Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  “As I informed you on your last visit to my office,” he announced soberly, “I expect a routine birth. You are, how shall I say, somewhat narrow, but that means little, because you are also young and strong.”

  “Thank you,” Kristin said, in a wry tone, as another contraction began.

  “Bye the bye, is Mr. Rolfson present?” asked the doctor.

  Biting her lip against the pain, Kristin shook her head. The maid may have summoned him, she may not have. Kristin did not care. Why should he be here? It was not his child being born, it was…

  The pain rose, rose, peaked on a terrible new height.

  “…Eric…” she groaned.

  “What?” asked Mrs. Dentley, slipping another pillow beneath Kristin’s head. “What was that you wanted, honey?”

  Oh no, Kristin thought. The baby was not even ready to be born, and here she was crying out Eric’s name. It had slipped involuntarily from her lips. She would have to fight the impulse to cry out again. Dr. Konrad, moreover, had been chosen because Gustav, to his credit, did not want to see Kristin suffer in childbirth, and Konrad had no aversion to the use of palliatives, if the trial grew acute. Yet, if she took his nostrums, might Kristin not, in dazed half-consciousness, say many things it would be wiser to hold back?

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” cried-Mrs. Ratcliff, coming in with a stack of clean towels and a pan of steaming hot water. “You just relax and let nature take its course.”

  “Ohhhhhhh!” Kristin writhed as another bolt of pain hit her.

  “Everything seems to be progressing just fine,” Dr. Konrad reassured her.

  Then, at the entrance to the house, Gustav’s voice could be heard, calling loudly: “Why was I not summoned immediately? Immediately, you hear! Is my son born yet? Is he? You! I’ll see that you’re discharged!”

  One of the maids began to cry and plead for her job.

  Kristin tried to sit up. “Tell him it was I…who didn’t call him. Not the maid’s fault. Tell him I thought the pains might be false. Oh…tell him anything.”

  “We can’t have that caterwauling out there,” Dr. Konrad said to Mrs. Dentley. “It’s a disturbance to all of us. Tell Rolfson to come here for a moment.”

  An instant later Gustav was in the bedroom, his face reddened from anger and drink. He had been at his club. His scar looked white against flushed skin, and his eyes reflected something like greed, as if a child were but another acquisition.

  “Why wasn’t I called?” he demanded.

  “Quiet down,” Konrad told him, calmly but emphatically. “I’m in charge here, and everyone must do as I say.”

  Gustav frowned, but fell silent, his gaze going from the doctor to Kristin.

  “My darling!” he cried, rushing to the bed, falling upon his knees, and grasping her hand. “My darling, give me a fine son!”

  The two nurses looked at each other.

  Another contraction gripped Kristin, and, without intending to, she squeezed Gustav’s hand. He interpreted it as a sign of devotion.

  “Darling, I’m here,” he proclaimed.

  “Please, Mr. Rolfson,” said the doctor. “I’m afraid you must withdraw.”

  “Withdraw? Why? It’s my son being born here, heir to a great mercantile dynasty.”

  “Mr. Rolfson, if you would just—”

  “This is my house! This is my wife! This is my son!”

  In spite of her pain Kristin found herself only mildly surprised at Gustav’s ranting. It was his usual manner, particularly of late when thinking of his child, his son.

  “It may be a daughter and it may be a son,” pronounced Dr. Konrad, “but if you do not leave and cease your scene, harm may be done.”

  Kristin sighed again with the pain.

  Prideful, doubtful, but wondering, Gustav obeyed. He had, of late, seemed master of all he surveyed. Far to the west, in Ohio, reports had emerged that young Rockefeller was proceeding slowly in the oil business. Gustav’s refinery was ready for operation, men had been trained for the work, but as yet only a trickle of crude had been hauled in for processing. “The fool!” Gustav had observed gloating. “He went to all the trouble to fix an arrangement with the railroads, and he can’t even get crude to the refinery! I’ll bargain that young Godster right out of his trousers!”

