Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  Beef gravy over mounds of mashed potatoes eaten with fresh hull peas from the garden, homemade white bread with freshly churned butter and raspberry jam.

  Had they taken it all for granted? Undankbar. Unthankfulness, one of the deadliest sins. Was that why God had sent the Great Depression, forcing them into the unreasonable slide of unmet payments, unpaid bills, and collectors like wolves slavering on the porch? Surely Mose had not seen where they were headed. Or had he?

  Chunks of canned beef had not been available for many Amish families. Some smart housewives learned to cook bacon or bologna rinds, frying them into a deep, dark gel, adding milk and thickening it with flour like gravy.

  Blooney dunkas. Bologna gravy. And it was good. Turnips had taken the place of potatoes after they were gone toward the end of winter. A stronger flavor, one many children disliked, but what Elam King’s Salome had said was true: “A child who is hungry enough will eat almost anything.”

  Who could have foreseen it, this Great Depression? Money, as the stalwart Amish had come to know it, suddenly became worthless. Uncountable debt. Land without value. Unthinkable. The old, white-bearded men shook their heads and blamed the president. The crooked politicians who would bring down the greatest country on earth.

  They argued, their words circling among themselves, but no one really understood the root of the problem or how to fix it. So they always circled back to the president. They tightened their suspenders, pulled their straw hats low and went to work. They did without, made do with what they had, and were more thankful for leaner rations than they’d been in fatter times.

  Wasn’t it something how you could make dresses from feed sacks? Housewives repeatedly devised ways of dyeing the letters and objects printed on the rough cotton material. The children owned three shirts or dresses, one for Sunday, one for school, and one for voddogs, usually the everyday one patched and patched again, then handed down to a younger child and held together by still more patches.

  Well, they’d certainly been prepared for the lean times here in the West. Real poverty was something the housewives of Lancaster County could not have understood, even in the grip of the Great Depression. Turnips and bologna gravy was one thing; but to go to bed with a yawning pit that hurt from being empty, a stomach shriveled and aching for lack of food, was quite another.

  The aroma of the fragrant vegetable stew filled the cold, dark house. Sarah dished it up, bowls of thickly cut potatoes and carrots seasoned with beef and onion and parsley. She cut wedges of sourdough bread and spread it with dark molasses from the barrel.

  Hannah refused to leave her self-inflicted cocoon of quilts, turning her face away and keeping her eyes closed, her mouth a hard line of determination. Manny glanced her way, shrugged his shoulders, and began to eat hungrily. Sarah lifted her eyebrows and was met with a shrug of Manny’s wide, young shoulders. Let her pout.

  “Hannah, come on. Aren’t you hungry?” Mary called before she lifted her spoon to begin eating the stew.

  “She probably doesn’t feel good,” was Eli’s verdict.

  Abby waved her spoon and gurgled happily, as Sarah tied the cloth bib around her neck.

  The wind roared like a freight train. The snow hissed against the window. A death song for the cattle, Hannah thought, allowing bitter thoughts to hold her in their grip. They would never survive this. The ones that didn’t starve would be eaten by ravenous wolves, specters of death descending on them through the ever deepening snow.

  Manny could not rouse her to help feed the horses. Little Eli accompanied him along the rope to the barn, red-faced and gasping, his chest expanding by his sense of being one with his brother. Sarah fussed over him, saying he was a right young man, and made him strong hot tea flavored with molasses.

  Mary sang a little German school song in her sweet, low voice as she played on the floor, building a tower with wooden spools for Abby.

  Kommt liebe Kindlein,

  Kommt zu dem Vater.

  Abby squealed when the tower fell over, wooden spools rolling in every direction. Eli dove after them, reaching beneath the oak cupboard, the couch, and pushing aside the roll of quilts that encased Hannah’s legs.

  “Move. I need those spools,” he directed.

  Angrily, Hannah kicked out, hitting the side of his head, sending him from a good-natured crawl to a sprawling, indignant roll on his back. He gave a loud, insulted yell, which brought Sarah from the bedroom where she had been putting more covers on the beds.

