A Promise for Ellie (39 page)

I’
M GOING TO JAIL.

Andrew stared out the train window, the train carrying him to Grafton and the jail. He glanced at the man beside him who gazed stoically forward.
How did he know I’d beaten Toby senseless?
Trapping any of the thoughts ricocheting through his mind took more than he had to give at that moment.
So quickly. This happened just yesterday
.
Toby is still alive. The telegraph
. He nodded.
Of course, someone sent a
telegraph. Who? Who else but Mrs. Valders?
The way she’d glared at him the night before still sent chills up his back.

Pure hatred. Not just anger—she had a right to be angry—but hatred. Why?
What have I done to her?

Other than beat her younger son into a coma and possible death. Oh,
Lord, you know I didn’t mean for this to happen.

But if he started that fire . . .
Andrew ground his teeth and clenched his fists. The roiling in his stomach gave him a bitter taste. This whole thing gave him a bitter taste. The more he thought, the angrier he grew.
Toby! It is all Toby’s fault!

The sheriff cleared his throat and looked at Andrew. “Now, we’re almost to town. You’re not going to run or do something foolish, are you?”

Only if I had any chance of getting away
. Andrew shook his head. “No.”

“Good, because I got handcuffs right here if need be.”

“I won’t run.”

“Sure sorry about this, son. Fine young man like you.What made you do it?”

“He started the fire that burned my barn down.”

“You know that for certain?”

“He was there. Someone saw him.”

“Don’t mean he set the fire.Why would he want to do something terrible like that?”

“He and I . . . well, when we were kids in school, he’d pick on the younger, weaker ones, and I’d stick up for them.”

“Meaning you two got into fistfights.”

Andrew nodded. “Pastor Solberg always set us to chopping wood to work it off.”

“And you think that this Toby bears a grudge?”

“Seems so.”
He calls me Prince Andrew. He’s jealous as all get-out
.

“You could say there’s no love lost between you two?”

“You could say that.”

The train slowed, iron wheels screeching against iron tracks.

“But you didn’t set out to kill him?”

“No.”
If I’d wanted to kill him, no one would have stopped me. But I
did want to kill him. He hurt Ellie
. Back and forth his thoughts raged, ripping his insides with each volley.

He walked beside the sheriff to the jail and preceded him into the office. The door closing behind him made him flinch. When the cell door clanged, he stumbled forward and collapsed on a wooden cot covered by a tick filled with hay.

“Someone will bring you supper after a while. The slop bucket there is for your use. I’ll bring you a jug of water.”

“Thank you.” Andrew ground the words past clenched teeth. If he kept his teeth together tight enough, perhaps he could keep from screaming.

That evening the Bjorklunds gathered around the kitchen table at Thorliff ’s house so that Ellie could join them. “So what can we do?” Haakan asked.

Thorliff looked over to his father. “There’s not much anyone can do right now. I’ve sent a telegram to Olaf and asked him and Goodie to go visit Andrew in the morning. They’ll let us know how he is.”

“Should we take him some clean clothes? You know he went straight from the threshing.” Ingeborg kept up her knitting, the needles flashing in the lamplight.

Elizabeth left the room to fetch Inga, who’d announced it was time to eat. For a change she’d let her mother have supper without any interruption. When she returned, Elizabeth asked, “Did the sheriff say anything more before he dragged Andrew off?”

Haakan thought a moment. “Just asked if he needed to use handcuffs and that he was arresting Andrew for the assault on Toby Valders. I tried to tell him of the circumstances, but he didn’t want to hear anything else.” Rubbing his tongue around his teeth, his eyes slitted as he thought back.

Ingeborg watched her husband, praying that he would remember anything that might help them. Her son, her dear Andrew, was in jail.
Lord, was there something we should have done about his temper? Did we
fail him? I know we did the best we could, but what if the best wasn’t
good enough
. She held herself together through sheer force of will, wanting instead to throw herself into Haakan’s arms and cry until there were no more tears.

“So there is nothing more we can do until tomorrow.” Haakan looked each of the others in the eyes. “Except pray.”

They all nodded.

Thorliff shook his head. “If this is anything like the cases I’ve sat through in Northfield when I worked for Mr. Rogers, the judge won’t see him until Monday. He will either release Andrew at that point, possibly asking for bail, or will order him left in jail until there is some word on Toby.”

“If Toby dies?”

“Then Andrew will be tried for murder.”

The silence after Thorliff spoke seemed to suck the air out of the room. One after the other they coughed or cleared their throats.

Astrid broke the silence. “Andrew, I’m so mad at you I could beat you up myself. Why did he do such a stupid, stupid thing?” She stamped her foot on the
stupid
s, as if pounding on her brother.

Ingeborg laid down her knitting, one needle falling out of the last row of stitches, and gathered her daughter in her arms, where she cried on her mother’s shoulder. “Shh, shh. I know. See how easy it is to be angrier than you ever thought possible?”

“Aren’t you mad at him?”

