by Peterson, Tracie; Davis, Mary; Hake, Kelly Eileen; Stengl, Jill; Warren, Susan May
Heinrick finally pulled off his leather gloves, tucked them into his chaps, and turned away from her. She watched him lumber toward the bunkhouse, feeling in his wake the weight of his loneliness.
She carried it all the way into Mobridge.
Independence Day preparations had sparked the town into activity. Westward, near the Missouri, Lilly spied the makings of the Fourth of July fair: unfamiliar rigs, buckboards, tents, and various prize livestock. On the other end of town, stood makeshift cattle pens and a large corral. In two days, cowboys from all over South Dakota would gather to duke it out with untamed beasts in the Mobridge rodeo. Lilly loved the exotic, recaptured display of bygone days from a now-tamed West. Reggie always participated as a hazer for his authentic cowboy buddies. A rugged memory hit her like a warm gust of wind. In his nut-brown leather cowboy hat, the one with the Indian braid dangling down the back, and his fringed sandy-colored chaps, Reggie easily passed for a ranch hand, and a dashing one, besides.
Despite the fresh ache of Reggie’s absence, Lilly knew Mobridge desperately needed the rodeo and the mind-numbing gaiety of Independence Day. They needed to celebrate with gusto, to remind themselves why they sacrificed, all of them—mothers, sons, wives, and husbands. They were at war to make the world safe for freedom, for independence.
Lilly jumped at the hee-haw of a late model Packard. She skittered to the side of the street and watched a mustard yellow Roadster roll by, the oohs and aahs of admiring farmers rolling out like a red carpet before it. Lilly smirked. Clive’s Model T wouldn’t be the only attraction in town over the holiday.
Ernestine’s burst with shoppers, most of whom had unfamiliar tanned faces. A handful of Russian women, their wide, red faces glistening under colorfully dyed headscarves, haggled with Willard over a batch of home-canned sauerkraut and pickles. Their jumbled words stirred a memory within Lilly, and at once, Heinrick’s sharp, strange mother tongue filled her mind. She fought the image of his tired eyes and sagging shoulders.
“What do you want today, Lilly?” Ernestine barked.
“Two pounds of sugar, please?”
Ernestine pinched her lips and searched under the wooden countertop for an extra burlap bag. She filled it with sugar and passed it over to Lilly. “Bring the bag back.”
Lilly paid Ernestine, turned, and plowed straight into Marjorie’s mother, Jennifer Pratt.
“Be careful, girl!” Mrs. Pratt exclaimed.
Lilly blushed. “Excuse me, Mrs. Pratt.”
Mrs. Pratt’s voice softened. “How are you, Lilly?”
“Fine, thank you. How is Marjorie?”
“She’s at the armory. Why don’t you stop in and ask her yourself?”
Lilly tried not to notice the stares of three other women who had turned curious eyes upon her as soon as Mrs. Pratt announced her name. Shame swept through her bones.
“I’ll do that,” she mumbled. “Good day, ma’am.”
Mrs. Pratt nodded and moved past her. Lilly made for the door.
She stopped next at the post office. Lilly’s heart did a small skip when the clerk handed her not only a letter from Reggie, but also one for Olive, from Chuck. Her sister would be ecstatic. She tucked both into the pocket of her apron as she crossed the street and headed to the armory.
The former one-room tavern swam with the odor of mothballs, cotton fibers, and antiseptic. A handful of uniformed girls ripped long strips of cloth.
Marjorie appeared every inch a Red Cross volunteer as she cut and wound long sheets of muslin and assembled first aid kits to send to the front. Over her calico prairie dress, she wore a standard-issue Red Cross white cotton pinafore, with two enormous pockets sewn into the skirt. Pinned on her head was a fabric-covered pillbox hat emblazoned with a bright red cross on the upturned crown.
“Lilly!” Marjorie dropped her fabric onto a long table and embraced her friend. “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
Marjorie’s eyes twinkled. “Harley proposed.”
“What?”
Marjorie grinned. “His last letter said he couldn’t keep fighting without knowing I was pledged to him and our future. We’ll be married as soon as he returns.”
“But Marj, what if he doesn’t come back?” Lilly instantly clamped a hand over her mouth, wishing her words back.
