A Hope for Hannah (5 page)

“Are you sure?” Hannah wasn’t entirely convinced.

“You can’t blow two in one day,” Betty assured her.

To which Hannah said, her voice sarcastic, “Ha. To me anything could happen right now. At least it feels that way. There was a grizzly at our place last night. Mr. Brunson came down this morning. The grizzly got his pig.”

“My, my, you are having your troubles. Bears aren’t such a big thing around here, though, especially on the main roads. They usually don’t bother people, but it does happen. This is Montana, after all. You’ll get used to it. If it bothers you too much, the game warden will probably have the bear moved.”

“That’s what Jake and Mr. Brunson want to look into.”

“See there? It’ll be okay. Now the cooker. Just give me a minute, and I’ll dig it out of the basement.”

Hannah waited by the buggy, and Betty soon came back as promised and placed the cooker behind the buggy seat.

“I’ll bring the cooker back as soon as I can,” Hannah said as she climbed into the buggy. Mosey wearily lifted his head to look back at her as if checking to see if he needed to move again.

“Don’t worry,” Betty said. “Keep it till you’re done. I’ll only need one for the rest of the season.”

“Maybe Jake can buy me a new one.”

“That might be a good idea,” Betty said with a chuckle and stepped back as Hannah convinced Mosey to move with a shake of the lines.

On the way home, Hannah wondered if she should have told her aunt about the baby. But no, she couldn’t bear the thought of telling Betty before she told her own mother. If it ever got back to her mother, knowing she wasn’t the first to know might hurt her feelings.

Jake found Hannah in tears that evening when he came into the house swinging his lunch pail in his hand. Hannah was still at work in the kitchen, lifting the last of the canned corn from Betty’s used cooker. As she told Jake about her day and showed him the damaged ceiling and cabinet doors, he expressed surprise that she had also managed to prepare a small casserole for their supper.

“You shouldn’t have made supper with all that going on,” he told her.

“Then what would we have eaten? You have to eat. I can’t let you starve. What kind of wife would I be?”

“Still a very good one,” he assured her. “Now, what needs to be done around here? It looks like you’ve cleaned up already. Let me take the cooker out and dump the water.”

“It can go down the drain,” Hannah said. “The corn husks still need to be picked up. They’re in the yard, and now it’s almost dark. It can wait.”

“No, I can still do it,” he said as he lifted the warm cooker from the stove and carefully poured the hot water down the drain.

“Do you think I’m an awful cook?” she asked hesitantly. “I just blew up my kitchen.”

“Of course not,” he said without even a pause. Hannah noticed and loved him for that statement. “Grandma Byler blew hers up years ago,” he continued, “and got some nasty burns. We can be real thankful nothing liked that happened to you. What if you had been in the kitchen?” She was certain his eyes were full of genuine concern. “It does happen. Grandma has been a family story for years.”

“That’s just what I was afraid of,” Hannah said with renewed cries.

“That would be one way to get famous, I guess.” His grin brightened her face a bit. “Maybe I’d better get those husks in the garden before dark.”

When Jake came back, Hannah had the supper plates set out. The casserole and simple additions of bread, jam, butter, and corn were set in the middle of the table.

“I’m sorry there’s no cake or something sweet,” she said as they sat at the table. “I guess we have to live on love.”

“One could live a long time on that,” he said, still grinning, “but this is plenty. Let’s pray before I starve.”

When he had finished and Hannah had pushed the casserole in his direction, Jake said, “Well, Mr. Wesley said logging jobs this winter might be hard to come by.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“He said that maybe we should best be looking for other jobs during the winter. If his work is cut back, so is mine,” Jake said with a catch in his voice.

Hannah gasped as Jake passed the casserole back. The smell stirred her hunger, forgotten for so long in the hurry of the day. Jake’s words didn’t take immediate effect, as if she heard them from a great distance. Then they soaked in slowly.

“But if you lose your job, what will we do?” she asked.

“I guess we must trust God,” Jake said without much confidence in his voice.

That’s just what Father would say,
Hannah thought,
yet it sounds so strange coming from such a young man. Is this how young married life is for all couples? Surely not! But how do we get through this?

“I guess we must,” she said with a question in her voice. Then she touched his arm and looked for some source of comfort in his eyes. They were as deep and wonderful as ever—and Hannah found her comfort. She wanted to climb inside and hide from the world in a place with Jake where all was safe and secure.

“Maybe I can find something else,” Jake was saying, “although it is a rough time to be looking for work.”

