The Unplowed Sky

by Jeanne Williams

  “Instead,” said Rich, who was telling the story while they threshed the fields adjoining Grant’s splendid stone villa several miles south of Victoria, “those younger sons and remittance men put on their hunting jackets and chased their imported horses and hounds after plain old Kansas coyotes and jackrabbits. When Grant died, the gentlemen went back to England, and Volga German Catholics bought most of the land.”

  “Couldn’t have been much more different settlers,” Shaft chuckled. “One thing you have to say about the Germans, whether they were Lutheran, Catholic, or Mennonite, they stuck it out here through drouth and grasshopper plagues and blizzards that sent plenty of other folks scuttlin’ back East.”

  The lusty young Volga German field pitchers spread their pitchfork tines wide apart so that two of them could attack a shock from opposite sides and throw the entire shock on the wagon at one time. If they dropped a bundle or two, these were tossed quickly on while the man on the wagon yelled reproaches in German and worked furiously to stack the bundles properly before the next whole shock sailed up to him.

  The day Garth’s crew finished threshing the old Grant place, Mrs. Baier, the farmer’s wife, invited them to come up to the villa after supper for ice cream made with the farm’s rich cream and peaches. The crew helped the family turn two big freezers packed with rock salt and ice. Emulating a Baier child, Jackie perched on one till his weight wouldn’t hold the freezer still as the dasher labored through the thickening custard. Luke and Rory sat on the freezers, then, till husky Mr. Baier pronounced the ice cream done.

  Of course it had to “ripen,” packed with more ice, but as company, Jackie got one ice-cream-laden dasher to lick, and Meg the other. While the treat hardened, the Baier women, whose hair was yellow-brown as their grain and cheeks as rosy as their peaches, brought out bowls of the sliced golden fruit and almond and ginger cakes.

  “Don’t eat so much you won’t have room for the ice cream,” Mrs. Baier warned.

  “Ma’am.” Rusty beamed, as he took a proffered third slice of cake and covered it with the mellow fruit, “I’ll have room for that ice cream if I have to run around your farm to shake down the rest of this!”

  The family and crew finished every delectable scraping of the freezers. Hallie had never tasted anything so delicious, and she let the flavorful richness melt in her mouth, savoring each bite to the fullest. Even Garth seemed to be enjoying the luxury instead of stoking himself in a businesslike way for work.

  “We will see you next year, then,” Mr. Baier said as the abundantly feasted crew began to thank their hosts and hostesses. “You have never blown my grain into the straw pile, so I would not make a deal with the outfit that came a few days ahead of you, though the engineer said they would thresh cheaper.”

  “A banker’s trying to run me out of business,” Garth said. “I appreciate your sticking with me, Mr. Baier.”

  The stocky, sunburned farmer frowned. “When I wouldn’t hire him, this engineer—he had cottony hair and a peeling face and sounded like a Texan—he said Germans had no right to be in this country, or Czechs or other foreigners, especially Jews. He said he used to work for you and quit when you hired an Indian.”

  “That’s not exactly how it was,” Garth began.

  “Cotton—it must be him, Mr. Baier—he came at me with his razor,” Henry put in. “Then he drew a knife.”

  Mr. Baier shook his head. “A bad man. The kind I would not want on my land if he were the best thresherman in the world.”

  “I’m sure he isn’t that,” Garth said. “He bragged about being an engineer, but I don’t know anyone who had ever hired him as that. I’m kind of surprised Raford did. His first engineer must have quit, and Raford didn’t take time to hunt for a good man because he was bound to get all my customers he could by beating me to their farms.”

  “Has he hurt you much?”

  Garth raised a shoulder, then let it fall. “What with the contract I have with my home county for working the roads in the winter, I should be able to pay the mortgage. Could be when Raford sees I’m still in business, he’ll get tired of losing money and raise his charges.” Garth’s eyes flicked briefly toward Hallie. “Or he may try to think of some other way to get even with me.”

  A chill fingered Hallie’s spine as she thought of Raford, his devouring gaze, the way he seemed so sure that sooner or later she’d have to accept his offer. But that couldn’t affect Garth, could it?

