Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  Owen was no different, discretely loosening the top button of his too-tight trousers beneath the table, but she’d seen him and looked away quickly when his bright eyes met hers.

  Hannah decided she didn’t like people who ate too much, and all men who went through life without washing or brushing their teeth. In fact, she didn’t care a whole lot for hardly anyone. She wished they’d all stop talking now and go home. They’d said everything that was important and a whole pile of things that weren’t important, so now it was time to go home.

  Abby coughed and coughed. She left the table to go out to the washhouse to hack and gag, bringing up phlegm and mucous, sounding like she wasn’t able to get her breath.

  Hannah spoke without thinking. “Hod, why don’t you take your wife to see a doctor?”

  “She won’t go.”

  “Well, she needs to.”

  “I know.”

  She met Hod’s blue gaze and what passed between them was definitely not even close to the glances of understanding that Hannah had witnessed between him and Abby. He doesn’t care enough about her, she thought.

  She’s about as tactful as a wire brush, that one, Hod thought, with a look so vinegary it could sour mile. She needs to be taken down a notch, sittin’ there like the queen of Sheba and all his boys moonin’ around, and she knows it. Don’t care. Clay was the worst. He needed to talk to him right soon. No use wasting is time and breath on that bad-tempered filly.

  CHAPTER 10

  One day in late April, the cold winds subsided, shuddered, and gave up, allowing the warm sunshine to turn the playful breezes into mellow, friendly little puffs of air that tugged at skirts and sent hats, untied kerchiefs, and bonnets flying.

  They hitched Pete to the plow, tilled the garden, planted leftover wrinkled potatoes and seeds of beans, squash, and tomatoes they had saved. Seeds were dropped in the furrows with painstaking precision, careful to let not one seed go to waste.

  Calves were born and frolicked with the herd of cows as the grass shot up from the blackened earth.

  Cold rain seeped into the soil and replenished the already snow-soaked earth. Prairie dogs sat on their skinny haunches, their front feet dangling as if waiting to pray, then shot into their burrows with the speed of lightning. Prairie hens ran without direction, squawking like alarmed old women, necks outstretched, running simply for the sake of leaving one spot for another. Butterflies hovered, took off in their dizzying flight, leaving a trail that was impossible for birds to follow. So they survived, flitting from clumps of columbines to lowlying bunches of purple violets, their wings lifted then lowered, as they guzzled the nectar.

  Hannah worked from sunup to sundown. Her bare feet walked across stubbles of new growth, slimy black ashes, and new grass shooting up from beneath winter’s brown growth.

  She learned the ways of birthing calves. She knew when to spot trouble and when the time of birth was near. She was not one to be overly religious but her heart lifted to God of its own accord every time she came upon a mother licking her newborn calf, a healthy, black calf with a wide chest and sturdy, knobby knees, the cleft hooves splayed as delicately as toenails on a newborn baby.

  The milk cow gave birth to a brown calf and what the calf did not drink found its way into the house. They all enjoyed glasses of creamy, sweet milk, the top cream turned into butter and cheese.

  Haymaking time came, sending all of them into the fields. Manny raked the hay with Pete and Goat hitched up to the mower. Everyone helped fork it onto the wooden wagon. The haymaking never stopped. It was the one single thing that would keep the anxious nightmares at bay on those awful dark nights of winter.

  No matter that Mam said prayers were more trustworthy. Prayer was what triumphed over anxiety. Hannah listened half-heartedly, refusing to allow what she knew was her own version of security to be ridiculed by her devout mother. Hay in the haymow. Stacks of hay in the barnyard, by the windmill, hay in every corner they could find. It was certain to keep the cows fed, ensuring survival and, ultimately, the success of the ranch.

  Hannah’s face turned dark, browned by the sun. Her arms became muscular, her hands calloused, the soles of her feet as tough as the cows’ hooves.

  A new concern raised its head in spite of things going so well. Pete was wearing out, and Goat was running on his last legs. Something had to be done about dependable horsepower, and Hannah had no idea how to procure another decent horse.

