The Personal History of Rachel DuPree (20 page)

“Yes,” I said. I had nearly lost Jerseybell. I was bleeding. I had been worried sick about him and the children. But Isaac was right. The storm was a beaut.

“Daddy,” Mary said, “you haven’t forgotten, have you? About the letter?”

A shadow crossed Isaac’s face and suddenly he looked tired again. He scraped his fork over his empty plate like he expected to find something more. He lowered his voice a notch. “There’s a letter for you.” My throat tightened. He said, “Al was in Interior; he picked it up for you. It’s in my knapsack on the porch. John, go get it for your mother.”

I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat. “Who’s it from?”

“Looks like your sister’s hand.”

“Aunt Sue?” Liz said. “But it’s not Christmas.”

Mama,
I thought.
Something has happened to Mama.
I got up and took Isaac’s and John’s empty dishes. Mary got up too. An unexpected letter, I believed, most likely carried sorrowful news. I put the dishes in a shallow pan of water. When John brought the letter to me, I didn’t look at it. I put it in my apron pocket, ignoring the disappointed looks the children gave me. Isaac and I always read our letters when we were alone. That way we had time to mull over the news. That way we had time to decide what parts to read to the children and what wasn’t meant for their ears.

Isaac said, “As soon as things dry out, I’ll go back to the Mc-Kees’ and bring home the wagon. Any sooner in this mud and the horses’ll sink to their knees. I’ll get your patch tilled and you can put in your fall garden.” He tightened his arms around Emma for a moment and then put her down on the floor. He got up. There was work to do.

Isaac stepped close and put his hand on my arm. He whispered, “You all right? You don’t look yourself.”

My hand went to the letter in my pocket. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll be in the barn,” he said.

I nodded.

 

 

 

The rest of the day I found myself fiddling with the letter in my pocket. It was thick; more than a page or two. From time to time when nobody was looking, I studied the envelope. The handwriting was runny like it had gotten wet, but Isaac was right. It was from Sue.

That evening it stopped raining long enough for me and Isaac to sit on the porch. It was cool, and I had on my blue shawl. It had gotten dark early, and I couldn’t do my mending. I didn’t mind, though. It felt good to give my eyes a rest.

Isaac said, “Read Sue’s letter yet?”

“Haven’t had time.”

“Maybe it’s good news.”

“Maybe.”

“Want me to read it first?”

“No.” I wasn’t ready to know what was in it. I couldn’t bear any hard news from home. To stop thinking about the letter, I said, “How are the McKees holding up with this drought?”

“About like us.”

“You didn’t tell them about Liz, did you?”

Isaac looked at me.

“About the well?”

“No.” Isaac leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I’ve got some news.” He paused. “Al’s joining the army.”

“What?”

“That’s right. Can hardly wait to get to the front lines. Figures he’ll show the Germans what Americans are made of.”

“But why?”

“He wants to do his part.”

“But what about those three little boys of his?” I said. “And Mindy? He can’t take off like that; he could be gone most of the winter.”

“They’ll be all right. She and the boys are going to her folks in Des Moines.”

I sucked in some air. First Mabel Walker and now Mindy. Until she came back, that left me the only woman out here. I’d have to go five miles to Interior just to see another woman, and I didn’t have anyone there that called me her friend. That left me with nothing but the Indian women what passed by on the road.

“Surprised me too,” Isaac said. “Told Al I’d see to his cattle until he gets back from France. But he says that after the war he wants to give the Colorado Rockies a try. He’s had it with the Badlands. This drought’s made the decision easy for him.” Isaac shook his head. “Hate to see them go. I’ll miss them.”

I slumped back in my chair. I hardly knew what to think. I couldn’t imagine the Badlands without Mindy. She was my friend; I didn’t know what I’d do without her. She had stood by me when Isaac Two died, and she had been with me when Alise was born. I had done as much for her. I’d helped her when her boys were born. Once, when her middle boy, Will, had a fever so high that Mindy was sure he’d die, I sat up with her all through that long night. Together we kept cool, wet rags on Will until his fever broke and the glaze left his eyes. Usually every winter, about February, when Mindy didn’t think she could stand her house a minute longer, Al brought her and the boys over for a visit. Me and her’d quilt for the day, the children playing around our feet. Every Independence Day in July we went to their place for a picnic. The Walkers came too. Me, Mindy, and Mabel put food out on a table while the men and the older children played baseball. When it got dark and everybody was filled up with potato salad and roasted chicken and German chocolate cake, the men built a big fire and we’d sit around it, our way of saluting the country’s birth.

