“What’s that?”
Anton tilted his head. “And how be Dutchman Brinker these days? Haw. He still got the notion to stall his beasts on all the storeys of his barns? I heard he penned some shoats to fatten in his loft and they grew so grand and big they broke clean through the planking. Is that a fact?”
“I never heard of it, sir,” Christian was cold. “Mr. Brinker’s a fine farmer, I can tell you. But you got a nice place here, sir.” He was nodding, appeasing, as he flung his hand in a rude movement.
“This place was here, boy, being worked by my sir when Dutchman’s pa was setting on his ass in the old country.”
Ellen dropped her head, repeating over and again the Nicene Creed for her lover snared in Anton’s rough hand. Like an enchantress she evoked the only charm she knew. From whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
Anton squirted the brown juice again and was moving away. “Feeding is in an hour, girl,” he threw over his shoulder.
“All right, Pa.” She closed her eyes. Holy Virgin it had worked.
Christian eyed her, rebellious, scorn in his young face. “What a dirty crabby guy even if he is your old man. I’d just like to push that bristly smart-aleck face of his in. I can’t stand a bossy fellow like that.”
“Hush.” Ellen got up with sudden despair. “Now what’s he talking of Sabatha Withers for? Who’s she?”
“A girl I happen to know in Bethel. I’ll go see her or anyone I want.” He shouted it, striking at her father. And at himself for his intimidation. “And any time I want.”
A quarrel had uncoiled before they were aware. Ellen leaned back on the log, whispering, gray eyes slitted, “I don’t give a neinse. Run to that poor-trash thing.”
His short legs spread, his high cheekbones pale, he was storming, “And if I never see you or your stupid old man again, it’ll be too soon. I’m going to see someone who appreciates me.” He threw back his head and stalked away, cutting across to the road.
Ellen stayed awhile in the tall grass. As she wept the fury shed itself. Bereft, she went up the hill through the field where the boar was now penned. Her goats and Jack were trailing after. The old red boar regarded her from a little distance, his distrust palpable. “There’s a mean hog, Jack,” she whispered.
She neared the barnyard and heard Anton, “Hitch Blue and get him out here, Sam.” A spotted heifer was stretched neat a group of slender walnuts, bawling intermittently. Anton was bent over her. She had been due to bear her calf any day, was a daughter of his best milker, a pride to him. While Ellen watched, her hand resting on the yard gate, Sam was running from the barn, leading Blueberry. The harness jingled as the buckskin came at a trot. “Whaw,” Sam cried roughly.
The two conferred. The horse waited on them, head down, hipshot, a hind leg at rest on the tip of the hoof. They hitched the tugs to a rope looped about the head of the unborn calf just within the dam. Anton drove the horse forward slowly, dragging the cow. Then he halted, took off his straw hat, scratching his head. “Hell, hit’s drying out. I vow, Sam, the first one’s always too tight. It’s like the wine corks in the kegs. Once get them started and they come out easy. Let’s try those trees o’er there, now. Gee-whup.” Again the traces tightened and the tired young cow was hauled through stones and red dust in the broil of heat. They untied the lines, rehitched them through a gap between two walnut trunks. “Haw-there,” ordered Anton and while the beast bellowed, wedged upon the tree boles, her calf was torn from her womb, limp and wet.
Slipping through the gate, Ellen skirted the barnyard and hurried to the house. She changed her dress and spoke quietly to Maria, “Spotty had her calf. Pa had to take it from her. It’s a pretty one.” She returned, saw the heifer was on her feet, placenta hanging. Delicate head down, tossing her well-formed tiny horns, she guarded the calf she licked nervously.
That night the heat lifted slightly. Ellen was wakeful within her loft-room. She slipped downstairs into the sultry dark. Barefoot, she walked with Jack to the woodshed, freeing Penny and Rhodie. They wandered across the fields, through gates to the orchard. She sat on the log again. In the night sky the blue whiskers of cloud were backing off. And the moon in absolute radiance was speeding forth. There was not a sound anywhere.
* * * * *
As the year moved on, the heat abated and winds started out of nowhere, rushing. Christian stayed away from Ellen over two long Saturdays. Then one evening she was standing beyond the low garden wall watching the bees work the hives. He appeared, jaunty in a blue shirt freshly pressed by Brinker’s wife, his blond hair damp, comb-marked. “Hey, Ellie. A penny for your thoughts.”
