At thought of his brother, memories and worries collided in his brain, making a mess of his vision, his plan, his hopes. Everything. Maybe he would just stay where he was standing for a while. Give this day a chance to sink in. It was happening too fast.
Then again, maybe four years had been plenty long.
Haakon swallowed hard, scared senseless of standing before Thor again, but whether or not he stalled a few more days, he would still be facing his brother alone. Maybe there was no point in prolonging the event.
How different this was than the maritime orders he’d grown used to following. Haakon hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d gotten to such a way of life until this moment when his very own boatswain held no authority over him anymore. Now Tate was just a farm boy again, and so was he. They were on the North Atlantic no longer. The surface beneath his boots didn’t rock and creak, and there was no work to be done. No wind to catch save the one that would carry him home.
It was time. And he needed to be the one to make the choice.
Haakon ran a hand over his face. He had to get on that train. The locomotive was about to depart, and with the line at the distant ticket window over a dozen patrons long, he took a step forward and extended a hand to Tate. Season after season they’d traveled together, and now he had nothing to offer but a handshake. “It’s been an honor.”
Tate gripped it tight in a way that spanned every adventure. “Likewise.”
Haakon stepped back. Though too much of him felt the weight of yet another farewell, there was no sense in getting any more sentimental. He stepped farther away, flashed Tate one final wave, and hurried toward the train on its tracks. Without a ticket he’d just have to cram in and pay later. Ill-advised for a body to do, but he’d broken bigger rules than this before.
Haakon smirked as he jogged along because there he was again—the man who took the turbulence of life by the horns and roughed it up right back. It was such a freeing feeling that he latched onto the hope that he could do this.
He had to do this.
With a final whistle, the engine groaned forward, steel wheels churning a slow rotation along the tracks. Still yards shy of the rolling freight, Haakon quickened his jog and paced alongside the nearest passenger car. The speed was slack yet, but it would pick up quickly. He gripped the handle beside the open doorway and swung himself onto the step and inside.
After blinking against the dim light, he found himself in a car so packed it offered not a sliver of sitting room left. He didn’t mind standing, but there wasn’t any room for that either.
At a shuffling on his right he noticed a large family making space for him. The father pulled a young girl onto his knee to free up the end of their bench. Haakon nodded his thanks and worked his way down the aisle. He sat and crammed his pack on the floor between his boots that had been repaired with thick, waxed thread. The canvas bag seemed too small to hold what he had left in the world, but there it was: A change of clothes. Some hardtack. An old compass and a tin of soda bicarbonate. Last of all the drawing given to him by the widow’s middle boy.
The whistle sounded again. People cast him curious glances. He must look a sight. His face hadn’t seen a razor in years, and though his hair was pulled back in a short tail at the nape of his neck, he was as gritty and briny as the piling of a pier. His eyes were tired, his heart sore, and he probably stank to high heaven. More than anything, he was exhausted. Both in body and soul. Although a hoard of people filled this car, each one was a stranger, making him more alone than he’d been in a good long while.
Leaning forward allowed him to see out the nearest window where the Atlantic glittered with coming sunset. This was the bitter end of his journey—the end of the rope. There was nothing left to tie off or cut away. It was just him and home now.
Another day, two tops, and he would see Thor. Even harder, he would see Aven.
What would his family do when he arrived? Would he just knock on the front door, or would he find someone in the yard first? He wondered if his old dog would sound the alarm. Or was Grete no longer living? What of Ida? She’d been up there in years when he’d left. What if he returned to find her already gone? He didn’t want to fathom it.
Tate’s Bible passage still in hand, Haakon balanced it on the top of his thigh, and though people watched on, he pulled a leaf from the pouch hanging around his neck. He was going to need all the courage he could muster to face what was ahead, so he fetched the tin of soda bicarbonate from his pack and sprinkled white powder onto the coca. He wadded it up tight to mash the elements together. With practiced fingers, Haakon crammed the concoction into his cheek. An older woman across the aisle widened her eyes, and he tried to appear as nonchalant as possible. With others still casting him curious looks, he lowered his gaze to the folded slip of paper on his knee. Too tired to read a word of it right now, he folded it smaller.
