Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  Clay shook his head as he dismounted. “Look at this!”

  Hannah was afraid to dismount, afraid her legs would not support her, so she followed Clay from her perch on the saddle.

  “I’d say that old cow gets the credit for saving your herd. Look at this.” He held up a bleached ribcage, the frozen tattered paw of a wolf.

  Hannah nodded. She swiped at her streaming eyes, her chest heaving.

  “Once them wolves know whose boss, they don’t hang around. Once these cows could back up to these cottonwoods, that ornery old cow let ’em have it. The bull, too. Look at this. Here’s another one. That pack of wolves took a lickin’.”

  Hannah nodded, swallowed. She tried to laugh, pointed at the crazy antics of the wobbly, long-legged calves, then began crying hysterically again.

  Clay looked up at her and then dug in his coat pocket for a handkerchief, producing a well-used and rumpled red one. Hannah honked and snorted, wiped her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself.

  “Wal, Hannah, I’d say the Bar S is off and running,” Clay said, accepting the red handkerchief as she handed it back to him. “It won’t be long until those cows is sleek and fat, munching grass like you ain’t ever seen,” he laughed.

  Hannah laughed too, a hoarse sound bordering on a sob. “It was a long winter, Clay. I was so worried. I had bad dreams. One day just blurred into the next until I thought the storms would never stop and we’d die, all of us together out on this homestead in the middle of the prairie.”

  He caught her hands, hauled her off the saddle, pulled her against him and cradled her head against his chest, swaying lightly, the way he might comfort a child.

  “It’s been rough for you, Hannah. Too rough. I could see it in your eyes. I wanted to come to you, to see how you were doing. But it would have been foolish. I still have feelings for you, Hannah. I’m still waiting.”

  Hannah nodded. “I know. Let’s just be friends for now. You know I’m different than most girls. I don’t want a husband or a boyfriend right now. And there’s this Amish-English thing to consider.”

  “I’ll wait. It’s all right.” He pulled back to look into her dark eyes. “I’d love to kiss you, Hannah, but that mouth …”

  Hannah laughed and slapped him with her gloves. “I need to keep these cold sores. Scares you away.”

  She thought of the other person she needed to scare away. Now there was a brazen one! That Jerry Riehl. The dark horse. The one who was impossible to forget.

  Hadn’t she tried on so many sleepless nights when yet another storm ravaged the prairie, the house on the homestead a black dot in a vast land, scoured and pummeled by forces they could not predict or control? Hadn’t she tried to push thoughts of him from her mind?

  Why now, here in Clay’s arms, thankful and filled with an emotion she herself could not fully understand, did Jerry’s face, no, his … It was too humiliating how much she wanted him. She needed to stop all thoughts of love and romance or any entanglement with Jerry or Clay. Either one distracted her from the business at hand, which was to keep the cows alive and healthy, gather hay for the winter, keep the windmill working, help her mother plant and harvest a garden, and hope for the best.

  Sighing, she stepped away from Clay. They stood apart, watching the cattle. It almost scared her how thin a few of them were. She noticed the swelling of udders, a few more calves would soon be born.

  “Them mothers are gonna need grass to nurse them young ’uns,” Clay observed. Hannah nodded.

  When Manny, Hank, and Ken found them, another celebration broke out with Indian whoops and raised fists pumping the air above their heads.

  The herd was here, they had survived the worst winter. Manny’s face was a mixture of awe and deep reverence—so much like his father—and little-boy tears, all strengthened by his own will to appear grownup and nonchalant in the presence of the Jenkins boys.

  They rode home, threw themselves off their horses, and ran toward the porch to announce the good news to Sarah.

  As soon as the weather, permitted, Sarah cooked a celebratory meal and invited the Jenkinses and the Klassermans. The arrival of sighing breezes, running water that formed joyful little puddles that eddied and swirled from banks of melting snow, was enough to call for a gathering of friends and good food.

  The wind was still harsh, as if it was reluctant to announce its defeat, but that was all right. What was a bit of dashing cold if you could feel the sunlight on your face and listen to the sound of melting snowbanks?

