The Reaper's Song (40 page)

“What in the—” A string of profanity followed. Anner stood on his porch, screeching at the men who drove up to his barn with wagons, unloaded tools and a forge, and went inside the big doors. He spun around and disappeared into the house.

“What do you think he’ll do?” Lars asked.

“Probably get his gun and shoot us,” Haakan returned. “Here, help me carry this box, will you?”

“We could hole up in the barn.” Lars kicked open the door with his foot.

“I was fooling.”

“I ain’t. I don’t trust him any farther than I can throw that big
team of his.” They set the box of tools down and looked around. There was no sign of a liquor still. Of course it could be set up in the old sod barn.

A jingle of harness and a “whoa” told them Hjelmer had arrived. The three of them carried the forge just inside the door so the smoke would go outside and no sparks would burn down the barn. When Joseph Baard and David Johnson got there, they looked over the plows, the harrow, and the rake.

“I’ll take the harnesses,” Joseph said. “They need some work for certain.” He held up a broken trace. “This surely ain’t like Anner.”

Noon came. The only sign of life in the house was the smoke rising from the chimney.

“Bet his curiosity is near to killin’ him,” Joseph said before taking a bite of his beef sandwich. “I sure could use a hot cup of coffee.”

“I s’pose you want me to go up and ask,” Reverend Solberg said with a grin.

“Nei. We’ll live. But something else I just thought of. Splitting wood one-handed wouldn’t be no easy thing either. I could go see.” Mr. Johnson looked about as eager as a ten-year-old boy ordered to the washbasin.

“Difficult but not impossible,” Haakan said, remembering the pull of the muscles when hefting his ax. It used to be almost a part of him, but no longer. “Besides, they might be burning coal—getting it in Grafton.”

“You want I should check?” Clearly he hoped someone, anyone, would say no.

“I think not.” Reverend Solberg sucked in a deep breath. “If anyone needs to go up there, it should be me.”

Hjelmer got to his feet. “I better get the forge hot again. That plowshare looks like it’s been plowing rocks. Ephraim might work pretty good in the store, but he’s no great hand at sharpening the plowshare.”

They were all back to work, talking and laughing when the barn door swung open. Anner stopped in the doorway, the right arm of his black wool coat tucked in.

“Why are you all here messing up my barn?” he roared, catching their attention. He leaned against the jamb as if holding up the coat he wore took all his strength.

“Good afternoon, Anner. How good to see you.” Haakan walked forward, hand outstretched. Realizing he’d extended his right hand as usual, he quickly shifted to his left.

Anner ignored the peace offering. He glared at Haakan, spun on his heel, and marched back to the house.

What was it he’d seen in the man’s eyes. Rage for certain. Hurt? Or was it relief?

A
nner broke on the third day.

“Why? Why are you here?” He looked as though he hadn’t slept for the last three nights. Standing there in the barn, swaying from either an excess of liquor or a lack of sleep, he looked as if death hung right over his shoulder. The skin that stretched tautly over jaw and cheek needed sunlight to warm the blood back into it. Newly gray hair straggled from under the tromped-on fedora.

“Because we care,” Reverend Solberg said simply.

“But you can’t care. I don’t.” Anner leaned against the post. “I want to die.”

The words lay on the floor with no will to rise.

“Well, Anner, I guess God isn’t ready for you yet.” Joseph Baard rose from the bench where he’d been mending harness and rebraiding tie ropes. “And we need you here.”

Anner looked down at his empty sleeve. “I ain’t good for nothin’ anymore. If God didn’t want me yet, why’d He take my arm?”

“No one knows the answer to that part, but as for the other part of you, He still has a place for you here. Something for you to do.”

“What a pile of—” He stopped himself.

“Anner Valders, stop beating yourself to death.” Reverend Sol-berg’s voice sounded like God himself. It rang in the barn, setting the hens to flight in the haymow. And both words and tone rang in the men’s hearts, clear deep into their souls.

“We come to help you, to bring you back to us. We have missed you.” Joseph reached with his left hand, took Anner’s limp hand and shook it. He covered their two hands with his other. “I don’t know what God has in mind for you, but He has something.”

“But why would all of you keep coming back when I . . . I even
struck one of you and tried to scare off others? Even your womenfolk.”

“Anner, listen to me. We are a family, the family of God, and the Good Book says when one hurts, we all hurt. You’ve been hurting, so we have felt the pain. Now you can begin to get well. Then we will all be well again.”

“But my arm.”

“Yes, it is gone.”

Anner stared at Joseph, as if willing him to take back his words. He looked around at each of them, perhaps really seeing them for the first time. “You would do all of this for me?”

“And more if need be.”

“Well, I never.” Anner sank down on the bench Joseph had vacated. “Farming with one arm ain’t easy.”

“Farming with two arms ain’t easy. There ain’t nothing easy about farming,” Haakan said, giving everyone a much needed chuckle. “So you hire someone to help you, or you sell the farm and do something else.”

