“Maybe not. She’s mighty used to having Garth be all her own. Love’s like picking blackberries, honey. The fruit’s sweet and juicy, but you get a lot of scratches.” Shaft gave Hallie a level stare. “Can you wait five years? Till Meg’s old enough to make her own home?”
Five years! It seemed forever. But again, listening to her heart, Hallie said, “I don’t have any choice.”
XV
Shimmering clouds of white-breasted, black-bibbed, dusky-backed horned larks with their plaintive tinkling call and bolder fluting yellow-breasted black-necklaced meadowlarks rose from or descended on the stubbled fields. White-crowned sparrows trilled as they hopped briskly in search of seeds and goldfinches in gray-brown winter plumage swayed thistle stalks as they fed and sweetly called per-chik-oree as they flew. Shaft tied chunks of tallow to the naked black locust tree. This attracted several gossipy long-tailed magpies, mockingbirds, and flickers. A pair of cardinals, the male jaunty crimson, the female duskily modest, devoured the last of the dried sandhill plums. Red-tailed hawks soared above, sometimes circling before plummeting down for a rabbit or mouse.
Jackie’s wagon arrived, shining red with balloon tires. He brought coal from the cellar, though he got to pull it only about fifteen feet before loading it into a bucket to carry inside. He hauled the mail home from the mailbox, and foraged the Old Prairie for dried yucca stalks, which made good kindling.
“There was a St. Louis company bought them soapweeds for a while,” Shaft remembered. “They made rope and cord and soap, but the freight cost so much that the company couldn’t make a profit. In the spring, when the soapweed shoots are nice and tender, they’re good eating. Boil ’em and slap on butter and a little salt and pepper.”
At the end of October, Garth and Rory finished in the Arkansas River bottoms and brought the engine and corn sheller home. They moved what would soon be brown-eyed Sally Thomas’s home from Hollister to her parents’ farm and returned to the MacLeod farm with Rory tootling exuberantly on the whistle as the engine chugged up the lane.
“We’re going to help build a railroad across the Texas Panhandle!” Rory shouted as he jumped down from the platform. “It’ll keep us working till spring at good pay. They wanted us to leave tomorrow, but I said this is my first year to vote, and I sure aim to do it. Want to see William Allen White get in as governor and don’t want old Careful Cal to be president.”
William Allen White was the longtime editor and owner of the Emporia Gazette. When Hallie was in school, her class had studied his famous 1896 editorial, “What’s Wrong with Kansas?,” which brought White national fame and was used by the Republican campaign to help elect McKinley.
“My feelings exactly,” Garth said. “I doubt if White can win, but he’s sure waked people up to the danger of the Klan’s taking over the state. We’ll stop by the schoolhouse, vote, and head south.” His step was springy despite a hard day’s work, and the lines etched his at mouth and and eyes didn’t seem so deep. “There’s a job for you, Shaft, if you’ll cook.” Garth’s eyes came to Hallie. “If you’re willing to stay—”
It took her a moment to absorb the fact that he would be gone all winter, and another moment to comprehend that if Shaft went, too, she’d be alone on this farm with two children, one of them hostile, and with Raford and Cotton too close for comfort.
Hallie’s face must have betrayed her dismay. Garth shrugged and said, “Can’t blame you for not wanting to be stuck out here alone. Of course I’d fix it for folks like the Crutchfields and Donnellys to stop by every week or so and see how you’re doing and what you need from town. Donnellys’ oldest little girl starts started school this fall, and Mike or Mary drive her. I’m going to ask if they can take Meg when she’s able to go back. Till then, they’ve already offered to pick up her assignments and take them to the teacher every week.” He looked at Meg. “I’ll take you to see the doctor tomorrow, honey. Maybe—”
Meg whirled her chair around and wheeled into the front room, but not before Hallie saw tears and quivering lips. Poor Meg! Trapped in the house by her lameness, and her father gone till spring! If Shaft went, too, she’d really feel like Prince Dolor, locked up with his criminal nurse.
