Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  “I never slept with a girl in North Dakota,” he said dryly.

  CHAPTER 19

  The night turned even colder. The fire died down to a small circle of red coals, an ominous red eye that kept Hannah awake. To relax and fall asleep meant the coals would die to gray ashes and she would certainly freeze.

  At first, the woolen blanket was sufficient, its heavy weight like a comforting arm the entire length of her body. But when the frost settled in, the temperature dropped even further. Shivers began to ripple along her shoulders and the backs of her legs. Her face was so cold she curled up even tighter, pulled the odorous blanket up over her head and tried to concentrate on the pockets of warmth she could find.

  She wondered vaguely if your nose could crack right off your face, if it was frozen solid, or if the tissue and blood vessels kept it warm enough to stay fastened to the rest of your face.

  Repeatedly, she opened one eye to peer at the glowing coals. When the call of the wolves sounded through the woolen blanket she clutched around her head and became rigid with fear. The long drawn-out wails rose to a hair-raising crescendo, floating above the prairie like ghosts of the wolves who howled before them, a long drawn-out cry that jangled Hannah’s resolve, ruined her pride, and goaded her into action.

  Flinging aside the useless thing he called a blanket, she scrambled to her feet, scavenged around in the pitch black night, her back bent, her hands scouring the campsite for more wood. Sticks, logs, anything. She was slowly turning into a human icicle, about to be eaten by wolves, and if her judgment was right, he was the same as dead, sleeping so soundly the only thing that would wake him would be a shotgun or a herd of buffalo, not necessarily in that order.

  What if there was no wood? She wasn’t about to wade through the frosty grass to the group of ash and cottonwood trees. Not with the wolves running in packs, howling their heads off.

  She could see them. Huge, long-legged brutes, black or gray, some brownish gray, silver-tipped hair on the darker ones, their long powerful legs efficient machines that propelled them easily over the roughest terrain, their wide foreheads and large, pointed ears, and red eyes that saw everything, like the devil.

  No wood anywhere. The fire out. Her teeth rattling together like strung beads in the wind.

  Then, instead of feeling despaired, or helpless, Hannah got mad! She stomped over to the sleeping mound called Jerry, drew back her foot and gave him a solid kick, then another.

  Immediately, his dark head appeared, followed by his hands clawing at the blanket, muttered words of confusion cutting through the night air, all unintelligible, which did nothing to assuage Hannah’s temper.

  “Get up! Where’s the wood? I’m freezing!” she yelled.

  “Wood? What wood?” he asked stupidly, running a hand through his hair.

  “Wood for the fire.”

  “Oh, here. Right here.”

  Jerry picked up a few small sections of a dead branch, scattered the dead ashes into a few glowing red coals, and soon had a crackling flame that ate away at the dead wood, sending light and warmth into the dark like a promise.

  “You’re shivering,” he observed.

  “Yeah. What do you think? It’s zero degrees and there’s a pack of wolves howling. Very restful.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me before now?”

  Hannah didn’t answer, mostly because of the clacking activity of her teeth.

  A high, ripping howl began, rising higher and higher, until it turned into a cacophony of intermittent yelps and mournful cadences that could only be described as ghostly.

  Hannah hated the wolves ever since the previous winter when that sound was like a dagger, attempting to slice away her hope for the future, slavering jowls of primal beasts devouring her cattle.

  “They aren’t close,” Jerry observed.

  “So what? Get this fire going.” But she was glad he’d said they were at a distance.

  He did get the fire roaring, loading the small flames with carefully placed wood, until the heat toasted her face and hands. He brought her blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, then set her saddle at her back to lean on.

  “It’s much colder than I thought possible,” he said gruffly.

  “You have a lot to learn yet,” she answered.

  He chose to ignore that comment, poured water into the pot, and set it on the grate, than stood over her, his hands balled into fists and propped on his hips.

  “Will you share your blanket?” She could hear the mockery in his voice.

  “Get your own.”

