The Settlers (21 page)

Karl Oskar had the necessary tools with him, the ax and the knife. He could do it quickly, it was still light enough for him to see. But he must hurry, it must be done within minutes. And it wouldn’t take long.

Karl Oskar had never moved as quickly as he did in the following few minutes. He bundled up Johan in the shawl and the blanket and laid him in the snow under the cart. Then he led the ox a few paces away, to the side of the road. Starkodder followed him trustingly, stopping when the man stopped. They walked with the wind, yet were almost blown over by its force. In the lee of a great tree trunk Karl Oskar halted, gathered the reins, and tied the right foreleg of the ox to his left hind leg, down low, near the hoof. The ox stood still, patient, accommodating. Karl Oskar picked up his ax and stationed himself near the head of the beast.

Starkodder stumbled toward his owner, sniffing his master’s coat as if seeking fodder hidden under it. Karl Oskar raised his arm with the ax but let it drop again; the ox’s mouth touched his sleeve, his tongue licked it, as if expressing his devotion. The animal’s behavior caused the master to stay his arm momentarily, but he hesitated only a few seconds. He remembered the life he was trying to save; there was no time to lose.

Grasping the handle firmly with both hands, he raised the ax above his head, aimed at the little white star between the ox’s horns, and let the ax hammer fall with a murderous blow on the beast’s forehead.

With a piercing bellow, the ox staggered to his knees, his head against the ground. The butcher hit again in the same spot. Now the ox was down; from his throat came a bellow of agony which for a few moments drowned the blizzard’s roar. With the third blow the bellowing died to a faint sound. The ox’s head was in the snow but his body still rested on his hind legs; Karl Oskar jerked the reins with which he had fastened the animal’s legs and the beast toppled over. The heavy body rolled on its right side, but the legs still kicked in the air.

Karl Oskar alone had never butchered an animal so big, but with a firm hand, he pushed the knife into the neck all the way to the handle. As he pulled it out, he saw that he had hit the right spot; blood pumped out in a heavy stream as if he had pulled the plug from the bung hole of a barrel. The snow around the ox’s head was stained dark red, fumes rose from the spurting liquid, and Karl Oskar warmed his frozen hands in the steaming blood from the ox. He stood bent over the animal as long as the red stream flowed; soon it trickled in drops. The black ox still kicked, but these motions soon weakened into feeble jerks.

Its blood drained, its life gone, the butchered animal lay still. Karl Oskar picked up the reins again and managed, with some difficulty, to turn the heavy carcass over on its back, to facilitate removing the entrails. With the ax he quickly severed the ribs, put the ax handle into the hole and widened it enough to get his hands through. Then, with his knife, he opened the carcass from the chest to the tail and cut loose the entrails—heart, lungs, kidneys, spleen, liver, bladder. A fetid odor rose in his face. His fingers moved cautiously around the ox’s big stomach, lest he puncture it with the knife. Below it he groped for the intestines, entwined like a coil of snakes, the pale light from the snow shining into their nest.

The butcher wiped the icicles from his eyes; the blood from his hands smeared his face. All entrails must be removed from the carcass to make sufficient room. He cut out organ after organ and threw them in the snow. Most difficult to handle was the large stomach sac, which flowed in all directions like an immense lump of dough, steam issuing from it as if it were a boiling cauldron. At last the carcass was clean, and round about it lay the entrails strewn in the snow.

Karl Oskar had prepared a warm, safe room for his son.

He pulled the bundled-up Johan from under the cart, carried him to the ox, and placed him inside the carcass. There was plenty of room in there for the child, and the animal’s warmth would start the blood circulating in the boy’s frozen limbs.

Then the father folded the edge of the hide over the child, who already was reviving; he felt the thick fur with his hand: “At home, Dad?”

“Yes, go to sleep again, boy . . .”

With the ox hide over him Johan thought he was at home in bed under their thick comforter; he fell asleep again, contentedly. The father wrapped the shawl around him as best he could. Then with the reins he tied the carcass together, leaving a small air hole above the child’s mouth. He stood for a moment, listening to his son’s breathing. But Johan was already sound asleep, as comfortable inside the carcass as if he had been sleeping in his own bed.

