The Road to Love (26 page)

“She's not ugly.”

Lowell chuckled. “Hatcher—the master of understatement.”

Father leaned forward. “Hatcher, why didn't you come back sooner? It's been ten years. I thought I'd die without seeing you again.”

Hatcher glanced from one to the other around the table. A great gulf existed, an expansion as wide as the Dakota sky, between the last time he'd seen his father and brother and now. “How can I expect any of you to understand what it's like to have a temper you can't control?”

His father laughed, a sound as full of sadness as mirth. “You were a boy. A boy who had been through a lot.” He sobered. “Some of it my fault. Boys, I am sorry about losing the farm.”

“Father,” Lowell said. “It's water under the bridge.”

Father thanked Lowell than turned back to Hatcher. “You might find this hard to believe but I, too, was known as a firebrand when I was young.”

Lowell and Hatcher both stared. Lowell voiced Hatcher's disbelief. “You? I've never known you to lose your temper. Although—” he grinned at Hatcher “—you were a slave driver and didn't tolerate any nonsense from us.”

Father nodded. “A man outgrows some of his youthful exuberance and learns how ineffective anger is. Course I have to give your mother credit for her influence, as well. Nothing like the love of a good woman to settle a man.”

Lowell took Marie's hand and they smiled as if they were alone at the table. Hatcher's thoughts turned to Kate. Sweet, beautiful Kate, who'd taken a chance on him, then begged him to stay. How was she doing now? Had she found someone to take Hatcher's place? His lungs caught with missing her.

Father cleared his throat. “All young bucks are rash.”

Hatcher studied the fork in his hand. How many young bucks did his father know who flew into uncontrollable rages?
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceedeth evil thoughts…murders…all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Mark seven, verse twenty-one and twenty-three.

Only it wasn't evil, angry thoughts he had at that moment. He pictured Kate playing tag out by the coulee, her laughter—

Lowell tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, little brother, what are you smiling about?”

Hatcher hadn't realized he was. “Just thinking.”

When Lowell saw Hatcher didn't intend to say more, he pushed his chair back. “I found me a great cook, wouldn't you say?”

Hatcher smiled at Marie. “It was a lovely meal. Thank you.”

“We've saved your old bedroom for you,” she said in her soft, gentle voice.

Hatcher's eyes stung. “I hadn't planned to stay.”

Lowell grinned. “Got someplace to be? Maybe back with a little gal named Kate?”

If only he could go back. He shook his head.

Lowell's expression grew serious. “Hatcher, you're not going to keep running.”

Hatcher felt three pairs of eyes studying him but he stared at the tabletop.

“I don't understand,” Lowell persisted.

“I don't expect you to.”

“Explain what you're afraid of.”

Hatcher stared at his brother. “Are you really so thick? I'm not going to take the chance I might again hurt someone when I lose my temper.”

Lowell leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “Tell me something, little brother. When was the last time you were angry?”

Hatcher refused to answer but he knew. When he found Mary being bullied.

“I see you remember. And tell me. What did you do? Did you throw your fists? Pick up something to attack with? Did you feel like inflicting bodily harm?” Lowell leaned back. “I can see by your eyes that you didn't.”

“Your point?”

“When I last saw you, you couldn't sit at a table without clenching your fists. You wore a scowl day and night. You didn't sit in a chair like you intended to relax. You were like an overwound spring.” He sat back triumphantly. “You've changed but seems you don't realize it. It's time you let go of the past.”

Father watched them keenly. “Hatcher, this is your home.”

Hatcher looked from one to the other and slowly nodded. “I'll stay for a few days.”

Lowell clapped him on the back. “You can help me with the haying.”

Hatcher laughed. “So you're just looking for a cheap hired man.”

Lowell grinned. “Come on. I'll show you what we've been doing.” Father joined them as they walked along the fields and discussed crops and weather and cows. Some things had changed. More land had been broken, one field seeded with tame grass. And the rock piles had grown bigger. He nudged Lowell. “Glad I wasn't here for that.”

Over the next few days, Hatcher worked alongside Lowell and Father. The work had a calming familiarity to it. To look up from his work and see the same hills, the same buildings, the same father and brother crossing the yard did something to his soul. He didn't want to call it healing or cleansing. He'd rather call it something more practical. Like familiarity.

Sunday rolled around. The family had always gone to church. No questions asked. When Hatcher lounged at the table in his work clothes, the three of them stared at him.

“You going to church in that?”

He had more clothes now. Marie had seen to that. And he had the suit Kate gave him for the trial so he couldn't plead it was the best he had. They all knew better. “Not going to church.”

Three pairs of eyes blinked as if they'd never heard of someone not attending.

Father grunted but Lowell got in the first word. “I know what's going on. You're afraid to face the people. Well, little brother, I hate to burst your self-important bubble but you're the only one who is still thinking about the accident. Everyone else has moved on. Lived lives. Got married. Had babies. Lost parents. For us, for the community, what happened ten years ago is a long time in the past.”

