The Unplowed Sky (37 page)

Heart in her mouth, Hallie pelted downstairs and through the porch. At least Meg wasn't lying unconscious. Her face twisted with pain and outrage, she was trying to raise herself by pushing up from the steps.

“Why won't my legs work?” she sobbed wrathfully. “Why can't I walk? Don't howl like a banshee, Jackie! I'm all right.”

“Are you sure? Did you bump your head or hurt yourself some new way when you fell?” Hallie asked, helping Meg up. At least the mud was gone from the thaw that had melted the Christmas snow so Meg hadn't suffered the further indignity of being muddy and wet.

“My dumb stupid awful legs just wouldn't hold me!”

“You should have called me.”

“I'm tired of calling you!” Meg scrubbed at her eyes ferociously. “It's New Year's! I didn't want to start it out by asking someone to help me to the outhouse!”

That must be humiliating. It struck Hallie with sudden force how much Meg must hate being forced to ask five or six times a day for aid in taking care of her most private physical needs. Handing Meg the crutches, Hallie tried to think of an alternative.

A handrail! Garth must not have thought of fixing one on the steps because no one had suspected that it would be so long before Meg walked. Making accommodations for an invalid put a seal of permanency on the condition. Hallie shrank from thinking that Meg might never get better, but it was time to do anything that would give her more independence.

“Maybe we could put up sort of a rail from the house to the privy,” Hallie said as they moved back up the steps. “You could probably manage then.”

The flash of hope on Meg's face ebbed quickly. “The ground's hard. You can't make a lot of postholes.”

“I can make a start. And I'll bet Mike Donnelly will finish what I can't and buy and set the posts.”

As soon as her morning tasks were done, Hallie located a mattock and shovel in the machine shed and began digging. The ground was frozen beneath the first three or four inches, defying the shovel, and her shoulders soon ached from lifting and swinging the heavy mattock.

Well, then, she'd just start the holes. Mike could tell better than she how many were needed. She was wielding the mattock on the third hole when she heard a motor. A long shiny black automobile jounced down the lane and stopped beside her.

Raford had a new car, she thought inanely. Did he think a Cadillac went better with being a state legislator? It was too late to take refuge in the house, but with a mattock in her hands, she wasn't afraid of him. Not physically, at least.

“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded, coming out of the auto like an unwound spring.

“Digging postholes. Not that it's any of your business.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Hallie, my sweet! Hallie, my brave, strong, ridiculous darling! Don't you know there are posthole diggers?”

“I didn't know it was a special trade, but anyway—”

“A tool, Hallie. A contraption with two narrow shovels. It makes a nice deep hole—not a wide one that, begging your pardon, looks like the beginning of a hog wallow.”

“Oh.” It made sense that the snugger the rigid sides of the hole fitted the post before it was filled in with loose earth tamped down, the steadier the post would be. Maybe Mike Donnelly had a posthole digger but Hallie didn't want Raford to know how helpful the Donnellys were just in case he might do them some meanness. She picked up the tools and started for the shed.

“I'll send over a posthole digger tool and man to go with it,” Raford said.

“I don't want your tool or your man or you here, either.”

The sun was dull and shrouded, but his eyes suddenly glowed gold-green. “I suppose if I wanted a New Year's kiss, you'd try to hit me with the shovel.”

Hallie dropped the shovel and fixed both hands on the more potentially vicious mattock. “No, I'd hit you with this.”

He smiled. “That kind of wooing doesn't interest me. I'll have my kisses when you get tired of slaving for MacLeod.” He moved lazily to the Cadillac. “Call me superstitious, but I wanted to be the first man you saw on New Year's Day. Next year I hope to be the only one.”

“You won't be. Not ever.”

“I came for another reason.” His glance brushed her bare hands. “I know the MacLeods and that old derelict were home for Christmas.”

“How did you know?”

“From the road, or even my upper window, you'd be surprised what I can see with binoculars. I've watched you hang out the laundry, help that crippled kid to the privy, seen you prime the pump when it's frozen, and wear your arm out pumping water. You're a fool, Hallie!”

