by Linda Byler
Hannah told Manny that was all right for someone like them. They could afford it. The Jenkinses’ rangy herd was too tough to die. They’d probably gain weight eating snow. She would not let go of the shed idea until Manny agreed to help her set poles and cut logs.
That was where Hod and his boys found them on a cold, dry October day, whacking away on some trees by the dry creek bed. Hod stopped his horse, his eyes quiet beneath his hat, watching Hannah as she laid down the axe and walked over to meet them. “Still puttin’ up firewood, are you?” he asked.
Hannah shook her head and pulled the thin, patched coat tighter around her middle. Manny tipped back his battered straw hat and grinned up at the riders, his unfailing good humor intact. “We’re cutting poles for a shelter for the cows,” he informed them.
Clay spoke quickly, “Don’t need no shelter.”
Hannah chose to ignore him and turned her attention to Hod instead. “We can’t afford to lose cows this winter. I thought if they have a shelter, they’d be able to survive. All of them.”
Hod chuckled, a soft and low sound tinged with pity. “Clay’s right. The Longhorns don’t need no shelter. But you got the makings of a high-class herd, same’s them other neighbors. They baby them cows. Same way with you. Yer gonna have to.”
Hank, the quiet one, spoke up. “Don’t know how you aimin’ to set them poles. Ground’s hard as a rock.”
Hod nodded. “Ain’t gonna be done. Not without a diggin’ machine, which gets mighty expensive.”
“We have money,” Hannah said forcefully, hating the indication to their former shame, their hunger and desperation.
“Wal, if’n yer bent on havin’ a shelter, then you best build yerselfs a lean-to on the southeast side o’ the barn. That don’t require no diggin’ into the ground.”
Hannah drew down her eyebrows, bit her lower lip. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Of course it would work. She wasn’t about to tell them though. And she didn’t, either.
Manny, of course, in his humble, guileless way, laughed and said, of course, of course, a great idea. That rankled Hannah, this being dependent on other people’s ideas. She asked them why the southeast side. How did they know which direction the storms would approach? Take the blizzard of last year. There was no direction. The snow swirled and roared from everywhere.
Clay corrected her by saying there is always a direction. Hannah gave him a black look and said she didn’t agree with him. His answer was swift and solid. “Who lived here on the plains the longest? You’ve only been here less than a coupla years, which, to my mind, pretty well labels all of you as greenhorns.” This was said with a condescension that made Hannah so angry she wanted to rip him off his horse and … and, well, pound him with her fists.
Greenhorns! Who did he think he was? “We’re not exactly new here. We survived, which is more than some folks do. Some don’t last a year,” she ground out.
Hod nodded, chuckled. “That’s true, Hannah. True enough.”
She cast Clay a look of triumph, but he was gazing steadily across the grass to the horizon, his mind elsewhere. As if she was a pesky fly buzzing around his head, she thought. They were all riding into Pine later that day for a beef barbeque at Rocher’s Hardware. Did they want to come along?
Hannah wanted to go. Manny’s eyes shone, thinking of going to town, meeting new people and tasting the local barbeque.
“S’ gonna be bull riding and calf roping.”
Sarah said no. Their father would not want them to go. His words spoke to her from his grave. He wanted to keep his children pure, unsullied by the world, to avoid all appearances of evil.
Her face serene and calm, Sarah spoke quietly of the Amish tradition of staying away from groups of worldly people who entertain themselves with unseemly activities. There would be music, which was a form of sin, and girls wearing jeans, uncouth men. No, it was no place for any of her children. If they obeyed her, they would stay at home.
“Just this once, Mam. Just out of curiosity. Please let us go,” Hannah begged, her voice rising in a childish whine.
Eli and Mary watched, their eyes large and wondering. Manny took his mother’s words as his law, his own conscience forbidding it if his deceased father had spoken of it. He could not go against his mother’s wishes.
