“Please, Mr. Donnelly,” I pleaded, desperate now. “It’s our only hope. If we don’t get this crop in the ground, if there’s not another harvest, we’ll lose the farm. I won’t be able to get back to school and finish my credential, to say nothing of Mama and Papa’s struggle. Please.”
He was staring at the necklace, thinking. I knew I’d pushed him into an uncomfortable corner. But I had no choice.
“Please,” I whispered.
He turned miserable eyes up to me. “Cora, honey, there’s not a farmer on this side of the mountains who will turn in a cash crop this year. It’s just been too dry. They’ll all be busting their backs, trying to break even. But your folks…”
He couldn’t say more, but I understood what he meant. They were so behind with the new mortgage on the farm, they didn’t have a prayer of breaking even. It was the farmer’s cycle—go into debt all year, pay it off come fall harvest, begin again. But Papa was in deeper. Because of me and my schooling. Which explained my father’s morose behavior.
“Take it, then,” I begged. “Apply its value to his debt.”
“I can’t.” He lifted the box. “You think I could sell this here? Or even the next county over?” He cocked his head again. “Not likely.”
My eyes went over this meager jewelry case, filled with lockets of fake gold and silver, along with a few hair clips and broaches. “Then hold it for me. Use it as collateral against my own credit line. If we can’t pay you, come harvest, you can sell it for whatever you can get, the next time you go to Billings.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s worth far more than the seed you’re after, Cora. Far more.” He lifted the box in my direction, offering it to me.
I paused. “Then sell it, keep twenty percent, and give me the remainder after you take out your costs,” I said. “Or…or lend me the money for the train and I’ll head there tomorrow and come back with the cash to pay you.”
He stared at me in surprise.
My face burned with embarrassment. So forward! So demanding! What had come over me?
Desperation. Desperation to save us all.
“No,” he said resignedly. “If I take it as collateral, you at least have the chance to get it back if this cursed dry streak eases.” He flipped the lid closed and wearily pulled out a ledger. I held my breath. But then he began to write my name at the top. He was going to do it. Coming through for the Diehls yet again.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Donnelly,” I breathed, sinking into relief.
“Don’t thank me, Cora,” he said grimly, looking at me again as if he wanted to say more and then shaking his head. “Don’t thank me.”
CHAPTER 5
Cora
We never discussed the particulars of how I’d obtained the best-quality seed—Mr. Donnelly insisted I take it if I wanted “the crop to have half a chance.”
Papa greeted me at the barn. He ran his hand over the sacks in the back of the wagon and then gave me a sidelong glance. “You really are a woman grown, Cora. Thank you.”
“It’s because of me that we’re in this mess. If you hadn’t sent me off to Normal School—”
“No,” he said, laying a gentle hand—his good hand—on my forearm. “That was not a mistake. That was a stake in your future. We’ll get you back there, Cora, come fall.”
“God has my future,” I said, and Papa met my eye and smiled in approval.
We immediately set to work that afternoon. Papa and I even plowed into the night, working with a lantern. Within a week, the north forty was plowed, the seed scattered.
We paused at the corner as we finished. I was filthy and exhausted. But it was done. “Let the prayers begin,” Papa said, casting a searching glance to the dry, cloudless skies.
I studied his face. One side still sagged. I couldn’t bear the hope I saw in his eyes, despite the grim Farmer’s Almanac predictions, despite the talk at the Grange Hall. Because it made me fearful for him. He was so infernally optimistic. He never held back, never tried to protect a portion of his heart.
He saw me staring at him, read the question in my eyes. “Love believes all things, hopes for all things, Cora. God loves us. Sees us. He’ll see us through.”
“Yes,” I said numbly.
But I knew, deep down, that I was protecting a portion of my heart, even if he refused to do so.