While the train gained speed, he loosened the top of his leather pouch that kept his coca leaves and money safe. The Word of God wasn’t something he put much thought to, let alone stock in. So maybe it was the goodness in which it was given, or maybe it was because of the first true friend he’d ever really had, but for some reason Haakon carefully slid the folded page inside the pouch along with the rest of his most valued possessions and yanked the cord tight.
TWELVE
MAY 6, 1895
BLACKBIRD MOUNTAIN, VIRGINIA
MORNING LIGHT SPILLED THROUGH THE upstairs window as Thor sat up. He’d passed the night on the floor, using two rolled-up gunny sacks as a pillow. While someone had placed an abundance of folded bedding on the porch before dusk, he hadn’t been willing to unbolt the door to retrieve it. Aven would have a time of it if she knew the state he’d slept in.
Thor struggled to a stand and moved to the window, which he lifted. Fresh air rushed in, heavy and moist from the rain that had damped the air in the night. With a low mist the only thing in the meadow, he made his way down the stairs and pulled the items inside, as well as two pails of good clear water that had been placed there.
His movements were slow, stiff, and, frankly, agonizing. Everything hurt.
His joints, his abdomen, and parts of him that he didn’t want a doctor checking on.
Lacking the strength to lift a crate of items, he dragged it in, and by the time he’d secured the door again, sweat beaded on his brow. Sinking to the floor, he wedged himself into the corner for support. He leaned his head against the wall and longed to close his eyes, but braved a reach for the nearby crate and pulled it closer.
Inside rested a small sack of shelled pecans and a jar packed with jerked elk meat. Beside it sat a lidded crock—still warm. He raised the top to find stewed apples. Last was a loaf of braided Norwegian bread that smelled of cardamom. Baking day was earlier in the week, and this hadn’t been in the kitchen the night before, which meant his wife had stayed up late making it. She was the only woman in the house who baked this bread. Thor ran his thumb against the soft, golden crust. He hadn’t an appetite yet, but the notion that Aven had been on her feet at odd hours just for him was a comfort that went beyond anything a bite might have provided.
At movement in his peripheral vision, he looked up to see Jorgan at the window, tipping his head as a request to be joined outside. Jorgan held two steaming cups of coffee. It took Thor a while to rise and move to the glass, but when he did, he watched as his brother set one of the cups on the top banister. Nabbing an old chair, Jorgan toted it a few paces into the yard where he turned it to sit backward. He sipped coffee as if this were the most normal morning of their lives.
Despite everything, the side of Thor’s mouth lifted in a smile.
After sliding on his coat, he unlatched the door and stepped out into the cool air of dawn. He picked up the tin mug, sat on the top step, and took a gulp of good, strong brew. When he raised the cup to his brother in thanks, Jorgan dipped a nod. There didn’t seem much to say, and in Jorgan’s mellow presence Thor was thankful.
Wi
th his stomach unsettled, Thor managed another drink before he decided to set the coffee aside.
When he looked back to his brother, Jorgan spoke. “How did you sleep?”
Thor gave a one-shoulder shrug that didn’t even come close to the truth.
Jorgan must have known. “Is there anything I can fetch? Anything that might make you more comfortable?”
There was an old rope bed upstairs, but no rope to weave across the slats. Thor thought about asking Jorgan for some, but maybe later. Right now he wanted to know how his wife was doing.
Thor turned the mug in his fingers. “Av—” He never spoke that to Jorgan, but had said it so firmly the night before he’d been aching to soften the force of it ever since. He only wished she were here to know that.
Jorgan’s brows tipped up in surprise. “She’s, uh, doin’ alright. About as you might imagine. She’s distressed, Thor, but she’s only thinkin’ of ways to help you get well. She’d be the one sitting here if I hadn’t insisted on coming by first. She scolded me, but I’m sure she’s cooled her heels by now.” Jorgan grinned.
