The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  She pictured the squalid buildings, surrounded by acres of grass, with a God who stood as high as the sky, standing by, ready to defend them, His arms outstretched, His robe white, His countenance like lightning. No one had ever seen God, but He was there all right.

  That was one thing she never doubted, the presence of God. From the time she was a wee toddler, she had known there was a Heavenly Being watching over her, the Good Man, der Gute Mann, as her parents had taught her. So now, when they needed Him, she believed He would bring them through these daunting obstacles.

  She started by telling Hod to come over and show her how to brand their calves. Of course, it was Clay who showed up, by himself, which she figured would happen. She was glad he came; he owed her an apology.

  She took good care to brush her hair, wash her face, and pinch her cheeks. Her dress was plain brown, faded, and worn thin, but that could not be helped.

  She met him at the barnyard, smiled, and said that these calves needed to be branded, and the cow too. It was time they were turned loose. Someone was going to have to teach her how to rope.

  Manny was summoned from the hayfield, followed by her father, who seemed amicable, offering to help wherever he could, which was nothing short of a miracle. Hannah eyed him warily, however, wondering what holy lesson he had up his sleeve this time. She knew he was suspicious of the Jenkins boys.

  He set to work building a fire, though, and watched with a smile as Clay let Manny ride his horse and showed him how to coil and hold the rope. “It’s in the wrist, I guess,” he drawled, in that easy relaxed manner of his. “Let them out, Hannah,” he said briskly.

  So Hannah opened the barnyard gate, watching from the fence as the calves charged through it, their tails held out like broomsticks, kicking and bawling and acting as crazy as loons, in Clay’s words.

  “Ride after ‘em. Run ‘em down. Bring ‘em back,” he called to Manny. It was obvious the horse knew more than Manny did. He took off as if there were coiled springs in his legs, dodging along with the calves, leaving poor Manny clutching the saddle horn just to remain seated. He couldn’t attempt staying in the saddle and twirling a rope at the same time, so he galloped back, the horse fighting the reins every step of the way.

  “I can’t do it,” Manny said, his eyes alight.

  “Takes practice.”

  “Your turn,” Clay told Hannah.

  It couldn’t be that hard, she thought to herself, as she watched Manny dismount. She clapped his shoulder for reassurance, then climbed into the saddle without looking at Clay, hoping she knew enough to climb astride a horse without looking like a cow. She figured she’d better let the horse do the chasing because, like Manny, just staying on was all she could manage.

  The calves lowered their heads and came bawling, only to veer away at the last minute, the horse turning with the calf, almost unseating her. Determined not to grab the saddle horn as the horse veered left, Hannah slipped right off in the opposite direction, landing hard in the dry grass, with a crunch, on her right shoulder.

  The horse stopped.

  She heard footsteps and saw Clay and Manny looming above her.

  “You hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She sat up, felt her arms and gingerly stretched her legs, but everything seemed intact. She stood up, brushed off her skirt, and asked Manny if he wanted to try again.

  He did, so she stood with Clay, watching Manny at his first attempt at roping. This time, he stayed on but accomplished nothing as far as the roping went. Breathless, he galloped back, his black eyes sparkling, his straw hat lying in the grass, his dark hair tousled. He was laughing.

  “It’s impossible to ride and swing a rope at the same time,” he called. Clay laughed.

  “You can practice on a fence post awhile. That’s what I did.”

  Hannah mounted again and stayed on this time. But like Manny, she couldn’t touch the rope, much less think of lifting it or throwing it over a calf.

  Then Clay said he’d get the job done, and it was a breathtaking sight. It was as if he and his horse were one, both thinking the same thing before doing it—turning, stopping, galloping full speed from a standstill.

  When he rode along the plunging calf, his wrist flicking the rope up and over his head, throwing it out with the ease of long hours of practice, the horse stopped, sat back on his haunches, pulling the rope taut and flinging the bawling calf to the ground. It was only a matter of minutes before the hot branding iron sizzled its way through the coarse, black coat into the calf’s leathery skin, branding it forever with the Bar S brand.

