Hattie Big Sky

by Kirby Larson

  Your wheatless, et cetera school chum, Hattie

  Sealing both envelopes, I hurried to my morning chores. I dressed in every stitch of clothing I could find, all the time knowing I’d be an ice block the minute I stepped out that door. Back in Iowa, my smooth hands and face had been my one vanity. No more. No amount of fancy Pond’s Cold Cream would soothe the chapped cheeks and nose that were now my badge of homestead honor.

  Mr. Whiskers and I waded through the snow to the barn. More than once I cursed Uncle Chester for placing it so far from the house. As we struggled along, I heard sleigh bells jingling like Christmas. A painted sledge skimmed the snow, drawn by a pair of ashy horses.

  “How do, neighbor!” Rooster Jim called out a greeting.

  Even though I was in the middle of chores, I’d learned enough about Montana ways to know I must invite him in. “The coffee’s on,” I said.

  Rooster Jim spoke some quiet words to his horses. Steam rose from their backs, and they shook their heads and stamped their hooves. “I’m on my way to Vida. Better not this time.”

  “Your team is beautiful,” I said. “Such an unusual color.”

  “That they are.” He grinned. “It gets Traft Martin’s goat that I won’t sell them. He prides himself on saddling up the best-looking horses in these parts.”

  I could tell by Rooster Jim’s tone that he was pretty pleased about vexing Traft Martin. I hadn’t met him yet. I’d heard from Perilee that he and his mother—the yellow silk lady at Hanson’s—ran the largest ranch around. The Tipped M butted up against the northeast boundary of my claim.

  “How are you handling this weather?” he asked.

  “Well, I will be glad when winter’s over,” I said. “I’ll bet spring is lovely here.”

  He hooted with laughter. “Yep, spring’s lovely all right. If you like mud. And summer’s even lovelier, long as you don’t mind the fires of Hades.”

  My face must’ve given evidence of my dismay. Rooster Jim grinned and sniffed the air. “That Chinook that blew through yesterday will warm things up some.” He must’ve seen the question on my face. “That’s a warm wind that comes through sometimes in winter.”

  “Chinook.” I’d have to remember that term and tell Uncle Holt about it. And about Rooster Jim.

  “You know, Hattie, Chester and me had a deal.”

  “Oh?” My heart sank a bit. What kind of deal? And would I be expected to honor it? My reserves were slim after traveling here and getting set up.

  Rooster Jim pulled an enormous blue bandanna from his pocket and blew his nose with astonishing energy. When he pulled the bandanna away I was amazed to see that his nose was still attached to his face.

  “Yep. He let me win at chess, and I took his mail to the Vida post office for him.”

  “But as I told you at Mr. Ebgard’s, I don’t know how to play,” I started.

  “Perfect. Then it’ll be easy for me to teach you how to lose.” He laughed heartily at his joke, reminding me of a ragged version of Clement Moore’s Saint Nick from the old poem “The Night Before Christmas.”

  “Well, I do have letters ready to mail….”

  “Get ’em, then. I’ll wait.”

  I turned and hurried back to the house, dashing inside without even stopping to take off my boots. On the way back out, I nearly tripped over the coil of rope Uncle Chester had left behind. I kicked it back into the corner.

  I handed Rooster Jim the letters to Charlie and Uncle Holt.

  “Aha.” He nodded wisely. “Two sweethearts. That’s the way to do it. Keep ’em guessing.”

  I was glad my cheeks were already red from the cold, so Rooster Jim couldn’t know I was blushing. “Oh, they aren’t sweethearts,” I said.

  He laughed his belly laugh again. “That’s what they all say!” He flicked the reins over the horses’ backs. “I’ll stop by soon to give you that chess lesson.” The horses started off with a merry jingle.

  “Well, he’ll be an interesting neighbor, don’t you think?” I asked Mr. Whiskers. He answered with a small meow, and then he and I hurried back to the barn to take care of Plug and Violet. The barn was a small structure, with room enough for the two animals, some bales of hay, spare parts, and a pitchfork. I’d never had much to do with livestock before. Plug, sturdy, loyal range horse that he was, forgave my every mistake. I suspected he could run things better than I could, but he never let on. He contentedly munched the small portion of feed I gave him each day before turning him out to forage.