Hatcher grunted. “Easy for you to decide that.”

“Find out for yourself,” Lowell challenged. “Or do you prefer to keep living the way you have been? Shutting out family, always on the move? Come on, Hatch, it's time to move on.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “Unless you're afraid of the truth.”

K
ate struggled with her decision but finally asked Mr. Sandstrum to help with the hay in return for a share of it.

It created a problem for her. The hay crop was thin as the hair on Old Sam Jensen's head. She scratched around for every blade, knowing it would be precious as gold before the winter ended. Giving some of it away in exchange for help left her with the knowledge she'd run short but it came down to some of the hay was better than leaving it to dry up in the field.

She had the few loads Mr. Cyrus had managed to haul in between naps.

With the last load of hay done, hauled away in Mr. Sandstrum's wagon, there was a lull in the farmwork and slowly her back began to heal.

The garden needed constant attention. She still couldn't lift a bucket of water without pain so the children helped her haul water to the struggling plants. They helped hoe out weeds, too, but still there was much they couldn't do.

Day after day, Kate wondered if she'd made a mistake insisting on keeping the farm. Not that she would marry Doyle. She paused, smiling as she leaned over the hoe handle. Seems Doyle would be moving on anyway. The sheriff had charged him with obstruction of justice for planting the money in Hatcher's belongings. They still hadn't discovered the culprit responsible for the robbery. A hobo, long gone, seemed the most likely explanation.

She returned to hilling the potatoes and thinking about the farm. It represented home and security for herself and the children but unless she found help…

If only Hatcher would come back. She missed him so much. She glanced toward the shanty, remembering his loose gait as he came for breakfast.

She did what she did every time she thought about Hatcher many, many times throughout the day. She prayed.
Lord, keep him safe. Provide a warm dry place for him. Help him realize he's loved. And help me know what to do about the farm.

The pain in her back grew too much to bear and she leaned the hoe against a post and returned to the house. The children were at school. Only a few more days before they'd be home for the summer.

How would she manage? She'd promised herself she'd give them more attention than she had in the past. Yet she had the farmwork to attend to as well as her regular household chores.

For the first time ever, the farm seemed burdensome, and instead of security, it felt like a ball and chain. She made herself a cup of tea and sat on the chair she'd left against the side of the house in the shade. She closed her eyes. But the sunlight drummed against her eyelids.

She sighed and fanned the hem of her skirt to cool herself. At least she had the relative relief of shade from her house and cool water from the well to quench her thirst.

Not like the many summers she'd spent with no protection but a scraggly bush and the tarp her father stretched out above them to provide protection. The sun didn't beat directly on them but still the heat built unmercifully underneath the patch of canvas.

“Momma, did you ever live in a house?”

“Katie, what a question? We lived in a house all winter.”

Kate flung over on her side to study her mother. “It weren't ours. And it didn't keep out the snow. I mean did you live in a real house? One belonging to you?”

Her mother's gaze drifted past Kate to something in the distance. “As a child I lived in a little yellow house with fancy gingerbread trim where the roof peaked. There was a low little attic room under the eaves. It was cold in the winter, sweltering in the summer but it was my favorite place. I would play among the castaway things and pretend I lived in a different place, a different time.”

With a huge sigh, Kate lay on her back. “Why did you leave?”

“I grew up. Met your father. He was so excited about moving west. I'd always wanted to see the West so it was easy to agree to go with him. Course I loved him lots.” She smiled at Kate. “Still do.”

Kate thought she must love him an awful lot to follow him around the country, year after year having no place to call her own.

“If I ever had a place of my own, I'd never leave it.”

“You would if you had enough reason.”

“No reason would be good enough.”

Kate tried to remember what her mother's reply had been. Seems she hadn't wanted to hear. Now she knew there might be a reason strong enough to make her leave her home and security.

Hatcher. If he sent her a message asking her to join him, would she go?

If not for her children, she'd follow him on the road as her mother had but her children needed and deserved a home.

She needed more, too. Or was it less?

But what?

Security. They all needed safety and security.

Suddenly she remembered how her mother had answered. “I have an eternal home that will be better than any house ever built.”

“Better than a palace?”

“Much. It will be beautiful and it will be mine to share with those I love. Best of all, my Lord and Savior will be there.”

Kate remembered how she'd thrilled to her mother's assurance.

“Katie, girl, it doesn't matter what we have here on earth because wherever we go, whether we live in a house or under a tarp, God is with us. In the Psalms it says, ‘Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations…. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God: in him will I trust…. he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.' Child, what could be better than that?”

The words had comforted her—until it rained and she was cold and miserable.

But now her mother's words echoed in her mind.

It never seemed to matter that they left a perfectly good house to camp at the side of the road, or huddle cold and hungry as her father searched for a better place for them. Through it all her mother remained calm and accepting.

Kate wanted the kind of peace and assurance her mother had. She'd thought she'd find it by having a house she would never have to leave, a place of her own. Security.

An anchor for her soul.

But it wasn't a house and farm she needed. It was trust—trust in God's love and care.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee
.

