The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  Owen unhitched the sturdy brown horse and loosened the bull that had been tied to the spring wagon with a length of sturdy rope through the ring in his nose. “He’s tired out, this vun,” he chortled. “He had to run avays.” True to his word, they led the black bull meekly to the tank, and released him, where he immediately stuck his chin over the side and began to drink.

  Owen stood with his thumbs hooked in his fiery red suspenders and eyed the sturdy windmill, his florid face lifted to watch the spinning metal panels as they whirred against the blue sky. He checked the engine, the tank, and the large steel handle to shut off the turning wheel when the tank overflowed.

  “Ach, du lieva! Dat is qvite da setup.” He clucked and shook his head, walked around the sturdy concrete base to view the windmill from different angles, and asked who the company was that designed this thing.

  Manny told him, gleeful, pleased to announce the fine craftsmanship of the Amish in Lancaster County.

  Hannah wished she could elbow him in the ribs to get him to shut his mouth. Next thing, that whole crew would be out here again. Likely Mam would put them up and cook for them. Half the country would want a new windmill, and Ben Miller and Ike Lapp would bring their families and take up permanent residence. Bennie and Davey would both want to marry her, and that simply was not going to happen!

  Owen Klasserman was taken by that windmill, like a fish with a hook embedded in its lower lip, reeled in to lay flopping on the creek bank. He looked up, muttered to himself and put four fingers into the cold water in the tank. He kept shaking his head, his blue eyes mere slashes of calculating light.

  “Vot you say diss cost?” he asked shrewdly.

  Manny shrugged his shoulders, his hands in his pockets. Hannah knew but she wasn’t about to tell him. “You can’t afford it,” she said, cold as ice.

  Owen’s face whipped around to face her, his eyes opened to twice their normal size, his mouth turned into a perfect pink O. “Oh, ho, ho, Miss. You vatch me.”

  “Ben Miller is busy. He can hardly keep up with the demand.”

  Owen watched Hannah shrewdly. “I vait till spring. I vant to see hos dis operate in winter. How you gonna keep all dis ice avay.”

  “Break it,” Hannah replied abruptly.

  “Ah, ha. Outta da mouth of babes. You vait. Dis prairie put de Ben Miller to de test. Ah, hah.”

  They made an uneasy pact with Owen’s announcement to delay till spring. Hannah’s icy manner upped the cost of the bill by another fifty dollars, which she didn’t need to know. That girl needed her wings clipped. Like a banty hen, she was.

  Sarah wrote the check, thinking the amount was more than she’d bargained for, but didn’t say anything. Hannah glared at Owen with large, black eyes as he pocketed the check, and he threw her a frosty look in response.

  He mellowed somewhat, though, as Sarah set a wide slice of apple pie in front of him, accompanied by a cup of steaming black coffee. Sylvia asked if she had cream and sugar, Owen would appreciate it, and Hannah thought you could tell by his size that he wouldn’t drink it black.

  She thought of Clay, tall and lean, drinking coffee out of a thick, ironstone mug in Abby’s kitchen, his blue eyes watching her without letting her know how he felt about her, now that she was back.

  Sarah loved Sylvia’s company. The sheer volume of her words and her heavy German accent were so auhaemlich, it reminded her of home and growing up among German descendants, with the flat, drawn-out vowels they uttered because the intricacies of the English language could be so hard to master. The only downside was that when speaking with Sylvia, Sarah could easily lapse into Pennsylvania Dutch, mixing it with English, sometimes in the same sentence, just like they did at home. But native-speaking Germans could not follow it.

  Sylvia had brought schnitz und knepp, a dish Sarah had not eaten since the first move. Dried apples cooked with chunks of home-cured ham and spices, with a covering of thick, floury dumplings called knepp.

  Sylvia also brought a pie made with thickened canned peaches that were baked into a pie crust sprinkled thickly with sugar, like sand. And lebkucken: butter cookies so heavy with shortening they fell apart.

  The conversation flowed, Sarah’s face became rich with color, laughter sparkling in her eyes, treating Sylvia like a sister.

