Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

He cut a juniper branch and struck Starkodder a few blows across the hindquarters. “Git goin’!” The black ox stepped up his pace a little, and sniffed the air as if he could smell an approaching calamity.

A raw fog was enveloping the wagon from all quarters. A sharp wind, which penetrated their clothing and cut the skin like a knife edge, had come up behind them from the northeast. In the air, high above the trees, a heavy roar could be heard; it sounded like breaking waves on a distant shore. The trees bent back and forth, swaying like masts of a ship. This was a sure sign: a northeaster was breaking. But it might not last long. .

Karl Oskar looked skyward and discovered that he no longer could see the tree tops through the fog. Snow was all right, but that other word. . No, he liked no part of it; it was a terrifying word in the Territory— blizzard. One’s life was always in danger in a blizzard if one happened to be more than five minutes from a house.

They were still only halfway home but they might reach Danjel’s cottage. Another half hour — if it didn’t get too bad in the next half hour. It couldn’t come that quickly. They would make it. He urged the ox on, he yelled and hit and slapped the reins. The cart was moving forward; each time the wheels turned he took a few steps, three long steps. They had to reach shelter.

The noise from above was closer, the tree tops were bending lower, the motion of the trunks had increased. The blizzard was hitting the forest at a terrifying speed, rolling across the valley in darkening clouds, bursting furiously over hundreds of miles while the cart trudged only a quarter of a mile. It had come upon them so unbelievably fast that they could feel its impact already; the first snow-hail was whipping Karl Oskar’s cheeks.

Like a hawk after its prey, the blizzard dove down upon the cart and its people.

Within a few moments it was upon them. It began with whirling hail, biting like gravel into the skin; then after this first smarting blow, it hurled snow masses with mighty force. All at once the world around them was enveloped in snow, hurling, whirling, whipping, piercing, smarting snow. Only snow could be seen. The northeaster drove the blinding mass through the forest, swept the valley with its blizzard-broom. Without warning, they had fallen into the ambush of a great blizzard.

If the onslaught had come from the opposite direction they would have been unable to drive on. Against such a force the ox would have been unable to move; the cart would have stopped in its tracks. Now they were driven forward by the storm.

Shivering and trembling, Johan clung to his father: “Dad! Please! Help me please, Dad!”

The boy cried pitifully. Karl Oskar took the blanket which covered the sacks and wrapped it around him and put him back on top of the load. He reined in the ox for a moment — the boy had lost his wooden shoes in the snow and Karl Oskar must find them. It took some moments, for the dense snow stung his eyelids, blinding him.

The thick, snow-filled air darkened the forest; a premature dusk fell about them. Karl Oskar felt as if he were naked, so penetrating was the fierce wind. The northeaster’s icy scraper tore at his face. Johan, despite being well bundled, whimpered and cried with the painful cold. Only Starkodder, in his thick hide, had adequate protection against the blizzard.

The ox plodded along between the shafts, pulling the cart and following the clearing among the trees. The wheels turned, the cart moved, but had they not been somewhat sheltered by the forest it would surely have turned over.

On, on! They must reach Danjel’s, they must find shelter. It could not be far now — if the boy was able to stand it. . Karl Oskar walked beside the wagon and held onto it as if he were afraid of losing it. Now and again he felt for Johan to make sure he was still there; at the same time he watched his beast ahead of him. Starkodder tramped steadily through the blizzard, pushing his big-bellied body through the whirling snow masses like a slowly rolling boulder. The ox no longer seemed black — his coat was covered with snow and between the shafts he looked like a moving snowdrift with a pair of horns sticking out.

The snow lumped itself under Karl Oskar’s clogs, hung like a freezing cover over his back, stuck to the trundle wheels in big clumps. The cart rolled more slowly as the snow grew deeper, but they did move forward. God be praised for this ox; he was tough, he could get through.

And the blizzard-broom swept furiously and hurled the snow-masses over the St. Croix Valley. Karl Oskar had not seen the like of this storm in November. But a blizzard that came on so quickly usually did not last very long. It might be over in an hour, perhaps sooner. An hour, though, was too much for them; even a half hour or a quarter might be too much. So much could happen in a quarter of an hour in weather like this; indeed, a few minutes could mean life or death. They must find shelter quickly; their lives were now in danger.

The roar of the blizzard rose and fell. Sharp, crackling sounds were heard above the din: broken tree trunks that crashed in the forest. Here trees were felled without an ax, and the storm thundered and rumbled and swallowed all other sounds with its own tumult. The cart trundles, however, were still turning, the black ox still pulled his wagon, even though the snow had changed his color to shining white.

The driver’s cheeks were stiff, frostbitten; he rubbed them with snow. How long would his time of grace last? How long could the boy endure? No protection helped a body against this cold, however well bundled up. He called cheeringly to his son, who lay on the sacks like a bundle of clothes. A weak complaint was his only reply. Johan’s life was in danger, his resistance was not great. .

The storm-broom swept with its mighty strokes; the forest crackled, to right and left they could hear trees falling. Karl Oskar yelled with all his might at his beast, urging him, hitting him, but his voice was drowned in the blizzard’s hissing cauldron.

Suddenly he stopped; his clog had struck against wood. He took another step, yes, he was standing on wood. He recognized the place. They ware crossing the wooden bridge which Danjel and Jonas Petter had built over the brook Kidron. They were now in the little valley which the biblically inclined Danjel had called Kidron’s Valley.

If he remembered rightly he now had only about half a mile left to Danjel’s cabin. If the ox didn’t slow down they could make it in a quarter of an hour, surely in twenty minutes. On a clear day they could have seen the lake from here, and the house, they were that close. Within fifteen minutes they would be out of danger, sitting in the warmth of Danjel’s cottage. He called to the boy that they were almost at his uncle’s.

But the trundles turned more heavily in the drifted snow, the cart moved ever more grudgingly. Karl Oskar tied the reins around his waist and pushed the cart from behind with all his strength. This would also warm him. And the trundles kept turning, still rolling, and each turn brought them a few steps closer to the house down there at the lakeside, a few steps closer to safety.

If he hadn’t been forced to wait at the mill they would have escaped the blizzard, he thought, and would now be sitting in front of the fire at home. They were in bad luck today.

Just then, the greatest of bad luck overtook them. A heavy crashing sound cut through the roar of the blizzard somewhere close ahead of them and the cart stopped with a jerk. Karl Oskar hit the ox with the reins, urging him on. But Starkodder stood still. Karl Oskar walked up alongside the ox, feeling his flanks. Why had the beast come to a stop? He walked forward to Starkodder’s head, which the ox was shaking in annoyance; a branch hit Karl Oskar smartly across his face; he brushed the snow from his eyes and now he could see that a giant fir had fallen across the road, its roots poking heavenward. The tree had fallen close to the ox, who now stood in a thicket of branches; the beast was shaking his head, twisting and pulling it to free his horns, which had become ensnared in the fir’s branches.