Daughters of Northern Shores

by Joanne Bischof

  Having just returned from Orville and Sibby’s, Thor had taken the long way home. With memories of Peter now fresh to mind, it was a half mile worth walking. Though a heaviness dwelled in his heart, it was the communing with others that was lifting it. And it had been right good to see Orville and Sibby.

  While unable to speak above a whisper, Orville’s color had returned, and with the doctor’s regular visits there, Orville was in the best of hands. Thor had brought them a box of food stores from the cidery and two skinned hares. He’d brought the same offerings to Mrs. Sorrel, and while the visit there had been as bittersweet, her tender and courageous heart over Peter bolstered Thor’s own steps back down the mountainside to where Peter would no longer be waiting.

  During both visits, Thor had left them with assurance that Peter had showed little degree of pain. While his wound had been severe, shock had taken over so quickly that Peter’s calm was an unmistakable mercy and one that he hoped his family would find comfort in. It wouldn’t lessen their sorrow, but there was solace in knowing that Peter’s final minutes were restful.

  Pulling himself away from the edge of the Baldwin grove, Thor aimed for the road that would lead the women and children back to the farm. What he wanted to do was sit in the shade of his trees and watch for their return, but with it too soon for them to arrive, he headed back toward the house. It would take at least two days for them to return from Whitetop Mountain by wagon with Al, so he wouldn’t see his wife and daughter until close to nightfall.

  He ached for that hour.

  With heavy steps, Thor climbed the porch, and when he reached the kitchen, Jorgan was there cutting up another skinned hare.

  Thor slid two fingers past his eyes for Haakon.

  Jorgan was sober as he turned the piece of game. “He’s not doin’ so well.”

  Thor started up the stairs, aiming for Aven’s old bedroom where Haakon was laid up. He expected to see his brother abed still, arm bandaged and kept in a sling, but instead Haakon was seated on a chair in the center of the room. His head was down, eyes on the floor, but Thor didn’t need a solid view of his face to see how pale his skin was. Nor that Haakon’s free hand where it rested on his knee was shaking slightly. Bandages wrapped his palms, and a square of paper sat folded between his tremoring fingers.

  After fetching a stool from the corner, Thor placed it across from his brother. Exhausted from digging graves as much as he was from grief, he sat, his knees nearly touching Haakon’s own.

  Haakon blinked at the floor, then straight to Thor. Shadows rimmed his eyes, and his mouth looked parched.

  Thor made the hand sign for water, but Haakon shook his head.

  As for morphine, Haakon had declined that as well. Out of need, Haakon had stated. That he was enduring this amount of pain without medication was something, and for him to be getting along without those leaves he’d been so fixed on had to be intensifying the matter. No wonder his brother was trembling so.

  Thor well remembered these days. The wretched days of an addictive tincture cleaving to mind and body even in its absence.

  Haakon’s breathing was labored, jaw clenched in a way that when he spoke, Thor couldn’t understand. Haakon tried to sign it, but his hands didn’t cooperate. Wanting his brother to be understood, Thor lowered his head and watched his mouth again before signaling him to repeat himself.

  Looking relieved, Haakon spoke again and seemed to be asking if there had been any word from the sheriff.

  Thor nodded. P-A-P-E-R-W-O-R-K done. As for what had happened here that night, the sheriff had given assurance that not one of them would be seeing the inside of a jail cell. Haakon looked as relieved as Thor felt.

  The morning of the shootout’s end, the sheriff had arrived while they were all still gathered around Peter. He’d assisted them at once, explaining that he would have come when expected, but the Sorrel men had ambushed them first. Having left his brother, Red, to watch the sheriff’s comings and goings, Harlan and his men had known when to move in quick to disrupt them along the way. From the ramshackle state the lawmen had arrived in, escaping with their lives was a feat. They’d only managed by taking cover in an old trapper’s cabin. Though only wounding one of the deputies, the Sorrel men had headed off, preserving ammunition and dispersing the lawmen’s mounts as they did. The sheriff and his deputies who could walk trailed them on foot.