We were blessed with a decent rain three days later, and we knew every farmer across the valley was cheering as we were. It took only a week for us to find the tiny bright-green sprouts beginning to unfurl beneath the dry soil, looking stubbornly healthy, hopeful, despite their harsh environment. Papa took to circling the north forty twice a day, dragging his bad foot along, but he stood straighter, with barely a stoop to his shoulders. Whatever became of the farm and of us, it heartened me, as it did Mama, to see him doing so well.
I’d finished my chores and helped Mama prepare noon dinner, but Papa had not returned to the house to wash up and eat. “Go see what he’s up to,” Mama said.
I checked the north forty first. Not seeing him there, I moved toward the barn. He was probably working on some equipment, or soaping his saddle. “Papa!” I called. “You passing up dinner?”
There was no answer. A shiver of apprehension ran down my back. I forced myself to slide open the barn door and peer into the relative darkness.
He wasn’t in the central area of the barn. “Papa?”
Sugarbeet was nervously prancing back and forth. I swallowed hard and peeked around the wall.
Papa was sitting, leaning against the stall wall, his hand to his chest. He was pale and sweating profusely, his eyes wide.
Oh, no! No, no, no…
“It’s okay, Papa,” I said, kneeling beside him and placing my hand over his.
But the look on his face made my heart break.
The doctor emerged from Mama and Papa’s room, slowly closing the curtain behind him. He looked with sad eyes at me and Mama sitting at the kitchen table, our tea long cold. Slowly, he pulled out a chair and sat down with us. “He’s resting now. But it’s bad. He needs more care than you can give him. Even more than I can give him in town.”
“Where? Where does he need to go?” I asked dully. As if we had the means to take him anywhere!
“Seattle. Or better yet, Minneapolis. After he’s stable enough to travel.”
I eyed my mother, a flicker of hope in my heart. Her parents lived in Minnesota. I returned my gaze to the doctor. “Would he survive the trip?” I asked in a ragged whisper.
He nodded. “I think so. Again, if he makes it through the night…”
The room grew quiet.
“What about the farm?” Mama said distantly.
The doctor shifted uncomfortably. “His farming days are over, Alma. He needs to leave here for good, so those fields out there don’t torment him.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. I stared at the surface of my cold tea like a circus conjurer trying to catch a glimpse of the future. “When’s the soonest we could get him on a train?” I said.
“If he makes gains half as fast as he did last time—within a few days, a week.”
“Would you travel with him and Mama? Or should we hire a nurse?”
He nodded, hesitated, then, “It’ll be expensive. I don’t suppose you have any savings…”
He knew the answer already. We’d already paid for his services in bread, eggs, and our lone fat piglet. I put my head in my hands.
“We have no savings,” my mother said lowly. “I could stay with my folks in the Twin Cities. Would the hospital take him? Out of charity?”
“Possibly. Maybe Swedish Hospital. I’ll telephone them and see.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
“I’ll stay here,” I said, looking at Mama, “look after the farm.”
They both cast doubtful eyes toward me. But there was resignation in them too. If the crop was doomed to fail anyway, why not leave it to a woman to try and save it?
I settl
ed into a routine in the days as we prepared to send them off. Papa made strides, but his thinking wasn’t clear and his speech was garbled, leaving me wanting to focus only on the next step of every day.
Rise with the sun. Wash my face. Take off my nightgown. Pull on my stockings and brown work dress. Lace up my boots. Mumble good morning to Mama. Dump Papa’s bedpan. Stumble to the barn as the dawn slowly lit the sky. I tried to appreciate the nuances of color, the hope of a new day, but try as I might, the summer and my future beyond it spread out in a dismal gray. I wasn’t ever going to return to the Normal School. It was as likely as me reaching the moon now. And the death of that dream left me moving like a train on its track, rolling across one foot of ground after another, making headway but feeling nothing.
The sound of the buggy on the gravel road almost didn’t raise me from my milking stool. I couldn’t cope with another nosy lady from church, nor find another task for one of the men to make them feel useful. I just wanted to be left alone. My cheek rested against the warm hide of the cow, my hands on her teats, squeezing her dry with a rhythmic swish swish swish into the clean, dented bucket. I paused once, twice, and resumed each time, thinking I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care, but then I paused again as I heard the buggy pull up before the door of our old farmhouse.
