Westerly Directions

Nothing like receiving my first fan letter from a reader of Hardpan. Donna Markle attended my book reading at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland, Oregon in January 2016. She grew up in Casper, Wyoming, not far from Clark, the setting for Part I of my novel. Thank you, Donna!

While visiting Berlin and Budapest in early October, I stopped by book stores to ask if they would consider adding my debut novel, Hardpan, to their shelves. They expressed a strong interest, and explained how I will need to go thru wholesalers to make this happen. Both stores carry many books by American novelists (Jonathan Franzen’s new book was featured on a storefront poster of Booksellers in Budapest). Dussmann’s in Berlin is a three-story multi-media/book store, including a huge vinyl records section and large separate section for books written in English. All very impressive and fun!

From successful author Lee Gant: “Hardpan. I love the image that brings to mind: dry, cracked clay dirt…powdered earth rising from sunbaked ground with every booted step. Makes me want to dust off my jeans. Great title for this family saga set in Clark, Wyoming about a family grappling with the changing American West.

I’m always impressed with writing that takes me somewhere, and Marilyn’s does just that. I cared about her characters and rooted for them when they faltered. I rode along with them throughout their adventures and wished my family could have been that strong. Marilyn’s words gave me pictures, and emotions, and a reason to turn the page.”

Thank you, Lee!

Exciting news: my first novel, Hardpan, was published August 1st by Westerly Directions Press. E-books are now available from Apple iBooks: https://itun.es/us/fwu48.I and Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/, as well as online from B&N Nook. Print books will also be available soon.

Set in Clark, Wyoming in the mid-1950s, Hardpan tells the journey of a young ranch family grappling with the changing American West after World War II. After returning from the war to manage the family ranch in eastern Oregon, Kurt Glover confronts familial challenges to his new role. Yet, Kurt’s decision to relocate his family to a remote cattle ranch in Wyoming introduces risks to his young family that he never imagined.

“Marilyn Skinner Lanier’s first novel ‘Hardpan’ reveals her deep understanding of the vicissitudes of life in rural Wyoming for the Glover family in the 1950s as economic conditions, the weather, and human frailty lead them from one difficulty to the next. Her resilient and well-drawn characters, however, show what it takes to overcome the hardships they face and survive with strength and endurance. They are to be admired as is Lanier for so wisely probing the human heart and family devotion. Her writing is vivid, nuanced, and alive.”

– Maxine Chernoff, Chair of the Creative Writing Program at San Francisco State University, author of 6 books of fiction and 14 books of poetry, winner of an NEA Fellowship and the PEN Translation Prize

Linda squeezed her mother hard around her waist, not wanting to let go. She got a whiff of her mother’s skin, still damp from her morning shower, the fragrance of violets from the talcum powder dusted on her shoulders and neck.

More than her mother’s sweet smell caught her attention. Jo’s reddish-blonde hair was pulled into a twist, held in place by several large bobby pins. Her freshly ironed white cotton shirt was stiff from starch, and her new navy broadcloth skirt had box pleats instead of her usual gathered waist.

Linda was careful not to muss her up. She released her grip so Jean could say goodbye too, suddenly shivering from the bite in the outside air.

She was finally ready for her mother’s departure to Billings, eighty miles away. All weekend, her mother had been preparing her, showing her little things she needed to know to take care of the baby during the week–where she kept extra formula and how to sterilize the bottles if she ran out. She already knew how to do most everything, but her mother kept pointing things out, just in case.

“You can always run to Virgie’s house to get help.”

Virgie was their closest neighbor. Looking past her mother, she could see the big cottonwood tree in her front yard.

“I know, Mom. Don’t worry.”

“And Christopher. If he gets sick…” Her voice trailed off.

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll take good care of him.”

“I know you will, honey.” She rubbed Linda’s shoulder and drifted away.

“Jean and I are going to have a big surprise for you when you come home Friday night.”

“Hmm. How about a hint?”

“No, Mom. You’ll have to wait.”

“Oh my!” She sighed. Her slender figure trembled in the cold air.

Jean tugged on mother’s skirt, oblivious to the conversation. ”I’ll miss you, Mommy!”

Jo didn’t seem to hear Jean. She shoved her arms into her tweed coat, pulling one side over the other to shut out the morning chill.

“You take good care of your baby brother and yourselves too.” Her eyes darted away as she searched for her car keys.

When her mother turned on the engine and pulled away, Linda was relieved that she hadn’t choked up. After all, her mother had taken the job to help the family get on its feet again. She wiped her sleeve across her cheek to clear some tears and grabbed Jean’s hand. As they trudged into the house, she started thinking how long it would be until Friday night.

As she pulled out a plastic bag full of corn flakes from the bottom kitchen cupboard and poured some into the bowls for her and Jean, she listened for Christopher’s cries of hunger. Her mother had filled eight bottles of formula for him and put them into the fridge. All she had to do was put a bottle into a pan of hot water for five minutes and squirt a few drops of milk on her wrist to test the temperature.

By mid-morning, she started thinking about the surprise she had promised her mother.

“Look at that, Jean.” She pointed to the wall above the sofa in the living room.

“What’s the matter?”

“It looks bad. Hasn’t been painted in years. You can tell that.”

Years of sun streaming through the living room window had bleached out the center part of the wall behind the couch. The rest was a slightly darker hue, like the cream that Mom used to skim off the fresh milk in the metal bucket each morning on the ranch.

Jean was unfazed. “It looks fine to me.”

“Come on! Can’t you tell that wall is faded and dirty? We could surprise Mommy by painting it before she comes home on Friday. David told me we have some yellow paint in the cellar. We might have enough for the living room.”

They found three gallons of paint in the cellar. Two had never been opened. It was white paint, not yellow, but they decided it would work anyhow. She and Jean could start painting after her father and David left for work on Tuesday.

She told her father about the painting project when he got home that night. He grinned. “Good idea, honey. Your mother will be tickled.” He ordered David to bring the paint cans and brushes from the cellar for his sisters. After making a couple of runs, David staged everything on a big canvas tarp in the middle of the living room.

The next morning, after David left for the Fraker ranch and her father took off for his road job in the Big Horns, she called to Jean. “We’ve got to move this furniture out of here, Sissy.”

Jean groaned. “All of it?”

“No, just the couch and chair and coffee table. We need to shove them against the wall so we can paint that one.” She pointed to the front wall of the living room. It was the most complicated because of two windows and the front door.

As they shoved one end of the couch across the linoleum floor, they heard the baby rustling in the crib. Linda peeked into her parents’ bedroom. Sure enough. He was whimpering. He must be hungry again.

She handed Jean some butcher paper. “We can finish this after I feed Christopher. Why don’t you put some of this next to the wall to catch the paint drips?”

