by Harold Bakst
Then, suddenly, a portion of the fiery palisade sputtered as it moved across the clearing Jennifer had made. It was in this enfeebled state that the flames approached the last few yards to her dugout, sparing those inside the brunt of its heat. The flames passed as if on tiptoe, only to streak up the rise into which the dugout was built and swell again on the roof, where unshorn grasses remained.
Inside, the room was plunged back into darkness. The roar grew fainter. The windows now framed only the residue of the departed blaze: patches of fire and bursts of sparks, the pot of withered geraniums, but mostly there was black night.
With the coming of the true sunrise some hours later, the prairie was revealed as blackened and dead. Some fires still smoldered, and smoke rose from the ground here and there. The air smelled acrid. There was no longer the hum of insects or the chirping of birds. There was only the wind.
“Momma, it all looks so different,” commented Emma, standing barefoot in her nightgown and gawking at the blackened scene from the open door.
Peter, also barefoot and in his bedclothes, stepped outside but quickly retreated, for the ground was hot.
“Go dress,” said Jennifer, clutching her own robe closed. She scanned the transformed landscape. Everything within the horizon was crisped. The prairie trail appeared no longer as a rent in the lush grass, but as a faint stripe.
As she let her eyes follow that stripe into the distance, Jennifer saw, just coming over the northern horizon, a rider atop what appeared to be an ungainly running mule. He’ll be here soon, thought Jennifer. She hurried to dress, scooting outside a lingering rabbit.
Jennifer had just finished tucking her blouse into her skirt when the man rode up.
“Why, Joseph,” said Jennifer, stepping from her doorway, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
For the first time that Jennifer had known him, Joseph was agitated and trying to catch his breath. There was an urgency in his usual slow, deep voice. “You’re all right?” he asked, looking at her with his dark, intense eyes in unaccustomed boldness.
“We’re fine,” said Jennifer. “As you can see.”
Joseph noted everyone, and this seemed to take steam out of him. He calmed down. Already at a loss for more words, he looked off some dozen yards and gestured with his head. “Plow’s burnt.”
Lying on the barren ground was what remained of the plow, a curved metal blade, partly melted and attached to some charred wood.
“My wagon, too,” added Jennifer, pointing to the collapsed heap. “And my oxen have run off!”
“Guess I didn’t make that fire-break wide enough,” said Joseph.
“Now don’t go blaming yourself for anything,” said Jennifer. “At least I had no crops to lose. How did you fare?”
Joseph, ever returning to his familiar ways, squinted off in the distance. His breathing had grown steadier, his voice quieter. “We were north of the fire.”
“You were fortunate,” said Jennifer. She watched Joseph as he apparently struggled to make conversation. But there was only an awkward second or two of silence. “And the town?”
“Wasn’t touched,” But even as Joseph answered, his attention was already diverted by something to the south. “Damn,” he muttered.
Jennifer turned to see. Riding up the trail was a buggy. “It looks like Karl,” she said.
“Looks it,” said Joseph, his face darkening.
When Karl Pfeffer arrived, he jumped off his buggy with surprising agility for a man of his age and weight. He hurried to take Jennifer by the hands. “Dear Mrs. Vandermeer—Jenny—I am zo glad you are zafe und zound!”
“Thank you, Karl. And your family?”
“Dey are fine, but ve lost zo much vheat.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Ve vill get by, I guess. Hello, Jozeph.”
Joseph nodded curtly. “Karl.”
Jennifer shuddered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Ach! Dat Vilkes,” muttered Karl.
“Wilkes?” came back Jennifer, discretely removing her hands from Karl’s.
“Ya, ya, I vouldn’t be surpised!”
“You’re not suggesting…”
“He vants us out of here!”
“Yes, but to set a fire?”
Joseph, meanwhile, feeling left out, cleared his throat loudly. “You know, Jennifer, I can loan you a mule.”
Jennifer, duly distracted, turned her attention to Joseph.
“You’ll need something to ride on,” he explained.