  “You sure? I could warm you up just sitting beside you.”

  “No.”

  “All right,” he said cheerfully, retrieving his blanket, wearing it like a shawl, lowering himself so close to her, their shoulders touched.

  Hannah moved away but put only inches between them. The truth was, she was still shivering all along her back, even if her face was roasted.

  “Still cold?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “Good. You’ll warm up. Sorry I slept so soundly. I sure didn’t want you to be miserable, but I guess girls sleep colder than men do. I don’t know much about girls, never had sisters, you know.”

  Nice of him to be all chatty in the middle of the night. She stared into the fire and thought if he was all nice and apologizing for every little thing it was likely because he wanted to kiss her again. She’d thwart that before it started.

  She tugged at the blanket and said sourly, “You don’t have to apologize. And you better not think of kissing me, either, if that’s why you’re being so nice.”

  Hannah was startled when a loud guffaw came from his mouth, followed by rolling peals of laughter rising into the night sky.

  She ended all this by saying, “That’s not funny.”

  “Sure it’s funny. You must be thinking of when I kissed you before. You never forgot that, did you?”

  “I forgot. Of course I don’t remember.” But her face felt on fire.

  “Then why did you say that?”

  “I don’t want you to try it again.”

  “You sure?” He laughed again, all good humor and benevolence in the middle of the night on the freezing prairie with one small fire and wolves loping off somewhere in the distance.

  After that was out in the open, there was an awkward silence, as if each one knew what the other was thinking, but trying to be calm and nonchalant, as if nothing had ever happened between them. Yet the memory of it lay there like a rock, an unmovable object that grew as the minutes ticked away.

  Hannah stirred, crossed her arms, crossed her ankles and uncrossed them. She cleared her throat.

  “I’m never getting married. I have no plans of falling in love or allowing a man into my life. I can run the Bar S by myself, with Manny’s help. And, if too many Amish arrive, we’ll move on, to Wyoming or Colorado. So you know that now.”

  Jerry shifted his weight so his shoulder hit hers. He turned his face to look at her, just watched her brooding, dark eyes for a long minute, before saying, “You know, Hannah, that is the saddest thing I have ever heard. Why would you want to be like that? Wouldn’t it be better to share your life with someone? Someone who would cherish you, treat you with love and respect? Don’t you want the companionship of a good husband?”

  “Never met one that I liked well enough to want to marry him. Husbands are nothing but trouble. Like dogs. They get crazy ideas in their heads and away they go, leaving their wives to stumble along behind them happily ever after.”

  “Your father did that. Not all men are like that. You can’t measure every man by the past mistakes your father made.”

  Hannah considered this. She looked over at Jerry, who was watching the orange flames dancing in the mirror of her dark eyes. He wondered how many other fears and secrets were well-hidden in the depths of those dark pools.

  Many girls had dark eyes, but hers were so dark you could hardly tell where the pupils began or ended. Hers were the darke
st eyes he’d ever seen. His eyes moved to her mouth, the swelling of her perfect lips that made him turn away and wrap his blanket tightly around himself, like a woolen armor against what he knew would be an act of poor judgment.

  To have kissed her before was one thing, done in an offhand, “see if I can get Hannah to like me” sort of thing. He’d kissed lots of girls; they all fell for him. Sometimes he’d had to be rude just to get them to lose interest.

  Hannah was a thing apart. The more time he spent with her, the more the truth wrapped itself around his heart, like a giant elastic band that pulled so tight it hurt, only to be released again, but always there.

  He often asked himself the question—was it the thrill of the chase? Longing for something he could not have, like the foolish fox jumping for the out-of-reach grapes in his reading book in school?

  Was it the fascination of her cold heart? Or was it a love that was alive in the spirit of God? The thing so many folks sense, notice, and follow? Feeling the obedience of God’s will.

