Wild Wind Westward Read online

  “No,” he said.

  Johanson and the deputies were already battering at the door. Eric took up the great Viking’s axe.

  “Come out or you’re a dead man,” Johanson was shouting, over the pounding on the door. The deputies were battering away with thick lengths of firewood.

  “Come in and you’re the same,” Eric yelled back, lifting the axe.

  Kristin, once again, was about to caution restraint, but it was too late. The bolt, assaulted beyond endurance, shot into splinters. The door flew open and Johanson dived through it, pistol uplifted to fire.

  Eric Starbane, past and future poised upon that moment, brought down the great axe, parting Johanson’s flaxen hair, his skull, his brain, parting his nose, palate, jaw, parting his neck and shoulders, chest and heart. Johanson’s right eye rolled up, his left eye rolled down. He crashed down onto the floor, two bodies almost, divided to his pelvis. And blood was everywhere.

  “My God!” exclaimed one of the deputies in horror, as the others gathered in the doorway, observing for one unspeakable moment the fate of their superior. “Oh, my God!”

  Eric lifted the axe once more.

  V

  Kristin’s wedding day, and a horn sounded in the mountains. She held her breath, and waited. She did not hear its mournful blast a second time. And so she breathed again.

  Because they were hunting for Eric in the mountains. Not only the deputies were hunting, those survivors of hapless Johanson, but also most of the lawmen of Oppland County, and a goodly number of the Lesja men as well. Eric was a criminal now, with a price upon his head.

  Kristin could not and would never forget the moments after Eric had struck down Johanson. The deputies, after taking a terrified look at their superior’s axed and bloody body, seeing Eric advancing upon them with the same Viking weapon he had used to kill Johanson, now turned and fled to get help. Clearly the young man had gone berserk; vast numbers would be required to subdue him.

  “Eric!” Kristin had screamed, shrinking from the split and bloody carcass on the floor.

  He watched the deputies flee, and turned to her, throwing the axe into the corner.

  “God, what have I done?”

  “He had a weapon. He would have killed you. Killed us both.”

  Eric was thinking furiously. What Kristin said was true. He had no doubt of it. Johanson had been sent by the Rolfsons, sent first to the Starbane house, to serve notice upon the only man in Lesja willing to fight for his rights against the legal machinery arrayed against the town. Eric had fought as a Viking would have, but the Viking way was dead now, and modern times were different. He had no illusions about what he had done, or how he would be regarded: he was a criminal now. To be captured would mean death.

  Immediately he began shoving blankets, clothing, foodstuffs into a canvas rucksack.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving.” He put a hunting knife, a second pair of boots, and a woolen scarf into the sack. Kristin had knitted him the scarf as a Christmas present during the preceding winter.

  “I will come, too.”

  He stopped packing and looked at her. “I can do you no good. If they catch me, they will kill me. If you are with me, they will kill you, too.”

  “I don’t care,” she vowed, in bitter, outraged defiance. “I don’t care, I…”

  Eric came to her and put his arms on her shoulders. He wanted her to come with all his heart. But it would not work.

  “How could you?” he asked. “I can promise you nothing. No one would believe that I acted in self-defense. They will hunt us down in the mountains as they hunt down animals. Perhaps I will get back someday. Our life as we knew it is over now. I can promise you nothing,” he said again.

  She gave him a long level look. “I never asked for anything, either,” she said. “Except to be yours. Remember the water from which we drank each other’s image? I go where you go.”

  He saw that she meant it, and would not be dissuaded.

  “All right,” was all he said.

  Together, they packed another rucksack, tossing into it anything that might conceivably be of use: another blanket, a half-loaf of black bread, a pair of woolen socks, mittens, three apples. Neither looked at the bleeding body on the ancient floor of the Starbane house. That house had seen ages pass, had seen another world rise and fall. When Columbus set forth on the Atlantic, the Starbane house was already two centuries old. Generations of toddling blond children had played upon it, savoring cool stone in the summer, and in winter basking before the fire. Generations of love had arisen, been made, been spent in warm beds beneath the roofbeams, and, as in all lives, hurt and anguish had found their way within these walls, to be suffered and endured, vanquished or solaced, or both. Perhaps it was merciful that time was so short, that Eric had no moments to consider either the enormity of his leaving, or the long tide of centuries upon which he was now forced to turn his back.