Her spine chilled at the notion of his being able to see her when she was outside. Now she'd always be afraid he might be watching. Thank goodness for the curtains in her bedroom and kitchen!

Raford's eyes told her that he was amused by her alarm, that being able to intrude on her privacy gave him a sense of power and control. She was glad she hadn't known about the binoculars before. It would have been hard not to tell Garth. That would have led to a confrontation, and she was positive that Raford didn't fight fair.

He said deliberately, “I wanted to be sure that neither MacLeod—man or cub—left an engagement ring on your finger.”

Hallie's spine grew colder. “What if one of them had?”

Raford brushed a speck off his black fur-collared overcoat. “He wouldn't come back from Texas.”

“You have the nerve to tell me that?”

“Why not? Since you're not engaged, nothing will happen.”

“Did you send Sophie to ask Garth for a job?”

The hard mouth turned down. “You don't think she'd do anything without my orders?”

“You wanted a—a spy!”

“Nothing so picturesque. But if she could get herself pregnant by Garth—or anyone—and claim the child was his—”

“You really hate him, don't you?”

“I don't let anyone keep what I want. Land or a woman.” Raford got in the sleek, powerful automobile. The engine purred at his touch. “I promise you this, Hallie. This day next year you won't be alone with a couple of brats on an out-of-date farm trying to dig postholes.”

The Cadillac swung away. When she was able to move again, Hallie put up the implements, hugged her arms about herself to stop her shivering, and gazed south past the barren trees along the creek, south toward her love. She'd have to warn Garth that in spite of Raford's election to the legislature, his enmity hadn't waned. But it was best for Garth not to know about Raford's spying.

After all, Raford had watched for almost two months without doing anything. Garth needed to earn his pay from the railroad, not feel that he had to come back here and challenge Raford. She hated it, being under Raford's surveillance, but he'd soon be leaving for Topeka. She prayed fervently that he'd get so involved with politics and state and national issues that he would get over his obsession to possess her, control Garth, and plow the prairie border which even in this depth of winter was alive with gossiping crows and blackbirds.

Deliver us from evil
, she prayed, seeking for help and strength beyond this world.
Deliver us from evil
.

Like an answer, a dazzling shaft of sunlight slanted from the banked, suddenly glorious clouds, transforming the skeleton trees, the sere grass, but most of all the sky. Enraptured, Hallie gazed. No longer trembling, she opened her arms to sun and wind that cleansed her of fear, filled her with praise and joy.
Thank You for letting me be alive. Thank You for the beautiful world. Thank You for the sky no man can reach and use and sell
.

The light faded, but she carried the radiance with her back into the house. The Donnellys came to visit that afternoon. Mike did have a posthole digger and thought he might even have enough posts and some pipe for railing. He promised to put in the handrail next day after he took the girls to school.

“I guess you're tired of helping me out to the privy,” Meg said after the Donnellys left.

Hallie winced. A great wave of fatigue overwhelmed her. “I guess you can't—won't—believe I want to make things easier for you.”

Meg's eyes widened. After a moment, she said grudgingly, “It will be a lot nicer to be able to go in and out by myself.”

If that was the best Meg could do for a palm leaf, Hallie wasn't going to wave it. “Let's finish up our thank-yous so we can mail them tomorrow,” she said. “Jackie, have you drawn all your pictures?”

The handrail improved Meg's spirits so much that Hallie berated herself for not thinking of it earlier. She benefited from it, too. Knowing how much Meg hated to hold on to her had made the service an unpleasant duty. When it snowed, Hallie cleaned off the rails first thing in the morning, shoveled off the steps, and cleared a path to the outhouse. During storms, sometimes she had to do this several times.

They were in the heart of winter, with the worst and longest storms, but slowly the days were lengthening. On bright days, the sun smiled closer to the earth. Buried seeds would soon begin to sprout, only it was best that didn't happen till the deep freezes were over. When weather warmed enough to encourage early growth, a late freeze could destroy the tender plants. Winterkill, it was called. Sometimes Hallie wondered whether her love for Garth would be like that; frozen before it had a chance to flourish in the open. But this secret feeling had rooted itself so deeply and inexorably in her being that she couldn't believe it would die before she did, though it might well be mutilated, chopped off at the surface, and forced to grow gnarled and misshapen without the blessing of open air and sunlight.

