Lost Without the River Read online

  “Bob, what are you going to hunt?”

  “Anything that moves.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  I could tell he enjoyed this moment. He held a position of power, something he never experienced when he worked with our father or John and Bill. He kept me waiting.

  “Well, okay, but bundle up. It’s cold out there.”

  I knew that. We’d returned from church only a couple of hours before. The two of us walked up the drive and then set out onto the field. The snow was deep so that no weeds or grasses broke through the surface. Out in the field, yesterday afternoon’s warming temperatures had melted the top layer of the snow; colder temperatures at night had refrozen it so that now there was a thin crust. Our feet made crunching sounds as we broke through the glittering top. I trudged behind Bob. He held up his hand. I stopped.

  On that January afternoon, I never thought he’d try to kill a rabbit. When I was very little, our father had brought a bunny in from the field. He explained that the nest had been hidden in the alfalfa that he’d been cutting. Its mother had been killed by the mower’s blades. Bob and I loved touching the tiny animal’s soft fur. We could feel its heart beating rapidly. We found an old shoe box and then went out to the yard, where we pulled blades of new grass and lined the box. Mother gave us a jar lid that we filled with water.

  “What can we feed it?” we asked our mother.

  She searched about until she found an eye dropper. Then she warmed some milk. Bob and I took turns trying to drip drops of milk into the bunny’s mouth. We put the box near the range in the kitchen, the warmest place in the house.

  When we got up the next morning, we ran to check on the rabbit. It was on its side. It didn’t move. As we crouched down, an eye stared up at us.

  On the snowy field, I stood still as Bob raised the rifle. Boom! The sound reverberated in my ears, echoing out through the still air. I looked ahead. There was a rabbit, lifeless, eyes open, bright blood spilling onto the pristine snow.

  “I want to go home,” I said.

  “Well, then take the rabbit with you.”

  I didn’t speak, didn’t hold out my hand, but turned and, following our footprints, found my way back.

  When I was older, in an attempt to be recognized, I began, as a 4-H project, to care for a calf that would be entered in the county fair. I found nothing appealing about grooming this animal who balked at my efforts and showed no acknowledgment of who I was, no appreciation of my hard work. Of course, my understanding that the second trip for the animal—following the first, to the fair—would be a lot less festive, made the job even less appealing. Why do all this to make the calf pretty, when the next trip the poor thing would take would be straight to the slaughterhouse? My project was short lived.

  I gained a bit of independence when I obtained my driver’s permit and took the job at the drive-in movie theater. A year later, with a license, I could pick up my friends and drive to Ortonville. My minimal paycheck allowed me to buy gas and oil for our aging Ford. My friend Flo would lean over me and through the open window instruct the attendant, “A dollar’s worth of gas, and please fill it up with oil,” as she handed me a few coins, her share of the cost.

  My duties also branched out. My role during harvesting season had always revolved around helping my mother prepare food. Once I could drive, I began to deliver the lunches to the men and boys working in the fields.

  Early in the day, my father gave me directions to the field where they’d be working. With the windows open and the sounds of nature as my companion, I drove down narrow dirt roads, often discovering areas new to me. When I reached my destination, I’d turn off the road slowly and carefully drive down the decline, then on up the other side of the ditch, where I’d park at the edge of the field. I’d honk the horn; the men would look up, cut all the engines, hurry to meet me and reach out for the drinks and sandwiches. Unspoken gratitude hung in the air.

  One May morning, my father complained that there were not enough hands to prepare a field for planting. I volunteered to disc it.

  “Are you sure you can do that?” he asked me.

  Knowing that I’d be working on a plain expanse of dirt, with no plants to worry about driving over, I insisted that I was up to the job. However, I wasn’t prepared for the dirt and dust that the wind whipped up as the hard ground was broken. It was a miserable job. When I finished and returned home, I couldn’t jump off the Big Rock into the river to get clean, because the water was too cold. I took a long, long bath, shampooing my hair more than once, working hard to get all the dirt out. But the dirt was within me. That evening when I coughed and blew my nose, reminders of my day were visible on my handkerchief. I never volunteered for field work again.

  But there came a time when Bob and I were told to harvest a field of flax. He was sixteen and I was fourteen. My father and mother had made plans to take a four-day trip with my aunt and uncle. For pleasure. This was a first for them.

  Endless rain had delayed the harvesting.

  Before my parents headed out, my father told Bob, “When the sun does come out, I want you and Barbara to get that last field west of town harvested.”

  On the day of their return, the sun was shining. So, early that morning, Bob started up the tractor and drove to the field. I followed in the truck. Right away, we found that the machine that bound the cut grain didn’t work. The bale was hung up on the tying device. Bob stopped, telling me to take his place on the tractor seat. He hopped down and began to repair it.

  Now, because no one could hear over the roar of the tractor’s engine, signals had been devised. My brothers knew them well. A fast, circular hand motion meant the driver should release the clutch quickly. A slower motion meant release it slowly. I didn’t know there was a second signal. Bob had signaled to let the clutch out slowly, very slowly, but I released it abruptly. With that, the steel kick-out bar spun rapidly, smashing Bob on the head.

