Winter Wheat (10 page)

“Let’s sit in the truck awhile.”

Gil laughed. “That’s an idea!”

It was snug in there with the rain on the cab roof; the seat was as comfortable as any in the house. “This is like Pop’s Place,” I said.

“Quite. Do you want to drive into town?”

“Oh, no, Gil, not tonight; you just got here.”

“Okay.”

But Gil was quiet so long that I said, “What are you thinking, Gil?”

“Nothing, really. What were you thinking?”

“Nothing much, I guess. I . . . Gil, I love your being here.”

“It’s nice. It’s different from the way I imagined a ranch would be.”

“You’ve seen too many ranches in movies. This is a dry-land wheat ranch.”

“I should think people would go stark, raving crazy out here in winter,” Gil said.

“Why?”

“Well, there’s nothing to do, except the work, I suppose. You’re so far away and dependent on each other. Take your mother and father; I would think they’d have been talked out years ago.”

“They’re pretty busy, of course,” I said.

“But in winter.”

I had never thought about it before. “There’s work to do in winter, too.”

“It makes you think of some novel or play you’ve read, something Russian, Gorky for instance.” Then he stopped and I knew he had just remembered that Mom was Russian.

Dad came to the kitchen door and switched on the yard light. It was a big light mounted on a tall pole so it flooded the house and the barn. Mom loved it. She felt it made the place so safe. From the highway you could see an aura of light spreading up above the shoulder of the coulee. People said, “That’s Webb’s ranch.”

Gil and I sat in the truck and looked at the house and the shed and the barn. It looked bare in the electric light. Maybe it was bare; I had never thought of it before. But I tried to be funny.

“And there’s the stage set for Act I of a Russian play,” I said.

Gil was looking at it. “How do people stay in love with each other after years alone in these places? I should think they’d end by hating each other.”

“Why should they, Gil?”

“They shouldn’t, but . . .”

“Well, look at Mom and Dad,” I said.

“That’s right,” Gil said. He leaned over and kissed me, but there was something kind of sad about it, as though he were sorry he had said anything.

I loved the rain when I lay on the glider on the porch. The porch was so narrow I only had to reach my fingers out a little way to feel the drops. I lay still so the glider wouldn’t bump against the house and disturb Gil. I had turned down the bed for him the way I had seen the beds turned down at his mother’s house. I wished the electric-light bulb didn’t shine so hard on the bright peach walls and blue floor.

I was so wide-awake I couldn’t go to sleep. Gil must be too. Somehow, I wasn’t satisfied with the day.

“Gil!” I called softly. Then I whistled. He whistled back. “How’re you doing?” I called.

“Just fine. Good night.”

“Good night.” I shucked deeper under my blanket, ashamed that I wished he had come out to sit with me on the swing.

8

THE
next afternoon, on our way back from seeing the grain elevator and Bailey, Gil told me he could only stay three days; that he had to leave Wednesday. I stopped in the muddy road and stared at him.

“But, Gil, I thought you were staying a week, anyway.”

“I know, Ellen. I didn’t tell you at first because I didn’t want to spoil everything, but I have to be in Florida by the first and I promised to spend a week at home before I left.”

He went on talking, explaining, but I didn’t hear him clearly. He had his drawing things he hadn’t even unpacked. We hadn’t done any of the things we had talked of doing. I searched his face, trying to understand. His eyes looked unhappy. His mouth had that moody line.

“What’s wrong, Gil?” I asked. Nothing mattered if he would just tell me, but he said, “Nothing’s wrong,” almost as though he didn’t like my asking. “I hate to leave you, that’s all.” This was the way he must speak to his mother when she wanted him to wear a raincoat, I told myself to take the sting out of it. I waited for him to speak next. We walked in silence up back of the store and along the highway. Gil had on some galoshes of Dad’s because of the mud. We turned off the highway on our road that runs down into the coulee. Mom and Dad built that road themselves, I almost told him, and then I didn’t.

