The Unplowed Sky

by Jeanne Williams

  There must be a leak. She couldn’t see the crown sheet but, from past experience, she knew the crown sheet couldn’t be covered by that critical inch of water, might not be wet at all. It could already be glowing a dull red …

  Frantically, she tried to remember Rory’s warning. The quickest way to die is to inject water on a red-hot crown sheet. Open the safety valve. Close the draft and dump your fire. Stay put and try to cool off that boiler or the whole shebang will explode and blow you to kingdom come.

  Hallie halted the engine as Raford’s sleek black Cadillac veered around the other vehicles, sped onto the bridge and braked scant yards away. She started to open the safety valve and close the draft but stopped. The engine was a gigantic bomb. It was also Garth’s way of making a living; but if the angry farmers reached him—and Dan and Luke and Buford and Rich, that wouldn’t matter. She’d better get down and run back to tell the men to swing the Model Ts around and head for town as fast as they could.

  All this shot through Hallie’s mind in the second that it took for Raford and Rory to get out of the Cadillac. Rory! He was furious at Garth, but to come along with Raford like this at the head of a howling mob! Hallie could scarcely believe her eyes.

  Raford squeezed by the engine and caught her wrist. “Get down from there, Hallie!”

  “Garth didn’t burn that wheat!”

  “The burned-out parties think he did.” Raford laughed, but his eyes burned. “You fool, is there anything you won’t do for that damned Garth? Come on, you’re going to stay safe in my auto while I clean up here.”

  Hallie fought him, but he clamped her in arms of steel and carried her toward the Cadillac. “Bring this engine across, Rory!” he commanded. “Get it off the bridge so Cotton can bring the men over.”

  “Sure, boss.” Rory truckling to his brother’s worst enemy! He climbed up on the platform and took his familiar place. “Better move your car a good way off the bridge and let the flivvers come first. You’re in the legislature. It’ll look better if you come along after—”

  After the lynching’s over? Surely, when it came to the last minute, Rory would try to save Garth and the others. But even if he was a traitor, she couldn’t let Rory—once her friend and so beloved by Garth—be blown to bits.

  “The crown sheet, Rory!” Hallie shouted as Raford forced her in the auto.

  Rory flourished his hat and waved. “It’s all right, Hallie! You’ll be just fine!”

  He turned to call something to Garth and the crew who had abandoned the safety of the flivvers and were running forward. Hallie couldn’t hear what he said, but the men turned and ran back to the Fords.

  Except for Garth. He sprinted toward the engine. Hallie wailed in animal fear for him. Raford misread her. “No one’ll hurt you. In a year, you’ll be glad!”

  He ripped the ties off her bonnet and lashed her wrists together before he backed from the bridge and pulled well off the road beneath a cottonwood. The engine bellowed like a great monster, belching smoke as it started to inch across the bridge.

  Locked together, Rory and Garth struggled, silhouetted for an endless moment against the rising sun. Then Rory, with frenzied strength, lifted Garth bodily and sent him flying backward and sideways. He fell out of sight down the embankment.

  Raford climbed out and signaled to Cotton, who was in the first truck with Sophie beside him. “Go as soon as the bridge is clear. Haul MacLeod out of the creek and hang him on the best limb you can find.”

  Cotton’s rabbit teeth showed. “Can’t we burn him?”

  Raford shrugged. “Don’t hurt the kids.”

  Sophie got out of the truck and hurried to Raford. She sobbed out incoherent words and tried to catch his arm, but he pushed her away, intent on the engine.

  Hallie twisted against her bonds till her wrists bled, but the knots held. They were going to kill Garth and at least some of the others—men who were like her family—and there was nothing she could do.

  She thought she would faint with the horror of it. Then thunder blasted her ears, rocked the earth. Chunks of metal thudded onto the Cadillac. Raford went down, his triumphant laugh changing to a grimace, as a flying rod tore through his center and took him to the ground. Still on her feet, Sophie rubbed blood from her cheek. Then she dropped to her knees at Raford’s side, screaming at him, shaking him as if she could make him hear in death what he had ignored in life.

