The Reaper's Song (34 page)

Ingeborg let his soothing voice calm her. He was right. God would never let her go. But how to deal with the dreams—the terrifying dreams that so easily could become reality?
Had
been reality.

A verse floated into her thoughts like a down quilt spread over her on a winter night. “Have ye the mind then of Christ Jesus?”
So I put Jesus in my mind. Is that what the verse means? When the pit is there I see Jesus instead?
“But I must wake to do that,” she murmured, sleep nearly overtaking her.

“Hush, my Inge, hush.”

Even when she woke, she felt the dream hovering, as if she could spin around fast enough to catch sight of it before it hid. “No matter what, today I am going to see Agnes.” She finished braiding her hair, put a clean apron on over her dress, and went downstairs to start breakfast. How good it was to be able to cook first thing in the morning, rather than go out and milk first.

By the time she finally got out the door, the sun had climbed halfway to noon. She clucked the horse into a trot, the wagon protesting the additional speed with every turn of the wheels. “Need some grease on these axles,” she said. The horse twitched his ears back and forth. Driving alone like this gave Ingeborg some much needed thinking time. Ducks and geese flew the skies above on their trek south for the winter, their plaintive songs inviting her to follow.

“Follow no, but I sure wouldn’t mind bagging a few, or more than a few. We could use the down for more feather beds. Uff da, all the people who will need covers this winter.”

The horse snorted, as if answering.

“Even you agree, don’t you?” She raised her face to the sun that nowadays reached noon before the real warmth could be felt. Frost decorated the north sides of fence posts and rested on clumps of grass. Ingeborg breathed deeply of the brisk air and felt it tingle all the way to the bottom of her feet.

The heaviness of the previous night took wings and joined the flocks above, flying south and away.

After tying her horse up by the Baards’ barn, Ingeborg hefted her basket from the wagon bed and crossed the yard to the house. If it hadn’t been for the smoke rising from the chimney, she’d have thought no one was home, it was so quiet. She knocked once and the door swung open before she could tap it again.

“Agnes Baard, what has happened to you?” Ingeborg stopped as if struck.

“Just some kind of ailment that pukes up your guts and drains
out your strength. I’m on the mend now.” She covered her mouth to cough. “Don’t know when I felt so bad.”

“Are you sure you want company?”

Agnes leaned out the door and peered around. “I don’t see no company, but I sure could use a good chat with my best friend.”

Ingeborg thrust her basket into Agnes’s hands. “Just some extra things I thought you might appreciate.”

Agnes motioned her in and peeked under the red-and-white gingham cloth covering. “Oh good, a chunk of your cheese. How good that sounds, and I tell you, nothing’s sounded good for a week or more.”

“Why didn’t you send over and let someone come help you?” Ingeborg removed her coat and hung it on the coat tree by the door.

“And let them get sick too? No, it was enough with us here. Joseph had only a light spell, and Anji never caught it a’tall, so she’s been the biggest help.”

“And the boys?”

“They’re about as much good in a kitchen as nothing. And Petar’s the worst. You’da thought he was dying the way he carried on. Me and Rebecca and Gus got it the worst. Fact is, Rebecca’s still sleeping off the effects.” Agnes pulled the coffeepot to the hot front of the stove. “I don’t have a cookie or cake to my name. Nothing to go with coffee.”

“Check the basket.”

As they made themselves comfortable at the table, Ingeborg studied her friend. Eyes sunken, hair straggling from the bun at the back of her head, skin hanging slack under the once strong jaw, now outlining the bones. “You need to get out in the sunshine.”

“Ja, what little warmth we might have left before the snow flies.” Agnes shivered. “I ain’t looking forward to the dark days, let me tell you. Not at all.” She sipped her coffee, dunked her cookie, and sucked on it. “And with no baby to care for this year . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I’ll loan you Astrid, and I know Kaaren would gladly send Trygve over.”

“Ja, that would be good.” Agnes stared out the window. “I wish . . . I wish . . . ah, the wishing does no good.” She looked back at Ingeborg, her face creased in a mask of pain. “I can’t get over that baby dying. What is wrong with me that I dwell on it so? And to not get pregnant again. Is God so angry with me? Is He not trusting me to care for His little ones?”

Ingeborg tried to blink back the tears she could feel brimming behind her eyes. She sniffed but it did no good. “At least you didn’t kill yours.”

The words fell like black coal tossed onto white snow.

“Oh, Ingeborg. No! You didn’t kill that baby.” Agnes reached for Ingeborg’s suddenly cold hands. “O Lord in heaven, what burdens we bear. Why do we torture ourselves so?”

Ingeborg dug in her pocket for a handkerchief. Who was comforting whom here?

“Why can’t we put these things behind us and go on like Paul says in the Scriptures. Why, O Lord, why?” A sob choked off the word.

“Maybe because Paul never had a baby?” Ingeborg tried to smile through her tears.

“Maybe.” Agnes nodded and mopped her eyes and nose. “Things are different for men than women, that’s for sure.” She got up and refilled their coffee cups, taking the time to put wood in the stove before sitting back down. “Ingeborg, do you really think that—about killing the baby?”

Ingeborg shrugged. “Yes and no. When the pit yawns before me, I think falling in would be just punishment, but then I read my Bible and it says God forgets our sin, puts it as far away as the east is from the west.” She took a sip of coffee. “Sometimes I have a hard time believing that. If only I had not gone out in the field, none of this would have happened.”

