The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  Angrily she swiped at a bothersome horsefly and decided she’d best get this over with. No one else was going to do it. She hoped Clay would not be in the house, with his week’s growth of blonde stubble on his cleft chin, his lazy blue eyes that watched her, as calm as pond water on a still day. Blue.

  There was only Abby, her gray, curly hair flapping about her thin, wrinkled face, her eyes welcoming Hannah from beneath leathery lids. She was out in the yard hanging up the last of the day’s washing, shaking out denim jeans with a flick of her skinny wrists, pegging them to the sagging wash line as if a strong gust of wind would take them away.

  “Ya ride all the way over her by yerself then, did ya?” was her way of greeting Hannah.

  Hannah dismounted off Pete’s back in one easy motion, tried to throw the reins the way the boys did, but one caught on the horse’s ears and she had to stand on her toes to pull it free.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “What brings you?”

  “Well, my mother sent me. We’re … well, we’re out of food. The potatoes and carrots you brought are gone and my father—my father is acting strange. He doesn’t seem to be … thinking the way he should. You know our horse died, his corn crop isn’t going to get into the ground, and he’s upset. We just need a bit of help until we can pay you back.”

  Abby kicked the wicker clothes basket against the wooden clothesline pole, untied the sack of clothespins from around her waist, and shook her head. She looked off across the shed roof, a scowl marking her face, drawing the lines taut, downward, as if a clamp scrunched up her cheeks. Her small blue eyes snapped.

  “That man shouldn’ta brought you out here. This ain’t no country for you folks. You best git back on home.”

  Hannah scuffed her bare toe into the dust, unable to meet her gaze. It was too sharp, too penetrating. “We can’t,” she said, finally.

  “Why not?” Abby asked, her eyes watching Hannah like a hawk’s.

  Suddenly, Hannah hated Abby with a raw anger that shocked even her. Up came her face, her dark eyes blazing with a black glitter. “We don’t have money to return, that’s why!” she shouted. “You know we don’t. You just want to hear me say it. We’re poor, we’re half-starved, and my father is slowly losing his mind. So how do you expect us to go back home?”

  “Honey, here, here. I didn’t mean it that way.” Abby stepped forward as if to hug her, at least to protect her with an arm about her heaving shoulders.

  But Hannah shrugged her off, turned and shouted, “Don’t touch me. Go away and leave me alone.”

  She gathered up Pete’s reins, draped them across his mane, grabbed a handful of hair and stood back, ready to fling herself on his back.

  Abby’s bony hands reached out, grabbed Hannah’s arm, and tugged her away from Pete. He looked as if he didn’t have the strength to return to the homestead.

  “Look here, young lady. You ain’t talkin’ to your elders thataway. You best git yer wings clipped, or you ain’t havin’ no friends hereabouts.”

  “I don’t care!” Hannah yelled.

  Abby stepped right up and grabbed her arm in a grip like a clamp. “You better care,” she shouted right back, “cause I can tell you, in this here country, you need folks to help you out sometimes.”

  Hannah said nothing, just stood by her horse’s neck, a handful of his mane twisted in her grubby fist. She glared at Abby like a trapped animal.

  “Let goa yer horse,” Abby commanded. “Come on, let go. You best come on in and help me get dinner.”

  “No!”

  “Fine. You and yer horse are so hungry and weak you’ll drop halfway home. Suit yerself.” With that, Abby walked away, picked up her clothes basket, and walked across the scrubby yard up onto the porch. She flung the empty basket on a metal chair and let herself into the house with a backward glance.

  That made Hannah so mad she couldn’t see straight. She leaped up on Pete’s back, kicked her heels against his knobby sides, startling the horse into a clumsy lunge that unseated her and landed her by the corral fence with dust all over herself, the chickens squawking and flapping their wings as they dashed to safety behind the fence.