Mindy hadn’t always been in the Badlands. Al had staked his claim during our second summer there. He was a boy then, just turned eighteen, but he was broad shouldered and his beard was thick. With a wink and an extra five dollars, he convinced the man at the land office that he was twenty-one. Isaac helped him build his dugout and then, three years later, his wood house. That was just before Al went home to Des Moines to visit his folks. When he came back to the Badlands in the spring, he brought his redheaded bride, the seventeen-year-old Mindy.

I took to her right off. I liked the way her green eyes came close to disappearing whenever she smiled, and I liked how she laughed over the least little thing. She didn’t seem to care that me and Isaac were Negroes. The first time I met her she said how grateful she was that Isaac had helped Al build his house. She was happy to have me for her neighbor. Knowing I was nearby, she’d said, was a comfort. Al liked to roam, she said, and that was true. He had a tendency to disappear in the Black Hills for a few weeks at a time, sometimes longer. Al was living the wrong life, Mindy once told me when we were quilting. She laughed over it. He should have been a mountain man, not a rancher.

Now he wasn’t either. He was going to be an army man. And I’d never see Mindy again.

“When?” I said to Isaac. “When are they leaving?”

“Mindy’s going by the end of the week, Al a few days later.”

So soon. I said, “They’re coming by so I can say good-bye, aren’t they?”

“Don’t think so. I asked her to, but Mindy said she’s not good with that kind of thing. Said she’ll write as soon as they’re settled in Iowa.”

It was all I could do to keep from breaking down and crying. There was going to be nothing around me but falling-down ranch houses and miles of empty country. Not that I blamed Mindy; I’d do the same. I pictured how it’d go for her. On her last morning, ready to go, there wouldn’t be anything left to do other than wash and pack the breakfast dishes. That done, she’d close the front door behind her and climb up on the wagon, where Al and the boys waited for her. They’d pull away from the house and Mindy wouldn’t look back; that wasn’t her way. At the depot in Interior, Mindy would kiss Al good-bye and tell him to give those Germans a piece of her mind. She’d board the train on the second call. She and the boys would wave good-bye to Al, their faces pressed flat against the window. After a while, when the boys got to fussing, Mindy would open her hamper and give them slices of buttered bread to quiet them down. They’d watch the countryside smooth out and turn green. Ranches would give way to farms until at last, the conductor would call out “Des Moines,” and Mindy would cry from the gladness of being home again with family.

Isaac said, “Any other time, I’d buy his ranch outright. But until I can, and Al’s agreed, I’m leasing grazing rights from him.”

I didn’t understand. We didn’t have a red cent to our name. The short supplies Isaac brought home a few days ago showed that. My hands began to pat my swelled-up belly.

“When I go back for the horses,” he said, “I’m going through the rest of Al’s herd, see what I want before he takes them to market.”

I was too stunned to say anything.

“It’ll be tight,” Isaac said, “but Al’s got some good range-land. And this is a chance to replace the cattle we’ve lost this summer. It’ll get us back to where we were. I’m taking Al’s bull. That animal’s top-notch . . . smooth back, good-angled legs, easy disposition. I’ll lease him out; he’ll pay for himself in no time flat. Like he did for Al.” He paused. “With a lot of hard work and a little luck, it’ll be like this drought never happened.”

I couldn’t get any air. Isaac said, “The rain’s turned our luck. You can put in your garden. I’ll get the winter wheat planted. And here’s something else. Al wants us to have that Deadwood piano. Maybe one of the children has your brother’s knack for music.”

There was less than four weeks’ worth of supplies in the kitchen. The root cellar was bare. Winter was coming. I said, “How many cows are you buying? Along with this bull?”

Isaac rubbed his thumb across the tips of his fingers like he was counting, like he hadn’t already thought it out. “A hundred or so. About half of them are settled. That’ll be close to a hundred and fifty after calving season.”