  One shriek—cut off abruptly—had torn from Cotton as the flywheel hurtled against the truck, crushing the front against the back like a tin can. Her wrists still tied, Hallie managed to open the door and ran to the bank to look for Garth.

  He was bowed over what was left of Rory. A wing of bright gold hair. The rest was blood and shards of bone. The uproar behind Cotton’s truck brought Hallie around to face seething confusion as a score of men swarmed out of their vehicles, many with shotguns and rifles. A great slab of steel had flattened the top of one flivver and whoever was inside. Smashed by what looked like the boiler, a man had lifted his hand before it dropped against the metal.

  Doors, tops, and hoods were torn or dented. One man dragged his leg. Another had a shoulder that drooped crazily. Blood ran or dripped from wounds made by the hail of steel and iron shards.

  Hallie knew a few of them—wispy little Ed Brockett, Jonas MacAfee, and Chuck Martin, but she suspected that most were KKK members brought in by Cotton. Dazed and leaderless, they tended their hurts or those of friends, but it was only a question of time till they remembered why they were here and came after Garth and his men with redoubled hatred.

  If the crew’s flivvers weren’t disabled, they might get away. Hallie started for the bridge. Sophie rose from Raford’s body with his revolver in her hand. Her father was coming toward her. She backed away.

  “Daddy! Cotton and his bunch set fire to the other fields, but I burned ours. I—I was trying to show Quent how much I loved him. I didn’t dream Ernie was sleeping in a stack. I hope someday you and Mama can forgive me—”

  Brockett passed his hand over his eyes. “You did it, Sophie? Garth MacLeod never fired the stacks?”

  “I did it.” She whirled on Hallie, and her face twisted. “But I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for her! She’s the one Quent really wanted. No matter what I did—I’ll go to hell, but she’ll come with me!”

  Sophie leveled the gun with both hands. “Sophie!” Garth was scrambling up the bank. Shaft, Luke, and the others pelted across the bridge. I’ll be dead by the time they get here, Hallie thought with frozen calm.

  Still, she wouldn’t be executed like a sheep. She lunged for Sophie, but a slender body hurtled past and knocked Sophie to the ground as the revolver roared. The bullet struck Raford’s body and made it jerk as if it were still alive.

  “Meg!” Hallie gasped. “You ran! Your legs work!”

  Hallie stretched down her pinioned hands to help the girl up, but Luke lifted Meg while Garth and Ed Brockett raised Sophie. She collapsed, weeping, against her father. As if he didn’t know what else to do, he put his arms around her.

  “There, girl, there. It’s an awful thing you’ve done, and your brother dead and wheat burned all over this country—but that Quent Raford, he fooled us all. Guess it’s no wonder he made you kind of crazy. Come on. I’ll take you home to your mother.”

  Sophie was taller than he was, but he supported her as he faced the would-be vigilantes and raised his hand for silence. “Reckon you heard my daughter. Quent Raford got Cotton to burn the stacks so’s we’d blame Garth and his crew. I’ll come back soon as I take Sophie home. We’ll clean up here as best we can.”

  Jonas MacAfee took charge. “Chuck, you go for the sheriff and take in anyone who needs a doctor. The rest of you can pitch in and help here.”

  Tough little Ed Brockett turned to Garth. He held out a shaking work-gnarled hand. “I’m sorry, MacLeod. And mighty sorry about your kid brother.”

  Garth hesitated only a second before he grasped Brockett’s hand. “Rory knew wh
at he was doing. He yelled at us to run for cover and injected water on a red-hot crown sheet.”

  Brockett nodded. “It sure stopped us. Worse’n a bomb. But you’ve lost your engine. And your brother.” He went off with a hysterically weeping Sophie, shaking his head and trying to soothe his daughter.

  Garth took out his pocketknife and cut the bloody bonnet ties from Hallie’s wrists as Meg ran to him. He enfolded them both in his arms as Jackie ran up and burrowed in between the women.

  “My girls,” Garth said in a voice that broke. “My brave girls … And Meggie-love! You ran like a prize filly!” Stepping back, he looked at her anxiously. “Is it all right? It doesn’t hurt to move?”