  Thundering hooves rounded the corner of the barn. Three horses slid to a surprised stop, their riders grinning down at her. The spectacle of a young girl sitting in the dust, her riderless horse a few paces off, face suffused with anger, dark eyes popping and snapping—it was all hilarious to them. Not accustomed to young women, they laughed without restraint, not aware that their laughter was neither polite nor proper.

  “That sorry old nag dump you?” Hank chortled.

  “Slid right off, did you?” Ken asked with a wide grin.

  Clay said nothing, just sat on his horse and looked down at her with that slow, easy light in his blue eyes.

  Hannah fired a round of defensive words that hit them without making a ruffle in their denim shirts. Still laughing, they dismounted and walked toward the barn shaking their heads.

  Except Clay, who walked over and offered her his hand. “Want up?”

  “I can get up by myself.” In one quick movement Hannah was on her feet and dusting herself off with rapid strokes of her hands. She straightened her head covering, tucked a few strands of hair beneath it, and glared at Clay.

  “Yer lookin’ awful puny. You folks gittin by?”

  It was the way he said it that upset her most. Her glare and her defensiveness melted away as his kindness seeped through her belligerence. She swallowed and felt the prickle of hated tears, her face changing expressions like a soft, spring squall of warm rain.

  She shook her head, swallowed again and whispered, “Barely.”

  Clay stepped closer. All she could see was his blue denim shirt front, the pockets with flaps buttoned down over them. She smelled the horse, the prairie grass, the wind, his tobacco, and a masculine scent that made her want to touch his shirt pocket and straighten the one corner that stood up as if blown by the wind.

  She looked at the pocket, then dared to lift her eyes to his open collar, his tanned dusty neck, and the cleft in his chin. She had no nerve to meet his eyes. They were too blue, too slow and easy.

  He saw the dark hair, thick and wavy, the eyebrows on the perfect brow, twin arcs of dark perfection. Her eyelashes lay on white cheeks, so thick and long it was ridiculous. He’d never seen anything like it. He was gripped by a longing to see the dark eyes beneath those unbelievably perfect eyelids, a longing that left him shaken and weak-kneed.

  He hadn’t expected this. He sure hadn’t figured on any such feelings for this girl wearing that white head covering, her father like a prophet straight out of the Old Testament.

  They were worlds apart.

  Clay Jenkins knew plenty of girls. He knew too that he could have anyone he set his mind to. At twenty-two years old, he was up for grabs, in many of the local girls’ minds. So far, he’d never met one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, let alone marry one and raise a brood of children.

  “Barely, you said?”

  Hannah nodded. “My father isn’t right. Something’s wrong with the way he’s acting. My mother isn’t used to fending for herself. She does whatever Dat says. Our food is all gone. The garden doesn’t look too promising. You know our horse died. We would go back home to Pennsylvania, but our money is all gone too.

  “So I rode over for help. Mam made me come. She doesn’t know what else to do. The children are hungry. We’ve been eating prairie hens, but it’s not enough to keep hunger away.”

  Clay had never felt anything close to what he was feeling now. It wasn’t pity, not even sympathy. Her words were pressed out from beneath a covering of pride. He saw the courage it took to speak about their situation, the force of her will, the desperation to help her family. He knew that she was the only one who could lead this group of well-meaning, misled Christians. He guessed that was what they called themselves—Christians. He couldn’t seem to pronounce Amish correctly.

  “But that doe
sn’t mean we can’t make it here on our own,” Hannah continued. “We just need to borrow some food until we can pay it back, if that’s all right with your parents anyway.”

  She stepped back and gripped her hands behind her back. She looked into his eyes, hers masked by her fierce determination to hang on to her pride. She looked too thin herself, with the faint blue shadows of hunger beneath her dark eyes.

  “That bad, is it?” Clay asked, hating the way his breath caught as if he’d been running up a hill.

  “It’s pretty bad, yes.”

  “Did you talk to Ma?”

  “Yes. She made me mad.”