  The hindered lawmen hadn’t reached the Norgaard farm until nearly dawn and had come upon Jorgan and Orville first. Orville had been shot after taking down one of the men at the far tree line and was alive today because a deputy had taken a horse and raced for aid. Jorgan confessed that he was certain it would have been the Sorrels to find them and had been resolved to the likelihood, but refused to leave Orville since it would have meant the man’s death. The sheriff had guarded Jorgan and Orville until gunfire at the house sent him that way. He’d found them all around Peter.

  Later Dr. Abramson confirmed that there would have been nothing else to do for Peter other than offering him courage and comfort for the passage home.

  Lowering his head, Haakon rolled it from side to side. He was dreadfully quiet when awake, and when he managed to sleep it was restless. While Thor couldn’t hear what Haakon murmured in his sleep, Jorgan admitted to it being about a woman.

  They didn’t know who, but in Haakon’s furrowed brow Thor saw regret.

  With the square of paper still folded in Haakon’s hand, Thor gently reached for it. His brother allowed him. Thor opened it with care. He didn’t know where it had come from but had seen Haakon study it so often of late he didn’t doubt its value.

  With it splayed open, Thor studied the picture. High on a cliff stood two figures, one tall, one small, and just below crashed waves of riotous color. What looked like a ship was moored in the distance. All in deep indigo and charcoal gray that were still so soft, the chalk had smeared along the page, making the storm even more vivid. A compass had been drawn in the bottom corner as though to show someone the way.

  Thor lifted his gaze to his brother’s face. Who? The sign was simple, but it didn’t make the inquiry any less weighty.

  Though a tremor still coursed through him, Haakon’s focus was steady on Thor’s own. “It’s a little boy. In Norway. There’s a couple of them. Children, that is.” Still shaking, Haakon set his jaw as if to steady himself. “Their father died last year, and I was acquainted with their mother. I was thinking that . . .” He drew in a slow breath. “I was thinking that . . .” He tried to wet his lips.

  Thor would have fetched him some water then and there but didn’t want to miss what his brother needed to say.

  “Thor. That cabin’s charred through.”

  Had Haakon been thinking to put a family in it? We fix cabin.

  Defeat and hope warred in Haakon’s eyes—the blue of them muddied with the suffering he endured. Perhaps for promise of that very future.

  We fix, Thor repeated. He needed his brother to know how much he meant it. Between the three of them, they could get it done. They’d tackled harder things than that before.

  Haakon slid his hand forward on his leg, and with care Thor gave the drawing back. As he did, he sensed that if hope won out, Haakon would be leaving them again. He didn’t blame him. Not for one minute. A man was made to have a mate—a wife, a beloved—and the Good Book induced a man to find one. It was a task that was both terrifying and rewarding and one Thor had longed for because God didn’t place His sons on this earth without also placing His daughters to walk by their side. Womenfolk were a precious part of this world and one more lovely and more mysterious than any other, to Thor’s way of thinking.

  He didn’t know who this woman from Norway was but she had affected his brother most deeply. Thor meant to bolster Haakon closer to her side. Name? he inquired.

  Haakon spelled it with a gentle regard, his wounded hand shaking with resolve and perhaps a trace of longing. K-J-E-R-S-T-I.

  Thor nodded, committing it to mind to share with A
ven, who would knit it into her own heart for prayers of the utmost sweetness and strength. While he hated the idea of his little brother leaving again, to aid Haakon in any way would be his honor. If there was something he could do to help Haakon onto such a journey, he would.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  JUNE 16, 1895

  BLACKBIRD MOUNTAIN, VIRGINIA

  AS HAAKON EXAMINED THE STAIRS OF THE CABIN, they seemed sound. Still, he ascended the half dozen nearest the top slowly, testing each one to be sure. Rather how the last week and a half had gone—each hour as uncertain as the one before. By sheer grace they were all making it through.

  At the top landing, Haakon stopped. Shoulder sore, he pressed against the bandage and gave a small roll of the joint to try and ease it. He’d learned that the bullet had ripped through the muscle just beneath his collar bone. He’d come to on the surgical table, and while the pain had been mind numbing, based on what he knew of this doctor’s methods, there was no cause to worry about infection.

