Arne, confused, afraid, let Kristin’s wrist fall, and scurried to find a seat. She found herself trembling. Although she sympathized with her poor father, she knew for certain that she could not submit to his wishes. Too much had happened. Her life was taking a different track, as if fate were governing her future. But she knew the only worthwhile future could be with Eric.
For his part, Eric stilled Kristin with a touch, and looked about the inn. Thorsen was there, and so was Subsheriff Johanson, hanging about by the door with his hefty, slow-moving deputies, who resembled slugs if you half-closed your eyes to regard them. But the putative plaintiffs, the Rolfsons, were nowhere to be seen. The people began to murmur, and even Judge Amundsen looked up from some documents he was examining, as if wondering where the two were.
“Perhaps Gustav won’t appear, after what you did to him,” Kristin hoped.
“I do not think it would alter his father’s plans, though. Not after so much time and money have been spent.”
Another thought came to Kristin. “Could not Gustav make trouble over the fact that you struck him?”
“Perhaps. But I doubt he would, since I was defending my property against trespass.”
“Well,” Amundsen was saying, “if I have come all the way from Dovre for nothing…”
But he had not. From the village street outside the inn, a great commotion arose, as riders came dashing up the road and reined in.
“They’re here, Your Honor, they’re here,” called Johanson happily, and, sure enough, the crowd parted to allow the Rolfsons entry. Father and son marched through the staring people, not deigning even to look upon them, and certainly not to apologize if they happened to bump or jostle one of the townsmen. The mood in the room, which, moments before, had seemed to cradle the seed of a feeble hope that the Rolfsons would not appear, now plummeted, turned gloomy and quiet.
We have no spirit, Kristin thought, sadly, watching her own father duck his head, lick his lips. We call ourselves free, but we have no confidence.
Adolphus Rolfson, thick and splendid in morning coat and a pearl-gray sash, sat down slowly and heavily in a chair near the judge’s bench, withdrew his gold watch from a waistcoat pocket, inspected the time, replaced the watch. The mountain farmers watched him, fascinated not only by the great timepiece, the price of which might well have surpassed the worth of a good-sized farm, but captivated also by the man’s concern with time itself. The mountaineers rose with the sun, retired with it, their lives drifting easily with the cyclical rhythm of the seasons. There was little need to know which hour it was, much less which minute. What they did not yet understand was that the Rolfsons emerged from, personified, represented a hard new world in which minutes were worth money. The law, in such a world, must work with alacrity. And so it could be bought.
Gustav had followed his father into the inn, keeping his back to most of the people, but when the Rolfsons reached the front of the room, several farmers felt they had to stand in order to show respect to such powerful personages. There was a slight crush, a bit of confusion as bodies shuffled about, and in the process Gustav was forced to turn toward the onlookers. A sudden gasp rose from the citizens of Lesja. The slash on Gustav’s face stood out scarlet and deep, like a mark of horrible sin.
“What are you looking at?” he screamed at them. “You’ll all pay for this!”
Then his eyes found Eric, seated there beside Kristin, and his lips tightened in hatred, as much as the jagged cut would permit. But he did not speak, simply fixed Eric with a long glare, which Kristin’s beloved returned, unflinching.
“We will proceed now or not at all!” thundered. Judge Amundsen.
Gustav sat down next to his father. The crowd quieted, listening intently.