  The calves they would sell before winter would barely tide them over this first year. She refused to ask her grandfather yet again for a loan. But something would have to be done.

  She talked it over with Manny, who had no real solution except to ask the Jenkinses, which, Hannah felt sure, would result in the generous gift of another pitiful creature like Goat.

  “I mean, Goat’s all right. We couldn’t have managed without him. He helped us through lots of haying. I’m sure the Jenkinses have half a dozen horses like Goat that they’d be glad to get rid of.”

  “I’m not going to the Jenkinses.”

  “We could get a tractor.”

  Hannah laughed. “Mam would never allow it. She’s so Amish it isn’t even funny.”

  “We all are.”

  “Not me.”

  “Oh, come on, Hannah. You’re always bluffing and blustering. You’d never hurt Mam by disobeying her.”

  Hannah shrugged and changed the subject back to the problem of a horse. “For now, we’re going to have to let it go and hope Goat holds up for another year or so.”

  The letter arrived with the Klassermans driving in and waving a handful of letters as their impeccably clean station wagon came to a halt. “Ve’re back from a visit to the dentist. Picked these up at the post office for you.”

  Sarah wiped her hands on her apron, leaving streaks of brown dirt from weeding the onions. She used the back of her hand to push back the windblown strands of hair that had blown loose around her face.

  “Oh, good! Thank you so much. I was starting to wonder if everyone in Lancaster County forgot about us. Not that I could blame them.”

  “Ya. Ya. But they didn’t. Relatives don’t forget,” Owen smiled.

  “Yer garden looks beautiful,” Sylvia observed, hitching her bulk to a more comfortable position.

  “Lots of horse manure. We spread it on throughout the fall when we cleaned out the stable and plowed it in before we planted. Nothing better.”

  “Ya, ya. Vell, ve must be on our vay. Haf you heard? Abby Jenkins finally vent to a doctor. She has the double pneumonia. Stubborn voman.”

  “Oh, dear.” Sarah’s dark eyes filled with quick tears. “I must go visit her. Take her some food or offer to do the washing or cleaning. Maybe I’ll send Hannah.”

  The Klassermans took their leave, leaving Sarah to stand in the driveway by the porch as she riffled through four letters before sitting on the edge of the porch to rip open one long white envelope, gripping the white paper with both hands and moving slightly back and forth as she read.

  “Oh my. Oh my,” she repeated, her lips moving silently. Elam and Ben had agreed to give up the farm. “Lord willing, we are making plans to begin our move west,” her father wrote. “The pioneering bug has bitten us hard.”

  Sarah lifted her face to the sun, her eyes closed, absorbing every word, the vast open sky and the waves of grass etched into her heart and soul. This was her home, this unfettered land. And now her father and two brothers were planning to come and begin a new life on the prairie with them.

  She lowered her head and red on. “Ben Miller’s and Ike Lapp’s see great opportunity in building windmills, so they are in the planning stages, same as we are. I believe the two young bachelors will be accompanying them. Word is getting around that a young horse dealer by the name of Jeremiah Riehl has shown interest in moving his horse trade to North Dakota. He is also a farrier.

  “Your sisters remain of the same mind. I pray to God they will yet repent of their overbearing ways, but for now, we are
on good terms. I have not dared mention our future plans to them. Rachel’s health is not the best. I’m afraid if she’s confronted by these sudden goings on, she may fall victim to a stroke.”

  Here, Sarah lifted her face to the sky, propped herself up with two palms facing outward. Kicking both feet in the air, she howled with abandon, a most unladylike move and not like her at all.

  It brought a concerned Eli and Mary from around the back of the house where they were playing horse, a rope tied around Eli’s waist. “Mam! What is wrong with you?” Mary asked worriedly.

  “Oh, nothing, Mary. I’m just reading a letter from Daudy. And just think, Daudy and Ben and Elam and Ben Miller—a whole bunch of Amish people—are moving here. Here! Here to North Dakota with us! We won’t be alone anymore! We can have church services and we can have people like us to share our Sundays.”

  Eli looked at his mother and frowned. “We don’t need those people.”

