Dakota Dawn Read online

  She shivered at the thought. Was that why Hans had not been back in town? Had there been a terrible blizzard? She shook her head. This new snow was only ankle deep and while snowbanks lined the street, there did not appear to be deep drifts of snow.

  Oscar puffed beside her. Nora wished she could repossess her bag, but she hated to hurt the man’s feelings. He had been so kind to her.

  “Here we are,” he said. He opened a gate on their left and walked up a path to a porch that spanned the entire front of the house. Oscar stepped forward and, after setting her bag down, thumped on the door.

  Nora felt like crawling over the porch railing and hiding down under the straw banking the sides of the house. How terrible to wake people in the middle of the night like this. And bringing a stranger, at that.

  “Don’t worry, Miss.” Oscar turned to her with a smile. It was as if he had read her mind. “The Moens, they’d skin me alive if I didn’t bring you here. You needn’t worry about your welcome. And they’ll probably know about your young man, too.” He pounded on the door again.

  Nora flinched at each thump of his fist. A light flickered and gleamed beyond the curtain-covered window.

  “I’m coming.” A deep voice sent shivers up her spine.

  Dear Lord, please make this man willing to take me in. I don’t know where else I could go this night. She banished thoughts of “no room at the inn” and swallowed hard. This certainly was not going the way Hans’s letters had promised, or like her daydreams on the long trip.

  The door swung open and a tall man wearing a dark, belted robe shielded the flame of the candle from the wind. “Come in, come in. You must be freezing out there.” He stepped back and held the candle high. “Oscar, whom have you brought us this time?”

  “Who is it, dear?” A woman’s voice floated down from the hall.

  “Hello. I’m John Moen, pastor of the Lutheran church here in Soldahl.” He shut the door behind them and extended a hand to Nora. “That voice you heard, that’s my wife, Ingeborg. She’ll join us in a minute. And you are . . . ?”

  Nora could not decide whether to shake hands with her mittens on or take them off first. She drew off the right one and extended her hand. “I’m Nora Johanson, from Bergen, Norway. I’ve come—”

  “And who is this?” A tiny, rounded woman with her blond hair in a long braid down her back, beamed up at Nora. Her smile removed any doubt of trespassing on their hospitality. “Whom did you bring us, Oscar?”

  “I’m sure they’d tell us if you’d give them a chance,” Reverend Moen said, with a twinkle in his eye and love in his voice.

  Ingeborg laughed, a merry sound that not only invited smiles from those around but made resistance impossible.

  Nora felt a sigh start down in her toes and bubble upward to bring a quiver to her bottom lip. “I . . . I’m Nora Johanson, from Bergen, Norway. My betrothed, Hans Larson, was supposed to meet me at the train, but I suffered all kinds of delays during my trip here. I wired him a message, but—”

  “But he didn’t pick it up,” Oscar finished for her. “I hoped she could stay here until we notify her young man.”

  “Ja, sure, you know that she can.”

  Nora intercepted a look between husband and wife. “Only for tonight,” she said, feeling a sharp stab of unease. “I’m sure I can find transportation out to Hans’s farm tomorrow. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  “No, it’s no trouble.” Ingeborg shot another look at her husband and reached up to unwind Nora’s long knitted scarf “You give me your coat and come on over by the fire. Oscar, would you like a cup of coffee before you start home?”

  “No, no, that’s fine. I need to get along. It’s late.” He turned to leave and paused. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m afraid so.” John studied the floor for a moment, then looked at his wife. At her nod, he continued. “You said you were engaged to Hans Larson?”

  Nora nodded. A tiny arrow of fear sneaked between her ribs, stabbing her heart.

  Ingeborg reached out to take both of Nora’s hands in hers.

  “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this,” John paused again as if fighting to get the words out. “But we buried Hans two days ago. He died of the fever.”

  Chapter 2

  “It won’t be much longer now.” Doctor Harmon looked up at Carl Detschman, the pacing father-to-be. “If’n ya can’t stand still, get on out to the other room. You men are all alike. You say you want to help and then you make matters worse.”

