Berserker Series, Book 1 Page 15

  But then it was time to serve the apple cake, and it was stuck in the Dutch oven. It would not come out except in soggy, crumbly chunks.

  She was mortified, but Knut chopped out a portion of the lumpy mess, plopped it onto his plate, and smiled so broadly at the smell of the steaming mush that they all broke into laughter.

  Hanne saw Stieg watching her laugh. She saw he was glad for her. It multiplied her happiness, somehow. Their spat was forgotten.

  “To Hanne!” Stieg said, toasting with his tin mug of coffee. “And the worst apple cake in Montana.”

  Her siblings laughed, but Owen held up his hands. “I protest!” he said. “This is good eats!”

  “It is supposed to be a cake. Not just a mush of apples,” Hanne said.

  “It’s a delicious mush, though,” Owen went on. “If you’d ever eaten on a roundup, you’d know bad cooking. Our last cook’s biscuits were so hard Daisy nearly chipped a tooth on them.”

  “That’s what Hanne’s were like when she first started cooking after our mother left,” Sissel said. She kept on talking, not realizing she had revealed a piece of their history Owen had not possessed before. Stieg’s eyes met Hanne’s for a moment.

  “Well, she’s a very good cook now,” Owen said amiably. “I can’t believe how good everything tastes, considering we’ve got only a spider and a kettle to cook with! She’s a top hand. I’d hire her on in a heartbeat.”

  Hanne could not help but smile. Owen was looking at her with an easy, open admiration. But her smile faltered as her eyes caught her sister’s expression. Sissel was staring at her jealously, thin arms crossed over her narrow chest.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT THE HEMSTADS had declared they wanted to sleep like cowboys and forgo their tents, which further solidified Owen’s good opinion of them. He wanted them to enjoy it, too. There was nothing like sleeping under the open sky.

  But during the night, clouds rolled in. It started to snow, and in the morning there were two inches of snow on their bedrolls.

  “Oh no!” Stieg joked. “It’s that blizzard you’ve been expecting!”

  Owen smiled. “I suppose we may well make it to Wolf Creek without seeing one. Hold still now, I’ll sweep you all out.”

  Owen got up and brushed off each bedroll with a pine bough. Steam rose when Knut shifted his massive body inside his bedroll. It was astounding how warm one could stay with the canvas, wool blankets, and two inches of snow as insulation, especially when sleeping fully clothed.

  While the Hemstads rose and shook out their bedding, Owen checked on the horses. He’d tethered them to a young, stout juniper pine. The horses had kicked up grass under the snow and seemed content. Owen patted Pal’s side.

  When Hanne smiled at him across the fire last night, whatever resolve Owen had to keep away from her had melted. Then he’d given her a modest compliment, and she beamed. He’d seen it. No, he’d felt it. He’d felt her happiness from across the campfire. It had settled something for him.

  They would be on the trail for at least two or three more days. Owen would try to gain Hanne’s affection.

  “I’ll go see about the traps I laid last night,” he said. “Miss Hanne, would you like to come with me?”

  “Good idea,” Stieg said. “Maybe you could teach her how to set a snare. I’m useless with knots, and Knut is too tenderhearted to hunt.”

  “We can make johnnycakes and coffee,” Knut told Hanne. He scooped fresh snow into the coffeepot and set it to the side so he could build a fire. “See?”

  “Very well,” Hanne said. She seemed to be avoiding Stieg’s eyes. “But we need to make the sugar last a few days more. Don’t use it in the batter.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Stieg said, bowing and grinning.

  “Fry them in the grease from the pork. We’ve no butter.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Stieg repeated.

  Hanne gathered her mittens from inside her bedroll.

  “I will come also,” Sissel volunteered in English.

  “Don’t be silly,” Stieg rebuked her in their native tongue. “Your leg will ache too much. And you know I’ll burn the breakfast!”

  Sissel pulled a face at this.

  Owen felt a little bit bad for her. Sometimes the youngest Hemstad seemed to be sweet on him. Sissel couldn’t think anything would come of it, though. She was just a child, and he a man grown.

