The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  With Bridget, Katy, Kaaren, and Sarah doing the cooking for the threshing crew and Ilse watching the younger children, Ingeborg drove the wagon for Thorliff and Baptiste to load with bundled wheat. Only by convincing Andrew that Ilse needed his help was she able to get out the door without him. She could still hear his pleading “M-o-o-r.” He woke up crying during the night, asking for Ellie. Ingeborg sighed. They really didn’t need another young one underfoot, not with all the cooking to be done. Once they finished with dinner, they had to start right away on supper. She left the full wagon and team, waved at Haakan, and slapped the reins over the backs of the waiting horses. Halfway home, she met Ephraim on his way out to the Bjorklund farms.

  “I come to help.” He swung up onto the wagon seat beside her.

  “Well, we sure do appreciate every spare pair of hands we can get.” She swung the empty wagon out onto the field. Just ahead of her plodded a team of oxen, pulling a nearly full wagon. The boys jabbed three-tined forks into the bundles and lifted them into the wagon, trying to keep them straight and balanced so the wagon would hold more and the unloading would go easier.

  When Ephraim looked around, Ingeborg tipped her broad-brimmed hat back and smiled. “The men are over running the steam engine and the separator. We’re the team here.”

  “Oh.” The one word carried a multitude of meanings. Ephraim stepped over the wagon wheel and to the ground. “I’ll help them load then.”

  At midmorning Katy brought out a jug of water. “I can come help if you want. We got things nearly done up at the house.”

  “Won’t turn down any offers.” Ingeborg jumped to the ground and waved Katy up on the seat. “You have driven before, haven’t you?” Katy nodded. “Good, and by the way, that bonnet looks good on you.”

  “It should. It’s yours.”

  “I know. But I like this one better.” Ingeborg touched the wide brim of her felt hat, a last relic of Roald’s.

  Katy nodded, setting her sunbonnet to bobbing. “With this sun, you sure got to have something on your head. I can handle a pitchfork too, you know. Back home we all had to help with the haying, even though we never had fields the size of these.”

  Ingeborg thought back to Norway to the hay draped over wooden fence rails to dry and the wheat they cut and bound by hand, then shocked and flailed in the winter. No, things surely were different here. She caught herself nodding. She knew for certain she had no desire to return to the old farming ways of Norway. She looked toward the west where they could see the smoke rising from the steam engine furnace and hear the chunk-a-chunk clear across the fields.

  Haakan said that one day there would be steam engines doing most of the work of horses. While she found it hard to believe, that belching, brawling machine they were using over west was certainly increasing their wheat yield.

  They switched teams and she left Katy driving the empty wagon while she headed back to the threshing. Next trip they’d bring the dinner.

  Later, after helping serve the two wagonloads of food they brought out, she drove a load of filled wheat sacks to the sack house. When her turn came to unload, Olaf weighed the wagon, counted the sacks, and wrote the tally down on his board.

  “Aren’t you going to check the sacks like you do the others?” Ingeborg asked.

  “If I thought a Bjorklund would put rocks in a sack of grain or bring in moldy wheat, I’d hang up my shingle right now and take up rocking.”

  Ingeborg shook her head and laughed at the same time. “No time for rocking with the family you got now.”

  “No, but I’ll never doubt a family member either.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll be here. And knowing Goodie, she will too. Right now she’s up to her elbows in bread dough.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Bjorklund!” Hans leaped off the unloading platform and, arms flying, raced up to the wagon.

  “Hey yourself.” Ingeborg tugged on the reins.

  “You think you could use another hand out there?” He looked up at her, eyes pleading his case.

  “What would your ma say?”

  “I can ask. Onkel Olaf—er, Pa said I could if you said so.”

  “You go on and get her permission while I get a drink from Penny.” Ingeborg stepped down from the wagon, stifling a groan as she straightened. That wagon seat got harder as the day grew longer.

  “Penny, you there?” She rapped on the frame of the back door.

  “Come in and sit down! I’ll be right there,” Penny called from the store.