  I drove him home, where he lay down on the couch, passing in and out of consciousness. That’s where my parents found him when they got back a few hours later. During the two days Bob was hospitalized, I was wracked with anxiety over how I had almost killed my brother.

  In 2016, as he was retelling the story to me over the phone, I was grateful to learn that Bob, who still wears a scar from that day, bears no rancor toward me. I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, “We should’ve taught you those signals.”

  IV. MOTHER’S TURN

  “I’d take a walk around the barn.”

  —Myrtle, when asked how

  she managed to keep going

  MEN TOLD THE STORIES

  When a thunderstorm hit and my father and brothers were driven from the fields, they’d hurry to the house. They shook water and bits of straw off their jackets in the small shed before they entered the kitchen. They came in to wait it out until the sky cleared. When the temperatures dipped way down and the snow blew, they’d prop the shovels against the side of the house and come in, trailing drafts of frigid air behind. My father and brothers, and perhaps a neighbor who was lending a hand, would collapse on chairs around the table. As they waited, they talked of weather and market prices, a sick cow or a tractor that had to be repaired. My mother or one of my sisters or I would spoon coffee into the percolator, place cookies or slices of a cake on a plate, pour lemonade or milk, and coffee, always coffee. The men would acknowledge our offerings with a nod of the head, without breaking the rhythm of their words.

  Men worked hard and became dirty, sweaty, and—always—hungry. They came into the house with slumped shoulders when the crops weren’t doing well. They talked, but dispiritedly. Sometimes, but never consistently, when it seemed as though there might be a bumper crop, they stood taller and their voices boomed, making the rooms in our small house seem even smaller.

  Contemporary scientists proclaim that people are no longer on top of the food chain. But on our farm, in our family, certain people were definitely at the top. My father rais
ed cattle and pigs to be eaten. Chickens, too. And when he and my brothers hunted, it was as much for food as it was for sport.

  And in our dwelling there was absolutely no doubt who was on top of that chain.

  Sunday dinner was served an hour or so after we returned from Mass. Mother went from church to car to kitchen. I remember her trying to stall my siblings and me when we were clamoring for food. We had been fasting since the evening before.

  “Just let me get my hat off,” she’d say, as she did just that. Then she’d tie an apron over her Sunday dress and begin.

  For the main meal of that special day, much of it partially prepared the previous evening, Mother often roasted a chicken—a succulent, very free-range, custom-raised chicken—that she’d chased, caught, and slaughtered the day before.

  After removing the bird from the oven, she carved it and placed the pieces on a platter. One of us sisters carried the dish to the dining room and presented it to my father. After my mother slipped into her chair, together we said a hurried grace. Only then would my father begin by helping himself to one-half of the breast. He then handed the platter to my eldest brother, John, who took the second half of the breast. He passed the dish to Bill, my middle brother. Bill and Bob, the youngest boy, each took a thigh. The platter made its way around the table to Patt. She helped herself to the gizzard, which was considered the prize of the remaining pieces. Mother, with typical generosity, took the almost meatless neck, leaving the back of the bird for Helen. I waited as the wings, lonely on the platter, made their way to me.

  The summer I turned fourteen, my mother traveled to St. Louis for two weeks to help my sister Patt when her first child was born. She left me in charge of feeding the men. I somehow persuaded Flo, a classmate, to help me. Of course, I’d been a part of the food routine my entire life, but those two weeks were a revelation. From 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., Flo and I were always doing something that involved food. Breakfast at 5:30 a.m.; a light lunch of sandwiches and cookies, packed and carried to the field at 10:00 a.m.; a full meat-potatoes-vegetables dinner at 12:00 p.m.; a lunch—again in the field—of sandwiches and cookies at 3:00 p.m.; a hearty supper at 6:00 p.m; and the last food of the day: cake or cookies, or perhaps ice cream with strawberries from the garden, at 9:30 p.m.

  My father and brothers talked as Flo and I served. She and I fried and baked, peeled and mashed, mixed and stirred. And we washed and washed dishes and pans. By hand, of course.

  After the harvest, their talk turned to hunting. The basics. What, where, and with whom were cause for lively debates. Walking through tall grasses during pheasant season, my father and brothers would be quiet, but in winter when the ice on the lake was frozen hard they’d retreat to a fish house where, in self-imposed exile, there was plenty of time to talk. I assume that the words flowed.

  The usual rhythm of our household was broken for a few days each year when my two great-uncles, Hank and Bill, traveled from an area of Montana that was still frontier-like at that time, to Big Stone City, which to them was an oasis of civilization. They were like Mutt and Jeff, one tall and large, with a huge belly (that was Bill), the other short and slight (Hank). My mother invited them to join us for Sunday dinners.

  While my mother hurried to finish the meal, the three generations of men gathered in our living room. My brothers and, for the most part, my father were quiet and listened, as Hank and Bill told nonstop stories of their adventures. While I helped my mother by setting the table, I was aware of the words coming faster and faster and the voices growing louder, until, after a short pause, there’d be whoops of thigh-slapping laughter. I knew I wasn’t welcome in that room. No female would have been. The storytelling continued while my mother stirred the gravy one more time.

