Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  She was like a mist, or a vapor, a puff of smoke, someone you could see but could never really hold. The closer you came, the more unsure you were.

  Back in the kitchen of the ranch house, Sarah frowned, her brows lowered in concentration as she scraped the dishes, and asked Mary to take the scraps to the chickens.

  She spoke sharply when she addressed her daughter. “Hannah, should you be using that table knife to scrape manure and what-not off that boot? You weren’t very polite to Jerry Riehl, working on that heel and ignoring him when he left.”

  Hannah gave her mother a weary look. “What was I supposed to do? Stand up and gush over him the way you did?”

  Her anger slow to rise, Sarah had time to release a breath, take another one in, before turning away to finish the dishes.

  Hannah’s behavior was forgotten when a cloud of dust heralded the arrival of two sheriffs from the town of Pine, who wasted no time getting out of their gray, dust-covered vehicle and striding up on the porch.

  They were tall, formidable looking men, their faces weathered like old saddles left in the sun, the rain, and the scouring wind. Their serious expressions brought instant fear. Manny appeared in the doorway of the barn before making his way to the house, coming in through the wash house and standing quietly by his mother’s side, as if his presence would support her.

  Sarah’s hand went to her mouth, her dark eyes widened as alarming thoughts crashed through her head. Were they conveyors of bad news this time? Wasn’t that the way you were contacted if there was a death or an accident?

  But when the older of the two began to speak, there was a moment when she realized this was not about news of home.

  “We’re asking you to be alert, perhaps keep a rifle or shotgun handy. That Luke Short…”

  “Lemuel,” the other sheriff corrected him.

  “That Mr. Short that stayed here. He broke out of prison with another inmate. They’re believed to be between this area and west of Dorchester. He knows you’re good people, having helped him before, but don’t let him close. Don’t allow him into your house. They are both armed and dangerous. It might be a good idea to get a dog. All ranchers have them. Be very careful going out to your cattle, on the road, at night. Just be reasonable and don’t take risks.”

  Sarah nodded, took a deep breath to steady herself. “All right. We’ll do our best.”

  Hannah heard her light words, as if all hope and conviction had been abandoned, only a shell of herself remaining.

  After they left, Sarah sat down on a kitchen chair, put her elbows on the table, and placed her head in her hands.

  Hannah looked out of the window to avoid seeing her mother’s distress, thinking that perhaps the sheriff was wrong. Manny went over to his mother and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “We’ll be all right, Mam. I’ll keep the rifle handy.”

  Sarah lifted her head. “It’s not that,” she said to the opposite wall. “Do we really have to live like barbarians? Plain old shooting a rifle to protect ourselves? This wild land will be my undoing, at times like this. Mr. Lemuel Short was a nice man, and I believed every word he said. If he comes around, we can’t just up and shoot him like savages.”

  Hannah tried not to snort, but she did anyway. “What did I tell you?”

  “Oh, hush. Just hush. For once in your life stay quiet, Hannah. You don’t know everything.”

  Hannah stalked out of the door and out to the barn, took up the pitch fork and threw hay around blindly, not caring where it landed or who ate it. Why couldn’t her mother be strong? Why this caving in at the slightest adversity? So what if old Lemuel came around with his chronic cough and his craziness? She wasn’t a bit afraid of him, and she couldn’t imagine his consort would be too awesome, either. Get a dog, the sheriff had said. As if it was so easy to find a grown dog to haul home and get to barking obediently. She wasn’t about to get a dog.

  Here they were, well on their way, a sizable amount of money to put on her grandfather’s loan, Amish neighbors to keep her content, and now this little man to upset her. Sometimes she just wearied of her mother’s collapsing at the slightest provocation.

  Hannah jabbed the pitchfork into the haystack, turned and left the barn, then stalked back to the house and went to her room without speaking.

  When her mother knocked on her door, asking what was the matter, that she shouldn’t worry about Lemuel Short, they’d be all right—Hannah didn’t give her the satisfaction of an answer.

