The Unplowed Sky

by Jeanne Williams

  “So there’s maybe a month’s work.”

  “Have us another little job, too. Mr. Thomas wants us to move a house he bought for his daughter and her husband out to his farm.”

  Rory stared. “Sally got married? Pretty brown-eyed Sally?”

  “Guess she decided it’ll be a far day till you settle down.”

  The younger brother’s eyes flicked toward Hallie. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  Garth’s face tightened. “There’s always work for an engine. We’ll get by.”

  “We could set up a sawmill.”

  “Sure, if we want to travel to where there’s a lot of trees.”

  “There’s enough trees right here to keep us busy this winter.”

  It was a moment before Hallie understood what he meant, and it seemed to be seconds before Garth understood. “I’ll never cut those trees or break that sod.”

  “Not even to keep our land?”

  According to Shaft, Garth alone had put money into the land and machinery. His smoke gray eyes met Rory’s blue ones. “If I have to sell out, I’ll try to sell to someone who feels the way I do about leaving some land wild.”

  Rory grated his chair back from the table. “You say I’m your partner, but you sure do exactly what you want!”

  “I have to live with what I do.”

  “Well, let’s just hope you figure out a way to live on it, too. If you’d threshed Raford at the start of the run, we’d never have had all this trouble.”

  Garth didn’t wince openly, but Hallie saw the hurt in his eyes, and then the anger. “No one had to stay with me. You could’ve quit, like Pat O’Malley.”

  “You’re my brother!”

  “Don’t let that worry you if you see a better chance.”

  Rory made a disgusted sound and got to his feet. “Hallie, want to go to town for a movie? Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Baghdad sounds pretty good.”

  He knew Meg needed her to get to the outhouse. Anyway, Hallie didn’t want to give him any encouragement. “Thanks, but I can’t.”

  “Won’t, you mean. Well, I’m for town!” He gave his brother a challenging look. “That is if I can use the truck, boss.”

  “You know you can.” Garth sounded weary.

  As the truck gasped, coughed, and finally started, Shaft said, “He’s just young, Garth.”

  “Sure.” But Garth refused his favorite deep-dish apple pie.

  “I wish I could go to the movie,” said Meg. “I’m sick and tired of this old chair!”

  “Honey, I know you are.” Garth leaned over to squeeze his daughter’s hand. “Does it seem like you can put more weight on your legs, like they’re moving better?”

  “Maybe a little. It’s hard to tell. I’d like to burn the old crutches and this chair, too!”

  “Hey!” Garth pleaded in mock horror, “Won’t it be okay to just turn them back in to the hospital and go to the movie and soda fountain with the deposit?”

  Meg laughed reluctantly. “I guess so.” She sobered. “Daddy, how do you suppose Luke is? And Rusty’s little kids?”

  “I have to think they’re getting along as well as they can without Rusty. Luke promised to write once in a while, especially if there was any big problem.”

  “Could I write to him?”

  “I expect he’d like that. Just don’t be disappointed if he’s slow in answering. Lots of people love to get letters but never get around to writing one.”

  “I want to draw Luke a picture of Meg’s wheelchair,” put in Jackie. “I like to go round and round in it.”

  “Yes, that’s fun as long as you don’t have to use the darned thing,” Meg retorted. “But you draw a good picture, and we’ll mail it with my letter.”

  They were just completing this project a few days later when, as if Meg’s question had summoned it, a letter came from Luke addressed to Meg and Garth.

  “Doesn’t he have the most beautiful handwriting?” Meg said, admiring it and even deigning to pass it to Hallie. “It runs so smooth and pretty. And look, Jackie! He’s drawn a picture of the new mules! Daddy, Luke’s an artist!”

  “He’s got a knack.” Garth smiled as he passed the picture to Shaft, who nodded. “You can see the one mule’s feisty and the other’s as hard to stir up as froze molasses. Mind reading the letter, Meggie?”

  She did, swallowing hard and scrubbing away tears when she read the parts about how Rusty’s wife and children had taken the terrible news and how much they missed the big, fun-loving gentle-spoken man.

