The Unplowed Sky Page 6

  She peeled a dishpan of potatoes, strung and snapped a big kettle of green beans and baked three pineapple pies with juice oozing through the latticed crusts to turn golden brown. After Shaft took his luscious-smelling burnt-sugar cake out of the oven, she produced a heap of oatmeal cookies for morning lunch and mopped the floor.

  Shaft tended two big skillets of frying chicken while Hallie chopped two cabbages into slaw and made biscuits and mashed potatoes. As if the success of the meal depended on him, Jackie held up fingers as he counted out plates, cups, and utensils and set the table. Hallie had scarcely filled the washbasins and put out clean towels when the whistle sounded.

  It was 6:30, only about three hours since the men had demolished a big lunch, but they devoured chicken, biscuits, and mounds of vegetables as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Conversation was limited to a terse “Please pass the smashed ’taters,” or “Shoot the biscuits this way, will you?” It was only with chunks of pie, hunks of cake, and second or third or fourth cups of coffee that the men relaxed.

  “Garth,” said Cotton Harris, “reckon Quent Raford meant what he said about gettin’ his own threshin’ outfit?”

  Garth nodded.

  Cotton meditated while he forked up cake and pie in the same bite and announced the result with a blissful sigh before his brow puckered. “He’s taken over a bunch of quarter-section farms along with his big one. That’ll be a sight of bushels we won’t thresh.”

  “Yep. As I recall we threshed out about thirty thousand bushels for Raford last year and it was a bad year, too.”

  “It’ll hurt to lose that three thousand dollars.”

  Garth put down his fork and looked at Cotton. “Are you saying that because you men get a share of the profits that I should have asked you to vote on whether we knuckled under to Raford and threshed him first?”

  “I vote to hell with Raford!” Buford Redding growled, his light brown eyes come to sparkling life in the monotone of his tanned skin and brown hair.

  “I ain’t a Wobbly,” Rusty said in his deliberate manner. “But I don’t hold with a man havin’ it all his own way because he’s rich.”

  “Fair is fair,” Henry Lowen agreed. He spoke with a German accent. “Always it is the best way. The one threshed first one year in a neighborhood comes last the next year.”

  Jim Wyatt and Baldy Tennant nodded. Pat O’Malley frowned. “I’m saving up for a jalopy. I won’t get it this year if we pass up crops like Raford’s.” He turned to Rich Mondell. “You teach eek—economics, professor. Is it good business to fall out with your biggest customer?”

  “I think Garth’s right,” Rich said gently. “And evidently the rest of the crew does, too, except for maybe Cotton.”

  Cotton shrugged. “I guess we have voted. I’ll go along with the crowd.”

  “Not that it matters,” said Rory, “but for the record, I call it damn foolishness to lose that much money over an agreement that’s not in writing and not enforceable.” He flashed a defiant stare at his brother.

  Garth didn’t wince visibly, yet Hallie got the distinct impression that he had. After a long, baffled look at Rory, he said slowly, “Anyone who’s not satisfied with how I do business is welcome to draw their share soon as we’re finished here. The day my word’s not as good as some contract a lawyer draws up and a court enforces is the day I quit making agreements.”

  Pat’s thin young face was sullen. “I never made no promises.”

  “You didn’t,” Garth agreed. “I sure don’t need a hand who thinks he can find a better job.”

  “I may just try.” Pat turned to Rory, but the young engineer avoided his eyes.

  Garth looked wearier than even a day’s threshing should have made him. “If that’s what you decide, lad, I’ll give you your money and wish you luck as soon as we’re through here.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell. Rich Mondell broke it by saying, “I wonder if Coolidge will go ahead and run in the fall election. He must be pretty broken up over losing his son.”

  “That was a shame,” Hallie said. “The boy was only sixteen.” Just a few days before Felicity left Jackie with her, the papers and radio had been full of the sad news that the president’s son had cut his foot while playing tennis. Blood poisoning had set in, and doctors could do nothing.

  “Oh, I expect Coolidge will run,” Buford said. “After all, he just stepped in when Harding died last August. I bet he’ll want to prove he can be elected.”

