by Linda Byler
Nearly crying, Hannah stumbled into the barn after Owen. He removed Pete’s saddle with excessive grunts, scolding and lamenting in between.
“Dis horse too oldt for your dumbheit,” he scolded.
“We don’t have a better one.”
“Den you must stay home.”
“I can’t.” Almost losing control and giving way to little-girl tears of rage and frustration, Hannah told Owen between shivers and chattering teeth that the wolves had killed a yearling heifer.
Owen’s blue eyes popped open. “I told Sylvia. I told her I hear them volves.”
Hannah followed Owen to the house, past the swept porch and the broom hanging from a nail by a short length of rawhide.
Sylvia threw up her hands, a glad light in her blue eyes, her apron stretched tight across her doughy hips, waggling a red, plumpish finger and scolding just the way Owen had.
Hannah removed her boots, carefully staying on the colorful rag rug, setting them neatly side by side. They led her to the table, where a steaming cup of Dutch cocoa waited along with a variety of cookies, sweet rolls, and breads.
The kitchen gleamed in the winter sunlight. The gas range shone like a mirror, the curtains above the sink so white they shone blue. African violets were blooming in an array of colors, lined up in coffee cans like a harbinger of spring. The patterned linoleum floor was waxed to a high sheen, not a crumb or scuff mark anywhere.
Hannah resolved to be a housekeeper just like Sylvia if she ever had her own house. It would not include a husband to clump through the kitchen with bits of manure clinging to the soles of his shoes.
“The wolves got one of our heifers,” Hannah explained. “We have no lean-to, no shelter of any kind, and no hay stored because of the fire.” She took a deep breath. “So, the reason I’m here is to ask if there’s a possibility of driving our cows to your ranch where they could be taken care of.”
Owen drummed his fingertips on the oilcloth table top. “You can’t drive them over. Likely dese cows is already hungry and not so strong. To keep volves away iss not easy unless you camp out on the prairie.” He shook his head. “Too hard. Too hard. How you gonna keep firewood? How you gonna take it dere?”
Hannah’s eyes widened. “You mean there’s nothing to be done?”
“Without stored hay, no. Especially not without goot horses. Do you vant me to call Jenkins on the telephone? See vhat Hod says?”
Hannah nodded, grateful.
So a yelling into the telephone mouthpiece ensued, punctuated by many “Vot’s? Vot you say? Huh?” Finally he handed the phone to Hannah, who took it with trembling fingers. Hope was slipping away too fast, the awful prospect of letting those cows out to fend for themselves beyond her comprehension.
“Hello?”
“Hannah?”
“Yes.”
“Hod here.”
“Yes.”
“You crazy?”
“Owen says I am.”
His deep, relaxed chuckle came through the line. “Believe me, you are.” That deep, automatic chuckle again that seemed to iron out every hopeless obstacle in her way. “So you lost a heifer, Owen tells me.”
“Yes.” She hated the tears she felt were forming.
“Well, there ain’t a whole lot you can do if this snow keeps up. Them cows might do good on their own. Learn to stay tight. You got that mean one and the bull. But, tell you what. Pickin’s are gonna get pretty slim so what we’ll do is watch the weather. If’n we git a warm spell, we’ll take the tractor and try to haul some hay over there to yer windmill. Yer biggest problem is no hay. Them cows won’t starve, but they might not do too good, either. You might lose a few more heifers to them wolves. Boys and I might ride out, see what we can find. Wouldn’t suggest it now, the way the snow’s piled around. You get yerself home now, Hannah. Sit tight and see what the weather does.”
“But I can’t wait to see if it will warm up,” Hannah said. “It will seem like every day and night is a week long, sitting there while the wolves chew up our whole herd.”
Hod laughed outright. Abby pestered Hod to give her the telephone and he handed it over to her.
“Hannah!”
“How are you, Abby?”
“Doin’ all right. How’s them little ones? And your ma?”
“We’re cozy and warm. We have plenty to eat. We’re blessed.” Now she sounded just like her father.
“You shore are.”
