Sophie Brockett! What was she doing here? Hallie couldn’t hear what the woman was saying but she heard Garth’s answer so clearly that she thought he must be close to the stairs and probably, in exasperation, speaking louder than usual.
“No, Sophie, I can’t hire you. We got Shaft a helper down in Texas. He does a good job and needs the money.”
An indecipherable plaint. Garth again: “If you don’t like the way Raford treats you, go back to your folks.”
Another murmured appeal. “I’m sorry.” Garth’s rough tone showed his distress. “I can’t take you on, Sophie. If you need some money till you find another job—”
Sophie must have come close to him, for this time her voice carried. “You’re going to need all the money you can beg or borrow by the time Quent Raford gets through with you! He’s going to have this farm and plow that mess along the creek. If you have any sense, you’ll sell out while you can!”
“He send you to say that?”
Sophie faltered. “N-no. But it’s true!”
“We’ll see. Would you mind leaving so I can get some sleep?”
There was a hissing intake of breath. “You deserve whatever comes to you, Garth MacLeod! I gave you a chance—”
“Thanks. Good night, Sophie.”
The door slammed, and then the screen. Car lights glared through the curtain, then arced and faded. Hallie stood shivering, and not just from the cold. Was Sophie making wild threats, or was she sure that Raford was still intent on destroying Garth? Hallie had hoped that Raford was so involved in his election to the legislature and preparing for going to Topeka that he’d have no energy for harassing Garth.
Garth’s tread on the stairs was heavier, wearier, than his brother’s. Hallie couldn’t bear it. She stepped into the hall. “Garth,” she said softly into the darkness. “I—I heard. Maybe Sophie was just being spiteful.”
“Maybe.” Hallie couldn’t see his face but she could feel his nearness. “But I doubt it. He tried to get me fired off my job in Texas—told a friend of his on the railroad’s board of directors that I was dangerous and irresponsible—mentioned the accident.”
“Oh, how awful!”
“It was a good thing the man who hired me had done some checking on my reputation around here and was able to convince the board that Raford, as road commissioner, hadn’t fixed the bridge properly and that I had planked it.”
“So you think he’s still after you?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe when he gets busy in the legislature—”
“If he’s busy promoting the KKK, that won’t be much of an improvement.” She could imagine Garth’s shrug. His tone deepened. Some of the fatigue left it. “Hallie, thank you for staying with Meg. I know it hasn’t been easy.” He hesitated. “Thank you for Christmas. It’s the first real one we’ve had in—well, it must be the first one Meg can remember.”
She was glad he couldn’t see the tears that filled her eyes. “It was Shaft’s playing and the carols and Luke’s and Vinnie Wells’s manger that made it special.”
“And the little tree decorated with handmade pretties and the plates of candy and cookies and all. You made this Christmas, Hallie.” His voice, warm and smiling, changed abruptly. She could almost feel him drawing back. “Whatever happens, I’ll never forget it. And I’ll always thank you.”
Before she could speak or move, he was past her and turning into his room. If Rory hadn’t been there, she would have followed, asked what was the matter.
Staring after him, glad of his appreciation yet distressed at the change in his manner, Hallie stood in the drafty hall till the cold made her shake uncontrollably. Closing the door and burrowing under quilts and blankets, she heard Sophie’s threat again and the sudden remoteness of Garth’s last words. Long after her body warmed, she felt chilled around her heart.
Hallie wanted to send the men off with a good hot breakfast, so she was first downstairs again. By the time Shaft came in with Smoky cuddled inside his jacket, the aroma of coffee filled the kitchen, biscuits were in the oven, and Hallie was stirring raisins into the bubbling oatmeal.
“Sure wish we didn’t have to go.” Shaft poured coffee for both of them and splashed in the Borden’s. “This job is keeping Garth afloat, though, so we’d better not grumble.” He looked at her keenly. “Who came in that car last night? They tore out of here pretty reckless.”
