by April Smith
—
A small crowd had gathered at the corrals waiting for their return. Trucks and cars had nosed into every available space around the house—in the driveways and halfway up the road. It was a big to-do, as big as waiting for the freight train from Chicago to arrive. And then the spectators were rewarded. The herd came pouring down the hill at a heart-stopping rate, into the holding area where Randy Sturgis and Vaughn Anders were already dismounted and on the ground, yelling, “Move on! Hahhh-hahhh!” waving their arms so the two-thousand-pound animals would siphon off into the correct pens. Children perched on the red iron rails and cheered, hoping to see the cattle crash into each other, or miss the gate and get loose and run all over hell, leaning over and swishing branches to help things along, until they were yanked away by grown-ups. A cloud of brown dust stood over everything.
Jo stood at the very top of the gate and waved, calling, “Papa!”
Cal, riding the paint Jesse in the midst of the pandemonium, called back. “Get down from there!”
Jo squinted. Her father was a high-up shape in the sun.
“I want to ride with you!”
“Get off,” he yelled. “It’s dangerous.”
Spectators had clambered to the roof of the tack room to watch the cows and calves being separated, but Jo had a better idea. She wanted to help. She and Cal rode double all the time and she wanted to do that now, in the roundup. It was her dad and their ranch, which put her above the other kids. If she dropped down inside the corral, he could ride by and scoop her up like he always did.
“Papa! Look! I’m coming!”
She waited for her moment and jumped. Her boots touched the ground at the same time the gate opened and a red cow and her baby stampeded past. Onlookers began to scream warnings. Cal saw his little girl standing still in a crush of confused, bawling cattle and felt a lightning stroke of fear like none other. He signaled to Jesse, and the horse showed his breeding, nimbly cutting in and out of charging bodies and flashing hooves. Cal bent over and hoisted Jo into the saddle while the crowd sighed with relief.
Cal did not have time to scold her, nor the disposition.
“Never do that again,” he said, breathing hotly in his daughter’s ear.
Worse than the reprimand was the humiliation of being lifted away from her father and handed over the fence into the arms of strangers who berated Jo with disapproval. She ran across the yard, up the steps, and through the front door, vengefully letting it bang.
Her mother and Robbie’s mother were laughing in the kitchen. They didn’t hear. Ladies were setting the pans of food they had brought on the table so that their contributions would be more conspicuous, even if it meant moving others’ out of the way. Nobody noticed Jo. She felt invisible in the room with heavy brown furniture inherited from old Mrs. Fletcher—the towering cabinet with glass doors she must never open, gray photographs on the wall of “ancestors” she didn’t know. Tears of shame stung her eyes, and she felt that same empty thump in her chest as when she’d woken up that first morning in the cabin and Papa was gone. Why didn’t he want her riding proudly in the saddle with him? Why did he kick her off in front of everybody? Now she saw that her father had left the pouch with his tobacco, pipe, and cigarette lighter made of transparent yellow stone on the sideboard. When nobody was looking, she took her father’s lighter and put it in her pocket.
—
Doris Roy squeezed her platter of corn fritters next to Joanie Ostenberg’s Indian meat loaf and realized that in her haste to get Dutch settled before she left the house, she’d forgotten maple syrup. Lance was standing by, perusing the offerings on tiptoe.
“Does your mama keep maple syrup?”
Lance nodded. “Yes, ma’am. For pancakes.”
“Can you show me?”
Lance took her hand and led her to the kitchen.
When he pushed the door open, Betsy and Stell froze. They were caught in the middle of a heinous act: spooning store-bought Breyers ice cream into the ice cream maker.
“Ice cream!” Lance yelped. “Can I turn it?”
“Don’t look like it needs turning,” Doris observed icily.
He climbed on the stool and reached for a jar. “Here’s the maple syrup, Mrs. Roy.”
Doris spied the trays of chocolate spice cookies.
“Did you make those?” she asked Lance.
He shook his head. “My sister did.”
“Aren’t you an honest scout!” she declared, deliberately not looking at Betsy.
