Windrows by Kate Krautkramer

Out the back window, the last licks of light disappeared behind Round Mountain. Audra looked doubtfully at a plate of beef and green beans cold on the kitchen table. A pair of her homemade rolls kept watch over it all, like soft little brown hills rising at the edge of the plate, plump, desolate and silent. She covered the meal in Saran Wrap and set it on top of the microwave. She looked at the oven's clock, but didn't remember what time it said a second later when she took the three steps to the door. Audra flicked the porch light on, listened for the cough of the pickup, and looked for headlights bumping up the driveway.

The truck had been the getaway car on their wedding day, the chrome so new Audra told the photographer to wait a second before he snapped again, then leaned and checked her teeth by peering into the bumper. George rustled her bustle and turned her around, kissing her square and hard, "That'll fix your lipstick," he said, and he lifted Audra up into the truck, his hands eager and friendly, almost completing a circle around her waist, his grin blazing at her like so much Colorado sun.
But she didn't hear the pickup now, nor even a cricket. And the spring peepers were long gone, or grown into regular old summer frogs, or whatever happened to them. She didn't know.

Her deaf Border collie rose, drug his paws to the door, and scratched his overgrown toenails on the trim, peeling old paint off onto the fading linoleum. Audra lowered herself to a squat. She balanced with the help of a seatless ice cream parlor chair George had got at the auction over on the McElroy place months ago then left here in the entry for her to consider every day.

At the auction, everything had gone; even the ancient tractor for $10,000, and all of Betsy McElroy's china and faded quilts sold to antique dealers from Denver. The McElroys waved as they pulled out the drive, headed toward Tucson in their new mobile home. Betsy had mouthed at Audra from behind her cab window. "So long."
Audra scowled at the chair then took the dog's face in her hands and smoothed back his ears. He shook his collar and whined. The stump of his tail gave half a wag. "No crying," she said. She fell back on her rump, pulling the dog's fur into her face, inhaling whiffs of swamp water, alfalfa, and skunk.

Upstairs Audra ran water into the claw-footed tub. She browsed through an assortment of salts and bubble baths that rose from the tile like some far-off plastic city. The tub had been at her grandparents' over in Bloomville. When Grandma died, Audra asked George, and he hauled the tub to their place in the horse trailer. By herself she had put a big, new window in the upstairs bathroom, the sill just a few inches off the floor. And she had re-tiled, running up and down the stairs for every cut she made on the wet saw borrowed from Ed McElroy and set up on the porch while she worked.

"By the window, so I can see out," she had told Ed when he helped George haul the tub up the stairs.

Ed laughed at her "Has to go where the pipe is," he said.

Now sitting in the tub was like going to the movies. Better, even, because she could soak and look out at the fields like some kind of country Rupenzel, waiting for George to come home while she watched the aspens change in fall, watched the snow twirl up into tiny white tornadoes in March, saw the new foals kick their heels against the sky in spring.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the open window, listening for an owl she'd heard earlier, perching and calling out from the upper branches of a spruce in the yard. What she heard was George clomping up the stairs. He hadn't bothered taking off his boots, she could tell, but she turned her head anyway, smiling deliberately at him when he came in.

"Smells good in here." George kicked down the toilet lid then sat on it, balancing his supper plate on his knees. "Like lemons." He looked out the window and pointed. "I got the whole front eighty swathed. Looks better than last year if the rain will hold off." He used his fork to tip his ball cap back. "Thanks for dinner," he said.

Audra scooched up a little in the tub, working a parcel of suds into a long rectangle on her arm. She used her pinky finger to divide the bubbly section into neat, long furrows. "Nothing broke down?" She looked over her shoulder at George. She studied the hard, lovely line of his jaw and a thinning tuft of hair escaping out the front of his cap.

He stabbed here and there on his plate, layering beans and meat. "Nothing broke down," he said and let go with a tired smile.

George set his empty plate on the floor and sat for a time, elbows resting on his knees, rolling his fork like a pencil between his giant hands. He stood and hung his cap on a hook behind the door, working a spray of long fingers through his hair, looking at his own face as if it was someone he ought to recognize.

She stood and reached for a towel, wrapping herself and securing it with a knot under her arm. George offered a hand to help her out. He squeezed her fingers before he let go and stooped to retrieve his plate from the floor, laying the fork across a smear of leftover butter. "Oil in the tractor needs changed before I start raking tomorrow," he said. "Best do it now if you can spare me."

Audra nodded. "Tomorrow…" she said.