  Violet was a cow of a completely different color. She felt it her bovine duty to make up for each and every one of Plug’s kindnesses. It only took me a day to learn never to turn my back on her. That tail scratched like barbed wire as it flicked across my winter-frozen face. Nothing suited her better than to wait until the milk bucket was nearly full, then kick it over with a back hoof.

  “It’s a lucky thing for you you’re too tough for stew,” I threatened that morning after she’d pulled her favorite trick once again. I smacked her hind end in frustration and righted the now-empty milk bucket. If it weren’t for the fact that she was my only source of fresh milk, I would have driven her off that very first day. And gladly.

  “Ouch!” Her tail scraped my face. It was almost as if she could read my mind and was punishing me for my thoughts. I smacked her again and practiced a curse word I’d heard on the train. There was no Aunt Ivy to recoil in horror at my language and, truth be told, there is nothing like the occasional outburst of profanity to calm jangled nerves.

  Barn chores finished, I turned Plug and Violet out. As Rooster Jim had noted, a Chinook had blown through a few days before, warming the prairie. Tiny patches of green poked optimistically out of the cold earth. It wasn’t much, but both horse and cow seemed content with the change of fare.

  I turned back to the house. It was Monday, laundry day. Last night I’d set the clothes soaking in two tubs. Before breakfast I’d put the wash boiler atop the stove and lugged in kettle after kettle of water from the well to fill it. It had been heating all morning and was nearly aboil. Perilee had planted the notion that there were two or three bachelor neighbors who might pay me to do their laundry. Rooster Jim was no doubt one of them, but I wasn’t sure I’d want to tackle his wash.

  The whites would boil away on the stove awhile. I poured off some hot water into the bread pan, leaned the washboard inside, cut off a hunk of soap, and began to rub. Rub, rinse, wring. Rub, rinse, wring. By the time I got through all the clothes and the last of the whites were rinsed and wrung, my hands were raw and my back was grumbling something fierce. But I still had to hang the clothes. For this, I put on my woolen mittens. They made pegging the clothes to the line clumsy work but kept my fingers from freezing solid.

  To keep myself company, I’d taken to conducting chore-time conversations with God. My self-imposed rule was that each conversation must start on a thankful note. Sometimes that kept the discussion from really getting going. I lifted my petticoat out of the wash basket.

  “Lord, I do thank you for that warm wind and the promise of spring.” I bent for another clothespin to secure the petticoat. “And I am very thankful that my wash load is small.” Here I thought of Perilee, washing for her family of five. “I count it a true blessing that there are no diapers in my wash.” I shuddered to think of that. “Now, you know I’ve been working on keeping a sunny lookout on life, but I must speak to you about Violet, who is more devil than cow.”

  Mr. Whiskers pranced around my feet in the snow, batting at a clothespin that had tumbled out of the laundry basket. When we’d first arrived, he’d shoot into the house every time he got the chance. Now, fattened up on mice and wearing a thicker coat of fur, he was content to play outdoors most days.

  “Hey there, Mr. Whiskers.” I reached out to scratch behind his ears.

  “Ye-owww!” He pulled away from me and arched his back.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him. He crouched low, growling an eerie warning, ears flattened tig
ht against his solid head.

  I looked around the yard, unable to see what might be spooking him. “Now, now, Mr. Whiskers. Everything’s all right.”

  The growling grew louder. “You stop that now.” I’d never seen him act like this. “You’re giving me the heebie-jeebies.” A trickle of sweat wriggled down my spine. I kept talking, as if my voice might calm us both. “It’s all right now. It’s all right.” I moved toward him, but he sprang into the air, hissed, and flew under the shack.

  “What on earth?” Then I saw it: a wolf, silently, stealthily making its way up the coulee to the very spot where Violet had found a patch of needle grass for dessert. Fear clamped its fist around my throat. I croaked out a warning. Violet couldn’t hear me from where she was, and even if she could, she was ornery enough not to budge.

