The Unplowed Sky (24 page)

She moaned and Garth stepped to her head and took her hands, talking softly. Her eyelids fluttered. “Daddy?”

“I'm here, honey. Just keep still.” She obeyed, but her eyes moved. They widened as she saw the nurse and doctor.

“What—what happened?”

“Do you remember?” the doctor asked with an encouraging smile.

Meg frowned. Then her face twisted. “The bridge—I was so scared! I tried to jump and—and something hit my head.”

The doctor and nurse exchanged relieved looks. “Now that you're back with us, young lady,” said the doctor, “let's see how well your brain can boss your body around. Can you wiggle your fingers? Your toes?”

Assured that Meg was in no danger of dying, Hallie slipped out and found Shaft and Jim and Buford outside with Luke. “I'll take you home,” Jim was saying. “Shall I go talk to the undertaker and see about having the coffin sent on the train? We'll get there before it does, but is there someone you want to telephone now?”

Luke shook his head. “I must be there when I tell my sister. Anyway, the nearest telephones are in town.” He straightened his shoulders. “The undertaker will need money. I will talk to him.”

Buford said, “We'll go with you, son. Undertakers generally try to talk a family into spending all they've got on a coffin, which is sure not what Rusty would want.”

Shaft cut in, “Garth told me he'll pay for the coffin and everything. And we're all chipping in some of our wages for you to give Rusty's wife, Luke.”

“You worked hard for that money,” Luke said. “Buford, I know you are still paying for your Ford; and Jim, you have that engine and separator to buy.”

“We'll be working this winter,” Jim said. “We've got no one but ourselves to worry about. Rusty won't ever work for his family again.”

“I'll work for my sister,” Luke said.

“All the same, we want to help.” Jim glanced around at the others who nodded agreement. “I'll give the collection to your sis if you won't, Luke.”

Hallie took his hands gently in hers. “Think about her and the children, Luke, not your pride. We all want to help. Please let us.”

His eyes glistened. After a moment, he said, “My sister will be grateful. So will I. Always.”

The undertaker was just across the street. They all helped choose a coffin that was simple but dignified. Buford stayed to settle the bill. Garth came out of the hospital as the little group walked toward it.

“She can't move her legs,” he said at their questioning glances. “She'll be in the hospital for at least a few more days.” His haunted eyes rested on Luke. “Have you—”

Jim explained the arrangements. “We can drive all night. Don't reckon we could sleep anyhow. Guess we'll drive back for Luke's and Rusty's things and then keep going.”

“I suppose that's best.” Garth passed a hand across his face as if trying to clear his mind. “Luke, I told you I feel to blame. I'm going to send Rusty's family money till the kids are old enough to hold paying jobs.”

“My sister—our family—won't want that.”

“But—”

“If it was Rusty's time, it would have happened wherever he was, whatever he was doing. Threshing is dangerous. Rusty knew that. You must not let this eat at your heart, Mr. MacLeod.”

Garth started to protest, but Luke raised his voice. “We don't need much cash money. We raise most of our food. Rusty saved enough this summer to buy a team of mules. I am going to buy another cow. Then we can sell cream and butter. And next summer I would like to work for you again.”

Garth looked as if the breath had been knocked out of him. At the moment, he probably didn't feel like ever taking his outfit down a road again. After a moment, he put out his hand and shook Luke's. “You'll have a job with me as long as I have a rig. But let me pay for some more cows. I can see it's better for your sister to have income off her own little dairy than take money from me.”

The younger man gazed at him, then slowly inclined his head. “If that is your wish. Is it all right for me to tell Meg good-bye?”

“I'll go in with you,” Garth said. He paused, his face bleak. “I haven't told her about Rusty. Would you mind if I do that after she's better?”

“I'll just tell her to get well,” said Luke. The two went in together. Hallie buried her face against Shaft's shoulder and wept. She couldn't believe that solid, kind, fun-loving Rusty was dead. And Meg! What if the girl was crippled? How would Garth endure that? Hallie's heart ached for him, ached that there was so little she could do, and ached even worse because she was sure he wouldn't accept even that little.

