Hope on the Plains

by Linda Byler

  Ike Lapp’s children were thin and riddled with cold sores, hacking coughs, and mucus that ran in an endless yellow stream from their poor, red, chapped noses.

  Houses were cold, even Ben Miller’s, the one with the best stove among the Amish.

  There just weren’t very many trees for firewood. The feed mill sold coal, but there was no extra money for Ike Lapps or the Detweilers. Ike said he was experimenting with twisted hay. It didn’t last long, but made a hot fire. His wife shot him a look of reproach, and Sarah could not blame her.

  But twisting hay is what it came to toward the end of February when the cold became unbearable. They shivered through their scant breakfast, the hot cornmeal mush steaming in the cold air, burning their tongues in their haste to fill their stomachs.

  When had it come to this? How like a thief in the night this cold crept in and left them with scarce provisions. Hannah still traveled to the Rochers’ store two days a week, one for items they needed to keep real hunger at bay and one to help buy seeds and raise some money for other necessities or to repay their grandfather.

  Doris Rocher was wasting away, thin as a stick, refusing food, whispering words to Hannah, words of homesickness and irritation, saying she was going home on the train by herself for the second time, and seemingly proud of this fact.

  Hannah had no patience for this self-absorbed woman. Her husband ran a hardware store, perhaps only minimally successful, but then, weren’t many places of business just that in these years of hardship? Doris had a nice warm house, heated with coal, snug and cozy, plenty to eat, a telephone, and electricity.

  Hannah worked all day, rearranging shelves, dusting, making signs, and then she was sent to the kitchen to clean for Doris. Harry gave her a pleading look, one she knew well, the same hangdog look he displayed every time he looked at his wife.

  Don’t go looking for pity from her, Hannah thought. There is none. It’s gone.

  “All right,” she said brusquely, brushing him off like a whining fly.

  “Try and lift her spirits, would you, Hannah?” he asked, his eyes like a basset hound.

  Hannah turned away, sickened, kept a straight face, and set to work, ignoring Doris who sat propped on a chair with a pile of pillows holding her up like a sagging rag doll.

  The kitchen was pleasant, or as pleasant as any room could be on a gray wintry day with the wind buffeting the wooden siding, rasping around the cracks in the window like teeth on a comb. The bulbs on the ceiling cast a yellow haze over everything, the corners illuminated with reading lamps.

  White lace doilies hung over the backs of the chairs, over the stuffed arms of davenports and the Queen Anne chairs, which were upholstered in flowered prints. China cabinets displayed ceramic dogs, cats, ladies with parasols, teapots, rabbits, horses, men in top hats, and row upon row of glass objects.

  Doris lifted a hand, crooked one finger to beckon Hannah closer.

  “What?” Hannah asked loudly. Talk to me, she thought. You can speak.

  “I want the ceramics washed,” Doris whispered.

  “All of them?” Hannah asked loudly, raising one eyebrow.

  Doris nodded.

  “Shall I put them back after they’re clean?”

  “No. No. In a trunk. Upstairs in the blue guest room there’s a small wooden trunk. Newspapers are in the washroom. Wash and dry them and pack them in the trunk.”

  Hannah did as she was told. She enjoyed washing the odd little glass and ceramic creatures, rinsing and drying them, rolling them in newspaper and packing them away.

  Halfway through, Harry walked into the room, stood and watched Hannah with an odd expression before asking Doris what was going on.

  “I’m packing.” The curt words were loaded with malice and ill will. Like a concealed weapon, she showed him the gleaming barrel of her mental and emotional revolver.

  She received the response she was hoping for. Harry fell on his knees, took his wife’s hands in his visibly trembling ones, and begged her over and over to reconsider.

  The longer the theatrics continued, the faster Hannah worked, slamming the newspaper wrapped objects into the yawning trunk.

  “Careful there!”

  If Hannah would not have to depend on the wages from this man, she’d break every one of those piddling ceramics and make him drive her home. What was wrong with these people? He obviously would have a nicer life without her, so why not let her go? And if she wanted to go home so badly, then go! Leave already. What a bunch of malarkey! Like two children that needed disciplining.

