Peace Shall Destroy Many (11 page)

After nine days they arrived at the Volga River. The migrants crowded to the doors of the freight cars, gawking in dumb wonder at the skeleton of steel that leaped the mud-swollen river. After a pause, the train crawled on to the bridge,
and slowly the shadows of the girders passed over his face. It was unbelievable that such things could be in the world!

“Hello, Block!” In a swirl of dusty buggy-wheels Wiens pulled up beside the truck. “One doesn’t see you dream very much. Business no good?”

Under the bronze of his face, Block felt the skin tighten in embarrassment. He slammed up the tail-gate. “Morning, Wiens. One has to stop and think now and then.”

“I know, but everyone says you do yours in bed when the rest of us have to sleep. That’s why you get so much done.” Wiens had wheeled Nance over to the hitching-rail and was tethering her. Block was about to slide into the truck-seat when the other came, almost hesitantly, around the vehicle. “Very busy now?”

Block was thinking of the mower-blade that needed sharpening for the haying, but he said, as he always did, “Not if it’s important.”

“Well, Herb’s stock was in our oats this morning.” Wiens spat it out, quickly.

Block looked down through the open window, one foot still on the running board. “You haven’t had trouble with his fences before, have you?”

“Well, yes. Last spring his stock got in that same field on the west quarter. We had barley then, and it came back. It happened quite early—better if you can settle between two.”

“Yes, and we both know Herb. What’s the fence between you?”

“One wire, and a rail at the bottom.”

“You know we decided only double wire would do around crop-lands. Herb’s rail?”

“Yes. He says one rail and one wire around a pasture is enough. After all, he said, on his side it’s pasture.”

“Stupidity.” Block thought sharply: We must go carefully with him. He’s far from the church. To Wiens he said, “Much damage?”

“All seventeen head were in there, Thom said. At least four-five acres tramped.”

Block shook his head. “You should have—well, get in.” He pulled in his leg and slammed the door. “We’ll go see the old Unger.”

They bumped south on the main road away from Herb’s quarter. Wiens, relieved of initiative, mused, “It’s odd how some boys turn out decently and others—always agains
t grain.”

“Depends on the home,” Block said curtly.

“I suppose.” After a pause, Wiens ventured, “Yet look at Unger’s youngest boys. Probably apply for baptism this summer—fine boys. And the two oldest—”

“That’s true.” Block offered a rare insight into his knowledge of the community. “When Unger first came to Wapiti, if his boys fought with anyone in school, Unger would whip them for it that very evening when they came home.”

“Fight?” Wiens was astonished. “My boys never
fought in school!”

Block smiled faintly. “Ask Helmut—or better yet, Jackie Labret.” He continued, thoughtful, “After a certain age you can’t very well whip a boy. They have to know who’s who before you reach for the whip.”

Wiens sat, immersed in thought.

The rolling field to their right belonged to Block, and a flock of gulls circled over a distant outline of horses and disc.
Block estimated the width of the green strip of unturned summer-fallow. They could start haying Monday. The scar glowed faintly at his temple: that Louis! to leave them just before haying. Weins, sitting erect abruptly and looking at the field, asked “When’s Louis coming back? There’s a lot of work there for Pete.”

“That’s Elizabeth with the horses. Pete’s on the home quarter with the tractor. Jim Hannigan in the Calder Post Office told me today he’d heard Louis was caught by the police in a drinking brawl in ’Battleford; he’s in Prince Albert pen for six months. The fool wanted three days off—promised me he’d stay away from drink. I only
gave him ten dollars of his wages. But you can’t change a breed.” Block steered viciously to avoid a puddle.

“Once a pig, always a pig.”

“So now I’m behind in my work. Elizabeth will have to work all this summer again.”

“I’m sorry that I bothered you with—”

“Oh, this matter has to be cleared. We can’t have cattle ruining crops. Feed will be high this fall; the drought isn’t over in the south.”

They were between two fields now: Wolfe’s on one side and Hiebert’s on the other. As they drove, the glimpses through the trees that pushed between the rock-ridges edging the fields showed dust-clouds and reels of gulls as both farmers rushed the fallowing before the haying season. Patches of crop stretched solidly green. Then they were opposite the quarter Unger farmed with his teen-age sons and in a moment wheeled into the yard. The house was shabby and the barn, covered with blooming sods, leaned crazily against the rump of a haystack. As Block stopped the truck to the barking of a
black mongrel and a scattering squall of chickens, Unger himself came from a slab granary.

