The Children's Blizzard Page 17

  There were people in those buildings. His people, he was starting to think of them.

  Maybe they would know where she was.

  CHAPTER 25

  •••••

  RAINA WANTED TO RUN FROM the stifling room that smelled of fresh blood and decaying flesh; she tried not to look at the bucket where the tiny, blackened hand now lay. She pressed a handkerchief to her mouth and Doc Eriksen, busily sewing jagged flesh to flesh, gave her a look. In response, she stiffened her spine and transferred that handkerchief to Anette’s clammy brow. The poor thing moaned, but didn’t move or open her eyes.

  Anna Pedersen was perspiring, too, but hadn’t strayed from Doc’s side as she handed him the instruments of torture he’d required—bone saw, clamps, needles. This was hell, Raina decided. To maim a young child in order to save her life—this was hell on earth.

  How long had it been since the blizzard? Three or four days? An eternity ago. Yet there were still so many missing in the community—bodies hidden in snowdrifts, waiting silently for spring. It was actually a miracle they’d found Fredrik’s father that morning—

  That awful morning was the worst moment of Raina’s life. She was ripped apart by it all—the grief; the desire to comfort Tor and his mother; the guilt she felt at being the cause of everything; the relief, quickly doused by bitter disappointment, when she saw Gunner; the desperation when he didn’t know where Anette and Fredrik were. She grew up that morning, Raina did. Grew up, grew out of childhood and uncertainty and pretty notions and romantic foolishness. She felt herself stand taller, her muscles harden, and a bitter taste invade her mouth. It was life in all its terrible beauty and terrible tragedy—that was what she tasted that morning. She might know softness again, love, hope, happiness. But she would also never know a world where Mama and Papa—and especially Gerda—could make everything all right.

  It was this grown-up Raina who had steered the sleigh away from the Halvorsans’, Gunner mute beside her, over snow that looked so fetching now that it was the morning after; she briefly noted the beauty, the sun dogs—one on either side of the sun—showing off in the sky, one lone hawk swooping low over the ground.

  She aimed the sleigh toward the Pedersen homestead, skirting past the schoolhouse—it seemed only moments away from the Halvorsans’ and she closed her eyes, remembering the hours it had taken them to get there. If they’d had a sleigh—if he’d come for them—

  But he hadn’t. She’d done her best. She’d tried.

  Despite her earlier vow that she’d never go back to the Pedersen house, it seemed the logical path to follow; Anette had headed out that way in the storm. Raina held the horse to a walk as they searched for signs of the two children’s progress; Gunner had most likely been in too much of a hurry this morning to see anything and besides, he wouldn’t have known to look. Raina was relieved that it was too cold to carry on a conversation; their mouths and noses were muffled. Gunner seemed so strange to her now, shy, perhaps? There was something that made him not able to look her in the eye: an acknowledgment of failure, or of shame. Something had happened to him during that long, stormy night. She could only guess what, until she realized she didn’t care at all, and the realization was both a thudding end of a dream and a soaring release. She didn’t care anymore what happened to Gunner Pedersen.

  The horse picked its way slowly across the prairie, struggling through drifts up to its knees, but sometimes finding its footing easier where the snow had been swept by wind. It plodded toward the homestead south of the school, the house growing bigger and bigger, but Raina was concentrating on the land they were gliding over, searching for anything—a mitten, a shawl, a slate. She didn’t see any footprints in the snow, but that wasn’t unusual, given the sweeping winds of the night before. But then, as they grew closer to the homestead, she did see something—she saw a pail, a lunch pail, sticking out of the snow, beckoning them.

  “There!” She pointed at it, and Gunner grunted.

  “Didn’t see that this morning,” he replied, as she drew the horse up beside it.

  They were on the far side of the ravine; the log bridge, wide enough for a wagon or a sleigh, was just to the left; its surface had been tamped down a little by the runners of the sleigh when Gunner had left earlier. There was another set of hoofprints churning up the snow here, too. And boot prints. They both got out of the sleigh and approached the pail; the snow on the other side of the ravine, on the bank, was broken up; someone had been here, someone had scrambled down the steep incline.

