Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  She brought a clean sheet, made up the sofa while he sat on the chair with his feet in warm water. Hannah came over and told Sarah in a hiss that he smelled awful. Why couldn’t he bathe and wear some of Manny’s clothes?

  “He’s too sick,” Sarah whispered back.

  “He stinks! He smells like a billy goat!”

  “Shh.”

  Hannah moved off in a huff. What a predicament. Now they weren’t more than settled in their nice new house and here comes this sick, smelly old man to mess everything up. He was probably a thief. Or worse. They’d probably all be dead by morning. She was going to sleep with Dat’s rifle under her pillow. All that coughing and carrying on could well be a bluff, and as soon as they went to bed, he’d sneak around stealing stuff and … Oh, it gave her the creeps.

  The house smelled of cooking onions and paregoric, chamomile tea, and ponhaus. It was enough to make her lose her supper, especially with the rank odor that steamed off his soaked clothes. Like a wet dog. Fleas and lice, she guaranteed.

  He coughed all night. Spat and honked and wheezed like a goose caught in a trap. Hannah knew because she heard every sound as she sat on the side of her bed with Dat’s rifle across her lap, figuring he might get the others, but he was not getting her. She had a ranch to operate. The Bar S.

  Mam had the fuzziest soul. She was all love and compassion and tenderness, treating Lemuel Short as if he was royalty. She could just see the Bible verses Mam had before her. “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” She probably thought she was entertaining angels unawares. Well, that was all right as far as it went, but Hannah was not taking any chances.

  In the morning, Hannah was in bed, the gun clutched in her hands. Lemuel Short had fallen into a deep sleep, his mouth open, all manner of wheezes, whistles, and sawing sounds coming from his dark, toothless cavity.

  Sarah drew her dress tightly around her shivering form, lifted the lid on the cookstove and threw a match onto the prepared paper and kindling. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was a vast dome of reflected white light from the level snow-filled land that nestled right up to the horizon. She stood at the window, shivered again, the comforting sound of the popping, crackling fire filling her with peace.

  They were so well fa-sarked. Taken care of. Every need had been supplied. If she praised God for the remainder of her life, she would never have thanked Him enough. She folded her hands, bowed her head, and, thanked her Heavenly Father for sending Lemuel Short and allowing her to be His servant. She prayed for Lemuel’s well-being and for guidance.

  Hannah was summoned to the breakfast table, flopped in her chair with a sour expression, and stuck a thumb out in the general direction of Lemuel Short, raising an eyebrow at Sarah.

  “Sick,” Sarah mouthed.

  They ate fried ponhaus and buttered toast, then relaxed around the table with mugs of tea sweetened with a dollop of honey. The sun burst above the plains, filling the house with strong yellow light till the red horizon gave way to winter’s icy blue sky.

  Sarah remarked about not being able to get used to the light. So many windows. It spoiled her, being able to see out across the prairie. Manny smiled at Sarah, told her she deserved every window, and hoped she’d enjoy them for a long time.

  Hannah choked on her tea. So much sugary talk. It was enough to gag her. Plus, that man on the couch was going to have to move along. She didn’t want to spend one more night in this house with him and his life-threatening noises. She’d even caught herself holding her breath, waiting until he exhaled safely, his rattling intake of air enough to make her imagine he was dying.

  The whole thing was unsettling, to put it mildly. She wished she’d never gone into that tar-paper shack. He would have moved on by now. He would have made it as far as the Klassermans. Sylvia could keep him.

  That brought the first smile of the day, thinking of meticulous Sylvia ministering to poor, smelly Mr. Short. She’d probably get Owen to take him to the livery stable in town. Well, he was here now, and by the looks of her angelic mother, he’d be here awhile longer.

  CHAPTER 6

  Hannah was right.

  Lemuel Short stayed on the couch, smelling the same as the day he arrived, Sarah ministering to him like a most devoted nurse. With the snow piled up to two feet and no telephone nearby, there was no use summoning the doctor. Stranded on the prairie, miles from the nearest neighbor, there had been no sense of isolation until the sick wanderer had arrived.

