by Bobbi Phelps
“What’s going on with them?”
“They want us to come for Thanksgiving,” I said as I read the note. “We have nothing planned. Want to drive to Washington?”
“Sure. Maybe they can join us for another fishing trip in Belize,” he said.
That sounded wonderful. I smiled at the suggestion and began to feel romantic. While Mike stared at the row in front of us, I leaned over and kissed him. There were three other combines in the field, stacked in rows behind us. The four combines crossed the field in a large swath, not beside each other, but arranged in separate rows, one behind the other.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked as he smiled and turned toward me.
“Ah, nothing. Just thought you’d like a little break from all your hard work,” I said as I slid my hand between his thighs.
“Wow. Now, what’re you up to?” he asked.
“You just concentrate on the rows ahead. I’ll do the rest,” I replied.
He tossed the Pepsi can to the floor and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. I removed my jeans and climbed onto his lap with my back to the field, straddling him and burying my face into his neck. He tilted his head and looked past me, trying to keep the combine moving in a straight line. How he kept harvesting, I’ll never know. When I later climbed down the metal stairs, Mike wore a wide grin and waved his hand out the cab door.
“Come back real soon,” he called, laughing as he closed the door and turned the combine into the next row.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bart, the Gardener
Two churches provided spiritual faith in Murtaugh: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, and the Methodist Church. Since I knew nothing about Mormons when I moved to Idaho, I chose to attend the Methodist Church. The minister, Dale Metzger, telephoned me one day and asked if I would help a young Christian man who had had a bad turn of luck.
“Bart’s a good guy,” Dale said. “He got caught stealing food for his family. He’s out of prison and needs a job. Can you help?”
“If he can do yard work, yes, we’ll hire him,” I said. “He can come over Saturday and work for a few hours. We’ll see how it goes.”
A few days later on a chilly early morning, Bart stood before me. He was tall and thin and wore new blue jeans and a pressed, white cotton shirt. I thought he looked overly dressed for pulling weeds, but I was pleased he had arrived on time. We chatted while I showed him which plants to remove and which shrubs to trim.
“My wife washes our clothes in the bathtub,” he said. “We don’t have much.”
“I’m glad to help. And I’m glad you can help me with gardening,” I said as I stood ankle deep in weeds.
“Thanks for the job,” he said. “It’s been tough since I got out of jail.”
Mike had left earlier in the day and would not be back until lunch. Matt was at Kay’s house, and I was home by myself. When talking with Bart, I noticed he had no teeth. His thin lips surrounded a dark gummy hole, and he talked with an obvious lisp.
“Did you have an infection?” I asked.
“All my teeth were bad,” he said. “They removed them while I was in jail.”
He bent to the earth and began to dig weeds and stir the soil, just as I had instructed. Having Bart relieve me of such tiresome gardening, I walked away from his strong cologne and entered the kitchen. In a few minutes Mike’s lunch was made, and I returned to Bart, bringing him an extra sandwich and a soda. We took a break and sat on our cedar chairs on the patio, facing each other.
“Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” he asked. “Have you accepted the Lord?”
“Yes, I have,” I said. “When I was in high school.”
After lunch, the subject of Christianity continued as we dug weeds side by side. When Mike arrived home, I introduced the two men. Once he ate, Mike returned to the farm. Bart and I labored uninterrupted for the rest of the day. The garden patches around the front of our brick home were almost weed free. Our red, thorny barberry bushes had become unruly, and I asked Bart to trim them as one of his chores the following day. Then I pointed out some fruit trees that needed thinning.
“You’ll have to work by yourself the next few days,” I said. “I have chores to do inside.”
Two days later, I brought out sandwiches, and we again sat out on the patio. He told me he didn’t know where we lived when he first got the job, so he had driven down 4900 and parked in front of our house. He remained there and surveyed our property. His comment didn’t bother me until he added, “I do that often. I like to watch you at night to see what you’re doing.”
