by Donna Milner
“Virgil must have gone to town,” he says. “Strange. He usually tells me when he’s going to be away.”
By the time they go to their rooms that night there is still no sign of their tenant. Early the following morning, Virgil is once again out in the pasture with Ian feeding the cattle. Ian returns to the house, slamming the mudroom door behind him just as Julie is getting ready to go for a hike with Pup. She looks up from lacing her boots to find Ian standing in the doorway, his face clouded, a crinkled piece of familiar yellow notepaper clutched in his hand.
Shaking his head, as if to clear it, he says, “He’s leaving.”
44
“I just don’t understand it,” Ian says staring down at the paper as if he has missed something.
Julie takes it from his hands. The message, written in the scrawled script that she has come to recognize, offers little explanation. Like all of Virgil’s notes it’s simple and to the point. In as few words as possible it gives notice that he will be ‘moving on.’
“I just don’t understand it,” Ian repeats, more to himself than to Julie.
Watching his shoulders slump as he walks out of the room she is pretty certain that she understands. Virgil is leaving because she refused his request to meet with his nephew, cousin?—whatever Levi is—refused to grant him redemption. But how can she tell this to Ian, who can’t even bear to hear their daughter’s name spoken out loud.
She stays out of his way for the rest of the day, letting him come to terms with the sudden change. That night after finishing his supper, Ian announces that he’s heading over to Virgil’s. “Maybe, over a cup of coffee, I can find out what’s really going on,” he says pushing his plate away. “See if I can change his mind.”
Julie puts her fork down on her untouched plate. “I can help feed the cattle.”
“It’s not about the cattle,” he says frowning. “Something’s changed. I don’t know what, but this is Virgil’s home. Why all of a sudden is he leaving?” His eyes search hers for an answer.
She looks down and concentrates on gathering up their dinner dishes. “Who knows,” she replies slowly. “What do we really know about Virgil anyway? Why not just let him go?”
Ian’s chair scrapes on the floor as he stands up. “No,” he says headed out of the kitchen. “Something’s not right.”
Julie rises quickly, and follows him out into the mudroom. Her protests die on her lips as Ian reasons with himself, “Maybe it’s as simple as talking him into letting me pay him for all the work he does. Hell,” he says pulling his coat on, “he doesn’t even have to feed cattle this winter. We can sell the livestock. He doesn’t need to do any work around here if he doesn’t want to. I just can’t believe he really wants to go.”
Less than an hour later he returns, defeated. Julie searches his face for any sign that Virgil has placed the blame on her, but in her heart she knows he would not.
“Well, he’s really leaving,” Ian says, shaking his head in defeat. “Won’t say exactly when, just that he can’t promise to stay the winter, will probably be out of here by January. He advised me to sell the herd.”
At the beginning of November, the first cattle trucks come and go, the mournful bawling of their cargo trailing behind. As the transports crawl up the hill, Julie turns away from the unwanted glimpses of huge brown eyes rolling in panic—as if aware of their destination— behind air vents in the metal enclosures.
Certainly she has never been under any illusions about the ultimate fate of the cows. She has eaten her fair share of steak and hamburgers, after all. Still, seeing the first of the animals being loaded and shipped out to auction today is somehow unsettling. Over the last week she has listened to Ian consider the alternatives, cutting back the herd to something more manageable, hiring someone to replace Virgil—Virgil himself has offered to recommend someone who would be willing to take over the cabin, his chores, his role on the ranch—but in the end, Ian has decided to send the entire herd to auction. And ever since making that decision Julie has watched him grow more and more despondent. His reaction surprises her, and forces her to consider her role in all this. She, too, has alternatives. She could go over and speak to Virgil herself. See if there was anything she could do—short of his requested meeting with Levi—to change his mind. Or, she could tell Ian the truth, why she believes Virgil is going. Perhaps, if he knew, he would not be as eager to have him stay. Stuck in indecision, she has done nothing, letting the situation play out without her interference.
