Sons of Blackbird Mountain

by Joanne Bischof

  The thought would be easier than the doing.

  Aven rose and with ginger steps headed to the kitchen. The table had been set to rights hours before, but a vase lay shattered. The air smelled of charred wood and a glance out the window showed the burned wood crib no longer aflame. Tiny puffs of smoke tinged the air from the blackened boards.

  All was silent, so it was with soft strokes that she used the broom to work shards into a pile. After filling the dustpan, and with Jorgan’s insistence they all stay near, she fetched a pail from the pantry for the broken pieces. Was this manner of upheaval a common occurrence in these parts? She’d witnessed hatred before, but never in such a precise display. Like soldiers, those men had been. Out to patrol upon this mountain. And now, somewhere out there, women were stirring from slumber after passing the night beside the cloaked men who had stood here under a half-wane moon.

  Aven set pan and pail aside and strode to the window, her heart waging a battle. It longed to drift back to that shed and treat Thor differently. But the wish snagged in the treetops because time and actions could not be undone. Only was there the grace of a new day. And just as Ida and Cora deserved a better world for them and their family, those dear women surely sought a better one for Thor and his own distinctions. One where he was seen for his humanness just as they deserved to be.

  At the sound of uneven footsteps, Aven turned to see Ida reaching for an apron. Ida gave a sad smile, then set about fishing potatoes from the bin in the pantry. Aven hung up the broom and dustpan. Cora stepped in and, with a soft hymn on her lips, slid a heavy pan onto the stove. Tess joined them and pulled plates from a cupboard. All a gentle rhythm of care and kindness.

  They each worked quietly as though a few more minutes of rest was what this house needed. A house that was feeling rather much like a home to Aven. Yet the pleasantness of it wilted when she glanced at the floorboards where droplets of blood reminded her of her mishap the night before. She went in search of a rag to wet.

  Ida stopped her. “Them boards won’t be bothered to be forgotten awhile yet. Best we set a soak for Thor’s arm.” Her voice was kind and meant to tend to what needed fixing first. After hefting up the kettle, Ida filled a bowl with steaming water, then sprinkled in salts that turned the water milky. “Best we do it soon.”

  “May I fetch him?”

  “Please.”

  Releasing a nervous sigh, Aven stepped into the great room. Thor was gone from his sleeping place. Instead, he stood at the front windows, staring up at the broken glass as if he lacked the strength to do anything else. He ran a hand over his thick beard, tugging at the dark whiskers in slow strokes. The moment Aven stepped nearer, his gaze fell her way. His dark hair was as mussed as ever, and he shoved it over the side of his head. Dried blood matted the bandage just above his elbow.

  It felt strange—trusting that he could understand—but she spoke all the same. “Ida would like to check your arm. I’m so very sorry that I did this.”

  His gaze on her lips, he wet his own. Forming a fist, he circled it around his heart the same moment he shook his head.

  One of his words? “I . . . I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  He patted his empty chest pocket, then from the drawer of the desk he fetched a small notebook and stubby pencil. The hand that wrote was trembling. Aven tried not to think of the reason for that as he handed over what he’d written.

  Don’t be sorry.

  She touched the knobby shape of his letters, then looked up into his face. “I shouldn’t have been so untrusting. ’Twas unfair to you.”

  His forehead scrunched as if he struggled to understand her. He withdrew the paper and began a straight line of text just below the first. His hand engulfed the notepad as he held it over. Me never so well matched.

  Pursing her lips, she slanted a look his way. He was smiling gently.

  But when he tucked the pad and pencil into his chest pocket, his hand shook so fiercely, there was no denying his need for something stronger than the coffee being brewed. The scent of it filling the air, she asked if she could fetch him a cup. He nodded, though his focus fell elsewhere. He touched the bandage binding his arm with its dried stains, then lifted her wrist. He slid her sleeve up her arm, exposing her skin where it bore the same crimson streaks.

  Her pulse pounded beneath his thumb, but sensing this kind of touch was his usual way, she took care not to flinch. Aven observed his face. Was this what Ida had alluded to?