  “They will be all right, though,” Meg read through her tears. “Our neighbors are helping, and with the mules, I can plow in return for things we need. We bought four cows with calves and sell enough cream to pay for what cash stuff we need. Our mother has seen much trouble. She comforts us all and reminds us that we were lucky to have Rusty as long as we did. My sister does not blame anyone for the accident. She says it was Rusty’s appointed hour. She thanks you all for the collection that bought the mules and four cows and paid for the funeral, and she wants you to know that Rusty’s wages are safe in the back of the big clock on the mantel.” He had earlier asked Meg how she was, and he ended by saying, “I hope you were not much hurt, Meg. Please let me know. Tell Shaft I miss his music and sourdough biscuits. If you see Miss Hallie and Jack, say I think of them often and tell Jack I expect him to remember the difference between skunk and raccoon tracks. I hope I will see all of you next summer.”

  “He’s a fine young man,” Garth said. “I’ll never forgive myself for crossing that bridge, but I sure feel better to know that Mrs. Wells doesn’t hate me. Meg, before you seal up your letter, let me put in a note.”

  “Guess I’d like to scratch a few lines,” Shaft said.

  “So would I,” said Hallie. Maybe you can’t think of what to say to bereaved folk, but you can at least say you’re sorry.

  Jackie looked alarmed. “Is there gonna be room for my picture, Meg?” He was beginning to ask her about things more often than he did Hallie. Glad though she was that the two were such excellent companions, Hallie felt increasingly excluded and hurt. I took you when your mother didn’t want you, she sometimes felt like saying when, at Meg’s summons, he sped past her without a glance. Raford and probably Garth and goodness knows who else think you’re my baby, not my brother. I know you’re only a child, but I wish you could understood that I have feelings, too.

  She couldn’t say any of this, of course. Maybe this was how her father felt when she begged to go live with the MacReynoldses, when she made no effort to see him for weeks on end. But that was because he brought Felicity home! she defended herself to herself. He loved you and took care of you for twelve years, not just a few months. Now you have this chance to do something for him, take care of his little boy. Let’s have no whining out of you.

  Now, at Jackie’s anxious question, Meg gathered him to her in a hug. “Of course there’ll be room for your picture! Just make it a good one.”

  The next day, with a very fat letter to mail, Garth took the truck and Rory the engine and corn sheller, a four-wheeled contraption with chutes, a funnel, and a much smaller power wheel than the separator. They would be working along the fertile bottoms of the Arkansas River about twenty miles north.

  The night before, a sullen Meg allowed Garth to show Hallie how to massage the girl’s legs and feet. “When we get back from shelling corn, I’ll take you to the doctor,” Garth told Meg. “We want to be able to say we did what he prescribed.” Meg was so stiff, though, under Hallie’s ministrations, that it was hard to believe the rubbing did much good.

  While Meg held school with Jackie, often with Laird and Smoky in attendance, and Shaft mended fence—that perpetual task of farmers and ranchers—Hallie vented some of her frustration with Meg by undertaking an autumn “spring cleaning.”

  The house was neat, except for Rory’s room, that looked like a tornado had passed through; but the woodwork needed washing or polishing, the windows were dingy in
side and out, quilts and bedspreads needed washing, and the floors would benefit from a thorough cleaning followed by several coats of wax. The wallpaper, the same beige and olive stripe upstairs and down, was murky around the downstairs ceilings from coal smoke. Hallie had several times helped the MacReynoldses hang paper. She yearned to buy patterns suited to each room and get Shaft to help her put it up, but that would be presumptuous without Garth’s approval.

  It bothered her, though, not to have curtains, at least on bedroom windows, and in the kitchen, where the family spent most evenings. Raford had driven up once after dark. She hated the thought of his being able to look in and watch her. Yes, especially with Garth and Rory away, and Shaft sleeping in his little shack, she felt justified in insisting on at least some curtains.