“It must be lonely for you here sometimes,” Gil said, as though he were being kind.

“No, I’ve never been lonely here,” I answered. I wanted to go on talking, about anything, but I couldn’t.

The kitchen was warm and cheerful after our walk in the rain.

Mom and Dad were both working outdoors or down at the barn. They hadn’t expected us back so soon. I hung my jacket back of the kitchen door and took Gil’s from him. I loved the room because we were alone in it together. I shoved the teakettle over and put a fresh shovel of coal in the stove.

“We’ll have tea in a minute, Gil.” I set out the cups and saucers on the kitchen table and sliced bread. “You make the toast.” I gave him the toaster and the bread. He was so quiet. Why didn’t he say something?

When we sat down I noticed the rain had stopped. A yellow-gray light came over the field and the yard through the uncurtained windows. I hoped Mom and Dad wouldn’t come in for a while.

“The tea tastes good,” Gil said.

I wanted to ask him again why he was going so soon—what the matter was—but I knew with a kind of sixth sense that Gil didn’t like to be asked uncomfortable things.

And then Mom came in. I heard her kicking off her galoshes on the back step. She had her bandanna tied over her head and a chicken she had killed herself in one hand. When she opened the door she smiled at us.

“Hi, Mom, come have some tea,” I said. Gil stood up.

Mom waved the chicken at him. “Sit down. I just wash my hands.”

But of course we weren’t alone any more. When Mom was there Gil seemed embarrassed; Mom didn’t. I thought Gil’s nostrils twitched with distaste. I put the chicken in a bowl and covered it while Mom was taking off her bandanna. Then we sat down again. Mom loves tea any time and likes it strong. She looked like a painting sitting there. I wondered if Gil didn’t think so, too.

“You’re not gone long,” Mom said.

“No. Gil had never seen the inside of a grain elevator. I showed him that and all of Gotham. The road’s pretty muddy.”

“But we need the rain.” Mom’s eyes shone. “It look like rain again some more.”

While I was starting dinner Gil sat in the front room, reading a magazine. We had no bookcase. Dad kept the magazines in a neat pile on the floor under the window. I set the table in there, looking over often at Gil.

“This is like playing housekeeping, Gil,” I said.

“You are the happiest person, Ellen.” Gil sounded irritated.

“Why shouldn’t I be, Gil? Aren’t you?” Yet I felt he wasn’t.

“Of course.” Then he said, “Tell me about that little carved figure in your room.”

I told him that it was an icon Mom had saved from her home. “I’ve always had it there. I used to talk to it when I was a child.”

“I wondered about it,” Gil said.

We had the chicken for dinner and biscuits and mashed potatoes—the kind of a meal Dad loves. I wasn’t hungry. I saw that Gil wasn’t either. Dad was in high spirits. He came in from working on the tractor and bathed and dressed for dinner; we could hear the water splashing in the bedroom.

“I don’t mind being a rancher if I can forget it at dinnertime,” he said. But the meal was the same as all the others. Mom was silent. Dad and Gil talked. I saw our hands moving again over our plates.

Gil wiped the dishes for me after dinner. Mom sprinkled clothes that she had washed before the rest of us were up. Dad sat smoking his pipe.

“I’m sorry that I’m going to have to leave tomorrow,” Gil said.

I saw Mom’s hands still on the clothes.

“Tomorrow! You better stay longer than that,” Dad said. I poked the corner of the dishcloth down through the spout of the teapot.

“I only wish I could. The Army doesn’t wait for you, I guess. I have to give the folks a few days before I leave for camp.”

“Well, I thought you were going to make us a real visit,” Dad said.

I couldn’t say anything. I emptied the dishpan outside where Mom had planted nasturtiums and asters. A little more water wouldn’t hurt them any. The air was cool and damp on my hot face. I saw Dad follow Mom into the bedroom. I knew what they had said when Dad came in. Gil must know, too.