  When she remembered that night at the creek, lightning played through her. Had she done as he suggested, had she stayed in the water at the other end, would anything have happened? Would he have taken it as an invitation? And then …

  The lightning blazed, seized her till she couldn’t breathe for a moment. If just the thought of Garth could affect her like that, what would his touch do? In the weeks since, she had swum after dark whenever they were near a creek or river, but never again had she encountered Garth.

  Which was a good thing. She didn’t want to confirm his apparent feeling that women were easily had, accessible to any man who appealed to them. She wasn’t sure exactly what this feeling was she had for Garth, but she did know it wasn’t just for an hour, a night, or a summer.

  XI

  The outfit swung into Nebraska and headed west for the High Plains, where harvest began so much later than in the central part of Kansas that it was possible to thresh both regions and work south, then east again toward their starting point. All the time they pursued or were pursued by Raford’s threshers in this strangely deliberate, long-drawn-out contest. Hallie could make a set at first try most of the time now, and had learned a lot more about operating and maintaining the engine. It seemed that she had never lived another life—or that she hadn’t been really alive—until she joined up with the threshermen.

  They had journeyed three hundred miles, crossed all the rivers of west central Kansas, the Arkansas, the Smoky Hill, the Saline, and both branches of the Solomon. At twenty-six farms, over and over, stacks dwindled as bundles and grain spikes passed through the teeth of the separator to pour into wagons or build the straw stack.

  Sometimes finishing a farm in one day or two, sometimes in five or six, sometimes running by moonlight when rain threatened, they threshed 70,000 bushels of wheat, 10,000 of oats, and a few thousand of barley. They were only one small part of the 100,000 workers who threshed a swath 200 miles wide and 1,000 long from Texas into Canada.

  Hallie took satisfaction in feeding men who fed the nation and other countries, too. It was as elemental, as ageless, as planting seeds and tending crops; discoveries that let humankind remain in one place, that freed them from the ceaseless quest for game or wild foods that took up the time and energy of peoples who had no joyous harvest with its promise of winter sustenance.

  And the slow miles and days spent in the open roused wonder and pride in Hallie at the vastness of plains and gentle limestone-crowned hills, of the great escarpment palisading the High Plains, all beneath the limitless, embracing sky that man could never plow. Transfigured in an instant, like desert and ocean, by sun and wind and shadow, this land was painted by the seasons with more lasting, gradual hues as grass and leaves changed from emerald to every shade of yellow, amber, copper, and plum or, when snow and ice glittered in the sun or took on blue or slate tones from a clouded sky.

  The daisies, white and purple clovers, larkspur, purple coneflower, and wild roses that studded roadways and unplowed land at the beginning of the run gave way to flowers tall enough to thrive in the higher grass—scarlet globe mallow, cherry black-eyed Susans, and brilliant red-orange butterfly milkweed.

  Meg’s thirteenth birthday was the twelfth of August. Jackie gathered an armful of red and yellow Indian blanket, many sorts of asters, prairie phlox, creamy wild indigo, prickly poppies, purple-red thistles, and golden cinquefoil to make the bouquet that shared pride of place that evening with the three-layered chocolate cake Shaft had made. Meg was delighted with the heart-shaped locket from her father,
Jackie’s flowers, and a doe and fawn Luke had carved from a chunk of cottonwood root, but she thanked Hallie perfunctorily for the atomizer bottle of Lily of the Valley toilet water and didn’t even sniff it.

  I’ll be glad to see the last of the wretched girl! Hallie thought. But that would mean seeing the last of Garth, too, and Hallie would not be glad of that. As summer waned, tribes of sunflowers grew higher than Jackie’s head, goldenrod swayed gracefully in the wind, and spikes of brilliant purple gayfeather mingled with the rosier flowerlets of iron-weed.

  By the end of the first week of September, when nighthawks were starting south, the outfit threshed their last stacks and fed in the scattered grain including that fallen to the tarp beneath the cylinder. At Rory’s jubilant whistle, Shaft steered Hallie toward the door. “Come on, honey. You got to see this! Come on, Jack!”

