The Unplowed Sky (19 page)

Always and inevitably, Garth prowled around the separator with tools and oilcan. It didn't seem to Hallie that she would ever get to know
him
better on Sunday. Or anytime. She pounded her clothes and Jackie's with the stomper, wrung them, rinsed them, wrung them again, and hung them on the fence. Garth certainly didn't want to know her any better than he had to.

This bitter reflection couldn't spoil the pleasure of shampooing dust, sweat, and chaff out of her hair and bathing in sun-warmed water. Shaft's music, dreamy and spirited by turns, floated out of the shack. Hallie swayed to it as she toweled her hair. She dressed in clean clothes, brushed out her hair, and let it hang loose to dry.

The steps were partly shaded by a cottonwood. She settled there with her mending. Jackie had knocked the knees out of his overalls and lost buttons off his shirts. She had rips in two aprons and a dress and a small tear in her nightgown.

Behind her, the porch creaked. Luke's green eyes had a soft glow. His skin was really no darker than that of the sunburned men but his was smooth and even, with no blotches and peeling or that several inches of white forehead concealed by a hat.

“Your hair shines like a blackbird's wing, Miss Hallie.”

“Why, thank you, Luke. That sounds like poetry.” He truly was a beautiful boy. It pleased Hallie's eyes to look at him. Boy? He must be at least her age or older. But somehow, disagreeable as he could be, Garth had become her measure of a man. “Have you finished your letter already?”

His teeth flashed as he nodded toward the men hunched over the table, making much harder work of their pencils than ever they did of pitchforks. “I only needed to tell Mother I'm well and like the crew. Rusty has to tell my sister about his whole week and how much he misses her and the kids. And I never wrote to a sweetheart like Henry does, but that must take a lot of pretty words.”

Hallie laughed. “You must be right. Henry spends hours on letters to his Anna, but it only takes him a few minutes to scratch a postcard to his parents.”

The young man hesitated a moment. “Meg asked me to come swimming when my letter was done. Do you think I'm too old to swim with the kids?”

“Of course not. What's age got to do with cooling off on a hot day?”

He nudged his toe against the bottom of the porch railing. With a gulp of breath, he blurted, “Would Mr. MacLeod mind?”

“Garth? Why should he?”

Luke's face reddened. “I'm Cherokee. With some Scotch.”

Hallie blushed, too, that anyone as graceful, hardworking, and courteous as Luke should have to ask such a question. “I know Garth won't allow any Ku Klux Klan sort of talk. The only man who seemed to have those kind of ideas got himself fired the day you hired on.” Hallie looked up into the dark-lashed wide green eyes. “Garth brings his daughter threshing so he must think it's all right for her to be around the men he hires.”

“But—swimming? Just me and the kids?”

“It's not far from the shack. I can hear them laughing. But some fathers wouldn't want
any
young man splashing around in the creek with a twelve-year-old daughter.”

Luke's eyes went wider. “Oh, I wouldn't—She's just a kid!”

“Don't tell her so,” Hallie advised. “Just to feel sure about it, why don't you ask Garth?”

Luke gasped. “I—I'm scared to!”

“Mmm.” Hallie thought a moment. “Go tell him the cook—you don't have to say which one—wants to know if he'd rather have raspberry buckle or rice pudding for dessert tonight.”

“But Sunday is your day off.”

“Shaft and I are here.” Hallie shrugged. “We don't mind setting out cold food and leftovers for supper or making an easy dessert. So find out what His Lordship favors. Then just say Meg asked you to swim, and you'd like to if it's all right with him.”

Luke considered. “That's good. I can ask without making a big thing of it.” He watched Hallie for a moment. “I—I wish you could swim, too.”

You're just a kid
. That thought was exactly what he had said about Meg. Could Garth possibly be thinking that she—Hallie—was too young for him? She doubted that had much to do with his coldness. She was female, therefore not to be trusted—even if she spent part of her free day making his choice of rice pudding or raspberry buckle.

Smiling up at Luke, she said, “There'd be so many of us no one could swim. Go along and enjoy yourself.”

“If Mr. MacLeod says yes.” Luke was still apprehensive.

“If he says no, it won't be because you're Cherokee,” Hallie said briskly. “I'm sure it's easier preached than practiced, Luke, but I hope you'll try not to think that every turndown you get is because you're Indian.”

