Dakota Blues

by Lynne Spreen

  I’m perfect. Karen smiled.

  “It’s hard when you’re my age, is all I’m saying. I don’t get around so good. Don’t hear so good either. I want to see the baby and after that, I don’t care.” Together they watched the man on the tractor work the field. “That’s Albert,” Frieda said. “He still likes to farm that little piece of dirt. He doesn’t get around that good any more, and before long that tractor’ll be more than he can handle. Come to think of it–” she squinted at the small figure,–“that might not be Albert. His son, maybe. Albert used to put in canola. It was real pretty when it bloomed, yellow as mustard all the way across.”

  The five-o-clock whistle blew down at the freight yards. “I do believe it’s happy hour,” said Frieda. “Help me up.” Inside, she turned on the kitchen light, hooked her cane over the back of a chair, and hobbled over to the cabinet next to the sink where she filled a glass with water and lined up an array of pills. “Bottoms up.” She tilted her head back and swallowed down the tap water, popping pills until they were all gone.

  “You’re probably wondering why I bother.” Frieda sat down at the table. “At my age, even if I get a stroke or heart attack, whatever happens, it won’t be a problem for long.”

  Any reassurances on the tip of Karen’s tongue died from sheer banality. What could one say to a frail ninety-year-old? For that matter, what did Frieda tell herself at night when she was alone with her large-print Readers’ Digest, or the television squawking about a humongous used-car blowout over on Villard Street?

  “I used to be a ball of fire, like you. Now I feel tired all the time, ever since a year ago when I lost my breath and it never came back. Up ‘til then, I could forget about my aches and pain by staying busy, but now about all I have energy to do is sit and think. I think about Russell being dead, and Sandy and me not speaking, and the world changing so fast, and I kinda wish I had the guts to let go. But if I could just see Jessie and the great-grandbaby, I would stay alive long enough for that. If I thought you’d drive me, why, I could fall asleep easy at night thinking about getting out on the road for the first time since Russell died. What would that be like, seeing the Black Hills again–because that’s what I’d like to do. See Mount Rushmore one more time, and sleep overnight in the forest. I want to smell pine and wood smoke, and eat dinner under the trees. I want to sit by the fire in the morning and have my coffee.”

  “You know I have to get back to California.”

  “That’s what you’ve been saying.”

  “So I can’t dilly-dally around, stopping at every tourist trap and point of interest.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  “All right then.” Karen stood up. “I’ll pack the van tomorrow and take it to the mechanic for one last look. Then I have a couple of other people I need to say goodbye to. Can you be ready to leave Friday morning?”

  “I’m ready now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday morning dawned humid, with thunderheads peeking over the horizon, and Karen turned on the air conditioner. As she approached downtown in the unfamiliar van, she appreciated the slow pace of traffic. The other drivers slowed in actual observation of the speed limit. They let each other cut in and out, not even honking when the car in front took a little longer than normal to turn into a driveway. Karen didn’t mind. She waited while a car cut in front of her, confident nobody would pull out a gun and start shooting.

  At St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Karen followed a sidewalk around the back of the red-brick building until she found the office, which was unoccupied. The telephone on the desk was ringing, but no one appeared to answer it. Finally the answering machine picked up. Karen sat in one of the visitor chairs and pulled her checkbook out of her purse.

  When the phone started up again, she heard a distant curse followed by hurried footsteps and the clatter of beads. Father Engel barreled around the corner into the room, his face reddening when he saw Karen.

  “Oh, my goodness, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  He took the call, nodding and scribbling on a message pad as he promised to send a fax. He hung up and loaded a document into the machine. “Be with you in just one minute,” he said to Karen. When the feeder flailed and jammed, he looked up at the ceiling, his lips moving.

  She stood up. “Can I help?”

  “I don’t think it’s fixable,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s been acting up but I think this time I fried it.”

  “Well.” Karen opened the back of the machine, removed and reloaded the paper and pressed send. They stood together watching as the paper disappeared.

  “Miraculous,” he said.

  “You might consider a new one.” She handed him the check.

  “Thank you again for my mother’s service. It was beautiful. You must have put a lot of thought into choosing the readings. It meant a lot to me.”

  “Thank you.” The priest opened and closed several drawers before anchoring the check under a stapler. “I’m at sea. My secretary quit. She was the third one this year, and it’s only July. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s me.”

  The man may have been the representative of Jesus on earth, but he reminded Karen of one of her clueless young supervisors. “I’m sure it’s not you.”

  “What else can it be? The work isn’t very demanding.”

  “Would you like an outsider’s opinion?”

  The priest spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Please.”

  “You probably don’t pay a lot, and you recruit by word of mouth. You feel sorry for, and therefore hire, people who are related to your parishioners. Everybody is happy for a while, but your employee isn’t very skilled and problems arise. Feelings get hurt, and you feel guilty. Then to top it off, the worker is alone here most of the time and this office is depressing. Sorry.”

