The Reaper's Song (25 page)

“Did she go with?”

“Yes. Goodie said she will take care of their livestock.”

“Either that or we could bring them all over here. Or,” she stopped. “Bridget and Katy could go over there.”

“Let’s leave it as it is for right now.”

“Your horse is watered.” Andrew and Ellie joined the adults.

“Thank you, young man.” Solberg patted Andrew on the head.

“Cookies, Mor?”

“Ja, come on in, all of you. We’ll eat dessert first. Can you stay for supper, Reverend? Bridget will have it ready in a short time. The boys are nearly done with chores.” She threw a last tidbit over her shoulder. “Andrew, after a cookie, will you please go fetch Tante Katy?”

With the garden pretty well harvested, the itch to get out in the field irritated Ingeborg even more. Bridget was spending more time knitting, teaching Andrew and Ellie how to card the wool that she had washed and dyed and was now ready for the spinning wheel. Thorliff and Baptiste spent all their spare time hunting and splitting wood to keep the smokehouse in business.

But with Lars and Haakan out with the threshing machine, the fall work had come to a standstill.

“What are you doing?” Bridget asked, shock rounding her eyes and mouth.

Ingeborg glanced down at the men’s britches she had altered to fit her a long time before. “Pants make plowing much easier.”

“P-plowing?” Bridget visibly straightened her spine. “Inge, does Haakan know about this?”

Ingeborg met her stare for stare. “He knows I used to do the fieldwork.”

“And he approves?”

“He knows that getting the fall work done is necessary.”

Bridget clasped her hands together on the waist of her apron. “Couldn’t Thorliff and Baptiste do that for you?”

Ingeborg had the grace to nod. “They could, but they’ve never done so without Haakan. Besides, they can pick the field corn faster than I can. Both things need to be done.”

“Then Haakan should be home and . . .” Bridget clamped her lips, cutting off the rest she’d been about to say.

“He don’t trust anyone else with the steam engine and the
thresher, especially after what happened to Anner.” Ingeborg clapped Roald’s hat on her head and tucked the string tie under her chin. “Andrew and Ellie are over to Kaaren’s. We’ll all be eating over there.”

“Kaaren knows?”

“Ja, and she’s no happier about this than you.” Ingeborg strode out of the room, already sorry she’d been so abrupt with her mother-in-law. But ever since she’d seen the darkness in Anner’s eyes, she’d felt it peering over her shoulder. Working in the fields, she could feel she was keeping it at bay. If something ever happened to Haakan, she needed to remember how she could keep the land, keep the crops coming in, and keep her sanity.

Besides, riding the plow was so much easier than walking behind it. She would hardly be working at all.

By noon, she knew she’d been lying to herself. Her arms and shoulders ached from holding the reins, and her right leg was sore from raising and lowering the double-bottomed plow blades.

While the children chattered at the dinner table, the women were noticeably silent.

By evening, she ached all over.

Bridget’s look screamed “I told you so” when Ingeborg tripped on the top step because her legs were so tired. And by the time they’d finished milking all twenty-five cows, Ingeborg could hardly rise from the milk stool.

But in the morning, she headed out again. The days fell easily into a rhythm. Milk the cows, eat breakfast that Kaaren prepared, plow until noon, eat, plow until the sun began to set, milk, eat, and fall into bed until she forced her eyes open at the first cock crow.

Some days Andrew came with her and rode one of the horses for a while. He lasted longer when Ellie rode the other. Then the two of them would trot back across the fields, waving their thanks.

“School is going to start next week,” Kaaren said one noon meal. “Reverend Solberg dropped by to tell everyone.” She glanced at Katy, who winked back. “Of course I believe that wasn’t his only purpose in calling.”

“What has he heard about Anner?” Ingeborg looked up from sopping gravy with her bread.

“Still alive. The doctors are giving some hope now. They had to remove the remainder of the arm, clear to the shoulder. Even taking the joint.”

“Ah.” The single exhalation said so much.

“I’ll be in early,” Ingeborg said as she went out the door. “I need to take the plowshares in to Hjelmer for sharpening.”

“Mor, can I go with you?” Thorliff asked as he helped harness the horses.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I do. I could do some of the plowing, and then you won’t have to.”

Ingeborg came around the team and tapped the boy’s porkpie hat, tipping it off his head. “Mange takk, son, but I won’t be doing this much longer. The men will be back soon. Besides, Monday you start school.”

“I could start late.” Thorliff looked at her, serious eyes never flinching.

More and more he looks like his father
, Ingeborg thought.
And sounds like him
. “Thank you for the offer, Thorliff, but I know how much you love school. I don’t want you to miss a moment of it.”

She hooked the final snap to the ring on the leather pad high on the horse’s rump and gathered the reins. “Why don’t you and Baptiste go fishing for a change? Fresh fish would taste mighty good for supper.”

Thorliff’s eyes lit up, the blue as intense as the sky overhead. “I’ll go get him.” He raced off, one hand clapped on top of his head holding his hat in place. Finally he snatched it off and ran faster.

