Hattie Big Sky Part 6

"You might want to dunk it in your coffee," said Chase. "Soften it up a bit."

I laughed. "Insult my baking, will you?" I pretended to box Chase's ears. "Ungrateful child." He wiggled away and grinned from safety behind Karl.

I don't know that Karl understood all of our silliness, but I could tell by his face he knew Mattie and Chase had been safe with me. "Danke," he repeated.

"See, he does like my bread," I said, cutting several more slices. I set some bacon to frying, too. "Let me get some warm food in you before you go on your way. Your ma's probably worn through the window gla.s.s watching for you to come home."

Karl reached a cracked and bleeding hand for another piece of bread. Bits of white flesh dotted his cheeks. Frostbite. "Off with those boots," I ordered. He obeyed. I swallowed hard when I saw his chalk-white toes. From the looks of him, he'd been out all night looking for Perilee's children. I blinked back my own tears.

"Hand me that tub there," I ordered Chase. "A warm bath is the ticket for cold toes." I kept my voice light and the children busy so they wouldn't get a look at Karl's feet.

Karl grimaced as I poured warm water over his feet into the tub. I soaked a rag in warm water and had him press against the bad spots on his cheeks. Some folks said rubbing snow on frostbite was the best cure, but it seemed to me that getting the flesh unfrozen made more sense.

As his toes and face turned purple, I questioned my wisdom. His feet swelled and sprouted blisters. I wasn't sure how he was going to get his boots back on, even after daubing the worst of the blisters with a paste made of baking soda.

I wasn't done doctoring, but Karl was done being a patient. "Perilee macht..." He left the sentence hanging, but there was no need to finish. He wanted to get the children home. We gathered up their now dry clothes from around the house. I helped them dress while Karl downed a second cup of coffee.

"I wish there'd been time to dry out your socks." I rummaged through Chester's things. "Here, you must take these." It wouldn't do his feet much good to be back in those cold, wet socks and boots.

He put on the dry socks, then his boots and mittens. He patted my hands. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then simply cleared his throat.

Mattie jumped into his arms again, and he tilted her toward me. "Mwah!" She gave me a juicy six-year-old's kiss. But I did not wipe the dampness from my cheek.

"Oh, wait!" I took two steps to the bookshelf. I pulled off the book we'd started and handed it to Chase. "On loan." I squeezed his shoulder.

Chase tucked the book carefully inside his coat. "I'll take very good care of it, I promise."

"Safe trip home, you three!"

They rushed out into the cold and into the sled. My one small window was placed so that I could not watch them leave, but I could hear them go. I strained to capture every jingle.

CHAPTER 7.

March 5, 1918

Three miles north and west of Vida, Montana

Dear Charlie, The beautiful snow is melting, turning everything into pig heaven, what with all the mud puddles. I walked right out of my boots this morning on my way to milk Violet, the mud was that thick. I was ready to start planting last week, but Karl and Rooster Jim both laughed at me. "The seeds will drown," said Jim. So today I will perfect my fence-building skills instead.

Your letter-the first one received at my Montana home-arrived so full of holes I thought the moths had got into it. The censors take their work seriously! It makes your letters a great puzzle to read. When the censor slices out the offending phrases on one side of the page, it creates a challenge on the opposite side as well. I was able to discern that you are now sleeping in barracks at your new camp instead of tents. Though they don't sound much better than tents if you must sleep with your raincoat to keep the rain off at night.

Over our last chess game (I lost), Jim was full of war news. He says the Allied forces pushed the Germans back in Paris, but my heart broke to learn of the Tuscania being torpedoed. All those sailors lost. I am thankful you are on dry land at least. When I am not worrying over our valiant doughboys, I worry over what's happening here at home. Every day there are notices of folks being charged with sedition; it seems anything can be interpreted as treasonous. I read that that funny little dachshund dog is now to be called a "liberty dog." Can you beat that? There is even talk here of outlawing speaking any German at all. Jim says it will be pure hards.h.i.+p for Reverend Schatz and his paris.h.i.+oners over at the Lutheran church. "The padre might as well speak in Greek," he said. "They won't be able to follow him at all." Because Jim's vocabulary is particularly lively, I can't write everything he said. But I do wonder, as he does, what harm it is for our neighbors to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in their native language.

Sometimes I do not know what to think.