“Lots of them are.”

“Probably, and that's not right. But isn't your shirttail cousin, Will, the best-known, best-liked man in the whole country?”

“Sure. All the same, Miss Hallie, did you know it was only this June that all American Indians were granted full citizenship?”

“
What
?”

“Some tribes had held citizenship a long time, like the Wyandots and Kickapoos. The Indians in Indian Territory became citizens in 1901. But, till just a little over a month ago, all the others weren't.”

Hallie tried to banter. “Well, Luke, women couldn't vote and therefore weren't full citizens till the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920—and even then, the women who'd worked so hard for the vote weren't allowed to witness the signing.” Mrs. MacReynolds had been so indignant about the slight that poor Mr. MacReynolds had apologized for all mankind.

Luke's smile was brief, but his sigh was long. “There are a sight more women than Indians, Miss Hallie. Now you have the vote, you should be able to change things.”

“We can't change human nature.” Hallie thought of Raford and Cotton, of an eighteen-year-old Henry Lowen imprisoned for his faith. “But we can work for what's fair. You'd better hurry, Luke, or you'll be too late to swim.”

Returning from Garth, Luke said with happy eyes, “Mr. MacLeod says he'd appreciate my making sure the kids don't drown. And please, he'd like the buckle for supper.” Luke frowned. “What
is
a buckle, Miss Hallie?”

“It's sort of a fruit pudding pie,” she reassured him. “You'll like it.”

He smiled and hurried toward the creek. Hallie began to plait her hair. How she wished that Garth would say it shone like a blackbird's wing—even a crow's! But he would only say she should braid it before it blew full of tangles.

Even braided, it got full of dust and chaff. If it were short—Well, why not? If Garth liked her hair long, she'd have endured it; but he clearly thought it a nuisance, to be pinned up as soon as possible.

She had never had it cut, even though Mrs. MacReynolds thought she'd look nice with a bob. For a moment, Hallie wavered. Then she thought of how much cooler she'd be, how much lighter and better her head would feel without the weight of the braids and tightness of pins. Before she could change her mind, she jumped up and went to the door.

“Shaft?” she called softly. “Your music's so beautiful I hate to interrupt—that was Dvořák, wasn't it? But I wonder if you could cut my hair.”

The tune stopped with a discordant crash. Shaft got up so quickly that Smoky almost fell from beneath his beard. Judging by Shaft's expletives, the kitten saved herself by sinking in her claws. Soothing and smoothing the little gray cat, in spite of his own scratches, Shaft tucked Smoky under his arm and stared at Hallie, shaggy eyebrows drawn together above his long, crooked nose. “Did I hear right? You want me to cut your hair?”

“Yes, please.” He looked as if she were urging murder, so Hallie said defensively, “It's so hot, Shaft! And I can't keep it clean. If my hair were short, I could wash it every day or two.”

“Yes, honey, but your hair's plumb beautiful!”

All the wrong men thought so. “If you won't cut it, I will.”

“Lordy-Lord!” Shaft appealed, as if a higher power might intervene. When it didn't, he sighed. “All right, if you're bound 'n' determined. But that hair took a long time to grow, and once it's whacked off, you can't put it back. Sure you wouldn't like me to just thin it some?”

“I'm sure I want a bob.”

Shaft put down his fiddle. “It's your scalp. But let's spread a tarp so you can save the hair. You could make a coil or something to pin on when you get sick of your nice cool bob that looks like every other youngish woman's.”

Hallie clenched her fists to keep from wincing when the first long, shining locks fell to the tarp; but as Shaft worked, squinting over each intended cut of the scissors, her head began to feel refreshingly light and free. She shut her eyes, enjoying the deft, gentle touch of Shaft's fingers. Now Garth MacLeod couldn't growl at her to pin her hair up out of the way.

“What in the world are you doing?” His voice made her straighten so abruptly that the scissors snipped dangerously close to an ear. “Maybe
she
doesn't know any better, Shaft,” Garth seethed. “But I'd expect you to—”

“Expect him to what?” Temper rising, she stared into wrathful gray eyes. “You should approve! You didn't like the wind to blow my hair, remember?”

