Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  Kristin looked at Eric. She felt a flicker of fear. He seemed surprised, but not alarmed. She relaxed.

  “I thought we were alone,” he said.

  They both knew, now, too late, why the plowhorse had seemed restless a few times earlier in the afternoon. Lost in each other, they had not realized it then.

  “I think someone’s been up there all the while,” she said, shivering, and wrapping her arms about her breasts. They walked quickly back to where their clothes lay fluttering upon the grass; the breeze off the Atlantic felt a bit more chilly than it had before. Kristin dressed hurriedly, her skin forming gooseflesh. Eric did not rush, though. His expression was concentrated, dark with thought.

  “Did you…did you recognize the—?”

  He nodded, fastening his belt.

  “Who?”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “It will just worry you,” he said. “Perhaps it means nothing.”

  Kristin stepped close to him, and touched his arm with her hand. “We are together now,” she said. “What matters to you also matters to me, and the other way as well. Please tell me.”

  He hesitated, but then spoke. “I did not see the rider clearly, but I recognized the horse. A black stallion, with a white patch on its shoulder. I saw it last year at the harvest festival. It belongs to Subsheriff Johanson, from Dovre, downriver.”

  Kristin’s eyes widened in astonishment Subsheriff Johanson had jurisdiction in the area of Lesja, but he seldom appeared, preferring to spend his time drinking beer and playing cards, with Judge Amundsen and political cronies in Dovre. Johanson was also known to be friendly with solicitor Thorsen, in the village. She mentioned that fact to Eric.

  “Well, he certainly was not with Thorsen today,” Eric remarked, worried. He walked toward the plowhorse, clucking to gentle it, grasping the reins. He put an arm around Kristin’s waist and swung her high up on the back of the huge animal; then, leaping up himself, he mounted behind her.

  “What does it mean?” she asked. “He saw us making love, surely. He can make much trouble.”

  Eric knew that. Lovemaking before marriage might well be called sinful by Pastor Pringsheim and the church. It was also a crime. Yet the subsheriff, one of dozens of petty officials who had begun to harass citizens in recent years, had not ridden down to disturb them, to arrest them, or even to make his presence known. Instead, he—and perhaps other concealed observers, too—had watched surreptitiously from the forest, then had fled. What did it mean?

  “Whatever is happening cannot be of any good,” Eric decided, kicking the big horse with his heels, guiding it back onto the trail toward Lesja. “I am afraid we shall learn soon enough what is going on.”

  They said little on the ride back toward the village. In the quiet of his mind Eric cursed himself for having jeopardized his beloved. Such rashness: making love to her under the sun, the sky. It had seemed so wonderful, though, so natural. And it was, it had been. He knew that. But it had been rash nonetheless, and he cursed himself for it. Hours ago, everything seemed perfect. They would be married, and go to live on the farm which had been property of the family Starbane since Eric the Viking had turned away from the Western Sea, and had come home to Norway and peace. The farm was his. The only burden was a small loan his father had taken from the businessman Rolfson, of Oslo. But the first payment was not due until September, and after the harvest Eric knew he could easily make the payment, although, God knew, he had no money just now. He and Kristin would live on the farm free and in love, and have children and make love and grow old together. There were times when he thought it might be exciting to go off to Oslo, or Europe, or somewhere else, and maybe he would one day if he could afford it. But such a journey would be only a holiday. He would have to come back because he was a Starbane, and his land was freely his, and he was free upon it. Without the land and the name, he would be a commoner, just someone’s son, available for hire by any man who met his price. Such men were dangerous. Look at Subsheriff Johanson, that snake, or solicitor Thorsen, a fawning, unprincipled sycophant, or Judge Amundsen in Dovre. Eric had heard that the judge’s legal decisions tended to depend on whether plaintiff or defendant bribed him the more generously.

  Eric could not bring himself to believe such a low thing. He was a fair and honest young man, and it was the responsibility of an honest man to give the benefit of the doubt. In addition he was a landowner, a free man with an ancient name, and no one and nothing could take that away from him.