  But Dr. Konrad was not a business adversary. Neither boasts nor remonstrances were effective against him. Gustav retreated to brandy and cigars in his study, fiddling with the words he would use when he wrote his father, old Adolphus, that an heir to the Rolfson throne had been born. Judging from his last letter Adolphus was aging a little, but still in fine fettle. “If that wife of yours gives you any trouble,” he had written, “just give her the opportunity to remember her family in Lesja. While we know she has been sending them money, she might also be interested to know that Amundsen, the crooked judge, is postmaster. Some letters do get through, but others are lost.”

  Gustav nodded, thinking about his son. What name to give the boy? He did not wish to burden a son with names already legendary, like Gustav and Adolphus. Harald? The name of a king, true. Lars? Too common, simple; it had not the unique sound these Americans liked. Ah! He had it! Haakon. Haakon Rolfson. Yes, that was what the name would be.

  On the bed, birth progressed, and pain increased. Kristin was bathed in sweat. Nurses Dentley and Ratcliff bent over her, kneading, crooning. Dr. Konrad was wet with perspiration himself.

  Again, again Kristin cried out. They would have been screams, had she the breath.

  “Please, Mrs. Rolfson,” he said. “Let me administer a drug to ease your pain somewhat.”

  Kristin shook her head, bit her lip. Another pain was coming.

  “Please, Mrs. Rolfson. For your good and the good of the child…”

  Kristin looked him straight in the eye, then, with a glance, indicated that the presence of the two nurses troubled her.

  “You two take a minute,” Konrad said to them. “Have a cup of tea. I’ll call you when I need you.”

  “Yes?” asked Dr. Konrad, when the nurses had gone.

  “If you give me the drug, I’m afraid I’ll cry out.”

  “You’re already crying out,” he said, but then his eyes widened. Kristin had not trusted him for nothing. “A name?” he asked.

  She nodded, fighting the pain.

  “Not to worry,” he said. “My assistants have been at a thousand births. What happens in the room remains in the room, you understand? You need have no fear. Now, do let me administer the drug.”

  “No, no, it’s all right,” Kristin told him. “You have given me the surcease I required.”

  The baby, a boy, was born just after midnight. Kristin was conscious then, but barely. She felt a last sudden spasm, then a series of smaller spasms, diminishing in intensity, and finally a release, an emptiness, and a weariness such as death must be.

  She saw Konrad’s face—“A boy, it’s a boy,” he was saying—felt something wet and hot on her hot wet abdomen, saw Dentley and Ratcliff nod in satisfaction. Last, she saw Gustav, exultant, standing above her, with his scar and his smashed nose and his wide sneaky wolfs eyes. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry “Errrrr-iiiic!” as she had cried with the pain. But she did not. She went to sleep.

  In the morning Isabel Van Santen was sitting beside her bed, her long russet-colored hair shining in the January light.

  “Well, my dear, I understand that you made quite a fuss.”

  “I did?” asked Kristin, suspiciously.

  “How do you feel?”

  “How is the baby?”

  “Splendid. Ten pounds two ounces, and with a shock of straw-colored hair. Dr. Konrad is outside. I’ll call him.”

  “No, wait a moment. About a fuss—what did you mean?”

  “Just that you were noisy. That’s all I know.”

  “Yes, I remember. I called his name.”

  “Not Gustav’s, certainly.”

  “No.”

  Isabel’s expressio
n deepened. “Kristin, what will you do now? Eric is dead, and—”

  “We don’t know that for sure!”

  “But, dear—”

  “I will go one day at a time, as the child will. He is my child by Eric, not by Gustav. That means…”

  She fell silent.

  “It means what you make of it,” said Isabel, sympathetically. “Let me just say one thing before I tell the doctor you’re awake. If you ever need my help, right now, this minute, or next month, or next year, just ask. That will be my gift to you.”

  Kristin reached out with a shaky hand and placed it in Isabel’s grasp. “I shall,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Then the doctor came in, followed by a crowing Gustav. The baby was brought in a little later, and placed in Kristin’s arms. He was sturdy, and astoundingly well formed. She could not understand how Gustav could not see Eric Starbane in the child’s face, the set of his little shoulders, even his strong, steady gaze. But Gustav did not see Eric Starbane.