  She thought of her own mother, the adaptation she had made, the grace in which she had accepted the ranch, never complaining, always cheerful. Well, Manny’s illness had been rough. Even the experience with old Lemuel Short had been hard for her. But still she was stoic and accepting. She was here in North Dakota for the long haul, supporting Hannah’s dream of the Bar S.

  Superiority flapped its wings and settled on Hannah’s shoulder, making her oblivious to the intense struggles her patient mother suffered still.

  “Oh, Harry! Sell the store. Sell out, I implore you. Return to Baltimore with me. If you don’t, I must go alone. I will die in my hometown without the support of my betrothed.”

  “Oh, my darling woman, we are more than betrothed. We are united in marriage. We are as one flesh. We cannot separate!” Harry’s voice rose to a strident crescendo.

  Hannah fled to the back room. Her hands over her ears, she hunkered down, determined to shut out the sound of those falsely sticky-sweet voices.

  What an absolute farce! It sickened her. If one cared for the other even half of what their mouths uttered, they would reside in peace, either in Baltimore, Maryland, or in Pine, North Dakota.

  She was going to march in there and let them have it. She carried a few more newspapers to the table, plunked them down, took a deep breath, and asked them to stop.

  Harry looked at her. Doris narrowed her eyes. “If either one of you loved the other as much as you say, then you’d be happy together, it doesn’t matter where.”

  And that was only the beginning. In the end, she was fired by an irate Harry Rocher and his indignant, resurrected wife. Hannah collected her pay and Harry drove her home in stone cold silence. He ushered her out car door with a curt, “Goodbye,” leaving Hannah standing in front of the ranch house in the raw wind, watching the car disappear into a cloud of dust that rolled across the brown plains.

  Sarah reacted to Hannah’s news with consternation. “Hannah, how will we survive? It’s our only hope, now that the herd is depleted.”

  “We still have some. It’s not depleted.”

  “But we need to have a way to get provisions until the herd is built back up, which could be two years. Jobs are scarce. If it doesn’t snow, when spring comes the drought will continue. And how will we live?”

  “I’ll get a job. Didn’t Manny find anything yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Hannah went to feed the horses, stomped angrily around the barn, yelled at Manny for dumping saddles and bridles in the corner instead of hanging them on the nails provided for that purpose.

  She found Pete lying down, was not surprised to touch his neck and find it stiff and cold, his eyes glazed over with the dull look of death.

  So, that was that, she thought. Dead. Finally, the poor old thing. Well, they were down to one scrawny horse, five head of cattle, a long year of drought, clouds that refused to send rain, and, very likely, God Himself had forgot about them. Bitter thoughts, but better than no thoughts at all.

  They dragged Pete out using a bewildered Goat, left him lying on the prairie, figured the coyotes, vultures, eagles, crows, and whatever other hungry scavengers would find him and have a square meal.

  Manny didn’t think the wolves would come so close to the buildings, and, if they did, well, the dead horse would be easier than bringing down a cow.

  They came in from completing the task, twisted a wagonload of hay to supplement the firewood suppl
y, then pulled it to the stoop of the wash house, covered it with a piece of canvas, and let themselves in the back door, stomping their boots to keep their feet from becoming numb.

  The house was not warm, but it was more comfortable than outside. Sarah had used one turnip and two potatoes, cut them in chunks and stewed them with prairie hens, simmering the pot on the stove until the rich broth permeated the whole house with its savory aroma.

  The news of Pete’s death was taken without surprise, the poor horse unable to rid his body of any liquid matter. They knew it would only be a matter of time.

  Hannah was strangely quiet while they ate. The good stew was sopped up with crusty bread, turning the children’s cheeks red, giving them renewed vigor to talk and laugh, punch each other, lift their faces, and giggle at their own silliness.

  Baby Abby looked at the ceiling, squeezed her eyes, and opened her mouth, howling like a coyote, trying to be silly and get her share of attention from everyone else.