“We have a man staying at our house, Lemuel Short. He’s homeless and wandered into the shack. He almost died.”
“Mercy sakes, Child. You can’t trust them people.” Abby let loose a hailstorm of warnings about folks helping those vagabonds and how badly it turned out. “Best send him on his way,” she admonished.
The very next morning, late, a posse of men arrived on horseback. Hod and all his boys and two men neither Sarah nor Hannah had ever seen before. They rode in, their horses well lathered, nostrils expanded, breathing rapidly, their necks stretched out after the men dismounted.
The boys hung back and led the horses into the barn as Clay led the way to the porch. Sarah became alarmed, watching Lemuel, whose small, kind eyes turned hard as glittering pieces of coal. He sat on a kitchen chair like a bound animal, straining against unseen forces, twisting his hands and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. Then he sat up straight, breathing rapidly.
There was an insistent rapping. Hannah opened the door and stepped back to allow the men to enter. Sarah stood off to the side observing. Manny came out of the wash house door, clearly surprised, then alarmed.
The teakettle’s low humming was the only sound after the men had all filed through the door, standing at attention as they watched the tallest of the two strangers. He was dressed just like Hod, heavy denim overcoat, jeans, a woolen scarf, his black Stetson jammed down halfway over his ears, face brick red from the cold, a mustache like a dark brush, stiff, as if each hair had been frozen.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” he said to Sarah, who smiled politely and nodded. He looked at Mr. Short, who sat upright, one palm on the table, his face white and without expression.
“Lemuel? Lemuel Short?”
Features etched in stone. No reply.
The man reached into a pocket of his overcoat, produced a badge, the gold star of his profession. The sheriff. Lemuel’s expression remained unchanged.
“We’ve been lookin’ for you, Mr. Short. You need to accompany us back to Pine.”
Lemuel remained mute, as still as a carved statue. The accompanying sheriff told him he was under arrest, quietly, as solemn as a minister. It was only when he produced the silver handcuffs that Lemuel reacted, leaping sideways, rocketing from his chair with the speed and agility of a much younger man. There was no evidence of his cough, his weakness eclipsed by his desperation.
Chairs overturned as a scuffle broke out. Sarah, standing by the stove, lifted both hands to cover her face. It was only a matter of seconds until Lemuel was subdued, the cold metal of the handcuffs clicked into place. His head was bent, the skin on top shining from beneath his thin, gray hair, as vulnerable as a child. For a fleeting instant Hannah wanted to believe he was innocent of whatever wrong he had done in the past. Or was it the past?
“Sorry, ma’am, for the inconvenience,” the tall, burly sheriff said. “But I don’t believe you want Mr. Short in your care any longer. He’s wanted for killing a man in a bar fight in Lacoma, about a hundred miles west of here.”
Sarah nodded, wide-eyed, a hand to her mouth.
“You need some heavy clothing,” the sheriff ordered brusquely. Lemuel could not raise his head. It was as if there was a rock on his shoulders weighing him down. He did not resist as they loosened the handcuffs, standing patiently as he put on his overcoat, one of Mose’s homemade denim ones, and wound the old scarf around his head.
Hannah carried the look of his eyes with her for days. When he lifted his head, his eyes reminded her of a wounded animal caught in a trap. The desperati
on gave way to a sad acceptance of his fate, his words soft and filled with sincerity.
“Ma’am,” he said to Sarah, “if I die in prison, your face will get me through until the end. You’re one of those rare people that shine with an inner light. Your prayers alone is all I need. Pray for me every morning and evening so that God can accept my repentance. I deserve to burn in hell forever, but with your prayers opening the way for my own feeble begging, I just might make it.”
Hannah straightened her shoulders and bit her lips to keep the weakness at bay.
“I’m ready,” he told the sheriff, then walked through the door into the blinding world of sun on snow, his head held high.
Sarah sank into a chair, a shuddering breath releasing the tension in the room. She shook her head. “At a time when I should have spoken to him about salvation, words wouldn’t come. Now he’ll go to prison without hearing about Jesus Christ, and all I have is my German Bible. And Mose’s …”
Manny broke in. “He wants to be forgiven, Mam. He’ll find the way. I believe his story about his past. I do. He was just a bitter man. I’ll help you pray for him.”
