked at each of them. “We get to clean up the mess.” Her head wagged as if too heavy for her shoulders. “Takk.” She pushed herself up from the table and made her slow way to the bedroom, stopping in the doorway. “The best thing he ever did was bring all of you here. The very best.” She stepped into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

  “I feel guilty leaving his body out there in the cart.” Rune gazed down at the table. “At least I put it in the machine shop. I mean, what if a wild animal . . . ?”

  Signe sniffed. “But this is her choice, and we need to help her all we can.” She covered his restless hand with her own. Lord, help this man of mine to do the best thing. This is all so strange.

  On the other side of him, Nilda covered his other hand. “And you, my brother. You do not need to carry this load all alone. We are here, and God said He never leaves us, so He must be here too.”

  “But she doesn’t even want Reverend Skarstead to conduct a simp
le ceremony. Will she regret that someday?” He shook his head. “I—I’m not qualified to do that.”

  Nilda and Signe looked at each other. “Do we need to tell the sheriff or someone that he died?” Signe asked.

  “Joe Benson said he would tell the reverend and the sheriff.”

  “So then what?”

  Rune shoved back his chair, arms rigid on the table edge. “Now we go to bed. Tomorrow will be a new day. We will bury him as Gerd requested, I will read a passage and say a few words, and may God rest his soul.”

  Halfway through the night, Rune sat up and rubbed his head.

  Oh, my husband. Signe sat up beside him. “What is it?”

  “You go back to sleep. I am going to the machine shed.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to make a marker until we can carve a headstone.”

  “I see.” She lay back down. “Be careful.” Unsure why she had said that, she drifted back to sleep.

  Breakfast was subdued. Even Kirstin was quiet, as if she recognized the gravity of the morning. Rune and the boys left to do the chores.

  “Gerd, is there something special we can do for you today?” Signe asked.

  Gerd looked up from her cup of coffee, shaking her head. “Not that I can think of. We will do what we have to do, and then we will go on with our day. I thought to bake cookies for the boys. They really like my cookies. If you would like to help me clean my bedroom, that would be good.”

  “Then that is what we will do.” Nilda nodded. “We could start on that now while you bake cookies. If that is all right with you.”

  Gerd looked from one to the other, then leaned slightly forward. “Listen to me. Yes, I am sad today, not only because Einar died this way, but because he chose to live the way he did. That is sad.” She paused for a deep breath that seemed to catch in her throat. “He missed out on the important things of life, and he made me miss them too. I think I almost hated him at times for the way . . . the way he treated people. But thanks to him, I now have my family around me, and I will not live that way of his ever again.” She looked at each of them and grasped their hands. “I—I wish he . . .”

  Kirstin’s baby babble was the only sound in the room until Gra wrapped herself around their legs, her plaintive meow a counterpoint to the baby music.

  Gerd spoke each word distinctly. “I wish he could have known this.” She squeezed their hands again and shook her head slowly from side to side. “That is the saddest part of all.”

  “That tree over there.” Rune pointed to a thirty-foot white pine west of their new home. Einar had deemed it too small to cut for sale. Someday there would be pasture or planted fields around it. It seemed appropriate that Einar would rest in the shade of a pine tree.

  Bjorn stopped the team, and they all climbed out to drag the pick and shovels from the wagon bed. Rune paced off the plot, digging in a mark at the corners with his heel.

  “Let’s see if two people can dig at once.” Rune started in the middle and hit a rock just under the surface. “I’ll move back here. Bjorn, see if you can dislodge that rock.”

  While the boys worked on the rock, Rune moved to the head of the grave and dug in at the line. The rock proved to be larger than he had expected, so when they rolled the stone away, they had a sizable hole already. As soon as sweat started down one face, they switched diggers, and someone else would use the pick to loosen the dirt. The rock pile grew.

  “We’ll pile these stones on top to keep any wild animals from digging him up,” Rune said.

  “What animal would dig this deep?” Ivar wiped the sweat from his face with his shirttails.

  “Just not taking chances.”

  When the hole reached the six-foot mark, Rune helped pull Bjorn out of it. “You all did a fine job.”

  They paused to stare down into the hole. Leif leaned his head on Rune’s arm. Rune didn’t say let’s get this over with aloud, but the words crowded his mind. Cruel as Einar had been, Rune had realized long ago that he could not carry bitterness at the treatment they had received.

  He looked at Leif, who was staring down into the grave. “What is it, son?”

  “I never saw him smile.” A tear trickled down Leif’s cheek. He looked up at Rune. “Maybe Tante Gerd will smile more now.”

  “Knowing you, Leif, I am sure you will help her smile. Let’s go back to the house.”

  “I don’t think he liked us much.”

  Knute laid a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “Onkel Einar didn’t like anybody.”

