Lost on the Prairie

  Dedicated to my mother, Dorothy Marie Schmidt Peters, who had endless faith in me and never failed to celebrate and affirm me as a writer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Author's Note

  Study Guide

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  ''HE'S NOT DOING IT. I won’t allow it.”

  I’m yanked from my dreams by Mama’s voice, louder than when she hits the highest hallelujah singing duets in church with Papa. Bits of moonlight dance on my quilt. It must be after midnight.

  “Land sakes! Peter is only twelve years old. All kinds of dreadful things could happen to him.”

  I don’t know how my little brother Alvin can still be snoring beside me. Mama’s worry snakes up two flights of stairs and ricochets off the sloping ceiling of our attic bedroom.

  “What if the train is robbed? What if the horses get sick? What if there’s an early snowstorm?”

  Mama’s words conjure a thrilling scene: Two masked outlaws have their rifles pointed at my chest. The snorting of my horse Prince makes them turn their heads and I escape, only to get caught in a sudden blizzard. I am plowing through deep snow when Mama’s sharp voice interrupts my imagination.

  “Nein, nein, nein!” Mama insists. “He’s not going.”

  Sometimes when she’s hot and bothered Mama speaks German, the language of her childhood.

  This is my last night in the farmhouse in Newton, Kansas, where I’ve lived since the day I was born. My family is moving to Canada. Tomorrow I, along with my brothers Levi and Sylvester, will begin a ride across the prairie on a slow freight train with our chickens, pigs, cows, horses, farm tools, pots and pans, and furniture. Papa only told me I’d be going along with my brothers this morning when we were milking the cows in the barn. I guess he told me before he told Mama.

  “I just lost one son. I’m not going to lose another.” Mama’s voice is a touch quieter now but just as firm. “Peter can’t go.”

  “Peter is strong and smart,” says Papa, which makes me wiggle my toes under my quilt. “Besides, we haven’t got a choice.”

  I sigh and bury my face in my pillow. We don’t have a choice because my oldest brother, Herman, is over in the church cemetery. He was to ride in one of the train cars with the horses. Now I have to take his place.

  Herman was eighteen years old and so excited about our family’s move to Canada, but one February morning, when Mama went to wake Herman, he was dead in his bed. We don’t know why. Papa called the postmaster, who does a bit of doctoring, but he just shook his head and said, “Might have been his heart.”

  We buried Herman during such a cold spell that we needed two wagonloads of hot coals to thaw the ground enough to dig his grave.

  Herman had been reading a book called Captains Courageous out loud to Alvin and me. It was by a fellow named Rudyard Kipling. Every night, just before bed, we’d light the kerosene lamp and sit around the dining room table together. Herman’s voice made the young boy Harvey’s adventures at sea seem real as could be. The day Herman died we were about to finish the book.

  After Herman’s funeral Alvin and I took Captains Courageous up to our room. We sat on our bed, and I tried to read the last chapter aloud but the words on the page kept swimming away. When Alvin’s tears started dripping onto my sleeve, I closed the book. Then he and I went down to the kitchen and ate till our stomachs near exploded. Folks had started bringing over food as soon as they heard about Herman dying.

  Mama stayed in her room for six days after the funeral. Papa brought her things she loves—bowls of spicy beet borscht and slices of sweet peach pie; but Mama wouldn’t touch a bite.

  Alvin finally got her out of the bedroom. Alvin gets these shaking fits real regular, and Mama is the only one who knows what to do when his whole body starts trembling and the foam bubbles out the sides of his mouth. She jams a stick between his teeth and holds him just right so he doesn’t bite his tongue or hurt himself too bad.

  When Mama heard Alvin start thrashing and screaming, she bolted out of her room to his side and never went back.

  But she doesn’t smile anymore at breakfast and say, “What new adventures did you dream about last night, Peter?”

  She doesn’t call Alvin “my little man” when he runs errands for her. She doesn’t even hum hymns while she’s making supper.