  He would ride back to the village, find out what was happening, and face whatever had to be faced.

  Kristin, riding in front of him, was grateful for Eric’s strong arms around her. She felt a little frightened, but also angry. Be calm, she kept telling herself, be calm. Wait and see. It was something she had been trying to teach herself for years: patience. Riding back home this day, she did not yet know how much need she would have of that virtue.

  We are different, she reflected, thinking of Eric and herself. And that is good.

  Two years younger than he, Kristin had known him, it seemed, forever. Lesja was a small village. Everybody knew everybody else, from the oldest widow in the town to the shepherd in the remotest mountain hut. Herself spirited and occasionally impulsive, Kristin had admired Eric’s calm courage ever since she could remember. He did not flinch. He knew what was right, and stood for it. Many times, in younger years on the schoolyard, Eric had protected the littler children from bullies, even when the bullies were bigger than he was. He had beaten them then, and it would take a rash man to fight him now. At twenty Eric was over six feet two inches, and always a winner in the log-tossing contests on festival days. Eric turned away from no challenge, and never had. Kristin remembered the time Pastor Pringsheim had called all the church-school pupils before him.

  “The altar candles are missing,” he had accused, swinging the hard hickory cane with which he flogged those who, for one reason or another, had offended his rectitude or tolerance or simpleminded piety. One by one he asked each child, boy and girl, “You took the altar candles, did you not?” And every child answered in the negative. “Well, well,” Pastor Pringsheim decided, not without satisfaction, “since no one is admitting the foul deed, you are all guilty, and everyone shall be soundly thrashed.” Having said that, he grabbed whimpering little Gunnar Verondahl, dragged him to the front of the church, and forced him down upon the communion railing. He raised the cane to strike a mighty whack.

  “Pastor, wait,” Eric had said.

  “So,” said the minister, turning toward Eric, his cane still raised to strike, “the true miscreant wishes to confess?”

  “No,” said Eric.

  Outraged and confounded, Pringsheim released little Gunnar and stepped over to Eric. “Then what is it?”

  “If I may say so, sir, I do not think any of us took the candles.”

  “What? What? Why on earth do you say that?”

  “Because you have asked everyone, and we have all denied it.”

  The pastor could not believe his ears. “And just because everyone has denied the deed, you think they are telling the truth?”

  “Yes, I do,” answered Eric, never flinching, never once letting his eyes move from the pastor’s. “And beating us will not get your candles back.”

  “Then I shall beat you for impertinence!” cried Pringsheim, enraged, reaching to grab Eric’s shoulder.

  “You may,” said the boy. “But that will not get your candles back either, if, indeed, someone has truly taken them.”

  Pringsheim had stood there for a long time, looking at this bold but entirely well-mannered young man, unable to deny the forthright fearlessness in Eric’s eyes. The pastor passed from a feeling that he must flog Eric to save his own honor before the other children to a knowledge that if he thrashed anyone he would have little honor in the eyes of any. He did not apologize; that would not have been correct to one of his office. But he did say, “I have decided to postpone punishment on the chance that I am
mistaken. We shall now search for the missing candles, on the slight possibility that they have been misplaced.”

  Half an hour later the offending candles were located in a sacristy drawer, where, it turned out, an eager but inexperienced deacon had placed them, rather than in their usual depository next to the coal bin. The mystery was solved, and Pastor Pringsheim did not flog so hastily after that episode.

  The boy who had stood up to Pringsheim had become a man now, and Kristin rode with him back into the village. It was late afternoon when they returned, jouncing upon the stolid old plowhorse into the Vendahl yard. Arne was waiting for them in front of the house. At first Kristin thought her father looked furious, and tried to fashion some explanation for the sight—she was sure—Subsheriff Johanson had recounted. But, riding closer, she realized her father was tremendously afraid of something, almost in a state of panic.

  Eric noticed it, too.

  “Eric,” he said, approaching and addressing the younger man before either he or Kristin had gotten down from the horse. “Have you heard the news?”

