“Wilson,” said Margrit. “I don’t want to hear about him. You eat now. We have a cake for Nan. We have something to celebrate.”
The next morning, a sliver of cake waited before our bedroom door. After dinner, I had taken myself to bed. I could not bother to eat a shred more of meat or anything else. The cake lay on its side on a plate, a note beneath it. For Father. With my finger, I tasted the cream. It was salt.
“Oh,” Margrit let out. “They saved you a slice.” She rested her hands on my shoulders. “It was Esther’s idea, baking that cake. She wanted something for Nan.”
“It isn’t much.”
“Jon Julius, if you never give that child a chance.” Margrit moved to straighten the sheets. She seemed to spend longer to dress, wrapping her belt about her waist and pulling it tight. “They’ll never forgive us.”
“It’s thousands of miles away,” I said.
“It’s the Germans. I’m only glad the children know so little Deutsch.”
“Ray and Nan,” I said. “They know what they should.”
“I wish it were less. The Smiths, they changed their name when they first crossed over.”
“Who are the Smiths?”
Margrit remained quiet. She eyed the plate in my hands. There was the shortening we had from Mrs. Conners, the salt and flour. No trade. We had purchased them with dollars no less.
“Lee and Ray won’t go, Julius. They can’t.”
“Wilson has made nothing yet. Lee is too young by a year. If there is a war, it will be over then.”
“What about Ray?”
“Ray.” I sighed. “He has hornets in his stomach.”
“Maybe that Patricia will settle him.”
“First time I heard of Patricia.”
Margrit sat heavily. “Poor Nan. What a day for an engagement. I so hope her Carl stays.”
“I don’t think Nan will have a say in it.”
“And what was Elliot going on about?”
“The man keeps to himself, same as me.”
“You keep to yourself too much.” She looked at me then. “I don’t like this business with the river. Could be the cause of it.”
“Elliot will like it fine when he sees what land I save him.”
“Have a visit with him. You can talk about the boys.”
Outside the door, the children rose from their beds. The girls tumbled down the stairs in a rush and their chairs scraped the kitchen floor. Margrit touched her stomach and lifted her chin. “Breakfast.”
My wife stood and wavered. I reached out my hand, but she set herself right. I watched her go. Her footsteps were quiet in the narrow hall. We had no need of others, surely. Yet had I kept her too much at my side? This house and the comfort in it, it was her own making. Her words to the children were always kind. For myself, I was helpless to extend more than shouts. “They’ll take the land,” Ray had said with his bruised face. “If there’s a war,” said Nan. Of the evening before, only the wreckage of the cake remained. War was coming. Though far overseas, I feared it was gaining on us. If it crossed that ocean, how easily it might bring us to ruin.
III
Wilson announced the draft at the beginnings of June. A million more men he wanted. A million he would gain. Mrs. Conners sewed a flag to raise in the center of town. Mothers scurried to fatten their sons before the arrival of notices. Ray spent his hours combing the winter crops for pests. The fences along our westernmost acres he insisted on mending, though they needed none. One noon dinner he wandered in late in his boots and cap. At the table, only Margrit and I remained.
“I don’t see the point in waiting for my card.”
I rested my cup beside my plate. “You will wait.”
“Why?”
“We need you for the fall harvest. With the new acres I need two boys, not one, and soon those acres will double. Wilson can hang his war for all I care. We still have a third of the riverway to finish. Have you forgotten?”
“What if they draft me before then?”
Across from me, Margrit gripped her fork. Her face was flushed, her gaze fallen to Ray’s throat.
“No,” I said. “I have the new reaper. And the winter wheat is ready for a pass.” I rose to my feet and gazed down at the table with its dishes and scraps. “Come now. If you don’t plan to eat anything, we can start.”
The boy raised his head to speak. He turned instead and rushed out. Margrit brought her napkin to her lips.
“He won’t go if I can keep him.” I touched her shoulder, but she flinched. Since months, the sure-bloodedness of my wife had grown thin. She stood to gather plates, though the plates seemed heavy for her.
At last she spoke. “We can’t keep him.”
Outside, both my sons were at work in the corral. They had the reaper brought out and two of the horses. They readied a third. “That old machine,” I said, “it was little more than a scythe on wheels. But this. ” I clapped the bullwheel. “This is mechanization. We need only two horses.”
“Two?” asked Lee.
“Buck and Telly, they will make it just fine.”
We led the horses to the northernmost field. The rest of our acres were corn and oats, yet the winter wheat was an earlier harvest by months. The following season, I planned not to plant a row of the crop, difficult as it was. Now I hoped it kept Ray from sitting at tables and making pronouncements. The boy trailed silently behind us. Yards from where we walked, the river ran with noise enough.
“Look at that,” said Lee. The water kept to its channel on our side, yet on the far bank it stole clots. Elliot was losing more soil than gaining.
“You boys make a start. You’ll be able to handle this alone. I’ll be seeing Elliot about the river. We will set him right.”
I had not since the fall seen Elliot. I had not gone outside our acres in the months following our trip to town the winter before. Our work in the spring and summer kept us home. Still I carried that tooth in my pocket, a reminder. In my heavy boots, I crossed the fields. The beginnings of June, yet the month had rushed at us with the heat of August. Since a week, the soil had been hot to the touch. It steamed underfoot even after the sun had gone. Now the wind swung eastward. The sky hung above us with spits of rain, steaming the ground further still.
A clank of metal from inside the Elliot barn. I opened the door. The barn was dark save for a lantern lit too close to the floor. Another fire flared from the back wall. When it flared again, I made out the shadow of the man in his mask. He cut a wide sheet of tin with his torch, awkward for him to hold both torch and tin at once. The threat of rain, it must have driven him in. I took another step. A growl stopped me short. Two of the Elliot pups itched in the corner of the closest stall, large as wolves. With their chins on their paws, they bared their teeth. At last Elliot turned off his torch.
“Hess?”
I stood with my hat in my hands and eyed the dogs. “Margrit sends her best.”
Elliot stepped from the dark. His eyes were red, the skin of his chest blotchy where the mask had failed to cover him. He sat on a bale of hay. “Hess.”
“I thought I might call over myself.”
Elliot worked his mouth. I found my own bale of hay. It was shorter than his and closer to the man than I might have wished.
“So you make yourself at home these days,” he said.
“Home? Nothing of the sort.”
Elliot checked the dogs with a glance. Outside, spots of rain stung the tin roof.
“I know what you want,” said Elliot.
“Is that right?”
His eyes widened.
“Margrit was worried. It seems our boys had a spat a few months ago at the old Aster place. Ray earned himself a black eye, though it healed well enough. I am afraid this is the earliest I have had a chance. ”