by Sophie Weeks
“The orchards.” Louise's face was pained. “My wedding present. When your grandfather brought me home, there were a dozen fruit trees he had put in just for me. We drove up after the wedding, and they were all in bloom. He planted a new one every year on our anniversary.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
“I'm so sorry, Bonne-maman,” Margaret sighed. She kicked at the dirt. “Even the daffodils aren't coming up. I can't remember a year when there weren't daffodils.”
“There was never a year like this,” Louise said sorrowfully. “Even in the eighties, when prices were so low, and Carl thought we would lose the ranch, I knew we would not. I knew …” She fumbled with words for a moment. “I knew what I was capable of. I convinced him to put in the crops, to make us self-sustaining. I learned to grind wheat and can vegetables instead of having just a handful of fresh herbs in my potager. I knew what had to be done.”
Margaret understood, a little, saw that her grandmother was as unhappy with the helpless and ongoing loss as the rest of them, perhaps more, because in the past she had always known the right way to fix all their problems. “It will be all right,” she said, more confidently than she felt. “When the government compensation comes in, we'll get new stock. New seeds. Then we can make things grow again.” But she knew, and Louise knew too, of course, that new stock and new seeds could only happen once the bitter, barren earth consented to bear again.
Just then, Margaret saw the dust rising up from the lane; a vehicle was coming up the drive, and she recognized it as Christopher's. She went out to meet him. “I haven't seen you in so long,” she said. “I guess we're not as attractive now that Carla has a room in town?”
Christopher laughed ruefully, and he rubbed his eyes. “You have your own charms. Listen, can you do me a favor?”
“What kind of favor?”
“Old Miss Halford is the only one in the county who hasn't been cleared yet. She keeps forgetting to send her sample into town. I have to go out there and—well, she's an old lady, if she needs help …”
“Wait.” Margaret held up her finger. “This is a favor that involves collecting a stool sample from Miss Halford? No. No way.”
“So I'm supposed to do it? That's not nice, you're a woman, you should—”
“Well, you're a scientist!”
“Exactly. A scientist doesn't have patients, he has samples. There's a reason I didn't become a doctor.”
Margaret pursed her lips trying to think of a way out. He was right, the old woman might need help, and she certainly wouldn't feel at ease getting it from Christopher. But Margaret hardly wanted to do it herself. “Bonne-maman,” she blurted out finally. “We'll take my grandmother out there—she's strong, and Miss Halford won't be so embarrassed in front of another older person.”
“Perfect.” Christopher looked deeply grateful. “Go get her and I'll buy you both lunch afterward at the diner.”
When Margaret told Louise about the errand, Louise sighed and didn't seem thrilled at the prospect either, but she agreed to come and seemed to enjoy the drive out to the small Halford spread. “I suppose she's still just getting by on her husband's pension, poor woman.” But when Louise got out of the Range Rover to greet Miss Halford, there was not a trace of condescension in her manner, only a simple friendliness.
“Come in, come in,” Miss Halford trilled in welcome. Christopher and Margaret couldn't get a word in edgewise as the woman led them into her little sitting room. “Margaret, I want to show you something. When you were a little girl and you came over to visit me, you used to sit on the floor with that old tabby Checkers, eating ice cream and giving him every other bite, do you remember? Checkers loved ice cream, all my cats were funny like that …”
“I'm sure Checkers was—” Margaret broke off as she was brought face-to-face with an imperfectly taxidermied tabby who was, she slowly realized, the subject of Miss Halford's monologue. “Oh, my.”
Miss Halford fortunately didn't notice either Margaret's disgust or Christopher's badly concealed mirth. “Now, Roy, here, he loves my dandelion wine. Look at him.” She scooped up the tabby who was licking the inside of a small cordial glass. “Would you ladies like a glass? It's a little too sweet for a gentleman …” She held up the decanter filled with golden liquid.
Margaret turned around hastily. “Miss Halford, where did you get the dandelions?”
“From the bottom of the pasture, dear, just like every other year.”
