“Dad said we should check in with Hassie Knight when we reach town,” Lindsay mentioned. A John Mellencamp CD ended, and they turned off the music.
“Hassie,” Maddy repeated. “What an unusual name.”
Lindsay didn’t remember meeting Hassie, but that wasn’t so odd, since the last time she’d visited Buffalo Valley she’d only been ten. “She runs the town’s pharmacy and is apparently something of an institution,” Lindsay told her. “The pharmacy’s the old-fashioned kind with a soda fountain.”
“I haven’t seen one of those in years,” Maddy said.
“Me, either.” Lindsay’s comment was absentminded, her thoughts suddenly distracted by Monte and their impasse. “Hassie has the key to my grandparents’ house. I told Dad I’d check it out while we’re here.”
They rode in silence, until Maddy said, “You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?”
Lindsay stared out the window at the wheat fields. “Yes. I’m worried about what’ll happen once I get home. If I was at the store now, he’d be making excuses to come into accounting, chipping away at my resolve, and before I knew it, everything would be back the way it was.”
Maddy sighed. “You’ve heard me say this before, so bear with me. Either you accept the fact that Monte’s never going to marry you and go on as you were or you break off the relationship entirely. I know you have broken up with him, but I also know you want to take him back. Don’t. Because you’ll never get what you need from him.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Lindsay protested.
“It is simple,” Maddy countered, “but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
“How can I avoid him?” Lindsay cried out in frustration. “We work in the same place. It’s impossible not to see him every day.” It wasn’t likely her uncle would fire his best salesman over what he considered a lovers’ spat. Nor would she want him to. Still, it made for an uncomfortable situation all around. Naturally she could look for work elsewhere, but she enjoyed her job and there were benefits in working for her uncle that she didn’t want to relinquish.
“That isn’t the real problem though, is it?” Maddy asked.
Briefly Lindsay closed her eyes. “No. I…I’ve broken up with Monte once before—a year and a half ago, remember?—and I’m afraid the same thing’s going to happen again. I told myself it was over and I meant it. I insisted that nothing he could say or do, short of arriving with a wedding license, would make me change my mind.”
“He wore you down then and you’re afraid he’ll do it again.”
Lindsay nodded. Monte had pleaded with her, sent her cards, gifts, flowers, courted her. He wanted to maintain their relationship, but he wanted it on his terms. And he liked things just the way they’d always been. No change and no commitment. No formality and no promises.
“What’s wrong with me, Maddy?” Lindsay wailed. “Am I really so weak?”
“No.” Maddy’s response was emphatic.
“Then why am I stuck in a relationship that makes me this miserable?”
Maddy studied the road. “I’m a social worker, not a counselor, but I’m also your friend. It’s like I said, either you accept what Monte’s willing to offer, or you get out of the relationship. And stay out.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she murmured. Monte had already made it clear. He didn’t intend to lose her, nor would he give her what she wanted. “He genuinely cares about me, and he knows I care for him, too.”
“I realize all that,” Maddy concurred, “but he’s using you. You’re convenient, fun and you love him. He needs that. He needs you.”
“But not enough to marry me and have children with me.” She continually had to remind herself of that. She envied her sisters their families. Whenever she spent time with her nieces and nephews, she came away with a hollow feeling deep inside. A longing for children of her own.
Maddy’s look was sympathetic.
“I’m watching the best years of my life go down the drain,” Lindsay said. “I want children. I really do.” That was the crux of the matter. With her thirtieth birthday fast approaching, Lindsay was beginning to feel a sense of urgency, a desire to anchor her life with a husband and family.
“Well, then, the only way you’ll ever be free of him is to stick to your guns. You’ve broken it off. Don’t change your mind, and don’t let him change it for you.”
They drove in silence for ten or fifteen minutes, each caught up in her own thoughts. The plains continued, mile after mile of flat golden land, with an occasional farmhouse in the distance. Lindsay remembered her grandfather telling her that what he missed most about life on the farm was the solitude. And the silence. It was all the people crowding in around him at the retirement center that had made the adjustment so difficult. She hadn’t really understood what he’d meant until now, as she gazed at these acres of wheat, rippling lightly in the hot wind. They hadn’t seen another car in some time and hadn’t yet seen anyone in the fields.
As they approached Buffalo Valley, Lindsay noted with surprise that the highway didn’t go through town anymore, the way it had in years past. A sign from the main thoroughfare pointed in the direction of Buffalo Valley, which was located off the road. Maddy slowed the car and made the right-hand turn.
Before Lindsay left Savannah, her parents had warned her that Buffalo Valley had changed, but nothing could have prepared her for the shock.
“My goodness,” she whispered as they drove down the main street. There were potholes in the road and the pavement was badly cracked. A number of the stores were boarded up. The large plastic sign for the catalog store was torn, and half of it was missing. The windows were smudged and dirty. The movie theater, with its sign advertising twenty-five cent popcorn, had obviously been vandalized. At the end of the road, the gas station with its old-fashioned rounded pumps looked like it belonged on a postcard from the 1950s. It appeared to be in use; they’d seen another one on their way into town, and that was boarded up.
