An Untamed Land (21 page)

“Hopefully we will be leaving by Saturday,” Roald said.

As the two men rode off, Ingeborg returned to her labors with a heavy heart. She thanked the Lord they’d made the trip all right and found land they were pleased with, although how they could tell it was good when it was covered with snow was a puzzle to her. Was it a good idea to start out before the snows were all gone? Was it even safe?

“Please, God,” she muttered as she picked up a knife to slice potatoes.

“So, you will be leaving in the next few days?” Mrs. Johnson stopped by Ingeborg’s cutting board. “I almost kept hoping they wouldn’t find anything this season and would be content to come back to Fargo to work on the railroad.”

Ingeborg agreed, but loyalty to her husband kept her mute. “Working here in Fargo was just a temporary measure. I told you that when I first came to work for you.”

“I know you did, but then I didn’t know what a marvelous cook you were, or that I would come to depend on you so much. Hard workers like you are few and far between.”

“Mange takk and more.” Ingeborg forced herself to switch to English. “Thank you. I like it here, and . . .”

“And we better get this meal out before both of us are salting the stew with our tears.” Mrs. Johnson leaned over and, opening the oven door, checked on the simmering roasts. Her face glowed bright red from the heat when she stood again. “These railroad men go through more food—you’d think I was feeding an army.”

During the next few days, Ingeborg was grateful she worked at
the hotel instead of having to help organize the rapidly growing mound of supplies for their trip. The major thing still missing was the yoke of oxen. No one had any to sell.

“We’ll have to keep the load to one wagon and look again in Grand Forks,” Roald said one night after Ingeborg returned home.

“But you already have two wagons.” Ingeborg felt like collapsing on the bed. Her back ached more than usual, which had made the day seem longer and the work more difficult.

“We will sell one. We’ve already done enough repair on it that we should be able to make a few dollars on it.” Roald paced the narrow confines of the room.

“I wish we . . .”

He whirled and caught her gaze. “You wish what?”

“Only that we could go by train or wait until the paddle boats are running, or even take a barge.” Ingeborg sighed.

“You think I am not doing what’s best?” His clipped words gave evidence of his thoughts.

“I know we do not have the money for such luxuries, but it doesn’t hurt to wish, does it?” Ingeborg looked up from watching her fingers pleat the wool of her skirt as if they had a mind of their own. One glance at her husband’s face made her wish she’d kept her dreams to herself. She trapped the sigh she felt coming with an abrupt rising to her feet. “Good night, Roald. I must go to bed now.”

With each passing day, Roald became more restless. The weather turned warmer, and with the ice leaving the ground, the streets of Fargo turned into ruts filled with muddy water.

On Saturday morning he ordered Ingeborg to tell Mrs. Johnson this would be her last day. They would leave in the morning with one wagon.

Through the early hours at the hotel, Ingeborg kept Roald’s order secreted in her heart, as if hoping something would happen to change it. A new woman had started in the kitchen two days earlier, training to take her place. After breakfast had been served, Ingeborg and Mrs. Johnson sat for a few minutes with their cups of coffee.

“This is your last day, ain’t it?” Mrs. Johnson said after a lull in the conversation.

Ingeborg nodded. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Not goodbye, for we shall see each other again. I feel it in my bones. Just God bless and keep you in His grace.”

Ingeborg reached across the wooden table. “Thank you for hiring a green immigrant like me.” She patted Mrs. Johnson’s hand,
then reached in her pocket for a handkerchief to dab her tear-filled eyes.

“Smokey in here, ain’t it?” Mrs. Johnson smiled around her own bit of cloth. “Here we sit, as close to blubbering as two Norwegians like us can get. You know how to write to me and let me know where you are. One of these days there’ll be mail shipped all over this territory, you just wait and see.”

Later, when Ingeborg opened her final pay envelope, she sniffed again. Inside she found an extra week’s wages.

They left just as the first rays of daylight cracked the horizon between the endless prairie and the low-hanging clouds. Seated high on the front seat of the wagon, Ingeborg gave a silent farewell to the rising town of Fargo. The wagon could now be called a prairie schooner, since Carl and Roald had stretched canvas over the curved ribs of oak and firmly lashed it to the creaking wagon box. A rooster crowed off to their left as they slip-slopped their way north on Broadway. The street lay ankle deep in mud that some called gumbo because of the way it stuck to everything that tried to make its way through. Already the horses’ hooves were three times their normal size.

Ingeborg huddled into her warm wool coat. Spring might be here, but it had frozen the night before, and all the puddles were rimmed with hoarfrost. She glanced down at Thorliff, who was standing on a box in the wagon so he could lean his elbows on the seat between his father and mother.

“Would you like to sit up here?” Ingeborg dug in her pocket and produced a handkerchief to wipe his nose. She sniffed herself, not sure if from the cold or the sorrow of leaving, then helped Thorliff scramble up to sit beside his father.

Roald glanced down at the squirming boy. “I thought you would sleep awhile like Gunhilde is doing right now.”

“Gunny is a baby.”

Ingeborg hid a smile in her handkerchief. Ever since they’d set the time to leave, Thorliff had let them know that he’d grown up. Even the set of his shoulders, straight and square, matched that of the man beside him. Roald held the reins in relaxed hands resting on his knees.

“Far, how did you know that was our land?” The words carried
the same quiet pride as when Roald said “our land.”

Roald hesitated. He’d answered this same question more than twice the last few days, more like every hour.

“The water was high in the rivers, and there were many trees and plenty of flat ground ready for our plow.”

“But how could you tell under the snow?”

“The snow lay deep to melt down in the rich earth and nourish our fields. Snow is important to farmers.”

“But what if there are rocks there?”