  Closets and storeroom yielded nothing that would work and she had no sewing machine, so she resorted to the Sears, Roebuck catalog. She pored over the curtain and drapery pages for a long time. Though this wasn’t her house, this was the first time she’d been in charge of one, and she was spending her own money, so she was determined to choose something that would look pretty and not earn MacLeod disapproval. After scowling at the offending wallpaper that limited her choices, she settled on gold crinkled Austrian cloth for the kitchen and dusty green tapestry for her bedroom.

  Would Meg like curtains? It was hard to believe any teenage girl wouldn’t. Just then, Meg’s peremptory call of “Crutch, please!” came from the screened porch. On the way to the outhouse, Hallie said, “I’m ordering some curtains for my bedroom. Would you like some for yours? There’s some lovely damask—”

  “I don’t want any. Curtains get dirty and keep out the light.”

  So do dirty windows, Hallie thought. “You might at least have a look.”

  “I’m not going to squander Daddy’s money.”

  “Neither am I. It’s fair enough for me to pay for curtains since I seem to be the only one who misses them.”

  “That’s not your bedroom, either,” flashed Meg.

  “No, but I’m sleeping there. I’m willing to pay for the curtains. When I leave, if they’re not wanted, I can certainly take them down.”

  Meg’s face twisted. “Well, you just remember that it’s our house, not yours! We like it the way it is.” She clumped into the privy.

  Hallie counted to ten twice, but was still seething. Hateful brat! Try to do something nice for her, and get this kind of thanks! A faint honking sounded above. Hallie looked up to see a high, shimmering skein of wild geese flying south.

  How would the house, the farm, even all of Raford’s land, look to those high, far travelers whose thoroughfares were unmarked sky above a series of watering places where they descended to rest year after year? In the shining air, they called to each other, and perhaps the sun and wind. Human disputes and boundaries were nothing to them so long as their age-old resting places were not drained.

  If they saw Hallie at all, she would be a tiny speck, nothing as visible as a cottonwood tree. Somehow, trying to imagine the earth from their lofty sweep calmed Hallie, made her take a long view, consider her ultimate purpose in being here.

  That was to free Garth from worry about his daughter as he went about making a living and to make it possible for Meg to recuperate in familiar surroundings rather than go to the feared and detested invalid home. Ranking close to that was having employment that provided a good home for Jackie and allowed her to look after him.

  Wonderful as it would be to win Meg’s affection and trust, that was not Hallie’s reason for staying. She couldn’t keep herself from imagining how welcoming and pleasant she could make the austere house, and she would clean it thoroughly and wax the floors, but that was not her main goal, either.

  So she would try to think of the high, wild geese next time Meg provoked her, and hold to her intention as the geese pursued their winter haven above the changing and divided earth.

  When Meg came out, she darted a belligerent half-shamefaced look at Hallie. Hallie smiled and closed the door. “The geese are starting south.”

  Meg gazed up. The crutches seemed like skewers clamping her to the ground. “It must be wonderful to fly—to not even need a traveling cloak like Prince Dolor.”

  So the girl did escape with the lame prince and soar over the wide, wide world on his magic cloak. Hallie could not stay cold to her. “You probably will fly someday in an airplane.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “No. But I’d love, at least once, to watch the world spread out below the way the wild geese do.”

  Immediately, Hallie regretted confiding the wish. She braced herself for a jeering remark or withering glance, but Meg only looked at her in a puzzled fashion and swung along toward the house. Helping her up the steps, Hallie ventured a suggestion.

  “I broke my ankle when I was about your age, Meg. It took it a long time to get strong again, but I got around by pushing a chair in front of me. That way I could put as much weight on it as was comfortable, but have support when I needed it.”

  Meg considered. “I might try it. I’m sick of these old crutches.”

  As soon as they were in the kitchen, Meg got next to a chair and leaned her crutches against the wall, gripping the high back. Gingerly at first, leaning heavily, then with increasing confidence, she shoved the chair along the floor.

  “Why, I can use my legs better!” Her cheeks glowed with happy color. “I don’t have to hop like I do on the crutches, but I can rest when I need to! Oh, I’m glad you broke your ankle, Hallie!” Hallie’s shock must have been clear for Meg hastily added, “I mean, I’m glad you found out how to do this!”