The most prominent business was Buffalo Bob’s 3 OF A KIND Bar & Grill & Hotel.
“At least there’s a place we can spend the night,” Maddy said with what sounded like relief.
The only brick building in town was the bank, which still seemed to be in operation. The grocery was next to that, and something called the “Old Country Store,” which sold antiques and such. A sign in the window boasted that there wasn’t anything Joshua McKenna couldn’t repair.
“That must be the pharmacy,” Maddy said as she parked the Bronco on the side of the street. Compared to the other businesses, the drugstore looked clean and fresh. Painted white, it stood out like a beacon in the center of town. Two large pots of flowering red geraniums bloomed by the door.
Knight’s Pharmacy was exactly as her dad had recounted, with matching white benches below the large windows. The only thing that had faded was the semicircle of gold lettering on the glass. A large sign propped against the corner of one window read TEACHER WANTED.
“I don’t know about you,” Lindsay said, “but I could use a nice tall vanilla ice-cream soda.”
“I could use something,” Maddy agreed, and followed her inside.
Despite its bare wooden floors and old-fashioned hanging lights, the store was a full-service pharmacy selling a little of everything—shampoo and toiletries, postcards and souvenirs, boxed candy, hardware items and such novelties as colorful glass angels with little suction cups to place in a window.
“Can I help you?” an older woman called from the back of the store. The actual pharmacy was in the rear, built up six or eight inches so the proprietor could keep an eye on anyone who entered.
“Hassie Knight?” Lindsay asked the old woman, who was tall and spare, dressed in a cotton shirtwaist dress. Her wiry silver hair was neatly tucked behind her ears.
The woman nodded. “Who might you be?”
“Lindsay Snyder…”
“Gina’s granddaughter!”
Hassie hurried out from behind
the counter and held out her arms as if greeting long-lost family. “Your father phoned and told me you were planning to drop by. My, oh my, let me take a good look at you.”
Before Lindsay could object, she was wrapped in a warm embrace. “This is my friend Maddy….”
“Pleased to meet you, Maddy.” Hassie hugged her, too.
“Oh, my, it’s certainly good to see you. Set yourself down at the counter and let me make you the best soda in two hundred miles.” She led them to the far side of the pharmacy. Not needing a second invitation, Lindsay and Maddy slid onto the stools. The mahogany counter was polished to a fine sheen. Lindsay had never seen another counter like it—except in old movies.
“I have the key to the house, but I hope you’re not planning to spend the night there,” Hassie said as she scooped vanilla ice cream into tall, narrow glasses.
“Oh, no. Dad told me we’d need to find other accommodation.”
“Buffalo Bob will fix you up,” Hassie assured them both. “Now, don’t let his appearance give you any worry. He’s gentle as can be.”
Lindsay and Maddy shared a suspicious glance.
Hassie set the two soda glasses on the counter. “Drink up,” she urged, giving them each a glass of ice water, as well.
“How many people live in Buffalo Valley these days?” Maddy asked, between long sips.
Hassie hesitated for a moment. “Thirty years ago we had around five hundred or so, counting the farmers and their families. Saturday evenings, this town was bustling.”
“And now?”
Hassie shrugged. “Less than half that, I’d guess. Closer to two hundred would be more like it. The last twenty years have been hard on farmers. Real hard.”
Lindsay nodded. “I see you’re looking for a teacher,” she said next, motioning toward the sign in the window.
Hassie perked up right away. “Either of you interested?”
“Sorry,” Maddy said, raising one hand. “I’ve already got a job.”
“What’s it pay?” Lindsay didn’t know why she bothered to ask. Curiosity, she supposed. Her dad had told her the town was dying and she shouldn’t expect much. Nevertheless, she’d been surprised when they arrived; Buffalo Valley was a sad little town not unlike several others they’d passed that day, but her impressions of it, based on twenty-year-old memories, were still so vivid. Reality hadn’t quite penetrated yet or displaced the earlier image that lived in her mind. At one time, Buffalo Valley had been the picture of small-town America, with a flag flying high above the post office and banners across Main Street. The summer her family had come to visit, Lindsay remembered that the high school had won the state football championship and proudly announced it with a huge banner strung between the pharmacy and the grocery store across the street.
“You applying for the job?” Excitement flashed in Hassie’s blue eyes.
“No, no.” Lindsay laughed and shook her head.
“We’re in real need of a high-school teacher,” the pharmacist said, leaning her elbows on the counter. “As you might’ve noticed, we’ve fallen upon hard times here.”
Lindsay had noticed.
“You have a minor in education, don’t you?” Maddy reminded her.
Lindsay glared at her friend.
“We need a teacher in the worst way.” Hassie gazed at her, eyes bright with hope.
Move to Buffalo Valley? Her? As a teacher? It was enough to make Lindsay choke on her drink.
Three
Gage Sinclair had spent the morning riding the field cultivator down the long rows of maturing corn. He had nearly a thousand acres planted in corn, two hundred less than the previous year. If the weather held, he could expect to clear a hundred bushels per acre, but if there was one thing he’d learned in his years of farming, it was not to count his bushels before the harvest.
