Marta's Legacy Collection (26 page)

Hildemara tried to lighten the heaviness in the house. “If it was daylight, he’d be currying the horse.”

Papa always curried the horse when something preyed on his mind.

It has been a bad time all around, Rosie. Someone burned down the Herkner Bakery and I am out of work. Niclas works hard, but it will be months yet before we see any money from this year’s crop. Thus is a farmer’s life. Drudgery and clinging to hope.

But that is not the worst of what’s happened. After all this time, my girl speaks up to me and what do I do? I slap her across the face. I did it without even thinking. I had said something hurtful to Niclas, and he left the table, and Hildemara Rose exposed my shame.

I have never slapped any of my children in such a manner, and for me to do it to Hildemara appalled me. I wanted to cut my hand off, but the damage was already done. When I reached out to her, Bernhard told me not to hit her again, as if I would, and I sent him out of the house. Clotilde looked at me like I had grown horns. Perhaps I have. Rikka cried as though her heart had broken. Mine had.

And all Hildemara did was sit there with my handprint on her cheek. She said nothing. I could see the hurt in her eyes. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to tell her she had every right to scream at me. She doesn’t have to sit there and take it! She would have turned the other cheek if I’d raised my hand to her again.

I have not cried so much in years, Rosie. Not since Mama and Elise died. I could hear Hildemara working in the kitchen, like a good little slave.

I have failed her in every way.

22

Mama went to town the next morning, pushing Rikki in the wheelbarrow. Fritz Herkner didn’t show up at school. When Hildemara came home that afternoon, she found Fritz sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and a plate of cookies in front of him. He looked sallow and miserable, his brown hair a little too long and a little too much meat on his bones. Hildemara felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to sit at the table and have Mama within arm’s reach.

“I’m sorry about your home burning down, Fritz.” Fritz didn’t look up. His mouth worked and tears spilled down his cheeks. Mama patted his hand and gave Hildemara a jerk of the head, enough to tell her she wasn’t wanted. She went to her bedroom and did her homework on the top bunk.

Mama called Bernie inside and told him to take Fritz out for a look around the place. “Show him the orchard and vineyard. Take him over to the irrigation ditch. Do you like chickens, Fritz? No? How about rabbits?” Bernie led Fritz through the porch screen door, letting it bang behind him. Clotilde went out after them.

Hildie overheard Mama talking to Papa in the kitchen later. “Hedda said he’s very intelligent.”

“Is he?”

“I don’t know yet. She said he likes books. So I picked up a few at the library. I couldn’t get him to talk about anything on the way home. He cried all the way. He’s worse than Hildemara with the tears. Of course, Hedda wasn’t much better. She cried harder than he did when we saw them off at the train station. We need to toughen up this boy.”

“If Hedda was that upset, they’ll probably come back for him in a week.”

Fritz ate hardly anything the first three days, even though Mama fixed
Hasenpfeffer
,
Sauerbraten
, and
Wiener Schnitzel
. Bernie said Fritz cried himself to sleep at night. “I hope he stops pretty soon or I’m going to strangle him!”

Hildemara defended him. “How would you feel if our house burned down and Mama and Papa had to leave you behind while they went away to San Francisco?”

“Let me think.” Bernie grinned. “I’d be free of chores and could do anything I wanted!”

“I know what it’s like not to have a friend, Bernie. It’s even worse when someone is always picking on you. He’s our summer brother. We have to be nice to him.”

A letter arrived from San Francisco a week after the Herkners left. Fritz cried when he opened it. He cried all through dinner. Bernie rolled his eyes and ate Fritz’s share of potato dumplings.

When Hildemara leaned over to say some comforting words, Mama shook her head and looked so fierce, Hildie left Fritz alone. Papa called everyone into the living room and read the Bible. Fritz sat on the sofa, staring out the window until the sun went down.

Letters flew back and forth every few days. Every letter brought Fritz down into the doldrums again. “He needs chores to take his mind off his troubles.” Mama sent Fritz out with Hildemara to feed the chickens. When the rooster came after him, Fritz ran screaming from the henhouse, leaving the door open long enough for the rooster to slip through and have three hens chasing after him. It took Hildemara an hour to catch them, and then she had to walk to school alone and explain to Miss Hinkle what happened.

“He can muck the stable,” Bernie suggested to Mama. “Might get rid of some of that baby fat he’s carrying around.”

Mama put Fritz in charge of the rabbits instead. Fritz stopped crying. He stopped waiting at the mailbox for his mother’s letters. Hildemara worried about what would happen when Mama decided to make
Hasenpfeffer
again, but it seemed Mama had already thought of that, too. “We only have one rule about the rabbits, Fritz. You can’t name them.”

