by Amy Harmon
* * *
My brothers and their significant others—Jacob and Jared were married, and Johnny had a steady girl that he was getting pretty serious with—always came over for Christmas Eve dinner, and we exchanged gifts then. Christmas day had gotten pretty lackluster since we had all grown up and toys and Santa had become things of the past. Dad and I would go to Aunt Louise’s for Christmas Dinner tomorrow afternoon.
After eating half a dozen different appetizers, a huge ham, mashed potatoes, and homemade rolls, we sat by the tree and opened gifts. With full bellies and a warm fire, no one seemed to be in a big hurry to be on their way, so we all sat around and talked about nothing in particular. I had yet to take off my black dress and let down my hair. In the back of my mind, I just kept thinking maybe I would get an opportunity to let Samuel see me up close looking twenty-five, sophisticated, and beautiful. I sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, my only concession to comfort was my kicked off high-heels by the door. My brothers seemed confused by my appearance and started teasing me, only to have Rachel shush them up with a wink and a quick reprimand.
“Sometimes it’s so much fun getting dressed up that it’s hard to take it off at the end of the night.” I smiled gratefully at her, and my brothers shrugged and proceeded to ignore me.
True to Dad’s prediction, fat white snowflakes began to fall as the hour grew later, and with sighs and groans, my brothers bundled up their ladies and headed out. Johnny was spending the night at Sheila’s house so that they could spend Christmas with her family the next day. Jacob and Rachel had purchased a little home in Nephi the previous year, and Jared and Tonya were in student housing at Brigham Young University in Provo. Everybody was heading north across the ridge, and suddenly nobody wanted to wait around for more snow to fall.
The ridge is a ten mile stretch of old two-lane highway between Levan and Nephi. Levanites travel it countless times a week for countless reasons—back and forth from school and work, to the Thriftway for groceries, or to the library for books to hold them over until the Bookmobile traveled through Levan again. Every sixteen-year-old in Levan drove the ridge many times before they actually turned sixteen. It was a farming community, and that was just the way of things. We drove early, and we drove everything from tractors to beat up old farm trucks. I could drive a mean stick shift when I was ten years old, and do it smoothly enough for my older brothers to keep their feet planted in the truck bed as they threw bales of hay off for the cows. The ridge was straight and narrow and very dark at night. Folks flew across it, lulled into a sense of security simply by the sheer number of times we all made the drive. It was made all the worse by the deer that would come down from the mountains looking for grazing and run across the road. The deer were constantly getting hit or causing accidents as people swerved to avoid them. Of course, a good snowfall made it even more treacherous. Every year someone died on that strip of road between the two little towns.
I stood on the front porch in all of my grown-up finery and waved my brothers off. The lights were still on at the Yates place. I could see a truck out front that must belong to Samuel. What possible excuse could I come up with to stop by at eleven o’clock at night so I could see him? I stood there shivering, willing him to come out. Instead, as I watched and wished, the lights flicked out and the house was dark. Trying not to cry, I walked inside and flipped off our front porch light in dejected response.
* * *
My dad woke me up at 5:00 a.m. to tell me he had gotten called in to work at the plant. The supervisor on duty had been in a car accident the night before, and they needed someone to cover the early shift. I told him to be careful and rolled over and immediately started to go back to sleep. I heard him whisper that he would be home in time for Christmas dinner at Louise’s and to make sure I fed the horses when I got up.
I woke up again at eight and considered lying in bed and feeling sorry for myself, all alone on Christmas morning. But the truth was, I didn’t mind having the house to myself, and I figured I would just make myself a big plate of leftovers from last night’s feast and listen to Handel’s Messiah as loud as I could blast it. I pulled on my softest pair of blue jeans, my green and red striped Christmas socks, and a truly ugly sweater with a giant reindeer head on it that I had received last year as a white elephant gift. I’d pulled the pins out of my hair before I’d gone to bed, but I really hadn’t wanted to part with my new make-up… so I’d slept in it. I laughed at my raccoon eyes when I saw my reflection, and decided my makeover had definitely run its course. I scrubbed my face clean, brushed my teeth, ran my fingers through my riotous curls, and called it good. I had just sat down with my plate of food and hit play on the new CD player I had received the night before, ready to hear the sounds of Handel’s opening movement, when I remembered the horses.