“Not wasting them on you, I’ll say.” Her temper shifted in her and she colored. “I’m thinking Sam will be robbing the poor bees soon.”
“Come on, take a walk with me, Ellie. Down to the woods. Say, you’re blushing.” He grinned.
“Go to your true love in Bethel.”
“No.” His blue eyes were bold. “I broke off with that one.” They were starting down the hill. When out of sight of the house, he took her hand.
She pulled away, unwilling. “I don’t care for you.” But in time he won her from her anger and it was with Ellen as though the quarrel had never been.
They were hand in hand in the dry reeds by the pond where the lone duck was paddling in circles. He was vowing strongly, “I’ve left Sabatha Withers for good, Ellie.”
“Well.”
“She’s cheap.” He laughed angry, for the young fires lay hot in him still. “You never have seen Brinker’s place, Ellie.”
“No. I’ve heard tell he’s got fancy barns.”
“You’d get a kick out of them. Want to go there next week? I could show you Baker, that Belgian stud. He’s a sight. Like I said, he beats anything I ever saw.”
“I’ll come, then.”
“Kiss me, Ellie.”
“Listen at that sound, Christian.” The faint cry of geese was audible, “Kwonk, honk, honk, kwonk.” Far above the earth the long-necked wild birds were heading for northern nest grounds, their massive bodies two wavering lines of dots making the letter V. The call of the leaders sounded shrill, and as they moved overhead there came the deep responses of the rear guards. It seemed to Ellen that she had no desire for the way of the roused child-man beside her. Ahead stretched the long filament of her life; she was pierced by the pain of the earthbound that is made up of longings. She was voiced vicarious from the throats of the wild birds. She turned to Christian, dissatisfied. Their eyes were almost on a level; she was crying, intense, “Don’t you wish you were that leader?”
“Say, I’d rather be me than some bird.” He laughed at her, pressed her hand. “Come. Kiss me.”
* * * * *
In the last week of September Ellen slipped down Sweetincreek Road to where Christian had brought the truck around. The Brinker family were in Bethel doing their weekly buying, and Christian acutely felt his proprietorship. He drove up his employer’s graveled drive and into the huge garage. He led her to the farm buildings, proud. “Take a look.”
The great white barn was trimmed in red, a gigantic portrait of a black-and-white Holstein bull had been painted across the expanse of one side. There was an iron bull weather vane centered on the roof; it wheeled with the breeze. “I ne’er saw such furbelowing, Christian.”
“This isn’t the half of it.”
In the shed just off the chicken house he was showing her round-bellied puppies. She fondled them while the gentle bitch watched alert-eyed from a straw bed. “Nothing smells as soft as a little whelp, Christian.”
He was pointing to a miniature windmill, and to bantam chickens and white and gray rabbits in screened hutches. Out in the pasture were shining Belgian mares. Ellen was stroking their sleek faces. Christian caught a cobby black filly by the halter and led her to the girl. “This one’s Doll. She’s pedigreed. She’s to be bred to Baker as soon as she comes in heat. Mr. Brinker’s ordered it. We’ve been watching out for her.”
“Look at those dark eyes, Christian. Here, Doll.” Ellen was offering a handful of oats. But the mare threw up her head, nickering toward the farm buildings. There was a responding whinny from the distance. The mare swished her tail, holding it high.
Christian’s eyes kindled. “You know, Ellie, I think she’s in season. Let’s try her. See if she’ll take him.”
“You’d best wait for Mester Brinker.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m not. Only I’d wait. If she’s a thoroughbred, he’d lay the blame to you should it go amiss.”
The mare was shaking her head so the halter rings jangled; she cried again, shrilly. Christian was opening the gate. “Come on, Ellie. Look, you want to ride her down the lane? I’ll lift you to her back.”
“You dassn’t ride her. Sam told me,” she said, dallying, “that a mare in the heat mustn’t be ridden till she’s been bred.”
“All right. But come on,” he urged. He led the prancing Doll through the gate and down the lane toward the stallion’s paddock. Ellen was following, reluctant. “You hold her while I lock up Baker,” he called.