She'd been so stupid. She had so little money and had come with such optimism. She couldn't afford the goats she needed. At one stall she met a lady who had the most beautiful goats Catherine had ever seen. Nubians, they were called. The woman, Meg, had her own farm. After talking for several hours, Meg had taken pity on her. Given her more than her money called for, but it still wasn't enough. The next day, Catherine was on her way back in Glen's truck. This time, she wasn't leaning out the window in awe. The weight of a near-empty trailer caused her to shrink against her seat, as far away from Glen as she could get.
She saw her mother right away. Bertha was standing on the porch with her hands loosely grasping the railing, drying her hair in the last of the sun, when Glen's truck made the last huff up the hill and slanted down to the front door of the small house. The sun was about to disappear behind the hills in the west, and that gold light was half illuminating Bertha with her blouse and long skirt, black hair loose to her waist behind her.
Glen pulled up sharp at the end of the dirt road and Catherine watched the dust settle and her mother set her feet down into it, walking toward her. Catherine opened the truck door and tumbled down into her Ma's arms. They held each other tight for a while and Bertha smoothed Catherine's face with the flat of her hand. Catherine reached for her pack and handed it to her mother, walking around the trailer empty-handed, to let those new creatures out.
They were so small. They seemed even smaller now that she was back at the ranch. She felt her face soften, looking at them, at the funny quizzical expressions on their faces. Bertha's steps were soft behind her in the moccasins that she had never given up wearing.
Bertha saw the two occupants of the trailer and stopped short. Catherine half-turned toward her and saw her mother's eyebrows lift in surprise.
"Only two?" she asked.
Catherine nodded.
Glen limped over and squinted at Catherine.
"I need to be going, girl," he said. "Why don't you haul them on out of here and I can be off." He turned to Bertha and grinned, his missing teeth sharp holes in his face. "This girl brought you back a couple a kids. Ha! Spent all her money on them too. Nice herd here, nice herd."
He shook his head and wandered back to the driver's seat. Catherine blinked back the tears in her eyes and pulled the pair out by the collars, deftly avoiding their tiny flailing feet.
"That was wonderful of her, to sell you the goats," Bertha said, later. They were sitting on the porch, wrapped in blankets. Glen was long gone, the stars washing the sky of his presence. Catherine nodded. It felt good to tell her mother what had happened. She could release the story, send it flying so it didn't cling to her anymore. She scooted closer to her mother on the porch. The evening air was cold.
"They're kids, but they're worth a lot more than I paid for them."
Bertha twisted her body so she could look at Catherine's face. "She gave you those goats?"
"She didn't give them to me, I paid for them, but she made me pay half what she normally asks. It'll be next spring before the nanny'll be able to have a kid. But Meg gave me two from her best lines."
"Sounds like a miracle."
Catherine wasn't so sure.
"Sometime those goats will multiply and get us some money. A little. But what about now?"
"Now?"
"We still have no money, we still barely have the food to keep us alive."
Bertha laughed, a low, soft sound that startled Catherine. She tightened the blankets around her. It had been a long time since her mother laughed. A call came from the storage shed she'd converted into a goat pen. A plaintive child's call. They listened to it until it stopped.
"Sometimes you still don't understand," Bertha said. "We have everything. If we get hungry we can shoot a wild turkey, or a grouse. We have food growing in the garden, a river to drink from or fish from. If it came to it, I could find some acorns and roast them."
Catherine shook her head, frustrated. Her mother never seemed to have any ambition.
"That's not what I mean, Ma. Of course we can scavenge for food, but what about getting to a place where we don't have to be scavengers? What about the holes in our roof? Winter will be on us before we know it. It'll be worse this year."
Bertha let out a long, deep breath.
"I don't know about all that, Catherine."
"What about what we talked about before? Goats may give us milk in the future, but what about timber? We have trees now. They're one thing we do have."
Bertha pulled the blanket tighter across her shoulders. "You know how I feel about it. I don't know that we do have them. I don't know that they belong to us. Let's not overlook God's provision. Plenty of game, fish, vegetables. Two goats that you admitted were meant to cost more."
"Other people are contracting their land out. From what I hear, you don't even have to do anything. The loggers come and they pay you for what they take."
"These trees have been here for hundreds of years. Thousands."
"But there are so many of them. Nobody else is fussing about this, Ma. It's a way to make a living, when you're surrounded by trees. We could build us a new house, even. Maybe use some of the wood they take down. Half a tree! That's all it would take."
Catherine gazed at the giants. In them she could see the promise of a new house, a warm winter. Maybe not this year, but next. Beside her, Bertha shivered. When Catherine looked at her, she seemed old and tired.
"I'm going to head in," she said. "You can do what you want. You know how I feel. You know how I feel." She rose and the planks on the porch shrieked as she crossed over them to go into the house.
Of course it would be a shame to see those trees go. Catherine smelled the cold silvery scent of rain in the distance. It was a shame, but there were so many. Her mother couldn't see it properly, she was raised practically outside, leaking roofs didn't bother her any, but her bones were getting older and she needed a warm house. Catherine had made up her mind.
