Years

by LaVyrle Spencer

  She didn’t know how to answer. She herself had had bouts with her own parents recently that seemed to flare out of nowhere.

  “I think it’s part of growing up, fighting with your parents.”

  She was so calm, so reasonable. And looking at her made him waver in his convictions.

  “What would you think if I went?”

  She studied him intently for a moment, and answered softly, “I’d wait for you. I’d wait for as long as it would take.”

  “Would you?”

  She nodded solemnly. “Because I think I love you, Kristian.”

  He’d thought the same thing about her more than once lately, but hearing her say the words was like a blow to his senses. In a flash his hands were on her arms, drawing her up into his embrace again. “But we shouldn’t say it,” he said against her neck. “Not now, when I’m planning to leave. It’ll make everything too hard.”

  She clung, pressing her breasts firmly against him. “Oh, Kristian... you might get killed.” Her words were muffled by his coat collar before he forced her head around and their mouths joined. As they strained against each other, his trembling, uncertain hand slid inside her warm coat, glided over her back, her side, and finally sought her breast. Her breathing stopped and her mouth hovered close without meeting his.

  “It’s a sin,” she whispered, her breath warm against his damp lips.

  “So is war,” he whispered in reply.

  But she stopped his hand anyway and drew it to her lips and kissed his knuckles.

  “Then stay,” she pleaded.

  But he knew as he kissed her one last time and backed away that she was part of what would keep him here his entire life if he didn’t leave in June.

  22

  SPRING CAME TO the prairie like a young girl preparing for her first dance, taking her time primping and preening. She bathed in gentle rains, emerging snowless and fresh. She dried with warm breezes, stretching beneath the benign sun, letting the wind comb her grassy hair until it lifted and flowed. Upon her breast she touched a lingering scent of earth and sun and life renewed. She put on a gay bonnet, trimmed of crocus and snowdrop and scoria lily, fluffed her red-willow petticoat, then tripped a trial dance step upon the stirring April breeze.

  The animals returned as if on cue. The “flickertails” — striped gophers — perching beside their fresh-dug holes then chasing each other in playful caprice. The prairie dogs, barking and churring to their mates at twilight. The sharp-tailed grouse, drumming like thunder in lowland thickets. Mallards and honkers, heading north. And last but not least, the horses, heading home.

  They came with the instinct of those who know their purpose, appearing one evening at the fence in the low pasture, whinnying to get in, to be harnessed, to turn the soil once again. All shaggy and thick, they stood in wait, as if the sharpening of plowshares had carried their tune across the prairies and beckoned them home. They were all there — Clippa, Fly, Chief, and the rest — two mares, Nelly and Lady, thick with foals.

  They all walked down together to greet them, and Linnea observed the reunion with a renewed sense of appreciation for a farmer and his horses. Nose to nose, breath to breath, they communicated — beast and man happy to be together again. Teddy and Kristian scratched the horses’ broad foreheads, walked in full circles around them, clapped their shoulders, checked their hooves. Linnea watched Teddy rub one big hand under Lady’s belly, recollecting his voice raging, “I’ve had my family and he’s damn near a full-grown man.” What would he say when she told him, if what she suspected was true? She had missed one menstrual period and was waiting until she’d missed a second before giving him the news. They hadn’t talked about babies again, but if it was true and she was expecting, surely he’d be overjoyed, as she was.

  April moved on and the plowing began in earnest, but the older boys were present at roll call each day. Linnea wasn’t certain whether it was due more to the fact that the schoolmarm was now Teddy Westgaard’s wife or to the fact that he and Kristian still weren’t talking.

  In the fourth week of April Theodore turned thirty-five. He and Linnea were preparing for bed that night when she slipped her arms around him and kissed his chin. “You’ve been a little out of sorts today. Is anything wrong?”

  He rested his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her inquiring eyes. “On the day I turn a year older? Do you have to ask?”

  “I have a birthday gift for you that I think will cheer you up.”