“Are you stupid?” Christopher demanded, snatching the wine decanter out of her hands. “You crazy old woman, this isn't safe.” He looked at Margaret, and anger was clear on his face. “Call Dr. Barton, get him out here.”
But there was no signal, and Margaret had to use the phone in the kitchen while Christopher grilled Miss Halford about her symptoms. Looking out the window while she spoke, she trailed off as she looked down the pasture. “Yes, dandelions. She looks fine to me. I don't know …” She stopped speaking when her eyes lit on a patch of green at the bottom of the wet, dirty waste of brown. “Dandelions.” She snapped back to herself long enough to answer the doctor's few questions. Then she hung up and walked out the door, staring. She hurried through the field until she reached the little sea of green with yellow flowers. The dandelions were blooming, and they were beautiful and healthy.
But why? Margaret had seen weeds sprouting, and she supposed that dandelions were a weed—certainly her grandmother thought so. But why would this prion infect one flower and not another? She couldn't understand why these dandelions were blooming as demurely as if nothing were wrong while grazing fields were withered and brown.
Once Christopher had settled down and gotten his sample (which was reassuringly free of blood or anything else evidently wrong), Margaret told him her thoughts on the drive back to the ranch. “It has to be some agricultural practice,” she argued. “Why the trees and not the weeds? Why the cows and not the horses? It doesn't make sense.”
“Modern agriculture is a disease waiting to happen,” Christopher said. “And cattle ranching worse, in terms of environmental impact. But there's nothing linking these things.”
Louise was silent, staring out the window. But just as they turned in the gate, she called out sharply, “Stop the car.”
“What?” But Christopher was already braking.
Louise climbed out without answering him, and Margaret followed, looking worriedly at Christopher. But after a moment, her breath caught as she saw what Louise had seen: apple blossoms. One tree alone bloomed by the fence surrounding the withered orchards. “Christopher, look!” she called.
Christopher did look, and he took a blooming twig from the tree and put it in a sample bag. “Is this the same kind of apple tree as the rest of them?” he asked.
Louise shook her head. “I don't know what it was, exactly. It's funny, that tree.” She gave a reminiscent smile. “It's grown right up against the fence now. It was really planted from an apple core I dropped after we'd taken a long walk down by the creek. We saw the sapling come up the next spring and it survived well, though the fruit was always small and tart.”
“A crabapple,” Margaret realized.
“Yes—the original seed was from a wild apple tree we found on the walk. So I suppose it's really a wild tree, but I rather like its fruit,” Louise said.
“You see,” Christopher said quickly, “that tree was irrigated and tended like any other tree here. It can't be an agricultural practice causing this.” His eyes flickered around the orchard, up and down, as he considered. “Okay. I need to think about this for a while.” He drove them up to the house and promised to take them to lunch soon—he was eager now to get back to the lab with his new samples. He rattled off down the drive at a great pace, and Margaret and Louise were just about to enter the house when Jon came out of the barn slowly, staggering.
“Is he drunk?” Louise whispered, frowning.
“It's very early,” Margaret murmured doubtfully, then stopped short as her fat
her's tall figure sank to its knees before collapsing entirely. “Dad!” She ran forward, dropping to her knees in the mud beside him. “Dad, what's wrong?” Her voice was high and frantic.
Jon was clutching his chest and having trouble breathing. He certainly didn't have breath to spare for an answer. This wasn't some drunken mishap, and Margaret called over her shoulder, “Call the doctor, now! We have to take him in.”
“Emilie!” Louise whirled into action. “Find me the aspirin bottle, quickly—Samantha, go find Gene, he must drive Jon into town, quickly now!”
“It's okay, Dad,” Margaret whispered helplessly, watching her father suffer. “We're going to get you help right now.” She was shaking and trying not to cry as she gripped Jon's hand, not knowing what to do. But then Louise was beside her, pushing an aspirin into Jon's mouth and making him chew, and Gene lifted and supported Jon into his truck. Margaret climbed in after, and within moments they were flying down the dirt road towards town.
