Antelope Season 5
Pines made much better firewood, but Cal took the occasional quakie when it got in the way. Quaking aspen was easy to cut and split – it just didn’t burn very hot. Sometimes, wood was wood. Beggars couldn’t be choosers any which way. It was good of the bishop to let him harvest wood so close to town.
He and Long had come to an uneasy truce, even coming together so far as to work toward the same cause now and again. There wasn’t any telling whether he or the old man had softened, but the truth was they’d probably both done a bit of coming around.
Brilliant yellow and red leaves shifted in the afternoon breeze. Cal was back far enough in the trees that he couldn’t see much except for a brilliant blue sky with a band of feather clouds making its way slowly East.
“I’m still surprised to see you alongside the bishop,” Ernest said as he stepped into the clearing.
“Making nice with your enemy confuses them,” Cal smiled.
Ernest picked up one end of the bucksaw. “I suppose the more we do is the more he can claim credit for.”
“It’s not about credit, it’s about keeping the kids warm this winter, I’d expect.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself.” Ernest obviously believed there was a gap between his friend’s words and actions. “Did you go through a lot of wood down there in California?”
A fair bit,” Cal nodded. “Sometimes a fire is more about company as much as warmth.”
*****
Cal and Ernest stopped close to the woodpile midway between the school and the teacher’s cabin behind it.
“Hello!” Ernest shouted as he and Calvin both dismounted the wagon. They’d thrown a half-dozen logs each on the pile by the time the door to the cabin opened.
Mary Sweeney, the new schoolteacher, stepped out into the waning daylight. “Can I help you?”
Ernest looked to Cal, but the cat seemed to have his tongue. “We’re here to help you, ma’am. It’s on the town to help stock the school with firewood.”
“That’s kind of you. I wish I could help you stack, but I’m due at the bishop’s place for supper soon."
Ernest glanced at Cal, who was just staring open-mouthed. “That’s all right, ma’am. We’d intended to take care of it, didn’t we, Cal?”
Cal merely nodded and went back to work.
“Maybe you two could come back tomorrow, and I’d cook you some supper,” Mary said.
“That’s very kind of you, ma’am. About this time?” Ernest asked.
Mary nodded. “I’ll see you then.”
Cal watched as she stepped down the street and what was left of the sunset. He couldn’t help but notice, she had that little sashay he’d seen just a time or two in California.
Ernest grinned while he kept working. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen something like this happen, but it was definitely the first time he’d seen it happen to Calvin McMurtrey.
He thought about giving his friend some grief over it, but decided against it. Right then, he figured he wouldn’t be heard – Cal’s mind was on other things.
*****
Horace’s jars clanked rhythmically in the saddlebags as Cal rode Tiny back into town. There was plenty of starlight, but he’d gotten familiar enough with the road to Old Lady Cooner’s place that he could have gotten there with his eyes closed. He wasn’t ashamed of the fact that he’d struck up a friendship with her.
The old woman was just outside her back porch door, enjoying the coolness the evening had brought. “Why’d you buy a car if you don’t drive it?”
“Gas is expensive and hard to come by. Tiny here runs cheaper,” Cal said as he dismounted.
“It ain’t my time, Cal, but I’m always happy to see you.”
Cal had two jars – one for drinking and one for leaving. “It’s on me. I wondered if we could talk.”
“Always,” she said as she wiggled slowly onto a nearby bench. Cal sat one of the jars aside and cracked the other. He sipped and passed it over. She took a deeper pull and seemed to stifle a cough. “What’s on your mind?”
He was thoughtful, and she gave him the time he needed to find his words. “How does a woman want to be talked to?"
“How did you first talk to me, Cal?”
He smiled. “You’re not a woman.”
“I might sag and drag, but I assure you, Calvin Lewis McMurtrey, I am a woman.”
A minute’s penitence passed before he managed, “I’m sorry. That was unkind.”
She took another surprisingly long drink. “It’s all right. What’s the first thing you said to me, Cal?”
“Hello, I believe.”
“That’s exactly what you should say to her. The rest will take care of itself.”
*****
Cal woke quickly. He always had, and he had a lot to get done today so he hurried to get going. The hint of light working its way over the mountains from the East was plenty to see by as he made his way to the barn to feed and water the horses. Milking Eula and Mooie was next, followed by checking the doctorin’ cows in the pen. After he slopped the hogs, he went in for a quick breakfast of biscuits and oatmeal.
