Pansy: Bovine Genius in Wild Alaska

by Charles D. Hayes

  * * * * *

  Randy walked into the deli on Saturday a half-hour early, and there she stood. Nadia was early, too. Her green dress and auburn hair looked radiant, making those flashing green eyes electrifying. Searching for something clever to say, he waited too long.

  She spoke first. “Hi.”

  “Hi. Um, nice dress.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled.

  “You know, when I asked you out, I mentioned a movie, and we both know that you have to drive to Fairbanks to see one. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “I knew what you mean. This a small place.”

  “Well, there’s only one good place to eat, I mean besides here, and that’s the steakhouse. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, that is okay to me. Sometime my English not so good,” she said, glancing away.

  “Sounds great to me.”

  "In Russia I am literate person. Not so much here."

  "Well, not to worry,” he said. “I think I am only now becoming literate myself, and I have always wanted to visit Russia and Ukraine." Seeing the bright look in her eyes, he wanted to say, thanks, Gus.

  The restaurant was crowded as usual for a Saturday night, and the sound of voices trying to talk over the clatter of dishes was deafening at times. But they were in luck and didn't have to wait long for a table. Randy was in such good spirits that the noises that usually bothered him wouldn't tonight. He was suddenly aware of how good it made him feel to be seen with Nadia. He kept getting smiles and nods of approval from people he only knew in the most casual way. Now it was as if they were suddenly friends.

  After dinner, they went for a drive. For twenty miles southbound on the highway toward Anchorage, Randy told Nadia what it had been like for him growing up in Alaska. That his mother and Mandy’s mother were sisters and how much fun it had been when they were together. He admitted he didn't know who his father was and said his grandparents had been more like parents to him when he was a kid. But then, he explained, after they were killed and then his mother died, he had joined the Marines to rid himself of the sadness and to try to get his life back.

  When he turned around and headed back toward Delta, Nadia began to talk about her life in Ukraine. She told how her father and uncle always thought of themselves as Russians no matter where they lived, but they had always been so crossways with government authorities that it had caused them a lot of turmoil and inconvenience. It was mostly her father, she explained. He was so outspoken that she had grown up developing the habit of not saying much to compensate for the jeopardy his behavior always seemed to cause. She said she understood what it was like to lose your mother and that her whole life had changed when her own mother died.

  For a few miles they were quiet, lost in magnificent scenery and captivated by each other's company. There was very little traffic, and the steady hum of the big crew cab's engine made Randy self-conscious. Anxious to break the silence, he said, “Still lots of daylight left this time of year.”

  “It’s not so different for where I grow up in Ukraine. We had long daylight too, just not so much.”

  Randy wished the evening wouldn’t end, but he wanted to be a gentleman. “How did you get to the deli tonight, Nadia?”

  “Elena give me a ride. She said she could take me home too.”

  “I can take you home.”

  “Not necessary,” she said firmly.

  “Nadia, I know where you live, if that’s what’s bothering you. One of the guys I know in town told me where, and I drove by the other day. You don’t live that far from us, you know.”

  She looked at her hands. “We don’t do so well.”

  “So what? Things like that don’t matter to me,” he said.

  “It is embarrassment to live in shack, even in Ukraine."

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, Nadia. The world over, people have lots of trouble making a living. You should see Afghanistan.”

  “My uncle lose a brother in Afghanistan many years ago. And he has TB. You know that too?”

  Randy could feel his face go flush, but he tried not to look alarmed. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “No contagion, he just have trouble working. It has left him weak in condition,” she said.

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “He was carpenter long ago. Now he just do light work, whatever he can find. My father always say to pursue American Dream. Uncle say dream is illusion. He say people here just as beholden to the powerful people as in Russia and Ukraine.”

  "Well, I think if you believe in the American Dream or the Russian Dream, you have a chance to make it so, and if you don't, it's doubtful you will be able to."

  When he pulled up in front of Nadia’s residence, he tried to suppress a wince. He had seen it from the road, but the place was worse than a hovel. It looked like a dilapidated mobile home partially covered by green logs, maybe twenty by twenty feet, hardly big enough for two people. He wondered how it could possibly be warm enough in the winter.

  When they got out of his truck, he could tell by her movement that she didn’t want him to come in, and he wanted very badly to save her the embarrassment. She leaned toward him and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You are beautiful, Nadia,” he said.

  “You are too,” she said and turned away.

  Budding Genius

  “Pansy, let’s go for a walk. Go get Nellie.” Mandy heard herself speaking aloud and looked around the barn lot to make sure no one but the cows could hear her. Imagine talking to a cow and being understood. Who was going to believe this, even if they saw it with their own eyes? Pansy trotted over to the entrance on the east side of the barn, opened the gate, and went in after her friend Nellie. Both came out on the run, and before any of the other cows could come out, Pansy pushed the gate shut and flipped the lever to lock.