Block said, getting out, “I’ll talk to him alone.” Wiens, relieved, stayed where he was, scanning the yard. Herbert Unger had made a good start too: been elected Deacon in the early days. He wondered.

“Hello!” Unger was cheery. “Not often that we see you on a work-day, Peter.” He was the only man who called Block by his first name; they had met during the First War in
the “Forstel” bush camps of Russia where the Mennonites had worked in lieu of military service.

“Morning. We’ve all got our work measured out for us this time of year. Soon ready for haying?”

“Jake should be through with the summer-fallow next week for sure—seems we’ll be a bit behind this year again—”

Block interrupted, “Herbert, there’s some trouble with your Herb.” The farmer’s face dropped into the pathetic despondency it held whenever his two eldest sons were mentioned. The irony of once having envied this man his
two
sons flicked across Block’s mind. “I think we can fix it. It’s about the fence between him and Wiens. His cows broke through the rail he has into Wiens’ oats this morning.”

“I’ve told him and told him! But what can I do?” with a futile gesture.

“Now look. I lent you that money to get Herb started on the old Green place because while he’s here among us he may become a Christian—maybe even a decent girl will marry him. He can wait another year with that first payment, but we can’t have him bothering others with his sloppiness. He’s twenty-five years old.”

Unger stood shaking his head, sorrow graven on his face.
“He has a good crop this year so far—but what can I do? He hasn’t listened to me for so many years—”

Unger’s weakness never failed to stir the ire in Block. He said, hard across the pity that welled to tinge his impatience, “Children have to know who the father is. It’s late now. Come along—we’ll drive to talk to him.”

Fifteen minutes later the truck rolled to a stop and the three men scrambled down. In one swift glance, Block knew that the Green place was worse. Weeds rioted everywhere. Crouched against a scrawny poplar, the log shack appeared to have been used for a century and then hastily vacated before the filth devoured the inhabitants, its litter sprawling out after them. A hen ducked her brood across the yard. Tied to a tree near the barn, a ribbed calf bawled forlornly at them, once.

“Well, where is he?” asked Block. The two with him stopped, Wiens staring in astonishment. He had never seen a Mennonite yard that looked like this. Unger said nothing. There was a stamping splash in the barn. Block stepped carefully towards it, and then hesitated at the edge of the black puddle before the door. Leaning over to look inside, he supported himself on the axed door-jamb. Three horses stood unhaltered, gazing curiously, swishing at steel-blue flies. Sunlight filtered in through the rotten-straw roof, gleaming on the backs of the horses and the hock-deep slime in which they stood. With a kind of horror Block recalled that it had not rained in three days. He pushed himself back and, wiping his boots on a rank of weeds, called, “Three horses here—can’t be working on the field.”

Unger called, “He has four—he’s probably riding—” and even as the two came towards Block, they heard the running hoof-beats behind the barn. Block sighted a brood sow
emerging from behind the house, rooting around the tree with her nosy following; then Herb galloped out of the poplars and strained his horse to a slithering stop at the pasture-gate. Glancing at the three men, the bachelor left his mount ground-tied, ducked through the ga
te, caught his shirt, tore it loose with a suppressed curse, and strode towards them, his face betraying no reaction at their visit.

The older men greeted him civilly. He merely said, “I was out in the pasture and heard the truck stop, so—” There was no mention what he had been doing. The Deacon, pondering, slid his glance past the streak of egg-yellow on Herb’s week-old whiskers to the horse, heaving in the shade. A rifle-butt protruded from the slung scabbard. A man didn’t go idly about shooting i
n weather like this! He turned to look at Unger.

The father said, “It’s about your fences, Herb. Your cows were in Wiens’s oats this morning—broke through on that bottom rail. They ruined about five acres.”