  So far, Orville was showing a steady recovery, and fresh word had just come this morning that he was mending well. Haakon was more than thankful. There had already been such loss. As it was, upon Tess’s return, Haakon had met her in the yard, and though still weak, had walked her over to Peter’s grave so as to show her the way on land she’d never journeyed upon before.

  Haakon rubbed fingertips over his forehead. Having climbed this far, one more step seemed fitting. He pulled himself up into the loft that, while stable, was charred beyond saving. While the fire hadn’t burned through the thick walls of his cabin, the damage to the logs would be irreparable. The roof made it through with only a portion collapsed, but with walls needing to be rebuilt, not to mention the floor, the roof was going to have to come off anyway.

  What little furniture had been up here was ash.

  Haakon picked up the sooty remains of a glass jar. He didn’t know where to begin.

  Then again, he’d learned of late how to take one small step and then another. Over time, it always added up. It had to. Over the days of his recovery, when the quiet of a bed had been his one domain, he’d imagined bringing her here. Her and her children. In fact, he worried that he’d been talking about it in his sleep. Now that he saw the extent of the damage, he didn’t know when or how anything could be done. As he’d once told Fay, wanting a wife and having a place for her to live were two different things.

  Waiting another year could afford enough time to repair this building, but he’d also learned in the last week that a man only had a short time on this earth. Maybe the days granted him should be made the most of. Should another year go by . . . what would he return to Kristiansand to find? Something told him he needed to go and that it needed to be before winter.

  It was a little reckless, but the currents were just begging to be taken.

  The cabin wouldn’t house a sizeable family for long—but if he could enlist some help in piecing it back together, it could do for a start. Already his brothers had offered their service. It was with that assurance that Haakon turned away and started back down the stairs.

  Da had raised them to walk in the footsteps of the Vikings of old. That meant valor and fortitude. Fearlessness and family pride. All noble traits, but for too long Haakon had tried to blame his past behavior on a lineage of pilferers and plunderers. Thor and Jorgan hadn’t done it that way. They’d wooed their wives and guided their families with a different side of Viking mettle. One of courage, resilience, and protection.

  Because of that, Haakon had crossed bloodline off his list of excuses for his sins, right next to last born, orphan, and unwanted. Leaving nothing left but a bunch of marks over the deceit he’d bought into. The crossing out was a process as painful as any other, but now in the aftermath stretched a voided and purged cavern in his chest ready to be filled with something of richer make. He meant to fill it along that good and higher road Cora had reminded him about.

  Outside, he found Thor and Jorgan waiting for him in the yard, where they stood assessing the crumbled roofline. Haakon gladly joined them in that, and once they’d pieced together a plan, they walked toward the great house, where by the smell of it, something fine had been fixed. On the porch, Fay was moving chairs into place and Jorgan stepped up to aid her.

  With only a few moments left for the chance this evening, Haakon tapped Thor’s arm. When his brother slowed, Haakon spoke what needed to be said.

  “Thank you.”

  Already thank.

  “Well I’m thanking you again.” If it hadn’t been for Thor, Haakon wouldn’t have walked away from that hallway. While he had aimed to give Harlan and Jed a time of it, he didn’t think he would have been able to beat them both. Not in the condition he’d been in. He owed Thor his life. Peter too.

  Never as a boy would he have imagined that it would be his honor to have known Peter Sorrel. One of the greatest honors he’d ever been given. And as for Thor, Haakon wished it hadn’t taken this long to know the privilege he had in getting to live life alongside this man. He wished it hadn’t taken four years, as many continents, and a night of fire and brimstone to realize what he should have realized so long ago—the man standing beside him wasn’t his enemy. His brother was his best friend.

  “Oh, that’s such wonderful news.” Aven took the empty basket from Ida. ’Twas a juggling act with a sleeping Tusie burrowed in the curve of her other arm.

