Racing Home by Adele Dueck Read Free Book Online

closer he saw miniature flowers mingled with the grass. Further on he found scattered bones, bleached white, half buried in the sod.
    Buffalo bones! Hoping for more, Erik was startled by a pale brown bird flying out of the grass right in front of him.
    After crossing several quarters of land, Erik noticed the land changing. It fell and rose, then seemed to come to an end, just ahead, where Rolf stood without moving.
    Erik stopped beside him.
    Below lay the river – wide and swift and clear, the banks on both sides green with bushes. Erik hadn’t seen any sign of the trees Mr. Haugen had mentioned, but this was almost as good.
    “What a strange land,” said Rolf after a long moment. “So plain, yet it hides such beauty.”
    Erik agreed silently as he scrambled down the hill after Rolf. The slope was covered in bushes, most not reaching his waist. Birds watched from the brush, flying up when Rolf and Erik grew close.
    Only a few minutes after throwing his line in the river, Rolf pulled out a striped olive-green fish. He killed and cleaned it, then gathered twigs and small branches for a fire. Erik watched curiously as Rolf drove half a dozen forked twigs into the ground around his fire, then cut the cleaned fish in half. He wove the fish onto sticks and propped them on the forked twigs so they hung over the fire.
    Feeling a tug on his rod, Erik found himself wrestling with his own catch. Twice he thought he’d lose it, but after several minutes he landed a large, spotted green fish, its mouth full of pointed teeth.
    “A pike,” said Rolf with satisfaction. “We had pike in Norway. What we can’t eat now and for breakfast, we’ll smoke.”
    Erik smashed a rock onto the wriggling fish, crushing its head. He cleaned it and dropped it into the pail. Picking up his rod, he caught one more fish before the supper was cooked.
    The fish made the best meal Erik had eaten in weeks – if not forever.
    They walked home in the cool of the evening, the long shadows from the setting sun stretching ahead of them. Erik filleted the fish, putting them to soak in salted water overnight. Rolf dug around in their scraps of wood and built an improvised smokehouse over a shallow hole in the ground.
    Erik dragged a bench outside and sat on it, leaning against the sod wall. One by one, stars appeared. In the distance an animal howled.
    Erik had never seen a sky so wide.

    T hey ate fried fish for breakfast the next morning, then Erik put the rest of the fish to smoke. Afterwards he helped Rolf with the outhouse. They had wood for the seat and the frame, but used the canvas for walls and a roof.
    “I guess we can’t move again,” Erik said, handing Rolf the last section of canvas.
    Rolf looked at Erik, his eyebrows raised.
    “Nothing to cover the wagon with.”
    “That’s right,” said Rolf. His eyes rested briefly on the posts Olaf had dug into the ground. “We’re here to stay.”
    That evening Rolf filled his jacket pockets with flatbread and gjetost.
    “I’ll walk to Lars’s in the morning,” he said, “then take his horses to Hanley. It’ll be quicker.” He met Erik’s eyes, then looked away. “I’ll need you to stay here and tend to the animals.”
    Disappointed, Erik nodded, saying nothing.
    When morning came it was windy and cool. Erik watched Rolf set off across the prairie. He dropped to the ground, leaning against the house, feeling it solid and warm against his back. He watched a hawk swoop through the air, nearly touching the ground as it picked up a rodent. The oxen grazed nearby while Tess and her calf dozed by the slough. The chickens were scattered around the yard, scratching for insects.
    Flat and unfriendly, that’s what the country felt like. Flat and unfriendly and lonely. It had been lonely enough when Rolf was there. It was worse when he was gone.
    But he couldn’t sit all day. If they were going to live in this place, he’d have to make it work. They needed a garden patch for vegetables. Erik