  And when Manny took things into his own hands and brought home a skinny, mean-looking German shepherd dog, half-grown and rambunctious, an ugly dog that barked incessantly at nothing, or anything, she told him that dog would end up chasing young calves, and then what?

  Manny smiled in his good-natured way and told her that’s what dogs were for, to train and teach them how to work for you.

  CHAPTER 20

  On a dry, bitter cold afternoon, Abby Jenkins passed away, leaving Hod and the boys bereft, like floating debris on a flooded river, carried along by the churning wake of their grief, unraveling to an extent that they forgot everything else—their ranch, the cows, or how to go about living their lives without her.

  Sarah divided her time between the Jenkins’ place and her own, driving Goat in the spring wagon, with Eli and Mary beside her, Baby Abby on her lap, alone and unprotected. She did their washing, cooked meals, and cleaned the house until she became gaunt and weary, the work load being too much for her.

  Hannah offered to help and took her turn, allowing her mother to rest. She hated going to that sad, empty house, but she bit her lip and went anyway. The boys stayed out of her way, slinking out to the barn like feral cats, as if it was an embarrassment that Abby had left them alone.

  Hod talked to Hannah, though, showing her the wooden cross he’d made to put on her grave. Together, they walked out on the brittle prairie, where a sad pile of soil had been dug, her casket lowered, the soil replaced, an oblong mound of testimony to the truth of her death.

  Hannah stood in the blowing wind, her skirts whipping about, her gloved hands clutching the lapel of her denim overcoat, watching as Hod slowly tapped the cross into the ground at the head of the grave.

  He straightened and looked off across the land, his old, greasy Stetson smashed down on his head, his blue eyes holding the most desolate light Hannah had ever seen.

  There were no tears, only the captured grief that lay in his eyes, a sadness so deep it seemed to change the color of blue to a deeper shade, like early twilight, after the sun is gone.

  He spoke gruffly, as if the pain was like gravel in his throat. “It’s been a good run, Hannah girl. Every year I spent with this woman was like a minute. I loved her with the kind of love I could only wish for all my boys. I know she had her times. She didn’t always love the land the way me and the boys did. But that was beside the point. She gave her life for us, for me and them boys. Nothin’ can measure the worth of a good woman. She appeared rough around the edges, but didn’t have a mean bone in her body.”

  He shuddered slightly, the imprisoned emotion shaking his empty hands. “I can see her, crossin’ over to that there other side, findin’ her baby girl. They say there’s thousands an’ thousands a’ angels up there, but she’ll find her. She’ll scoop her right up and be happier’n she’s ever been.”

  Hannah felt the sting of tears and blinked furiously.

  “Wal, we’ll be goin’ back now, Hannah.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, and they both turned to go back to the house. Hannah wanted to say something, anything, words of comfort, words of remembering Abby, but they wouldn’t come. There was no way to force words out if they stick in your head and stay there. Or her heart, she wasn’t sure where.

  At the house, the boys watched their return, seated around the old oak kitchen table with the blue checked tablecloth, drinking coffee that was strong like a fortress, cup after cup.

  Hod went to the stove, poured himself a cup, sat with the boys, motioned
Hannah to sit.

  “Coffee?”

  Hannah shook her head. Ever since she’d downed that slop Jerry called campfire coffee, she hadn’t touched it. Those coffee grounds still reminded her of dead, black fleas.

  “Now, I want you and yer’ mother to go through Abby’s things. Take what you kin use. No use lettin’ it all go to waste. She ain’t got no relatives hereabouts, an’ the few she does have back where she come from wouldn’t want it. I got her Bible, her weddin’ ring and her dress. The rest you kin go through. The boys’ll git the furniture after I’m gone. I’m thinkin’ that’ll be enough.”

  Hannah surveyed the somber faces, the downcast eyes, wondering where the red-haired Jennifer was. She couldn’t remember seeing her at the funeral, when the church in Pine was filled with sober-colored dresses and ill-fitting dark suits that were worn without comfort, bared white foreheads hidden beneath slouched Stetsons, the faces below the white foreheads sunburned and weather-beaten.