Marjorie gaped at her. “How can you say that? Of course he’ll be back.”
“I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
Marjorie’s anger dissolved, and she gathered Lilly into a forgiving hug. “No harm done. I know you’re worried, too.”
Tears pooled like a flash flood, spilling from Lilly’s eyes. “I keep telling myself Reggie will be all right,” she whispered. “I just wish I knew for sure that he would come home.”
Marjorie looped her arm through Lilly’s. She led her away from curious ears. “Let’s not think about it. There is nothing we can do anyway. We just have to wait.”
Lilly wiped the tears with her fingertips, already feeling her composure returning. But they had left their mark. Obviously, she missed Reggie more than she realized. She hadn’t cried over him since receiving his last letter.
The pair stared out of a grimy window onto the street, at women lugging loaded baskets and dirt-streaked children running with hoops. Morrie stood in his doorway, his apron stained with shaving cream and strands of hair. A pack of cowboys emerged from Flanner’s café. Some straddled their horses while another group surrounded the Packard, wishing for a more sophisticated form of transportation.
“By the way, are you all right?”
“What?” Lilly glanced at Marjorie and frowned.
“You can tell me, Lilly. Did he force you to help him?”
Lilly peeled her arm from Marjorie’s grasp. “What are you talking about?”
Marjorie’s eyes darted away, then back to Lilly. She lowered her voice. “The foreigner. I heard all about it from my sister. She said he grabbed you and forced you to drive him home.”
So that was the local story. Or, at least one version of it. She shook her head. “That’s not how it happened, Marj.”
Marjorie paled. “What do you mean, Lilly? Did something else happen?”
Lilly held her friend’s hands. “Listen, I will only say this once because, frankly, I am trying to forget it happened. The Craffey boys attacked Heinrick. It was unprovoked, no matter what anyone says, and entirely mismatched. I felt sorry for him, so I butted in.”
Marjorie’s eyes widened. “Heinrick?”
Lilly’s face heated. “Forget I told you. I’ve already forgotten it and him.”
Marjorie peered at her friend, as if seeing into her soul. “You don’t look like you’ve forgotten it, Lilly. You’re blushing.”
“Am I?” Lilly’s mouth went dry, and she dropped Marjorie’s hands as if they were ice. “I’m just embarrassed, that’s all.”
Marjorie stepped away from her, her eyes skimming her in one quick sweep. “Right.”
Marjorie’s mistrust felt like a slap. She winced and wanted to argue, but for a moment, in her friend’s suspicious eyes, she saw the truth. Despite the fact she’d rejected the enemy and turned her back on Heinrick, his sapphire eyes glimmered steadily in her mind. He was far from forgotten.
Chapter 9
Lilly headed to a bluff overlooking the Missouri, a nook nestled in the shade of a few now withering maples, to read Reggie’s letter. The sun, a salmon-colored ball, bled out along the horizon. As the wind loosened her unkempt braid, a meadowlark sang a tune from the fallow field nearby. The smell of dust and drying leaves urged feelings of fall, although the summer heat spilled perspiration down the back of her cotton dress.
This letter was longer, the writing blocked and smudged in places. Lilly determined to analyze each agonizing detail and truly know the cold he’d described in his last letter. More than that, she hoped to sense they were together somehow, that they could bridge this awful, growing chasm between them.
My Dearest
Lilly,
I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been two weeks since my last batch of mail, and I have concluded that the mail service has fallen into the hands of ineptitude, as has much of this man’s army. Although I am proud to be serving the Red, White, and Blue and can say I know it my Christian duty to protect the ideals of democracy, I am sometimes weakened by the lack of supplies and the ever-worsening conditions. I know, in principle, this is not a result of Pershing’s leadership or even of President Wilson. Rather, it is the result of too much war, too little sleep, too few supplies, and, worse yet, too many casualties.