  “I’m sorry.” The tall man with eyes the faded blue of sun-bleached skies tore his fingers through his thatch of wheaten hair. “I just never—”

  “That’s the problem, you men never—and I never shoulda asked you to help, but Anna here insisted. I shoulda stayed by my rule—no men ever in the birthing room. Go on out and tend your cows or something.”

  “But this,” Carl waved his hand at the woman he loved, the woman who had now been in labor for a day and a night. “How much more can she stand?” Torn between leaving like the doctor said or staying to help if he could, Carl resumed his pacing.

  At a groan from his patient, the doctor stopped lecturing the man and turned back to the woman lying limp on the bed, slowly recovering from the small dose of laudanum he had administered to her.

  “All right, my dear. You’ve had a bit of a rest now, so let’s get this baby born.” The doc handed a dry towel to Carl as the younger man dropped back to the bedside to take his wife’s hand.

  “Anna, my heart, you must be strong,” Carl murmured as he wiped her brow and smoothed back the tousled hair from her white forehead. Fear nearly strangled him at the sight of her slowly opening eyes, now sunken back in her head.

  “Carl!” With the attack of another contraction, her hot hands gripped his. Her body arched off the mattress. She bit back the scream that twisted her face in agony. Even in her near-delirium, she kept quiet so she wouldn’t waken their three-year-old daughter who slept peacefully in her own room.

  “Oh, my God!” Carl said in a prayer. He knew that in spite of his great physical strength, there was nothing else he could do but pray.

  “Push! Push!” The doctor shook his head when he realized his words failed to penetrate the fog she swam in. “Prop her up on the pillows. When the next contraction begins, you yell ‘Push’ at her and give her every bit of strength you have. I can see the head—if you can just give her the strength to make it through this. You understand?”

  Carl nodded and placed his hand on his wife’s bulging belly. “Come now, Anna, my love. This is the time.” He kept up the soothing murmur even as he felt the contraction begin.

  “Now,” the doctor ordered when Anna’s body tightened again.

  “Anna! Push, now! Like you’ve never done before. Push, Anna!” Carl felt her fingernails dig into the palms of his hands. Her teeth ground into the rag the doctor had placed between her jaws. Sweat poured into her eyes and down to her ears. God, please! Help us! He was not sure if he had shouted the plea aloud or screamed it in the hollows of his mind but, at that very second, the doctor grunted his approval.

  “You can rest now, my dear.” The doctor held the slippery infant in his hands. “You have a son.”

  Carl leaned his cheek down on Anna’s forehead. “You did it, my beautiful love, you did it. You wanted a baby boy and now he is yours.” He kissed her forehead, then her cheek.

  “Come on, little one, breathe.” Doctor Harmon slapped the baby on the buttocks. “Breathe!”

  “Wha . . . what’s happening?” Anna’s voice was so weak, Carl nearly missed it.

  “Nothing, everything’s fine. You just rest now.” Carl murmured reassurances, all the while never taking his eyes from the battle waging at the end of the bed.

  The doctor turned the baby over and rubbed its back. Finally, he pinched the minute nose and blew into the baby’s mouth.

  A cough, faint but gurgling. A moment of silence and then a weak, indignant cry.
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  “Stubborn, just like his father.” Doctor Harmon’s shoulders slumped. He placed the infant on Anna’s chest and proceeded to cut the umbilical cord, all the while murmuring in a singsong voice.

  Carl was not sure if the man was comforting the baby, the mother, or him, but he did not care. He finally allowed his shoulders to relax and the tears to flow. They had made it; they had a son. He knelt by the bed and gently touched the baby’s head. He wrapped his other arm around Anna’s head.

  “Is he all right?” Her voice barely stirred the heavy air.

  “Ja. He’s fine.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. One hand crept up to lie across the tiny back. “He’s so still.”

  “Resting like you must.” Carl stroked her hair back from her forehead.

  “Not yet,” the doctor said. He picked up the slippery baby and wrapped him in a soft blanket. “Here, Carl. You put him in the cradle by the fire. We, Anna and I, have more work to do here.”

