Wild Heart on the Prairie (A Prairie Heritage, Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Pronunciation Guide

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part 2

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Postscript

  An Excerpt From Joy on This Mountain

  A Prairie Heritage

  Stealthy Steps

  Girls from the Mountain

  Tabitha

  The Christian and the Vampire

  About the Author

  Wild Heart on the Prairie

  A Prairie Heritage, Book 2

  by Vikki Kestell

  Also Available in Print Format

  Brothers Jan (pronounced Yahn) and Karl Thoresen have left their native land of Norway to bring their families to America—the land of freedom and hope. Like thousands of others, Jan and his wife Elli long for the opportunity of a better life and future for their children.

  After braving an ocean crossing and the arduous journey west, they encounter a land so vast and wide that it defies mastery. Jan finds that his struggles are not only with the land, but with a restless and unmanageable heart. Will Jan find a way to overcome this wild land or will the prairie master him?

  Visit Vikki’s website, www.vikkikestell.com or find her on Facebook.

  Wild Heart on the Prairie

  Copyright © 2014 Vikki Kestell

  All Rights Reserved

  Scripture Quotations Taken From

  The King James Version (KJV)

  Public Domain.

  Faith-Filled Fiction

  A Division of Growing Up in God

  http://www.faith-filledfiction.com/

  http://www.vikkikestell.com/

  Pronunciation Guide

  Return to Chapter 1

  Amalie...................... (Ah´-ma-lee)

  Gjetost...................... (Yay-toost)

  Jan............................ (Yahn)

  Kjell.......................... (Chell )

  Sigrün....................... (Sig´-run)

  Søren........................ (Soor´-ren)

  Thoresen................... (Tor´-eh-sen)

  Uli............................. (Yoo-lee)

  The dialogue spoken in this book contains occasional non-English words set in italics. Non-English words set in italics may be Riksmaal (Norwegian), German, or Swedish, depending on the speaker. Some words sound the same from one language to another but are spelled differently, such as the English word “nay” which is spelled nei in Riksmaal and nej in Swedish and the English words “mama” and “papa” which are spelled mamma and pappa in Riksmaal.

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to two of its characters, Amalie Thoresen and Fraulein Adeline Engel, who exemplify the many selfless women in the Body of Christ. These women live their lives, not for themselves, but for the care and benefit of others—because they love Jesus.

  Lord, bless all women such as these.

  Appreciation

  With each book I write, I value my proofreading team more and more. I want to thank Cheryl Adkins, Greg McCann, and Jan England for the many hours of work poured into this manuscript. I also thank you for our fellowship and shared learning! I simply cannot do this without you!

  Original cover art courtesy of Dorthea Paulson (Artwork by Dorthea), a sister of my heart. Thank you, D!

  To My Readers

  This book is a work of fiction, what I term “faith-filled fiction,” intended to demonstrate how people of God should and can respond to difficult and dangerous situations with courage and conviction. The characters and events that appear in this book are not based on any known persons or historical facts; the challenges described are, however, very real, both historically and contemporarily.

  I give God all the glory.

  Part 1

  No man who demonstrates

  an exemplary Christian walk

  begins his journey

  in an exemplary manner.

  Through the furnace and the fire

  his life is tried, tempered, and purified.

  It is only through

  faithfulness to God in these times

  a wild heart can be tamed.

  —Vikki Kestell

  Chapter 1

  May, 1866

  Jan Thoresen, heedless of angry shouts, clambered up the wall of crates stacked along the docks. When he reached the top he stared at the crush of humanity surging below and beyond.

  O Lord! I have never seen so many people in one place, he marveled, or such buildings and ships!

  He turned in a circle, trying to absorb the breathtaking view: the docks of New York City, the thousands of rushing, clamoring people, and the towering buildings. Their objective was one of the larger buildings—the Castle Garden rotunda and immigrant landing depot of the United States.

  Another angry bellow, one Jan recognized, roused him from his reverie. He grinned and saluted his brother Karl, whose forbidding expression was so familiar.

  Jan laughed with the sheer joy of the moment and stretched out his arms to embrace it all. We have arrived, Lord God! He took a deep breath and a last glimpse of the panorama before him. Never again will I see such a sight, he realized.

  Tearing his eyes from it, he climbed down the crates and leapt the last six feet, landing next to Karl. Karl’s frown was matched by the threatening scowls of two dock workers advancing on Jan.

  As the men pushed their way through the crowd toward him, Jan drew himself up—all six-foot-four-inches of rock-hard muscle. Karl shook his head. As irate as he was with Jan, they were brothers after all. He turned and stood shoulder to shoulder with Jan.

  The longshoremen slowed a few yards away. Sensing the crackling tension, the crowd pressed back, leaving space between the Thoresen brothers and the enraged dock workers.

