In Open Spaces (9 page)

“What?” Dad answered brusquely.

“When’s Jack coming home?”

I groaned at the mention of this topic, as I suspected this was the last thing in the world Dad wanted to talk about that morning.

“I don’t know, Bob. Let’s just get this job done, what do you say?”

A year and a half had passed since the funeral. And in some ways, it seemed like only a matter of days. The silence in the fields became more profound every time we were out there. And any effort anyone made to break up this silence only reminded us of who used to provide that distraction. So we remained silent, bending our backs to our work, keeping our heads low, eyes averted.

Katie was missed more around the house. Her absence pervaded our home, nibbling at our spirits. From early on, Katie had been the idea person, the one full of suggestions for how to fill what little idle time we enjoyed. It didn’t faze her at all that we ignored most of them. She simply kept firing new ones until something stuck, or until we gave in just to keep her quiet. She seemingly never tired of card games, or crafts. I remember her spending an entire day building a giraffe out of matchsticks. The finished product looked more like a piece of farm machinery than an animal, but she was as proud as a bantam rooster.

Mom went into a self-imposed exile in her bedroom. She came out only when she had to milk the cow, or gather the eggs, or prepare the next meal. She never missed a meal. But other than those times, we rarely
saw her. She often took her supper into the bedroom, eating alone.

Even Dad was afraid of disturbing her. One afternoon I watched him come into the house after he had somehow fallen into a puddle. His clothes were soaked and muddy. He started to go into the bedroom, but stopped himself as he reached for the doorknob. He paced back and forth a few times, brow furrowed, head bowed, and finally left the house.

We seldom heard anything from behind that bedroom door, but she sometimes emerged with swollen eyelids, and red rims, her hair in a wild frizz of pink.

And then it stopped. About three months after it began, the exile ended. Outwardly, it seemed that we were back in the old routine. But it soon became apparent that Mom had changed. The patient, calm assurance was still in her voice most of the time. But the measure of patience that had once seemed to have no threshold now had a moveable ceiling. Mom had always been gruff, blunt, but her frankness now had an edge.

The deaths had driven Dad further into the fields, where he worked with his head down and mouth closed. He absorbed Mom’s attacks with the same posture, never fighting back, seldom arguing.

Muriel, who had never liked going outside in the first place, also retreated to her bedroom, trying to avoid the tension. She found books, and sought refuge from the stories within. But she became a fragile little thing, susceptible to every hint of conflict around her. She watched the world with a gentle curiosity, at the same time as if she expected to be hurt by it.

But because Jack was now the oldest, he bore the brunt of this family crankiness.

When George Jr. was alive, he had been Dad’s foreman. When something needed to be done, Dad told George. When something was done wrong, Dad yelled at George. And George passed these commands and complaints to the rest of us with a gentler hand. George
was the buffer, and the job suited him, because when he’d had enough, he let Dad know. He yelled back, sometimes standing toe to toe with the old man until they’d both emptied their lungs.

But contrary to his indifferent demeanor, Jack’s skin was as thin as boiled lettuce. When Dad talked to him the same way he had with George, the words seeped through to Jack’s soul, pounding, bruising him inside. And it only got worse when it was busy, when Dad’s only concerns were that the work get done and that we had fewer backs to do it. When Dad gave orders, his eyes were out on the fields. He didn’t see Jack’s lips tighten and his eyes grow narrow and cold. But I did.

So I was the least surprised the first time Jack disappeared. It was early June, and we had just finished docking the lambs and branding the new calves. The hay wasn’t ready to cut, so we had a bit of slack time. So Jack’s three-day absence, after Dad yelled at him about a saddle Bob had left out, didn’t have the impact it could have. Dad didn’t even seem that upset when Jack dragged himself home with a new shirt and a headache.

Jack didn’t get off so easy the second time. Toward the end of summer, things got hectic. We were finishing up with the haying, so the crew was underfoot, keeping Mom frantic with the cooking. Harvest loomed just around the corner, and Dad and Jack planned to take a small herd of heifers into Belle Fourche for a sale. Dad apparently hadn’t learned anything from Jack’s first disappearance. Day after day, he ordered Jack around, scolding him like a child. There were several times I considered intervening, but I just didn’t have the backbone. The night before they were supposed to leave for Belle, Dad asked Jack whether he’d packed his saddlebags yet. When Jack said no, Dad said, “Well, when are you planning on getting around to it, after everyone else is asleep?”