  When we all sat down at the table, my mother was mostly silent. If she spoke, it was only to ask if someone wanted more mashed potatoes or another cup of coffee.

  Now here, so many years later, are a few of the stories my mother never had a chance to tell during those times, but which she passed on to me. I’ve used my knowledge of the times, places, and people to re-create the events she described.

  FIRST DRIVE OUT

  1926

  It was during May, as a fiancée, that my mother made the trek from the city to the farm to meet her future in-laws. Sitting beside Roy, my father, in the black Model T borrowed from his father for the trek, she would have been alert as the seemingly endless miles of flat, treeless prairie shifted to a terrain of gently rolling hills, streams, and an occasional lake. As trees became more numerous, she would have noted the new leaves on the cottonwoods, thriving along the banks of streams and small lakes, their newly unfurled leaves now, for a short-lived time, an indescribable mix of yellow and green.

  For the first hour or so of the trip, they’d discussed the date of the wedding and their plans for a honeymoon in the Black Hills, but as they continued east, the sameness of the dips and rises lulled them into a relaxed silence. Myrtle had time to contemplate her—no, their—new life together.

  What will Roy’s parents be like? she may have wondered. Roy had told her enough about his father that she believed he would welcome her, but she wasn’t so sure about her mother-in-law-to-be. She hoped that what she was taking to give them was sufficient. She’d asked her sister Marian for advice.

  “I think it should be something I’ve made. But nothing baked. Roy told me his mother is a fine baker, and I don’t want to compete with her.”

  Marian had been quiet for a while. “What if I make my divinity? If we pack it carefully, it’ll arrive in perfect condition.”

  So, the previous evening, while Myrtle packed, Marian had measured and stirred.

  “Tell me when it starts to set,” Myrtle had called from the bedroom. “I want to be able to say I made it.”

  “Of course,” Marian had called back with a laugh.

  And so began a tradition: making the cloud-like candy, packing it carefully, and transporting it from Pierre to the farmhouse. For almost fifty years, Marian always arrived, after making the long drive, suitcase in one hand and a box of divinity in the other.

  Roy and Myrtle had ridden in silence for quite some time when he slowed and swung over to a small store, where he bought gasoline. Shortly after that, he turned north, onto a smaller road.

  “We’re at the edge of the Coteau des Prairies at this point,” he said. “The highest elevation in the eastern part of the state.”

  The ascent had been so gradual, Myrtle had been unaware they’d been climbing, but when she looked out, she saw below her a sea of green stretching out for miles into the distance.

  Myrtle sat up a little taller and watched the passing scenery attentively. A few hours later, Roy slowed the car, shifted down, and turned right onto a narrow dirt road.

  THREE DAYS IN JUNE

  The first pangs of labor began June 25, 1927, late that Friday morning. Myrtle was alone in the house. Roy was out cutting hay in the South Field, taking advantage of the sunny day. She really had no choice but to wait until he returned to tell him the news. When she heard him stomp his feet outside the side door in an effort to shake off loose bits of leaves and dirt, she was relieved. She hadn’t timed her contractions, but she was aware that they had become more frequent. When he entered, the spicy smell of freshly cut alfalfa came with him. She was grateful for that. For the past few weeks, barn odors had made her gag.

  Myrtle set bowls of potatoes and vegetables and a platter of pork chops on the table and sat down. When Roy noticed that she hadn’t taken a bite, he looked at her closely. That’s when she told him. He pushed back the chair and stood up, still chewing as he did so.

  “I’ll harness up,” he said.

  “You can finish your meal.”

  “No, no. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  My parents weren’t nervous about this first birth. My mother’s pregnancy had been uneventful, and the midwife’s reputation was positive. More important, they knew her and her assistant well;
the two women were my father’s maiden aunts, Ella and Mary. Years earlier, Ella had journeyed to Minneapolis, where she’d received formal nursing training.

  And so it was on a beautiful spring day that my father helped my mother into the buggy and together they rode up the hill and along the dirt road. Should he allow the horse to go as fast as safely possible? Or slow the mare down before they approached each rut? As a result, his signals to the horse were confusing. In the end, he gave her full rein, but he pulled her in as they approached a major road of South Dakota that served as Big Stone’s main street. People waved in greeting to my parents, but, uncharacteristically, my father didn’t follow suit. My mother didn’t even notice the greetings. Once past the brickworks and the canning factory, he urged the horse forward. They crossed the state line into Minnesota.

  “Giddyap!” he shouted, jiggling the reins and then letting them hang loose.

  When they reached the Ortonville town limits, he pulled the mare into a walk. Just before the courthouse, he guided her right and up the steep incline. He pulled over in front of a twostory white frame house.

  “Please stay here,” my father said, as he jumped down from the buggy. He hurried up the steps and banged on the front door. Ella and Mary were there almost immediately. My father didn’t have to say a word. The two women glanced toward the buggy and then quickly followed him to the wagon, where they helped my mother down.

  My father had done his part. He was no longer needed.

  “We’ll call the Big Stone operator when we have news for you,” Ella said.

  My father managed to kiss my mother on the top of her head before the two women firmly closed the door.