In Open Spaces (11 page)

“Why not? Blake, what’s gotten into you? Of course we are. You know as well as anyone that we can use the help. Besides, he’s going to have a family.”

Finally, we could hear Jack climb from the tub. “Damn, Blake, you are in a bad mood,” he said.

A silence settled into the house. For several seconds, no one spoke or moved. Only a slight crackle of fire from the wood stove echoed through the room. But Jack started laughing, quietly, from behind the curtain. He pulled his clothes on, still laughing. “Damn,” he said. “I forgot how grumpy living out here makes people. I might have to think twice about this.”

Dad laughed nervously, and the rest of the family looked at me with wide eyes, as if they had no idea what to expect from me, as if I was a different person than I’d been that morning, and every other day of the sixteen years they’d known me. For the first time in my life, I felt like a stranger in my own home. I felt as if I was the only one there who was looking at the picture that was our family and seeing the opposite of what everyone else saw.

I now know that I was just too young to realize how much it meant
to my parents that Jack had come home. I was too young to realize how many people didn’t get to enjoy a similar scene during those years. I was too young to know how lucky we were.

So I stood in the middle of that room, staring at the floor, feeling all eyes on me, humiliated, with my brother’s quiet laughter only adding to the humiliation. I turned and walked back to the corner.

There was little else said. Muriel took her bath. To my relief, when Jack went to bed, he said he would sleep in the old homestead house. As the water in the tub cooled, and Mom prepared to take her turn, Bob turned from his marbles.

“Your turn,” he said.

I shoved a finger down between my neck and the new starched collar that rubbed like sandpaper against my skin. I loosened my tie.

Jack punched me in the shoulder. “You look pretty spiffy there, little brother.”

I rolled my eyes, and turned away from him. The train station was quiet. Although the cold had broken, it was not a good time to travel with the heavy snow. It was also several weeks before the holidays. So our family accounted for almost half of the people waiting for the 47 Line to arrive from the East.

We were all wearing our finest clothes, as Jack and Rita’s wedding was planned for just a few hours after she arrived. But because I had grown three inches, I was the only one with a new suit.

The three weeks since Jack’s return had been horrible. Although the subject wasn’t one I put much thought into at the time, Jack’s absence had affected his position to take over the ranch. By the singular act of coming back home, Jack had stepped back in front of the line. Not only that, but by bringing a wife into the picture, he had strengthened his hold on the position. Subconsciously, I think I realized that the
reward for my loyalty to the ranch and my family would be a polite, thankless escort to my old place in line.

On the other hand, it was the first time since we’d lost George and Katie that my parents seemed relatively happy. Jack’s status as a war veteran inspired a sense of pride in them. And Jack surprised me by not taking advantage of his celebrity to avoid working. As soon as his unexplained wound healed, he took to the fields early each morning. But I was skeptical of the whole “new man” routine. I had a strong feeling that Jack wasn’t giving us the whole story.

“How much longer?” Bob asked, tugging at his jacket sleeves, which were just barely long enough.

“Any time now,” Jack said. “Just hold your horses there, partner.” He scuffed Bob’s head.

Moments later, the faint trail of smoke appeared in the distance. Jack moved to the end of the platform, leaning so far forward that he was in danger of falling. He stood on his toes. I’d never seen him so excited. My parents stood right behind him. And Bob and Muriel just behind them. Only I hung back, thinking that as unpleasant as this was, I couldn’t let my mood affect an occasion that was so important to everyone else.

The train grew, its flag of smoke unfurling behind it. And the closer it got, the more animated Jack became. He bounced up and down at the knees.

The locomotive slowed, easing toward us, and then it passed, and then a few freight cars passed, and finally the passenger cars passed. Jack ran alongside, jumping to try and see inside. There appeared to be less than ten passengers on the train. It stopped, and the conductor opened the door, and two people stepped off, and then I saw why Jack was so excited. I understood immediately.

