The Unplowed Sky Read online

  “Good morning, Mrs. Raford.” Hallie smiled at the woman with stylishly bobbed blond hair and a flowing flowered dress that couldn’t disguise raillike thinness. “How would you like your eggs? And do you want cream and sugar with your coffee?”

  Mrs. Raford winced. “No eggs, thank you. Be a dear and make me some tea.”

  Could she have a headache? Or be expecting? Hallie brewed tea in a gold-rimmed pot and placed it, with a matching cup and saucer, on a small tray.

  She set it in front of Mrs. Raford and was rewarded with a faint smile. “Wonderful biscuits, Hallie,” Mr. Raford complimented. “I’ve always believed it took years to acquire such a knack, but you must have a natural talent.”

  “I’ve made biscuits since I was nine. With the lovely cream you get from those Jersey cows, it’d be hard to make a bad batch. Is there anything I can get for anybody?” She was ready to pull out her chair and begin to get acquainted with these people, though she already suspected that Mrs. Raford was going to be hard to please.

  Mrs. Raford’s violet eyes widened as they stared at Hallie’s plate. “Oh, dear!” The woman’s face went pink. She glanced at her husband.

  He lavished butter on a biscuit and speared another slice of ham. He had inherited railroad money and was interested in scientific farming, though the actual work was done by tenant farmers. He said nothing. Turning even pinker, Mrs. Raford raised her hand in a delaying gesture as Hallie started to sit down.

  “Hallie, dear—out here it may be different. I’m sure you mean no impertinence, but we don’t sit down to table with ser—those we employ.”

  Hallie flushed till her body burned with surge after surge of pounding blood that also throbbed dizzyingly in her temples. “I—I—” The words clogged her throat.

  She swallowed, and her eyes blurred as she stared at the Rafords’ surprised faces. Could that be a hint of amusement—a sudden special interest—in the man’s eyes? Hallie longed to take off her apron and let them know she wouldn’t work for anyone who thought they were too good to eat with her. But she couldn’t. She had Jackie.

  Mrs. Raford said soothingly, “You’re getting good wages, Hallie, and a nice room. And we let you keep your—your little brother. It seems to me that this should be a perfect situation for you.”

  Hallie’s cheeks burned. She had never in her life been so hurt and angry. She wouldn’t sit with them now if—if they begged her! “I do appreciate your letting me keep Jackie,” she said and returned to the kitchen where tears came, despite of all she could do to choke them back.

  Somehow Hallie finished serving breakfast, put the dishes to soak, and went upstairs. Jackie was just rousing. He swallowed hard when he recognized her and a few tears edged down his cheeks, but he didn’t cry or make a fuss.

  Hallie bragged about him because he could almost tie his shoes. He was an appealing little boy with their father’s dark eyes and curly hair, which Hallie had so often wished she had inherited. Surely Felicity would change her mind, decide she couldn’t live without him, and come back.

  No, she wouldn’t. Felicity looked out for Felicity first; and the less Hallie thought about her, the better. In the kitchen, Jackie and Hallie had a good breakfast from the plentiful leftovers. Jackie wouldn’t put Lambie down, and he wouldn’t go outside alone. He stayed in the kitchen while Hallie did the dishes and dogged her steps while she hung out the laundry, ran the Hoover over the downstairs carpets, dusted, and made preparations for lunch.

  She had done these same things at the MacReynoldses’; happy to be useful, to cook food her employers enjoyed. Now, in her mind, was a hateful thrum: I’m a servant. A servant. I’m their servant.

  The Rafords were polite. They complimented her on lunch, extolled the roast she fixed for dinner. And so it went for two days. Hallie was thoroughly miserable, though she tried to be cheerful with Jackie and entertain him as she worked.

  He tagged her like a silent little ghost. She cursed Felicity and kept telling herself that he’d get over being so fearful once he could believe she wouldn’t leave him. Still, though she could manage the work with ease, this was not a happy house. Most of the time, it was very quiet. She could see why Jackie didn’t want to play alone in their room. The Rafords ignored him completely. He was a nuisance they put up with to have a highly recommended cook-housekeeper.

