Black Hills (9781101559116) (8 page)

She hit the ground running and led Cormac on a merry chase around the field, jumping away and laughing at him every time he tried to grab her and missed. Finally, she ran to where Mr. Schwartz was pulling out some sunflower plants by their roots. Circling to the other side of him, she danced back and forth to keep him between them.

“Alright yoou two leettle kids,” he said in an exaggerated German accent, pretending to be mad with his face all grouchy. “Yoous get avay from me and go doo your nonsense some udder places. I got's vork to dooo. Yoou keep this up and I turn yoou both over my kneee. Now vhat yoou tink about that?”

Letting him win the game, they both pretended to be admonished. “Yes, sir,” they said dutifully, and started back for the wagon. Four steps later, he grabbed at her, she ducked, and they ran laughing to the wagon, which she jumped into, and went back to work. He continued on the way to get the pick and shovel he was originally going for.

Springtime found them all plowing and planting from early morning until late in the day. Fall found them harvesting and plowing under the surface growth. Between times, they pulled weeds . . . so many weeds.

Cormac decided the few potatoes they needed for their own use would be grown in the vegetable garden. They planted flax. There would be no more potatoes planted there.

He and Mr. Schwartz hunted as needed for meat: sometimes together, other times alone. Pheasants, ducks, and geese—usually Canadian Honkers—were in abundance, occasionally deer wandered into the area or, more rarely, a buffalo, of which there were too few left after the buffalo hunters and which Cormac refused to shoot.

Travelers were passing by more frequently and were invited to stay for food and rest. Their company and conversation were much looked forward to for the latest news of what was happening in the world.

A traveler stopping by on his way to California gave them a well-read copy of the
Chicago Tribune
, which told them a foursquare-mile section of the city had burned to the ground and hundreds of people had been killed because a cow belonging to a Mrs. O'Leary had kicked over a lantern in a small shed near the edge of town. A Bostonian wearing a sweater-vest and what he called “riding breeches” that ballooned out on both sides, along with a silly cap, spoke of Wild Bill Hickok being the marshal of Abilene and of two railroads that connected somewhere in Utah, making the railroad tracks stretch all the way across the nation.

A handsome young fellow not long out of New York who caught Lainey's eye succumbed to her flirting by giving her a nearly new two-cent piece with the words “In God We Trust” prominently displayed on one side, which he claimed was the first time the phrase had ever been used on U.S. currency. True or not, it was the first time any of them had seen such a coin. Cormac wasn't too happy about the flirting part, although he wasn't quite sure why. What did he care if she wanted to make a fool of herself? He stormed out of the house and jumped on Lop Ear bareback. With no saddle and a handful of mane, they shot into the hills like a house afire.

Another traveler, this one from Illinois, was on his way to California in search of gold and tried to talk the Schwartzes into walking away from their farm and going to find some for themselves. “They could travel together,” he said.

“No tank you,” Mr. Schwartz answered in his German accent. “We've found our gold right here. We go to bed at night as a family, wake up, and work this rich Dakota soil as a family. That's all the gold we need.”

The travelers' stories put Cormac in mind of his mother's comments about reading, taking him places he might otherwise not go. She had been well-read and had wanted him and Becky to also be. He returned to reading her books again. Maybe one day he might be wishful of seeing some other places, but for now, he had the responsibility of the farm.

Mr. Schwartz had taken to wearing his handgun, as had most men, and taught Cormac about the powder charge, the ball and cap routine of loading it, and how to use the molds to make the necessary balls—or actual bullets if he wanted more killing power. With his pa's teachings in mind, Cormac got in some practice time shooting at targets, and his aim became better. He rarely missed with any of the guns, making Mr. Schwartz envious. Being left-handed, Mr. Schwartz wore his holster on his left hip. Cormac always threw rocks with his left, leading him to believe he was also left-handed.

One day when Lainey had carried lunch to them in the field, Mr. Schwartz and Cormac stopped work and walked, with Mr. Schwartz on Cormac's right, to where she was spreading the lunch out on a blanket. As she bent to place a bowl down, a rattlesnake in the brush near her leg rattled his tail and struck. Cormac heard Mr. Schwartz's gun go off and saw the snake's head disappear into the brush and the snake flop to the ground before realizing that the gun was somehow in his own hand. It was he who had pulled it from Mr. Schwartz's holster with his right hand.

“Oh!” Lainey cried, running to hug him. “You're wonderful! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Mr. Schwartz just stared at him as if he'd seen damnation. Later, when Cormac had gone to bed, he heard the Schwartzes voices as they passed outside his window.

“I never seen nutten in my life move that fast,” Mr. Schwartz was saying. “The gun yust appeared in his hand and his von shot tooked the head cleand off.”

