A New Day Rising Read Online Free PDF Page B

along. And that's what you plan to be until you have enough of a grubstake to get your own land. And it surely won't be in this flat stuff. - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - -
    As Ernie had said, when he hollered good and loud, a sturdy boy set out with a canoe to get him. While the current carried him some downstream, he paddled back to the road along the bank, ducking branches as he made his way toward Haakan.

    Haakan dumped his pack in the middle of the craft and climbed in the bow. With the extra weight, the current didn't carry them as far, but again the boy returned close to the riverbank. Other than a grunt in response to Haakan's hello, he said not a word until they snugged up to the floating dock.
    "That'll be two bits."
    Haakan climbed out, retrieved his pack, and after fishing them out of his pocket, he dropped the coins in the boy's palm. "Thank you."
    A grunt answered him as the boy tied the craft, prow and aft, to the cleats on the dock.
    Haakan shook his head as he shouldered his pack and strode up the muddy, rutted street. He stepped out at his usual pace only to find himself flailing the air with his arms to keep from landing in one of the ruts. Never had he seen such slippery mud. And what he didn't slide in clung to his boots till his feet felt as though they weighed fifteen pounds each.
    When he made it to the porch of the general store, he sat down to scrape the gooey black stuff off his boots. When banging them against the step failed to accomplish the feat, he picked up a stick and scraped it all away.
    "Ah, yup. That's why we call that stuff gumbo. Sticks right to anything moving. Why, I seen horses drop from carrying such weights round their hooves."
    Haakan looked up, then up some more to see the face of the man leaning against the post above him. He stood tall and thin like a tamarack with a face to match, his beard scruffy as tree limbs in the fall.
    "Mud is gumbo."
    "Ah, yup. And turns to rock when it dries out. You got to work it into submission sometime in between." A juicy glob flew past Haakan's ear and plopped in the puddle near his feet.
    Haakan shifted off to the side. Where he came from one didn't spit near -a friend.
    "You here to take up farmin'?"
    "My name is Haakan Bjorklund." Haakan rose to his feet and turned to face the leaning tree of a man. "I'm come to help out some relatives of mine, the Bjorklunds."
    "They's dead. Lost in the flu an' the blizzard more'n a year ago."
    "Ja, I know that. But I heard their widows can use some help. I come from the north woods in Minnesota."

    "Ya look kinda like a logger." The man nodded.
    Haakan waited, hoping the man would give him directions to the Bjorklund place. When none were forthcoming, he took in a deep breath. One could never fault the residents of St. Andrew for talking too much if Sam's son and the tree here were any indication. "You know where they live?"
    "Ah, yup."
    Haakan waited again. He quelled the rising impatience and rocked back on his heels. "Might you be willing to share that information with me?" He glanced to where the sun had hastened to its decline. Didn't look like he would make it to the homestead today, either.
    "'Bout half a day or more good walkin' to the southwest." Tamarack pointed in that direction, and a second glob of tobacco juice followed the first.
    "How far before I can ford the river that flows in from the west?" Haakan was already wishing he'd had Sam drop him up river, beyond the mouth of the tributary.
    "Ah, that'd be the Little Salt. It's runnin' high right now."
    Haakan stuck his hands in the front pockets of his wool pants. He paced his words to match this laconic purveyor of local information. No sense trying to hurry this. "So's the Red."
    "Ah, yup. Pretty nigh onto flood stage. Nothin' much git through till they abate some."
    "Are there any marked roads?"
    The tree looked at him as if all the sap must have run from his head. He shook his head and spit once more. "Ya foller the river till you git there."