  Jackie deserved better than that. He needed more than that—and so did she! When she had saved up some money—maybe by the end of summer—she would take Jackie to town and hunt another job.

  Hallie didn’t last the summer. She didn’t last a week. On the fourth morning, hands closed on her shoulders while she was fixing breakfast. Before she could move, Mr. Raford swung her around. He kissed her full on the startled lips, smothering her cry.

  Then he moved away and gave her that lazy, big-cat smile. “My wife has a headache. She won’t be down for breakfast. I’d be pleased, Hallie, to have your company at the table.”

  She was already untying her apron. “I’m leaving. Right now.”

  “My dear young woman”—he reached into his pocket and handed her a gold piece—“will this sweeten your temper?”

  “I’ll take it for wages,” Hallie said and marched upstairs.

  She quickly packed the large suitcase with all she possessed. Patent leather dress-up slippers and her winter clothes were at the bottom, with the small cedar box with brass hinges and lock that held some favorite recipes and all she had of her mother’s: a plain gold wedding band, two embroidered handkerchiefs, an ivory-handled manicure set in a green velvet roll-up case, and The Book of Common Prayer, handed down from the Episcopalian grandmother, Harriet Wilton, for whom Hallie was named. It comforted Hallie to read the prayers and offices though she’d never seen an Episcopal church, and its practices seemed as mysterious as those of the Roman Catholics.

  On the bed, she spread out her pleated blue-green rayon best dress, her other two everyday ones of green plaid gingham and checked blue chambray, two nainsook slips, nainsook bloomers, a pair of satinette for best, two broadcloth brassieres, one pair of treasured silk stockings, two pairs of cotton lisle, two ruffled, flounced muslin nightgowns, and three white aprons. She wrapped her toothbrush in a clean everyday handkerchief and tucked it in the side, along with her comb, brush, and curling iron.

  All the while, tears of angry humiliation dripped on her belongings, unless she smeared them away. How dare Quentin Raford! If Daddy were alive—

  Jackie had waked and watched her with solemn eyes, hugging Lambie close. “You—you going away, too, Hallie?”

  “No, honey!” She stopped and hugged him. “But we’re going somewhere happier than this—somewhere you can play and be around nice people.”

  Beggars can’t be choosers, especially not with a five-year-old along, but Hallie hoped she was right.

  Look at the beautiful big trees, Jackie!” Hallie wiped the little boy’s flushed hot face with her handkerchief and smoothed back the dark hair that was plastered to his forehead. “When we get to the bridge, we’ll rest awhile and put our feet in the water. Won’t that feel good?”

  “Don’t know. Are we goin’ to find Mama?”

  “No, honey.” Hallie tried to keep her tone cheerful though she gladly could have wrung his mother’s soft, dimpled neck. “She had to go away. It may be a long time before we see her again—”

  Jackie dug his fingers into Hallie’s wrist and his brown eyes, so much like their father’s that they stabbed Hallie deep, were wide with fear. “She—she won’t die and go to God-in-Heaven like Daddy?”

  “No, goosie! Your mama’s fine. But she had to go away and just couldn’t take you with her.” Not many men would want a five-year-old stepchild on a honeymoon. But to refuse to have him at all—and for that spineless woman to agree!

  Hallie dropped her suitcase and Jackie’s carpetbag beside the road, picked up the tired little boy, and carried him to the creek. Wetting her handkerchief, she washed his face and helped him off with his shoe
s so he could curl and uncurl his toes in the water while perching on the hull of an old cottonwood trunk.

  They had walked perhaps three miles. It must be five more to town. As she gave Jackie the rest of their bottle of water, Hallie wondered whether they dare drink from the creek. She had expected to pass farmhouses, but the two facing the road had been deserted, the windmills taken away.

  By some grace, the buffalo wallow they had just passed had escaped plowing even during the war, when thousands of acres of thickly entwined, deep-rooted prairie sod, graze first for buffalo and then for cattle, had been gashed deep, the ancient roots severed, and planted in the wheat that stretched in all directions except for this one haven of used-to-be.