“Ah, hell!” I cursed, sounding exactly like my dad. It was hard not to grow up swearing when you lived on a farm. We never took the Lord’s name in vain or said the F-word, but pretty much damn, hell, and shit were part of the vernacular of most folks born and raised in Levan. To tell the truth, those words weren’t really considered swear words. Last week in church, Gordon Aagard was giving a sermon on trials. He referred to horse shit right in the middle of his talk, and nobody really batted an eye.
Pulling on Johnny’s old boots, I trudged out to the corral. Yazzie danced his happy dog dance around my legs as I walked. Yazzie loved to visit the horses. Dad had built a little lean-to adjacent to the corral, and Joe and Ben greeted me with nickers and bunted me with their noses as I mucked out the lean-to and re-filled the feed buckets. The water in the trough was iced over and I broke it with my shovel, spooning the ice out and topping it off.
Daisy, Dad’s mare, was in the barn, separated from the other horses where it was a little warmer and drier, until she delivered her foal. I swung into the barn, eager to be done with my chores, when I saw that Daisy was lying down, her breathing heavy, her back slick. There was a little blood on the floor of the big stall, and I dropped the shovel I was carrying as I ran to her. I’d watched enough foals be born to know that Daisy was well on her way to being a new mama, and I was home alone.
“Dad said this was going to happen,” I said out loud, rubbing my hand down Daisy’s soft nose, “So now what do I do?”
I ran inside and dialed the number to the power plant. Usually there is always someone in the front office who relays messages to the guys on shift. Today was Christmas, and the staff was at the bare minimum. Nobody answered the phone. A recorded message came on with instructions to call back during regular operating hours. I growled in response and hung up the phone. I called Jacob and Rachel’s house and got Rachel’s cheerful voice on the answering machine telling me she and Jacob weren’t home and to please leave a message. They were home; they were just lying in bed enjoying their Christmas morning. I left a slightly panicked message demanding that Jacob get his butt to the farm. Johnny was at Sheila’s parents’ home, and I called their number with the same results, only this time I asked a little more nicely. Jared was too far away to do me any good. I left him alone.
I ran back out to the barn and paced nervously. I couldn’t see anything. I wasn’t sure I knew what to look for exactly, but there were no little hooves or a head sticking out of Daisy’s nether regions. Daisy groaned, and a watery gush swooshed out between her hind legs.
“Oh man! I cannot do this by myself,” I shrieked. Running out of the barn I ran as fast as my muddy boots would allow toward the Yates’s house. Don would know what to do. Out of breath and gasping, I reached the front walk and slipped and slid my way up to the front door, banging on the screen and yelling for Don. I had been so focused on Daisy and the impending birth that I had run right by the truck that I’d seen the night before without really noticing it. I heard a door open behind me and swung around to see Samuel step out of the truck with concern playing across his handsome face. And it was a very handsome face. I momentarily forgot all about poor Daisy. He wore a pair of
Wrangler’s and a Carhart jacket. One foot was planted on the ground in a Justin boot and a black cowboy hat sat low on his head. The other leg was still inside the cab of his truck.
“Josie? My grandpa’s not here. He and Grandma headed over to my Aunt Tabrina’s house earlier this morning. They wanted to see the kids open their gifts. I’m heading over there now…would you like me to give him a message?” Samuel was so polite and formal that for a minute I just stared at him, wondering if I had just imagined our past friendship. He stared back at me, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for a response.
“Daisy’s having her baby. Dad got called into work at five this morning, I can’t get a hold of any of my brothers, and I don’t know what to do.” I realized I was spilling words out every which way, and Samuel looked a little alarmed.