  “Ouch,” said Father Engel. “You’re right. It isn’t the most exciting job in town. And yes, when I have a vacancy I mention it to a few people, and there’s always somebody who knows somebody who needs a job. I thought it was good for parish morale to do it that way, but the results have been disappointing.” He sat down at the desk, a dejected secretary in priest’s clothing.

  “Maybe if you advertised you’d get a better range of choices.”

  “We don’t have the money to advertise.”

  “You could do it for free online.”

  “Hmm.” He looked skeptical.

  “Okay, how about the parish newsletter? Or a flyer you distribute on Bingo night?”

  “That might work.”

  She wrote on the back side of her business card. “Here’s a website where you can download basic application forms for free. And why don’t you say in the flyer that applicants should bring a certificate of competence from the state job service?”

  “We have one?”

  She took the card back and wrote some more. “North Dakota does job testing and training. You might want to send your flyer to the Dickinson office.”

  He studied the card. “You found this out in a week?”

  She smiled. “It’s a bad habit.”

  He pocketed the card. “Would you mind helping me with this?”

  “I can draft the flyer and drop it by tomorrow, but I’m leaving in a couple days.” She thought about it. “Tell you what. I met some businesswomen in town. Maybe they can help.”

  “Anything would be appreciated. Now let’s talk about you and Marie. How are the two of you doing?”

  Karen sighed. “I stayed longer than I should have, but I’m glad I came. It’s been good for both of us.” Thunder rolled in the distance.

  “Looks like we’re going to get our first monsoon of the summer.” Both of them stood, and Father held the screen door for her. The air had grown heavy, and clouds boiled on the horizon. At the next rumble of thunder, he said, “Der himmlische Vater zankt aus.”

  “‘The heavenly Father is scolding,’” said Karen. “Mom used to say that.”
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  “A lot of the older people still prefer German. Do you remember?”

  “Ein wenig,” she said, surprised it came back. “A little. How did you learn it?”

  “I grew up in Grand Forks. Everybody in my family speaks German. Here, let’s sit.” He gestured toward a bench near a shrine of St. Joseph. A red cardinal hopped around, pecking at the seeds that had fallen at the base of the feeder. “Do you have someone to talk to in California?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tons of people.” She sat down on the hard cement bench.

  He pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket, offered her one, and unpeeled a strip. His hands were bulky and strong, hands that two generations earlier would have guided a plow. He crumbled up the wrapper and put it in his pocket. “Are you familiar with the stages of grief?”

  “As much as anybody.”

  “Different schools of thought. People go through a whole range of emotions, and just when you think you’re moving on, it can hit you again. We learn to live with it, but we never get over it, and I think this is a good thing, frankly. It means our relationship with our loved one continues even in death.”

  Karen looked down at a trail of ants discovering a crumb on the sidewalk.

  “I don’t think people give grief enough credit,” he said. “It’s essential for our development as mature human beings, but it’s so painful that we try to rush through it.”

  “You can’t blame us. Nobody wants to suffer.” She stood and turned her face into the breeze, smelling the clean fragrance of rain on distant farm fields.

  “What’s next for you, Karen?”

  She smiled down at the priest. For maybe the first time in her life she wasn’t sure.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She dropped off the van, got a ride back to Aunt Marie’s, and borrowed the car just in time to join the professor and his crew at a dig outside town. Picks rang against stone as a half-dozen college students coaxed answers from the shroud of history. Karen, protected from the sun by a big hat of Curt’s, brushed at her own little mound of rock, hoping to expose tooth or bone, but they were almost done for the day and so far, all she’d found was rodent poop. She watched as he stopped by one student and then the other, offering encouragement or explaining.

  “How’re you doing?” He squatted next to her, his brown arms resting on muscular thighs.

  She pushed back her hat and wiped her arm across her damp forehead. “Interesting but hot.”

  “Let’s take a break.” Curt called to the students, who put down their tools and drifted toward the picnic table. Early that morning, they’d constructed a shadecloth cover, and now they claimed chairs out of the midday sun. Curt reached into a cooler and handed around ice cold bottles of beer. “How else do you think I lure them out here?” he asked, smiling at Karen’s look of surprise.

  A young man flopped into a folding chair in the shade, beer in one hand, a bone in the other.

  “I found a Champsosaurus last summer,” said a willowy brunette. “The Smithsonian in Washington acquired it.”

  “What Brittany is too modest to tell you is they also offered her an internship next semester,” said Curt.

  “They don’t pay but it’s good experience.”

  “They’ll snap you up in no time,” Curt said, beaming.

  When the refreshments were finished, the students returned to the dig. Karen felt the wind pick up, lifting the heat and lassitude of the afternoon. On the horizon, clouds were building in anticipation of a late afternoon sprinkle. She rested her head against the chair back, her eyes closed, as she savored an unfamiliar sense of–was that it? Contentment?

  “You done with fieldwork?” Curt held his beer bottle so the condensation could drip onto the sand.

  “I think I’ll watch for a while. You go ahead.”

  “Let them. They need the experience. Want to share this?”

  Karen held the cold bottle to her cheek. “What I’d do for a swimming pool.”

