Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  The cattle had all survived, easily able to fend for themselves, standing far away from the fire on that awful night. Resilient, bred to fend for themselves, they went about the business of eating grass as if nothing had happened.

  The locals had given without restraint. The family had no other clothes, so they wore whatever had been given.

  Sarah looked funny in a too-short red shirtwaist dress with a collar. Even if she buttoned it all the way up, it still seemed as if her neck was exposed. She wore her covering and always pinned up her hair, laughing with Hannah about her ridiculous get-up. But she was clothed, and for that she was grateful.

  Hannah reveled in the newfound luxury of rooting through boxes and choosing her own clothes. She tried on blouses and skirts, shoes and thin stockings. Sarah frowned as Hannah tried rearranging her hair and told her to stop it. That was enough of that.

  Manny wore denim jeans. There were no buttons to attach suspenders, so he went without them, finding a leather belt and wearing it. He looked apologetic and knew he was not obeying the Ordnung.

  One day, a black dot appeared on the horizon. It turned out to be a rattling truck, then another, and another. A freight train carload of material, a miracle in real life, had recently arrived from Lancaster.

  Sarah stood in the doorway of the shack and listened to the chugging of the engines. As she watched them approach, she wept.

  Across the edge, where the blackened earth lay frozen and dormant, the windmill rose cold and harsh, the paddles whispering of the desolation and loss, the gears creaking, the foundation charred and blackened.

  There was her father, Samuel Stoltzfus. With him were Ben Miller, who had installed the windmill, Elam Stoltzfus, and a few men she did not recognize. Single men, without beards, none of whom she knew.

  She grasped her father’s hand, bit her lips to keep from crying, and blinked back the tears that threatened her composure. She had to remain strong in the face of these men. It was bad enough they were here to see the loneliness and devastation.

  Sarah squared her shoulders, her mouth trembling, giving away the agony of what she’d been through, the vulnerability and weakness in the face of what God had wrought. Not a few of the men marveled at this woman who had an ability to carry on. For the life of them, they couldn’t see it.

  They heard hoofbeats. Hannah and Manny, riding in, the cold air flushing their faces, their horses sweating, lathered where the saddles rubbed against them, threw themselves off, the blackened earth puffing up like smoke. Hannah wore jeans, a short dress over them—Sarah made her do it—and a heavy denim coat.

  Her blackened face was edged in soot, her eyes dark in her flushed and exhilarated face. Manny smiled, his teeth white in his dark face.

  Hannah watched the group of men warily, without smiling. She took in the three trucks, the impatient drivers hanging out of the windows saying, “Let’s go. Let’s go. We don’t have all day!” She saw her grandfather and recognized Ben Miller. She dropped the reins of her horse and strode over to greet them with long strides, tall shoulders flung back, a tower of pride and strength. Her eyes mirrored the black devastation around her, shrouded well, or so she thought, by the pretense of her self-confident swagger.

  She greeted only her grandfather and nodded curtly to the rest. She recognized Jerry Riehl. What was he doing here?

  A blast of irritation shot through her. He had no right to come out here and see this burnt land and a pile of twisted metal, the hellish scene of failure and disappointment. She wished she could reach out and erase that day when she told him her foolish hopes and dreams.

  She would not meet his eyes.

  The men spoke with Sarah. Where would the house be built? Hannah stepped forward and began to speak, overriding her mother’s voice. She had planned the house. She went through the door of the shack and came back with a folded white paper and gave it to her grandfather.

  The men turned and began to unload, heeding the drivers’ impatient shouts. Unload close to the charred metal, Hannah said. Under a cold, gray sky bloated with snow, the men worked feverishly, knowing that when the snow began to pummel the charred earth, their job would become twice as hard.

  Samuel Stoltzfus wished they could dig a cellar. What was a good sturdy house without a cellar, especially on a level land prone to storms of every description? Ben Miller eyed the clouds and said they had best get on with it.

  They erected a lean-to of sorts for the men’s quarters. Sarah cooked soups and stews from morning to night. She baked bread, fed the group of men from the donated store of food, the men consuming vast quantities at each meal.