  “We don’t,” Mary echoed.

  Sarah laughed aloud, reached out to grab the rope around Eli’s waist and hauled him in for a tight hug and a resounding kiss. “Your hair smells like a cow,” she said, nuzzling his cheek.

  “Ah. Ah,” he grunted, trying to squirm out of his mother’s arms.

  “You need a head washing,” Sarah said.

  “Not now. He’s a horse,” Mary reminded her before pulling on the rope to lead him away. Eli whinnied and kicked one leg out to show his mother that he was a horse to be reckoned with.

  Sarah watched them, smiled, and went back to her letter reading. Emma had a boil on her back. My goodness! That should be treated by a doctor for sure. Amos King’s Naomi was published to be married to the widower, Jacob King.

  My, my. Naomi was going on forty years of age. Jacob King sei Becky passed away only a year before. He had nine or ten children. Just wait until Hannah hears this!

  She read and reread each precious letter. She laughed and cried, then took a deep, cleansing breath of pure unadulterated joy, allowing the wonderful news to sink in, to spread through her limbs and give them new life.

  Oh, wonder, blessed, benevolent Father, the Giver of all good things. Her heart sang praises, her soul was lifted to the heights of the unending sky and rode the prairie breezes like the notes of a song.

  Every bit of hardship had been worth this moment. Every dark night of suffering and indecision. She had eaten the food of despair and tasted the bitter cup of sorrow. Many times she had drunk thirstily from the cup of grace and was able to go on.

  She wished her mother was alive, and then realized as quickly that her father would not be moving here to the prairie if she were. Her mother would never have allowed it.

  She got up, went into the house, put the precious letters in a cupboard drawer, and then came back out to finish weeding the onions. She worked as if in a dream; she caught herself talking, murmuring things out loud, making plans, the future full of possibilities, full of security from shared responsibilities.

  Sarah adjusted her covering and listened to the sighing of the wind in the prairie grass. The rustling was now so dear and familiar; it was like her own heartbeat. Without it, her life would be devoid of a certain endless rhythm, a breathing of earth and sky, a oneness with nature, with God. This experience she could never have found in Lancaster County amid the hustle and bustle of life.

  The realization dawned like the parting of storm clouds to reveal the sun. Here was her destiny. Here the land would shape and form her into a being created for God. Humbled, Sarah wept.

  Hannah grasped the letters with white-knuckled fingers, her lips moving as she read, her eyebrows drawing down in irritation. Sarah cast silent glances in her direction, busying herself with warming a pan full of ham noodle soup for their evening meal.

  Was it only her imagination or did Hannah’s face lose its ruddy brown color? She watched Hannah lay the letter aside and stare stone faced out of the window without comment.

  “What do you think, Hannah?” she asked, quietly.

  “I don’t know.” Her words were flat, lifeless, as if all the air had been taken from her. Without another word she got up and let herself out through the door. Sarah went to the window, watching her daughter’s long strides as she went to the barn, disappearing behind a stack of hay.

  She’d never understand Hannah if she lived to be ninety years old. Didn’t she want her grandfather and her two uncles to come? Surely she would be happy to have them come out and start their own homestead.

  She shook her head, lifted a scalding spoonful of soup to her mouth, tasted it, grimaced. Too salty. She peeled a wrinkled potato, threw it in, added more water, toasted bread in the oven and went to the door to call the children.

  Supper was a silent affair, after Manny’s joyful whooping, which was struck down immediately by Hannah’s scathing words, sharp like daggers.

  “If we’d want all of Lancaster County to live with us, we’d move back to Pennsylvania where it’s jammed full of all sorts and shapes of Amish and Mennonites, Dunkards, and whatever else in the world exists there. What does that long-nosed Ike Lapp want out here? I can’t stand him. He’ll probably bring a whining, long-nosed wife and a brood of sniveling kids!”

  Here Sarah broke in, shaking her spoon in Hannah’s direction. “The world does not turn only for you, Hannah. God loves us all. He made us all, and He must be saddened by your blasphemy.”

