The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  “Let me see. Come here.” Sarah left her laundry to draw Hannah over to the doorway, where the light of the morning brought each strand of hair into keen sight. She raked the tips of her fingers through the top of Hannah’s head, parting her dark hair to reveal the white scalp underneath, then lifted the heavy tresses to check thoroughly behind her ears.

  The lice were harder to see than the white clusters of their eggs, and she told Hannah this, which caused her to pull away from Sarah with a sharp jerk and an exclamation of disgust.

  “Well, you don’t have lice, at any rate. I’ve seen them before, but they’re most common in school-age children and smaller ones who play together. I don’t believe you’ve been infested, Hannah.”

  They drew apart, each one going their own way. Hannah thought how much her mother’s nearness reminded her of times when she rolled and plaited her hair to go to school, wetting it so miserably with cold water, drawing the steel-toothed comb through it without mercy, rolling it so tightly along the side of her head that it felt as if each hair was being pulled out by the root. After all that pain, she twisted the plaited hair into a bun on the back of her head, jabbing the hairpins through it without restraint. Every morning was a mild form of torture, like the one before.

  But still. There was something about the smell of a mother, the soft, spicy scent that came from her clothes, the soft touch of her fingers, the way her chest rose and fell as she breathed. When her hands clamped down on her shoulders with a bit of pressure to turn her around, it was like a caress, a caring, a mother doing the duty that was like a bond between them. A part of Hannah missed this ritual, and she realized the absence of her mother’s touch.

  Unlike the last time she’d been held.

  The thought of Jerry Riehl was so painfully embarrassing that she became rattled and forgot the bread frying in the cast-iron skillet. It burned as black as charcoal and she yelled at her mother when Sarah reminded her, her face flaming from the cookstove’s heat, but mostly from her own bewildered thoughts.

  She woke Manny, ate her oatmeal, and vowed to never catch sight of that man again. Why would she? Hundreds of miles away now, with no longing to return, there was no chance. So that was that.

  She spread apple butter on her fried bread, drank her tea, and shivered.

  “Chilly, huh?” Manny asked.

  “Winter’s coming,” she answered soberly.

  Manny lifted a spoonful of thick oatmeal and nodded. “We need firewood. And who is going to buy chickens and a cow? And pigs. Doddy told us to do that. I’ll get the pens ready in the barn if you’ll do the rest.”

  “I had planned on firewood making.”

  “Well, we can.”

  So that was what they did. Always the same. Hannah planned and Manny went along with it. Sawing and cutting all day long with only a short break at lunchtime. Manny was uneasy, watching the horizon, asking questions. He knew every minute where the rifle was, propped against a poplar tree.

  “If we had a dog,” he began.

  Hannah put down the axe, wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I’m getting one, somehow. If we had Uncle Levi’s German shepherd, they never would have made it to the barn. Bold. Honestly, Manny, they were settling in. If we wouldn’t have been here, they’d have some sort of false documents. Something. They’d take our claim. The only resistance they understand is the sound of a gun.”

  Manny shook his head. His eyes went to the horizon, afraid.

  They acquired ten laying hens, brown ones, young, and laying six eggs between them. Egg production cut back in the fall as the daylight hours shortened. Two baby pigs dug in the manure in the back stall of the barn, little ones with ribs showing, runts from the Klassermans’ litter of twelve.

  Good-natured Owen waved away the mention of a price, said they’d likely be laid on by the mother sow anyway, as dumb as she was. Owen went on to say he’d never met an animal with less brains than a pig. Didn’t understand why the good Lord made them so ugly, but he sure enjoyed the bacon and shoulder meat with the fresh sauerkraut and dumplings Sylvia made.

  The milk cow was small and brown eyed, a Guernsey, he said. Good rich milk, high in fat. Said they could all use some meat on their bones, to be sure and drink it down, make plenty of butter. Nothing better on fried bread. Or biscuits. Did Sarah make biscuits?

  No? Ach, he’d bring Sylvia over to show her how. Nothing like biscuits made with lard. Flaky. So soft they would melt in your mouth.

  Hannah stood, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, waiting until the flowery words of praise for all things edible came to an end. She could hardly get a word in to inquire about a dog.