It’ll be pretty awful for me, too, Hallie thought. Months without seeing Garth, having to put up with Meg’s balkiness. But I can’t leave her even if she is hateful. With Raford cutting Garth out of the county road work, he really needs this job. Only how will I manage without Shaft? His music and jokes and his—yes, his love. It makes my heart warm deep down where it froze when I was mad at Daddy and thought he didn’t love me because Felicity shoved me out.
Hallie hadn’t known exactly when Garth and Rory were coming home, but she had baked apple dumplings that day and the kitchen had a good smell of cinnamon, crust, and fruit. Beans flavored with onions, tomatoes, and hot peppers were simmering gently. While the brothers cleaned up, Hallie made cornbread and set the table, scarcely knowing what she was doing.
Till now she hadn’t realized just how much she had looked forward to seeing Garth almost daily that winter, preparing his food and sharing it with him, having his home comfortable for him when he came in from work, knowing he was asleep just down the hall—almost being a family.
Now there would be none of that. If Shaft went, too, how would she bear the loneliness—Meg’s as well as her own? Shaft didn’t need to earn wages that winter. He got his food and little shack for working around the place. She would ask him not to go, even tell him, if she had to, about Raford’s visits. Garth must not know about them. He might get into more trouble with Raford, who already wanted to cause Garth all the grief he could.
Rory and Shaft did most of the talking at supper. Meg’s eyes were red, and she barely nibbled. Hallie, when no one was watching, tried to fix a picture of Garth in her mind so vividly that she could call it up during the once anticipated winter that seemed now to stretch ahead endlessly.
She loved the angles of his face, the thrust of jaw, the way he held his head, the straight mouth that softened when he looked at Meg. She loved his hands, shapely though muscular, with long, blunt-tipped fingers. Those dark gray eyes were startling in his brown face, like the mass of fair hair that fell across his forehead though he’d slicked it back with water. He smelled like salt and earth and grain—like a man, her man. She closed her eyes to breathe in and hold the scent of him. It filled her, permeating the center of her body, till she felt possessed by him.
Hallie opened her eyes to find his fixed on her. Sweet, tremulous lightning flowed between them, ran through her veins. Could he guess what she’d been feeling? As if seared, he looked away. She blushed and was amazed to see heightened color stain his face and throat to the opened collar. Did she have an odor for him—a special one, as he did for her?
The thought seemed not quite nice; one of those deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil from which the prayer in Grandmother Harriet’s book asked deliverance. Hallie couldn’t ask to be delivered, though. She hungered for his touch, for the feel of his body, the knowledge of his mouth. Men were supposed to want such things more readily and imperiously than women, weren’t they? Her senses clamored that Garth did want her even if he didn’t love her; but when she dared glance his way again, he was watching Meg with such a fiercely protective expression that Hallie’s brief elation died.
Meg was Garth’s first concern, his first allegiance. Hallie could accept that, at least while Meg was still at home. Hallie wished her own father had felt that way, or at least considered her more before marrying Felicity. But in spite of the lightning and the way she yearned for him, Hallie wanted more than the physical loving which seemed to her so rapturously awesome and mysterious. She wanted to live with Garth the rest of their lives, to share days and work as well as passion.
Would he ever allow that, even when Meg was grown? Can you wait? Shaft had asked. Hallie placed this season against the years till Meg was eighteen and tried to take the long view—capture the sweeping visio
n of the wild geese—but she was mortal, earthbound, and all she could see was winter.
Hallie was washing the men’s clothes next morning while Rory readied the engine for the long journey south and Garth took Meg to the doctor. That afternoon he would clean and oil the separator which would stay in the shed till spring. Shaft came in the porch and took over turning the lever.
“Hallie, I can tell you don’t like the notion of staying here alone with the kids. Are you scared of Cotton Harris?”
“Not that he’ll do anything. Raford’s evidently told him not to try to get even for that mop I swung in his face. But I don’t feel too comfortable knowing he’s around.”
“I’ll stay if you say so. But I hope you’ll decide you can manage. I don’t need the money myself, but Garth may. He’s runnin’ on a mighty thin edge, even with this railroad job. I’d like to be able to help him if he needs it.”
So would I, Hallie thought. And he does need it, so I just have to make myself be able. From somewhere she dredged up a smile and fended Shaft away from the lever. “You’d better start getting the cookshack ready. We’ll be all right.”