“Thank you, Manny.”
“He could have killed us all,” Hannah said with conviction.
“But he didn’t,” Sarah said softly.
“We have to stop trusting people, Mam. We’re such ignorant, greenhorns from the East. We lived in a cloistered society. Being raised Amish to live in peace and forbearance might be all right as long as you stay in Lancaster County. But we’re here in the West now, where tramps are murderers and wolves destroy cattle, snowstorms can threaten your life, and drought shrivels anything you plant. We need to become smarter, wiser, or we’re not going to make it.”
“God will take care of us,” Sarah said quietly.
“And what if He doesn’t?” Hannah burst out. “We have no guarantee on this earth that He’ll magically turn everything in our favor. That’s how Dat thought. He lived by those principles and dreamed his way into poverty and starvation.”
Sarah watched the heated passion in her daughter’s face. She sighed, a weary sound of resignation. “Perhaps if we were as smart as we should be, we’d realize homesteading is folly and return to our native land. Perhaps God is allowing all these frightening things to show us we are not living according to His will.”
Hannah didn’t consider her mother’s words, just tossed them aside like apple peels, keeping what she wanted to believe.
“So you’re saying it wasn’t God’s will that Dat traveled out here?”
Miserably, Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know, Hannah. I don’t know.”
Manny sat up. “Well, Mam, we’re here now. We’re in debt. We’re blessed to have a sturdy house and our health. We have sound minds to think this through. I think we’ll get through the winter and, to my way of thinking, the cows will learn to fend for themselves. To try and put everyone else in danger by bringing the cows in, providing hay, is foolish. I don’t care what you say, Hannah.
“It will be a setback to lose more heifers, but it would be worse to lose our lives or cause our neighbors to lose theirs. I don’t believe the weather will warm up, according to Hod and the boys. Clay says it’ll likely keep snowing. He knows more about the prairie weather than we do, so I think we need to take his advice.”
Instant rebellion rose in Hannah. “It’s just dumb, Manny!”
“What?”
“Letting those cows out there to weaken.”
“What is better? Bring them in and let them starve around the water tank?”
“Hod and the boys will bring over hay.”
“How?”
“The tractor. They said they would.”
“Well, if it’s possible, they will. It might not be possible and you know it. For once in your life, Hannah, consider someone else’s opinion and let go of your own.”
Hannah met Manny’s gaze, direct, calm, filled with conviction. She hated for him to tell her what to do, but she knew there was no choice. Even as she watched his face, the brilliance of the blinding sun on snow faded, casting shadows beneath his dark eyes.
Sarah looked up, then turned her head to watch the sun’s disappearance, the mountain of gray clouds swelling and inflating even as they sat there together.
“Is there plenty of firewood in?” she asked softly.
CHAPTER 8
The light grew dim and faltered. The kitchen turned ominous, dark shadows appearing in corners that had been filled with sunshine.
Hannah’s dark eyes flickered with fear. Manny’s face paled as the light was erased, turning the house even darker.
Sarah rose, lifted the glass chimney on the coal-oil lamp, struck a match with her thumbnail, lighted the wick, and watched the steady yellow flame before replacing the chimney.
Hannah stood and went to the west-facing windows, meeting her adversary head-on, arms crossed around her waist like steel armor. As far as she could see, the level snow-covered land stretched before her, pure white, indented by blue gray shadows. The horizon was smeared into the land, as if the boiling gray clouds were gobbling up the earth, destroying it as the winter storm approached.
There was no wind, only a threatening calm, a quiet portent. The hairs on her forearms rose with the quick chills along them. The urge to fling herself on a horse and round up the cold, hungry cattle was overpowering, followed by a helplessness and loss of ability she could not name.
No one could prepare a person for this all-encompassing force of nature. It sent you whimpering into yourself. As she stood there, the clouds shifted, steely gray and flat, as dark as a moonlit night, the snow on the prairie brighter than the sky itself.
