Soaring Eagle

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  “Remember asking me where my ‘pioneer spirit’ was, Mother? I think I know—you have it all!” He followed LisBeth into the tiny house. Old clothing and broken dishes littered the floor. A broken chair leaned against one wall.

  “Look, David,” LisBeth called out. On the west wall of the room hung a framed piece of needlework. The glass was broken, and a leak in the roof above had stained the threads. Still, the words “Remember Me” stood out in deep rose and blue embroidery. LisBeth shivered and looked around her at the littered floor.

  David murmured, “I wonder what made them leave everything like this. It’s as if a storm came through and tossed it all in a heap.”

  “There was a storm,” LisBeth explained. “Grasshoppers. They came again and again. I remember the faces of the people that wandered into town that summer. Broken, haunted. Everything lost.” LisBeth looked about her and added, “That was how I met Mac. The grasshoppers drove his father to—to take his own life. Mac couldn’t stay on then. He had to get out. He came to Lincoln.” Suddenly LisBeth fled outside, shaking off the memories, hurrying over to where Augusta and Abigail had spread out lunch.

  Augusta pointed to the well. “There’s water on this place. That’s a good sign. They found water not too far down. You should have Jim Callaway look the land over. LisBeth says he’s got a great sense for good farmland.”

  David was quick to reply. “I’ve already decided to buy this place. I won’t be needing Mr. Callaway’s help.”

  The brusque tone was not lost to Augusta, but LisBeth was not quite so observant. She suggested, “On the way back to Lincoln, we should stop in and see him.”

  “We should be getting back. I want to get the papers signed.”

  LisBeth added, “And I’d love you to see Mac’s place.”

  “Of course, I can always sign papers first thing in the morning.” David changed his mind midsentence. In no time the party had eaten lunch, climbed back in the carriage and begun the short drive to Mac’s place. When they turned up the drive to the house, LisBeth noted with satisfaction that a row of cottonwoods had been planted up either side. Someday there would be a shaded archway to welcome visitors to the place.

  As the carriage pulled into the farmyard, Jim Callaway stepped out of the barn, a scowl on his face. Seeing LisBeth and Augusta, he smiled and waved. David climbed down and the two men shook hands.

  “David’s buying the old Ellis place, Jim,” LisBeth explained. “You’ll be neighbors.”

  Jim forced another smile and said coolly, “Didn’t know you had an interest in farming, Mr. Braddock.”

  “I don’t. Just in good land. Bought the place as an investment.”

  The two men had no more to say to one another. Jim turned abruptly to the women in the carriage and took off his hat. “Excuse my manners, ladies. Can I offer you a drink of water?”

  Abigail Braddock answered, “Oh, no thank you, Mr. Callaway. We must be getting back to Lincoln. We just thought we’d stop by and say hello. LisBeth told us what a wonderful job you’d done with her husband’s homestead.” Abigail looked about her with appreciation. “And she was certainly right. I can see why she was glad to see you buy it.”

  Jim smiled warmly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  They said their good-byes, and David climbed back into the carriage. As he turned it around, LisBeth called out, “David, wait. What? Someone’s added—”

  Jim, who had been heading back to the barn, turned around and saw what LisBeth was looking at. He walked quickly over to the carriage and looked up at her. “Hope you don’t mind, LisBeth. I remembered what you said—about not having a grave. I hope I didn’t overstep.”

  LisBeth choked back tears and smiled warmly at Jim. “Oh, Jim—it’s—I’m so—” She looked down at her hands and said quietly, “Thank you.”

  “I wanted to get the fence built before I showed you. Thought a picket fence would be nice, then more flowers.”

  Augusta broke in. “Jim Callaway, Joseph Freeman said from the first day he met you he knew you were a good man. I never doubted it, but if I ever could, this prevents it.”

  They were all looking at the small plot of graves. Beside the two red stones that said “Ma” and “Pa,” Jim had placed a third stone that said “Mac.”

  “I’m sorry it isn’t fancier, LisBeth. I wanted it to say his whole name and the dates.”

