Beckoning Roads

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

(Previous Chapter

Chapter 9

THE STORY THUS FAR: Nancy Porter and Peter Holverson, two marriageable and very~much-in-love young people of a rural Mormon community, found themselves anticipating “their spring” — the spring in which they, with others of their friends, had decided to go to the Temple to be married at June Conference time. But poor agricultural prospects and accumulated debt caused Peter, a high-principled and cautious young man, to postpone the marriage until “better times.” Questioning his motives and his wisdom, and in the anger of her disappointment, Nancy impulsively served notice on her betrothed that the “postponement” would be permanent and the “engagement was off.” The embarrassment was intensified by the fact that two couples of “their crowd,” who were apparently less economically prepared for marriage, decided to go through with their plans notwithstanding. And so these two parted, with hopes postponed — or abandoned.

Living in a discouraged home with a chronically and seriously ill father, discouraged younger brothers, and a work-worn mother, Nancy became rebellious and determined to better her situation. She finally secured a temporary clerical job with a large ranching operation in a nearby section of the country. There was something about Reid Wood, young, impatient, city-bred son of the ranch operator, that she wanted to remember. There was something about Peter Holverson that she couldn’t forget. There was some resentment between Reid Wood and his father that she couldn’t understand. And so she found herself among cross-currents. But with the passing days she found herself liking her job and drawing near to her kindly employer, father Ben Wood — and found her thoughts often drifting to his restless son, Reid, with whom she rode and talked much. A serious accident to Mr. Ben Wood put his son Reid in charge of the ranch, under which responsibility he showed some signs of commendable leadership and some signs of possessive arrogance. Nancy soon learned that her former sweetheart, Peter Holverson, was under serious financial obligation to the Woods — and that young Wood intended to force payment. The intrusion of a presumptuous nurse, Miss Meade, employed to care for Mr. Wood, further complicated an already difficult situation. A brief trip back to Nancy’s home relieved the tension somewhat, after which she returned to her job at the Wood ranch to find that she had been missed by the household in general and by Reid Wood in particular. At a dance, where she went as Reid Wood’s partner, Nancy observed her former sweetheart, Pete, in company with another girl, which added further confusion to her confused heart. . . . Then there followed one thrilling day — out of which came Nancy’s engagement to Reid Wood — and the start of a new journey on a new road.

The days sped by. Happy days. Days filled with fantastic, daring dreams. Nancy insisted that she stay with her work until the first of September. After he had given up the idea of an immediate marriage, Reid was happy to have her stay. He plunged into last haying with a zest that brought a quizzical smile to his father’s eyes and various comments from the men. During those days the girl went about her work with her head in the air, eyes on her hopes. The entire ranch, to her, had taken on an eager waiting intensity. She did not miss the attitude of the men toward her. On the night Mark had heard of the engagement he had gone home and had not returned. Nor did she miss the tang of Mr. Wood’s voice when he introduced her to a buyer from Omaha.

The world was hers. This road she was traveling was an avenue and it lead far from the little house with the bare yard. What could life offer now that was not hers for the asking? Nothing, she decided, and so there was no need of rushing into marriage.

Miss Meade was gone. The owner of the place was up now and hobbling about the house. Often he would have Nancy drive him out where he could look over the fields. He said little, but no detail of what had been done while he was down escaped him. His terse comments told the girl he was not disappointed.

Now it was the last of August and Mr. Christensen was impatiently waiting to take up his work again.

One day Nancy had ridden with Reid to one of the small places Mr. Wood owned at the head of the valley. Fall was on the land and the ditches were dry already. Weeds along the roadside were brittle and heavy with seed.

“Well, Miss Porter, two more days and I am firing you. That’s the first, and Dad thinks he can puddle along without my valuable help while we are gone.”

.

.

“Gone?” Her thoughts went to the others who had gone away to be married.

“You said that as if it were a surprise. Ever hear of honeymoons?” He grasped her saddle horn and rising in his stirrups placed a swift kiss on her lips. “Where will you go, Alaska, Hawaii, Miami, or would you prefer Buenos Aires?”

“I shan’t go anywhere for a while at least. I must have time to — ”

“To what?”

“Get ready. Get some clothes and, and —”

“Clothes? Couldn’t get any here if you waited a year. We’ll get them where we are going. If we go through Chicago we’ll look up Ruth. She knows where to buy them.”