“How do you know that? Besides, I thought a long time ago you and I agreed to not listen to the ‘if only’s.’ ” She reached a comforting hand to clasp Ingeborg’s. “I think God brought you here today so we can cry together and talk all this out and let God’s healing light come deep inside us where the hurts dwell.”

“And burn them out?”

“Or love ’em out. I ain’t sure which.”

By the time Ingeborg left for home, the two had prayed together, cried some more, dug deep and laid bare all the heart hurts, prayed some more, searched the Scriptures for renewed promises, and finally laughed again.

Agnes looked ten years younger when Ingeborg went out the door, and Ingeborg felt ten pounds lighter. She turned and hugged her friend once more. “God surely did know what He was doing when He created friendship.”

“Amen to that and to the power of the cross. You drive careful now going home.”

“You send one of the boys over, if you need help?”

“I already got the help I need.” Agnes blew her a kiss.

On the way home, Ingeborg let her mind wander. What other poor souls out there were suffering in silence when God gave them friends to share the burden? Hildegunn immediately leaped into her mind. “I’ve got to go see her one of these days, and it better be soon.”

“Whoa.” She tightened the reins at the same time, and the horse stopped. “Maybe I should go right now.” She looked up at the sky. The sun had already slid beyond the midafternoon mark. To go or not to go. She looked toward the north to the Valders’ then back to the town nearby. “Instead of that, maybe I’ll give the children a ride home from school since I’m so close. Then I could get the mail too.” She swung the horse around and headed for Blessing. Mrs. Valders would have to wait for another day.

A
ll right now, folks—er, class, come to attention.” Reverend Solberg rapped his ruler on the desk.

The group kept on talking, a mixture of Norwegian and English that sounded like pure babble.

“The schoolchildren mind me much better than you do.” He raised his voice and spoke in Norwegian.

The adults and children both exchanged sheepish looks and quieted down.

He smiled out at them. “There now, that is better.” Turning to the blackboard he wrote four words in English and their Norwegian counterpart. “I have written both because some of you want to learn to speak Norwegian. Now let’s say them together: Hello. Hallo. Good-bye. Adjø. Please. Vær så snill. Thank you. Mange takk.”

They parroted what he said and smiled back at him.

“Very good.”

“Very good,” the echo came. They waited for the Norwegian.

“No, wait.” He raised his hands. “Please, you are trying too hard.”

“Cannot say that,” Bridget said in Norwegian. “You must slow down. You talk too fast.”

Solberg switched to Norwegian. “Now, let me make myself clear.”

As the pastor explained the rules of the classroom, Zeb glanced over at Katy sitting at the table across the aisle. Even in the dimness from the kerosene lamps on stands attached to the walls, her hair caught the light and made it seem brighter.
Spun gold
, he thought.

Her mouth quirked up and she slanted him a look out of the side of her eye.

She can tell I’m watching her. She can always tell, just like I can tell when she is watching me
.

“Mr. MacCallister.”

Zeb jerked his attention back to the front of the room. He could feel the warmth creep up his neck. Had anyone else noticed him watching her? “Yes, sir?”

“Do you speak any languages other than English?”

“Yes, sir. A bit of French.”

“Shame it’s not German. That would make Norwegian easier for you.”

“Anyone else speak another language?”

Katy raised her hand. “Some German, a bit of French, and Swedish. We all learned Swedish in school.”

Zeb wished he could understand everything she had said.
Let’s get on with the Norwegian. We don’t have all night. How do I say, “You are beautiful”?
But he kept his face straight and eyes forward. Was that her mama’s eyes he could feel drilling into his back. Next time he would sit in the last row.

By the end of the class, he’d learned fifteen Norwegian words or phrases. Katy had learned fifteen English ones.

There had to be a way to speed up the solution to his problem. To have Ingeborg or Kaaren or even Haakan translate for him to ask Katy to go on a walk with him—just the two of them—would not do.

Bridget sat beside him on the wagon seat going home. Did she suspect? From the look on her face, he was sure of it. It seemed as though Katy’s mother did not like him at all.

There was no one he could talk to.

With the first heavy snowfall, fieldwork ended for the year. Haakan and Lars parked their machinery in a three-sided shed they had built for that purpose and cranked up the steam engine for sawing lumber. People from up and down the river brought logs to be sawed into boards, leaving a fourth of the lumber in payment. As soon as the Red River froze over, folks from the Minnesota side would be skidding logs across the ice.

Lars and Zeb took the wheels off the wagons and replaced them with heavy wooden runners that curved up in front, with sheet metal nailed to the underside. After soaping and cleaning the harnesses
and making sure there were no weak spots, they added bells to the collars. The horses seemed to enjoy the music as much as the people did.

“One of these years I’m going to buy a real sled for winter and a buggy for summer,” Haakan said one afternoon as he sat in the parlor reading the Grand Forks newspaper.

“Wouldn’t that be fine?” Ingeborg looked up from her knitting.

“We had a sled in Norway,” Bridget said. “Gustaf built it and kept it painted black with red trim. So shiny it was. I wonder if Johann is keeping things up like his far would have liked.”

“His last letter sounded like it.” Katy looked up from mending her long black wool stockings. “Are you homesick, Mor?”

“Sometimes. Think, they are ice fishing on the lake now. And there would be lutefisk and baked cod for dinner. Ja, the food is surely different here. But we will make lefse tomorrow, and that will be just enough of home to keep me happy.” Her needles flashed in the lamp already lit, though darkness had not yet fallen.