  Hannah didn’t like schnitz und knepp. Whoever had come up with the idea of cooking ham with boiled dried apples, dark and curdled? That person surely had nothing else in the house to make for supper.

  Hannah ate only a small slice of the peach pie, carefully scraping off some of the sugar and thinking it was small wonder this German couple resembled clean, pink pigs. But she didn’t say it.

  Sylvia had a fit about the house. She couldn’t believe what a difference it made—the wall board and paint, the varnish on the newly sanded floors, curtains and colorful handmade rugs. A sink with a counter for Sarah to cook, roll out dough, and make pies and bread.

  “Blessed. Blessed among vimmen. Eye-ya-yi. Viss da poor man dead and gone, so many udder blessings.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and snickered. Sarah threw her a dark look. After the Klassermans took their leave, she turned to Hannah and delivered a firm lecture on good manners and resisted Hannah’s pouting around after that.

  When Hod and Abby came over a few days later, Hannah was in a better frame of mind—until she found out why they were visiting. They wanted a windmill!

  Hod had won Abby over. She sat in the armless rocker and held Baby Abby on her lap, cooing and making the most ridiculous baby talk, which always came as a surprise to Hannah. This wiry, little woman, tough as nails, was reduced to the softness of flowery baby talk.

  Abby loved this baby, who was growing up too fast. Her very own namesake was already crawling on the floor, prattling to herself, and stealing Abby Jenkins’s heart so thoroughly that she never regained it.

  Eli and Mary were fond of Abby Jenkins too. She always carried hard candies in her apron pocket for them. She asked about their schooling, her lined face softening like stiff dough turned out to rise. Her boys had grown up too fast, away from her, lured by the cows and horses, the vast land, and the excitement of every season. Crazy bulls and diseased animals, lost calves and thunderstorms, rodeos and bull riding.

  A mother had to harden her heart after she realized she meant no more to her boys than a means of being fed and keeping clean, patched jeans and denim shirts in their dresser drawers. She’d thought she was through with the young ‘uns till these people arrived needing help, and the poor, innocent children as hungry as calves without proper milk, and the poor father dead now. And now Hod’s hankerin’ after this windmill.

  Hannah heard Hod asking for an address. She watched her mother, always ready to accommodate, produce a white envelope, pleased to help her neighbors acquire a new windmill like theirs. Hannah’s eyes smoldered. She slouched in her chair and wished her mother would stop being so eager to serve everyone, so happy to help out their neighbors.

  She’d been right about one thing. They’d have that whole bunch living out here right under their noses, just when Mam was loosening some of the restrictions of the Ordnung. Hannah had taken to wearing a dress without an apron and a small men’s handkerchief on her head instead of a white covering. It was much more practical when riding a horse, cutting firewood, and forking hay, all of which turned a thin white covering positively gray.

  You watch, she thought balefully, glaring at her mother’s kind face. They’ll arrive in droves, and I’ll be back to keeping the Ordnung to the letter. Black apron pinned around my waist, white covering on my head. She knew her mother would live by her neighbors’ consciences, her neighbors’ scrutiny, crumpling beneath the gasps of fadenkas. “What would they think?” she would ask. According to Hannah, they could think what they wanted. If she felt better wearing a men’s handkerchief on her head, then she would wear it.

  Although she didn’t know if she could ever turn her heart into the stone that would be necessary to tu
rn her back and leave the faith, bringing a deep and penetrating grief to her mother. That was a leap across a yawning chasm, a division that had to be done by pushing love and obedience to the side, perhaps never to find it again.

  If she chose that route, would the freedom to do what she wanted really be worth it in the end? Would it be worth casting aside the ways she had been taught?

  Well, she sure couldn’t tell now, with that Clay acting as if he’d never known her, let alone kissed her, and acting as if he couldn’t bear the thought of her returning to Pennsylvania. Now here she was, back again, and him as hard to figure out as a thunderstorm. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t understand why he even came around, sitting at the kitchen table with Hod as if nothing had ever passed between them.