Sarah recognized this, knew the difference in her son and daughter. Hannah said she wanted to see the Rochers. They’d wonder what became of her. She was worried about Doris, knowing how easily she slipped into her melancholy state. “She probably misses me. Perhaps she needs me still, to work in the store or to clean her house.”
Sarah would not budge. “No. You can visit Harry and Doris Rocher any other time. Stay away from the goings-on in town.”
All afternoon Hannah struggled with her own will. She walked around by the southeast side of the barn and got nothing accomplished. How did the Jenkinses figure they’d get poles in the ground here, if they couldn’t do it on the prairie? The ground was just as dry here as anywhere else. Sometimes those Jenkinses just irked her. Know it alls.
Well, if they thought an addition to the barn was in order, then they could dig the holes themselves. She wasn’t going to do it.
Later that evening, she rode out on Pete, freshly bathed, wearing the triangle of dark blue on her head, a laundered and ironed blue dress with no apron, Manny’s denim trousers beneath her skirt, telling her mother she was going to check on the cows.
Her hair was done to perfection, swept up along the sides and pinned in a bun low on the back of her head.
Sarah knew she was not checking on cows. Not after all that bathing and dressing. “Hannah, if you are going to town, please wear a head covering and a black apron, as our Ordnung requires.” Hannah shrugged her shoulders and let herself out of the door without another word.
Sarah knew there would be no sleep that night. Hannah would be riding Pete for many hours. It would turn colder and she had only the light denim coat. Well, she would have to go out and sow her wild oats. She would have to learn the hard lessons all by herself. Her daughter’s will of stone left her helpless, and her inability to guide and nurture Hannah was maddening.
Left alone with a thousand fears, a thousand thoughts of all the evil Hannah was subjecting herself to, was a new form of torture. Acceptance brought the realization that it was a necessary torture, this taming of Hannah.
Manny was furious, wanting to ride after her and bring her back. His frustration brightened his eyes with unshed, little-boy tears, but the set of his shoulders reminded Sarah of his impending manhood. Dear Emanuel. So much like Mose. So easy to love, to lay down his life for them. How could one child differ so much from another? She knew the tallest order was to love Hannah as she loved Manny. How could she, when the love she tried to give was flung back, discarded, unaccepted so much of the time?
Hannah rode hard, the cooling late afternoon air biting through her thin jacket. She followed the accustomed route along the dirt roads, now ground to a gray layer of dust, the dry, gray weeds hanging their heads by the side of the road as if taking the blame for the drought.
The road that led to the Klasserman ranch, the outer reaches of rusted barbed wire fence of the Jenkins ranch—she recognized it all and figured she’d have no problem returning, with the formation of the stars to guide her.
An exhilaration bloomed in her chest, like a white prairie flower touched by the morning sun. She was free and had won that freedom by asserting herself quietly, without anger or argument. She was old enough to be her own boss now, going on eighteen the way she was.
Enough of this thing of listening to her father’s voice. He wasn’t here. He was gone. Well, in Heaven, of course, but not here to tell her what was what.
They were just so old-fashioned, so anciently behind the times. There was nothing wrong with an evening of clean entertainment. So, well-fortified by her own cloud of justification, Hannah rode into the town of Pine, tied Pete to a clump of trees by the livery stable, and turn
ed to enjoy the sights and sounds of a Western night in town.
The Rochers, of course, were delighted to see their Hannah back again. Harry grabbed her in a warm embrace, holding court over the large barbeque pit, his breath smelling strange and sour, which she suspected was due to an alcoholic beverage.
Immediately, the shame of her father’s whiskey-making crowded out the cheers of the onlookers as Harry Rocher introduced Hannah to his loyal friends, Doris slipping a thin arm around her waist and kissing her cheek. The wonder of being loved and accepted by these friendly people erased the shame that had washed over her, so she turned a blushing, glowing face to the crowd, her large dark eyes with their lustrous light of excitement so beautiful that it took real effort for more than one man to turn their attention to their wives and keep it there.