  The three of them hurried through the stubble and reached the set. A wild whoop went up as eleven stained, battered, frayed straw hats sailed into the feeder.

  “It’s the custom,” Shaft told Hallie.

  Rory called to her, “Want to toss in your bonnet? Celebrate your first threshing run?”

  Hallie hadn’t tied her bonnet strings. She gripped them tightly. True, the bonnet was faded, stained indelibly with engine grease, and needed patching. Garth had given it to her, though. It was precious. She didn’t know what she was going to do this winter or whether she would ever see him again, but she would always treasure the bonnet. For its memories and because it was his gift.

  The strings ripped through her fingers. Before she could snatch for it, the bonnet flew into the feeder. Meg’s gray eyes sparkled maliciously. “Since you run the engine and make sets, you have to toss in your hat,” she said.

  Hallie fought the urge to grab the girl and shake her. To everyone else, it seemed a playful salute, even a generous admission that Hallie was part of the crew. But Hallie knew that the reason Meg destroyed the bonnet was that the girl’s idolized father had given it to an intruder. Bits of chewed blue-and-white cloth blew onto the straw stack with the chaff of the hats.

  Head atilt, Meg watched Hallie. Hateful little wretch! It’s just as well your father won’t have anything to do with women. Being your stepmother would be the hardest job I can imagine. Shoulders stiff, eyes stinging, Hallie marched to the cookshack and got on with supper.

  It was the crew’s last evening meal together, so she and Shaft made it an especially good one with mounds of fluffy sourdough biscuits and three kinds of pie with whipped cream.

  Lefty Halstead and Henry Lowen were staying in western Kansas to work in the broomcorn harvest. Jim Wyatt and Buford Redding would drop the other men off in Hollister to catch trains home. Though the flivvers could travel a lot faster than the engine, Jim and Buford planned to stay in sight to help plank bridges.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Garth said.

  Jim laughed. “Doesn’t really seem like threshing’s over till the engine turns off down your home road and the whistle toots good-bye.” He looked at Hallie as she filled his coffee cup. “Haven’t heard you say what you’re doing this winter, Miss Hallie.”

  “I’m not sure.” She tried to sound more cheerful than she felt. “I’ll look around Hollister for work that’ll let me be with Jackie.”

  “Lumber camps always need good cooks. I’d be tickled to take you out to Oregon with me and help you find a job.”

  His hazel eyes were kind, and she knew—absolutely—that she could trust him. However, she felt desolate enough that she wouldn’t be seeing Garth every day. Ridiculous as it was, she didn’t want to go so far away that she couldn’t hope for an occasional glimpse of that proud silvery gold head and perhaps a few words.

  Before she could frame an answer, Rusty Wells said, “You and Jackie are sure welcome to come home with Luke and me, ma’am. We need a schoolteacher. Wouldn’t be any trick for you to get a temporary certificate—that’s all our teachers ever have ’cause they go to a bigger place soon as they have a regular one. My wife would sure make you welcome, and it’d be no trouble for her to look after Jackie along with the two of our kids that aren’t school age.”

  Rich Mondell chuckled. “Let me put in my offer, Miss Hallie. I live with my aunt in our big old family home. We rattle around in it, and she’s getting too old to run up and down stairs and do all the cooking and housework. You could live with us just like family, but of course you’d get a salary. I think you’d like Lawrence. There are lots of big shady trees and the university’s there in case you want to take a degree and teach school or have some other career.”

  That was tempting. She was fond of the young professor who treated Jackie like an adult. Though Hallie had no burning urge to teach, as soon as Jackie started school year after next, it would give her the same hours he had. And she’d have summers free if—if Garth would hire her.

  Stop that! she chided herself. You can’t arrange your life in order to spend summers slaving for a man who has already hinted that you’d better find a steady year-round job. She didn’t look at him, but from the corner of her eye, she saw the hard line of his jaw.

  Rory’s blue eyes caught hers with such intensity that a quivering shock lanced through her. He started to speak, glanced at his older brother, and got a stony gaze in reply. Narrowed in jealous disbelief, Meg’s eyes had dwelled on each speaker in turn. She glared at Rory. He ignored her, brooding.

