Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

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.

— 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.