He let out an exasperated breath. “You had wonderful hair!”

“That isn't what you said!”

“Now you'll look like any city girl. I suppose the next thing will be to smoke, paint, and roll your stockings below your knees!”

“If I want to do any or all of those things, Garth MacLeod, it's none of your business!”

“Roll one cigarette, and you're fired!”

“Of all the nerve! I've never wanted to smoke, but you may just start me!”

“Children, children!” Shaft begged. “Boss, you're way out of line. Hallie's the best help I've ever had. Fire her and I go, too.”

Hallie caught his hand. “Shaft—”

“Hell's bells!” Garth erupted. “Pluck out your eyebrows and make them over with a pencil! Wear clothes that make you look like a washboard instead of a woman! Ruin your breath and teeth with nicotine! Frizz the hair you've got left! I was beginning to think you had a little sense but this”—he bent to catch up and flourish a shimmering strand of black—“shows how wrong I was!”

He stalked away. “Damn him!” Hallie choked, blind with furious tears. “Double damn and drat him! First my hair's too long! Now it's too short! And he starts in on me for things I detest as much as he does!”

“Yes.” Shaft sounded so happy that Hallie blinked and gaped at him.

“What made Garth act like that?” she appealed.

“My grandmother was a great one to read out of the Bible.”

“Was she?” Hallie couldn't see where this was leading.

“Every night, three chapters before anyone could go to bed. Mighty tedious when we were stuck in the ‘begats.' But I always liked the battles and angels. ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, Son of the Morning.' I could shut my eyes and see Michael and Gabriel with their great wings all bright with power and glory. And somewhere it said that women should not uncover their hair because of fear of the angels—as if an angel could be snared in a girl's long hair, fall crazy in love, and plumb forget his heavenly chores.”

“Yes, but—”

“I think Garth was scared of gettin' tangled in your hair.”

Hallie's heart leaped, but she scoffed. “He's probably afraid I'll set Meg a bad example, though it's hard to imagine what kind of woman he'd think
is
a good pattern.” Hallie looked down at the arm-length tresses and gave a rueful laugh. “It's funny, Shaft. It's lovely not to have all that weight piled up or tugging down. I feel light as a cloud. But I feel sort of naked, too, like a shorn lamb.”

“You'll get used to it. And it'll grow out. Look in the mirror and you'll feel better.”

Hallie peered into one of the mirrors hung above the washbasins. Her hair still shone like heavy black silk. Oddly enough, since it wasn't pulled straight back, it framed and softened her angular face and high forehead. “Ohhh! I—I don't look too scalped, do I, Shaft?”

“You look fine. Instead of not seeing anything but that crown of hair, folks have to notice your eyes and mouth.”

Would Garth? Both exultant and regretful, as if she were discarding some part of herself, Hallie located an old pillowcase and carefully folded her hair into it. This new, liberated Hallie could entertain scandalous notions; for as carefree shouts came from the swimming hole, she thought, Why can't I get in the water? I can't swim much but how heavenly it would be to cool off when I'm so hot after doing the supper dishes! Just play and splash by myself and not worry about getting my hair wet. I think I will!

As the men sat down to dinner, Luke eyed her hair sorrowfully but didn't say anything. Henry's broad, open countenance showed distress, as did Lefty Halstead's thin one, but they, too, held their peace. “It must be a sight cooler,” Rusty said gamely though he looked dismayed.

“Why should women get headaches to suit men?” Jim Wyatt added.

“Why indeed?” Rich Mondell smiled at her. “But that braided coronet, Hallie, it really was your crown.”

“Crowns are pretty uncomfortable in a cookshack,” she told the young professor.

“It looks silly to have a flapper bob with plain old dresses,” Meg said.

“Your hair's bobbed,” Luke pointed out.

Color brightened Meg's tanned face. “That's different. I can't have a lot of hair getting in my eyes while I'm doing a man's job.”

“Boy's job,” Baldy corrected.

Meg scowled at him. Rory cocked his head and studied Hallie till her cheeks burned. “We-e-ell,” he pronounced judiciously, “your eyes look enormous. I never noticed before how thick and long your eyelashes are, and how your eyebrows arch like wings. Say, have you always had that inside-out dimple in your chin? And your mouth—”