Thor smiled again, and it was the full kind. He would expect nothing less from Aven but that stout courage of hers.
Jorgan went on to explain that she was on her way to Fincastle to talk to the doctor some more and had elicited Peter to go with her.
Now it was Thor’s turn to be surprised. It was a long morning of travel to Fincastle by wagon, including a ferry crossing at the James. While an inkling of worry rose, he had no choice but to tamp it down. Aven would have made a careful choice, determined or not, and he’d come to trust Peter even as much as Jorgan.
Focus having drifted along the mass of Sorrel footprints, Jorgan rose and examined them again. Thor cleared his throat to garner his brother’s attention, then inquired as to what should be done.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re about, but it doesn’t sit well.”
No, it didn’t.
“I’ll inform the sheriff.” Jorgan said. “Let them know we have fresh whereabouts.”
Thor nodded. He doubted the sheriff and his men from Roanoke could do much, but it was worth a try. And in the meantime, Thor would do his best to help. Providential, perhaps, that he was here. If he could stay well enough, he could keep watch over the farm from a different location. One the Sorrels seemed to frequent. Yes, he was in more danger here alone, but he wasn’t afraid, and thanks to Jorgan, Thor’s shotgun and Haakon’s rifle were now propped up against the porch railing. Leaning there side by side as though they belonged there together all along.
Teaching her to drive a team and wagon was something Aven had asked of Thor years ago, so it was with ease that she drove the wagon off the long boarded platform of the ferry. Stabilized by a stretch of ropes from one bank to the other, the sturdy ferry shuttled passengers and carts across the James River for a small fee. In a clatter of harnesses, the team of brown mares lunged up the shallow embankment, leaving the churning water behind. The horses had been calm for the short crossing, but had they been restless, ’twas assuring that Peter sat beside her.
Ever since the doctor’s visit the day before, Aven had stumbled upon more and more unanswered questions, so after breakfast, both Jorgan and Peter had listened slack jawed to her scheme to venture to Fincastle. Undeterred, Aven had fetched her straw hat and shawl, and while Peter finished his morning chores, she implored Jorgan to help her hitch up the team. He’d obliged with a spark of good humor in his eyes, and no doubt Thor was now abreast of her whereabouts.
The wagon jostled when a wheel hit a rut. Aven raised the reins higher as if that would smooth things out. She felt Peter slide her a sideways glance that had been one of many.
Whether or not Peter was worried about her modest proficiency with the team, he spoke of nothing more than the weather and the work Jorgan aided him with on his cabin—a dwelling just a stone’s throw from Cora’s own that Peter leased by way of labor to the farm. While Peter earned his way through the sweat of his back, the brothers never sought recompense from Cora. Instead they provided a safe place for her to live with her daughters just past Thor’s orchards, where she could remain close to her older sister, Ida.
In return, Cora offered wisdom and medical aid. The faithful midwife’s own form of goodwill. Ever since Cora’s husband’s passing some ten years prior, the Norgaard men had insisted she and her daughters make their land home for so long as she wished. The brothers’ way of caring for the two beloved freedwomen—one who had tended their mother amid three trying births and the other who had raised them since their mother’s passing upon Haakon’s first breaths some twenty-five years ago.
When Peter spoke again, Aven’s thoughts slipped from the dangers of birthing and back to this curving lane.
“Two glass windows in now. They let in an awful lot of light. I can read now in the daytime there.”
“Is Tess still tutoring you?” The wagon hit another bump, and Aven pulled one hand from the reins to rub the side of her rounded belly. ’Twas far from comfortable, but she wasn’t going to complain.
“Yes’m.” His eyes, which were trained on the road, softened some. “We practice over at Miss Cora’s in the evenings, and little Georgie’s awful amused that I gotta use her primer.”
At ten years old and spunky to boot, Cora’s youngest was no doubt giving him a time of it. “I’m proud of the progress you’re making, and I’m sure she is too.”