That sounded creepy. I was not at all comfortable with the direction of his conversation. Leaving him to finish trimming, I moved to the back of the house and started planting flowers. Before long he came and stood behind me. I knelt in front of him, pushing the last of the zinnia plants deep into the soil. He persisted in reciting Christian versus and asked if I agreed with them. He must not have liked one of my answers because he took his trowel and slammed it back and forth into the open palm of his left hand. His voice alarmed me as he challenged my answer, standing close behind my kneeling body. The noise of the smashing trowel frightened me and an ice-cold shiver crawled down my spine. My tongue felt dry as I swiveled my head, still on my knees, my back to his legs. I bent one knee and stood to face him.
“Let’s get back to work,” I said as sternly as possible. “We only have this little area here beside the patio. Then we’re finished.”
Mike had been delayed and had not yet arrived home for dinner. I was frightened being alone with Bart. When Mike drove into the garage, I fled to the security of the house and hurried into the kitchen.
“Please tell Bart we don’t need him tomorrow,” I said. “Tell him we’ve finished the gardening, and I don’t have any more projects.”
I didn’t want to confront the man myself. Once I told Mike about the incident, we started deadbolting the back door. The front door was constantly locked, but the back door, the one we used all the time, had always been left unlocked. Before long, we forgot about the incident with Bart and we went back to having an unlocked back door.
Two months later, the telephone rang. “Is this Bobbi?”
“Yes. May I help you?” I asked.
“Yes, you can. You can please me.” The voice said slowly. “I want to lick your . . . .”
“Bart. Don’t ever call me again!” I yelled into the receiver. “You can’t fool me. I know your voice,” I said as I slammed the phone into the cradle. I did know his voice. With all his missing teeth, I could easily recognize the lisp in his words. I informed the Methodist minister and then radioed Mike.
“I’m going to Twin. Need anything? Clear.”
“No,” he replied. “When will you be back? Clear.”
“I have just one errand to run. See you at supper. Clear.”
To protect our son who now slept in a bunk bed on the second-floor, quite a distance from our master suite, it was essential to have something to detect if anyone entered his room. I drove like a woman possessed and purchased a baby monitor at Sears. At dinner that evening I told Mike what had happened, and we installed the monitor in Matt’s room with the receiver in our bedroom. We began locking the back door but I never felt completely safe after that incident. We lived so far away from our neighbors, and Mike could be gone on the ranch for hours at a time.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kindergarten Party
“Hurry,” Matt said as he stood with an olive-green pack on his back. “Take it before the bus comes.” At the start of his kindergarten classes, I told Matt I wanted to take his picture for the family album.
“Wow! Look at that,” I said, pointing to our road out front.
On the dirt road bordering our house, four riders herded a large flock of sheep from their summer grazing land in the Albion Mountains to their winter pasture a few miles away. A half-dozen excited dogs ran back and forth, nipping at the sea of creamy-white
bodies, insisting the band move forward. As they passed, they kicked up tiny dust devils, and we smelled the sweet fragrance of sage mixed in with the endless droppings of sheep. The bell of the lead ewe mingled with the noise of baaing sheep, the cracking of whips, and the whistling of cowboys. The sight of moving sheep in the background made for a perfect Western setting to Matt’s first day at school . . . nothing like my mother’s kindergarten picture of me walking hand-in-hand with friends down a paved Connecticut road.
Several minutes later, the yellow bus turned into our circular driveway and arrived near the front door. Matt marched off like a soldier intent on a mission and climbed the bus steps. He waved to Mike and me as he walked down the aisle and sat in one of the black vinyl seats near his friends, JR and Little Mario.
* * *
In May of the next year, I invited Matt’s kindergarten class to our house to celebrate his birthday. I had decorated several card tables with pictures of dinosaurs, palm trees, and flying birds. Before they sat for cake and ice cream, we played pin-the-tail-on-the-dinosaur. Then I took a piñata, shaped like a small caveman, and hung it from our front hall balcony. It looked like a real person, hanging from our second-floor railing. Even more disconcerting was that it was the same size as most of the kindergarteners.
