by Janet Dailey
He stopped beside her, conscious that Franz Kreuger was hovering close by. “How’s Gustav?” He smiled briefly at the wan and anxious face of Helga Kreuger before he turned his attention on the boy. A second later, he heard the rattle in the boy’s lungs. Everything inside him froze for a pulsebeat. Violence was alien to his nature, but it gripped him now. He turned savagely on Kreuger. “Damn you, Kreuger,” he swore, and curled his fingers into the man’s shirt front. “I told you to contact me immediately if they got worse!”
“They are no worse than when you saw them last,” Kreuger denied hotly, his dark eyes pinpoints of loathing and distrust.
Helga Kreuger was on her feet, alarm taking away what little color she had. “Gustav is not worse, is he?”
And Simon realized that she was so desperate for her son to get better that she had refused to acknowledge he had gotten worse. Sanity returned to him and he released his hold on Kreuger’s shirt to turn back to the child.
“His condition isn’t good,” he said gruffly, understating the situation.
“He’ll get better, though,” she murmured and looked at her child anxiously.
“I’ll do everything I can.” It was the most Simon dared promise. It would be tough pulling a healthy child through, and the Kreuger children were undernourished and weak. Miracles weren’t taught in his profession, and he had a feeling that’s what it was going to take.
It had happened other times. In the outbreaks of typhoid fever, Simon had seen all but one or two members of the family die, but it was never easy for him to accept, especially when the victims were children.
There was always the feeling that there should have been something else he could have done—that for all his knowledge, there was still something he didn’t know but should have.
That’s what Kreuger thought when all of his children save one were buried within a week. Simon had tried to shut his ears to the man’s accusations. Kreuger was convinced that it was because he was poor and couldn’t pay the doctor for his services that Simon hadn’t done all he could, sure that if his name had been Calder rather than Kreuger the result would have been different.
Tired and frustrated and plagued by the guilt that haunted him every time he lost a patient, Simon leaned on the table in the middle of his cabin’s small kitchen. Dirty dishes from two weeks ago sat in the sink, the last time he’d eaten a meal in his own home and office combined. He looked around at the mess.
“I hired a girl to clean the place for me, but her family pulled up stakes last fall. I haven’t gotten around to finding someone else.” He apologized to Doyle Pettit for the untidy state of his living quarters.
“If you want, I can find someone for you,” Doyle volunteered affably and sipped at the bitter black coffee Simon had poured for him. “You really should take a week off and rest. You look terrible.”
“Playing doctor, are you?” Simon smiled tiredly.
“What’s on your mind, Doc?” Doyle Pettit leaned back in the straight chair, loose and at ease. “I know you didn’t ask me to come by just to pass the time of day—not a man as busy as you are. So there must be something bothering you.”
“It’s Kreuger—or more specifically, Kreuger’s wife. She’s got tuberculosis, and this climate—the cold and the dust—are just aggravating her condition. He needs to get her out of here if he doesn’t want to end up burying her, too.” He ran a hand through his hair, rumpling the ends. “I’ve tried to explain it to him, but he thinks I’ve got some conspiracy going with Calder to drive him off the land. I can’t get through to him. He just won’t listen to me. But you—he’s more likely to believe it coming from you.”
Doyle frowned, concern etched in his features that were usually drawn in such carefree lines. He swirled the coffee in his cup, studying its black color. “I don’t know if anything could separate that man from his land. That place is almost an obsession with him. Out of all those that came that first year to stake a homestead claim, he’s one of the few left. I don’t know what keeps him going.”
“Hate.” Simon supplied his belief. “A hatred not necessarily of Webb Calder as much as a hatred of what he represents, a big landholder. There are times when I wonder if he didn’t choose his place simply because it butted up to Calder land.”
“Could be,” Doyle conceded and drank from his cup. “I’ll have a talk with him about his wife, but I don’t know if I’ll have any more success than you did.”