Had all the rain that did not fall during the summer packed itself into a vast cloud that stayed above them in the gentle, drought stricken days of autumn? How did one go about understanding the weather patterns in this God-forsaken land?
There! She had finally thought the unthinkable. Had not God forsaken them in their hour of need? Hannah felt alone, isolated, punished by forces beyond anything she could control, like a tiny vessel pummeled by the seas, hundreds of miles out away from the security of the land.
So then, ultimately, God did what He wanted to do, leaving His mortals to flounder around for themselves. There was no mercy in the face of this fast approaching storm.
What about the sheriffs and Lemuel Short? If they were caught in what appeared to be a maelstrom of wind and snow, they’d lose their way and freeze to death. It might be just as well for poor Mr. Short.
Sarah busied herself building up the fire. She jumped back as the cookstove lids rattled, followed by a puff of white smoke that belched from the fire pit. Alarmed, she raised questioning eyes to Manny. “You think the chimney is clogged with soot?”
Quickly, Manny threw on his coat and boots, pulled himself up the porch posts and onto the roof, as agile as a cat, Hannah watching from below. He waded through the snow on the roof of the porch, but the wind had blown most of it off the house roof, allowing him to reach the stone chimney. He lowered a long pole, wiggled it around to test for a buildup of soot, then shook his head, perplexed.
“There’s nothing there!” he yelled.
There was a cry from the kitchen as the cookstove puffed out more billows of gray wood smoke. Manny slid off the roof, landing in deep snow, then shook himself, his face and hands already red with the cold.
“Must be the air,” he said. “A downdraft. Before the storm.”
Hannah watched the pewter gray sky worriedly. “Think we’d better find a rope to attach from the house to the barn?” she asked.
“Might be a good idea.”
They found pieces of rope and knotted them together until a long line could be attached to the barn, propped up here and there by pieces of wood as high as a clothesline. Sarah continued to deal with the cranky stove, waving her apron to dispel the onslaught of wood smoke that coughed out of every crack at regular intervals.
The children cou
ghed and wiped their streaming eyes. Abby began to cry, rubbing her eyes as she tried to rid herself of the bothersome fumes.
When the storm hit, it sucked up the smoke and spewed it out of the chimney, raising the red-hot coals underneath into leaping flames and heating the stove top to a cherry red glow. It was as if the stove had no controls, no levers to open and shut the draft, leaving the fire to burn hotter and hotter.
Sarah realized she could only throw on a few sticks of wood at a time. It would be better to be cold than let the fire rage out of control and threaten them with the loss of their house and perhaps their lives.
The wind shook the well-built house in its teeth. Snow scoured the windows like gravel flung by a giant hand, rattled against the window panes, and bounced off to form a drift against the walls. There was nothing to see except a dizzying whirl of snow and ice, the sky and the prairie blending into one.
Hannah wrapped herself into an old quilt, the edges frayed by many washings, and pouted. She picked at loose threads, loosening thin patches of worn fabric, and pitied herself with a deep and abiding sympathy. She refused to answer her mother’s worried inquiries, turned her face away, closed her eyes, and shut out the whole business of life that included storms and wolves and cattle and deceased fathers who had made insane choices to move their family to a land that was simply unlivable. She railed against her mother’s subservient demeanor and was angered by Manny’s disobedience.
Why hadn’t someone stood up for them when her father had made poor choices and lost the farm? Why had they all followed him like docile sheep out to this—there it was again—this God-forsaken, impossible land?
The drought and the fire had been one thing, but these awful blizzards were a new and terrible thing.
A metallic sensation welled up in her mouth; a stone settled in her stomach. Real fear had a physical taste, like moldy bread served on a rusted plate.
Sarah cooked a fine vegetable stew seasoned with scraps of canned beef. Above the roar of the wind, the metal spoon clanking against the glass jar brought an intense homesickness, as she remembered her mother opening a jar of beef chunks, dumping them into the heated browned butter in the pan, the fragrant meat simmering in its own juice before she thickened it with a heavy white mixture of flour and water.