  All he knew for sure was that he wanted Hannah. He wanted to stand by her side for the rest of his life. How lightly the phrase was tossed about—“If it’s meant to be, it will be.” He could not take it as lightly as that, like a dandelion seed blown by a puff of air.

  She surprised him by speaking in a husky voice. “He was just so, I don’t know, unstable. Carried away with thinking himself to be a prophet, a person set aside to receive special favors from God, while the reality of it was, we were starving. Jerry, do you have any idea what it’s like to be so ravenously hungry your stomach hurts and you give your bowl of cornmeal mush to your little brother because you see the hunger in his eyes? And your father, the husband and leader of the weaker vessels, is flailing around, and praying in the bedroom, thinking that God will send manna or something?”

  He could hear the resentment in her grating voice. What had she gone through? He grasped the idea of a husband that had been planted in her brain like a virus. She was afraid to trust. Afraid to live the life her mother had lived.

  “See, that’s why I haven’t made the decision to be Amish. If I stay with our people, I’ll be expected to marry, and marriage is forever. No separation, no divorce. I am not my mother with her sweet temperament. I couldn’t handle being tied to a no-good dreamer leading me with a rope tied around my neck like a nanny goat. Most men just irritate me.”

  “Most men? Does that ‘most’ mean there is still a chance that I’m not among the ones that irritate you? Or, wait a minute. You gave me a few good solid kicks awhile ago, caused, no doubt, by irritation.”

  Jerry laughed, the easy sound that rolled from the depths of his chest. Far away, the wolves’ lament turned into shivers, raising the hair on Hannah’s forearms. The fire leapt into the night sky, sending sparks to share the darkness with the stars.

  Hannah’s head drooped onto her chest, her eyelids fell as the heat suffused her body. Jerry shrugged out of his blanket, draped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close as he would comfort a child.

  “Thanks for sharing, Hannah. It gives me a lot to think about. And I promise not to kiss you, okay?”

  They rode home together in the gathering cold, the clouds bunched together like heaps of dirty wool, puffing away across the prairie sky, changing the light as they thinned out and stretched, allowing a few shy rays of sun to slant through, then disappear.

  The powerful gait of the palomino made her heart sing. Sometimes, for no reason, chills chased themselves up and down her spine, quick tears springing to her eyes. The sizable check would be put in the bank, the full amount paid on the debt to their grandfather, leaving no money to buy golden horses. But she was here, now, up on this horse that was like something she could only dream about on this breezy autumn day with the air crisp and invigorating, breathing new life into the parched, arid earth.

  And she had to admit, the person riding with her was like a magnet to her sight, her eyes constantly turning to the denim jacket across the wide shoulders, the way he rode so easily, as if he was one with his horse. Both knew what was required of the other, a thoughtless unity that was as graceful as the dance of wildflowers hidden among the lush grass in spring.

  She was sorry to see the homestead, knowing this was the end of the ride on the palomino, and yes, the end of his company as well as Jerry’s.

  They both dismounted and stood by the horses, unsure now, a silence stretching between them.

  “You want to feed and water the horses?” Hannah asked quietly.

  “I should, I suppose,” he answered.

  In the barn, she stayed a safe distance away, watching as the horses lowered their heads and drank thirstily, the gulps of water passing up through their long bent necks with a quiet glugging sound.

  “You can stable them, if you want. We can see if my mother has something to eat.”

  She didn’t tell him that the dried, over-peppered meat he’d supplied for breakfast was barely enough to tide her over. She was starving, positively lightheaded with hunger. That awful coffee he made was so strong it was almost like syrup, with a bunch of bitter grounds huddled on the bottom and clinging to the sides of the cup like fleas.

  Together, they walked to the low ranch house, welcomed warmly by Sarah. Manny was out checking the herd; he’d noticed a limp on the old cow last night.

  Sarah served them leftover vegetable stew with a layer of fluffy white dumplings covering the fragrant chunks of potato, carrot and onion, a broth made of tomatoes and beef. She apologized about the lack of butter, but there was plenty of plum jam.

