The Soured Earth

by Sophie Weeks

  When the stir-fry was ready, Margaret heaped a small portion on her own plate before handing the rest to Louise. She watched nervously as her finicky grandmother examined, sniffed, and finally tasted. “Delicious,” Louise said finally, and Margaret gave a broad smile and sat down. She trailed a Tater Tot through ketchup and decided that, at the very least, before she left she'd have to make the case for less meat. Maybe the girls could eat anything, but Jon had high blood pressure, and now Louise would have to be careful as well.

  When dinner was over, Jon ordered Sam to clear and do the dishes, then picked up his can of beer and went into the office. Margaret followed him, closing the door behind her. “All right, Dad. What's going on?”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Jon demanded.

  “I mean you've been pushing me today harder than you have since I left. And don't use Bonne-maman as an excuse.”

  “Well, forgive me for thinking you'd want to see your own grandmother.”

  “What is it you need?” Margaret said, unwilling to be distracted from her central point.

  There was a long silence while Jon drank his beer and Margaret waited for an answer. Finally, grudgingly, he said, “It's harder than I remember.”

  “What is?” Her voice was slightly softer now.

  “The girls. Emilie isn't like you, and Sam's all right, but she's young for her age.”

  Margaret looked puzzled. “Well, I'm glad I'm winning the popularity contest, but what does that matter?”

  “It matters because they need looking after. I never had to worry a lot about you. Penny was here, and anyway, you were a good kid.” He rubbed his stubbled chin. “Mom loves the hell out of them, but she doesn't need to be settling their arguments and scolding them all day long. And I have to get the cows to market soon so we can make mortgage payments through the winter. I don't have time, Margaret, I'm doing all the business side now too, and—”

  “It's too much,” Margaret interrupted, saying the words so he wouldn't have to.

  “Right now, it's all I can do to keep things running. I just … I'm not what they need. Emilie hates me, and Sam hardly says two words to me most days. I tried, you have to believe that.”

  “I do.” Margaret ran her hands through her wispy auburn hair. “But, Dad, what if I'm not any good at it either?”

  “They love you.”

  “I'm pretty sure they love you too,” Margaret replied. “But they miss their parents. That's natural.” Margaret's gaze traveled to a picture on the wall, Penny smiling down from horseback. “I miss them too.”

  “I know you do.” Jon said, following her eyes. “Remember that night before you rode in Vancouver, how Penny stayed up all night to make us snacks for the drive?”

  “She made Licorice Whip gate jumps, remember?” Margaret began to laugh, but it was the kind of laugh uncomfortably close to tears. Finally, she said, “I'll take a leave from school. On two conditions.”

  “And what might those be?”

  “You have to stop talking about leaving me the ranch. I don't want to think about that stuff right now. I'll help you, but don't assume that means I'm never going away again.” She waited for Jon's nod, then continued. “And you have to treat me like an adult. I'm not a little girl with a chore list anymore.”

  “Understood.” And Jon looked so relieved that Margaret was surprised, even having intuited how badly he needed her to stay. She moved around the desk, and he stood up too, for her to give him a long hug. “Missed you, honey,” he said quietly.

  “You won't when you see breakfast,” Margaret laughed softly. Then she stood back a little. “Seriously, Dad, you want Bonne-maman to be okay, right?”

  “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  “You know she'll have to start being careful about her food, and you should be too.”

  “Ah, hell, there's nothing wrong with me—”

  “Except that your blood pressure resembles a fire hose.” Margaret looked up at him. “Dad, please. Try? I'll make it good.”

  He grumbled and growled, but finally nodded. “Fine. But if it's salads morning, noon, and night … well, I'll be eating at the coffee shop.”

  “Deal.” Margaret kissed his cheek and went back into the kitchen, where there was a vicious soapsuds fight going on between Emilie and Sam. “Hey! Who was planning on cleaning this up?” She pointed to the soapy water on the floor. She was happy, though, to see a relatively normal, pleasant rowdiness in the house.

  “Sorry,” Sam giggled and went to get a dishcloth. “She gave me a mustache!”