“Daisy?” he queried slowly.
“Our mare!” I shouted at him.
Samuel turned off the ignition, pulled his other leg out of the truck, slammed the door, and started walking down the road toward my house. I watched him blankly until I realized he was going to help me. I clumped along after him until I reached his side.
“Nice sweater.” Samuel didn’t even look at me as he spoke, and my eyes flew down to my chest. Antlers and a shiny red nose poked out of my unbuttoned jacket. I groaned inwardly. Where was Samuel Yates last night when I was ready to be seen up close and personal? God must really have a sense of humor, I thought morosely. He’d answered my Christmas prayer—just in his own time. Ha, ha, ha, very funny. And why did I have to display my Christmas spirit this morning? Why hadn’t I thrown this stupid sweatshirt in the compost pile where it belonged? My hands flew to my hair. I could feel loose curls bouncing in sunny disarray.
“Thank you,” I replied stiffly. I might have imagined it, but I think Samuel’s lips twitched.
“Have you ever helped birth a foal?” I asked anxiously as we rounded the house and headed back to the barn.
“Lots of lambs, only one foal,” Samuel replied shortly. “I don’t think there’s too much variation. But I guess we’ll find out. Isn’t there a vet we can call?”
“There’s a vet that covers the county, and I called his pager number, but I don’t know if he’ll get back to me and I’m not going to wait by the phone. Dad says he doesn’t know his ass from his head anyway.” Realizing that the vocabulary that I had worked so hard to build and that I so prided myself on had completely abandoned me in my flustered state, I clamped my mouth shut and swore I wouldn’t say another word until I was in better control of my tongue.
Samuel didn’t respond to my dad’s opinion of the vet, and I led the way into the barn. Daisy still lay quietly, her only movement in the rise and fall of her breathing. Quickly, Samuel shucked his coat and rolled up his sleeves as far as they would go. Samuel knelt above her, stroking her head with his right hand. He sat waiting as her big body suddenly tightened up, a contraction causing her flanks to quiver with strain. As the tightening began to visibly ease, Samuel, speaking quietly and soothing her with his right hand, snaked his left hand between her rear flanks. Daisy’s legs stiffened and she tossed her head, but she didn’t fight him as he inserted his arm inside her all the way up to his shoulder. Yuck. I was so glad Samuel was with me I felt lightheaded with relief. After a few moments of concentrated groping he spoke.
“I think I can feel the head and the forelegs, so that’s good. The baby is facing the right direction. At this point, your mare will do all the work. If all is as it should be, there’s not a whole lot we can do. Let’s go inside, and I’ll wash up and you see if you can reach your dad again. It won’t be long now.”
I hadn’t turned Handel off when I went to feed the horses. The entire production of his Messiah had played out to an empty kitchen, and the “Hallelujah Chorus” was reverberating joyfully throughout the house as we entered through the back door. My boots were muddy and I didn’t want to take the time away from Daisy to pull them off and back on, so walking though the house to turn the music off in the family room wasn’t going to happen; it would just have to play to the end. I ran to the phone and tried the power plant again with no luck. I hung up with an impatient sigh.
“My dad is going to be fit to be tied when he gets home.”
“Isn’t this what you played last night?” Samuel questioned from the sink, his back to me. My mind jumped from the failed phone call back to Handel’s music pouring out of the family room.
“Oh. Uh, yes. It’s Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ It’s pretty wonderful with a full orchestra, isn’t it?
“It was pretty wonderful last night with just the piano, too,” Samuel replied seriously, and turned his head to look at me as he dried his hands and unrolled his sleeves. Pleasure washed over me at his words, and I tried to stop myself from beaming like an idiot as we left the kitchen and headed back out to the barn.
There seemed to be no change as Samuel and I squatted down next to the laboring mare. She huffed and groaned a little with the next contraction, but didn’t seem unduly stressed. I prayed silently that Daisy would be all right and that the birth would go well.