  “It doesn’t hurt a bit.” She smiled at Luke. “That elderflower soak has made me so much better! But I needed something to unlock my legs. When I saw Sophie aim that gun at Hallie …”

  Tears made her gray eyes brilliant. She squeezed Hallie’s hand. “I knew how awful it would be if anything happened to you—and—and I just started running!” She bent to hug Jackie who returned her embrace but still held on to Hallie’s skirt. “Daddy!” Meg looked up in her old imperious way. “If you married Hallie, she and Jackie would never go away! They’d be our family.”

  “I’d kind of figgered that out.” Garth looked at Hallie. “Rory didn’t just yell at us to take cover. He said you weren’t his girl—never had been, though that’s what he made me think. He said I shouldn’t let you get away.”

  “I don’t want to,” Hallie said.

  The joy, the delight would come later. Now there was unspeakable thankfulness mixed with grief as she put her arms around Meg while Garth went to help his men carry Rory up the bank. When they reached level ground, the men moved away while Garth sank down and held his brother for what seemed a very long time. Then Shaft, Luke, and Henry brought a blanket, wrapped Rory in it, and carried him to a flivver.

  In spite of fire, death, and disaster, threshing had to be done before hail or rain ruined the crop. As if obeying Rory’s last command, the exploding engine had destroyed three of the mob’s vehicles and damaged more, but had done comparatively little harm to the threshing outfit. Garth had the separator almost ready to work again. A hole torn in the cookshack roof had been patched, and a gash in the water tank was thoroughly soldered. But all that was no use without an engine.

  The night before Rory’s funeral, Garth looked around the supper table at his crew. “I’ve saved most of my railroad-building wages, and there’s money from this year’s grain. Doesn’t add up to enough to buy a good used engine, but I’ll see if I can get a loan from the bank. I’ve never been late on a mortgage payment. With Raford gone, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get enough cash together to be back in business.”

  Shaft cleared his throat. “Garth, I’ve got some cash hid away in a sock. Couple hunderd bucks. I’d a durn sight rather invest with you than the bank.”

  “Great idea, Shaft,” Rich Mondell said. “I can chip in a few hundred and not draw my share till we finish the run.”

  “I, too, would like to do that,” Henry said.

  “Count me in,” chorused Buford and Baldy.

  Luke and Dan glanced at each other and smiled in agreement. “If we could draw half our shares to send home each payday,” said Luke, “we’d like to put the rest in on the engine—except for enough to go to a movie sometimes and stop for a soda.”

  “I’ve got two dimeses and three nickels,” Jackie offered.

  “I don’t need any pay,” Hallie said. “Because—”

  She broke off, coloring, but Garth reached for her hand and announced to the not-very-surprised circle, “Because, even if it may not be a good bargain, everything I have is going to be yours, too, as soon as we can get married.”

  She blushed even more hotly. “Garth MacLeod, are you proposing in the middle of supper in front of the whole crew?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, his eyes caressing her. “I can’t get up the nerve to do it when we’re alone.”

  “Oh, Daddy!” Meg scolded. “Don’t you know anything about women?”

  “Not much, but I’m going to learn.” He gave Hallie’s hand a slow warm pressure that made her pulse leap before he released her and nodded his thanks to the men. “All right, partners! We’ll draw up an agreement, legal and fair and proper and when”—he broke off and swallowed—“when we’ve said good-bye to Rory, I’ll start hunting an engine.”

  He dried dishes for her that night. They sat up long after everyone else had gone to bed and poured out their hearts to each other. How he had been afraid to love her, how Rory had hinted that she was engaged to him. How hard it had been with Meg and Jackie that winter, how she had resolved to leave after the threshing run if he still wouldn’t trust her …

  “We’ll have bumps ahead,” he warned. “I’ve spoiled Meg, and I don’t know how to talk to a woman I love—”

  “I’ll teach you,” Hallie said. But the kiss she began needed no words, and he was a swift learner of when to kiss her gently and when to cast off restraint.