  “I’m not blaspheming. I’m just saying it the way I see it. I don’t want people crawling all over the prairie like lice. Those two bachelors will be like that, as unwelcome in my opinion. You know they’re going to want a wife. Guess who’ll be available?”

  “Do you realize how much you are like your father?”

  Hannah snorted, the trademark of her derision. “Not much. I’m not wailing and fasting.”

  Sarah realized the futility of the endless sparring of words, a contest she was certain to lose. Unwise, this volley of regrettable words. So she resigned herself to allowing Hannah the upper hand—sometimes she had to—and said no, she did not do that, and let it go, thinking bitterly that Hannah had nothing to worry about with her attitude, as prickly as a cactus. No man would dare get close to her.

  Manny said the homesteads would be miles apart and no one would likely be closer than the Klassermans, which did nothing to change Hannah’s foul mood. She washed dishes, banging them against the granite dish pan till Sarah thought they would fly into dozens of pieces, like falling icicles. But she said nothing.

  Sometimes she almost despised her own daughter. When those eyebrows came down and spread across those brown eyes, she wanted to physically slap her. Why, when a mother and daughter’s heartstrings were so interwoven? Often she wondered if she was a bad mother, if, somewhere along the way, she had missed some element of child-rearing, or some giving of love.

  Hannah stalked out of the door, stiff-legged, her large feet slapping against the porch boards, and disappeared, a tall figure becoming smaller and smaller until she appeared as only a dot on the prairie. Sarah turned away and whispered a prayer for her safety.

  Hannah was furious! How dare they invade her privacy? This land was their homestead. Theirs. Hers and Mam’s and Manny’s. She didn’t want the prairie dotted with Amish homes, Amish folks sticking their noses into her business, giving advice, superior voices clanging against her own particular way of doing things.

  She knew how to start the ranch. Was well on her way. Hadn’t Clay said so? This is exactly what would happen. They’d all move out here, figure out a way to grow corn, feed their cattle better, moving ahead and leaving her and the Bar S scrounging in the dust. They’d end up with inferior cattle poorly fed, insufficient horse power, and no modern equipment to cut and rake hay.

  She sat down in the fast-growing grass, yanked out a flat stem, aligned it between two thumbs and blew vehemently. A sharp, high whistle split the air. She did it again and again. It satisfied a deep longing to assert herself.

  Let the clouds in the west an
d the sky know that I am Hannah. I can be a homesteader. I can run a successful ranch without dozens of other folks telling me what to do. Perhaps the trains that would bring them would all run off the tracks, a regular train wreck. The scared Amish would take it as a bad omen, a sign from God that they should all go back to Pennsylvania and stay there!

  Grandfather Stoltzfus hadn’t written that Jerry Riehl was coming with the rest of the herd, just that there was a rumor that he was interested. Well, he could send a few good horses out, but he may as well stay in Lancaster County if he thought he had a remote chance with all his kissy romance. He was about the last one she wanted to see, that was for sure.

  Hannah sighed and threw the blade of grass aside. A whole shower of troubles had rained down on her head in the form of a bunch of letters, leaving a sour taste on her tongue.

  She had a notion to whack off her hair and go English! She could tell Clay she’d marry him just to get away, but that would open another can of worms, no different from her original troubles. She groaned, threw herself on her back, and watched the puffy cloud formations to the west. The sun’s light was already casting a pink glow, the rustling grasses changing color as it sank lower, turning the undersides of the puffy clouds to a lavender hue.

  Birds wheeled silently without so much as the flap of a wing, gliding along effortlessly, little black etches against the evening sky. A lark called its plaintive cry, another answered. Hannah pictured the bird clinging to a tall grass stalk, tiny feet clenched perfectly as it opened its beak to begin its song. She knew which insects they preferred, and which jays lived in the rotten branches of the old cottonwood trees.

  She often sighted herds of antelope, the leader with his black, two-pronged horns, running like music, the strains of perfect symmetry, beauty in motion. She always hoped fervently that they would not encounter barbed wire, knowing they sometimes became entangled, dying a long, slow, torturous death. It was almost more than she could bear.