“Why, yes, you’re right. Thank you.”
“Ach! A mule!” returned Karl quickly, throwing his shoulders back. “I vill loan you a horse!”
“I already offered,” said Joseph sternly.
“Come now, Jozeph, you expect a lady to ride a mule?”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Gentlemen,” said Jennifer, “please let’s not argue over such matters.”
“Jenny, you vait,” said Karl, hurrying to his buggy. “I vill bring you a goot mare.”
“I’ll bring that mule,” said Joseph, pulling himself up onto his own grey-muzzled animal.
“Really, both of you!”
“I vill be back,” said Karl, flicking his reins.
“Me, too,” said Joseph, spurring his mule, which complained nasally at the kick.
And the two men rode off in separate directions. Jennifer shook her head. For all the blackened devastation before her, she couldn’t help but smile.
Later that afternoon, Joseph and Karl returned at almost the same time. Karl rode up first on his Studebaker buggy, followed by a buckboard driven by a blonde young man of around twenty, apparently his son. Joseph, meanwhile, was approaching on his mule, with a second, saddled mule in tow.
Karl stopped before the dugout. Jennifer approached, but before she could say anthing, Karl stood up in his buggy and called out, “Jozeph! I told you not to bodder!”
“Please don’t start with him,” said Jennifer, a hand resting on a front wheel of the buggy.
Joseph, riding onto Jennifer’s property, didn’t answer but waited until he got close enough. Then he said, “And I thought I told you.”
“How can you expect a lady to ride dat stupid beast!”
“This ‘stupid beast’, I reckon, is a better mount than any nag of yours.”
“Vell, I am giffing her alzo dis buggy!”
This caught Joseph off guard. “Yeah, well, I got a wagon I can loan her.”
Placing herself between the two men—Karl still standing in his buggy and Joseph slumped-shouldered atop his mule— Jennifer raised her hands in a bid for peace. “Gentlemen! I appreciate both your offers!”
“Jozeph, you are putting her in an awkward pozition!”
“You are!”
“You both are!” shouted Jennifer, finally silencing the two men. She took a breath. “I tell you what. I can borrow Karl’s buggy and hitch it to Joseph’s mule. How does that sound?”
“Ach! Do you zee the complications you are causing, Jozeph?” asked Karl.
“Ain’t nothing complicated about it,” replied Joseph, grateful he was not to be outdone by his competitor.
“You are zuch a baby,” grumbled Karl, shaking his head as he stepped down to unhitch his horse from the buggy. Joseph, meanwhile, dismounted to remove the saddle from the rear mule.
As she waited, Jennifer finally had a moment to acknowledge Karl’s son, who was either shy or a bit embarrassed by his father’s display, for he shifted uncomfortably on the buckboard seat. “Good afternoon,” said Jennifer.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he replied with an uneasy smile.
The two men practically had a tug-of-war to see who would harness the mule to the buggy.
And, while they fought, yet another rider, this one atop a black horse, appeared approaching the soddy. For a moment, Jennifer thought it might be Wilkes. That would be good timing, she thought, what with Karl and Joseph present—and in a combative mood
.
But it wasn’t Wilkes. It was Todd Baker. He rode up, nodded at Karl’s son, then addressed Jennifer, trying to speak over the arguing of the two men harnessing the mule. “Afternoon, Mrs. Vandermeer.”
“Todd,” responded Jennifer, plugging one ear against the yelling.
“My maw sent me to see if you’re all right.”
“That’s very nice of her. Tell her we are all fine. How did your family do?”
“Fire didn’t touch us.”
“How fortunate.”
“Hi, Todd,” came in Emma, running up to the horse.
Todd nodded abruptly at the little girl.
“… Jozeph, you are in der vay!”
“No, you are!…”
“And the Camps?” continued Jennifer. “How did they fare?”
“Not so good,” said Todd. “Lost their crops. They’re talking of leaving.”