  Carl pushed himself to his feet and took his tiny son from the doctor’s hands. How could anything so small cause such problems for his mother and yet be so perfect?

  “All right, now. Let’s get this over with.” The doctor had no sooner finished saying the words when along with the afterbirth came a bright red flood that drenched the sheets.

  No matter what he did, the bleeding refused to slow. No matter how desperately Carl pleaded with her to hang on and railed at the doctor to do something, nothing helped. Within a few minutes, Anna Detschman quietly slipped away. She never woke again to cuddle the son she had wanted so much.

  Carl sat numbly by as she breathed her last. A pain—the likes of which he had never known before, clogged his throat, his chest, his very life. This could not be happening. Just yesterday, his Anna had been laughing, promising Kaaren a new baby brother. And now . . .

  “I’m so sorry, son.” The doctor leaned his head against the wall. “I don’t know what else I could have done.” He turned and, bending over, gently pulled the sheet up over Anna’s now peaceful face.

  Carl folded the sheet back down. “Just leave us alone.” His manners caught up with him. “Please.”

  “Of course.” The doctor turned toward the door, then went to the fireplace and picked up the cradle. “I’ll wait outside.” He left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Carl sat on the bed staring at his wife, his love. Only moments ago, she had been there, fighting for the life of their son, and now . . . now she was gone. Anna, the laughing center of his life . . . of their home and family. Gone, leaving him and their children behind. With a gentle finger, he stroked her hand and her pale cheek.

  “Oh, Anna. How could you leave me? What kind of a God would let you suffer so and then take you away when we need you so desperately?” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Why?” Sobs racked his body as he put his arms around her shoulders and clutched her to his chest. Together they rocked as if he could bring back her life force by sheer willpower.

  An hour—an eon later—Carl staggered from the room and collapsed into the rocking chair by the stove. A striped gray cat left the warmth of her box behind the iron stove and rubbed against his leg.

  “What will you do?” Doctor Harmon asked from the shadows of the other rocker.

  Carl dropped his hand from his eyes and peered into the shadows. “Oh, Doctor Harmon. I . . . I’m sorry. I guess I forgot you were here.” His own voice sounded like it came from a far distance.

  “I understand.” Before he spoke again, the doctor allowed the silence to lengthen. “Oh, Carl, if only I knew of ways to keep tragedies like this from happening. I want you to know how terribly sorry I am.”

  Carl nodded. “Ja. I know.”

  “I know you can hardly think now, but that baby there needs some nourishment and soon. Do you know if Anna had some bottles ready? You know, just in case . . . ah . . . of an emergency.”

  Carl lifted his head. The weight of it took all his strength. “I . . . umm . . .” His breath sighed out like the bellows of a forge. He waited as if expecting someone else to answer. “I don’t know.”

  Just then, a weak wail grabbed their attention.

  “See what I mean?” Doctor Harmon touched the cradle with his foot. “Where would the bottles be?” He spoke slowly and precisely, enunciating each syllable as if Carl were hard of hearing.

  “In the pantry, there . . . the door to your left.”

  “And the milk?”

  “Out in the well house.” Carl rose from his chair and stumbled to the outside door. He slid his feet into the boots waiting on the rug by the door and lifted his coat from the hook. After pulling a knitted stocking cap over his ears, he turned the knob on the door.

  “Don’t you need a lantern?” the doctor asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Carl placed the palm of his hand on the doorjamb and leaned his forehead against it. He felt like he was lost in the dark and someone had just blown out the only light.

  “Would you like me to get the milk?” Doctor Harmon left his chair and came to stand by the door.

  “No. No, I’ll be . . . I’ll get it.”

  The baby wailed again, louder this time.

  “You see to him, all right?” Carl dug a match out of the box and lit the lantern sitting on the shelf. Without another word, he pulled the door open and staggered out into the dark.

  Icy pellets of snow drilled his face and swirled about in the lantern’s glow. He kicked the drifted snow away from the well house door and yanked it open. Compared to the freezing wind outside, the cool house felt warm. He pulled a bucket of milk from the nearly frozen water and, after latching the door, headed back to the house.