Linda hadn’t expected Christopher’s feeding to take so long. He was still wide-awake way past his naptime. It was almost noon before he fell asleep in his crib and they could move the furniture again. The sofa, coffee table, and two floor lamps formed a furniture wall in front of their parents’ bedroom so they had plenty of room to paint.

Linda let Jean paint the bottom half of the wall while she stood on the yellow vinyl seat of a chrome kitchen chair to paint the top half. Jean used a three-inch brush and Linda used the big paint roller. They were awkward at first, and some big globs of paint fell to the baseboard and the floor, but they were getting better at it. They made good progress until the baby woke up from his nap. At first, they ignored his whimpers.

“Let’s get this part done,” Linda said. They had only a few more strokes to finish the wall next to the front door. As the baby’s cries got louder and more insistent, the girls painted faster, trying to ignore him. Linda tried to calm him as she used up the fresh paint on her roller.

“I’m coming sweet baby. We’re almost done out here,” she hollered.

“Okay, he’s not going to stop. I’ve got to give him a bottle now,” she said. As she jumped off the chair, she remembered the bedroom door was blocked.

“Oh my gosh!” She looked at Jean. “I can’t get to Christopher. Help me shove this sofa back so I can get through the door.”

The baby wailed until the doorway was clear and Linda scooped him up from the crib.

 

It was a long week. One day Linda accidentally dumped some paint on Jean’s hair as she tried to dip the roller into the pan while stepping on the chair. Jean was furious with her.

“What do you think you’re doing? How am I going to get this paint out of my hair?”

“We’ll get it out later. We can’t do it now because it’ll take too long to rinse it out, and we need to finish this pan of paint.”

“That’s stupid! You better get this out of my hair now, before it gets hard,” Jean yelled at her.

It took ten minutes of rinsing to get the paint out. “You’re drowning me,” Jean screamed. “That’s enough!” She spit out the murky water and ran out of the room, her wet hair dripping.

 

By Friday, the girls had painted all the walls in the living room and their parents’ bedroom. They tossed the old newspaper into the garbage can, bunched up the paint rags, and moved furniture back into place.

“Help me take these paint cans to the basement,” Linda said, stopping Jean from drifting away from the job.

“Only if you promise you won’t make me do one more chore before Mommy gets home.”

“Alright. Stop complaining. I promise,” Linda said.

The afternoon stretched out forever. They made a big batch of oatmeal cookies but ended up eating most of the dough before baking some in the oven.

“I feel sick,” Jean groaned.

“Me, too. That dough sure was good, though.”

Hours before their mother arrived home, they had made their bed, picked up the house, and washed the dirty dishes from the cookie making. They put Christopher in his crib so Linda could braid Jean’s hair special for the occasion.

It was dusk when they caught sight of the car lights beaming into the front room. The girls sprang for the door.

“Welcome home, Mommy!” they hollered outside.

Their mother clutched them to her chest. Linda felt like she couldn’t breathe as Jean’s warm body was squeezed in between. But she held still until she felt her mother’s gentle release. The girls jostled one another for position, waiting for Jo’s reaction to their paint job. But their mother was distracted by gurgling sounds coming from the bedroom. She dropped her purse and coat, and ran to get the baby.

“Mommy, wait! Don’t you notice something’s different?” Linda said, her voice quivering with excitement. Jean pointed proudly to the living room wall.

Jo paused. Her eyes moved up and down the newly painted wall as if she were painting it herself. She was looking at the uneven rows of new paint, some barely covering the old paint, others opaque from three or four coats. The baseboard had blotches of paint here and there. Linda squirmed, wishing she could end the inspection.

“You girls painted these two rooms, didn’t you? Is that your surprise, Linda?”

“Yep, it is. What do you think?” she asked breathlessly.

“It’s very nice. Nice job, girls.” She heaved a deep sigh. Her eyes welled with tears.

Jean shrugged her shoulders in bewilderment. “What’s the matter, Mommy?”

Linda pulled her arm and whispered, “I think Mommy’s tired.”

The girls trailed behind their mother as she edged her way again to the baby’s crib. Their eyes were fixed on Jo’s back as she picked up the baby and smothered him with kisses.

Linda waved Jean away. “It’s okay sissy. Mommy’s had a hard week.” But she knew it was about their paint job. Maybe they could do better next time.

 

This holiday season marks a year since my husband took the plunge.

“I saw this ad on Craig’s List for a holiday job with FedEx,” Bob reported nonchalantly. “I’m going to meet a guy named Eddy for an interview at the FedEx terminal near the airport.”

I didn’t object. A couple of weeks could put some cash in his pocket. He still
had his consulting business to fall back on, though it was hit or miss after
three years. He’d named it Bioclaris, a transformative choice in light of his love
for the life sciences.

In 2000 he returned to college at the University of Oregon to get a second
baccalaureate degree in Biology. He had built up a solid nest egg from 25 years
in the computer software business, setting up sales & marketing programs for
companies in the U.S. and Europe. He decided it was time to pursue his lifelong dream.

Six years later, after building a network of contacts with CEOs of bioscience
companies in the state, he accepted the position of Executive Director of the
Oregon Bioscience Association. It was a great platform for advancing fledgling
bioscience companies like his own.

By 2009, when I secured a new senior administrator position with a large
university in San Francisco, we felt sure that he was well positioned to transfer
his knowledge base to the Bay Area as a trailing spouse. What neither of us
had predicted was the extent to which the growing recession and his age would thwart Bob’s new career plans.

Hitting the Reboot Button

When he returned home that balmy December day, he plunked a pile of clothes on our bed—a pair of used baggy blue pants and matching shirt with the FedEx logo on the right pocket.

“I’m going to help FedEx drivers deliver packages downtown.”

I skewed up my eyes at him. “Downtown?”

“Yeah. The Financial District. Commercial deliveries.”

He can’t be serious, I thought. Downtown San Francisco is as congested as an over-stuffed beanbag. Streets chock-a-block with cars, taxis, bikers, tourists, business people, shoppers, and the homeless hunkered down in threadbare sleeping bags in recessed doorways. I shrugged my shoulders, consoling myself with the thought that it was a temporary job, bound to lift his spirit after months of spinning wheels on job applications.

“Companies are reserving their scarce jobs for younger people who have longer career horizons,” I had offered up with the initial wave of rejections.

“It’ll be a good chance to lose that 10 pounds,” he added. He wanted to return to 175 pounds, his fighting weight as a Masters swimmer in the day. I pictured his six-foot-two-inch frame slimmed down a bit.

“Good goal,” I said, though his weight seemed about right for a sixty-four-year old man his height.

He had pulled his bike out of storage to get to the Daly City BART station three miles away. He left home before dawn each morning to begin his 12-hour day. It was a good solution until the first Pacific winter storm blasted the City.