Roald shook his head. “They say there isn’t a rock in the Red River Valley, nor a stump to dig out. Just rich land waiting under the prairie grass for our plow. You will plant seeds in the garden that will sprout as fast as you can put them in the ground.”

“But I want to help you plant wheat and corn in the fields.”

“Little boys help in the garden. When we have a cow and some sheep, you will herd them so they get plenty to eat but do not graze too far.”

“All by myself?”

Thorliff’s voice squeaked, either in joy or fear, Ingeborg wasn’t sure.
Roald has said more to his son in these last few days than he has in the boy’s entire lifetime
, she thought.

“Ja, you are getting to be a young man now.”

Thorliff shot a look of pride up at his mother. Ingeborg took the opportunity to wipe his nose again. As he twisted away, she glanced back in the wagon box. A pallet had been made for Kaaren and the baby on top of the trunks and boxes they’d brought from Norway. She sat propped against another box, nursing Gunny and watching out the rear of the wagon, where Carl alternately rode on the endgate or walked along beside.

If only they had been able to find a team of oxen, this wagon wouldn’t be so heavily loaded and so difficult for the horses to pull. She knew Roald had planned on buying or trading for more machinery too. Would they be able to find what they needed in Grand Forks? Someone had said prices were higher up there.

From the Minnesota side of the icebound Red River, a train whistle wept across the prairie. How much easier this trip would have been on the train or on the riverboat when the thaw finally set in and the ice went out in the river.

She closed her mind on those kinds of thoughts. Could one covet a train ride?

Only an hour up the trail, Roald stopped the team for a rest. He
and Carl took sticks and knocked the mud off the horses’ hooves and legs, and then cleaned between the spokes of the wheels. Next they scraped the gumbo from beneath the wagon bed.

“There, that should make their job easier.” Carl straightened and stuck his stave behind the water barrel. He held the bucket under the spigot and, when it was half full, gave each horse a few swallows. While he was doing that, Roald checked the harnesses and the horses’ hides for sore spots from rubbing.

He’d spent hours working on the harness, repairing strained places and oiling it so the cracks wouldn’t go below the surface. More than once he’d grumbled about the way Mainwright had abused his farming implements. “That man had the sense of a flea,” he muttered.

Ingeborg watched from her place on the seat. Maybe they should all walk to save the horses. Should she suggest such a thing? The narrowing space between Roald’s eyebrows warned her to keep her opinions to herself.

The day and the miles dragged by as they repeated the mud-scraping stop about every hour. Yet, still the horses drooped from pulling all the extra weight.

Roald had hoped to reach Georgetown, but they were far short of that by the time they stopped for the night.

“Pray for a good hard frost and cold days,” he muttered as he and Carl shuffled their goods to make better sleeping accommodations. They had hoped to find a farm where they might stop the night over, but in this land of bonanza farms, the home places were few and far between. At least the travelers had plenty of firewood. Cottonwood, willow, and occasional oak trees bordered the river and offered both protection from the never-ending wind and a good supply of dead branches that burned hot and crackling.

Coffee had never tasted so good. With the pot steaming to the side of the fire and mush frying in the pan, the snowbanks seemed to fade away. The sound of horses cropping dried prairie grass where Carl and Roald had cleared away the snow made camping out seem less a burden and more like an adventure. Thorliff dragged more branches back to the fire. The adults sank knee-deep in the snow with every step, so the boy had an easier time than any of them since he was small enough for the snow crust to hold him.

Ingeborg closed her eyes, the better to enjoy the savory steam from the mug in her hands. With her eyes closed, she pretended they were on an evening skating party in Norway. She pictured the
pine and fir-clad hills that rose to granite mountains—hills, that when skied, connected one farm to another by minutes.

“Mor.” Thorliff’s question brought her back to the windswept prairies.

“Ja, den lille?”

“Tell me a story.”

“Nei, not tonight. You must go to sleep right away.” She rose from her overturned bucket by the fire and led him to the wagon. After tucking him in and saying prayers with him, she returned to the fire. Roald had found a piece of oak that he was carving into a handle for some implement. Carl was putting more wood in the flames, and Kaaren had just finished nursing the baby. The three of them sat snuggled with a quilt over their shoulders. Off in the distance the coyotes’ mournful song floated across the snowdrifts.

For a fleeting instant, Ingeborg felt a piercing sadness so intense she caught her breath. When the pain struck again, it turned heavy, a load too much to carry. Maybe that’s why the coyotes sing—to bring some life to the windblown loneliness of snow and the emptiness between it and the sky.

She shook her head at the fanciful thoughts. The coyotes no doubt were hunting, and she hoped they found something to eat far away from the Bjorklund camp. Now, if it were wolves, she would be concerned. And how could she call this lonely—there were four of them around the fire, and two children who could always be counted on to ask questions or to need something.

Ingeborg fought against the desire to look over her shoulder. There were no eyes watching them. They were safe here with their wagon and with one another. Both horses grazed peacefully. If there’d been something out there, their sharp ears and eyes would have caught it long before the people did.

Ingeborg was glad they had a gun.

But a gun wasn’t what they needed in the days ahead. Strong backs and stronger wells of patience were far more necessary. The weather continued warm and sunny, with the wind now a breeze and green shoots springing up with every passing breath. Only the deepest drifts remained and some scattered snow in those places shaded by bare-branched trees.

One afternoon, the driver of the stage bound for Grand Forks and Pembina hallooed them from behind before passing in a rush of waving arms and shouted greetings. Passengers rode both inside the coach and up by the driver, filling the rocking vehicle to capacity.
The Bjorklunds waved back, and their horses picked up the pace for a few minutes, as if wanting to race.