  “I’ll leave Daisy with you, Sissel,” he offered. “She’d be grateful for a brush-out.”

  Owen rummaged through his saddlebag to find Daisy’s curry brush. He put Daisy in a down stay and handed the brush to Sissel, who sighed. Sissel had lost her fear of Daisy, but it was clear she was disappointed to be left behind. For that matter, so was Daisy. The dog watched with her head on her paws, resigned to a heavy brushing, as Owen led Hanne down the hill, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

  * * *

  NOW THAT OWEN had her to himself, he was stuck for topics of conversation.

  “Was it a hard journey, coming to Montana?” Owen asked.

  Hanne thought for a moment as she picked her way down the snowy incline.

  “I did not like the Great Plains. So flat. Very dull to look at. In Norway we have big mountains and great fjords cut by the sea. Do you know the fjords?”

  “I can’t say I do.”

  Why they both should smile at each other over that, it wasn’t clear to Owen. But they did.

  “Do you like it here? In Montana.”

  “Yes. This I like better. I like there to be some rocks and shrubbery.”

  “I’ve always appreciated the shrubbery,” he said, teasing just a little.

  “Is that the word?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “Though mostly we call them bushes.”

  “Bushes, I see. And I like these trees.” She patted an aspen. “We have them at home, too.”

  “I like the way their leaves flutter,” Owen agreed. “We call them aspens.”

  “And we have another one; looks similar to this, with bark like paper.”

  “Sure. Birch trees.”

  “We call them bjørketre.”

  “Bjørketre,” Owen said.

  Hanne laughed at his pronunciation.

  “Bjørketre,” he said again. She rewarded him with another giggle.

  By then they’d reached the water.

  There were some thin rafts of ice on the river, in the still places.

  “It’s getting colder,” she commented.

  “That it is,” he answered. Then he saw the figure of a rabbit, hanging from the spring snare trap he’d devised.

  “Look!” he said.

  The animal was twitching, held aloft by the strong, young sapling he had tied the noose to. The animal was alive, but he quickly dispatched it by breaking its neck.

  He showed Hanne how he’d set the leather thong on a stick that rested between two other notched sticks. He had bent a sapling over and then tied it to the stick, effectively loading the trap. The hare had passed through the loop, triggered the snare, and been snatched up into the air.

  He’d not had so much luck with two other snares he’d set, but Hanne seemed pleased about their one catch. She admired the cleverness of the snare, and Owen felt proud of it, though he could take no credit for its design. Owen retrieved the carefully notched sticks and the leather cords of the snares while Hanne cleaned and gutted the animal. She was fast at it, and neat. Neater than he would have been.

  As they walked back up the hill, there was a companionable, comfortable silence between them. Big flakes of snow had started falling. The sky was flat gray, evenly bright, and hard to read.

  “Why’d you leave Norway, anyhow?” he asked carelessly. It had been on his mind to ask so many times that it slipped out.

  Hanne stiffened.

  “You don’t have to say,” he quickly amended.

  She kept her face turned down, toward the ground. Her whole posture had changed. He hadn’t even realized that she had been walking st
raight, with her head held up, until he saw her reassume her old stance. Her shoulders were rounded now, as if she were protecting her rib cage, ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a fool. Forget I asked.”

  “It’s all right,” she said feebly.

  He’d spooked her for sure.

  “Is your uncle a nice man?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “The one we’re headed for in Wolf Creek?”

  “We’ve not met him,” Hanne said.

  The rest of the climb was silent. Owen was so mad at himself he wanted to kick a rock.

  He saw that the snow was sticking now. Hanne’s wooden-soled shoes left deep prints. They needed to get rolling. They’d have to save the rabbit for supper.

  They huffed up the hill, and then they were close to camp, but Daisy did not come to greet him. Owen could smell burned flapjacks. Stieg and Knut were sitting near the fire, hunched over the spider.

  “Where’s Daisy?” Owen asked, just as Hanne asked, “Where’s Sissel?” in Norwegian.