“That will be fun.” But her eyes darkened. Ruth. After all, why not? She would know where to get them. And she was his friend. Through lowered lids she scrutinized him. Determination and purpose had given a new set to his shoulders, a new lift to his head. The men growled at his new-fangled ways of doing things, but were behind him one hundred percent. He had the older man’s flair for handling men and the foresight that came from knowing new and better ways of doing things. Yes. She would like Ruth to know him now. She removed the glove from her hand and looked at the ring he had given her last night. Enough to keep her family for — ages. Enough to send Dale to his coveted school. The eyes that she raised to him were wet,

“Any place will be Heaven with you,” she said.

He reached for her but stopped suddenly and whirled his horse about.

“What now?”

Behind them a truck slid to a stop. It was one of their camp tenders from the Pahsimori. He was grizzled and dusty and when he had stopped the car he spat tobacco juice into the dust of the roadside.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a mess to pay up back there. That Mex, Lupe, let his band mix with the Double Cross fields and old man Shelton is a holdin’ the critters fer damages. He’s plum insulted at having woollies on his cow range. We can’t do nothin’ until somebuddy waves a checkbook under his nose.”

Reid swung from his horse. He handed the reins to Nancy.

“Goodbye, Sweet, for a few days. Just another old sheepherder trick choosing such a time for their carelessness. I’ll be back in two days if I have to tangle with old Shelton personally. Take Clover back with you and tell Dad I’ll try to keep my temper.”

He motioned the driver over and
slid in behind the wheel. Then he swung the truck about. As it headed back toward the mountains he waved goodbye. She kissed her hand to him and waited until it had disappeared in the distance. She rode slowly back, past the fields with their many haystacks, past the deserted lambing sheds and into the corral where she turned the horses over to a man to unsaddle. It had been a happy day. She was singing lightly as she ran into the kitchen. She stopped short at the look on Mrs. Christenson’s face.

“What is it?” she demanded.

The woman inclined her head toward the front of the house but said nothing. Heart tripping with sudden apprehension, Nancy fled to the big room. Mr. Wood was there resting in an easy chair. On the edge of another, hat in hand, was Pete. He looked up as she stood in the doorway and rose quickly.

“What is it? What has happened?” she asked breathlessly.

His heavy brows drew together. Even in this moment she noticed the tenderness of his mouth. She grasped his arm with both hands.

“Tell me. Is it father?”

Pete raised one hand and laid it on her shining head. “He is worse. I came for you.”

The next fifteen minutes were a hectic blur of sounds and faces. Mrs. Chris was there helping to get her necessary clothes. Mr. Wood’s face was gray when she tried to tell him where Reid had gone and what condition the books were in.

“Now never mind stewing over them. I guess there is others that knows something.” He hobbled to his desk and took from it a long brown envelope. He closed her hands tightly over it. “You will need something besides good wishes,” and waved her to the door. “I’ll send the boy as soon as he gets back. Now don’t be a baby. Go on with your head up.” She kissed him with white set lips. As they went down the porch he called, “Better take a car that will get you there.”

Pete did not answer. He put her impudently new suitcase in the back of his truck and held open the door for her.

“We could take a faster car.”

Without any sign of having heard, he slammed the door, and going to the opposite door slid over it to his place behind the wheel. They roared out of the driveway and onto the sagebrush flat. The big ranch had disappeared in the background before she spoke again.

“Tell me, Pete,” she begged.

For an instant the mans eyes searched her face and through a blur of emotions she stirred to a memory. Then his eyes were on the road ahead and his words were coming with maddening deliberation.

“He took worse Saturday. Wednesday, that is last night, we had the doctor. This morning he said to send for you.”

“You could have telephoned. Reid would have taken me right over.”

Again he did not answer. Nancy removed her glove and looked at her ring. Last night she had heard him whisper, “This I am giving you now. And this,” he had shown her another, “when I slip this on your finger you shall be mine. Together, you and I, until death parts us.”

“Until death do us part.” The words hammered at her brain. She looked again into her companion’s face.

“Is it — the end?”

“Yes.”

Blinding panic rose and clutched at her throat, her mind, her tongue. It was that road again. That gloatingly persistent road.

“It shan’t be. I’ll not let it.” She shrieked the words. “Do you see this?” She held her hand with the ring before him. The sunlight caught the gem and shattered it into a million shafts of defiance. “And this,” she drew the brown envelope from her pocket, “this means he is going to get well. It means doctors and hospitals and — and —”

She stopped abruptly. Pete had taken one hand from the steering wheel and laid it over hers hiding the ring. “Poor kid,” he said.