His mother was waiting for him when he parked the cultivator and climbed down. Days like this he had a thirst that wouldn’t quit. He’d taken a half gallon of iced tea with him, but that had disappeared quickly.
“Lunch is ready,” she called when she saw him.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he called back, looking around for his half brother.
Gage hadn’t seen Kevin all morning, and he suspected the boy had stolen away to be with Jessica again.
Gage washed up, then walked into the kitchen, inhaling the mouthwatering aroma of freshly baked bread. His mother routinely baked bread and cinnamon rolls on Saturday mornings.
“Where’s Kevin?” he asked, pulling out a chair.
Leta glanced up, surprised. “I thought he was with you.”
“I told him to change the oil in the pick-up when he finished his chores,” he said between enormous bites of his sandwich. It’d been eight hours since he’d last eaten and he felt hollow inside. It was going to take more than a couple of roasted chicken sandwiches to fill him up.
“He did that a couple of hours ago.” Leta turned her back to him and busied herself with something he couldn’t see, but Gage wasn’t fooled.
“You talked to anyone in town lately?” he asked. He didn’t need to elaborate; they both knew he was referring to the crisis with the school.
“No,” Leta mumbled. “Don’t worry, Gage. Everything will work out.”
Her optimism and faith had become an irritation to him, although he should be accustomed to both by now. Hassie Knight wasn’t any better. They seemed to believe that, somehow or other, a new teacher would be found to replace Eloise Patten. As if hiring a replacement was a simple, everyday occurrence. Gage knew it wasn’t going to happen. “Mom, it would be doing Kevin a disservice to send him away to finish high school. It’s time he accepted responsibility for the farm.”
“I agree.”
“Then you’ll consider letting him home-school?” Gage was well aware of all the problems with that solution. He knew it wasn’t ideal, especially for Kevin. But it was the best he’d come up with.
His mother sighed. “We’ve already gone over this countless times, and my position hasn’t changed.”
“You can’t keep ignoring the realties.” Gage wolfed down the second sandwich before the discussion ruined his appetite. Moving Kevin in with his aunt and uncle wasn’t the right solution. He should be learning more about the everyday operation of the farm. True, the boy deserved a decent education, and Gage was willing to see him through high school—some college, if possible—but this land technically belonged to Kevin, not Gage. Unfortunately, his half brother had some difficult lessons to learn. The land didn’t hold his heart, not the way it should. At this point in his life, Kevin thought about only two things: Jessica and his sketchbook. He did what was asked of him, but with little pride and less joy.
Gage, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Farming was his life and like generations before him, he felt most alive when his eyes were filled with grit, his lips chapped and his neck red with sunburn. The land sustained his soul. If he never left North Dakota again, it would suit him just fine. He knew plenty of farmers who’d lived their entire lives without ever traveling outside the state. Whether you raised crops or livestock, the land meant responsibility, day in, day out. A man didn’t leave behind what was most important to him.
“Kevin’s probably drawing up in the hayloft,” Leta said.
“Not in this heat.” Drawing was all well and good, but it wasn’t serious, not for them. Not like farming. But Gage couldn’t force Kevin to care about something he obviously didn’t. He lived with the hope that eventually the boy would appreciate the rhythm of life played out each year on the farm. That he’d learn to see the particular beauty that was so much a part of his inheritance.
“I need to drive into town this afternoon,” his mother told him when he’d finished lunch. She hesitated, then added, “You could use a haircut.”
Gage ran his hand through his hair, knowing she was right. Cutting hair wasn’t something she especially liked; she’d do it, but preferred if he had Hassie tak
e a pair of scissors to his thick head.
“I’ve got things to do.”
“Whatever it is can wait.”
His mother didn’t disagree with him often. Suggesting he drive her into town was her way of telling him he’d been working too many hours, and it was time for a break.
“Fine.” She was generally right about matters such as this, and he’d learned to heed her wisdom.
She patted him on the shoulder as she walked into the bedroom to gather her things.
Grumbling under his breath, Gage washed, changed his shirt and dragged a brush through his hair. It was nearly a month since he’d last been to town, not that there was much to see these days. He’d have Hassie cut his hair, if she had time, and then share a beer or two and some conversation with whoever was over at Buffalo Bob’s.
“I left a note for Kevin,” his mother told him when he joined her. She had a basket of eggs over her arm, her purse and a vase full of flowers. The eggs and flowers were for Hassie in exchange for the haircut. Like him, Leta never expected anything without payment. As a farmer, Gage often skimped on luxuries, but he’d never run short on pride.
Gage turned on the car radio as he drove into Buffalo Valley. KFGO, “the Mighty 790” AM radio station in Fargo, played country music, which Gage and Leta both enjoyed. Working out in the fields, Gage rarely listened to the radio. He didn’t need music when he could hear a melody in the wind. Besides, the radio distracted him. The time he spent on the tractor helped him sort out the answers to life, answers he found in silence.
It was a thirty-minute ride into town.
“You recognize that car?” His mother motioned toward the new Bronco parked in front of the pharmacy.