Prairie Widow (2 page)

“I don't know that I've ever seen hailstones in summer,”

commented Jennifer quietly. “And such large ones.”

“Why, this is nothing,” said Wilkes. “I've seen hailstones as big as my fist!” He made a fist and showed it to Jennifer— “Yep, one thing I've learned since coming out here is there's no telling what'll fall out of a Kansas sky.” Wilkes called across the room, “Say, Seth, remember sixty-six?”

The man by the window turned, the coffee label on his rump disappearing. But he didn't answer Wilkes. Indeed, he seemed only to scowl at him. Then he turned to look out the window again.

Wilkes seemed unaffected by this treatment. “He lost all his crops that year,” he explained quietly. “Had to find work in the next county.”

“But why—” started Jennifer.

“Grasshoppers,” said Wilkes. “They came out of nowhere, just like the plague in the Bible—covered everything—crawled into people's houses, got into their clothing…”

Jennifer closed her eyes as if to block out the image.

“It'll be frogs next, I suppose…”

“Ah, Mr. Wilkes,” interrupted Walter, noting his wife's paling complexion, “perhaps we can set out now.”

“Sure, be glad to,” said Wilkes. “Didn't mean to upset anyone.”

Walter replaced his hat on his head. Still holding Jennifer's pot, he took Emma's hand with his free one and called Peter, who had slowly inched his way nearer the barefoot boy with the peppermint stick.

Following her husband, Jennifer was stopped by the boy's mother. She was a dark, slight woman, no more than five feet tall, with black hair and intense, dark grey eyes. “Mrs. Vandermeer,” she said, “I'm Lucy Baker, and this is Nancy Camp.” She gestured to the other woman, who was tall, and whose fairer skin was sunburnt—“It seems we will be neighbors.”

Jennifer marked the two women's worn faces, their faded calico dresses, and she could do no more than hurry on.

Outside, the sky had risen, and streaks of blue were appearing. The two streets were already turning muddy from the hailstones melting in the summer heat, and the planks squished beneath Jennifer's shoes.

“Settle down,” murmured Walter to the oxen, all four of which were jittery from the pelting. He patted their broad, heavy heads, one by one. He placed the flower pot back on the wagon seat.

“I'll get my horse,” said Wilkes, heading off toward the blacksmith shop.

Walter continued stroking one of the oxen. “Peter, Emma, open the wagon.”

Jennifer, meanwhile, stood patiently on a plank, her hands clasped before her.

“Jenny,” said Walter quietly, still petting the ox, “if you don't start acting friendly, you're going to make us outcasts before we even settle in.”

“Hm!” grunted Jennifer, looking off in another direction.

Walter took a long, exasperated breath just as Wilkes rode up on a bay horse.

“Tie your horse to the back of the wagon,” suggested Walter, stepping up to meet him. “You'll ride up front with me
¹⁹

“Don't want to crowd the missus off the seat,” said Wilkes.

“That's quite all right,” said Jennifer, “I'll sit inside with the children and let you two men talk.”

And so, while the two men talked up front, Jennifer sat in her rocker, which didn't rock because it was tied with heavy cord to a plow and various furniture. Her pot once more on her lap, she faced backward, gazing out the back of the wagon at Wilkes's trailing bay while the axle creaked beneath the floorboards and a gentle, warm breeze wafted in through the wide front opening. Peter and Emma sat on the floor at the rear, wedged between a crate and a bureau, taking turns looking through a stereoscope. Jennifer watched the town slide slowly back toward the horizon, sinking ever deeper into the tall grass.

“I imagine you'll want to start planting as soon as possible,” said Wilkes to Walter.

“Yeah,” answered Walter, “I've got a John Deere breaking plow back there. I'll be planting com.”

“You know, in these parts, the grass is little bluestem,” said Wilkes, “and people do better with wheat. If it's com you want, you should have stayed farther east, where the big bluestem grow.”

“The best land's taken back there.”

“Not if you look. Why, if I were you, I'd reconsider eastern Kansas. There's more streams back there, better rainfall…”

“Maybe so,” said Walter, “But I'm here. And here's where I'm planting com.”

Hm! Now who's being stubborn! thought Jennifer.