"You think you can maybe take a ride, have a look around for that calf?" His eyes reflected the alpenglow, and Audra wondered if he had somehow planned on this trick of light. He realized, and she knew he realized, that he had interrupted her, but he had gone on too far in his proposition to back track and so now squared himself to her and dropped his posture, waiting for the answer.

She was overcome for a moment by this demonstration, his awareness itself like a small and tender, unmentionable tragedy. She took grounding comfort in her familiarity with her husband's shoulders, their wide assuming hulk not hidden under a faded cotton work shirt. She loved him, for sure. She loved especially the way his body took up space.

"Sure," she said, "I'll try to find the calf."

He took his cap from the hook. She grabbed his arm as he turned to go. "I'll take care of that." She pointed to the plate, which he held out to her, letting his other hand fall, so she could feel the callous of his palm on her shoulder. He leaned down to kiss her neck. Stubble grazed her cheek, and she breathed in the traces of diesel and hay left on his skin.

She rode most of the next day up past the pasture and into the sagebrush BLM section where the cattle had strayed on and off all summer. She took mental note of places where the fence sagged. Dried up lupine shook their seedpods, volunteering a faint percussion. The meadow grasses stood tall and yellow, growing brittle this time of year and crackling under the horse's hooves. Audra rolled her shirt sleeves down, thinking of sunburn and pulled her hat close over her eyes following the horizon for signs of the calf.

The dog eased along, staying near the horse's feet and not darting off as he had even this past spring, to chase prairie dogs and chipmunks. When they stopped at a ditch for the horse to drink, he dropped on his belly in the horse's shadow, panting.

Audra dismounted and kneeled to pat him, turning his head toward her as though in deafness he had suddenly learned to read her lips. "Where's the calf, Scout?" He shifted his eyebrows at her, a look concerned and familiar. He pushed his graying muzzle under her hand and lifted like dogs do. She pulled a crumbling biscuit from her pocket and fed him half while they waited for the horse to rest and drink his fill. Overhead a few turkey vultures worked the thermals, tilting and tipping to scan for the last best carcass of summer.

Just before evening, Audra stopped the horse at the McElroy's back gate. The place sat plain and neat, the porch empty, a few volunteer pansies still shaking their purple heads around the edge of the back stoop. Across the meadow and down the driveway the "For Sale" sign bolted to the front fence had started its quiet fade. She eased herself off the horse, opened the gate and led him in, Scout dragging along behind them, whimpering.

"They're gone, boy," Audra whispered, then felt foolish for spelling out the way things were to a deaf old dog.

The day she brought Scout home, she had stopped to show Betsy McElroy. Betsy pulled the puppy from under the seat of the pickup and cradled him, bringing her face in close to smell his musky breath. "Cute little thing," Betsy said and set Scout on the ground with a scratch behind his ears. "Nothing like a dog for company." The puppy had bitten at the cuffs of their blue jeans, rolling around in the dust and chamomile at their feet.

Now, Audra stood still in the yard, listening to a few late grasshoppers send off their rattle in the grass. Betsy hadn't seemed old to Audra, nor had Ed really. When George bought the ranch just before they were married, Audra didn't think of the McElroys ever selling or moving. All those years, the path between their houses was worn to smooth brown dust; does raised their fawns in the green draws; prices for beef stayed high-things felt sure.

"But who will you talk to there?" Audra had asked. She stood with Betsy in her empty kitchen, looking for a place to sit, a place to rest her eyes, something to do with her hands, anything. "And what will you do all day in a mobile home?" They weren't real questions, more like bootless, one-sided arguments, even though she had tried to pitch her voice normal for Betsy's sake. Anyway, Ed and Betsy were already packed, their things sold and gone. Audra's face turned hot, and she felt like a girl.

"I'll do mostly nothing," Betsy said. "Make cookies six at a time in that little oven, then feed to them to Ed, or feed them to the birds. I'll read and rest. Just rest is what I want to do." Betsy's eyes went far-off just thinking about it, like doing nothing was some kind of dream, some kind of happy goal. She stood where her kitchen table used to be and shrugged her shoulders and smiled. Then she gave Audra a reassuring little slap on the arm. Audra touched the place now, trying to feel the shadow of her friend's hand, her bent fingers.