  WE DRIVE INTO NEWTON BEFORE dawn. A rucksack with some of my clothes and Captains Courageous is nestled in the straw in the back of the wagon. Sylvester and Levi rode our horses Prince and Gypsy down to the station near sunset yesterday, just after all the neighbours had circled onto our farmyard with their wagons to haul our belongings and animals into town. My big brothers stayed at the station for the night to watch over everything.

  Mama is fearful quiet as we roll down the road lined with trees turning a dozen kinds of red and gold. Papa fills in the empty spaces with cheerful talk. “You’re growing up, Peter. You can do this. I’d go myself, but I have to stay here and settle our loan at the bank and be sure everything is shipshape for the folks who’ve bought the farm. Mama and Alvin and I will board the passenger train and follow you in three days.”

  I nod every now and then as Papa talks, but it is hard to listen to his words because my heart is pounding so big and mighty I think my family might hear it. I am setting off on an adventure, and I can’t wait for it to start.

  Papa keeps giving instructions. “The train will stop in different cities and you will get out, buy something to eat, talk to your brothers, and see to the horses.”

  Alvin pipes up, “I’m glad you’ll be with Prince and Gypsy, Peter, so they won’t be lonely.”

  I smile at Alvin, who knows the horses are my good pals. It’s been my job to feed and water them since I was his age.

  When we arrive at the station, the train is already there, and Sylvester and Levi along with three of my uncles have loaded everything up. Alvin plugs his ears because our animals are setting off a fearsome racket, chickens squawking, pigs squealing, and cows bellowing. They are just as excited about the trip as I am.

  The conductor, whose thick brown moustache almost hides his wide mouth, yells, “All aboard!”

  Mama and Papa and Alvin go to Sylvester and Levi’s cars near the engine to say goodbye, and then they walk down the platform to mine at the end of the train. Mama hands me an old sugar sack that smells of spicy pickles, smoked sausage, buttered bread, and her dried cinnamon apples. Then she hugs me, and her arms squish the air out of my lungs clear to my ribs. Two hot tears slip across her cheeks and slide down my neck.

  I can tell Mama wants to say something. She gnaws her lips and opens them so wide I can see all of her teeth right to he back of her mouth, but only short gasps come up from her throat. Papa shakes my hand strong and steady, and then he puts his arm around Mama’s shoulders and leads her away. She doesn’t look back at me, but Alvin does.

  “Bye, Peter!” he shouts and gives me a huge grin and a wave.

  I wave back. “See you soon.”

  I plant both my hands on the edge of the railway car and swing my legs up into the pile of fresh straw. Prince and Gypsy nicker hello. Their eyes are wide as mine.

  I can tell they’re nervous about their strange surroundings because they’ve each already le
ft a dump of dung under their tails. I grab the shovel propped in the corner of the railway car and quickly scoop up their mess and sling it outside.

  “Careful, boy,” hollers the conductor as he does a little dance around a steaming pile of horse droppings that land close to his feet.

  “Ready for me to shut the door?” he asks. I nod and stand between Gypsy and Prince, holding both their manes tight as ever I can. The huge wooden panel slides shut and the conductor throws the bolt in place.

  Light washes down through an opening in the ceiling. A whistle shrieks, metal screeches, and the train jerks forward so powerful I almost tumble. Then we pick up speed, till we are hurtling like a pitcher’s baseball down the tracks. Little streams of autumn wind rush in through the cracks in the car. Prince and Gypsy paw the straw with their hooves and toss their heads in excitement.

  “Time for adventure!” I shout.

  Chapter 2

  IT'S A MITE CHILLY IN the railway car, and my stiff fingers are finding it hard to kink around Grandpa Hugo’s puzzle. Grandpa connects nails in twisted ways to make puzzles exasperating to untangle. “In and out, over and under . . . Dang it all.”

  “This one’s called the Rattlesnake,” Grandpa Hugo chuckled, slipping the puzzle into my pocket when I went to say goodbye to him. “Hope it doesn’t drive you crazy on that long trip.”