The quiet in the barn became more pronounced as we held our vigil, and I searched my mind for something to say. Samuel certainly didn’t seem to feel the need to talk.
“Handel composed all three parts of his Messiah, including the orchestration, in a little more than three weeks. Two hundred and sixty pages of music in just twenty-four days. No other composer has accomplished anything like that in the history of music. He described it as an out-of-body experience.” I sounded like a tour guide, and my voice faded off uncertainly as Samuel failed to even lift his head. When he didn’t respond after several long seconds, I bit my tongue to keep from trying to continue to fill the embarrassing lull. When he did speak several minutes later his voice made me jump.
“Why did everyone stand last night when you started to play?”
“Did they stand?” I was dumbfounded. I really hadn’t noticed.
Samuel just raised that one eyebrow and looked at me.
I blushed and shrugged. “I really don’t know…”
“Your teacher was the first to stand—Mrs. Grimaldi, right? Everyone just kind of followed her up.”
I giggled, suddenly understanding what Sonja had done. “It’s actually tradition to stand on the Hallelujah Chorus. You see, when the King of England first attended a performance of ‘Messiah,” he was so moved when the Hallelujah Chorus played that he stood up. Apparently, when the King of England stands, everyone stands. I guess Sonja thought Levan should carry on a tradition that’s been in effect for two hundred and fifty years.”
“You really didn’t notice that everyone was standing almost the entire time you played?” Samuel’s smooth baritone was slightly disbelieving.
His tone made me feel defensive, and I waved my hand as if to brush off his doubts. “You know me, Samuel—I lose myself in the music. By the time I came back to Earth, everyone had probably sat back down.”
My insistence that he ‘knew’ me rang in my ears as he turned back toward Daisy, again without comment, and stroked her long neck. He was acting like we had never known each other at all. I thought of how often my thoughts had been filled with him over the last two plus years and felt a lump rise up in my throat.
I was distracted from my misery several moments later when Daisy convulsed strongly and a wet nose popped out between her hind quarters. I gasped, and the little nose disappeared again as the contraction abated.
“One more and that should do it.” Samuel’s voice was calm and reassuring, but my heart was pounding as I waited for the next contraction to come. Samuel ran his hands down Daisy’s damp flanks, talking softly to her, urging her on.
“One more, girl, one more. You’re almost done,” he soothed. “Here it comes, here we go.”
Moments later, the horse shuddered and her flanks shook as a nose and two hooves came plainly into view, followed by a wet tangle of big ears and wobbly, knobby legs. Samuel h
elped pull the new colt free, wiping blood and slime off the little fellow with handfuls of straw. Daisy turned her head and butted her awkward offspring gently, prodding as she urged him to his feet, licking and nudging him all the while.
“Way to go, Daisy! Well done girl!” I cried, clapping softly. I realized I was on my feet and there were tears on my face. I wiped them off hastily as I knelt back down and placed a kiss between Daisy’s sweat-slicked ears.
“You did it, Samuel!” I grinned at him, my unhappiness forgotten in light of the triumphant birth.
“I didn’t do anything—it was all Daisy,” he replied, but his tone was mild and I could tell he was pleased that it had gone without incident.
I was happily contemplating Christmas names for Daisy’s baby when the sound of a slamming door and boots on gravel carried back to the barn.
“I hope that’s my dad!” I cried out, rising and running for the entrance of the barn. Jacob and Dad had parked the truck around the house and were high-tailing it toward the barn when I intercepted them with the happy news. My dad was beside himself with worry and rushed ahead of me into the barn. I followed him in, sharing details of the morning’s miracle, relating Samuel’s role in the excitement as we approached him where he still perched, balanced on his haunches next to the new colt. He rose smoothly to his feet, wiping his blood-stained hands on his jeans before extending a hand apologetically to my dad.
“Congratulations, sir. Sorry about the hand.”
My dad grabbed it, completely unconcerned about shaking the proffered hand. Clapping Samuel on the back, he thanked him for coming to my rescue.