  He had about as many feelings for her as he did for Manny. Good neighbors, good buddies, and that was it. She watched Hod’s moustache droop into his coffee cup and thought that this is what Clay would look like down the road, lifting that row of hairs, beaded with moisture, out of the scalding liquid.

  She swallowed and thought, “Ew.” No, marriage was not for her. She had no plans of ever becoming dependent on another person. That was all marriage was. The joining of two hearts was just a nice way of putting it. What it really amounted to was just about the opposite. You lived with someone who had a big moustache or a large sunburned nose, or trousers that were too short, and let him direct your days, weeks, and months until he took over your whole life like a thief, and you weren’t even aware of it.

  It was yes dear, no dear, I don’t know dear, until your whole self was numb and you didn’t own a thought in your head. She’d never be happy like that. So, she resolved firmly, there would be no more quiet moments, no stolen times with Clay. If he loved her the way he tried to say before, he’d come around, and then he’d be in for a surprise. Sorry, sir.

  Take Hod and Abby, for instance. She didn’t want that windmill. Knew they couldn’t afford it. The old wooden one still served its purpose. Besides, those longhorns could go days without water, like camels. But what always happens in the end? The woman give in, her words amounting to a soap bubble that rose out of the dish water and popped. And they weren’t even Amish!

  She thought Hod looked at her mother too much, so she got up and went outside, saddled Pete, and rode out to check on the cattle. She loved the word cattle. More than one cow. That’s right. They had fourteen head of cattle. One big, mad cow, one unbranded bull, ten young heifers, and two bred heifers.

  She wasn’t sure how they would brand that bull. It seemed dangerous, no matter how mild his temperament. She’d ask the Jenkins boys. See how aloof Clay remained.

  The day was perfect except for the sadness of the brittle, brown grass rasping together, the sound of no rain. Little puffs of dust rose from Pete’s hooves. The wind was full of dust particles and the smell of it. She had meant to ask Hod if there would be snow in the middle of his predicted few years of no rain.

  She could see the black bodies of their cattle, like lumps of coal on a great bed of hay. She rode on among them, turning to watch their ceaseless tearing at the dry grass, their long, rough tongues wrapping around it and ripping it away from the roots—chewing, chewing.

  How many cattle would 320 acres support if it didn’t rain? She’d ask Hod that question too. Wisps of dark hair loosened themselves from beneath her kerchief, the sleeves of her dress rippled in the stiff breeze. She should have brought a coat, a light shawl, or something, as chilly as it felt out here.

  There was the new bull, easily found by its short, thick neck and rounded muscular shoulders that displayed his power. What a good bloodline they would have, Hannah thought. For miles around, their calves would be known. A goal, a dream. She’d make it a reality.

  There was the large, black cow tearing peacefully at the grass, ignoring the horse and rider, intent on the business of filling her stomach. Or stomachs. Cows had two of them.

  She thought Sylvia and Owen Klasserman might have two stomachs, as much as they ate.

  Satisfied that all was well, she turned Pete back to the barn, her eyes searching the horizon for anything unusual. There was nothing, only the waving grass and the level horizon, the sky like a giant blue bowl above her. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing. To the east, the north, or the south. To the west were small brown lumps, the buildings of the homestead, their shelter for the coming winter. With chickens in their coop, cows roaming the acres, a milk cow in the barnyard, two horses, a wagon, a windmill, and a well, they were on their way.

  Chills raised the fine hairs on her arms and ran along her spine. Anything was possible. Anything. Or impossible, if you chose to see it that way.

  On the horizon now there was a shape, then a brown horse, the rider low in the saddle, the hat.

  Clay Jenkins. If she would have been on any other horse, she may have been able to outrun him, but with Pete, there was no chance. So she sat, staring straight ahead, keeping her horse at a walk. She heard the dull clopping of hoof beats, the rustling of dry, brown grass, then heard her name, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Hey!”

  Slowly, she turned her head, the smile on her face forced and frozen. “Clay.”

  “What are you doin’ out here by yourself?”