  Raina felt her feet taking her toward the edge, her heart seizing up with fear and hope, both, with every step. She forced herself to look down.

  The small body, grey, almost blue, like his father. Curled up on his side with his eyes closed, like the child he was. His clothes in a pile next to him, he was only wearing his long johns, and they were ragged, as if he’d torn at them. She sank to her knees in the snow, and misery washed over her; the poor boy, funny little Fredrik—to have died like this, far from home.

  But where was Anette? She’d expected to find them together. She started to scan the landscape, which was when she saw Anna Pedersen flying over the bridge, waving her arms wildly.

  “I have her. I got her—Anette—I dragged her up, carried her inside, do you know where the doctor is? He was just here, Doc Eriksen, and I said we didn’t need any help but that was before I found them!”

  Anna’s hair streamed down her back, her skirt was wet, her hands red and raw; her eyes were strange, frantic.

  “It was my fault, do you see the pail? I told her to bring it home, she had the slate, too, but it broke and, oh! Oh, the boy! He covered her with his clothes, do you see? He took his own clothes off and covered Anette, that’s how I found her, and she lives. For now—she isn’t conscious, I don’t know what to do with her hand, do you know?” Anna grabbed Raina by the shoulders, desperate. “Frostbite? Do you know what to do?”

  Raina nodded. Gunner stood staring down at poor Fredrik as Anna grabbed Raina by the hand and dragged her across the bridge. Raina glanced back.

  “Bring him in, for pity’s sake!” she cried, because Gunner looked as if he’d forgotten how to move his own arms and legs; he just stood there, dumbstruck.

  Finally he raised his head, nodded, and slid down into the ravine as Anna and Raina reached the house. Anette lived! She was alive! Raina felt something loosen inside her; she was close to weeping, but she couldn’t let herself. She had to concentrate on Anette now.

  And strangely, she knew that she had an ally in the woman whose presence had been such torture. For Anna Pedersen was behaving in a manner Raina had never before seen; she was clucking about, dashing in her usual way, but this time it was in service to another. To poor Anette, the burden, the unwanted, overworked, unloved little girl.

  Anna had wrapped her up in blankets as close to the stove as she could get her without lighting her on fire; Anette’s face was the only thing visible, poking out of a quilt of stars. She had a blackish spot on her nose, and another on one cheek—frostbite, of course.

  “It’s her hand,” Anna whispered as if she was afraid to awaken Anette, even as Raina wondered if they should.

  “Has she been sleeping all this time?” Raina asked, and Anna nodded.

  “Mostly. She was crying when I found her, but she was half asleep, and she moaned when I carried her out—she weighs nothing!” Anna’s eyes were wide with astonishment, as if she was finally understanding that her beast of burden was just a little girl, after all. “But she’s been asleep since, although she is in pain, she cries some.”

  “All right,” Raina said, running out to get a pail of snow. Gingerly, she and Anna unwrapped Anette; when Raina saw the purple hand, she gasped, but packed it in snow.

  They got Anette undressed and into one of Anna’s nightgowns; Anna insisted she lie in her bed, in the downstairs bedroom. At som
e point Raina registered that her entire body was shivering, her coat and gloves thawing out, soaking her skin, but there was no chance to take them off.

  Because now she had to take Fredrik home.

  Tenderly, she wrapped blankets around his tiny frame, with the sharp, birdlike shoulder blades of childhood, the still-round cheek, the skinny legs limp. He was so small. So still—Fredrik Halvorsan, still! He’d always been a whir of activity, even seated: kicking his feet and tapping his fingers against the desk, fidgeting, twisting, looking around. Running on the playground with Anette, the two of them caught up in a perpetual game of tag that had ended in this cruel fashion—Raina had to shut her eyes to his lifeless body. What would she say to his mother—and to Tor?

