Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  “You ever hear of the Perthing place?”

  She shook her head.

  “Some old guy hung on to the place at the turn of the century. Wasn’t mentally capable and they found him dead in the house. After that, the winds and whatever else got at the buildings and basically destroyed them. But it is actually a ranch of over a thousand acres. I bought it for a song. Figured if I bought it then decided to go back home, I’d probably make a nice profit.”

  Hannah snorted.

  Jerry looked at her. “Think not?”

  “Nobody wants swamp land.”

  Jake Fisher watched Hannah’s face. When she spoke in that low, husky voice, he could see the irresistible charm of this girl who sizzled with anger.

  “But that swamp land might be all right in dry weather. Does it ever rain here in summer?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Hasn’t so far.”

  “Then I should be making heavy hay when the rest of you are traveling pretty far to cut and load some decent hay. So I might not be as dumb as you think I am.”

  They stabled the horses, Hannah keeping her distance, showing no interest, scuffing her feet in the dust, her hands gripped together behind her back.

  Jerry gave her a few more clipped instructions, saying they would need some exercise, so they should be ridden.

  Hannah’s heart fluttered against her chest, but she gave no sign. Goat stuck his head over the top of the fence, whinnying. Hannah cringed as the men turned to look.

  “S’ wrong with your horse?”

  Before she could catch herself, she laughed. “Nothing. That’s a product of the North Dakota plains. They all look like that. They’re tough and rangy and full of worms.”

  Both men laughed genuine laughs that came from finding her blunt, truthful words hilarious. They both eyed her with new appreciation.

  She didn’t laugh.

  “I’m guessing he needs his teeth filed.” Jerry climbed over the fence, grabbed Goat’s unsuspecting chin, and pried his mouth open with two fingers. He ran his hands along Goat’s teeth, whistled and said it’s a wonder this horse wasn’t dead! Never saw a worse set of molars.

  Hannah’s defensiveness was back in place. She didn’t say anything. This was where it would start. She’d be bossed around and told what to do. They were here ten minutes and already they found fault. Well, she’d have to tell them now so they’d get the hint.

  “You can just leave if this is what you’re going to do. Come out here to start ranching and thinking you’re better than anyone else, telling us what to do. You can just forget it. It’s none of your business if that horse’s teeth come down all the way to his knees. It’s my business and I’d appreciate if you’d go home and stop bothering us.”

  Jerry nodded once, turned and left, a bewildered Jake in tow. Hannah nodded her head in their direction, then turned and made her way back to the house. Let him think what he wanted. Just wait until he caught sight of the herd. That would give him something to think about.

  He had the nerve, not taking no for an answer. She’d distinctly said no. He had brushed her aside like a housefly.

  Why had he gone and bought that old ranch? He could easily have gotten all the acres he wanted for free. All he had to do was live on them for ten years.

  Out here throwing his authority around! Didn’t he know there was a depression and times were hard? Perhaps he thought he was better than them. He lived above most people’s standards.

  Well, she wasn’t touching those horses. That was Manny’s job, since they thought Manny and his mother were so sweet and welcoming. Which they were, but that didn’t mean she needed to be.

  The horses stayed in the barn. Manny took responsibility for their care, slavishly feeding them the grain Jerry had provided, leading them out to drink, brushing them, exclaiming about this wonderful horse flesh to anyone who would listen, and always, without fail, at the breakfast table, the dinner table, and the supper table.

  Manny knew his own sister well enough to keep her out of the conversation. He knew her refusal to help had nothing to do with the horses themselves but everything to do with their owner.

  Sarah stood on the porch, watching Manny lead Duke first, then King, and last the palomino, riding each of them in turn. She felt Hannah’s presence beside her. Silence hung between them like a heavy curtain, separating the thoughts and the words that should have flowed so easily.

  A waste, Sarah thought. A waste of precious hours lent to us by our Lord. A total, unfruitful waste, to be so miserable with one’s own will that it directed foolishness of endless pouting and a bold refusal to comply. It was enough to send a tremor of frustration through her.