  “What does it look like?”

  He was close enough that she smelled the sweat off his lathered horse, heard the creaking of leather, the squeak of wood where the stirrups rubbed the leather bands that held them.

  “I guess checkin’ on the cows.”

  “Right.”

  There was an awkward silence, with only the sound of the wind in her ears, the snort from one of the horses as he cleared his nostrils.

  “So how they doin’?”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah, Hannah. A nice lookin’ bunch. Decoratin’ the plains with yer herd. All the same black color. Not an ugly one in the bunch. You wait though. Them Angus don’t winter over so good. Come spring, you’ll have a heap of trouble, come birthin’ time. Angus is the hardest to birth.”

  Hannah was too busy swallowing her fury to give him the comfort of a reply. He thought he knew everything. Just everything.

  When she didn’t answer, he said, “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.”

  “Well, go ahead. I’m not talking to you.”

  “What was that?”

  “Go away, Clay Jenkins. Just go home and leave me alone. If you rode over to make fun of my herd of Angus, then just leave.”

  “That’s not what I come over for. My folks is at yer house.”

  “I know.”

  “Plus, I thought I might have time to catch you alone. Sort of take up where we left off, if you know what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. We were getting to be more than just friends. Getting to know each other better. Hopin’ to know you even more, here shortly.”

  “It would be a waste of your time, Clay.”

  “Why?”

  “I am never getting married. I have no intentions of being anyone’s wife. Especially not yours, you being different from me. From our way of life.”

  Why was it that she so hated to use the words English and Amish? Like Angus and Longhorn, Hereford and Holstein. A labeling of a different breed, when they were all cows. So it was with humans, a label, a brand, the telling apart one from another. A necessity?

  “You sound like you mean it,” Clay said, quietly.

  “I do.”

  “So if I come around tryin’ to get sweet on you, it’s a waste of my time? Is that what yer sayin’?”

  When she nodded, she didn’t look at him, knowing that if she did, it might well be her undoing. She knew the allure those blue eyes held, the look that came from beneath the brim of his brown Stetson. If she wanted to live life on her own terms, she had to watch her boundaries and know her limits.

  In love, things were much the same as they were in finances and in the running of a successful ho
mestead: You had to calculate and plan carefully. You couldn’t afford any craziness. If you got caught unprepared, the way she’d been knocked off her feet by that Jerry Riehl, you wouldn’t stay true to your goal.

  She put that incident out of her mind, kicked her heels against an unsuspecting Pete’s sides, and rode away from Clay, the triangle of the men’s handkerchief on her head fluttering a farewell to the young man who leaned forward in the saddle, his forearms crossed in front of him, a light in his blue eyes, and a chuckle rumbling from his throat.

  CHAPTER 25

  The cold did not come gradually. One day, it was chilly, and you wished for a shawl when you rode out. The next week there was a band of frost like spiderwebs around the perimeter of the water tank.

  Hannah got down to the serious business of preparing for winter. She would think the worst and prepare for blizzards. She worried about the amount of hay stacked to the west of the barn, whether it would amount to sufficient food for the cows. She fretted about this to her mother and Manny, saying if they had very many storms the size of the one they had had the previous winter, the cattle would not survive. They could not afford to lose one cow.

  Sarah watched the shifting anxiety in her daughter’s dark eyes and told her quietly to place her trust in God. He was the One who would see them through the winter, and if they were meant to prosper, they would.

  Hannah ground her teeth to keep the onslaught of rebellious words inside, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings. But there it was again—so much like her father.

  Well, they’d go ahead and place their trust in God, but someone would have to think and plan ahead and then do the work. She asked Manny if he thought they could erect a shelter for the cows, a lean-to, sort of. Put heavy poles in the ground and cover them with sawed lumber and some tin for a roof.

  They asked Owen Klasserman about a shelter. He said the cows could usually take care of themselves if they had the lee side of a barn and some haystacks. Here in the West, it was normal to lose a few cows over the winter, especially young ones. With wolves and coyotes prowling, you couldn’t expect to keep them all.