  “She kicked me!” Eli howled.

  Sarah stood there, quietly taking in the situation. The storm shook the house, rattled the windowpanes, moaned and whistled around the edges of the roof, setting her teeth on edge and allowing no great amount of patience where her eldest daughter was concerned.

  With brisk steps she strode over to the couch. Without a word, she gripped the corners of the quilt in both hands, threw her weight backward and heaved, rolling Hannah out of the quilts onto her stomach, leaving her sprawled in an ungainly position across the couch.

  “Get up! Get out of these quilts and go to your room. If you’re going to act like a six-year-old, then I’ll treat you like one.” With each word her temper increased, until she reached out and gave Hannah a hard cuff on the shoulder.

  Hannah was shocked into obedience. She sent a desultory glance in her mother’s direction, got herself onto her feet, and slunk into her room, closing the door with a firm slam.

  Sarah reached down, grabbed the quilts, opened Hannah’s bedroom door, and tossed them inside before closing the door with a decided click.

  Sarah didn’t speak for a long time after that. She washed dishes, dried them, and put them away. She cleaned the stove top with an emery board, piled on more wood than she should have, swept the floor, and got the children ready for bed.

  Night came early, and with the darkness, the sound of the storm seemed to grow louder. Tension already ran high and taut, a tight rope that none of them had the skill to navigate, so they may as well go to bed. Things would be better in the morning light.

  Hannah finally undressed, put on her long flannel nightgown and crawled beneath the heavy covers. Her teeth chattered and she was ravenously hungry. She wasn’t about to set foot out her room to eat cold, congealed vegetable stew. Or face her mother’s wrath. What in the world had come over her? She should have displayed some of that gumption to her husband! Likely he wouldn’t have dared to even think about moving out West.

  That certainly was a put down, your own mother treating you to a solid smack on the shoulder. At her age. She cringed in embarrassment.

  What in the world? Her meek and quiet mother. Well, she’d seen that side of her before, and it was a scary spectacle. Her large dark eyes, that solid, tall body made of muscle. She could be tough if she wanted to be. Most times, though, meekness and goodness covered the tough side, like fluffy frosting on a layer cake.

  The cold burned her nose. She should get up and open the door to allow some of the heat from the wood stove to circulate, but there was no way she was going to let her mother know she was cold.

  She dreamed a long, unsettling dream that night, one that set her eyelids to fluttering, small squeaks coming from her throat until her eyes flew open and she was fully awake, staring wide-eyed into the roaring, snow-scoured night that was as cold as an icicle.

  She thought about the dream, reliving her feelings of desperation. The wolves were devouring the cattle, one by one, the great horned cow the only one remaining alive. She had devised a plan—she couldn’t say what it was—to save the cattle’s lives, but she was hampered by her mother constantly slapping her shoulder.

  Manny was nowhere around in her dream. Well, that was certainly frightening! Perhaps her dream meant something. Maybe it was God’s way of speaking to her. Who knew? Very likely it meant that she could have ridden out and saved the cattle if her mother had only allowed it.

  That might not be the case, though. She knew she could very well have been caught in
this deadly blizzard if she had disobeyed.

  She didn’t go back to sleep for a long time, partly because she was so cold and partly because she thought she would surely lose her mind listening to the wind and the snow. Anxious about being in debt, and about the cows, she wondered what they would do when the snow melted and uncovered fourteen carcasses half-eaten by wolves or starved to death.

  That blizzard was only the second in a series of winter storms unlike anything the local folks had ever seen. Some of the older men and women remembered worse winters, when the bitter winds drove the snow into ten-foot drifts that dotted the prairie like mountain ranges.

  It was in late March that the snow began to become soft and heavy. The edge of the roof was lined with shimmering, glassy icicles. It became a dangerous route to pass beneath them when they dripped icy water or let loose entirely, crashing to the snow with a grand display of shattered ice.

  The sun shone with varying degrees of warmth, but eventually the day came when the snow was shallow enough to attempt navigating. Still, Sarah would not allow it, saying the storms could raise their heads and arrive in less than an hour, which wouldn’t allow a sufficient amount of time to ride home safely.

