Prairie Widow

by Harold Bakst

  “Just do as I say,” responded Jennifer, ushering him along.

  “Look, Momma, people!” announced Emma, pointing as she, too, was swept along by Jennifer into the dugout. Jennifer herself went in and closed the door, which had a latch but no lock.

  “Momma, who are those people?” asked Peter, looking out the window.

  “Get away from there,” snapped Jennifer, tugging him back.

  “But who are they?”

  Jennifer pulled her children to the deepest recess of the dugout. She stared at the door and two bright windows, which showed within them, like two paintings, the tawny prairie and blue sky. “Shush!” hissed Jennifer. “Stay here.”

  Jennifer approached the windows. She peered out and gasped. The band of people were walking from the trail toward her dugout. Jennifer spun around to face her children. “Where does Poppa keep his gun?”

  “Why do you want that?” asked Peter.

  “I’m scared,” said Emma, her eyes watering as she stepped away from the dirt wall.

  Jennifer pushed her back. “I said stand there.” She turned to Peter. “Where’s Poppa’s gun?”

  “I’m scared too, Momma.”

  “Don’t be!” snapped Jennifer as she began frantically searching through the dugout.

  “Momma! Look!” squealed Emma.

  Jennifer spun and faced the windows. In one was a portrait of a grim, dusky-faced man with long, braided hair. He was dressed in a red blanket, and three feathers were sticking from his head. Without ceremony, the man stepped in through the window, even as the door opened and another man, wearing a red blanket, his long hair unbraided, entered.

  “Indians, Momma!” declared Peter.

  Jennifer pushed him and Emma behind her skirt, her heart pounding nearly out of her chest. Before her were the first Indians she had ever seen outside a book. “God, please protect my children,” she whispered.

  The two men looked about the furnished cave, the first one picking up a pewter mug and inspecting it, the other, his face pock-marked, apparently from a bout of smallpox, studying the picture of Jennifer’s father. Then the first man, putting down the mug, returned his attention to Jennifer. He pointed outside the door to an old man on a sorrel pony, two little boys, and a woman carrying a papoose across her back. He gestured as if shoveling food into his mouth. Jennifer hurried to get them some food. The first man then said something to those outside, and they came in, crowding the little dugout.

  While Jennifer prepared to serve them some flapjacks, bacon, and corn dodgers, the Indians walked about the gloomy room, squeezing themselves among the furniture. The man with the pock-marked face flipped blankly through the pages of the King James Bible, pausing to look at the engravings. The young woman with the papoose investigated first the mantel clock sitting on the bureau, putting it to her ear, and then she opened the drawers and pulled out one of Jennifer’s undergarments, rubbing it against her cheek. The two boys, roughly Emma’s age, picked up Peter’s tin soldiers from the dirt floor while Peter watched nervously. The old man, toothless, his face weathered and cracked, approached Peter and stroked the boy’s long, blonde hair, which unnerved Jennifer, and she hurried even faster to set the food on the table.

  When she did set it out, the Indians pulled up chairs and packing crates to sit on, and they began to eat with their fingers. They said nothing, and Jennifer said nothing either, but just stood as if in waiting, her children behind her. Whenever one of the Indians finished what was given to him, he lifted his empty plate and gave it to Jennifer, whereupon she quickly refilled it. Even the old man and the young woman had huge appetites, for they kept asking for more, always more.

  Jennifer was certain that when the food ran out, the Indians would turn on her and her children, butchering them all. Surely Peter’s blonde hair would make a particularly good trophy for their tepee. Or maybe they were all to be kidnapped—her children to be raised as savages, herself to become the white concubine of an Indian brute.

  The Indians were still eating, exchanging an occasional word among themselves in their own language, when Jennifer heard Walter’s wagon approaching.

  “Poppa!” cried Emma, hurrying to the window.

  The first two Indian men jumped to their feet. The one who had come in through the window returned to it and looked out, standing behind Emma.

  Tears bursting from her eyes, Jennifer pushed her way in front of the man and cried out what she thought were her final words, “Walter! Go back! Indians!” And, with that, she slumped to the floor, grabbing Emma and holding her to her heaving breast.

