Hidden Places (24 page)

‘‘Most of the cows I’ve owned managed fine on their own. Although I do remember a time or two when Father had to turn a calf. I would haul hot water for him and things like that, but I was always too small to be much help. It takes a man’s strength.’’

‘‘Will you come out to the barn and take a look at Myrtle for me?’’

‘‘Sure, Toots.’’

But after watching the cow closely all morning, it was clear to both of us that she was in trouble.

‘‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to help Myrtle out,’’ Aunt Batty told Gabe when he walked up the hill for lunch. ‘‘We don’t want to lose her or her calf.’’

‘‘Sure,’’ he said, blowing on his soup to cool it. ‘‘What do you want me to do?’’

Aunt Batty winced. ‘‘I’d better let you finish your lunch before I spell out the unpleasant details.’’ She laughed when he suddenly stopped eating, his spoon poised midair. ‘‘Have you ever watched the birthing process before?’’ she asked him.

‘‘Um...my uncle’s dog had puppies one summer,’’ he said. ‘‘And it seems as though Arabella has a new ‘kitten’ or two every time I turn around.’’ He looked at Becky and winked.

Don’t do that
, I wanted to shout at him.
Don’t make my children love you, then walk out of their lives!
But it was already much too late for any warnings. I could tell by the way Becky took Gabe’s hand as we walked out to the barn after lunch that she thought the world of him. He carried a bucket of hot water in the other hand. He still limped slightly, but he no longer needed the cane.

Poor Myrtle bellowed in misery. Aunt Batty took charge. ‘‘Let’s get her into the smallest stall so she can’t move around so much. Eliza and I will try to hold her still while you turn the calf. Soap up your arm, Gabe.’’

He looked horrified. ‘‘You don’t mean...’’

‘‘I’m afraid so. You’ll have to take your coat off. And make sure you wash clear past your elbow.’’

Gabe didn’t move. I felt so sorry for him that I was about to swallow my pride and drive over to ask Alvin Greer for help. But suddenly Gabe sighed in resignation and shrugged off his coat.

‘‘I wonder if the
Tribune
will be interested in an article about this?’’ he said as he lathered up.

‘‘Now, Myrtle is not going to like this...’’ Aunt Batty warned when he was ready.

‘‘I don’t think I’m going to like it much, either,’’ he mumbled.

‘‘So mind she doesn’t kick you. Watch her rear hooves.’’

‘‘They won’t be easy to dodge, considering where I’ll be standing. But thanks for the warning.’’ He took a couple of deep breaths, as if he were about to dive under water, then asked, ‘‘What am I looking for again?’’

‘‘The calf’s head. Once you figure out which end is which, feel your way down from her head to her shoulder or her front leg and try to turn her around. My guess is, the calf is facing the wrong way.’’

‘‘Why do I have the feeling that it sounds easier to describe it than to do it?’’ he joked. He stepped up to the cow and patted her rump gingerly, wary of her hind legs.

‘‘Talk to Myrtle, Eliza,’’ Aunt Batty coached. ‘‘Say soothing things to her.’’

I stood near the cow’s head. I stroked her muzzle and talked to her the way I talked to the kids when they were sick, telling her everything would be fine. But thinking back on my own experiences with childbirth, I wouldn’t have blamed Myrtle if she hauled off and kicked me, too.

Gabe had finally gotten up the nerve to do what he needed to do. But he wasn’t inside more than twenty seconds before he let out a yell and his face contorted with pain.

‘‘Oh, I’ll bet she’s having a labor pain,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘I forgot to mention those. She’ll have one from time to time, and my father said they just about squeeze the life out of your arm.’’

‘‘He wasn’t joking!’’ Gabe groaned. He went limp for a moment when it finally ended but he didn’t quit. He and Myrtle continued to struggle for what seemed like hours and hours. He found the calf’s head, lost it, found it again, then began the slow, arduous task of turning it around—in between the cow’s labor pains. I thought he would be cold without his coat on, but he worked so hard that sweat poured down his face and plastered his dark hair to his forehead. When he thought he finally had the calf in the right position, Aunt Batty told him to step back and let Myrtle finish.

