Thor nudged his brother.
Haakon sighed and turned to her. “He asked if you wanted to pick blackberries with us today.” He looked at Thor as if he’d lost his mind.
Thor ignored that, giving his attention instead to Aven. A smile brightened her face, and with his heart pulsing in his ears, he waited to see what she’d say to Haakon.
“I’d love to.”
Thor nodded, and when his focus lifted from her mouth to her eyes, he realized that she’d spoken not to Haakon, but to him.
Settled on the wagon seat, Aven straightened the skirt of her mourning dress. Beside her, Haakon drove in easy silence. She reached up to hold Dorothe’s wide-brimmed straw hat into place, grateful for the shade on her Irish skin, and glanced back to where Jorgan and Thor sat in the bed of the wagon, legs stretched out, boots crossed. Thor had an arm draped over the sideboard and seemed more interested in where they had been than where they were going. A rifle sat beside him, his hand resting atop it.
From the east came the smoke of a distant cook fire and from the south, the hum of bees in a thicket. The wagon ambled down the road, dipping through a low creek. When it turned at the nearest bend, Aven glimpsed a glittering pond where a dock cut into the water. Beyond that, fields of dried grasses stood still in the heat.
The dog plodded along beside the wagon, her brown head glistened in the sun. Aven had learned that her short fur was as silky as it looked. Jorgan had introduced her as Grete. While the dog often followed anyone around the farmyard, the hound seemed to favor Haakon best. Always there underfoot as he went about his day, or laying near whenever he was still.
Haakon broke the silence, asking Aven if she knew where they were.
She smiled. “Somewhere in Virginia.”
Haakon chuckled. “Botetourt County. Not too far out of Eagle Rock—one of the finest little towns there is. There’s a checker tournament every other Friday night at the old schoolhouse. And you just missed the monthly quiltin’ bee.” He winked, then shifted the reins to a single hand. “And, of course, you’re on our land. Well, it’s sort of our land.”
“We’re still on your farm?” They’d driven for some time now.
“Yep. It’s just over three hundred acres. ’Bout a third of it’s orchards, then there’s some cabins to the east. Most of ’em are pretty run-down, but there’s one near the west side of the farm that we been fixin’ up. Just a stone’s throw from the house, really. We’ll show it to you sometime.”
He pointed in the other direction. “Over this way is where Cora and her family stay in a cabin that her husband made real nice before he passed.” Haakon pointed in another direction. “Up that way is the Sorrel farm. The men who were here the other night.”
Aven shielded her eyes to look that way, but before she could focus on the distant hills and woodlands, Haakon pointed in a new direction.
“Some other neighbors around too, but we get along real peaceable. There’s a couple of ponds here and there. Other than that, just fields and forest.” He leaned a touch nearer. “Da used to say that a long time ago, the god Thor was in a fight with three giants. Thor, Odin’s son that is, not my brother. Though I suppose that’s possible as well.”
Aven smiled again.
“As the story goes, the giants were a force of destruction so fierce that they meant to turn the land to ruin.” He pointed eastward, voice soft for her. “But Thor fought valiantly and in the last blow, he brought his hammer down with such might that it not only scattered the giants, it shaped that valley.”
“ ’Tis so vast.”
“Yeah. I wandered it once when I was a kid. But I got lost, and Da found me two days later. He dragged me home and made me spend the rest of the week diggin’ a well near the river. Told me that’s what a man looks like when he’s a fool.” His blue eyes shone a fondness that the hard lesson learned was a dear memory now.
Aven could nearly imagine their father—as braw and bristly as these sturdy Norwegians—pulling them onto his knee for tales and guiding them through life as best he could.
“And how did your family come to be here in Virginia? Dorothe made mention that she left when the potato famine reached Norway. Did your parents arrive then as well?”
“Naw. They came sometime later, just before Jorgan was born. Dorothe was in North Dakota at the time and came to live with them here. Help jostle babies and that sort of thing.”
“ ’Twould seem she had her hands full with it.”
He smiled.
The horses clomped down through a wooded grove. Cheery birds called out to one another as they flitted from limb to limb. The road narrowed, and with a command to the horses, Haakon slowed the wagon. When the wheels stilled, he hopped down and helped Aven do the same.
“Thank you,” she said as she righted her skirts.
Thor unloaded buckets. His brothers set to helping, and before Aven could even reach for one, Thor was handing her a pail. He motioned her forward and she followed him.
“Start anywhere you want,” Haakon called out, pointing to the thick and thorny brambles that spread every which way.
At the nearest bush she freed a plump berry that was so warm and moist, juice dripped from it. So tempted was she to pop it in her mouth that she gave in. Heavens, that was good. The next berry slipped from the stem just as easily, and she placed it in the pail. The brothers set to picking. Handful after handful, they all gleaned. Never had Aven seen berries so hearty and plentiful. In mere minutes her bucket was brimming.
With the air stifling, she ruffled the hem of her skirt, stirring a breeze against her stockinged legs. Sweat dampened the black fabric of her dress to her chest. Since the men had long since shoved back shirtsleeves and loosened collars, she unfastened the lace at her own throat. Aven fanned her neck, grateful when a slight breeze moved through the woods.
Underbrush crunched as Thor stepped nearer. He worked quick and steady, large fingers freeing berries with practiced ease. His eyes were focused on his task, and he breathed louder than the others. Aven smiled at the endearing way.
Thor lifted a prickled branch and loosened a cluster of fruit. There seemed a rightness to this work for him. A sureness and satisfaction. Perhaps it was the way he took the lead, his brothers heeding his wordless commands. The men’s focus was such and the quantity of buckets so ample, Aven sensed this was no casual picking. Doubtless, Thor would be concocting something a lot stouter than jam in that shop of his.
She tried to ignore the sorrow such a notion lent as she lowered a handful of berries to the top of her mounded pail. She’d agreed to help so here she was, but to think of the tender fruit becoming hard drink upended the gratification of the task. Especially with memories of Benn and the hold the bottle had had on him. The sorrow it had spread over their lives.
Haakon carried over two buckets, giving her the one that was already half full.
With her mind having slipped to life in Norway, ’twas no surprise that her gratitude came out as, “Tusen takk.”
Haakon looked at her. “Huh?”
Straightening, Aven used the back of her wrist to swipe her damp forehead. “Do you not speak Norwegian?”
“Not really.” He stepped around her, and when her skirt snagged on a thorn, he bent to free it. “I can say our names like I was born there.” He stood. “Yurgan,” he pronounced for Jorgan. “Then there’s the mighty and loud and sometimes clumsy Tur.” Last, he spoke his own name, just as it was said in Norway for the kings of centuries past. “Hohkun. I can also say potato lefse. But that’s it.”
Aven chuckled.