Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  “What—” began Kristin.

  “Yes?” said Trifle, not ungently.

  “What if something has happened to Elizabeth?”

  “What we don’t know, we won’t agonize over, all right?” he advised. “If they took the trouble to get her a blanket, took all the risk of the abduction and the trip itself, we have reason to hope for the best. So do not worry, Mrs. Gunnarson, when there is nothing you can do about it anyway.”

  “Oh, I hope…”

  “Hope, yes,” Big Elk grunted. “You not worry.”

  Eric paid the men for their services to date, and showed them out. They were to take the steamer north, again to St. Cloud, and then proceed on horseback to pick up the trail in Duluth. If there was a trail to pick up.

  “All right, Phil,” Eric said. “You saw Willoughby?”

  “Yes. He’s filing the suit for divorce and child custody. He is offering one last chance to come to a settlement”

  “No,” Eric said, and Kristin shook her head.

  “The trial will be very distasteful,” observed the lawyer. “Forgive me, but it’s my job to illustrate this for you, so you will know what to expect. You will be spared nothing. Personal details of your relationship included. And you, Kristin, were in charge of Windward when Elizabeth was taken from your very lawn, right under your eyes. That will be mentioned many times.”

  “Why,” asked Eric, returning to a point that continued to vex him, “did Rolfson not proceed directly last fall? Why did he wait all this time?”

  “I don’t know,” replied the lawyer. “I can only assume that he hoped you would come to your senses and deal with him outside the courtroom. Naturally, he knows that a case of this kind, fraught with emotion, cannot but spill over and harm him a little, too.”

  “A little,” scoffed Kristin. “He will get the surprise of his life. Rolfson’s winter of indecision, if such it was, may prove to be our salvation.”

  VI

  The case of Gustav Rolfson versus Kristin Rolfson (Eric Gunnarson being named as correspondent) went to court in early May 1872. The particulars, by word of mouth, had been bruited about St. Paul and Minneapolis for several weeks in advance, to the consternation of almost everyone, the sadness of many, and the raw delight of a few. One of the latter, J. J. Granger, was heard to offer his opinion at his table in the St. Paul Club.

  “You never know,” he drawled. “It goes to show that you never can tell. Who would have thought it? Gunnarson a murderer on the run from his home country? And his wife not his wife at all? No, I just don’t know what to think, I surely don’t.”

  “Will the trial have any effect on you?” he was asked.

  “’Course it will,” he responded immediately. “Can’t help but do me a world of good, no matter which way the outcome is decided. Either way you look at it, the Gunnarsons ain’t going to be so high and mighty anymore. And I understand that Rolfson fellow is looking into the Mesabi, too. Well, while they’re all tied up here, fighting about who gets a kid, old J.J. will be using his one very good eye looking for a peculiar red streak up there in the big piney woods. Got pretty near last summer, too, I tell you. I could feel it in my bones, and I don’t need no University of Chicago professor to tell me where to look, neither. One good Granger eye got to equal at least the brains of a half-dozen professors, right? South shore of the Mesabi, that’s where I think the mother lode lies. And soon as I find her, she’s my own sweet mama.”

  His listeners laughed. J.J. was a character, true, but he was bound to become far more powerful than he was already. Never hurts to laugh at the jokes of a powerful man.

  “You goin’ over to the courthouse to watch the show, J.J.?” he was asked.

  “No, no, I got work to do. Besides, I’ll be able to read about it in the papers. Should make quite a story.”

  About that, J. J. Granger was not wrong. Human nature, however lofty its self-perception, contrives many excuses to dwell with perverse delight upon failings, real or imagined. Although there were very few who ceased to treat the Gunnarsons with customary courtesy, many who had been welcome at Windward now found reason to avoid the beleaguered young couple. Innocent until proven guilty, true. But would it not be imprudent to be rash, extending support before the outcome of the trial was definite? Some there were who felt betrayed by Eric and Kristin, as if they had been taken in by false pretenses. The courtroom was packed when Ramsey County Judge Roscoe Bullion banged his gavel and the proceedings got underway.

