by Bobbi Phelps
Out came the crystal, china, linen, and silver. This was my time to show off. The wine glasses sparkled, the silver glistened, and the house flashed with Christmas finery. It usually took me two days to complete the presentation. An hour before the guests arrived, Mike and I began dressing. I wrapped my brown hair into a French roll and added a glittery comb along its edge. I added a sequined red blouse and black gaucho pants along with strappy high heels.
“Mike, can you zip up my top?” I asked.
“Sure. If you’ll sew on a button. It just popped off,” he said. “I don’t want to get undressed, so can you do it while I’m wearing my shirt and sweater?”
“Yup. Let me get some thread.”
After he zipped the back of my blouse, I turned and threaded a needle and asked Mike to hold the shirt’s cuff. He grasped it between his right thumb and forefinger and pulled the shirt’s sleeve away from his navy sweater. I tied a knot in the end of the white thread and started to weave the needle in and out of the button holes. When I struck the button, I firmly shoved the needle and pulled it through to the other side.
“Christ!” Mike shouted as he flinched and jerked away from me.
He still held the shirt cuff, but I could see the needle had gone through his thumb. I had the needle in my hand and twitched it up and down as his hand moved in response, performing like a puppet.
“That’s not funny!” Mike roared. But I was already howling with laughter.
“Okay. Wait a minute,” I said, trying to stifle my laughter. I grabbed some scissors and cut the thread and rethreaded the needle. This time he held the cuff with the left hand, and the button was sewn correctly with no drama. He accompanied me in silence as we walked down the hall to the kitchen, scowling at my stifled snickering.
Guests started arriving as soon as dusk began to settle in the valley. The snow covering our lawn looked like a blanket of white gauze. Our porch light illuminated the front entrance and colorful lights decorated the bushes below the brick gable. Matt had been dropped off at Kay’s house earlier in the day. She had games planned with her seven children, and Matt knew he’d have his own evening of fun.
Once everyone had drinks and played a little pool, we approached the dining room and sat for the formal dinner that began each New Year’s Eve at eight o’clock. Close to midnight we were on our last course. I turned on the television, and we stood to see the ball drop at New York City’s Times Square. Flushed with champagne, we stepped outside the living room French doors. The bitter cold night showed stars like icy pinholes in the dark sky. Looking above we saw Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper, and the Milky Way. To be in a beautiful setting with wonderful friends was just the perfect way to start the new year, or so we thought.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Deaths All Around
January began with sadness. Mike’s mother, Margaret, had suffered a stroke a few years earlier and eventually succumbed to her medical condition. Months afterward, my eighty-six-year-old father had a massive heart attack and died.
Twelve days later when we were sound asleep, our bedside telephone rang. Mike awoke slowly and fumbled in the darkness to light the lamp by his side of the bed. I looked at our illuminated clock. Who would call us at five in the morning? Mike reached over and answered the phone and then walked into the kitchen. When he came back to bed, I asked, “What was that all about?”
“Your mother just died.”
“What do you mean? My father just died.”
“No. Your mother just died. The sheriff called from Florida. I wrote his name and number on a pad in the kitchen,” Mike answered. “Give him a call. He’ll tell you details.” As I rose and rushed to the kitchen, Mike asked me to close the door so he could go back to sleep. It was too early for him to get up.
How could my mother die when my father had just died? Although my parents were in their eighties, they had been in relatively good health. I telephoned the sheriff and heard that my mother had died early that morning from complications due to her recent carotid artery surgery. My older sister had been with her for the past ten days but was now in Wyoming, researching a dude ranch for her latest book. There was no way for me to reach her as she was in the mountains on horseback. I spent the next few hours calling relatives and trying to understand, sobbing as I talked on the phone. Losing both parents in such a short time was heart wrenching. In spite of many friends consoling me, I became overwhelmed with grief. There was no one to hold me and no one to share my pain. I felt like a solitary cloud, isolated and lonely.
Reeling from the blow of my parents’ deaths, I went about my daily chores like a robot: making meals, tending to household chores, and working in the office. I couldn’t seem to shake my sorrow. Eventually, as weeks passed, I slowly began to feel better. Not happy, but better.