  “I’ll come in,” Ingeborg muttered, “but that sitting down can be better left for another day. While she waited, she poured herself a basin of water and sloshed it on her face and arms, deliberately getting enough on her dress to make her feel cooler instantly. Once she started drinking, she feared she may not stop.

  “I have some lemonade left from dinner,” Penny said when she brushed aside the curtain hanging over the doorway.

  “That might just be a small piece of heaven on earth.” Ingeborg hooked the dipper back over the edge of the enameled water bucket.

  “Did Ephraim find you?” Penny poured a glassful of lemonade and handed it to Ingeborg, who took a sip and closed her eyes in delight before answering.

  “He’s helping the boys load another wagon right now. Sure do appreciate your sending him on.”

  “Figured you needed him worse than me.” Just then the bell over the front door of her store tinkled to announce another customer. “Take your time.” She raised her voice. “Coming.” The curtain swirled behind her.

  Ingeborg finished her drink and met Hans at the back step.

  “I can come.”

  “What about Ellie?”

  “She’s taking a nap. Ma said she was too grouchy to live with so sent her to bed.”

  Ingeborg swung up to the wagon seat, picked up the reins, and clucked the horses forward. “She sick?”

  “If’n you call missing Andrew sick, she sure is.”

  “We’ll take her home with us later then.” Ingeborg turned the wagon toward home.

  “Ma said you could bring Andrew into our house for a few days until you get harvest done. She’s been baking for Penny’s store too, she said to tell you. Otherwise she’d come help.”

  Ingeborg smiled at Hans. She’d never heard him talk this much. Maybe that was because she’d never been alone with him before. Hans, Baptiste, and Thorliff had been like one person ever since Hans came to their house so sick they feared he would die.

  “That will make him one happy fellow.”

  Four days later, the steam engine and separator moved on. Ingeborg hugged Haakan one last time and dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron.

  “It’s not like I’m going to the north woods or some such.” Haakan tipped her chin up with one callused finger.

  “I know.” Ingeborg straightened her shoulders. “Guess we’re all just a mite tired, is all.”

  “Ja, and that little one growing inside you is taking his own too.” Haakan laid a hand on her belly. “I’d say take it a bit easy, but knowing you, it would be a wasted breath.” His words could have stung but for the grin that lighted his eyes. She looked up at him, feeling as if she was drowning in pools of blue. That old familiar warmth rose all the way from her belly to her cheekbones.

  “Go with God.” She forced the words past the lump in her throat.

  “I always do and pray His blessing on all of you here at home. See you in a month or so.”

  She nodded and forced a smile to her trembling lips. “See you.” She stepped back and looked down at the tug on her skirts. Astrid raised her arms.

  “Up.”

  “You should be in bed.” She swung the little one to her hip.

  Astrid leaned toward her father. “Up.”

  Haakan chucked her under the chin. “You be good for your ma, now, you hear?”

  “Up, Pa.” She reached again, her smile designed to get her way.

  Haakan took her in his arms, hugged
her close, and handed her back to her mother. “You be a good girl.” He stressed the word “good.”

  “Wave good-bye,” Ingeborg said in a gentle voice. God, Father of us all, keep them safe and bring him home soon, having done his work as we will do ours.

  Haakan waved once again and climbed into the wagon that now wore the white canvases to make a traveling house. He, Lars, and Hamre would sleep in the wagon and cook if they needed to.

  “Bye, Pa,” Astrid whispered, then sighed. She pulled at her mother’s dress. “Mo.”

  “You and Andrew.” Ingeborg turned back to the house. Morning chores, including feeding children, waited for no one.

  Haakan hadn’t been gone two days before Ingeborg stared longingly at the untilled fields. Beyond them lay the land yet to be broken by the plow. While the women and boys slaved from dawn to dark, the fall work was not getting done.

  Yes, the men needed to be off with the threshing machines. Yes, the extra grain would bring in extra money. Yes, they needed the money. She knew all the answers. She and Haakan, Kaaren and Lars had discussed them often enough.