  “To Haakon Rolfson!” he cried, lifting a champagne glass. The entire household staff had gathered in the bedroom, and they, too, raised their glasses in toast “To Haakon Rolfson!” Gustav cried again. “To the toughest shrewdest businessman America will ever see!”

  Everyone hesitated a moment watching Kristin. She had a glass, too, with water in it. Now she lifted her glass along with everyone else.

  “To my son, Haakon,” she said, in a soft voice, cradling the baby, “whatever his destiny be.”

  “You’re not raising that child correctly!” raved Gustav.

  Four-month-old Haakon twisted and wailed.

  “He is crying,” Kristin explained coldly, “because he is tired and hungry. There was absolutely no need to drive down here to the harbor.”

  “Look at the big boats, Haakon. Look at the big boats,” Gustav cried, holding the baby over his head, showing him New York Harbor and the ships in port.

  Haakon cried louder.

  From the day of the baby’s birth Gustav had strutted and crowed, boasting that he would do for his son what his own father, Adolphus, had done for him: turn him into a shrewd, cunning man of maneuver and aggrandizement. No matter that little Haakon was not yet aware that a boat was a boat or a bird a bird, Gustav felt that by exposing the child to certain things, some mysterious vein of knowledge would seep into his pores. The only toys Gustav would allow in the child’s nursery were in the shapes of enterprise and industry: railroad cars, ships, cranes, pumps, and hammers. Kristin thought it was ridiculous, and so did everyone else.

  “You don’t know anything about children,” she’d told him in disgust, one evening, when he’d insisted on reading Haakon that day’s stock exchange quotations.

  “And you do?” he’d responded.

  “At least I came from a large family. I learned something.” Never to have a large family with someone you do not love, she thought.

  “And I was an only son,” he retorted, “and bested the lot of you.”

  So he continued his efforts in molding his son, taking him down to the harbor on this fine May afternoon. But Haakon did not know about harbors or ships; he wanted his nap. And he was howling.

  “Here, you take him,” said the father, in disgust, handing the howling bundle to Kristin. “The day’s ruined. We might as well get back. And I took off from the office this afternoon just for this!”

  Kristin said nothing. Trying to quiet her son, she got back into the coach. Gustav followed, petulant and brooding.

  “And how is business, husband?” she asked.

  “Why do you ask?” He looked at her suspiciously, as if she were trying to ease from him information about important matters. In point of fact Gustav was a little worried. The war was not yet over, but everyone agreed that it was only a matter of time. General Sherman was poised for a strike deep into Georgia, possibly all the way south to proud Atlanta, and if that happened, the end could not be far behind. With anticipation of the cessation of hostilities, business was booming. A new era of westward expansion was certain. Hundreds of thousands of people would swarm westward, across the Mississippi, to establish farms, set up villages, lay out plans for cities. All of American life would be affected, and every category of American business was about to boom.

  The carriage moved uptown to the Rolfson’s Park Avenue home, its motion making Haakon drowsy. Kristin had given him her breast, and he sucked with languorous greed.

  “Why are you so interested in my business affairs?” Gustav asked again.

  “I was wondering about Rockefeller, that’s all. What more have you heard from him?”

  Gustav muttered a curse beneath his breath, and did not answer. Kristin had guessed right. Her husband was worried about his base in the oil business, and about the deal he thought he had struck with the young produce clerk. If, somehow, the young man could pay back his note before 1868, that big new Cleveland refinery would go to him as part of the bargain. Just last year it had seemed an unattainable goal for Rockefeller to achieve by 1868. But, as everyone knew, the war was almost over, the boom ready to begin.

  The Rolfson home, or mansion, for a mansion it was, loomed squat and stolid on upper Park, a gray limestone façade with three tiers of windows facing the street. The carriage drew up in front of the house, and Gustav helped his wife and son out. He was surprised. Another coach was sitting at curbside.

  “Caller?” he wondered. The coach was hired, and not at all elegant.

  They went inside.

  “A Mr. Rockefeller to see you, sir,” pronounced Clyde, the butler. “He insisted. I asked him to wait in the library.”