  Sarah realized his situation was grave. She used up half her store of onions, vinegar, paregoric, tea and mustard poultices, and still his fever would not break.

  The morning after, the snow was still coming down but thinner and slower. A weak sun showed its face in the gray clouds and the wind slammed into the north side of the house with such force that Sarah straightened from her job tending to Lemuel, her eyes wide with alarm.

  It was indeed fortunate that everyone was in the house when the wind sprang up. Manny said he didn’t know how they would have made it back to the house, the wind whipping the loose snow to a blinding, stinging frenzy, obliterating anything and everything in its path. A wall of moving snow driven by the hissing, humming wind scoured the top layer of it, then the snow beneath, leaving jagged patches of bare, brown grass, a jigsaw of high, impenetrable drifts like jagged little mountain ranges as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t any great distance.

  Hannah paced and muttered to herself, a caged lion sick with anxiety. She worried about the cows, wondering if they could survive. She wanted to ride out and see for herself, but that was impossible.

  Lemuel Short sat up for a short time, his small raisin eyes watching the oldest daughter’s agitation. He could tell she was of a different nature than her mother but kept his observations to himself.

  It didn’t help Hannah’s short temper that she sat up every night with the rifle on her lab, robbing herself of restful sleep, priding herself that she was the only one who remained vigilant.

  Mr. Short was not to be trusted no matter how sick he was. Her lack of sleep, coupled with the anxiety and frustration of listening to the howling wind and blowing snow, almost drove her mad. She took to chewing her fingernails down to the quick and drinking black coffee that made her so jittery she spilled everything, slopping soup on the tablecloth and dumping tea on the floor. She yelled at Eli when he crawled underfoot with Abby astride his back, yanked her off and smacked her bottom, till she set up a red-faced howl of protest. Eli pinched her leg, a firm pinch between his thumb and forefinger, resulting in a cat-like yowl from Hannah. Poor Eli was promptly cuffed on the ear by his tightly wound sister, whereupon he slunk away and folded himself up in the corner of the couch opposite Lemuel, his knees drawn up to his face, the forbidden thumb finding its way to his mouth.

  Sarah sighed, her eyes snapping with impatience. Eli heard a “Psst.” He sat very still, rolled his eyes in Lemuel’s direction and quickly removed the disobedient thumb.

  “Little boy,” Lemuel whispered.

  Out came the thumb again, only to be quickly hidden from sight in his trouser pocket. A smile, quick and furtive, appeared as quickly as it disappeared.

  “Your sister bigger than you?” Lemuel whispered.

  Eli nodded, his dark eyes slanted toward the sick man.

  “Not to worry, Son. You’ll outgrow her one day.” Lemuel winked, one raisin eye disappearing beneath a blue veined eyelid. Eli laughed outright. Hannah glared in his direction.

  The following day, Lemuel’s fever broke. He spent a long time soaking in the new claw foot tub, dressed in Mose’s clothes—clean, wrinkled, taken from the small bundle Sarah had thrown on the wagon the night of the fire.

  He was so thin that the shirt and trousers hung on his gaunt frame. He was bald across most of his head but had a wealth of gray hair hanging to his shoulders in the back. After he had shaved, he appeared to have shrunken in size, his weathered face revealing a life of hardship.


  Hannah guessed he was close to seventy years old, but he said he was only fifty-nine. In his quiet, breathy voice, there was an underlying rasp, an unsettling timbre that rattled Hannah.

  He began to sit up at the table to eat, didn’t even know enough to bow his head when Sarah told him there was always silent grace before a meal. He didn’t put his hands below the table, either. Just sat there with a foolish expression in his small eyes nearly hidden in flaps of loose skin.

  Hannah knew because she watched him when he thought her head was bowed. So, right there, that told you a lot, she thought. No teaching about God, which meant he would think nothing of holding them all hostage after he had his strength back. Rob them probably, take everything and perhaps leave them all dead.

  Manny strongly disagreed and said he had none of those mannerisms. Sarah plied him with more food, more soup, but he ate very little. Finally, he turned his attention to Hannah.

  “Miss,” he said softly.

  Hannah didn’t reply, the soft-spoken word left her floundering, unsure.

