The Horseman
ASTA HEDSTROM
I ran to him, fell to my knees, and rolled him over. Blood marked where the filly’s front hoof had struck his forehead. Fred’s eyes opened—flittering, unfocused.
The dreadful threes are real.
Heart thumping, I gathered him up in my arms and carried him, running as fast as I could, to the house.
“HERR FUGLESTAD!” I screamed. “HERR FUGLESTAD, WAKE UP!”
As I staggered through the door cradling Fred, my senses were met by a warm burst of delicious fragrances—cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger. Papa Fuglestad had made supper for us as he promised he would.
“It’s my fault!” I blubbered and sobbed. “He kept warning me. He kept talking about the second. It’s a-all m-my f-fault. Fuh-first Gunnar, nuh-now Fred.”
I was destroying them all.
Fred’s papa seized the boy into his tattooed arms. “Take a horse and go fetch the doctor.”
Hearth flames crackled as the physician stepped away from Fred’s mattress. “I ought to write a volume on concussions of the brain as no other country doctor has had the fortune of doctoring the Fuglestad family. Perhaps I should coin a name for this disorder. Fuglestad syndrome, the condition which occurs when one sustains a second or third head injury before the first one has been fully resolved.”
“Fred,” I said, “how do you feel?”
His freckled face contorted. “Delay in my eyes.” He brought his hand in front of his face, drawing it from side to side. “Hand moves too slow.”
I turned to the doctor. “Will he be all right?”
“Of course not,” the doctor said. “He’s a Fuglestad. Even if we get him through this, he’ll find some other way to get himself killed. So many Fuglestad corpses have lain upon the furniture in my house. Never old or wrinkled. Young and dead from horses, fighting, or drinking.”
Engen’s scorn ignited my fury, but I suppressed the urge to remark on his terrible bedside manner.
Oblivious to my glowering, the doctor shook his head in dismay. “If it was any other family, I’d say God wanted them back. But we all know Fuglestads go to a much warmer realm when they pass from this Earth. Nonetheless, I took my oath. I will uphold my duty—attempting to save their bodies although their souls remain condemned.”
“I don’t care about his soul.” Now I was fuming. “I care about his brain.”
“He could have a bleed, and then perish like his mama, or he could go a few months without being able to talk, like his grandfather, or suffer from miserable headaches for the rest of his life, like your departed brother.” His gaze landed on Papa Fuglestad.
My fingernails bit into my clenched hands. “Is there anything we can do?”
Engen shook his head. “Some say you should wake them every two hours. But why bother? If I had bleeding on the brain, I’d rather die sleeping than be awoken to die.”
My chest felt like a full-sized horse now stood upon it.
The doctor went to the door, then turned. “How’s the other one? The brother?”
I choked back the lump in my throat. “In one leg, Gunnar can’t feel anything, but he can balance on it. The other leg is completely limp but he can feel a little bit in it.”
“He’s lucky to have lived this long. Most die within the first few days.”
I closed my eyes, trying to make that horrible thought disappear. “He said he did feel a burning—a burning in the leg with no feeling. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“It could be toxemia. I’ll have to see it.”
I’d make sure he’d see Gunnar on his way back to town. “Have you known anyone to ever recover from an injury to the spine?”
“The old man who lives at the Adamsen farm. Their groom, Jørgen. His spine got severed when he was a child.”
“How did he recover?”
“Only the good Lord can answer that.”
After I confirmed the doctor knew the direction to the seter, Papa Fuglestad and I ate his delicious supper. Fred, meanwhile, vomited by the side of his bed, and said something barely intelligible sounding like “I’m not hungry.”
I meant to thank Papa Fuglestad sincerely and repeatedly for the delicious food (a feast: roasted potatoes, pumpkin stew, preserved berries, fresh bread, pickled vegetables, and an ample supply of gløgg), but my heart ached for Fred and I could barely open my lips without my mouth getting trembly.
A knocking. I turned. It was Fred’s small fist rapping on his bedroom wall to get my attention. I went to him.
“Dell . . . ” The words failed to come out of Fred’s mouth. He tried again. “Dell eva one whad ha-pen.”