Your bewildered friend,

Hattie Inez Brooks

Since I couldn't plant, I turned to another big ch.o.r.e: fencing. It was the other part of the requirement for proving up on my claim. No way around it. Uncle Chester had made a stab at it, but a halfhearted stab. I could pace off the length of fence he built in ten strides. He'd laid in plenty of materials, enough for the 480 rods of fence that had to be built. One cold and lonely night I'd done the math to calculate how many feet that was. Sixteen and a half feet times 480 rods. Seven thousand nine hundred and twenty feet. I nearly cried. No wonder farmers talked of rods; it was an easier number to face. No matter how I calculated it, you can be sure I said a prayer of thanks that it was all paid for. There it was, stacked up behind the barn, waiting for willing hands. Which turned out to be mine.

"Lord, I am thankful for the gloves Charlie's mother gave me," I said, starting my daily upward conversation. Wouldn't Aunt Ivy get a wrench in her whalebone corset to see me dolled up? Uncle Holt's old work boots on my feet, a pair of Karl's patched overalls, rolled up, those heavy canvas gloves on my hands, topped off with my straw hat. I chuckled as I picked up a roll of barbed wire, a hammer, and a sack of fence staples and prepared to slog my way to the far side of the coulee to pick up where I'd left off yesterday. I was fencing a line at the southeast edge of my claim, right where it b.u.t.ted up against Karl and Perilee's.

A person can take something commonplace like a fence completely for granted until that same person has to try to build a foot or two of it. Seems like it should be a simple thing. It's not. First you break your back trying to dig a hole in the ground. Then you wrestle a post into the hole. Then you bury the base in dirt so it's nice and st.u.r.dy. Then you go on to the next hole. And the next one. I spent a week with a pickaxe and shovel digging postholes. The first night, my hands were so blistered and sore, I couldn't even spoon up my supper. The second night, I applied a liberal dose of white liniment-Uncle Holt's own concoction of hartshorn, arnica, witch hazel, camphor gum, eggs, and cider vinegar. Thankfully, it was as soothing as it was strong-smelling. By the third night, I was too hungry and tired to even feel my hands anymore.

I'd rigged up a stone boat for Plug to pull. I'd felt a bit like Noah as I studied the countless boulders scattered across my claim. Noah looked to build a boat to float on the rising waters; I was looking for a stone boat to "float" on the rolling prairie land. Finally, I found a stone flat enough and solid but not too heavy for Plug. Karl put me wise to this trick when I saw him using a stone boat to bring his supplies out to our common boundary. It would've taken me till I was ninety to get the diamond willow posts and wire out to the field if I hadn't.

Now I lashed a load to the stone boat, clucked to Plug, and we were off. The day before, I'd stopped work near an enormous chokecherry. Today I planned to string wire to that spot and, with luck, plant a few more fence posts.

Plug and I battled through the gumbo mud to the fence line.

"What on earth?" I reached the chokecherry and dropped my tools. I looked back and took my bearings. This was the right bush, all right. But my fence didn't stop here. It now stretched out for another good ways, maybe forty rods or so. I moved in for a closer inspection. It wasn't hard to identify my handiwork of the prior workday: my staples were crooked, catching the wire in a haphazard but adequate way to hold it to the posts.

But from the chokecherry on, the nails were square in and true as true. I remembered a story my mother read to me long, long ago. It was about a shoemaker who used the last of his shoe leather to outfit a trio of fairies. After that day, each morning he'd find a handsome new pair of shoes on his workbench. The fairies repaid his brand of kindness with their own.

The one I suspected at this moment was not of the fairy world but firmly in this one. I picked up where my fairy fence builder had left off. As I stretched each strand of wire, tapped it into place with a staple, stretched and tapped, stretched and tapped, I thought again of that conversation in Wolf Point between Mr. Hanson and Perilee. About folks who called sauerkraut "liberty cabbage" in order to swallow it down with their supper. And of Charlie doing his duty, eager to finish off a German or two. I thought about all the fences that get built in this world-the ones that divide folks and tear them up, like the actions of the Kaiser and his henchmen, and the ones that bring folks closer together, like this stretch of fence Karl Mueller had built for me.

"Plug." I patted the old horse. "It's like I wrote to Charlie. This world is surely a puzzle. I wonder how old I'll be before I get it all figured out."

His only answer was to step sideways to a greener patch of gra.s.s.

