Where Willows Grow Read online

  He threw the pitchfork back into the corner and plunked his hindquarters on a barrel, burying his face in his hands. Behind his lids he could see Annie, her gray-blue eyes staring in wonder into that crate. They had lit with pleasure—he’d seen it. It made his chest feel tight seeing her light up that way. Didn’t seem he had done much lately that had brought a sparkle to her eyes. Mostly he’d seen the other look—the one like when he’d said the mules were sold, the one filled with disappointment.

  He stood and paced the barn. He knew he wasn’t what her daddy had planned for her. Ben Elliott and his wife had put great stock in their Anna Mae, making sure she got all the book learnin’ a girl’s head could hold. She was supposed to go to a city somewhere and get a job as a telephone operator or a store clerk. Meet up with a fancy dude who would put her in a fine house and take her to parties and such. Old Ben had talked about all this to Harley as they’d worked the fields together—Ben had made sure Harley understood. But it hadn’t changed the way Harley felt toward Anna Mae. And it hadn’t changed the way she felt about him.

  At least, not back then.

  Harley paused in his pacing to slam his palm against the sturdy wood beam in the center of the barn. It made his hand sting, but it was nothing compared to the way his heart hurt. He’d always hoped her love for him would be enough to make her set aside those other dreams. But how many times in the past two years had he seen her staring off into the distance, her eyes all dreamy? He knew what she was thinking. And it wasn’t about how happy she was here on the farm with him.

  He swallowed the curse that pressed for release. Annie didn’t hold with cussing any more than his own mama had. But it sure would feel good right now to let fly.

  ‘‘Work it off,’’ he mumbled to himself. He could start with that dirty straw. Spread it on the garden. Wind would probably tumble it all away before morning, but at least he’d try to keep some of that soil in place.

  He pushed the manure spreader across the hard ground to the garden plot, released the lever, and watched the manure spill over the tilled ground. Despite the temper that made him want to stomp across the garden, he took care not to crush the tiny sprouts that would grow into cabbage, squash, potatoes, and peas. Too early yet for tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers, but they’d be out here soon enough.

  If the garden did good this year, maybe they could sell some of the extra to townsfolk. Didn’t need a mule to work the garden, anyway. Didn’t need a mule to milk the cow or churn her cream into butter. Didn’t need a mule to gather eggs. The things that brought money to the family these days—piddly amounts of money, but money all the same—why, none of ’em required mules.

  He paused, looking toward the house. Of course, come Sunday, Annie might have a hard time walking the whole distance to church and back. He’d always carted her and the girls in the wagon. It was only a couple miles to the church—not too far for him, but a pretty fair distance for Annie, especially toting a baby on her hip.

  Something else bothered him, too. Her asking for saltine crackers. Annie didn’t like saltines. Not even with cheese or peanut butter. Said she had to eat too many of ’em when she was a little piker because her tummy was weak and her mama thought they’d make her feel better. Only time she’d asked for saltines was when—

  He shook his head hard. No, couldn’t be. Margie had just stopped nursing. Annie couldn’t possibly be carrying another one, could she?

  His stomach churned at the thought. Just what they didn’t need around here—another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, another soul to care for. Harley gave the spreader a firm push to get it moving again. He loved his girls—Dottie and Margie were the best things in his life, outside of Annie. Even as hurting as they were for money, he wouldn’t take a million dollars for either of his little punkins.

  He snorted. ‘‘An’ wouldn’t give a plug nickel for another’n.’’ The spreader flung out its last bit, and Harley pushed it out of the garden. It clanked all the way back to the barn, where he stored it in the tool lean-to. He glanced around to see what other chores needed tending. Woodpile was plenty tall. Garden didn’t need hoeing. Cow would need feeding, but not for another hour or two. Nothing required his immediate attention.

  He ran his thumb over his chin. He could go into the house, drink a glass of water, and tell Annie what he’d heard in town about the Works Progress Administration job over near Lindsborg in Saline County. Building a castle. Wouldn’t Dottie be impressed? But he could imagine Annie’s response. ‘‘A castle? What kind of fool puts a castle in the middle of Kansas?’’ He held on to the word fool, absorbed it, almost wrapped it around himself, torturing himself with its meaning.

