An Untamed Land (24 page)

“I’m going to feed the horses and check over the plow and harness. I’ll eat as soon as the meal is ready,” Roald tossed over his shoulder as he headed for the timber line.

“I’ll call you.” The repeated birdsong made her heart sing. So much to do and so much to learn about this new land. What was the singing bird called here? What were the new words for all that she saw around them? While she went about the morning’s chores, her mind surged far ahead.

Overhead, she heard the honking of geese and looked up to watch the V formation fly northward, their dark bodies etched against the blue sky. The coffee bubbled, sending a welcome aroma into the air. She mixed the leftover duck with the cornmeal and set it to simmer. How wonderful cream would taste over the porridge. Surely there were berries here to make jellies and syrups.

“Today I bake bread,” she announced as Kaaren joined her at the fire. “I will use the fat from the ducks. And if we get some of those geese, we’ll have more. Then we can fry the mush for a change.”

“Have you laid out the house yet and planted the garden? What about . . .”

Ingeborg turned with a laugh. “Ja, I know I run ahead of myself, but how can I help it? There is so much to do. When I close my eyes, I can see a fine white house, a big barn, fruit trees, a garden, cattle, my chickens, and some pigs to make fine hams. Can you not see it?”

“Ja, and another place just like it over there.” Kaaren pointed to the quarter section to the north. “If we both put our houses near the property line, we will be close enough to call out the front door. We will have flowers: tulips and lilac for the spring, lilies in the summer, and sunflowers for the fall. Our children will run back and forth and help their fathers in the fields. And during the winter, we will have school, and music, and we will teach our daughters to knit and quilt and cook and sew.”

“Besides keep a fine house.” Ingeborg clasped her hands in front of her. “Please, Lord, let it be so.”

“Amen,” whispered Kaaren.

Ingeborg stirred the mush one more time and called the men to breakfast.

“I will go hunting after we get started breaking sod. The plow is different than what we’ve used before.” Carl spoke between spoonsful of hot food.

“Did you see that place over by the trees? There has already been a garden or small field there; the sod is broken for a couple hundred feet or so, each way.” Roald pointed over toward the trees. “Someone has been living here; I am sure of it.”

“But we will be the first to file on the land, so legally it is ours.” Carl finished his bowl and poured another cup of coffee. “You think it might be Metis? That old woman?”

“I don’t know. But I plan to walk every inch of this section. I want no surprises.” Roald handed his cup and bowl to Ingeborg and turned back to the waiting horses. “No surprises.”

Carl followed him a couple minutes later.

Ingeborg watched the two of them hitch the horses to the front of the plow and knot the reins to hang around the plowman’s neck. With both hands on the handles of the plow frame, Roald clucked the horses forward and guided the point of the plowshare as it bit into the sod and folded a furrow over. The horses angled to the left.

“No, straight on,” Roald called as he pulled them back to the right. They went too far, and the black dirt curved behind them. Roald pulled on the reins and looked behind him. No self-respecting farmer would allow crooked furrows. But breaking sod out on the prairie was different than plowing a furrow in a previously tilled field. He bent down to examine the black gash. The top of the cut was still packed with grass roots. How far down did the sod go? They’d been told they wouldn’t be able to plant any of this newly broken land until next year, and now he understood why. They would have to replow, or backset, the field in the fall, going crosswise to the present furrows. Uff da.

The two brothers stared down at the ground and then at each other. Reading about breaking sod and actually doing it were as different as June and January.

Carl tried picking up the laid-over sod. While only two inches deep, the strip weighed heavy. He lifted it and tried breaking the section apart. The interwoven grass stems and roots refused to part.
He slammed the sod down on the ground, startling the horses.

“Easy, Bob, just trying to understand this land of ours.” He placed the piece back on top of the ground where it had turned. “No wonder we have to come back in the fall and backset it. The grass needs that long to disintegrate.” He dusted off his hands. “Let me lead the horses for this first strip, and then you can use that as a marker for the rest. If that’s as hard to do as it looks, we can spell each other.”

Roald started to say something and obviously thought the better of it. He put the reins back around his neck and grabbed the plow handles. Surely this first row was the hardest.

Ingeborg watched the exchange, feeling the tension emanating from her husband. He was so used to always being the leader, the one who made all the decisions. How would he handle his younger brother having ideas of his own, and good ones at that? Could the two become a team as the two horses, both pulling the same plow but each with their separate harness?

She watched the black sod roll over for a few more feet, then turned back to the wagon. If she was going to start bread to bake by suppertime, she’d better get to it.

She took the bubbling sourdough starter from the night before and divided it in two—half for the bread today and half to grow for the next time. After mixing in melted duck fat, a dollop of molasses, salt, and more flour, she stirred vigorously. When the dough was stiff enough, she began kneading, using the endgate of the wagon as a table. With each turn, roll, and press with the heels of her hands, the dough gained texture. Air bubbles began forming within the dough as if it were alive, making it feel and smell rich and yeasty. She kneaded more, rejoicing in the pull at her shoulders and the stretch in her back. Kneading bread used the entire body.

After she formed the finished dough into a ball and set the bowl next to the fire where it could rise in the heat, she stood back. Not quite the kitchen of home or the Headquarters Hotel, but it was theirs, and it was on their own land. Their food might not be as plentiful as she had served at the hotel, but she could make it just as tasty. Today they would have fresh bread. She would take some of the dough and fry for dinner, and they’d still have bread for supper.

“That smells heavenly,” Kaaren said, bending over to sniff the bowl of rising dough after buttoning her shirtwaister. She’d been
nursing Gunny while Ingeborg started the bread. “Where’s Thorliff?”