I finished up what I could and headed back for dinner at noon. Mr. Whiskers perched himself on the still-empty chicken coop-I hoped to order some chicks soon from Sears and Roebuck-earnestly licking the mud from his white paws.

I started for the house-and stopped. There were noises coming from the barn. Decidedly un-cow-like noises. A chill crept over me. I couldn't imagine what-or more likely who-was in there. I swung up my hammer and eased over to the barn. Before I could make a plan, the door slapped open and a tall, bony woman stepped out. She took me in with a glance.

"You planning to knock me a good one?" She took a step toward me. That's when I noticed the shotgun leaned up against the wall.

"Who are-"

"Leafie Purvis." The woman stuck out a large, four-fingered hand. "Came to pay a call."

"Most folks come to the house, not the barn." She may have told me her name, but I didn't know this woman or what to make of her.

That drew a huge laugh. "If that isn't a Chester remark."

"I'm his niece." I lowered my weapon. "Hattie Brooks."

"I know." She reached behind a stack of bundled hay. "Give me a hand, will you?" Pushed up against the back wall was a wooden chest fastened shut with three heavy leather straps. The initials CHB were etched into the leather strap in the center.

"This is Uncle Chester's?" I ran my fingers over the worn leather, stopping at the buckle. Did this chest hold anything of my past? Anything of my mother?

"He was the private sort," said Leafie. "Asked me to move it out here when he got so sick. Wanted to make sure n.o.body went through it before you." A wistful expression flickered across her lined face. "He so hoped to show you himself." Leafie patted the trunk with her hand.

"You were here when he died." I recalled Perilee's words. "Thank you."

"He'd have done the same for any one of us." She reached into the pocket of the man's s.h.i.+rt she wore and pulled out a pouch of tobacco. Aunt Ivy would've fainted dead away, but I watched with fascination as Leafie deftly rolled a cigarette.

I fought my curiosity about the trunk and managed to remember my manners. "Would you like to come inside for some dinner? Do we need to water your horse?"

Leafie's laugh rolled out with the cigarette smoke and turned to a cough. "I'm traveling by shank's mare."

"I don't understand."

She lifted her skirts to show st.u.r.dy boots. "I'm walking. Trouble with this gumbo is that walking means one step forward and two steps back." She laughed again. "Only way I can get anywhere is to walk in the opposite direction."

I laughed, too. It was hard to resist Leafie's enthusiasm. "And Rooster Jim says summer's worse than spring!" I exclaimed.

"He's right there." Leafie wiped her brow. "I'd rather slip and slide than sizzle any day." She pointed to herself. "So though I've no horse, I could stand to water this old beast."

"I can heat up some coffee real quick," I said. "And if you don't mind beans-" The ground rumbled and rolled as I stepped out of the barn. "What on earth?" I glanced around and saw the cause of the reverberations.

Several riders, maybe as many as six, pounded across the prairie. Ahead of them, at breakneck speed, they drove a cow. She zigged and zagged, frightened by the men and horses. Then she turned and bolted down the coulee. Right toward my cabin.

"No!" I screamed. "Watch out!"

The riders didn't slow. Now I could see there were four of them. Four horses and a cow bearing down on my home.

"Stop! Stop!" I ran toward them.

Ropes of saliva swung from the frantic cow's mouth. Her eyes rolled up in her head. All I could see were whites. I don't think she could even see me.

"Stop!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I thought I heard a rider laugh. Still they thundered toward my home. They were going to drive that cow right through it!

Ka-boom! An explosion went off behind me. I whirled to see Leafie there, c.o.c.king the shotgun to fire again. Ka-boom!

The lead rider pulled up short. He raised his arm in the air, signaling the others. They swung around, almost as one rider, and rode off, the cow forgotten. Its frantic pace slowed and it trotted to a halt beyond the house, sides heaving.

I realized I'd been holding my breath and let it go. "Who were they?" I wiped sweating palms on my overalls. "Do you think they'll come back?"

Leafie squinted. "If they get a burr in their britches about something, they will. But I don't expect you've got anything to worry about. Stay out of their way. That'd be my advice." She handed me her gun.

"We better water that poor thing." Leafie strode over, fearlessly grabbed the cow's heavy leather collar, and led it to the barn. "You've got a guest, Violet."

I followed, carrying the gun in shaking arms. "What was that all about?" I sank down against Uncle Chester's chest.