“You want me to postpone tomorrow’s appointments?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll tell them you’re treating a colic. They don’t have to know.”
Fred shook his head. “Don . . . don lie.”
Right. Fred refused to ever be dishonest.
I couldn’t sleep thinking about the poor child potentially dying in his room all by himself, so I settled my head on the pillow next to his and became his big sister for the rest of the evening.
Through this all, Papa Fuglestad remained at the kitchen table and when I got up in the middle of the night, I found him still there, taking cup after cup of gløgg, staring at the wall, letting his expression become more and more dismal.
Fred survived the next few nights and I left him on the promise I would ride to his appointments and inform them of our situation. I did as Fred wished, but instead of riding, I hitched his team to the big horse-carrying wagon, intending to return Gudrun’s old foundered gelding to her husband’s farm. Also, I had a plan. A Gunnar-related plan.
I found Gudrun in her barn.
“Did you ever get that motorcar running?” I asked.
She shook her head. “We’re selling the blasted thing. Soon as I can find a buyer.”
Precisely what I’d been hoping to hear. This was what Gunnar wanted, after all—a motorcar. No, the vehicle didn’t work properly, but it was as close as I would come to finding one. I even had something to pay with.
“What about a trade?” I asked. “A trade for these . . .”
I took the string off my neck and dumped my sapphires into her hand.
Her eyes widened. “Valkyrie sapphires! That’s more than fair.”
After delivering her gelding, I returned to the Strøm farm, rolled the motorcar up into the big wagon, threw in a stack of the Strøms’ motoring journals (April 1902 to June 1904) along with a few cans of petrol, and drove that huge horse-carrier to the seter.
Erlend and Solveig were making their way home when I came upon them on the road. I had to decide whether or not to be cross with him following our quarrel.
He bravely faced me with a smile, a long box under his arm. No, I couldn’t stay mad at him.
I reined Fred’s team up beside his mare. Beneath me, the crumbling seat of the horse wagon creaked and shuttered. “I thought you’d stop buying us things!”
“Oh, but this is practical,” Erlend said. “It’s the most handsome walking stick. The best they had, all gulloché enamel and a top of lapis lazuli. He can lean on it, you see. Practice standing and whatnot. What have you got in that huge rig?”
“A motorcar!”
“A motorcar?”
I nodded.
“You win.”
Yes. I did.
“The machine doesn’t work,” I explained, “but he’ll figure out a way to fix it.”
Erlend helped me wheel the vehicle into his barn and then brought Gunnar out. I showed him how to start it up and dropped the stack of journals in his lap along with my sketches. Although gløgg had sedated his demeanor, a flicker of something returned to his eyes—maybe not a gleam but some kind of thought not entirely miserable. When we fled to the house to warm ourselves, I told them about what happened with Fred and soon my chin began quivering with despair.
“So if the filly’s jumpy about the shafts around her,” Gunnar said, “you need to try a different approach. Fred should know this.”
“I’m not concerned about the filly anymore, I’m worried about Fred and bleeding on the brain.”
“Oh, if he made it this long, he’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t fully convinced, but at least Gunnar was conversing like his old self again. That alone was cause for celebration. “Did the doctor come?”
“He said my vital signs are within the normal ranges and I should be thankful God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Gunnar touched his lip, smiling a little. “I asked him if he meant my sinning is what has prolonged my life?”
“Then we shall continue to do as much sinning as possible,” Erlend said.
Gunnar leaned onto his elbow. “Is that filly still living in the arena?”
“Yes,” I said. “Attacks the other horses. Can’t be turned out in pasture.”
“You probably scoop manure for Fred in the mornings, right?”
“Yes.”
“And when you bring the wheel barrow into the arena that damn horse probably paws at it, sticks her nose in it, and tips it over a few times before you can get the job done.”
I nodded. She was a terrible nuisance.
“So instead of scooping the manure into there,” Gunnar continued, “scoop it into the sulky. After ten minutes, she’ll be all over it. In a day, you’ll be able to bring her over and put her between the shafts. Easy.”
