Little Bluestem: Stories from Rural America

He woke in the light before the light—the light mostly in his mind before the sky itself was streaked pewter, then silver. It was in this early going, lying still in the silence with his first sense of the light that he remembered.

  He had made promises all his life: why was this one any different?

  There were chores to do. He rose, feeling the protest in some of his joints. He washed and shaved, carefully, knowing that this was a special day, and then went to the barn. Breakfast would wait.

  Five cows were milked. Gordon pasteurized a small amount for his own use in a small, electric unit and poured the rest into the old five-gallon stainless steel milk pails that he carried to the calves. There were seventy-five of them, now, raised on milk: mostly Jersey-Holstein cross replacement heifers along with a couple of steers. They would be ready for pasture next month, except the youngest group of ten.

  His horses were next. He had two teams: one of black geldings which stood an even seventeen hands and weighed 1900 pounds, the other of blonde sorrel mares, both of which were in foal. They nickered softly in the semi-darkness, smelling the molasses from the horse feed as he scooped it into the bucket. Later, from the loft, he would throw down some hay into the mows.

  Two hogs got some of his corn each morning and the rest went to the chickens, most of it thrown out into the yard where they would soon go. No, he was wrong, there. Gordon smiled at the reason. No chickens in the yard today; keep them inside today on account of the wedding guests. He threw more corn on the dirt of the chicken pen for the laying hens before collecting the eggs.

  His bride was Rose Coffering—she of the school library, first and then of the feed mill. Gordon reckoned that he had bought too much feed this past year because of her, always contriving some reason to go into that cramped, disorganized office that she always kept straight. Six months ago, they had begun in earnest and he had known that he could love again. Three months ago, they had shared living, staying mostly at her place in town and sometimes out here on the ridge.

  Gordon could see Rose with her lanky form and her long auburn hair and see only her. It had not always been that way. Allison’s death had quieted a great part of him, and he had kept to the worn paths of his old ways, knowing she was always there—a presence—until finally he had been ready to see again and had seen Rose. She was ten years younger, never married, with one major romance buried deep in her past. He could sit with her on the porch at his place up on the ridge and feel that everything had now come together. For him, she was the missing piece, often overlooked and then found. For her, he was a gentle presence who carried light into some of the dark, forgotten corners of her life. They came together and felt, both of them, that together they could stay.

  Coming out of the barn, Gordon looked again at the sky, now streaked with cirrus clouds and tinged with pink and amber hues. It was a promising day, he thought. Most of the guests would be coming mid afternoon, but he had no idea when the first family members would arrive—especially the members of her family. Her brothers always were notoriously late, and Rose had told him last night that they had made fishing plans for this morning.

  But his family would be early! Noon seemed a likely time. He came by early as part of a long-standing tradition. It was a four o’clock wedding with beer, wine and a full dinner to be served as a buffet from the staff of Ida’s Café around five. What his people would do up at his place during those four hours, Gordon had no idea, but, despite Rose’s best efforts over the last weekend—cleaning and straightening and even painting—he had left a bachelor trail from room to room that he needed to make right. The cirrus clouds told him that tomorrow if not today there could be rain, so the inside of his place could well be filled. They had planned an outside wedding on the lawn, the two of them facing the gathering of a small community of well-wishers who, looking past the bridal couple, would have the best of the view of the ridges to the southwest, the contoured fields green and gold making ribbons on the land which they in turn imitated in some of the decorative bows which would be streaming behind them in the wind.

  Gordon took one last look at the sky before going in. No, he thought, the rain would hold off. He wondered when Rose would be coming up. She would not keep herself sequestered this day—neither of them were young enough for such things. It was life they had lived, and it was more life they were choosing. She would be here mid-morning and had planned to prepare a dish or two in the kitchen for her own wedding feast. He would make the house clean before then and she would take over the guest bedroom in which to dress for the ceremony and celebration. The minister would arrive by two-thirty or three and the wedding party at the same time with perhaps even both of her brothers! There had been no formal rehearsal. They would talk things over at three before the main party of the guests arrived. The early arrivers from his side, if not directly involved, would make themselves useful and, at other times, be simply in the way. There had been talk of getting the horses out. Several would be present who could do the driving, but the two of them, when this was presented, saw only ostentation in the midst of common bonds and ties, in the midst of a day of promises made for ordinary days.

  All this was what Gordon Lovett knew and surmised about his wedding day. He was aware as well of the following additional facts: thirty five to forty people would sit down to dinner on the ridge. He and Rose would try dancing together on the front lawn. A wedding cake would be cut. A small string band would play from the porch. Ribbons would be streaming in the wind. Late in the afternoon, John Jenkins would quietly disappear to milk the cows. Later on, the guests eventually would disperse. He and Rose would make love in their new four-poster bed made up with new sheets. They would travel some in the next few days, with John helping out with chores and most of the stock out on pasture. Then the fall crop of hay would be ready to cut and they would return and settle into their new life.