  When she found herself wanting to swat a whiny Astrid, Ingeborg knew she had to get out of the house. As soon as the little girl was down and asleep in her bed, Ingeborg pulled her dress over her head and donned the britches she had folded away in a box under the bed. She buttoned the shirt to her throat, pulled on her boots and strode into the kitchen.

  “Ingeborg!” Bridget’s eyes matched her open mouth—big O’s.

  “We need some venison.” Ingeborg took the rifle off the pegs above the door. “If I’m not back by dark, send Thorliff looking for me. He knows where the game trails are.”

  “Can’t Baptiste go?” Bridget clamped her hands together under her apron.

  “He’s doing something for Metiz. She asks for his help so seldom, I don’t want to disturb them.” She took her hat from the peg by the door and clapped it on her head. “Don’t hold supper for me. The deer come down to drink at dusk.”

  Once out in the freedom of the woods, Ingeborg felt like throwing herself on the ground and rolling as the horses did when let loose after a hard day’s work. She looked up to see the sun gilding the edges of the cottonwood leaves above her. The leaves whispered secrets to the breeze, and a crow announced her arrival.

  She strode off down the trail, feeling her cares drop off one by one until she could have been running with no more effort, or flying, she felt so light. “Thank you, God!” she called, raising her face to the shaft of light that split the green canopy. She paused. Surely He had said, “You’re welcome.” She shook her head at her foolishness. “Velbekomme.”

  After a long walk watching for deer signs and ignoring the grouse she scared up, she settled in next to a giant elm tree with a clear view of the trail the deer followed to drink at the river. Mosquitoes took up a hum as if announcing to the world that dinner was served. She pulled her hat down low and her shirt collar up high.

  She’d forgotten how pesky the things were.

  A squirrel chattered overhead. Two grouse pecked their way down the trail, searching for seeds and any careless bugs. Ingeborg could feel her eyelids growing heavy.

  A mosquito buzzed her nose. She took her hand off her rifle to brush the thing away when she saw them. Three deer, tiptoeing their way down the dirt track, ears and noses scanning the world around them.

  Ingeborg waited. She could tell that the doe was still nursing her half-grown fawn, so she sighted on the buck. One shot and he dropped. The other two were gone before she could blink.

  She waited a moment, letting the peace settle back on the riverbank before going to the fallen animal to cut its throat and begin the dressing out. She should have brought lacings for a travois to haul it on.

  That night, the welts on her neck and arms burned like fire. Yet in spite of that, she fell asleep with a smile on her face. Freedom, even for only a few hours, had tasted mighty good. And the fried liver made the mosquito bites worthwhile too.

  She spent the next days curing the meat, readying it for smoking, and showing Bridget how they salted a hide down to make the hair come off when it was ready to tan.

  Bridget fingered a piece of hide Metiz had given her. “And yours will feel like this?” While she asked a simple question, the look on her face shouted her doubt.

  Ingeborg nodded. “We can make it soft or leave it hard for shoe tops. But we generally use cowhide for boots. It is thicker and wears better. Elk is good too.”

  “We used to cut the meat in thin strips and smoke it on racks over an open fire. Metiz taught us that. Did the same with fish. We owe her more than I can ever tell. Thanks to her we fared better than many of the settlers back in the beginning.”

  She looked up at the sound of a galloping horse. Paws ran barking and yipping toward the charging animal.

  “It’s Haakan.” Ingeborg turned to look at Bridget. “Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong.”

  Come quick. Anner’s arm got mangled in the separator!” Haakan leaped from the horse and bounded up the steps.

  Dear God above, help that poor man! Ingeborg prayed all the while her hands flew, gathering the things she needed from the medicine store.

  “Go get Metiz.”

  “Right!” Haakan barged through the door on his way out.

  “Can I help?” Bridget asked.

  “Ja, by taking care of things here. No telling how long I’ll be gone.” She shook her head over the shortage of rolled strips of cloth for bandage.

  “The wagon’s ready,” Haakan announced, coming in the door. “Metiz is waiting. She brought her simples too.”