  He grinned crookedly, held her by both ear lobes, and teasingly wobbled her head from side to side. “You cheer me up. Just having you here at night cheers me up. What do I want with gifts?”

  “Oh, but this gift is special.”

  “So are you,” he said softly, releasing her ears and kissing her lingeringly on the mouth. When the kiss ended she looked up into his earth-brown eyes and kept her stomach pressed close against him.

  “We’re going to have a baby, Teddy.”

  She felt the change immediately: he tensed and leaned back. “A b... ”

  She nodded. “I think I’m about two months along.”

  “A baby!” His surprise turned to outright displeasure and he pushed away. “Are you sure?”

  Her heart thudded heavily. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Pleased! I told you a long time ago I didn’t want any more babies! I’m too old!”

  “Oh, Teddy, you aren’t. It’s just a notion in your head.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m not! I’m old enough to have one of my own going off to get himself killed in a war and you expect me to be happy about having another one so I can go through this agony again?”

  She was so hurt she didn’t know what to say. The disappointment was too intense to bring tears. She stood stiffly, wondering how to handle the huge lump of distress that seemed to lodge in her womb beside their growing fetus. All the excitement she’d felt dissolved and left only disillusionment.

  “And besides,” he went on peevishly, “you and I have barely had any time alone together. Three months — not even three months and you’re pregnant already.” Turning away, he cursed softly under his breath, folded himself on the edge of the bed, and held his head.

  “Well, what did you expect to happen when we practically never miss a night?”

  His head came up sharply, jutting. “Don’t throw that up to me now, at this late date,” he snapped. “You and your ‘let’s try this and let’s try that,’” he finished on a mordant note.

  Her hurt intensified. She pressed her stomach. “Teddy, this is your child I’m carrying. How can you not want it?”

  He jumped to his feet in frustration. “I don’t know. I just don’t, that’s all. I want things to go on like they were. You and me, and Kristian back in the fields where he belongs, and no more of this talk of war and... and... oh, goddammit all!” he cried and pounded from the room.

  She was left behind to stare at the door, to press her hands to her stomach and wonder how someone who loved her so deeply could still hurt her equally as deeply. How could he have said such things about their lovemaking, as if he’d never felt the same wondrous compulsions she had?

  She put on her nightgown and crept into bed, lying like a plank with the covers tightly under her arms, staring at the ceiling. Thinking. Sorrowing. Waiting. Odd, how tears didn’t seem to accompany the most grievous hurts in life. She lay dry-eyed and stricken and praying that when he came back in he’d gather her into his arms and say he was sorry — he’d been unreasonable and he wanted their baby after all.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he blew out the lantern, undressed in the dark, got in beside her, and turned away. She felt his continued reproof as palpably as if he’d struck her.

  The following day she walked to school alone. They hadn’t spoken a word during breakfast and it was almost a relief to escape the tension.

  It was Arbor Day; she and the children spent it doing the traditional outside cleanup. They had all brought rakes and put t
hem to use tidying up from one end of the yard to the other. While the older boys painted the outhouses, the girls washed windows. It was a sunny day, so warm that some of the children had removed their shoes and stockings to go barefoot. When the yard work was all done they would go down to the creek bottom and select one sapling to dig up and transplant in the schoolyard.

  They piled all the yard clippings on a sandy spot in the ditch and set them afire. Linnea was tending the blaze when she looked up to find Theodore and John passing by in a buckboard. Her heart skittered.

  John waved and called, “Hello!”

  “Hello!” She waved back. “Where you going?”

  “To town.”

  “What for?”

  “Get a share welded and buy supplies!”

  “Have fun!”

  She waved effusively. John waved back and smiled. Theodore gave a wan greeting with one palm, and she watched them move on down the road.

  They finished the yard work by twelve-thirty, doused the embers with water, and headed for the lowlands with their lunch pails. Roseanne and Jeannette skipped along holding hands, singing, “Merrily in the Month of May.” Allen Severt found a baby bullsnake and tormented the girls with it. Patricia Lommen walked beside Kristian, their arms touching.