Ingeborg nodded. “And at Toby, at all of it. But what does being angry do?” She paused to listen inside herself.
And at Hildegunn
Valders. Why does she always make things worse? Will I have to forgive
her again?

Elizabeth returned from putting the baby in her cradle. “Mor, would you please go check on Toby? I heard his folks leave a bit ago.”

“You are sure they are gone?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Why?”

“I don’t want to see that woman right now.” Anger flared inside Ingeborg in spite of her good intentions. Leave it to Hildegunn Valders to cause more trouble than was needed.When the good Lord was handing out compassion, she’d been somewhere else for sure.
Remember? She and Anner took those boys in?
Uff da, why did God always have to remind her of the good side of someone she really wanted to despise?

Sleep never brought Andrew a reprieve that night. Whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see and hear was Toby and the sound of his head hitting the ground. So he lay in jail staring at the heavy joists in the ceiling. The bars of his cage threw shadow bars on the floor until he felt them closing in on him, driving out the air. He leaped to his feet and stuck his face against the bars of the window opening.

In the morning he smelled the coffee before a woman arrived with the tray. “I brought this myself, since you’re the only prisoner right now. Most likely that will change by the time midnight rolls around. Sheriff Becker always has to throw someone in for being drunk and disorderly.” The woman, her gray hair knotted in a bun and a oncewhite apron covering her clear to her toes, held the tray in front of her. She peered at him through the bars. “You come and get this now.” Bending over, she slid the tray through a slot near the floor.

“Thank you.” His mother’s drilling on good manners stood him in good stead, but he didn’t change positions.

“You might want to eat while it’s hot. I hurried it over right quick so you could have a hot breakfast. Might make your day go a little better.”

Andrew nodded. The thought of food made him gag. The hours before him marched like soldiers in a line without end. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he propped his head in his hands and scrubbed his scalp with vicious fingers.

“Just slide the tray back out when you are finished.”

“Ja, I will. Thank you.”
Take it now before I kick it across the room
. Self-condemnation rode him with Spanish spurs and a merciless quirt.

“Can I bring you anything else?” She sounded like his mor, a Norwegian accent pleasant to the ear.

He shook his head. “No, nothing, thank you.” He heard her say something to someone in the office, and then a door closed behind her. So many doors closing. All locking him in.

Sometime later a different man stopped at the cell door. “I’m Deputy Bronson. There’s a man here to see you. Says he is Olaf Wold.”

“No.”

“He says he’s a friend of your family.”

“No. I mean, I don’t want to see him.” Andrew looked up from his study of the pits and rocks in the concrete floor. “I don’t want to see anyone. Tell him no one is to come from Blessing either. I don’t want to see anyone.”

“Suit yourself, but that’s kinda rude, being as he came over here and all.”

“Just tell him.” Andrew swallowed. “Please.”

“You didn’t touch your breakfast.”

“I know.”

“Push that tray on out, then. Shame to waste good food like that. Della is a good cook. She feels right bad such a fine young man as you . . .”

Get out of here!
Andrew clamped his mouth shut before he said something he shouldn’t. He glared at the deputy but got up off the bed to push the tray back. He could hear the discussion going on in the office, and before long, the door closed again.

Deputy Bronson returned. “He said I was to give you this and don’t take no for an answer.”

Guilt wore spurs too. After all the things that Onkel Olaf had made for him and Ellie, he should have . . .

“Olaf doesn’t deserve to be treated like that,”
Ingeborg’s voice whispered in his ear. Andrew stared at the man holding out a leatherbound book. A Bible. Olaf had brought him a Bible.
“Always remember,
Andrew, no matter how bad things are, you’ll find help in the Word
of God.”
Again his mother’s voice. Andrew stood and walked across the cell to take the offered book.

“Thank you.” He set it on the foot of the bed and took up pacing before he ripped the pages out. Three paces to the bars, three paces back.

You’re not a destructive man. Why do you want to kick and rip and
pound?
The inner argument picked up again. One side against the other. Sometimes his mother’s voice, sometimes Haakan’s, sometimes his own. Even Pastor Solberg threw in his counsel.

When he turned down dinner, Della tsked and shook her head.

“Ya can’t fight to live if you don’t eat.”

What difference does it make? Toby dies, and they’ll hang me. Or send
me to prison. Dear God, let Toby live! Or has he died already?

Ellie held the spoon to Toby’s lips again. “Please drink again, Toby.” She set it between his lips and tipped the water in. She watched his throat, and sure enough, he swallowed. Never had she been so grateful for such a simple act. She repeated the routine until her arm ached. If only he would show some other sign that he was still in there.

Elizabeth would say she’d done well. Who’d have ever thought that she would be helping care for Toby Valders and Andrew would be sitting in jail?
Oh, dear Lord, please bring your love and compassion
to work in this whole mess
. She touched the turban of bandages she wore. Even though she knew the burns weren’t serious, she never would have dreamed superficial burns could hurt so much. Of course she remembered burning her finger on a sadiron one time. How badly that had hurt.