XII

Rory had taken the machinery, cookshack, coal wagon, and battered, splintered tank wagon on to the MacLeod farm. When the Model Ts returned in the twilight, Rory, with Baldy and Rich waited in and around an old Ford truck while Jackie drowsed against the patient Laird with Smoky in his lap. The back of the truck was heaped with the men's bedrolls and suitcases, but the tailgate was covered with objects covered by a clean sheet.

In a tightly controlled voice, Garth told Rory what had happened. “I'm going back to stay with Meg as soon as Jim and Luke get off,” he finished.

Rory looked dazed. Turning away, he swept the sheet off an array of cold food. “There was plenty of stuff in the cookshack for supper. Thought we could eat right here before the boys take off.”

“Good thinking.” Garth's drawn face relaxed slightly as he looked gratefully at his brother.

“I'm not hungry,” Luke said, but Jim handed him a thick sandwich.

“You've got to hold yourself together, kid.”

Hallie forced herself to chew a little bread and cheese. She kept thinking of Rusty, who had relished his meals more than anyone on the crew, and who would never enjoy his food again. And Meg. She must be frightened alone there in the hospital, unable to move her legs.
Let her be all right
, Hallie prayed again with all her strength. She gladly would have stayed with Meg but was sure the girl would much rather have Garth and, failing him, Rory or Shaft. Anyone but Hallie.

There was a tug at Hallie's skirt. She looked down into Jackie's scared eyes. “Meg'll get all well, won't she?”

“We hope so, honey. She's awake now, and that's good. The nurse and doctor are nice. They'll take good care of her.”

“Can I go see her?”

Hallie didn't look at Shaft. He might feel now that he should stay at Garth's to be of help. “You'll get to see her when she's well enough, dear.”

Buford was moving around unobtrusively to collect money for Rusty's wife. Hallie reclaimed her purse from the flivver. On the way from town, she had calculated how much she and Jackie would need to live for several months if it took that long to find a job. She left that in the battered envelope and gave Jackie three ten-dollar bills to put in the cloth cap Buford wore since tossing his straw one in the separator.

There was a fat bundle of bills when Buford slipped a rubber band around them, and Hallie was sure few of them were ones. With Garth's donation for cows and Luke's and Rusty's wages, the family would have enough cash to get well on their feet. It couldn't assuage grief but it could prevent a lot of worry.

All the men shook hands with Luke and said they hoped to work with him next year. Hallie embraced him and kissed his cheek. Luke dropped to one knee to meet Jackie's fierce hug. He smoothed away the boy's tears and ruffled the hair that was black as his own, but curly.

“Remember, Jack. Find a place when the leaves fall where you can watch the prairie chickens boom and dance. Hunt for the same tracks in the snow that I showed you in the mud by the creek. Keep your eyes and ears open, and next summer you can teach
me
things.”

Jackie clung to the slender young man who was really little more than a boy himself, though he was now the man of his sister's house as well as his mother's. “You will come back, Luke? Next summer?” No wonder he wanted assurance. His father had died, his mother gone away, and he had just seen a man fatally hurt and Meg injured.

“I'll come, Jack. When the wheat is harvested and the oats and barley are ready, I'll come.”

The child could still not quite let him go. “Don't get old, Luke!”

“Well, I won't,” said Luke in gentle puzzlement. “Not in one winter.”

“I mean, you'll still swim with Meg and me, won't you? And show me how the compass plant works and who lives in what burrows and what plants are good for medicine and—”

“I won't get too old for that.” Luke gave the boy a final hug and got in Jim's Model T.

They drove off amid a chorus of farewells, headlights wavering feebly. Buford, with Rich and Baldy, said their good-byes and were quickly on their way. Rich would catch a train home to that two-storied home in Lawrence and his university classes. Buford and Baldy were heading for the Oklahoma oil fields.

