Little Bluestem: Stories from Rural America

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  The distance to Bear Valley is not far. Prob’bly twelve, fifteen miles if you take the Lobo. You can run the ridge most of that, and in the fall, that’s the place to be, with the valleys, hollers and bottomland holding all that russet and gold.

  Going back was a kind of solemn drive. Too much was seen. He rolled down the window until it was too cold and hadn’t even thought much about the wagon behind with all of Lester’s gear. Temple gear. Just drove and looked at the leaves and the color. Can’t beat the season for the color. But its raw, too, especially up on the ridge. Real raw.

  It was funny how it went. He would never had thought it. Turning on to the highway at Readstown, heading back down Highway 14, and then off onto the gravel of the township road. When he slowed for the turn, and started down through all those popple, mindlessly looking at the fence of Cecil’s place, wondering how he was keepin’—well—that’s when the memories seemed to line up and come, one after another.

  There was no stoppin’ them. And they came on not hard. Not rushin’ but more like fallin’ leaves as he drove down through them, leaves drifting down like pictures. It was like she should be there when he drove into the yard. Like maybe she’d be on the porch with things from the garden. And would look up. Or he would see her outline in the light from the kitchen.

  He was coming down the lane, now. Frog’s Hollow. The bottom land to the south looked good but he hardly saw it, thinking. It had come fast. Eight years ago real fast it had come. He had plans. Do it right, he had said. Hang it up. Coil it. Fold it. Grease and oil it. Wipe it off. Sweep it. Brush it down. Cover it before the rain. That’s the way it had always been for him. Alone. Careful. A Lester man. So when she appeared, he was not going to rush things. No. Would be right. Come over Sundays and sit up at the house. Do the chores and wash up. Come Sunday noon for dinner she had said. Week after week. Sitting out in the warmth of the summer was what he remembered most. And the soft of her hair, lookin’ down. Her laugh. The worn look of her hands, her own children growed now and gone.

  Why move fast? Things would come when they was right and proper. But then IT had come. Real fast. Tired all the time she had said. Didn’t look different. He could touch her and they could kiss and he could hold and she’d be just the same. But she complained of it. Blood tests showed it. Had been growing somewhere inside a long time and she not knowing it until the second sight cropped up. That’s what they called it. Moved to a second sight with, what was it, metastasis? He had her down here in Frog Hollow in his mind, was what it was. Had had her down here all the time and not realized. But now he looked. Looked for the form, for the light on in the house, for the meal, for the laugh, the touch. For the sense, the feel of someone around and the door and the place not just shut up when he was gone. Not even a dog. Six and a half years was what it had been and now today at the auction the remembered sense of the funeral. Not of the family. Him standing to one side. Standing back at the graveside. And coming back on Sundays. Sunday afternoons, one time with a basket, until the fall winds come on and him feeling he can leave her. Even in the cold. Thinking of her lying there. Slipping away.

  He jammed it into reverse and worked the wagon back up to the treeline by the creek. Leave it. Just leave it there. “If it rains, it rains,” talkin’ to the air. The sun was behind the ridge and down here the darkness coming on. The sky lightening up; the hills growing dark. The air turning cold and the wind with an edge. Down here, the cup of the hills holds you and the sky asks you to look up. Especially at evening. They had shared this together. Once or twice down here. And then she was gone to the doctors into town.

  Then to the specialist who comes from the University on Wednesday. Then on in to Madison and the big hospital there. Then up to Minnesota. Then home. Inside. No more standing and looking up. Just a form in the bed when he came. The family gathered there, most of the kids anyway. Thin, sere lips. Lips making an “o” around the straw when she drank water. And that special milkshake stuff with additives in place of food. A commode in the far corner when the bathroom was too far. Then a walker. A humidifier on all the time. Then a new, hospital bed and people in to help her dress and wash her up. A nurse two times a week. Meals cooked by neighbors and one of the kids. The house stale when he came in. And her smiling when he opened the bedroom window. That was about the last thing, that smile. Just a thin line across the skin, drawn at the corners, saying So that’s who’s here.

  Was nothing left to do now except to go for the house. Walked down past the garden plot with the dried vines of the melon, eggplant, cucumber and pumpkin. The orange balls of the pumpkin stood up out of the other plants flattened by the frost. Winter snow next. And these things coming automatically with his mind really on the door. Not wanting to look. Not wanting to see if there was a light or not, a shape or not. A sign of life. A sign. Just a sign was all he had wanted up there on the ridge, that Sunday, when he had gone with the basket. Just one blessed sign. Somewhere. Laughing.

  And then it was he looked up. His hand reaching out for the storm door. Rattled it. Rattled it open and then he was on the porch. The place where you could hang up tomatoes or herbs. Or keep potatoes and eggplant safe. But his place. His place sure. No one there ahead of him, changing things around. The trowel just where he put it. And now his hand on the door to the kitchen. No light. But he did it anyway. Stopped, half bent over in the darkness. And tapped. Tapped and paused, like up at Lester’s. Imagine that! Listening on his own porch. Waiting for her footsteps. Surprise him here after all these years.

  Waiting just a moment before opening the door.

  OCTOBER NIGHT