  Stieg stood up.

  “She’s not with you?” he said.

  * * *

  “SISSEL!” THE HEMSTADS and Owen yelled at once.

  Owen cried, “Daisy, to me!” He whistled twice, then repeated the calls.

  There was no sound from the brush.

  “They must be far away, if Daisy’s not coming,” Owen said.

  “She wanted to go with you. We sent Daisy with her. They left not five minutes after you did,” Stieg said.

  “We never saw them,” Hanne said.

  Owen quickly made a plan. Knut would stay at camp, with the fire, feeding it constantly with the most damp wood he could find. It would send up black smoke, easily visible against the light snow, which might help guide Sissel back to them.

  Hanne, Owen, and Stieg would search. Owen showed them how he wanted them to do it—each taking a third of the area in front. Hanne in the center, Owen on the left, and Stieg on the right. They would zigzag back and forth, working their way down the slope. This way they should stay within shouting distance of one another.

  Stieg nodded; he was listening to Owen, but Hanne was staring off into space. She seemed to be listening for some distant sound, her whole body tensed for it.

  “Do you hear me, Miss Hanne?” Owen said. He put a hand on her arm, and she jumped. “It won’t do for us to go getting lost searching for her. Did you understand my directions?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Stay in this area.” She made her arms in a V, showing the area Owen wanted her to cover.

  “Yes, good. We need to be able to hear each other if we can’t see each other. Okay?”

  They both nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  The three of them set out, working their way in tandem across the land.

  “Daisy!” Owen kept yelling. He whistled and whistled.

  It was terrible his dog wasn’t coming. It meant she was either more than a half mile away or hurt or worse.

  He whistled again and again.

  Owen could hear Hanne moving in the brush to his right. They were all working their way downhill.

  “Sissel!” she called. Falling snow dampened the cry. Her voice sounded panicked. “Sissel, where are you?”

  Owen tried to think. If they didn’t find her in a half hour, they’d go back to the campsite. If she wasn’t there, he’d tell the Hemstads to stay at the fire and he’d go out on horseback. With the snow coming down heavy now, the risk of the searchers getting separated was too great.

  Suddenly everything around him was still. The silence made him aware of how closely he’d been tracking Hanne.

  Then there was an explosion of movement to his right. He caught sight of Hanne, racing down the hillside. She was pumping her arms, half galloping, half falling down the incline of the hill.

  “Hanne! What is it?” he called.

  She didn’t seem to hear.

  Owen crashed through the brush after her.

  He heard it then. He didn’t stop running, but over the sound of the branches snapping as he hurtled through the bushes, and over the sound of his own gasping breaths, he heard Daisy barking.

  “Daisy!” he shouted.

  There was a scream. An enraged half-human shriek of fury and anger. Owen knew the sound—the fighting cry of a mountain lion.

  Ahead, Owen made out the dark, whirling slash of the riverbed cutting through the white of the snow. On the other side of the river, he saw Sissel, fallen, with Daisy standing in front of her, barking. A great, tan cat stalked around them.

  “Sissel!” Owen heard Stieg cry. He was coming from upstream, scurrying around the boulders and mossy rocks of the riverbed.

  Owen raised his gun to fire just as the cat leaped onto Daisy, slashing forward so fast it was but a golden blur of motion.

  The sounds of the fight were terrible. Owen cussed. He couldn’t make the shot. Not clean. He’d hit his dog. Or worse, the girl! He was too far away.

  He ran. He’d … He’d … He’d hit the beast with the barrel of the gun.

  The lion had its teeth sunk into Daisy’s neck.

  “No!” Owen cried.

  And then the cat yowled. It drew back, releasing Daisy. It had been struck by a rock, Owen realized.

  It was Hanne, another rock launched by now. She was scooping them up and running without missing a step, her skirts whipping as she raced toward the fight. She crossed the river, running on the icy rock tops as easily as if on a hard-packed road.

  Owen had never seen anyone move so fast, beast or man. He stumbled to a stop, shocked, as Hanne gathered her muscles and leaped at the lion, nearly flying parallel to the ground.