“Do you mind dropping me off at BART?” he asked that night. “I got drenched this morning.”

I jumped at the chance. Better than Bob navigating his bike through heavy
traffic on Highway 1 in the pre-dawn on stormy winter days.

The Loaner Truck

I got his panic call about six one evening. “My loaner truck is stalled in the
middle of Sacramento. The ignition key just broke in half! I can’t pull over and
traffic is backing up as far as I can see. Damn it!”

Sacramento Street is a major one-way exit route from downtown during rush hour that traverses Chinatown and goes over Nob Hill to points west.

After passing the truck-driving test for FedEx, his stories of navigating the 26-foot truck on Hwy 101 into the City made me shiver. He called it a “noisy
rattletrap” with a loose floor plate offering views to the ground below, passenger door open while driving due to a broken side mirror, and a back door that frequently stuck.

“I can’t reach Eddy. Guess his phone is down. People are leaving stalled buses to walk up the hill instead. They’re threading around my truck giving me dirty looks!”

“Can you get roadside assistance from FedEx?”

“No. It’s Eddy’s truck. Doesn’t belong to FedEx. It’s his responsibility. Hey, I’m getting a call. Got to hang up.”

He called me again a few minutes later. One of Eddy’s men had come to his
rescue after 30 minutes of torment.

The Invisible Delivery Man

We celebrated the day he weighed in at 175 lbs. Pure muscle. It was a silver
lining for a highly physical job that left him exhausted every night. He figured
he was walking between five to seven miles a day and lifting/hauling over a
thousand pounds of goods on average. He soon quit going to the fitness center
with me.

Quite a contrast with his former life as a high paid computer software executive who traveled first class and dined at fine restaurants around the world with international customers. I remembered the day he received notification of his million-mile award status from United.

But his new stories were riveting. Vignettes about him looking at stacks and
stacks of boxes each morning needing to be loaded onto his truck, wondering
how they could all fit. About him schlepping boxes on dollies up crowded
elevators to the workspaces designed for high tech Millennials in the office
towers. San Francisco was enjoying its second dot com boom.

A glance around the Financial District mid-day reveals the new business
crowd. At least 50 per cent are Millennials—a mix of hipster programmers and
casually dressed high techies who create shoot-‘em-up war games and other
entertainment video games as well as social networking applications and more. They work for companies like Pocket Gems and Tiny Company—high-energy start-ups exploding with growth.

Bob was the invisible man with access to whole floors unhampered by cubicles or walls, filled with seven-foot wide work tables crowded with computers and coffee mugs, creatively painted walls with tons of photographs, Ping Pong and pool tables, and large drink coolers with exotic soda drinks and often, microbrews. In some places, hip young professionals wouldn’t stop their
conversations or pull out their earbuds for a few seconds to help him find a
suitable place to drop off his heavy load.

But these slights didn’t bother him. What offended him was an encounter with two attorneys, former business networking acquaintances, who glanced away when they saw him.

“They refused to recognize me,” he said that night. “I couldn’t believe it!”

In other places, receptionists offered him sparkling limewater, wheat germ
cookies, or chunks of Ghirardelli chocolate before he departed for the next
delivery. They had to act fast after Bob unloaded a heap of boxes in their office
and obtained their signature on the scanner. Maybe they also sensed that he
needed a little extra nourishment to keep his baggy FedEx pants from falling off his hips as his weight continued to drop.

“The big banks and financial companies are totally different,” he said. “Take
Wells Fargo or Bank of America—a vast sea of cubicles with only occasional
heads popping up. When I ask who can sign for a delivery, no one knows. They often don’t even know the name of their neighbor in the next cubicle.”

Looking Out for His Colleagues

Bob talked a lot about Pablo, a second-generation immigrant who was studying to become an EMT and working part-time as a loader at the Terminal. His Portuguese father had returned to the Azores after his divorce from Pablo’s mother.

“Pablo’s smart, strong; a hard worker who presents himself well. He has to
wake up at three in the morning to begin work at 4:30—a four-hour shift that pays a low flat daily rate with no benefits.”

He asked Bob about how he could get “field work”—work outside the vast
cavern of the FedEx Terminal where he was an entry-level loader. Bob
promised to put in a good word for him to his supervisor.

One day Bob encountered Pablo at the terminal, all dressed up in FedEx
clothes for his new delivery job. Fellow loaders were jokingly calling him
“traitor”. It was tongue-in-cheek, an expression of their own aspirations. Bob
began to realize his value as a mentor.

Leaning on Bob for Training

In bed late one night, Bob was busily keying on his laptop.

“What are you doing?” I asked, annoyed at the invasion of computer light and keyboard tapping.

“I’m making some PowerPoint slides. Eddy asked me to put together a five-minute driver safety program for tomorrow morning.”

“How many drivers will be there?”

“Maybe twenty. Twenty-five. Eddy wants them to get more training. Especially after that terrible accident last week.”

I‘d read about it. Bob said the FedEx driver was moving slowly in one lane next to an 18-wheeler. Heavy traffic south of downtown was heading towards
Market. A motorcyclist tried to squeeze between them. He lost his balance and was run over by the FedEx driver, who didn’t see him below. The driver was really messed up about it and ended up quitting.

Eddy was determined his drivers learn how to protect themselves from this
kind of tragedy.

A pattern was emerging. The franchise owner was starting to tap into Bob’s
business know-how. Another approached Bob about forming a specialty
lighting company. Workers were benefitting from his mentoring. These benefits came as a welcome surprise.

Something Else Brewing

But something else was brewing. Just before the holiday season, Bob became interested in the insurance business. “I’m not sure I want to continue this into the New Year,” he said. “It’s causing me some problems with my foot.” He’d had foot surgery for a badly pronated right foot a couple of years before.

So late at night he began to study for an insurance licensing exam—property and casualty. He passed it with a score of 95 per cent and promptly applied for the certificate. Days later, he was back at the computer studying for an additional licensing exam in life and accident/health. Once again, he passed it with good scores and applied for the next certificate.

“Why not?” he asked me. “I want to be able to sell it all.”

“Yes, why not?” I agreed, looking at this tall thin man flashing his optimistic
smile at me.

“I’m rebooting,” he said. “It feels pretty good.”

Quiet pervaded the house before the morning crush. Only the hum of the fridge broke the silence. Soon everyone would be fighting for the only bathroom. Kurt scooped coffee grounds from the bright red MJB can into the aluminum percolator. He shoved the top down, turned the electric burner on high, and waited for the coffee to start perking.

He wanted to catch John before he left for work to ask him about seasonal jobs in the Central Valley. John was a chemist at Gallo, the biggest winery in the Valley. He had started with the company after graduating with a degree in enology from Oregon State in 1949.

“I like the security,” John had said. “Growing family and all.”

