The Reaper's Song (10 page)

P
enny?”

She heard his voice but felt more like yelling or hiding than answering. Where in all that was necessary had he been? She glanced at the clock above the sink. Four o’clock. He’d been gone for more than six hours without mentioning at all that he might be gone.

It seemed to Penny she had spent half her life waiting for Hjelmer Bjorklund. And all that in the two years she’d known him.

Just then she heard the tinkle of the bell above the shop door. Instead of answering Hjelmer’s call, she pushed through the curtain hanging over the doorway that separated the store from the house. “Coming,” she called.

Seeing no one in the store, Penny raised her voice. “Hello?”

“Me here.”

“Metiz!” Penny knew the voice. She hurried to the counter, checking each aisle as she went. “Where are you? This is the first time you’ve come to my store.” She found the woman studying the display of knives. With her black hair gone gray and her snapping dark eyes, she so often reminded Penny of a gray squirrel. The variety of knives were perfectly arranged in a circle on a square piece of wood, all the points meeting in the center. Penny extended her hand. “How have you been?”

Metiz clasped Penny’s hand in both of hers. While gnarled and dark like walnut stain, the hands sent messages of both strength and comfort. The old woman looked deep into Penny’s eyes, then smiled, her eyes nearly disappearing within the folds and creases of skin.

“No baby yet, but will come.” She patted Penny’s cheek. “No worry.”

Penny started to say something, then stopped. She’d heard Metiz make statements like this before and found them to always come true. Had she been thinking about a baby? Not that she was aware of. After all, she and Hjelmer had only been married a couple of months.

“What brings you to my store?”

“Knife for Baptiste. Good knife.”

“Does Baptiste know you are buying him a knife?”

Metiz shook her head. “Surprise.”

“Good. I had a surprise today.” Penny lifted the knife board down.

“What?” Metiz stroked the handles of the knives with a reverent finger. “Fine.”

“Thank you. I met a cousin today, a real honest-to-goodness member of my family. He came in looking for boots. Can you believe that? In my store.”

“Cousin?” Metiz tipped her head just the slightest.

“Cousin. He is the son of my father’s older sister.” With great effort Penny kept her feet from dancing out a tune on the wood floor.

“He out back cutting wood?”

Leave it to Metiz—she never missed a thing.

“Yes, he is.”

“Big heap.”

Penny grinned. “He doesn’t seem to mind hard work.” She dropped her voice. “I don’t remember my relatives, and I haven’t heard from anyone, brothers or sisters either, since my father and mother died and all the children were sent to different homes. I always thought I would find them one day.” She stared at the carved horn handle of one of the knives, then to Metiz. “Maybe the someday is beginning now.”

“Family good. Friends good.” Metiz pointed to the skinning knife set in a carved bone handle. “That one good for boy.”

Oh, that’s the most expensive knife I have
. Now what to do? She knew Metiz wouldn’t have enough money to pay for it. She turned the board over and untied the thong that held the knife in the display.

“How much?”

“A lot. One of the other knives will cost less.”

“No.” The old woman swung the pack from her shoulder to the floor. Bending over, she pulled out three rabbit-skin vests, two pairs of beaded moccasins from deer hide, and four knife sheaths, also from deerskin. “You need more?”

Penny shook her head. “This is plenty.” She put the knife in one of the sheaths. “Here, this is yours now.”

“Good.” Metiz tucked the knife and sheath back in her pack. “You sell. I make more.”

“I’d be proud to trade with you.” Penny fingered the soft rabbit fur on the vests. “These are beautiful.” She set them on the shelf. “Come, I must write this all down.”

“I walk around store, all right?” Metiz made a circular motion with her hand.

“Of course.” Penny turned at the tinkle of the bell again. But when she looked up, she saw a most familiar tall man removing his hat and searching the store. Her heart recognized him almost before her eyes. His eyes were a dead giveaway that he was born a Bjorklund.