  LisBeth reached over the edge of the open carriage and put her hand on Jim’s shoulder. “It’s perfect. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She looked at him, her eyes shining. “Could I—could I come out and plant the flowers with you?”

  “Any time you want. I’ll have the fence ready in about a week.”

  As the carriage rolled down the drive, Abigail Braddock commented, “What a dear thing to do.” She turned to LisBeth. “Thank you for insisting we stop by, LisBeth. You’ve enabled us to see the most beautiful part of Nebraska—its people.”

  Chapter 18

  I will say unto God . . . Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning?

  Psalm 42:9

  “Now, Asa, stop fussing and hitch up the carriage for me. Joseph’s taught me plenty about driving, and I want to get out of town early before anyone invites himsel—uh—themselves along.”

  As LisBeth talked, Asa Green took his hands out of his pockets and led one of the older horses out of its stall and began to harness it to the carriage. He shook his head from side to side. “Now what am I goin’ to say to Joseph when he gets back from fishin’ and finds out I let you go out alone?”

  “Just tell Joseph I put my mind to it and there was no changing it,” LisBeth said as she climbed into the carriage and picked up the reins. “He’ll know you didn’t stand a chance, Asa, and he won’t have any reason to be angry with you.”

  “Where you headed, in case he asks?”

  “Out of town, Asa. Just out and away. I’ve got to have some time to think. I need to be alone for a while. Just tell Joseph I needed some time alone. He’ll understand.”

  “When you comin’ back? In case Miz Augusta asks.”

  “When I’ve figured out what I need to figure.” LisBeth flicked the reins and was gone, leaving Asa standing in the doorway of the livery. As she headed west on Q Street toward the Burlington depot, LisBeth heard Asa calling after her, but she pretended not to hear, urging the mare to a trot.

  The air was fresh and clean, and for once no wind blew to stir up the dust from the road. After tossing a brief, cold snow at Lincoln, nature had just as exuberantly flung spring at the land, spreading brilliant green over the dormant prairie. In recent days, thousands of migrating birds had soared over town, making so much noise that LisBeth and Sarah found themselves running outside several times a day to watch the great flocks make their way north.

  LisBeth felt as if she had been driving for only a few moments, but she had already reached the turnoff that led to the homestead. As she guided the carriage between the row of cottonwood seedlings, she smiled, imagining the shaded drive that would one day welcome visitors to the prim, white farmhouse.

  There was no sign of life about the farm. LisBeth looked about nervously. The dog Jim had befriended in Lincoln was nowhere to be seen. Odd, LisBeth thought, Jack usually bounds right out from the barn to say hello. Suddenly the dog tore around the side of the barn, a black ball of urgency, barking at LisBeth, running back around the corner of the barn, then back to the carriage.

  LisBeth leaped down from the carriage and ran after Jack. He led her along the lone furrow that led from the edge of the corral up a small rise to the east.

  “Jim!” LisBeth called, “Jim Callaway! Are you all right?!” No answer came, and when she got to the top of the hill, LisBeth saw why. He was lying unconscious on the ground, a trickle of dark blood oozing from his left temple and running into his auburn hair.

  Kneeling at his side, LisBeth put her hand on his forehead. At the cool touch of her hand, Jim moaned.

  “Jim, you stay put. It’s LisBeth. I’
ll be right back.” LisBeth was on her feet again, hurrying back to the barn, calling over her shoulder, “You stay put!”

  But Jim Callaway didn’t stay put. By the time LisBeth had managed to haul a bucket of water out of the well, run to the house for a rag, and head back across the field, Jim was sitting up, his elbows on his bent knees, his head in his hands.

  As LisBeth struggled through the tall prairie grasses, water from the bucket sloshed over her skirts. Jim called out, “Take your time, Lizzie, it ain’t so bad. I’m not dyin’.” Now you’ve done it, Jim thought. You’ve no right to call her Lizzie to her face—not yet.

  LisBeth hurried anyway, kneeling beside him and wringing out the rag as she taunted back, “I know you’re not dying, Jim Callaway, but your brain’s addled. Whoever you knew named Lizzie, I’m not her.” Reaching up to touch the wet cloth to Jim’s temple, she added, “You’ve had quite a wallop to the head! You’re going to have some headache and maybe a black eye to boot.”