  Only after the Jenkins boys rode over did she allow it. Hannah found herself feeling awkward and tongue-tied, her feet clumsy when confronted by the young men—Clay, Hank and Ken. All of them were attractive, curious, eager to know how the family had fared during three months of winter.

  How was Hannah expected to tell them the truth? The endless dark hours of anxiety, the dread of another approaching storm, the certainty of finding only cattle remains, her night sweats and attacks of panic?

  To her own sense of pride, she had never cried. She refused to do that. She had battled her own inner demons, to be sure, the determination to survive unaided while she bitterly railed against the storms and doubted God’s mercy.

  Sarah remained the firm foundation for all of them after that evening when she sent Hannah to her room. It was Sarah who rallied valiantly when Hannah fell into another swamp of despair, wallowing in her lethal self-pity, covering herself in the muddy slime of blaming her father for all of her woes, unwilling and unable to see that it was she who had orchestrated the move back, who had goaded the remainder of the family into the pioneer spirit.

  Clearly, it had been Hannah’s choice. But the price was unforeseen, and the toll it took on her emotional health uncalculated. So now, standing before the Jenkins boys, she found herself ill at east, unsure, incapable of hiding her terror at having lived so isolated and alone.

  Clay was pale, blond, clean cut, as lean and handsome as she’d ever seen him. Clean shaven, his gray Stetson pulled to his eyebrows, his eyes shone like blue ice. Hank was a mirror of his brother; Ken was even taller than his siblings.

  Their eyes bore into Hannah’s face, curious, alive with interest. Hannah was thinner, dark circles under her huge, brown eyes. There was an intensity about her that seemed unsettling somehow. Manny was good natured, saying they’d come through okay. Really. A large affable grin sealed his sincerity, and the Jenkinses believed him.

  Tight-lipped, Hannah suggested they all ride out together to check on the cows. A nervous tic at the corner of her eye, her lips twitching, her voice hoarse, her fingers restlessly easing out of her gloves and stretching back into them.

  Clay watched her silently. She hadn’t taken the winter well. He noticed the too-wide eyes, the blue veins that showed at her temples, the cold blisters that lined her upper lip, appearing painful.

  “Horses need to rest awhile before we ride farther,” Clay suggested to his brothers.

  Manny invited them in for coffee, gladly brought them through the door to his welcoming mother, who met the three boys with hands extended, her dark eyes alight.

  “Oh, it’s just a pleasure to see your faces!” she beamed. Gladly she served them mugs of hot coffee and brought out the sourdough bread and the jam she kept for special occasions.

  She asked so many questions that Clay finally laughed and said he couldn’t find all the answers for her soon enough. Yes, Hod and Abby were both in good health. Abby had had a bit of pleurisy, a cough, but got herself over it without seeing a doctor. “Not as if’n the doctor could have done a whole lot, stuck in town the way he was.”

  Amid all the talk and slurping of hot coffee, Hannah remained stone-faced, one thumb and forefinger picking constantly at her cold sores until they bled.

  Clay cringed as he watched her apply a clean handkerchief, watched as she tried to conceal the spots of red blood. No, he decided, she had not come through the winter well. An ordeal is what it had been.

  It was only when he stretched and suggested they ride out that she came to life, springing up with cat-like energy and grace, yanking at the sleeves of her coat to tear it off the wooden peg on the wall. Her fingers shook as she tightened the cinch on her saddle. The bit rattled against Pete’s teeth as she tried to insert it into his mouth.

  They rode out in single file, Hannah falling behind, old Pete working to lift his wide hooves through the wet snow. The sodden earth, a quagmire of mud, rotting roots, decaying grass and, where the fire had burned it off, a black, slimy mush of soot, ashes, and snow, sucked at the horses’ hooves.

  “You go west, Clay!” Hank shouted, jerking a thumb in the spoken direction. Clay turned in his saddle, looking for Hannah. “Go with me?” he called to her.

  “She can ride with me,” Hank offered.