“This hearing is convened,” the judge growled. “At issue: notes of loan signed by individual landowners, in agreement with the Rolfson firm of Oslo. Plaintiffs contend payment is now due. Defendants aver initial payment is not due until September, after the harvest. I have the signed agreements here on the table in front of me. I have examined them thoroughly. In every case, the agreements specify a June repayment date. Consequently, I rule in favor of the Rolfsons. Now, my appearance here has satisfied the requirements of the law, and I declare the proceedings…”
Amundsen had intended to say “terminated,” and then to get back up on his sleek Arabian mount and get out of Lesja as fast as the beast would carry him, but that was not immediately to be. Long accustomed to the laconic, even phlegmatic ways of the mountain people, and inured to their slow respect for authority and tradition, he had for too long a time been used to his own power. He expected subservience, as in the old days, not realizing that the farmers were far more threatened than he had thought. Threatened enough, possibly, for violence. The roar that rose inside the inn, the answering tumult that broke out in the garden, now impressed upon him the fact that his job was not going to be as easy as he had expected. He made a mental note to demand more bribe money of Rolfson, and began pounding his gavel. Johanson and the deputies began to move among the crowd, calling for order. A hundred people were on their feet, all of them clamoring to speak. Finally a semblance of order was restored. The judge had decided upon the necessity of prolonging the charade. These farmers would eventually be dulled by mere procedure—he thought—and since the outcome of the hearings was immutable no matter who protested, a little more time was not too great a price to pay.
“Who speaks for the plaintiffs?” called the judge, assuming a bored, bureaucratic drone.
“I do, Your Honor,” answered solicitor Thorsen, bowing obsequiously.
“And the defendants?”
All eyes turned toward Pastor Pringsheim, whose original knowledge of the law had caused this hearing to be held. “I cannot speak here,” he protested. “It is not fitting in the light of my office.”
The judge frowned, although not without pleasure. A glint of satisfaction appeared in the eyes of the Rolfsons. No one was prepared to make the case for the landowners; they were untrained in public discourse, afraid to speak on their feet.
All save one. “I shall make the case,” Eric declared, standing.
Gustav Rolfson spun around to look at him, his torn lips parting to show a grin of bloody teeth. This upstart might fight well, but how could he have the wit of words?
“Get up here in front, then,” Amundsen ordered.
Kristin touched his hand before he left the chair, heard with pride the murmurs of approval and encouragement from her neighbors as Eric strode to the front of the inn.
Thorsen, whose right it was to speak first, was already on his feet. Portentously, with rounded pomposity of phrase, he declared the proceedings to be pointless at best and ludicrous at worst. “It’s right here in the papers,” he said, thumping the loan agreements. “Everything in order. Everything in black and white. The defendants have simply allied to thwart the just foreclosures of my clients upon lands and properties clearly due them.” Then he sat down. Adolphus Rolfson could be seen nodding his approval of the solicitor’s sagacity.
“Young man?” prodded the judge, waiting.
Momentarily Eric seemed nervous, but when he began to speak the unease quickly passed. His words were sure and strong.
“I, too, have examined these papers, upon which your signatures or marks appear to be affixed. I have also examined the paper signed by my father, whom you all knew and respected. I was there when he signed his name. And I tell you with all the certainty in my heart”—at this point he picked up his father’s loan agreement, the one for which he was now legally responsible, and showed it to the people—“that this paper is not the one he signed, and that the signature on this paper is not his.”
Thorsen was on his feet “This is an outrage!” he shouted, agitated, almost blithering. “Why, this nonsense is—”
“Furthermore, I think all the papers have been forged,” Eric went on, shouting Thorsen down. “And I also feel—”
“Silence!
Silence!” yowled Amundsen, excited himself, his short legs, which did not reach the floor, kicking back and forth. “What is your name, son?”
“Starbane. Eric Starbane.”
“Listen well, then, Starbane. I tell you that, in order to make this kind of accusation, you must—”
For a moment the judge seemed to lose the thread of his thought. His glance fell upon the Rolfsons. His glance flew guiltily away from them. They all knew the papers had been forged, and here before them was a forceful young man not intimidated by the machinery of the court. If Starbane could stand here now and make an accusation of forgery, why, he might very readily take the matter to Oslo! There would be a royal inquiry, at the very least. The judge’s dealings in Oppland County were not of a quality that could withstand disciplined scrutiny.
“Son, you must give a good reason, a very good reason, for your accusation.” The judge was sure no reason would be sufficiently rational. “Or else I will be forced by law to dismiss you forthwith.” This was not true, but what did Starbane know about it?
