The Unplowed Sky (27 page)

Garth went to see Meg's teacher at the country school three miles away and came home with seventh-grade schoolbooks and assignments. “Miss Howell said to send the written lessons in when someone's going that way,” he said. “She'll send tests you can take under adult supervision. When you go back, you should be able to fit right in.”

Meg regarded the stack of books, the new notebook, tablet, pen, and pencils without enthusiasm. Hallie didn't think it was the right moment to suggest that she'd be glad to help. Aimlessly, Meg reached for the top book, a geography. She flipped it open with a grimace.

“Look!” Jackie cried. “There's a camel! Wouldn't it be fun to ride one? Can you read about him, Meg?”

“Climb up and I will,” she said. “And then we'll see how much you remember.” She laughed up at her father who was looking relieved. “Wouldn't it be funny if Jackie knows seventh-grade subjects before he starts first grade?”

“Miss Howell may be a mighty surprised lady,” Garth said. His eyes met Hallie's in mutual relief.

Meg had to do her arithmetic and diagram sentences on her own, but Jackie loved her history, geography, science, and reader. By pretending to teach him every morning for a few hours, she seemed, from what Hallie observed, to be quite satisfactorily teaching herself.

By the end of September, the MacLeod brothers had plowed the fields and planted all the land to wheat except for what Hallie thought of as the Old Prairie.

“Garth's keeping away from Raford because he's afraid he couldn't keep from getting into a fight,” Shaft told Hallie. “It'd make him feel better to punch Raford around, but Raford's the sort to file assault charges, and Garth doesn't need time in jail or a big fine. What he did do was raise so much Cain with the county officials that they didn't dare buy another of Raford's tin bridges. They're putting in a concrete bridge that'll hold up to heavy machinery.”

Garth paid a price for his victory. He went to the courthouse, expecting to sign the usual contract for maintaining county roads that winter and was greeted with the news that Raford had been awarded the contract.

“I asked the county commissioners if it wasn't shady to give the contract to the Road Commissioner,” Garth said at the supper table. “Seems Raford has resigned to devote himself to campaigning for the state legislature.”

“Who's the new commissioner?” Rory asked.

“Pete Jenkins.”

Shaft let out a disgusted sigh. “He'll do whatever Raford wants, just like he let him thresh his wheat.”

“Can't blame him much,” Garth shrugged. “Raford's bank holds Jenkins's mortgage.”

“So what'll we do without the road work?” Rory demanded.

“We bought the corn sheller last year to take care of those German farmers on the Arkansas River who grow so much. I drove on over and talked to them. They'd like us to come again. They'll supply a crew and board us. I'll take the truck so we can come home weekends.”

“So there's maybe a month's work.”

“Have us another little job, too. Mr. Thomas wants us to move a house he bought for his daughter and her husband out to his farm.”

Rory stared. “Sally got married? Pretty brown-eyed Sally?”

“Guess she decided it'll be a far day till you settle down.”

The younger brother's eyes flicked toward Hallie. “I'm not so sure about that.”

Garth's face tightened. “There's always work for an engine. We'll get by.”

“We could set up a sawmill.”

“Sure, if we want to travel to where there's a lot of trees.”

“There's enough trees right here to keep us busy this winter.”

It was a moment before Hallie understood what he meant, and it seemed to be seconds before Garth understood. “I'll never cut those trees or break that sod.”

“Not even to keep our land?”

According to Shaft, Garth alone had put money into the land and machinery. His smoke gray eyes met Rory's blue ones. “If I have to sell out, I'll try to sell to someone who feels the way I do about leaving some land wild.”

Rory grated his chair back from the table. “You say I'm your partner, but you sure do exactly what you want!”

“I have to live with what I do.”

“Well, let's just hope you figure out a way to live on it, too. If you'd threshed Raford at the start of the run, we'd never have had all this trouble.”

Garth didn't wince openly, but Hallie saw the hurt in his eyes, and then the anger. “No one had to stay with me. You could've quit, like Pat O'Malley.”

“You're my brother!”

“Don't let that worry you if you see a better chance.”

