The Unplowed Sky (13 page)

Without her willing it, Hallie's arm drew back. Before her palm could slap the rest of the evil word down Sophie's throat, Garth caught Sophie's wrist and fairly dragged her through the store and outside. “Come on, Ernie,” Garth called to the gawky, miserably embarrassed boy. “Bring your sister's purse.”

As the boy stumbled out, face a painful red, Jim Wyatt dropped a hand on Ernie's skinny arm. “Women are like that, son. Just see your sis gets home all right and don't worry about it.”

Ernie gave the man a look of gratitude, mumbled incoherently, and fled. Hallie frowned at Jim. “Women
aren't
like that.”

“Boys are.”

“Yes, but you shouldn't put such notions in his head.”

“Maybe not.” Jim looked abashed. “Meant no insult, Hallie. I was just trying to get the kid not to take it so hard, his sis's throwin' a ring-tailed fit.”

“We're going to need another pitcher,” Rusty said. “Garth already told me he'd hire my brother-in-law if Pat sure enough quit. Jim, if I buy the gas, would you drive me down to get Luke tomorrow? He needs work, and we'd all be mightily obliged.”

“Sure.” Jim rose and stretched. “Be nice to see that green, hilly part of Oklahoma. We can leave before sunup and get back by night.”

Buford surveyed the crew. “Pat's not riding, so we can put Garth in my flivver,” he said. “Meg, you're skinny enough to fit in Jim's backseat with Henry.”

“Skinny!” Meg bridled.

“Slender. Slim. Willowy.” Buford turned up his hands. “Call it whatever you want, but let's go, folks.”

Jim and Rusty left before daylight, fortified with Shaft's coffee and the leftover ham and potatoes Hallie fried for them. She also packed a basket with food that should see them through the trip and leave some good things with Rusty's family.

“Put in all of that gingerbread,” Shaft instructed. “And the blackberry cobbler and walnut cake. We're not cookin' for the boys today, so I can catch up on bakin'.”

“But it's your day off—”

“Sure, but I don't need to mannycure my fingernails. I'll play my fiddle—Smoky loves that—and have a nap and read the
Saturday Evening Post
Garth brought me.” He winked at Jack. “Why, I might even give Jack a chance to beat me at chess.”

“What's that?” Jackie inquired.

“A game. The boys play cards when they play anything at all, so I sure do need a chess partner.”

Jackie's thin chest expanded. “I'll be your partner, Shaft.”

“I hoped you would. I have a set my grandfather brought over from the old country, along with his fiddle.” Shaft filled a box with canned goods, jam, a bag of sugar, and five pounds of coffee, jotting down figures. “I'm not stealin' from Garth,” he explained to Hallie. “He told me to send the coffee, and the other stuff comes out of my wages.”

“Oh, that's kind of you, Shaft.”

He squirmed. “Shucks, it don't take much to keep me in tabaccer, and I never liked to keep money in a bank. Might as well give Rusty's kids a change of vittles.”

Since it was Sunday, Shaft made pancakes for the rest of the crew; crispy golden stacks which fairly melted away along with bacon and fried potatoes. By the time the dishes were done and everything was packed securely for travel, Rory brought the engine over to hook up the separator, cookshack, and water and coal wagons.

“Get on your overalls!” he called to Hallie. “You can haul this whole shebang over to Halstead's.”

She wanted to refuse but she caught Garth's skeptical look and stiffened her neck. He'd love it if she gave up on learning about the engine. Well, she
would
learn—and then there'd be one thing she could do that Sophie couldn't!

Rory, on the platform near Hallie's steel seat, tugged on the whistle cord as the engine chugged past George Halstead's big two-story many-eaved gray house. A person could walk faster than the caravan moved, so Hallie had plenty of time to judge where to bring the tractor in order to position the cookshack near several big black locust trees that had been left by a fence when the land was cleared. Their frondy leaves didn't create a canopy like Brockett's cottonwoods, but any shade was a mercy.

By then Mr. Halstead, a rangy leather-faced man with curly white hair, came to show them where he wanted his straw stack. “You take over,” Hallie shouted to Rory.

“No! Good time to practice! No rush, we're not threshing today.”

So, under Mr. Halstead's puzzled stare, Hallie maneuvered the engine while Rory repeat the warnings and admonitions of her first lesson.

