An Untamed Heart (26 page)

“A will is a binding document,” Far said. “The law would say we have to follow the wishes of the deceased.”

“But this is our brother!” Onkel Kris shouted. “He must have been out of his mind.”

“This was written some time ago. When did you ever see him out of his mind?”

They emerged on the path beyond the coop and continued toward the house.

“One time long ago he was mad at me for something, I cannot even remember what. He probably wrote this then.” Onkel waved his arms and shook his fist at the heavens. “If you can hear me, brother, know your paper is causing a terrible division.”

“I do not think he meant for that to happen. You know how he loved his land. Only because our father wanted all his sons to have land, did it not all go to me in the beginning.”

“That is such a stupid, selfish law. What about the rest of us?”

“You have your land,” Far said, his voice gentle, “so give thanks to our father for that.”

“But I should have half of Frode’s land too. And what about the seter?”

“What about it?”

“Will we divide that too?” Onkel Kris was raging.

Far shook his head. “Come, let us go inside, where the whole of Norway will not hear our disagreement.”

“This is not just a disagreement. And I do not want to go into your house. I am going home to my house, on my land.”

Ingeborg watched him storm off. The way he stomped his feet could have caused earth tremors. Sighing, Ingeborg hauled her wheelbarrow of rutabagas toward the cellar that was dug into the side of a small rise behind the house. Inside, the fragrances of earth and herbs and stored fruit and vegetables greeted her. Comforting, familiar fragrances.

She would soon take the herbs to the house. Then they would bank the front of the cellar with used straw from the barn, like they did the house, to help insulate it from the winter cold.

They went about the evening chores with sad faces, all of them. Never had there been a rift like this between the families. They always did everything together.

Surely they will come to some kind of agreement
, Ingeborg told herself over and over.
Please, Lord, let them not harden their hearts like you speak of the Israelites
. She knew Mor and Far were talking, trying to figure out something else to do. Was there any chance Far would give in and divide the land? Why had Onkel Frode done such a horrible thing? Just because he did not have a son to pass the land down to? By giving Onkel Kris all the animals and machinery and household things, Onkel Frode had given him a lot. Besides, his money went to Kris too. Oh, why had she not torn up that paper when she first saw it? All this could have been prevented.

She was milking when Far picked up a stool and sat down to milk the cow behind her. He looked so heavy, she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Nei. A break between brothers is a horrible thing.”

“Ja. Far, do you have any idea why Onkel Frode did this?”

“Ja. I do, but there is nothing I can do about it. We are bound by the law.”

“Can you tell me what it was?” She hesitated to ask, but for some reason it was important to her to understand the whole thing.

“You know he did not like Kris’s drinking.”

“Ja.” None of them did, really. A few drinks when at a celebration was one thing, but last winter, it seemed Onkel
Kris was at least half drunk, if not sleeping off a binge, all winter. Maybe it was not that bad, but it bothered his family a lot. She and Gunlaug had talked about it many times, as had Mor and Tante Berthe. Even Reverend Berger had gone to talk to him about it.

“But when spring comes he does not drink so much.”

“I know, but he neglects his land at times. You know how Frode felt about the land. A man’s job is to take care of his land, so his land will take care of his family.”

She had heard that said so many times, it must be true. And neglecting the land would have been the worst thing a man could do. Frode was protecting his land, even from the grave.

That evening Gunlaug brought a letter to the house. When Ingeborg asked her to come in, she wailed, “I cannot. Far said I cannot go in your house. We cannot go in your house, or you in ours, until this is settled.” Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. “Oh, Ingeborg, this is so crazy. I am afraid. Far has been drinking, and he is angrier than I have ever seen him. I do not even want to go home.” She ended on a wail and turned and trudged down the path.

Ingeborg took the letter to Far and watched as he opened it. His forehead furrowed and his brows collided. He threw the paper on the table. “My brother is losing his mind. Better proof that Frode did the best thing. I will let him be until he cools off. We will not be bound by such an edict.”

Better proof that Ingeborg had also done the right thing in not destroying the will. Still, she fought the tears that were like the ones pouring down Berta’s and Mari’s faces. Surely this could not be happening.

If everyone on the other side of the fence was as unhappy as her family, Ingeborg would cry for them both. She knew they were. She and Gunlaug had tried to get in touch, but somehow their fathers learned of it, and she never heard from Gunlaug again. Her far forbid her to read her books for a week. By the end of the seven days, Ingeborg was ready to kill both patriarchs—her term of disgust for them.

