The Unplowed Sky (5 page)

Hallie tied on an apron from the suitcase and hung three clean towels on nails above the shelf. Filling the water basins, she washed with a bar of Ivory and left Grandpa's Tar Soap and Lava to the tougher-skinned. Shaft had set a dishpan for her on the long table that clamped to the middle of the floor.

“Flour's in the biggest barrel. Lard's in the can beside it. Baking powder's on the top shelf.” Slicing boiled potatoes into a big cast-iron skillet, Shaft chuckled. “Hey, I bet I know a boy who could set the table!”

“Who?” Jackie looked around.

“You!” Shaft said. “And then you can go play with Laird so long as you don't get near the machines and see that Smoky don't. Dishes are in the top cupboard drawer. We keep 'em there so they won't fall out when the rig's moving.”

The man grinned at the boy, who seemed awed and overwhelmed at so many new things all at once. Hallie could sympathize. As she made a well of flour to hold the biscuit ingredients, she felt the same way. “Can you count to eleven, Jackie?” asked the cook.

He held up his hands. “I can count ten fingers!”

“Good. So just put on that many plates and add one more. Your sis and you and me will eat after the gang clears out. Knives and forks and spoons are in a box inside the drawer. Cups in the next drawer. Set them all at this end of the table. Easier to pour coffee that way.”

As Jackie importantly counted out blue enamel dishes, Hallie cut lard into the mixed flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Praying that she had the proportions right, she added enough water for a stiff dough and kneaded it vigorously till it passed through the blistery stage and was smooth. She rolled the dough on a floured board and cut rounds a half-inch thick, hurried these into big pans and put them in the hot oven.

By then Shaft had carved a great platter of cold roast beef. Beans bubbled, potatoes crisped, and the aroma of Arbuckle's coffee filled the shack. If this was a light meal—

“You might open up a gallon can of peaches,” Shaft suggested. “They're stored with other canned stuff in the bin under the shack, the one nearest the back axles. Bin at the front holds taters and onions. We've got to lift a trapdoor to get to the middle bin. That's where I keep cured hams, condensed milk, and anything the bugs can't hurt. Peaches'll have to do for dessert, but we'll have my special burnt-sugar cake and two kinds of pie for supper.”

And there was afternoon lunch in between! Hallie's mind reeled, but Jackie looked so happy as he trotted about his chores that she resolved to somehow hold up her end of the work and not make Shaft sorry he had interceded for her. Besides, she wanted to prove her worth to that bewilderingly hostile Garth MacLeod.

Shaft handed Jackie a long-handled metal spoon. “Go pound that on the bottom of the washtub fastened to the porch wall,” he said. “Bang hard so the men can hear.”

Jackie complied with such ardor that Hallie clapped her hands over her ears. Shaft took advantage of the boy's absence to say, “Hope you don't mind my tellin' the little feller what to do, Miss Hallie, but I reckoned he might pay more attention to me if I cautioned him to keep clear of the machinery.”

“I appreciate it,” said Hallie earnestly. “Jackie doesn't know me very well. I've just had him with me a few days. I'm so glad to get a job where he can play with a kitten and a dog and I can look after him—”

Shaft gave her a searching glance. “If you want, I'd like to hear about it later. But you can count on me to help keep an eye on the tyke.” He glanced out the window, one of four arranged opposite each other to create a cooling draft. “Here they come! Better take the biscuits out of the oven and get set to pour the coffee.”

Laughter and good-natured joshing came from outside and flowed into the house with the men, abating as they saw Hallie. Most of them smiled and spoke. “Your kitchen's improved a hundred percent, Shaft,” Rory teased. He beamed at her but his brother gave her only the briefest of nods.

Faces and hands scrubbed, hair slicked back, exuding the odor of pine-tar soap, the crew planted themselves on the closed-bottom benches on either side of the table and scooted around till each had enough room to ply his utensils. Their interest in the food was equaled only by their interest in Hallie, but they didn't stare at or appraise her as Quentin Raford had. Instead, they stole glances when they thought she wouldn't notice. The men helped themselves to the nearest bowl or platter and passed them. Hallie started the biscuits around—thank goodness, they were golden brown and smelled good!—and got a firm grip on the huge coffeepot.