  Jackie watched a minute and asked, “Can I push a chair, too, Meg? We could run a race!”

  Meg had the grace to look at Hallie. “May you,” Hallie corrected and smothered a sigh as she relinquished her dream of a resplendent waxed floor. That wasn’t a goal, though. It was only a wish. She brushed back her brother’s curly dark hair. How he had grown since Felicity left him, and how brown and healthy he looked! She smiled and said, “Yes, Jackie, you may push a chair but I think you’ll have to do it by the seat.”

  “Race you to the end of the front room!” cried Meg, and they were off.

  Hallie watched them scoot out of the kitchen, more hopeful of friendship with Meg than she had ever been. Then she got the catalog and began to fill out her order.

  XIV

  When he came home that weekend, Garth was so pleased that Meg was pushing around with chairs and getting more use of her legs that it stung only a little that Meg didn’t credit Hallie for the idea. Pretend you’re a wild goose had become Hallie’s watchword for the high, long view. It did help.

  The postman left the curtains and wax package in the big mailbox at the turnoff to the MacLeods on the same day that he brought a letter from Luke. “His writing’s as beautiful as—as he is!” Meg said. “Look, Jackie, he drew you a picture of the cows and their calves!”

  Her expression changed. Her fingers clenched on the paper before she handed it to Hallie and began to read the letter aloud. The sketch must have been done from memory. Hallie, in her sunbonnet, was at the controls of the engine while the belt ran to the separator. Garth and the pitchers on the stacks were defined by a few swift strokes but Hallie was drawn carefully, even her shadowed face. Meg, driving up with the water wagon, had her back turned.

  Peering over her shoulder, Shaft whistled. “The boy’s good! You can almost see that old belt whirrin’ and the chaff spitting out.”

  “I like the cows and calves better,” Meg said. “Now, Shaft, if you don’t mind, I’d like to read this letter.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miss Meggie.” Shaft bowed low.

  Luke was sawing up logs he and Rusty had cut and trimmed the year before, and splitting them into firewood; one size for the kitchen range, bigger chunks for the fireplace. They had slaughtered a hog, rendered out the lard for cooking, and Luke’s mother and sister were making sausage and headcheese while
hams and side meat cured in the smokehouse.

  At night, while the women patched clothing, or worked on a quilt, Luke and the older children picked meats out of black walnuts or shelled corn. Mrs. Wells—Vinnie, Luke called her—usually popped a dishpan of fluffy corn and poured melted butter over it. Luke’s mother told stories, or they sang songs, or just talked. “Tell me what all of you are doing,” Luke concluded. “Send me another picture, Jackie. Meg, we all pray every night that you will soon be walking.”

  Meg’s voice wavered on the last sentence. “They—they’re praying for me!” she choked, scrubbing at her eyes. “When you couldn’t blame them if they hoped I’d be crippled forever!”

  “They’re not that kind of folks, honey.” Shaft patted her shoulder. “But if you’ve got any dolls or toys or such you’ve outgrown, you could send them to the kids.”

  “I won’t send them old stuff. Daddy saves my wages for college or whatever I’ll want to do, but he’ll get me a money order for Sears, Roebuck. Jackie, bring the catalog here, and let’s pick out something nice for each of the kids.”

  While they were absorbed in this exciting task, Hallie swept and mopped the front room. As soon as the wood was dry, she began to rub in the wax with a soft rag while she knelt on an old doubled towel. The dry wood soaked up the wax thirstily, but the grain showed mellow and pale gold. Garth might not take much care of his floors, but he had bought expensive oak.

  When this coat dried, she would buff it and put on another. Polished to a sheen, that ought to keep this seldom-used floor looking nice for a long time. She’d have to do the kitchen after everyone was in bed.

  She had opened the front door in order to let the floor dry faster. Something blocked the light. She glanced up. The man seemed to fill the door. The sunlight spilling around him obscured his face, but she knew it was Raford.

  “Stay outside,” she ordered. “I don’t want anyone tracking up the floor.”

  “Such hospitality!”

  “You shouldn’t be here at all.”