  “I will be like them now,” he said to Kristin bitterly, as they were about to go out the door. “I will be like the Rolfsons and their kind, and if we survive in the mountains and make our escape, I will look upon the world as they do, and bend it to my will.”

  In spite of their haste, she stopped him. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think that.”

  He looked about his ancestral home for one last time.

  “I will get even with them if it is the last thing I do,” he swore.

  “Eric, no. I will be with you. I will help you in all things. But you must stay as you are.” Her voice was full of sorrow, but in her tone also there was courage. “I will love you whatever,” she went on, as he looked down into her dark, compelling eyes, “but I will never forget what you were when I loved you first, and that is the way I will always love you best.”

  He took the time to kiss her, but in the new, hard world there was no time for gentle things, and the kiss cost all. Had they run from the house even seconds earlier, they would have avoided the first hunters, pathetic villagers eager for the bounty money Rolfson had instinctively promised upon learning from the deputies what had befallen Johanson. In truth, Rolfson had been pleased at Johanson’s death. It meant that, as a killer, Eric would never take the forgery matter to Oslo. It also meant that, by holding open the offer of bounty money for Eric’s capture, Rolfson would have additional leverage over the villagers.

  But Eric and Kristin took time to kiss. For such indulgence, great woe.

  Three of the most disreputable men in the village, having stolen along the pasture wall, clomped excitedly around the corner of the house and saw the young couple there.

  “Get him!” yelled Hønefoss the barrelmaker to his cohorts, barman Larsen and stablehand Teversen. “You fellows get him and I’ll subdue the girl.”

  Under normal conditions Eric would have been more than the three of them could handle, but these were not normal conditions. Surprised by the men, Eric thought first of Kristin, who could run fleetly but not as fast as himself. So he took valuable time to drop Hønefoss with a ramming right to the chin. The barrelmaker’s jaw crumpled like an empty paper box beneath a lead weight. Eric had just turned to deal with Larsen and Teversen when Arne Vendahl’s voice could be heard in the nearby woods.

  “Kristin! Kristin! You obey me now! The fate of our family rests with you!”

  Arne and another contingent of men came swarming up out of the woods; the deputies were galloping up the drive, on fast horses. Eric tripped the flabby bartender, Larsen, and sent him sprawling, incapacitated Teversen with an elbow to the gut “Run!” he yelled to Kristin. He grabbed his rucksack and they dashed toward the back of the house. A stream ran through the yard, with large stones upon which one might step to cross. Eric and Kristin started across, to the rising pine forest beyond. In it, and up into the blue mountains beyond, were places to hide until night fell, and in the night they could move on.

  Arne Vendahl, the other men, the deputies, were rounding the corner of the stone house now, yelling
jumbled commands to stop, halt, give up.

  Kristin slipped on a wet fording stone, fell into the water, and cried out in pain. “My leg!” she screamed, as the freezing water of the mountain stream soaked her to the skin. “My leg! It’s broken!”

  “Here. It can’t be. I’ll carry you.”

  “No. Go. You must.”

  The pursuers were rushing toward them now, closing the gap.

  “You must go,” said Kristin. “If you stay, we’re both lost.”

  Eric turned and ran, splashing toward the opposite shore. One of the deputies fired, then another. Eric ran zigzag into the pines. The deputy leading the pursuit pounded into the stream, pistol raised. Kristin, unable to rise from the water because of her broken leg, nonetheless had a good arm. Taking a smooth rock from the bed of the creek, she took aim and let fly, sending the man sprawling down into the water with her.