  Quietly, Sarah asked, “If the brown one is King, and Duke is the black one, what is the name of the light-colored one?”

  Hannah stood like a statue, staring straight ahead. Her lips parted but no sound came out until she cleared her throat and said roughly, “Doesn’t have one.”

  Sarah looked at her. “Why not?”

  She was rewarded with an offhand shrug.

  “Let’s think of one.”

  “I already did. Mistral.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows went up. She gave a short laugh, shook her head. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a wind.”

  Sarah gestured with her hand. “You mean like this wind?”

  “No. A master wind. In France.”

  “Really? You think it fits her?”

  “Didn’t you see her run? If we raced those three, she’d win.”

  Ah, here was her chance, Sarah thought. “So, go ahead and race them.”

  Hannah shook her head.

  “Why not?” But a seed had been sown, sprouting in Hannah’s mind, although Sarah knew her daughter would do her best to stomp all over it.

  When Jerry and Jake showed up with the necessary tools to file Goat’s teeth, they greeted Sarah, who sat on the front porch cleaning green and yellow beans, thankful for the fine vegetables, in spite of the drought. Thankful for Manny’s expertise in rigging up a long pipe underground to a hydrant close to the garden. The windmill’s clanking and whirring powered by the constant wind supplied them with the necessary water for the garden.

  Every evening and every morning, Eli and Mary filled blue and white speckled granite buckets, lugged them to the long rows of vegetables, and poured water on the plants, cup by cup. The children never complained. They were too glad to have something to eat when the snow and the cold slammed the house like a battering ram.

  Old enough to remember the pinched pain of their empty stomachs, they worked with energy, making a game out of arriving at the hydrant together.

  When Jerry and Jake arrived, they stopped watering and stood upright like two curious rabbits, watching quietly as the two men dismounted. They didn’t stop at the house or look for Hannah and Manny. They just went ahead, climbed the fence, caught Goat by the halter, yanked open his mouth, and set to work.

  To the children, it looked like the work of a serious murderer, sawing away inside a horse’s mouth. They looked at each other, nodded, and raced for the house, clattered up on the porch, their eyes wide with alarm.

  Eli pointed a shaking finger and said, “Why is he doing that?”

  “He’s killing him dead!” Mary shouted, agitation making her voice shrill and loud, which brought Hannah from her job at the wash tubs, scrubbing Manny’s trousers with lye soap.

  She glared at the two men, tucked a few stray hairs under her dichly and stalked off, stiff legged, pumping her arms.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  Jake Fisher stopped, but Jerry kept on going, told Jake to keep his hold on Goat’s mouth and not to worry about her.

  “Release that poor horse this instant!” Hannah screeched.

  Jerry kept working with the file, took his time, and didn’t give her so much as a sidelong glance.

  “Stop it! You’ll kill that horse!”

  Jerry finished, told Jake to let Goat
go, bent to gather his tools, and turned to face the dark fury in Hannah’s eyes.

  “He’d die sooner if we didn’t do that. Now his grass and hay can be chewed properly and he’ll digest his food better. He’ll fill out now.”

  “You don’t know a thing, Jerry Riehl.”

  Jerry didn’t bother answering, merely lifted one eyebrow and laughed, a sound that only served to increase Hannah’s bad temper. “How’s the exercising going?”

  “How would I know? I don’t touch your horses. I didn’t give you permission to bring them here, so it’s Manny’s chore, not mine.”

  Jerry busied himself opening the gate and threw back over his shoulder, “Too bad. I was thinking of giving the palomino to you, but I guess you’re not interested.”

  Hannah was so taken aback she had absolutely nothing to say. She forgot herself enough to let her eyes widen and her mouth hang open, clearly showing her shock, followed by disbelief. She caught herself just as Jerry led the palomino out, stopped and lowered his face a mere foot away from hers.

  “You know you want her, Hannah,” he stated in a husky whisper as he lowered an eyelid over one dark eye and gave just a hint of a smile.