  Brow plunged down, Thor made a scrubbing motion as if to ask her to wash his blood from her skin. His glance to her all but pleaded it.

  She nodded, struck by his concern. “Yes.” Voice weak, she cleared her throat, and even as she spoke she realized he would have understood her all the same. “But first, let’s tend that arm of yours.”

  Seated at the table, Thor watched as Cora peeled away the bloodstained bandage and discarded it. At her request, he unbuttoned the front of his shirt, then sat still as Ida gently tugged at his crusted sleeve. He set his jaw, determined not to let a sound emerge from his throat.

  Ida eased the fabric away from his shoulder and down so his arm was bare. Then her sister wrung out a steamy rag and pressed it there. The warmth soothed but something within it stung. Salt?

  With a plume of steam funneling from the kettle spout, Cora rose and quickly motioned for Aven to hold the rag in place. Aven did, her small hand applying the gentlest of pressure. Her light-brown eyes skimmed his face. Thor lowered his head.

  He didn’t look up until Cora patted his knee. “I’m gonna have a look at this.” She pulled a chair in front of him and sat. He braved a glance at Aven, who had backed away. The woman seemed like she was going to cry. It stirred something in his chest. A desire to assure her, but just as strong was the pleasure it gave him. Of her caring for his distress. It was a warm feeling. One he could get accustomed to.

  He winced when a wet sting hit his arm. Aunt Cora had poured brandy on it. Sinking deep into the gash, the liquor burned. Thor had to pin himself into the chair. A groan rose in his throat and must have released because everyone looked at him at once.

  Chin trembling, Aven pressed a hand to her mouth.

  Pain was lessening the appeal of her compassion. He hated this.

  Near the door stood Haakon, and when Thor glanced over, his brother made the hand sign for drink. Thor shook his head. He didn’t want anything right now. But he—and everyone else in the room—couldn’t deny how bad he was shaking. Thor braced his muscles, trying to fight the tremor that was liquor needing more of itself.

  Aven paced. She drew near as Cora cleaned the wound, then stepped away when Thor breathed in through his teeth. At one point he thought she was going to faint. When Haakon turned her toward a chair, she sat.

  So the woman could listen.

  Aunt Cora tapped him for his attention. With pinched fingers she made a sewing motion. Thor shook his head. He really didn’t want any part of him stitched. Cora turned away to speak to Aven. The redhead left and returned a moment later with a sewing basket. Her face was ashen.

  Thor stood, tipping his chair back. Stepping forward, Jorgan restrained him by the shoulder. Thor shrugged him off.

  But then Aven was right beside him. She dipped her head, eyes upraised, all but urging him to watch her. Forming a fist, she circled it around her chest as he had done. Sorry. Whenever spoken, Thor doubted that single word made much of an apology—he’d seen people say it carelessly many a time. But in his language it was different. Because the way Aven’s eyes were filled with wetness as she stood in a room with people she barely knew, using a word she’d remembered from him only minutes ago—it was an apology so sincere, so potent, his skin flushed.

  The fight sapped from his body, and Jorgan pressed him back into the chair. Gaze still on Aven, Thor hardly noticed the way Cora unraveled a length of string and set it to boil alongside a needle. Jorgan placed the bottle of brandy closer and Thor tried to ignore it, but it was as hard to look away from
as Aven.

  Back at the stove, Cora plucked out the needle and thread, shaking her scorched fingers. Thor ignored the rest of the preparations, staring instead at the table. When Cora pressed on his arm, needle poised, he swallowed hard. The first prick was as bad as all the rest, which he counted for no other reason but to stay seated. She was up to six when vibrations in his throat told him he was making sound. Aven swiped a tear.

  Finally, Cora knotted and cut the thread. He looked down at her handiwork—his red, puckered skin. Blowing out a breath, he watched Cora’s face as she instructed him and Ida how to care for it the next few days.

  “I’ll be back to check on you,” Cora promised.

  Touching fingers to his lips, he thanked her, then, to his surprise, she spoke something to Aven, motioning for the young woman to follow her out into the yard.