  He strode into the stall where the milk cow stood contentedly chewing her cud. As he scratched her thick neck, his thoughts continued. He hadn’t gotten much book learnin’. Neither of his parents had been educated, and they hadn’t seen fit to send their only offspring to school beyond the first few years. He’d come along so late in their lives, it was easier to keep him home and let him see to chores than make him traipse off to school.

  But he’d learned plenty. He could use any farm implement made by man. Fix them, too, if need be. Why, he figured he could even keep one of them tractors running if he had the funds to buy one. And he had a way with animals—the cow turned and rubbed her nose against his back as if to let him know she enjoyed his scratching. Once, he’d nursed a sick raccoon back to health. His pa had thought that plenty foolish—‘‘Consarn critters ain’t good for nothin’ more’n mischief!’’—but it had pleased Harley to see the little animal scuttle into the brush on four strong legs.

  ‘‘Fool, huh?’’ he asked the cow, giving her a final pat before turning toward the open doorway. ‘‘Well, Miz Anna Mae Phipps, these days a man’s gotta do whatever he can to take care of his own, an’ if you wanna call that foolish, I guess I’ll just hafta set you straight.’’ Her name might be on the title to this land, but he was still the man of the house. And he’d just march into that house and let her know once and for all she was going to have to trust him to do what was right for all of them.

  Hitching up his britches, he turned his steps toward the house. Dust puffed up with every thud of his worn boots against the hard ground. He let the screen door bang behind him. He crossed the screened-in porch, wrenched the doorknob, and entered the kitchen. The crate still sat on the table, but he noticed it was empty. He smiled in satisfaction. She might’ve fussed, but she still put the stuff away.

  Sweeping his hat from his head, he boomed, ‘‘Annie?’’

  She appeared in the narrow hallway, a finger on her lips. ‘‘Shh. I just got Marjorie down for her nap.’’

  That took some of the wind out of his sail. How could he lay down the law if he had to whisper to do it? He looked around. ‘‘Where’s Dottie?’’

  ‘‘Dorothy is outside, serving up gumdrops to her dolly and the barn cats.’’

  Annie never could shorten up the girls’ names. Seemed to stick in her craw. Stuck in his craw that she always had to be so hoity-toity. ‘‘Then come to the barn. Somethin’ I gotta talk to you about.’’

  Instead, she walked to the sink and started pumping water into the basin. ‘‘I’ve got dishes to do, Harley. I’ve been waiting for Marjorie to go to sleep so I could get some things done. She’s been so fussy with those new teeth coming in, I can’t put her down unless she’s sleeping. Can it wait?’’

  He released a huff of aggravation. ‘‘No, it can’t.’’ In two long strides he was at her side. He caught her arm and made her look at him. ‘‘You can’t keep ignorin’ me. Don’t make problems go away, pretendin’ they ain’t there.’’

  She jerked her arm free and dumped a stack of plates into the sudsy water. ‘‘I’m not pretending. My problem right now is I’ve got an hour—maybe two—to get lunch dishes out of the way and supper started. I don’t have time to go wandering out to the barn for a chat.’’

  He leaned against the edge of the counte
r and crossed his arms. Annie had always been a stubborn woman. Once, when they’d only been married a few months, her stubbornness had gotten the best of him. He’d taken hold of her shoulders and shaken her good and hard. Scared her pretty good. Scared himself, too. He hadn’t realized he had that much of his pa in him. He’d vowed to never again lay a hand on her in anger, but right now he was tempted to break that promise.

  ‘‘Annie.’’ He kept his voice low. ‘‘I reckon we can talk in here, but—’’

  ‘‘Harley—’’ she stared out the open window above the sink, her brow puckered up—‘‘do you ever wonder how things would be different if Ben, Jr., hadn’t died over in Europe?’’

  This sudden mention of her brother—a brother Harley had never met—caught him by surprise. He shook his head. ‘‘No. Can’t say as I do.’’