“Not even one?”

“No. Not even one.”

Luckily, they were all white. If one went missing, it wouldn’t matter as much if he didn’t know it personally.

Mrs. Herkner’s letters still came every few days, but Fritz didn’t write back more than once a week. Sometimes he went longer than that and Mama would get a letter from Hedda. “Time to write a letter to your mother, Fritz.”

Hildemara envied Fritz his doting mother. She knew Mama would never miss her so much. She kept asking what Hildemara wanted to do with her life, as though she couldn’t wait for Hildie to grow up and leave home.

By the time school ended, Fritz had more than settled in. He’d started infecting Bernie with new ideas gleaned from the books he read. “Can we build a tree house, Papa? one like in
The Swiss Family Robinson
?”

Mama didn’t think much of the idea. “Papa has enough to do. If anyone builds anything, it’s going to be you boys.”

Papa didn’t trust them with good lumber. “They’d just waste it.” He told Bernie and Fritz to draw up the plans. He’d do the measuring and marking; they could do the sawing. By the end of the first day of hard work, they came in with palms looking like raw meat and broad grins on their faces.

“We need a trapdoor to keep enemies out.”
Enemies
being Hildemara, Clotilde, and Rikka, of course. “We can use a rope ladder and pull it up once we’re on the platform.”

Papa joined in the fun of building, adding a second smaller, higher platform as a watchtower with a ladder and trapdoor. He built a bench around the inside wall of the large platform ten feet above ground. “So you boys won’t fall asleep and roll off. We can’t have you breaking your necks.”

Tony Reboli, Wallie Engles, and Eddie Rinckel came out to help. Hildemara sat on the back steps watching them. They looked like a bunch of monkeys climbing around in the big bay tree. She wished she could be part of the fun, too, but Bernie told her, “No girls allowed.” Clotilde didn’t care. She was too busy cutting out a new dress and learning how to use Mama’s sewing machine. And Rikka liked to stay inside the house, sitting at the kitchen table drawing pictures and adding Crayola color. Hildemara wished Elizabeth could come over and play, but her one friend had gone to Merced to spend the summer with cousins.

“Abrecan Macy sold his place.” Mama told Papa over dinner. “Another bachelor, I guess. He’s from back east. Abrecan doesn’t know anything about him other than he had enough to take over the place. He didn’t say what the man plans to do with it.”

“It’s his business, isn’t it?”

“His land butts up against ours. We ought to know something about him. Seems odd, doesn’t it? Come all the way out here to buy a place and not have any plans for it. His name is Kimball. Abrecan couldn’t remember his first name.”

Mama took the new neighbor a loaf of fresh cinnamon raisin bread. “He’s not very friendly. He took the bread and closed the door in my face.”

“Maybe he wants to be left alone.”

“I didn’t like his eyes.”

July turned hot, melting the macadam. The boys dared one another to stand in the hot black tar to see how long they could bear boiling the bottoms of their feet. After a few weeks of running around barefoot, it wasn’t a challenge anymore, and Fritz invented a new game of daring: standing on a red ant hill, while someone stood by with a hose. Fritz barely lasted ten seconds and had ant bites up to his ankles. Eddie, Tony, and Wallie did better, but no one did as well as Bernie, determined to win every game he ever played. Gritting his teeth against the painful bites, he stood until the ants bit their way up his thigh before jumping off the mound and yelling for Eddie to blast him with the hose. A few tenacious survivors managed to crawl into his underpants. Bernie started screaming and hopping around. Mama came running out the front door. Bernie finally grabbed the hose from Eddie and took care of business himself while Mama stood on the porch, hands on her hips, laughing. “Serves you right for being such a fool!”

Hildemara followed the boys to the irrigation ditch, where they swam. Bernie had taught Fritz to swim. She wanted to learn, too. “Just get in!” Bernie yelled at her. “Move your arms and kick your feet and stay away from us. We don’t want any stupid girls around!” Hildemara slid into the water cautiously. It felt wonderfully cool in the heat of the day. When she touched the bottom, slime covered her feet and slithery weeds encircled her ankles like snakes in the slow current. She treaded carefully along the side, arms in the air. Something big and dark moved behind the bamboo stand on the other side of the ditch, startling her. When she called out and pointed, Bernie made fun of her again.