Karl Oskar’s arms and legs were still shaking, no longer from the cold, but from suspense and the effort of butchering. His hands and clothing were covered with blood and entrail slime, but it was done and he had succeeded; his last effort to fight on. He had found shelter for Johan in the ox’s cavity. He would last a good while there. And now with the boy safe, Karl Oskar could seek shelter and aid.

He didn’t feel the cold now; the butchering had warmed him. And perhaps the storm was going down a little. The black clouds seemed a little lighter and higher above the tree tops. Heavy gusts of wind still shook the trees, but not so persistently. Perhaps the blizzard would die down as suddenly as it had come on. Trees were still falling, however, and it was hard to walk upright.

It was barely half a mile to Danjel’s—could he make it? Of course he could, even if he had to crawl on his hands and knees. Even though it was almost dark, he remembered the trees they had blazed for the road, and the wind would be at his back.

Karl Oskar picked up his ax and began to cut his way through the huge fir which had blocked their progress. He hacked at it furiously, grateful that he still had strength for one more effort against the elements. He would find his way through the blizzard, his bloody hands would knock on Danjel’s door . . .

—6—

Yesterday, when she had seen the sun’s blood-red globe, she knew it boded a storm. Why hadn’t she remembered that when Karl Oskar left? Why hadn’t she warned him?

Kristina asked herself these questions when the blizzard broke in the late afternoon, imprisoning her and the children in the cabin.

The day was followed by the longest, most wakeful night of her life. She clung to a single
if: if
her husband had been warned about the impending blizzard, then he and Johan might have remained at Taylors Falls. Otherwise they now lay frozen to death somewhere in the forest.

Life could be snuffed out quickly in a blizzard. Last winter a settler’s wife in Marine had gone out to feed her chickens in a blizzard; she had never come back. After the storm was over she had been found, twenty paces from her door. An ox cart, overtaken by such a storm, could stall in a drift. The snow would cover ox, cart, and driver, who would remain hidden until the first thaw of spring. The cold would have preserved their bodies: there would sit the driver, still upright on his load, the reins in his hands, his mouth open as if he were urging on the ox to greater speed. And the ox in the shafts, the yoke on his neck, his horns in the air, would have his knees bent for the next step. So the cart and its occupants would remain immobile under the snow mantle all winter long, as if they had been driving through the entire winter. In March the death cart would be unveiled by the sun.

All night long, Kristina could see Karl Oskar, with Johan on the load behind him, driving in the same spot, driving the road to eternity.

In the evening, the blizzard had died down. After a night of agony, which denied her merciful sleep for a single moment, dawn finally came. And in the morning she beheld through the window a strange procession approaching their house: Uncle Danjel came, driving his ox team, and their own black ox, which yesterday had been yoked to the cart when Karl Oskar had left for the mill, now lay on Danjel’s wagon. The animals limbs dangled lifeless, his large head with the beautiful horns hung over the side of the wagon. Danjel walked beside it, Karl Oskar came behind, carrying a shapeless bundle. Kristina stepped back, fumbling for something to hold onto. She recognized the shawl she had tucked around Johan yesterday morning. Her lips were tightly pressed together to hold back her instinctive cry. With trembling knees she walked to the door and opened it.

Karl Oskar stepped over the threshold, and walked slowly into the room. Silently he laid his burden on the bed nearest the door.

Kristina glimpsed the little head in the shawl. Her voice failed her, and she could barely whisper, “Is he dead?”

Relieved of his burden, Karl Oskar straightened up.

“The boy is all right.”

“But how . . . ? The blizzard . . . ?”

“It let up. But we decided to stay over with Danjel.”

“Yesterday afternoon . . . when it began . . . last night . . . I thought . . . I . . .”

Again her voice failed her; she could not go on.

Karl Oskar had carefully washed away every sign of blood from his face, hands, and clothing, so that his wife wouldn’t be frightened, but now, as he unbundled the shawl, he discovered a large, liver-red spot on Johan’s neck, clinging like a fat leech.

Kristina cried out.

Quickly he said, “Don’t be afraid! It’s only ox blood!”