That left the MacLeods, Shaft, Hallie and her brother beside the truck parked where the lane to the MacLeod place ran into the main road that crossed the creek or led, the other way, to town. Shaft said, “Boss, if you want me to hang around till you know how Meg's going to be—”

Garth turned, his face a blur in the gathering night. “Hallie, would you and your laddie stay, too, for a bit? It's early yet to tell how much use Meg will get of her legs, but it's certain that we'll need a woman to help her for a while and run the house.”

“Sounds like the best idea you ever had, brother,” Rory said in a pleased, surprised tone.

Hallie's pulse quickened. In spite of the grief of that day and anxiety over Meg, she felt a rush of wondering gladness at the thought of being in Garth's home, of keeping it for him. But remembering how Meg had tossed her bonnet in the separator and the girl's unrelenting summer-long hostility compelled Hallie to shake her head.

“Meg doesn't like me. I'm afraid it would upset her to have me looking after her and doing things around the house.”

“I expect a lot of her jealousy came from Rory's teaching you how to run the engine when he's never let her so much as toot the whistle.”

Rory hooted. “That may be some of it, Garth, but the big cocklebur in Meg's fur is that you've let her think she owns you.”

“She sure likes Jack, though,” Shaft put in. “If she's laid up quite a spell, he'd be a lot of company.”

Jackie adored Meg almost as much as he did Luke.
That
gave Hallie some jealous pangs when she'd planned to spend Sunday time reading to him and he'd preferred to go off with Meg. He threw his arms around Hallie as far they would reach. “Let's stay with Meg, Hallie! I'll help lots and lots!”

Being with Meg and Laird as well as Shaft and Smoky would fill Jackie's cup to overflowing. And there would be no need to be away from him while she worked. Indeed, what work could be as joyful and rewarding as making Garth's home pleasant and setting good food before him?

It came to Hallie in a rush so powerful that it dizzied her that all she wanted from life, apart from rearing Jackie well, was to live with Garth—love him, share his work and dreams, one day have children that would give her the chance of loving him again in their children as he was before the war and his wife put him through the crucible. He had survived as a strong man, but Hallie longed to see the boy in him that stayed uppermost in Rory. If Rory were more grown-up and Garth were more boyish—But after this day's terrible accident it would be a long time, if ever, before his heart was light. She yearned to help him, apart from the benefits to Jackie and herself, but she feared Meg's rancor.

Garth spoke with an edge of desperation. “I can't make Meg welcome you, but I can promise she'll behave because I don't know of any other woman I'd trust with this job. If she won't give her word to act decent, she'll have to stay in town with a woman who takes care of invalids.”

Rory whistled. “She'd hate that.”

“She would. But that's her choice. You and I will be out plowing and planting and grading roads for the county, Rory. I'm not asking Shaft to stay here alone when I know he planned to be with Hallie and Jack this winter.”

So Garth was thinking of her and hadn't wanted to leave her and Jackie on their own. Hallie didn't delude herself that Meg would be comfortable to live with. Short of overt insults and actions, there were plenty of eloquent ways to express dislike. The overriding thing was that Garth needed her. She could relieve his mind and ease his life. And he had amazingly said he trusted her with the care of his daughter and home.

Would he ever trust her with his heart? Hallie dared not hope for that yet, but she would feel blessed if she could help him through the months ahead. She let her hand rest fleetingly on his arm, wished she could gather him close and comfort him, and said, “I'll stay.”

Rory offered to drive Shaft, Hallie, and Jackie to the farmhouse before going into town with Garth, but Shaft said, “It's not far. You two go in and see our gal. I'll get Hallie and Jack settled in.”

The truck wheezed off. Jackie got close enough to Hallie for her to suspect he wanted her to take his hand. “When will Meg come home?”

“I don't know, dear. Soon, I hope.”

“She won't stay in the hospital forever?”

“No, of course not.” What could she say to make him feel better that was true? Hallie tried to make her voice confident and cheering. “She'll be glad to have you keep her company. And you can help a lot by taking drinks to her and fetching things she needs.”

After a moment, Jackie whispered, “She—she won't die, will she? She won't die like Daddy did?”

“Honey, I'm almost sure she won't. Meg's young and strong—”

“Rusty died!”

“That's different. He bled to death. Meg doesn't have any wounds like that.”