After River

by Donna Milner

I’m certain that she, like the other girls, thought it was a fair exchange. They got to spend time at the same table as the Ward boys. They got to act coquettish and flirty and pretend they were grown up, away from their parents’ eyes. In exchange they gave me their friendship. They tried to teach me the latest beauty tricks; they loaned or gave me the latest style short skirts and sweater sets. If it seemed a fair exchange in their minds, to me at first, it was nothing more than an indulgence, a curiosity. I stubbornly hung onto my tomboyish looks.

  Our hayloft became a favourite hangout once we convinced Mom that no one smoked. I followed as they climbed the ladder on the side of the barn and scrambled over the loose hay to the open overhead doors. From this vantage point they spied on my brothers working below, then fell into fits of giggling at the slightest glance their way. Of course my brothers were aware of all this. Morgan and Carl strutted around during those days, posturing like bantam roosters, pretending even to themselves that our little farm was a ‘ranch’ and as romantic as those mesmerized young girls saw it to be. I watched closely as Elizabeth-Ann tried her wiles on Boyer. At mealtimes she jockeyed her position at the table to sit close to him.

  She used every excuse to ask him to pass her something, shamelessly batting her eyes every time she spoke to him.

  Boyer was immune to her obvious flirting, treating her with the polite indulgence he showed anyone but family. And every time he winked or smiled at me I felt a smug superiority knowing I was still ‘his girl’.

  I think each of the girls who came out to our farm had her own dreams of romantic encounters in the hayloft with one of my brothers. I’m sure that for some, it eventually happened. In those early summers though, they had to be content with each other, pretending the thin white arms that held them were tanned and muscled. I watched with an amused curiosity as they rolled around in the loose hay, budding breasts rubbing against each other, in pretence of preparation for the real thing. I even felt something, a small igniting of a spark of interest, when they practised French kissing. Certainly more than any spark I could imagine feeling for the pale-faced boys at school, or any of my brothers’ friends. When we started having campfires out by the lake behind the back field and playing spin-the-bottle I prayed that the bottle top would not point to me. Whenever it did I would retreat into the darkness with an equally reluctant partner and whisper, ‘Let’s not and say we did.’ And when I was challenged to act I felt a nauseating shudder as a wet tongue touched my lips. Secretly, I began to believe that I might never feel even a small tingle of excitement or attraction to the opposite sex.

  But all that changed after River arrived.

  Chapter Fifteen

  RIVER JORDAN. HE flowed into our lives as easily as water finding its course. And like water, in time, he would erode the jagged edges of resistance.

  Morgan and Carl were the first to yield. They didn’t crumble right away. It took them at least a day.

  Before supper River came back to the house. He rapped lightly on the side of the screen door as he peered in.

  ‘No need to knock here,’ Mom called out from the sideboard where she was cutting bread.

  ‘Just like home,’ River answered and stepped into the kitchen.

  Mom looked up, her face still flushed from the day’s heat. ‘Good,’ she said with a smile. ‘I hope you will come to feel as comfortable here.’

  ‘I’m certain I will,’ he said then hurried over and took the stack of dinner plates I was reaching for in the cupboard. ‘Here, let me get that, Natalie.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, sure my face was as flushed as Mom’s.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said, his blue eyes crinkling with a smile. He helped me set the table for supper while he and Mom chatted as easily as two old friends. As we pulled the table away from the wall I heard Morgan and Carl out on the porch with Dad.

  At the kitchen stove Mom lifted the cast-iron stewpot off the element. She turned at the creak of the screen door hinges. ‘Come and meet River before you wash up,’ she called out as she leaned over to place the heavy pot on hot pads in the middle of the table. She straightened up and smoothed down her apron. ‘Everyone, this is River Jordan,’ she said.

  I thought I heard a hint of anxiety in her voice as she introduced him to Dad. Maybe it was me. Maybe I was the only one who was apprehensive about how my father would react to this stranger. But I don’t think so.

  Dad’s right eyebrow lifted, either in response to the unusual name, or to the sight of the shoulder-length hair and flowing Indian cotton shirt.