Hallie told him what she had heard. He shook his head. “Maybe that gal was just blowin’ smoke, but I’m mighty afraid she wasn’t. Guess we’ll just have to wait till threshing season and see what new tricks Raford has figgered.”
“We can hope he gets so busy at the state capital that he won’t have time for us,” Hallie said.
Garth brought Meg down and Rory followed with Jackie on his shoulder. “Saltin’ the calf to catch the cow,” Shaft muttered, dishing up the oats while Hallie scrambled eggs. “Beggin’ your pardon, Hallie. It’s an old backwoods sayin’.”
By the time the last biscuit was gone and Hallie had packed a big box lunch, dawn streaked the sky and showed the icicles hanging in front of the windows. Shaft eyed them and laughed.
“Bat Masterson wrote once that rich and poor folks get about the same amount of ice, the difference bein’ that rich ones have it in the summer and poor ones in the winter. Wouldn’t we like some of them icicles in our lemonade ’long about next July?”
“Right now this coffee hits the spot,” Rory said. “Shaft, you stay here, and we’ll take Hallie with us. She can cook and look pretty at the same time.”
“For that, you get slumgullion while the other boys stuff on beefsteak and fixin’s,” retorted Shaft.
All too soon, the brothers brought down their suitcases. Shaft’s was on the porch. “Stay in where it’s warm,” Garth told Meg as they embraced.
“No! I want to wave till the truck turns onto the main road and I can’t see you anymore!”
“I wanna wave, too!” cried Jackie.
So did Hallie. “Let me get the blame thing running first then,” Garth surrendered. He bent to shake hands with Jackie. “You keep on looking after our womenfolk, lad.”
“I will,” Jackie promised. He buried his face against Shaft’s beard as the man scooped him up. “Oh, Shaft—”
“Take care of my ornery cat,” Shaft told him. “And send me a picture sometimes in your sister’s letters.”
“Do you like them?”
Shaft nodded. “I show ’em to those Texicans and brag on my grandboy. Hey, sounds like Garth has the old wreck runnin’! We better jump in before it stops.”
Hallie got Meg and Jackie into their coats that hung on pegs on the porch and tugged on her own old jacket. Rory followed as she helped Meg down the steps to the where the truck shuddered and belched vapor. Meg resumed her crutches and limped forward to give her father a last kiss. Shaft tucked his suitcase under the tarp with the others and hoisted Jackie for a final hug and whisper.
Hallie didn’t know Rory was at her side till he swung her around and kissed her, much as he had when they left in November. Only this time he knew she didn’t love him, knew she wasn’t going to wear his necklace.
She shoved at him, but he had already stepped back and was climbing into the truck. “So long, angel!” he called. “If you dream, be sure you dream of me!”
“Rory!” she shouted. “You know—”
But the truck veered sharply toward the lane. She caught a glimpse of Garth’s face, cold as a winter dawn. He waved till the truck turned at the corner, but Hallie knew the farewell was to his daughter.
Damn Rory! Damn him! Had he told Garth lies? He wouldn’t have to lie, just act the way he had. Now that she thought about it, Garth had been outside working on the aerial when she told Rory she was saving the festoon for his serious sweetheart.
Should she try to explain to Garth by letter? That would be awkward. She could ask Shaft to try to set things straight and when the men came back, she’d make her feelings
about Rory clear to Garth even if it cost considerable pride. What if Garth couldn’t care less, saw her only as a caretaker for Meg?
She’d run that risk.
Jackie was sobbing. Before Hallie could comfort him, Meg, in spite of her crutches, managed to draw him close. “I—I’d rather have Shaft stay than have my train!” he wept.
“I know, Jackie. Like we’d both rather have Daddy than a radio—or anything. But they’ll be back. Come inside and you can wind the phonograph and play your ukulele like you were part of the orchestra.”
“Yes, and I’ll pet Smoky and tell her Shaft’ll be back.”
“You can draw thank-you pictures for Jim and Rich,” Hallie said, automatically supporting Meg up the steps. “We all should write to Luke and Vinnie Wells and tell them how wonderful the manger is.”