The comment, though biting, seemed harmless enough, but it was apparently the last straw. Jack went outside, and we just assumed he was packing his saddlebags. We didn’t see him for another three days.
So Bob had to join Dad on the trip to Belle, and we were a hand short on the haying crew, which was in my charge. Each stab of pain in my back as I pitched hay that day reminded me of his absence. We were all dead tired, not to mention furious, by the time Jack showed up that third evening.

We had just finished dinner when the door swung open very slowly. Jack ducked in, and although we were all sitting right in plain view, he turned and closed the door as if he had just entered a room filled with sleeping children. Then he walked on the balls of his feet toward our bedroom, not acknowledging us, not even looking our way. As an added element to this strange attempt at being inconspicuous, he was wearing a brand-new, bright yellow shirt.

He didn’t make it halfway across the room before Dad pounced from his chair like a bobcat from the bushes. He lowered his shoulder, head down, and barreled into Jack. Dad’s arm began pumping like a flywheel, and despite the fact that I acted as soon as I realized what was happening, Dad had dealt Jack several blows before I wrapped him up and pulled him back. Dad’s taut, wiry muscles strained against my arms. His face was blood red, veins swollen. But Jack slowly and deliberately climbed to his feet, like someone just getting out of bed. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. Dad’s elbows thumped against my chest.

Jack’s eyes never did connect with Dad’s, or anyone else’s, but I don’t think it mattered. I’m sure he felt what I saw in Dad’s look, and I realized that night how useless words can be sometimes. Dad’s glare said it all.

Jack simply turned and walked out.

It would not have surprised me if we didn’t see him for another three days. But the next morning, Jack was out in the fields before any of us, sporting a nasty bruise on one cheekbone. Nothing was said, and in
Dad’s case the words that went unspoken solidified into a wall. He stopped talking to Jack. Instead, he told me what to tell Jack. I became the new buffer. And I resented hell out of it. For one thing, I was just as angry with Jack as Dad was. I didn’t want to talk to him. But the work had to get done. So I gritted my teeth. I endured. But each time Dad called me over, my shoulders tightened up around my neck, and my jaw clenched.

Jack started sleeping in the old homestead house, where our haying, harvesting, and shearing crews slept when those seasons rolled around. This upset Mom, who simply wanted peace.

“You need to sit down and straighten this out,” she told Dad. But she might as well have been talking to the wood stove.

For the rest of that summer, and into fall, Jack worked harder than ever. He ignored whatever temptations drove him to leave, and he only went to town when work required it. But the minute we sewed the last sack of wheat from harvest, he was gone. This time, his disappearance had a more permanent feel to it. We didn’t hear a word for a week, then two.

For a brief time, I was relieved. But it didn’t take long to see that the tension caused by Jack’s presence was nothing compared to what his absence brought. With more work, Dad became a tyrant in the fields. We needed help, but for months, instead of hiring an extra hand, he held out hope that Jack would return. And Mom felt the same way. So we worked seven days a week, dawn to dusk, and still couldn’t keep up. The worry that we were all accustomed to in my father transformed into anger at the slightest wrong turn by a cow, or the appearance of a rain cloud. His weathered face became drawn, the tanned skin sagging, his blue eyes murky.

I suppose I was too young to see that after losing two children, my parents simply couldn’t bear the possibility that something tragic had also happened to Jack. All I could see was that now that I was the oldest, I was catching the worst of whatever evil now inhabited my family.

The worse it got, the more I questioned my decision to stay. The
more I sneaked off to the barn and rocketed fastballs off the wall, or dug up the ticket to St. Louis, and the pamphlets of other cities. And eventually, the more I hated my brother.

The first news finally arrived in the form of a telegram.

When Mom read this, her initial reaction was to storm from the house, grab a chicken, and chop its head off. But over the next few days, her smile came a little easier, and I even caught her humming to herself one morning. She was clearly relieved to know Jack was all right.