She wept then, tears of defiance and
frustration and finally tears of anguish. Strange, she found it in her heart to be thankful Pete was there beside her.

Somehow they covered the endless miles, and Nancy, now white-faced and quiet, went reluctantly up the path to the house. A hot quiet lay over the place. At the door she drew back, but Pete took her arm. He opened the door and they went in together.

IT was over. Back in the overwhelmingly empty house each took up his accustomed tasks and life went on. Each made futile attempts to fill the vast loneliness. Nancy found herself leaving the oven door down, then remembering, would hastily close it before mother should see.

Nights were the worst. Nancy would wake from a fitful sleep to find her mother lying wide-eyed and silent beside her. How could she be so quiet? How could she each day go on doing the dozens of little things that must be done when her world had changed its orbit? She was more calm than Nancy. Why didn’t the futility of it make her weep? Why didn’t the knowledge of her wasted life bring tears? Always she had done the things she was doing now. Always there had been hardships. So many dreams had gone unfulfilled. All her life she had been denied until her wants had narrowed to necessities. Why had she clung to convictions when discarding them might have meant a way out? Why hadn’t she seen years ago that she was on the wrong road. It was like nothing so much as the trail that lead up Antelope Valley, full of hard climbs and ending in rocks and shrubs.

Over and over the events of the last two weeks marched in disorderly array before the eyes of the girl’s mind. Some things were clear cut, such as his face the night of her return. Others, particularly emotions, were confused and overlapping. There had been a sea of faces out of which Mother’s, bleak and gray, had stayed in her memory. Reid had been there, helpless and a great deal bewildered; hovering over her, showering her with attention, rebelling against this thing that he could not fight or buy. One day there had been Mr. Wood, limping heavily, but helping by his understanding silence.

“I cannot leave now,” she had told Reid. “Not just yet.”

When he would have protested his father had allied with her.

“Of course not. You stay right here with your mother.” Then to his son, “You can make that trip for rams we were discussing a few days ago.”

Always in the background there had been Pete. Quiet, unobtrusive. Seeing to this. Taking care of that. He had taken the bewildered boys home with him. He had sent Jon to help Dale.

There had been sounds, too, and words that still echoed through her consciousness.

“. . . to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection. This I do by the power and authority …”

Power and authority! Power and authority. Reid didn’t understand that. He was in Chicago now, prolonging his stay until she was ready to join him. As she lay in bed one night Nancy’s thoughts were on him and the letter she had received that day. She felt her mother turn.

“Speak to me, mother.”

Lying there, speaking into the dark, Nancy’s mother talked. She told of a lover gay and ambitious; of a young father glorying in his home and babies; reaching to the future, building dreams upon dreams. It was a father the girl could scarcely remember.

“And have you been happy, Mother?”

“Happy?” the voice hesitated. “No, I can’t say I have been exactly happy. Often I have been very unhappy.”

“Then why go on with it? Why stick?”

“We were together; and we had something. I have no name for it. Some might call it contentment, or a sense of Tightness. I am not sure I know the best word. But we were building our lives and yours. We were doing the things that were consistent with our ideals. Like coming out here to get land for the boys. If things didn’t turn out as we wished — well, then we must build the best we could from there. While we did not prosper as we expected, I hope the boys have learned habits of work and thrift that will better fit them for life. All of it has brought a sense of well-being. I could say, “This is my road. I have traveled it the best I knew and have not dropped by the wayside!”

For some time Nancy pondered that. Your success depended on what your aim was. Considered from that angle Mother had not taken the wrong road even if her way led up Antelope valley. It had been treacherous in places, full of blind turns and rocky heights, but together she and Dad had traveled it. Together they had met and conquered, dreamed and builded; and failed in some minor points. Together they had changed so imperceptibly neither had noticed; and they had not remained in the valley. The road led ever higher.

Now for the rest of the journey mother was alone. She would go on up the way that would eventually end in reunion. That was what love did to a man and a woman. It screened decay. It substituted for unfulfillment. It mellowed understanding and tolerance. It kept them from being content in the valley. It finished in reunion. So it must be with her and Reid.

J. he middle of September Dale came in the house to find his mother alone sewing by the window. The little boys were gone and his sister was writing. He sat down by her.