I could tell from the clean, well-oiled sound of the wheels, the spirited step of the horse that drew the buggy, that a stranger had come to our small farm. A stranger of means. Not even the doc’s buggy made such a quiet approach, little more than gravel dividing and a gentle clop of a horse’s hoof. I spoke lowly to the cow, stroking her girth, promising I’d be back, then went to the barn door to peer out toward the house.
Mama was on the porch, wiping her hands on her apron as two men disembarked from the finest buggy I’d ever seen, its black lacquer coated with road dust. Approaching my mother, one took off his hat as he rounded the back, revealing thick, wavy gray hair that matched his silver beard and mustache. He was a man of perhaps sixty-five years, but his movements were those of a younger man, still vital, strong. His shoulders were straight, even rigid, as he paused at the bottom of the stairs.
My mother sagged to the side, wrapping an arm around the post as if for strength, and covered her mouth.
I stepped forward, frowning in concern.
Mama caught sight of me then. Dropped her hand from her mouth to clench the fabric at her breast, straightened. The stranger, hat in hand, followed her gaze toward me, then turned to say something to Mama, too quietly for me to hear.
Mama protested, but the man shook his head and looked back at me. They were arguing about something. Over me?
The other man, younger and clutching a doctor’s kit in hand, shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uneasy. The older man said something, Mama nodded, and the other one climbed the porch steps and went inside.
I forced myself to begin walking across the dry, dusty expanse between barn and house, the incessant wind driving clouds of dust, waist-high, across my path. I placed one foot in front of the other, half drawn in curiosity, half afraid of what I would learn. Where had this other doctor come from? Who had called him?
The older man’s eyes were a light blue, I saw when I reached the house. And although his face was heavily lined, what I noticed most were the laugh lines around his eyes. I glanced at Mama, wondering why she was so pale, why she wasn’t speaking, but then I saw that she was trying. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
“You are Cora,” said the gentleman.
“I am,” I said warily.
“I am Wallace Kensington,” he said, his hand against the fine lapel of his jacket.
I blinked twice, swallowed hard.
There was only one Wallace Kensington in the whole wide state of Montana. Copper king. Ruthless senator. Owner of banks and newspapers and much more.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said with a slight nod.
“Mr. Kensington has brought his physician to see to Papa,” Mama mumbled. “Would you like to take a seat?” she said to him. She gestured up toward the porch swing.
“You are most kind,” Mr. Kensington said with a polite nod. Was it my imagination, or did his eyes linger overly long upon my mother?
Why? Why would Wallace Kensington, of all people, know about my papa? Bring a physician?
Mr. Kensington gestured for me to follow my mother up to the porch, and he went to retrieve a rocker from the corner and bring it near, every movement distinguished, refined. I sat down, still trying to figure out what had brought him here, while Mama went after some tea. Had they discovered copper beneath our soil, here in the foothills? Was he after our water rights, meager though they might be? Did Papa owe his bank, as well as Mr. Donnelly at the mercantile? Whatever it might be, surely there was someone else of less consequence in his company who could’ve come to call…
Mama emerged through the swinging porch door, chipped china cups rattling on a tray. She looked gray, as if she were about to faint, and I jumped up to take the tray from her and nod toward the swing. She almost fell into it, avoiding looking at our guest.
But he was staring intently at me anyway. A prickle of warning ran down my neck. “Tea, Mr. Kensington?” I asked, feigning calm.
“Please. One sugar.”
I poured and placed one sugar cube on the saucer with a spoon and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said, searching my face, not the tea in his hands.
I handed Mama a cup, then sat down next to her. Mr. Kensington was sitting back in his chair, rocking slightly. Mama was sitting as straight as a poker, gripping the handle of her teacup so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.
“Alma, shall I tell her…or would you prefer to do so?” His tone was surprisingly gentle but was undergirded with a level of authority. Still, my mind was racing. “Alma”? How had this wealthy man come to be on a first-name basis with my mother?