  The longshoremen were no strangers to hard work and hard living. They directed menacing glares toward the blonde giants. Jan and Karl, arms folded, stared back, unfazed.

  One of the dock workers—a bit wiser than his companion—thought better of wading into a fist fight with the two behemoths. Perhaps they weren’t as easily intimidated as most immigrants! He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, no harm done after all,” he muttered. Placing a restraining hand on the other man’s arm, he backed away and they melted into the crowd.

  “Come, Karl!” As though they hadn’t avoided a brawl their first day in America, Jan shoved toward the line where he and Karl had left their families. The lines, several of them, wended toward the immigratio
n stations at the entrance to the Garden.

  Jan already missed the cleaner air he’d breathed atop the heap of crates. The fumes of the creosote-soaked timbers under their feet coupled with the rank odor of many unwashed bodies enveloped them.

  After a two-week ocean journey, from Christiana to Liverpool then Liverpool to New York, the Thoresens’ fellow shipmates were weak and weary. Sounds of retching along the lines were not infrequent as disembarked families coped with empty bellies, disorientation, and the anxiety of the coming inspections.

  Jan, with Karl grumbling behind him, waved to his wife Elli. She was relieved to see the two brothers returning and pointed them out to her sister-in-law Amalie. The women were struggling to keep their places in line and also keep children and baggage together.

  Karl scowled but said nothing more about Jan’s impetuous climb up the mountain of crates. They helped their wives gather and move their possessions farther up the line and then settled down to wait until the line inched forward again.

  Ach! This waiting is so hard, Lord! Jan complained. I have energy to spare and no good thing to spend it on.

  Jan reached around Karl and pinched his unsuspecting niece, Sigrün. When the girl rounded in indignation, Jan was facing the other way, his hands in the pockets of his homespun trousers. Four-year-old Sigrün’s eyes narrowed as she glanced from her distracted father to her seemingly innocent uncle.

  Jan winked at Elli, and she winked back. Oh, it is good to have a little humor to get us through this trial.

  Jan’s thoughts returned to the upcoming medical inspections. He knew his children, eight-year-old Søren and six-year-old Kristen, were strong and healthy and that he and Elli presented no health problems.

  But Karl, behind his neutral expression, was concerned about little Sigrün. She had been coughing for days. In this line, a cough attracted unwanted attention.

  Lord, you have brought us so far. You will not fail us. I trust you, Jan prayed.

  America’s War Between the States was over; now thousands of Jan and Karl’s fellow Norwegians were immigrating every month, hoping America would offer them a brighter future. Jan and Karl were no different—they, too, sought a new life with better opportunities.

  The lines moved forward in spurts as families passed through registration stations, medical inspections, and into the spacious rotunda of the Garden. Between 700 and 1,000 new arrivals would spend the night inside. American officials who could read and speak their language would help them retrieve their cargo from the ships and assist them on their way in the morning.

  The Thoresens had traveled steerage class, a level below the main deck of the ship. As steerage class passengers, they had spent most of the crossing confined below in an open, shared cargo hold.

  Like others in steerage, the Thoresens had cooked their meals at designated times and slept together on wide, wooden berths. The berths were temporary platforms knocked together for steerage passengers, easily removed to accommodate a different sort of cargo on the ship’s return voyage.

  Jan and Karl and their families had borne the uncomfortable crossing well, but not all had. Some of their traveling companions had come aboard with not much more than their tickets. They carried all they owned on their thin, bowed backs. Their children, with eyes too big for their faces and shoulders too weak for their rucksacks, were too weary to run and play with other shipboard children.

  Watching these families, whose flight to America was a last, desperate effort to avoid starvation, had saddened Jan. He and Elli had discreetly shared their food when little ones with hungry eyes had wandered near them at mealtime.

  Jan thought of the money he and Karl had scrupulously saved and brought with them, and he thought of their other belongings still in the hold of the ship. The Thoresens would begin their new lives in this country with more than most immigrants would.

  Jan was proud of his family and proud of his heritage. He and Karl were broad, thick, and hardened from a life of demanding work and good food. Every Thoresen standing in line was hearty and well fed.

  We come from good stock, he reflected with pride.

  It was obvious at a glance that Karl and Jan were brothers, but there were also differences. Karl’s shaggy hair was light sand in color while Jan’s was as white as ripe wheat. Karl’s body was a bit more compact than Jan’s, too, and he spoke in a rich baritone; Jan was taller and his voice deeper than Karl’s.

  We will do well in America, Jan assured himself. This cough of Sigrün’s will pass; it is nothing to worry about.

  Jan saw Karl gesture with his chin. Amalie, Karl’s stout wife, pulled a small jar of honey from her deep pockets and administered a spoonful to Sigrün.