It wasn’t that Rita was beautiful, although she was about as pretty as any woman I’d ever seen. Her face was round, with broad features, full lips, and big green eyes. A band of freckles crossed her cheeks, from one
ear to the other. She wore a wide-brimmed hat, green with a tiny green rose tucked against the crown, lying along the brim like a tired baby.

Rita also had perfect teeth. But what got me was the way she looked at everyone. Her eyes had an open quality, a straightforward sincerity, that had a powerful effect. As Jack introduced Rita to each member of the family, her eyes took that person in like a warm pool. She engulfed each of us with a look that oozed with curiosity and a willingness to welcome, and to be welcomed.

I stood there feeling as if I had just run several miles. As if breathing was an ability I had been very capable of at some time in the distant past. A lost talent. And then it was my turn. Rita took my hand, saying, “Blake, I’ve been so anxious to meet you. I’ve just been so excited to meet all of you.”

And she whirled around, turning those incredible eyes to each of us, in turn, and I had still not moved, or breathed, or spoken. From that first moment, I was hopelessly in love.

P
ioneer Days was an annual event that drew a huge crowd, not only from Carter County but from the surrounding areas, including South Dakota and Wyoming. In 1920, nearly a thousand people made the trip, and we expected about the same the next year, despite the huge number of homesteaders that had packed up their belongings and moved on.

The Homestead Act and a vigorous campaign by the railroads had brought hordes of adventurous souls from the east to our little corner of Montana. And for a while, the land had played a cruel trick. From 1910 to 1917, all the propaganda that had been spread about this area’s fertile soil was supported by record rainfall, as well as milder winters. A man named Campbell proposed a ridiculous theory that abundant years were progressive, with the abundance increasing each year. There were plenty of people naïve, or perhaps dreamy, enough to believe it,
and the evidence had even the skeptics considering that he might be onto something.

So the honyockers rumbled out in massive numbers, made a few dollars, and while they carried on about how generous the land was, those of us who knew better could do nothing but nod and hope that once Montana showed its true face, it would be gentle about it.

Instead, in 1918 and 1919, we suffered through less than ten inches of moisture. That was hard enough on the people who were just hanging in there. But it was actually the winters that caught our new Montanans off guard. They were willing to work hard, and we rarely heard complaints about having to pound away at the rock-hard gumbo just to break a furrow or two. What they weren’t prepared for was snow piled as high as their heads, or cold air that froze their tears to their faces. They didn’t expect to spend days at a time just sitting, waiting for the subzero temperatures to break. And they didn’t expect the devastating effect of being trapped in your own home—the cabin fever, the loneliness. Scores of banks—nearly half—all over Montana and the Dakotas had closed. The population of Carter County had decreased by a quarter. So we did what our people had always done during troubled times. We gathered.

Dad covered the two miles from our ranch to Albion quickly, parking the pickup amongst the herd of similar mud-splattered vehicles, and we piled out. Albion consisted of only three buildings—the school, the post office, which also had a small store and rooms in the back for the postmaster-storekeeper, and the town hall. But the buildings weren’t even visible in the midst of several massive canvas tents. We entered a sea of hats, bonnets, and oiled hair. Bob and Muriel tore past me, toward the tent where the carnival games were set up. Muriel had a bow stretching out behind her head like wings, and it had already started to come undone.

Scanning the crowd, I spotted a bright yellow shirt, like a lemon drop in a bowl of chocolates. Jack was playing horseshoes with Art Walters, Gary Glasser’s son Steve, and a fellow I’d never seen. I headed over, hoping that Rita would also be in the vicinity. Despite all reason, my attraction to Rita had become almost uncontrollable. I could barely speak when she was around, but instead of trying to avoid her, I migrated in her direction at the slightest hint that she was nearby. As I approached the horseshoe pits, I spotted Rita from the corner of my eye.

“Who’s winning all the money here?” I asked the horseshoe pitchers.

Jack tipped his hat and tossed a shoe, laying it about two inches from the stake.

“Does that answer your question?” Art asked, smiling.

“Hi, Blake.” The singsong greeting tickled my ears from behind, and my head went light. I turned.