Back then, John and Kathy had only their first child. Now they had four. But Kurt’s life had taken a different turn. He had barely a year-and-a-half under his belt at Oregon State when he was drafted into the Army in ‘42. He knew that his experience flying lightweight observation planes in the Army field artillery, and work in the rock crushing business with his cousin Nick after he returned from the Philippines, wouldn’t help much now. He didn’t have a civil engineering degree for roadwork, and it would take him years to get certified to fly commercial planes. No question about it. He needed some cold hard cash to get the family back together. He didn’t like being dependent on Jo’s family. And the kids. He really missed them.

John finally popped into the kitchen, dressed for work in his dark gray slacks and white short-sleeved dress shirt. A skinny tie, dark blue, was draped over his right shoulder.

“Morning, Kurt. I smelled that coffee down the hall. You’re up early. Must be the rancher in you.”

“Been getting up early all my life. Here you go. Fresh brew.” He handed John a mug. “I thought I’d get a jump on the unemployment office downtown. Guess you know I haven’t had any luck with locating a farm in this Valley that could use my ranch management know-how. Hard to believe that two weeks have gone by already. Figured I better check out the help-wanted postings for day laborers on the farms around here.”

“That’s a good place to start. August is peak harvest season for the orchards—apricots, peaches, and plums. Not sure what they pay, though.” John looked his brother-in-law up and down. “You’ve got quite a load on your shoulders, with your kids scattered and all.”

Kurt nodded. “Yep. With a little luck, I expect we can get our own place before Christmas.”

“Luck, and a little of your Glover charm will get you there.”

Kurt felt his shoulders tense up. “So you think I’m not trying hard enough?” His steely gray eyes fixed on John. After all, John didn’t know what it was like to lose a ranch; he had the good fortune to have graduated from college and brought home a paycheck every two weeks ever since.

John shrank back, abashed by Kurt’s outburst. “Come on now, buddy. I have faith in you. Can’t forget what you did in flying those grasshoppers in the Pacific, for one. Took guts.”

Kurt gazed at the trellis laden with clusters of vine-ripened grapes outside the kitchen window. “Do you suppose Gallo might have any seasonal work for a guy like me?” It felt good to change the subject.

“It’s a little early for the harvest work at wineries around here. The grapes will be ready in another five to six weeks if the hot weather holds. Then there’ll be plenty of work to do through the fall.”

Kurt patted John on the shoulder. “Good to know. Maybe by then I won’t need it. I found the unemployment office in the Yellow Pages. Can you give me directions downtown?”

John pulled a city map from the drawer, smoothed it flat on the kitchen counter, and pointed to the box-like grid of city streets. Kurt grunted his thanks and shifted gears again. “Are there orchards east of here that might be hiring?”

”Don’t know. Your best bet is to take Yosemite Road east toward Sonora Pass. Plenty of small farms and orchards in that area.” He folded the map again and handed it to Kurt. “Good luck today,” he said, placing his empty mug back on the counter.

They walked out the front door together. Kurt took off in his GMC pickup, still coated with dust from their long trip west, and John left in his green Studebaker sedan.

Kurt strode into the unemployment office when they opened the doors at eight-thirty. He felt the squeeze of bodies as men hungry for work pressed forward to take a number and check out the bulletin boards. Mostly Mexicans with wavy dark brown hair like his own, except they spoke Spanish. Most acted like they’d been there before. Plenty of nervous faces searching for a friendly employment officer.

He studied the bulletin board, jotting down names and addresses of orchards that needed day laborers to pick ripe fruit. Peak season. The Tillie Lewis Cannery on 9th Street was also advertising for help on the food processing lines. Paid a dollar-seventy-five an hour. Better than nothing. He decided to check it out. It was only a few miles east.

Kurt came away from the plant discouraged. It was cavernous and full of workers on long canning lines. He couldn’t see himself confined indoors to a food processing line all day. Fresh air felt damned good, summer and winter. Even in the winter blizzards that blasted their ranch, he would venture outside long enough to check on the livestock everyday.

He hadn’t picked fruit for a living before, but he liked that it was outdoor work. He remembered their apple orchard a quarter mile from the ranch house. Lots of old crab apple trees. Every September, he and Jo would spend the better part of a morning shaking those trees. The kids would scamper around to scoop up the booty, filling buckets for the return home.

Kurt walked toward the tall thin man whose oversized t-shirt was shoved inside dirty painter’s overalls stained with peach juice. Sweat dripped from the man’s forehead onto his beaky nose. He pulled his wrinkled white handkerchief from his pants pocket to catch the drops, swiping a swath across his forehead.

“How much do you pay for pickin’?” Kurt asked.

“A dollar-fifty an hour or by the piece. Ten flats of peaches, quality pick, brings you five dollars. Fifty cents a flat. Depends on how fast you are at picking and packing without bruising the merchandise. And how much you want to make.”

While Kurt studied the situation, Mexican laborers walked around him with their empty buckets, heading for their designated rows to begin the picking. Ladders had been placed on most rows to reach fruit near the treetops. Kurt mumbled to himself.

“Got a question?” the man asked.

“No, sir. This is the first place I’ve stopped. Not sure if this work suits me.”

He walked back to his pickup out front. Goddamned fleecing operation. No better than a job some Mexican could get fresh across the border. He didn’t mind hard work. But it irritated him to think some guy running an apple orchard would offer him less than he made as a hired hand to Mickey Fraker last summer after leaving the ranch—a ranch he’d managed on his own until things fell apart. A ranch twenty times this size with livestock and an apple orchard on the side.

He spent the day driving to other orchards he’d written down on the note card. Same story each place: pay by the piece or by the hour. Late afternoon, he pulled into the front yard of a farm on Leek Road, a half mile south of Yosemite Boulevard. He hailed the first man who looked like he might manage the place.

Kurt introduced himself. “I just moved my family here from Wyoming. I need a job. I can do anything you might need done around here.”

The man shook Kurt’s hand. “Hank Staples. Sounds like you’ve got a story there.”

“Yep. I ran a twelve hundred acre cattle ranch. Turned upside down when livestock prices took a dive. But there’s no time to dwell on losses when you have a family to feed.”

Hank shrugged his shoulders. “Appreciate your predicament. Sorry to say we got nothing suitable right now. My brother moved here not long ago from Nebraska. He had a farm there that failed. Sounds similar to what you’ve gone through. He’s helping me out till he gets his feet on the ground.”

Kurt reached for words. “Got a piece of scrap paper? I’ll give you my number in case you need more help.”

Staples tore a piece from his scruffy notebook and handed him a pencil. Kurt scribbled a note and pressed it into the man’s palm. His long legs felt like lead weights as he plodded back to his truck.

“Hey, good luck,” the man shouted from behind.

“Thanks,” Kurt said, not looking back.