  Søren and Kristen frowned. They longed for a taste of honey, but the families would not eat until they passed the inspections and could sit down together for a bite of bread, stale though it might be.

  Kristen cleared her throat and managed to produce a raspy cough, politely muffling it on her sleeve. Jan and Elli both bent stern looks on her, although Jan had to swallow hard to keep from chuckling.

  Ah, my little Kristen! You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, Jan rejoiced. I will never stop being amazed that you and your brother came from your mamma’s and my love.

  Kristen smiled sheepishly, swished her skirts, and leaned against her mother, resignation written in the slope of her shoulders. Elli sat upon one of their suitcases, the rest of their bags piled near her.

  “It will not be much longer,” Jan assured Kristen, caressing her cheek with the back of his fingers. She looked up at him from under dark blonde lashes.

  You have your mamma’s eyes. He shook his head in wonder.

  Jan let out a deep breath. He winked at Søren, then reached around Karl and tugged Sigrün’s braid. This time the girl was ready for him and pounced. “I knew it was you, Onkel!” she squealed, jumping up and down. Søren and Kristen laughed heartily and Jan grinned.

  Sigrün’s excited outburst ended in a spate of coughing. Karl held her against his leg until she was able to catch her breath. He fixed his disapproval on his brother.

  “Jan,” he hissed. “Do not provoke this barn of mine. Sometimes you are worse than a child yourself.” He frowned. “Behave like an adult, eh?” he added.

  Jan, still grinning for Søren and Kristen’s sake, sauntered out of line to see how far they had to go. Jan’s smile faded and he shook his head.

  Ah, Karl! Jan had been on the receiving end of his bror’s and his far’s reprimands for as long as he could remember.

  “You are too impulsive, Jan,” his father would declare in a stern tone.

  “That temper is going to get you in trouble, Jan,” his brother would lecture.

  “No one trusts a jokester,” his far would add.

  “Be serious, Jan! Grow up!” Karl would reprimand, and Jan would receive a disapproving frown.

  The lectures and sibling rivalry had begun when Jan was a boy. Karl, who was two years Jan’s senior, had sprouted up and into a man’s body by the time he was fourteen years old! Jan, on the other hand, had been sickly in his early teens and slow to get his growth.

  Where Karl was taciturn, Jan was naturally good-humored like his mother. When Karl had bragged on his size and ribbed Jan about his, Jan had plagued his brother with practical jokes.

  Their father had not helped. He needed a third man on their farm and regularly told Jan he wished him to be more like Karl—steady, dependable, able to do a man’s work. Jan had rebelled at the comparison and provoked his brother further whenever possible.

  Then came Jan’s seventeenth year. In six months he shot up six inches! The following year he grew another five. His mother, amazed and somewhat in awe, slipped extra food to him between meals, for Jan complained continually of being hungry. Every few weeks the good woman was obliged to let down his trousers or make him a new shirt.

  By the time Jan was nineteen, he was an inch taller than his brother and two inches broader in the c
hest. The competition between the brothers grew fierce as they strived to outdo each other in whatever chore their father assigned.

  As Jan grew into a man, years of crop failures across Norway kept him bound to his father’s small farm. He longed to escape the narrow life of a second son, but opportunities to learn a different trade—one that would allow him to branch out on his own and support a family—were scarce.

  Besides, I am a farmer, Jan knew. It is in my blood and in my bones. Like every young farmer in Norway, he dreamed of having his own farm, but land in Norway was scarce and grew more expensive each year. With each year that passed, Jan grew more dissatisfied with his lot in life and more resentful of living under his father’s and brother’s authority.

  Even in this line today, Karl seemed to have forgotten that Jan was a thirty-seven-year-old married man with children, when in fact Jan had married and fathered a child before Karl had!

  Of course, marrying before Karl had been a sore point.

  The men of their district typically married between ages twenty-five and thirty. Jan, at twenty-eight, had already waited three years to marry Elli Mostrom—all because Karl had been slow to select a bride.

  When Jan had first laid eyes on Elli she had been tall and gangly, with a crown of honey-and-wheat colored hair and eyes as deep and blue as a fjord. By age eighteen, Elli had lost her coltish charm; she had grown into a poised, stately woman, the image of a Viking queen. Jan told his parents he would wait no more—he was certain he would lose her if he waited another two years!

  Karl was only beginning to court Amalie when Jan and Elli married, and he had been disgruntled. Ten months later, just before Karl and Amalie finally tied the knot, Elli had given birth to Søren. Karl had not been pleased.

  That had been Karl’s fault for dragging out his courtship, Jan told himself. Now that we are in America, things are going to change. Once I have my own land and my own home, our relationship will be better!

  He smiled in relief as he looked down the line. Only three families ahead of us! Many of the families in line had been on the ship with them. He walked forward, greeting the men and wishing them well.