  Sarah baked an entire ham, basting it with molasses and brown sugar mixed with hard cider. The whole house smelled of sweet, baking ham, an aroma that always took Hannah back to her grandparents’ kitchen at Christmas time.

  They peeled potatoes, breaking off the long white sprouts before they could apply their paring knives, the potatoes wrinkled and dusty from having lain in the cold cellar, which was attached to the wash house.

  Sarah laughed at the long white sprouts. She laughed at the wrinkled carrots and smiled as she peeled onions. The winter’s dark anxiety was being erased now as the warm sun melted the snow banks, a sign of hope, of survival. The grasses would spring up and cover the prairie in verdant waves of thick, hardy growth that would sustain every cow and calf.

  The kitchen was filled with brilliant sunlight that cut rectangles of yellow light on the scrubbed and polished floor. The aroma of baking ham mixed with the earth smells of cooking potatoes and carrots.

  Sarah wore a gray dress with a black apron, her hair, like the wings of a raven, parted neatly in the center. Her crisp, white covering had been washed in soapy water with a few shavings of paraffin thrown in to starch and stiffen the fabric. Her cheeks glowed, her large eyes turned gray with that certain hint of sadness that had darkened them the day Mose had died. It seemed they had never regained their original luster.

  Hannah never wore a white head covering anymore, choosing to pin a diagonal half of a man’s handkerchief as far back on her head as possible, her own black hair arranged loosely with decided tendrils framing her face. She was especially attractive in a dress of deep purple, a black apron tied around her slim waist. Her face glowed with a wellspring of renewed hope and energy, her step quick and light, every shadow of anxiety gone.

  Manny’s dark hair was neatly trimmed in the traditional Amish bowl cut, his face pale from the months of winter, his jaw square and clean shaven. The children were dressed in their best clothes, Baby Abby as cute as a button in a pink dress with a row of tucks sewed into the hem, to be lengthened as she grew. She crawled, pulled herself up, took tottering steps, her fat little hands clinging to furniture as she babbled excitedly to herself.

  Sarah, however, could only dream of the desserts she would have liked to make, choosing instead to ration the scant amounts of flour and sugar that remained after the long winter. She knew another year would go by without income, the calves needing time to grow before being sent to auction. Her father was more than generous, but in spite of this, she remained frugal, guiltily aware of using anything to excess.

  The Jenkinses were the first to arrive, clattering into the barnyard in the rusted old pickup truck that had once been blue but now was striped with gray, speckled with brown rust, and splattered with snow and dark mud.

  Abby alighted with the eagerness of a young girl, beat Hod to the porch, and stepped inside without bothering to knock or announce her arrival. She scooped up Baby Abigail and plunked her bony little frame in the armless rocker.

  The baby set up a desperate howl, lunged, and wriggled away from her until she gave up and set her down. She raced on all fours to her mother who picked her up, nestling her head on Sarah’s shoulder before lifting it to peek at Abby.

  “Oh now, come on. It’s me, little one. It’s only me. You know who I am. Come on.” She reached out both arms, her fingers wiggling, beckoning, but Abby merely bent her head and hid her face in Sarah’s neck.

  Sarah laughed. “She’ll warm up to you, Abby. It
’s just been so long.”

  “Hasn’t it though? Oh, it’s been a long one. Terrible. Thought I’d go crazy with them winds a’ howlin’. Pure miracle yer herd made it, ain’t it? Beginnin’ to think God’s favorin’ you.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Oh, please don’t think that. God just knew we couldn’t get along without the herd. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my father back in Pennsylvania, you know that. Or you and Hod. We would have starved that first year without your kindness.”

  “Oh now, don’t go makin’ up stuff. We never did nothin’ ’cept loan you some food. Anyone else woulda done the same.”

  Sarah smiled and looked into Abby’s eyes. The two women had been thrown together on this bleak prairie, and they were grateful for the friendship, the companionship, that grew and flourished in spite of their differences.

  Sarah frowned, concern drawing a line between her eyes, when Abby began to cough, a deep-seated, rasping sound from low in her too-thin chest. To hide her alarm, she bent to open the oven door, lifting the lid on the roaster, inserting a fork, and then replacing the lid.

  “Ah.”