It wasn’t like him to walk this slowly. He could cross the back forty acres on the ranch in a few minutes when he needed to fix an irrigation ditch before a summer downburst, or get to the ranch house for lunch. When he shut the door to his pickup, the whole cab seemed to shudder. It was his last stop for the day. He had to figure out what he would tell the two families waiting for him at John and Kathy’s house.

He slipped quietly into the noisy household. Jo was in the kitchen helping Kathy get dinner. She looked up from peeling carrots and flashed him a hopeful smile.

“How’d it go, honey?” She plunked the paring knife onto the countertop and crossed the center aisle to peck his cheek. He squeezed her tight. He wished he had some good news for her.

“I ended up talking to three orchard managers and a farmer who has a big spread down the road, off Yosemite past Empire. You know, the little town just past the railroad crossing?”

She nodded. “Did you get a bite on a job?”

Kurt’s cheerful smile concealed his shame. He couldn’t bear her hopeful look. Drove him crazy not to have something positive to report. Any job would be better than having to tell her he came up empty-handed. “The farmer was real friendly. Told me he’d take me on, except he has hired his brother who lost his farm in Nebraska this past year.”

But she saw through his smile. Her voice was gritty with determination. “There’s gotta be another farmer in the vicinity who needs a man with your experience.”

He patted her on the back but she pulled away.

“We’ve got to figure something out,” she said. “It’s rough being here all day in such tight quarters, though Kathy is trying her best to be sweet to us.”

Christopher crawling through the kitchen door distracted them. Kurt couldn’t resist the little guy. He swept him into his arms and tickled his round belly.

“Don’t worry, honey,” he said. But his words echoed through the room. Jo wasn’t in hearing range.

John grilled him again later that evening. He kept asking why Kurt hadn’t taken the job at the cannery. “Hey, it’s not so bad. Kathy worked there last summer. She earned enough to afford the down payment for this house.”

Kurt didn’t try to reason with him. “It’s no good, John. Won’t work for me.” Made no sense for him to explain his feelings. How could John relate to a man who felt like newly laid pavement that was blown away by the high winds blasting through Line Creek Canyon? He couldn’t seem to get his feet on the ground before he was suddenly cast adrift again.

John finally moved on. “My colleagues didn’t know about any fieldwork right now. Timing is bad, but if you can wait a few more weeks, I’ll put a good word in for you at the Modesto Cooperative Winery. It’s a growers’ co-op only about two miles from here.”

“Thanks. I appreciate your offer, in case,” Kurt said. His hands sank deep into his pockets.

The next morning, Kurt rose early again to make coffee for him and John. “I’ve thought about the orchard work some more,” he said. “No time to wait for the grapes to ripen. I’m going back to that big peach orchard, the one on Fairland, off Yosemite.”

“I know the place,” John said. He sipped his coffee and nodded absently in the early morning stillness.

The day was already heating up when Kurt turned into the orchard a few minutes before eight. He pulled up next to a ’53 Chevrolet, the same model that his mother drove all over eastern Oregon ranch country. From the looks of the thick film of dust and dirty windows, it had taken a few back roads here in California. By the time he turned off the motor, some more cars and pickups had pulled into the dirt parking lot. He skipped the running board below the driver’s door and planted both boots on the ground, the same pair of lace-up leather boots he’d worn everyday on the ranch. He counted on the thick rubber soles to provide the balance he’d need in climbing tall ladders to reach the tops of fruit trees still laden with unpicked fruit.

He walked up to the small stucco house, painted white with emerald green trim around the two front windows. “This Land Is Your Land” was blaring from a radio inside. The weathered screen door whapped against the wood doorframe as workers walked in and out, flies buzzing around them.

A big poster barely clung to the screen door with a torn strip of masking tape at the top. The sign was handwritten in black ink: “PICKERS SIGN IN HERE” and in smaller letters below, “LOS RECOGEDORES—POR FAVOR FIRMAR AQUI”.

Kurt stared at the sign as men in jeans and dirty t-shirts shuffled through the doorway. He reached in his shirt pocket for the pack of Pall Malls and lit up a cigarette. Okay, this was just temporary. He would find other work in a few days or weeks. John had said the wine co-op would need sugar level testers when the grapes were ready for harvest. That would involve some training. Better pay too.

His mind kept reverting to fruit picking. Should he go with pay by the piece or by the hour? A quick calculation convinced him he’d earn more by the piece because he worked fast. He refused to think about it any longer, and grabbed the screen door as someone was coming out.

The manager was standing inside the entry by the sign-up table. He recognized Kurt. “Good morning. Glover, right? So you decided this work might suit you after all?”

“Yes, sir. You said a man could get paid by the piece.”

“Yep. Print your name and address and social security number on the lined paper, clear enough so we can read it. We pay in cash at the end of every day, but we got to have correct records for the state labor people when they stop by.”

Kurt leaned over the table, picked up the ballpoint pen, and started writing. He used John’s home address. He put the pen down and looked up again. His new boss gave him clear instructions. “You’ll find ladders and cardboard boxes in each orchard row. Grab a ladder and as many boxes as you might need for an hour or two. You have to keep track of your own boxes. Bring your full boxes back to the front parking lot here for inspection check-out.”

Kurt nodded at the man. “Thanks. I’m all set.”

As he shoved the screen door open, the sweltering heat hit him. It was hotter already than a July day in Wyoming. The thermometer hit a hundred and it wasn’t noon yet. He tugged down on his straw cowboy hat to shade his face. That way, too, he didn’t have to look into the eyes of the other workers. They were all here for the same reason.

He scanned the rows of trees to see which ones had the most peaches ready for picking. Many of the peaches were clustered about a third way down from the treetops, out-of-reach for most pickers. At six foot one, Kurt had a height advantage and longer arms than most. He grabbed the nearest wooden ladder and climbed several rungs.

He gradually established a rhythm: spot the ripe peaches; grab one, sometimes two, in each hand; descend a few wobbly steps and plunk the peaches into the box below. He tried to pick fruit that was still firm to the touch. He kept flicking his face to clear away the peach fuzz that accumulated in his nostrils like loose feathers from an old down pillow. No time to use the cotton handkerchief in his shirt pocket. Sweat poured down his face, coming to a point on his nose with the incessant drips. Sometimes he pinched the fleshy pulp too hard, or one would drop like a rock into the box below when his bulky work boot missed a rung of the shaky ladder. At day’s end, those would cost him some of his hard-earned pay.

By the time he turned in his last box packed full of peaches that day, he was wiped out. It was the valley heat. The temperature reached one-hundred-seven that day. No escape even in the shade of the fruit trees. His striped cotton shirt was wringing wet from sweat and his socks were soaked from the moisture trapped inside his boots. He missed the summer afternoon thunderstorms that cooled things down on the high Wyoming plains. But he had grown more proficient at picking and packing the fruit. He could pack more into a box without damaging the fruit. More fruit in more boxes translated to more cash in his pocket.