  Ingeborg looked in her cupboard one more time, picked up her full basket, and followed Haakan out the door. She stopped at the clothesline.

  “Why—what?” Haakan turned around when he realized she wasn’t right behind him.

  “I need bandages,” she explained as she jerked half a dozen diapers off the line. She laid the sweet-smelling white squares on top of her other supplies. Then rushing over to the wagon, she handed up her basket and climbed aboard. “How did it happen?”

  “There’s precious little to tell,” Haakan said after hupping the horse into action. “One minute things were going along like usual and the next he was screaming and blood flowed everywhere. We tied a tourniquet right below his shoulder, and Lars took him home. I came for you.”

  A short time later one look at the horrible wound said it all.

  “We’ve got to take it off.” Ingeborg leaned against the porch railing of the Valders’ home.

  “You cannot do that.” Hildegunn Valders shook her head. She could hardly speak through her clenched teeth. “It will destroy him.”

  Metiz spoke from the outside of the circle. “He die then.”

  Hildegunn whirled around, advancing on the old woman as if she might rip her from limb from limb. “You—you dirty Indian! What do you know?”

  Ingeborg grabbed the avenger around the waist and hauled her backward before she could reach Metiz. “She has come to help! Hildegunn Valders, you know how Metiz has helped so many.” But when Ingeborg looked up, Metiz was gone. “Now you’ve done it!” She stepped back and clenched her fists on her hips so they wouldn’t reach out and shake the woman. God, help me, I am losing control here. She took in a deep breath and began again. “You know at this time we need all the help we can get.”

  “I won’t have no dirty Indian touching my Anner.” Hildegunn slumped for a moment against the porch post, her head hanging forward. One strand of hair escaped the severe bun at her neck and hung down the side of her face. “Ingeborg, he might die.”

  The cry stabbed Ingeborg’s heart and melted the anger like sun on a winter icicle. “Ah, Hildegunn, we will do all that we can. But I agree with the men. The arm must come off. There is no way we can cleanse that poor shredded . . .” She closed her eyes at the memory of mangled flesh and gleaming white bone protruding in all directions in more places than she had coun
ted. “It might save his life.”

  She crossed the few steps to Hildegunn’s side and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  With a sob that near to broke Ingeborg’s heart, the woman turned and buried her face in Ingeborg’s apron bib. She wrapped her arms around the heaving shoulders and patted her back, soothing her as she did her own children. Maybe if the Valderses had been blessed with children, this tragedy would have been easier to bear. But Anner and Hildegunn only had each other. And that might not be for long.

  “Hush now. You must be strong for Anner’s sake.” Ingeborg crooned the words, well knowing that the tone was all Hildegunn could hear. “Hush. All will be well. God is in His heaven, and all will be well.”

  “How can you say that?” Hildegunn stepped back and, taking a cloth from her apron pocket, mopped her eyes. “Nothing will ever be the same again.”

  “No, but God knows what is going on, and He has said He is here.”

  “I don’t feel Him here. I . . . I . . .” She stared into Ingeborg’s eyes, as if answers to the questions ripping her apart might lodge there.

  “Trust me. He is here and right now He is trying to give you the strength to be strong and make the right decisions for Anner.”

  The grieving woman shook her head, looking as if the weight of it might sink her into the porch. “I cannot.” She cupped her elbows in her shaking hands. “I cannot. If I say cut off the arm, he will hate me forever.”

  “No, he won’t. Once he gets his health back, he will be glad to be alive, and . . .”

  Hildegunn slowly shook her head again. “You might think so, but you don’t know Anner.” She turned toward the doorway, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “And, Ingeborg, please tell Metiz I am sorry I screamed at her so.”

  Haakan held open the door for the woman who looked as if she’d been beaten with a two-by-four. His eyebrows asked the question.

  Ingeborg shook her head.

  “But it has to come off. He won’t live otherwise.”

  “I know.” Ingeborg turned into the haven of her husband’s arms. “She is so afraid.”