  Jim leaned his head away from LisBeth and took the rag from her hand. “I’ll be fine, Liz—uh—LisBeth. I must have hit a stump.” He smiled sheepishly and shook his head. “Sorry about that Lizzie business. Guess that plow whacked me harder than I thought. It appears soldiers don’t make natural farmers.” He stopped abruptly, dabbing gingerly at his temple. “Now I’ll have you thinking you sold the place to the wrong man, to some fool who doesn’t even know how to plow.” With a grunt, Jim stood, steadying his wobbly legs by laying one arm across Buck’s sturdy back.

  “Soldier? So, you were a soldier.” LisBeth stood up, too, brushing the dust off her skirt.

  Jim sighed. He closed his eyes briefly and reached up to tug at his beard. “I don’t like to remember it. Rather not talk about it.”

  Stepping beside him she laid her hand lightly on his sleeve and asked, “Can you make it back to the house? You ought to rest, you know. Maybe I should drive you back to town to let Dr. Gilbert take a look at that.”

  “No need to go back to Lincoln, LisBeth. I may be new at farming, but I’m old at taking knocks to the head. It’ll take more than a little wallop with a plow to do much damage. Sure am glad you came along, though. The buzzards would have been circling before much longer! The Lord surely does look out for his own.”

  “How long have you been out there?” LisBeth asked.

  Jim squinted at the sun. “I’m not sure—a long time.”

  “Seems like the Lord could have maybe had someone come along a little sooner.”

  As they talked, Jim was unhitching his gelding. He put Buck in the corral and watered the little mare LisBeth had driven out to the farm. Then they walked to the side porch and sat on the steps. LisBeth began presenting her idea. He listened carefully. She finished with, “So I thought, David doesn’t want to live on the place. He only wants to own it. And he’ll be looking for someone to rent it from him, to improve it. I know you’ve got all you can handle as far as actually farming, right here. But what if you were to sort of oversee the other place? Make sure the tenant, whoever it turns out to be, does a good job, is honest about the yields, that sort of thing? I know David would pay well for the right person to look after things for him. He might as well pay you, and then you could have this place free and clear—faster.” And be able to marry Sarah, she thought.

  As LisBeth talked, her animated dark eyes glowed with interest in her plans for Jim’s—and Sarah’s—prosperity. The morning sun put red highlights in her hair, and Jim suddenly realized that LisBeth had stopped talking. Apparently she had asked a question, which she repeated, “Well, what do you think?”

  Jim stared at her blankly. “About what?”

  “About overseeing David Braddock’s farm. What do you think?”

  “Not interested.”

  “But, Jim—”

  “Not interested.” Jim motioned to the little green plant at the side of the porch. “My rose is coming up, LisBeth. Bet I get some blooms this year.”

  LisBeth blinked several times and asked again, “Just like that? No? Just like that? Don’t you even want to think about it?”

  “Nope.”

  “But—”

  “LisBeth,” Jim said with a sigh. “Do you need the money for this place right away?”

  LisBeth shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. I just wanted to help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to take the opportunity to—”

  Jim pulled at his beard. “LisBeth. I told you I don’t like to remember it, but I’ll say this much. I spent most of my adult life having to take orders from someone else.” He bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Taking orders from someone else, I ended up doing some . . . terrible things.” The words caught in his throat.

  “I got it all settled with the Lord. But I don’t want to have to take orders from anybody but the Lord ever again. Not if I can help it.” Jim looked at LisBeth soberly. “I don’t know David Braddock. I’ve no reason to think he’s anything but an honest man. But I don’t want to put myself where I have to take orders again. There’s plenty of men in town can check on the place for Braddock if he rents it out. I just can’t do it. Thank you, but no.”

  Looking down at the tiny rose bush, LisBeth asked softly, “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “Anything you want.”

  “You said you had things settled with God.” She looked up at him. “How’d you do that? Get things settled?”