  The mourning and support of the mourners was much like every funeral Hannah had ever attended. These hardy ranchers were linked by deep bonds forged from survival on the plains, an ingrained love of this high, vast, empty land, and the unpredictable weather the subject of so many neighborhood get-togethers.

  “I’m gittin’ hitched.”

  At first, Hannah had a mental picture of Clay being hitched to a spring wagon, till it dawned on her what he meant.

  Hod looked at his eldest son, his face blank, his eyes fogged, until he shook himself, and the beginning of a smile played around the corners of his mouth.

  “Wal, I’ll be.”

  “That all you got to say?”

  “No. I ain’t done yet.”

  There were smiles on every face, even Hannah’s.

  “First off, it comes a bit sudden, this announcement. I’m guessin’ it comes at a good time, without yer Ma to do fer you. I wish you the best, son. Give you my blessin’. Hope yer little Jenny will be everything fer you that yer mother was to me.”

  Was that a light of revenge in Clay’s eyes as they met Hannah’s? She looked away immediately, left soon after, bringing down the reins on Goat’s flapping haunches, chilled to the bone, one thought chasing another through her head until she felt as numb from the cold as she was from those words that became weary sentences.

  He had loved me.

  He wanted me to be his wife.

  I should have left and gone with Clay.

  He’s still the best-looking man. Well, almost.

  I hope he’s happy. But she knew that wasn’t true.

  Before the snow came, Lemuel Short pounded on the door, a stringy-looking individual in tow.

  Sarah was alone with the little ones, Hannah and Manny had ridden off with the German shepherd, now named Shep by Manny. Hannah ignored the dog like a virus, wouldn’t touch him or talk to him, so he had learned to keep his distance, and he wouldn’t wag his tail at the sight of her.

  Sarah stood by her bread making, slowly wiping bits of dough and flour from each finger before putting her hands in the dishwater to finish cleaning them. She licked her lips as the dryness of her mouth alternated with the pounding of her heart. Yes, she was afraid.

  God, help me. Stay with me now.

  The pounding erupted again, the latch rattling like chains. Eli and Mary stopped their schoolwork, their eyes wide, as they looked to their mother for assurance.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, she scooped up Abby, told them to continue their work before going to the window, peering sideways, then drawing back, her eyes darkening with fear.

  It was him. Both of them.

  It was useless to try and hide; they’d heard the children.

  She opened the door, blinked in the strong sunlight. “Mr. Short?”

  “Don’t Mr. Short me. I need food.”

  He drew his revolver, a small, evil-looking handgun that gleamed with a dull, gray sheen, matching the gray pallor of the little man’s face.

  His companion, or the man who accompanied him—companion seemed too nice a word—glared over his shoulder, his white face twisted into a leering snarl, a face Sarah could have never imagined.

  It was a face absent of any human warmth, decency, or kindness. It took her breath away, leaving her mouth open with shallow rushes of air expelled and inhaled, her nostrils dilated, her limbs weak with terror.

  Sarah did not speak. She didn’t have the strength. Turning, she went to the pantry.

  Eli and Mary recognized their friend, Lemuel, their eyes warm as they opened their mouths to speak, saw the handgun, blinked, then lowered their faces to their lessons, their hands holding the yellow lead pencils, without moving.

  Abby toddled after Sarah, beginning to whimper. When Sarah didn’t respond, she began to cry.

  “Get the baby!” Lemuel yelled, a maniacal note creeping into the end of his sentence.

  Sarah obeyed.

  The pantry was not well stocked. There was very little she could give them, except cornmeal or oatmeal, flour, other dry staples meant to be used in cooking and baking.

  There were canned vegetables and the plums. A few jars of applesauce, but all the canned meat and most of the potatoes had been used up.

  Sarah harbored a secret concern, one she had not confided to the children, about the amount of food left for the coming winter months. And now this.

  She found a paper sack on a high shelf. Carefully, she placed a jar of plums, one of green beans, and one of small potatoes.

  “You better hurry!” Lemuel shouted.