  At the machine shed, Knute whistled for Rosie, the only horse that came when called. The other horses dropped their heads and went back to grazing, and Knute had to go to them with the bridles and bring the old team to the barn. Leif led Rosie to the rail by the barn, and Bjorn settled the harness on her back. Together they hitched her to the cart, which still held Einar’s body.

  Ivar drove the team to the house, so the women—Signe carrying Kirstin, and Gerd, the sheet—could climb into the wagon bed. Without a word, they followed the cart to the grave site.

  Stiff as the tree above them, with her arms locked across her middle, Gerd stared into the hole. Signe, eyes closed, her prayers for peace bombarding the heavens, gently swayed her sleeping daughter. Nilda stood on the other side of Gerd, blinking back tears as she gently patted the older woman’s shoulder.

  A crow flew by and settled at the top of the pine tree, an overseer in black.

  A slight breeze lifted a lock of Signe’s hair as she listened to the men lower the body into its resting place. Leif came to stand beside her and leaned into her for comfort. His sniffs brought on more of her own. Dear God, please. She could think of nothing else to say.

  Rune took his place at the head of the grave and opened the Bible that Nilda handed him. The rustle of dirt sliding into the hole was drowned out by the warning calls of more crows in the trees, the loudest at the top of the sheltering pine.

  “‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’” Rune’s voice stilled the crows, and the words calmed the hearts of those around him. “‘He maketh me lie down in green pastures and leadeth me beside still waters.’” He paused and cleared his throat. “‘He-he restoreth my soul.’” Knute shifted beside him. Rune stumbled again on. “‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .’”

  Signe chewed on her bottom lip, eyes swimming with tears, as she watched and heard her husband struggle with the reading. I will fear no evil, for thou art with me floated in her mind as the quiet stretched. Poor Rune. Help him please, Lord God.

  “‘For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.’” Rune’s voice grew stronger and more sure. “‘Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, thou annointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.’”

  First Signe and then, one by one, the others joined Rune in reciting the psalm. “‘Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’”

  Rune paused.

  Nilda used her apron to wipe her eyes.

  “Amen. I pray you rest in peace, Onkel Einar. Thank you for bringing us to Amerika and teaching us how to fell the big pines. For giving us a home. I hope we do you honor as we continue with what you started.” Rune looked around at his family. “Do any of you want to say something?” When they all shook their heads, he bent down and picked up a handful of dirt to sprinkle in the grave. “Einar Strand, you have fallen like one of your big pines. Dust to dust, may our Lord have mercy upon us all. Amen.”

  Leif looked up at his mor. “Is Onkel Einar up in heaven now?”

  Signe caught Rune’s sad look. “I hope so, son. I hope so.”

  After Rune tossed in the first shovelful, Ivar and Bjorn took up shovels too, and the grave began to fill. Rune picked up the hammer and a board to which he’d nailed sharpened legs. The hammer’s thud drove the sign solidly into the ground. He had chipped the name Einar Strand and the date
on it. When finished, he stepped back and nodded.

  Leif slipped his hand into Gerd’s and smiled up at her. “I smelled the cookies.”

  “Ja, I baked them for you boys especially.”

  “But we will all have cookies, and then we can have dinner?”

  Gerd frowned. “Shouldn’t dinner come first?”

  He hung his head. “I guess.”

  “But not today.”

  “Takk.” He squeezed her hand, his grin beatific.

  They walked to the wagon, where Nilda helped Gerd up to the seat. “No sitting in back for you today, Tante Gerd.”

  Leif climbed up on the seat. “Far said I could drive.” He turned the team in a circle and headed back to the farmstead.

  They’d gone only a short distance when Gerd asked him to stop. She turned in her seat and looked back at where the others were piling rocks on the mounded grave. Then, shaking her head, she turned back. “We probably need to put a fence around that sometime.”

  Back at the house, they found a frosted cake, a basket of rolls, a jar of honey, and a jar of pickles on the table. On the stove, which had been fed, sat a pot of stew, set back to heat but not burn.

  “Would you look at that?” Gerd looked around the room. “Who do you suppose . . . ?”

  “Oh, I have a feeling about who’s behind this. Bless that woman’s heart.” Signe laid an arm around Gerd’s shoulders. “I think she plans to make sure you feel like part of this community.”

  “Mrs. Benson?”

  “Ja. She probably recruited help, but I am sure she’s behind it.”

  “Einar never had a good word about her. Well, not about anyone, really. Hmm.”

  After the late dinner courtesy of Mrs. Benson, the men and boys all headed for the new house, and the women returned to the bedroom. The thin mattress now hung on the clothesline, the dust beaten out of it, along with the summer blanket. The curtains and sheets awaited the washing machine.

  Nilda finished washing the bed frame and Signe the windows. “Let’s do the dresser next,” Nilda suggested. “Gerd, where do you want me to put the clothes?”

  “We’ll keep Einar’s things for the others, and I’ll stack mine on the chairs and put them back when the drawers are dry again. I think I’ll take the drawers out onto the porch to wash them.”