“We didn’t know this was to be your last night, Gil. We promised Bailey we’d come down and have a hand of bridge with him,” Dad said.

Mom never went anywhere in the evening. They thought we wanted to be alone.

When they had gone I got some dance music on the radio. We danced around the table and out in the kitchen.

“I bet you never danced in a kitchen before,” I said, laughing.

“This is all right,” Gil answered.

When the announcer broke in on the music I was standing close to Gil. “Oh, Gil, don’t go!” I whispered.

“I really have to, Ellen,” Gil said.

We sat on the couch and talked. I don’t know what we talked about—things we did last year in Minneapolis, people we both knew. We seemed closer together talking about things there than here. But I had thought it was important to show him the places I knew, that they would make him know me better. I tried to say that to him.

“Isn’t it funny, Gil, we’ve been such different places together there and here? We could be anywhere if we were together and it wouldn’t matter.”

“That’s right,” Gil said. “You’d like to live here, wouldn’t you?” I thought he asked it almost eagerly.

“Oh, no, I don’t care where we live, Gil, but I was born here. I suppose that’s why I love it.”

“I wonder if you could ever be happy in the city.”

“I could be happy where you were, Gil, I know.”

Mom and Dad came home but they didn’t stay with us long. Mom made hot coffee and told us to have some when we wanted it. There was fresh cake to eat with it. She called me into the bedroom and showed me the white dress. She had finished the red cross-stitch border around the full skirt.

“I finish it down at Baileys’. Mrs. Bailey like it good. I’ll hang it up here.”

We didn’t stay up very late. And neither of us wanted any coffee or cake. There was too short a time to talk of some things. Others didn’t seem important. Just as we were saying good night Gil stood in the kitchen door.

“Isn’t it too cold and damp for you on the porch? Let me change places with you. I didn’t realize last night that I was putting you out of your room.”

“Oh, no, it’s just a June rain. Come out and breathe it; it’s sweet, Gil.”

He kissed me there on the porch in the dark and for a minute I was happy.

“Gil, you don’t have to leave so soon.” I almost said I wanted to go with him if he were leaving.

“Yes, I do, Ellen.” His voice was muffled against my hair. We were both as sad as death, and why should we be? We belonged to each other. He was going only for a short time—the time between two seedings. That wasn’t so long.

“You can drive me into town early, can’t you, Ellen? We can have the day together. The train doesn’t leave till ten-thirty,” Gil said the next morning. “Or will that make you too late getting home?”

“No, that won’t matter. We’ll leave right after lunch.” All I wanted was to be off alone with Gil.

Dad and Mom didn’t do any work except the chores. There was a feeling of waiting. When I tidied Gil’s room I saw the two suits in his suitcase he hadn’t worn. He had meant to stay longer. I couldn’t get that out of my head. Something must have happened here to change his plans, and yet nothing had.

I was glad it had cleared off; the sky was a bright clear blue above the coulee. The blossoms of the prickly pear cactus shone in the sun like yellow and red glass. I started to tell Gil to come and look, and then I didn’t. I felt with a sick sense of disappointment that he was going before he had seen anything, before he had any feeling for the country. But why did that matter? Wasn’t I separate from the country?

I was in the truck first. I wore my new white dress because Mom expected me to. She had cleaned my shoes for me, too. It didn’t occur to her that I might look a little silly sitting up high in the truck all dressed in white. As I went out the door Mom said:

“The geranium match the cross-stitch, Yeléna. Wear it in your hair.” Mom loves bright flowers. I broke off the blossom and fastened my hair back with it instead of with a bow. I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. I looked very gay and happy.

Mom gave me twenty dollars to stop at the McCormick-Deering and get the new part for the combine. I watched Gil standing at the door with his beautiful leather bag. He thanked Mom so politely. Mom shook hands with him. They were still like strangers. Dad laid his hand on Gil’s shoulder and walked with him to the truck. I couldn’t hear what Dad said, but I could see how he liked Gil, how he had adopted him already.