  “Seems like lots of the high and mighty are dyin’ pretty close together,” Cotton mused. “That Roosian, Lenin, that ran Russia after they killed their Czar—he died in January this year, and Woodrow Wilson passed on in the next month.”

  “Congress the same as killed Wilson when they wouldn’t let the United States join the League of Nations,” Buford said.

  “Aw, that’s a bunch of craziness!” Cotton blurted. “We ought to stay out of foreigners’ affairs and make sure they stay out of ours!”

  “That won’t work, Cotton,” Rich Mondell said. “Planes can fly around the world now. News flashes by radio and telegraph. We need foreign markets, and they need us. Like it or not, there’s no going back to the way things used to be.”

  Cotton’s heavy lips thinned. “Well, we’d better get rid of the foreigners that’ve dug into us like maggots, or this country is bound straight for hell!”

  “I’m foreign born, Cotton,” Garth said. “And so were your ancestors back along the line somewhere—unless you’re an Indian.”

  “Indian!” Cotton snorted. “They’re as bad as the foreigners! And you’re not really foreign, Garth. You’re from Scotland, like my granny.”

  “Watch your mouth about Indians, Cotton,” Rusty warned. “My wife’s half-Cherokee, and a finer woman never walked this earth.”

  “If she’s half-Cherokee, how come you ain’t rich from oil?”

  “On account of a white man married her grandma and swindled her out of her land and some oil royalties—which weren’t all that much to start with. It was another dirty deal the Cherokees got, after being rousted out of their lands in Georgia and the East and promised they’d be left alone in Indian Territory—what’s now Oklahoma. It was chiseled away from them a hunk at a time in the Land Runs. Then, even though most of the Five Civilized Tribes didn’t want to be part of what was going to become the State of Oklahoma in 1907, their old Nations, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Creek, was broke up. Common land was chopped into little allotments and—”

  “Little!” Cotton sneered. “Every head of a household got a quarter section—a hundred and sixty acres! Single people got half of that. Plenty of white folks, like my ma and pa, are tryin’ to scratch out a livin’ on eighty acres!”

  “You’re tellin’ me?” Rusty exclaimed. “Why do you think I’m workin’ on this crew? Different Oklahoma tribes got different amounts of land, too, like the Quapaw hung onto two hundred acres apiece, and the Osage divided their whole reservation amongst their folks and didn’t turn any of it over to white settlement. Anyhow, that quarter section wasn’t much when you lay it alongside what the Nations had owned, much less what they’d had in the East. Most Indians weren’t used to the idea of private property. Plenty got cheated out of their allotments, or were married for ’em, or murdered.”

  “Yeah? Then what about them Indians from around Ponca City and Woodward? I’ve seen ’em myself, drivin’ brand-new Cadillacs and flashin’ diamond rings.”

  “The Osages live up in that part of Oklahoma and there have been some big oil strikes on their lands. Everyone on the tribal roll shares in the royalties on account of the Osages agreed that the tribe owns mineral rights in common. The rights weren’t split up with the land the way it happened in the other Nations.”

  “Osage-Smosage,” Cotton grunted, “When I don’t even have a flivver, no greasy Indian’s got a right to a Cadillac or—”

  Rusty loomed to his feet. He was halfway across the table when Garth laid a restraining h
and on his arm and turned a cold gray stare on Harris. “Cotton, we don’t talk that kind of garbage on my crew. If you can’t keep your tongue from flapping, you can hunt another job.”

  The pupils of Cotton’s pale eyes dilated. “I may do that.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Young Ernie Brockett arrived just then with a crockery jug of fresh milk and the announcement that anyone who wanted clothes washed should leave them on the back porch that night. After the boy collected the basket of towels and things Shaft had gathered up, he went his way.

  “Anyone wants a slug of milk to sleep on, hold out their cup,” Shaft invited. Everyone did. When they had tossed off this innocent treat, Henry Lowen rose and stifled a yawn. “Brockett says we can sleep in his barn. Either of you fellows with cars heading that way about now?”

  Jim Wyatt and Buford Redding both stood up. “Pile in, whoever wants a ride,” Jim offered. “Mighty fine supper, Shaft, Miss Hallie. That pineapple pie was great and my own mama couldn’t make that scrumptious a burnt-sugar cake.”