I sit now in a reserve trench. Dawn approaches, long shadows licking the edges of the gully where I sleep, eat, and spend my off days. Others head for a nearby village, where they take refuge in French cafes, taverns, and, I fear, boardinghouses within the arms of French women. But of this I do not know firsthand, of course. I will sit here today and try and sleep on my helmet or on one of the many lice-covered bunks left in the shallow dugouts. Oh, how I loathe lice! I feel them move over me as if my skin is somehow unhappy on my bones and seeks to new habitation. I have been without a bath for so long, I have forgotten the sense of water upon my body. How I long for the Missouri.
I spent the last week on the front lines, in the firing trench, curled in a dugout while the cover trench lobbed shells over my sleepless head. We are awake at night, searching the darkness for foreign bodies that attempt to cut the barbed wire and murder us in our gopher holes. God has preserved me thus far so I know He must be hearing your prayers. One morning, as the dawn revealed the unlucky, I saw that two of my compatriots had been struck. One was a Brit named Martin and the other a fellow Dakotan from Yankton, who had received so much mail here we dubbed him Lucky Joe. I remembered then a moment of agonized cries and frenzied shelling, like lightning in the sky, and knew a firefight had been waged a mere hundred yards from me. And where was I in that desperate moment? Blinking through the darkness, holding at bay the erratic, armed shadows. I know, Lilly, if I blink too long, one of those shadows will emerge, and then I will be the one to sleep forever, slain in this muddy dugout.
Poor Lucky Joe. He often told me of his parents’ small wheat plot and worried about their fate with their crops this year without him. He was their only son.
I will not think about it. I will come home to you and our future. It is for you I fight, you and our God-ordained dreams.
Mother, in her last letter, told me you were among those to help house and feed a group of Wyoming doughboys, headed east in May. My heart was both envious to think of those boys having the advantage of seeing your lovely face and pleased my future bride is so faithful in her outpouring of love and concern. I am proud of you, Lilly-girl, and wrote my mother precisely that in a recent letter.
Is it warm there? Did your lilies bloom this year? I remember how tediously you tended them in years past. How are Bonnie and DJ? Chuck tells me all is well with Olive, and I am glad for him. He carries her picture in his helmet.
The sunlight is upon us, and I hear the clang of the kitchen bell. This morning, perhaps, I will get a hot meal. Please hold on to the promises we made and write to your soldier doing his part at the front.
Yours,
Reggie
Lilly smoothed the letter on her lap, and her throat burned. Fixing her eyes on the streak of orange that scraped against the far bluffs, she fought the image of Reggie lying in a dugout hole, a lone man holding back the German lines. On Sunday, she would say an extra-fervent prayer for his safety. Lilly closed her eyes and searched her heart for any sins that might somehow, through Divine justice, send a bullet into Reggie’s hideout. She didn’t have to dig far to unearth one. It was painfully clear she must fight every errant, impulsive thought of Heinrick, his jeweled eyes, and the way she felt embraced by his smile. She must purge the German from her mind and instead cling to the future Reggie had planned. She must do her part to help Reggie come home alive—tend to her letters and never think of anyone but Reggie again. Ever.
A hawk screamed and soared into the horizon, where it melted into the sunset. Behind her, the wind rustled the drying leaves of the maples. They seemed to sizzle as they shattered and fell. The prairie was drying up. The world was at war. And Lilly’s future seemed as fragile as the maple leaves.
Lilly held the reins to a dozing Lucy and patted the horse’s soft velvet nose. The Appaloosa’s eyes were glassy mirrors, glinting the barely risen sun. She gazed at Lilly and seemed to ask, “What am I doing here?”
Lilly rubbed her hand along the forelock of the twenty-year-old mare. “I don’t think this is a great idea, either, old girl. Just be careful and don’t go too fast.”
Not far off, Lilly caught a different set of instructions delivered by her father to his antsy ten-year-old son. “Ride like the wind, Frankie. Don’t let those other cowboys nose in front of you. Keep your eyes straight ahead and remember you’re a Clark!” He clamped the boy on the shoulder, and Lilly stifled a giggle as Frankie nearly landed in the dirt.
“I don’t know, Donald….” Mrs. Clark pinned her husband with a worried look.
“He’ll be fine,” he assured her.