  The old cow was heavy, close to 1,800 pounds, Clay guessed. She had horns like thick tree limbs protruding on each side of her head. Red-eyed and belligerent, she stood in the grass, pawing at the dirt and raising clouds of brown dust.

  “She don’t like us, so everyone watch out. You don’t mess around with this kind. They can be as bad as a bull any day.”

  Clay galloped off, swinging the rope. The cow charged, bellowing her anger, but the horse dodged easily, prancing like a bullfighter in the ring.

  The dance between horse and enraged cow was something to see, like a poem someone put into motion. The horse’s flanks were dark with sweat, and a splotch of moisture dampened the back of Clay’s shirt.

  The cow was tiring, so the rope slipped easily over one horn, but she shook the rope loose and took off in a wild plunge straight toward the fire and the branding iron—and Mose. He leapt toward the fence and got a leg up to step away from the bellowing cow. She charged for the fence and hooked one horn into his suspenders, flinging him to the ground. Clay yelled and goaded his horse. Hannah screamed, a hand on each side of her face as she watched the cow grind her horns into her father’s flailing body. Repeatedly, the animal twisted and turned, her goal clearly to rid herself of this adversary that had disturbed her peace.

  Clay rode up to the blindly enraged cow. He kicked at her and prodded her away from Mose, yelling all the while. Manny stood rooted in horror, his face contorted with the intensity of his feelings.

  The cow lifted her head and came charging toward Clay and his horse, leaving Mose lying in the dust, a shadowy, dark figure behind the brittle, waving grass. Clay turned her into the barnyard and slammed the gate before they all rushed to Mose’s inert form.

  Manny screamed, “Dat! Dat!” before prostrating himself by his father’s side, reaching out to touch his chest.

  Clay knelt, his face as white as his shirt. “Mose. Mose. Can you hear me?”

  Hannah lowered herself slowly, kneeling beside Clay, nausea welling up into her throat, horrified to see her father lying by the fence so bloodied and battered.

  Clay laid a hand on Mose’s chest, then threw his hat aside to put his ear to his torn and bloodied shirt front.

  “Mose. Mose.”

  His eyes were open, his mouth in a grimace of pain. He was breathing in short, painful gasps. But he was breathing.

  “Get yer Ma,” Clay ordered. “I’ll get the doctor.”

  Mose was whispering, struggling to breathe, the dust and dirt slowly stained dark by the blood seeping from his wounds. Manny stayed by his father’s side as Hannah raced blindly for the house, calling, calling hoarsely for her mother, who raised eyes that were cloudy with mourning to absorb this bizarre thing Hannah was saying.

  The children were told to stay in the house and watch Abby. Like an old woman, Sarah made her way slowly to her dying husband, held his hand, and told him she loved him one final time. At peace, Mose took his last breath, secure in God and his wife’s love, the two things he valued far above any earthly possessions.

  Hannah would never forget the picture of Sarah kneeling by Mose’s side, her head on his battered chest, tears flowing. A heavenly light surrounding them in the gray dust, their union immortalized by his death, the only sound the waving of the grass—or the rustling of angels’ wings. Who could be sure?

  The song of the heavens was the angels who came
to take his spirit home, the soul that often yearned for a home, for Mose often found the earth riddled with too many complexities, too many cares, and too many people he did not understand. A simple man, Mose was one who would find death a victory.

  Sarah understood this, and she understood her husband. She truly knew him—his failures, his triumphs, his every breath.

  When Clay returned with the doctor, all that remained was a small group of people dressed in plain, worn garments, with tears flowing, but an acceptance buoying their spirits with the power of a solid rock. Clay told Abby at home that he’d never seen anything like it.

  Mose was carried to the house by strong men who arrived from town and from neighboring ranches, men the Detweilers did not know and had no idea they existed. In the middle of her numbing grief, Sarah wondered at the kindness of the ausriche, these worldly men with leathery faces and grizzled beards. They were like the Amish, come to help at a time when they were needed.