She ate a plateful of the most delicious beef she had ever eaten. She ate a baked potato and applesauce, beans and homemade noodles. There were pies and cakes, cupcakes and cookies, breads and cinnamon rolls. Doris plied her with food, and more food. She begged her to come back and clean her house. Over and over, she did this, without taking no for an answer, her eyes too bright, her face pale and tired.
Hannah knew she should resist and tell this woman no. She had enough to do at home if she wanted to be a successful homesteader. But a part of her longed for the activities of town. Watching the ordinary people, labeled worldly, wearing dresses with pretty flowers and fashionable plaids, smoking cigarettes and cutting their hair, being allowed to do all these things without the threat of damnation hanging over their heads.
They were free and easy, conversation mixed with gossip and goodwill, enjoying the elbow room of their world. There were no restraints, no Ordnung. They could do as they pleased, every day. No wonder it seemed everyone was so happy.
There was an allure for Hannah. She felt the strong undertow of the world, beckoning her to come and taste this life of privilege. Being born Amish was not fair. She felt the harness of her birth, an uncomfortable slot where she was wedged tightly into a stall of expectation, the path of her life chosen by someone else, dictated and ordered by the authority that manipulated her parents’ consciences as well as her own.
When the music began and the dancers swirled and stomped into an intricate pattern of color and movement, she could not hold her feet still. Sitting on the sidelines, erect, showing no emotion except for her eyes and the two bright spots of color on her cheeks, she carefully hid the movement of her feet. It was all so festive, so wonderfully lighthearted and carefree. The homestead and its cares, worries about the approaching winter, the safety of the cows, wolves and coyotes, all crumbled and fell away, as her heart swelled with the emotion of plucked guitars, drums, and harmonicas, a deep voice singing of a love gone wrong.
Had her love gone wrong? The love of her faith, her Amish heritage? Guilt stabbed her chest as she sat there on the metal folding chair, disobedient, leaving her mother and Manny at home to worry far into the night.
When she felt a presence beside her, she looked up to find Clay Jenkins, blond and handsome, clean-shaven, an invitation in his eyes.
“Dance with me, Hannah?”
Her eyes turned black with refusal, her tone clipped and severe. “No, I can’t.”
“You can’t, or you don’t know how?”
“What’s the difference?”
“No, I mean yer religion. Or you never danced.”
Down came her eyebrows and up came her chin. “I’ve danced.”
“Well, come on then.”
Her pride held her to the metal chair, resulting in a firm shake of her head, eyes lowered.
“You’re just being stubborn.”
A short girl with fiery red hair and a brilliant green flowered dress sashayed over to grab Clay’s hand. “Clay, you haven’t asked me to dance. What’s wrong with you?”
“Hey, Jennie! Good to see you!” He grabbed her around her waist and whirled her away. Soon they were lost among the couples who whirled around the grassy town square, the smoke of the barbeque pit from Rocher’s Hardware low above their heads, like a mist.
Hannah’s eyes narrowed. There they were. Clay was holding her much too close. Jealousy and anger were hard to tell apart, but whatever it was, Hannah knew there was no way that Jennie was going to have the upper hand with Clay while she sat there like the dowdy Amish girl no one wanted. Jennie wasn’t that pretty. Too short, for one thing.
Clay circled around, his eyes looking for her, and when he found her, they were a taunt, a mockery. See, Hannah, I can have anyone I choose.
It was too much. Like a boat tied to a dock, the winds blew and loosened the rope of restraint.
It was inevitable that he would ask her again. When he did, she rose, placed her hand in his and was brought up close by a firm hand on her waist, swept away among the crowd of dancers, a dreamlike quality enveloping her senses and erasing every negative thought.
How could anything like this be a sin? She was carried away with the looks of admiration cast their way. She knew what a startling couple they made, Clay so tall and blond and handsome, she almost as tall and dark as he was light. She reveled in the music, the joy of movement, the crisp barbeque scented evening air, being so close to Clay.