“Listen, mother, I want to talk to you.”

She laid aside her sewing. “What is it?”

He hesitated. When he did speak the words came slowly, “Mother, I am nearly nineteen,”

“Yes. I know.”

“You know, too, I have always wanted to go to school. Some day I may want to farm, but first I want learning and understanding. I want to do something on my own.”

“What, for instance?” She recognized this as the urge to conquer, to subdue. “There is no more land to be homesteaded.”

“No, but land is still a challenge if there isn’t any left to give away. So is farming. And that is only one thing out of a world of things. I want to know something as well as Pete knows farming.”

“But Pete isn’t making anything now.”

“That is immaterial. He is alive to new and better ways of doing his work. He will have a full life for he has understanding. That is what I want. What I make is only a small part of it.”

“I know, son. I have dreamed those dreams for you. Some day —”

“I am going now.” The boy’s voice hardened. “I am going next week.”

“But how can you?”

“I mean I am going to school. Times and jobs are changing. What I want I must go to school to get. The small insurance father carried will just about take care of expenses. It will take only a day to get the spuds up. What chicken feed there is is in the stack. See here, Mother, don’t think I am hard-hearted but I have got to live my own life. And, and, well,” he blurted the rest out rapidly, “you are a widow now and counties pay them pensions.”

“Dale.”

“I can’t help it. I have been talking to Mr. Saunders. He says there is talk of the government buying up this land that hasn’t sufficient water and turning it back to sage. If that doesn’t go through he can get you a trade for an acre or two near town where you can have your chickens. Then with what the boys — ”

“What about you?”

“I am asking Nancy for a little to start me off, if she has any left. If she marries Reid she won’t need any of it.”

For a long moment the mother sat perfectly still, only her fingers moving, picking restlessly at her apron.

“Then what?”

“If you are taken care of I can make my own way. Will you let me try it?”

“I may be able to spare you some.”

“Not on your life. All I want of you is permission.”

He rose and stood looking down at her. She searched the face of this her strong purposeful son. Memories of another built so like him gave her strength. Rising she put her hands on his shoulders.

“I am so glad and we will pray God to help. Somehow, without realizing we were doing it, I think we have given you the best heritage after all. I am sure we have.”

“What is this I hear?” Nancy stood in the doorway.

“I am going to school if you will help me.”

“I was going to suggest it. I will have to get a few new things. I’ll see what I have.”

Dale went over their combined accounts. “Huh. Not much, but any will help.” He drew a deep breath and faced them. “It is almost too good to be true.”

“When I am married — ”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he interrupted curtly. “I’m not taking any money from Reid Wood. Not that I blame you, in a way. I am just telling you.”

So it happened a week later Nancy drove their battered old car south of town mile after mile. When the gauge showed the gas was getting low she stopped. Opening the door, Dale got out. They were in the desert. All about them were acres and miles of sagebrush. Through it the road ran off into the distance. Just ahead was a crossroad.

Dale came to her side of the car. She looked closely at him. Was it, could it be fear she saw in his eyes? It could be, but the set of his shoulders denied it.

“Got your trunk?” she asked lightly to cover an awkward pause. He slapped first one pocket and then another.

“Yep. Right here. The rest will follow by mail.”

“All right, big boy. Good luck.”

He leaned and caught her in a desperate hug. For a moment they clung to each other. Then squaring his shoulders the boy walked away, passing the crossroad, and without a backward glance went down the beckoning road to his future. Nancy watched until his form blended with the sage.

“Please, Heavenly Father, help him to get there.”

She must go back. She got out to turn the crank. As she slipped into her seat again she noticed her old black pocketbook in the seat beside her. While the car barked and spluttered she opened it and took a long brown envelope. Inside it were bills. She had intended slipping some of them into Dale’s pocket. It was just as well that she hadn’t. Vaguely she sensed that to make his own way, to fight his own battle, was after all what he was working for; and without it there would be no satisfaction for this strong-minded boy.

“Not that I blame you, in a way.” He was standing by his colors but he thought she was not. But he was mistaken. They were all mistaken. She knew her own mind. She had written Reid last night and told him she was ready to be married now. Not that I blame you, in a way. Why should he talk in riddles? Hastily she grasped the wheel and turned the car about. She would drive fast, fast, fast. She would drive back to her new and better life.

(To be continued)