  The yard filled with automobiles. Women dressed in flowered prints, bright plaids, some in trousers, wearing lipstick and coiffed hair like bonnets of curls, brought casseroles and fried chicken, cakes and pies. They gathered Sarah and Hannah into embraces of perfume and expensive talcum powders, left traces of red lipstick on dry cheeks, like rose-colored benedictions of concern.

  Here, on the high plains, they had all known devastation and loneliness. Plain or worldly, hardship and loss were a way of life. So when the news of Mose Detweiler’s death reached their ears, they knew what it would take.

  The Amish relatives in Lancaster County were notified, a telephone call to the local police barracks in the city of Lancaster was sufficient.

  With the heat so prevalent, a small group helped wash Mose’s battered body, dressed him in his white Sunday shirt and trousers, and laid him tenderly in the rough casket Hod and the boys fashioned in a hurry.

  Sarah moved as if in a gray dream filled with dark shadows of longing and despair. She did what was required, fed and cared for Abby, thanked the unknown flock of brightly dressed women for all their kindnesses, seeing them as through a mist of grief that blended all the bright colors back to gray.

  It was only at night that she allowed herself the blessed relief of sobbing, howling into a pillow pressed tightly against her mouth. The loss of her mother had stripped her of the warmth of remembrance, leaving her scrabbling for a firm foot stone to step through the iciness of the unrelenting river of grief. The homesickness was one thing, worn like a collar around her neck that ceased to chafe with time. But never to see her mother again, never talk to her, was more than she could bravely carry.

  And now her husband, Mose, the light of her life, the reason for her existence, the pillar of strength on which she leaned. Yes, he had weakened, but it was a test of faith that he had come through admirably. She couldn’t see how she would survive without him.

  She chose a plot not too far away. How could she have him buried on the flat prairie covered with blowing grass, the plain stone marker gone from her sight and her mind?

  South of the house. Southeast, where the morning sun would find the gravestone and caress it with light. When she stood on the porch, she knew he would not be far away.

  Owen Klasserman read the German scripture, words of promise and hope that Sarah could only hear through the noise of her shock and anguish. It was comforting, though, to hear the German read the way she had been brought up, sitting on a hard wooden bench in various homes, listening to the scriptures and the sermon in the German language.

  Hod and Abby were there, and the boys, dressed in clean shirts and jeans, holding their hats awkwardly by their sides. Owen and Sylvia, Harry and Doris Rocher, and a new pastor from the First Church of God in Pine, a tall, lanky fellow who spoke with so much kindness the tears rained down Sarah’s face before she could begin to constrict her throat to hold them.

  They lowered the casket into the dry earth and covered it as the dust whipped away on the hot wind. Manny had been a pillar of strength throughout the ordeal, but the cakes of hard soil hitting the wooden casket was a finality he could not contain. Miserably, he lowered his head and began the anguished sobbing of a boy, not yet a man, but no longer a boy.

  Hannah stood, her eyes lowered, her mouth in a tight, grim line, showing no feeling, no emotion. She just wanted this whole ordeal to be over so she could begin her life, taking care of Sarah, and figuring out how they would proceed. Her thoughts spun, caught on irritation, dangled on pegs of grief, flying through her head propelled by remorse. If only she had been a better daughter. Half the time, she hadn’t liked her father and had barely tolerated his pious attitude. Now he was gone, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

  Wouldn’t he have a fit, though? All the automobiles that had come to be at his funeral. All the worldly people who stood to bury him, with the relatives chugging along somewhere in a train between here and Ohio, probably. She’d bet they weren’t too happy. Mose had gone off to North Dakota after his humiliation, and here he was dead.

  Well, she wasn’t going back, that was for sure. They couldn’t drag her back with a logging chain. She simply wasn’t going.

  Hannah stood in her black dress with the cape pinned over her shoulders, the apron around her waist, barefoot, refusing to put her feet into those too-tight shoes or pull the prickling stockings over her legs. Her shoulders were wide and erect, her feet planted apart in a stance of firmness, a strong-minded figure, obstinate. Her chin was lifted high enough that folks took notice.