“What does one have to do to get waited on here?” He turned at the tapping of her heels on the floorboards. “Penny, guess what?”

“I’ve been guessing for six hours.” She stopped several feet away from her husband, hands on her hips, willing herself to stay stern. She stared at his top shirt button, knowing if she looked at his smiling mouth she’d be forced to smile back.

“I didn’t have time to let you know I was leaving.”

“Really?” Her tone said anything but.

“Ja, a man leaned out one of the train windows at the water stop and asked if I knew Hjelmer Bjorklund.” In his enthusiasm, Hjelmer’s Norwegian accent became more pronounced, even though he’d worked hard to lose it when he lived and worked in St. Paul. “When I said I was him, he invited me to ride along to Grafton with him. He sells farm machinery and asked if I might be interested in handling a line of machinery here at the blacksmith shop.”

“And you said?”

“After listening to all he had to say and looking at pictures of some of the new reapers and binders, I said yes. Especially now with harvest about to begin. All the farmers will be coming soon to deliver their wheat to the sack house. They’ve even come up with a steam tractor. Wait until you see that. Hiram—that’s the fellow’s name—says the tractor will take the place of horses for pulling machinery in the future. I’ll have some pieces right out where the local
farmers can look them over while they wait for their wagons to be weighed and unloaded.”

“And they can have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee while they wait too.” In her eagerness to tell him of her own adventure for the day, she’d forgotten all about how angry she’d been.

Hjelmer asked, “So that’s who’s chopped all the wood and is now stacking it?”

Penny nodded and leaned closer to whisper, “I knew he couldn’t afford the boots, but he sure needed them. I invited him to stay because he’s the only family I have out here.”

“You have plenty of family, just not blood relatives. Agnes and Joseph been your family far longer than your real one.”

“True. But I still want to know about my brothers and sisters. Someday I want to see them again, know how they are, send letters back and forth. Maybe some of them would like to come west and homestead or buy land.”

“There’s not much of either available right around here.”

“I know that, but I was thinking. Maybe Ephraim would like to help in the store. That way I can cook and bake and offer dinner to travelers and workingmen.”

He nodded. “That’s a good idea. And if he doesn’t want to help in the store, he could probably help me refit wheels once harvest starts. Also, I know Haakan and Lars could use another hand. There’s plenty of work around here for anyone who wants to work.”

“You suppose Ephraim can stay with Olaf over at the sack house? We’re going to have to make this house larger pretty soon.”

“Don’t know why not. The wedding isn’t for a couple of weeks.” He reached for her hand. “You’re not trying to tell me something, are you?”

Penny stared at him, feeling about as blank as she knew her face looked. “Telling you something? About what?”

“About needing a bigger house. Are you in the family way already?”

“Sorry, no. But that’s the second time today someone mentioned it.” She told him of her strange conversation with Metiz and about the beautiful things they’d traded.

Later that evening, with Ephraim settled on a pallet at the sack house, Penny and Hjelmer both sat at their kitchen table, she with her record books for the store, he with a farm equipment catalog.

When he looked up to see her chewing the end of her pencil, he
said, “All right, what is going on in that golden head of yours? I can hear ideas popping like popcorn.”

“If I could find someone to bring in fresh-baked bread every day, and if along with the cheese we had some kind of meat, people off the train could stop and buy their dinners right here and not have to go on to Grafton. Reverend Solberg said today he would love to buy bread here if we had it.”

“So, ask Agnes if she would like to bake for you. Seems to me she’s been down in the dumps lately.” He turned another page. “See, here’s a picture of that tractor I told you about.” He turned the catalog so she could see.

“It looks gigantic.”

“It is kind of unwieldy right now, but Hiram said that will change.”

“This Hiram, he made a big impression on you.” She looked up from studying the picture of the tractor. The man steering it looked like a dwarf, the thing was such a monster. “This tractor looks like it could eat a team of horses and not even burp.”