  The mountain lion screamed again and reared up with bared claws slashing the air, but the girl was faster than the cat. She was in its arms before it could strike, and as their two bodies hit the ground, Hanne bashed the cat’s head against a boulder.

  Stunned but not felled, the great cat writhed, trying to get away. It hissed and growled, scrambling, but Hanne had a jagged rock in her fist. As the cat turned with flattened ears to bite her, Hanne finished it with a final blow, a heavy, pulpy thump.

  The beast flopped down, the lithe tension gone out of it all at once. Its tail gave one final undulation.

  Owen was brought out of his daze by the sound of Sissel’s sobbing. He stumbled forward, made his feet move. He crossed the river to where Sissel sat on the riverbank. She was clutching her arm. She must have been slashed during the fight. The sleeve of her coat was in tatters.

  Stieg came to kneel at Sissel’s side, asking her questions in Norwegian and seeing to her wound. Owen went on to his dog.

  Daisy was lying on the ground, licking her left flank, which had been torn open. She whimpered as Owen came near. “Stay,” he told her. “Good girl.”

  He petted Daisy’s head, keeping his eye on Hanne, who was on all fours, disentangling herself from the body of the dead great cat.

  He’d need to bind Daisy’s wounds and carry her, but first … But first, Hanne.

  Hanne had killed a mountain lion with nothing but a rock.

  She was staring at the paw of the cat, which looked harmless now. With its claws retracted it looked like the oversize paw of a tawny kitten. Tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  “Miss Hanne,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

  She looked up at him, her pupils wide and black. Her eyes burned with an almost unnatural light. She shook her head. Her stomach growled, and she clutched at it. She mumbled something.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said low. “Please, don’t look at me so.”

  He had been staring, he realized, and his mouth was agape.

  Owen turned back to his dog, began to check her gently, to see where she’d been injured.

  There were punctures at the back of her neck where the cat had sunk in its teeth. They would need salve. The wound at her upper thigh was the worst. The muscles connect
ing the hip to the leg had been raked deeply. She needed stitches.

  He could hear Stieg getting Sissel to her feet. He was questioning her about how she’d gotten lost and what had happened. Owen didn’t need to speak Norwegian to follow the story. She’d gotten lost, and Daisy had protected her.

  To his left, Hanne was getting to her feet as well, breathing hard. Dazed. She brushed rocks and snow off her skirts.

  Owen took off his poncho and wrapped Daisy tightly in it. She was such a good dog, letting him lift her body though she was clearly in pain.

  He wanted to get them back to camp, all together, get their wounds tended to.

  He wanted to know what had just happened.

  How did a Norwegian farm girl come to such training? He glanced at her askance. Her silhouette was so slender and shapely. So feminine. Yet she was stronger than any cowboy he’d ever seen. Faster, too.

  What had he just seen? It wasn’t natural.

  That thought hit him hard. The way she’d killed that mountain lion wasn’t natural.

  Owen realized suddenly that the light was poor. It had gotten dark, as if twilight were falling on the quiet, bloody scene by the riverbanks.

  He looked into the sky, darkening rapidly in the north.

  Stieg was looking in the same direction. “I think a storm is coming,” Stieg said. He shivered. “A big one.”

  “Yes, we’re in for some weather,” Owen said. “We need to get back to camp. Right away.”

  “Come, Sissel,” Stieg said. “We must do as Owen says. Quickly.”

  Owen shouldered his gun and held Daisy tight to his chest, crashing back across the icy river. The Hemstads followed.

  Was there a cave? He thought desperately back to the terrain they had passed. Of course there were no haystacks they could burrow into—there were no farms or ranches. They’d have to make do with their tents. At least the camp was protected from the wind by the rock wall at its back.

  If they could make it up the hill.

  The sky was growing darker with every moment. The snow was gusting about them now, as if playing a game of tag, whipping the girls’ skirts this way and that.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Owen said, slowing so he could speak to them. “The blizzard will hit in full soon. We’ve got to get back to the horses!”