  Clay laughed, wanting to take her hand but didn’t. Hank and Ken followed them back to the house, sat with them at the dinner table waiting for Abby to dish up the potatoes and roast beef. Hod joined them, stomping onto the front porch with the force of a tractor, yelling to Abby that these cats had to go! There were about half a dozen too many around here!

  Abby lifted her head from the hot oven door and told him if he touches them cats, she’d chase him off the ranch with her varmint-killing .22 rifle.

  Hod laughed, removed his hat to reveal his white forehead that began after the red stopped, about halfway between his eyebrows and his hairline. Hannah looked at the boys’ foreheads, and found them to be the same, only not as pronounced as Hod’s.

  Hannah took the heavy plate filled with boiled potatoes dotted with browned butter and chunks of beefsteak as large as her fist. She tried to eat slowly but found herself having to lift her head repeatedly and lay down her fork to keep from wolfing down her food like a dog, putting her face in her plate without bothering to use fork or spoon.

  Clay watched her, the same unnameable feeling welling through his chest until he felt as if his heart was floating in moving water. Everything in the room spun before righting itself, and he figured he’d better watch himself. These feelings were far harder to handle than a bucking mustang or a wild steer.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Jenkinses cared for the Detweilers, bringing more potatoes and onions and carrots, cold-packed beef in Mason jars, flour, baking powder and salt, cornmeal and coffee. They brought a milk cow and two calves.

  Hod sat down with Mose and explained in detail that their only hope of carving out a life for themselves here in North Dakota was raising cattle. Abby told Sarah they may as well get on the train and go home, which didn’t sit well with Mose at all.

  He had, by this time, mostly given up on his fasting and praying, seemingly humbled that the Lord he knew so well had hidden His face from him for reasons he did not understand. He told Sarah in a quiet, subdued tone of voice that yea, though He slay me, I will trust in Him, just as the Bible tells me to do.

  Sarah’s heart swelled with love and something akin to worship. To have her Mose back with sound reasoning and peace of mind was more than she deserved. Surely now things would begin to look up.

  The Jenkinses brought a horse, a contrary old nag they hitched to Pete in the harrow. At this, Pete threw a fit, crow hopping, shaking his head, and flattening his large ears. But Mose trained him well, and eventually, the team tilled the soil and planted the corn seeds in the ground.

  They named him Mule. His ears were only a fraction smaller than a mule, and he beat every mule Mose had ever seen for crankiness. The most important thing was that he served his purpose well and Mose was thankful.

  For a time, then, things progressed for the Detweilers. The barn was finished in due time, such as it was, built with logs and rusted tin patched in pieces. But it was free from the Jenkinses, so no one thought to complain.

  The whole family helped drop the corn seeds, even six-year-old Eli. Mose drew a homemade tool with one horse that dug furrows, and everyone followed with the precious seeds, dropping them not too deep and not too shallow.

  The days grew warmer. Puffy clouds hung in the sky like pieces of cotton stuck to the blue dome above them. The wind blew, but it was a warm, friendly wind, a playful breeze that tugged at the women’s skirts as they bent over the soil and sent their white covering strings dancing, slapping them against their faces.

  The large square of tilled soil by the house, flecked with clumps of stubborn prairie grass, they called the garden. It was, by all means, a primitive patch of half-tilled soil that swallowed the seeds, leaving Sarah with the feeling that if anything sprouted out of that wet, clumpy ground, it would be a miracle.

  But it did. Little by little, the beans and potatoes and onions showed tender green plants shoving up from the earth, and Sarah’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude. Such hope!

  No matter that things had been hopeless, here was promise. Here was a sign from God above, who looked on them with benevolence, love, and mercy. His ways were so far above her own. All she needed to do was continue to trust, even when the way grew so hard there was no light at the end of a long and dismal tunnel.

  Manny became an expert shot, killing prairie hens, which Sarah learned to skin expertly, eliminating the need to boil water and pluck feathers, a time consuming, tedious task. The small amount of meat on each one was sufficient to keep protein in their diet and with the bread baked with flour the Jenkinses had donated, Sarah stretched the potatoes and carrots as far as she could.