“What else can I do? All I know is to farm.”

Hjelmer cleared his throat. “I been thinking. Maybe you could work in my wife’s store. Now that the post office is in place, and with her serving dinners and all, she needs more help.”

“Really?”

“But you know the women—they don’t tolerate no boozing.”

Anner studied Hjelmer. “Did she offer?”

“No, but she’ll think this a grand idea. She’s been right worried about you . . . and your missus.”

At that Anner’s face crumpled. He covered his eyes with his remaining hand. “Yes, and she was right to be. But I cannot do this, don’t you see?” He stood and made his way to the door, listing to the right side as if carrying something heavy. But the right arm was no longer there and dragged all the heavier because of its absence.

For the next three weeks, each of the men took turns spending the day with Anner, and sometimes the nights. Ten days into the vigil, Haakan showed up right after supper.

“How you be?” He removed his hat and coat as he talked.

“I don’t need you here anymore,” Anner said. “You go on home and spend the time with your family.”

Haakan peered across the table to Anner. The man wouldn’t look him in the eye.
Dear Lord, now what?
He sniffed. Was that whiskey he smelled?

He looked over at Hildegunn, who kept stirring something in a bowl on the counter. She refused to look at him either. And whatever she was mixing was indeed being beat to death. All the while he stood there, Haakan sent prayers heavenward.

“Surely you have a cup of coffee to offer a man who rode clear over here on such a frigid night. Why, that north wind like to froze my bones.” A sense of utter rightness brought him a feeling of peace. He was where he was supposed to be. “You hear it howling? You wouldn’t send me out in that, would you?”

Anner sighed and flopped back in his chair. “No, I guess not. Hildegunn, pour the man some coffee, why don’t you?”

Haakan looked over just in time to see her shoulders shake. She used the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes and turned with a smile, trembling at first but growing more confident as she moved to the cookstove.

The hand she laid on Haakan’s shoulder as she set the coffee cup in front of him gripped with the strength of the distraught. “Thank you for coming in spite of the weather.” Gratitude shone in her eyes, eyes that had come to life again in the last weeks.

“You want to tell me about it?” asked Haakan some time later.

Hildegunn had gone up to bed, and the two men had moved their pegs halfway around the cribbage board.

Anner looked up from studying his cards. “I was going to get roaring drunk tonight.”

Haakan waited.
Please, Lord, let all the men be praying. I don’t know what to say or do. Help me.

The ticktock of the clock on the mantel marked the seconds like an anvil pounding in the stillness. The north wind wept around the eaves, crying the desolation of the damned.

“I . . . I thought to . . .” Anner waited. A sniff, a hawk of his throat. With shaking hands, he drew a red handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. Then he spit into the fabric and used a corner to wipe his eyes. “I thought to walk out that door after Hildegunn went to bed and just keep on walking. They say freezing to death is painless. You just go to sleep.”

God in heaven . . .
Even Haakan’s thoughts froze. “And . . . and n-now?”

Anner’s attempted smile went back into hiding. “Now I’m beating
you at cribbage, and I don’t hear that wind calling my name any longer. Or maybe it wasn’t the wind after all. Maybe it was the devil himself.”

“Maybe.”

“And maybe God not only brought you here tonight but kept you here?” Anner gave Haakan a questioning stare.

“There’s no ‘maybe’ about that, Anner.”

Silence again. The clock ticked away steadily and the wind fell still. The cat got up from its place on the rug in front of the stove and wound around Anner’s ankles, mewing for attention.

Anner leaned down and picked up the animal, settling it on his lap, from where the purring now filled the silence. The coals in the stove settled with a whoosh.

“Would you pray with me?” Anner stroked the cat and slowly raised his gaze to meet Haakan’s.

“Ja, I would be glad to.” At a feeling of insistence, Haakan got to his feet and walked around behind Anner. He set his hands on the man’s shoulders and closed his eyes. “Father God, we come before thee with thankful hearts. Thank you that Anner is not lying in some snowbank but is here and seeking thy face. Thank you that I didn’t stay home tonight when it would have been so easy. We see thy hand at work and we praise thee.” He stopped. And waited.

“I give up,” Anner whispered. “Whatever you want is fine with me. You take the whiskey. I don’t ever want any again. Only you, heavenly Father. Only you.”

Haakan waited again, only this time there was no tension in the room or in his hands or in Anner. “Amen.”

The day Hildegunn came back to quilting, the women crowded around her, patting her shoulders, grasping her hands, wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs gone soggy.

“And to think Easter is nearly on us,” Agnes said. “This winter has fairly flown.”

“Ja, that is because it is early this year. Hard to get the spring housecleaning done when there are still blizzards in the works.” Ingeborg wiped her eyes again.

“I didn’t think to see another Easter,” Hildegunn confided. “But thanks be to God, we will.”