“Boys, this is Miss Hallie Meredith,” Shaft proclaimed. He set a hand on Jackie's shoulder. “This is her brother Jack. It'll take them a while to figger out which name goes with which of your ugly mugs, but we'll make a start. When Miss Hallie brings your coffee, I'll sing out your name and a little about you—what's decent to say in front of ladies and kids, that is.

“Jim Wyatt from Saskatchewan.” Hallie placed a steaming cup in front of a well-built young man with straight brown hair, warm hazel eyes, and a large white scar blotching one side of his face and neck. “He had his own engine till the durned thing blew sky-high a few years ago. Jim was lucky. He lit in the straw stack. He lumberjacks when he's not threshing.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wyatt,” Hallie said.

“Likewise. But my pa's Mr. Wyatt. I'm Jim.”

“Rory MacLeod you've met,” Shaft continued. “Every outfit has a cross to bear. He's ours, but he's a dandy engine man.”

In a stage whisper, Rory said, “I'll tell you the good things about me later, Miss Hallie.” His grin was infectious. Hallie couldn't keep from returning it though she sensed the strapping golden-haired young man might like women as much as his older brother seemed to detest them. Look at that great stone face of his!

“Cotton Harris hails from Texas,” Shaft said as Hallie placed a cup before a pale-haired man with faded blue eyes. He had one of those skins the sun burns but never tans, and his nose and cheeks were peeling where a hat couldn't protect them. “Cotton works in the oil patch when he's through threshing.”

“Howdy, ma'am,” Cotton drawled. “Proud to make your acquaintance.”

Pat O'Malley from Colorado still looked like a boy in spite of his beanpole height. He worked as a hard-rock miner when threshing finished. Huge yellow-haired Henry Lowen helped with the big family farm worked by his father and older brothers when he wasn't on the road. He was so shy that he couldn't even look at Hallie and blushed when he was introduced.

“Now here's our perfessor, Rich Mondell.” The thin, handsome man with curly black hair and green eyes looked up at Hallie and thanked her for the coffee with a friendly smile. “The perfessor ain't been fired from the college over at Lawrence,” Shaft explained. “Says he just likes to change off from brain work and feel like he's earnin' an honest living for a while.”

“I'm from a farm in the Flint Hills, Miss Hallie,” said Mondell in a well-modulated voice that was pleasant to hear. “Never have been able to convince myself that teaching's really work.”

“Don't sound like it to me, either,” chuckled perhaps the oldest man of the group. He had red-brown hair and eyes and lots of freckles. “Though if it comes right down to it, I reckon I wouldn't swap my little hardscrabble eighty acres in Oklahoma for your classroom.” He nodded appreciatively at Hallie. “Tip-top biscuits, ma'am. I'm Rusty Wells.”

Next came a stocky thresher who was all one shade of light dust brown; eyes, hair, and skin. “Buford Redding can work at almost anything,” the cook said. “Buildin' railroads, felling trees, swingin' a pick in the mines. Owns that shiny new touring car. But his real claim to fame is he's our onliest Wobbly.”

“I'm sure not ashamed of it.” Buford's dogged voice indicated that he was used to this kind of razzing. “The government's jailed our leaders and done everything it can to smash us, but it's not right for the guys on top to grind the rest of us, and you boys know it just as well as I do.”

The bald man with coal black eyes and a walrus mustache sitting next to him snorted. “Ain't right for Wobblies to come in a boxcar and make everyone join, neither. Thanks for the coffee, ma'am. I'm Baldy Tennant from Oklahoma. I'm a fireman on the railroad when I'm not a fireman or flunky for a threshing outfit.”

Buford said grimly, “What's right about railroad police with guns lining workers up, making the Wobblies buy tickets, and shipping them out of town the way they did me in Aberdeen, North Dakota a couple years back?”

“Huh!” derided the bald one. “Seems it was Aberdeen where about four hundred Wobs paraded down the streets hollering they wanted to abolish the whole wage system. They didn't just want an honest day's wage for an honest day's work.”

“That's the kind of trick that's got folks saying IWW means ‘I Won't Work,'” Henry Lowen put in.

“I'll work, and you know it,” Buford retorted. “I don't hold with everything the IWWs done, but at least the union stood up for the hoboes.” At Hallie's startled look, he said, “A hobo's not a tramp, miss. Tramps don't want to work, they just bum around. Hoboes travel from job to job. They work when and wherever they can. The state and federal employment services are a joke. Railroads and newspapers are always saying lots of men are needed in a certain place, but by the time a guy gets there, the jobs are gone—or they weren't there to start with. I'm sure glad I got on with Garth a few years ago.”