  “A dawk? You vont a dawk? Vell, I don’t haf vun. Dey kill mine sheeps. Dey luf to kill calfs and lamps. I don’t haf a dawk. No, no.”

  “Do you know of any place we can buy one?”

  “No. No. Haf no business wiss a dawk. Ornery buggers. Bite mine lamp.”

  It took five hours to return to the homestead, trailing the fine-boned little cow with the swinging udder behind the wagon. It was a perfect day, the heat gone, the cooling winds that carried the scent of fall, the brown grass rustling by the side of the road.

  “I’m hungry, listening about all that food. It will be hours before we can eat. It almost feels like, you know, last time,” Manny said.

  “I know what real hunger is, that’s for sure,” Hannah answered.

  “Think we’ll make it through the winter?”

  “No. We’ll have to get to town for oatmeal, flour, and sugar. We have plenty of everything else. Firewood. A dog. Need to get the cattle bought and branded.”

  “I hate to think of branding cows. It brings back too many memories of Dat. Poor man. I miss him every day. There’s not a day goes by I don’t remember his words. They’re words to live by, Hannah. I will always love and remember my father.”

  Hannah stared intently to the right, and didn’t answer at all. She didn’t need to. Manny knew what she was thinking.

  CHAPTER 23

  When Sarah bought the cattle, Owen Klasserman was more than generous. Ten yearlings, coal black, muscular, lean, and healthy looking. One hundred dollars a head. No need to weigh them. One thousand dollars.

  Sarah wrote the check with a trembling hand, struggling with her own thoughts of pessimism. Dark thoughts of disease and dying, winter blizzards, and loss. In spring, the birthing of calves. So much could go wrong, and would, she knew.

  One thousand dollars in debt to her father. Another four hundred for supplies to finish the house. Then the milk cow and hens. To be in debt was a horrible thing. She would despise this loan until the day she died. She would never be free of it. But she didn’t speak of this to Hannah or Manny.

  The Jenkins boys rode over, with Clay this time. Hannah was waiting, trousers buttoned in place below her skirt, Pete saddled with the used saddle from Owen Klasserman. Manny was riding Goat, which was the new horse’s name after Doddy Stoltzfus brought up the resemblance.

  Hank and Ken were boisterous, open and friendly, their faces creased in good-natured grins. Clay hung back, his handsome, chiseled face taut, tanned to a reddish brown, the stubble on his face bleached white by the sun. He didn’t greet Hannah directly. She was given a fleeting smile, a hand waved in recognition, eliciting strange stares from his brothers. Well, no time to worry about Clay’s behavior now. There were cattle to be branded, and they were about a year older than they should have been.

  “You need a chute,” Clay observed dryly.

  “We don’t have one, so how are we going to do this?” Hannah asked.

  “Rope ‘em, hold ‘em down best we kin, I spect,” Hank spoke up. They were eager, up to the challenge, their horses fresh.

  “Why Angus?” Clay asked. “You know these purebreds aren’t as tough as our skinny crossbreeds. They’re Longhorn, Angus, Hereford, and Reds. They’re anything all mixed together, which makes for easy calving and getting through the winter better. They’re just all around a
n easier breed to raise.”

  “And when they’re sent to auction, how much less do you get per pound?” Hannah asked quickly.

  “I don’t know. Never asked the German what he gets.”

  So now it was the German. Were they actually riled, these Jenkinses? Were herds of cattle held with as much pride as the farms in Lancaster County? For some reason, this upset Hannah, and when she was upset, she spoke what was on her mind. She faced Clay and asked him why he referred to Owen Klasserman as “the German?”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it. That name’s a mouthful, is all.” He held her gaze, his blue eyes as beautiful as she remembered, but devoid of the intense light he had always reserved for her. Bewildered, Hannah lowered her own, scuffed the toe of her worn black shoes in the dust and wondered what was going on.

  As before, they cleared a large area, started a blazing fire, which Clay informed everyone was a bad idea. One spark would be all it took to get this prairie started burning. “It’ll go up like tinder. Manny, you stay here and watch. Might not hurt to have a bucket of water settin’ by. Get the kids to bring one.”