She rested her tea cup on her knee and stared out at the wheat field. The plants had emerged sporadically. Some had since been cut off by the driving winds. Others had withered and died under the relentless sun. A few stubbornly held their own, but showed little growth. Her crop wouldn't be worth cutting for anything but feed, unless they got a good soaking rain soon. She considered the barn, the lean-to where the old beast was parked, the garden that struggled to survive the heat and wind.

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow cast into the over; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

“Oh, Lord,” she groaned. “I know You will always take care of me. Help me trust You for all my needs.”

She wanted to trust God. Years of stubbornly providing her own security were hard to lay aside.

Over the next few days she struggled with her feelings often crying, “Lord, help my unbelief.”

Today she headed for the garden to check and see if there were any potatoes big enough to steal from under the plant.

As she knelt and searched in the dirt for the small hard lumps that would be baby potatoes, she heard the words. “Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid.”

She jerked around to see who spoke. She was alone. She sat in the dirt between rows of green potato plants.

“Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid.”

She knew the words came from her own thoughts, recognized them as scripture. But as surely as if God had sent an angel to stand in the middle of the garden and deliver the message, she knew the words came straight from God's heart to hers. With gulping sobs, she surrendered her needs to Him, trusting Him to provide the security she craved and wanted to provide her children.

Like a flash she saw and understood several things. She couldn't manage the farm on her own but there was a way she could keep the house, provide a warm safe place for herself and the children. The solution seemed so obvious it amazed her she hadn't done it in the first place.

She'd rent out the land to a neighbor on the understanding she be allowed to keep the house and barn. The only way anyone would take it under the drought conditions was if the rent were based on crop share. The more the renter got, the more Kate got. Of course, the reverse also applied—less crop, less rent. But without the costs and work of trying to farm, she could manage with the garden and by keeping a couple of cows and the chickens.

She slowed her thoughts to remind herself: Whatever they needed, God would provide.

“Lord,” she prayed as she dug out enough potatoes for supper. “I give you also my love for Hatcher. I want him to come back but I leave it in Your hands.”

It was probably the hardest decision she'd ever made. She would never stop loving him and hoping for his return. No doubt she'd have to remind herself over and over that what mattered most was that God would heal his heart. Until then…

She felt considerably more at peace in the following days. She would wait until after the meager harvest or even toward spring to approach her neighbors about renting her land.

Today as she waved the children off to school, she noticed a thread of smoke twisting above the trees across the road. Her heart squeezed hard. Hatcher had once camped there.

She shook away the thought. Other hobos used the spot. She returned to the house to finish separating the milk, then grabbed a hat and headed for the garden. Even knowing how futile it was to hope, she glanced toward the trees.

A man stood in the shadows.

Kate blinked. The way he stood…the way he touched the brim of his hat…

“Hatcher?” she whispered, and stared hard trying to see more clearly.

The man stepped from the shadows. The sun flashed across his face. He started across the field.

“Hatcher,” she screamed, her feet racing down the lane. She didn't slow until she was within arm's reach then she skidded to a stop, restrained herself from fleeing into his embrace. Why had he come?

“You've come back.” Her words came out breathless more from the crash of emotions through her than the effort of the short run.

He didn't speak, his gaze warm and searching as he considered her chin, her mouth, her eyes.

She smiled. “I've been waiting and hoping and praying you'd come back.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I hate to think of anyone out in the cold. I can offer you a warm place.”

“I've already found one.”

She ducked her head to hide her disappointment.

He tipped her chin up. “Right here.” He pressed his hand over his heart. “You showed me how to feel again. How to trust. Myself, God and others. I used to fear my emotions. I thought…”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Shh. You were wrong. Your emotions are a gift from God. They enable to you to care. To feel. To—”

“Live and love. I want to do both right here.”

“I could always use a good man.” What did he mean—live and love right here?

“Could you use a husband?” His words were so soft she almost wondered if she'd imagined it.

He pulled her close. “Kate, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and enjoying you and the children. Did you mean it when you said you loved me? Do you still feel the same?”

Her heart burst from its moors and raced wildly for her throat so her words sounded airy. “Hatcher, I love you. I will marry you and spend the rest of my life loving you and enjoying you.” She snorted then laughed at his wide-eyed expression. “You are asking me to marry you?”

He bent his head and his mouth touched her lips so gently tears filled her eyes. And her heart rejoiced.

She drew him into the house. “Tell me where you've been and what made you change your mind.”

“I went home.”

She nodded. “Mary said you were. What did you find?”

He gave a slow, easy smile that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside. “I found my beginnings.”

She sighed. “I hope you have more explanation than that.”

He did. He told her about the welcome of his brother and his wife, and the open arms of his father. “And they persuaded me to go to church. There's a new, young preacher there. When I first saw him I thought he looked like a weakling. But as soon as I heard him, I knew he had a fiery spirit. His words shot straight to my heart. He talked about Jesus being the Prince of Peace. You know the verse in Isaiah fifty-three, verse five?”