From there, it was out to the lean-to, which he hadn’t had a good or bad reason to visit since shortly after he’d come home. His Chevrolet coupe was right where he’d left it. Maybe it was covered in dust and not just a few spiders, but it was still a hundred memories of his time in California wrapped in steel, rubber, and glass.
He checked his car over just as carefully as he cared for the horses and cows. Maybe there wasn’t water to wash it, but there was plenty of time to check the tires, fluids and lights. Preparing to drive the car felt odd, but kind of exciting.
Instead of scraping on the trees, the road was actually wide enough for a car now. Unlike the last time he’d been to the Falls, cars traveling the road actually happened now and again instead of just once. Everything about driving on the road felt different than doing it on horseback, even though it was the same trip. Cal spent the time thinking about all of the changes the world was seeing and wondering how to catch up to them at the same time.
*****
Ernest was Cal’s best friend. He’d always trusted him with everything, so it caught him a little off guard when Ernest wasn’t at the home place like he’d said he would be. Ordinarily, he would have moved heaven and earth to hunt him down to make sure he was okay, but he had other commitments. He accepted that his friend might already be on his way to the school as he started his Chevrolet up the drive to the main road.
Driving the car to supper just wasn’t something he was ready to do. Tiny nickered as soon as Cal walked through the barn door anticipating an evening ride. The truth was he was always ready to get out – the stall was no more a place for a horse than it was a cowboy.
Cal saddled quickly and rode out into cool late afternoon air. Sunset would be in just over an hour, and winter would be a few days after that at the rate the leaves were changing and the days were shortening.
The open door on the teacher’s cabin gave Cal a glimpse of the new school teacher, a table set with china plates, and a whiff of baked bread and beans that made his mouth water.
The setting sun behind him cast him in silhouette as he walked up to the little home and took his hat off. She looked at him the same way he was sure he looked at her.
“I hope you like beans. I baked some bread, too.”
His smile was the best answer he could have given her.
*****
Mary left the door open the entire time Cal was there. Not only did it let the extra light from the sunset in, but it was one of the little proprieties of her life as a school teacher. Not that she’d been surprised, but the school board had been very clear that it was a position and therefore had expectations attached to it. Everything about how she was supposed to act was lined out in the booklet she’d been given, as well as conversations with Bishop Long and Ms. Cooner.
While the bishop had talked about how the society in Antelope functioned, Ms. Cooner talked about why it functioned that way, which had a lot to do with the influence of the Mormon Church. Mary took a lot of stock in the words – they weren’t much different than Uncle Dan’s warnings that as a gentile, she’d never be completely welcome in Mormon society.
Calvin McMurtrey didn’t seem to mind.
“This was very kind of you,” he said as he cleaned his plate with the last of his bread.
“You and your friend were kind to bring me the wood.”
“I’ll be back with more.”
“I’m sorry your friend couldn’t come today.”
Cal grinned a little. “He left more of your beans for me.”
“The sun’s about down. I should light the lamp.”
“I’d best be going,” Cal said, not just a little reluctantly. Between a full belly and good company, he was plenty content. He stood up from the table. “I’m sure I’ll see you again.”
“I’ll be here.”
*****
Cal wasn’t sure what was wrong, but Shep felt it too. He dressed enough to get the job done, grabbed his gun, and hurried to the door behind Shep. Moonlight poured through the doorway as he stepped into the night. Light from a full moon emboldened predators, and seemed to make them a little crazy, too.
Shep’s hackles raised as a low growl rumbled in his belly.
It told Cal all he needed to know. The only animal Shep would fight and lose against was out there somewhere.
“Shep, stay.”
The dog’s confusion registered in the moonlight.
“Stay.”
The rumble turned to a pitched whine.
“Stay!”
Cal knew the home place was on the very edge of wolf country. Wolves didn’t take a cotton to people, and there were more people south and west than there were east. He made his way to the chicken coup quickly and carefully, but not quietly. There wasn’t enough commotion for it to be a pack – whatever was out there had been cast out on its own, maybe even lost a fight in the process.