  Walter froze. He peered at his dugout and the sorrel pony tethered to a post out front. The man wearing the feathers stepped out the door, followed by the pock-marked one, who was, in turn, followed by the others.

  “Good woman,” called the first Indian.

  Walter descended from the wagon and hurried past the Indians, who opened a path for him to his door. Inside, he found Jennifer crumpled on the floor, sobbing with Emma. Peter was standing near them, also crying.

  “Jenny! What happened?” asked Walter, crouching next to his wife and cupping his hand on her head. Behind him, the Indians crowded the doorway and watched.

  Jennifer lifted her head and peered up with reddened, watery eyes. She embraced her husband around the neck with one arm while still clinging to Emma with her other. “Indians, Walter! They just came right in!”

  Walter turned and looked up at the Indians. The feathered one appeared puzzled. “Good woman,” he repeated with emphasis.

  Walter took a deep breath and rose. He faced the Indian. He raised his chin to look bold but furrowed his brow to look sincere. “Forgive my wife,” he said, “I think she lost her mind.”

  All the rest of that afternoon, to Jennifer’s horror, Walter entertained his Indian guests. After they finished eating, he offered them some of his tobacco, and they in turn offered him some of theirs. Walter kept trying to engage them in conversation, but they didn’t understand English. Still, he wouldn’t give up. “What tribe?” he’d ask, using his hands as if they might clarify what he was saying. “Where from?”

  The Indians’ response was either just a smile, a nod, or some words Walter himself couldn’t understand, even when the Indians added some supposedly clarifying hand gestures of their own. So mostly everyone sat silently, except for an occasional word exchanged among the Indians themselves. The woman with the papoose sat in Jennifer’s rocker, the two boys kept eyeing Peter’s tin soldiers, much to Peter’s annoyance, and ever so often one or another of the men would add a respectful nod in Walter’s direction.

  When the visit was finally over, and the Indians filed out of the dugout, Jennifer quickly closed the door. Walter, still puffing on a pipe with tobacco the Indians had given him, looked sternly at Jennifer. “You gave me quite a scare earlier, yelling out the window that way.”

  Jennifer reddened.

  “I thought I told you the Indians around these parts aren’t violent.”

  “Perhaps you did—only how could you be sure?”

  “I ought to be mad with you,” said Walter, releasing a puff of smoke, “but I’m not.”

  “Hm! You probably think I’m a fool.”

  “No, you thought I was walking into trouble. It’s like when you came running during my scrap with the badger. I guess that means, even after all I’ve put you through, you still kind of like me.”

  Jennifer was reluctant to answer at first. “I’m used to you,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m more than used to you. Come here.” Jennifer begrudgingly approached, and Walter embraced her. “I’m sorry, Jenny. About all of this. But don’t you see, it’s the only chance I’ve got to make something of myself. We couldn’t stay in your father’s house forever.”

  “I was happy there.”

  “I know. Maybe I did a mean thing dragging you out here. If it helps any, I think about that a lot. And I feel bad about it.”

  “But you insist we s
tay.”

  “Damn it, we’ve got to.”

  “You mean you’ve got to. This is for yourself. You’re not thinking of me or the children.”

  At this, Walter’s face turned dark. He released Jennifer and backed away. “That’s not fair. I’m making a life for all of us out here. You’ll see.” And with that, he left the dugout.

  Jennifer was left standing there, wondering if she had said too much. She hoped that she hadn’t ruined his mood for the rest of the evening. When Walter returned, half an hour later, she greeted him with, “Dinner will be ready in a bit,” but, as it turned out, it was now Walter’s turn to be the silent one.

  “Is Poppa angry?” asked Peter, sitting with Emma at the table.

  “He’s tired,” said Jennifer, flipping some corncakes in a pan. Then, wiping her hands on her apron, she went to Walter and said softly, “You’re upsetting the children.”