Simon hoped he did. Something told him that Kreuger was near the breaking point. Most men would have quit by now. All he had was a hardscrabble farm that was getting blown away. The drought and the dust were working on everyone, fraying nerves and shortening tempers. Add to that the grief Kreuger had to be suffering. Put those things with his intense resentment of Calder, and at some point, the lid was going to blow.
“Have you seen Webb lately? How’s that new baby of his doing?” Doyle shifted the subject to a lighter topic.
“I was out to The Homestead about three weeks ago, before all this started. Everyone was fine, including young Chase.” The thought of the healthy baby brought a hint of a smile to Simon’s face.
“You know what, Doc? You and I should take a trip back east and find ourselves a couple of wives. When I think about Webb having a son, I get downright envious,” Doyle declared without looking the slightest bit serious. “I probably should talk to him about making provisions for his son’s future. That’s something my father never did for me. He left me a ranch and a lot of debts, and that’s about all.”
“I guess none of us think we’re going to die.” Simon laughed without humor and lifted the coffee cup to his mouth.
27
Spring came and brought relief from the winter’s cold, but not the drought. Everyone said it couldn’t last another summer. Banks made loans to the drylanders so they could buy seed and plant their wheat. June was the rainy season. Everyone waited, watching the sky and holding their breath.
The clouds came, scented the air with the sweetness of rain, then vibrated the dry ground with the loudness of their thunder. Suddenly, they split open and rain fell in driving sheets. The jubilance was wiped from Franz Kreuger’s face as he stood outside his shack, drenched within minutes, and watched the torrential downpour carry away the top layer of soil and the young shoots of wheat.
The deluge didn’t last for more than half an hour, but the dry ground couldn’t absorb so much water in such a short period of time. What the wind hadn’t eroded, the rainwater did, carving away sides of hills and gouging out gullies where there had been none. The crop was lost again, this time to the rain.
By late afternoon of that same day, the ground already showed signs of being dried out. Only in the low spots did the gumbolike consistency remain for another day.
The road into Blue Moon was crowded with wagons piled high with the meager possessions of drylanders who had packed it up and called it quits. For them, this last setback was the final blow. They had neither the resources nor the willpower to try again. Chickens squawked protests in their wooden cages and rib-thin dogs trotted alongside the slow-moving wagons, following their broken and dispirited masters. A couple of wagons had a milk cow in tow that they hoped to sell and have a little money to make a new start somewhere far away from Montana and the hard luck they’d known.
With each mile they traveled, Lilli grew more silent. There were familiar faces amidst the homeless bands they passed. Each time Webb drove up behind another wagon, she mentally braced herself, wondering whom she would recognize this time. At the approach of their automobile, the wagons pulled off onto the side of the road to let them pass, giving Lilli a short glimpse of the occupants. It was always a relief when they turned out to be strangers.
She stole a glance at Webb and saw the grimness in his hard-bitten features. She doubted that he was silent for the same reason she was. Despite the rain three days ago, dust was hanging over the land like a persistent cloud of doom. Where once there had been neatly plowed fi
elds on either side of the road, the ground was ripped apart by new ravines and gulches. It resembled something in its death throes, twisted and contorted and writhing in agony. She suspected that a small part of him felt pity for the people who had lost all hope, but mostly he was hurt by what they had done to the land.
Chase squirmed in her lap, inactive for too long. He stiffened out his body, wanting to stand up and see something, but Lilli held him tightly.
Blue Moon was equally cheerless when they reached it. More businesses were boarded up. The street was aswarm with drylanders, those that wanted to stick it out and those that were part of the exodus. Some were lined up at the bank, hoping for another loan to buy more seed or to sell their homestead claim for whatever they could get. Others were trying to sell their livestock or furniture so they could buy what they needed. More were trying to barter for needed goods, or persuade the remaining shopkeepers to extend them more credit.
The only available place to park the automobile was at the train station, where a lucky few who possessed the price of a ticket were waiting for the next train. Lilli was slow to open her door, and Webb came around to give her and the baby a hand out.