Eric stood before the people in the dining room. The crowd in the garden listened for Eric’s words. The rustle of leaves could be heard, and the ripple of the Rauma River over the stones. It was that quiet.
“I will give you reason,” Eric affirmed. “All of these people know that, when my father made the loan agreement he was a sick man. Is that not so?”
Eric’s neighbors to a man, called out their corroboration. Even Arne Vendahl added his voice.
“And,” continued Eric, holding the paper up again, “the signature on this note is strong and sure, a hand of which my father, at that time, was incapable!”
Instantly the townsmen were on their feet clamoring to see their own signatures, shouting angrily, triumphantly, for an end to the proceedings. They underestimated the tenacity of the Rolfsons, the niggling desperation of the judge to accomplish that for which he had been bribed.
“Sheriff! Sheriff!” bellowed the judge, standing on his chair for height and shouting over the din of the crowd. “I declare these proceedings out of order. Your duty requires action!”
The subsheriff and his men drew weapons, which, since the townsmen had not come to the meeting armed, served to inflame them all the more.
“Hold it!” warned Johanson, leaping to the judge’s table, scattering loan papers all over the floor. “I vow my men and I will fire if you people dare to make a move!”
He waved his big pistol to underscore the seriousness of his threat. Meantime the deputies, training their weapons on the townsmen, took up strategic positions at entrances to the garden and the dining room.
“I mean to enforce the law,” Johanson bellowed. “What is it, Judge?” he asked, obsequiously.
Amundsen looked around. He saw the farmers tensed in readiness for physical action, but he saw also that they were confounded. Johanson saw it, too. “First one who moves gets it in the head,” he roared.
“This hearing is concluded,” Amundsen intoned. “Sheriff, you are charged with the duty of presenting notices of foreclosures and carrying out evictions in cases of recalcitrance.”
“No!” shouted Eric. “You cannot do this. The hearing has been as fraudulent as the papers now on the floor.”
“And what are you going to do about it, Gunnarson?” goaded Gustav, still dabbing at his face with a blood-streaked handkerchief. He leaped to his feet, overturning his chair, and beckoned Kristin with a crude, peremptory gesture.
“Get up here, woman!”
“Not now,” old Adolphus could be heard to say. “Not now. First things first.”
Kristin looked at Eric, and he at her. The people, as individuals or as a group, had not yet decided what to do. The guns were still upon them. Kristin felt as if now, finally, this overwhelmingly insulting attack upon her people would be met in kind, even by her father. She felt that her neighbors, lifelong freemen, innocent, uneducated, unsophisticated though they were, would seize the moment they had, would respond with brawn and strength they so clearly possessed to the courage of words and will Eric had, just as obviously, displayed before them.
Kristin learned a great lesson, then. She saw how the fine smooth gears of the world’s machine were oiled and spun; she learned a lesson in deftness and cunning that she would never forget.
Adolphus Rolfson stood, and, by his bulk and bearing, took dominance and command of the gathering.
“We do not wish you harm,” he explained sonorously to the taut mountaineers, speaking authoritatively yet soothingly to these enraged but directionless country people. “Do not now engage in an act of violence that might, nay, that will jeopardize your very freedom!”
Having said that, he admonished Johanson and his deputies: “Enough of this. Not here. Let us see about the business that has been ordered by the judge.”
He waved the subsheriffs gun down, and the deputies followed suit. Within a minute they departed from the gates. Judge Amundsen himself left the inn, and walked toward his horse. The citizens of Lesja began to cheer. Such easy victory, and how sweet.
A great, savage howl cut them off.
“Fools!”
What was this? The cheer died.
“You fools!” shouted Eric Starbane. “Don’t you know what has happened?”
The sound of Amundsen’s horse’s hoofbeats could be heard: a clatter over the stone of the walk, the soft thudding of a canter on the road, the long full pounding of a gallop.
“Where are Johanson and his deputies?” Eric cried. The people looked around, puzzled. They had thought the departure of the lawmen meant an end to all problems.
