Hattie Big Sky

by Kirby Larson

  I laughed, too. “That reminds me of Chase. Last time he was over, he helped me with the supper dishes. Nearly talked my ear off about how he was going to invent a washing machine for dishes someday.” I brushed at a bluebottle buzzing at my head. “Of course, knowing Chase, he’ll do it.”

  “That’s one sharp mind that boy has.” Leafie watched her feet as she picked her way down the coulee.

  We were both quiet for a bit, no doubt thinking the same thing. You could line up all the boys in Dawson County and not find a brighter one than Chase. But since the incident with his fairy-tale book, he’d stopped going to school. No amount of pleading by Perilee could shift his mind. I’d tried reasoning with him, too. “I can learn more at home,” he’d said. “On my own.” And he was probably right about that. But it troubled me that a small boy would be forced out of school by a bunch of bullies.

  “That’s Elmer’s place down there.”

  The Ren house was sturdier built than my cabin; from here, it appeared to have several rooms. As I got closer, I could see that three old homestead shacks had been fitted together to make the oddest-shaped house I’d ever seen. But it was fresh painted, and chintz curtains hung in the windows.

  Mabel Ren was a sparrow of a woman, flitting here and there the minute we arrived. “Mabel, sit down and drink your coffee,” Leafie scolded. “We didn’t come to be waited on.”

  “I haven’t had company in a long time,” Mabel said. She showed us the quilt she was piecing for the county fair.

  “Perilee and I are working on one together,” I told her. “For the baby.” I admired Mabel’s tight stitches, feathered out in a very unusual pattern. “I’ve never seen this before.”

  “I made it up,” she answered. “It reminded me of a curlew’s feather.”

  “That it does,” said Leafie. “This is blue-ribbon work.” I nodded agreement.

  Mabel smiled shyly. She reached for the coffeepot. “More coffee?”

  Leafie held her hand over her cup. “No, thanks. We’re on our way to see Perilee.” Leafie patted her basket. “Made her some sagebrush tea and some tamarack syrup.”

  Mabel wrapped up some biscuits and a rasher of bacon. “Take this to her, please. She was so good to us when our Bernice took sick.”

  There was a commotion out of doors. Mabel turned to the window. “Elmer!” She dropped the package for Perilee and ran outside.

  “That little dickens, what’s he done now?” Leafie trundled after her. I followed the both of them, only to see that it wasn’t Elmer junior who was the cause of the commotion this time. Elmer senior was with Deputy Patton in the yard, along with another man I didn’t know.

  “Blast it, Elmer,” the deputy hollered. “You know you got to register for the draft.”

  “I got a family and a farm,” Elmer senior hollered back.

  “So do lots of other men,” replied the deputy. “But the law’s the law. Ages twenty-one to thirty-one. I gotta arrest anyone who hasn’t signed up.”

  “I’m thirty-two,” Elmer said.

  “Says here you were twenty-nine when you registered to vote,” said the other man. “Two years ago, in ’16.”

  Deputy Patton let fly a stream of tobacco juice that landed next to Elmer’s work boot. “I only went to sixth grade, but even I know twenty-nine plus two equals thirty-one.”

  “I’ve got a family. And my wife’s still weak after the baby.”

  “Elmer,” Mabel called from the porch.

  Elmer turned to face her. “Go inside, Mabel.” At that moment, both men slid off their horses and grabbed him.

  “Let him go!” Elmer junior came running from the barn, brandishing a hoe. “Let my daddy go!”

  “Now, son,” said the deputy, “stand back there. We’re just going to give your daddy a ride to town.”

  “Leave him be!” The boy rushed at the men, slashing at the air with his weapon.

  “Junior!” both his parents called at the same time.

  “Put that down now,” ordered his father.

  “Papa, don’t leave us!” Junior dropped the hoe. “Please!” He reached his arms for his father, now tied, being lifted onto the deputy’s horse.

  Elmer sat ramrod straight. He didn’t take his eyes off Mabel as the horse wheeled and they started off. Junior, hysterical now, ran after him. “Papa! Papa!”