“One, two, three, four,” I chanted as I touched each child’s head when they gathered in the foyer. I pointed to the fourth child and the rest lined up in a row behind him. One of the mothers blindfolded the boy and the youngster swung at the piñata with Matt’s aluminum baseball bat. He missed but continued swinging. He almost hit another child with his wild swipes. I quickly moved the line of children to the staircase overlooking the stone entrance. Now they could watch the action from a safe distance. What an uncomfortable scene of children attacking that little man wearing only a loin cloth, but the youngsters and their mothers laughed hilariously. Finally, one of the boys smashed the caveman and it broke into a mountain of pieces. The children ran to the shattered piñata and tore the caveman apart. Nothing. Then they turned and looked at me.
“Where’s the candy?” the children yelled.
“What candy?” I asked the mothers.
“Candy?” they said in unison. “You’re supposed to fill the piñata with candy!”
Coming from Connecticut, I had never experienced a piñata party. I didn’t even know what a piñata was. When I purchased the paper-mache object, no one at the store told me to fill the object with candy. Although there was obvious disappointment, the children returned to the card tables, sang songs, and opened goodie bags. They each received a small sack filled with dinosaur erasers, candy, and pencils. Not all was lost.
* * *
A week after the birthday party, Mike planned an overnight business trip. Because it would take almost an hour for Burley or Twin Falls police to reach our house in case of an emergency, I often felt vulnerable whenever Mike was out of town, especially after the incident with Bart. On this occasion, I told Matt he could sleep downstairs in our bed.
“Let’s play a game,” I said. “We’re going to tie ropes across the hallway. That way no bad guys can catch us in the middle of the night.”
Matt and I wrapped a thick cord from the railing surrounding the pool-table area to heavy, upholstered chairs in the living room. Back and forth we wove the ropes. Matt crawled underneath to assure no one would be able to get below them either.
“This is really fun, Mom,” he said.
In the master bedroom, I took an old ladderback chair and wedged it under the door knob. Instantly, I became comfortable. There was no way anyone could get to us. Or so I thought. Matt fell asleep beside me while I read a book. Finally, I tired and closed my eyes. About two in the morning, I heard an unusual sound coming from the interior of our house. I sat straight up in bed. Crawling from under the covers, I reached below the bed and pulled out my shotgun. I fiddled with the slide, opened it, and inserted a bullet. As Matt slept, I approached the bedroom door, placed the gun on the carpet, and silently removed the chair from under the knob. Inching the door open, I listened intently. Then I heard the sound of footsteps in the kitchen. I stood motionless, staring down the dark hallway.
“Who’s there?” I shouted. “Come out now or I’ll shoot. My gun is loaded.”
Matt crept out of bed and approached me, pulling on my flannel night shirt. “What’s happening, Mom?” he whispered as he looked at me.
“Stay back,” I commanded. Matt moved to the side of the room and stared at me with sleepy eyes turning into giant circles.
Then I heard the sound again. I was terrified. I pressed my right check hard against the stock and pointed my barrel over the ropes and down the hallway, directly into the kitchen. I braced the end of the stock to my shoulder and prepared to shoot. Matt covered his ears. Just then I heard the sound of falling ice. I paused, turned on the hall lights, and looked toward the kitchen. No bad guys in sight. Thank goodness I hadn’t shot. I would have blasted our refrigerator, and Mike would have really been pissed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Winter, Spring, and Summer Sports
When winter snows arrived later that year, Mike had stopped smoking, but he struggled to break the awful addiction. He wanted to stop, first for me, and then after Matt was born. But it took five more years to finally complete the transition. He paced the kitchen floor and chewed nicotine gum nonstop.
“Let’s take the kids sledding,” I suggested, trying to take his mind off smoking.
“Okay. Call them and let’s meet here in a half hour,” Mike said.