  The other men joined in with compliments that made Hallie glow. The work was hard but such heartfelt appreciation made it worthwhile. While the Fords chuffed away, Garth and Meg got cots and pillows from a chest in the corner and went outside.

  “I hope Meg’s not sleeping out because of me,” Hallie said.

  “Bless you, no.” Rory’s broadest grin made dimples in his cheeks. “She just likes to be in calling distance of her dad in case she wakes up. Her mother, you see, went off in the middle of the night and—”

  “Thought you was goin’ to town, Rory,” Shaft cut in.

  “Nope.” Rory’s grinned broadened even more. “I’m dryin’ dishes for Miss Hallie, you old warthog.”

  “First time I recall your havin’ an interest in a dish towel,” Shaft said.

  “First time you had a pretty helper.”

  “All right, bucko, you just jump to it.” Shaft peered in the oven and took out the roast. “There. That’ll do for morning lunch and dinner. Guess I’ll whomp up some oatmeal-raisin bars.”

  “You could go to bed,” Rory suggested, wiping industriously as Hallie washed and rinsed.

  “I could, but I won’t.”

  Rory shrugged and, with mirthful side glances at Shaft, regaled Hallie with yarns about bootleggers, especially those from the Balkans. Shaft whistled a tune, put three big pans in the oven, and added the mixing bowl and spoon to the heap of dirty dishes. He set the towel-covered milk in the pan of water beside the butter, wiped off the oilcloth table, swept up the crumbs, and when he could find nothing else to do, untied his beard, fluffed it, sat down on a box, and leaned back against the wall.

  Jackie had been playing with the kitten, but the instant the cook settled himself, Smoky streaked across the shack, sprang onto Shaft’s chest, and nestled under his beard, hind feet hooked to one shoulder, front paws and chin resting on the other. Jackie came over, bereft of his playmate, and peered wistfully up at Shaft.

  “Smoky likes you better’n me.”

  “It’s different, Jack. I raised Smoky on an eyedropper. She thinks I’m her mama.”

  Jackie winced at the word, and his mouth trembled. Without disturbing the cat, Shaft reached down and swung the boy to his lap. “You know, son, I’ve always wanted a boy. You’re a mighty fine one. Reckon your sis will kind of share you with me?”

  The child gave a happy bounce and hugged Shaft as far as his arms would reach. “Can I be Shaft’s boy, Hallie?” he called.

  “Of course you can.” What else could she say, though she was worried about what would happen at the end of the season when the crew parted? That was several months away. She had enough trouble without borrowing ahead.

  Because of Rory’s amusing yarns, the formidable heaps of dishes and pans disappeared more quickly than Hallie could have imagined, but beguiling and handsome as he was, her thoughts strayed to his brother.

  His wife had left Meg during the night, when Meg couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Jackie? No wonder the girl clung to her father! Hallie resolved to try to make friends with Meg, though she knew from her own experience how difficult that would be. The best way was probably to be pleasant but not push, and hope that, in time, Meg herself would want to be closer.

  Rory seemed inclined to linger when the last pan was dried, but Shaft got to his feet, setting Smoky down though he still held the sleeping Jackie. “Thanks for helpin’, Rory. See you in the morning.”

  Rory threw up his hands in surrender and headed for the door, where he paused. “I promised your little brother to let him watch me get up steam in the morning,” he said to Hallie. “Would you like to bring him over and see how it works yourself?”

  She’d do anything she could to keep Jackie so busy and happy that he couldn’t brood over Felicity. At some level, sometime, he would have to give her up, realize she wasn’t coming back, that she was as lost to him as his father, but Hallie prayed that by then he could feel safe with her. Besides, Garth had offered to explain the separator, and she couldn’t deny that she welcomed any chance to see more of him.

  “Thanks, Rory,” she said. “If I’m awake before Shaft needs me, I’ll bring Jackie over.”

  “You’ll be awake,” Shaft promised. “Now take yourself off, Rory lad. I want to sleep even if you don’t!”