This evening she remains in the den watching television alone. Earlier this afternoon she had reminded Ian that today was the American election, but once again he has chosen to bury himself in his office files. Surfing from channel to channel, she can’t help but think he is avoiding watching the election returns because of the thought that would hang in the air, unspoken, about how thrilled Darla would have been to experience this moment in history. Well, I’ll experience it for her. Julie swallows back the jagged lump in her throat and concentrates on the scenes unfolding on every major channel. In city after city, swelling crowds are gathered in the streets in anticipation of finding out who will become the forty-fourth president of the United States of America. As state results are announced, there is a moment, like a collective sigh of relief, before the crowds erupt in celebration. Cameras pan the rejoicing crowds, the uplifted faces say it all. In the split second following understanding, tense anticipation turns to relief, disbelief to belief. Tears of joy flow unchecked down cheeks of all colours, races and religions. Strangers jump up and down, hugging and kissing each other, and dancing breaks out in streets across the nation. It is truly an historical moment. How Darla would have loved knowing that, as she had wondered, “Yes! This can really happen!” Julie recognizes the naked emotion in the rejoicing faces on the screen. Their joy is about more than the success of the Illinois senator’s ‘yes we can’ campaign, about more than race, or party, or fixing the economy. It’s about hope.
And in that moment comes awareness that the unbearable sadness threatening to overwhelm her is her own complete and utter loss of hope.
45
Chilcotin winter does not wait for the December solstice. It arrives on a biting north wind. For two days the arctic air howls down the lake, peaking whitecaps and misted sprays, swirling across the surface in its wake. Thin layers of ice forming along the water’s edge are crushed in the turbulence and thrown to shore. The warmth inside the ranch house—where the wind’s fury is nothing more than a distant moan—is testament to the solidness of the log structure. And then as suddenly as it came swooping into the valley, the windstorm abates, leaving behind a crystal-blue sky and plunging temperatures. The thermometer outside the kitchen window drops to zero, ten below, twenty below. Ice appears along the shore once again, expanding further and further out, until one morning Julie wakes to find the lake a frozen sheet of glimmering ice.
Out in the back pasture the remaining cows huddle together beneath the skeletal cottonwood trees along the creek. Tomorrow morning, the last of the cattle trucks will arrive to take the rest of the herd to the stockyards. Ian intends to follow them in for the auction.
Preparing for her first hike in days, Julie pours coffee into a Thermos. Tightening the lid she glances through the living room to where Ian is sitting staring at the computer in his office. Earlier she had asked him to join her, but as she expected, he barely acknowledged her invitation.
Ever since Virgil’s announcement, Ian has shrunk further and further into despondency. Julie tries to temper her growing impatience with his reaction, yet she can't ignore that in some strange way it angers her. He is behaving as if he’s lost his best friend, and perhaps he believes he has. But Julie believes that he, and she, too, for that matter, had simply read something deeper into Virgil’s silences than was there. They had seen in him what they needed to see, rather than who he truly was—a man they knew little, to nothing, about.
After packing the Thermos and her camera, Julie stra
ps the tripod onto her backpack, reminded as she does so that from the very beginning Virgil seemed to know more about them than they ever did about him. Even the can of bear spray, which she considers now, came from him. She discards it, along with the iPod music. The plus side of winter with its freezing temperatures is that there is no longer any need for them, no danger of running into bears who by now have retreated to their dens, hibernating until spring.
Today she feels safe hiking the hillsides above the south pasture. With the dog at her heels she crosses the ranch yard. The horses lift their heads from the hay manger, their jaws working at their breakfast as they watch her pass by. Ian has offered the Clydesdales to Virgil. “He should take them with him wherever he is going,” Ian said. “They’re really his anyway.” She had not disputed it. But Virgil did; he declined the offer, informing Ian that he would find a home for them. To Julie’s relief Ian has decided to keep all the horses. She has no idea what they will do with the Clydesdales, but she cannot imagine the ranch without their presence.