It had taken Cormac as much by surprise as it had Mr. Schwartz, and he wasn't too sure what to think about it his own self. All that practicing hand movements to pick taters as fast as he could had apparently come in handy in more ways than one.

“That's the second time he has saved her life,” Mrs. Schwartz responded. “She would have died if the snake had bitten her. His folks would have been mighty proud of him.”

Cormac liked that thought and hoped that his parents were somewhere, somehow, proud of the man he was becoming. He hoped Becky was, too.

N
either of the Schwartzes was much for education, but Cormac continued the study habits his mother had given him, reading and rereading her books.

“Cormie,” his mother had told him one evening while selecting their next book, “you should never stop reading and learning. You are going to get an education if I have to pour it into you.” She hadn't had to do much pouring. He had learned to love reading at an early age. His pa agreed with his mother and wished that he, too, had more “book larnin',” but he said there were many places from which to get an education.

“Watch how the trees and plants grow,” he told Cormac one day when they were tracking a deer. “See how animals react to each other and what their trails and droppin's look like. Study people and be aware of how they move and when their mouth says one thing and their eyes another, or when the smile on their lips doesn't reach all the way to their eyes.”

Lainey's mother had also been educating her, and she missed it. It only followed that she would slip into studying with Cormac. It gave them something to do on evenings and days when it was too cold to do much of anything outside other than make sure the stock had food, keep the ice broken off the stream and water tanks so the stock could get to the water, keep the cows milked, the hogs and chickens fed, and repair wagons and harnesses in preparation for spring planting. They read, talked, and argued over their opinions on what they had read.

Lainey had been after Cormac to teach her to shoot. For her fifteenth birthday present he agreed and found her to be a good student, only needing to be shown something one time. He began teaching her to shoot with his pa's pride and joy: the rifle he called GERT. Lainey was somewhat intimidated by it, but got over it quickly enough. The gun had been given to Cormac's father by a German gun-maker to repay a debt. Most of the name had been gouged off a few years earlier by a bullet that ricocheted off it instead of killing his pa. All that remained of the name was GERT, so the rifle became a she, and his pa affectionately called her GERT.

“She looks funny,” his pa had told him. “But she was made slowly and with pride by the hands of a skilled craftsman taking pride in his work. It was made to use the new cartridge ammunition and will put the bullet right where you aim her at a range bordering on the unbelievable. She's one of a kind.” Then his eyes lit up. He was not school educated like Cormac's mother, but he dearly loved the turn of a good phrase or yarn.

He had pulled GERT up to his shoulder and followed an imaginary moving target. “Man, man, man,” he said, shaking his head with feeling. “You could scare up one of your rabbits, let him run all day and shoot him at night.”

“With a pistol,” Cormac reminded Lainey one Sunday morning, teaching her as his pa had taught him, “you just point it like pointing your finger. A rifle is a whole different ball of wax; it needs to be held very steady. If at all possible, a rifle needs to be rested on something solid. If that's not possible, lay down. Never shoot from a standing position if you can kneel down, and never kneel if you can lay down.” She learned quickly and after just a few lessons, unflinching from the kick or the noise, was hitting most things she aimed at.

Cormac had been noticing that Lainey's body was getting right comely in a full-blown way, and with her fire-red hair, green eyes, and an uncommonly bright-white smile, she was downright eye-pleasin'. When they were sixteen, Cormac peeked under the blanket dividing their room when they were getting ready for bed one warm night, but was very nearly caught at it and doing so made him feel guilty. He never repeated it.

He and Lainey did chores together, studied together, played together, and had snowball fights, and once, under the pretense of trying to wash her face in the snow, he kissed her while he was holding her down and she couldn't resist—or so he thought. Sometimes on Sundays when the weather was warm, they went for horseback rides. Cormac would saddle the grulla for Lainey, and he would ride Lop Ear bareback. Only one of the saddles was large enough for either of the big horses, and a too-small saddle would give them saddle sores on their backs. The grulla was a pretty and well-behaved mare with a smooth ride, which was good for Lainey. On those occasions, they sometimes took a lunch and ranged far.

On one such occasion after removing a rock from Lop Ear's shoe that left the big horse limping slightly, Lainey said he better ride behind her on the way back to rest the foot. She emptied one stirrup and he stepped up to sit behind her saddle.

“Oh, this is scary,” he said as they started back. “I might fall off.” He promptly wrapped his arms tightly around her waist.

“Oh stop it, you phony!” she exclaimed, and pushed his arms back. “You behave yourself, mister, and don't get any ideas or you can just walk back.” She smiled half the way home thinking maybe she had been too hasty.