The Unplowed Sky (39 page)

Smoky mewed protests at the commotion and jumped up on the radio where she could watch without getting trampled. Hallie lit a lamp, her hands trembling so that it took three matches to catch the wick. She set it on the table beside the washing machine so that it cast light on the steps and yard, showed Meg gripping the rail, Jackie close beside her.

The truck rattled into the yard, lights flickering at every jounce, and stopped so close to the children that Garth needed just one long step to hold his daughter close while Laird tore off in ecstatic circles. Shaft swung Jackie to his shoulder and held out his free arm to Hallie.

They were laughing a lot, crying a little, and talking all at once, when the steam engine gave a resounding blast and rumbled to a stop by the machine shed. Afraid of how Rory might greet her, Hallie hurried inside, put on coffee, and began to heat up the beans and cornbread left from supper.

Garth was home! She glowed with it, feeling as if elation radiated from her. Winter was over. He was home. She would see him every day!

Quick footfalls sounded on the steps. Rory? Of no mind to be swept into an embrace disguised as homecoming exuberance, Hallie filled the teakettle, shielding herself with it, but Shaft ducked past Rory to plant Jackie on the floor. He gave Hallie a hug and his beard tickled her cheek as he kissed her.

“It's twice as nice to come home 'cause you're here, honey!” He stood so Rory couldn't reach her without shoving him aside. “Is that one of your cherry pies I smell?”

“Two of them,” she laughed. “Hi, Rory. We were glad to hear your whistle.”

“Not as glad as I was to blow it.” Moving beyond Shaft, he tilted his head, looked at her as if appraising every detail, and grinned. “That's a pretty apron and dress. Matches your eyes. If you have to get your hair cut before the run, Hallie, don't let Shaft whack it off. Go to a beauty parlor where they know how to make it look stylish.”

Shaft's eyebrows wriggled in protest. “I thought it looked just dandy!”

“It suited me, and the price is right.” Rory's intense blue gaze made her uncomfortable. It told her, plainer than words, that he hadn't found a Texas girl. She turned her back and gave the beans a vigorous stir. “Your supper's almost ready. Hurry and wash up.”

Garth eased Meg into her chair and paused beside the stove. “That rail's a good idea,” he said. “Should've thought of it myself. Thanks, Hallie.”

How she had hungered for the sight of him! Now she couldn't look up, anymore than she dared to look directly at the sun. She felt his closeness. The edge of her vision caught the rise and fall of his chest, his tangible presence, flesh, blood, and bone. After days, weeks, and months of trying to picture him, of trying to summon up the angles of his face, his downcurved mouth, the deep gray of his eyes, he was here, he was real, ineffably more than all her imaginings.

Shaken by his physical nearness, feeling as if her spine and knees were melting, she escaped to set the table. “Mike Donnelly dug the holes, set the posts, and made the rails.” Never in this world would she tell Garth that Raford had offered to have that done. “Mike and Mary have been wonderful. I don't know how we'd have managed without them.”

Jackie nodded. “They didn't just bring us groc'ries and Meg's lessons. They broughted us Kathleen and Bridgie and—and lots of laughin'!”

“Sounds like Mike's due a free threshing,” Garth said.

“You've helped them plenty,” Rory said from the stairs. “Threshed on credit, lent them seed wheat. If we're going to stay in business against Raford, big brother, you've got to act like this is a business.”

“If I get foreclosed on, little brother, you can run an engine for someone else.”

The brothers went upstairs with their suitcases, and Shaft went to his place, Smoky purring audibly on his shoulder. Hallie set out butter and filled a tureen with steaming spicy beans, giving thanks that the men were home safe and sound.

A tremendous weight rolled off her with that realization. She felt dizzying relief that she was no longer solely responsible for the children and the household. Even with Jackie, her brother and ward, Shaft would help.

It was sad that Meg still couldn't walk, but at least she was no worse. She had kept up her schoolwork and was considerably more independent, thanks to the handrails. It hurt that Meg still resented and distrusted her, but Hallie was sure the girl would have felt the same about any woman put in charge of her and the house.

Shaft came in. The brothers came down the stairs in a rush. For a moment, they stood close together, gold head next to silver gold, long-limbed, the same height, Rory not yet filled out to a man's size.