  Gunner shuffled his feet, cleared his throat. “Raina,” he said in that silky, mesmerizing way, and her eyes flew open, her heart jolted with a warning. “My dear, you are exhausted. I’ll take him home, you stay here. Let me take care of you—”

  “Enough of that!” Raina cried out, wanting to pummel this man who lived while those like Peter and Fredrik Halvorsan did not. “I waited for you to save me in the schoolroom when the blizzard struck. What a fool I was, what a fool I’ve been, to think you would actually come!”

  “I—Anna—it was her. Let me explain.” Gunner dropped his voice to a whisper, looking furtive all of a sudden. “Anna—she convinced me—I could not leave her alone with my children. I had to think of my family—”

  “Oh, don’t blame your wife! You’re a man, you could have come. But she was right, you should have thought of your family in the first place. I should have, too. I won’t be so silly—so selfish—again. I don’t need you to rescue me anymore, Gunner, and I don’t think I ever really did. I’m taking Fredrik home myself. He was my responsibility.”

  “But dearest Raina, you’re—”

  “Listen to the girl, you imbecile.” Anna appeared, carrying a slop bucket from Anette’s sickroom. “Why either of us ever thought we needed you is a mystery. At least one of us has come to her senses. Go!” She shooed Raina toward her mission. “I’ll deal with him. But come back soon—and try to bring the doctor!” There was desperation in Anna’s eyes as she looked to where Anette lay, moaning and shivering.

  “I will. And—I’m sorry, Anna, for things I may have done—”

  Anna cut her off. “I have much to be sorry for myself.” They looked at each other; it was wariness between them, but respect now, too. Raina had no idea how long it would last.

  Then she left with Fredrik’s body in the sleigh. Every moment since the blizzard first struck, it seemed she’d had to do the hardest thing she’d ever done, each task escalating, dragging her further out of childhood. But this, taking Fredrik home to his mother and Tor—this was the most wrenching by far. Her hands shook as they held the reins, her throat was dry, she wondered if she would collapse beneath the weight of the misery she was bringing with her. But she managed to steer the horse on the right path, focusing on his broad flanks, the flecks of ice in his mane. He must be exhausted, too.

  As she approached the farmhouse she’d left only hours before, Tor and Sara Halvorsan came rushing to the door, desperate hope on their faces.

  “We have found them,” Raina said, climbing out of the sleigh, but holding on to the reins to steady herself before delivering the blow. “Fredrik is dead, but Anette is saved. Because of him, because of your son. He saved her life.”

  Tor buried his face in his hands, and she couldn’t look at him; instead, she watched Sara Halvorsan intently, ready to catch her if she fell. But Sara did not. She had aged overnight; deep grooves surrounded her mouth, her eyes permanently bracketed with grief. She gasped but did not falter.

  And it was anger that swept her past Raina and the sleigh, to the edge of the prairie, just past the barn—just past where her husband had fallen. She raised one hand, fisted in rage, at the sky. She screamed—one raging curse at the land.

  Slowly, she walked back toward the sleigh, and waited patiently as Tor picked up his little brother—stiffly frozen like his father had been, but so much smaller—and, with a sudden tender look on his face, gave him up to their mother. She took her younger son into her arms and carried him—as gently as she must have when he was first born—into the house.

  Tor finally looked at Raina; she steeled herself as he raised his head, but did not turn away. Whatever he would say, however he looked at her—she would take it, she would give him that relief.

  He had no tears in his eyes; he was sad—oh, so sad! Grief held him in its grip, but not so tightly that he didn’t look like himself, like who he was. No longer a schoolboy; a man forever now, just as Raina was a woman. A man who had lost too much. He stared at her with such heartbreaking sadness, sharing it with her as if it were the bread of life. And she took it as solemnly as she’d taken her first communion.

  Then the sadness was replaced with disgust, followed by the flickering flame of hatred; he looked away from her, dismissing her.

  “Please, Tor, I’m so sorry—”

  “Go, now. Leave us alone,” he said in a choked voice, his arm thrust toward her, warding her off as if she were a witch.