Hallie's brain buzzed with things to remember. Forgetting could be costly, even fatal. Why had she let her pique at Garth propel her into this? Her palms sweated on the wheel. Even the scorching wind couldn't dry the sweat that beaded her eyebrows and soaked the back of her shirt.

Unlike the rows of long, high stacks of headed grain at the Brocketts, the grain in this field was bound in sheaves that were arranged in shocks. “Instead of the separator going to the wheat, the bundles will come to us,” Rory yelled. “We'll go ahead and make our set facing the southerly wind. May have to change it in the morning, but you might as well get the knack of it.”

Hallie steered the engine to where Mr. Halstead waited. The water and coal wagons were unhitched, and then she followed Rory's orders to place the separator where the blower would build Mr. Halstead's straw mountain.

“Now,” Rory tutored as Garth and Baldy unhitched the separator, “take the engine out a way and then circle back to face the separator.”

Hallie made the circle but swung too wide. “Reverse and cut in sharper!” Rory shouted above the noise.

“You do it!” she begged.

“You do it. You need to have the flywheel in line with the pulley of the thresher so the belt will run smack exactly in the middle of the flywheel.”

On the fourth try, Hallie lined the engine up with the separator, which the men had already leveled.

“You did fine,” Rory said in her ear. “Now we'll close her down and hope the wind's still blowing this direction in the morning, right into the firebox. If it's not, it could take four hours to get up steam instead of two. Always turn off this main steam valve by hand; a wrench will damage it. When the fire burns out, I'll clean the ash pan and cap the stack.” He grinned, eyes blue and sunny as the sky. “If Shaft can spare you a little while after breakfast in the morning, you can watch us belt up.”

“I'll see,” Hallie muttered. What had she gotten herself into?

She stole a glance at Garth. Did he think she had done a creditable job for her first time? Probably he hadn't even noticed. He was tightening his dratted cylinder teeth with a wrench. Ignoring Rory's hand, she climbed down from the platform.

Except for Henry Lower and Shaft, the men had gathered around the engine with soap and towels. Piles of clean clothes lay on the tank wagon.

“Ready for your steam bath, lads?” called Rory. He said to Hallie, “I have to drain the boiler either Saturday night or Sunday so I can clean out the mud and junk that gets in no matter how hard we try to get clean water. When I open that main valve, a cloud of wet steam blows out. Dandy way to get a bath.”

“It sounds like a dandy way to get scalded!”

“Well, you don't stand right up next to the valve, of course. A fellow can get just the temperature he likes by standing closer or farther away.” His eyes twinkled. “If you want to try it, I'll save you some steam and promise not to peek.”

“No, thank you very much! I prefer a tub—and privacy.” She hurried to the cookshack and began to sweep and mop the floor.

Shaft got out shears, clippers, a towel, and an apple crate and set up his free barber shop. Jackie had a wonderful morning. He brought basins of warm water to the fold-down shelf and watched the men hone their straight-edge razors on whetstones, strop them to an even keener edge with razor strops, lather their faces, and bring the blades across their faces deftly without chopping off hunks of skin and flesh.

Since there were only two basins and two small mirrors hung on nails in the side of the cookshack, the men took turns with this ritual, getting their hair cut or washing out their clothes while they waited for a mirror.

Mrs. Halstead and her daughters would cook for the extra local men who would load and drive the bundle wagons so they'd have no time to wash for Garth's crew. Rather than carry dirty clothes with the clean ones in their suitcases, most of the men attacked their laundry with the stomper, a wooden-handled metal cone about ten inches long and eight inches around at the bottom. Inside the cone was another smaller metal ring with holes that allowed air to escape while the stomper was rammed up and down in the tub of clothes, soap, and water drained from the boiler. Rinsed in water that would serve to wash the next person's garments, the clothes were wrung out and draped over the fence. Hallie was amused to notice that the men hung their underwear beneath their shirts, evidently thinking she'd be scandalized at the sight of BVDs.

In between chores, there was a lot of teasing, especially of anyone who was wielding a razor. “Look at Rory,” said Cotton. “Bleeding like a stuck hog! Guess Miss Hallie got him all nervous.”

“The way your face peels, Cotton, it's a wonder you can grow a beard; but if you sprouted a full one, it would sure improve your looks.” Rory rinsed his face, doused on bay rum and a dusting of talcum powder, and applied a bit of cigarette paper to a nick on his firm jaw. “Hey, let's see if Baldy can keep from cutting a jag in that fancy mustache.”