“I’m sorry I asked you to bring me to town,” she said. She hadn’t been to town since before Chase was born. She had been looking forward to it, but it was turning out to be depressing. “I keep remembering how you tried to warn us, but nobody listened.”
He stiffened at the way she aligned herself with the drylanders. His hand was holding her left one, and he rolled his thumb across her wedding ring. “It happened. There’s nothing you can do about it, and nothing I can do.” He tucked her hand under his arm and smiled. “Where would you like to go first, Mrs. Calder?”
“Home.” Which was the truth, but she immediately changed it, aware that Webb couldn’t empathize with her desire to avoid this scene. He hadn’t shared the kind of dreams these people had lived on the way she had. “No.” She smiled quickly. “We’ll go to Ellis’s store so I can buy some material to make Chase some clothes. He’s growing much too fast and you don’t have any more old shirts left.”
In front of Sonny Drake’s restaurant, Webb almost bumped into Ed Mace. The rancher stopped, his breath reeking of whiskey. His bulk had gone to paunch, and there was a flatness in his eyes.
“Come inside, Webb.” Ed grabbed his arm, the grip of his hand lacking strength. If he noticed Lilli and the baby at all, he didn’t acknowledge them, “I want to buy you a drink.”
“Some other time, Ed,” Webb refused calmly.
“Won’t be no other time.” The man breathed in, and the resulting sound resembled a sniffle. “I had to sell out.”
“What are you talking about?” His gaze narrowed on the old man, trying to decide if he was sober enough to know what he was saying.
“I sold the Snake M. That rain we had—well, I’d just bought me a bunch of cows to start buildin’ up my herd again. There was a flash flood on my place. More’n half of ’em got caught. They drowned.” He looked out to the street with a vacant stare. “It busted me, that’s what it did. I’m finished. It’s all gone—everything I worked for all my life is wiped out with one rain.”
“You sold the ranch?” Webb still couldn’t take it in.
“Yeah. Pettit took it off my hands.” He paused glumly. “I’ve said bad things about him, but I think Old Tom would be proud of the way his son stands by his friends.” His attention was drawn to the baby in Lilli’s arms. The little billed cap tied on his head was askew from his constant twisting to see all that was going on around him. Ed Mace staggered closer, putting out a gnarled and work-worn hand for the baby to investigate. “You’ve got a fine-lookin’ son, Webb. Never had any kids myself. I guess it’s a good thing.” His tongue was rambling the way a man’s does when it’s loosened by liquor. “What could I leave him? I lost the ranch—lock, stock, and barrel. Got me enough money to get to Mexico. Maybe I can find me a little place down there where I can run a couple of cows, and have one of them dark-eyed senoritas cook for me.”
“You’re going to Mexico, then.” It was hard for Webb to meet the man’s eyes. He felt pity for him, and despite all Ed’s talk, he had too much pride to tolerate anyone feeling sorry for him.
“Got me a ticket.” Ed Mace nodded, still letting the baby grab at a callused finger. Then his hand dropped and his eyes became watery. “Hell, I never did like tequila, but at least it’s legal down there.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I’m gonna have another one of Sonny’s specials. Take care of that boy, Webb.”
There was no repeat of his invitation to buy Webb a drink as the former rancher turned and lurched back inside the roadhouse. All Prohibition had accomplished in Blue Moon was to raise the price of a drink. Sheriff Potter had already shown a willingness to ignore what was in the cups served to some of the customers. It was pretty much business as usual. In this dry country, liquor was more plentiful than water.
There were a lot of things Webb was mulling over in his mind, but he didn’t mention any of them to Lilli. It wasn’t just drylanders that were cutting their losses and selling out; ranchers were going under, too. There were simply more of the former. He was curious how many properties would end up in Doyle Pettit’s name.
There was a small commotion in the wagon-crowded street. One glance and Webb spotted the cause of it. Hobie Evans and the two hardcases he ran with were getting their kicks out of harassing those drylanders who were pulling up stakes.