  Abby thumped her chest with a fist, tears forming in her brilliant blue eyes. “Got myself a real cough a coupla weeks ago. Don’t nothin’ seem to help. Cooked enougha onions to steam the men clear outa the house. Tried mustard till I blistered my chest. Guess with the warm weather it’ll go away.”

  “I would hope so. Get Hod to take you to the doctor in Pine.”

  “I wouldn’t take a half-starved cat to that joker. He don’t know a thing ’bout nothin’. Mind you, Sarah, you know that Rocher woman? Her husband owns the hardware? I forget her name. She’s sort of spindly, looks like a washrag someone left floatin’ in the dish water too long. She doesn’t like it out here in the West. Somepin’ wrong in her head. Doc Brinter tol’ her she got TB. Tuberculosis. Now you know that ain’t true. Them TB people turn lemon yellow, so they do. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with her, otherin’ she needs to quit pityin’ herself. That Roger knew what was good for her, he’d take her back home. Land sakes, she’s a pain in everybody’s life, not jes’ her own. Isn’t Hannah goin’ back?” She fixed her blue eyes on Hannah.

  “I don’t know,” Hannah announced.

  “Wal, you should. Everybody said you was doin’ her some good, keepin’ that house in order, keepin’ her spirits up.”

  Hod and the boys stomped up on the porch, ridding their boots of slush and snow, tracking mud up the steps and onto the rug, unaware of having done anything out of the ordinary.

  The boys had ridden their horses, racing along the way they always did, smelling of horse sweat and that vague rancher’s scent of cows and mud and manure, their coats and hats slick with saddle grease and leather. Their faces were ruddy from the cold, their hair smashed to their foreheads by their tight hat bands, then billowing loosely down the back of their necks and around their ears.

  Clay was growing a mustache, Hank the beginnings of a full beard. The youngest, Ken, looked stubbly and pimple faced, as if he needed a good face washing and a shave.

  Why had Hannah never noticed this before? She never realized these boys lived their days in happy oblivion to how they appeared, with yellowed teeth and unwashed faces, hair that was much too long and separated into clumps, never being washed often enough.

  Perhaps they had never been in this new sun-filled house in the middle of the day, either. Without meaning to, Hannah’s dark eyes measured the Jenkins boys with the fastidious yardstick she used to appraise all men.

  Those white, white foreheads! They’d grow old like that. The lower part of their faces would become lined and wrinkled, actually deeply crevassed, the way Hod’s was from exposure to sun and rain, sweltering summer temperatures and blasting winter winds. Their hair would always be glued to their heads by those greasy Stetsons. They’d hardly ever take a decent all-over bath, or brush their teeth with baking soda. They’d always clump through the house with whatever clung to the thick soles of their boots, and never know the difference. This is how they were raised by Hod and Abby. Hannah tried hard to measure them in a new and better light, but she knew there was no use.

  She was who she was. For a moment, the thought took the light from her eyes. This was not the first, nor the only time, she had felt this aversion to men. Today, though, it was sobering, this knowledge of why she was never seriously attracted to anyone.

  Look at Lemuel Short. She’d been right about him for sure. But the Jenkinses were here now, and she needed to do her best to make the dinner a success.

  The Klassermans arrival caused quite a stir, with Owen yelling across the room, followed by his pink, exclaiming spouse. If anything, they had increased in size, the long winter whiled away with many culinary forays, no doubt.

  Sylvia seemed almost shy, a tad apologetic, but soon realized all was forgiven. Her meticulous housekeeping and lack of endurance when the Detweiler’s house went up in flames had been forgotten. Oh, she had tried to be the good Samaritan and house them all, but in the end, her nerves wouldn’t take it. Owen supported her to this day, thank God.

  Sarah served up the meal with Hannah’s help, Abby and Sylvia shooed out of the way. Talk rose in lively spurts as Owen, Hod, and the boys discussed the winter, the cattle market and the local news, everything swirling and tumbling about like a creek in springtime. Hannah strained to hear, but it was useless. She was unable to decipher much at all with two or three of them talking at once.

  The table was stretched out to accommodate them all, spread with a freshly washed and ironed white cotton tablecloth. The plates were flowered china, a design of pink roses and blue forget-me-nots entwined with green ivy, the gift of an anonymous donor back in Pennsylvania.