Rory made a disgusted sound and got to his feet. “Hallie, want to go to town for a movie? Douglas Fairbanks in
The Thief of Baghdad
sounds pretty good.”

He knew Meg needed her to get to the outhouse. Anyway, Hallie didn't want to give him any encouragement. “Thanks, but I can't.”

“Won't, you mean. Well, I'm for town!” He gave his brother a challenging look. “That is if I can use the truck, boss.”

“You know you can.” Garth sounded weary.

As the truck gasped, coughed, and finally started, Shaft said, “He's just young, Garth.”

“Sure.” But Garth refused his favorite deep-dish apple pie.

“I wish
I
could go to the movie,” said Meg. “I'm sick and tired of this old chair!”

“Honey, I know you are.” Garth leaned over to squeeze his daughter's hand. “Does it seem like you can put more weight on your legs, like they're moving better?”

“Maybe a little. It's hard to tell. I'd like to burn the old crutches and this chair, too!”

“Hey!” Garth pleaded in mock horror, “Won't it be okay to just turn them back in to the hospital and go to the movie and soda fountain with the deposit?”

Meg laughed reluctantly. “I guess so.” She sobered. “Daddy, how do you suppose Luke is? And Rusty's little kids?”

“I have to think they're getting along as well as they can without Rusty. Luke promised to write once in a while, especially if there was any big problem.”

“Could I write to him?”

“I expect he'd like that. Just don't be disappointed if he's slow in answering. Lots of people love to get letters but never get around to writing one.”

“I want to draw Luke a picture of Meg's wheelchair,” put in Jackie. “I like to go round and round in it.”

“Yes, that's fun as long as you don't have to use the darned thing,” Meg retorted. “But you draw a good picture, and we'll mail it with my letter.”

They were just completing this project a few days later when, as if Meg's question had summoned it, a letter came from Luke addressed to Meg and Garth.

“Doesn't he have the most beautiful handwriting?” Meg said, admiring it and even deigning to pass it to Hallie. “It runs so smooth and pretty. And look, Jackie! He's drawn a picture of the new mules! Daddy, Luke's an artist!”

“He's got a knack.” Garth smiled as he passed the picture to Shaft, who nodded. “You can see the one mule's feisty and the other's as hard to stir up as froze molasses. Mind reading the letter, Meggie?”

She did, swallowing hard and scrubbing away tears when she read the parts about how Rusty's wife and children had taken the terrible news and how much they missed the big, fun-loving gentle-spoken man.

“
They will be all right, though,”
Meg read through her tears. “
Our neighbors are helping, and with the mules, I can plow in return for things we need. We bought four cows with calves and sell enough cream to pay for what cash stuff we need. Our mother has seen much trouble. She comforts us all and reminds us that we were lucky to have Rusty as long as we did. My sister does not blame anyone for the accident. She says it was Rusty's appointed hour. She thanks you all for the collection that bought the mules and four cows and paid for the funeral, and she wants you to know that Rusty's wages are safe in the back of the big clock on the mantel
.” He had earlier asked Meg how she was, and he ended by saying, “
I hope you were not much hurt, Meg. Please let me know. Tell Shaft I miss his music and sourdough biscuits. If you see Miss Hallie and Jack, say I think of them often and tell Jack I expect him to remember the difference between skunk and raccoon tracks. I hope I will see all of you next summer
.”

“He's a fine young man,” Garth said. “I'll never forgive myself for crossing that bridge, but I sure feel better to know that Mrs. Wells doesn't hate me. Meg, before you seal up your letter, let me put in a note.”

“Guess I'd like to scratch a few lines,” Shaft said.

“So would I,” said Hallie. Maybe you can't think of what to say to bereaved folk, but you can at least say you're sorry.

Jackie looked alarmed. “Is there gonna be room for my picture, Meg?” He was beginning to ask her about things more often than he did Hallie. Glad though she was that the two were such excellent companions, Hallie felt increasingly excluded and hurt.
I took you when your mother didn't want you
, she sometimes felt like saying when, at Meg's summons, he sped past her without a glance.
Raford and probably Garth and goodness knows who else think you're my baby, not my brother. I know you're only a child, but I wish you could understood that I have feelings, too
.