Jennifer started. She squinted at Todd and stepped closer to him to hear better. “What was that? Leaving?”
“That’s what they said.”
“…Jozeph, you are hopeless!”
“You are…!”
“You mean for good?” asked Jennifer, stepping still closer. “Yep. My maw’s real mad with them.”
Jennifer couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Wasn’t it Nancy who begged her not to return to Ohio? What right did this woman now have to leave? “Surely you heard wrong.”
Todd only shrugged.
“… Jozeph, I am telling fur der last time!”
“No, I’m telling you!”
“Ach…!”
Two days passed. With the black land reddened by an early morning sun, a small covered wagon, drawn by four horses, stopped on the trail beside Jennifer’s property. Throwing a shawl around her shoulders, Jennifer left her children to finish their breakfast and hurried to the wagon. Sitting up front were Will and Nancy Camp. Jennifer couldn’t believe her eyes— couldn’t believe Nancy’s audacity. “So you are leaving,” she said simply. Wisps of her dark hair blew in the light wind.
Will, his Adam’s apple rising and falling as he swallowed hard, turned his head away and squinted off in the distance.
“Yes,” said Nancy defensively, adjusting her bonnet. “The fire, you know. It destroyed everything. Will must find work elsewhere.”
“But you will be coming back.”
“No, I’m afraid not. We’ve—had enough.”
“I’m sorry to hear this,” said Jennifer coolly.
“So was Lucy,” said Nancy, slipping her arm around her husband’s and hugging it tightly. “She became downright abusive to us.”
“Did she?”
“No surprise. But this time we told her our minds were made up!”
Are they? thought Jennifer. And are you the only ones allowed to make up your minds?
“I guess we’re just not made as sturdily as her,” continued Nancy, “Or you, for that matter.”
This caught Jennifer by surprise. She was flattered to be thought of as “sturdy” for once, though she felt dishonest about it. She had fooled someone—someone perhaps even weaker than she. And maybe that’s all anyone ever really did. Maybe, even, she herself had been fooled all along by her husband, her father, Lucy, and everyone else.
“So we’ve come to say good-bye,” said Nancy, her voice lowering in sadness. “I didn’t want you to think too ill of me.
“Won’t you stay a while?” asked Jennifer, feeling more benevolent.
“We’ve waited too long as it is,” came in Will. “It’s getting late in the season. I don’t want to be caught in an early blizzard.”
Nancy turned to him. “Surely another hour won’t make a difference?”
“We’ve got to be going,” said Will, reluctant to take his eyes off the southern horizon.
“Are—you returning to Maryland?” asked Jennifer.
“Texas,” said Nancy. “Will’s going to try finding work on a ranch. He’s worked with horses before.”
“I see,” said Jennifer, her eyes growing distant. “Well, then I guess I should wish you luck.”
“Thank you,” said Will. “And good luck to you.” He flicked the reins. His horses started up.
“We’ll write to you when we settle in,” called Nancy as the little wagon rattled on.
“Please do!” returned Jennifer, taking a step or two with the wagon. Her throat tightened.
“Maybe you can visit us one day!” called Nancy, turning in her seat to look back as the wagon pulled ahead.
“Maybe I will!”
“We must stay friends!” cried Nancy, her voice becoming fainter in the growing distance.
“We will!” Jennifer waved. She could no longer make out what Nancy was shouting. She waved once more and watched the wagon until it was very small in the distance.
She suddenly felt very lonely. Before even the wagon could disappear over the horizon, she hurried into her dugout. She sat herself at her writing crate, unscrewed the inkwell, and took up her pen.
October 9, 1873
Dear Poppa,
I can only imagine how worried you must be not having heard from me sooner. This letter is actually my second attempt. And I suspect it will be rather different from the one I had originally intended, so much has happened to me since then.
But first I have a painful duty to perform. I have sad news, so please prepare yourself. Walter has passed away. He died of a fever last summer.