He could do this job. He could last a few weeks until the co-op job came through. By then, David and Jean could come to live with them in Modesto. Not so sure about Linda. They hadn’t talked to her since he took her to Ava’s. Jo and he were thinking that she might as well stay there for the school year. Anyway, she was living the life of Riley in southern California. She had her own bedroom for the first time ever, and a closet full of Nancy’s clothes. He ground his last cigarette butt into the dirt with the tip of his boot before hopping into his pickup for the drive home. This time he was bringing money home. That brought a smile to his face.

Clark, Wyoming. Summer 1956

“When will you pick us up, Daddy?” Jean asked.

“After mowing.”

“Don’t forget us!” Linda shouted at his back as he leapt across the dry creek bed to his pickup.

He glanced around. “I won’t. Now remember, girls. Keep the sheep away from that hole in the fence.”

“We will, Daddy.” They waved in unison, like cowgirls at a rodeo.

He spun a u-turn back to the ranch. Gravel scattered everywhere. The billowing dust cloud thinned gradually to a single horizontal band wafting over the road.

Linda squeezed Jean’s small hand. It felt clammy. She wondered how they would keep the sheep from crossing the road if the herd came their direction. Their house sat high on the riverbank above the Clarks Fork as it flowed to the Yellowstone. Though two stories high and only two miles away, it looked like a playhouse with the Absarokas towering behind.

Jean wrested her hand free. “What are we going to do now?” She started poking around the dry ditch bed, kicking the chunks of dirt with her faded tennis shoe.

Linda stared at the small pile left behind by her father for their sheep-watching job: an old army blanket, a metal lunch pail filled with roast beef sandwiches and cookies, and a Thermos of lemonade. Her mother had made the sandwiches before breakfast while Linda stuffed a sheaf of paper dolls and a bag of marbles into a homemade cotton bag for her and Jean.

She shoved the blanket into Jean’s arms. “Here. Take this near the fence. I’ll bring the rest.”

Jean sidled up the ditch bank toward the fence post that was dangling from two loose strands of barbed wire. Linda trudged closely behind with the rest of their gear.

“There’s a good place to spread the blanket.” Jean pointed out the clumps of bunch grass near the post. Pale green patches bordered the golden field of wind-swept grasses.

Jean tossed the frayed army blanket over the grass. The girls stomped hard to flatten the blanket over the sticky hillocks. Linda plunked her load down and grabbed some rocks to hold the blanket corners.

“These rocks are too small. One burst of wind and this blanket will be stuck on that barbed wire.”

Jean gazed at the small band of sheep lolling across the field. “That’s funny. Maybe the blanket would scare the sheep away, like a scarecrow.”

“I doubt it. They’re too dumb to notice.”

Linda stepped off the blanket to check out the post dangling mid-air. The sprung wire still pointed to the sky. When she pushed against the post to see how much spring was left, the top row of barbed wire groaned from the strain. She stopped, afraid another strand could pop loose.

 

The morning seemed to stretch forever. The girls ate the two giant oatmeal cookies from the lunch pail before the sun reached its noontime zenith.

“What can we do now?” Jean asked her older sister.

Linda scooped up some pebbles from the edge of the ditch and slipped them into Jean’s hands. “Here you go. Let’s see if we can get the sheep’s attention.” They tossed pebbles in the direction of the grazing sheep across the rocky field, but the sheep were unfazed by the commotion.

“Guess they’re not going to charge the fence,” Linda said.

Linda dug into the cotton bag. “Look. I brought some of my paper dolls.” She handed Jean the Betty Grable doll outfitted in a one-piece bathing suit, and kept the Debbie Reynolds doll for herself. They sat down on the army blanket and started pushing the little white tabs over the dolls’ shoulders. A gust of wind came out of nowhere. The cutouts fluttered out of reach before touching down on nearby sagebrush.

Jean dived to salvage their treasures. “Got them!” she squealed. She held a crumpled Betty Grable evening gown in one hand and the Debbie Reynolds doll in the other.

“Look what you’ve done. They’re wrecked.”

“Nuh-uh. I can straighten them out. Just watch.” She tried to flatten the mashed cutouts on her leg. Debbie Reynolds’ neck was broken at an angle, her face flopping against her chest.

“Don’t bother.” Linda stomped away, determined not to speak to her sister the rest of the day.

The heat of the simmering day finally broke the silence. “Why don’t we play a game? Next time we see a car coming, let’s get ready to wave. Maybe they’ll stop, and we can ask what time it is.”

”Okay.”

It seemed like hours before they saw the next dust cloud erupting on the road from Belfry, the nearest town.

“A car‘s coming!” Linda hollered.

The girls ran to the edge of the ditch bank along the road, positioning themselves for action.

When the gray sedan came close, the girls waved and whistled. Jean held out her red kerchief as if to signal a racecar. ”It’s the Kowalski’s!” Linda yelled.

The car slowed to a halt. Linda recognized Mr. Kowalski. His ranch bordered the road across from their sheep field. As he strode toward them, she forgot to ask him the time.

“What are you girls doing out here on this hot summer day?”

“Daddy wants us to guard the sheep so they don’t cross the road and eat your mowed hay. He said green hay can bloat their stomachs,” Jean said.

Linda pointed to the broken fence. “Sissy’s right. The fence is broken and Dad wants us to guard the sheep until he can fix it. The posts are rotten, so he has to buy new ones. Wanna see?”

“Sure.”

The girls led him across the dry ditch to the stretch of fallen fence. They stepped over sagebrush to get a close look.

“Yep. It’s in bad shape. Bet your dad hasn’t been able to tear himself away from haying to fix it.”

“That’s right!” they beamed, grateful that he understood.

Mr. Kowalski bent down to pick up something in the grass.  “Look here. It’s a piece of rusted barbed wire.  Must’ve sprung loose when your father tightened the wire last time. Don’t want you girls stepping on it,” he said, tossing it into the posthole.

“That’s nasty-looking!” Linda said. “Like I said, I’m sure Dad will fix this fence soon.”

”No doubt. Tell your dad I’ll be glad to help him out if he wants. Well, I’ll be going. You girls take care now.” He straddled the ditch to get to his car.

“Sure will,” Linda said. The girls waved as his car dropped out of sight below the river bench.

Something nagged at her. She could hear her father telling their mother weeks ago, “I’ve got to get that damned fence fixed.” But most of the summer was gone and the fence was still down. Her father didn’t want to use his hired men to do the job, and he didn’t like to ask the neighbors for help. He’d wait until the haying season was over and do it himself.

Only a few cars drove by after Tom Kowalski left. Some of them had honked but none had stopped.  The girls could tell it was getting close to noontime by the shortness of their shadows on the ground.  Jean’s growling stomach was a good sign too.