  The memory of Thor’s groans still in her ears, it was all Aven could do to stand beside the pump as Cora hefted the handle up and down. Water splashed onto the ground as the good woman washed her hands. She spoke no words. Just took careful attention with the creases and lines of her skin—washing all the blood away. When she finished, Aven splashed water over her own skin, scrubbing furiously.

  Cora watched, her brown skin as glossy as the chestnuts Ida kept in a sack in the pantry. “Whatever pain you bearin’, child, it ain’t gonna come off under that spout.”

  Aven stilled but couldn’t lift her gaze past Cora’s hands as she dried them on the side of her skirt.

  “Somethin’ troublin’ you and now’s the time to speak it. Lest I misunderstood my eyes and the cause of Thor needin’ to be stitched up.”

  Bowing her head, Aven shook water from her fingers. “I don’t know what to do,” she finally whispered.

  With a cool touch, Cora lifted Aven’s chin. “Don’t you be hard on yesself. A girl all on her own learns to survive, and I’ve a hunch you seen a lot in your days. Lord knows you’re far from home.” She touched Aven’s shoulder, and it was a motherly comfort. So tender and sure that Aven’s throat tightened again. “He done frightened you last night and you ain’t need be ashamed of that.”

  Aven unwound the bow that tied her apron and pulled it loose.

  “And if it’s after Thor that you’re worryin’, rest in ease that the man done been through a whole heap worse.” She smiled a little. “He already on his feet again.”

  Nodding, Aven tried to hold on to that, but it was more than the wound of his body. It was something deeper. “I questioned his character. I made presumptions of his intentions that were far from the truth. He had been drinking . . . and was so forceful that I—I . . .”

  Cora pulled Aven near and wrapped her up in a tight hug. The sensation was startling, so rarely had she been held this way. Emotions washed over her until she was crying again. Aven used her apron to wipe her eyes.

  “He a good man,” Cora said softly. “But as you might’a seen, he a broken man trying to bind himself back up with the one thing that be tearin’ him down. It’s the same thing that put his pappy in the ground, and it was a loss that shook us all. When Jarle Norgaard lost his wife, he didn’t know how to come back from that amount of broken. And Thor . . .” Slowly, Cora shook her head. “He walkin’ that same rutted path. He know what the Good Book says ’cause he reads it. He know he ain’t supposed to put his trust in anything but the Lord.”

  The pump dripped as slow and steady as Cora’s words.

  “But a man gotta want it. Ain’t nobody able to want it for him.” Her face pinched with sadness. “It a cryin’ shame what Thor be doin’ to himself, but if you ask me”—a light hit her eyes and a smile of hope played at the corners of her mouth—“ he got some fight in him left. It ain’t too late yet. He don’t have to follow his pappy all the way to the grave.”

  Aven clung to those words. “You believe there’s such hope for him?”

  “Yes, child. But he need us. He need people. It may seem elseways ’cause he pushes ’em away. But he do that ’cause most don’t take the time to hear him.”

  So Thor was giving up. And why wouldn’t he? When others treated him the way she had. Assuming him a wretch when he’d simply been fighting past a voice that wouldn’t work. Twisting her fingers together, Aven glanced to the house, then back to Cora. “Please tell me what I can do.”

  “Just look at him.” Shielding her face from the rising sun, Cora stepped a touch nearer. “Look at his eyes, his face. See him. See him and be patient. You’ll never wonder.” She squeezed Aven’s hand, holding it in her cool one. “Spend but ten minutes gettin’ to know Thor Norgaard and you’ll forget he silent. You’ll learn and hear things that most men don’t even know how to speak.”

  SEVEN

  Leaning over the edge of the wagon, Thor counted the empty buckets he’d just loaded. Each pail would hold three gallons, and he needed at least eighty gallons of berries today. With the patch nearest the pond drooping with ripe fruit, and with his blackberry wine a favorite in these parts, it was time to cash in on that.

  Thor fetched another load of buckets from the north end of the cidery. The pledge they paid on this farm was on 327 acres of Sorrel land. At the cost of $3.25 an acre, no light load. He and his brothers had grown lax after Da’s death, so with a few hundred still owed—not to mention eight dollars a month interest—it was time to pay it all off.

  With Jorgan to marry next month, he knew his brother agreed.