Hallie was pumping water for the wash one bright frosty morning late in January when she heard a faint, curious sound, repeated over and over. It sounded like a number of people blowing across the open tops of bottles.

“Oh, it's the prairie chickens,” Meg cried when Hallie described it. “They have a booming ground at the edge of the Old Prairie. Daddy curved the field away from it. He said the birds used it long before he was born and will be using it after we're gone, as long as it's not plowed up.”

“Booming?” Jackie asked. “Boom-boom?”

“Not that kind,” said Meg, laughing. “You've got to see it! The males, dozens of them, strut and show off for the hens. They raise their eyebrows, open their tails like fans, stick up the feathers on the backs of their necks, and blow up the big reddish air sacs on their throats that they boom with. They're just starting now but by spring they'll be at it before dawn every day and again in the evening.”

“Can we watch 'em?” begged Jackie.

“Sure.” Then Meg remembered. She glanced with loathing from her quilt-covered legs to Jackie's eager face. “It's a long way on crutches, but I can stop and rest.”

“I'll bring a stool for you,” Hallie offered. “That way you can watch till the booming stops.”

Meg looked as if she wanted to refuse, but common sense prevailed. She said grudgingly, “You'll enjoy watching it, too.”

“I won't stay long. I need to get back to the washing. But when I don't hear any booming for a while, I'll come to carry the stool home.”

The sun sparkled on the frosted earth of the planted field and then on the brown grass and dried sunflower and thistle stalks of the Old Prairie. Meadowlarks rose singing.

“Shaft says they're calling, ‘I'll eat your wheat, young man!,'” said Meg. “I'm glad they stay and sing all year. Summer birds are nice but it would be awful if there weren't any that stayed through the winter.”

“Looky! There's a bur-bur-burrowin' owl!” Jackie cried.

“It's got long legs for such a little owl,” giggled Meg. Hallie put the stool down and Meg eased herself onto it. “Oh, there's another one peeking out! Look how that white V curves down between their big yellow eyes! This one looks like he's wearing a high-collared white vest with a black ribbon necktie!”

“They got a big mess outside their hole,” Jackie observed. Near the entrance to the tunnel was a scattered heap of bits of bone, hair, parts of unlucky insects and rodents and owl pellets. He wrinkled his nose. “Luke says they line their bur-burrows with dry cow or horse manure.”

“The man Daddy bought this place from said there used to be a great huge prairie-dog town that ran from here to about where the house is. There were hundreds of mounds. Snakes and burrowing owls lived in tunnels the prairie dogs didn't use anymore. I guess the snakes ate eggs and owls and baby dogs sometimes, and the owls ate little dogs, but the town was home to a lot of creatures. The man plowed it up.”

Jackie's eyes got big. “What—what happened to the owls and dogs?” he asked as if he didn't really want to know.

“I hope a lot of them got away and started a new town somewhere else. But prairie dogs dive into their holes when there's danger. I'm afraid plenty of them were killed by the plow.” Meg swallowed and her eyes glistened as she got back up on her crutches. “Daddy wouldn't have plowed up their homes. I'm glad these owls—or their great-great-great-great grandparents—didn't lose their burrow.”

It didn't seem the time to say that if someone hadn't got rid of the prairie dogs, the little animals would have feasted on the MacLeod grain. Getting humans for neighbors—at least the kind that settled in one place—must be as disastrous for wildlife as war was for people.

This realization made Hallie especially glad that Garth had left this stretch of wildland along the creek. She prayed for the birds' and animals' sakes that it would always stay like this, that whatever happened to people, the prairie chickens would still be booming hundreds of years from now.

The booming sounded now like the lower notes of dozens of ocarinas. “Let's stop behind that sandhill plum thicket,” Meg whispered. “That way we can watch without scaring them.”