She had no trouble keeping up with the best of the dancers, whirled away from Clay on the arms of many other men who cut in, asking her to dance. She never tired, just wanted to keep dancing all night, waiting till daylight to ride home.
When it got late, the band played their farewell piece and amid thunderous applause, began to pack away their instruments.
Clay told her he would ride home with her and she accepted gladly. The night seemed very dark, the moon only a crescent that did nothing to light anything.
Without speaking, he walked her to the livery stable, saddled Pete for her as she stood watching, then went to get his own horse. She stopped to talk to Harry and Doris and promised to ride into town every Tuesday and spend the day cleaning or working in the store for a small wage. Harry promised to drive out and bring her back in the car, if her mother would allow it.
At the mention of her mother, and the word allow, the fairy tale of her evening of dancing in Clay’s arms evaporated, leaving her heavy with dejection and an unnamed feeling of yearning.
She bid the Rochers a goodnight, and rode away with Clay, the lights of the town and its magnetism slowly fading in the distance.
The only sound was the dull clopping of the horse’s hooves, the creak of leather, and the occasional yelp of a coyote. Hannah shivered beneath her thin jacket. She noticed that Clay had donned a heavy coat with a collar that looked like sheep skin. The cold night brought back the monumental worry of the fast approaching winter.
“I meant to ask your father—in the time of drought, are there winter storms, like usual? Or is the winter dry as well?”
“It depends. You can’t tell. You gotta take it as it comes.”
Hannah nodded, then realized he couldn’t see that gesture, so she said, “Yes.”
He remained quiet, after that, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Inwardly, she picked up the pieces of the responsibilities she had left behind when she rode into town. She came down to earth with a solid jolt, placed firmly back with her family, the homestead and, yes, her heritage.
She was a daughter of Mose Detweiler, the son of Mose Detweiler before him, born into a faith that would stand the test of time. Would she, herself, be able to stay true, to stand the same test? Tonight had been powerful and all-consuming; the desire for all things forbidden was too strong. She’d pulled away from her moorings, and now, with Clay beside her, she felt the loss of direction, the heaving and swelling of these turbulent waters. Waves crested around her, doubt pushing them over her creaking boat, almost sinking her.
What had her father always said? A doubter is unfaschtendich in all his ways. He is tossed about like the waves of the sea.
There it was, the thing she resisted the most wedging its way into h
er conscience—the voice of her father. Wryly, she shook her head, the darkness a comforting cloak. They stopped their horses at the corner where the barbed wire fence met the edge of the road.
“Should I ride on home with you?” Clay asked.
“No. There’s no need.”
“Well, Hannah, thanks for the dance.” He guided his horse over until he could reach out and pull her close. She closed her eyes as he whispered, “I love you, you know.”
Immediately she turned Pete and kicked the stirrups into his sides, startling the poor animal into an uneven gait that was mostly a headlong dash into the night. Tears poured down her face, the rushing night wind drying them as they fell.
Clay sat on his horse and listened to the disappearing hoof beats, shaking his head soberly before turning his horse and riding off.
Hannah rode blindly, allowing Pete to find his way in the dark, the battle within creating her helpless tears. Yes, she could love Clay, could probably be his wife, if she chose to do that. But she wasn’t prepared for this evening, and now here she was, at loose ends and thoroughly rattled. She had to be careful, calculate every angle, same as with raising cattle.
Perhaps love came down on you like a winter storm, and if you weren’t prepared, you’d perish, unprotected. She had to be very careful. She had to consider the truth. Her responsibility to her mother. The homestead.
Tonight had been a time away, a reprieve, a rest from the hard beating of the odds, surviving the prairie winter.
Foolish. She’d been foolish. Slipped off the path, in more ways than one. As this truth settled about her shoulders, cloaking her like a too-snug shawl, she shrugged, and then decided that all decisions were made wisely as the need arose. The time had not yet come to be forced into a decision.
Pete loped steadily along into the night. Hannah settled into his easy rocking gait as the cold wind spoke of the long prairie winter and whispered of snow and storm and fury.