  They still had need of supplies to finish the west cabin, and since Haakon had blown up the chicken coop the year before and Jorgan was building a new one closer to the garden, they’d added more to their tab at the mercantile than they should have. It was high time they learned a little more responsibility. Today it would start with the berry patch.

  Fearing he’d forget to secure the cidery, Thor shoved the heavy door closed, then barred and bolted it. The iron lock used a key that only he and Jorgan had access to.

  Thor hefted the next stack of buckets over the side of the wagon, then using his thumb, slid it up the rims to tally each one. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty—

  A touch at his elbow made him startle. Jerking his arm away, he turned to see Aven.

  Her eyes were wide as she took a step back. “Oh dear. I’m so sorry.”

  He shook his head, though his heart was in his throat. He hated when people did that. Did they think he could hear them coming? Aven swallowed hard, and Thor shot out a breath. With his pulse slowing, he nodded for no other reason than for her to see that it was alright.

  Jorgan had told him that her husband had been a drunkard. Much as Thor was. Did that frighten her about him? Thor knew little of Aven. Even less of Benn. But learning of his deceased cousin’s struggle was enough for Thor to be vexed by warring emotions. First had come anger that a man would let an addiction rule him even in the confines of marriage. A bond where a woman chose to be wholly abandoned and honoring to her mate, and where a man promised to cherish and care for her. Following that had been a stab of sympathy because Thor knew what a battle it was—the pull of the bottle each and every moment of each and every day.

  Who was he to judge? Would he not be the same in marriage?

  Aven was still watching him with uncertain eyes. She was walking on eggshells around him, wasn’t she? He wasn’t helping that just now. Thor reached into the wagon and lifted out his board with the papers clipped to it. After loosening the top list, he flipped it over, then jotted a few words. He handed the board and paper to Aven.

  I give you reason say sorry a lot.

  Was that a little smile? Visibly easing, she looked from him to the wagon. She gripped the edge and peeked inside. Her eyebrows rose at the sight of so many buckets, but she didn’t say anything. A soft chain encircled her throat. So delicate a necklace it might have been missed. She smelled of baking bread just as Ma once had. While Ida baked plenty, this was an aroma Thor hadn’t smelled since he was a boy. Cardamom. Part of a Norwegian recipe that Ida never made because Ida didn’t know it. Tho
r hadn’t realized he’d missed the scent of Ma’s bread until it lifted from Aven’s flour-dusted apron.

  She smiled at him, and he swallowed hard. Thor glanced around. It was just the two of them. A rare thing for him . . . especially with a woman. What did men usually do in this instance? He thought fast, and it dawned on him—they usually made conversation.

  Thinking to try that, he wrote something more, but Aven’s head whipped to the left. Thor looked over to see Haakon striding down the porch steps. Haakon spoke to her, and she angled away to respond. The world silent again, Thor scribbled out his phrase and lowered the board and pencil into the wagon. When he glanced at Aven she was watching him again and seemed regretful. Because he’d set the paper aside? Surely not. She had Haakon to talk to.

  Thor stepped around the wagon and made sure the backboard was secure. Haakon climbed up to the seat even as Aven moved back. Perhaps she had some things to do with Ida. Thor wasn’t sure, but with her shielding her eyes to watch them, might she want to get away from the house for a while? She’d yet to see much of the area, and they could use the help.

  He signed the idea to Haakon, feeling more than ever Aven’s watch of him. Haakon shook his head and signed back that they were going swimming afterward.

  So? They could go swimming with manners.

  When Thor mentioned that to his brother, Haakon shook his head again.

  Aven’s mouth moved with a question. “What are you two saying?”

  Thor nudged his brother.

  Haakon sighed and turned to her. “He asked if you wanted to pick blackberries with us today.” He looked at Thor as if he’d lost his mind.

  Thor ignored that, giving his attention instead to Aven. A smile brightened her face, and with his heart pulsing in his ears, he waited to see what she’d say to Haakon.

  “I’d love to.”

  Thor nodded, and when his focus lifted from her mouth to her eyes, he realized that she’d spoken not to Haakon, but to him.