He smiled. “Tess says the same thing, but I’m awful slow.”
Aven thought of Tess with her cheery ways and how she always encouraged Peter in his ventures. “Your diligence is paying off.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Taking off his hat, Peter motioned up ahead. “As is yours.”
There stood in the distance a sign marking the way to Fincastle. They drove on, and as the morning warmed, they passed sprawling farms and patches of woodlands where cabins sat tucked away, announcing their presence by the smell of cook fires or rugged lanes.
Brown heads bobbing with each step, the team of horses ambled through a stretch of grassland, and upon spotting buildings that stood closer together, Aven craned her neck to better see the town. Its shapes and sounds were familiar due to her having accompanied Thor on deliveries a few times a year. Brick buildings cast dense shadows across the road, and clapboard houses stood tall and bright under the nearly noon sun. Children played in the yard of a schoolhouse, and two men lifted a slabbed door into place on a newly built barn. Just past the pounding of their hammers, Aven spotted the sign for the doctor’s establishment.
She bit the inside of her lip, so nervous the busy road made her. Peter gripped the seat. More than once, she sensed him nearly reach for the reins, but she somehow got the team off the main street and stopped beneath a tree beside the doctor’s home. Aven set the brake and pulling off her straw hat, tucked it in a corner of the wagon bed. Peter hopped down and came around as she righted the bun wound atop her head. Still keeping a watchful study of their surroundings, he helped her climb down, then offered her the lead in stepping on.
Aven wasted no time in reaching the door where she gave three sound knocks.
After a shuffle and a clatter, the door opened and there stood young Dr. Abramson. His tweed vest was rumpled, and the ink stain on his hand still damp. “Good day, ma’am.” He opened the door wider, and upon seeing her in full, his voice rose an octave. “Are you in labor?”
Aven touched the side of her stomach again. “Goodness, no.”
At his sigh of relief Peter coughed into his fist, suppressing a chuckle.
“My apologies. I’ve just . . . never . . .” Dr. Abramson angled both hands toward her womb in a manner that suggested he wasn’t sure which direction the baby was to come out.
Peter arched an eyebrow as though knowing more about such matters.
“Er . . . um . . . do come in, Mrs. Norgaard.” The physician opened the door wider.
“Thank you.” Aven crossed the threshold into a parlo
r, where she introduced Peter, who closed the door.
Dr. Abramson shook his hand, then motioned to a folding chair for Aven to sit. “Please.” The doctor offered to fetch another chair but Peter politely declined.
After sitting, Aven looked over the contents of the secretary desk beside her. The front lay folded down to balance a stack of books. Just beyond it rose a tall glass cabinet filled with polished tools, bottles of medicines, and rolls of bandages.
Peter stationed himself beside the window on the opposite side of the room where he observed quietly.
“I’ve come to inquire as to what you may have discovered.” Aven loosened her shawl and nestled it in her lap.
Dr. Abramson turned his desk chair and sat facing her. “I sent the telegram to my mentor this morning and should hear word soon. Perhaps a few days, perhaps longer.” He gestured to the stack of books, his hand landing atop the one that was opened. “But I am doing further reading as promised.”
“I thank you. Have you discovered anything?”
“In the ten minutes I’ve been at the task? Well, I was just perusing the index when there came a knock at the door.” His smile was amiable.
Aven tugged on one cuff of her blouse sleeve, righting it absently. “I don’t mind waiting. Until you make progress.”
His expression went slack. “Wait here?”
She nodded. “I’m in no hurry. Though . . . may I ask how long you’ve been a physician?” He seemed no older than herself and much more flustered.
“Mrs. Norgaard, it will take some time, if not days, to draw a conclusion.”
“Sir. The last physician who examined my husband administered more distress than comfort. I wish I had done more then and intend to now.” While she knew not how she might have improved that experience, she wasn’t about to sit at home while Thor lay untreated. The doctor before her was so young that her worry deepened. To pose that question again . . . “May I ask how long you’ve been practicing medicine?”
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