“Oh, hello, Rita.” I crouched down next to her, acting surprised to see her, my face immediately filling with blood.

“You going to play some baseball today?” she asked.

“That’s probably the only reason he showed up,” Jack said.

I swallowed, smiling shyly. Despite the fact that I was completely leery of Jack, we had settled into a fairly peaceable existence. And the main reason was Rita. From the moment she stepped off the train, and she and Jack exchanged vows, Rita had won the hearts of my family. And the effect she had on Jack was fairly dramatic. Jack built a small house for the two of them as soon as weather permitted. And Rita showed a decorative touch, making the tiny cabin a comfortable haven from our house when things got testy. The only drawback was that Rita loved cats, and she brought two of the mousers from the barn into their home, not paying any attention to their genders. Soon the place was overrun with cats.

Among the members of my family, I was the most skeptical toward
my brother, but after a year of Jack working harder than he ever had, and even showing signs of sociable behavior, even I had to admit he’d changed. Still I wasn’t convinced that it would last. For one thing, he had developed an obsession with the get-rich schemes that were often advertised in the Eagle, or in catalogues he’d pick up in town. Jack ordered pamphlets and books by the score, and it seemed that every week he had a new plan.

First he ordered a case of some kind of medicine—an ointment that smelled of oranges and supposedly provided instant relief for everything from arthritis to yellow fever. We all tried it, of course. I rubbed it on a knee I banged against the corral one morning, and it didn’t do a damn thing. But Jack pressed several people into buying the stuff, and before long he’d ordered two more cases. I don’t know whether he ever sold another bottle, but it wasn’t long before he was on to the next scheme. He bought two cases of yo-yos, apparently overlooking the fact that most people could barely afford food for their kids, much less toys. He became a representative for a wool company, selling clothing and blankets. This was one arrangement that showed promise, but it seemed that even in the cases where he started to show a profit, Jack lost interest before he could benefit, moving on to something new.

That day, he had what he was sure would be the breakthrough item. He had ordered four boxes—ten in each box—of lightning rods. He was going to set up a table and sell them that afternoon.

To the rest of the family, Jack’s interest in these schemes was a mild annoyance. It seemed to be wasted money in their eyes. But to me, it represented something more, something fundamentally unchanged about Jack. To me, it meant that at his core, he still didn’t want to be here. That something about life on the ranch would never be comfortable to him. I suspected that his commitment to the ranch was only temporary.

Jack’s return, and the events that occurred while he was gone, had
also left me feeling very differently about being on the ranch, and about devoting my life to it. I had written a tentative letter to Mr. Murphy, the baseball scout, telling him that I was considering taking him up on his offer. He wrote back immediately, saying he would welcome the opportunity to give me a tryout. But I put him off, giving him whatever excuse I could think of. The real reason, of course, was that I couldn’t just up and tell everyone that I was going to St. Louis to try out for the Cardinals. I had to have a reason to go down there. But the primary mental barrier was that I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I didn’t know if I was any good. I managed to talk my neighbors into letting me pitch in a few of the local games. And I pitched fairly well. But I had a feeling that in order to make an impression on Mr. Murphy, I would have to be much better than anyone out here.

“I heard they’re going to ask you to pitch today, Blake,” Steve Glasser said.

“Yeah?” I didn’t do a very good job of hiding my enthusiasm, my voice rising.

Jack chuckled. “The way Blake’s been pounding down the wall in our barn, they better let him pitch or I’ll have to drive him home right now.”

I felt myself blush, trying not to look at Rita, as I could feel her eyes on me.

“You guys finished putting up hay yet?” Steve knocked his horseshoes together, cleaning the dirt off, then threw a nice spinning arch that landed like mud just short of the stake. Steve had one eye that was a little off center, staring absently off to one side. He aimed his good eye toward the stake. “Is that a point?”

“Don’t think so,” Jack said, bending over the pit.

“We got most of our hay up, but that’s not saying much,” I said.

“You’re right about that,” the stranger said.

“We haven’t met, have we?” I stood and offered my hand. “Blake Arbuckle.”