The kitchen, bereft of bantering male voices, seemed chilly and lonesome. Hallie stirred up the coals, added more fuel, and went to fetch the phonograph. There was room for it in the kitchen now. Too much room.
XIX
Early in the morning of New Year’s Day, Hallie was making beds when she heard the kitchen door close. She thought it was Jackie either on his way to the outhouse or to scatter crumbs for the birds. In a moment, the door opened and Jackie yelled, “Hallie! Hallie! Meg—she failed down the steps!”
Heart in her mouth, Hallie pelted downstairs and through the porch. At least Meg wasn’t lying unconscious. Her face twisted with pain and outrage, she was trying to raise herself by pushing up from the steps.
“Why won’t my legs work?” she sobbed wrathfully. “Why can’t I walk? Don’t howl like a banshee, Jackie! I’m all right.”
“Are you sure? Did you bump your head or hurt yourself some new way when you fell?” Hallie asked, helping Meg up. At least the mud was gone from the thaw that had melted the Christmas snow so Meg hadn’t suffered the further indignity of being muddy and wet.
“My dumb stupid awful legs just wouldn’t hold me!”
“You should have called me.”
“I’m tired of calling you!” Meg scrubbed at her eyes ferociously. “It’s New Year’s! I didn’t want to start it out by asking someone to help me to the outhouse!”
That must be humiliating. It struck Hallie with sudden force how much Meg must hate being forced to ask five or six times a day for aid in taking care of her most private physical needs. Handing Meg the crutches, Hallie tried to think of an alternative.
A handrail! Garth must not have thought of fixing one on the steps because no one had suspected that it would be so long before Meg walked. Making accommodations for an invalid put a seal of permanency on the condition. Hallie shrank from thinking that Meg might never get better, but it was time to do anything that would give her more independence.
“Maybe we could put up sort of a rail from the house to the privy,” Hallie said as they moved back up the steps. “You could probably manage then.”
The flash of hope on Meg’s face ebbed quickly. “The ground’s hard. You can’t make a lot of postholes.”
“I can make a start. And I’ll bet Mike Donnelly will finish what I can’t and buy and set the posts.”
As soon as her morning tasks were done, Hallie located a mattock and shovel in the machine shed and began digging. The ground was frozen beneath the first three or four inches, defying the shovel, and her shoulders soon ached from lifting and swinging the heavy mattock.
Well, then, she’d just start the holes. Mike could tell better than she how many were needed. She was wielding the mattock on the third hole when she heard a motor. A long shiny black automobile jounced down the lane and stopped beside her.
Raford had a new car, she thought inanely. Did he think a Cadillac went better with being a state legislator? It was too late to take refuge in the house, but with a mattock in her hands, she wasn’t afraid of him. Not physically, at least.
“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded, coming out of the auto like an unwound spring.
“Digging postholes. Not that it’s any of your business.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Hallie, my sweet! Hallie, my brave, strong, ridiculous darling! Don’t you know there are posthole diggers?”
“I didn’t know it was a special trade, but anyway—”
“A tool, Hallie. A contraption with two narrow shovels. It makes a nice deep hole—not a wide one that, begging your pardon, looks like the beginning of a hog wallow.”
“Oh.” It made sense that the snugger the rigid sides of the hole fitted the post before it was filled in with loose earth tamped down, the steadier the post would be. Maybe Mike Donnelly had a posthole digger but Hallie didn’t want Raford to know how helpful the Donnellys were just in case he might do them some meanness. She picked up the tools and started for the shed.
“I’ll send over a posthole digger tool and man to go with it,” Raford said.
“I don’t want your tool or your man or you here, either.”
The sun was dull and shrouded, but his eyes suddenly glowed gold-green. “I suppose if I wanted a New Year’s kiss, you’d try to hit me with the shovel.”
Hallie dropped the shovel and fixed both hands on the more potentially vicious mattock. “No, I’d hit you with this.”