When Garth and Meg returned from the doctor, their faces told the results of the examination. “Doc says to just keep up the massage,” Garth said. With attempted cheerfulness, he added, “He says Meg’s muscles have stayed supple and—”
“But he didn’t say I’ll ever walk again!” Meg cried. Swiftly, she pushed her chair into the other room.
Garth looked helpless. Then he turned and went outside.
For the next two days, Hallie treasured every moment she could watch Garth or be with him, hoarded them for the months ahead. She cooked the foods he liked and mended and sewed on buttons for all three men. At supper and afterward, talk centered on the election.
“It’s plumb disgraceful that Coolidge won’t come out against the Ku Klux Klan,” Shaft growled as he sipped his coffee. “I’m sure votin’ for John W. Davis, but lots of people are scared of disarmament and the League of Nations.”
Garth nodded. “Being for them may cost the Democrats the election, though you’d think Coolidge would just have to sink from having all the Harding administration scandals tied around his neck. I’m worried about Kansas, too, but mighty glad White’s been pouring it on the Klan.”
“Wouldn’t be too healthy for guys like Henry Lowen if the Klan gets strong here,” Rory said.
“Or for me,” Shaft rumbled. “’Cordin’ to that bunch, I’m a bohunk.” He snorted. “They don’t like Indians, but everybody else, including their families, had to come from somewhere across the water.”
Rory fired up the engine before daylight next morning. It was already hitched to the cookshack, coal, and water wagons. Garth would be the fireman, and they would hire a water monkey in Texas. They were taking the truck since they would need it for getting around, and Hallie wasn’t eager to drive it.
Hallie woke as Rory went downstairs and could not go back to sleep. Her heart was too heavy to allow her to enjoy a last luxurious snuggling into her pillow. She dressed and went to the kitchen. It was chill enough to make a fire in the big range welcome. She got one going and started cinnamon rolls. While the dough raised, she put on coffee and got water boiling for steel-cut oats that were so chewy and delicious.
She heard quiet steps on the stairs and turned as Garth entered the room. “A fire feels good these mornings.” He came to stand by the stove. There was still a sleepy look in his eyes, a young vulnerability in his face. He sniffed appreciatively. “Cinnamon rolls! You’re seeing us off in style, Hallie. Is the coffee ready?”
She poured him a cup and one for herself. This was how she had hoped it would be all winter. It was achingly sweet to be alone with him in the snug room with mellow lamplight and curtains still drawn against the darkness.
“Garth—I’ll keep up Meg’s massage—do my best for her.”
“I know you will.” His eyes touched her. “Your hair’s growing.”
“Yes. By the time it’s long enough to braid, I’ll have to cut it off for the threshing run. Right now it’s too short to braid or put in a French knot, and too long to fly loose.”
“I like it loose. My grandmother used to sing an old Island song I thought was beautiful. ‘Oh, girl with the sea-gray eyes, your hair has captured me like ropes of silk, like a net of black silver …’”
Rory banged the porch door. Meg called from upstairs. Garth drained his coffee and went up to get her as his brother came in, followed by Shaft. Hallie thrust the cinnamon rolls into the oven and gave the oats an irate stir.
What would Garth have said if they had had just a few more private moments? At least he had noticed her hair. And that song was lovely, even if he had only been reminiscing, rather than using it to speak to her.
After breakfast, Rory put more water in the boiler and closed the dampers. “That ought to hold it till we’re back from voting,” he said to Hallie. “But maybe you’d check the pressure once in a while. If the gauge shows less than sixty, you could open the dampers and put in a little coal.”
The men drove the truck to the schoolhouse and voted as soon as the polls opened. “Cotton Harris was hanging around,” Rory said. “He had a flivver parked a hundred feet from the polls behind some cottonwoods. He was handing out drinks from a red fifty-gallon Coca-Cola barrel but if it wasn’t Jamaica Ginger, I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
“It was jake. I could smell it,” Shaft grunted, wrinkling his crooked beak. “Ninety percent alcohol, the kind of rotgut that’s blinded lots of folks or given ’em the staggers. Not like the prime stuff I used to make.”