He hesitated, then shouted when he saw the animal. It stood a little too thin to have been healthy – its walk lacked any of the confidence such a predator should’ve had.
The report of his rifle signaled what his shouts hadn’t brought.
His vision of a pelt on the wall next to the wildcat died too, just as soon as he saw the condition of the animal in the moonlight. Disease had driven it crazy quicker than the moonlight had. The animal had needed to die, which brought Cal comfort as he went to find a shovel.
He didn’t enjoy killing.
*****
“Forget me yesterday?”
“This mind is a steel trap,” Ernest said as he tapped the side of his head with a dirty finger. He picked up an axe with his right hand. “It never forgets a thing.”
“Then you just decided not to come,” Cal snapped.
“Keep going. You’ll stumble over it eventually.”
Cal went back to sawing wood to length. He’d been up since being woken by the commotion the wolf had raised, and somewhere inside knew he should be tired. The pile of wood in the wagon wasn’t what it might have been on a better day, but he couldn’t find it in himself to stop, either. Another load of wood was all that stood between him and a trip back to the school.
“I reckon you told Charlotte that schoolteacher caught my fancy? It’ll be all over town of you did.”
“I haven’t said a thing, Cal, but would it be so bad if someone did? There’s nothing unnatural about a man looking toward a woman.”
“She’s city. She’s a gentile.”
Ernest laughed. Cal found it excessive when his friend almost fell over from not breathing, but he watched until he brought himself back near to right.
“Calvin Lewis McMurtrey, out of all of the reasons to not look to a woman, you choose that she’s not a Saint? You want to be alone, just say you want to be alone. There’s room upriver from Beard. Maybe you two can take baths together.”
Cal looked at Ernest like he’d been stabbed, which, of course, he had. No one knew where to find the best barbs better than a best friend, and Ernest had always been that.
Ernest grinned. “I know I’d rather scrub Charlotte’s back some day than Beard’s, but I’ll be here for you whatever you choose for yourself.”
*****
Cal was about through the wagon load of wood when Bishop Long pulled up with the schoolteacher in the passenger seat of his Model T Ford. He tried to tell if she seemed excited or impressed, but in the end, he just went back to throwing wood. After the last few logs had found their home on the stack, he pulled his shirt back on and set about getting home.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she began once she was within earshot.
He smiled in spite of the jealousy that rolled through his stomach as he watched the Bishop’s car sputter down the road to his home place. “I was anxious to get my job done.”
“I feel bad that I don’t have any supper cooked, but I didn’t know you were coming.”
“A bit of water would be just as good,” he said.
He’d just sat down on the back of the wagon long enough to enjoy the first of the evening breeze when she returned with two glasses of surprisingly clear water. He weighed them against the wage of a brand new schoolteacher and came up unable to settle the math.
She was more than a bit of a mystery.
“It’s late tonight, but I was wondering if you’d like to take a walk with me sometime. I have a good friend here in town I think you might like.”
“Just through town? It seems like that would be all right.”
“We might not be the quality of company the bishop provides, but you might enjoy a change.”
Her smile made it clear that she was ready for something different.
*****
“It’s about time I saw you again,” Ms. Cooner called through the screen door. “Come on in.”
Cal held the door open as Mary stepped through hesitantly.
“Sit down, Miss Sweeney. Any friend of Calvin’s better be able to drink when they come in my home.”
“I’m Irish,” Mary laughed.
“That’ll do. Cal, go get us a jar, would you please?” Ms. Cooner said as she patted the tabletop beside her. “How do you like our little town?”
“I like it just fine. The people are good to me.”
“Are you and the church getting along?”
“I . . . Yes. Fine. I suppose.”
“You’re not a Saint, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Martin Long comes on a little strong, but he’s not the one that’s welcome in my home,” Ms. Cooner said as the screen door opened. Cal took his hat off when she waved him over to the table. “I thought you’d gotten lost, Cal.”
A hint of a smile cracked his lips. “I need to help you with that cellar door.”
“It’s been falling off for twenty years,” Ms. Cooner laughed. “It might take another twenty to get the job done. Sit and open the jar – that’s the help I need right now.”
Cal did as he was bid, drank when it was his turn, then held the glass jar in front of Mary.
Her smile blossomed after a healthy swallow. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to let a woman drink first?”