  Eric realized instinctively that Vendahl was not referring to anything that had taken place between himself and Kristin. He also guessed that Subsheriff Johanson had had motives other than spying upon lovers to explain his presence in the hills this afternoon. Possibly there was some connection between Johanson’s stealth and Arne Vendahl’s fear. “We have been out riding,” he told the older man. “I have heard nothing.”

  He jumped from the horse, and helped Kristin down, holding her by the waist. Arne was already telling his story, his voice ragged, his throat constricted by fear and incredulity.

  “Adolphus Rolfson and his son rode into the village shortly after you and Kristin departed,” he said. “You remember Rolfson, yes? The man from Oslo who was so helpful in providing loans to tide us over last year’s bad harvest?”

  “I remember him,” Eric said. He also remembered how he had argued with his own father, Gunnar, who was then alive. “Father, we do not truly need this loan. It would be convenient to have the money, but we have weathered worse years in the past. Do not sign the note.”

  But everyone else in the village was taking a loan, ten-year repayment terms were unheard of, and it seemed a pity not to take what this fine Rolfson man so eagerly offered. Eric had felt queasy about the affair. It had all been so easy. It had been unbelievable. And he knew now that he was going to find out it had been unbelievable.

  “Rolfson and the boy went immediately to solicitor Thorsen’s, where, after some time in conversation, Thorsen appeared on the steps of the stavkirche and ordered Pringsheim to ring the bell.”

  The church, an ancient structure fashioned entirely of wooden slats, or stavs, the staves themselves delicately, intricately joined, was an awesome, even fantastic reminder of Norse ingenuity. Raised almost a thousand years ago, it still stood strong against the mountains, and served the villagers not only as a place of worship, but also as a gathering place in the event that important news had to be promulgated, or important issues discussed. And so the solicitor had used the Pringsheim church bell to summon the citizenry.

  “Fellow townsmen, he called us,” recounted Kristin’s father angrily. “He explained to us that Rolfson had come for the first payment on his loan, and also that he stood ready to foreclose upon anyone who could not make that payment, exactly as the terms of the loans provided.”

  “But that is impossible,” said Eric. “I myself read the note my father signed, and, like all of the other loan papers, it specified that payment was to be in September, after the harvest It is now only June, and we have used whatever money we had left to buy seed for the spring planting! How can it be that…?”

  “I know only what transpired,” answered poor Arne, lifting his hands, palms open, a gesture of hopelessness, or supplication.

  “You did not see your own note? The one you signed?”

  “I can’t read,” Kristin’s father pleaded.

  That was true, and Eric knew it. He had simply forgotten the fact due to his tension in the face of the present threat Eric and Kristin’s generation was the first in Lesja even to have a semblance of regular schooling. The elders, unless they had been fortunate enough to have skilled parents, had seldom learned to read, even a little, although most had had sufficient pride to learn how to sign their names. It was highly embarrassing to have to make an X on one’s confirmation document or wedding paper, or upon the baptismal certificates of one’s children. But being able to sign one’s name did not bring with it the ability to decipher and interpret loan agreements. Such a task was left to solicitor Thorsen, who knew about such things.

  “Something is very wrong,” Eric decided. “Thorsen has to be mistaken, or perhaps Rolfson is. I read and reread the paper my father signed, knowing it would be my responsibility in the event of his death. And, now, it is my responsibility. And the paper clearly called for repayments in September.”

  “But Eric,” called Arne, in a voice that was like a strangled whine, “Thorsen gave the notes to Pastor Pringsheim, and, upon reading them, he, too, was astounded to find that payment is indeed due now.”

  “Then they must be false papers!” declared Kristin, who had been listening to the men with increasing disquiet “Something has been done to the papers.”

  “But I saw my own signature on the paper,” said Arne, with an aspect of dazed resignation. “My own signature, which it took me so long to learn.”

  “Then it apparently took someone else less time to learn it even more perfectly,” snapped Kristin, who sensed already, somehow, that a monstrous evil was afoot in these pure mountains.