“They are on their way to serve the notices of foreclosure,” Eric explained. “They will meet you upon your own doorsteps, exactly as they met me yesterday afternoon.”
“Get the Rolfsons!” someone shouted, but it was too late. The cunning architects of perfidy had slipped out with the forces of the law.
“Here,” Eric called to Kristin.
“Wait!” cried her father. “Who is the fool now? Things have happened just as I said. What good has this hearing done, except to anger the Rolfsons, with whom we will have to live.”
Then he smiled, or, more accurately, smirked at Eric.
“Fool,” he said again. “Daughter, you come with me. I want you ready when Rolfson calls for you.”
Kristin shrank from her father as he approached, his hand outstretched to seize her. The townsmen were wondering about what he had said to her. Assured now—he thought—of continued possession of his land in exchange for the offer of his daughter in marriage, Arne could not resist a boast. “Alone among you,” he declared, “I had the wit to deal with the Rolfsons. Alone among you—”
“If you stand here, saying who is brilliant and who dull,” Eric interrupted, “all is lost. Later we can take this matter to Oslo, but as for now, I fight! Kristin, come!”
He held out his hand and she ran to him. “It will do you no good,” Arne howled after them. Hand in hand they raced from the inn, through the village, and up the hill trail toward the Starbane farmstead. Behind them many farmers did likewise: ran to their homes, wanting to protect them without quite knowing how. Those who had already given up slouched hopelessly outside the inn, admiring Arne Vendahl’s sagacity. Lord, if only they had a daughter as gorgeous as Kristin, they too would have found a way.
Halfway to the farm Eric saw ahead of him the mounted party of deputies, led by Subsheriff Johanson.
“Just as courageous as I expected,” he said. “When the dirty work is being done, the Rolfsons are nowhere to be seen. I will never be that way.”
But there was no time for talk. On foot Eric and Kristin could never overtake the men on horseback.
“There is a quicker way,” he told Kristin, leading her down off the trail, through a grove of ancient birch, up along a stone wall that marked the border of his pasture, and into the yard behind his house. They came around the house and confronted the lawmen just as the latter were r
iding into the yard.
“Don’t resist the inevitable.” Johanson scowled, dismounting. He carried the foreclosure paper in his hand.
“I will fight for my land,” said Eric, taut but cool. “I give you fair warning.”
The deputies drew their black pistols.
“Eric,” cried Kristin, in real fear for his life, “give it up. Let’s go away.”
He shook his head. “I cannot. If evil is not resisted, what is honor worth?”
“You can do it another way. You can go to Oslo.” She remembered the lesson she had learned at the inn, observing the casual stealth of the Rolfsons. “You do not have to confront this directly,” she cried.
“Yes, I do. Johanson with his vile paper is directly in front of me.”
“A wise man,” grinned the subsheriff, holding out the paper. “Take it,” he told Eric. “The law says I must place it in your hands.”
“I will not,” Eric answered, retreating backward up the stone steps and into his house, keeping Kristin behind him, and his body between her and the guns. Then they were inside the house. He slammed shut and bolted the heavy door.
“Don’t be a lunatic,” Johanson shouted from outside.
“Eric, it’s all right. Give in,” pleaded Kristin. “We can go away.”
“Don’t you think I want to?” he snapped, turning toward her. It was the first anger he had ever shown toward her. “And don’t you know I can’t?” he added, not apologetically, yet almost tenderly.
Kristin understood. He was what he was, a strong and honest man, and that was why she loved him. Would she have him if he were but some finer, variety of Rolfson, cunning and deadly with charm? She would not. She recalled Pastor Pringsheim’s annual sermon about Martin Luther. “Ich kann nicht anders,” Luther had said, when evil men demanded that he forsake his beliefs, “I cannot do otherwise.”
Oh, but what a hard world to knock one’s head upon.
“Eric, let’s go,” she tried once more.
Wild Wind Westward Page 7
