An Untamed Land (45 page)

Roald was having less success with Carl. After the first bout of delirium, Carl had slipped deeper into unconsciousness, responding to neither Roald’s voice nor the changing of cold cloths. At times he shuddered and gasped, choking on the mucus draining down his throat. Other times, his shivers shook the entire bed.

“I must leave and feed Andrew. I don’t want to bring him here.”

“I’ll care for them while you are gone. When you come back, I will do all the chores.” Roald looked up, his eyes filled with hopeless despair. “If only we had a doctor near here. Maybe he could do something.”

“Perhaps.” Ingeborg got into her coat and shawl. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Ingeborg returned as quickly as she could, but felt hopelessness surge through her when she saw that there was no improvement in Carl or Lizzie. The baby died just before suppertime. Ingeborg put Lizzie’s still body next to that of Gunny’s and, wrapping them both in a quilt, placed them in the coldest corner of the soddy. They
wouldn’t be able to bury them until spring. Two precious little ones. How could they be gone so quickly? Ingeborg’s heart weighed so heavy she thought it would burst.

“I’ll watch tonight, and you go on home,” Roald said after he returned from feeding the livestock and milking the two cows that wouldn’t freshen until late spring. He looked so weary, but he would have to stay.

“I haven’t told Thorliff how bad things are,” Ingeborg said.

“No, no need to yet.”

She checked on Carl one last time. His breathing had grown more shallow as the evening passed. Kaaren remained the same except to swallow when they spooned liquid into her mouth.

“If only I had come sooner.” The cry tore from Roald’s throat, all the anguish of his heart bursting out with the words.

It did no good to remind him he would not have made it through the blizzard. “Ja, I know,” was all she said.

Back home, she washed her hands and changed her dress before picking up her own dear son. Andrew, red-faced from screaming, latched on to her breast as if she’d been gone a month. His hiccups lessened as he relaxed against her chest. Ingeborg looked down at him, feeling the love within her swell so greatly that she clutched him to her. The baby flinched and grunted. How would she tell Kaaren that both her beloved children were gone? Would Kaaren ever revive enough to even know? And Carl?

“Andrew wouldn’t quit crying, Mor. I tried to give him mush like you said, but he spit it out.”

“I know, but you did your best, and going hungry for a time isn’t the worst thing that can happen.” Visions of the two small bodies wrapped in a quilt made her lips quiver and tears burn on her eyelids. She ducked her head, hiding them against the quilt she’d thrown over her shoulder and the nursing child. “It smells good in here. You’ve been a good cook today.”

“All I did was stir the beans like you said. The soup kettle is sitting on the back of the stove.”

“Oh, the bread.” For the first time, Ingeborg remembered starting it, those eons before.

“I punched it down two more times like you do. The loaves I made do not look too good, but you can bake them now.”

“Oh, my son, how good you are. Is the fire plenty hot?” At his nod, she continued. “Take the beans out of the oven and put the bread pans in.”

He smiled up at her and dashed off to do her bidding.

How do I keep that sickness out of our house? It is so close. How to protect these two innocents?

“When is Far coming home for supper?”

“He’ll be staying with Carl and Kaaren. They need him more than we do right now.”

“Did Gunny like the doll we made?”

Pain struck in her heart. “Ah . . . no . . . I don’t know. I didn’t take it over there yet.”

Thorliff studied her face, his eyes serious, and his mouth pursed. “Gunny is sick too?”

“Ja . . . no.” Tears welled in spite of her attempt to hold them back. “Oh, Thorliff.” She reached out to take his hand in hers. “Gunny has gone to heaven to be with God. Baby Lizzie, too.”

“She died like the baby chickens?”

Ingeborg nodded. She had no words to say.

Thorliff sighed, his lower lip quivering. “I want Gunny to come back.”

“Me too. Oh, Thorliff, so do I. Poor Tante Kaaren and Onkel Carl. They are too sick to even know it yet.”

“Will they die, too?” A tear overflowed, and others quickly followed, coursing down his cheeks. He brushed them away with the back of his sleeve.

“Pray God they won’t. We must keep praying for them.”

But when Roald returned in the morning, the slump of his shoulders and the devastation in his eyes told her what she’d feared.

“Kaaren?” He shook his head. Unable to say the precious name, she asked instead, “Do you think she will pull through?”

“I don’t know. Oh, Ingeborg. My brother is gone, and I could do nothing to save him.” Roald slumped in his chair, head in his hands.

“I will go there now.”

He shook his head again. “I will bundle Kaaren up and bring her back on the toboggan. Then we will leave the others and let the house freeze up. I have no lumber to build boxes for them.” Dry-eyed, he looked up at her. “I should never have brought him to this land.”

“This death is not your fault. You didn’t create sicknesses such as this. People die from illness in Norway, too.” Ingeborg tried to
reason with him, but he was past hearing or understanding. She laid a hand on his shoulder, and he rested his cheek against it.

Sounding as if a far way off, he finally said, “I didn’t do the chores yet.”

“I will do them. You sleep for a while.” Ingeborg put on her outer garments and, filling the bucket with water, headed for the sod barn. Later, Roald could walk the team down to the river, if he could reopen the hole where he’d kept chopping out the ice for a drinking hole. Maybe that, too, had frozen so solid they’d have to melt snow for all the animals.

The red-and-white cow turned her head and bellered when Ingeborg opened the door. “I know, you’re hungry and thirsty and your bag hurts. Be patient, and I will get to you.”