  To say River looked out of place in our kitchen would be an understatement. The contrast between his hippie attire and my father and brother’s work clothes was glaring. Dad’s checkered shirt was sweat-stained, his striped coveralls covered in a film of dirt. Hay dust clung to his hair and darkened every crease and wrinkle of exposed skin. My brothers, in similar dust-covered denim shirts and jeans, reeked of the morning’s labour in the fields.

  On the other hand, even though River had walked out to our farm in the heat of the day, he smelled and looked as if he had just climbed out of the shower. His clothes, so different from anything we were used to, seemed freshly laundered and crisp. And yet, as he stepped forward and offered his hand, he seemed oblivious to any difference.

  ‘How do you do, sir?’ he said. And I wondered if the velvet drawl of that voice sounded as wondrous to everyone else as is did to me.

  My father didn’t seem to notice. He took the offered hand and gave it a single, firm shake. I thought I saw a quick wince behind River’s smile.

  ‘River?’ Dad let go of his hand. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone called River before.’

  ‘It’s not my real name,’ River answered. ‘Just a nickname. My given name is Richard.’

  ‘Well, Richard,’ Dad said, ‘these guys here,’ he nodded at Morgan and Carl as he headed into the washroom, ‘are big on nicknames. This’ll save ‘em from figuring one out for you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something,’ Carl said as he took River’s outstretched hand. I caught the smirk that passed between him and Morgan and knew that River would not escape the razzing that every new person at our table endured.

  ‘Whew,’ River laughed and gave a mock shaking of his hand after Morgan released his grip.

  Just then the screen door screeched open once more and Boyer came into the kitchen. While Mom introduced River, I was struck again with the thought I’d had earlier when I’d watched him walk across the farmyard. Even though River was shorter, his features finer than Boyer’s, and his eyes much bluer, as their tanned hands came together in a handshake I couldn’t help thinking again that they were somehow similar. Seeing them together I realized the resemblance was more than just the colour of their hair. Perhaps it was the reserved nods they exchanged as they acknowledged each other. I knew Boyer was never quick to judge anyone, and something told me River was the same.

  I still felt unsettled by my initial reaction to River and I watched closely as Boyer shook his hand.

  ‘Never rely on first impressions,’ Boyer once told me. ‘One way or another, only time will prove who people really are.’ Yet, as he released River’s hand I saw a brief smile cross Boyer’s face. A smile mirrored in the aquamarine eyes looking back at him.

  After everyone washed up, River slid onto the bench at the back of the table beside Morgan and Carl. With the final Amen of the mealtime prayer, Mom reached over to the middle of the table and lifted the lid from the cast-iron pot. She picked up the ladle and began spooning out the soupy mixture.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ River said to Mom as she placed the first steaming serving in front of him.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Carl and Morgan parroted River’s accent. Their laughs were cut short as Mom frowned at them.

  ‘Nettie,’ Mom reminded River as she continued serving.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ River said, ‘Nettie.’ And he nodded to Mom with a smile so genuine that even Carl and Morgan could not ha
ve doubted his sincerity.

  After Mom set a plate of stew down in front of Morgan he leaned over and rubbed his hands together. ‘Mmmmm,’ he said as he breathed in the aroma, ‘stewed brains, my favourite.’

  Our mother was not a great cook, but she was good enough. Her hamburger stew was hearty and tasty, if not colourful. Other victims of this worn-out joke usually turned pale as they were handed a plateful of the pinkish-grey concoction.

  ‘You like brains, River?’ Carl asked as Mom passed along another serving.

  River didn’t miss a beat. He tucked his hair behind his ears, picked up his fork, and dug in. ‘Sure do,’ he said after swallowing the first mouthful. ‘I especially like them for breakfast, fried up with onions and hot sauce.’ He retrieved a thick slice of bread from the platter Mom offered. ‘I’ll cook up a batch for you guys sometime.’ He flashed a conspirator’s smile across the table at me as he buttered his bread.