  “I don’t have a lot to give you,” she said hoarsely, returning with the three mason jars of canned goods.

  “Where’s the bread?”

  Sarah turned, pointed with shaking fingers. “It’s all gone. I was making bread when you arrived.”

  “You’re holding back. You had more than enough when I was here before. Sit down.”

  Lemuel Short pushed her roughly into a chair, where she sprawled, struggling to regain her balance, clutching Abby to her chest.

  The revolver was within inches of her face now, a cold, gleaming weapon that made her throat constrict with horror. She tasted bile in her mouth, and fought rising nausea.

  It was then that she found the leering face of the second man pushed into hers, his cruel, white hands on her shoulders pushing her back into the chair. Abby screamed and struggled to get away. Sarah held on to her.

  “I can see you won’t do as we say, which means we’ll have to use other measures,” the man said, his voice as slick and oily as bacon grease.

  He drew back a hand and swung, hitting the side of Sarah’s face, sending her head sideways, the slap like an explosion through her head. There was only blackness before a blinding burst of light. The kitchen floor came up to meet her, then tilted at an awful angle, steep and slippery.

  She heard the cupboard doors slamming, Lemuel muttering. Abby screamed and went on crying until he shouted at her to cut that out. Eli and Mary put their heads on their folded arms, crying quietly at their desk in the living room.

  “There ain’t nothin’ ’cept these canned vegetables,” Lemuel mocked. The second man whipped out a length of rope, ordered Sarah to get up and get back on the chair.

  “What you doin’ that for?” Lemuel asked, then shrugged his shoulders as he tied Sarah’s hands to the ladder-back chair.

  She knew struggling would only cause her situation to be more difficult, so she sat quietly as the rope cut deep into her wrists, shutting off the circulation to her hands.

  “You get smart with us, you’ll get worse,” the second man snarled.

  Sarah had never been in the presence of anything this cold and calculating. She had often heard the word evil. She read it in her Bible and knew it meant something bad. But it came down to this cold-hearted invasion of her own self-worth, this treatment of her that smashed all her rights to the fringes of human dignity.

  She now saw that evil was the absence of basic human emotion—kindness, caring
, empathy, the will to do good. These men were shells. Empty, crumbling wasted men without a residue of common humanity.

  She had always believed in the good of every human heart. She couldn’t think of any person as evil. Now she could.

  The second man eyed Mary, holding her with a malicious glint in his eyes. When he walked toward her, Sarah let out a piercing scream.

  “No! No! Mary, run! Run! Oh go! Eli, run!”

  Immediately he whirled and turned his face to Sarah, allowing the children time to get to the door, slip through like ghosts, clatter across the porch, and down the steps.

  To the barn. To the barn. Sarah’s mind screamed direction. Burrow in the hay. It’s cold, Eli. Mary, hide in the hay.

  “Shut up, lady! Just shut that mouth!”

  Lemuel Short had opened a jar of the beans, spilled them into a bowl, eating greedily, smacking his sips as he stuffed them into his mouth with his hands.

  The second man found a scarf hanging from a nail on the wall. He grabbed it, approached Sarah with a mocking smile, and tied it like a vice around her mouth, knotting it in the back, jerking her head like a doll, until it rolled and wobbled on her shoulders.

  He smacked his hands together, dusting them off, and said they could eat in peace now. Shut her up good.

  They were well into the third jar of beans, the revolver lying on the table between them, Sarah bound to the chair, her eyes watching every move. Abigail came to stand by her mother’s knee, crying quietly, gazing up into Sarah’s face, before she laid her head on her lap, inserted her thumb in her mouth, and bravely quieted.

  That was so much. God was with her here in the presence of evil. A Psalm of David entered her mind as a softness, a mere powder puff of comfort, but it was enough. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” She sat without terror now.

  The two men became relaxed and got up to search for more food, leaving the revolver on the table surrounded by empty bean jars.

  “Make her bake the bread dough. Man, I could use a loaf of bread. Some bacon. Butter. She always had that stuff before.”