  I stamped my foot against the frozen ground. “Ha!” I yelled, my voice finally loosened from fear’s fingers. “Hya, hya!”

  The wolf did not even flinch.

  “Run, Violet! Run, you crazy cow!” I screamed the words at the top of my lungs. Fear must have frizzled out the thinking part of my brain, because next thing I knew, I was dashing toward that wolf. I would have scared the bejeebies out of myself had I seen me coming—dressed like a scarecrow, screeching like a banshee.

  The wolf had one thought: dinner. Without even a glance my way, he hunkered into a lopsided crouch, rear haunches raised, head down.

  Violet was drunk on the allure of fresh needle grass, blissfully unaware of mortal danger. She took a step toward another patch of green.

  Even in Uncle Holt’s old work boots in the settled snow, I made pretty good time up the coulee bank. Now my antics caught the wolf’s attention.

  “Git!” I shouted.

  Violet bellowed, her long tongue sticking out. “Rrroo!”

  Without a sound, the wolf propelled himself forward, leaping at my cow.

  Violet snorted in surprise. She flicked her head to see that wolf firmly attached to her tail. She started to run, as fast as a stupid old cow can run in snow.

  “Let her be!” I took off my cap and slapped it against my thigh.

  Startled, the wolf let go of Violet’s tail.

  “Run, Violet!” I waved my arms like a butter churn gone mad. “Run!”

  The wolf recovered from its shock and snatched Violet’s tail once again in its jaws. I searched frantically for something to throw. The Chinook had uncovered a patch of rocky ground near the crest of the bank. I picked up the biggest stones I could find and began to pitch them at that wolf.

  One thing the wolf could not know is that I learned to throw from the best pitcher in Fayette County, Iowa: Charlie. One rock clipped the wolf on the hindquarters, another on the back of the neck. Still, that wolf hung on. He must’ve been starving. He yanked and jerked at Violet’s tail.

  I reached for the last rock. This one had to count. I let it fly.

  “Yip!” The wolf yelped, turned, and hightailed it, a good chunk of Violet’s tail dangling from between his jaws.

  I was frozen by the time I chased Violet down. She was bawling like a lost calf as I grabbed her thick leather collar. A little stub twitched at the end of her rump. That was all that remained of that whip of a tail.

  “Bless it all, Violet!” Fear turned to tears and relieved laughter. “Aunt Ivy’s right again. The Lord surely does work in mysterious ways.” Seems that the wolf and I both made out okay in this affair: He got a little snack, and I got an eternal reprieve from Violet’s vicious tail. It was a fair enough trade.

  I picked up my muddied hat and led Violet back to the barn, quieting her with an extra portion of hay. I examined the raw stump of a tail, oozing blood. It needed doctoring, and I had not one clue about what to do. A clean rag tied tightly seemed to stanch the bleeding. My good humor turned to fear as I thought about losing my cow.

  I was going to have to get help. I whistled for Plug and mounted up. We plodded through the drifted snow to Perilee’s. I hadn’t been to visit yet but knew to follow the path to Vida, a path Rooster Jim had freshly marked with his sledge. The way must have been familiar to Plug, who picked up the pace as we drew close.

  “Come in, come in.” Perilee waved me inside her warm house—a real house, with two doors, a bedroom, and a parlor. Perilee fetched two thick white mugs. “I’ll bet your blood’s about frozen.” She motioned for me to sit. “A cup of coffee will fix anything.”

  “How about a cow’s tail?” I took the mug from her, warming my aching hands, then relayed to her the morning’s misadventure.

  Perilee laughed out loud. “Hon, what I wouldn’t have given to see that.” Her laughter softened to a chuckle. “Wouldn’t Chester love to know that Violet finally got her comeuppance?”

  “I do worry about caring for the wound,” I said.

  “Karl would know, but he’s not here.” Perilee set her coffee mug down. “My pa always swore by a poultice of brown sugar and cobwebs—though where you’d find cobwebs in this bitter cold, I have no idea. Flour paste and brown paper should work fine, too.”

  “What’s Karl doing working in this weather?” I shivered. “My wash is going to be frozen on the line by the time I take it down.”