Betsy struggled to find something to say. Stell was behind her, an incriminating scoop dripping from her hand, the picture of two does caught in the headlights.
“Let’s go put this syrup next to the corn fritters, shall we?” Doris said.
“Thanks for coming,” Betsy managed. “Give our best to Dutch.”
“I surely will.” To the boy: “Lance! Whatever happened to your hair?”
“My mom cut it.”
“Next time tell your mom to take you to the barber.”
At this remark, Stell shot a Do you believe the nerve? stare at Betsy, who returned the look with such exaggerated sarcasm that she expected Doris Roy to turn around and slap her, but instead Doris headed for the door—pausing to cast a superior look around the disordered kitchen.
“Good luck,” she said enigmatically, and left.
“Same to you,” Stell replied under her breath.
Betsy let out a huge, humiliated sigh and put a hand to her chest. “I’ve never been so mortified!”
“Don’t worry. Nobody will know.”
“Until she tells the world that I’m a phony.”
“I think you have a bigger problem, pally.” Stell had pulled the ugly orange curtains aside and was looking through the window.
Betsy was at the end of her rope. She’d been on her feet for—she couldn’t remember how many hours—and there were still lunch and the social hour to get through. She hadn’t been out of the kitchen since dawn and could only pray that nothing had gone horribly wrong at the roundup, nobody’d been thrown or trampled to death.
“Please, don’t tell me!” Betsy begged.
“I think you’d better know,” said Stell. “There’s an elephant in your front yard.”
—
Thaddeus Haynes had it figured to the minute. He knew how these things worked. There was always that short break after the roundup when everyone was hungry and tired and in need of refreshment. That was your opportunity. The whole neighborhood would be there. You arrived unannounced and didn’t stay long because folks had to get back to their homes for evening chores. Surprise was important, especially if they were Democrats. Better, truth be told, because here was a chance to win new converts. Everybody loved Dino the elephant.
Haynes had heard about Calvin Kusek. People liked him even though he was a newcomer and an East Coast intellectual. He had a nice manner, people said, and was the kind of person likely to settle an argument rather than start one. Dutch Roy spoke his praises, although he was disappointed when Kusek moved to his own place, but who could blame a young man on the rise? The wife was supposed to be pretty, which helped, because Haynes considered himself a ladies’ man who understood the feminine mind. He got dozens of letters from women proposing marriage, just from hearing his soothing voice on the radio.
They each believed he was talking to her alone, from some kind of palace on high, when the whole setup amounted to a microphone on a table in a rented room in a hotel. But that would change when everyone got television. It was around the corner—God’s gift for spreading the gospel—and Thaddeus Haynes intended to fulfill His word by owning a TV station one day.
In the meantime, he was doing his best. He drove a polished aqua-green Cadillac convertible with balloons and signs that said VOTE FOR HAYNES!, followed by wranglers in a truck similarly festooned, pulling a trailer that held a baby elephant he’d borrowed from friends at the Omaha zoo. To avoid being charged with trespass, they were always careful t
o stay on the public road, which they did at the Kusek property, across the way from the modest farmhouse.
Wearing a three-piece suit with a flower in the lapel and a sincere look of humility, Thaddeus Haynes was conspicuous among the cowhands and families who had taken their lunch plates outside and were standing around, or sitting on a couple of logs that bordered the sparsely planted backyard. Haynes was carrying a big pink Mrs. Ellen’s bakery box and his pockets were stuffed with leaflets promoting the Republican Party. He introduced himself, handed out flyers, and politely asked for the lady of the house, working quickly because he never knew how long he would have before some drunk spooked the elephant. Meanwhile the wranglers had unloaded the beast and led it by heavy shackles to the top of the driveway. Soon the backyard emptied as the visitors came around front, drawn to the novelty of a creature from Africa in the middle of wheat fields. The elephant flapped its ears and made low chirping sounds. Its wise eyes rolled back and forth as people crowded around to touch the creases in its hairless skin, and children begged for a ride.
Cal, Betsy, Fletch, and Stell were simply astonished.