”I’m hungry,” she said.

”Me too. Let’s sit on the blanket and get our lunches out,” Linda said.

They stomped again on the bumpy spots until the blanket was flat enough for them to sit down.  Before long, they were sharing slurps of lemonade from the Thermos bottle and taking bites of their roast beef sandwiches.

Linda saw the dust cloud of the oncoming car first.  “It’s coming from Belfry. We’d better hurry.  I don’t want to miss this car!” Linda shoved leftover sandwich pieces into the pail and stood up to flag down the car.

The car was finally in sight.  They yelled and Jean waved the red kerchief until the car rolled to a stop.  A scrawny man about their father’s height stepped out of the old Studebaker.  He was wearing Levi’s and a long-sleeved plaid shirt with pearl buttons.  He took his time coming around his car to the girls’ side of the road.  He looked their father’s age, in his thirties. But his face was pale and his cheeks caved in, as if he needed a home-cooked meal more than a job.

“Could you tell us the time?” they asked.  They stood together on the other side of the dry ditch in front of the broken fence, several feet away from him.

He stood still, closely inspecting the girls. His cheeks were sunken and lined with deep creases. His thin lips looked stuck together by glue, as if they held some big secrets. Linda began to feel queasy over his long silence.

”The time?  You don’t know it’s past noon already?” he said at last.  He pulled a round watch from his front pocket.  “It’s a quarter-to-one.”

He picked up the conversation, shifting to a voice so soft they could barely hear. “How’re you girls doing today?”

As the man tugged at the giant round silver buckle on his leather belt, Jean sidled up to Linda. He pulled the belt loose, leaving the giant buckle dangling in front, and started to unzip his Levi’s. Linda’s mouth suddenly felt parched, as if the hot summer sun had baked all the moisture out of her.

”Wanna see?” he asked. His lips barely moved as he folded his right hand over his open Levi’s.

Linda shivered. It hit her that he was doing something bad. Beads of sweat fell off the tip of her nose. She gazed away from his hands to his feet.  There were cracks in his worn pair of leather cowboy boots. A big dirt clod stuck to one heel. Maybe he was one of those drifters her mother talked about. She remembered her mother saying drifters were men who didn’t have families and came to Wyoming in search of work on the ranches each summer.

Linda grabbed Jean’s hand.

“Ouch!”

“Hey, no reason for you girls to be afraid.  I can take you home. Where do you live?” he said.

“Go away! We don’t like you. Anyway, Daddy wants us to watch the sheep today so we can’t go to the ranch now,” Jean said.

“Stop it, Jean!” Jean was talking too much, as usual. Linda raced through the possibilities.  They could run to the Badura’s or the Kowalski’s.  The midday heat reflected from the roof of the Our Lady of the Mountain Catholic Church, on the hill behind the Badura’s ranch compound. But they would have to cross the ditch in front of the man and his car first.

“Why don’t you get in?” the man said, motioning toward his car.

The girls didn’t budge. The intense summer sun stayed suspended overhead.

“I’ll give you a few minutes to think this over,” he warned.  He pulled up his zipper and stepped slowly toward them.

Linda pushed Jean backwards near the dangling fence post and faced the man directly.  “My dad is coming back to get us soon, so you’d better leave.”

He shifted his stance as if he was getting ready to cross the ditch bed. She grabbed some rocks and threw them at him. They bounced off his Levi’s into the dirt but he didn’t flinch.

“Hey missy. Stop throwing those rocks, d’ya hear?”

She bent down again to pick up more rocks. Jean joined her this time.

All of a sudden, the man jerked his head in the direction of a dust cloud erupting near the Frakers’ place.

“A car’s coming,” he muttered. He tucked in his shirt and strode to his car.  The door slammed shut. The car started and he was gone. They watched as the car disappeared below the river bench. He was headed to the bridge a quarter mile below the lane to their ranch, in the direction of Cody.

 

“Why’d you push me so hard?” Jean asked. “You’re just a scaredy-cat!”

Linda was shaking. “You’re wrong! He’s a bad man! You were scared, too. He was going to hurt us.”

When she was sure he was gone, Linda looked around. She could see the poplar-lined lane leading to the Badura’s house a mile away. What if the man returned? Maybe they should run there and ask the Baduras to take them home. But they couldn’t leave the sheep. She’d promised her dad.

“Let’s back away from this road. Duck your head and bend down low!” She shoved her sister below the wild strands of loose barbed wire.

They hurried through grass stubble and cactus inside the field, searching for a low spot where they could hide. The sheep grazing across the field never looked up. She stepped into a swale filled with stalks of tall grass, almost losing her balance.

“Sissy! Over here.” They crouched down together.

“What about the car that was coming from Belfry?” Jean asked.

“We’ll yell and wave if it’s someone we know.”

They waited but the car didn’t come. They decided he might have taken the road to Powell instead.

“Sissy! Look!” Linda pointed the other direction.

A plume of dust rose above the river bench.

Linda shuddered. “He’s coming back!”

They stared at the trail of dust.  As the car approached, she yanked Jean to the ground.

“It’s him. Stay down so he can’t see us,” she ordered.

The car sputtered to a stop, spewing gravel.

 

They huddled together in the bunch grass, feeling the prickly dry stalks of grass poke through their bare arms and legs.

Linda whispered to Jean, “Stay down, sissy. If he comes our way again, we’ll run to the river.”

Only the sound of fluttering grasshoppers and occasional shuffling of sheep broke the shimmering midday quiet.

“Where is he?” Jean whispered.

“I don’t know.”

The girls shivered in the hot sun.

“I’m thirsty,” Jean said.

“Shhh. Hold on. There he is!”

“What’re you doing there?” He hollered down at them.

“Nothing,“ Linda said as she and Jean stood up. She gasped as he moved towards her. He took two or three leaps and grabbed her blouse. She screamed. The sleeve ripped.

“Stop it!” Jean was pounding his back as fiercely as she could.

The man pulled out his pocketknife and waved it at them. Linda stood still but Jean kept pounding him in the back until he reached around and shoved her to the ground.

He ordered Linda, “Lay down there, missy.” He pointed to the old army blanket.

Jean saw the dust cloud before he did. “Look! A car’s coming!” He glanced up. As quick as a rabbit crossing the road, he shoved his knife into his Levi’s and bolted to his car.

The car’s engine sputtered.

“What if he can’t get it started?” Jean asked.

They waited. The motor clunked each time he turned the ignition. Finally it caught on. Loose gravel spit from the car’s back wheels as he pulled away.

“He’s gone!” Linda whispered. She poked her head above the grass stalks to catch a glimpse of the road. A yellow and black pickup rumbled their direction.

“It‘s daddy!”