  Fern let out a little squeal from her apple crate bed. Perilee stepped over and patted her on the back till she quieted.

  She pulled a newspaper from the shelf and brought it over to me. “He’s not working.”

  “Alien Enemies Must Register,” blared the headline. I began to read.

  The following instructions and suggestions are sent out from the United States Department of Justice through the office of the United States Marshal for Montana to all male German alien enemies of the age of 14 years or more. February 4 to 9, 1918, inclusive, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. have been designated as the dates and time when registrations must be made. Excepting in nine of the larger cities of the state all postmasters are registrars for their respective districts.

  I put down the paper. “I don’t understand.”

  Perilee picked up her coffee mug but didn’t drink. She rolled the mug back and forth in her hands. “Karl’s at the post office in Vida right now, registering.”

  “Karl? An alien enemy?”

  “He was born in Germany.”

  I looked at the paper again. “There must be a good reason for this, Perilee.”

  She held my gaze. “What good reason is there to treat neighbors—someone like Karl—like this?”

  I thought of all the articles Uncle Holt had read aloud. Awful stories about starving Belgians and cruelties of war. Unbelievable stories. But it was the Huns who were responsible. The Germans over there. Not here. Not people we knew. “I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be required if there wasn’t one.” I held out my hands, helpless. “Would it?”

  Thwack. Perilee set her coffee cup down hard. “I guess we’re supposed to be grateful there’s no fee to register.” She rubbed at her eyes. “But there’ll be a price to pay. Traft Martin and his County Council of Defense will make sure of that.”

  Fern started fussing again. “Now, see what I’ve done.” Perilee placed her hand on mine. “I’m sorry, sugar. I get so darned angry sometimes. It’s not your fault.”

  I slipped my hand on top of hers. “It would take more than that to scare me off,” I said. “You’ve got nothing on Aunt Ivy.”

  That drew a smile from Perilee. “You’d better get back to that cow of yours,” she said, picking the baby up.

  “I’d better.” I drained my coffee cup.

  “Do you have enough flour for a paste?” Perilee jiggled Fern. “I can spare some if you don’t.”

  I’d started to tie my shawl around me and stopped mid-knot. “I’ve got plenty.” Perilee would do anything for me. For anyone. Same with Karl. Where did you go to register for that?

  “Nothing bad will happen.” I hoped she knew I was talking about Karl, not Violet.

  “I wish.” Perilee patted Fern’s back, then shook her head. “Mix
some sugar with that flour, put it on her tail, and wrap it in brown paper. Tie it on and leave it for a week.”

  “Thank you.” I patted her back as she patted Fern’s, then snugged my shawl tighter around me and left.

  An uneasiness settled on me as I jostled and jolted on Plug’s back. First the strudel and now this registration. The war was in Europe, not here. Why all this fuss about where someone was born? Wasn’t it where he lived—rather, how he lived—that counted? I worried these questions the way Mr. Whiskers worried the mice he caught; worried so, in fact, that I barely felt the piercing wind the whole ride home.

  CHAPTER 6

  February 14, 1918

  Three miles north and west of Vida, Montana

  Dear Charlie,

  I expect I might not do too badly in that army of yours. I am now quite adept at keeping warm no matter how low the mercury falls. Perilee says their thermometer hit sixty-five below last week.

  One of my neighbors, Mr. Durfey, is cutting ice out of Wolf Creek eighteen inches thick. But the snow is banked in beautiful mounds around my claim (oh, how I love to write these words). Sometimes I think I am in a true fairyland.

  Perilee and the children were here a few days back and Chase and Mattie nearly wore through my wash bucket. One drift is even with the roof of the barn and they climbed up there and slid down in that bucket over and over again. Their little toes were purple when we finally made them come in. Mattie’s stung and itched so. “Do you think I have the froch bite?” she asked me in her sweet worried voice. I bathed her feet in warm water and thus staved off the “froch” bite. Perilee calls her their little magpie, and the nickname fits like a glove. We popped corn and I read aloud a chapter from Treasure Island. You should have seen Chase’s eyes light up.