Sixty-One-Year-Old Norwegian Housekeeper Fights a Fanatical Frontier Sect and a $4,000 Land Sabotage Scheme to Save a Mute Motherless Boy in Winter 1880 Minnesota
The wind howled, rattling the cabin’s single pane windows. Ingrid had left an hour earlier, a shadow on horseback swallowed by the blizzard. Now, Lars and Einar were asleep upstairs, or at least lying still.
I moved quietly, barricading the front door with the heavy kitchen table. The back door got the same treatment, reinforced by a stack of firewood. Every creak of the old house made me jump.
Midnight arrived, announced by the mournful hoot of an owl somewhere in the frozen woods. The cabin groaned, straining against the icy gusts.
Then, a new sound. Crunching snow outside. Not the wind.
A heavy knock rattled the front door, making the barricaded table vibrate. “Open up, Solberg!” a voice boomed. Brother Malachi.
I froze, clutching a heavy iron poker from the hearth. Einar stirred upstairs. I held my breath, listening.
The knocking intensified, followed by a splintering sound from the door frame. “We know you’re in there, old woman! Hand over the tax receipts!” Malachi shouted, his voice laced with venom.
I heard other voices, rougher, outside. Not just Malachi. His men.
“I have no receipts!” I called back, my voice wavering slightly. “They are with the rightful owner!”
A harsh laugh, cold and sharp. “The rightful owner is the New Canaan Covenant, Astrid! Don’t be a fool. Tobias Haug is here. We have the new appraisal. $1,800 owed, property value adjusted to $1,000. We’re taking possession.”
I pressed my ear to the door, peering through a crack in the warped wood. Through the swirling snow, I could just make out three figures. Malachi, towering and dark, and next to him, a smaller, stout man, his breath pluming in the frigid air. Tobias Haug.
Haug clutched a lantern, its dim light illuminating a scroll of paper. He held it up, displaying the red wax seal. The fraudulent assessment was real.
“We will burn it to the ground, old woman,” Malachi warned, his voice lower now, more menacing. “Unless you surrender the original tax receipts. There’s no resisting the Covenant.”
My heart pounded against my ribs. Burn the homestead? With Lars and Einar inside?
“The receipts are gone!” I shouted, trying to sound defiant. “You have no proof I have them!”
Another kick shook the door. Splinters flew. The barricade was holding, but for how long?
“We know Ingrid Solberg was here!” Malachi roared, his voice thick with fury. “And we know she met with you! She sent Einar into the woodshed. Where is the boy? Where are the papers?”
My blood ran cold. He knew about Einar. He knew about Ingrid. My carefully planned escape with the documents hadn’t been as secret as I’d hoped.
I gripped the iron poker tighter, my knuckles white. Surrender the tax receipts? I didn’t even have them. Ingrid had them, riding through the blizzard to the county court. All I had was time.
I needed to stall him, to buy Ingrid more hours. But how? My mind raced, searching for anything, any small thing I could use to gain precious time against the wrath of Malachi.
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