  Grandpa’s eyes shone bright. “Wish I was going with you, Peter. Don’t let those cold Canadian winds blow your memories of Kansas clear out of your head. Remember there’s still a warm southern family holding you close in prayers to the Almighty.”

  Grandpa Hugo shook my hand real firm and then emptied his nose into his handkerchief with a thundering snort. “Gruss Gott,” he said. Go with God.

  I get up to check on Gypsy and Prince. They are whinnying and pawing the straw.

  “Something got you spooked?” I ask, rubbing their shaking shanks before sitting down again in the warmest corner of the railcar with Grandpa’s puzzle. As I slip two nails apart I remember how Grandpa Hugo and I went gopher shooting one last time.

  “Don’t you worry none,” said Grandpa, scanning the bare fall field. “There will be plenty of gophers up there in Canada.”

  “Do you think I’ll get a penny at the general store for the tails like I do here in Kansas?”

  “Might be, though I’ll never understand why. Imagine the government paying people to shoot those chubby-cheeked grain robbers when any self-respecting farmer would finish them off for free.” Grandpa Hugo shook his head.

  “I’m glad there’s a reward for killing gophers,” I said. “When Herman and I went gopher shooting he’d give all the tails to me so I could trade them in for peppermint sticks or chewing gum at the store.”

  “You had a mighty fine brother, Peter.” Grandpa put a hand on my shoulder. “Mighty fine.”

  Something is rattling Prince. He’s knocked over his water bucket. I go to set it to rights, scratch his back the way he likes, and then sit down again. I take Captains Courageous out of my rucksack and stroke the cover, thinking about Herman.

  Herman was my best pal. He taught me how to ride a horse and crack a chestnut open. It was Herman got me playing chess and showed me how to keep score in a baseball game. Thanks to Herman I can catch a fish and recognize the call of the whistling duck. And thanks to Herman who up and died, I’m now travelling in this train car instead of him. I wipe away my tears with my shirtsleeve.

  My mind and heart are so full of missing Herman, I don’t notice right off that Prince and Gypsy have gone from being jittery to downright terrified! Driblets of pee leak down their legs. Their breath escapes in raggedy gasps, and the hairs on their backsides spike straight up. I click open Herman’s silver pocket watch that Mama gave me after Herman died.

  The hands say eight o’clock. I know we’re due to stop in Omaha soon for a good long spell. Maybe Sylvester and Levi can help me figure out what’s spooking the horses.

  Gypsy kicks back just then, and the iron shoe on her foot bangs my knee.

  “Owww!” I howl and clutch my knee to my chest. Blood spurts down my leg and soaks into my socks. Gypsy and Prince snort and toss hay back with their hooves. They are dancing from side to side so fast they rock the train car like it’s the cradle Alvin slept in when he was a baby.

  “What’s going on?” I holler.

  Prince turns his head to the right and I see his dark, wet eyes fixed on something curled along the far side of the railcar.

  “A copperhead,” I whisper. “What’s a snake doing in here?”

  Papa and I once discovered a nest of copperheads in a clump of trees alongside our pasture. Papa chopped their heads off clean and quick with a spade.

  “They’ve got poison in those fangs Peter,” warned Papa, as we stared at their dead limp bodies banded in different shades of brown. “It’s a poison powerful enough to kill little Alvin or even Grandpa Hugo now that he’s getting on in years. Better to get rid of these copperheads and be safe rather than sorry.”

  I know for certain the snake sliding towards me now is another copperhead but the shovel Papa left in the railcar is too far away for me to reach.

  Will I get the snake all riled up if I move?

  What should I do?

  My mouth tastes dusty. Perspiration trickles from my hairline down over my forehead till it stings my eyeballs.

  Just then, the copperhead strikes. Its body jerks forward and it snatches something out of the straw. A skinny tail sticks out one side of the copperhead’s mouth. The snake isn’t crunching down; it’s just holding the creature whole, its fangs piercing the tiny body clean through.