She shook her head. "The last thing this county needed was Traft Martin on that so-called Dawson County Council of Defense."

"But isn't that a patriotic organization?" I'd read about the councils in the paper. They'd been organized by the governor. "To encourage people to follow the food rules and buy Liberty Bonds and such?"

"Far as I'm concerned, it's nothing more than an excuse for grown men to behave like schoolboys." She snorted. "Tell me this-what's patriotic about driving a good man's cow to death?" She slapped the cow's flank for emphasis. It startled but resumed eating. "This war's making folks forget what it means to be neighbors."

"Whose cow is it?"

"Let's just say I'll be leading it back to Perilee's on my way to check on Ellie Watson over at the sheep camp."

My stomach rocked at Perilee's name. "I don't understand. Why would they do something like this? Karl and Perilee are good people." There was a section of strong fence out there to prove it.

"This war gives them all the reason they need." She rubbed the cow down with an old horse blanket. "All this fuss about where people are from. Seems like how they live now that they're here should be what matters." Leafie tossed the blanket aside and stepped toward me. "Oh, don't pay me no never mind. I fuss and peck like a cranky old hen." She gave me a sound pat on the arm. "I best be on my way."

I got her a rope, and she fastened it around the cow's collar.

She brought her gaze back to me. "You got a gun here?"

"No." I thought about the wolf. "I've never even fired one."

"Don't always have to use a gun in order for it to make an impression," she said. Before I could say anything in reply, she was across the yard, she and the cow squelching their way through the gumbo toward the sheep camp. By way of the Muellers' place.

When Leafie was out of sight, I realized she'd never got her water, or the coffee and beans. I hoped someone would feed her at the Watsons'. I went back into the barn. On knees still shaking from the cow episode, I knelt by the trunk and ran my finger over the leather straps. What had Uncle Chester wanted to show me? Would I find any answers about his mysterious life? I undid the left strap and then the right. Slowly I lifted the curved lid. It was solid, heavy. Strong enough to keep nearly any secret safe.

The chest was as neat and tidy as the cabin had been cluttered and dirty. Careful piles rose from the bottom. Tucked in between old woolen socks and pants were mementoes: circus bills, a dance card, penny postcards, a few photos. I stared at each face in each photo but saw no one I recognized. I dug a little deeper, pus.h.i.+ng aside a cache of books. A packet wrapped in brown paper and tied with a bit of calico proved to hold girlish bits of fabric. It looked like the start of someone's quilt. But whose? The fabric was bright, some even new and unwashed. Was this part of Chester's sadness? A quilt started by a young love and never finished for some tragic reason? I rocked back on my heels.

I couldn't see one thing inside this chest that would warrant Chester asking Leafie to hide it from others. No clue to his "scoundrel" past. No-I couldn't help but voice the hope-photos of my mother or father. I replaced the chest's contents, lowered the lid, and refastened the straps.

This day had been as full of mystery as Uncle Chester's life. It reminded me of a pitch Charlie had tried and tried to teach me. He called it the "snake ball." There was no way a batter could predict which way that ball was going to break. Sometimes there was no way for the pitcher to, either.

This had certainly been a snake ball day. From Karl's work on my fence to meeting Leafie and learning about the trunk to the Council of Defense and their wild cowpunching, there was no way to predict which way this day was going to break.

I pushed myself to my feet. My nerves had calmed and my stomach was complaining. The mysteries of life would have to wait; now I needed some dinner.

The day after Leafie's visit, I was about a third of the way through my wheat field, picking rocks. When I'd asked about all the rock fences weaving drunkenly along others' fields, Perilee had provided an answer straight from the Bible. "Don't you remember the parable of the sower?" she teased me. "And how the seed died when it was planted on rocky ground?" She had scooped up a handful of loose soil. "You have to clear out the rocks before you can plant, sugar. Or nothing will grow."

So here I was ruining back and hands, picking rocks and building my own wobbly rock fences while Mr. Whiskers chased after the garter snakes I scared up. One tiny snake twisted itself up and launched at Mr. Whiskers. The old cat jumped four feet off the ground. I laughed out loud. "If there was a market for rocks and snakes," I told Mr. Whiskers, "I could buy up the whole of Dawson County." Mr. Whiskers' response was to chase off after a worm-hungry killdeer.

I stood up straight to retie my bonnet and caught sight of a single rider drawing near.