  “Rockefeller?” said Gustav, nervously adjusting his cravat. “I wonder what he wants. Kristin, come with me. Beauty may have charms to soothe the savage beast”

  Kristin handed Haakon, now sleeping, to his nurse, and accompanied Gustav into the library.

  Rockefeller was sitting upright in a straight-backed chair, although there were many comfortable chairs in the room, as well as a long soft leather couch. He was reading from the Bible, which he set down when the Rolfsons entered. He was the same pallid, self-effacing man they had met in Cleveland, but Kristin noticed a few subtle changes. He wore a neat cheap dark suit, inexpensive but unpatched, and his manner was infinitesimally easier, more assured.

  He rose when he saw them, and bowed. He shook Gustav’s hand, and bowed again. Kristin was reminded of a snake that has been to charm school.

  “Mrs. Rolfson, you look very lovely. I have seen your photograph in Cleveland.”

  “Cleveland, eh?” said Rolfson, pleased. From the beginning, when first Phipps and then Matthew Brady were taken by Kristin’s beauty, Gustav had reasoned that being her husband would bring him added prestige.

  “This man, Brady, had an exhibit of the new science, photography. It was not that I went for enjoyment,” Rockefeller hastened to explain. “One must keep up with the latest developments. Oil by-products will be a major part of photography, as it develops, if you’ll excuse my play on words.”

  “Oil and photography,” said Gustav, frowning and studying the younger man. He was impressed, but he was also discomfited. Never in a hundred years would he have seen the connection.

  “Cameras have moving parts,” Rockefeller instructed, “and thus require lubrication. Not to mention what is necessary in the preparation of advanced kinds of photographs…”

  “Oh, certainly,” agreed Gustav, nodding. “One must see all the angles.”

  “Just as God gives us to understand those angles,” affirmed Rockefeller, who patted the Bible he had lain aside, “the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

  “Well, well,” returned Gustav in a booming voice, somehow at ease now, with this mention of God and money. “Let’s be seated.” He rang the bell, and a maid appeared in the doorway. “Brandy,” he ordered.

  “None for me thanks,” Rockefeller said.

  “Tea, then?”

  “As you wish.”

  “Ex
cuse me,” Kristin offered, turning to leave.

  “No, no, not on my account,” said the visitor, using his newly formed supply of charm. “Beauty adds to civility.”

  Gustav nodded curtly, and Kristin sat down with the men.

  “Your call is unexpected, but delightful,” said Gustav, after the tea had been served. He was concealing a sharp wariness. “What may I do for you?”

  “I need more money,” Rockefeller said.

  Kristin watched Gustav’s face, as he reacted to this announcement. Although it would have been almost impossible, he had been secretly afraid that Rockefeller was here to pay off the loan already. Now, however, with a request for money out in the open, Gustav relaxed. He thought he had Rockefeller at a disadvantage again; he was the sun again, and the other only a planet. Hiding a surge of glee, Gustav pursed his lips and looked judicious.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “A million point two.”

  Gustav looked a bit startled, and Kristin knew why. He did not have that much available for loan. He would have to request more from Lord Soames in England and he didn’t want to do that. Soames had humiliated Gustav as far as it was possible to humiliate him. Besides which, if Gustav’s current contract with Rockefeller came to no good end, Gustav would be ruined and—most likely—Soames would want his head on a golden platter.

  But Gustav was a businessman. He nodded and lied. “I’ve got the money,” he said. “But what do you want it for? It seems to me you’ve already taken on a considerable financial obligation, and—”

  “I must have a million point two,” interrupted Rockefeller, calm and quiet and implacable.

  “Well, why?”

  “There is a powerful man in Pittsburgh, by the name of Benjamin Horace. A banker, a politician, and”—Rockefeller gave a brief, descriptive wave of his hand—“he has influence in many areas.”

  “So do I. So do we.”

  “Buying Horace is important to the Cleveland operation.”

  Gustav looked puzzled. “What?”

  “There is coal and iron ore in southern Pennsylvania, in west Pennsylvania too. There might also be oil.”

  “Oh, hell, we’ve—you’ve—plenty of oil up in Titusville, enough for—”