  Mandy watched, shaking her head. This too she would video, but she might need supporting evidence to keep people from thinking it wasn’t a trick or something. They left the barnyard and entered the woods near the creek that ran all the way through the forest, coming out near the trail to Kellogg Mountain.

  About a half-mile into their walk, Pansy, who was out ahead of Nellie and Mandy, stopped abruptly. She stood still for a moment and then ran back to Mandy and nudged her forward, just like Lassie in a movie trying to show her owner something. As soon as she came to the place where Pansy had stopped, Mandy could see what had disturbed her. There, near the creek bank, were bear tracks, huge bear tracks, and they looked fresh. “Let’s go back girls,” she said.

  As if she understood every word, Pansy ran in front of Nellie, turning her toward the barn. Mandy wasn’t sure if the goose bumps on her neck and arms were because a bear was so close by or because she was in the presence of perhaps one of the smartest cows on the planet. How could this be? And how could this cow not even look like the rest of the herd? Was she a genetic accident or a mutant? Or could it be that Pansy was not that uncommon? That people simply didn’t know much about cows because most cows were usually in herds and none of them ever got that much individual attention? “But what about dairy cattle?” she wondered. Each of them gets lots of attention, and surely some of them are smarter than average.

  She remembered that one of Mom’s favorite cartoons was a Far Side strip showing several cows standing on their hind legs drinking cocktails when one cow yells “Car!” And in the next image, they’re all back on all fours, grazing. She hadn’t thought about it in years until now. What would her mother have had to say about Pansy? The ache of grief rose in her chest with the knowledge that she couldn’t tell her herself.

  Some of the girls she knew in the area had terrible battles with their mothers, but that had not been the case with her and her mom. Maybe it had something to do with living so far from town. Or maybe it was just because they were both of compatible temperament that they hardly ever fought. Even thinking about it now, she had to admit that fighting was too strong a word to describe the spats she had with
her mother. She would tell Pansy how much she missed her mother. After all Pansy’s mother was gone too. Pansy wouldn't know what she was saying, but Pansy would understand. She was a model of empathy.

  A Revelation

  All three of them could feel the tension in the kitchen as Mandy set the breakfast table. Taking her seat, she looked at her father and said, “When were you going to tell me we were moving? When the moving trucks showed up, or before?”

  “I’m sorry, Mandy. I should have said something, but I didn’t really have a plan put together until a few days ago. And we won't be selling the place. We’re just leasing it to the university. You can come back and live here in the guest house after college, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “And you’re having a slaughterhouse operation coming here in early September to kill our cattle?” She was glaring at Ed.

  “How did you know that?”

  “They called here yesterday afternoon to make a tentative schedule. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “Again, I’m sorry, Mandy.”

  “Don’t you two even know that eating beef is bad for the planet?” she asked.

  Before Ed could get a word out, Randy said, “Mandy, we have been in the beef-eating business for a long time. Why would you suddenly bring something up like this?”

  “I don’t get it," said Ed.

  “Both of you aren’t very observant, you know. If you were, you would have noticed that I haven’t eaten meat in months. I’m a vegetarian.”

  “You are a vegetarian,” said Randy, his face contorted as if he’d been caught by surprise.

  Ed put his hand in the air to stop Randy from saying more, and the three of them remained quiet while they ate.

  Then, pushing his plate aside, Ed said, “Mandy, I knew you’d be going off to college in January, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I thought with four years of college ahead of you, it wouldn’t matter so much.”

  “You were thinking of selling the ranch, and you weren’t going to tell me until it was sold?”

  “No, if that had been the case, I would have told you before putting it up for sale. Dave offered me a job in Idaho, but I told him it might be several months before I could move."

  “What would you have done if I’d told you I didn’t ever want to sell the ranch?”

  “Then I wouldn’t have sold it.”

  “Honest, are you telling me the truth?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation.

  She didn’t answer, but her facial expression made him think that if she didn’t believe him, at least she wanted to. She left the table and went to her room, but this time there was no slamming door. Randy and Ed exchanged silent glances with questions in their eyes as Randy got up to go home.

  Sitting by himself in the early morning light, Ed sipped his remaining coffee and got lost in memories past. The only thing he knew for sure in life was that, in the final analysis, things don't go as planned. It's the unexpected happenstance on which all of the major things in life depend. Life, he knew from experience, is what happens when you expect something else.

  He felt better, though, much better. At least things were out in the open. But now he couldn’t help but wonder if this whole vegetarian thing wasn’t simply something directed at him, a kind of retribution for spending so much time away, not to mention Amy’s death. And if this was indeed the case, how would he ever turn things around? It was futile to get worked up about it now. He couldn’t realistically do anything to change the situation at this point. Maybe being away at college would change the way Mandy felt. Time. They just needed time.

  Mandy had always known that her grandparents had put money away for her college education. They had talked about it often when Amy was alive, so he wasn’t surprised when Mandy had announced that she needed help preparing applications. Now she’d been accepted to start mid-year at Colorado State University, but she hadn’t shared with him many details about what she wanted to study or major in, let alone what she had in mind for a career. It was both sad and unusual to be so estranged from his daughter’s plans. They still needed to talk some more, the sooner the better.