  This fringe of virgin prairie—buffalo grass, and blue grama spangled with orange globe mallow, purple coneflowers, thistles, and asters—stretched to the creek and extended westward as far as the eye could see. Along the creek, several giant cottonwoods reared eighty or ninety feet into the sky, dwarfing younger trees that had managed to thrust roots far enough down to withstand floods that scoured away weaker saplings and plants. These survivors cast the only shade for miles. Cottonwoods drank deep and thirstily, so they were usually cleared when land was broken to the plow. After all, it didn’t put money in the bank for crows to chatter from the wintry limbs or for great horned owls to nest in hollows in the trunks.

  Thank heaven the birds were left. To Hallie, whose grandfather had told her stories of how southwestern Kansas had been when he homesteaded after the Civil War, there was a strange, echoing emptiness about the broken prairie; a haunting absence of the buffalo that had once roamed there, of fleet pronghorns that died in snowdrifts along the fences they would not jump, of prairie-dog villages that had spread for miles, of the grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions that had culled the bison and pronghorn and deer. Where there were trees and mountains, it must be hard for man to completely wipe out native animals; but out here between earth and sky, there was no place to hide, though coyotes still chorused at night, and of course there were plenty of jackrabbits, kangaroo rats, and other rodents and now and then a grumpy old badger, skunk, or shadowy fox. Most of all though, there were birds and the sky no man could plow.

  As they sat by the bridge, Hallie tried to enjoy wriggling her toes in the rippling current, but she was thirsty and hungry and as disgusted with herself as she was with the Rafords. Here they were, not even halfway to town, burdened with their belongings, and without even drinking water.

  A fine mess she had made of it! If this was the way she was going to take care of Jackie, maybe he would have been better off with Felicity’s rich cousin.

  No! He was Hallie’s brother. She knew their father would have wanted her to raise him if Felicity couldn’t. Hallie just hoped that wherever Robert Meredith was, he didn’t know that his wife had given his son away as if he were a unwanted puppy.

  “Can—Can I have Lambie?” Jackie asked.

  “Lambie’s snoozing in your carpetbag, honey, and we’ve got to be going on. Why don’t we let him sleep until tonight?”

  “Well—if he’s really asleep.” Jackie’s lip quivered. Hallie’s almost did. Where would they sleep that night? At least she had some money—she hoped enough for room and board till she found another job.

  A pall of dust rose from the road they had traveled. It formed a halo around the long lemon yellow Pierce-Arrow that slowed down and pulled up at the bridge. “Jump in,” called. Quentin Raford. “I’ll give you a lift to town.”

  Just as if he hadn’t ambushed her that morning, kissed her hard and brutally! And her first kiss, too. It made Hallie want to throw mud at him, mess up the vibrant gray of his hair and his smooth, unlined skin. His eyes were a hazel so deep they looked black—till he moved so the light struck them. Then they were like a hunting cat’s.

  Hallie kept her feet in the water and hoped she didn’t look as tired and bedraggled as she felt. Safest to ignore what had happened though she burned with furious shame at the memory. “If you were going to town, Mr. Raford, why didn’t you offer us a ride from your house?”

  He grinned, showing the whitest teeth she had ever seen. “I thought a few miles on the road with the boy might put you in the frame of mind to consider a partnership.”

  “Partnership?”

  “You’re too pretty to spend your time in a kitchen.”

  “I have a living to make.”

  “You could manage my hotel.”

  “But I never have—”

  “You’d learn. The salary would be twice what we agreed to pay you as cook-housekeeper. You could pick several adjoining rooms on the top floor and have them turned into living quarters.”

  It would have tempted her if he’d had suggested it before this morning. Thank goodness she wouldn’t be led into another trap! “I’m sure you’ll find any number of capable managers, Mr. Raford.”

  “I keep a suite in the hotel.” His russet eyes traveled slowly from her mouth to her throat. She felt the frightened leap of her pulse, felt exposed as if he might tear her flesh with his teeth—or kiss it again. “When I’m in town, I’d expect your company.”

  “You know the answer to that!”

  “Where can you do better? A nice place for you and the boy to live and a good salary?”

  Still speechless, Hallie was able only to glare at him. He didn’t look at all abashed. “I paid you the compliment of thinking you had better sense than to need seduction. After all, the proof that you’re not a virgin is perched right beside you.”