“. . . the ox . . . ?”

“Had to kill him to save the boy . . .”

It was not easy to explain why he had butchered his fine ox. Now that the storm was over and all was still again, he couldn’t quite understand it himself.

“I put the boy in the ox’s stomach while I went to Danjel’s. When the storm died down, we went back and found him still asleep. It saved his life.”

And so Karl Oskar was again without a beast of burden.

He kept the hide of the black ox to use for shoe leather, but sold the meat to German Fischer’s Inn at Taylors Falls for ten dollars, the sum he still owed for the animal. Kristina thought they should have kept some of the meat, but Karl Oskar said he would be unable to swallow a single bite of it. After having had to kill Starkodder, he felt the animal had assumed a sacrificial significance: not only had the ox given them his strength in life, he had given his life to save their oldest son.

VII

ULRIKA IN HER GLORY

—1—

One Saturday afternoon, having fired the bake-oven and raked out the embers, Kristina was just ready to put in the bread when she heard someone stamp off the snow outside the door; Ulrika, warmly dressed, stepped across the threshold.

Sledding was good now along the timber roads, and Ulrika had ridden in a sleigh most of the way from Stillwater in the company of her husband, who had been called to preach in St. Paul on Sunday.

“I took the opportunity to visit you!”

Kristina had been standing in front of the hot oven, the rake and the ash broom in her hands; she forgot to dust the soot from the hand she offered to the caller, so glad was she to see Ulrika. She enjoyed no visitor more. Although Kristina had neighbors and had met the settlers’ wives, it was difficult for her to feel intimate with them. Perhaps it was the long isolation that had made her feel shy and awkward in company, but she never quite knew how to act with new people; she was afraid she might appear backward and foolish to them. In order to become friends with the neighbors, great efforts were demanded of her, and she rarely felt up to such efforts.

But when Ulrika came to visit her, however inconveniently, all guards were down and all concerns forgotten, even today—besides the baking, Lill-Marta was in bed with a cold and a throat irritation. Kristina quickly put a coffeepot over the fire. But the rising bread must be put in while the oven was hot, so as soon as Ulrika had removed her coat and shawl she took the bread ladle from Kristina’s hands to help her. She stood directly in front of the oven opening even though Kristina warned her she might get soot on her fine clothing.

Ulrika was in the last month of her pregnancy, and had grown ample around the waist and become clumsy in her motions. But she handled the ladle firmly and within a short time she had all the bread in the oven.

It had been an unlucky day for the children, Kristina said. Dan had crept too near the fire and burned himself on the forehead and she had had to melt sheep fat and put it on the burn. Barely had she attended to the little one when Harald, playing with a piece of firewood, had got a splinter under his fingernail and cried like a stuck pig before she could get it out. And the girl in bed was forever complaining of her sore throat and needed attention. All these things had more or less upset her household this morning.

But despite her problems, Kristina soon had the coffee on the table and could sit down with her visitor for a rest.

“You’re overloaded with work,” said Ulrika sympathetically. “American women have it much easier. The men scrub the floors and wash the dishes for their wives.”

Kristina said, “When Karl Oskar comes in from work in the evening he’s so tired out that I wouldn’t dream of asking him to wash up after supper.”

“If he were an American man he would offer to do it,” insisted Ulrika. “He is still too Swedish!”

Swedish men were ashamed to do women’s chores, she continued. Think of how it was back home. After eating, the menfolk just lolled about, resting and breaking wind, while the wives cleaned up and waited on those lazybodies. Weekdays and Sundays alike. And many women in Sweden had to do the men’s chores as well—carry in water and wood, thresh, plow, load dung. They were hardly better off than the animals. If they only knew how much easier their lives would be as wives to American men, the whole Kingdom of Sweden would be empty of women in a few weeks.

Kristina noticed how big Ulrika had grown since their last meeting. “You too will soon have more to do, I can see!”

“Sure enough!” Ulrika felt her enormous belly. “My priest was made in March. I’ll bear him before Christmas, I guess.”

She had had such horrible vomitings during this pregnancy, she was sure it would be a boy. A woman puked more when she carried a male child than she would carrying one of her own sex. This was only natural.