Ingeborg pointed to the small form trudging along beside his father. While the women watched, the boy bent over, picked up something from the ground, and showed it to his father.

“Probably a worm.” Ingeborg shook her head. “He loves the things of the earth: rocks, sticks, worms, bugs. Having cows and sheep to care for will be a big change, but a welcome one.”

“Ja, I think today we forego the slate and let him study nature as it is.”

“As long as his father can stand it.”

When Carl returned to the camp, the women were shaking out the bedclothes and rearranging the interior of the wagon.

“Anything special you want from God’s larder, ladies?” Carl reached for the rifle and pocketed a few shells.

“A deer would be nice. We could dry some of the meat, and you wouldn’t have to go out each day.” Kaaren adjusted the shawl sling that kept Gunhilde tight against her body. “And if you could bring in several geese, we would soon have a feather bed.”

“As you wish. You know, I was thinking we could set snares for the rabbits, and soon the fish will be biting in the river, so we can dry those too.” He caught Ingeborg’s eye. “You want a lesson in snares and shooting this afternoon?”

“Of course,” Ingeborg said, smiling at his offer.

“Good, because once we have that second team, neither Roald nor I will have time to hunt.” He hefted the rifle, settling it under his arm with the barrel pointed to the ground. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He set off, the tune he whistled floating back like a friendly wave.

Later, Ingeborg took the water bucket and headed for the river. Their water barrel was nearly empty. She made her way carefully over the broken branches and fallen trees, trying to find the best path to the water. When she finally made it to the bank, she could see the hoof prints of deer and tracks that looked like a dog’s, so there must be coyote or fox nearby. But the rounded and smeared footprints were certainly not animal.

I
ngeborg could feel eyes staring at her.

She hated the feeling of looking over her shoulder every minute but couldn’t make herself quit. In desperation, she turned around and studied the trees behind her. Bare trunks left little room for concealment, but many of the tree trunks and lower branches were large enough to hide a good-sized person. She felt a twinge of fear and wondered if there were animals in the region that could or would attack?

“Wolves wouldn’t be out in the daytime.” She spoke loudly, just in case something needed to be frightened away. She made her way carefully over logs thrown up by the spring flood, through brush covered with mud from the spring thaw, and between trees that had captured debris from those same floods. Everything wore a coating of dull brown gray dirt that matched the water flowing between the banks. Ingeborg wrinkled her nose. They were going to drink water from this so-called river?

On the bank sloping down to the water she saw more prints left by their wild neighbors. She studied them: waterfowl, deer, coyote, maybe fox, nothing large enough for wolf. She breathed a sigh of relief and dipped her bucket. She would have to let the mud settle out before it could be used. Returning to the wagon, she followed the narrow trail left by the animals, finding it much easier to travel. Halfway back, she looked down and stopped. The tracks again included the softly rounded prints of a human.

Were these the tracks of the woman who’d visited them? Was she nearby? Ingeborg looked to the surrounding trees again but couldn’t see or sense a presence nearby. No longer feeling as though eyes were drilling her in the back, Ingeborg strode back to the
wagon, chiding herself all the way for letting the sensations bother her.

When she set the bucket down, Kaaren took one look at the muddy water and wrinkled her nose. “I certainly hope we can find a spring with clean water soon, but until then, we must strain this.” She lifted her face to the sun. “I am sure we should be grateful we have water nearby. And wood.” She stopped and looked closely at her sister-in-law. “Something is bothering you.”

Ingeborg shook her head. “You are far too observant for such a young woman. I saw human tracks down by the river. And while I was there, I felt eyes watching me.” Ingeborg shrugged, as if to say it meant nothing. “Silly of me, wasn’t it?” She looked toward the river. “And I keep looking for wolf tracks. Ever since my brother was attacked by wolves on his way home from town, wolves terrify me. We were so thankful that he lived.”

“Have you ever seen a wolf yourself?”

“No, but I’ve heard them howl, and I’ll never forget it. My father said it must have been an entire pack. And you know the stories they tell about being set upon by wolves in the winter.” Ingeborg made a dismissing motion with her hand. “I’ll get over it, I’m sure.” She could still feel the hair rising on the nape of her neck at the memory.

The morning passed swiftly as the two women went about setting up a permanent camp. They dug two pits for fires, one to be used as an oven. They pounded in iron bars to become a tripod on which to hang their pots and to use as a spit for roasting meat. They would also use the spit for drying any meat that Carl would be fortunate enough to bring in.

Ingeborg checked the pot where her bread was rising. The dough grew slowly in the warmth from the sun and the smoldering coals beside it. The yeasty smell of working sourdough carried the fragrance of home as it rose to her nose. She breathed deeply and felt a smile begin down about her toes and work its way through her body, up to her lips and eyes. A bird flew overhead, its song rippling on the breeze as it passed. Another answered.

“Mor, Mor.” In his excitement, Thorliff stumbled across the thick dead grass remaining from last season. He picked himself up again and, with a grin as wide as the prairie, held up a fat, wriggling worm. “Now we can go fishing. Far said.”

“I think we need more than one worm, don’t you?”

He shook his head, setting the blond curls tumbling across his forehead. “Nei, one for a fish.”

“What if the fish eats our worm and swims away?”

Thorliff frowned in thought. “Then I need more worms.” He laid the worm on his cupped palm and studied it as if he’d never seen one before. “He is so big he could catch two fishes.” He giggled when the worm wriggled out of his hand and flopped on the ground. Squatting down, he retrieved the worm and put it in his pocket. “I get more.” He headed back for the field, his giggles sending back sheer joy.

“I hadn’t the heart to tell him that the worm probably wouldn’t live in his pocket.” Ingeborg watched his progress with a smile.