No one should be so stubborn. No one. Families were supposed to come first. Not feuding. Of course there was no feuding because there was no contact, for weeks now. There might as well be an ocean between them.

Half of her family was banished, and she hadn’t heard from Nils. Where was God in all this? She cried out to Him repeatedly, and as far as she could tell, He was turning a deaf ear. David in the Psalms always went back to say God heard him. And listened. If this was God hearing and listening, she really didn’t want to try any longer. No letters, no Gunlaug, no God. And the days were getting shorter and shorter, the darkness growing longer and longer. The Bible
said God could see in the dark, that the darkness was like light to Him.

Then why did He do nothing about this heartrending situation?

“Your book says you heal the brokenhearted. Is my heart not broken enough for healing? Can this get any worse?” she muttered, although she would rather be shouting and, if truth be told, shaking her fist.

The cow switched her tail, her way of saying,
Pay attention
.

Ingeborg understood the message, but a manure tail across the face did not make her any happier. She wiped off what she feared was there and sucked in a deep breath. At the same time she reached up to stroke the cow and reassure her that she need not put her foot in the bucket or kick it over.

“Sorry, old girl.” She kept her voice soothing and gentled her hands. She was grateful the bucket of milk was not on its side, the milk draining down the gutter. She finished with that cow and made sure she was calm before moving on to one of the cows that had had her first calf up at the seter. The younger ones were not as patient as the older cows, but then perhaps that was a life lesson too. But if age was supposed to make people more patient, what about her far and Onkel Kris?

She swallowed. She could not think of that, or she would get mad again and possibly get kicked this time.

At least it was peaceful in the barn, although too cold to stay out there for long. While there wasn’t much snow on the ground—it seemed to come and go—fall had succumbed to winter and was letting them know.

And she still had not received a letter from Nils.
I know I am not going to get a letter, so why keep thinking about it? We
had a lovely time, I fell in love, and that is that. Now I must go forward and stop feeling sorry for myself. It is not doing me or anyone else any good. We should be getting ready for Christmas with great happiness. After all, it is December now.

It was hard to believe that November was really gone.

“There is a letter here for you,” Hjelmer said when he brought home the mail on his way from school the next day. He handed it to her, and when she looked up in shock, he grinned.

“I am glad for you. I know this has been terribly hard.”

Leave it to her little brother to observe such things. She had hoped she was hiding her feelings fairly well. She found a quiet corner and slit the envelope open. It was not a long letter, but when she read that he was planning to come to see her before he had to return to school after Christmas, she let her hands clutching the letter fall into her lap. Until she needed them to wipe away the tears. He was coming. He had not forgotten her.

She read it again. He made no mention or excuse for not writing earlier; the message was fairly terse. But all that mattered was that he was coming.

And she could not tell Gunlaug, whom she knew would just say that it was about time.

Dearest Ingeborg,

If only I could write to you every time I think of you, but then I would get nothing else done. So instead I am doing all within my power to live up to my word with my far. He does not believe I can be trustworthy, and I must
prove to him that I can and I am. That my life was indeed changed this summer, thanks to the time I spent with all of you at the seter. There was nowhere else where I could have learned all I did in such a short period of time. All the thanks goes to you and your family for taking this dilettante in, doctoring him in both body and soul, and showing him what true faith and love are.

My family is adamantly against the love we have for each other, but once I prove to them that you are the reason for my change of heart, I believe they will have a change of heart also. Both of my sisters are firmly in our camp and want to come up to the seter too. Perhaps we can do that next summer, even if only for a few days. They so want to meet you.

I will be coming to Valdres on the coach to see you right after Christmas and before I have to return to school. I have to see you and hear your voice, no matter how short the visit. I wish it could be longer, but that is the way things are at the moment. I promise to write more often, and we will begin to dream of our future together.

I love you, Ingeborg Strand, with all my heart can hold. I want you to be proud of me too, but I have a feeling that convincing Far is more difficult than convincing you. When I get too sad, I dream again of life at the seter and ways I can use what I learned there to make our family business even more successful and make a difference in more people’s lives.

Until I see you,
All my love,
Nils

He signed it
All my love, Nils
. That she would treasure.

That night she took out paper and quill pen and wrote an answer. She kept it short, like he had, but said she would meet him at the coach in Valdres when he told her the day he would be arriving.

All of a sudden, getting ready for Christmas took on new meaning. Or perhaps an old meaning restored. The sorrow of not having Christmas with the other half of their family had surely put a damper on the Jul days. But she would no longer allow herself to mope around.