  Shaft cleared his throat. “Hallie, you got some dandy chances here. Any one of ’em ought to work out fine for you and Jack. But Smoky and me don’t rightly know how we can get along without our boy.”

  Jackie threw his arms around the cook’s leg and hugged it tight. “I don’t want to get along without you either, Shaft!”

  Shaft hoisted him up to nestle against the tied-back beard. “Hallie, would you like for us to find a little house to rent in town? I can get a job cookin’ at one of the cafés. Or we’ll find jobs where one of us can always be home with Jack.”

  “But you—you always stay at our place!” Meg protested.

  “I sure have appreciated that. But this year’s different.”

  Hallie didn’t have to deliberate. Jackie liked all the men, but he loved Shaft; and, as for her, he was, rolled into one, father, grandfather, and friend. The sense of being deserted—cast adrift alone with her small brother—melted at Shaft’s warm smile. Swallowing at the tightness in her throat, Hallie looked around at all the men who had, except for Garth, become such friends.

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Jim. Or you, Rusty and Luke, or you, Rich. I can tell you’ve been thinking about Jackie and me, and I can’t tell you how much that means. But I think you’ll understand that Shaft’s extra special to Jackie.” She smiled at the man who had at first seemed so eccentric, but who had become so dear. “If you mean it, Shaft, we’d love to share a home with you and Smoky.”

  Shaft beamed. “Never meant anything so much since I told the deputies good-bye when I jumped out that window and hit the ground runnin’.”

  Everyone laughed. After a moment, Garth said, “I hope you’ll cook for the outfit next summer, Shaft.”

  “I hope so, too, boss.” Shaft looked straight at Garth and added slowly, “Reckon that depends on Hallie. She’s the best help I ever had. Don’t reckon I can manage without her—providin’, of course, that she wants the job.”

  At last Garth could scarcely avoid meeting her eyes, but his were so veiled that she couldn’t guess his feelings. “Do you want to work another run next summer?”

  If I haven’t found a better job, she should have said. A cleaner, easier year-round place working for a reasonable human being who doesn’t blame me for his runaway wife or have a daughter who thinks he belongs to her. I want to work for a man who won’t think we ought to swim together in the night when he’ll barely look at me by day or bawl me out for drying my hair in the wind and then act as if it were a crime to cut it off …

  But her heart swelled with gladness. She would get to
be with him next summer. And who knew? Perhaps with a winter to think things over, he’d be in a fairer state of mind. “Yes,” she said. She tried and failed to keep her smile from broadening into a happy laugh. “I want the job, please.”

  The men cheered. Jackie clapped, jumping up and down, but Meg cast Hallie a furious glance, swung off the bench, and rushed outside, letting the door slam.

  Jackie scrambled after her. “Meggie! Aren’t you glad? We’re going to help thresh next year!”

  “I’m glad you’re coming, sweetheart,” came her muffled voice.

  Rory made a disgusted sound. He scowled at his brother. “If you don’t get that lass straightened out about a few things, she’s going to cause you more headaches than—” At the look on Garth’s face, Rory swallowed his intended words. “She’s going to cause you plenty of grief,” he amended. “And herself more.”

  “You’re a good one to talk,” said Garth, “considering the white hairs you put in our mother’s head.”

  “And of course you didn’t!”

  “Of course I did, but”—Garth controlled himself—“let’s not wrangle. Meg’s headstrong, but she’s got a good heart. Look how she’s taken Jackie under her wing.”

  Yes, to crowd me out, Hallie thought. But perhaps the winter would also improve Meg’s attitude. At any rate, one more summer with Garth and these good friends was assured. Beyond that, she wouldn’t worry.

  “Since we have the cooks spoken for,” Garth said, “do the rest of you want to make the run next summer? In spite of Raford’s tricks, I can pay my mortgage, and I’m expecting to still be in business.”

  They all wanted to join the outfit again except for Jim Wyatt. Kneading his scarred cheek absently, he said, “If I can borrow against my veteran’s bonus and get in a good season of lumberjacking, I hope I can be running my own engine next summer. If that somehow don’t work out, Garth, there’s no one I’d rather work with than you. I’ll let you know by spring.”