The cold bites at her cheeks, causing her eyes to water as she makes her way along the fenceline of the pasture. At the far end she shimmies through the bottom rungs. Startled by the havoc created by the windstorms, she skirts the edge of the timberline, where unprotected trees lay broken and shattered like so many discarded matchsticks. Just when she is certain that it’s futile trying to locate the trail she and Virgil took the day they went chasing after cows, Pup, sniffing at the skiffs of snow, stumbles upon it. She follows him, scrambling over deadfalls and broken branches that litter the winding path. Deeper into wind-ravaged forest, the devastation lessens and the trail becomes easier to navigate. Despite the stinging cold, sweat trickles down Julie’s skin beneath her woollen underwear as she climbs higher. Sunlight filters through the trees, glinting on the tiny ice particles that drift through the still air like fairy dust.
It takes the better part of two hours before they reach the summit. When they do she is sweat-soaked, but exhilarated. While Pup scurries around with his nose to the ground, exploring the smorgasbord of odours in the clearing, Julie searches for a good vantage point. After settling on a panoramic view, which stretches from the south pasture to the far northern end of the lake, she sets up her camera and tripod, and then sits down on a nearby stump to have coffee and wait for the sun to be directly overhead. Through the steam rising from her coffee mug, she stares down over the treetops. In the valley below, the ranch house and outbuildings appear like islands in a sea of white, and she can’t help but compare this view to the first day she and Ian came out with the real estate salesman. Since that day, so much has changed, and nothing has changed. There is precious little left of their marriage except sharing meals and the polite conversation of strangers. The one thing that they have in common, the one thing that should bind them together, their daughter, is a forbidden topic. And in her heart she knows, that this, more than anything else, would be unbearable to live with for the rest of her life. Yet, gazing down into the valley, the thought of leaving this place saddens her already bruised heart. She rarely goes to town anymore. It’s not the distance. She has never minded driving, in fact she used to enjoy long road trips. She could go in with Ian, who never fails to invite her every second Friday, but she has yet to accept, preferring to stay out here rather than face town, and the silent drive.
With a shiver she recalls her mother’s warning about getting ‘bushed.’ Was she right? Is that what keeps her here? Or is it simply because she doesn’t know where she would go if she was to leave Ian? And if leaving is truly an eventuality, why wait? Especially now. In fairness shouldn’t she go now, before Virgil does?
She jumps as Pup nudges her free hand.
“Hah,” she says, putting down her tin cup. “You just love me for the treats.” Retrieving a biscuit from her backpack she wonders what she would do without her faithful companion. And to think she hadn’t wanted a dog. Then the truth hits her, that it would be cruel to take him away from here. Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, she stands and concentrates on focusing her camera.
By the time she is finished taking her shots, heavy clouds have appeared on the northern horizon. Dark and foreboding, they scud across the sky as she makes her way down the mountainside. When she reaches the bottom pasture, a black ceiling covers the valley. Fat flakes drift down, growing larger and larger in their hushed descent. “Pieces of clouds,” Darla used to call them when she was little. She would run around their yard, bundled up in her snowsuit, trying to catch them on her tongue. Once again, Julie’s eyes tear up, not from the cold, but from the sweet memory. No, it’s not the memory, she decides, it’s having no one to share it with.
As she crosses the field, in the distance, the yard light glows pink through the falling snow. Looking like a wolf in the wild, Pup forges ahead, the fresh powdered snow flying up from beneath his huge padding feet as he leads her home. Home. The thought of the fire crackling in the living room, Ian waiting for her return, brings an unexpected warmth as she hurries behind the dog. Before she reaches the ranch house her decision is made. She doesn’t want to leave, the ranch, nor Ian. It’s she who must try harder to make this work. She knows that their life together can never be the same as it was before, but if there is anything left to salvage of their marriage, it is she who must find it. They don’t need a third person, Virgil, or a new hired hand, to keep the ranch going. She is capable. No. More than capable to help with the physical work. Together she and Ian can manage it. They can truly turn this ranch into their home.