  After a long time, he said, “I’d like to drag a J.P. out of bed and marry you tonight, sweetheart. But it doesn’t seem right with Rory just gone—”

  Hallie burned and ached for Garth, but she also felt it was too soon. “We’ll wait,” she whispered. “We need to have our minds on running the separator and engine. But we don’t have to wait for this … or this.…” She melted in his arms.

  They buried Rory near a mass of wild roses on the Old Prairie not far from the burrowing owls. Hallie read from The Book of Common Prayer and Shaft played a beautiful, haunting requiem before the crew and neighbors recited The Lord’s Prayer and The Shepherd’s Psalm. “He leadeth me beside the still waters …”

  “The owls will keep Rory company,” Jackie said as they started home. “Won’t they, Hallie?”

  Was he remembering his father? “Of course they will. And the great horned owls and blackbirds and meadowlarks. But we’ll come visit him, too.”

  Back at the house, Mary Donnelly and Mrs. Halstead had organized the bountiful dinner of covered dishes brought by the neighbors, including some rather shamefaced ones who had been in the mob. Only the Brocketts weren’t there. It was whispered that Sophie had suffered a complete nervous breakdown and was in the Hospital for the Insane at Larned.

  As the neighbor women were collecting children and dishes, leaving the MacLeod household enough food for several days, Ed Brockett drove up. He joined the men on the porch, nodded, and stated his mission.

  “You know what we agreed, boys,” he said to his neighbors. “That we’d each put what we could toward gettin’ MacLeod another engine and he could pay us back by threshin’ for us—those who’ve got any wheat left this year and all of us next year, God willin’.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat; but, after a moment, he went on sturdily. “After I took Sophie to Larned, I stopped at every town on the way back and asked if anyone had an engine for sale. Found a good sixty-horsepower Case about twenty miles north of Hollister for $1,800.” He turned to Garth. “Would you like to check it over, MacLeod? If you like it—and if our proposition suits you—I’ve told the owner to let you take it, and I’ll send him a check.”

  “I like your proposition just fine.” Garth looked around at his neighbors. “My partners and I have done some arithmetic, and we won’t have to borrow more than about eight hundred from you, but that’ll save wrangling over a bank loan. We’ll sign an agreement, but I want to shake your hands.”

  He smiled proudly at Hallie and brought her forward. “I want you all to know that Hallie’s promised to marry me as soon as the run’s over. We decided we’d better not mix honeymooning and threshing.”

  What he didn’t say but what everyone understood was that they owed this respect to Rory, who had loved her, too, and had given his life to try to right the wrong he had done. Besides, tired as they would be after a day’s threshing, it would be sweet to sit in the darkness and
talk and get used to being in love—if that was possible. Sweet to have a courtship and discover new things about each other. But when they came home next fall—when they came home …

  The women hugged Hallie while the men slapped Garth on the back and shook hands with him and the crew. Mike Donnelly hugged Hallie, too, and gave her a hearty kiss on the cheek. “We’ll give you the biggest, happiest charivari ever seen in Kansas,” he vowed. “Shaft, you’ll be head fiddler, and we’ll dance all night!”

  Mary Donnelly laughed. “It’ll be quite a wedding. Can’t remember one where the separator man married the engineer!”

  “And the water monkey was bridesmaid,” Meg put in.

  “Will I be your real brother then?” Jackie asked her.

  “Wacky Jackie!” she crooned, stooping to gather him into her arms. “You already are!”

  Three days later, Hallie, in a new red sunbonnet, steered the procession past the Old Prairie. She pulled the whistle in a long, trilling salute to Rory. Then she blew Garth a kiss over her shoulder and sounded the two long, two short that meant they were on the road.

  About the Author

  Born on the High Plains near the tracks of the Santa Fe Trail, Jeanne Williams’s first memories are of dust storms, tumbleweeds, and cowboy songs. Her debut novel, Tame the Wild Stallion, was published in 1957. Since then, Williams has published sixty-eight more books, most with the theme of losing one’s home and identity and beginning again with nothing but courage and hope, as in the Spur Award–winning The Valiant Women (1980). She was recently inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won four Western Writers of America Spur Awards and the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award. For over thirty years, Williams has lived in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

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