Four Comers, meanwhile, had dropped from sight. There was little now on the subtly rolling terrain to show the passing of the miles. The very trail—lined here and there with pink-clustered flowers that attracted swarms of monarch butterflies—sometimes grew indistinct, and grasses brushed under the wagon's floorboards.

By and by, the wagon pulled off the trail, continued several dozen yards, then stopped.

“This is it!” announced Walter, “Everyone out!”

The wagon jostled as everyone dropped off—except for Jennifer, who remained stolidly in her rocker. And she stayed like that for several minutes, listening to the muffled voices of her husband and Wilkes, occasionally the voices of her children, and always the gentle blowing of the prairie wind.

Finally, the mutton-chopped visage of Wilkes appeared in the rear opening of the wagon, startling Jennifer.

“Well, I'll be heading back now, Mrs. Vandermeer,” he said as he untied his horse's tether from the wagon.

Jennifer forced a decorous nod.

Wilkes leaned toward her. “I can't say I blame you for feeling this way,” he said almost in a whisper. “It's pretty rough-going out here.”

Jennifer arched an eyebrow.

Wilkes straightened. “Anyway, good luck to you.” He tipped his hat and walked over to his horse. Jennifer watched him ride away toward the trail.

Then Walter, his ruddy face even redder than usual, appeared in in the opening. “I hope you're pleased with yourself,” he growled. “Now Wilkes is going to have a grand time telling everyone how you acted like a spoiled little girl and refused to come out of the wagon.”

“I don't care,” said Jennifer quietly.

“You will next time you have to show your face in town.”

“I don't plan to.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Oh, you'll have to. Now, why don't you stop making a fool of yourself and get out of the wagon.”

“No thank you, I'm comfortable right where I am.”

“Damn you!” snapped Walter, stalking off a few feet, then returning to the wagon. “I won't put up with this much longer!”

“Where are the children?”

“They're fine! Now are you coming out of there, or aren't you?”

Jennifer turned her head away, looking over the plow handle at a jumble of chairs. Again Walter stalked off, and Jennifer wondered whether her stubborness was pushing her husband too far. He returned.

“You know, I really ought to start breaking ground,” he complained. “It's late in the season.”

“You go right ahead.”

“Yeah, but first I've got to get you out of there. Hand me the shovel.”

Jennifer furrowed her brow, but she didn't ask why Walter wanted the shovel. She reached behind her, took it, and offered it to him. He grabbed it and stalked off.

Soon, she heard him digging. She was curious, but she dared not look, even though it was getting hot in the wagon.

But then, several minutes after the digging started, Jennifer was jolted from her chair by the shouting of her children. “Poppa! Look out!” cried Peter.

Jennifer put her pot down and stuck her body out the back of the wagon. She saw, some yards off, Walter swinging frantically with his shovel at some squat, furry beast in the grass. “Walter!” she screamed. She scrambled from the wagon and hurried to him, hoisting her skirt to keep herself from tripping.

“Stay back, everyone!” roared Walter, taking a swipe at the grizzle-coated animal, which snarled back and returned the swipe with its own long claws, ripping Walter's pant leg.

Jennifer dashed to her children and yanked them behind her. “My God, Walter, where's your gun?”

His blue eyes bulging, Walter kept swinging his shovel as if he were using a scythe, but the beast kept dodging it, lunging spryly this way and that, slashing back.

“Walter!” cried Jennifer, making a tentative step toward her husband.

“Poppa!” cried the children from behind their mother.

“Keep them back!” shouted Walter as he landed a good whack on the animal's broad back, then another on its side.

The beast, its striped face locked in a snarl, began to back up. Walter didn't follow. When there was some distance between the two combatants, the animal turned and, still growling, waddled off into the grass. Jennifer and her children now hurried to Walter, who let the shovel drop to the ground.

“Are you all right, Poppa?” shouted Peter.

“Walter,” cried Jennifer, hurrying to her husband's arms.

“Well, look who's out of the wagon,” said Walter, his chest heaving, his face sweaty and red.

Jennifer pushed him away at arm's length but kept her hands on his broad shoulders. “Are you hurt? Your pants are ripped.”