  The dust flew as the horses raced, wheeled, pulled the ropes taut, with Hannah hanging on to Pete and mostly incapable of helping at all.

  Clay got mad and yelled at her to go make dinner. That stupid horse didn’t know his head from his tail. He said the cows were dumb, but what could you expect from an Angus?

  Hannah was seething. She had roped one, helped to hold it down. What was wrong with Clay? He acted as if there was nothing between them and never had been.

  Well, she wasn’t making dinner, either. She would stand right here and watch them fail to bring down these large heifers. Good, strong, quality calves, is what they were, and she didn’t care what Clay said. He didn’t know everything.

  But it was heart-stopping to watch those boys in action. Always a step ahead of the elusive cows, always controlling their horses with the touch of a knee, a rein draped across the horse’s neck, either from the left or the right. A quick called command, followed by instant obedience.

  The fire died down to a bed of hot coals, the branding iron heated, sizzled through the heavy hair and thick skin of the year-old heifers. It was a grueling job, with repeated attempts at roping gone awry. The cows charged the dancing horses, dodged the ropes, and if they were fast enough to throw one, she was quickly on her feet charging anything that moved, including the terrified barn cat.

  It was well into the afternoon when the branding iron sizzled through the last hide. They released the bawling, wild-eyed heifer, extinguished the fire, and rubbed down and fed the horses.

  Sarah called from the house to invite the boys to dinner, so with Manny leading the way, they all washed up on the back lean-to and went into the house.

  Clay stopped short, gave a low whistle, and looked around at the painted walls, the addition to the kitchen, and the gleaming floor. “Someone was real busy, I’d say,” he told Sarah, smiling at her in his best manner, which made Hannah grind her teeth in frustration.

  The nerve of him, treating Mam with his flowery manners. Fuming, she slammed bowls of mashed potatoes and canned beef in gravy on the table, moving from stove to table with her head held high, her nostrils flaring in her best belligerent manner, which, seemingly, did not even faze the elegant manners Clay bestowed on Sarah.

  Hank and Ken dug their forks into mounds of mashed potatoes, grinned, made conversation with Manny, and never worried about the quiet drama taking place between Clay and Hannah.

  Sarah figured the roping had not gone well and left it at that, filling water glasses, talking about the water level in the old well, the windmill crew’s arrival, anything, it seemed to Hannah, that would exclude her.

  Sarah served a warm dried-apple pie with milk and sopped up Clay’s praise like a thirsty sponge, her face shining with appreciation.

  Hannah glowered and refused the slice of pie Sarah served her. “You sure?” she asked, her eyes questioning.

  “‘Course I’m sure,” she spat out.

  Clay dipped his head to hide his amusement. Hannah ignored him when they all got up, retrieved their hats, and thanked Sarah again.

  “Oh, it was nothing, really, boys. Your mother’s cooking is far superior to mine. I’m just glad I have food to cook with. Glad to be able to feed you when you’ve done us such a big favor. Thank you.”

  “It was our pleasure, ma’am,” Clay said, his teeth flashing white in his tanned face.

  Hannah could not believe he walked out the front door and down the porch steps without looking at her. The nerve of him! What was going on? Had he forgotten the attraction, the long talks? He’d kissed her! She groaned inwardly, thinking of all the reasons he may have had to brush past her as if she were a piece of furniture.

  She supposed she’d been clumsy and ill-prepared, riding poor, plodding old Pete, but could she help that? She had learned to rope and thought she’d made a good showing, helping to throw two of them, until Clay yelled at her.

  Make dinner. Huh. Boy that had irked her. If she would have made him dinner just then, she would have fried him a few grasshoppers and boiled some earthworms. Oh, he made her furious!

  So much for Clay Jenkins. She’d write him off as thoroughly as she’d written off the other one. She cringed in humiliation even thinking of his name. Well, this just cemented the fact that she did not need a man to keep her happy. She was much better off without anyone. Getting married was so far off on the horizon, it wasn’t worth talking about.