  ‘‘I do.’’ Her hands stilled in the dishwater, and she continued to look out the window. ‘‘If Ben, Jr., hadn’t been killed in the war, he would’ve come home. He would’ve taken over the farm when Daddy died. That’s what Daddy had really wanted—for his son to have this farm, and for his daughter . . .’’ Finally she turned to face him. That disillusioned look was back in her eyes. ‘‘If Ben, Jr., had the farm, where would we be?’’

  He shrugged. In truth, if Annie’s brother had lived, Harley probably never would have gotten a job on Ben Elliott’s farm; he wouldn’t have been needed. And he never would have met Annie.

  She suddenly seemed to realize she was supposed to be washing dishes. Her hands got busy swishing a soapy cloth over one dirty plate. ‘‘Know what I miss, Harley?’’

  He shook his head.

  She brought her elbow up to push her hair from her eyes. ‘‘The scent of rain. It’s been dry for so long, I’ve almost forgotten what rain smells like.’’ She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. ‘‘Fresh, clean, burgeoning with new life.’’ Her shoulders wilted. ‘‘Sometimes it feels like there’ll never be new life around here again.’’ Then her face pinched, and she scrubbed at the plate in her hand.

  Harley stood still with his arms crossed, sorting out what she’d said. He latched on to one word: burgeoning. He hated it when she used fancy words like that. Sometimes he thought she did it to remind him she had more education than he did. This time, though, she seemed pretty caught up in thought.

  And she was sure right about that scent of rain. More than two years had passed without a decent rainfall. If it kept up much longer, the farm wouldn’t be worth keeping. Land wasn’t worth plowing anymore, what with the topsoil blown into Oklahoma or Nebraska, depending on the direction of the wind. If he had to water the fields from their well, there might not be drinking water left for them. So it hadn’t been foolish to sell those mules, after all, when you reasoned it all out.

  ‘‘Don’t know that I can do anything about rain,’’ he finally said.

  Her disappointed gaze turned in his direction for just a moment before going back to the basin of water. ‘‘I didn’t expect you could. Only one who can do anything about the rain is God.’’

  Harley scowled. ‘‘Don’t bring religion into it again, Annie. Haven’t you been prayin’ for two years for rain? An’ has anybody listened? No. No rain. Maybe that should tell you something.’’

  Annie frowned at him. He knew she didn’t like him talking about God as if He didn’t exist. But what else could he do? Nobody had ever proved God’s existence to him. His ma and pa lived on the same patch of ground, made the same scarce living, for fifteen years before his birth and then died early from hard work twenty years after. If there was a God, surely He could have made life easier for them in the Mississippi flatlands.

  If God was as powerful as Annie liked to think, God could’ve kept his pa from being hateful. But God was absent during his growing-up years, and Harley saw no need to go looking for Him now that he was full grown and capable of taking care of himself.

  ‘‘God has His own reasons for doing what He does, Harley. And just because He hasn’t answered the way we want Him to doesn’t mean He hasn’t been listening. We don’t have any right to think He’s handling things wrong just because we think a different way.’’

  Harley didn’t care for the tone she used—the tone that said she knew more than he did. He uncrossed his arms and pressed his hands onto the worn countertop, his elbows splayed outward. ‘‘You believe your way, an’ I’ll believe mine. We’ve got along fine just lettin’ one another be on that subject.’’

  She pursed her lips and said nothing, but he could tell by her downturned mouth that she didn’t like letting it go.

  ‘‘I know I can’t make it rain for you, but I figure I can do something about the lack of money comin’ in here.’’

  ‘‘What, Harley?’’ She sounded bitter. ‘‘What are you going to sell now?’’

  ‘‘Not selling anything.’’ He took a deep breath, threw back his shoulders, and announced firmly, ‘‘But I ain’t gonna stick around here and try to coax that ground to bring up corn that sells so low I might as well give it away. I’m leavin’, Annie.’’

  3

  LEAVING? HE WAS LEAVING HER? Anna Mae dropped the plate into the dishpan. Water and suds spattered her front. A few droplets even caught Harley on the arm. She grabbed her apron and reached to dry his shirt-sleeve.