Margaret's attention was fiercely focused on Jon and his flushed face, and she never stopped whispering, “It's okay, it's going to be okay, promise, promise …” The drive seemed longer than ever as she watched her father wince and gasp at the pain and tightness in his chest. But when the truck screeched to a halt outside Dr. Barton's clinic, the doctor was waiting in the doorway, with the portable defibrillator right beside him. Margaret climbed out of the cab, and Dr. Barton examined Jon right there, pulling open his plaid shirt, listening to his heart, and then checking his blood pressure. He frowned, then checked again.
“Margaret,” he said, “tell your father to calm down. He's not having a heart attack.”
“What?” Margaret stared at him. “He has high blood pressure, he came out of the barn clutching his chest—”
“Yes. He's having a panic attack. Calm him down, Margaret.”
“A panic attack?” But Margaret did as she was told, kneeling in front of her father. “Dad, it's okay.”
“Dying,” Jon insisted, gasping painfully. “Margaret …”
She looked up at the doctor. “Are you sure—?”
“Very sure. That man has a heart like a nine-pound hammer. Calm him down.”
Margaret took in a deep breath and tried to think. “Dad,” she said softly. “Breathe with me. Like you taught me to do with Whisper, remember? You said when Whisper and I could breathe together, we would win. Breathe with me.”
Jon's eyes were still frightened and pained, but he somehow understood. Margaret knelt in front of him, counting their breaths silently together. Gradually, his short fearful pants evened out, and the sounds of pain ceased. Finally, he put Margaret gently away from him. He stood upright, breathing in and out deeply.
“You're going to be fine, Jon,” Dr. Barton called out. “But you might need to work on your stress levels a little, or you will have a heart attack one of these days.”
Jon rubbed the clammy sweat from his forehead. “Stress levels,” he said finally. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” the doctor returned, sympathetically enough. “Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a kid with a bug in his ear.” He turned and strode back into the clinic.
Margaret sat down, wiping the tears from her cheeks she hadn't even known were there until then. Gene came around and sat beside her silently, and she leaned in against him. “Thanks,” she whispered, and he nodded. Neither of them spoke to Jon; Margaret wasn't sure she knew what to say. She was glad, obviously, that it had been a panic attack rather than a heart attack, but seeing her father so vulnerable, so frightened, was upsetting for her.
Finally she pulled out her phone and called her grandmother, letting her know that it had been a false alarm. Then she stood up. “Come on, Dad. Let's go home.” Jon silently climbed into the truck beside her, and it was an uncomfortable, silent ride back to the ranch. Margaret didn't know what to say, and Jon didn't speak once. The girl reflected that after her stressful morning, all she wanted was to sink into a bubble bath up to her chin and never come out.
But that hope was dashed when they pulled up beside the ranch house and Margaret saw Louise standing out on the porch, dressed immaculately in her best coat, carrying her handbag. “Daisy,” she said, as soon as they climbed out of the truck, “Daisy, come with me.”
“Come where, Bonne-maman?” Margaret asked, controlling the teenager inside her that wanted to whine.
“I must go to the reserve,” Louise said firmly. “But I don't see the roads well enough to drive home after dark. I need you to take me.”
“Can't you go tomorrow?” Margaret asked. “I don't know if you noticed, but it's been sort of a long day.”
“It's been a long winter, Daisy,” Louise said. “And I must speak with the tribe.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARGARET, WHO HAD BEEN STERNLY INSTRUCTED by Louise to speak only when spoken to, had pictured something rather grander when Joseph had agreed to take them to speak with the elders. In her imagination there was maybe a teepee. Instead, they were taken into Marie Moyer's living room to sit on the battered sofa while old men and women pulled up chairs. Margaret looked at their faces in turn, feeling a little odd in a room where she looked so different, where her white face stood out as strange. That was probably how Christopher felt all the time.
After an exchange of courtesies, Louise spoke. “I have said many prayers these months. None of them have been answered.”