  They laughed. Outside, the wind scoured the house with dust that it picked up and flung against the walls, crackling against the windows, then roaring away into the night.

  Hannah brooded beside the cookstove, her legs thrust out in front of her like two slim saplings, her eyes black with too much thinking.

  “The hay really helps with the cooking,” Sarah said, out of a need to raise Hannah’s spirits.

  “Yeah, that’s good. We don’t have many cows to eat our store of hay.”

  “Is it serious again?” Sarah asked.

  “What do you think? Pete’s gone, I was fired. If this drought continues, there’s only one thing to do. Get another job, both Manny and I. I don’t know what we’ll do if it doesn’t rain in the spring.”

  “God will provide,” Sarah said softly.

  Manny nodded, a reverence showing in his soft brown eyes.

  “Yeah. Well, it’s good you can say that. What if He doesn’t? What if this is the beginning of a three-or four-year drought? Would you stay?” The question was like barbed wire hurled at Sarah by Hannah’s hands.

  Sarah winced, hoped it didn’t show. Firmly, she sat on a kitchen chair and turned to face Hannah with a steady gaze.

  “No one would. Not even the town of Pine would stay.”

  “You don’t know. You’re just saying.”

  “Hannah.” That lilt at the end of her name, a sweet, soft warning. So, the divide was beginning again. She was thinking of giving up. Panic mounted in Hannah’s chest as she watched her mother’s face.

  “We can make it. I can get another horse. From Jerry.”

  Manny raised his eyebrows, looking at his mother over the uncovered head of his sister.

  They both rode to Pine on Goat. An embarrassment to be seen on the back of the poor, scrawny creature, so Hannah walked after the buildings came into view.

  Faces red with the sweep of raw air, hands and feet numb with the cold, they walked through the feed-mill door, accosted by the stares of a group of grimy men peering out from under their stained, battered hats. The owner behind the counter was lean and wrinkled, his eyes bulging out of his head like egg yolks.

  “What kin’ I do fer ye young ’uns?”

  Manny straightened his shoulders, spoke in a clear tone, asking for work.

  “You them Detweilers?”

  “Yessir.”

  He stroked his beardless chin, chewed on the eraser of his yellow pencil, picked a piece of it off his tongue, examined it, wiped the tips of his fingers on his trousers, squinted, coughed, wiped his mouth with a filthy brown handkerchief and shook his head.

  “Wish I could. Times is hard. You got your cattle yet?”

  “Yessir.” This from Hannah.

  “Wolves ain’t got any? Yer lucky. Most folks lost quite a few. Easy for them with no snow.”

  “We lost five, sir,” Manny said, providing the truth.

  Hannah glared at the mill owner, swept the onlookers with her proud stare, pulled Manny away by the shoulder and clomped across the creaking wooden floor and out the door, banging it shut behind her.

  “Hoity-toity,” remarked Abram Jacobs.

  The sewing and alterations place was stuffy, a small room blue with cigarette smoke, acrid with the smell of human perspiration.

  The owner shook her head, the ashes tumbling from the cigarette she held between thin lips. “Have a waiting list,” was all she said.

  Manny did no better at the garage, the mechanic telling him he had enough to do without training a young ’un.

  They stood together on the lee side of the driving wind. Hannah said there was one more place, but she’d rather go hungry than work for her.

  “Who?” Manny asked.

  “That Betsy at the café.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She reminds me of the old cow. The one that killed our father.”

  Manny smiled, shrugged his shoulders.

  That was where Hannah found employment. Three days a week. Had to find her own way there and back. Goat. The only available form of transportation.

  But she lifted her chin, squared her thin shoulders, and told Betsy she’d take it. She had no other choice. It was that or allow the long, bony fingers of starvation to clench all of them in the grip they had known before.

  She could do it. She could go ask Jerry Riehl for the palomino, still uncertain which job would be most difficult.

  CHAPTER 22

  Hannah thought God must have remembered them when Jerry Riehl arrived in his light buggy, driving a horse she had never seen. Now she would not need to ride over on Goat, that poor thing had enough to do pulling the work load around the ranch without Pete.