Within minutes, she gave birth to a beautiful new calf. I saw pure joy on Gabe’s face as we all witnessed the miracle of birth. Then tears rolled down my own face as I watched the newborn struggle to stand on wobbly legs for the first time. Aunt Batty and Becky held hands and danced in circles right there in the barn.

‘‘Thank you! Thank you!’’ I wept as I hugged Gabe. We clung to each other tightly, overwhelmed with emotion. A moment later I hugged Aunt Batty and Becky, too, but even as I did, I was keenly aware that it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have the same, powerful emotions flooding through me the way they had as I’d held Gabe—and that scared me.

‘‘Myrtle’s new calf needs a name,’’ Gabe said as he lifted Becky into his arms.

‘‘Angel,’’ she said without hesitation. ‘‘Let’s name her Angel.’’

‘‘All right, Angel it is!’’

That night as I tossed in bed, I couldn’t erase the memory of Gabe’s embrace from my heart. Was I falling under his spell like Becky Jean had? I’d never fallen in love before, so these sensations were all brand-new to me. Still, I could easily imagine it happening to Gabe and me in the same slow, sure way Aunt Batty had fallen in love with Walter Gibson.

A wiser part of me knew I had to prevent it from happening. Walter Gibson had returned to Chicago, and this very afternoon Gabe had talked about writing an article for his newspaper as if he planned to return to Chicago, too. He wouldn’t stay on the farm—Aunt Batty insisted that he knew nothing about farming.

I couldn’t risk falling in love with him. I couldn’t.

But how did I stop it?

I worked awfully hard that spring, doing a man’s labor every day. I had to learn how to do everything—and I’d be doing it for the rest of my life if I wanted to hang on to the orchard. I could tell that Gabe didn’t much like me shoveling manure and slogging the team of horses through rain and mud, but it took the two of us working together just to get all the spring chores done. Now that the snow had melted it was time to start fertilizing the trees. Aunt Batty watched Becky for me and did all the cooking and other household chores while I worked outside. Those two had become thick as thieves.

In spite of what Aunt Batty said, I never saw one single sign that Gabe didn’t know what he was doing. Was he putting on an act for her sake, so she wouldn’t recognize him? Or for mine?

As time passed, I became more and more frightened by the easy familiarity that was developing between Gabe and me. Our closeness grew stronger as we worked side by side, discussing things and making decisions. I’d never had a relationship like that with anyone before, not even with my husband, Sam. He had worked with his father all day while I’d had my own household chores to do. But Gabe and I had gotten so we could anticipate what each other needed. We’d be ready to hand over a tool or turn the horses around before the other person even had a chance to ask. We worked like a pair of trapeze artists, performing smoothly together in perfect rhythm, one ready to catch the other at exactly the right moment. Like I said, it scared me to death.

When it was time to harvest the asparagus, I decided to have our whole family pick it instead of hiring help. That way all the money we made could go toward the mortgage. Jimmy and Luke were thrilled to miss a day or two of school—until they found out how hard they had to work.

I used the wagon and a team of horses to take the crop to the fruit exchange. It was slowgoing, but it saved me a little money on gasoline. I asked Gabe to come with me since I’d never sold anything at the fruit exchange before, and I was afraid they’d take advantage of me because I was a woman. I thought he might refuse since he’d always given me a pile of excuses why he couldn’t go into town, but this time he didn’t.

We had harvested a beautiful crop, and quiet, gentle Gabe stood his ground with all the buyers, arguing back and forth with them like a big-city lawyer until we got the best possible price. But when I counted everything up, I still didn’t have nearly enough money to pay off the bank loan.

Afterward we went to the feed store. I had to spend some of my egg and milk money for onion sets and garden seeds and all the other things we needed for spring planting. When I told Becky to go pick out the feed sacks she wanted me to buy, Gabe looked so perplexed I knew he wasn’t acting.

‘‘Are you an authority on chicken feed, now?’’ he asked her, ruffling her red curls.

‘‘No, silly. It’s for my
clothes
,’’ she said. ‘‘Mama always sews me new ones with the cloth. Which sack do you think is the prettiest?’’