  “Well, I just asked him, I guess. Joseph said to just ask him to help me settle things. It sounds crazy, I guess, but I did. I just asked him.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I asked, and somehow I just knew things were okay between us. I read it in Joseph’s Bible, in First John.”

  “That’s it?” LisBeth demanded.

  “Well, no, it wasn’t so simple. It took some time.” Jim corrected himself. “No, that’s not quite right. It took a lot of time and reading and praying too.” Jim turned to LisBeth. “He’ll take care of you, LisBeth. You just ask him and trust him. Give it some time.”

  “You sound just like my mother. She always said almost exactly those same words.”

  “Well, she said them because they’re true.”

  LisBeth sighed. “They were true—for her. She loved God and He took care of her.” LisBeth’s voice was wistful as she added frankly, “Trouble is, I don’t love him—not after what he’s let happen to me, to Mac. I can’t love him anymore. And if I don’t love him, there’s not much reason for him to take care of me, is there?”

  Not knowing what to say, Jim did the right thing. He listened. LisBeth poured out some of the bitterness she had been keeping inside and then stood up abruptly. “I’d better get back to town. Augusta and Joseph will be worried. I left Sarah shorthanded too.”

  “She can handle it.”

  “Indeed, she can. That young woman’s going to make some man a fine wife.” LisBeth watched Jim carefully as she spoke. When he didn’t react, she added, “Well, you take care of that hard head of yours, Jim Callaway. I expect to see crops growing in that field the next time I come out here.”

  Jim’s gray-green eyes twinkled happily as he answered her. “Next time you come I’ll have the fence up around the graves. We can plant flowers then if you like. And I’ll show you the whole place and tell you all about how it’s going to look someday. It’s going to be the showplace of Lancaster County. You’ll see.”

  Chapter 19

  He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings.

  Deuteronomy 32:10–11†

  I don’t know what to do,” Agent Janson said. “After all, the Indian is by birth and by natural disposition out of sympathy with our American
institutions.” The agent had ridden to Santee for his weekly meeting with the school’s headmaster. As usual, the two had become embroiled in an intense discussion about what Janson called “the Indian problem.”

  Reverend Alfred Riggs smiled grimly. “I suspect any group of people that had been dispossessed in the violent manner taken by our government would be inclined to be ‘out of sympathy,’ as you so tactfully put it.”

  Janson leaned forward in his chair. “But they have to be civilized, and I’m at my wit’s end trying to do it. Only last week, we gave out some of the cash they were to be paid for their land, and a group of the young men were seen down at the river, skipping their gold coins across the water like stones! Now, civilized people have to know how to use money. But what can we do if all they do is take it and use it as a toy? They’ll never learn, and I don’t know what can be done about it!”

  Alfred replied, “You know, Thomas, this ‘Indian problem’ you talk about—some of the native pastors here call it ‘the white man’s problem.’ I’ve found that if I show a fraternal spirit—rather than act as if I’m the master and they are the servants—it goes a long way in getting hold of their hearts.”

  Seeing Janson’s jaw harden with anger, Alfred hurried to finish his argument. “The Indian is repelled by a proud and dominating spirit, as are most men of any race. We can force a boy to wash his face and attend school, but if we do not get hold of his heart, the moment he gets out of school and returns to his home, he will be a wild Indian still. Here at the school, we have found that much is overcome by kind and sympathetic treatment.”

  Janson blurted out, “It’s hard to be sympathetic with a bunch of lazy tramps.”

  It was Alfred’s turn to be angry. His hands clenched the arms of his chair tightly as he answered, “Oh, yes, I forgot, the Indians are lazy and the whites are industrious, so industrious that they are filling up penitentiaries and poor houses everywhere! There are lazy people in every community, Thomas. And I wonder if, under the same conditions as created at the agency, whites would not behave the same as our Indian brethren. A man tends not to value what he is given freely. I believe that the intention of our agency system was intended as a benevolent one, but in giving the Indians everything they need to live, we have removed the one thing that motivates manliness and character—the pride of accomplishment, the knowledge that one is supporting one’s family and doing well. That is why we expect our children to work and why we expect the parents of our students to contribute in some way to support the school.”