  “Because she looks like a boy,” Emilie shot back.

  “Hey! I do not look like a boy. Do I, Margaret?”

  “Why do you think we call you Sam?” Emilie interjected.

  “Because Samantha is a mouthful,” Margaret answered. “Don't be a jerk, Em.”

  “Come on, Margaret, she looks like a baby dy—”

  “Emilie, shut your damn mouth,” came Jon's deep voice. “Go to your room. Now.”

  “Fine.” Emilie did her little characteristic head toss and went towards the stairs.

  Jon went back into the office, and Sam said shrewdly, “She always says mean stuff just so he'll send her upstairs and she doesn't have to do anything. She's probably texting her boyfriend.”

  “Does she do her barn chores?”

  “Sometimes. She likes those better. But sometimes she shows Rob her tits so he'll do it for her.”

  “She what?”

  “I saw her last week! Plus she takes pictures of her tits.”

  Margaret groaned. “Don't … don't use that word, okay?”

  “Okay. What do you call them?” Apparently no other word options had occurred to Sam.

  “Breasts. Or bosoms. Just … finish up here.” She was already starting to understand her father's need for help, if this was typical. “And quit being such a tattletale.”

  “You're just mad because now you have to do something,” Sam observed, to which Margaret didn't reply, just went upstairs and knocked on Emilie's door. She knew if she didn't do something directly, she'd end up letting it slide from the difficulty of the thing.

  “Yeah?” Emilie called.

  Margaret walked in and held out her hand. “Give me your cell phone.”

  “What, did you forget to charge yours?”

  “No, I want to see your cell phone.”

  “It's none of your business.” Emilie sat up, and she gave Margaret her perfected teenaged defiant stare.

  Then Margaret spied the cell phone peeking out from under a pillow, and in one quick moment, she reached out and grabbed it. Emilie squealed with rage and tried to grab it back, but Margaret held her off with a stern hand and said, “Do you want me to call Dad?”

  Emilie subsided a little and, looking really anxious now, said, “Margaret, please don't look …”

  But it was too late. Margaret was already looking over all her texts and pictures. Sam might be a tattletale, but she was apparently a truthful one. She began reading aloud. “'Ever think about a hot wet mouth in the middle of the day?’ If not, I'm sure he has now. Along with every other male in town, probably. What the hell were you thinking, Emilie?”

  “It was just for fun,” Emilie mumbled.

  “Rob could lose his job. Is that fun?”

  “Why would you even ask that?” Emilie looked horrified.

  “Because I figured you might actually care about that, since you clearly don't care about the fact that you're acting like a slut.” Margaret put the phone in her pocket. “You won't be seeing this for a while,” she said flatly.

  “What?”

  “You can take the sat phone when you're out riding.” Margaret walked out of the room, closing the door on Emilie's torrent of protests and pleas. She went back down to the office, where her father was bent over a pile of paperwork, and dropped the phone into a drawer and locked it.

  “What's that?” Jon said, not looking up.

  “You don't want to
know. I'm going out to the barn.”

  “Margaret …”

  “Seriously, Dad. You don't want to know. I've got it, okay?” She didn't wait for an answer before she left and headed out the back door, grabbing a jacket on the way. She found Gene in the barn and asked about Rob. Following the direction of the jerked thumb, she found Rob polishing the tack. She strode towards him and let her momentum go into a hard shove, knocking him against a bale of hay and off his feet.

  “What the hell—”

  “Do you want to go to jail?” she spat at him.

  “What are you talking about?” he protested.

  “I'm talking about the child pornography on your phone.”

  “I never—!”

  “You never looked at those pictures Em sent you? Bullshit.”

  Now Rob looked scared, and that gave Margaret an alien kind of satisfaction. “Dad would have you out of here before morning if I told him. Probably sporting more than a few bruises. But I still like the jail idea better, for now.”

  “No, no, listen, Margaret! She just sent me those, I swear. I didn't do anything.”

  “She's sixteen. I could call Cal right now.”

  The name of the local sheriff made Rob look even more desperate. “Margaret, please. We're friends, right? Hell, who walked Whisper all night that time he colicked?”

