~ The Homesteader's Legacy ~

by

Mary Jean Kelso

A young girl’s scream, a baby’s wail, and a toddler’s cry broke the quiet of the countryside near Moriarty, New Mexico. Although unheard by neighbors too distant to help, their voices screeched a heartrending cry.

Their mother lay writhing in pain in the dirt at their feet.

Only moments before, Molly Westerman had stood on the steps of her fine home, her eyes contentedly scanning her surrounding one hundred and sixty acres of farmland.

It had been a challenge to reach this level of success. She was proud of the work the whole family had done to make their dream come true.

She’d smiled as she’d looked at the windmill’s blades spinning in the hot afternoon breeze. They’d reminded her of the day her husband, Trace, had come into their lives. At first, she had thought him a drifter, up to no good--untrustworthy. Later, she had thought her heart would burst with happiness when she learned their love was mutual.

Two of her stepchildren, from her first marriage, Rosie and Seth, were busy with chores nearby: Rosie, behind her, rocked baby Jacob in the cradle his proud father had made him. Eight-year-old Seth piled firewood beneath the big black kettle so Molly could make lye soap. Little Emmy, Molly and Trace Westerman’s first born, clung to her mother’s skirts as they watched Molly’s eldest stepson, Andy, ride his beautiful black horse, Comet, along the back fence line. The variegated gray and white dog, Crazy Leg, bounded behind, barely out of reach of Comet’s back hooves.

Life could not get much better than this, Molly had thought happily.

Then, she clutched her chest and lurched forward, falling from the front porch steps and landing on her knees in the soft dirt before her.

“Ma! What’s wrong?” Rosie shrieked.

Emmy cried out as her mother’s forward movement dragged the toddler, whose fists were entwined in the fabric of her bright yellow skirt, to the ground with her where she lay now, face down in the good earth.

The pain in Molly’s chest was like a bullet ripping through her flesh and she gasped trying to catch her breath and wondering if she had been shot.

What is wrong?

Molly’s palms were on the ground and she clutched her fingers into the granular soil trying to withstand the pain.

“Ma!” Rosie screamed again, as she ran to Molly’s side.

Her shrill voice, when she saw Molly’s graying face, hurt Jacob’s ears. Jacob screwed his face into a scowl and began howling. Emmy, already frightened by the fall, and crying, raised her voice louder in the mourning chorus.

Seth, having run to stand alongside Molly’s now prone body, stood, silently staring at her in disbelief.

Where is Pa? Rosie wondered as she moved to try to right Molly from the ground.

She stopped shrieking, for the children’s sakes, but the two babies still wailed while she tugged at Molly’s arms to turn her on her back.

There was no color in Molly’s face, now. Rosie held her fingers beneath Molly’s nose and felt no breath. She drew her hand back slowly and began to sob, stuffing one fist into her mouth to stop the horrid sound before she alarmed the babies even more.

Trace, drawn from his workshop in the barn by the ruckus, ran at full speed past Molly’s brilliant hollyhocks near the kitchen window and around the corner of the house. He skidded to a halt when he saw the scene before him, then dropped to his knees at Molly’s side.

He took her arms, gently, and lifted her, leaning her shoulders across his thighs where he knelt in the soft dirt.

She wasn’t breathing.

He felt the vein in her neck for a pulse.

He felt none.

Molly’s dead! His mind didn’t want to grasp the meaning of the words.

He wanted to beat the ground with his fists. He let his head drop backward and his eyes stared straight up toward the sky as if he was searching for an answer there.

God! How could You do this? He gritted his teeth and felt the pain throughout his body. How would he live without Molly? She, and the children, had become his whole life. The children. Concern for them, over that for himself, surfaced from the deep well of his grief.

“Rosie,” he spoke quietly when he found his voice once more, “take Emmy and the baby inside and try to calm them. I’ll take care of Molly.”

“But, she’s de--,” Rosie broke off and blubbered.

Trace put a big arm around the girl and held her close to him. Her head reached only to his first rib and he held her tighter than was comfortable for her.