“Can I drive? I don’t get a chance like this very often,” Gil said.

“The road sticks!” Mom called as we drove off.

I nodded. “I won’t stop for the mail today,” I said to Gil. “I won’t stop till day after tomorrow. Have a letter for me then, Gil.”

Gil was shifting gears. I was glad when we had passed Gotham. Somehow I felt Gotham seemed horrible to Gil. The road ran between the fields; the strips of faint green were spring wheat; the strips of olive-green were winter wheat. They were beautiful under the sun. I could never drive through the country without noticing the wheat. I felt happier.

“Don’t you like the wideness, Gil?”

“It’s so wide it’s depressing,” Gil answered. “Look at that shack without a shrub or a tree around it!”

I looked. It belonged to the Peter La Rouches. Guy La Rouche was in my class at high school. We used to drive in to Clark City on the school bus together every day. He had ten brothers and sisters in that house. They made a living and kept off relief, but they didn’t have any time left over for gardening. I didn’t tell Gil I had gone to a dance once with Guy La Rouche. But the sun drove out all my worries of last night. It was enough to be riding along in the truck with Gil beside me driving.

On a stretch of gumbo about eight miles from Gotham we slued violently to the side. Gil put his foot on the brake too hard and we swung way around.

“Scare you?” Gil asked, looking pretty scared himself.

I laughed. “It takes more than that to scare me. You better go slow, though. This road’s all gumbo to the main highway. Want me to drive?”

“I can do it.” Gil sounded irritated. The truck had to follow the deep ruts gouged out in the mud. He was driving too fast.

“There’s an awfully bad place about a mile ahead,” I said.

Gil liked the novelty of the truck. “Wonder what a fellow that drives one of those big oil trucks thinks about, thundering along like this?” he said. Of course, our truck weighs only about a ton; that’s some different from an oil truck, but I let him pretend.

“His girl,” I said.

“Poor devil, probably worries for fear she’s two-timing him.” He looked at me, smiling.

“I bet she isn’t. She’s probably waiting for him at the end of his run.”

“You think love’s pretty important, don’t you?”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes, but I think a lot of other things are important, too.”

Suddenly, I knew as clearly as though he had told me what was wrong. Gil was going away because he was afraid to marry me; he didn’t mean to come back, ever. I was thinking so hard that I didn’t warn him about the place in the road. It was so chopped up by other cars there were no clear ruts. I felt the truck settle down in the gumbo. I came out of my thoughts in a hurry. The truck stopped. The racing motor gave back a hopeless sound. I was sorry for Gil’s sake.

“Try backing, Gil,” I said.

Gil tried. The wheels churned up the mud and settled down deeper.

“Well, I’ll be . . .” Gil muttered, pushing his hat back on his head. I liked him that way.

“Somebody’ll come along, maybe,” I said, but there wasn’t much traffic. People out our way were busy this time of day. The place seemed loudly quiet after the noise of the motor. “Let me get in there a minute, Gil. You slide over so you won’t have to get out in the mud.” That was the wrong thing to say. I thought maybe I could get it out, because gumbo was such an old story to me. I tried, but the road had no bottom.

“Satisfied?” Gil asked, grinning at me. I think he was glad I couldn’t get it out either.

“We should have brought chains,” I said. “This road’s awful in the rain.” Then I laughed; it was pretty funny. “Oh, Gil, look at us, you all dressed for the train and I in white!” I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a relief after the way I’d been feeling.

Gil laughed a little, too. “Woman, you’re stark, raving mad,” he said, and he sounded like himself. “I suppose there’s nothing to do but sit here till somebody comes by.”

“Oh, no, we can do something,” I said.

“What would you suggest?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “if we could find some branches to put under the wheels . . .”

Gil looked around. There were no trees, only some low bushes along an irrigation ditch.