The High Divide (30 page)

The Coming Storm

L
ate October and the wait had gotten long, though with every day that passed, Gretta was more able at least to imagine life without him, and stronger in her conviction that all was going to be well.

She and Danny had finished the noon-meal dishes when May asked if they wouldn't mind doing one more job before they started preparing supper. The garden, of course, had been harvested weeks ago—more than a month—but all the vines and dead stalks were still there, browning and rotting. Would they please pull them up and haul them over to the compost heap? “If we don't do it today, it might be too late,” May said. “You smelled snow in the air this morning, didn't you? I know I did.”

Outside, Gretta began with the cucumber vines, yanking them one by one from the tough gray soil, then moving to the ropy tangle left by the melons. She made a large pile at the edge of the garden as Danny moved up and down the rows of beans and peas. The tomato plants were sprawled dark and twisting on crossed wooden stakes, which had been driven into the earth at an angle and then tied together where they intersected, a couple dozen of these set down in rows that reminded Gretta of the fish-drying racks along Denmark's coast. She tore the stalks from the frames then ripped out the roots, which made a quiet gasp coming free. The crossed stakes too had to come up. They were fixed hard in the soil, and Gretta's hands kept slipping on the wood. She wasn't careful where she grabbed, and when she sliced her palm on a splinter, she cried out.

“You all right?” Danny called. He was standing at the compost pile, hands on his hips. She couldn't help noticing the color in his cheeks and the way he'd been filling out from the work he'd done for May. His pants, which had always hung on him like rags on a scarecrow, rippling and flapping as he moved, were almost snug now. He hadn't complained about headaches since leaving Sloan's Crossing, and though she knew it was too soon to hope, she couldn't recall the last time he'd been well for this long.

She said, “Maybe you could go ask May if she has a pair of gloves I could wear.”

Gretta's hand was bleeding, but the cut was shallow, a flap of topskin lying open against the pad of her palm. As Danny ran inside, she bent to pull up the next stake. Straightening, she sensed a presence, a darkness against the sky.

He didn't look as tired or bent or as filthy as she'd expected he would. Thinner, yes, but hard and strong, with no extra flesh beneath his chin. His hair was cut short and he was shaved clean, his lips familiar, the bottom one fuller than the top. His pale eyes were clear.

What he said was “You're beautiful,” his words causing her to feel the sweat on her face and think of the stains on her workdress. He didn't smile, but the strength in his eyes made her step back and grab hold of a tomato stake for balance.

He walked right up and stood so close that his white breath dissipated in the air around her. His lungs seemed to be working hard, as if he'd been out chopping wood. He took her hand, the one that was bleeding, and lifted it to have a look, but she pulled away, saying, “No, it's all right.” Wasting no time, she opened his coat, unbuttoned his wool shirt, and spread the top of his union suit. His grandmother's brass chain glowed dully against his white skin and the gray, wiry hairs on his chest. She set her jaw and pulled on the chain, yanking it hard enough to break it from his neck—except it didn't break, and he resisted the snap of it, his eyes following hers to the dancing tin turtle that swung out then rocked to a stillness. She leaned in, making sure of the green color against the yellow background, and the telltale nick on one side, before tucking it back in against his chest and allowing him to wrap his arms around her.

“Do you need some help finishing up out here?” he asked.

But she was trying to find her way through all of the campfires and long rides, all the greasy meat, through all the gunpowder and sweat to his old smell. And when she finally got a hint of it, she said, “Yes,” her voice the smallest breath against the skin of his neck.

He was holding her like that, his fingers gripping her head, when glancing up he saw Danny at the back door of the hotel, pausing there, older now and strangely sure of himself, and then Eli, too, kneeling at the edge of the garden, Ulysses unaware of the picture he and his wife made, unaware that his elder son, in seeing them together like that, was overwhelmed with a mix of joy and sadness, the strength going out of him and the ground rising to meet his elbows.

And so it came to this, Eli behind the Drover House in Miles City, Montana, lying on his back against the cool ground, every muscle and fiber relaxed, his arms and legs spread wide. Then a shadow fell, and his brother occupied briefly the space above him, smiling before he disappeared.

Danny? You're that big now?

The first snowflakes arrived, one stinging his cheek, just beneath his right eye, another his chin, a third his forehead, the sky suddenly full of them, Eli searching for the point from which the swirl originated, the effect so dizzying that he closed his eyes. And now he saw the snow falling thick in the high country, Magpie and Bull Bear and Leather Top well camped near a running stream, a roof of cedars above them, an orange fire blazing, real meat sizzling and crackling on spits, the men wrapped in winter robes and telling stories of their hunt. And laughing. He saw, too, the herd that Hornaday had found in the box canyon, the gathering of twenty or more from which a bull had been taken, large and curly-haired, and he watched as the rest of them—brown cows, yellow calves, and a young black bull—moved sure-footed into a coulee down inside the breaks, a place to wait out the storm.

Acknowledgments

Thanks first to my wife, Kathy, for being with me in this from the very beginning, and thanks to the next generation—Hope, Nick, Jesse—for all the joy. Thanks to PJ Mark for believing. Thanks to Kathy Pories for making this a better book, and to everyone else at Algonquin for their good work on its behalf. Thanks to my parents and grandparents for granting me a look at the old times. And thanks to God for allowing me to be here. Still.

Author's Note

The Hornaday expedition of 1886 and the Washita incident are historical events, and I have tried to remain true to the spirit of both, even as I invented for the sake of my narrative. The novel's characters are all products of my imagination, including these few—William T. Hornaday, Magpie of the Southern Cheyennes, the hunter Jim McNaney, the camp cook McAnna, and the expedition sergeant, Bayliss—who are inspired by real people. Of the many books I read while preparing to write this novel, the following were especially helpful:

The Extermination of the American Bison,
by William Temple Hornaday

Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay,
by Don Rickey, Jr.

The Horse Soldier,
Volume II, by Randy Steffen

Life in Custer's Cavalry: Diaries and Letters of Albert and Jennie Barnitz, 1867
–
1868,
edited by Robert M. Utley

Mr. Hornaday's War,
by Stefan Bechtel

Neither Wolf nor Dog,
by Kent Nerburn

The Time of the Buffalo,
by Tom McHugh

Washita Memories: Eyewitness Views of Custer's Attack on Black Kettle's Village,
by Richard G. Hardorff

The Ways of my Grandmothers,
by Beverly Hungry Wolf

LIN ENGER is an Iowa Workshop graduate, the author of the novel
Undiscovered Country,
and the recipient of a James Michener Award and a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship. His short stories have appeared in
Glimmer Train, Ascent, Great River Review, Wolf Head Quarterly,
and other journals. He teaches at Minnesota State University Moorhead. His website is www.lin-enger.com. (Photo by Hope Larson.)

Visit us at 
Algonquin.com
to step inside the world of Algonquin Books. You can discover our stellar books and authors on our newly revamped website that features

Book Excerpts
Downloadable Discussion Guides
Author Interviews
Original Author Essays
And More!

Follow us on 
twitter.com/AlgonquinBooks

Like us on 
facebook.com/AlgonquinBooks

Follow us on 
AlgonquinBooks.tumblr.com

Published by

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

Post Office Box 2225

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of

WORKMAN PUBLISHING

225 Varick Street

New York, New York 10014

© 2014 by Lin Enger.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

eISBN 978-1-61620-424-2