In the far distance, at their place, the tractor moiled in down hay, scaring up wisps behind it, turning the crop for even exposure to the sun. George would be pleased with the weather. He was probably singing out loud in the cab, "Baby don't let 'em blow smoke up your dress," From where she stood it looked like he had done more than half the upper field already, and there was no sign of rain. She started singing herself to fill in the bars, "Don't let 'em break your heart. Don't start thinking your life's a mess, you've done just fine so far." She knew George wouldn't see her, but waved, raising her hat and giving it a few good pumps through the sky. Scout stood and stared at her like she was loony. "Well, maybe he could be looking," she said.

Pulling the horse behind her by the reins she walked toward the McElroy's house. A few swallows dove around, skitting in and out of the barn. Audra stood on her tip-toes and looked in the kitchen window to see dust floating in sunlight and settling on the bare, warped floor. A fly clamored in and around her ear while she leaned against the building. Warmth cached in the dark siding worked through her shirt toward her neck and shoulders. She closed her eyes and pushed her spine into the boards until she heard footsteps.

Audra stood still and opened her eyes. Scout, stayed curled into a C around her feet in the shade. The horse pricked up his ears, took a few steps to the side and tossed his head, pointing with his nose to where the runaway calf stuck his head from around the side of the front porch. "Where you been?" Audra addressed the calf without moving from the wall, careful not to startle him, admiring his black eyes and eyelashes like thick little brooms. " Been worried sick about you. Out all night-night after night, " she scolded in a whisper. "What are we supposed to think you been doing out here?" she said.

It was easy enough to push the calf home. "Don't even have to push you," she pointed out. "Just follow along like you were waiting for some one to invite you home." She was talking to herself, which her mother had always said was a sign of intelligence. She didn't know that she felt so smart to be revealing every little thing to whatever happened to be around. The dog Scout she was fairly sure had a soul, but the calves, she didn't know about. Anyway she might as easily talk to the vultures, the grasshoppers, or the voles ducking their heads in and out of the ground. They all seemed closer to experience than she was, all at least cognizant of weather, grit, rain, sound-the things she longed for, the things she wished to be able to dunk and hold under her skin for a while, things she wished she could feel better and so bring her back from wherever it was she kept losing her days. "But I guess hooves aren't the best way to feel the ground,' she said, looking behind her to where the calf was following, wagging his sweet, dumb head in answer.

George came in early, the raking finished. "Smells good," he said nodding toward Audra and the kitchen and the crockpot where a roast from the freezer bubbled with a few onions and potatoes, nothing special. Scout circled his heels while George held a round of plywood up for Audra's inspection and kneeled to set it over the hole in the ice cream parlor chair sitting just off the entryway.

He fussed with the wood, turning it a few inches at a time then inspecting for a proper fit. She nodded at his back "Did you see the calf? Finally found him over on Betsy's porch, acting like he lived there."

George sat on the little chair, his frame eclipsing the wire heart. "Not going to live anywhere long. Big enough he'll be on the truck with the rest of them next month." He smoothed his lap and took off his gloves, the chair creaking under his weight.

Audra hung up her dishtowel, walked to George and turned, lowering herself to sit cross-legged on the floor with her back to him. She knew he would fuss with her hair, and he did, dropping his gloves to the floor, then unclipping her barrette and pulling a few grays from her nape before running his fingers over her head and down her neck, pushing gently at the muscle there. The dog came and laid his head in her lap, looking up at both of them with cloudy eyes.

Audra pet the dog's nose, speaking to him and to George just the same. "Not very long," she repeated George's commentary on the calf. She picked with her ragged fingernail at a spot of grease on his pant leg. A drip fell into the sink. The breeze kicked up and barely shook a windchime out on the porch. George tensed, but she stayed silent while he stared out the kitchen glass, maybe counting the windrows drying on the ground.

"You should go on in to town tomorrow," George finally said. "You can take the truck, I won't need it. Stop in and see Louise at the store, pick up some apples and oranges, get the mail." His voice traipsed off after the last scraps of sunlight that disappeared tonight the same way they had disappeared the night before, behind Round Mountain. No place else to go.

"We don't need any oranges." Audra gave a sharp pinch through his workpants at the back of his calf muscle.

George stood and hitched his hands under her armpits as if she were a child, pulling her up that easily. "Put on your boots then." He turned and gave his head a shake toward the window.

A three-quarter moon began its tour, hanging over the ridge tossing yellow light at the barn, the porch, the fields and the hay. They made their way down a cut, Audra leading, Scout walking beside on the row of fresh cut, protecting his feet from the needling stubble. A quarter mile from the house, she turned to look back. George stood behind her, lacing his hand over one shoulder and loosely around her neck, letting it come to rest on the other shoulder, pulling her spine into his chest, and breathing across the top of her head. "I think maybe next year we should package some of this." His other arm gestured randomly over the down hay. "Parcel it in tarps and sell it by the half ton on the Front Range. Ship to those stables in Cherry Creek."