Undeniably brothers, they were so handsome, well made, and strong that Hallie thought they must be born of a man and woman who had loved each other greatly; those parents, both dead, buried across the ocean. No wonder Garth felt bound to look after his impetuous younger brother, almost as if he were trying to fill their parents' place. And of course, he had to be both parents to Meg.

Who wanted only him, her wise, strong, wonderful good-looking father. Was his daughter the only woman he would ever allow himself to love?

Garth held out a parcel. “Here, Hallie. Something you'll need for the new run.”

“May I open it?”

“Sure.” His eyes danced and her blood effervesced with delight in him. “But you won't need it in the kitchen.”

She snapped the string and pulled up the piece of paper. Something crimson … She picked it up by its lavishly ruffled front, let the long broad ties dangle. “A sunbonnet!” She had often regretted that gift of his that Meg had tossed in the separator when the men threw in their battered straw hats. “Oh, it's beautiful, Garth!” She pressed it to her heart. “This one isn't going in the separator next fall no matter how faded it is!”

“Steam-engine red!” Rory said. “Just the thing for a lady engineer.” He balled a fist to hit his brother's shoulder and gave Hallie an embossed gilt box. “Why didn't I think of a bonnet?” he grumbled. “I just brought chocolates.”

“We'll enjoy 'em for dessert, lad,” Garth teased. He positioned his chair close to Meg's and gave her a smile so loving that Hallie's heart contracted.

“Oh, Daddy!” Meg squeezed his hand and pressed it to her face. If she wasn't pleased about the bonnet, she hid it well. “It's grand to have you home!”

“Yeah!” Jackie wriggled up beside Shaft and sighed with bliss. Then he thought of a way to improve the moment and opened his shining eyes. “Hallie! Could Meg and me have more pie? And maybe some hot choc'late?”

“With marshmallows!” Hallie promised. “This is a celebration!”

“It sure is!” Shaft ruffled Jackie's hair and smoothed Smoky's fur. Meg nodded, her eyes fixed on Garth. Rory smiled with his lips though his eyes did not and toasted Hallie with his coffee cup. Hallie stole a look at Garth as she went to make the chocolate.

Maybe they all celebrated something different but they celebrated together—and that alone was wonderful.

Garth had replaced all the separator teeth and made the other repairs before shedding it for the winter but it had to be checked over, greased, and painted. For days the men came in for meals smelling of paint, linseed oil, pine rosin, or kerosene.

The engine was what took time. It was necessary to replace the boiler flues which were so coated with lime and rust scale that all forty-six of them had to be laboriously and carefully removed with a tube cutter, hammer, and chisel. The tube plates were cleaned thoroughly before inserting the new flues and expanding the ends to fit tightly in the holes. The protruding rim of the flue was curled over the tube plate with a tool that looked like forked chisel and deftly hammered to lock it tight.

New main bearings had to be poured, which meant that the flywheel and clutch assembly had to be taken out. The bearings were poured from molten babbitt metal—mostly tin with a little copper and antimony—heated on Shaft's small forge.

It was amazing what Shaft could do with a piece of iron or steel, a chisel, hacksaw, and a few tools. Hallie's head whirled as she tried to make sense of the men's talk of replacing injector jets and the cross-head, repacking shut-off valves, and repairing other mysteries such as the sliding valves in the steam chest.

Hallie had a project of her own. She had given Mike Donnelly money to buy a large bucket of white paint and a small one of blue. In addition to fixing three big meals a day and keeping up with heaps of stained work clothes and towels, she put on her old overalls and gave the weathered old cookshack two coats of paint inside and out. The first soaked in fast but the second left a proudly gleaming surface set off by blue window and door frames and porch rails.

“Swell-elegant!” Shaft whistled. “Almost makes me want to start cookin', though I'm sure enjoyin' your grub, Hallie.”

“I didn't see the paint on your expense list,” said Garth. There was no way of telling whether he approved of her undertaking.

“I bought it myself.” Hallie couldn't keep defensiveness from edging into her voice. “I—I just think it's worth it to have a clean-looking place to work.”