  Jerry was not the same, open, friendly person he had been. His face seemed pale, set.

  When Hannah followed Manny out to greet him, he smiled at both of them, but it was a pinched smile. Tension played around his mouth, his eyes turned often to the leaden sky.

  “Is this usual, the normal way, to have no snow?” he asked.

  “First winter we’ve seen like this,” Manny replied.

  “There will be no planting in the spring if we get no snow or rain. Jake wants to go back. Ben Miller says it’s foolish to stay if we don’t get any moisture. Wolves got a bunch of Ike Lapp’s heifers. His kids are going hungry.”

  His words raked themselves across Hannah’s mind, inflicting a deep and awful hurt.

  “It’ll soon snow!” she burst out, to hide the pain. “One of these days the blizzards of March and April will arrive and the grass will spring up like never before.”

  Jerry found her eyes with his. Their gazes held. He saw the feverish determination in hers, she saw the doubt in his. Each one knew the clash of wills with the other.

  “Come on in, Jerry. We’ll find us a cup of coffee,” Manny said, cheerfully.

  Hannah followed them to the barn, watched them unhitch. Here was a real buggy horse. Sturdy, long and lean, built for stamina, the miles eaten away by the tireless hooves placed on the road. This horse could easily run ten or twelve miles without exertion, the light buggy pulled along like an afterthought.

  “Nice horse,” she said amiably.

  Jerry nodded. “No relation to King or Duke.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Where’s Pete?”

  “Well, between the coyotes, vultures, and whatever other hungry creature roaming these plains, he’s pretty much eaten up,” Manny said, shaking his head at the thought.

  “So, he didn’t make it then?”

  “No.”

  “Poor old coot. He was a good one.”

  “Yes, he was. My father drove a double team of those Haflingers’ all the way out here. Hundreds of miles,” Manny said, proudly.

  Jerry shook his head.

  Hannah fought down her rising sense of irritation. How could he be proud? The thought of that journey was a memory she would like to erase, a humiliation.

  “You have to admire the pioneer spirit of the man,” Jerry
said, giving Manny a wry smile.

  Manny grinned back. “Yeah, he had that. His faith too. He was a big believer in God’s generosity, always looking for miracles and blessings along the way.”

  Hannah glared and said, “He was a dreamer. He lived in a world of unreality where things were made of fluff. Like a dandelion seed on the wind. That was our father.”

  “Hannah!” Manny stopped, suddenly knowing that to press his point would only bring the eruption of the volcano of bad memories Hannah harbored within herself.

  “It’s true.”

  Sarah was glad to see them come in out of the cold. She set steaming cups of coffee before them, apologized for the lack of food, pie, or small cakes to set out.

  “I can’t imagine the pantry has come to be so low so quickly,” she said softly.

  “You have enough, though?” Jerry asked, his voice tinged with so much kindness that Hannah felt a lump rising in her throat.

  They spoke of the weather, the drought, the cold, and the dust. Hannah did not join in.

  Did they ever speak of anything else? It would snow and rain. Spring always brought moisture.

  Tension mounted as Jerry spoke reluctantly of Jake Fisher’s thoughts about returning to Lancaster County, and Ike Lapp’s inability to keep his family fed comfortably.

  Sarah’s eyes turned involuntarily to the pantry.

  Hannah spoke then, her words hard, falling like metallic objects. They were hard to listen to, rife with disgust at anyone who even thought of returning. Pioneers lived through drought, worse than this. Amish in Lancaster County were the wrong people to settle the West, living in ease and comfort all their lives, cloistered, their sense of community stronger than the slightest sense of adventure.

  Jerry’s eyes snapped, his suppressed anger rising like steam. “Hannah, you do realize if this drought does continue, we will be forced to leave. It has nothing to do with what we want. Think of our horses, our cattle. Your cattle. No rain, no grass.”

  “You are only settling on a future, surmising it will not rain. Of course it will. Spring always brings moisture,” she said tartly.