  The horses picked up the pace.

  “Son!” Mabel called out to him frantically. “Come back. You hear?”

  But the boy ran all the faster.

  “Junior!” Mabel hurried off the porch and started after him. “Come here.”

  The distance between him and the horses grew longer and longer. The men nudged their rides back up the coulee. Junior kept running, wiry arms pumping up and down like tractor pistons. The riders were now out of sight. But still he ran. As he crested the coulee, he stumbled. Must have been a prairie dog hole. He fell hard and rolled down the hill.

  His mother caught up to him and cradled him in her arms. He yelped loud enough for us to hear.

  “That don’t sound good,” said Leafie. She hurried toward them. I grabbed her satchel. When she reached Mabel, she knelt down to Junior’s level.

  “Let Leafie take a look.” She spoke in the same tone Karl used when he needed to quiet his horses, Star and Joey. The boy’s sobs softened to pitiful hiccups, then spiked again to shrieks as Leafie felt his arm.

  “Broken,” she said quietly. I gave her everything she asked for out of her satchel, and soon she had the arm splinted.

  Mabel kept stroking her son’s hair. “You are so brave,” she said.

  “But I didn’t stop them.” He sniffled. “They took Papa away.”

  “It will be all right.” She bent to kiss his head. “Your father will be so proud of you.”

  Junior wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Mama, how long will he be gone?”

  She and Leafie exchanged a look. Leafie squeezed Mabel’s arm. “Why, you won’t even have time to miss him, he’ll be home that quick,” Leafie said brightly. “How do you feel about taffy?” she asked. “Because I have a wonderful idea. Why don’t you and I make a batch while Hattie here and your mother go see Reverend Schatz?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hardly knew Mabel. And I sure didn’t want to get mixed up in this. If Elmer was supposed to register—

  Mabel wiped her hands on her apron. “There’s no need to trouble Miss Brooks.”

  Leafie looked at me. Hard.

  I took in Mabel, how thin she was. Skin the color of wet muslin. “It’d be no trouble.”

  Junior held up his splinted arm. “How can I help with this?” he said.

  “Why,” said Leafie, “you can be the supervisor. Most important job of all.”

  The boy turned his head and stared off in the direction the deputy had taken his father. He sat that way for several moments. “Okay,” he said, standing up. “Papa likes peppermint taffy. Let’s make that kind.”

  “That’s the ticket.” Leafie brushed herself off, and I helped her to her feet.

  Several hours later, Mabel and I returned. Reverend Schatz would see about raising money for Elmer’s bond. “We should have him out of jail by tomorrow,” he had promised.

  We sat with Mabel over another pot of coffee, then Leafie and I gathered our things to make our way over to Perilee’s. I wish I had thought to speak the words that Leafie did as we left. “No matter what,” she said, picking up her satchel, “you got friends here. Friends help each other. You remember that.”

  Mabel nodded, then turned to go inside.

  All I could think of on that walk to Perilee’s were the puffed-up words of my latest installment to Mr. Miltenberger’s paper. I’d been inspired after reading a particularly gruesome report about Hun atrocities. Every man must do his duty, I’d written. What is the small sacrifice of leaving one’s family? Think of those Belgian babies and starving Frenchmen. It seemed so easy to tell nameless, faceless men to march off to war. But to tell Elme
r Ren, with a sick wife and too many children and his life tied up in 320 acres of Montana prairie, that he must leave all behind…that was a different story.

  “It’s no fun to beat you.” Rooster Jim put my king in check. “You didn’t even try.”

  “Sorry, Jim.” Chess was the last thing on my mind these days. I’d heard little Elmer’s arm was healing and his father’s bail had been raised. That was small comfort in light of the daily reports of troubling news. Three railroad workers had been thrown in jail for mocking a Liberty Bond poster, and a woman had been fined for sending twenty dollars to her mother in Germany. It’d gotten so that Karl rarely left their farm. Seemed as if folks were seeing German spies and seditionists under every patch of buffalo grass. As if these worries were not enough, there hadn’t been a drop of rain all month. I looked at my neighbor across the chessboard. “I guess this heat’s wearing on me.” I sipped at my iced tea. “The crops need some rain.”