That made a lot of sense.
“And then, after you’ve driven her around the manège and you’re ready to take her into the snow, do the same thing with the sleigh. Scoop manure into it for a few days. Let her get used to it, and so on.”
Awed, Erlend slumped back in his chair. “Hell, Fuglestad. You’re quite a horseman.”
Gunnar flailed his hand. “I was raised by that woman! Seventeen years of cleaning paddocks, rasping hooves, lunging colts, ground driving, harness breaking, saddle breaking . . . I know horses. Presently, I find myself in a state where I’d sooner swallow broken glass than hop in a sleigh pulled by that feral-demon-filly, but I know horses.”
I laughed. More from the relief of normalcy than anything. The three of us were all together again—like a proper family with all our pieces linking up once more.
Gunnar shifted my way. “One last thing . . .”
I scooted forward.
“Before you potentially destroy Mama’s sleigh, have Fournier come help you run her in the snow a few times.”
“Me?” Erlend asked.
Gunnar turned to him. “Bring your skis.”
I stopped them. “But what’s the point? We don’t have time to get her ready. The doctor says Fred needs to stay away from horses for at least a month.”
“So he’ll be back out there with her tomorrow, right?”
In the early morning darkness I got started on the chores and wheeled the sulky into the arena. Placing a barrel on the seat, I scooped manure into it as per Gunnar’s instructions. Within minutes, the magnificent filly came over to see what trouble she could cause me.
The more I tried to chase her away, the more she wanted to climb into the cart to investigate.
I heard a knocking. Immediately, I turned right, then right again, finally finding where Fred stood in the open door. He gestured for me to come over.
“Go sleep, Fred. I’ll take care of the horses.”
He swayed in the barn aisle. “I . . . I show you ’ow you drive da filly.”
“Fred, you can’t have another accident.”
“You gonna do id.”
“Me?”
“Led’s hitch her up.”
I got the surcingle and driving bridle as Fred instructed, putting them on her while Fred showed me how to pick up the long lines and ground drive her away from the sulky—the sulky she now most-desperately wanted to investigate.
When she’d gone around a few times, turned, halted, and went forward again, Fred said I could reward her by letting her go see the cart—the object of her newfound fascination. She grabbed the manure barrel in her teeth and pulled it over, snorted, pawed it, and then inspected the rest of the vehicle—her mischief adorable if not irritating. I’d have to clean that thing.
Fred guided her up to the shafts and gave her a sugar cube. I lifted and walked the cart behind her while Fred drove her on foot. When she was no longer bothered by the cart chasing her, we attached her traces to the shafts.
“You go in,” he said.
I climbed up into the seat and Fred handed me the reins. I was driving her! Every time I said ptroo, she stopped and Fred gave her a sugar cube. By noon we had a real driving pony.
Fred and I boiled some potatoes for a quick meal, the steam from the pot quenching the dryness of the small house. Filling my plate, I noticed Papa Fuglestad’s door stood open, his room empty.
“Groggery,” Fred said.
I glared at the open door and put more salt on my potatoes. “You’d think your papa would be worried about you.”
Fred told me, his voice still slurring, that his papa was probably at the groggery because of his worry. Later, Fred offered to help clean up, but I put him back to bed, remembering not to be deceived by the boy looking somewhat brighter. His brother’s fleeting ability to bring himself upright and, now, the momentary gleam in Fred’s eyes weren’t inconsistencies in their conditions, but rather the nature of them.
I trudged back up to the forge, making more shoes until my eyelids could no longer stay open. What would it be like to have my swine son, rescued at last, and living with me on my very own little farm? It would be a tiny cottage—just big enough for one person—and on the cold nights, I’d bring my pig inside and he’d sleep beside my bed with that sweet smile on his snout.
The race, though. A fjord pony against thoroughbreds. Also: the dreadful threes. Fred’s latest concussion had to be the second bad thing. That meant he’d be owed one more.
And the thoroughbreds. We’d look so silly if we lost. Then, my pig would be sent to Helge the butcher, and the Fuglestads would lose their farm forever.