  “There’s a pond not far from here. But I don’t think we have that much time.” He inclined his head toward the west, where anvilshaped clouds were forming. “Another hour, max.”

  She handed the beer back to him. “Your students like you.”

  “They’re happy to be outside. Beats working.” He started to take a sip, but stopped. “What?”

  “Watching you with them. It reminds me what I liked about my job.” She leaned forward. “Josh over there reminds me of this maintenance supervisor I hired a couple years ago. He was one of my best hires. This guy was such a natural leader, he influenced people without even trying. The other department heads started asking him for advice about how to supervise, and he got invited to hospital staff meetings and everything. We had to get him an assistant. That’s what I miss–the chemistry, the possibilities. In HR, if you do your job right, it’s alchemy.”

  “You’re an optimist, aren’t you?”

  “I do tend to see people as gems, but sometimes you have to dust them off and polish them up before they shine. But there’s another thing.” She stopped to watch a couple of students playing grab-ass instead of working. “It’s what I know. I put in a lot of time getting to the top of my profession, and I don’t want to throw that away. I just turned fifty–”

  He gasped in mock horror and she laughed. “Well, I did, and I think with maturity you settle in, you feel more comfortable with what you’re used to. Breaking trail is for young horses.”

  “Or for mature and experienced horses.” He handed back the beer. “Besides, fifty is nothing. I don’t count the first twenty years. What does being an infant have to do with where you are fifty years later? You’re gathering data. What counts is what you do after you acquire that data.”

  She nodded. “I like it. That means I’m thirty. I’m in my prime.”

  “Exactly–you are in your prime. You’re way too young to play it safe. When was the last time you did something wild? Changed anything big?’

  “Saturday night.”

  “Oh, God, yes.” He rubbed his face, stood up, and pulled on his hat. Standing with the billowing clouds behind him, he said, “There will be a time to fall back and take it easy, but right now, you’re tough, smart, and full of energy. Try something new.”

  “When was the last time you did?”

  He squinted at the distance as he considered. “A month ago. I pitched a contract to a company in Florida, doing something I’ve never done before.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Population counts for the local fish species.” He grinned at her. “Figured if I got it, I’d get to spend the winter months in the Keys.”

  “I’m jealous. I remember one winter in Islamorada–” She fell silent, remembering languid tropical afternoons and sunset dinners on the beach with Steve. “Nothing. It was a long time ago.”

  “I understand the pull of a big city. Did you know I taught at Berkeley? Twenty minutes from San Francisco, and I loved it. Every morning, before you even put one foot on the floor, more has happened there than in a year in Dickinson.”

  “But you came back.”

  He waved the kids in, and they started collecting their gear. “I did. I prefer having my base of operations here, but I’m gone a lot. I do consulting jobs all over the country.”

  “What about your classes?”

  “I have teaching assistants. Rachel, Patrick’s fiancée, is one of them. When I’m between jobs, I come back home to teach a few classes and get my bearings.” He looked down at her, his grin wicked. “Come on, Karen, do something edgy. Move to North Dakota.”

  She burst out laughing, but the truth was, she couldn’t. A flame had ignited in her mind, still so small as to be unrecognizable, and she had to fan it, study it, and satisfy the restless hunger it had somehow created.

  He asked her again later that evening as he grilled steaks in the shade of the weeping willow tree in his front yard. And again on his porch as they sipped a soft blend of amaretto and cognac and watched night come on, bu
t her response never varied, and finally they went to bed and the subject was finished.

  She awoke around two to the distant crowing of a mixed-up rooster. Careful not to make any noise, she found Curt’s robe and slipped downstairs. The back door opened with only a sigh, and she padded in bare feet across the wooden patio deck, a warming breeze whispering through invisible cottonwoods. To the east, the dark landscape rolled unimpeded by light of any kind, reaching and reaching until the featureless black met the blanket of stars and she knew she was seeing the horizon.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Karen held the phone between her ear and shoulder as she hunted for a place to stash another photo album. “I’m working on it right now,” she told Frieda. “Give me a couple of hours. By the way, do you know where the battery backups are?”

  “Look at the manual. That’s why I gave it to you.” Frieda hung up.

  The van stood in Aunt Marie’s driveway, doors agape, swallowing cargo and supplies. Aunt Marie and Lorraine helped Karen load, while Frieda called repeatedly to check on their progress.

  Karen chucked the phone onto the front seat with one hand, shoved the album into an overhead cabinet with the other, and reached for the user manual. She had studied the instructions on driving and parking, leveling and connecting to shore power–a term that made sense if you thought of the RV as a boat. At this point she felt she knew the vehicle as well as her own house.

  Although the van was small, it was well laid-out and had lots of empty cabinets, useful for stowing heirlooms. Following the directions in the manual, Karen removed the chair behind the driver’s seat and made room for another stack of boxes. She ducked back into the shed for another load and came out holding a cylindrical lamp upon whose paper shade a winter prairie scene had been painted. The lamp had kept her company through most of her childhood, and she was happy to have it now.