  This is my chance. I jump up and sprint across the swaying car to the shovel. I come up behind the snake. I raise the shovel high as my arms can stretch and slam its edge down swift and strong on the copperhead’s neck. Wet slimy stuff oozes out into the straw.

  I lay my head against Prince’s broad, warm side and breathe in and out deep as I can. Then I edge closer to the snake. It isn’t moving. Its orange eyes are blank.

  A faint squealing has me hunkering down. There in the straw are seven tiny, wrinkled, pink-skinned creatures huddled close to their mama. Her eyes are wild and her whiskers are vibrating like the tightest string on Grandpa Hugo’s guitar.

  IT ISN'T LONG BEFORE THE train jolts to a halt and the conductor opens the door on the railcar. “Welcome to Omaha.”

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor. The dead snake is draped around my neck, and my blood-soaked pant leg is rolled up. Sylvester and Levi stand beside the conductor. Their mouths drop when they see me.

  “What happened to you, Peter?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Where did that snake come from?”

  “Why aren’t you wearing your hat?”

  Sylvester and Levi’s questions rush off their tongues and fill the air with curiosity and worry.

  I finger the snake’s dead body slung around my neck. I unbend one leg so they can see the jagged cut with its scab just beginning to crust and pick up the hat I’m balancing in my lap. Moving nice and slow and gentle-like, I hold it out for them to see. It is filled to the brim with straw and seven blind, mewling gophers drinking milk from their trembling mama.

  “Looks like you ain’t been twiddling your thumbs on this trip so far, young man,” says the conductor.

  I tilt my head back and smile so big, my face near cracks wide open.

  Chapter 3

  A LADY WITH LIPS PAINTED raspberry red and hair all high and frizzy smiles and says, “Hello there, handsome fellow,” as she waves her eyelashes up and down in my direction. Her dress collar is so low, I can see a whole lot of her bosom.

  I can almost hear Mama’s voice saying, “It’s not polite to stare, Peter.” But I think if she were here, Mama might be staring too.

  Two men on the street clutch pistols slung around their waists. They shout things at each other that Mama would wash my mouth out with soap for saying.

 
; In his Sunday sermons, Pastor Bartel’s been known to thunder as he slaps the pulpit with his open palm, “Beware of the evil one waiting to pull you into dens of sin.”

  I kind of wonder if maybe I’m in a den of sin right now, because everywhere I look there’s something that makes my heart gallop and my mind burst with questions.

  The conductor announced the train would be in the Omaha station for six hours, so Sylvester and Levi decided we’d do some exploring. First, though, we took Prince and Gypsy out for a walk around the rail yard. Then we left them in the freight car with plenty of water, full pans of oats, and fresh straw to bed down in.

  Levi tried to convince me to drown my gopher family in the barrel of water outside the train station.

  “Those critters aren’t going to survive the long trip to Canada anyway, Peter. It would be better to do away with them now.”

  I’m still thinking on that, but something won’t let me kill that mama gopher and her babies, not after she’s already seen one child die in a copperhead’s mouth. It’s befuddling, especially when I think about all of those gophers’ tails Herman and I have traded in at the store, but for now I’ve made my little gopher gang a nest inside my food sack. It’s got enough crumbs for the Mama gopher to nibble on for quite some time.

  My brothers and I are making our way down Omaha’s 16th Street, trying to dodge all the people out and about enjoying the day. A man wearing a dark suit and a straw hat calls out to us.

  “Omaha Packers are playing today! Come inside and place a wager on the ball game!” Bouncy piano music is coming from the open door behind him and I’d like to go hear it, but Sylvester yanks me back as I take my first step towards the door.

  “That’s a saloon, Peter!” Sylvester shouts. “Mama would have a fit if you went in there. It’s sure to have ladies of the evening and men all liquored up playing poker and gunslingers smoking cigars and maybe even a fortune teller.”

  “Is it a den of sin?” I ask Sylvester.

  “I’m pretty sure it is,” says Levi.

  We turn off 16th Street down Pratt Street, and my brothers commence walking so fast I can’t keep up.