  Here was a stubborn one, they thought. Here was one different from the rest. Beside her stood her mother, surrounded by the little ones, her shoulders rounded, bent forward with the weight of her heartache. The children were wide-eyed, observing the way Owen spoke, seeing the clods of dirt, wiping their eyes from the dust, without understanding very much at all.

  Their beloved Dat had been ground into the earth by an enraged cow, but he went to Heaven to be with God and Jesus and all the angels. Yet here he was, being put beneath the earth on this great big prairie that would swallow him forever, and they’d forget where he was. So they clung to their remaining comfort, their mother’s skirts, and Mary cried because she couldn’t bear to see her father buried.

  The sun blazed down on the small group surrounding the grave. The searing wind blew skirts and dust and grass, till they turned one final time and made their way back to the house.

  The women who ministered to Sarah were dressed in black or gray on this day of Mose’s funeral. As gentle as doves, their kindness like a healing balm, Sarah allowed them to heat the food, care for Abby, and sit beside her with a hand on her shoulder as they murmured words of comfort and encouragement.

  Doris Rocher’s face glowed with an inner light as she set casseroles, pies, and cakes on the table. There were not enough plates (this woman had so little) but they made do with bowls, allowing the men to eat first, then rinsed the dishes and set the table for the women.

  The food was so delicious, so bracing, in this time of shock and unreality. Manny found comfort in the rich potato-and-cheese casserole, the home-cured ham and green beans, applesauce, cabbage slaw, and the mound of baked beans well-seasoned with bacon. Hannah piled her plate to overflowing, consumed every bit, spoonful by spoonful, then ate two slices of custard pie and a thick chunk of yellow cake sprinkled with sugar. Mentally, she calculated the days the food would last before they returned to their steady diet of cornmeal and beans.

  The pastor was friendly, with smile crinkles at the corners of his eyes, round spectacles somewhere between the bridge and the tip of his nose, a ready smile, and hands that were made to comfort with a warm touch. He noticed the bare room, the primitive furnishings, the abject poverty that lived in this simple house with these plain people whose pillar of strength had been taken away by God’s Hand.

  He pulled up a chair and sat beside the grieving widow, who refused every attempt the women made to get her to eat. Didn’t she want to taste the beans? The pi
e?

  She would not. Her face as white as the puffy clouds in the sky outside, her large dark eyes deep wells of pain, she sat holding Abby as if holding the baby was her only link to reality.

  She had borne so much, been brave in the face of so many obstacles, but this cruel taking of those most beloved to her had shattered her strength, drained her resolve, and rendered her as limp and pliable as a wet dish rag, unable to will herself off the armless rocker.

  Abby Jenkins stayed all night. She sat beside Sarah and stroked the back of her hands, without uttering a word. She put the children to bed, swept the floor, cleaned the stove top, and sat with her suffering neighbor far into the night, before finally succumbing to drowsiness.

  And Sarah sat alone, wondering how soon the Lord would allow her to join Mose. She was tired, tired of this life on the prairie, tired of the prowling poverty that threatened to pull her into its deadly, gnashing jaws, tired of Hannah’s rebellion, tired of being alone.

  There was no reason for her to go on.

  CHAPTER 15

  The relatives arrived, a flock of familiar faces clad in black. Wide black hats, large black bonnets, black dresses, trousers and vests, shoes and stockings. They arrived in two buckboards pulled by a team of sweating horses, this day as sweltering as each one before.

  They removed their cardboard boxes, suitcases, and satchels, the black garments carrying a coat of gray dust.

  Sarah stood in the doorway, dressed in black, thin and pale, the tears already streaming silently with no other display of emotion. There were firm handshakes, a deep searching of eyes, but no hugs. Only the common, traditional way of greeting.

  Sarah’s father. Older, broken, but the same tall man, not stooped, alive and vibrant, smiles tinged with sorrow, but no tears. Strong. This man was so strong, so able. Sarah found herself longing to stay with him, return to the fertile land of her childhood, take his strength for her own, and rest in it for the remainder of her days.