  They found a sunny glade beside Little Muddy and flopped in the grass to eat a leisurely lunch. Some of the children tried to wade, but the creek was still icy. They turned instead to exploring, searching for duck nests along the banks, probing into anthills, examining the locomotion of a pair of green inch-worms.

  Finally Linnea checked her watch and decided they must find their tree if they were to make it back in time to replant it. They chose a straight, vigorous-looking sapling with bright silver bark and fat pistachio-colored buds. The older boys dug it up and put it in a pail to carry back.

  They made a fetching sight, trooping over the prairie in a straggly line, the younger children skipping, chasing gophers, the older ones taking turns carrying the tree. They were crossing the stretch of wheat field just northeast of the school, the bell tower already in sight, when a frigid current of air riffled across the plain and a huge flock of blackbirds lifted, squawking raucously. The smaller children shivered; Roseanne pulled up her skirt and used it for a cape.

  Ahead of Linnea, Libby halted in her tracks, pointed to the west, and said, “What’s that?”

  They all stopped to stare. A solid mass of white was rapidly moving toward them.

  “I don’t know,” an awed voice answered. “Mrs. Westgaard, what is it?”

  Grasshoppers? Linnea stiffened in alarm. She’d heard of grasshoppers coming in legion to devastate everything they touched. But it was too early for grasshoppers. Dust? Dust, too, could suddenly darken the sky out here. But dust was brown, not white. They all stood in fascination, waiting, as the wall of white moved toward them. Seconds before it struck, someone uttered, “Snow... ”

  Snow? Never had Linnea seen snow like this. It smote them like a thousand fists, instantly sealing them in a colorless void, bringing with it a wicked wind that tugged at the roots of her hair and pressed her clothing flat.

  Two children screamed, unexpectedly cut off from the sight of all around them. Linnea stumbled over a warm body and knocked it off its feet, raising a cry of alarm. Dear God, she couldn’t see five feet in front of her! She set the child on his feet and groped for his hand.

  “Children, grab hands!” she shouted. “Quickly! Here, Tony, take my hand,” she ordered the boy behind her. “Everyone back toward my voice and hold onto the person next to you. We’ll all run together!” She had the presence of mind to take a hasty roll call before they moved. “Roseanne, are you here? Sonny? Bent?” She called all fourteen names.

  Everyone accounted for, they followed the wheat rows, the small children crying now in their bare feet. Within minutes there were no wheat rows to follow, and she prayed they were heading in the right direction. All sense of perspective was lost in the white maelstrom, but they clung together in a ragged, terrified line and fought their way through it. These were not the usual fat, saturated snowflakes of late spring, the kind that land with a splat and disappear instantly. These were hard and dry, a mid-winter type of storm wrapped in a front of frighteningly frigid air.

  They had no idea they were near the schoolyard until Norna ran headlong into one of the cottonwoods of the windbreak. She bounced off the tree and sat down hard, howling, taking two others down with her.

  “Come on, Norna.” Raymond was there to pick her up and carry her, while Linnea, Kristian, Patricia, and Paul herded the remaining youngsters blindly across the yard. How incredible to think they’d been blithely raking it only hours before.

  There was no question of finding shoes that had been left on the grass. They were already buried. The shivering picnic party straggled up the steps, the barefoot ones stubbing toes and crying.

  Inside, they stood in a trembling cluster, catching their breath. Roseanne plopped down, whimpering, to check a bruised toe. Linnea took a nose count, found all present and accounted for, and immediately started issuing orders.

  “Kristian, are you good for one more trip outside?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You get the coal.” He was heading for the coal shed before she got the words out of her mouth.

  “And Raymond, you get water.”

  He was right on Kristian’s heels, grabbing the water bucket on his way out.