  Having brought over a freshly baked pie to Cora and the girls, Ida closed the kitchen door. “Al and his wife are stayin’ for the week, they said.”

  A fine notion, that. A way to band together on this horizon even as hearts clung to those so dear. “I’m so glad they’ve come.”

  Ida spoke on, and Aven listened of Tess and how she was faring.

  “I’ve a sense that Al’s wife means to take Tess back with them for a spell,” Ida said, checking on the second pie cooling on the table. “Sometimes an outing do a person good. We’ll see what the child decides.”

  “Aye.” And in the meantime Aven would continue to pray for Tess’s comfort and for the washings of sorrow to work a good in her life. The Lord promised that very assurance, and Aven herself knew it to be true.

  At sight of the men near the porch, Ida fetched the pie, and with Tusenfryd nestled close, Aven helped carry fixings for the small party to the front porch. ’Twas a strange day for festivities, yet with time and lives precious, there seemed no better hour than this. Fay was already out on the porch, moving chairs into place with Jorgan’s help, and if Aven wasn’t mistaken, there was a look passing between them as tender and loving as any might have been.

  When Thor and Haakon reached the steps, Thor climbed first. He’d scarcely parted from Tusie since his homecoming, and now ’twas no different as he reached for the babe. A kiss he offered to Aven, then another to Tusie’s cheek as he folded his daughter into the crook of his arm. He kept her wee sunbonnet well in place, his fingers large and rough to the delicate lace trim.

  Haakon admired his brother before shifting to better see the baby. Fading cuts and bruises still staked a claim on Haakon’s face and hands. When Aven invited him to sit, he settled on the porch steps as he so often had. The mark of a wayfarer if she ever saw one. He had asked for nothing but the plainest of needs since his arrival. Only a place to lay his head and a chance to make amends. So different from the younger Haakon she’d once known.

  Though Aven meant not to pry, Thor had hinted that Tess might not be the only one venturing off. ’Twas a farewell in the making—she could feel it. Bittersweet as it was, there were changes afoot for Haakon, and by what Thor had explained to her . . . blessed ones. Changes that Aven hoped for, lacing the name of this woman into her nightly prayers alongside so many others.

  From the kitchen, Aven fetched tiny candles that Fay had dipped for such occasions. Kinderfesten, she called it in German. A tradition from Fay’s childhood that she had brought to the Norgaard family. The wee flames kindling much merriment as the birthday person
made a valiant effort of puffing them out.

  And for Haakon this day, ’twas a celebration that had been long awaited.

  Ida laid the pie into Haakon’s hands while Fay brought over a box of matches. Carefully, Aven pressed a series of the tiny candles into the flaky crust.

  When she finished, Haakon lifted blue eyes to her. “Four?” Voice winsome, he seemed to sense what they were about.

  “’Tis for each year you were gone. Each year of not celebrating your birthday here, together.”

  He pulled in a slow breath and turned the pan half about on his open hand. A delay it seemed, for when he glanced back to her, his eyes were damp. A regard that she now knew to be draped in gentleness, braced by humility, and hemmed in friendship. In his words lived his gratitude, but in his face dwelled a thankfulness that administered what words could not.

  The most precious gift she had left to give him—her trust—was his.

  So dear was the realization that it penetrated every piece of her heart, including the broken places that the Lord had been stitching back together, helping her to see that she was placing her faith in a safe pair of hands once again.

  Those very hands still holding the pie, he seemed uncertain of what to do.

  Aven opened her fingers to show several more candles. “And however many you might need until we see you again.”

  A muscle in Haakon’s jaw worked. On a slow inhale, he withdrew one from her palm and with a bittersweet resolve, pressed a fifth candle into place.

  A whole year? But blessedly, only the one.

  “You’ll be missed,” Ida said, placing her weathered hand to the side of his wrapped shoulder. This woman who had raised him since he was a babe in arms himself.

  Though his smile was muted, there lived in his face a thankfulness that matched their own to him. Fay struck a match and instructed Haakon as to what to do. With a sparkle in his eyes, he blew out each flame in a single breath.