  “Is your client present?” Bullion demanded of counsellor Willoughby.

  “I am, your honor,” said Gustav Rolfson, standing before the court.

  Rolfson had made a quick, last-minute entrance, and now all eyes appraised him. St. Paul was not so sophisticated that newcomers did not create quite a stir, to say nothing of a foreigner who was rumored to be a multimillionaire and, some whispered, a duke or a count.

  “Oh, look at his dueling scar!” someone hissed admiringly, at which point Eric shot his tormentor a contemptuous glance. Rolfson reddened in anger.

  Phil Phettle affirmed that his clients, too, were in the courtroom, and the preliminary statements were made. Custody of Haakon was preeminent, complicated by the perspectives from which the opposing parties viewed the divorce. Willoughby, speaking for Rolfson, was unyielding: Kristin must both accede to the divorce and relinquish Haakon. She must admit that she had deserted her husband and, further, accept the judgment that she was, by virtue of adultery, unfit to raise the boy. Phettle pointed out that Kristin had actually fled a dangerous and demeaning situation, under intolerable conditions, in Rolfson’s New York home. While she most certainly agreed to a divorce, Haakon’s future must be considered apart from the Rolfsons’ marital fate. Eric was branded an “undesirable immigrant” by Willoughby, until Boris “Mad Dog” Spaeth, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired), Grand Army of the Republic, testified in Eric’s behalf, noting that he was not only a citizen, but a contributor to the wealth of the state, and a wounded, decorated army officer as well. At this Willoughby scowled and even Rolfson seemed momentarily subdued. Things were not going to go as smoothly as he had hoped.

  “They’re just dying to get you on the stand,” Phettle told Kristin. “Willoughby doesn’t think you’re strong enough to withstand the kind of questions he is preparing for you.”

  “Willoughby is wrong,” Kristin told him. “And, by the way, has there been a reply to our telegram yet?”

  “No,” he said, “but don’t worry. The ship was due into New York a few days ago. All will be well.”

  “I hope so,” she responded, less certain now.

  When she was called to the stand on the third day of the trial, however, Kristin looked and felt splendid. She wore an ankle-length dress of pearl-white satin, without the customary bustle. Her own figure, she felt, was obscured by that superfluous and silly device, besides which it was uncomfortable. The dress was high at her throat, around which she wore a simple gold choker, and the sleeves were loose and long, but tight at the wrist. Pale gold shoes, buttoned to the calf, completed her ensemble. She had chosen well. The garment set off her high color and golden hair. When she entered the courtroom, there was a hush as people saw her, followed by a long suspiration of admiration and expectancy. If this was, indeed, a stage, Kristin had dressed to play her part.

  In one sense, however, her decision to dress brilliantly carried a risk. Old Judge Roscoe Bullion was a hard man, one not inclined to look charitably upon the wiles of the human female. Since no jury attended a divorce proceeding, Judge Bullion’s final decision would seal the fate of the parties involved. Bullion looked up and blinked when Kristin took the stand. His eyes widened. His face, with its habitually choleric expression, screwed up a bit more tightly in concentration. A lifelong bachelor, Bullion had found his way into public life by organizing a fiery campaign against indecency and public lewdness in the parks and along the lakeshores of Minneapolis. The holding of hands by unmarried couples he regarded as lewd; mere k
issing by married persons bordered on the indecent. Bullion blinked at Kristin once again, and told Willoughby to proceed with his questioning.

  The Chicago lawyer, possessed of that same cold politeness he had shown on his visit to Windward, approached Kristin. His voice was deceptively soft even friendly, but she was not fooled. From his chair next to Phil Phettle, behind the defendants’ table, Eric sent her a loving glance of support. She was on her own now.

  “I am going to evade nothing,” she had told him in bed on the previous night “Every question Willoughby asks will get a straight answer. It may shock everyone, and certainly Judge Bullion will find his old heart racing, but in the end I am sure that the complete story of our life will win out over Rolfson’s inventions and half-truths.”