They waved frantically to get his attention. When he stopped, they ran to the ditch bank, yelling and crying.  Mr. Brown leaped from the truck bed, trailing Kurt across the ditch.

“What’s going on here?” Kurt asked, startled.

“This man stopped his car and unzipped his pants. He wanted to take us to the ranch, but I shouted at him to go away,” Jean said.

“Yes, Daddy.” Linda said. “He left because a car was coming but he came back.”

“Did he hurt you? Did he hurt you, girls?” His deep voice quavered.

“No, Daddy, but please take us home with you. Please!”

“Yes, honey, of course. I was going to Powell to get a part for the combine but not now. So tell me, Linda, why’s your blouse ripped?”

She looked down at the torn sleeve and choked back sobs.

He pulled her close. “It’s okay honey. I’m here now.”

“He grabbed my blouse. I pulled away. It ripped. He pulled out his pocketknife and said to lay down on the blanket.”

“Yep, daddy. I screamed at him and pounded his back but he swung around and pushed me down. Next thing was he bolted to his car when he saw that dust cloud.”

“Girls!” he said, wrapping his arms around them. “When did he leave here?”

“Not very long ago. Right before you got here,” Jean exclaimed.

Kurt grimaced.

“You might have passed him, Daddy,” Linda said.

“Hmm. I waved at a guy in a Studebaker. He passed me by as I was coming up the bench from the bridge. Jesus Christ! I’ll bet it was that guy.”

His whole body shuddered. “You girls get in the pickup. We’re going to go look for him.”

As the girls slid onto the pickup bench, Kurt took Mr. Brown to the top of the ditch, close by the downed fence, “Stay here boy.  I’ll be back.”  Mr. Brown nosed the bunch grass and lay down quietly, not far from where the girls had placed the army blanket.

 

Kurt turned the truck around, heading back to the ranch. “We’re going to look for the man after I get your mother and talk with David.”

He didn’t say more and Linda knew not to ask.

“What does he look like?” He asked at last. His voice was lower than Linda could remember.

”He’s almost as tall you, Daddy,” Linda said. “But he’s skinnier and he has shaggy brown hair.”

“He had on a dingy green shirt with pearl buttons and dirty Levi’s,” Jean volunteered.

They passed by Jo working in the garden and spun to a stop in front of the house.

“Go get your mother,” he ordered Jean, as David drove into the lane on a John Deere tractor.

“Hey, son!”

“Yes, Dad?”

Her father’s mouth was taut, his gray-green eyes narrower than usual. He spoke in a monotone.  “A man tried to hurt the girls when they were watching the sheep across the river there.”

David was wide-eyed. “What?”

“It doesn’t bear repeating, son. I want you and Bob to drive over there. I left Mr. Brown there next to the ditch, by the fallen fence. Flag down cars and ask if they’ve seen this guy. I think I passed him before I reached the field. He was heading for Cody. Linda says he’s tall and skinny.“

David’s leaned against the front fender of Kurt’s pickup and looked up at his father.  “What kind of car is he driving, Dad?”

“Could be that Studebaker I passed. If not, it’s hard to say. The girls were too scared to notice.”

David tried to lighten up his father. “Not surprising. They’re not into cars like me!”

Kurt managed a thin smile.

David grew serious again. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll get Bob when he comes in from the field. We can drive his pickup. Where are you going?”

“I’m taking mom and the girls with me to search for this guy. Figure we’ll head for Cody. I’ll look for this guy on the way. When we get to town, we’ll stop by the sheriff’s office and see if they can help.”

They switched to the Ford sedan and drove all afternoon looking for the bad man’s car.  They stopped at every fork in the road and got out to check for fresh tire tracks.  Sometimes it was impossible to tell fresh tracks from worn ones. When they reached Cody, Kurt stopped at the county sheriff’s office and reported what happened.

“No, sir, I’m sorry I can’t help you much,” the sheriff said. “You know how vast this country is.  There are so many roads going into the mountains and remote valleys.  Places like Sunlight Basin.  A guy like this can disappear real quick.”

Kurt pressed him hard. “You mean you aren’t going to put on a search for him?”

“That’s what I’m saying, sir. But we’ll send out an alert on the local radio station and on the two-way radios the officers have in every county of this state. Even though your daughters’ descriptions are pretty sketchy, any law officer in the state can bring this guy in and lock him up if he fits the bill!”

“Thanks, Sheriff. Guess that’s all I can ask.”

It was a long trip home. Linda fell asleep by leaning her head against the backseat door. Jean nestled in her lap.

”Linda! Jean! Wake up now. We’re home,” her mother jostled them awake.

It was almost ten o’clock when the family gathered in the living room to hear David and Bob brag about how many cars they had stopped along the road.

“You should have seen us, Dad.  Bob told me to lie down in the ditch while he stopped the cars.  He gave me his rifle in case this guy stopped and was gonna cause trouble.  I stayed there the whole time waiting for Bob to give me the signal.”

“What were you going to do if you found him, David?” Jo’s voice trembled.

“Shoot him if he tried to get away. Like I said, nothing happened Mom. Right, Bob?”

“Yes, Mrs. Glover. No sign of that guy.”

Jo grilled him. “Come on now! You boys were just supposed to stop him from coming back to the ranch, right?”

Kurt stood up and patted Jo’s shoulder.  “It’s okay, honey.  David was doing what I asked him to do. Thank God nothing bad happened,” he said.

After the family had exhausted themselves talking, Jo motioned them to bed.

“Do we have to, Mom?” Linda asked, her eyes darting to the stairway.

“Can we sleep in your bed tonight?” Jean added.

Jo and Kurt looked at each other. “Yes, if you want,” Jo said.

After Jean had fallen sound asleep, Linda spoke softly to her parents so she wouldn’t wake her sister. “Promise we won’t have to watch the sheep over there ever again?”

“Yes, honey. I promise,” her father said quietly. “Never again.”

 

The next morning, Linda found her father tossing rolls of barbed wire onto the bed of Jimmy.

“Gonna fix the fence today?”

“Yep.”

After he left, she thought about what how he would fix the fence. Sometimes the wood posts rotted at the bottom and had to be replaced.  Other times the barbed wire broke loose from the posts, creating a gap in the fence.  Then he would use a pulley to stretch the barbed wire from post-to-post.  The wire groaned as it was tightened.  If stretched beyond its limit, it might pop explosively, causing the loose wire to bounce up and down aimlessly. That was the big danger. A loose wire could rip his face open. But he knew how to jerk his head aside so that didn’t happen. Linda could hear him cussing as he stretched the wire to the poles.

“Damn it! What the hell!” he would say over and over until he bent the wire into submission and wrapped it in place around the pole.

She smiled that the fence was finally getting fixed. Best of all, she and Jean wouldn’t have to go there ever again.