  The roundup day arrived with Mose refusing to allow his family to attend, saying they had no fellowship with the world. They were a peculiar people, set apart to be holy unto the Lord. Sarah agreed, hiding her grudging heart, covering her longing for women’s company with her head lowered in submission. She could see her husband’s point, especially with regards to Hannah. She was so set in her ways, so determined and quick to mouth her opinions, like throwing rocks neither Sarah nor Mose could always dodge.

  When she heard they would not be going to the roundup, she said her father was right; they were peculiar people, completely strange. They didn’t fit in anywhere, like a boatload of slaves brought over from Africa, the ones she read about in school. All they were good for in the western country was being stared at, poked at, and made fun of.

  Mose drew himself up, took a deep breath, and did not look on his daughter with anger or rebuke. But there was no kindness in his voice either. He told her if she didn’t learn to curb her tongue and respect her elders, she would become a slave of the devil. Didn’t she know the tongue was untamable and like a ship without a rudder unless she learned to master it—may God help her. Sarah stood by her husband, her gentle brown eyes filled with rebuke.

  Hannah went out to the calves and changed their tethers, pulling up the long pegs driven into the ground, moving them to an area where grass was more abundant. She stood with her hands on her hips and decided there was no difference between her and the calves. She was pegged tight to her Amish heritage by her father’s views, and there wasn’t a soul around to pull up her peg and change her position either.

  She noticed the ribs beneath the hair on the calves’ sides, the way their necks appeared too thin, and decided this was no way to raise calves. She marched back into the house and approached her father without shame.

  She told him what she thought, mincing no words. A calf tied by a rope to a peg in the ground was not the way things were done out here. Barbed wire was out of the question, the ever-present ghost of being poor hovering over them. So why didn’t he brand these little calves and the one cow so they could roam? That’s how it was done.

  Mose listened to his daughter’s voice and thought that here was a more daunting job than all the acreage he had been given by the United States government. Here was a challenge so steep it made the prairie appear bridled in comparison.

  His own daughter.

  She was beautiful by anyone’s standards, with a head on her shoulders and a voice unafraid to be heard, opinions aired so freely and as naturally as the wind rushing past their house.

  His head hurt. He gripped it with both hands and shook it back and forth like a wounded dog.

  Hannah burst out, “Stop that!”

&nbs
p; And still his head hurt.

  The two oldest Jenkins boys rode over after Hannah asked them to acquire a branding iron for them. She named their homestead the Bar S, just the way she planned. She told Clay without preamble, leaving him scratching his head and wondering what other ideas were floating around in her mind.

  “You know I’ll have to go to town for that, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “They have to make your brand if they don’t have it.”

  “Who?”

  “The horseshoe guy.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Someone who makes horseshoes.”

  “How’s that done?”

  “You’ll just have to come with me and see.”

  But Mose and Sarah were adamant. Absolutely not. Their daughter would not be riding into town in the Jenkins’ old pickup truck with Clay at the wheel. To begin with, any form of automobile was the workings of the devil. Any contraption that ran by itself was devised by his cunning. God surely would not allow anything like that to be put on this earth—a machine breathing fire and brimstone, like an instrument from Hell itself.

  No good would ever come of it. Mose trembled at the thought of those fire-breathing monsters rattling all over God’s green earth, leaving plumes of black smoke, with leering, grinning, ungodly people at the wheel. His judgment was harsh, in black and white, labeling cars as evil; and that was that.

  So Hannah stayed on the homestead, helped her mother with the washing, cooking, and cleaning, all the while fuming silently about the plight of the calves tied to their pegs. She washed sheets and pillowcases with a mad energy, rubbing them across the hated washboard as if she hoped it would bleed from her frenzied rubbing.

  Sarah watched Hannah from the doorway, holding the baby in her arms, her face untroubled and still beautiful in spite of the long, arduous journey and the hardships she had endured since.