BREKKE FARM:

One frigid evening in 1826 while the family worked around the dinner table, Birgit broke into Sveinung's rambling anecdote about ski jumping off a fifteen-foot cliff. "Where's Halvor?"

Andres looked up from his whetstone. "Didn't he go out to check on the livestock?"

"That's been hours ago."

Andres' eight-year-old son Knut dashed room to room, upstairs and down, and came back shrugging his shoulders.

Andres sighed. "The Silent is so silent we don't even notice he's gone. I'll go check the privy and make sure he didn't fall in." Two years older than thirty-one-year-old Halvor, Andres had always looked out for his "little" brother, who for many years had towered over him. He bundled up and went outside.

The rest went back to their leatherwork, though a tight note now wove through their talk. No jesting while they waited. In the mountains of Norway, a deep-winter blizzard was no joke.

Andres returned, his eyes sharp with worry and a thick frosting of wind-driven snow spackling every inch of hood and coat. "Not in the privy, nor the cowbarn, nor the haybarn. Not in the stabbur nor the loft. Can't find him anywhere. One of the horses is gone, but not its saddle or bridle. Can't see five feet out there."

Guro drew in a raspy breath.

"Did he go chasing a stray?" Birgit asked, voicing the thought that leaped from brother to brother. She dashed to the cupboard and got out two oil lanterns, while Sveinung, Talleiv, and yes, even Ornery Olav went to put on their heaviest winter wear.

The wait stretched for hours. Birgit kept the fire stoked and hung blankets to warm by the hearth while her mother started a big pot of stew.

No sound heralded the brothers' return but the thumping of their boots in the entryway. No boisterous voices called greetings. They entered with grim faces, bringing Halvor the Silent home for the last time.

Olav swept his toolings off the table, and they laid the stiff body there.

Sveinung covered him with his own quilt, though there was no hope of reviving him.

Andres caught Guro who swayed in shock, and eased her to her corner bed.

Talleiv hunkered by the fire, shivering with shock and cold. Birgit draped him with one of the heated blankets, then took another to their mother.

No one wanted the stew.

Birgit sat with Guro through the long sleepless night, holding her close as she wept for her tall strong son, silent evermore.

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BEHIND THE SCENES

Halvor Knutsson Brekke, born in 1795, died in 1826: "found frozen to death in the fields."