  She nodded, unable to think of a single thing to say that could help this broken family. So she turned to go, to find the doctor, because there was still Anette—the only person left that she could help.

  She knew that she’d never see Tor in her schoolroom again.

  * * *

  —

  NOW IN THE makeshift operating room, Doc was bandaging Anette’s stitched-up stump, warning the women of the days to come.

  “She’ll feel as if she still has her hand, at first. It’s a phantom pain. It will itch and burn. She may get a fever; these things can’t be predicted. She might yet die, of course, if the infection’s too far gone. We can’t tell if it is or isn’t, there’s nothing more I can do for her. Watch her. If she seems to do better quickly, that’s often a sign that, in fact, it’s worse than we thought, and there will be a relapse. That’s the danger time.”

  “How will she—how will she get about, without the hand?” Anna asked in a choked whisper.

  “She’ll learn. People do. She’s younger than most who go through this—although I’ve never had to amputate so many children’s limbs as I have these last couple of days.” The poor man, for a moment, let his mask of professionalism drop, and his face was scored with defeat and grief. “But children learn new things rapidly. They have wooden hands now, too; and maybe someday, she can afford one. But they’re just for show, not functional.”

  “But to get a man—not whole like this—I don’t see how?” Anna shook her head. “Who would want a woman not whole?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Doc said matter-of-factly, packing up his instruments of torture and placing them inside his worn leather satchel. “We’re not in a big city, she’s a child of this place, and there are more incomplete people on the prairie than anywhere I’ve ever seen. This place, it devours people, spits them out missing things like hands and feet. There’ll be a lot like her from now on, I’m afraid. This storm—” But he shook his head and chose not to finish his thought.

  “Rosa—what happened with her?” Raina asked as she walked him out of the stifling bedroom. Doc Eriksen looked too exhausted to stand; she offered him some coffee but he declined.

  “I think she’ll recover all right—she won’t lose her feet, just some toes. She’s one of the lucky ones.”

  “That’s a blessing, anyway.”

  “Like I said, this land chews people up and spits them out in pieces. Even children.”

  “Why—why did you come here, then?” Raina asked the question she’d never dared ask her own parents but had always longed to. Why leave what you knew, a land that was familiar, your family, your friends, problems you could predict because you’d encountered them before? Why start
over in a barren desert of cruelty? And subject your children to it, or bring new children into its prickly bosom?

  Why did men believe that land was worth the human toll it extracted?

  “You were born here?” Doc asked as he wound a muffler about his neck, groaning and flexing his stiff hands.

  “No, but I was so little, I don’t remember the old country.”

  “Then you don’t know what it was like. It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong. But there wasn’t much opportunity for a man to change the path he was set on from birth. Here, there is. And for many men, that’s enough.”

  “What about you? You were a doctor there, you’re a doctor here.”

  “And a homesteader. A piss-poor one—I’m sorry, excuse me, Raina. But I own land, and I never would have in Norway. It’s not good land, though. That’s the fact of it. I think of those articles that started showing up in the papers back home, promising us the moon and the stars. None of them were the truth, but why were we so eager to believe them? We have to answer for that ourselves. But we’re here now. Some will go back, after this. Every year, many go back, I think. But the ones that stick it out—stubborn old fools like me—”

  “Like Papa,” Raina broke in, frowning.

  “I’ve never met your papa but I imagine he is stubborn, because his daughter seems to have a streak of it.” Doc Eriksen laughed, but his rueful amusement only highlighted how weary he was, how old; his teeth were yellow, his cheeks hollow, the bags under his eyes as droopy as a hound’s. “Us stubborn men, if we stick it out, if somehow we make this earth do what it should, and not what it wants…Think of the reward. Not in riches, but in satisfaction, in dying knowing you have tamed nature itself. Of knowing your children”—and here Doc Eriksen lay a gnarled but kind hand on Raina’s shoulder—“will have more than you ever dreamed of, because of you.”