A Promise to Love (25 page)

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“I hate to leave you and the children, ma'am,” Lyman said. “I appreciate you and the captain giving me a place to stay, but my boss says he'll pay me extra if I sleep at the sawmill and make sure no fires start. There's a snug little shanty there he says I can winter in.”

“I understand,” she said. “I can take care of things here.”

“I don't know if you been out to the creek in the past few days,” Lyman said. “It's completely dry now, but I did a trick my daddy told me about once. I dug a hole in the creek big enough to settle a barrel down into. There's enough water still underneath the creek bed to keep those barrels full so the livestock will have something to drink, but you'll probably need to check it every day.”

“Thank you, Lyman.”

“If the barrels dry up, about the only thing you can do is let the livestock go find water on their own.”

“It will rain soon.”

He looked around at the tinder-dry leaves and the parched earth. “Some of the old people are saying that this is the worst drought they've ever seen.”

“Hazel offered we go stay with her,” Ingrid said. “Is it good idea, you think?”

“None of the other farmers have started bringing their families into town. If I was you, I'd wait a bit longer. Those fires are still pretty far away, and rain should come any day now. It always rains the first part of October. Just keep a sharp eye out. If you see a glow on the horizon, put the children in the wagon and get out of here. I'll come and check on you a couple times a week to see if you need help with anything.”

“Take care,” Ingrid said. “You been big blessing to us.”

“It was the least I could do. If it weren't for Josh, I'd have never found my Susan.”

As soon as Lyman left, Ingrid went out into the yard and turned her eyes westward. The land was so flat it was hard to find a vantage point.

There was a maple tree near the house with low-lying branches that Ellie liked to climb. With no man around to see her shinnying up a tree, Ingrid hiked up her skirts and climbed as far as the limbs could hold her. To her relief, there was no red glow on the horizon.

As she climbed down, she saw the strangest sight. A dozen or so domestic cats were running through her nearest field as though they were wolves running in a pack. Never in her life had she seen anything like that. Perhaps that was what cats did here. There was much about America that was new and strange, but still, it gave her a bad feeling.

She went to check the barrels that Lyman had buried in the creek. His trick had worked. They were nearly full. The livestock would be all right—at least for today.

“Lyman is leave us,” Ingrid said when she went back inside. “He will stay at the sawmill.”

“It is just as well,” Mary said. “There's little he can do here now. And it is one less mouth to feed. Not having a full-grown man eating a meal with us every day will make the food last longer.”

Even though it should not yet be dark, she noticed that Mary had lit a lantern to see by. The haze of smoke had begun to block out the sun.

“Is the smoke ever going away, Ingrid?” Agnes said. “I can still breathe all right, but it's hitting Trudy hard.”

Ingrid didn't need Agnes to tell her that Trudy was struggling. The child had developed a dry, hacking cough that was a worry to her.

“The rains will come soon.” Ingrid gave them the reassurance that Lyman had given her. “I will find something to help Trudy.”

Joshua had four white handkerchiefs in his drawer. She whipstitched two ribbons onto one of them so that Trudy could wear it over her nose and mouth. Before she tied it onto the little girl, she dampened it—to make it more efficient at keeping the smoke out of Trudy's lungs.

She then wet a large dish towel and draped it over Bertie's cradle. She could at least keep him from breathing in smoke while he was sleeping.

“You watch children, Mary?” she asked. “I want to go see Richard and Virgie and ask what they think. They live here long time and know more.”

Virgie was sweeping off her front porch when Ingrid arrived. Richard was just coming in from the barn.

“Is something the matter with the children?” Virgie asked.

“No, children all right. I wonder what you do if smoke get worse. You maybe go to town to stay until it rain?”

“No,” Richard said. “There's no call for that.”

Virgie and Richard had a dog that was so old, it had pretty much lost interest in the world around it and spent most of its time napping on their front porch.

Right at that moment, it raised its head and began to howl.

Virgie nudged it gently with her broom. “Now, you hush!” She glanced at Ingrid. “He's been doing that for the past two days. Just lifts his nose into the air and starts howling. I don't know what to make of it.”

“I see strange thing this morning,” Ingrid said. “Many cats run across my field like pack of wolves. I never see anything like it. That thing happen here?”