“What do we do?” Betsy wondered.
“Don’t get into a debate,” Fletch warned as they reluctantly stepped forward to meet their uninvited guests.
Cal introduced himself. “How are you, Mr. Haynes?”
“I am blessed!” he proclaimed.
The man with the smooth radio voice had a rounded belly and a big square head. The forehead was high, blond hair rising up in a girlish pompadour. The nose was large and fleshy; the eyes deeply hooded with swollen dark circles underneath, which belied his serene disposition. This was a troubled man who didn’t sleep at night. The lips were wide and sensual, but the mouth was in a perpetual sneer, as if he had superior knowledge of everyone’s secrets.
“Say, I don’t mean to bust up the party,” Haynes said, offering his hand. “But with the election just around the corner, I thought I’d come by. Thaddeus Haynes, radio host of The Hour of Truth and running for the state legislature on the Republican ticket. Ever listen to my show?”
“Whenever I want to hear the hog report,” Betsy replied sweetly.
“I understand you just moved here.”
“Two years ago.”
“Why, you don’t look like newcomers at all! You really fixed this place up. I’d love to stay but I have another appointment. Here’s a little housewarming present.”
Haynes offered the box of doughnuts covered with gaily colored sprinkles.
“Hope I’m not ruining anybody’s appetite!”
“Of course not,” said Betsy, who had no intention of putting Republican doughnuts on her table. She set the box down on a tree stump.
“May I ask how you folks are planning to vote?” Haynes asked jovially.
All four answered Democratic.
“You don’t favor Eisenhower? The greatest war commander of all time?”
“I like Ike,” said Cal. “I detest Nixon.”
“But the man’s a visionary,” Haynes replied. “He saw right away that Communists were infiltrating the government at the highest levels.”
Betsy couldn’t stop herself. “You mean the Alger Hiss case? It’s still not been proven he’s a spy.”
Haynes cocked his great head at the woman who had spoken up so sharply and was about to reply when the Australian shepherds, Lois and Bandit, came out of nowhere, seemingly possessed by the devil, barking and charging through the crowd at the elephant. The wranglers took out their pistols and shouted, “Call off your dogs!” while Cal, Vaughn, Betsy, and Scotty lunged for them and grabbed them each by the collar, practically having to wrestle their squirming eighty-pound bodies into the tack room, where they kept flinging themselves madly against the door.
“Time to go,” Haynes said, and smiled.
He was not perturbed; he knew the majority in the crowd saw things his way. The wranglers had given balloons to the kids and the women had VOTE REPUBLICAN shopping bags, so they were in the pocket. He’d learned that if you can’t convince them in thirty seconds, you might as well move on. So he turned to the Fletchers and Kuseks and said, “God be with you,” signaling his boys to pack up.
Minutes after the circus left came the far-off sound of motorcycles—a pack of three young hoods led by red-haired Tyler “Honeybee” Jones. The young thief, who had gotten his start in crime by stealing mirrors off cars, was now a high school dropout stealing cars off the street. He skidded his motorcycle to a throbbing stop in front of the Kusek farmhouse, raising as much dust as possible.
“Which way’s the elephant?” Honeybee shouted over the hopped-up engines spitting noise like strings of firecrackers. In the pens the cows jammed together and horses whinnied nervously.
“Get out of here, you’re spooking my stock!” Cal shouted back.
Honeybee and friends took off, throwing sprays of dirt and pachyderm dung. The adults shook their heads, hoping the elephant would break loose and stomp all over those punks, who were known to raise havoc in town.
The visitors regrouped around the corrals. Two branding irons had been heating in a rusty old pipe with a propane flame blowing through, getting ready for a ceremonial moment Betsy and Cal had been looking forward to for a long time. They were about to brand their first Lucky Clover–born calf. Jo and Lance couldn’t be found, so their parents went ahead.
Scotty was on horseback in the calf pen. He maneuvered a bit, scrutinized, then, fast as a frog tonguing a fly, his lariat lashed out, caught a little red calf around the hind legs and heeled it into the chute.