  The Hunt

  Two weeks had passed since Mandy had asked him about moving. He’d vowed he wasn’t going to put off killing the grizzly this time, but he had. The weeks were slipping by, and he kept letting it slide. Now a friend flying over his place had spotted the blond grizzly just a few hundred yards from his ranch. So he’d asked Randy to prepare to go with him after Methuselah, and in the wee morning hours they headed toward Kellogg Mountain. It would be a good opportunity to talk and get some concerns off his chest.

  It was the time of the summer solstice. Today there would be more than twenty-one hours of daylight. Everything in sight but the rocks and tree trunks was in some degree a shade of green. Glorious as summer could be, Ed liked autumn the best, when the mountains turned purple and the air smelled crisp. He was already beginning to regret that he would be leaving Alaska at the very time he loved it the most, although winters in the interior were brutal, even when they were considered mild. No, the seasons wouldn’t be quite the same in Idaho, but close enough. He would adjust. Still, the thought of leaving his land and his home saddened him. Only now did it dawn on him that all of his memories of Amy were bound to Alaska. The times they had visited Idaho were too brief to count, so he was grateful once again to be leasing the place and not selling out.

  They parked the four-wheelers in the usual place and started the torturous trek to the top of the mountain. The air was warm, and if they didn't get a breeze soon, the day would turn hot. A rocky bluff gave them an expansive sweep below to survey for signs of the bear. They found a partially rotted log to sit on, and Ed opened a thermos. Pouring them both a cup of hot coffee, he asked, “So, when we leave for Idaho, have you thought about coming with us?”

  “This is home for me,” Randy said. “I was thinking about reenlisting and still might do it, but I also want to ask Nadia to marry me. If she says yes, we will live here.” He paused. “I’m really glad you didn’t sell the ranch.”

  “Me too. And hey, congratulations!”

  “Don’t congratulate me yet. I haven’t asked and she hasn’t said yes.”

  “Don’t worry, she will.”

  “How do you know?”

  “'Cause I’m a lot older than you are, that’s how. I can tell about things like this.”

  Ed raised his binoculars and glassed the valley below. Fixing his eyes on a cow moose, he said, “You know, when you asked me about whether you were showing any signs of PTSD a while back, I wasn’t completely honest.”

  “I know,” Randy said, nodding.

  “You knew I wasn’t being honest? How?”

  “I don’t know, I just knew. I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not the same person that came home the first time. Remember how we joked about PTSD?”

  “I do,” said Ed.

  “Well, we were wrong.” Randy stayed silent for a while and then took a deep breath. “You know, I’ve always thought of Mandy as a kid, kind of like a kid sister, but she is wise way beyond her years. Light-years ahead of me in a lot of ways. She’s been giving me books that have done more to help me put the war in its proper perspective than anything I think I could have gotten from a shrink.”

  “What kind of books?” Ed asked, forgetting about the moose.

  “Oh, history, psychology, philosophy, and personal accounts of men in war. Before I finish one, she hands me a couple more. How do you suppose she learned so much, living out here alone most of the time?”

  “I don’t know.” Ed shrugged. “I don’t see that much of her, you know. I walk into a room and she goes out the nearest door. If it weren’t for meals, I’d hardly see her at all. Sometimes she eats alone unless you and Nadia eat with us. She spends more time with that damned calf than anyone.”

  “What are you going to do about the calf?”

  “Good question. Play it by ear, I guess.”
Ed emptied his cup and raised the binoculars again.

  After a long period of silence with both men glassing the landscape, Randy said, “You know, history wasn’t that big a deal in school. I mean I liked it, sort of, but after you’ve killed men, history becomes important.” Another long moment of silence. Then Randy continued, “I’ve known men to kill others indiscriminately simply because I think they wanted to be able to say they’d done it. What kind of society produces such people? You know, that idiot I ruffed up a bit at the deli was half right about going to war. Hell, war has never solved anything except to lay the groundwork of revenge for the next.”

  Ed turned his binoculars a different direction so that Randy wouldn’t see his face. If the pride he felt for his nephew was noticeable, it might embarrass him. Changing the subject, he said, “I guess we should head down to the creek and see if we can pick up any tracks. Dewey said Methuselah was close to our house when he flew by the first time, but on his way back, he said the beast was on top the mountain. When he flew low, the old son-of-a-bitch stood on his hind legs and swatted at him.”

  They hunted until late evening and never found a fresh track.

  * * * * *

  Ed climbed into bed that night, exhausted from the hunt but feeling good—no, very good—about his nephew. Now, if only this thing with Nadia would work out, Randy might be all right. Still, Ed was uneasy about something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Nadia had been having dinner a lot with them lately, and she seemed to be one of the sweetest creatures on the planet. Both he and Mandy adored her. But at times, just when things seemed to be going well, Nadia slipped into her own version of a thousand-yard stare. It was both puzzling and ominous.