The intrusive, manic voice of a car dealer offering Thanksgiving specials at the best price ever grated in Maggie’s ears, and she snapped off the radio. Sarah and Tessa Morrison were hosting Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and Danny and Ian had guaranteed Maggie that if she didn’t show up at the appointed time, they’d come to her ranch and physically haul her to the feast. She didn’t doubt that they’d do it.
Main Street of Coldwater bustled with pedestrian traffic, with trucks and cars parked in front of each of the stores. Huge cardboard turkeys, cornucopias spilling fruit, and shocks of standing corn with leaves flapping in the wind as if trying to escape decorated the lampposts.
Maggie parked in front of the feed and grain store and used both hands when she opened her truck door. Even so, the pressure against her arms was sudden and strong, almost wrenching the door away from her. As she pushed her way down the sidewalk, tiny pellets of ice stung her face. It was a short distance, but by the time Maggie reached the bakery door, her face was numb.
Kornoelje’s Bakery had been a cherished institution in Coldwater for almost seventy years. Owned and operated by a close and loving Christian family, the store had barely made it through the bleakest years of the Great Depression. But it did make it—even though a large percentage of its daily production during those hungry years went over the counter to those who had no way to pay or was taken to the church for the soup kitchen there.
The warmth and the delightfully sweet scent in the bakery embraced Maggie like the hug of a grandmother for a favored grandchild. The individual aromas of spice, chocolate, fresh bread, sugar cookies, and pumpkin and apple pies, and the yeasty sharpness of fresh dough being shaped on the huge wooden table in front of the ovens created an ambiance that was perhaps too heavenly to exist in an imperfect world.
Maggie waited in line behind the glass-fronted wooden display case, nodding to people she knew, smiling at the kids begging their parents for cookies. The youngsters behind the counter—family members—hustled about filling bags, wrapping pies and cakes, counting out various treats, giggling, and colliding with one another frequently.
Nevertheless, customers were served quickly and efficiently—and joyfully. Maggie wondered if any facial expression other than a smile could prevail in the bakery, and decided that it couldn’t.
Lonnie, a senior in high school, greeted Maggie over the counter. “It’s great to see you, Maggie. Made up your mind yet?”
“You too, Lonnie,” Maggie said. “How about a dozen cannoli and a loaf of your unsliced Jewish rye.” The cannoli were part of Maggie’s contribution to the Thanksgiving meal. The loaf of bread was for Maggie herself—and she’d tell anyone who’d listen that it was the very best rye bread in the world, including that from the famous Jewish delis in New York City.
Lonnie handed over the white box containing the cannoli, the loaf of bread in brown butcher paper, and a single oversized chocolate chip cookie. “I remembered these are your favorite, Maggie. Happy Thanksgiving.”
It was a simple and kind gesture, Maggie realized, and she was thankful for it. But the gesture exemplified the people and the life in Coldwater, Montana. She spoke from behind a sudden lump in her throat when she said, “Thanks, Lonnie—and happy Thanksgiving to you and the family.”
The wind snarled at Maggie as she left the bakery and eased the door closed. She clutched her purchases against her chest like a girl with schoolbooks, feeling the warmth of the bread emanating through the brown paper. Her gift cookie rested on top of the cannoli box. She began down the sidewalk toward her truck and then stopped suddenly, halted by an image that was more real than the town around her. She turned her back to the bakery picture window and stood, transfixed.
We were right here a year ago today. We bought an apple pie and a pumpkin pie, a loaf of rye, and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. Richie ate five on the way home, and I ate three.
We had the Cheap Thrills cassette in the tape deck in the truck, had it cranked up to the top, and we were singing the blues with Janis Joplin—really getting into the songs, making our voices whiskey-harsh, stretching words and phrases, dragging the sadness, the despair, out of the lyrics. I was patting my knees as if they were drums, and Richie had his right arm across my back and was tapping along with those wonderful guitar runs, and we were as unself-conscious as a pair of children laughing together.
And as soon as the last notes of “Me an’ Bobby McGee” ended, Richie took his arm from behind me and shut off the tape. Then he touched my face very gently.
“We can’t be blues singers, Maggie,” he said, quite seriously.
“Oh?”
“Real blues people live their music, like Janis and Muddy Waters and Leadbelly did. I can’t do blues because I’m the happiest, most fulfilled man in the world, with a wife who’s a gift from God. There’s no room for blues in my life. None at all—there’s too much happiness. And it’ll be like this for—”
“Maggie? Are you OK? You must be an icicle by now—you’ve been standing here for ten minutes. Do you want to come on inside and have some coffee in the back room with me?”
Maggie blinked fast several times, disoriented. She looked down at her packages. The chocolate chip cookie had been stolen by the wind, flipped away to the grime and salt on the sidewalk.
“I’m OK, Lonnie,” Maggie said. “I’ve got to get back to the farm. You go on inside before you freeze. I’m fine—really. I was just remembering...”
“Can you drive? Why not sit down for a minute and drink some coffee?”
“I really can’t. I’ve got horses to feed and chores to do. Don’t worry, I’m OK; I was just spacing out for a minute. Thanks for coming out—and you’d better go on in before your brothers and sisters give away the store.”
Lonnie finally smiled. “Yeah. You take care, Maggie.”
Maggie smiled, waved, and fought the wind to her truck. She started the engine and let it idle for a minute before putting on the heater and driving off. A few months ago what I just relived would have torn my heart out. It hurt today, but I can treasure that moment—at least a bit. No—a lot.