  There were small cut-glass dishes of sweet pickles and red beets, saved for an occasion such as this. The applesauce was a bit dark in color but tasted just wonderful all the same.

  They enjoyed the thick sourdough bread without butter, but with plenty of jam, red and shimmering in tiny glass dishes. The potatoes were mashed with salt and one precious tin of canned milk, covered liberally with thick, salty ham gravy, rich and dark. Stewed carrots and onions, knepp, those tiny little white flour dumplings simmered on top of sauerkraut, an old Amish favorite that Hod and the boys ate until every bit was scraped from the serving bowl.

  There were noodles too. Rachel’s homemade noodles, cut thick and wide, simmered in chicken and parsley broth, flavored with small amounts of hard cheese. Browned butter would have been perfect, but without milk, this was simply impossible. So they did without.

  Hannah filled water glasses and coffee cups, refilled serving bowls, laughed and talked and smiled, aware of Clay’s hungry eyes and Hank’s near worshipping looks, never responding fully, always aloof, always on the outer edge of any warm conversations.

  She glowed when talk turned to the near miraculous survival of the herd, but spoke very little, still loathing the amount of tears she had allowed Clay to witness, and him pulling her into his arms at every opportunity.

  It irked her, these men doing things like that. Why couldn’t he have walked away and allowed her to have her moment of bawling when her eyes were red and her nose ran like a child’s? But no, he had to pull her into his arms again. She reached a hand up to tentatively feel the healing cold sores, suddenly grateful for their awful appearance. She should try to sprout them on a regular basis!

  Sylvia ended the meal by disappearing into the washhouse and reappearing with a stack of homemade pies, carrying them triumphantly, like a torch, to the table where she set them down with a flourish, her face as red as a cherry, amid yells and thumps of boots and claps that fell on her shoulders.

  “Apple pie!” she trilled, her cheeks bunched up around her eyes like fresh, pink bread dough.

  “Cherry pie!” she shouted, unveiling a huge pie baked in a monstrous blue agate pie plate as big as a frying pan.

  Wedges of pie disappeared like snow in summer. Forkfuls of flaky c
rust bursting with sweet, thickened fruit disappeared into hungry mouths, Sarah and Hannah no different from the rest of them.

  “Deprived too long,” Hod said, chuckling, his face creased in smiles of pleasure.

  “Now don’t you go making as if’n I never bake you a pie,” Abby said, shaking her fork at him.

  “You don’t!” Hank yelled, good naturedly teasing his mother.

  “Wal young feller, if that’s how you ’preciate my hard work slavin’ over that there stove, wal, you kin bake yer own pie next time!”

  Hod laughed outright, reached over and patted Abby’s thin shoulder. “Now, Ma. We’re only funnin’ you, is all.”

  They shared the same look Hannah had often seen between Mose and Sarah, her parents who were closer than anyone she knew. So here was another couple who had been married even longer, living together with that mysterious harmony, that bewildering sharing of thoughts and emotions that Hannah could never understand.

  She had no longing to be patted on the shoulder as if she was a dog who had obeyed. She would never see that kind of appreciation by a man for having baked him a pie. For one thing, she hated the thought of pie baking. For another, a man could survive real good without pie. He could eat cake or, if she didn’t feel like baking him a cake, he could eat bread with molasses on it!

  That’s what married women turned into the minute they sealed their fate with that innocent “Ya” in answer to the minister’s questions about promising to love, honor, and obey. All that stuff. Dutifully being turned into a slave of sorts. No, not really a slave, but …

  Hannah sat drinking black coffee, the taste of pie like a sweet afterthought, contemplating this thing called marriage, her eyes dark and brooding, her mouth compressed, listening to Sylvia’s high, breathless voice as she gave out instructions for successful pie baking.

  Hannah snorted inwardly. Sylvia had probably eaten half a pie and had no room for air, so she had to take helpless little breaths. She was huge! Hannah watched the rise and fall of her bosom, the lifting of her fork, a skinny, tiny utensil held by the thick, fleshy fingers. She marveled at the ability of an insignificant fork entering a normal sized mouth with enough food to build up this pyramid of a woman.