  The doctor, with the swaddled baby in the crook of his arm, had stirred the embers of the fire and added more coal to it. “Water from the reservoir’s still warm,” he said as he looked up to greet Carl. “I think a cup of coffee would do us both good.”

  Carl blew out the lantern and hung up his jacket. Bathed in the golden glow from the kerosene lamp on the table, the doctor looked right at home. Carl filled the bottle on the table and set it in the pan of water the doctor had placed off to the side of the range.

  When the baby began to fuss, the doctor patted his back and crooned a song in rhythm with the gentle swaying of his own body. “Here,” he said, when the bottle seemed warm enough. He handed both baby and bottle to Carl and nodded toward the rocker. “Set yourself down. You both need the rest.”

  Carl settled down and pushed the nipple into the tiny, rosebud mouth. The baby pushed it out and turned his head, searching for a breast. After several more failed attempts, Carl handed the baby back to the doctor. “You try.” He flung himself out of the chair and went to stand at the frosted window.

  The baby began to cry, a soft sound that quickly grew into a wail. A voice from the back bedroom joined in the chorus. “Pa-a-a. Ma-a-a.”

  Carl shrugged his shoulders and dropped his hands in defeat. “Coming, Kaaren.” He strode down the hall. “It’s all right, liebchen.” He sat on the bed and hugged his three-year-old daughter close.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Where’s Ma?” the towheaded child sniffed and rubbed her hand across her eyes. “I want my ma.”

  Carl hugged her close. “Your ma’s busy,” he whispered. “You have a new baby brother.”

  “Ummm.” Kaaren nestled into his chest. She popped a thumb into her mouth and, after one pull, relaxed into the sleep of the innocent.

  Carl laid her back down. He could still hear the baby crying. “He refuses to suck on this thing.” The doctor waved the bottle in the lamplight. “He won’t last long if he doesn’t eat.”

  “Do you know anyone who could wet-nurse him?” asked Carl. The doctor shook his head and tried again to get the infant to take the bottle.

  Carl raked his fingers through his hair until the white-blond strands stood straight up. “What am I going to do?”

  The doctor pushed himself to his feet. “How
about harnessing up my horse while I rewarm this and try again. I’ll get to town right about sunrise and I’ll see if I can find one of the women to come out and help you. They’re always better at this than I am. Maybe Widow Nelson can help. Naah. She’s gone to Fargo to take care of her sister.”

  Carl ignored the doctor’s mutterings and dressed again for the cold outside. Lantern in hand, he opened the door and left, shutting it quickly to keep out the cold.

  The barn warmth welcomed him as he slipped in through the small door. The doctor’s old bay horse nickered a greeting. Even that simple touch brought tears to Carl’s eyes. To keep from throwing himself down on the mound of hay and letting the tears ravage him, he concentrated on each step of the job at hand.

  Pick up the harness, settle the leathers in place, buckle the straps, and lead the animal out of the stall. Back the gelding between the shafts. “Sooo now, easy, boy.” Don’t think. Don’t feel.

  Why was he so clumsy? Because of his gloves? He dashed the back of the knitted fabric across his eyes.

  Secure the shafts to the breast piece. Open the main double doors. He continued giving himself orders, as if all this was new to him. Then, he backed the horse and buggy out into the freezing wind. After retrieving his lantern and closing the door, he led the horse up to the house.

  He trudged along, knowing he would rather have stayed in the barn. In there, life was as it should be. Life, not death. But duty called him back to the house.

  Carl blocked the thought of his wife lying in their bed.

  Think of something else. Think of nothing.

  The house was silent.

  “Shhh.” The doctor laid a finger across his lips. He was dressed for the outdoors, his hat pulled down over his ears. “He’s asleep.” He pointed to the cradle by the stove. “I got him to take a bit. I’ll try to find someone for you. In the meantime, try giving him more when he wakes up. If he gets hungry enough, maybe he’ll eat.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Carl extended his hand. The older man clasped it and covered their joined hands with his other.