Cal sat down in the soft dirt holding the calf’s hind legs. Betsy was on the front end, pinning his shoulders and head down with her knee. They pulled in opposite directions, exposing a white underbelly. The rest of his body was covered with baby-soft fur. He was calm. His clear, trusting eyes looked around curiously.
Randy Sturgis squatted beside them with the syringe.
“Pin his arm back,” he said, inserting the needle in the fleshy underside. The vaccination drew a drop of blood.
Then Spanky Larson gave them the branding iron.
“You two ready?” he asked. “I never seen it done like this, but you asked for it, so now both of you put your hands on—and smile! Just like cutting a wedding cake!”
Cal gripped the end, Betsy put her hand over his, and together they pressed the tip of the scalding-hot iron down. The animal flinched. There was smoke and the faint smell of burning meat. When they took it off, the hair had been burned away, leaving a shiny LC.
“Is he okay?” Betsy asked anxiously.
“That’s just oil in the skin,” Randy assured her.
They released the calf. He instantly sprang up on his feet and ran down the chute to be reunited with his mother.
“See?” Spanky said. “It didn’t bother him none.”
Betsy and Cal looked at each other and saw all the way back to the first time they met; the street in Greenwich Village lined with ailanthus trees, the walk along the harbor, and the hopeful cross-country journey that followed. Kneeling in the dust in South Dakota, they were drawn into that same first kiss.
It was done. It was theirs.
—
Jo had taken Lance and Robbie to her secret place, inside the henhouse. She showed them her father’s lighter and Robbie showed the cigarettes he’d snitched. After a few tries they got one lit. Puffing wasn’t really that hard. They sat on a bale of hay while the chickens pecked around them.
“What in hell are you all up to?”
They froze. It was Doris Roy, framed by the light of the doorway.
“I thought I smelled smoke! You three little dickens aiming to burn this place down?”
“Maybe yes,” said Jo defiantly.
“Well, not today, young lady. Give me that.”
She confiscated the pack and shook a finger at the children. “You’re in big trouble,” she warned them, and squeezed out the door.
There was silence
except for the quiet fussing of the hens. Jo drew up her legs, resting one cheek on her knees.
“Papa’s going to kill us,” Lance said.
Robbie said, “Maybe she won’t tell.”
“She’ll tell,” Jo said solemnly.
“Anyway, there’s going to be a nuclear war,” Robbie went on.
“Who says?” asked Lance.
“Everybody. Us against Russia.”
Robbie removed a purloined cigarette from his pocket and fished the lighter from where Jo had stashed it. He took a puff and made a sweeping gesture. “So it doesn’t matter what we do,” he said grandly, flicking ashes on the hay-strewn floor.
10
Two years later, by late winter of 1954, anybody would have told you the Kuseks were valued members of the community. The two children were just normal ranch kids—took the bus to school, raised bunnies at 4-H Club, competed in junior rodeo. Eight-year-old Jo was a fearless little barrel racer, and her brother, Lance, turning six, was already riding calves. The dad, Calvin Kusek, was a partner in longtime resident Nelson Fletcher’s law firm, situated in downtown Rapid City.
Kusek was considered smart, but not a smart-ass. An honest and decent fellow, most agreed, even though he was a Democrat and never joined a church. He was a patient listener and did well by his clients, getting them out of jail or a miserable marriage, protecting their water rights, and settling wills. Rumor said he was biding time, that he had political ambitions, which was not surprising in such a good-looking, strong-minded man. The mom, Betsy, was an educated woman, but still down-to-earth, and a licensed visiting nurse who helped out with Dr. Avery Saugstad’s patients—and if Doc Avery gave the okay, there was no better endorsement in town.
One of Doc Avery’s patients, Mrs. Jolene Johnston, age forty-nine, was in a particularly bad way. She’d come down with severe stomach pains that turned out to be a bowel obstruction that needed emergency surgery. The surgeons removed the blockage, closed her up, and sent her home—along with a bacterial infection she’d picked up in the hospital.