  “Would you state your name for the court?” Willoughby asked then. The contest for Haakon’s future had begun.

  “Kristin Starbane,” she told the lawyer, clearly, calmly, looking straight into his eyes.

  “What?” he asked, caught off guard.

  “My husband’s true surname is Starbane,” she said. “You see, the name is taken from ancestral lands—”

  “Wait wait,” Willoughby protested, nonplused and obviously angry about it. He had barely begun, and already this woman had achieved the upper hand.

  “Are you or are you not married to the man here in this court, Gustav Rolfson?”

  “I never considered myself so.”

  The spectators gasped and began to speak among themselves. Judge Bullion banged his gavel, and the courtroom quieted. “Mrs. Rolfson,” he said severely, “I will not have this court mocked! I have seen sufficient documentary evidence to indicate that you and the plaintiff are legally bound in matrimony. Now you say—”

  “I will explain if permitted,” Kristin smiled sweetly.

  “I’ll do the asking of questions here,” declared a thoroughly irritated Willoughby.

  “Well, then get on with it,” rasped Bullion.

  Willoughby collected himself and began again.

  “Very well, Mrs. Rolfson. Why do you maintain you are not Mrs. Rolfson?”

  “Because I feel that I was forced into marriage under duress.”

  The lawyer laughed tolerantly. “You married under duress a rich man who took you from a poor farm in the mountains of Norway and gave you a life of which you could not have dreamed?”

  “It is true I could not have dreamed life with him,” she shot back, “but nightmares are another thing—”

  “Your honor! Admonish the witness to—”

  “Hold on a minute,” Bullion growled, leaning forward. “This is my court and I’ll make the decisions. Now, I want to hear more about this duress business.”

  Willoughby glanced at his client and Rolfson motioned him to come over to the plaintiff’s table. The two engaged in a whispered conversation. When the lawyer returned to the bench, he said: “I wish to withdraw the question regarding duress,” he said.

  Kristin felt a quiver of triumph. Gustav knew he would look bad in the eyes of the court if his manner of wedding Kristin became known.

  “Overruled,” Bullion decided, banging the gavel. “The defendant will speak.”

  “Mr. Rolfson,” said Kristin quietly, “sent men to take over Eric Starbane’s farm. One of these men attacked him, and Eric defended himself. The man, whose name was Johanson, died. The judge in our region, one Amundsen, was in the pay of Rolfson and his father. No justice for Eric was possible, so he fled. Rolfson sent every able-bodied man into the mountains, in pursuit of Eric. He also pressed upon me his proposals of marriage. We have a tradition in our village, that when anyone is married, everyone must attend. So I agreed to marry Rolfson, knowing the hunters would come down from the mountains for the ceremony and feast, leaving Eric free to escape.”

  She spoke matter-of-factly, totally in control of herself. But the effect was powerful. Everyone in the courtroom hushed to listen. When she was through, Rolfson had a hard time keeping his chin up, and Bullion looked enraged.

  “A bought judge?” he bellowed. “Is this true?”

  “It is not true,” Willoughby interjected quickly, “the witness is simply—”

  “It is true,” cried Eric, from his seat “That is only the beginning of what Rolfson has done.”

  “You’re out of order,” said the judge, without much heat.

  “Your honor, I must point out,” said Willoughby, with a sidelong glare at Kristin, “that we are not deciding the merits of events in Norway over a decade old, but the fitness of this woman and that man”—he gestured toward Eric—“to raise the son produced by my client and Kristin—”

  “The child is mine by Eric Starbane, as I have already informed you,” Kristin declared.

  A gleam of satisfaction showed in Willoughby’s dark, canny eyes.

  “So you admit to adultery, do you?”

  “No,” said Kristin.

  “What? You say the boy, Haakon, is your child by the man we know as Gunnarson. Was he conceived while you were living in the house of, as the wife of, Gustav Rolfson?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And does that not seem to you to suggest adultery? To suggest wanton, unconscionable lasciviousness?”

  “No, it—”

  “And now you presume to sit here in your expensive dress and tell this court—”

  “If you will just listen to me, sir.”