“I'm glad you did, too, Buford.” Garth spoke for the first time. “I'd sure rather know I can depend on my pitchers than hire just anyone who comes along.”

“Shucks, you can have your pick of hands. Can't be anything fairer than the way you pay.” Hallie passed another batch of biscuits, and Buford explained to her; “When a farmer pays us off, Garth and Rory take out a wage we all agree is fair for them and the machinery—six dollars each a day is how we figgered it this season. The farmer furnishes the team for Meg's water wagon, so she gets two dollars a day. The rest of us split up what's left.”

“Believe you me,” said Cotton Harris, “It's a sight more than the two-fifty a day pitchers usually get. That's promised us even if the MacLeods have to dig into their cut for it.”

For all his dourness then, Garth had a good side. And he was clearly not the kind of man who wouldn't eat with his hired hands. “That's very generous,” Hallie murmured.

“
You
get a straight wage,” he said with a cool glance that brushed her face like a fleeting wind.

She felt her cheeks turn scalding hot. “I didn't expect anything else. Are you going to charge me for Jackie's board?”

“Hadn't thought of it, but—”

“Garth!” Shaft's tone was scandalized. “You know you wouldn't be so stingy! Sides Jack is goin' to earn his keep; I can already see that.”

The boy looked anxiously at Hallie. Poor little kid! What in the world could he think with his world crumbled, his father dead, and his mother gone off to some mysterious place? Hallie darted a wrathful look at Garth MacLeod and gave Jackie a swift hug. “I'll keep you with me no matter what happens,” she whispered in his ear. Straightening, she said, “You mustn't worry when Mr. MacLeod teases. Why don't you take Smoky outside, where it's cooler?”

Hallie was glad to see that Garth looked somewhat ashamed. He called after Jackie, “Laird's under the shack. Keep close to him, and he'll run off any rattlesnakes. He's real glad we've got a boy he can play with.”

Rattlesnakes! Hallie hadn't even thought about them, but of course they could be a problem out in the fields. “Don't fret about the laddie,” Garth said. It was as if he reassured her against his will from some kindly impulse he wished to deny. “Laird will keep an eye on him.”

“Laird's my dog!” Meg claimed. She had eaten fast and furiously, keeping a pair of suspicious eyes fastened on Hallie.

“To be sure,” her father said equably. “But you'd never grudge the wee lad his company while you're at your work?”

Meg looked as if that were exactly what she'd like to do. “How come we just have ole canned peaches?” she complained. “Now Shaft's got a helper—”

“Great glorious gollywoggles!” Shaft pointed a ladle at the malcontent. “Think we can cook while we're rattling over the road? Let's have none of your sulks, Megan Catriona Mairi MacLeod, or you can just attach yourself to the other end of a dish rag and help redd up the kitchen so's Miss Hallie and me can start some pies!”

“You're not the boss of me, Shaft Hurok! Is he, Dad?”

“He is when he's riled enough to give you all your names in the Gaelic,” Garth said, rising and stretching. “Leave the kitchen to him, lass. He doesn't come out and tell you how to tend the water wagon. Come on, lads. Twenty minutes in the shade to let your food settle, and then we'd better get after it.”

They left as quickly as they had come. Almost at once, the smell of tobacco wafted in. The men had either rolled their own or found a store that broke Kansas's ludicrous ban against selling ready-mades, though tobacco in all forms was legal. Hallie stared in amaze at empty platters and bowls, at plates wiped clean with biscuits.

“There's enough bread and roast left to make sandwiches for afternoon lunch,” said Shaft as he planned, deftly sweeping up the plates on one side of the table while Hallie stacked those on her side and deposited them in the big dishpan. Shaft put a bar of Ivory on the plates and poured boiling water from the teakettle over it to make suds lively enough to cut the grease. “How about you doing the dishes while I whomp up some gingerbread and kind of show you where things are as I go along?”

Hallie was full of questions about threshing, the crew, and especially Garth MacLeod, but this was no time to ask them. Garth must be married—married young to have a child Meg's age—but it seemed strange that a mother would let a young girl go off for months with a threshing outfit even if her father was the boss.