“Do you think it’s a bad sign?” Hannah asked.

“What?” he asked.

“Me—blowing up the kitchen today. And the grizzly. Are things going to be hard for us? And what about the baby?”

Jake’s face darkened momentarily, but then he collected himself. “There’s always a way out. Somewhere. Hasn’t God been good to us so far?” Jake gave her a thin smile. “You didn’t marry Sam, remember? We have each other and now a new life coming.
Ours.
God is good and will always be.”

“I didn’t know it would be like this, though.” Her voice was hushed. “Is it like this for everyone?”

“I don’t know.” He found her eyes. “I’ve not been here before, but God will take care of us. We have to know that.”

She saw his tenderness and let her own face soften. “I guess you’re right. I’m just afraid sometimes.”

“I think everyone is,” he assured her.

That night in bed, with the moon shining in through the window, they awakened once again to the sounds of the grizzly outside.

“Just let it be,” Jake whispered in the darkness. “Maybe the game warden will do something about this now.”

Hannah said nothing, but she found and held Jake’s hand until it was quiet outside.

Six

The next morning Hannah saw Jake off as usual before the sun was up. She watched him walk to the blacktop road for his ride. At breakfast she had again voiced her thought that if Jake were to lose his job, they should consider a move back East.

“No,” Jake said, “not yet anyway. We shouldn’t make any fast decisions.” After a moment he asked, “Hannah, this isn’t about that bear, is it?”

“Maybe. Partly. But your job too.”

Gently but firmly Jake took charge of her fears, “It’ll be okay with the bear. Mr. Brunson will likely go to the game warden especially because it came back. If not, maybe I can run down and report the matter myself.”

Hannah thought their problem was more complicated than that and sighed. The bear’s appearance might have marked the start of their troubles—or so it seemed to her—but matters now looked bigger than just the bear.

True to Jake’s hope, Mr. Brunson drove his truck up the driveway and parked it in front of the house just as the sun rose. The first rays of light flooded across the yard. To save Mr. Brunson the walk to the house, Hannah went out to meet him in the yard. He saw her approach, waved, and waited in his truck.

“Nice of you to come out,” he said when she was within earshot. “Old bones hurt in the morning.”

“Jake was hoping you would stop by,” she said.

“Bear back?” he guessed.

Hannah nodded. “We heard it again. I don’t know what it’s after, though. Nothing is missing this morning. Jake was hoping you could tell the game warden about it. Maybe today? I don’t think I like a bear wandering around.”

“That’s where I’m going now,” Mr. Brunson said, his tone emphatic. “I took a picture of the eaten hog—or his remains, anyway—to prove the matter. I’m going right into town and see what can be done. Maybe we can get some action tonight. If not—” Mr. Brunson’s face darkened again, and then he smiled when he saw Hannah watching him intently. “No, I suppose not. I better not shoot the thing myself. The law’s kind of hard about such things.”

“Don’t be giving Jake any ideas,” Hannah said. She could just see Jake standing in the cold night air, aiming his hunting rifle into the darkness while the enraged bear grabbed for him.

“We wouldn’t want to do that,” Mr. Brunson assured her. “There’s a considerable fine associated with the penalty.”

“That we couldn’t afford,” she said with certainty. “This bear could be quite a problem, it seems.”

“That’s what the law is for in this country—one would hope,” Mr. Brunson said, his face grim. “Let me see what I can get done today. I’ll try to stop by after Jake gets home. I might be able to give you both some good news.”

After Mr. Brunson left, Hannah wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not. From what he said, the game warden would soon do something about the bear, and that would eliminate one of her reasons for moving back East. She was surprised at the twinge of joy she felt. Apparently she didn’t want to move as intensely as she had thought. And it was true—a move back to Indiana would uproot their lives here, which had just begun to take firm hold.

And Jake so wanted to stay here. If that was what Jake wanted, then she had better support him, whatever her own inclinations might be.

“So, sweet Montana, be my sunshine,” she said out loud to the heavens, glancing up at the last redness of the sunrise before she walked back into the house. Hannah smiled at her own words and then hummed them with a tune of her own, thankful no one else was around. It was enough that she enjoyed the little tune herself. “Sweet Montana, come on now. Take your bears away. Back to the mountains they must go, so we can stay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what I say.”

Back in the kitchen, Betty’s pressure cooker still sat on the back corner of the counter, where she had left it after yesterday’s corn canning. Hannah eyed the cooker warily, her nerves still raw, the memories still vivid.
Should I or should I not take on the tomatoes today?