  “—that you committed no sin, that you are pure, and that a child conceived in iniquity, born as a bastard—”

  Eric, seated at the table, could bear no more. Phil Phettle’s hand was on his arm, as if Phettle knew what might happen, but he did not have a chance to restrain his client. Eric leaped up, did a one-armed vault over the heavy walnut table, and sprang upon Willoughby from behind. Grabbing the hapless counselor by the shoulders, he spun the man around. Wicked words were still forming on Willoughby’s tongue, and surprise appeared in his eyes, but he was not yet fully conscious of what was happening to him. “If that is the way you speak to women in Chicago,” Eric gritted, readying himself, “then you and Rolfson had best—”

  And, with that, he punched the lawyer squarely in the chest, just above the heart. Willoughby flew backwards, struck the table at which Rolfson sat, flipped over the table, and landed on Rolfson himself. Gustav’s chair overturned, and both men, lawyer and client, were sprawled on the floor. The spectators were agog, and a few of them were applauding. It took a long time before Judge Bullion got the place back into order. Willoughby came back to consciousness after about ten minutes, but felt unable to continue questioning Kristin that day. He did, however, press charges of assault and battery against Eric, who did not have to put up bail and was released on his own recognizance.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Phil Phettle said. “I doubt old Willoughby is going to hang around here very long. You’ll never go to trial.”

  “Then I should have hit him harder,” Eric said.

  Recommencing on the morrow, Willoughby tried a new tack. He and Rolfson knew they had lost ground, in spite of Eric’s enraged attack upon the lawyer. Kristin must not be permitted to speak too much about general issues concerning her life with Rolfson. Instead, she would have to be shown as morally suspect through the most specific of inquiries.

  “Mrs. Rolfson, why did you maintain yesterday that you are not, in fact, Mrs. Rolfson?”

  “Because I promised myself to Eric Starbane before Mr. Rolfson maneuvered me into a marriage I did not want.”

  “You say you promised yourself to…Gunnarson? What do you mean by that?”

  “I promised to be his forever, and he promised to be mine.”

  “Forever?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. All right, Mrs. Rolfson. You are saying that your promise was, in fact as powerful, as marriage?”

  Kristin looked at him hard. “More powerful,” she said.

  “Hmmmmm. And you had benefit of no clergyman, did you, in the making of this…ah�
�mystical marriage?”

  “No, we did not.”

  “I see. Are we to assume that you and Mr. Gunnarson also shared certain physical congress, before, during, or after your splendid promise?”

  “You may assume whatever you like,” Kristin told him.

  Willoughby reddened. “I assure you, Mrs. Rolfson, that I am attempting, out of solicitude for you and mindful of the sensibilities of the people in this courtroom, to approach this matter delicately. But if you do not cooperate—”

  “You may ask me anything, Mr. Willoughby. There is nothing I have done in my life to be ashamed of.”

  “What? What?” Willoughby was incredulous. “Did you or did you not engage in sexual congress with Eric Gunnarson, without being legally married to him?”

  “I did, but—”

  “Just answer the question. And did you engage in such congress with Gunnarson prior to your marriage to Mr. Rolfson?”

  “I did.”

  “So do you not admit to immorality on those occasions?”

  “No, I do not!” Kristin answered, her head high and her eyes blazing. “One gives oneself to another. That is the sacrament! That is what makes it holy! The honest promise is more than sufficient to seal the pact. In my heart I have been married to Eric Starbane since we were in Norway, and he to me. We both know it. Rolfson was but a conniving interloper.”

  “Your honor, the witness must be admonished not to attack my client!”

  “Please restrain yourself, Mrs. Rolfson,” counseled old Bullion. “I assure you that this court is a fair one, and you will be heard. Mr. Willoughby, you may continue.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Now, Mrs. Rolfson, let me see if I understand you correctly. You say you have engaged in sexual congress with Mr. Gunnarson for…how long? Over ten years, proximity permitting? And on one occasion you conceived the child who is a subject of this suit. And you maintain further that not once were you acting immorally?”