Lilly tugged on Frankie’s beat-up hat as swung into the saddle. “Behave yourself.” She knew he had other plans in mind—another route for the race that might indeed place the youngster at the head of the pack. A piercing gunshot ripped through the morning air. Frankie urged Lucy to the starting line. From Lilly’s point of view, Frankie would have a time just getting the horse up the hill out of Mobridge, let alone all the way to the Torgesen T and back. Frankie grinned like a hyena, oblivious to the fact he was the youngest contender. Lucy fought sleep. Then the next shot rang out and the pack exploded. Frankie kicked Lucy, wiggled in his saddle, and plowed his way through the dust churned up by the other horses. The horde had long vanished by the time Frankie disappeared behind the bluffs.
Lilly plopped down on the picnic blanket and watched the sun stretch golden fingers into the first hours of the Independence Day picnic. Two hours later, every rider had returned but Frankie. Mrs. Clark sent her husband furious glances as she squinted toward the north. Lilly fought the urge to betray Frankie’s plan to cheat and cut a shortcut across the Clark farm to the Torgesen T. Just when she’d decided to turn him in, he and Lucy appeared on the horizon. As they plodded closer, she noticed two things: He and old Luce were covered to their hips in Missouri mud, and he wasn’t alone.
Frankie rode in sporting a sheepish grin, bursting with an obvious story to tell. An exuberant crowd greeted him as if he were a doughboy returning from war. But Lilly’s eyes were glued to the cowboy in the wide milky ten-gallon hat and muddy black chaps, who beamed like he’d caught the canary. His blue eyes twinkled, and he pinned them straight on Lilly.
Lilly crossed her arms against her chest, turned to Frankie, and ignored the man she couldn’t seem to get rid of.
His father helped Frankie down from Lucy, and his mother wrapped him in a fierce hug. Ed Miller, the race official, pushed through the crowd. He glared at Frankie, and demanded an explanation.
Commanding the crowd like a well-seasoned preacher, Frankie spun a tale of adventure and peril. He glossed over the part where he cheated and focused on the usually free-flowing Missouri tributary he’d attempted to cross during his shortcut to win the race.
“Good Ole Luce fought like a rattler caught by the tail, but the mud sucked her down!” All grins, Frankie described Lucy’s battle with the clay only the Missouri could produce. Lilly grimaced as she pictured Lucy slogging about in panic, gluing herself and Frankie to the riverbed.
“I tried to break her free, but finally gave up. There weren’t anything I could do but holler,” Frankie said. To illustrate, he bellowed loudly over the crowd, which elicited riotous laughter from the other competitors.
“I was just plain lucky this here cowboy was near enough to hear me.” Frankie gestured to his hero and grinned in glowing admiration. Heinrick, who had m
oved with his mount to the fringes of the crowd, kept his head down and tugged on his hat. Lilly’s heart moved in pity for him. Obviously, he didn’t want to revive any previous memories of his appearance in town. But if any of the folks recognized him, they stayed mute. Frankie continued his saga by describing how Heinrick had wrestled Lucy and Frankie from the grip of the mud with an old bald cottonwood.
When Frankie finished his tale, Ed dressed him down, then clamped him on the shoulder. “I do believe, son, you win the award for most daring contestant.” The crowd erupted in good-natured cheering. Even Lilly’s father, who had listened with a frown and pursed lips, gave in to forgiveness and tugged on his son’s grimy hat.
The crowd dispersed, and Frankie pulled his father over to meet his hero.
“Thank you,” Mr. Clark said to Heinrick as he pumped the German’s hand.
Heinrick shrugged. “Glad to help.” Lilly noticed the proud, triumphant smile had vanished, and in his eyes lurked that lonely, desperate look she’d seen earlier.
“Would you like to stick around for some breakfast? My wife’s fixed up some hotcakes and has some homemade peach preserves in her basket.”
Lilly’s heart jumped. She heard Olive’s quick intake of breath behind her. Heinrick looked past her father to Lilly, reaching out to her with his blue eyes and holding her in their magical grip. His tanned face was clean-shaven this morning, although his hair was longer, curling around his ears and brushing the collar of his red cotton shirt. He shifted in his saddle, considering her father’s request, all the time staring at Lilly, who felt herself blush. She forced herself to close her eyes and look away.
When she opened them, Heinrick was shaking his head and extending his hand again to her father.