  The house was framed before the snow began. Fine pellets of snow blew through the air, pinging against the lumber and their bare hands and faces.

  Hannah looked up; her eyes watched the lowering clouds and the resulting bits of snow and ice. If this turned into a full blown blizzard, they’d all be packed into that shack like a bunch of rats. Well, she wasn’t going to be stuck in that tar-paper shanty with those men, that was for sure. She’d ride over to the Jenkins.

  That Sylvia Klasserman was crazy as a bat. She’d never step foot in that house, ever again. You didn’t have to go through life eating off your floors and sanitizing everything you wore. Them and the Jenkins were exactly the opposite.

  With all of Hannah’s forthright thoughts swirling around in her head, the wind picked up, scouring the prairie. She knew within an hour that she would not be riding to the Jenkins. The snow intensified and fell like white curtains across the burnt earth.

  Ben Miller and his crew worked on. Samuel Stoltzfus lifted his face to the sky, his white beard separating in the wind, the black felt brim of his hat flapping. He said they’d best make sure there was firewood, the way Sarah described these storms.

  With the power of the driving snow, they abandoned the work. The only safe haven was the tar-paper shanty, a small drafty hovel much too small to house the nine men plus Sarah and the children.

  Hannah sat in her allotted space beside the cookstove. She glowered at everyone and kept quiet, not listening to the men’s ceaseless talk. Worse than women at a quilting, they talked constantly, no doubt thinking this was all a grand adventure that they could go home and joke about for the rest of their lives.

  Sarah moved between the stove and the table, cooking beef stew and chili, cornbread, and fried potatoes. She was glad for the men and the endearing company of her father. Let Hannah smolder in her corner. Let her pout and hiss like a bad-mannered cat. She would happily feed these men for the gratitude and the aura of protection they afforded her.

  Manny was a part of these men. He sat with them, listened to their talk, the way they expressed themselves, soaked up the latest news on politics. The times in which they lived were a clear sign of God’s displeasure, taking away their money and chastening them with unsavory, undisciplined leaders in Washington, D.C.

  In spite of herself, Hannah found herself listening. When the subject turned to cows, the way everyone in these parts made a living, Elam expressed his incredulity by saying he couldn’t see how, if this storm was an example, these cows survived the winter.

  “Yeah, and it’s only November,” Ben Miller chimed in.

  “They won’t make it. There’s no way,” another concurred.

  That was too much for Hannah, harboring all that uncomfortable ruined pride and resentment, stuck in this disgusting little shack with these odorous, unwashed men who flashed yellow teeth like slabs of cheese every time they laughed, which was much too often.

  “They will too!” she burst out.

  All eyes turned to the prickly daughter, beautiful but covered in quills like a porcupine. They’d soon learned to stay away. Her grandfather smiled his slow smile. He knew her well. “How do they do it?”

  “It’s bred into them. They’re tough, same as the people here. In a storm like this they hunker together facing away from the wind and wait to eat until it passes. They paw the snow and eat what’s under
neath if they have to. Ranchers have hay and some of them have shelters. Our hay’s all gone, though, so we’ll have to keep any eye on them.”

  “What happens when the storms become too frequent and the snow too deep?”

  Hannah shrugged her shoulders. In the lamplight, from his corner, Jerry watched her eyes lose their flash of enthusiasm, becoming dark and brooding. He could feel her covered-up vulnerability, her fear of the coming winter.

  He wondered how they would survive, much less prosper, in a land where even the elements seemed to crouch on the horizon, waiting to wipe out even the most resilient.

  “Well,” Elam said finally. “One way or another, we’re going to give it a go; huh, Hannah?”

  Her lightning smile and grateful eyes vanished, replaced by condescension and the cold, lofty lift of her chin. “Yeah.” Her voice was low, a certainty laced with doubt.

  The storm blew itself out during the night. Everyone was roused by the quiet, the stillness that pervaded their thin walls, the sound of the wind and scouring snow gone.

  Sarah dished up bowls of oatmeal, slabs of fried bread, blackberry jam, and honey. The men pulled on rubber boots, brown work gloves, shoveled snow, and continued building the house.