“A hundred? I thought we were nearly broke. I thought most of it went for Mabel Walker’s place.”

“I’ve got it all worked out.”

“How?”

The air tensed. Since the day I’d married Isaac, I had never questioned his judgment. He always knew what to do; I even let him put Liz in the well. But not now. If there was money, it had to be for supplies, not grazing rights and more cattle.

“Please, Isaac,” I said. “Tell me how you’re going to pay for all this.”

He didn’t say anything; he just stared off toward Grindstone Butte. Finally he said, “Al’s agreed to let me pay him next spring.”

“Spring? Where’s the money going to come from? And what about supplies?”

“What about them?”

“You only brought home four weeks’ worth.”

“We’ll manage.”

“I don’t see how. Can’t even count on having any cabbage and squash, not when we haven’t planted yet.”

“We’ll be all right. I told you I’ve got it all worked out. The war, it’s going to save us.”

“The war?”

“Cattle prices are sure to shoot up. Even stringy beef will get a decent price.”

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“It will. It’s driving up the price of gold too. Al McKee told me, and Fred Schuling’s heard the same thing, that they need more men at the Homestake Mine, over in the Black Hills. I’m going to see about hiring on for the winter.”

My hand found the letter in my pocket. I gripped it like it was Sue’s hand I was holding.

“I’ll leave mid-November. I’ll be back before calving season. Fred said he’ll come by whenever he can.”

The porch floor tilted; I was dizzy with disbelief. “I don’t understand. You’re leaving us?”

“Wages are good at the gold mine.”

“You’re going to be gone? During the winter?”

“Fred’ll come by. I’ll send him my pay; he’ll bring supplies.”

“We’ll be here by ourselves? Is that what you’re saying? Me and the children?”

“You’ll be all right.”

“No. No.”

“Rachel.”

“Don’t leave us.”

“I have to.”

“Then send us to my mother’s, like Al’s doing for Mindy.”

“I need you here, to look after the livestock.”

“But I can’t. I can’t make paths to the barn, not when the snow’s up to my waist. I can’t get hay out to the cattle. I can’t chop ice when the stock tanks are froze up. Not with a baby.”

“You’ve got Mary and John.”

“They can’t take your place.”

“They’ll come close.”

“What about your mother? Ask her—she has money. Then you won’t have to work the mine.”

“No.”

“We’ll pay her back.”

“It’s a handout.”

“It’s your mother.”

“I said no.”

I turned my head like I’d been slapped. Far off, coyotes yipped and howled. My skin crawled. Isaac was going to the gold mine. He didn’t care what I thought. His mind was made up. He was going, and he expected me to run the ranch.

The coyotes’ howling sounded like demons, circling, coming closer. I pinched the corners of my eyes to stop the tears.

“Rachel, look.” Isaac was calmer now. I pinched harder at my eyes; I knew what was coming. He was going to talk me into liking the idea. But not this time. This time he was asking too much. I steeled myself.

He said, “Look, I know this comes as a surprise, and I don’t like it either. But it’s a chance; it’s an opportunity to pull us out of this hard time. I have to do it. They—” He stopped himself, and in that moment I believed I heard what he was thinking but couldn’t say.
People expect me to give up; they think I’ve bit off more than I can chew. No Negro, not even Isaac DuPree, is smart enough—tough enough—not when times get hard. But I am, and I’m going to show every last one of them.

“Don’t do this thing,” I said. “Please.”

“I have to. There’s no other way around it. I’m not saying it’ll be easy; it won’t be. But you can do this, Rachel, I know you can. You’ve chopped sod, you’ve strung fences, you’ve driven the horses during planting season. Usually you’ve had a baby in your belly or one on your hip. You’ve done without. You lived in that sod dugout over there longer than most would’ve. You’ve built this place, same as me. Twenty-five hundred acres, Rachel. You and me. Nothing’s too big for you.”

I stared at him.

“Not many men can say that about their women. But I can.”

Nothing’s too big for you. Isaac DuPree admired me. It was in his words and in his voice. It bucked me up. In the dark I felt him looking at me. I imagined a shine in his eyes. Heat rose from my chest, ran up my neck, and made my cheeks burn.