  Margaret let him swing in the wind for a while, watching him unwinkingly, then finally said, “You will not look at Emilie. You will not speak to her. The minute I find out you've so much as said ‘hi,’ I tell my dad.”

  “Yes. Yes.” Rob was pathetically relieved. “Absolutely, Margaret. Thank you.”

  “Okay.” Margaret turned away to leave.

  “Hey, welcome home,” Gene called out as he saw her heading back to the house. She wasn't entirely sure, but she thought she heard a faint chuckle behind the words.

  “Yeah,” Margaret muttered. “It's awesome.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER LUNCH THE NEXT DAY, she and Jon sat down to try and work out the details of her stay. Her things in Ontario could be put into storage; the apartment would have to be sublet. Margaret made Jon tell her everything the girls were supposed to be doing so she could make a list and follow up on it. She gave him her grocery list, and though he raised hell over the tofu, Margaret could tell he was enjoying having someone to work with again as he had worked with Penny ever since Grandpa died.

  “You'll have to help Mom winterize the garden—we're gonna be doing the second cut on the alfalfa this week.”

  “Are you bringing in extra hands?”

  “It's not necessary. The three of us can handle it. Just takes a little longer.” Jon looked tense and changed the subject. “The harvest dancing at the First Nation reserve is this weekend.”

  “You want to go to that?”

  “We always go to that,” Jon said flatly. “Hell, we're lucky they let us.”

  “Yeah, you're right,” and Margaret made a note. Finally, hopefully, she said, “I'm going for a ride on Whisper. Want to come?”

  Jon shook his head. “No, you have fun. The big furnace didn't light when I tried it, and I don't trust this weather. May need to go to the hardware store.”

  “Right.” Margaret nodded and gave a little smile before heading out to the barn. She had saved this part to be her reward, and before she was even inside the stall, Whisper was giving the soft, eager nicker that had given him his name. “Hi, sweetheart …” She laughed as the horse nuzzled at her pockets. “Yes, I brought you something. Of course I did.” She pulled a couple of fat carrots out of her pocket and let Whisper eat from her hand, like the old days. “Such a good boy … want to go for a ride?”

  It was a crisp, dead kind of day as she headed down towards the river. Bright leaves of crimson and copper color were like a carpet on the banks, and the breeze off the water was cold. “I would have to come home for winter,” Margaret muttered to herself, but it was still a beautiful day, and the easy rhythm of the familiar horse beneath her put her into a calmer state of mind.

  On the way home, she couldn't resist putting Whisper through his paces, letting him stretch into a gallop, then seeing how he did with a few fences. Margaret could tell a difference, of course, from how he'd performed in his prime, but he was still strong and fast. She let Whisper cool down and pulled up outside the barn. She swung down, her face glowing. Back in Ontario, she ran when weather permitted, but it had always seemed a strangely lonely form of exercise next to riding.

  Gene and Rob didn't seem to be around, and Margaret assumed herself alone, humming loudly as she cared for Whisper and put her elderly but immaculate saddle away. But when she went to put Whisper in his stall, she found an intruder—a square-faced, sandy-thatched little girl. “Hi,” Margaret said blankly.

  “Hi.” The little girl stretched out her hand with surprising self-assurance for someone her age. It went well with her clothes, the kind of worn-out denim and boot leather that every little boy Margaret had grown up with wore. “I'm Jess.”

  “Hi, Jess. I'm Margaret. Are you a friend of Sam's?” Then, following the girl's gaze, she added, “Or are you a friend of Whisper's?”

  “Friend to both, I hope, ma'am, though I guess you'd have to ask them.” Jess grinned. “Mr. Campbell lets me exercise Whisper when I come over.”

  Margaret had to repress a chuckle at that. “I'm sure he'd, ah, let you do as many chores as you enjoy.”

  “I'm sure you're right, ma'am,” Jess said and tipped her hat, laughing. “I guess you'll be riding Whisper now, though. Sam said you was coming home for a while.” She looked wistful.