  The locals rode over on horseback. Abby Jenkins dismounted stiffly, the mule she had ridden tired out from his trek through the drifting snow. She brought a cardboard box of cookies, bread, and broken pies that she had lashed to her saddle.

  She was yelling about the indecency of staying in this little outhouse, as she put it, wanting to know whose hare-brained idea this was? She thumped the baked items on the makeshift table, pulled up a chair to the cookstove, and held out her hands to its heat.

  “Almost froze,” she said, searching Sarah’s face for signs of suffering. She gathered Abby into her lap and wrapped another blanket around her, rocking her gently with her thin arms. “Poor baby. Poor, poor baby,” she crooned.

  “So you found out about Sylvia, did you? She’s crazy. She ain’t right in the head. Sumpin’s wrong if’n a woman irons her husband’s underwear and rinses her washing twice. Ain’t never heard the likes. Ya shoulda come on over, stayed with me. I’da took keer of all of ye. Don’t know why ya didn’t. This shack ain’t fit to live in. Reckon them men can’t all fit inside, fer sure not to sleep. It ain’t right. You leave these men to theirselves an’ you an’ the children come on over an’ stay with me.”

  Hannah shook her head. Sarah told Abby it was a generous offer, but, no, the house would soon be finished. It was better this way. The men needed warm food.

  Abby sighed. “Wal, I’ll tell ya one thing. If’n this was my men, the house wouldn’t be finished any time soon. Come spring, it still wouldn’t be. You know Hod an’ the boys.” She took off layers of clothing, rolled up her sleeves, helped Sarah dice carrots and potatoes, and told her what the locals were saying regarding the fire. She chuckled.

  “I thought I should tell you this, Sarah. That town in the Bible that burned so bad, the lady looked back and was turned into salt? That coulda been you, you know.”

  Sarah laughed, the sound genuine, always to glad to be in Abby’s company. “Well, Abby, hopefully God wasn’t punishing us for the sins of that town. My goodness!”

  Abby laughed her own happy cackle. “No, yer a good woman, Sarah. Yer too good fer the rest of us. Yer like a angel come to live among ordinary folks.”

  Sarah blushed and shook her head vigorously. Hannah put clean plates on a stack as she watched her mother and Abby and felt the easy flow of their talk, the binding of their love. She was sure her mother would take offense if she dared mention that they were more like sisters than her blood relatives, so she said nothing.

  “Now, yer daughter here. She’s pretty normal. Full of spit and vinegar, ain’t cha?” She jostled Hannah’s shoulder companionably.

  Hannah grinned. She thought Abby would make an admirable mother-in-law. She hated being in close proximity to Jerry Riehl. If she could wipe away every sensation of that thing he had called a goodbye kiss, she’d be fine. She couldn’t look at him without thinking of it, which, truth be told, threw her into an inward struggle she couldn’t stand, feeling as if she was out to sea, or something like that.

  So she didn’t look at him. In fact, she avoided him as if he had some disease he could easily transmit. She planned on showing him somehow that Clay was the one, not that she ever planned on getting married, but it would certainly throw him off. If he came out here thinking of any romantic involvement—well, it was just too bad. It wasn’t going to happen.

  The men came to eat dinner and could barely all fit. Hannah stepped back to allow Elam Stoltzfus to pass, stumbled backward, and fell into Jerry’s lap. His hands went out instinctively to keep her from falling, catching her slim waist as soft as a dove’s back. He laughed, enjoying her discomfiture, his hands falling to his sides as she shot up, outraged, crossing her arms tightly about her waist, then going to stand behind the cookstove, her face flaming.

  Clay saw the disturbance. His eyes narrowed, drawing his mouth into a straight line of disapproval. That Jerry was far too good-looking. Brash, handsome, a threat—and Clay didn’t like it. He still fully intended on claiming Hannah someday. He was willing to wait for the duration. Yes, he was. He could never forget about her. She inhabited his thoughts constantly. And here she was, dressed in English clothes, although her mother made her wear that ridiculous kerchief on the back of her head.