  Walter, sitting on a packing crate near a window and puffing on his pipe, glared up at her. “You’re a fine one to talk,” he growled. But then he eyed Peter. His face relaxed. “Hey, son,” he called, “why look so gloomy?”

  Peter approached his father tentatively. “Are you mad?”

  “Nooo, like Momma said, I’m just tired. In fact…” Walter rose and knocked the ash from his pipe onto the window sill. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  Jennifer raised her eyebrows and glanced at the clock on the bureau. “Why, it’s not even seven o’clock. You haven’t eaten.”

  “Yeah, well, I really am tired,” responded Walter, shuffling over to the bed. He didn’t even bother taking off his clothes. He just threw himself down and lay on his back, breathing through his mouth.

  Jennifer stepped up to him. His face was glistening slightly from perspiration. “You look pale,” she said.

  “Do I?” he asked, his eyes shut.

  Jennifer reached over and put her hand on his forehead. Walter opened his eyes, but said nothing. He waited for the diagnosis.

  “I declare,” said Jennifer, removing her hand and standing straight, “I do believe you’ve come down with a fever.”

  Chapter Three

  The Shakes

  Walter was the stubborn one. Jennifer knew it. But it was never more clear than the next morning. Though he awoke achy and wet with perspiration, he insisted that he go into the field to break more land.

  “Walter, you will stay in bed,” said Jennifer quietly so as not to awaken the children.

  But Walter only smiled warmly at his wife’s concern, and he pulled on his denims.

  “I mean it,” continued Jennifer. “It’s crazy to work in your condition.”

  “And if I don’t go out there, who will?” asked Walter, pulling on his shoes. “You? Peter?”

  “Surely you can wait a day.”

  “A day? I could be laid up all week. No, I’ve got work to do.” Walter rose and slipped on his shirt, even as he convulsed with a shiver.

  Jennifer, her hands on her hips, glared at her husband. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently shunted her aside so that he could step away from the bed. He lifted his wide-brimmed hat from a crate and put it on. “Don’t worry, I’ll sweat the fever out.”

  “This is sheer madness…”

  Walter opened the door, about to step out into the cool, blue air of dawn. Already several birds were singing in the air, where, in a normal place, there would have been tree branches. Before leaving, Walter turned and faced his wife.

  “Look, I know what I’ve got to do. I told you last night that I mean to build us a life out here, but I can’t do it by lying in bed.”

  “If you’re doing this to prove something…”

  “I’m doing this because I have to. Prairie folk don’t make excuses. Our neighbors are made of stem stuff. I won’t do less than they.”

  Walter seemed so intense about it that Jennifer couldn’t offer another word to counter him. She just watched as he headed for the ox stalls.

  For the rest of that morning, Jennifer went about her chores, first preparing bacon and eggs for the children then, while they ate, sweeping out the dugout. Every so often, she glanced out the windows or the open door to see how Walter was holding up. Each time he was hard at work behind the four oxen and plow some dozen yards from the door, slicing away at the sea of grass, which hid him from the waist down. In his wake, blackbirds gathered to feed on the insects that clung to the exposed underside of the turned sod. Every so often, the blackbirds were scared into flight as a kestrel dove down to snatch up a field mouse or snake, whose tunnel or burrow had been tom open.

  Then something odd happened.

  Jennifer had been watching Walter through a window while she gathered the breakfast dishes, and she averted her eyes for only a moment. When she next looked out, Walter was gone. The oxen were still there, still and legless in the tall grass. But Walter had vanished. Jennifer stepped outside. “Walter!” she called. There was no answer. “What on earth?” She scanned the field. “Walter!”

  Jennifer walked first slowly toward the plow, then more quickly. When she got close enough, she finally saw lying face up on his plowed black furrow. “God! Walter!” She dashed to his side and dropped to her knees. “I knew it, I knew it!” she whimpered. “Peter! Come help me with Poppa!” She pulled Walter’s arm around her neck.

  Peter and Emma came running. “What happened?” shouted Peter.

  “Poppa isn’t feeling well. Put his other arm around your shoulder.”

  Peter did this, and both mother and son helped Walter out of the grass and back into the dugout while Emma followed, carrying her Poppa’s hat.