Audra reached up, taking his forearm in both her hands. "We'll need a bigger truck."

She felt him nod, his chin bumping the top of her head. "Shoulda bid on Ed's F-350 and flat bed."

George's hands fell to her waist; he hooked his fingers in her belt loops like they were a couple of teenagers at the county fair. She pointed toward the house where the moon marked a silver trail across the pond. "Remember that rabbit?"

His chest grew hard behind her. "You were sad," he said.

It had been early April Audra lifted her face to peek over the headboard, the morning ritual of scanning for crocus buds working their way through the snow. George snored beside her, the quilts rising and falling in steady little quakes around his chest. Without getting up, she could check most of the yard, see the corral in front of the barn and track the retreat of the snow banks, the annual pulling back of the white shroud.

That morning she had glanced at the pond and seen right off the tracks of a rabbit, which led down the little bank, a few hops onto the ice, then disappeared into a gray slush hole. "What would make an animal do that?" She poked George and made him look. "Shouldn't an animal know better?" She stood in her nightshirt, let her forehead lean on the window. A few drops of water slid down the inside of the glass while she stared.

George rolled from bed, pulling his boxer shorts and Carharts on by rote, fastening his belt without looking, his eyes unadjusted to morning. "Bunnies aren't exactly known for intelligence," he noted, and turned and pulled the covers up over the bed in lumps.

Audra put her back to the window and set the quilts straight. "He probably scratched at the ice, you know how rabbits scratch like that? Scared to death. Probably all he wanted was a little drink. Then all of a sudden there's no way out." She smoothed the bedding over the pillow, petting the quilt tops kindly, wishing George would say something, anything, something about biscuits or breakfast would do, but he was quiet, and she began again against his silence. "Probably dark under there, too. Probably didn't know how he got caught."

George reached for a wool shirt hung over the bedpost. "It probably didn't last that long, Audra." He shook his head at her as he buttoned. "Don't feel sorry."
But she had felt sorry, all day, until she put on irrigation boots and went to the pond and squatted by the edge listening to the creak of the tiny ice flows, watching while the snow melted and water flowed under the ice and out the culvert to come out somewhere on the horse pasture below.

From where they stood, they could see the horse pasture now, Audra's old bay gelding with his head bent to the grass. Beyond that was the McElroy's property, the house a dark little triangle under the moon. She shuddered a little and leaned into George. "I can drive the bailer tomorrow if you think it's dry enough." She leaned over and pulled up a handful of hay, smelling it and rubbing it together, letting it fall back to the ground like a spice onto food.

She liked the bailer. It would be hot again tomorrow, Scout could rest inside, and she'd drive all day, working the rows east then west, east then west, leaving the long bricks out behind her on the ground to be picked up, piled, unpiled again in winter, and fed and consumed before they started spring again, the calves arriving in the night, usually, and their mothers choking down placenta in that extreme gesture of protection and duty that so stunned Audra. Even though she had seen it often since she was a little girl, she watched the event to completion every time, like a favorite, familiar movie on the television, gripping to the last. Thinking of it enthralled and repulsed her at once, the necessity of it, the poor mothers working and choking even after the exhaustion of giving birth, the cows' dim affirmation that they would do what they must.

George let her go and worked the ground with a toe of his boot before they started back to the house. "If you could bail, that'd give me time to rake the back lot. It don't look like any rain is coming." She watched him walk, his shoulders square and resolute, his body stoved up with the day, his mind probably turned to dinner."Sure you don't mind?" he said.

Audra nodded her head at the moon. She looked toward the house, heard the wind chimes barely jangle on the porch. Soon enough the leaves would change and the elk start bugling, the birds would gather and flutter up in little groups in front of the truck when she drove down the road toward town. The horses would start to grow fuzzy, and she'd pull out the flannel sheets. She shivered to think about it, and walked close to George, slipping her arm around his tree of a waist and waiting for him to pull her into himself so far she had to adjust her footsteps to keep from tripping on his boots.

Kate Krautkramer's work has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines including The North American Review, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and So to Speak She has written for National Geographic, and NPR's Day to Day and Morning Edition. Her essays have been anthologized in The Best American Nonrequired Reading and The Beacon Best.