She couldn't say any of this, of course. Maybe this was how her father felt when she begged to go live with the MacReynoldses, when she made no effort to see him for weeks on end. But that was because he brought Felicity home! she defended herself to herself.
He loved you and took care of you for twelve years, not just a few months. Now you have this chance to do something for him, take care of his little boy. Let's have no whining out of you
.

Now, at Jackie's anxious question, Meg gathered him to her in a hug. “Of course there'll be room for your picture! Just make it a good one.”

The next day, with a very fat letter to mail, Garth took the truck and Rory the engine and corn sheller, a four-wheeled contraption with chutes, a funnel, and a much smaller power wheel than the separator. They would be working along the fertile bottoms of the Arkansas River about twenty miles north.

The night before, a sullen Meg allowed Garth to show Hallie how to massage the girl's legs and feet. “When we get back from shelling corn, I'll take you to the doctor,” Garth told Meg. “We want to be able to say we did what he prescribed.” Meg was so stiff, though, under Hallie's ministrations, that it was hard to believe the rubbing did much good.

While Meg held school with Jackie, often with Laird and Smoky in attendance, and Shaft mended fence—that perpetual task of farmers and ranchers—Hallie vented some of her frustration with Meg by undertaking an autumn “spring cleaning.”

The house was neat, except for Rory's room, that looked like a tornado had passed through; but the woodwork needed washing or polishing, the windows were dingy inside and out, quilts and bedspreads needed washing, and the floors would benefit from a thorough cleaning followed by several coats of wax. The wallpaper, the same beige and olive stripe upstairs and down, was murky around the downstairs ceilings from coal smoke. Hallie had several times helped the MacReynoldses hang paper. She yearned to buy patterns suited to each room and get Shaft to help her put it up, but that would be presumptuous without Garth's approval.

It bothered her, though, not to have curtains, at least on bedroom windows, and in the kitchen, where the family spent most evenings. Raford had driven up once after dark. She hated the thought of his being able to look in and watch her. Yes, especially with Garth and Rory away, and Shaft sleeping in his little shack, she felt justified in insisting on at least some curtains.

Closets and storeroom yielded nothing that would work and she had no sewing machine, so she resorted to the Sears, Roebuck catalog. She pored over the curtain and drapery pages for a long time. Though this wasn't her house, this was the first time she'd been in charge of one, and she was spending her own money, so she was determined to choose something that would look pretty and not earn MacLeod disapproval. After scowling at the offending wallpaper that limited her choices, she settled on gold crinkled Austrian cloth for the kitchen and dusty green tapestry for her bedroom.

Would Meg like curtains? It was hard to believe any teenage girl wouldn't. Just then, Meg's peremptory call of “Crutch, please!” came from the screened porch. On the way to the outhouse, Hallie said, “I'm ordering some curtains for my bedroom. Would you like some for yours? There's some lovely damask—”

“I don't want any. Curtains get dirty and keep out the light.”

So do dirty windows, Hallie thought. “You might at least have a look.”

“I'm not going to squander Daddy's money.”

“Neither am I. It's fair enough for me to pay for curtains since I seem to be the only one who misses them.”

“That's not your bedroom, either,” flashed Meg.

“No, but I'm sleeping there. I'm willing to pay for the curtains. When I leave, if they're not wanted, I can certainly take them down.”

Meg's face twisted. “Well, you just remember that it's our house, not yours! We like it the way it is.” She clumped into the privy.

Hallie counted to ten twice, but was still seething. Hateful brat! Try to do something nice for her, and get this kind of thanks! A faint honking sounded above. Hallie looked up to see a high, shimmering skein of wild geese flying south.

How would the house, the farm, even all of Raford's land, look to those high, far travelers whose thoroughfares were unmarked sky above a series of watering places where they descended to rest year after year? In the shining air, they called to each other, and perhaps the sun and wind. Human disputes and boundaries were nothing to them so long as their age-old resting places were not drained.