  Morgan and Carl’s smirks began to fade. A hint of a grin played at the corners of my father’s lips, and then disappeared, leaving me to wonder if I had imagined it. Dad was the only one in our family who liked brains. He ate every organ, every part of a cow Mom would cook: the heart, liver, kidneys, and even the tongue. My brothers would never touch ‘innards’. Whenever Mom served up these delicacies to our father, they ate leftovers, or sandwiches.

  ‘I have to say, Nettie,’ River said, dunking his bread in the anaemic gravy, ‘this tastes exactly the same as my momma’s stew. She mixes the cow brains with hamburger just like this. If you didn’t know, you could never tell they were in there.’

  Morgan and Carl looked down at their plates, then back up at Mom. She raised her shoulders in an innocent shrug. The corners of Boyer’s mouth twitched. Morgan and Carl poked suspiciously at their stew.

  Then Dad began his interrogation. There was no other word for it. Whether he was still annoyed at Mom’s taking it upon herself to hire River, or whether he felt a true dislike for this young man, I didn’t know. But he began to fire questions like accusations. ‘So, how come ya left the States?’ he asked.

  River swallowed, then wiped his mouth with his napkin. He looked directly at my father. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘I left because I don’t believe in the war in Vietnam.’

  ‘A draft dodger,’ my father said and took a mouthful of stew.

  ‘Gus!’ Mom cried.

  ‘I prefer war-resister,’ River said. ‘But I guess you’re right, draft dodger is probably the label I’ll have to live with.’

  During dinner conversations, my father had a habit of punctuating his words by pointing his fork as he spoke. He lifted his fork, then thought better of it, and dug into the stew before he spoke again. ‘I’ll say one thing straight out right now,’ he said, ‘I believe a man should fight for his country when he is called to.’

  I thought I saw an expression of sorrow fill River’s eyes as he looked down the table at my father. ‘And I respect that, sir,’ he answered quietly, ‘but I don’t see where this war in Asia is my country’s war.’

  From the calm determination in his voice I guessed that River must have debated this controversy many times before he arrived at our table. I watched his face as he contemplated my father’s questions. He thought each through with patience and respect, before he replied without apology. He told Dad he was neither a crusader nor an anarchist. To him it was simple: he could not take part in an immoral war.

  ‘Those are just words,’ Dad said. ‘Excuses you young people make to avoid your duty.’

  I felt an urge to join in the conversation, to say something, anything, to somehow defend this stranger sitting across from me, but I knew next to nothing about the issue and so I held my tongue. Mom felt no such reluctance. ‘What if it were our sons?’ she asked Dad.

  ‘Alls I’m saying is a man has a responsibility to his country,’ my father muttered without looking up from his plate. ‘Freedom comes at a cost.’

  Boyer, who’d watched the exchange in silence, spoke up. ‘I doubt if America’s freedom is at stake in Vietnam,’ he said, looking straight at Dad. ‘Any more than ours is.’

  ‘A man has a duty to his country,’ my father responded.

  ‘To his country, yes,’ River said. ‘But I don’t believe that blindly following the orders of corrupt politicians is my duty to my country. I would die for my country, sir. That would be easy. Living with killing people who have done us no harm would not be.’

  Dad grunted and continued eating. After a moment he asked, ‘And what do your parents think of all this, of you leaving your home, maybe never being allowed to go back again?’

  River didn’t answer right away. He placed his knife and fork at the top of his plate and nodded across at my mother. ‘Thank you Nettie,’ he said. ‘That was delicious.’ Then he turned his full attention to Dad.

  ‘My father’s dead,’ he told him. ‘My mother doesn’t believe in this war either. And my grandfather, well, he doesn’t agree with my decision to defy the draft. And he never understood my choice to leave university in the first place.’

  ‘University?’ Boyer’s voice betrayed his surprise. ‘If you were in university, weren’t you safe from the draft?’

  River turned and directed his attention to Boyer at the other end of the table. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s true, if I had stayed. But I couldn’t sit back while the war and the bombing was escalating and not stand up against it. I joined the peace movement. When I received my draft card, burning it, leaving, was my only way to protest the actions of a government I no longer believe in.’