  “Miss, I can see you’re anxious about something. Do you care to tell me?”

  Hannah left his sentence hanging in the air. He gave her the willies, those dark, unblinking eyes watching her like a squirrel’s.

  Manny answered for her, his face flushing at her outward lack of good manners. “We’re all worried about the cows.”

  “You have cows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, so did I, so did I. At one time. Do you care to hear my story?”

  Sarah nodded eagerly, Manny a mirror of his trusting mother. Hannah sat back, folded her arms and glowered. Likely the yarn he would spin would be filled with lies, a colorful pack of fabrications he told to everyone he met, spreading words of untruth thick as flies across the table, lies only she could decipher.

  “I had a spread in Montana,” he began. “A wife and two children. I was young.”

  “Where in Montana?” Hannah asked.

  “Just across the border. The North Dakota border. It was called the Sun River Range. Good grasslands. I was building up my herd. It was a lonely life—but a good one. I loved my days, my herd of cattle, and the isolation. I guess that’s what Mae couldn’t take. She left me and took the children, in the fall before the winter came. Went back to her parents in the East, where we both come from.”

  Here his voice slowed, faltered. In spite of herself, Hannah found herself listening, her eyes downcast, the palm of each hand wrapped around an elbow.

  “I followed, left my heard of cows. I found her, but all my pleading didn’t do any good. Her parents wouldn’t allow her to return even if she wanted to. The children, Jack and Rory, cried and wanted their daddy. But they were like stone—the parents and Mae.

  “So I came back, had plans to sell out, give it up. Could hardly do it, but knew it had to be done. All my hopes was wrapped up in my homestead.”

  Hannah blinked and swallowed.

  “In the end, the whiskey got me. I started to drink to dull the edge of the pain. Guess it was a rebellion, an inner anger that burned slow and mean, pitying myself. Never stopped drinking.

  “It was my homestead, my ranch, my wife, and my children. It consumed my life, glass by glass. I lived for the dull numbing it brought, the bottom of the emptied glass the fulfillment I needed. It erased most of my sense of failure, but never all of it. As long as I live, I’ll hear my boys crying as I turned and walked away. A sound I’ll never get rid of. Or the sight of Mae and her parents. Like hawks, they were.”

  He shook his head, the veined lids falling over the small black eyes. “I wandered, held different jobs, always got into fights, was fired more times than I can say. Rode the rails.”

  Manny broke in, “What’s that?”

  “Hitched a ride in a boxcar. On the train. Hundreds do it.”

  “Like real hobos? Tramps?” Manny asked, his eyes alight.

  Sarah smiled, “We used to have them come by our place back in Pennsylvania. Vaek-laufa. Road walkers, in English.”

  Lemuel nodded. “You speak two languages?”

  “Yes. We are raised speaking Pennsylvania Dutch first, then we learn English as we grow older.”

  Lemuel nodded again. He seemed satisfied to drop the subject of who they were, or why they spoke Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “I got away from God. Don’t hold to no religion. Figured if there was a God, He was right cruel taking away everything I had.”

  There it was! Hannah sat up sharply, an intake of breath hissing between her teeth. “If you don’t believe in God, what would keep you from … from, you know, getting rid of all of us and keeping our homestead? Claim jumpers will do that. How do we know all this sickness was only to fool us?”

  “Hannah!” Sarah said sharply, her disapproval obvious in her tone.

  Lemuel held up a hand. “It’s all right. The girl’s only being careful. I didn’t say I don’t believe in God. I said I got away from Him. I done wrong. Now I don’t know how God will have me back. I done a heap of sinning. Not sure I didn’t leave a man to die once. Among other things.”

  Well, here they were. Sitting ducks. Hannah was disgusted and began chewing the corner of her thumbnail, her eyes dark and hot with an inner light.

  Eli and Manny slid off the bench, began to play with their wooden spools and fences. Silence shrouded the table, a prickly quiet.

  Sarah sighed, toyed with her coffee cup, obviously at a loss for words.

  “You think the cows will survive this?” Manny asked finally.