One day a few weeks later, I saw Smoky lying on his side in the dirt near his barn. He didn’t appear to be moving. Not even a twitch when a large bird landed beside his body. I was surprised to see him so still.
“I’m going to check on Smoky,” I told my staff as I glanced out the office window.
Not overly concerned, I moseyed toward the motionless horse, calling his name as I advanced. Polly grazed far out in the field as I approached her buddy. Smoky raised his head, coughed several times, extended his forelegs, and slowly rose to his feet. He shook dust from his body and coughed a few more times. His head hung down, almost touching the ground. I rubbed his body and the side of his face. Yellow mucous dripped from his nose.
Hurrying back to the house, I entered the kitchen and telephoned our veterinarian.
“Dr. Monroe? This is Bobbi,” I said. “Smoky’s sick. Can you come over?”
“Sure. I’ll be there after lunch,” he answered after a short pause.
When he and Ruth pulled into our driveway, I had figured out the problem. A few months earlier, Mike had had one of his men bring a ton bale of hay to the area between the barn and the shed. A wood pallet designated the selected spot. One horse cannot eat that much alfalfa before mildew starts to infect the hay. I inspected the giant bale and saw white shreds of fungus. With all his coughing, I surmised that Smoky had developed a lung infection. Dr. Monroe confirmed my suspicion. He gave Smoky an antibiotic shot and handed me some large, white pills to give him over the next five days.
“Hey, Mike. Can you have one of the guys bring another bale of hay? This one’s bad. Clear.”
“Will do. Clear.”
Later that afternoon, I checked Smoky. He seemed so much better. He was up and grazing with Polly, his shadow, right beside him. The sun blazed over the prairie and I saw more colors of olive and lime. Spring had arrived and thirty-year-old Smoky was finally healthy.
Several mornings later, I was again upstairs in the office. As I turned my attention to orders and deadlines, telephones began humming. Karen called me to her desk to approve an invoice. As I stood beside her, I looked out the office window and saw Smoky lying on the ground again.
“Now what’s happening?” I said as I sprinted down the back stairs and out the garage door.
Smoky lay about thirty feet from the barn, his head resting in the dirt. Spasms assaulted his lungs, and in between, he lay absolutely still. There was no movement until he coughed again. His whole body shook with each cough. His nose filled with yellow mucous and his breathing was abnormally labored. I couldn’t get him to move, not even to raise his head.
“What’s up, Smoky? You were doing so well,” I said as I knelt next to his face. “Come on, Smoky. Try to get up.”
He didn’t move. I sat on the ground and placed his head on my lap. I couldn’t believe its weight. As I rubbed his face and brushed my hand down his forelock, he opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Come on, Smoky,” I murmured. “You can do it. Please try.”
He stirred his limp muzzle and let out a tiny whimper. I tried to lift his head but it was impossible. It was too heavy. I cradled it in my lap, stroking his face and wiping his nose.
I leaned forward and bent my shoulders over his head and cried uncontrollably. Sobs engulfed my body. He was actually dying. I knew it. I felt it.
Smoky parted his quivering lips and let out a long sigh. Then nothing. A single tear rolled down his cheek. He stared unseeing and I knew he was gone. I sat on the ground, holding his head. Convulsing sobs consumed me. My heart was breaking. We were a team and he had died. I don’t know how long I sat in the dirt with his head in my lap. I couldn’t seem to leave.
“Come on, Bobbi. Get up. Mario’ll take care of him,” Mike said as he extended his hand and pulled me toward him. I turned and took one last look at my horse lying in the dirt. We walked to the house with his arm around my shoulder and I departed for our bedroom. I didn’t make lunch and Mike never asked me to. Tears filled my eyes as I collapsed on the bed. I couldn’t believe my Smoky was dead. Totally bereft, I sobbed into my pillow.