Later, carrying a bucket of milk, cooled so it no longer steamed, and with six eggs tucked in her pockets, she stopped at the side of the soddy. Across the narrow field separating their two places, she looked for the familiar plume of smoke. Faint, it hovered a moment, then dissipated in the breeze. Soon, it would be no more. She bit back the tears again and entered the warm room. Thorliff was stirring, and she could tell by the tenor that Andrew had entered his second stage of demanding food. The next would be a caterwaul fit to scare birds from the trees.

As soon as she’d hung up her things, she shushed the baby and quickly changed his diaper. She needed to wash diapers this morning, too, and when Kaaren came, caring for her would take every available minute. Ingeborg sat down in the rocker and, unbuttoning her bodice, fed her son.

“I’ll bring her now.” Roald stirred from the brief sleep he’d collapsed into and rose to his feet, looking more like a man of sixty than thirty-seven.

“You must get some sleep so you don’t come down ill yourself.”

“Ja, and I must check on our neighbors too. I haven’t seen sign of the Baards or the Polinskis.”

“As to them, they are probably frozen to death in that thing they call a house. If he weren’t so lazy . . .”

“Ingeborg.”

“I know, but you have helped and helped him, and we have all donated food and clothes for those poor children.” Ingeborg couldn’t believe she was saying such things. Didn’t the Bible say the poor would always be with them? And to love your neighbors as yourself?

“I don’t wish them ill, but . . .”

“I will leave as soon as I’ve brought Kaaren over here and tended to their animals. I’d bring them too and put them up in our barn, if we only had room.”

By the time he returned with the barely alive young woman, the wind had picked up again and dark clouds had gathered on the northern horizon. As soon as he’d settled Kaaren in Thorliff’s bed, he turned to leave.

“I will go to the Polinskis’ first, since they are closer, and spend the night there if I have to.” At the frown wrinkling Ingeborg’s brow, he shook his head. “I am aware of the clouds. I will be careful.”

He took the words right out of her mouth. She hugged her shawl tightly around her shoulders.
Polinskis! Roald, we need you here.
But she kept the thoughts to herself, knowing that trying to keep Roald from a course he had set was like trying to stop the blizzard. That dedication to caring for those around him was one of the things she so loved. Except for now.

“Go with God,” she whispered into the rising wind.

Kaaren’s fever broke late in the evening. She breathed more easily too, sleeping now rather than lying in the comatose state as she had been.

“Thank you, Lord,” Ingeborg prayed. “And please protect Roald, wherever he is.” She milked the cows and fed the stock early while there was still light. Thorliff helped her, so they finished more quickly. They brought in extra wood and set snow to melt in the barn. By dark, snow had begun to fall, hard driving pellets swirled by the wind.

“Mor, I don’t feel good,” Thorliff said as she tucked him in Roald’s side of the bed.

Fear made her throat go dry. “You sleep now. You will be better in the morning.” She kissed his cheek. Was he running a fever?

Baby Andrew, too, seemed restless, nursing a bit and then whimpering. “You haven’t eaten all you need,” she said, stroking his cheek. He rubbed his eyes with his fists and went back to nursing, only to stop again.
Where, oh where, are you Roald? Please, dear God, keep him safe. We need him so, right here, right now
.

When Andrew finally fussed himself to sleep, Ingeborg checked on Kaaren one last time. As she put the spoon of broth to Kaaren’s mouth, the sick woman’s eyes fluttered open. She turned her head slightly, and a faint smile eased the lines of pain.

“Inge, I thought you were an angel.” Kaaren took the half cup
of the venison broth, one spoonful at a time, before drifting off to sleep again.

“Thank you, God.” Ingeborg laid a hand on Kaaren’s cheek. Cool and warm both, just the way skin ought to feel. She breathed the prayer of thanks again and crawled beneath the quilts of her own bed.

Andrew awoke in the middle of the night, fretful and hungry. He nursed again and went back to sleep, but Ingeborg could not. Thorliff kept coughing and was starting to wheeze.

By morning, the wind still raged, and Ingeborg made it to the barn, thanks only to the rope Roald had strung. She took care of what chores she could, making two trips with water, but still the horses were thirsty. Her body felt as though she’d been fighting the plow sod busting for a week without rest. Her head hurt, her throat felt raw, and she was tired, so tired she fell asleep feeding the baby.

“Mor, I’m thirsty.” Thorliff’s plaintive cry, combined with a retching cough, startled her awake.

“I’m coming.” She set Andrew down, only to have him fuss and begin to cry. He howled louder than the wind while she cared for Thorliff and Kaaren.

By that evening, after chores that took twice as long as usual, she kept seeing double and dragged herself from chair to chair around the room. Her hands trembled so severely, she could hardly feed Kaaren, and when she tried to coax some soup into Thorliff, he just turned his head away.

“Hurts.”

“I know. But please, eat this anyway. You must eat.” Ingeborg rested her throbbing head on her hand. The spoon clattered to the floor.

That night, she took Andrew to bed with her. She was afraid she wouldn’t have the strength to carry him later. “Please, Father in heaven, if you love us, let Roald come home in the morning.”

W
as the pounding inside her head or from somewhere else?

“Ingeborg, the door. Someone is at the door.” Kaaren’s faint voice came from near her left ear.

Up out of the fog, out of the swirly place where she’d hidden, Ingeborg dragged herself, foot by reluctant foot. But when she raised her head from the pillow, the tilting room made her retch. How to get to the door? Why don’t they just come in? She struggled to her feet, fighting back the nausea, the pain, and the terrible heat. How could it be so hot in here? She knew it was winter, that much hadn’t changed.