We stood outside and gathered the neighborhood children for sleigh rides over our ranch roads and nearby pastures. Mike took a long rope and fastened each sliding vehicle to the one in front: wooden sleds, toboggans, cookie sheets, and plastic slides. Anything that could skim over the icy surface was attached to the bumper of Mike’s pickup. The kids piled onto their sliding objects, and Mike climbed into his truck. I sat upright on the first sled, facing the pickup with my knees bent and my hands holding onto its sides. Once I gave Mike the okay, we were off. With shouts and cheers, and with Jack running and barking beside us, we soared across the snow-covered fields.
When we abruptly came to a patch of ground without any snow, Mike made a quick turn. He didn’t want the sleds to travel across dirt. The line of kids zipped in a circle and slammed into the side of a snowbank. Everyone stayed on and yelled for more. They thought it was great. I thought I was too old to play “crack the whip.”
We continued at a moderate speed until I gave up my sled and sat in the pickup with Mike. As I watched out the back window, the kids yelled, “Go faster. Go faster.” Mike gunned the engine and they were off again. Jack couldn’t keep up while we raced across the fields. Before long, we arrived back at our house. The children trooped inside, rosy-cheeked and exuberant. They dropped their outer clothes at our back door and came into the house for popcorn and hot chocolate. Mike undid the sleds, closed the garage door, and recoiled the rope. Jack came through the doggy door with his tongue hanging out. Once he entered the living room, he slumped on the carpet next to the couch and fell fast asleep. It was soon time for supper. I drove the children home and returned to make a spaghetti dinner, this time without apricots.
That night, miles from civilization, I stood on our back steps and marveled at the sky. I had never experienced such beauty growing up, having always lived close to cities. Any night without clouds or a moon at the ranch meant the sky was filled with a lace-work of stars, so abundant as to almost saturate the heavens. As I studied the sky above, I was struck by the silence of the night. No farm machines. No cars or trucks. Because so few birds or animals existed in that arid land, the lack of noise caught my attention. A chill came through the air, a breeze blew through our planted trees, and then nothing. The sound of silence.
* * *
In early spring we took to the slopes whenever enough snow still covered the ground. We wore the latest ski fashions and piled into
Mike’s pickup, our long skis fastened to the top of his truck. A cloud of blond hair circled Christa’s face as she climbed in, joining her Dad, Matt, and me on the ride to Pomerelle. We wore colorful wind breakers and black powder pants. The mountain resort boasted a temperature of fifty degrees, a warm welcome for a fantastic day of spring skiing. Living close to Pomerelle meant we could be on the chairlift in just forty minutes after leaving our garage. Mike took back roads as he wound his way to the lodge, passing barren boughs on leafless trees, shimmering with layers of icy crystals. Except on weekends, we never had to wait in line.
Matt started skiing at two but that only meant getting into winter clothes and walking around our snow-covered lawn in tiny ski boots attached to tiny skis. By the time he was five, we began taking him to Pomerelle. I tried teaching Matt by placing him between my legs and holding him up by his elbows. The two of us slowly skied down the beginner’s run, a gentle slope close to the lodge. After an hour, my back felt terrible. Christa skied over to us, showing off her latest repertoire of innovative twists and stops. She looked at us and our strange stance.
“You know Matt’s feet aren’t on the ground, don’t you?” she said as she laughed.
I looked down and, sure enough, as I had held his body, Matt had lifted his feet from the snow. In my bent-over position, I had been carrying this clever tyke down the hillside. No wonder he skied so skillfully and my back ached.
“That’s it! You’re going to ski school,” I declared as I steered him toward a group of youngsters at the bottom of the slope. While the instructor taught him the basics, I enjoyed the next two hours of unlimited skiing. I felt exhilarated by the corn snow, small pellets of hard snow, along with unusually warm spring weather. Skiing in the West was so much better than skiing on icy slopes, the snow conditions I had experienced growing up in the East.