  When she got her husband to bed, Jennifer returned outside to unhitch one of the oxen from the plow. “Now, you watch Poppa while I’m gone,” she said to her children as she led the ox to the wagon. “Make sure there’s water in the bucket next to his bed and, if he needs help drinking, tend to him.”

  “Yes, Momma,” said Peter. “Where are you going?”

  “Into town to get a doctor.” Jennifer hauled a harness from the wagon and began hitching the ox, her dark hair falling in ringlets across her forehead, moist with perspiration.

  “Are you leaving us alone?” asked Peter.

  Jennifer crouched and put both hands on Peter’s shoulders. She looked him squarely in the eye. “You are to watch after your sister, as well,” she said. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “Stay with her in the house. Neither of you are to go outside for any reason. Stay close to Poppa.”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  Jennifer rose and finished hitching the ox. She pulled herself onto the seat. “Now go inside.”

  Peter took his little sister by the hand and led her into the dugout. He closed the door. Jennifer flicked the reins, and the ox pulled the wagon toward the trail.

  When she arrived in Four Comers, Jennifer rode straight to Frank Turner’s blacksmith shop. Frank came out of the big double doors, wiping his neck with a red handkerchief. “Well, Mrs. Vandermeer, I haven’t seen you since you arrived,” he said. “How’s the homestead?”

  “Walter is ill,” said Jennifer bluntly. “Is there a doctor in the area?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear it. Anything serious?”

  “He has a fever. Please, is there a doctor?”

  Frank Turner grimaced at having to disappoint Jennifer. “The closest we have to a doctor is Lucy Baker. She’s pretty good fixing people up.”

  Jennifer recalled the name. Lucy Baker was the small, dark-eyed woman who had introduced herself in Franz Hoffman’s store. Jennifer had been cold to her and her friend.

  “Her place is west of here.” Frank Turner pointed down one of the two prairie paths that intersected the town. “Go out that way and her soddy will be on your right. You can’t miss it. You’ll see it from way off.”

  Jennifer thanked the blacksmith and directed her ox through town and out the other side. She rode onto prairie that was especially flat, and the tra
il, bordered here and there with those pink flowers attended by monarch butterflies, was more deeply rutted than the one that led to her homestead.

  Later, Jennifer saw a soddy some distance off. She rode and soon noticed that the wild bluestems to her right were replaced by wheat. The soddy was now not far off, and Jennifer roused herself.

  Frank Turner had used the term “soddy,” and not “dugout.” And it was true that on land as flat as the Baker’s homestead there was no rise in which to gouge out a shelter. So, instead, they built their house with that prairie marble: blocks of sod cut out from an acre of ground and stacked like bricks into foot-thick walls. Supported on poles and brush, the sod even served as a roof, from which grass still sprouted. Jennifer had seen several such soddies on her westward journey. There were crude looking, but not as crude as a dugout, and the Bakers had morning glory vines gracing their door. Also, rather impressively, an elm grew next to their soddy—the only tree within the entire horizon. Indeed, it was the only one Jennifer had seen since her family’s wagon had crossed a stream in eastern Kansas, where cottonwoods and willows had lined the banks. The stream was cut so low in the ground that only the tops of the trees peeked out, at first looking from a distance like mere bushes. At the sight of the elm, Jennifer’s heart lifted, even if the tree did look a little bedraggled from the constant wind. Like the vines, it was no doubt planted by the Bakers, perhaps brought from the East as a sapling.

  There were a few smaller buildings near the soddy, some also made of sod bricks, others like the chicken coop and cow stall, of poles and hay. Jennifer heard several voices coming from behind one of the sod buildings, and then she saw a naked little girl, about five years old, step around the corner. She stood by the building, her thumb in her mouth, staring with big, dark eyes at Jennifer. She was soon followed by a small, wiry woman, Lucy Baker, who was holding a blanket. “Mary!” she called. “Don’t go wandering off!”

  Jennifer braced herself. She hoped that her neighbor didn’t remember the snub. “Good morning,” she said.