The mudroom door swings open the moment she steps onto the back porch. Stamping the snow from her boots she smiles up into Ian’s relieved eyes. Yes, tomorrow she’ll go into town with him. Perhaps during the long drive, she can find a way to reach him, to remind him that Darla is a part of who they are. Maybe she can find a way to convince him that they need to share memories of their daughter, not fear them.
46
The next morning a transformed landscape greets Julie. The lake and fields lay dormant under a seamless blanket of white. On the hillsides tree branches sag under the weight of the overnight snowfall. Since dawn, Ian and Virgil have been out with the tractor and truck ploughing and sanding the hill. By the time the cattle truck shows up, the road into the ranch is clear. A few hours later the remaining cows are loaded and on their way.
While Ian gets ready for the drive into town, Julie feeds the dog. She wants to take Pup along with them today, but Ian has already discounted that idea, pointing out that the dog has become completely independent now that he can come and go through the doggie door into the mudroom. It’s true that ever since the weather turned cold, Pup prefers to be outdoors, spending his nights in his kennel on the back porch and coming inside only now and then for a drink of water or a quick visit. “He’s a ranch dog, Julie,” Ian insisted before he went up to shower. “It’s not fair to drag him into town. He’ll be fine out here by himself.” She knows he’s right. Still this is the first time they have left him on his own and Julie is nervous about doing so.
The metallic smell of snow rushes in on the crisp winter air the moment she opens the mudroom door. Across the ranch yard Pup and Virgil’s dog are wrestling in front of the barn. At the sound of her voice, Pup rolls upright in a billow of snow, and then bolts toward the porch. Left lying with his muzzle on the white ground, Virgil’s dog watches him go, then stands up to shake the snow from his coat when his master appears in the barn doorway.
Julie has not encountered Virgil since that day in his cabin, but even from this distance she recognizes the same weariness in his face that was there then. Keeping her eyes on him she leans down to place the dog dish on the porch. She straightens up then backs into the mudroom and closes the door slowly. He doesn’t want to leave the ranch either. The thought keeps her rooted in front of the door window. Uncaring if he can see her behind the glass, she watches Virgil trudge through the snow on the way back to his cabin with his dog by his side. He doesn’t
want to leave anymore than Ian wants him to go, she thinks as he disappears down the road. Can I fix this? She turns away, and heads upstairs, uncertain that she would, even if she could.
While Ian showers, Julie goes into the spare bedroom. The cardboard boxes, which she had chosen last night, wait inside the door. This is her first step in her resolve to try to find a way to put her and Ian’s marriage back on track. Without saying anything to him, she has made the decision, as he has always wanted her to, to take the boxes of Darla’s clothes in to the Salvation Army. Sorting through them last night, she had been unable to resist opening each box to pull out armfuls of carefully folded clothes and crushing them to her face. Fighting the urge to do so now, she carries them one by one to the mudroom. She leaves the box of dolls behind. Ian is right about the clothes, there is no good reason to save them. But the dolls? She cannot bear to let go of Darla’s dolls.
After loading the boxes in the back of the idling Jeep, she waits in the driver’s seat. When Ian comes out, loaded down with his briefcase and file boxes she rolls down her window. “I’ll drive,” she calls out in answer to his questioning expression at seeing her sitting behind the wheel.
“The roads might be pretty slick today.”
“I’ll drive slow,” she promises, buckling on her seatbelt with a decisive click.
Ian hesitates for a moment, but then walks to the back of the car when Julie rolls up her window. Adjusting her rear-view mirror, she keeps her eye on him as he lifts the rear door. He hesitates at the sight of the boxes, their contents written on each in black marker. He loads his own boxes then climbs into the passenger seat, without a word.