By the time Christmas arrived, she had finished her gifts for everyone, putting away the scarf and mittens she had knit for Gunlaug in her trunk, where they would wait. Surely, some day, they would be able to be friends again.

“Squeeze together! Make room! The coach is crowded today; make room!” From his seat in the box, the driver waved an arm, but no one was looking at him. Crowded indeed. The seats were full and one young man was sitting on the floor with his knees tucked up under his chin.

Nils smiled. Bright sun. Blue sky. A beautiful day! And he was so bundled up in wool, from his underwear to his coat, that the winter cold could not come near him. And these wonderful rabbit-skin mittens! “I’ll ride on top. Look at this fine weather!” He stepped onto a back wheel spoke, then up to the rim, and grabbed onto the luggage rail.

“Eh, it’s bitter cold!” the driver warned him.

“Not too cold. You ride up here, ja?” Nils grunted, pulled, kicked, and got himself up on the roof.

“Ja, that’s how I know.” The driver grinned too and twisted back to face the front.

“You’ll not have all the fun!” A young man with a slight German accent, no doubt also a university student, clambered up the wheel. Nils reached out and helped him to the top.

“Me too! Me too, please!” It was the young fellow who had been curled up on the coach floor. The hostler gave him a boost, and Nils and his companion dragged the lad up to the roof with them. “Tusen takk!” The lad settled in between the trunks and carpetbags. “I would rather freeze my nose than be kicked by all those feet on the floor.”

Nils extended his hand to the man beside him. “Nils Aarvidson of Oslo.”

“Hermann Schneider of Bremen. Studying at the university.”

“As am I. And you?” He looked at the lad amongst the luggage.

The boy smiled. “Alvald Thorvaldson, from Bergen. I am an apprentice to my onkel, a blacksmith in Oslo.”

The coach lurched forward. He was on his way to Valdres and to Ingeborg!

Apparently the lad had a tendency to motion sickness, and apparently he was just now learning that coaches yaw and sway the most on the top. But he was game and stayed curled up in the nest he had created.

The coach rattled to a halt as men shouted somewhere up ahead. Nils and Hermann got up on their knees to see over the driver’s box.

The fellow standing in front of the horses pointed up the road ahead. “A snowslide blocked the road beyond the crossing. It’ll be dark before we can get it shoveled out. Best turn back.”

“What’s the river road like?”

“Passable, but not very good. Some drifts.”

“Eh,
passable
is the word I was waiting to hear.” The driver nodded. “I’ll turn at the farm road just ahead and take it down to the river.”

“Should be all right.” The fellow nodded as he stepped back.

The coach rattled and waddled forward.

Ja! Oh, ja!
Nils’s heart thrummed. They would not be turning back! They would stay almost on schedule. A little slower, no doubt, but who would care? They would get there soon.

The driver drew his horses to a halt. He urged them to the left, off the main road. They knew perfectly well where they were supposed to take the coach, and this puny farm track, barely visible under the blanket of snow, definitely was not it. They shook their heads, backed and sidled. Finally, he convinced them to do as he wanted, and the coach lurched its way along a track that was even worse than that track from the seter to Ingeborg’s farm. And that was rough.

They came out onto a road that followed close beside a river. The fast-moving river rushed among boulders beside them. Although the larger boulders were snow-capped, the river had not frozen over yet.

The driver suddenly urged his horses faster with a crack of the whip. The coach hit a drift and blasted through. Half a mile farther, they tried to blast through another drift. The coach stopped at an odd angle, bogged down. Nils, Hermann, Alvald, and the other men got out and pushed; sheer muscle shoved the coach through the drift to the other side. All clambered aboard again.

Should Nils take off his boots one at a time to dig the snow
out of them, or would his feet freeze? Possibly, but the snow packed down around his ankles was painfully cold.

The coach sped up again. Another drift ahead. The coach bucked. The right side rose up onto the packed drift. The left sank in. Alvald shrieked as two trunks slid together, pinning him between them. The coach was tipping. Nils could feel it go. It was going to land on its side. First that collision with a hansom, then the fall down the ravine, and now a coach accident. With his luck, no one was going to want to travel with him.

People screamed. Horses squealed. The driver cried, “No! No!” The coach roof tilted completely vertical and just kept tilting, flinging Nils away. Icy water rushed over him, filling his face, covering his head. He gasped, sucking in frigid water.