He grinned. “I Wanted to make sure it was stout enough for you."
“It ain’t Irish whiskey, but it’ll do for now.”
*****
Once they’d stayed late at Ms. Cooner’s, they had to stay really late. Cal knew without being told that Mary couldn’t be seen getting walked home after dark. He also couldn’t let her walk home on her own, so the choices were to wait for it to get late and the full moon to set, or to bed down at Ms. Cooner’s and wait for morning.
He didn’t anticipate what happened – sitting at the table and listening as the women exchanged their life stories. Ms. Cooner’s life had been a happy one by all accounts. It hadn’t been without hardship, and it hadn’t been without love until she lost her husband Jonathan. There was no doubt she was a tough woman – one daughter in Idaho Falls and a son in Ririe had both tried to take her in after the death of their father, but Ms. Cooner made it clear she would never leave Antelope.
She’d rest beside her parents when the time came.
Unbeknownst to Cal, his sister Sophie had heard a short version of Mary’s story. Hearing of the loss of a daddy she had never been old enough to know and her mother’s issues following it left a hard spot in Calvin’s throat. His on Ma and Pa had been solid as rocks in his own life – there was no imagining a world without them.
And yet Mary had never given up. Saint Mary’s, Berkeley, and summers at Heise, she’d faced new experience after new challenge and mastered them all.
He saw her with unimaginable strength by the time the sun rose over the mountains.
*****
“Are you ready to go for that ride?” Cal asked Mary after they’d finished helping Ms. Cooner clean up from the breakfast of oatmeal and biscuits she’d fed them.
“I thought we were going for a walk,” Mary said.
Cal grinned. “Well, we’ll walk to my place to get horses, and then we’ll go for a ride.”
“I have a horse, Calvin,” Mary snapped.
“Then you walk back and get your horse, I’ll go get Tiny, and we’ll meet at Antelope Creek bridge. That okay with you?”
“Fine, just fine,” Mary said.
Mary’s breath escaped and wouldn’t quite return. She’d ridden hard behind Cal for close to two hours, him having made it obvious he was in a hurry but refusing to explain why. Their horses now rested in a clearing behind them, and after a short scrabble through trees the panorama that opened before them was as beautiful as anything she had ever seen.
“It’s beautiful, Cal,” Mary said.
“It’s been passed over,” Cal said. “I’ll homestead it soon, if all goes well.”
“How could anyone not want this place?” Mary asked, a disbelieving note obvious.
“The ground is better to the South, and water is closer North and East. “
“Better seems a subjective choice,” Mary said as she watched him lay out a saddle blanket and a bundle.
“Have some lunch? I brought some biscuits, beef, and a bit of cheese.”
“Absolutely,” she said as she settled on the blanket beside him.
“Tired,” Cal said with a hint of a smile. “It’s been a long day or so.”
“But a good one,” Mary said.
Cal nodded in agreement and joined her in watching the world go by.
*****
Cal watched Mary nap for just a moment or two before he said, “Time to wake up, Mary. We need to get you home.”
Her face cracked into a sleepy smile. “I don’t want to leave.”
“I love it here too, but we need to get you home, and I have chores to do yet.”
Mary nodded and pushed herself to her feet. Within minutes, they were saddled and back on the trail West. Early traces of another sunset were a farewell treat marking the end of their day as they neared the McMurtrey place. They’d ridden hard – it almost felt like a test, but Mary hadn’t let Cal get more than a few strides in front of her and Red. Whatever it was supposed to be, she had to succeed. She needed him to know that she could do this.
She needed him to know that she wanted to live this life.
“Thank you for this, Cal,” Mary said. “I enjoyed Ms. Cooner, and the ride as well.”
“I’m glad,” Cal said genuinely. “I’ll be by with another load of wood, yet. You’ll need more than what you have to get through the winter.”
“I appreciate that,” Mary said. She waited before adding, “Thanks again. I’ll be seeing you, Cal.”
“Good bye, Mary.”
She answered by spurring Red. Cal watched her ride off into the sunset. The past was so close behind him he could almost reach out and touch it. Largely because he’d enjoyed being with her, he’d been up for two days, and until she disappeared, had felt like he could go for two more.
The only thing he knew was he very suddenly felt like his old self again.
Just a bit empty.