  She asked Sarah why she thought Clay was acting strange. Shocked, Sarah turned wide eyes on her daughter. “I didn’t notice anything different, Hannah. He was just being Clay.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He openly ignored me and yelled at me.”

  “He had a hard day, being in charge of branding those heifers.”

  “Puh. We could have done it without him.”

  “Now, Hannah, I wonder.”

  “If only I would have had a decent horse. Someday, Mam, I will own a fire horse with a good bloodline. I’ll have a stable full of them, like Jerry Riehl.”

  Sarah scraped a plate and lowered it into the dish water. “Who?”

  “Someone in Lancaster. Remember when I went to the feed mill that day? When I got caught in the rain?”

  “Yes, I do remember well. You became sick with pneumonia.”

  “I got lost. Drove into a farm. Where I found him and the horses.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah. Well. Someday, I’ll own horses like that. I’ll ride a horse that will make Clay positively green with envy. Then he won’t tell me to go make dinner.”

  Sarah lifted the agate roaster from the cook stove. Abby fell over, bumped her head on the chair leg, and set up a howl of protest. Drying her hands on her apron, Sarah hurried over, scooped her up, and held her close, rubbing a palm across the back of her head, crooning. She dropped into the armless rocker and began to rock back and forth.

  Hannah finished the dishes, then came to sit with her mother. “See, if we breed these heifers as soon as our bull arrives, in less than a year, we’ll have ten calves. If we keep them till they weigh six or seven hundred pounds, and we get seventy or eighty cents a pound, that’s how much?”

  She stared at the ceiling, her mouth whispering the sums. “That’s five hundred and sixty dollars per calf. If we sell five and keep five, that’s 2,800 dollars. We can pay Doddy Stoltzfus back, plus have seven or eight hundred in the bank. If we repeat that each year, Mam, we’ll be wealthy ranchers with a herd of fine black Anguses, and horses the likes of which no one on these hick plains will have ever seen. I’ll enter my horses in shows, and we’ll collect one blue ribbon after another. I’ll take them to state fairs and festivals in all the local towns.”

  “Ach, Hannah, I don’t want to burst your bubble with my everlasting realism, but didn’t Clay mention the fact that the Angus mothers have a harder time birthing their calves? I think we need to consider that.
Perhaps divide the sum in half. We may have dead calves, or more unfortunate things. Maybe a hard winter.”

  “We have stacks and stacks of hay. If it gets too cold, they’ll find their way to the barn. The Jenkinses’ cows do. I’ll ride every day, find the expectant mothers, bring them in, and sleep in the barn if I have to. I’ll do anything, Mam. Anything to pull us out of poverty and depending on other people’s charity.”

  There was a fierce light in Hannah’s dark eyes, the set of her shoulders like granite. It frightened Sarah, this steely resolve. Unbreakable. Without bending to anyone’s will. The reason she was so furious with Clay, Sarah thought, was she probably had meant to show him all she had learned, and with Pete. Well, it was sad.

  How well she remembered instances during Hannah’s school years. Bloodied knees, a black eye, torn clothing, notes from harried teachers needing help.

  Once, she’d struck out in baseball and yelled and yelled about the unfairness of the pitch—too high or too low. Then she lost her temper completely, threw a stone, and hit the pitcher’s shin, resulting in a serious injury.

  Expelled from school, believing she was being treated unfairly, she never forgave the teacher fully, which always bothered Mose. He believed Hannah would not be forgiven if she didn’t learn to forgive, even at the tender age of twelve. He’d repeatedly made her copy the Lord ’s Prayer, over and over, until her head drooped and fell on the tabletop. Her breathing slowed and became shallow as she fell into a deep sleep.

  Sarah remembered watching her lovely daughter in repose. A beautiful tyrant. And Hannah was still was just that. She could never be described as a sweet girl, not even a good-natured one. Half the days of her life were spent either irked at someone or feeling she had been unfairly treated. Perhaps it was well that she would never marry. Perhaps it was God’s will that she live her life alone, growing old and presiding over her own ranch without the added nuisance of a husband, which was all the poor man would amount to. Sarah wondered about this Jerry Riehl—or was it King? What had she called him? Had he been the reason for her black, nightmarish mood? No, it wasn’t possible.