Ingeborg hupped the horses and, still smiling, followed them out to the plow she’d left standing in the field.

Several hours and many furrows later, she measured the remaining distance with an avid eye.
Two more times around and this field is finished
. The thought brought a smile to her heart. While she still hadn’t gotten to breaking sod, at least these acres were ready for winter, the wheat stalks plowed under to rot and enrich the soil. She glanced up at the screech of a hawk that floated on the air currents above.

One of the horses snorted and then the other. A strange buzzing sound reached her ears, growing louder than the stomp of the hooves.

“Whoa, Bob, Belle.” But it did no good. The bees swarmed around the animals’ heads. The horses whinnied. One kicked.

The yellow jackets, roused from their subterranean home, attacked with vengeance.

In spite of her pulling on the reins, the horses bolted.

The plow bounced over the furrows.

Ingeborg flew through the air like a rag doll tossed in play and crumpled on the clod-rough ground.

P
ain, shattering pain, jerked her back to reality.

Ingeborg lay on the Dakota earth she had fought so hard to break, then save. The rich smell of it filled her nostrils. Part of it, rock hard, felt like a sharpened boulder in her back. Dare she move?

Breathing deep to clear her head sent it spinning instead and set her chest on fire.

“Mor!” The call came as from a great distance.

Answering took more life than she had at that moment. She took shallow breaths, learning from that one effort. She flexed her fingers, moved her feet. They all seemed to work, none causing any more pain than that which already coursed through her body. The bee stings had left their marks in painful welts on her arms and face.

“Ingeborg!”

How to answer. A crow cawed from the air above her.
You tell them. You obviously have more to say than I at the moment
.

When the world stopped spinning, she cautiously raised her head. The pain in her chest lessened as the air returned. So she’d had the wind knocked out of her. No one died from that.

The horses!
Oh, God, please let the horses—and the plow—be all right. Oh and me too, if you please
. She moved her arms, cautiously at first and then to pat and prod her ribs and shoulders. All seemed to be in working order. But she felt as if she was on fire.

She rolled to one side and, propping an elbow underneath herself, pushed up to a sitting position.

“Ingeborg!” Closer now came Katy’s voice.

“I . . . I’m here. I’ll be all right.”

“Ingeborg.” Katy dropped to the dirt beside her, chest heaving from the run. “The team came home without you. We . . .”

“Bob and Belle are all right then?” Ingeborg lifted her head to look at Katy.

“Bob and Belle? Oh, the horses. They are stung and have some cuts, I think, but you, it is you we . . .”

Bridget joined them, Andrew right behind her. “You are alive, oh, thank the good Lord. You are even sitting up.” Bridget clasped her hands under her chin and raised her face to the heavens. “Thank you, heavenly Father.” Her face darkened and her tone changed. “Now, let us look at you. You never should have—” She cut off her words at a signal from her daughter. “How are your legs, your back? Do you think you can stand?”

Ingeborg leaned into the comforting embrace of Katy. She wiped a strand of hair from her eyes and came away with a bloody finger. “It is nothing,” Ingeborg said. “A small cut is all.”

Katy checked the back of Ingeborg’s head. “Another one here.” She pressed a spot. “And here. But they are already done bleeding.”

“Ugh.” Ingeborg grunted when she shifted. “Please help me up, and—oh!” As she stood, a cramp low in her belly bent her in two. “O God above, no!”

Her wail set Andrew to crying. He grabbed her pants leg and sobbed as if his heart would break.

Katy knelt and gathered him to her side.

“Mor . . . Mor.” He reached for her, and now that the pain had passed, Ingeborg hugged him close.

“It’s all right, son. Your ma just took a tumble, is all. We’ll go on back to the house and see to Bob and Belle. You want to run ahead and tie them up?”

“He’s too little to lead those huge beasts. Besides, they might still be wild scared.” Bridget motioned to Katy. “You go with him, and I’ll come with Ingeborg.”

Ingeborg let herself be fussed over and didn’t resist the arm Bridget put around her waist.

“Lean on me.”

Halfway home the lower pain sliced through her again.

She lost the baby just before sunrise.

Metiz kneaded Ingeborg’s belly after Bridget, tears streaming from her eyes, carried the tiny form away. “Bring hot tea from stove,” she told Katy, who had sat holding Ingeborg’s hands through the
long night. White crescents remained on her palms from Ingeborg’s fingernails.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” Ingeborg whispered after a heavy sigh.

“Umm.”

“I wanted this baby so bad. Haakan’s own child.” Her voice weakened. “How will I tell him?” A tear trickled from her closed eyelid. “I killed his son.”

“Hush, now, that is no way to talk. Accidents happen and mayhap the good Lord wanted this baby home right away.” Bridget laid a cool cloth on Ingeborg’s forehead and wiped her face and hands with a warm cloth. “We’ll get you into a clean, dry nightgown, and after a good sleep, you will feel better.”

“Here.” Katy handed Metiz the tea. “This smells awful.”

“But help stop bleeding.” Metiz held the cup.

Ingeborg took a couple of swallows before pushing the cup away with hands too weak to make much difference.