“What you ought to do, Baldy,” advised Buford Redding as he folded the celluloid handle of his razor to cover the blade, “is save your shavings and plaster 'em on top of your head. Maybe they'd sprout.”

“They'd sprout before any of you got good sense!” Baldy finished stropping his blade and worked up a fluffy lather in his shaving mug. “Don't you guys have something better to do than pester me?”

“I'm going to town for a bath and real haircut—no offense to you, Shaft,” Buford said. “Anyone want a ride?”

“I may not be artistic, but my clippers'll save you two bits,” Shaft said.

“I'd be obliged,” Henry said, beaming. “My Anna, she wishes to marry this fall.”

“Sure, blame it on her,” Cotton leered. “If she can't show you what to do, Henry, I'll be glad to help out.”

Henry blinked. Then his large boyish face turned red. He grabbed Cotton, lifted him off the ground, shook him, and fairly tossed him away. “You will not talk like that about my Anna. Or say bad things where Miss Hallie can hear.”

Cotton flipped open his razor. Crouching, he moved forward on his toes. “Stay inside, Jackie!” Hallie commanded as she ran down the steps. At the same instant that Rory kicked Cotton's legs out from under him, Hallie swung the dripping mop at his arm.

The razor went flying. Cotton lunged for it from the ground but Garth, who had come running from the water wagon, followed by a growling Laird, set his foot on the razor.

“That's it, Cotton. Get your stuff. I paid you last night, so we're square. Maybe Buford will drop you in town.”

Wincing and cursing, Cotton got to his feet. “Should of quit soon as you sent Rusty Wells after that red-trash brother-in-law of his! I'm gonna hire on with a white man's outfit.” He glowered at Hallie and rubbed his wrist. “You like to broke my arm, you—”

Rory stopped the word with a fist that sent the towheaded man heels over head. He rolled and catapulted to his feet, opening a folding knife with a five-inch skinning blade that he pulled from his pocket.

Shaft brought the apple crate down on Cotton's head so hard that it splintered. Cotton's knees buckled. He sprawled facedown. It all happened so fast that everyone stood dazed for a moment.

“I'd rather give a lift to a hydrophobied skunk,” said Buford into the silence. “But I guess we have to get him out of here. Want I should turn him over to the law, Garth?”

“They'd turn him loose in a day or two. Just dump him at the depot. I don't owe him a cent, but I'll stick a few bucks in his pocket in case he's broke.”

Jackie's muffled sobs reached Hallie. She hurried into the shack to console him. “I—I was scared Cotton was going to kill Henry and Rory!” he choked.

“He never had a chance, dear,” she soothed, though she was beginning to shake from the reaction. “He's going away, so you can forget about him.”

Jackie shuddered. “I won't forget that mean old razor!”

“Well, no,” Hallie admitted. “I won't, either.”

By the time Cotton groaned and pushed up from the dirt, nose and mouth caked with drying blood, his bedroll and tin suitcase were stowed in the backseat of Buford's flivver.

“Come on!” Rory ordered. He held a monkey wrench.

Cotton got in sullenly. Rory jumped in on the other side, and Rick Mondell crowded in by Cotton. Between the two of them, Cotton would have no chance to act up. Buford got behind the wheel, and Baldy climbed in beside him. What should have been a lighthearted trip to town had turned into the grim escort of a former companion who had tried to kill.

Shaft spat in the dust. “Meaner'n a sidewinder, that one. First time I ever saw a man go to carve on someone with a razor.”

Henry said, “Garth, I am sorry—”

Garth briefly set a hand on the big young man's shoulder. A smile dissolved the taut lines at his mouth. “Better he's gone, lad. He might have got into something real ugly with Rusty's brother-in-law. Mr. Halstead's got a bunch of sons and in-laws. I'll go see if one'll take Cotton's place.”

“I'll go with you, Daddy.” In spite of the heat, Meg gripped her father's arm.

He turned to Hallie. He must have shaved before the rest of the men gathered for his tanned skin was so smooth that she longed to touch it, follow the taut stretch of it beneath strong cheekbones and jaw, smooth back the gold silver hair clustered damply on his forehead. The gray of his eyes was startling in his brown face. Something in their depths sent a sweet, fiery shock through Hallie; but when he spoke, his tone was cool.