  They had discovered a gnarled old plum tree hidden behind two big oak trees down along the creek, about a mile away. The fruit had already begun to ripen and fall, staining the brown, trampled grass purple, flies and hornets zigzagging drunkenly, sated with too much sugar and the flesh of the rotting, fermented plums.

  It was like a windfall, a blessing to be able to preserve this fruit for the winter months. They’d gorged themselves on the sweet fruit for days, until stomachs rumbled and trips to the new commode became hasty affairs. But now they had this jam, the promise of the old plum tree once again laden with fruit.

  Jerry seemed hesitant to leave, sitting back in his chair, his eyes half-hidden by his lowered lids, his hands crossed on his stomach.

  Sarah’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes large and sparkling with good humor. Why not? Here was an attractive young man in the company of her daughter, so could any mother be free of thinking thoughts of love and romance? She saw no signs of either one in the bristly Hannah, who lowered her head and slurped the stew, stuffed her mouth with dumpling and bread and jam until she could hardly swallow fast enough, without her cheeks bulging.

  Had she simply no social skills, even? Most girls would react to Jerry in a normal fashion, eating daintily, smiling, trying to be attractive, perhaps batting eyelashes on occasion.

  Sarah turned to the stove with sinking heart. She wanted to shake Hannah! Hair disheveled, dichly discarded the minute she walked into the house, her apron knotted around her waist instead of being pinned neatly, in the Amish fashion. Men’s trousers—whose?—protruding from her skirt, worn boots, castoffs from the Jenkinses.

  Didn’t she care, ever, about the impact she made, going through life so unhandily, so unconcerned about her appearance?

  “You’re still wearing my trousers. I’d let you have them, but with two bachelors, laundry is something we don’t look forward to.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot I was wearing them.”

  Sarah was horrified to see her turn her back, hike up her skirt in front, shimmy out of the denims, and kick them across the room.

  Jerry didn’t seem to be embarrassed, so Sarah bit back the dismayed “Hannah!” and busied herself at the sink.

  “Well,” Jerry said, stretching his arms above his head. “I’d better get going. This isn’t working on the house. I figure Jake is about tired of working alone. Thank you for the good dinner. I usually don
’t drop in at lunchtime unannounced.”

  He smiled at Sarah with his white teeth, so evenly spaced in his tanned face and, to her shame, she felt herself blush.

  She answered quickly that it was nothing, there had been plenty left over, glanced at Hannah, hoping she had missed the obviousness of her girlish response.

  Nothing to worry about there. She’d picked up one of her boots and was picking loose pieces off the heel with a table knife. “I need a new pair of boots,” she stated flatly.

  “Well, perhaps it will be possible with the money from the sale of the cattle,” Sarah said, kindly.

  “Huh-uh, Mam. Not one cent of that money will be spent. We can repay Doddy Stoltzfus up to half the loan. No new boots.”

  “What about stocking up on winter supplies? There’s the doctor bill to pay.”

  “I’ll go to work. I am working.”

  Jerry thought, Ah-ha. So there was a reason for her being at Mr. Rocher’s hardware store. She was being paid wages to survive the long winter. In a flash, he realized the futility of offering the palomino to Hannah. If this was the tight ship she ran, she would never accept the horse without being in debt, the thought of more debt hounding her like a pack of dogs.

  He was relaxed now, ready to leave, without the daunting task of trying to get her to accept the palomino. He would be surprised if old Pete made it through the winter, so maybe her pride would be flattened out of necessity.

  He thanked Sarah again, looked at Hannah, who was still worrying the heel of her boot with the knife.

  “Hannah.”

  She looked up.

  “Thanks for riding home with me. If you need anything, let me know.”

  Hannah nodded, her gaze dropping to her boot.

  He smiled at Sarah, then let himself out the door, walking to the barn where he saddled King, took up the palomino’s reins, and rode home, acknowledging wearily that he had gained absolutely nothing where Hannah Detweiler was concerned.