The next day was unbelievably miserable. Yet, I fulfilled my obligations and made breakfast for Mike and Matt. I couldn’t eat and performed my responsibilities with only the minimum of attention. Mike didn’t seem to grasp my sadness.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked as he stood in the dining room, looking in the mirror and moving his baseball cap to just the right position. He was going to check on his employees. Once he left, I walked to the barn to feed Polly. She wasn’t there and she wasn’t in the pasture. Polly had vanished. How could a huge pig vanish into thin air? After informing Mike and Matt of her disappearance, they climbed into his pickup and searched our nearby roads. She was nowhere to be found. When they returned home, Mike called his staff.
“Keep a look out for Polly,” he said over the ranch radio. “She’s gone missing. Clear.”
“Will do. Clear.”
Another hour later we heard chatter on the radio. We couldn’t understand the words and then they came through loud and clear.
“We found her. She’s down in the gravel pit. Do you want us to bring her home? Clear.”
“Yup. We’ll help. Clear.”
The three of us piled into Mike’s pickup and drove toward the gravel pit. Mario had already enticed Polly out of the rocky hollow and had her on the side of the road. One of the ranch pickups had been parked nearby and had its tailgate open with a wooden plank slanted down from its back. Mario jumped into the truck’s bed with a bowl of pig food. Danny, Mike, and Melvin pushed her up the plank while I photographed. Once she was completely inside the rails, Mike slammed the tailgate shut.
“Now, that’s one big pig,” Mike said as he wiped his brow and brushed pig dirt from the front of his shirt and jeans.
“Before you bring her home, would you take her to the scales?” I asked. “I want to see how much she weighs.”
Once Mario brought Polly back to her barn and reweighed his truck, we heard she weighed six hundred and twenty pounds. Yup. She was one big pig.
We weren’t in the house more than a few minutes when the telephone rang. Kathy Adams, Larry’s wife, had a question for me.
“Was that a black cow you were bringing home?” she asked.
“No, why?”
“Well, you have a black dog, black cat, black horse, and black pig. I thought you were getting a black cow.”
“Nope. That’s Polly,” I answered. “She escaped this morning.”
“Yikes! She’s enormous,” she exclaimed.
“Yeah. We just weighed her. She’s over six hundred pounds!”
“That’s like a steer,” Kathy said.
“And I have some sad news, Kathy. Smoky died yesterday.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll let Larry know,” she said. “What happened?”
In between tears, I told her the story of Smoky getting into bad hay and not being able to clear his lungs. He had been such a special horse to me, more like a pet than a working horse.
“I think that’s why Polly left,” I continued. “I think she was looking for Smoky. From the time Polly was a month old, she followed Smoky everywhere. I don’t think she realized Smoky died.”
The days went by as usual until a week later when Polly disappeared again. I walked out to the road and noticed sheep tracks in the dirt. A flock must have been driven past our house earlier that morning. They would have been on their annual pilgrimage from the foothills to nearby pastures and eventually to market. Knowing the flock would be herded by men on horses, I walked back to the house.
“Hey, Matt.” I called up to his bedroom. “Let’s go find Polly.”
He rambled down the stairs and walked into the kitchen. After I told him that Polly had escaped again, he joined me in my Jeep. We followed sheep tracks three miles to the west.
“Have you seen a pig around here?” I asked one of the cowboys when I caught up to the flock.
“Yup. We did,” he said. “It was the funniest thing. We passed this house and a huge pig came running out after us. I’ve never seen a pig that big!”
“Did you see where she went?”
“Yup. She turned north at a horse corral.”
I knew exactly where he meant and reversed my direction and drove back toward our neighbor’s ranch. There in the small enclosure were three horses. Flakes of hay had been strewn on the ground near the fence. Polly was on one side of the horizontal logs and the horses were on the other side. I could tell she was delighted as she chewed the hay alongside her new best friends, her tail twitching happily back and forth. The nearby horses were anything but happy. They flattened their ears, curled their lips, and bared their teeth. When Mario appeared this time, Polly easily mounted the wood plank and rode in the back of the truck to our barn. Once she was settled with some extra food, I returned to the house and began our dinner. With my hands buried in a ceramic bowl of meatloaf, I told Mike about Polly’s latest adventure.