“Don't feel bad,” Joseph said. “God doesn't seem to have time for any of us these days.”
“What is this blight?” Louise said, leaning forward. “What is it really?”
Old Marie said something in Cree, and Joseph translated. “She says it's not a blight. She says this land was always bitter.” He paused. “She says … well, she says maybe you should leave if you don't like it. Sorry.”
“But it wasn't always bitter,” Louise answered. “I've watched crops and cows and children come up on this land.” She looked frustrated. “I've taken all the pain and trouble this land can give in a lifetime.”
“One lifetime, yes,” said another old man, whom Margaret didn't know. “You know one lifetime. We know the struggle of many. Our songs and stories tell us about our ancestors, how they came to this land and made it their own. Cree people grew crops here, and they knew what they faced.”
“The name of this land for the Cree nation means Bitter Earth,” Joseph said. “Our ancestors had to struggle to tame the bitter spirits of the land. Some land, it was meant to be tilled. It takes and gives forth in good season. This land was meant to be hunted—it was meant to be wild.”
“My gardens will not grow,” Louise said, and Margaret again felt divided from those surrounding her, for she felt very young in comparison with these people who wore age like a proud badge, Louise among them.
Marie spoke again, and Joseph translated. “She says her gardens, too, are brown. She says spring comes only in the places that are wild.”
That made sense; that was what they'd seen. The chance-sown seed was pure. Except … “The horses,” Margaret blurted out, drawing a steely glare from her grandmother for speaking out of turn.
But Marie laughed, and so did a few of the other elders. A very old man, who wore sweatpants, pointed and spoke in Cree. Joseph translated for him, “This land knows horses, girl. It knows horses, and it knows humans. These were once wild with the land. The horses grazed and the first peoples hunted. They made their own peace with the land. But then men learned the secrets of the plough. The land was chained in furrow and field.”
“How?” Louise said.
“In recent years, the dance. The dance was enough, a yearly conquest. But Thomas is too old for the dance now. There are young men who would learn, but they are not yet ready.”
The conversation after that continued for hours in a haze of Marlboros and measured words. Margaret drifted in and out of paying attention, but phrases struck her ears. There was talk of scapegoats, of an animal, of effigy, and of prayer. Men and women who had sought vi
sion in the sweat lodges explained their dreams and weighed them for helpfulness.
It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and Margaret had drifted silently out to the front porch to sit there and wait in the chilly darkness. Christopher pulled up. “Hello,” he said when he saw Margaret. “What's up? Did you come to see me?”
Margaret shook her head. “My grandmother is in there with your grandmother and all the rest of them.”
“She's in there with the tribal elders? Why the hell would she come to them?”
“They're …” Margaret tried to form hours of hazy impressions into something coherent. “They're telling stories and trying to figure out what to do.”
“That sweat-lodge vision kind of stuff?” Christopher said skeptically.
“Uh-huh.” Margaret yawned. “I'm exhausted, but I have to wait here and drive Bonne-maman home.”
Christopher sat down beside her and loosened his tie. “The apple blossom is giving me nothing. There's nothing special about it, nothing that wouldn't be there in something similar. I'm still working on the dandelions.”
“Why do you wear your tie out here?” Margaret asked dreamily. “None of your bosses are here to yell at you.”
He shrugged. “I don't know. I like putting on a tie in the morning. Feels good.”
She accepted that. “How's Carla?”
“Surprisingly happy,” Christopher sighed. “The organization she's working with put her on staff last week. It's not forever, of course—she'd miss her buildings too much. But for now, it's working out very well.”
Just then, Louise came out through the screen door. “Hello, Christopher. Daisy, this is going to take all night. Come back in the morning.”
Margaret lifted her eyebrows at the imperious tone and stood up. “All right. I'd better see how Dad's doing.” She hadn't been best pleased with her grandmother for dragging her out again after all that. She leaned down and kissed Christopher on the cheek, then headed for the vehicle.