Walter looked down at his shredded pant leg. “Well, that old badger got the worst of it.” Jennifer started to bend to check her husband's leg, but he stepped away and walked over to a small rise in the land, which was taller than he. It was in the side of this rise that he had been digging. He checked along the base and stopped. “Ha!” he shouted, “It looks like I was breaking into a badger den. See the entrance?” He pushed back some grass.

The two children ran over to see.

“Peter! Emma! Be careful!” shouted Jennifer. Keeping her own distance, she craned he neck and looked. “My God, Walter, why were you digging there, anyway?”

“I was preparing our home,” he answered. He noted the den. “And now it seems I've been given a head start. I'll just expand this burrow until it's big enough for the four of us and our furniture.”

Jennifer felt woozy. “Walter,” she began slowly, “surely you're not suggesting that we are going to live inside this hill.”

“I surely am, little lady. There are no trees around here for a proper cabin, and this is the quickest way to get us some shelter. Don't worry, you won't be the only one living this way. Remember that stand of wheat we saw with no house around? There was probably a dugout nearby.”

Jennifer closed her eyes and stepped back. “Walter, I will not live in a badger hole.”

Walter approached his wife. “Listen, Jenny, it won't be a badger hole when I'm through with it. You'll have a door and windows…”

“I will not have the children living in there.”

“Hell, they'll probably think it's fun—right, children?”

Peter's and Emma's eyes widened with joyous expectation.

“Yay!” shouted Peter.

“Yay!” echoed his little sister.

Walter turned back to his wife. “See?”

“No, Walter,” insisted Jennifer, “I'm sorry. I want to go home.”

At this, Walter could only clench his teeth and glare at his obstinate wife. He picked up the shovel. “You are home.”

Over the course of the next week, Walter kept enlarging the badger den. He made the entrance big enough to allow his own broad physique, and continued hollowing out the inside, eventually poking a square hole on either side of the entrance for windows. At the end of each day, he declared that he was done because the dugout seemed spacious enough—until, that is, he moved in a piece of furniture. Then he realized how small the room still was. So, the following morning, he resumed his digging.

Meanwhile, Jennifer, now that she was out of the wagon, stayed out, if only to tend to her children. Walter had scythed away the grass from a small area where she could cook without setting the prairie on fire. Nearby she set up some chairs, a table, and a packing crate, which served as a kitchen counter. She even set out her rocker so that she could watch Walter digging as she rocked back and forth in grass that came up to her armrests and tickled her forearms. The wagon itself provided her with a semblance of a wall in what was otherwise an endless expanse that reached in every direction to the single encircling horizon. On bright days, Jennifer noted how the wind might continuously comb the grassy sea, and sheets of light would glide across the bent stems like fleets of magic carpets, beckoning her east.

But Jennifer stayed only in her rocker, feeling very small in the midst of all that open wilderness—and positively insignificant beneath its enormous capping blue dome. The prairie sky, she noted, was everywhere you looked. It was above you, it was in front of you. It was in back of you. It was everywhere except beneath you.

But as bad as it was during the day, the prairie during the night was still worse. Once the sun lowered to eye level, smearing the western sky with color and reddening the prairie and broadside of the covered wagon, Jennifer grew frightened. The sky darkened in the east, where the stars first appeared, spreading westward until they were overhead and all around, encrusting the entirety of what was now a black dome. With no moon out, the great grassy expanse disappeared in darkness. Jennifer could no longer see, only listen to what was out there beyond the glow of her campfire. Mostly there was the chirping of insects and the gently blowing wind. Sometimes, there was the chilling, yet poignant, howl chorus of distant wolves. On those occasions, Jennifer didn't sleep. She kept her children close to her inside the wagon, and she didn't relax until the sun returned, appearing at eye level on the opposite horizon, reddening the great grass expanse from that direction.

It was none too soon for Jennifer when Walter finally did dig out enough room in the hill to fit all the furniture and all the family—if just barely. He finished the job by putting in pole rafters—brought from Ohio—to keep the prairie sod above from sagging in. He then installed the cookstove, shoving the stove pipe right through the dirt ceiling and out among the prairie grass above. Finally, with Ohio lumber, he built a proper wooden door and two window frames with shutters. Unfortunately, there were no glass panes to put in those frames.