“I will,” Mama said. She set her cup down on the floor beside her and then turned to take my hands in hers.
I noticed her fingers were terribly cold, which was odd on such a fiercely warm day. I glanced from her to our visitor and back to her, seeing the tears in her brown eyes. “Mama,” I whispered. “What is it? You’re scaring me.”
“There’s no good way to put this, Cora. Papa…he never wanted you to know…” She glanced toward the window. Could he hear us? From inside?
I squeezed her hand. “Know what, Mama?”
She turned back to face me, sniffed, and blinked several times. The tears were gone. “Cora, I’ve not been truthful with you, all these years. When your papa and I married…” She took a deep breath. “I was pregnant.” Embarrassment sent flames of red up her cheeks. She stared into my eyes, hers begging for my forgiveness, begging for me to understand. But I still didn’t. Pregnant? It was frowned upon, socially horrifying, wrong in God’s eyes, but at least they had married—
“Cora,” she said in a rush now. “You are not Papa’s child. Not by blood.”
She squeezed my hands hard then, as if fearing I’d reject her. Not Papa’s child…
As if in a dream, I turned from her to Mr. Kensington and stared into his eyes. Blue, a light blue, like mine. My breath caught. The angle of his nose, the fullness of his lips…like mine. He nodded slowly, carefully, as if I were a skittish colt about to run back to the barn.
I wrenched my hands from Mama’s, clenching them into fists. “How?” And then coloring at the thought, I rushed on, “When?” Again I chastised myself for my stupidity. I knew exactly when they had been together. And how.
It was my turn to stare at the floor.
Mr. Kensington cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Does it matter that I loved your mother?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, tears sliding down my face. “No,” I repeated, staring him in the eye. “Because you obviously did not care enough to marry her. To properly assume your role as my father. Thankfully, I have a fat
her now. A decent, upstanding, loving man. Everything that you apparently are not.” In my fury, I’d unconsciously risen.
“That he is,” Mr. Kensington said, unperturbed.
I stopped short. “You know him,” I whispered. I glanced at Mama, but her eyes had glazed over, as if lost in those days some twenty years before.
“I did. He was a teller in my bank in Butte.”
“And I was a servant in Wallace’s home,” Mama said.
I sank back to the swing. I’d known Mama and Papa had met in Butte. Courted there, they said. Moved here when Mama found out she was expecting me. To start a new life, far from the noise and crowds of the city, and to take over the farm from my aging grandparents.
“Your mother has always been a fine-looking woman,” Mr. Kensington said. “And a kinder girl I’d never met. Words cannot express how sorry I was to see her go.”
Well, I should say! You were baking your cake and eating it too…
“My wife and I…” He paused. “We were having some problems. She was busy with the children, her social endeavors, and I—”
Wife? Children? “P-pardon me,” I sputtered. “I…I have siblings?” Vague memories of newspaper reports of the Kensington children and their exploits drifted through my mind, along with a hog’s-pail mess of other thoughts.
“Three. Vivian is twenty-two. Felix, twenty-one. Lillian, eighteen.”
An older brother, by a year. Sisters, on either side. Half siblings. I shook my head, now feeling faint. I’d always wanted a sister, a brother. Begged Mama as if she could deliver one like a Christmas orange—
“And do they…do they know of me?”
“They were told but two days ago.”
I didn’t know why it irked me, that they knew of me before I did of them, but it did. It grated. The humiliation if this got out… I shook my head.
“Wallace was kind enough to pay our expenses, and then some,” Mama said, her hands in her lap, her eyes on the window, far away.
“I suppose when one is wealthy, one can make any sort of trouble go away,” I muttered.
Mr. Kensington’s lips thinned, and his brow furrowed. “I never wanted you to go away. But don’t you see? In Butte, you would have been ostracized, seen as little more than my illegitimate child. Here, you could reach maturity, be protected from the gossips and the foul-minded.”
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