  “It's true,” Margaret said as they exited the stall. “But I bet Whisper would still like you to visit, and I tell you what, I'll make you and Sam a snack to try and make amends, okay?” The girl nodded, and Margaret led her back to the house. “So who do you belong to?”

  “My mom, I guess,” and a slight shadow passed over Jess's face. “Kate Willis.”

  “Oh, I went to school with Kate!” Margaret started, before remembering what had happened during Kate's junior year that put an effective end to her academic career. She managed to stop herself before she said anything stupid, but Jess had a weary, resigned look that suggested she'd been identified as her young mother's bastard child often enough. To cover her confusion, Margaret turned quickly to the stove and began heating a pan of milk. “Why don't you go find Sam? This will take a few minutes.”

  Jess tipped her hat and disappeared, and Margaret blinked, wondering how on earth Kate Willis, a cheap girl with cheap tastes, had produced such a mannerly little cowboy of a daughter. Then again, she thought wryly, how had a couple of classy women like Louise and Penny managed to raise Emilie?

  Margaret toasted bread and cheese and sliced apples, but just as Jess and Sam came in, the door flew open. “Margaret, get the broom,” Jon snapped in the voice that wasn't ever disobeyed, not by hands or children or cows or anyone.

  Margaret moved quickly to the pantry to find it. “What's going on?”

  “Bull's out, and he's running all the hell over the place.”

  “Ah, Dad …” and Margaret's voice was nearly as whiny as a teenager's herself. “Get Rob or Gene to saddle up.”

  “They're out laying in the rest of the winter wheat. Any longer and it won't get established before the snow comes. Come on.”

  “Can we come?” Sam begged with a child's inerrant nose for excitement.

  “Homework done?” Jon said, and when the two girls shook their heads, he shook his as well. “Get it done. Margaret …”

  “All right,” she snapped, pulling on her coat. “Do you even know where he went?”

  “Near enough,” Jon said, leading her to the truck. As soon as she was inside and buckled up, he lit off across the fields, ignoring the roads, and the jolts were so strong that Margaret was sure she was going to chip a tooth just from how her jaw kept smacking shut at the impact.

  “There he is!” Jon called finally, po
inting at the big, heavy figure tearing around.

  “What am I supposed to do, hit him with the broom?”

  “No, smack him with the handle. He won't even notice the other end.”

  “You want me to beat a bull with a broomstick. This is insane.” But Margaret rolled down her window and got her broom ready. Jon sped up, then pulled in close to the bull, honking and doing his best to scare the beast without hurting him. Margaret dutifully poked out her window with the broom handle, trying to make him turn around. This was beyond ridiculous. She could be at school right now. She could be with her friends, sharing a bottle of wine. Instead, she was trying to poke a bull with a stick.

  “Be rough with him!” Jon shouted, and Margaret looked frustrated. She wasn't going to just lay into a bull, even though she knew rationally that he wouldn't feel it much even if she beat him with all her strength. “Hold the truck steady, will you?” She gave another savage poke at the bull's hindquarters, but just then the truck flew up in the air after hitting a rock, and her poke went amiss, to a place where no male animal likes to be poked.

  “Oh shit.” The bull gave out a bellow, and he cast an evil eye toward the truck. “Dad …” That was all she had time to get out before the maddened bull charged the truck and laid a dent in it.

  “What the hell did you do to him?” Jon yelled.

  “I was trying to poke his ass! I kind of missed.” Margaret unbuckled the seatbelt and shifted so she was half kneeling on the seat. When the bull wheeled around towards the truck again, she was ready, and she smacked him across the nose so hard that the handle broke off in her hand. “Go home!” she yelled. “Go home!”

  The bull looked perplexed for a moment and tried another half-hearted feint at the truck, but Margaret brandished the broken stick at him, and he had apparently had enough of that broom. With a low, unhappy sound, he acknowledged himself beaten and turned for home.

  They drove past the fields on the way back to the pen, and for a moment Margaret glimpsed Rob and Gene standing there watching with their hands up to shade their eyes. She couldn't really blame them. The sight of the bull loping across the plains with Margaret and Jon yelling out the windows and honking to keep it straight was probably a comical one.