Herb’s face hardened swiftly, glance flicking from Block to Wiens. “Oh—you two come to talk to me in the good old Mennonite way, eh?” His mouth twisted in High German. ‘“If there be a division between two of you, discuss it calmly in the presence of a third party.’ ” He slumped back into Low German, “And since you still think I’
m a boy, you had to bring Pa along. Now just you—”

“Wait,” Block broke in calmly, across Unger’s obvious defeat, “think before you holler. We came to straighten this out decently like any other—”

“You came to talk to me like I was a kid! I’m old enough to run my own place and nobody’s telling me—”

“Are you going to listen?” Herb glared at the Deacon for an instant, then dropped his glance. “If you’re old enough to
run your own place, you obey the rules of the community. We all decided to have at least two strands of wire around every crop-field. Wiens has put up his strand—
and all the posts besides, right?” Wiens nodded. “Then the least you can do is put up your wire.”

Flies buzzed on the hot metal of the truck. Herb muttered, sullen, “It’ll come back. Can’t have wrecked that much. And I haven’t got any money to get wire, so—”
and he shrugged his shoulders.

Block felt rage rippling through him. No consideration for anyone: just chase his horses uselessly to death; just lie in the shade and uselessly shoot every cent away. The Deacon half heard Unger’s pleading voice, saw the sullenness shift to stubborn anger, and he turned quickly to Wiens, who had not yet opened his mouth. “How much wire for that field?”

“About a hundred rods.”

“Herb, I’ll give you that wire on account right now. You pay this when you clean up your other bills at the store with those hogs you told me the other day were soon ready for shipping. About two weeks?”

“There’s all sorts of things I have to do with that money. I can’t—” Much as it maddened him, Herb never could argue at length with the Deacon. The scathing re
plies would come, later, when he lay fuming on his blankets.

“You have to have this
now
. And get it done before the haying starts next week.” Even as he spoke, the Deacon realized that Herb, if always proven completely wrong in his actions towards others, could only harden in his antipathy towards those who levelled accusing fingers. The man needed help. Yet Block found himself strangely at a loss: he hesitated, then tried for reasonableness, “No on
e can do anything
without other people’s co-operation. And w
e all want to live at peace together. That is best.” Herb stared at the ground. Block turned to the truck.

Herb said abruptly, “That was the trouble with the cows this morning! I heard the bell running like mad—was that Thom running them off the field? Wiens, doesn’t that kid of yours know how to chase stock—winding ’em with a full belly of green oats? The old brindle was sick at milking.” Herb worked himself up quickly as he saw them about to leave. Foot on the running board, Block paused, scar darkening.

“You keep your stock where it belongs and it won’t get winded.” He hesitated, as the two others climbed into the cab. “Get a sod roof on that hole of a barn. And drain it. You’re ruining your horses’ feet.”

Herb watched the truck vanish, cursing silently. In his thinking Thom appeared the culprit. He had egged Wiens on—last year the old man had been pliable enough. And once the Deacon was involved—That he’d mention those hogs! There wouldn’t be a cent left.

He kicked viciously at a soft cow-dropping near his feet, and walked towards the house. The litter of pigs grunted away as he neared. Before he entered, he slammed his filthy boot against the single gate-post that had no fence to support.

Morning sunlight sprayed through the reaching branches of the trees, hung wispy with hay clawed from homeward passing racks. New day triumphed in Thom like the song in his throat:

He looked back, balancing on the jolting rack, hands loose on the reins. Pa and Hal would not be coming for an hour. He liked the next line, both for the words and for the music which went up and up to the peak of exaltation; there was no one but the pricked-eared horses and the wilderness and Almighty God to hear:

and he held it, like a trumpet, his chest in the cool morning steel-bound, feeling the song reach beyond the raucous banging of wheels on rocks into each body cell-tip,

“Come on, let’s go. Hey!” and he chirruped with a laugh and a flip of the reins; the horses caught the trot with three shakes of their heads and ran with amazing silence through the muffling sand up a ridge-side. Without thinking he cried, “Let the mountains
shout
for joy!” because the morning said it to him. But there were no mountains here, rather great clothed ridges from which, over the poplar-tips that faded to willows below him, he could see the open of the hay meadow where stacks sprawled like stubby caterpillars. He had never seen mountains that he could remember, though his father said he had seen the Urals from their village in Russia. Somewhere in Isaiah it spoke of valleys shouting for joy, but mountains seemed better: the picture arose in his mind of a monstrous mass opening its craw in an abysmal bellow of recognition to its Conceiver. He grinned, thinking of yesterday afternoon’s Bible lesson, one that had even impressed Marie Moosomin and Jackie Labret, concerning Elijah shivering in his cave. The meadowlark tipping the post was best of all. Its song floated as he passed.