  “Naw. You go east. Take Manny and Ken with you.” Hank gave his brother an exasperated look, but was too proud to object. He knew well enough that Clay was sweet on Hannah. Good luck with that one!

  Clay sat astride his horse, relaxed and waiting for her to catch up. Hannah’s pale face was pinched, wan, and much too thin.

  “You musta forgot to eat most of the winter,” he said, watching her dark eyes focus anywhere but on his.

  “Yeah, well. It was a long winter,” Hannah snapped.

  “That’s when most people enjoy their food. You know, hibernate like bears and get fat!”

  “I got sick of sourdough bread.”

  Clay laughed. Hannah’s eyes scanned the prairie with a furtive look, almost like a person obsessed. She bit her lower lip, her gloved hand went to her mouth repeatedly until she remembered the gloves, lowering her hands to fiddle with the buttons on her coat.

  “You’re more nervous than a cat on a hot tin roof,” Clay observed.

  “You would be too if your whole life depended on these cows.”

  “Now, Hannah. There’s more to life than makin’ a livin’. You won’t starve.”

  Soberly, Hannah nodded. “We almost did one time. Probably will again if these cows didn’t survive. You know that.”

  “I told Hank to shoot if they see ’em, so listen for a gunshot.” They rode on. Clay produced a pair of black binoculars that he put to his eyes to scan the white prairie. Once, Hannah thought she saw a dark lump but it passed from her vision.

  The sky was blue, studded with small gray clouds like sheep’s wool, dirty and thick. The air was cold but the sun shone on their faces, not warm but with a softness of promised spring. A dark line appeared on the horizon. Hannah shouted, pointing a shaking gloved finger.

  Clay shook his head. “It’s them cottonwoods north of the Klassermans. Doubt if yer cattle stuck that close.”

  “Think not?”

  “They had a wide area to travel if they wanted to find food.”

  Hannah could not have answered if she had wanted to, with the hard knot of fear forming in her chest. Clay probably knew they would never find their cattle and was only humoring her.

  “Let’s ride to those cottonwoods anyway. Maybe they went there for some kind of shelter.”

  “Sure. We can check.” Clay goaded his horse, leaving a weary, mud-splattered Pete behind.

  CHAPTER 9

  The cottonwood trees were much farther away than they appeared. Clay had to halt his horse repeatedly
, waiting until Hannah caught up. They rode together, Pete’s sides heaving, a good lather of sweat appearing beneath the cinch and around the saddle blanket. He walked faithfully on, his head bobbing, his ears flicking, listening for commands.

  There. Wasn’t that line of trees too dark? Hannah lifted a hand to her forehead, shading her eyes from the sunlight. There was a band of black, irregular shapes too thick to be trunks of trees.

  Was it a ravine, or a bank behind the trees? Did the prairie have a drop-off point? She tried to call out to Clay, her eyes riveted to the dark objects beneath the cottonwood trees.

  The cows!

  Clay yelled. He whooped and hollered, raised a fist and pumped the air.

  Cows exploded from beneath the bare branches of the trees. Thin, long-haired, spindly looking things, every last one.

  Hannah wasn’t aware of Pete or Clay or the fact that he was shouting hoarsely. She was counting, babbling numbers to herself through eyes that blurred with tears running down her cheeks of their own accord, down her cheeks and dripping off the end of her nose, running into her cold blisters, the salty tears stinging and hurting.

  Twelve. Thirteen. A dog? Two dogs. What were dogs doing among the herd?

  Hannah screamed at the same time Clay shot his rifle into the air. The small ones were not dogs. They were calves! Healthy little black calves. Two of them!

  Hannah screamed again, then slumped in her saddle, crying with great, uncontrollable sobs that wrenched hoarse sounds from her throat and mucus from her nose running down into her cold sores. She didn’t care about anything. Nothing.

  There was the bull, still wide in the chest, but definitely gaunt, his ribs showing beneath his ragged coat. There was the mean cow, looking more belligerent and wild-eyed than ever.

  The herd scattered and came together to watch warily, the new young mothers bawling for their spindly calves.