Maybe, once she could see the damage they had done, it would have been simple to ask them to stop. She had called them here; she could send them away. But it was like she was iron and could not bend. She didn't know how to change her mind. Instead she cringed and listened to trees falling.
Until that day when her mother, broken and frail from listening to falling trees, asked her to get them to stop and Catherine could finally run and do it.
When Catherine opened her eyes again, they felt glued together. There was a hazy light coming through the windows. She'd fallen asleep and slept through the night on Molly's bed. Where were Molly and Jack? Ah. On the porch, that's right.
She tried to shrug away the terrible dreams she'd had of trees falling on her, pinning her mother to the ground, dreams of trying to lift the trees off of herself, her mother, her daughter. The last thing, the thing that had woken her, was the image of a tree on Bill, her husband. She strained with all her might to pull it off him, but it pressed down harder and harder until he disappeared into the ground.
She sat up and wiped the tears away from her eyes, holding her hands over her face tightly. It wasn't comfortable to wake up in her clothes. The hook on her skirt had pressed into her thigh. The spot felt bruised.
When she had brushed herself down she gripped her cane and walked out of the bedroom. It was early, she saw; the sun was just rising, though she could see only the glow behind the smoke. No one was awake in the house. She splashed tepid water on her face and rinsed her mouth, rebraiding her hair and dropping the braid behind her back. The woman who looked at her from the mirror was a stranger. The girl inside wondered whose face had all the lines in it. Everything kept changing on her. These days her body was different each hour. Everything speeding away from everything else.
She left the house, walking down the hill toward the guest cabin. There was urgency circling around this painting. It had drawn her from her bed.
She could hear the hum of goats in the morning, the small calls and bleats and muttering. In t
he sky, fifty sparrows moved in unison; one getting an idea of where he wanted to go and all the rest clustering after, worried about being left behind. Through her tired eyes they looked a little like a cat, pouncing from one bush to the next, but then they swept into a high branch of one of the bay trees, and no cat could make that jump. How did they move together like that? So fluid. She let herself in through the front door of the cabin. The gravel on these hills was doing a number on her legs.
In the kitchen the painting sat propped on the counter top. Windows on three sides of the narrow room illuminated it. She could see the figures she had blocked in yesterday. They looked at ease on their blanket on the grass. Molly a young child, sitting with her father.
Catherine poured water from the faucet, letting it clear before filling the kettle and putting it on the stove. She grasped the smooth handle of the teapot and placed it on the counter, opening a box of tea and peeling a couple of teabags away from the others to put them in the pot. She pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at her face. Sweating, already.
While the water boiled she put her palette together, choosing colors from her box of paints. She had set the under-painting last time, now she needed to zoom in, so colors were important, brush size was important. She liked to work on the whole canvas at once, moving quickly from spot to spot, slowly bringing more detail to the whole. She knew that in this painting it would be the faces that would bring it forward. She wasn't ready to do much more than the shadow of Bill's jaw line yet.
The kettle was shrieking. She poured the water into the teapot and pushed the pot to the back of the counter where she couldn't knock it over. The room smelled of tea and oil paint, with smoke smells creeping around the edges. The sun was higher now. Every day she lost time. This painting had become so important to her, and she didn't know if she would have time to finish it.
Her legs ached, but she paced back and forth across the room, dabbing quickly at the canvas with her brush, then walking away to see the results. The shapes of the hills were sketched in, the grass taking on depth around the pair that were seated. There was a tree beside them. It was the tree her father had named the Eve tree. The woman-shaped oak. She stood at the far end of the room and studied the bark. What was that color?
She was crying a little, as she laid color on the canvas with the brush. It was Bill, of course, his face that she could almost touch. Her lingering dream. She hadn't been able to save him, in her dream life or their real life.
Unlike her, he had always been a town boy. His parents owned the hardware and general store on Main Street and Catherine had seen him throughout the years, here and there, because she and her mother and father were always in and out of that store.
When she did go to school, she loved it. Loved every single thing they threw at her to learn, despite the fact that she felt mighty uncomfortable sitting indoors for hours at a time. Her skin got itchy with it. She entertained thoughts of going on to college, but folded that idea up neatly, like a handkerchief, on the day her daddy died.
During the spring a year and a half after she first bought her goats, when the nanny was heavy with kid and the loggers were still moving over the hills like locusts, Bill came back from school and asked Catherine out. It shook her out of doting on her goats, which she loved to distraction, and moping over the clanging saws. To distract herself from falling trees, she kept herself busy with the goats, filling her eyes with the sight of them, laughing at the clumsy way the heavy nanny waddled over the grass. Her small herd was safe and growing slowly. One member had been added last spring, one more would be born shortly.
Bill caught up with her after she'd come into town alone one day. She left the store and all its fascinating things, shiny potato peelers and pots and pans, stiff new harnesses that she smoothed her long fingers over. She noticed him in the store that day, nodded and ducked her head, smiling, to acknowledge the fact that he was back from college. She noticed how his mother smoothed her hand over his hair, fussing over him. He was thinner than Catherine remembered, and even in the dim, dusty light of the store, his blond hair almost glowed.