“I'll pay you back,” he said in a tone that allowed no argument. “Why didn't you wear your bonnet? That scarf tied over your hair can't keep you from getting sunburned.”

“The bonnet would get in my way,” she muttered. Catch her admitting to him that she had wanted to protect it from paint!

The crew had assembled by the time Rory had painted the engine blazing red, the tank and coal wagons sparkled dark green, and the cookshack boasted a new screen door. Buford Redding had collected Henry and Luke and Dan Rogers, a husky, dark eighteen-year-old cousin of Luke's. Garth hired him on the spot and was still short a man, but Rich Mondell arrived in a new Ford with Steve Hartman, one of his students, who had worked the year before with a threshing outfit in eastern Kansas. Baldy Tennant came to Hollister on the train and hitched a ride to the farm with Mr. Crutchfield.

Luke, topping six feet the year before, had gained no height, but his shoulders were broader, and the boyish softness of his face had firmed. He brought Hallie a jar of chipped reddish-brown sassafras bark. “Grandmother says this tones winter blood for summer,” he said.

Turning to Meg, he produced a large bottle, a smaller one, and a paper sack that rustled. “My grandmother is a healer. This camphorweed liniment will help if you ache. The tonic is wintergreen and other herbs to cure inflammation of the nerves. And the sack holds elderflowers and leaves to put in your bathwater. Grandmother says you should soak in a tub of water as hot as you can stand it several times a day. And if there's any place to swim, it would be good for you to try, to move your legs as much as you can.”

Meg gazed at him. He looked at her in sudden shock as if seeing her for the first time. Indeed, with waving dark hair grown to her shoulders, fresh and pretty in her white-collared dress of tiny white polka dots on a red ground—Meg, too, had ordered some clothes that spring, and not just overalls—she looked more young woman than girl, a far cry from the tomboy of last summer.

“Your grandmother's really kind to want to help me, Luke. Does she think any of these things might—might—” Her voice trailed off, but her heart was in her eyes.

“She doesn't know,” Luke said regretfully. “But they should keep you from aching and make it easier to move.” He smiled at her and tried to joke. “We'll have to find you a swimming hole at every farm we thresh.”

“I don't know if I can move my legs enough to stay afloat.”

“You won't sink. I'll hold you. Is there a swimming hole in this creek?”

“There's a place by the horned owl's tree where you can usually paddle around.”

“Maybe Dan and I can dig it out a little.” He hesitated, then decided to say what was on his mind. “We'd have sent the medicine a long time ago, Meg, but Grandmother—she loved Uncle Rusty as much as if he'd been her son, not a son-in-law—went off somewhere in her head when we brought him home. It was just this spring she came back to us and started remembering things. When she remembered about Uncle Rusty and her mind still stayed with us, we asked her what might help you.”

Hallie couldn't keep back tears. Meg bowed her head. “Oh, Luke! It's so good of her! Of you—”

“You're my friend,” he said. “You're all my friends. Now, Jack, I made you some moccasins. Let's see how they fit.”

After the Rogers men had gone out, Hallie looked at Meg. “Shall we try that hot soak?”

“It's a lot of bother. Maybe Daddy—”

“He'll be tired when he comes in. Let's get it done now, while the men are all busy outside.”

Hallie pumped enough water to fill the biggest kettles and set them to heat. Just in case a male creature wandered in, she put the round tub down on a rag rug in the front room and laid out several towels.

“I wonder how his grandmother knew,” Meg wondered as Hallie helped settle into the tub with its aroma of elder. To keep flowers and leaves from sticking to Meg, Hallie had crushed several handsful in a square of cheesecloth and knotted it so it could be swished through the water. “Goll-ee!” Meg breathed. “This is hot, but it feels kind of nice. My back
does
ache a lot. Sometimes I can't get to sleep at night.”

“Why didn't you tell me? I could give you some aspirin.”

Meg made a face. “I hate to ask you to do more things.”

“That's why your father pays me.” Hallie tried to hide her hurt with a smile. “You want to be sure he gets his money's worth.”

“I don't want to turn into a dope fiend.”

“Dope? A few aspirin aren't dope.”

“Close enough,” Meg shrugged. “Indian medicine, though—Cherokee medicine, that's different!”