  “Story of life out here,” he said, tipping back in his chair. “There’s always plenty of what you don’t need. That’s why folks call this next-year country. ’Cause next year, things will be better.” He rocked forward, landing the chair on all four legs. “Wait until summer. Hot ain’t the word for it. My pa used to say that hell would be a holiday for someone from eastern Montana.”

  Another week passed after Jim’s visit and still not a drop of rain. There’d been several more reports around town of people being accused of sedition. I couldn’t help but notice that most of the names of those being arrested or fined were German. And the paper was full of little notices like the one I’d just read: “Algot and Gudrun Solomonson were in the city on Monday to show their loyalty to their country by starting their son, Otto, off with a dollar’s worth of Thrift Stamps. Follow their fine example and teach your own young ones two great lessons—that of self-denial and of patriotism.” I had to wonder if there were Liberty Bonds and War Stamps enough for any Germans living here to prove their loyalty.

  These thoughts dropped on top of the hillock of crop worries in my heart. I’d been walking through the fields kicking up dust all day. Each dusty puff added to the all-too-familiar gnawing pain in my stomach. Every farmer I knew was dosing liberally with bicarbonate of soda to ease the same pain in their own stomachs. If we didn’t get some rain soon…

  I bent to yank up another bunch of cheatgrass. I’d been at it all day. Bushels full of that sneaky weed stood as testament to my labors. The jug of water I’d brought out had been drained dry hours before. Common sense told me to walk back and refill it at the pump. But the next patch of cheatgrass mocked me. We’ll beat you yet, it seemed to say. I’d go in soon for a break and some water. I breathed deeply, stretched, and bent down again, ignoring the thumping under my skull. My bonnet was a feeble shield against this sun. Haloes of light glowed at the edges of my vision, and my hands began to shake. I breathed again to clear my head. Perhaps I should go back for a bit. Yes. Back to the house. Out of the sun. I staggered forward. My house wavered like a mirage across the field. Was I really headed toward it? My legs buckled, and I fell face first in a row of flax.

  “Miss Brooks?” a male voice called from far away. “Hattie?” I felt a cool cloth being placed on my forehead.

  “I’m…all right.” If I kept my eyes closed and lay perfectly still, that is.

  “Sip this.” Strong arms tilted my head upward, and cool water slipped down my aching throat. I opened my eyes. And looked into Traft Martin’s face.

  “How…” I scrambled to sit up, but another wave of bile forced me down.

  “I saw you fall.” He set the cup down. “Must have been heatstroke.”

  I shook my head. Ouch. That hurt. “No. Stubbornness.”

  He smiled. His nice smile. “I’ve made up some vinegar water here. It’ll take the heat out of that burn.”

  I looked at my arms, took the cloth he offered to me, and dabbed at my arms. “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m glad I saw you,” he said. “Hate to think of you passed out there all night.”

  A shiver ran through me at the thought. “I’m glad you saw me, too.”

  “Are you feeling better?”

  I nodded.

  “Can I fix you something to eat before I go?” He looked around the room. “Or some tea?”

  “Tea would be nice,” I said, closing my eyes. Wait till Leafie and Perilee heard who had played nursemaid for me.

  Traft let me rest—I may have dozed off—while the water boiled and he made tea. “Here you go.” I shifted up in the bed, leaned my back against the wall, and took the mug.

  “Hope you don’t mind me fixing a cup for myself,” he said.

  “Of course not.” I was surprised. Not many of the men I knew drank tea. They mostly guzzled coffee. “What brought you out here, anyway?” I sipped the tea.

  He smiled that movie star smile of his. “Besides rescuing damsels in distress?” he asked.

  I felt my face color. It was no doubt as red as my arms.

  “I was actually riding out to see you. With a business proposition.” He blew on his tea. “This is probably not the time….”

  I rested the cup in my lap. “No time like the present, they say.”