“Oooooh, Hildie see a bogeyman!” The other boys joined in. “Come on!” With his long legs, Bernie climbed easily out of the ditch. “Let’s go over to the Grand Junction. The water’s deeper there. This ditch is for babies!” Grand Junction was the big cement irrigation ditch that spilled water into the smaller ones running between the farms a quarter mile from theirs.

“Bernie! Wait!”

“No girls allowed!” Bernie yelled over his shoulder as he took off along the ditch, the others racing after him.

Hildemara kept wading carefully, trying to build her confidence. She saw movement behind the stalks of bamboo again, and she climbed quickly out of the water. Heart pounding, she looked across the irrigation ditch and tried to see what stood there. Nothing moved. The beads of water dried quickly on her skin. She could hear Bernie and the boys laughing and shouting at one another farther down the ditch. Their voices drifted as the distance widened. She wasn’t ready to try anything deeper than this ditch, and the boys wouldn’t welcome her anyway.

Still feeling uneasy, Hildemara sat on the edge of the ditch and put her feet in the water. Her skin prickled with the sensation of being watched, but nothing moved. Bernie and the others were across the road by now. She couldn’t hear the boys anymore. It was so quiet.

The sun baked her shoulders and back. Her clothes dried quickly. Her legs burned in the heat. She slipped carefully back into the water, cold after the heat, and lowered herself until it lapped up around her neck. She moved her arms back and forth just under the surface. Gathering her nerve, she lifted her feet and promptly slipped beneath the surface. She stood quickly, sputtering and wiping the water from her eyes.

“Careful there. You could drown.”

Heart lurching, she looked up at a man standing on the bank. He looked bigger than Papa above her, but didn’t wear coveralls. He looked like Mr. Hardesty, who worked behind the counter at the Murietta General Store.

“You shouldn’t swim by yourself. It’s dangerous.”

“I’m all right.”

The man shook his head slowly. His smile taunted her, as though catching her in a lie. “You don’t know how to swim.”

“I’m learning.”

“Those boys left you all alone. That wasn’t nice.”

He spoke quietly, his voice deep. Her skin crawled at the sound. He had an accent, not like Papa’s or the Greeks or Swedes or anyone she knew. He didn’t take his eyes from her. The water seemed to grow colder around her. Shivering, she hugged herself and took a step toward the side of the ditch.

“Careful! Snapping turtles can bite off your toes.”

“Snapping turtles?” She looked down at the murky water. She couldn’t see to the bottom.

“They stay on the bottom and open their mouths wide. They wiggle their tongue to attract fish. One swims close and
snap
! I knew a man who caught one and put it in his boat. It bit off four of his fingers.”

Hildie’s heart pounded. Bernie hadn’t said anything about snapping turtles or fish. Would he swim in this canal if he knew about them? The bank seemed so far away, closer on the man’s side. He hunkered, extending his hand. “Let me help you out.” His dark eyes glowed so strangely, Hildemara almost forgot about the turtle hiding in the mud beneath her feet. Her stomach knotted in fear. “I won’t hurt you, little girl.” His voice turned silky.

Panting now, she felt the fear rising faster. His hand looked so big. He wiggled his fingers like the tongue of the turtle he’d told her about, beckoning her closer. He didn’t have calluses like Papa. His hands looked strong and smooth. She leaned away from him. “Careful. You’ll go under again.” He reminded her of the cat when it watched a gopher hole, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce. “What’s your name?”

Mama said never to be rude to neighbors. This must be Mr. Kimball, the man who bought Abrecan Macy’s place. Mama wasn’t afraid of neighbors. She talked to everybody. “Hildemara.”

“Hill-de-mara.” The man dragged out her name as though savoring it. “It’s a pretty name for a pretty little girl.”

Pretty? No one had ever called her pretty, not even Papa. She felt her face go hot. Mr. Kimball’s mouth tipped. Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of his face. His gaze shifted as he looked around furtively.

The silence suddenly bothered Hildie. She didn’t even hear any birds. She slid her foot cautiously along the bottom of the ditch, her breath catching every time something brushed against her ankles. When Mr. Kimball got to his feet, something inside her said,
Get away from him!

Gasping in panic, Hildemara pushed her way through the last few feet of water to her side of the bank. Reaching up, she grasped a hunk of grass and pulled, legs wheeling.

A big splash sounded behind her.

Hildemara had just reached the top of the ditch when she felt a hand grasp her ankle and drag her back. Another hand grasped the back of her shirt. Buttons popped and her shirt came off in his hand as she thrashed. She flipped and flopped like a fish out of water, kicking her free leg and catching him hard on the nose. Uttering a grunt of pain, he let go.