  The delay she caused was minimal, but sufficient. First pursuit of Eric faltered in confusion. He made it into the mountains. Kristin was taken back to her father’s house, to have her leg set by old Dr. Sarpsborg from Sonndalsøra, to listen to lectures from her father. By the time those twin agonies had been endured, the hunting horns were sounding in the mountains, and Gustav Rolfson was standing by her bedside.

  “What do the horns mean?” she asked.

  “It is the newly formed search party out after that…Gunnarson,” said her father. “One blast of the horn reveals a searcher’s position in relation to his fellows.”

  “And two blasts?” she asked.

  “Means they have found the killer.”

  The killer. Eric.

  “And what is he doing here?” she asked, looking up at Rolfson. His eyes glittered down at her from the sides of his wolflike nose. His lips were puffy. The slash of the riding whip was deep. It would heal but it would never disappear.

  “In Oslo, Kristin, you will have everything…” Arne began.

  “Get out of here,” Gustav ordered. “Kristin,” he said, when the father had bowed and scraped his way out of this closet of a bedroom, “it has been decided by our fathers that we marry immediately.”

  “Never.”

  Rolfson was undeterred. He already knew that he would have his way. “Your father may keep his land. Your family will not be displaced, nor will anyone starve. I will see that your mother is afforded a good doctor.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Why? I find you contemptible. Ugly, too.”

  Gustav flared, but held his anger in check. “I find you extraordinarily beautiful,” he explained. “I admire that for what it is, and also because you will be of use to me. Just as I will be of use to you, and your family.”

  “It sounds much akin to a business transaction.”

  “If you like.”

  “Then what is my measure? Where is my advantage?”

  “You will live in comfort and splendor and ease. We will travel to England and America, where my father and I plan ventures. You will bear my children.” He said this last as if it were the crowning jewel to which she might aspire.

  Never, Kristin thought. In the far mountains the horns Were sounding again. Single blasts. Night was falling. If Eric could find shelter for the night, and get away in the morning…

  “I want one thing more, then.”

  “What is it?”

  “That you and your father call off the hunt for Eric Starbane.”

  Gustav gave her his glittering grin, but shook his head.

  “He is a killer. The law must have him. The matter is out of my hands.”

  “It was self-defense!” Kristin avowed fervently. “Eric had no choice but to—”

  “Hah! And how many people saw him grab me by the throat just yesterday? Not to mention the vicious cut he gave me! Oh, he is violent by nature, and everyone knows it. Self-defense, indeed! And how much will your word be worth in a court of law, eh? You, the known consort of the rogue!” Kristin looked back at his cold blue eyes, forcing herself to appear contained, but calculating furiously. No, Gustav was determined. He would not call off the hunt. And, with all those men looking for Eric, at least half the male population of Lesja in their number, men familiar with the mountains and the mountain caves, Eric could never break out of Oppland County and make his way to the sea. Rolfson had her, had Eric, between the horns of another of his cleverly fashioned dilemmas. She saw a way out, not for herself, but for Eric.

  “All right,” she said, “I agree. I will marry you. But it must be tomorrow. You will get me to the stavkirche somehow, on a cart if need be. And, if I am to leave my village for Oslo, I want a traditional wedding, with all of the townspeople there for the ceremony and the celebration afterwards.”

  Rolfson was so stunned by her easy acceptance—he had estimated a long siege—that he immediately agreed, and gave the necessary instructions, to a shocked Pringsheim and the others. On the morning of Kristin’s wedding day one or two lone horns sounded in the hills, random hunters looking for Eric still. The rest of the men had come back down into the village, to enjoy the free food and drink offered by old Adolphus Rolfson to glorify the marriage of the son in whom he was well pleased.

  Arne was also pleased with his daughter, and could not understand, as he lugged a mattress out to the haywagon, then carried her out and placed her upon it for the trip to the stavkirche, why she was not happy, too.

  “You will have everything,” he said, over and over. “Wealth, position, power. You will be married to a Rolfson!”