  Both men turned to her. Their responses differed. Eric, who knew and loved Kristin’s spirited nature, her manner of deciding this is what I think so I will tell you, also knew she might be a bit hasty in her judgments. She had not yet learned the sanguine effect of a little patience. Eric himself was willing to withhold judgment until he personally inspected the notepaper at Thorsen’s office.

  Arne Vendahl’s response to his daughter’s outburst was less subtle. First, he cast a worried glance in Eric’s direction, lest such a desirable suitor might have been put off by a young woman’s temerity. Second, he admonished his offspring, “You will hold your tongue. This is a matter for men!”

  “I do not see that it is being so well handled,” she shot back. “We stand here worrying and talking while Thorsen and that man from Oslo make their plans.”

  Her father, who might once have swatted her behind for such a tone, such words, now seemed to realize that Kristin was right. And so did Eric.

  “What did Thorsen say he would do?” he asked.

  “Present the documents of foreclosure, and call upon the law to begin eviction proceedings.”

  It was a moment before Eric found breath to speak. “All of us?” he asked.

  “All who signed and cannot pay the notes.”

  “We all signed and none of us can pay.”

  “That is the whole of it.” Arne sighed. He could see no way out.

  “What kind of devil is this Rolfson creature anyway?” snapped Kristin, incensed to the marrow of her young soul. “I am going to see him. Where is he staying? Where—?”

  Her father was too dispirited to act, but Eric grasped her forearm, firmly but gently, in his hand. “It’s not a time for rashness,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s not, is it?” she returned, her eyes afire and voice rich with a need to strike back at the tormentors. “What do you suggest, then?”

  “I shall go over to Thorsen’s right now and speak to him. I shall ask to see the note my father signed. I know his signature. It is clear that Thorsen, or Rolfson, or someone has made a terrible mistake.”

  Eric wanted to believe that, and yet, even as he spoke, he made a devastating connection: Subsheriff Johanson was empowered by law to enforce foreclosures and evictions. That would explain his presence in the Lesja region. “When are they due to begin the foreclosures?” he asked
.

  “Even today…” Arne Vendahl began, but then a boy could be seen racing from the village in the direction of the farm.

  “That’s Piet!” cried Kristin, recognizing one of her brothers.

  “Yes,” said Arne. “I told him to stay near Thorsen’s, and to bring news if anything happened there. I wanted to be here to watch out for my property.”

  “What would you be willing to do in defense of it?” demanded Eric, his tone sharp but not cold. “Would you fight?”

  Arne raised his hands again, this time in a gesture of helplessness. “The signature is the signature,” he said. “The paper is the paper. What would a judge say? And I have seven children.”

  Seven children. Kristin understood her mother’s words now, the business of being tied to the bed; she understood her father’s plight. But understanding did not help to solve it.

  Little Piet raced up to them, panting, but gleeful with the knowledge of his responsibility as a messenger. “They’ve…they’ve sent for…their horses…” he gasped, gulping for air after his run from the village.

  “Who?”

  “The solicitor…and the men from Oslo. And sheriff Johanson, with his men from Dovre.”

  “Men from Dovre?”

  “Four of them. They have guns.” He was excited to have seen the guns.

  “Where do they intend to go?” his father inquired.

  “To his place,” Piet said, pointing at Eric. “They are riding first to the Starbane farm. What does it mean?”

  But Eric did not answer. He was already on his horse, kicking the big beast into the semblance of a gallop. He felt the horse solid and powerful between his thighs. But he also felt the earth, his world, his freedom and future, falling and falling away.

  II

  A crowd of worried villagers had formed in the small but well-kept Starbane yard by the time Eric rode up, and reined in the panting plowhorse. They were watching the eight men who stood, conversing quietly, on the steps of the old stone farmhouse. Eight men: Thorsen; the two Rolfsons; Subsheriff Johanson, a big, burly man; and his four henchmen, all as mean looking and hefty as he. Still, they seemed slightly intimidated by the group of silent, watchful mountaineers. They were also waiting for Eric. The law stated that notice of foreclosure must be laid in the living hand of the man whose name was written upon the document itself.