  What a self-righteous … Hannah ground her teeth, curled her hands into fists, stamped her foot and yelled. She yelled and shouted words that she had no idea she could be capable of using to disparage someone.

  She told him to get his horses out of there in a week or she was going to turn them loose with the cattle, and if he never found them again, well, that was just too bad, now wasn’t it!

  Jerry tightened the cinch on the palomino’s saddle, his shoulders shaking, his face well hidden, hiding his laughter from her. “Guess if you did that, it would be more of an invitation to cattle thieves than they already have, with that fine-looking herd of Angus cows you have. Or maybe you haven’t heard?”

  Hannah’s big dark eyes came up and met his immediately.

  “They made off with twelve of that Owen’s cows. I forget his last name—German guy. Heavy. At night. Hauled them out in a big truck and trailer, they think. Better watch your herd, I’d think. Better be careful, Hannah.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The drought worsened.

  The sun beat down mercilessly. Tin roofs creaked and snapped, grasses swayed and shriveled to a melancholy brown color that spoke of the prairie’s desperate need for rain. The creek bed whispered itself to nothing, dry, jagged cracks appearing like dark scabs on the parched earth.

  The wind blew hot and dry, laden with brown dust particles and the smell of dying vegetation. Cows moiled around the water tank and wandered far to crop the grass that had turned to hay on the stalk. Wild flowers gave up their glad colors of yellow, pink, and blue, hung their heads and became hot and dry and dusty like everything else.

  The newly arrived Amish thought surely the end of the world was nigh. They had never experienced anything like it, these blue skies that refused to send even a spattering of raindrops. Sarah smiled and shook her head, saying, oh no, this was a normal North Dakota summer. The rains would come. That’s why we have so many acres, the cows travel far to get their fill of grass.

  For awhile, Hannah and Manny rode out to sleep on the prairie, keeping watch like shepherds over their herd after Jerry had told them of cattle thieves. When nothing happened, they figured it was over. The Klassermans were the ones known to be wealthy and were therefore an easy target.

  Ike Lapp built a horrible little stick house out of thrown away shingles and corrugated metal, the roof flat and wide and rusted to a deep brown. They moved their belongings and their seven skinny children into it, hung green blinds in the windows and called it home.

  Ben Miller, of course, designed a long, low ranch house with dormers in the roof and bought logs from some fancy company in the Northwest. He built a barn the size of two or three ordinary barns put together, maybe four.

  His windmill was up and running with orders pouring in from folks for miles around. The Midas touch, he had. Just about everything went well for that man. He even invented a homemade sprinkler for the garden, and chuckled and laughed his way through the dust-filled days. He said the women were blessed, now weren’t they, all that laundry that dried in a few minutes flat. No mud to worry about either.

  Nothing much was heard from the vicinity of the old Perthing place. After Jerry took his three horses back, Hannah figured he must have built a barn, and didn’t care about anything other than that.

  They all got together to have church services in the summer before the arrival of Grandfather Stoltzfus, Elam, and Ben. Hannah refused to go. Her excuse was that she didn’t know if she was ever going to be Amish, and why should she try to figure it out at her age?

  Sarah and the children rode home from services at Ben Millers, renewed and refreshed, their faces alive with smiles and conversation, an invitation to dinner at Ike Lapps the following Sunday.

  All of this was like a reviving drink of water to Sarah, a long awaited renewal of her faith, her roots. She was surprised to find herself missing Mose so keenly. It was like an ache that settled into her chest and didn’t leave all day. She believed it was the atmosphere of knowing friends he had known, the chattering of the women punctuated by the men’s voices rising and falling, peppered with guffaws of laughter that made her curious. Sometimes, when he was alive, she had gone to sit quietly with him, listening to the men’s talk, which was often more interesting than the endless pursuit of the best apple pie or child-rearing practices.

  But she was blessed. She was thankful to have Manny and the little ones. Baby Abby was asleep on her lap and of course, the blistered Hannah, burned with what God had handed her, preferring to pick out the sour grapes, digest them like vinegar, then blame everyone else for her self-chosen path of prickliness. She guessed this is where you loved without condition; loved, kept your mouth shut, and allowed God to do the work of teaching your daughter.