  He nodded, then took a careful sip of tea. “I’ll get to the point.” He stared ahead with glazed eyes, as if looking out into the future. “I plan to grow the Tipped M Ranch into something big. Bigger than the Circle Ranch ever was.” He turned back to face me. “Maybe even bigger than that ranch they always talk about in Texas.”

  His eyes did glow with some kind of vision of the future. “That sounds quite ambitious,” I said.

  There must have been a question in my voice. “And you wonder why in tarnation I’m going on about this to you,” he said.

  “Not in those words exactly.”

  “Here’s my proposition. Your three hundred twenty acres butt up against the southwest corner of the Triple M. Even if you get something out of your crops this year”—he jerked his head in indication of the parched fields outside—“what will it be like next year? And the year after?”

  “I—” Truth was, I’d been so focused on making it to November, I hadn’t allowed myself to think down the road much farther than that.

  “I’m prepared to loan you eight hundred dollars so you can be done with the whole homestead headache.” He leaned toward me. “You take that eight hundred dollars and commute your claim. No more fences. No more backbreaking work.”

  “I’m not much for borrowing money,” I said.

  “Here’s the beauty of it.” He set his cup down. “You don’t have to! You take four hundred dollars to Ebgard and pay off the claim. It’s yours, right and proper. Then you come back and I forgive the loan.”

  “I don’t understand.” I shook my head. The numbers were flying too fast and furious. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you’d turn over the land to me.” His eyes shone brightly. “You’d be free of this millstone around your neck and ahead four hundred bucks to boot.”

  “I’d give you my land?”

  “No, you’d sell it.”

  “Why?” This was hard to follow with a throbbing head. “I mean, why do you want this land?”

  “I told you.” He sounded impatient. “So I can run cattle here.”

  “But my farm, my house…”

  “For four hundred dollars, you could buy yourself a sweet little house in town. Any town, for that matter. You wouldn’t have to work like a railroad man anymore.”

  “Move off my claim?” The words were finally sinking in.

  “You’d run cattle over my land?”

  “Well, not to put too fine a point on it…” He cleared his throat. “It would be my land. The Tipped M’s land.”

  I fought down the hot anger boiling up in my stomach. There was something to consider in his offer, after all. This farm was hard work; I was whittled down at least two sizes what with all the chores and hauling and carrying. And not even the
rosiest glasses could make my crop situation look good. There were harvest expenses staring me in the face, along with trying to finish repaying Uncle Chester’s IOU. With Traft’s offer, I could be done with it all and find somewhere else to live. A real house with curtains and proper shelves for my books and actual chairs to sit on, not old lard buckets. I could work for a newspaper, maybe even travel. Or I could settle down somewhere friendly, with neighbors close by on either side, and never move anywhere again. I’d been working so hard to prove up, I’d never even let myself dream about the kind of life I might really want to live. Traft’s offer was fair, even generous. It made a lot of sense. “Your offer is reasonable,” I said.

  “I think so.” He ran a hand through his wavy hair.

  “But I must say no.”

  “Why on earth?”

  “I doubt I could explain it to you.” I shook my head. “I can barely explain it to myself.” A hot breeze carried the sweet scent of prairie grass through the open door. “But I do appreciate the offer.” I stuck out my hand to shake.

  Traft stood up so fast the chair tipped over. He grabbed his hat and clomped it back on his head. “Hattie, you’re making a very bad decision. Exactly like your decision to be so friendly with people you shouldn’t.” A muscle twitched under his jawbone on the left side of his face. He was angry. How angry, I hoped I’d never find out. “Perhaps you will change your mind after harvest.”

  I softened my voice. “Perhaps.”

  He moved to the door.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “What?”

  “For bringing me inside.” I held up my burnt arms. “For taking care of me.”

  He stormed out the door. I could hear the saddle squeak as he swung up onto Trouble and rode off.

  I hugged my knees to my chest, praying I’d done the right thing. Praying I hadn’t bitten off far more than I could chew.

  CHAPTER 16