  Kristin had a full, lovely mouth, but when she was determined about something, her lips set firmly, and there was no doubt about the strength of her will. Her lips set in just that way now, and she said, “Gustav Rolfson will believe himself married to me, but I was married already at Sonnendahl Fjord, and my heart will always know it.”

  Old Arne had no idea what she was talking about. Besides, what did it matter? He climbed up onto the wagon, slapped the broad rump of the horse with the ends of leather reins, and started toward the church.

  In the high mountains a hunting horn sounded again, but only once.

  From the shadow of the cave in which he had concealed himself, a cave well known to him from years of hunting elk in these high hills, Eric watched the men who were hunting him. The entrance to the cave was deceptive, well hidden, but the searchers were combing the mountains thoroughly, in vast numbers, and Eric knew it was only a matter of time before one or another of them discovered or stumbled upon or even fell into his hiding place. Thus it was, with considerable bewilderment, that he witnessed the apparent withdrawal of his pursuers. Had they given up? He did not think so. A man charged with murder was not so quickly forgotten. Was the withdrawal some form of ruse? That was more likely. He waited in the cave, watching the men—so many of whom he knew, had worked with, had grown up with—as they regrouped on the slope below the place where he lay waiting, and then set off down the steep trail that led to the valley and the village.

  What was happening?

  He waited until he could no longer hear the men or the blasts of the hunting horn, and cautiously edged out of the cave and into morning sunlight. He looked about. Sunlight glimmered on the snowcapped peaks of distant mountains, and green, sloping pastures, pristine and lovely, swept from the timberline to the shepherds’ huts in high regions. The sky was clear and royal blue.

  Eric did not know what to think. He heard again the far blast of a horn, and then another sound: the bell in the old stavkirche, chiming and chiming again. What were the villagers being summoned for this time? After ascertaining that no pursuers lay in wait for him in the area surrounding the cave, he made his careful way behind trees and shrubs to the crest of the hill overlooking Lesja, from which he could see the church and the village.

  There are certain moments in life which, for each person, are indelible. Some of these moments are inherently similar, though they differ from person to person because each person is different: first love, marriage, the death of a dear one. These events occur for
almost everyone. Yet there exists, too, another category of special moments, singular and recondite, which mark the souls of those who experience them, which mark their souls with joy or sorrow. When Eric reached the crest of the hill and looked down at the crowd of people entering the little church, he suffered one such ineffable moment, and his heart, his very life, were stricken. Horrified and disbelieving, he saw Kristin, dressed in a bridal gown, being carried into the vestibule. He could not but think that she was being forced into this union, that old Arne’s greedy dream was finally being realized.

  Kristin’s father half-pushed, half-carried her into the church. With her injured leg she could not have fled, however much she wanted to. Rolfsons, father and son, entered the stavkirche then, too, but before they disappeared inside, Gustav looked up toward the mountains, almost as if he knew where Eric was hiding. He looked long up toward the mountains, as if he saw Eric, and it was as if he were saying, “Farewell, Gunnarson, you nameless, landless beggar. I may have your scar upon my face, and it may remain forever, but do not be conceited, do not be so proud. Because every time I gaze into a mirror, that scar will remind me that I also possess your woman and your ancestral home.”

  Then the church doors were closed and, a moment later, resonant chords from the ancient organ rose upon the pure blue mountain air, followed by the swelling voices of Pastor Pringsheim’s choir.

  What was it that Kristin had said, at the glistening pool high above Sonnendahl Fjord? “Take me. Drink me. I am yours. Anywhere and for all time. No matter what happens or how things appear.”

  Eric looked down at the church, heard the organ and the choir, and felt as if his heart would break. He could imagine his beautiful Kristin in every way, in every place and pose. He could imagine her in his bed, naked with him, beneath him or upon him, and he could picture her in the mountains, in the forests, at the stream or in the house. But he could not bring himself to shape her image in the place where she now stood: before the altar in a white wedding gown, with scar-faced, wolf-nosed Gustav Rolfson standing triumphantly beside her, waiting for the words that would make her his forever.