After our meal Matt joined me in the barn. The two of us cleaned out Polly’s stall and added more straw. I picked up a five-gallon bucket and began to fill it with water. Without warning, Polly charged Matt, knocking him to the ground. Not even thinking, I reacted immediately and spun around, pouring the bucket of water over Polly’s head.
“No! No! No!” I shouted.
Polly ran from the barn and I chased right after her, swinging the bucket, trying to hit her. Even for a gigantic pig, she was too fast. I returned to the barn, out of breath and very angry. Matt stood at the entrance, brushing off his shirt and jeans.
“Why’d she do that?” he asked.
“Who knows?”
I could only surmise that Polly thought Matt was too close to her food. Polly outweighed Matt by over five hundred pounds. There was no contest. I also remembered reading in the newspaper the first year I arrived in Idaho a story about an elderly man falling into a pen and being eaten by his pigs.
“Matt, you’d better go back to the house,” I cautioned. “I don’t think you should be here. Without Smoky, she’s become too dangerous.”
He left and I finished my chores. When Polly came back in the barn, I brushed her off and gave her a bucket of food. As I straightened items in the barn, she gobbled her slop and sauntered into her stall. Usually, she’d lie on her side and I’d sit beside her rubbing her belly. Tonight, no longer comfortable with the ritual, I stayed outside her stall and leaned on a rail, making soothing sounds, trying to coach her to relax. She looked at me with piercing eyes and growled.
What the hell? I thought.
I didn’t even know pigs could growl but growl she did. If it weren’t safe for Matt to be in the barn, it certainly wasn’t safe for me. And now I was there by myself. If anything happened, no one would know until it was too late. In retrospect, I should have shown Smoky’s dead body to Polly. I was so overcome by my own grief, I never thought of Polly and what she might have been feeling. She didn’t know Smoky had died. Because she couldn’t be with Smoky or with other horses, she had become mean. I made a tough decision, unpleasant but absolutely necessary. Since Mario fed Polly each morning, he had a good relationship with her. I telephone
d him and asked if he’d take care of her.
“You have to use a gun. And only one shot. Can you do it?” I asked.
“I’ll do it. When?”
“We’re leaving this weekend for the Little Farm. Can you do it then?”
“Okay. I’ll handle it.”
I didn’t want to know any details, but I did hear that his family and friends joined him for what they said was the best pig roast ever. His wife, Louisa, made her special tamales, wrapped in corn husks, while others brought beer and extra food. Mario couldn’t help it and told me the pork was lean and absolutely delicious.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Selling Sky Ranch
At the end of harvest that year, prices for ranch crops were at an all-time high. Don and Mike decided it would be the perfect time to sell. They had been contemplating it for several years as no other family members wanted to take on the ranch enterprise.
Although I loved living in rural Idaho, I didn’t care whether they sold Sky Ranch or not. Except as a curious bystander, I was actually never involved in the operation. My business was the Angler’s Company, and since Mike and I owned the Little Farm, I had all the farming I could handle.
Once word got out about a possible sale, two interested buyers competed for Sky Ranch. The selected owner asked the brothers to help with the transition and to stay on for one year. During that time, our family moved to Buhl and Mike commuted to Murtaugh. After we settled into our new house on Country Club Drive, I sold the Angler’s business. Our life styles changed dramatically. Mike and I took up golf and I no longer made three meals a day. Yet we still kept our hands in farming. Almost every weekend we’d drive the short distance down River Road to continue improving the Little Farm.
When the year-long transition at Sky Ranch was fulfilled, any item the new owner did not buy was consigned to Musser Brothers Auctioneers. Representatives from most Western states and three Canadian provinces attended the farm sale that March. Men in thick, heavy clothes stood in a semi-circle surrounding the rear of the ranch headquarters. Vehicle after vehicle rolled in front of the men. Trucks, tractors, backhoes, loaders, and combines. I heard Randy Musser, the auctioneer, on a portable microphone calling out bids.