Rosie was soon to be eleven and, for such a tiny person, he sensed a big job lay ahead of her.

“I know. But, let’s not upset the babies any more.”

Tears burned behind his eyelids, but he tried to hold his emotions in check to reassure the children.

As he comforted Rosie, he remembered Molly running to greet him when he had returned from Texas to marry her. He could still see, in his mind, the sunshine yellow of her skirt whipping behind her as she ran down the drive toward him. He saw the wide smile across her lips as she tried to run and breathe at the same time. He could still feel the warmth of her body in his arms as he embraced her. He looked down at her face, now, as her features grew more ashen with every second.

Molly’s determined spirit was somewhere else now.

“Go, Rosie. Take care of the little ones,” he said in a scratchy voice.

Trace bent once more to Molly’s side. This time he scooped his arms beneath her shoulders and knees. When he began to lift her, a gush of air rose from her mouth.

Was it the pressure of his arms against her back which caused her lungs to expel a final breath?

Rosie picked up baby Jacob’s cradle. She positioned it against one hip and held it there with her arm wrapped around the wooden frame. With her free arm she reached out for Emmy’s hand and led her inside the house.

Quickly, Trace laid Molly back on the ground and felt for a pulse. His calloused fingers sensed nothing. He moved them to the side of her neck. Pressing gently against the main artery, he held still and waited a second. Then, two seconds. At last, a faint beat pressed back against his fingertips.

Molly groaned slightly.

“Rosie,” he called out toward the open front door, “she’s still alive. Run quickly and send Andy for the doctor.”

Trace knelt beside Molly again. Gently, he scooped his arms beneath Molly shoulders and legs once more. Trace rose to his feet with Molly in his arms. He carried her carefully into the house. He climbed the stairs, sideways, to the bedroom to avoid banging Molly’s head against the wall.

He laid her on the patchwork cover on the big bed in their room. He straightened her skirt and untangled the fine strands of her long red hair, to lie alongside her face. He thought of the many happier nights they had spent in that same bed. He dropped to his knees onto the crocheted rag rug on the floor beside the metal-framed bed.

“Molly, can you hear me?”

He grabbed her wrist and felt for the pulse. It was stronger, now.

He kissed Molly’s hand, dampening its calluses with tears before laying it down across her waist. Whatever had happened could occur again. He laid his head on his arms atop the patchwork cover next to Molly. There, he let his own tears flow. Wracked by sobs he didn't want the children to hear, he moved to the window and lifted it in the hope the sounds he made would pierce the air outside instead of bringing the children to the room.

When he finally turned, he saw Andy standing in the open doorway staring at Molly.

Andy’s eyes looked searchingly at Trace’s sullen face.

“She’s alive, barely. Her heart must have stopped,” Trace said simply, though he couldn't understand how someone with so much love in her heart could have it quit so suddenly and at such a young age.

“Hurry and get Doc Landry. I’ll do what I can, but I don't know how much that will be.”

Stunned, Andy turned away.

She can’t die. She was the one to hold the family together when Pa died. She can’t die. He hesitated in the doorway and leaned his forehead against the wall, fighting back tears. Then he spun around and burst down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the front door.

He leaped onto Comet’s bare back.

They hit the main road at maximum speed as Andy urged the horse on. Maybe if they ran fast enough he could outrun this fear he felt inside. Maybe Doc Landry could do something for Molly if he hurried.

When Trace came back downstairs to the kitchen, Seth and Rosie were feeding Emmy a slice of the coarse bread Molly had baked the day before. They spread thick butter across its top and sprinkled it with sugar and cinnamon. Occasionally, Seth helped himself, to Emmy’s frown of dismay.

Quickly, Trace grabbed a clean flour sack towel and the bucket of water sitting on the table. He hurried back upstairs.

Rosie watched him go with a worried furrow across her brow. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe--like someone was squeezing the air out of her lungs and holding on tight so it couldn’t go back where it belonged.