Hjelmer chuckled. “Steam is the power of the future. You watch.”

Silence fell for a time. Penny finished adding her columns and put the record book off to the side. “Hjelmer, I’ve been thinking.”

Hjelmer groaned. “How come every time you’ve been thinking, I have more to do?”

“That’s not true.” She stopped. “Well, not always anyway.”

“You got any coffee made?”

“Now, don’t change the subject. About this machinery thing.” She paused, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Out with it. You have that look about you.”

“Well, Mrs. Valders was in today for a few things. She only comes when Anner is off to Grafton or Grand Forks or some such. He doesn’t want her to trade here, just like he won’t ask you to shoe his horses or sharpen his plowshares and such.”

“I know. All because he says I cheated him out of that land. I bought that piece fair and square. In fact, I paid Booth more than the going rate.”

“Anner is holding a grudge.”

“Ja, and Pastor Solberg preached on that last Sunday. Sometimes I think that the people who need to hear the lesson the most ignore it the easiest.” He shut the catalog. “Why, now I wouldn’t sell him that land if he were the last man on—” He stopped his ranting
enough to catch Penny’s raised eyebrow. “Well, I won’t. Besides, Anner can’t afford it.”

“How do you know?”

“Word gets around.”

Penny laid her pencil down. “You could lease him the land.” She kept her voice soft and gentle.

“Johnson is farming it just fine. If he says he don’t want it anymore, then I’ll make other arrangements.”

“I just thought if . . .”

“If what?”

“If he was farming that land, then he’d, well, he’d feel obligated to—”

“I don’t want no one coming to me because of obligation.” Hjelmer got to his feet and paced the room. “If he wants me to fix his wagons and such, fine, I’ll do that, but if he wants to drive clear to Grafton, that’s his problem.” He turned and strode back to the window. “Besides, he’s only hurting himself. No skin off my nose.”

Penny watched the red rise on Hjelmer’s neck. While he talked as if this didn’t matter, his body screamed otherwise. Was there more to this than she thought? Hjelmer hadn’t done anything illegal when he’d bought Mr. Booth’s land and sold part of it again to the railroad. She had talked with Haakan and been reassured about that. But it had been a mite sneaky. In the “gray area,” as her aunt Agnes called it.

And Hjelmer had made a good profit. That’s what stuck in the craw of some of the farmers. Besides, he still had the extra land the railroad hadn’t bought up.

She’d heard her husband referred to as “the gambler.” He had promised her he wouldn’t play poker anymore, at least not for money. But if the men got together to play cards, she didn’t mind if he went.

She nibbled on her bottom lip. Was it all a matter of jealousy?

What would it cost them in the long run?

Y
ou’re sure you don’t mind?”

“No. I told you I’d take care of the store.” Hjelmer slipped the neck loop of the canvas apron over his head and knotted the ties behind his back. “If someone needs a blacksmith, I’ll put up a ‘see me out back’ sign. Besides, all the women will be at the church anyway.”

“Ephraim said he would help.” Penny checked her bag to make sure she had plenty of quilt pieces. Since she started selling fabric in her store, she kept the leftovers from each bolt for the quilting bees.

“You want me to train him in the bookkeeping and wrapping of packages?”

“No. I will do that this week.” She glanced around the kitchen one more time, sure that she was forgetting something. “You can always send Ephraim over to get me if you need me. It’s not like the church is miles away or anything.”

“Penny.” His tone of voice and the look in his eyes brought a smile to her lips and chased away the frown between her eyes.

She laughed. “I’m acting like a brand-new mother hen trying to keep track of her one and only chick, aren’t I?”

“That’s a fair description.” He fluttered his hands like he was trying to shoo chickens into the coop, or out of it, as was the case in this instance. “You’ll be late.”

“And I live the closest.” As Penny gathered her bags, the bell tinkled over the shop’s door. “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”