  He caught her wrist. ‘‘Annie, look at me.’’

  But she wouldn’t. As angry as she’d been at his decision to sell those mules, she hadn’t meant to make him go away. If she looked at him, he’d read the begging of her heart—Don’t go! Don’t go! And she couldn’t let him see that before he walked out the door.

  ‘‘Annie!’’ His voice became insistent, although he kept it low. He released her wrist to grasp her chin between his finger and thumb and turn her face upward. But she kept her eyes averted. ‘‘Listen to me, Annie. The WPA is hiring men to build a castle over near Lindsborg. Martin at the store told me that’s in Saline County—only a few hours away. The WPA pays good wages, all things considered. According to Martin, I’d qualify since the farm hasn’t produced enough worth claimin’ for the past two years. He says they might even put me up and feed me, an’ I’d be able to send home maybe twenty-five, thirty dollars a month.’’

  Anna Mae processed what he’d said. He wasn’t leaving for good—just for a while, to take a job. At least, that was what he was telling her . . .

  ‘‘Twenty-five dollars or more a month, Annie!’’ He gave her chin a little jerk that forced her gaze to meet his. His blue eyes—blue as the Kansas sky—captured her heart once more. ‘‘That’d see to you an’ the girls’ needs and then some, what with the egg and milk money that drizzles in. It’d be something to keep us going until farm prices go up again.’’

  Anna Mae pulled loose and busied herself swiping a cloth across the cracked linoleum countertop. ‘‘A . . . a castle?’’ It didn’t seem realistic, to build a castle in the middle of Kansas. Maybe he was making all this up—just a story to give him a reason to leave like so many other men across the country were doing.

  ‘‘Yeah. Martin says it’s supposed to do with some explorer that came through looking for gold.’’

  Anna Mae glanced at him. ‘‘Coronado?’’ Maybe Harley was telling the truth. ‘‘Coronado was looking for a lost city of gold.’’ She frowned, realizing the futility of that search. ‘‘No gold in Kansas, not even in corn or wheat anymore.’’

  ‘‘An’ that’s all the more reason for me to go—to take this job.’’ Harley grabbed her wrist again. The damp cloth hung from her fingers, dripping on the spot of floor between their feet. ‘‘You could see to things here for a few months, Annie. The garden chores, the chickens, and the cow—that’s all that needs tendin’. Dottie’s big enough now to help in the garden and do the egg gatherin’. I could see if Jack Berkley would take the eggs and milk into town, since pullin’ the coaster wagon would be too much for you. You could give him . . . maybe ten percent of the money for doin’ that for you. Jack’d probably even h
aul you to church on Sundays, if I asked.’’

  Anna Mae swallowed. Jack would do it—she knew that. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him three or four times a week, even just for picking up their extras. Long-buried memories tried to break free, and she covered her cheeks with her hands, determined to hold them back.

  ‘‘So what’cha think?’’

  He had it all worked out. It hurt that he hadn’t thought to ask her what she thought about any of this before making his decision. It also troubled her conscience—shouldn’t they pray together about such big decisions? Shouldn’t they seek the Lord’s will together, the way her mama and daddy had always done? But it was typical of Harley—forge ahead, never stop to consider that she had ideas. Or that God had plans for them, too.

  ‘‘Annie?’’

  She released a sigh. ‘‘Does it really matter what I think, Harley?’’

  He reared back, his jaw tightening. ‘‘ ’Course it does.’’

  How could he say that when it was obvious it wasn’t true? She shook her head. ‘‘Well, I think you’ve made up your mind, so I just as well oughta start putting your bag together. You might want to take some of the mule money, if there’s any left’’—she emphasized the last four words, making sure he knew he’d left her out of that transaction, too—‘‘and buy yourself some decent work boots. Your old ones won’t make it clear across Kansas.’’

  She turned her back, took up the cloth, and returned to her dishwashing. Harley stood at the counter for several long seconds, watching her. She could feel his hard stare boring into her, but she refused to look at him. Finally he let out a huff of aggravation, pushed off from the counter, and stomped out the door.