Virgie shook her head. “I've never seen anything like that in my life, but I've been seeing a lot of wildlife crossing our property.”

“I keep thinking it'll rain soon,” Richard said.

“If you think it is time to take children to town, you will tell me? Hazel say we can stay with her.”

“I'll come tell you if I think you're in any danger,” Richard said.

As she walked back home, she saw a sea of rabbits moving toward her, as though they were being pulled toward the lake by an unseen force. They parted at her feet and moved past her, showing not the least bit of fear at being so near to her. They seemed dazed as they went east.

Everything within her said to pack up the children and leave, but the few people she had questioned made her doubt her instincts. Everyone seemed to think that they were safe.

Then she saw a shadowy, huge shape in the semi-darkness and she froze. It was too big to be anything but a bear, and it was coming directly toward her. She knew it wasn't wise to run, and so she stood as still as possible. She soon discovered that the bear, like the rabbits, seemed not to be conscious of her presence. It, too, looked half-dazed as it moved toward the lake.

As soon as it was gone, she ran to her door and slammed it shut behind her. The strange behavior of the animals was far more frightening to her than the smoke.

She considered her options. Tomorrow was Sunday. She would be taking her entire family to the village for church. Unless there was less smoke tomorrow morning than there had been today, she would move her family to Hazel's, cramped conditions or not.

On Sunday morning, had it not been for the clock, Ingrid would not have known it was daylight. The morning sun was completely obliterated by the smoke.

“Time to get ready for church, girls,” she called up the stairs. “Breakfast is ready.”

As she changed Bertie into his Sunday clothes, she went back and forth in her mind, trying to decide what to do. Sweden did not have forests like this, at least not where she lived. Hans and she had grown up with well-ordered fields, every possible inch cultivated. Here, it was a hodgepodge of small spots of civilization in the midst of nearly endless forests—or the tangled aftermath the loggers left behind. With all her heart, she wished Joshua was here.

She tried to think like Joshua. What would he want her to do? Stay here? Care for his livestock? His possessions? His house? Or take his children and mother where she knew they would be safe—even if everyone else thought she was overreacting?

Looking at it through Joshua's eyes clarified everything. If she had good reason to doubt their safety—and she believed the smoke thick enough to block out the sun was a good enough reason—he would tell her to get Mary and the children out of there and keep them safe no matter what.

She made up her mind. She was taking them to Hazel's.

While Mary and the children ate their breakfast and washed the dishes, she lugged her straw mattress off the bed and dragged it to the wagon. It would make a decent pallet where she and the girls could sleep on Hazel's floor. She grabbed diapers, the bread she had baked yesterday, a change of clothes for the children, and an armload of wool blankets she had stored away for the winter.

That huge body of water beckoned to her.

Her cow had gone dry several days earlier. She didn't know if it was because of the strange weather, or if the cow was simply having too much trouble accessing water. In any case, the poor thing did not need to be milked. The chickens, the last time she had gone out to check, were up in the lower tree limbs with their heads tucked beneath their wings. They were confused by the constant darkness. Evidently they thought they were supposed to be asleep. Their two pigs had been fed late last night after supper. She didn't know what to do about letting their livestock loose. If the fire never came, she would hate to tell Joshua that she lost all of his animals because she panicked. How would he ever get the farm plowed without his plow horses? How would she feed the children without the cow and hogs?

By lantern light, she hitched Buttons to the wagon, then went to check the barrels Lyman had sunk into the creek bed. The water in them was lower. As she harnessed their horse to the wagon, she tried to think if there was anything else she should do except get her family out of there. Once again, she wondered what to do about Joshua's animals. Let them run free and the fire maybe miss their farm entirely? Joshua would be so upset! Without the fatty pig meat, the children would go hungry this winter.

“It is time!” she called. No one hesitated or hung back. Like the animals, they all felt drawn to the water—where it would be safe.

Normally, the girls would have thought it great fun to have both the mattress and the blankets in the wagon, but not today. The air felt strange—charged—as though lightning had struck, even though there had been no lightning.

As she passed Virgie and Richard's house, the two of them were throwing buckets of water all over their roof and the outside of their house. Unlike Ingrid and Joshua's, their well was deeper and spring-fed.