  With a last flashing smile, Rory vanished. Hallie made up a nest of quilts for Jackie on the table. Shaft helped her undress the little boy and pull on his nightshirt. Depositing Jackie on the bed, the cook said, “I’ll set up your cot, Hallie, and then go smoke my pipe while you get settled. If you need anything, holler.”

  At last Hallie had a chance to unpack, though she decided to leave things she didn’t need in her suitcase, which had her winter clothes at the bottom. She left her sprigged muslin best dress folded loosely around her one pair of treasured silk stockings and closed the suitcase.

  Except for Lambie, which she tucked under her brother’s arm, Jackie’s things went into one end of a bench along with her everyday dresses and underthings. She went a little way from the shack to brush her teeth. Luckily, the tree was near the edge of the field, and she had relieved herself earlier behind a thicket of sandhill plums while watching out for snakes. Back from that nervous excursion, she discovered that a washcloth, Ivory, and a few cups of water in a basin could considerably freshen a sweaty face and body.

  All the time, she was thinking of Garth and admonishing herself not to be drawn down what looked like a dead-end path with plenty of grief along the way if his wife’s desertion had made him incapable of caring for another woman. Hallie found slivers of hope in his devotion to Meg, his affection for Laird, the way he had squelched Cotton’s hate talk, and the fairness of his business dealings—charging the farmer according to the bushels threshed, giving the men shares in profits on top of a guaranteed wage.

  She also admired the way he had stood up to Raford. Garth MacLeod was a strong man, the strongest she had ever met, but she didn’t think he was hard. She liked Rory, enjoyed his outrageous blandishments and the way he made her laugh, but she doubted whether Rory would ever truly grow up.

  Still, even as she was drawn to Garth and found bittersweet pleasure in enumerating his merits, Hallie didn’t know if she could ever wholly trust a man, not after the way her father, as good and kind a man as could be, had married a woman who had robbed Hallie of her home.

  Well, she’d have her own home someday. Meanwhile, she had to do her best to make Jackie feel loved and safe. He slumbered, with Lambie hugged tight against him, dark hair clustered about his face, lips parted in a smile. Thank heaven for that. Shaft was going to fill a lot of the emptiness Felicity had left, and so would Smoky and Laird. If Hallie could earn them a decent living, her little brother might be better off with her than with that childless cousin.

  The windmill creaked and groaned, grated and screeched. How could the men in the barn sleep at all? Grateful that distance muted its racket,
Hallie doubled a quilt on her cot, spread a sheet over it, tried to plump a discouraged chicken-feather pillow, and blew out the lantern.

  IV

  The eastern sky was a glory of rose and gold as Hallie and Jackie hurried through the stubble. It was almost as high as his head but he wouldn’t let her carry him. The crew had threshed three sets yesterday and would start this morning at a new one. How huge the back wheels of the engine were! Higher than Rory, who strode eagerly to meet his visitors. Oiling the separator, Garth paid no attention to their approach.

  It may take a while, thought Hallie, and it won’t be easy, but I’ll think of some way to make that big lummox look up and take notice when I’m around!

  “A grand morning for a grand laddie!” Jackie didn’t protest as the golden-haired young man hoisted him to one shoulder and threw a grin toward Hallie. The admiration in his eyes was balm for the sting of being ignored by Garth. “And a fine day for pretty ladies!”

  “Every day’s blarney day for Rory,” Baldy Tennant grunted. He was breaking chunks of coal into pieces egg size or smaller, thunking a hammer against large chunks held in his gloved hand. “You’d think he was an Irishman.”

  “Close enough,” Rory retorted. “The Scots came from Ireland to start with—that is, the smart ones. Now, laddie, you must know that Baldy and I get up while it’s still so dark we can scarcely see. I cleaned the flues—those are long steel pipes that carry heat and smoke from the firebox through the water to the smokebox and out the smokestack.”

  “And I cleaned the cinders out of the grates and dumped the ash pan and got a fire goin’ with some puny little sticks and bark I scrounged from under that ole cottonwood,” Baldy grumped.

  “Be glad there’s a cottonwood,” Rory said. “You’re sure an old crank before breakfast, Baldy.”

  “That’s on account of it’s so dang long till breakfast,” retorted the fireman. “Besides, we had that split flue.”