He smiled. “That kind of wooing doesn’t interest me. I’ll have my kisses when you get tired of slaving for MacLeod.” He moved lazily to the Cadillac. “Call me superstitious, but I wanted to be the first man you saw on New Year’s Day. Next year I hope to be the only one.”
“You won’t be. Not ever.”
“I came for another reason.” His glance brushed her bare hands. “I know the MacLeods and that old derelict were home for Christmas.”
“How did you know?”
“From the road, or even my upper window, you’d be surprised what I can see with binoculars. I’ve watched you hang out the laundry, help that crippled kid to the privy, seen you prime the pump when it’s frozen, and wear your arm out pumping water. You’re a fool, Hallie!”
Her spine chilled at the notion of his being able to see her when she was outside. Now she’d always be afraid he might be watching. Thank goodness for the curtains in her bedroom and kitchen!
Raford’s eyes told her that he was amused by her alarm, that being able to intrude on her privacy gave him a sense of power and control. She was glad she hadn’t known about the binoculars before. It would have been hard not to tell Garth. That would have led to a confrontation, and she was positive that Raford didn’t fight fair.
He said deliberately, “I wanted to be sure that neither MacLeod—man or cub—left an engagement ring on your finger.”
Hallie’s spine grew colder. “What if one of them had?”
Raford brushed a speck off his black fur-collared overcoat. “He wouldn’t come back from Texas.”
“You have the nerve to tell me that?”
“Why not? Since you’re not engaged, nothing will happen.”
“Did you send Sophie to ask Garth for a job?”
The hard mouth turned down. “You don’t think she’d do anything without my orders?”
“You wanted a—a spy!”
“Nothing so picturesque. But if she could get herself pregnant by Garth—or anyone—and claim the child was his—”
“You really hate him, don’t you?”
“I don’t let anyone keep what I want. Land or a woman.” Raford got in the sleek, powerful automobile. The engine purred at his touch. “I promise you this, Hallie. This day next year you won’t be alone with a couple of brats on an out-of-date farm trying to dig postholes.”
The Cadillac swung away. When she was able to move again, Hallie put up the implements, hugged her arms about herself to stop her shivering, and gazed south past the barren trees along the creek, south toward her love. She’d have to warn Garth that in spite of Raford’s election to the legislature, his enmity hadn’t waned. But it was best for Garth not to know about Raford’s spying.
After all,
Raford had watched for almost two months without doing anything. Garth needed to earn his pay from the railroad, not feel that he had to come back here and challenge Raford. She hated it, being under Raford’s surveillance, but he’d soon be leaving for Topeka. She prayed fervently that he’d get so involved with politics and state and national issues that he would get over his obsession to possess her, control Garth, and plow the prairie border which even in this depth of winter was alive with gossiping crows and blackbirds.
Deliver us from evil, she prayed, seeking for help and strength beyond this world. Deliver us from evil.
Like an answer, a dazzling shaft of sunlight slanted from the banked, suddenly glorious clouds, transforming the skeleton trees, the sere grass, but most of all the sky. Enraptured, Hallie gazed. No longer trembling, she opened her arms to sun and wind that cleansed her of fear, filled her with praise and joy. Thank You for letting me be alive. Thank You for the beautiful world. Thank You for the sky no man can reach and use and sell.
The light faded, but she carried the radiance with her back into the house. The Donnellys came to visit that afternoon. Mike did have a posthole digger and thought he might even have enough posts and some pipe for railing. He promised to put in the handrail next day after he took the girls to school.
“I guess you’re tired of helping me out to the privy,” Meg said after the Donnellys left.
Hallie winced. A great wave of fatigue overwhelmed her. “I guess you can’t—won’t—believe I want to make things easier for you.”
Meg’s eyes widened. After a moment, she said grudgingly, “It will be a lot nicer to be able to go in and out by myself.”
If that was the best Meg could do for a palm leaf, Hallie wasn’t going to wave it. “Let’s finish up our thank-yous so we can mail them tomorrow,” she said. “Jackie, have you drawn all your pictures?”
The Unplowed Sky Page 28