My heart is with you, Poppa. I know how close you and Walter were. I wish I could be with you now so that we might comfort each other. But you may take solace, at least, in knowing that your daughter and grandchildren are doing well.
That in itself is a remarkable thing. Since coming west, I have suffered every imaginable tribulation. Each time, I thought surely I would not last. And yet, here I sit, in the quiet ccol of an autumn afternoon, writing you this letter.
One never knows the trials, even the worst, that can be endured until one is tested. We have resources deep within us that need rarely be tapped, that, indeed, lay dormant and unseen. But I have been forced to draw upon those resources—or should I say they rose to the surface of their own accord, when needed, ever surprising me.
Like metal that is subjected to repeated heat and cold, I feel my spirit annealed. Yet, I add, this would not have been the case had I not paused to reflect upon my survival, for it is in this very act of reflection that we may bestow upon ourselves the strength I speak of. That is the trick. That is what I have learned out here. I have seen others suffer as much as land not realize that they were my equals as survivors. They granted me that which they themselves possessed, if only they stopped to see it.
I have. And I will try not to forget it. Even as I emerge from a prairie inferno, I am about to be plunged into a prairie winter. Talk of annealing! I am sure you do not believe that these are the words of the daughter who sat with you in the parlor for so many years. And, indeed, I confess there remains a part of me that is as frightened as ever, that wishes only to go home and be your little girl again. But this, too, I accept. And, come the spring, I will not fight it. Be patient, Poppa. You will find me returned home with the first robins in our yard.
Now you must forgive the brevity of this letter, but I am intent on mailing it. Lord knows when it will actually leave the town. I promise to write again, and at greater length soon. And so, until we are reunited, I send you all my love, and all the children’s love.
Ever your daughter,
Jenny
P. S. I will be staying with a neighboring family this winter, so do not fear for me.
The ink was barely dry when Jennifer sealed up the letter and rode into town to leave it at Pearson’s Inn. There it was put in a sack with letters from her neighbors, some of which were already a month old, awaiting travelers passing through town, in any direction, to take them away.
Meanwhile, the season was slowly beginning to change. Before long, her students were leaving to help their families with the ha
rvesting. Every day, it seemed the wind blew just a bit cooler and harder. Soon, wriggling skeins of geese appeared in the sky, honking their way south. The noon sun no longer reached so high, nor the days lasted so long.
Then Lucy said it was time. Jennifer and her children loaded up the buggy and rode to the Baker homestead. And there they stayed as the wind turned still colder, the days shorter, and as, at last, the first dusting of snow settled on the soddy’s roof, the solitary elm, the harvested field, and, like a poultice, the burnt prairie.
Chapter Ten
… and Cold
Early in the season those first snows continued to fall only lightly. Whatever lay on the ground was either melted away by the noon sun or blown away by the wind.
But, before long, the winter began in earnest, and snow flaked off the great grey dome almost unceasingly, so that the ground was covered in white and stayed that way. Sometimes the snow fell straight down, but, more often, it fell in lashing winds. Only occasionally did the winter take a breath, when the sky blushed blue, and critters punched out of the snow from their buried burrows to forage.
Then everyone in the Baker soddy likewise hurried outside to get some elbow room. The children rolled around, threw snowballs, dug tunnels, built snowmen, and took turns sledding down the embankment formed on the lee side of the soddy. During some weeks, it was possible to go out nearly every day, which the adults appreciated as much as the children. Nothing was more refreshing than to step outside in the morning, feel the slap of cold on the cheek, and see the brilliant white landscape sprawling in every direction to meet the deep blue sky at the horizon. The clear, brisk air seemed to crystalize everything and sharpened even the most distant objects.
But always the sky eventually darkened, and the snows returned, layering the prairie with an even thicker, seamless white blanket. Then, each morning, with shovels in hands, Seth and the boys sallied forth from the soddy to make sure there were clear paths to the stable, well, and outhouse. As the winter wore on, these paths became ever more deeply etched in the rising snow so that the shovelers had to heft the snow higher and higher to clear the way.