A New Day Rising (5 page)

"Ah, pancakes, I guess. Though whatever you make is fine with me."

"Good night, now."

Haakan stood at the top of the stairs shaking his head.

By the time he'd looked at the rows of plows, disks, seed drills, mowers, and binders the next morning, Haakan felt as though he'd been run over by three of the draft teams housed in the long hiproofed barn next to the machine sheds. Never had he seen so much machinery in one place, and most of it he'd never heard of. No wonder the Bonanza farms were able to produce such enormous crops of wheat. The tales he'd heard weren't exaggerations, after all. Still, the truth was hard to believe.

Much to Mattie's dismay, he didn't wait for dinner but struck out midmorning.

"You just holler good and loud when you get to the ferry there at the river. Long as you're coming in the midday, old Sam will make that lazy son of his come across for you. It'll cost you two bits though." Ernie extended his hand. "Been fine meeting up with you, son."

Haakan grasped it and shook it, feeling as if he were leaving his family, and he'd only known these people less than a day. "I will see you in the fall, then. And thank you again."

The two men stood on the edge of the snow-covered road. While only a couple of inches had been dumped on the area, small drifts still ridged the white expanse and covered the fields as far as the eye could see. Off to the west, the trees lining the river shortened the endless horizon. In spite of the sun sneaking in and out of the high mare's-tail clouds, the ever present wind tried to blow their breath back down their throats.

"And I thought spring might be here with all the melting going on." Haakan shifted his pack.

"No, winter hasn't let go its hold yet. But you watch, tomorrow might be like a summer day. The icicles still be dripping." Ernie slapped Haakan on the arm. "Go with God, young man. I hope you learn to love this flat land as I do."

"Not much chance. I like hills and trees too much." Haakan raised a hand in farewell and started down the road. You're a logger, he reminded himself as he trudged along. And that's what you plan to be until you have enough of a grubstake to get your own land. And it surely won't be in this flat stuff. - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - -

As Ernie had said, when he hollered good and loud, a sturdy boy set out with a canoe to get him. While the current carried him some downstream, he paddled back to the road along the bank, ducking branches as he made his way toward Haakan.

Haakan dumped his pack in the middle of the craft and climbed in the bow. With the extra weight, the current didn't carry them as far, but again the boy returned close to the riverbank. Other than a grunt in response to Haakan's hello, he said not a word until they snugged up to the floating dock.

"That'll be two bits."

Haakan climbed out, retrieved his pack, and after fishing them out of his pocket, he dropped the coins in the boy's palm. "Thank you."

A grunt answered him as the boy tied the craft, prow and aft, to the cleats on the dock.

Haakan shook his head as he shouldered his pack and strode up the muddy, rutted street. He stepped out at his usual pace only to find himself flailing the air with his arms to keep from landing in one of the ruts. Never had he seen such slippery mud. And what he didn't slide in clung to his boots till his feet felt as though they weighed fifteen pounds each.

When he made it to the porch of the general store, he sat down to scrape the gooey black stuff off his boots. When banging them against the step failed to accomplish the feat, he picked up a stick and scraped it all away.

"Ah, yup. That's why we call that stuff gumbo. Sticks right to anything moving. Why, I seen horses drop from carrying such weights round their hooves."

Haakan looked up, then up some more to see the face of the man leaning against the post above him. He stood tall and thin like a tamarack with a face to match, his beard scruffy as tree limbs in the fall.

"Mud is gumbo."

"Ah, yup. And turns to rock when it dries out. You got to work it into submission sometime in between." A juicy glob flew past Haakan's ear and plopped in the puddle near his feet.

Haakan shifted off to the side. Where he came from one didn't spit near -a friend.

"You here to take up farmin'?"

"My name is Haakan Bjorklund." Haakan rose to his feet and turned to face the leaning tree of a man. "I'm come to help out some relatives of mine, the Bjorklunds."

"They's dead. Lost in the flu an' the blizzard more'n a year ago."

"Ja, I know that. But I heard their widows can use some help. I come from the north woods in Minnesota."

"Ya look kinda like a logger." The man nodded.

Haakan waited, hoping the man would give him directions to the Bjorklund place. When none were forthcoming, he took in a deep breath. One could never fault the residents of St. Andrew for talking too much if Sam's son and the tree here were any indication. "You know where they live?"

"Ah, yup."

Haakan waited again. He quelled the rising impatience and rocked back on his heels. "Might you be willing to share that information with me?" He glanced to where the sun had hastened to its decline. Didn't look like he would make it to the homestead today, either.

"'Bout half a day or more good walkin' to the southwest." Tamarack pointed in that direction, and a second glob of tobacco juice followed the first.

"How far before I can ford the river that flows in from the west?" Haakan was already wishing he'd had Sam drop him up river, beyond the mouth of the tributary.

"Ah, that'd be the Little Salt. It's runnin' high right now."

Haakan stuck his hands in the front pockets of his wool pants. He paced his words to match this laconic purveyor of local information. No sense trying to hurry this. "So's the Red."

"Ah, yup. Pretty nigh onto flood stage. Nothin' much git through till they abate some."

"Are there any marked roads?"

The tree looked at him as if all the sap must have run from his head. He shook his head and spit once more. "Ya foller the river till you git there." With that he shambled off the porch and disappeared around the corner.

"Mange takk." Haakan raised his voice, then snorted when no polite response answered him. He scraped some more mud off his boots on the step and mounted to enter the store. A bell tinkled over the door, and a plethora of smells-the same of general stores worldwide-made him sniff in appreciation. Leather and spices, kerosene and pickles, tobacco and new metal buckets, to mention only a few. He stopped for a moment, caught by the variety of goods stacked on shelves, hanging from the walls and ceiling, filling crates and barrels. Clear out here in what seemed to be the ends of the earth, if he had the money, it looked like he could buy about whatever he could dream of.