“You thought you could come here and take what didn’t belong to you, didn’t ya?” Hobie was tormenting one family piled onto their wagon to leave town. The children were cringing from his jeering face. “You thought you’d come to the Promised Land, but it turned out to be Hell, didn’t it? Your crops burned up in the fields; your wells went dry; and your land was blown away. It was the Promised Land, all right, because when the first of you came, I promised to make it Hell for all of you.” His laughter was a harsh, mocking sound that seemed to carry above the rattle of wagons and the clopping hooves of horses. “I’m the son of the Devil. Didn’t you know that?”
He made a lunge at the children and they shrieked in terror. He laughed again and slapped the flat of his hand across the rump of the spavined-looking draft horse. It jumped in surprise, and the drylander had to saw on the reins to keep his team from bolting into some pedestrians crossing the street in front of him.
“Hey, Hobie!” The breed cowboy had found another subject, now that the other wagon was leaving. “Look over here!”
A homesteader was hawking a mantel clock from the tailgate of his wagon. It was the most valuable possession he owned, a family heirloom that had traveled across oceans only to be sold on a dusty street so he could buy food for another journey.
“What you got there, mister?” Hobie sauntered over to the wagon. The man protectively clutched the clock in his arms, warily eyeing the three men converging on him. His wife anxiously tugged at his sleeve, trying to persuade him to climb into the wagon with her. “Ain’t ya going to let me see it?” Hobie challenged with a sneer. “If a man’s interested in buyin’ something, he’s got a right to look at it first.”
“I’ll sell it for ten dollars.” The desperate man reluctantly offered the clock to Hobie for his inspection. “It’s worth ten times that.”
“Hell, this thing’s old. Do you see how old this is?” He showed it to his friends. “I bet it can’t even keep time.”
When he shook it, Lilli’s hand tightened on Webb’s arm. He didn’t even look at her as he slipped out of her hold. “You stay here, out of the way.” He vaulted over the porch railing to the ground and started to make his way along the crowded street to the wagon in front of Ellis’s store.
“It don’t look worth ten dollars to me.” Hobie Evans made as if to give it back to the man, but just before the drylander’s outstretched hands reached it, Hobie let go. The clock’s chimes dinged as it fell to the hard ground. The woman cried out at the sickening sound of s
plintering wood. “It sure as hell ain’t worth ten dollars now.” Hobie laughed as the man bent to carefully pick up his broken clock. Lilli’s shoulders sagged. It was too late; the damage was done; and Webb wasn’t even halfway there yet. “It’s no good, mister,” Hobie sneered. “Just like you’re no good. We don’t want your kind around here. We never wanted you. This land’s gonna be cursed until all of you leave. So git!”
A bottle was thrown at the wagon. Lilli heard it crash against the side and break. Pieces of glass struck the horses. One of them reared and Webb grabbed at the bridle, hauling the animal down. No one seemed to notice him except the two little girls huddled together on the wagon seat. All the attention was focused at the rear of the wagon, where the drylander was setting his clock on the tailgate, trying to keep the broken parts together.
“Did you hear me?” Hobie challenged. “Nobody wants your trash. So climb in your wagon and git! And take your junk with you!”
It was all too much for the drylander. The one thing he had of value to sell was now broken. He turned on Hobie Evans, trembling and near tears. Without warning, he hurled himself at the cowboy. Hobie easily sidestepped the blind charge, clasped his hands together in a single fist, and brought it down on the man’s back, driving him to the ground.
“Damned fool tried to attack me,” he declared with a laugh, as if he’d just swatted down a pesky mosquito.
Webb had the horses settled down and had taken a stride toward the rear of the wagon when an explosion shocked everyone on the street into stillness. Hobie was lifted up on tiptoes, his mouth opened in stunned disbelief as his hands clawed at his arched back. His legs began to fold under him, but he managed a half-pivot to look for the unknown assailant who had shot him. Lilli covered her mouth with her hand when she saw the small red hole in the middle of his back.