  “They’ll survive the storm better than the wolves that will soon be starving, hungry, and powerful mean. Got a bull out there?”

  “Oh, yes. And a cow that’s meaner than him.” Without thinking, Hannah spoke ahead of Manny. Manny looked at her, blinked, but kept quiet.

  “If I were you, I’d soon be riding out. I saw you have a right good windmill. They’ll be in, if they’re thirsty. Best thing would be a lean-to, stored hay. Don’t know if you have either one.”

  Quickly, Hannah shook her head. That was the hard part. The part that kept her up at night.

  Lemuel spoke again. “They should be all right. They might need a little help here and there. Riding out, starting a good strong fire at night, all these things will help repel them wolves. Have you heard them?”

  “More coyotes than wolves.”

  Lemuel nodded. “They’ll be the enemy once calving begins.”

  Fear shot through Hannah. “They tell us purebred Angus have trouble calving.” She spoke quickly, the words tumbling out of her mouth, her mistrust pushed to the background.

  “No. Someone had it all wrong. Them little Angus calves are small in the head. Delicate. Most ranchers have part Angus for that reason. They drop calves better than some breeds.”

  Hannah’s eyes shone. She leaned forward. “How do you know?”

  Lemuel shrugged. “Common knowledge.”

  Hannah clasped her hands together beneath the table, like a child, she was so delighted.

  They rode out. Manny took the lead on Goat. The sun shone with a weak light through the gray veil of the sky, obscuring the brilliant winter blue. The wind had calmed but was still fickle, little spirals of snow puffing up unexpectedly to fling the flakes in stinging whirls against their faces. The horses walked in a few inches of snow, brown grass sticking up like strubbly hair, then plunged into drifts that came up to their chests. All around them the prairie looked level, the snow an even blanket of white, gray shadows swirling a pattern like cold marble. It was all a fine deception. The drifts arose, then faded away, the horses stumbling on clumps of frozen grass.

  The air was frigid. Hannah’s teeth chattered uncontrollably. Her fingers were like ice picks. She had no idea the cold was so intense. The fabric of her coat was like a window screen, letting in the icy drafts that swirled around her. She watched Manny, hunched in his saddle ahead of her, Goat’s sturdy legs breaking a path through yet another drift.

&nbs
p; She was shivering violently now, her teeth chattering like pebbles. “Manny!” she shouted.

  He stopped Goat and turned to listen, his face wind whipped and raw.

  “I can hardly keep going. I’m so cold!” For Hannah to admit anything quite like this must mean it was serious.

  “We haven’t found the cows yet!” he yelled.

  “I know, but I can’t go on.”

  Undecided, Manny gazed across the unforgiving white prairie. To find the cows was necessary for their peace of mind and worth the cold that penetrated like thousands of needles. Hannah was always the one who knew everything, who goaded him and tried him to his limit. So now it was his turn.

  “You have to,” he shouted back.

  “No, Manny. I’m too cold.” Hannah bit back her plea for mercy.

  Manny goaded Goat without looking back. Hannah had no choice but to follow. She bit her lower lip to keep her teeth from chattering and tasted blood. She couldn’t feel her fingers or her toes. Like dead chunks of ice, they were encased in her hard leather boots, stuck in the creaking, frozen stirrups.

  Riding above the snow, the cold like sharp needles against her skin, they continued without sighting even one black cow. Impossibly cold, fraught with anxiety and lack of a good night’s sleep, Hannah stopped Pete, dismounted, and began to scream at Manny, flailing her arms in circles and stomping her feet against the frozen earth. She felt as small and insignificant as a pinhead in the center of a tilting white orbit that was eventually going to swallow her alive.

  Stupid cows. Dumb bovine creatures that couldn’t even think for themselves. Let Manny ride on and get lost. She had to help herself or turn into a frozen lump of ice and snow.

  Manny stopped Goat, turned in his saddle to watch his sister dismount. Without emotion, he watched her wild motions, stuck his gloved hands beneath his armpits, and waited, squinting his eyes against the stark white light and stinging snow.

  When a section of the snowdrift on his right broke away, he blinked. Shading his eyes with his gloved hand, he squinted and blinked again.