It was harder to tell how Dad felt about it. “At least he’s fighting for his country,” he said one day, to himself. So I guess he was relieved in his own way. But he remained as grim and focused as he had been. Always expect the worst.

I was furious. First of all, the telegram asked nothing about how my parents or any of the rest of us were. But most important, Jack made no apologies. He must have known how his disappearance and this news would affect us all. But he apparently didn’t care. It seemed to me that in Jack’s mind, he’d left with best wishes and a handshake. The one good thing that came out of it was that Dad finally hired another hand. I was temporarily soothed.

But we heard nothing more for another six months. We had no idea where Jack was. We scanned the Ekalaka Eagle each week, taking a more vested interest in news about the war, which until then had seemed almost fictional, like a novel in installments. And we held our breath each time we opened the mail sack.

Finally, an envelope in Jack’s tiny, deliberate hand arrived from France. The letter was short, a half page, and again it contained very little news. The line that drew the most interest was, “Don’t worry. I’m not close to the fighting. I’m stationed in a supply unit miles from the front.”

Mom began writing regularly—she sat at our worn dining room
table and crafted long, detailed letters filling Jack in on the livestock and the crops, and news about our neighbors—who had died, or left, or been discreetly shipped off after a case of loneliness. She asked him questions, probing for information. But we only received one more letter from Jack. Although it mentioned nothing of Mom’s letters, and answered none of her questions, he did ask how everyone was doing. And he mentioned a girlfriend, which made a big impression on my brother Bob.

Bob buried his pitchfork into the haystack, then jumped, putting all his weight on the handle, prying a tangle of gray hay from the center. “You think Jack’s going to marry that gal?” he asked.

“Hard to say,” I answered.

“She sounds real nice.” Bob pressed on, and I realized that he had invented this detail, as Jack hadn’t said a word about the woman other than that she existed. We didn’t even know her name.

“Bet you a nickel he marries her,” Bob said to me.

“Blake, you goin’ on ahead?” Dad muttered impatiently.

“I was just about to do that.” I tossed one last forkload of hay into the wagon, then planted my fork in the hay.

“Bet you a nickel Bob’s going to marry that gal,” Bob said to Dad.

“If you had a nickel, I might take you up on that, partner,” Dad answered brusquely. “Let’s just get this work done. What do you say?”

I whistled for Nate, who trotted out from behind the stack.

Ahab inched gingerly across the frozen river. I led him, keeping the reins taut but not hurrying him.

The cattle huddled close to the river, their tails to the wind, their backs covered with snow blankets. Some lingered along the bank, looking for a break in the ice. I pushed the herd toward the river, covering
my frozen nose with a gloved hand. The snow had let up, but a few thick flakes wafted to the ground. I chopped holes in the ice, and the cattle pushed their noses into the freezing river. Steam rose from their nostrils.

Mounting Ahab, I heard the clatter of the wagon. I looked downstream to see the straining team climb the bank. The sound perked the cattle’s ears. They lumbered toward the wagon, some trotting, their heavy skulls swinging from side to side. They crowded around the clumps of hay that Dad launched from the bed. I guided Ahab through the cluster of snow-covered backs, dismounted, and tied the reins to the wagon. Then I joined Dad in the bed, grabbing a pitchfork.

I caught Dad glancing toward the house several times, although we couldn’t possibly see that far through the drifting snow.

“She’ll be all right, Dad.”

He didn’t answer. But for the rest of the morning, he tried to disguise his frequent glances.

We scattered hay along the river, leaving clusters of munching cattle. I hopped off the wagon, running in place for a second or two to warm up. I pulled myself into Ahab’s saddle, then galloped toward the next pasture. Nate trotted alongside, tongue hanging loose, steam rolling from between his teeth.

For every bit of plodding predictability that you get from a herd of cattle, you can expect twice as much skittishness and lack of common sense from a flock of sheep. I found all seventy of ours tightly crowded into the corner farthest from the river, completely exposed to the wind. They had drifted with the breeze, although thirty yards from where they stood was a small grove of cottonwoods that would have provided perfect shelter.