“Cotton’s friends wouldn’t know the difference,” said Garth. He frowned. “They more than likely drink plain old Alcorub they get at the drugstore. We’ve got the secret ballot, thank goodness, but I’d reckon everyone with a mortgage held by Raford’s bank is going to vote for him along with the ones Cotton buys with whiskey and his hate talk. Raford’s too smart to peddle that line himself. He’ll fool a bunch of respectable folks who think he’s just patriotic.”
“Have some coffee and a cinnamon roll before you leave,” Hallie urged, clutching at every minute with Garth. “The pressure’s fine, Rory.”
Meg, Jackie, and Hallie sat down with the men for the last small meal. The rolls, just out of the oven, were fragrant with cinnamon and sugar, but Hallie barely tasted hers. Her stomach knotted in a tight, sick ball, and her throat ached. Garth was leaving. All of the men were. Soon she would be alone with the children, be alone for months.
“Are just you three gonna build the railroad?” Jackie asked.
“No, lad. There’ll be dump-wagon drivers and Fresno operators, and I don’t know what all,” Garth smiled. “We’ll meet the rest of the crew down in Texas, at the town where we’ll all start building the roadbed.”
“How do you do that?” pursued Jackie.
“Guess we’ll level off the hills to fill in the valleys.”
Jackie’s eyes grew round. “Will you lay the tracks, Garth?”
“No, laddie. We’ll just haul the grader. It has a plowshare that digs up dirt and throws it on a conveyor belt that raises up high enough to dump the load into horse-drawn wagons traveling alongside. The Fresnos—those are big machines hauled by horses—will be moving earth, too. When the bed’s solid and level and the cross-ties laid, a crane will pick up a rail and lay it on the ties. Then tracklayers move it in place, bolt it to the last rail, and drive in spikes to hold the rail to the ties.”
“Do the spikes ever come loose?” Jackie worried.
“Let’s hope not. That’s why the road has to be done right, so there won’t be trouble later. After enough track is laid, a locomotive chugs along pushing flatcars of rails to the end of track. A crane is mounted on the lead car to swing the rails to the ties, like I said before. So the locomotive follows the new track till they lay the rails to where they join up with the main Santa Fe line.”
Jackie pondered. “I’d like to mov
e the hills to the valleys and toot the whistle.”
“Maybe you will someday.”
“I just wish I could come along and be the water monkey,” Meg burst out. She caught her father’s hand. “Daddy! Won’t I be able to drive the wagon next summer?”
He drew her head against his side and stroked her curly brown hair. “Sweetheart, I doubt an hour passes when I don’t pray for that. You keep on walking with the chair and building up your legs. If you get well, I’ll never pester God for anything else.”
She clung to him. Hallie realized Meg was still more child than young woman and felt a wave of sympathy. She—Hallie—dreaded the winter, but for Meg, unable to run or walk or play and missing her beloved father, it must be much worse.
“Please come home for Christmas, Daddy,” she begged in a muffled voice.
“If it’s anyway possible, we will, Meggie.”
He kissed her good-bye, shook hands man-to-man with Jackie, and turned to Hallie. “This is putting a lot on you. Would you feel better with a shotgun?”
“I’d feel worse. What if I got scared at some noise and shot one of the children or a neighbor?” She forced a smile though her heart cried Don’t go! Don’t leave me. “We’ll be fine. I’d rather have Laird than any gun.”
“And Smoky!” put in her brother.
“And Smoky,” Hallie laughed. Truly, she was glad that the huge dog was staying at the farm—not only for protection but for his benign company.
“You take care of my cat, son.” Shaft knelt to put an arm around the boy. “Maybe I should say our cat, since she sleeps on your bed all the time.” He chuckled. “If you had a nice thick beard, I’d really lose out with her!”
Jackie giggled at that. Even Meg smiled. They all went outside, Garth helping Meg down the steps. He patted Laird, spoke a few soft words, and got in the truck. Shaft gave Hallie and Meg the same hug and peck on the cheek before he got in the other seat. Rory tousled Jackie’s hair, kissed his niece, and turned to Hallie.
The Unplowed Sky Page 23