  Sometimes, she found herself watching Mary, looking for signs of determination, unkindness, or a strong, selfish will. She remembered Hannah at Mary’s age. She’d had trouble in school, slandering the teachers, repeating uncouth rhymes the boys taught her, and yes, it had always been someone else’s fault. The teachers were too strict, they picked on her, girls were stupid, jumping all that rope. And on and on.

  It wasn’t that she went unpunished. More than once, Mose had taken her to school to apologize. Could a person really determine their fate, born with a nature that rebelled from a young age? Like a mule, Hannah was. Set and determined. Though her caring parents disciplined her, spouted Bible verses to her, and tumbled holy prayers around her head like a waterfall, all of it passed her by, untouched, unimpressed.

  Lord, have mercy. Sarah’s lips trembled with whispered prayer.

  Toward the end of summer, Hannah broke out with a fierce, red rash, followed by a sore throat and a high fever. It was when she was cranky, hot and bed-ridden, her eyes closed against the misery of her days, the heat oppressive like a punishment, that she found out about Clay.

  Abby Jenkins came to visit, thinner than ever, still coughing, her eyes rheumy, but shrugging it off as if it was nothing. Her skin was stretched across her cheekbones, her wrinkles like crumpled waxed paper that had been smoothed out again.

  She took one long look at Hannah and said she had a bumper crop of German measles, that she’d better stay in bed because she didn’t want no lasting effects.

  They left the door open, so their voices were heard clearly, sentences spoken between sips of spearmint tea. Abby spoke barely two sentences without coughing, which served to irritate Hannah to the point of clawing at the thin sheet covering her itching legs.

  “You heard about Clay, did you?” she asked Sarah.

  “No, we haven’t heard anything.”

  “He’s takin’ the car every Saturday night and goin’ to dances with that Judy Harris. She’s that redhead from Pine. Says he’ll likely ask her to marry him come fall.”

  Hannah
stopped breathing in order to hear every word.

  “Always hoped him and Hannah would git hitched but then, I guess yer traditions wouldn’t allow it, an’ I doubt as Clay would hold too much to some of yours. Afraid Hannah might be better off on her own anyhow, leastways as long as she don’t like folks much. But now me? I coulda get along bein’ her mother-in-law. I’da let her set. Jus’ stayed away. Best thing. She’da been awright.”

  Sarah smiled as she listened to Abby. She saw the open bedroom door and figured Hannah could hear this. Her own feeling about the whole Clay thing had always been to pray that Clay would stay with his own kind, or recognize early on that Hannah was a peck of trouble.

  Now, seated with Abby at her kitchen table, Sarah’s smile was bright and genuine and her congratulations heartfelt. To her way of thinking, there had never been a Clay and Hannah. The drama was certainly not over. Hannah did what she wanted, so who was to know the outcome? Marriage might be a small thing, or perhaps there would be no marriage at all.

  Oh, Hannah, Hannah. Suffering with measles in this heat, her skin as prickly as her nature, she was only beginning to see all that life would offer.

  Sarah smiled at Abby, but felt her mouth tremble as she held back tears. “Yes, Abby, I have no doubt you would have done right by Hannah. You’re a genuinely good-hearted soul. I owe you so much. You’ll be rewarded some day for all your giving. You were more concerned about us than we were about ourselves.”

  Abby laughed, then coughed and coughed. “Ah.” She cleared her throat, wiped her eyes with a corner of her flowered apron.

  Hannah lay in bed absorbing every word between Abby and her mother. So he’d gone and done it, then, what he’d threatened out by the windmill a month ago.

  Always after her, a lone wolf circling her, trying to bring her down. He was nice enough and attractive enough by far. But just so everlasting wanting to touch her, hold her, be with her, so that the minute she saw him arrive on horseback, her main intention had been to stay away from him, or at least make it clear she wasn’t interested.