  It took her a moment to understand what he meant. A rush of blood heated her face. “Jackie is my father’s child, my half-brother!”

  “A good story, my dear, but you can’t expect anyone to believe that you’d hamper yourself with a child if he weren’t your own little accident.”

  A dull rumbling that Hallie had scarcely noticed during the moments while her hopes soared high now growled like continuous thunder. A long, jaunty toot sounded over the reverberations, followed by a second long whistle and two short ones.

  Hallie recognized the sound: a steam engine threshing outfit on its way to work. “Garth MacLeod!” Raford stared over his shoulder. “Now, why’s he coming this way instead of heading for my fields?” Cold eyes ranged back to Hallie. “I’ll just wait and talk to him. If you change your mind—”

  “I won’t.”

  Raford smiled. “I think you will, my dear, by the time you’ve piggybacked the boy to town and learned how hard it is to find work that’ll allow you to look after him.”

  Hallie longed to bolt but there was no way she could lift her feet out of the water, let them dry, and put on her gartered stockings and shoes without exhibiting more of her legs than she wanted Raford to see.

  Sudden hope filled her. Maybe the threshing outfit could give her a ride. Even a mile or two would be a big help with Jackie and their belongings.

  The grumbling roar sounded like an earthquake. She could feel the earth vibrate as the machine lumbered into view. To her surprise, the steam puffing from the engine was almost clear vapor, not the dense black clouds she had seen the several previous times she had been close to an engine.

  A man perched on a metal seat at the back of the engine, steering the tractor. When he saw Hallie, he grinned, tipped his wide-brimmed hat, and pulled on a cord. The whistle trilled a whole series of short little bursts, and the tall man in khaki work clothes riding on the separator called, “Best save your steam, lad!”

  The huge separator that threshed grain was hooked to the engine. A house about eighteen feet long, mounted on iron wheels, was hitched to the separator, and a water-tank wagon was attached to the shack. The end of the procession was a coal wagon.

  A gray-bearded older man and a boy of twelve or thirteen sat on the tank of the water wagon. The man held a gray kitten in the curve of his arm so that it was nearly hidden beneath his beard. Far enough behind this caravan to escape most of its dust was a shiny new Model T touring car with i
ts fabric top folded back with the isinglass curtains. Behind it wheezed a much older version of Henry Ford’s time-tested classic. Four men rode in one car and three in the other. Most were young. They looked curiously at Hallie. Several smiled and tipped their hats.

  Uncomfortable at their scrutiny, Hallie turned and eyed the flimsy-looking bridge with misgiving. Could the threshing outfit possibly get across it? The separator must weigh a lot, and the tractor’s great steel-lugged wheels looked as if they would mangle the rough planks that had been designed for nothing heavier than a team and wagon. The yellow Pierce-Arrow barred the way, but the engine didn’t stop till it was only a few yards from the sporty auto.

  “Where are you going with this rig, MacLeod?” Raford demanded.

  The man on the separator stood up and pushed back a hat that might have been gray once but was now stained by dust and grease. Various tools protruded from his overall pockets. The wind-tousled hair was a curious shade between gold and silver.

  “We’re going to thresh Ed Brockett’s place.” There was a soft lilt to the English that made Hallie listen closely to catch the words. “We threshed him last a year ago. Now it’s his turn to be first.”

  “I’m first.”

  “You were first last year.”

  “I give you more work than the rest of these two-bit farmers put together.”

  “All the more reason for them not to want their crop hailed or rained on. You can take a loss, Raford. Most of them can’t.”

  Raford’s heavy eyebrows jerked together above his broad nose. “You’ll thresh my wheat first, MacLeod—or not at all.”

  “That’s your choice. You have enough wheat to make it worth a thresher’s time to detour off his usual run.”

  “But not enough for you?”

  MacLeod lifted a broad shoulder. “You know how it’s agreed among us neighbors. Whoever is first one year comes last the next year, unless the weather threatens. Then, so no one will lose his whole crop, I thresh a day for everyone before finishing the first neighbor’s crop.”