  ‘Well, I guess Canada’s not as bad as prison,’ Dad snorted.

  ‘Being in exile is its own prison,’ River said.

  There was a silence at the table. Like me, Morgan and Carl had watched the conversation without joining in. I wondered then what they, and Boyer, would do if they had to face the same decisions. I wondered if they too were thinking that it was only an accident of birth, of being a few thousand feet from an invisible line, that made their choices so simple compared to this young American, who in the end, was not so different from themselves. It was Dad who changed the subject. ‘So why’d ya choose here?’ he asked. ‘I understand there’s a whole community of your kind in the East Kootenays. Call themselves “The New Family”.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to live in a little America. Or a commune. When I saw your ad in the paper I thought it was a good opportunity to take some time to think out my next move. And to get to know Canada. Canadians.’

  My father glanced at Mom then back to River. ‘Have ya ever worked on a dairy farm?’

  ‘I grew up on my grandfather’s farm in Montana,’ River told him. He didn’t tell him the size of that farm, or that it was a modern automated operation that shipped milk out each day in gleaming stainless steel tanker trucks. We would learn that much later.

  Dad’s chair scraped on the kitchen floor. ‘Better grab a pair of rubber boots from the porch,’ he said as he headed to the door. ‘Those moccasins are about as useless in the barn as socks in a bath tub.’

  River smiled. ‘Yes, I expect so,’ he said and slid out from behind the table.

  After I finished clearing up and washing the supper dishes, I went upstairs. My bedroom window looked out over the enclosed porch. Sometimes, when I was alone, I took a book and climbed out the window to sit on the sloped porch roof. From there I could see the entire farmyard, the dairy, and the barn.

  That evening I sat with my back against the faded whitewashed siding and gazed down the dirt road that wound past the fenced pasture and disappeared around the bend beyond our gate. The road that had brought this intriguing stranger to us.

  Sitting in the shade of the house I listened to the familiar sounds of the evening milking carrying up from the barn: the scraping of bovine hooves on slippery concrete floors; the bawls of protest from the cows locked into their stanchions; the murmur of calming voices, and the suction of milking machines. Before long, Morgan and Carl began carrying
the full stainless steel milking machines from the barn to the dairy. Inside the dairy, Mom and Boyer would run the warm milk through the cooler and cream separator. Then they filled the sterilized milk bottles to be stored in the walk-in cooler for the next day’s delivery.

  From the way Morgan and Carl were hustling it was easy to see that Dad and River were supplying milk much faster than Dad and Jake ever had. Neither Morgan nor Carl had time to notice me watching from the porch roof as they rushed back and forth across the yard.

  When the milking was complete River came out from behind the barn. His hair was tied back in a ponytail and tucked into the collar of the green coveralls he now wore. With his arm draped across the shoulder of the lead cow he leaned down and whispered something in her ear. She followed him to the pasture across the road as if she had been doing it every day of her life. He held the gate open and patted each of the cows on the rump as they filed through.

  He closed the gate, turned and caught sight of me on the roof. He lifted his arm in a wave. And even from that distance I believed I could see the sparkle of those aquamarine eyes.

  Later that night, through the grates in the upstairs hallway, I heard Dad’s voice carry up from the kitchen. ‘Well, Nettie, the boy does know his way around cows,’ he said grudgingly. Then he added, ‘But don’t count on him too much. His kind’s about as likely to stick around as dust in the wind.’

  The faint strains of guitar music drifted across the farmyard, and along with the light of a full moon, the notes stole through the open window into my bedroom, where I lay hoping my father was wrong.

  Chapter Sixteen

  FOR AS LONG as I remember visitors were always showing up at our farm on one pretext or another. They came to pick huckleberries or mushrooms on the mountain slopes behind our house. They came for loads of manure from the ever-present stockpile behind the barn. They came for Mom’s eggs or cream, or simply for a Sunday drive. And they always found an excuse to enter our kitchen.