  Sarah watched the incident with a mother’s intuition. Jerry was far too handsome, far too suave for any normal girl to resist. She knew that, like Clay, he was used to plenty of girls trying to get his attention.

  Well, all too soon, Mr. Riehl would need to know that Hannah was different. She was not like other girls. She had her mind made up. Was this God’s answer for Hannah’s life? Because here was another roadblock, like Clay not being Amish: Jeremiah Riehl would never leave the prosperity of Lancaster County to come out here to these lonesome, unsettled plains, with their unpredictable elements and disasters, which, bit by bit, ate away at the pioneer spirit.

  CHAPTER 4

  The sun shone as soft and warm as a fine spring morning, melting the snow and ice and creating a gray, blackened slush-like tundra. Another load of people arrived from Lancaster County, gawkers, curious onlookers who came simply to satisfy their nosiness, their snooping, their wanting to find out for themselves how dire these leftover Mose Detweiler folks actually were.

  Sarah’s sisters were among them. Emma and Lydia. Sarah pushed back the irritation, projected the sisterly bond, shook hands, and smiled saying, “So good to see you.” But inside, she felt much differently.

  “We have lodging in Pine. We’re not staying overnight,” Emma informed her. They wrinkled their noses, drew sharp breaths, asked how she could live like this. It was disgusting.

  Sarah felt her courage rise up within. She drew herself up to her full height, which was taller than Emma, looked her full in the eyes, without a trace of her usual bowing, and told her she was doing what had to be done under the circumstances, and if she couldn’t accept it, well then, she’d have to go back to her lodging in Pine.

  A volley of accusation followed, raining down on Sarah like bilious hail. She was only doing this for Hannah, and where would it get her? they wanted to know. And if she thought her father was going to give her one penny to rebuild, she was badly mistaken.

  Sarah did not give out any information, nor did she give them the pleasure of her usual apology. It was, quite simply, none of their business where the funds came from, or why she chose to live in North Dakota, or what she was planning for the future.

  Her father had given her the funds from Lancaster County, his soft, dark eyes welling with tears. She would not need a loan for the house or the barn. There was more than enough right here.

  Sarah had been seated, but now she rose in agitation, wringing her hands, shaking her head and saying, “No, no. I can’t take this. How can Herrn saya be rec
eived if there is always charity? We are always taking, taking, taking, Dat!” Her voice rose on an edge of hysteria, saying it wasn’t right, yet again, to be recipients of other people’s money.

  Her father spoke quietly, calmed her by saying that God’s blessing lay before her in the form of this money. All she needed to do was reach out and take it, thanking God with a pure heart.

  And she had, until now. She was shaken by the deep dislike of her sisters, condemned by it, yet rose above it, receiving the courage she found deep within herself to stand up and be heard. To stay here was her decision, even if it was Hannah that helped her to make it. That was all right too. Her sisters needed to see that she was capable of making decisions and keeping them regardless of whether they were aligned to their way of thinking or not.

  That was one drawback of living a cloistered lifestyle. It was normal, minding each others’ business, opinions given freely, and this right to assert authority to an adult sister. To move away with this alarming amount of miles between them was new and rather frightening. So perhaps that was the reason Emma and Lydia had come in the first place. Perhaps they too felt the separation and wanted to come to see the devastation, and then, having seen it, were alarmed by it.

  Sarah vowed to try to push away the comment that she would not get a penny to rebuild. If she acknowledged those words, she would have to accept their greediness. Instead, she chose to banish it, turn it away, and she felt much better.

  Hannah sloshed around in the black mud, handing lumber and nails to the men. She cleaned up, ran errands, and did anything to help the building process along.

  They used shingles this time. Hannah was thrilled to see the gray asbestos shingles nailed into place, hammers rising and falling with a speed she hadn’t thought possible. In less than a day, the roof was on.

  The following day, the men placed long slabs of German siding horizontally outside and covered the inside with sturdy wallboard. Then they installed the windows—six in all. The house was an icon of luxury. Seven windows! Two in the front room—the living room, it was called—two in the kitchen, and two long, low windows that allowed them to see the prairie on every side.