  “Raymond, wait!” she shouted after him. In blizzards like this men were known to get lost between the house and bam, heading out to do the evening chores. “Kristian can follow the edge of the building, you can’t. Climb the ladder and untie the bell rope.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Without hesitation, Raymond made for the cloakroom.

  “Paul, you go with him and hold the end of the rope while he goes to the pump. Those of you with bate feet, take off your petticoats and dry them. Girls, share your petticoats with the boys. Don’t worry about keeping them clean. Your mothers can wash them when you get home. And I know your toes are freezing, but as soon as Kristian has a fire going they’ll be warm as toast again. How many of you have any lunch left in your pails?” Six hands went up.

  A tiny voice quaked, “I lotht my lunth pail. Mama will thpank me.”

  “No she won’t, Roseanne. I promise I’ll explain to her that it wasn’t your fault.”

  Roseanne began to wail nonetheless, requiring soothing before she’d settle down. Patricia and Frances were dispatched to oversee the smaller children and to take their minds off their discomforts.

  Kristian returned and built a fire. Allen and Tony were given the job of periodically shoveling the steps to keep the door free.

  When at last everyone was settled down as comfortably as possible, Linnea called Kristian aside.

  “How much coal do we have?”

  “Enough, I think.”

  “You think?”

  It was late April. Who ever would have thought it would become a concern when wildflowers were already blooming on the prairie? Exactly how cold could it get this late in the year? And how long could a blizzard rage when May Day was just round the corner?

  Kristian squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry about it. This can’t keep up for long.”

  But 1888 was heavy on her mind as Linnea stalwartly went to her table, took out a theme book, and made her first entry, hoping — praying — no one ever need see it: April 27, 1918, 3:40 P.M. — Caught in a blizzard on our way back from the creek bottom, where we’d gone to dig an Arbor Day tree and have our picnic lunch. The day began with temperatures in the low 70s, so mellow some of the children went barefoot cleaning the schoolyard in the morning.

  Suddenly Linnea’s pen stopped and her head snapped up.

  Theodore and John!

  She stared at the windows, which looked like they’d been painted white and listened to the wind howling down the stovepipe and rattling shingles.

  With her heart in her throat, Linnea
swung a glance at Kristian. He was hunkering close to the stove with the other children, all of them talking in low voices. She got to her feet, feeling fear for the first time since the blizzard had struck. She moved to the window, touched its ledge, and stared at the white fury that beat against the panes. Already triangular drifts webbed the corners, but beyond all was an impenetrable mystery. Forcing a calm voice, Linnea turned.

  “Excuse me, Kristian. Could you come here a moment?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, rose, and crossed the room to her.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She tried to sound nonchalant. “Kristian, while we were still cleaning the yard did you see your father and John pass by on their way home from town?”

  He glanced at the window, then back at her. His hands came slowly out of his back pockets and concern sharpened his features.

  “No.”

  She affected an even lighter tone. “Well, chances are they’re still in town, probably at the blacksmith shop all snug and cozy around the forge.”

  “Yeah... ” Kristian replied absently, glancing back to the window. “Yeah, sure.”

  She forced herself to wait a full five minutes after Kristian had rejoined the group before moving to the edge of the circle. “Raymond, would you mind climbing back up to the cupola and tying the rope back on the bell again? It occurs to me that on a day like this we may not have been the only ones caught unawares by the blizzard. It might be a good idea to toll the bell at regular intervals.”

  It was terribly hard to keep her voice steady, her face placid.

  “But why you gonna do that?” Roseanne inquired innocently.

  Linnea rested a hand on the child’s brown hair, looked down into an upturned face whose wide brown eyes were too young to understand the scope of true peril. “If there’s anyone out there, the sound might guide them in.” Linnea scanned the circle. “I’m asking for volunteers to stay in the cloakroom and ring the bell once every minute or so. You can take turns, two at a time, and we’ll leave the cloakroom doors open so it won’t be quite so cold in there.”