"Can I help you?" The man's spectacles shone as brightly as the dome rising from his hair. His apron, perhaps white in the beginning, now hung in gray folds from the string around his neck. As he came to greet his customer, the storekeeper reached behind and tied the dangling strings so the apron fit like it ought to.

"I ... ah, I need two peppermint sticks and a pound of coffee." Haakan looked around, wondering if there was something besides coffee he could buy for Roald's widow. Perhaps that Lars fellow wouldn't appreciate a stranger bringing his wife a present. What would they be out of now after a long winter? Sugar? Of course. "Give me a couple pounds of sugar too and add half a dozen of those candy sticks."

As the man wrapped the items in paper, he looked up at Haakan from under caterpillar eyebrows. "You new to the Territory?"

"Ja, how can you tell?"

"I ain't never seen you here before, and I heard you asking Abe out there for directions to the Bjorklunds." He handed the packet, now wrapped in brown paper and string, across the counter. "He ain't one to volunteer much."

"I saw that." Haakan dug in his pocket for his money. "Know where I could stay for the night and maybe get a meal?"

"Well, Widow MacDougal runs a small hotel, but she took a trip down to Fargo for the winter. Won't be back till the riverboat runs. St. Andrew kind of closes up in the winter 'cept for me and the blacksmith. Guess you could try over to the Lutheran church. If the pastor is around, he maybe could help you. That'll be a dollar."

Haakan laid the money on the counter and picked up his parcel. "Mange takk."

"We don't get much travelers this time of year, what with the mud and rising rivers. Soon though, we'll have settlers moving west like fleas on a dog." He came around the counter and walked with Haakan to the door. Now that cash money had changed hands, it seemed to loosen the man's tongue. "You had a horse, he could swim you across the Little Salt, but without one, you're facing five miles or more before you can ford it. And then it'd be dangerous. You shoulda come before the ice went out."

"I'll keep that in mind." Haakan let himself out the door, the bell tinkling again.

"You'll find the Lutheran church couple blocks west on the outskirts of town. Can't miss it, white steeple and all."

"Thank you again." Haakan tipped his hat and followed the boardwalk along the front of the next two buildings before he had to step back in the gumbo. His boots weighted up fast as he could step. Getting to the Bjorklunds looked to be a mite farther than he had thought.

When no one answered at the church or the small frame house beside it, he decided to keep on going west. There was no sense wasting the remaining hours of daylight. Surely there would be another farm along the way. The snow from the day before had mostly melted, so the road that followed the Little Salt River was clearly visible. Perhaps, he decided, if he stayed on the shoulder where grass from the year before lay brown and could be seen through the remaining snow, he wouldn't mud up so bad.

He spent the night in an abandoned sod house that had since been used for storing hay and feed. Wrapped in his quilt on the tarp in front of a fire, his mind traveled both backward and forward. Back to the logging camp and the pleasant times with Mrs. Landsverk, forward to a place he could now begin to envision. Living in a soddy would take some getting used to. Who was this Ingeborg Bjorklund, and would she even want his help, such were the things he'd heard about her?

Even though he hung his pack from a rafter, a mouse found its way in while he slept and scurried down his arm when he lifted the pack down in the morning. When Haakan checked the contents, he found a corner nibbled away on the packet from the store. Grains of sugar trickled out until he untied the string and rewrapped the package. He smiled, pleased that the creature hadn't found the coffee beans.

When he finally came to a place where the Little Salt River broadened out, and the road leading down to it showed there once had been a ford there, Haakan sat down on a tree trunk thrown up by the river and pulled a now dry chunk of bread and the remaining cheese from his pack. He studied both sides of the muddy river as he ate and surveyed the country around him, his thoughts flowing like the river before him. Off in the distance, he could see smoke from a chimney, but he was surprised to find so few homesteads, especially along the riverbanks. If water was such a premium in this area, why weren't the riverbanks more densely settled? Somehow he'd thought this area to be more populated, since there weren't Bonanza farms here, or so Ernie had said. Looking back, Haakan figured he'd covered near to ten miles and only seen three or four houses in all that time. Or did the sod homes fit into the prairie so as to disappear? He could tell where the sod had been broken in areas where snow had melted and showed dark soil rather than brown grass.

While his food disappeared rapidly, his stomach didn't agree that it should be full. He wrapped his tarp more tightly around the pack, leaned it against the log, and taking his ax he stepped up to one of the willow bushes. With a few quick swings, he cut himself a sturdy pole that stood several feet above his head.

He squinted up at the sun, rejoicing in the warmth on his face. If he owned a homestead near here, he told himself, he'd be down in the riverbed cutting logs. Those sod houses look mighty sturdy, but I'd rather have a log one any day. He sat back down on the log and removed his boots and socks, tucking them into the pack in the hopes to keep them dry. While he hoisted his pack, he continued to speculate about setting up a mill on the banks of the Red River. Surely there was call for lumber in this area. The Red had enough trees to supply boards for homes of wood, and glass windows could be brought in on the riverboat. Why, even the sod houses could use shakes for their roofs. He could set up splitting shakes.

Using the pole to prod the river bottom in front of him, he stepped into the icy water. "Uff da!" he gasped as the icy water swirled up to his knees, his hips, and then to his waist. He leaned against the current, testing each footfall to keep his balance. Certain he was going to have to swim for it, he breathed a sigh of relief when the pole showed an upward thrust to the river bottom. Slipping in the mud, he pulled himself up the shallow incline, and once on dry land, he leaned on his pole, his breath heaving in and out of his lungs.