‘‘Don’t ask me!’’ he said, holding up his hands in protest.

‘‘High fashion has never been my area of expertise.’’

‘‘Birthing calves wasn’t either,’’ I teased, ‘‘but you did just fine with that.’’

Gabe laughed as he backed away from us. ‘‘I’d sooner birth a whole herd of calves than help ladies shop for clothes, believe me! I’ll wait for you outside.’’

In the end, Becky picked a yellow print with orange flowers that was so sunshiny-bright I wondered if Aunt Batty was having a bad influence on her taste. Aunt Batty had stayed home that day, but she’d smiled mischievously as she’d waved good-bye to us, saying, ‘‘Maybe I’ll have a little surprise—or two—when you get back.’’

We’d hardly drawn the team to a halt beside the barn before Becky hopped down and ran up to Aunt Batty asking, ‘‘Where’s the surprise? Can I see the surprise now?’’

Aunt Batty led us all into the barn as if leading a parade down Main Street. There in the corner, rooting around in their pen, were two new baby piglets. Becky squealed with delight as she scrambled over the gate.

‘‘You might have to bottle-feed them for a while until they get used to being without their mama,’’ Aunt Batty told her. But my daughter was already cradling one of them in her arms like a baby and rocking it to sleep, so I knew the idea thrilled her. What worried me was where the piglets had come from, and how much they’d cost, and how I was going to pay for them. My father-in-law had always bought a few pigs to raise each spring, but I figured we would have to do without this year.

‘‘How...? Where...?’’ I stammered. ‘‘I can’t pay—’’

‘‘Don’t you worry about any of that,’’ Aunt Batty said with a smile. ‘‘We have to have ham and bacon, don’t we?’’

We had to have spray for the fruit trees, too, and I wished I didn’t have to worry about how I would pay for that—but I did. I had studied my father-in-law’s receipts and record books trying to figure out what to buy and how much I would need. Near as I could tell, he had always bought the spray ingredients on credit and paid it back when he sold the crop. But when I went into town to place my order at Peterson’s store, Merle Peterson had changed his tune.

‘‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Wyatt, but Frank had an established line of credit with us and you don’t. I’ll need to see some proof that your own credit is good before I can extend you a line.’’

‘‘That’s ridiculous! My credit record is exactly the same as his! We both own Wyatt Orchards.’’ As soon as I’d said the words I remembered that they weren’t true. I didn’t own Wyatt Orchards; Matthew did. This was one lie that Mr. Peterson could sniff out very easily. I held my breath, waiting for him to demand proof.

‘‘Even if the deed is in your name, ma’am, I would be extending credit based on your future crop—and since you have no farming experience, I have no way of knowing whether or not you’ll be able to bring in a decent harvest all by yourself.’’

I forced myself not to cry—or lose my temper. ‘‘I’m not all by myself. I’ve hired a manager. Would you like to speak with him?’’

‘‘Sure. If he comes highly recommended from some other established orchard it would certainly count in your favor.’’

He’d cornered me again. It sounded like Merle had talked to Sheriff Foster. I had to find some way out of this. Maybe I could fake a letter of recommendation for Gabe. But if all my problems were God’s punishment on me for lying, I would surely wind up in worse trouble if I kept on doing it. My sin had me up a tree and I couldn’t figure out how to climb down.

‘‘What if I promise you a share of my crop?’’ I asked.

‘‘That’s what a line of credit amounts to, ma’am.’’ He was losing patience with me. He sifted through the litter of papers by his cash register as if he had important business to tend to and I was keeping him from it. I thought about my kids and decided to beg.

‘‘Please, Mr. Peterson, I know my manager and I are going to bring in an excellent harvest this year, but even if we don’t, you know how valuable Wyatt Orchard’s assets are. You could take our cows or the horses or some of our equipment and easily pay yourself back if it comes to that.’’

‘‘Not in these hard times, ma’am. Entire farms are selling for pennies an acre, and farm equipment is a dime a dozen.’’

He was right. Mr. Wakefield had warned me that I probably wouldn’t get much if I auctioned off Frank’s equipment. Besides, I needed that equipment to run the farm.