When she left the store the air was fresh and delightful, the most beautiful air there was. The small trees that had been planted on Main Street were in bloom, white and pink, soft against the backdrop of the buildings and dark redwood trees. The blossoms were falling and Catherine felt a petal brush her face as she pushed the wheelbarrow she'd just purchased. It was a heavy investment, but there was nothing for it, they needed a wheelbarrow.
Bertha was at home putting the late spring plants in the garden. This was a busy time of year. Sometimes at night the two of them could do nothing more than lie on their backs on the porch, watching the clouds scuttle across the sky, like boats on a navy blue sea, Bertha said. Sometimes Catherine's mother missed the coast.
Bill popped up suddenly as Catherine pushed the empty wheelbarrow.
"Hey there," he said.
Catherine stopped and let the thing rest on its prongs. She felt herself turning red. When she straightened, they were the same height.
"Hello." She put one hand on the small of her back and kneaded a sore spot.
"Since I've been back," he said, "I've been meaning to ask you to go out with me some evening." He stopped as though he was done. Catherine was bright with something, some kind of emotion that told her that she did want to go out with Bill O'Leary. She waited for him to finish his question. He watched her, squinting slightly because the sun was in his eyes. She twitched her skirt, she'd changed into it to come into town. Her hair had grown since her father died and she cut it off, she smoothed her finger over her braid, waiting.
"Well." Bill cleared his throat. "I hear you turn all the fellows down."
Oh, that was all. This ragtag pile of farm boys?
"Can't say yes to the wrong person," she said.
"How about if I asked?"
She laughed, finally. "How many different ways are you going to ask me without asking me?"
He shrugged, his ears red, looking down.
"Will you go to a movie with me, Catherine?"
"Sure," she said, and picked the handles of her wheelbarrow back up to roll it toward her new truck, the one the logging had paid for. He caught up with her again to arrange a time and date, and she hurried through so she could be away where she could laugh and the burning in her face would stop.
The first night he got lost looking for the ranch. After that, they met in town. They went to movies at the theater, a first for her, and restaurants that felt so fancy. It was the high life for a girl who helped a nanny goat give birth and then got dressed to go out, scrubbing at her hands. Bill was the assistant accountant for the town now, he could afford to take them out. The first time she held his hand, she almost yelped, that's how soft it was. He combed his light blond hair with water before she came to town, so that she could see the pink scalp between the wet rows. He wore bow ties, and they were always a little crooked. He was a handsome town boy, with a smile that brought her right inside, right to the crook of his arm.
She was letting down her guard. This was the most special she'd ever felt.
And eventually she saw the reason for his mother's protectiveness. Sometimes Bill sank down somewhere deep inside, barely able to wake, not wanting to go anywhere or do anything, showing up at work in the wrong clothing. Catherine could dig him out. She'd exchange a look with his mother, plow into the little room he had in his parent's house and throw the curtains open, toss him his clothes.
"Get up! We're going swimming," she'd say, or, "I'm going to show you the tiniest goat you've ever seen."
When he was like this, his eyes were like holes in his face. She practically fed him, handing him spoonfuls of food, haranguing him over every bite. When he was feeling better, he told her he'd found his saving grace, that she was the only one who had ever helped him. These words wound Catherine like thread on a spool and drew her even closer. He needed her and she thrived like a sunflower in his
need. They loved each other fiercely when he was like this and they needed to be careful not to lay around in his bedcovers too long, because when they finally broke free, Catherine always had the sense that she'd been drowning.
She had caught Bill on the canvas. It was him, he looked like he could speak. Catherine stepped back from the canvas again and approved of what she had done. She had captured Molly and her small monkey graces, too, the way she put herself neatly between her parents. Catherine stepped forward and worked on the blanket, bringing it to life, putting the shadows and rumples where they should be. The grass was brilliant. But what about that tree? The color of the bark was wrong.
The photograph was old, and the colors weren't true. She needed to see the tree, but the Eve tree was too far away. There was no way she could walk out there. Maybe she could take a closer look at one of the other black oaks. Yes, that was it, she'd take a walk—there was that black oak by the goat barn—maybe she'd bring a piece of it back to the cabin.
She finished her tea and set the cup in the sink, running her hand over the white tiles on the counter to steady her heart. The painting teased at her. Bill smiling down into his daughter's face. He had missed so much.
THIRTEEN
Molly was wiping the counters and arguing with Jack again. Sleep hadn't been great last night and her head felt like tangled electrical wires.
"What I'm saying is that if the horses aren't completely healthy, we won't be able to get them out of here anyways," she said.
"I get it. But it's not a great time to have the vet come. We're trying to be ready to evacuate."
"We can't let that abscess go any longer."
Jack threw up his hands. "Fine. Call Sheila."
"Thank you, I will," she replied, draining the water from the sink after she had scooped some of it onto her small collection of plants on the windowsill. They were all looking tired. They looked like she felt.
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