It was unusual for the horses to be clustered at the back of the barn at midday. Dakota stood tail into the wind; Dancer stood next to him, using the older horse for a windbreak. Turnip danced in place, wide-eyed, and whinnied as Maggie hustled from her truck to the barn. Happy pawed at the dirt in front of the door as if she were attempting to dig her way to safety. Dusty, also wide-eyed, wheeled back, ears flat to her head, teeth snapping, as Turnip tried to shove her away from the closed door. Dancer tucked himself closer to Dakota.
The barn was as cold as a meat locker, and its structure creaked as the wind assaulted it. Maggie knew that a certain amount of flex was engineered into any building, from skyscrapers to garages. Still, the painful-sounding groans of wood grinding wood and the shrill shrieks of her barn were disconcerting, like the cries of an injured animal. The thudding noise at the back door told her the horses were jostling one another for position, anticipating her swinging the door open.
Maggie opened the gates to each of the stalls as she hurried to the back door. She’d mucked the stalls before leaving for town that morning, and each had fresh water, hay, and grain. Horses knew their own stalls from those of their peers; stalls were their safe havens where there was always safety, food, and security. On this day, as Maggie slid open the door on its track and Turnip, Dusty, Dancer, Happy, and Dakota muscled their ways into the barn, all five horses had sudden memory lapses and stood in a nipping, tail-wringing cluster, like a gaggle of nervous chickens. Maggie snatched a lead rope from a hook on the wall and draped it over Dancer’s neck, pulling him into his stall. Dakota hurried into Turnip’s stall, while Turnip pushed into Dusty’s. Dusty, looking confused and frightened, stood gawking at Maggie until she led the mare into Turnip’s stall. Happy ended up in her own home and stood tight to the far wall, trembling. The safe haven of their individual stalls no longer mattered to the spooked and nervous
animals—any stall was fine, as long as it was inside the barn. Maggie walked from horse to horse, touching each one, speaking softly, offering treats from the basket of apples she kept filled in the barn. Slowly, the animals calmed, and soon each was crunching away at the fresh feed in the grain buckets or on the flakes of hay each stall contained.
Maggie watched her horses eat for ten or fifteen minutes, constantly aware of the power of the wind howling outside. She left the lights on, and before she left the barn she took a long coil of cable-reinforced rope from a cabinet. Outside the barn, less than a foot from the door, a series of stout brass eyes were bolted to the barn wall, the first a foot above ground level, the second two feet, the third three, and the fourth five feet from the ground. She tied a very careful double knot to the third eye and started toward the house, staggering in the wind and uncoiling the rope as she trudged ahead. There had been little snow so far that winter, but Maggie knew that when it came, it would come hard and fast. When lashed by the gale-force winds, snow could obliterate visibility and confuse a rancher who set out to the barn to feed stock.
Rich had read a story about a young Montana rancher who’d been found frozen to death within twenty feet of his home. That same day, Rich had driven to the Coldwater hardware store and purchased the reinforced rope and the brass eyes and fittings. He’d installed them that evening. Maggie kept another coil of the rope in the mudroom so that it could be attached at the house.
Maggie tied another double knot and secured the rope to the house. The strange moaning sound the wind produced as it stretched the rope made her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. After tying the rope she went to her truck to retrieve her treats and her bread and sighed with genuine relief when she entered her kitchen. When she dropped the bread on the counter it clunked as if she’d dropped a brick instead of a loaf of rye—it was frozen solid. She turned on the kitchen radio before taking off her scarf and coat, catching an already started newscast.
“... up to sixty miles per hour, which is one heck of a lot of wind, even for around here,” the announcer said. “But the good news is that the storm is going to miss the Coldwater area, at least for now. The travel advisory is still in effect—all unnecessary travel should be avoided till the advisory is cleared. The National Weather Bureau tells us there’s a real good chance the whole mess will veer off and give ol’ North Dakota some grief. The wind should taper way down after midnight, and so far, Thanksgiving in our part of the Big Sky State is lookin’ just delicious!” He paused for a brief moment, during which his voice took on a cloying semblance of a man-to-man tone. “Ya know gents, lots of us in our thirties, forties, and fifties are losing more hair than we want to—and more than we have to! That’s right—you heard me. You don’t have to lose your hair, and you can grow back what you’ve already lost. How? Just listen up an’ let me tell you about a new product developed in the scientific laboratories of—”
Maggie snapped off the radio, mumbling, “Idiot,” under her breath.
That night something tugged Maggie from a sound sleep. She listened carefully, her eyes finding the clock on her bedside table. The square, liquid green digits read 4:12.
Everything was quiet in the house—just as it should be. Then it struck her: she wasn’t reacting to a sound but to the lack of sound. The wind had stopped.
Maggie leaned from her bed and pushed the window curtain aside. Her land, her fences, all of the outdoors slept peacefully under the soft light of a cloudless sky from which a pure white half-moon stood guard. She turned away from the window, adjusted her pillow, snuggled up under her covers, and returned to sleep.
The horses that morning were oddly subdued. Turnip, the most vocal of the four, rarely failed to greet Maggie with a whinny and a snort through his nostrils. Dusty invariably rushed to the front of her stall, awaiting her morning scratch and a few words from Maggie. Dakota, a chowhound who ordinarily followed Maggie’s every move with his eyes and grumbled at her as she scooped grain and broke flakes of hay from bales, stood back from his stall gate, showing no interest in his coming meal. Dancer, obviously nervous, his ears moving about too rapidly, his eyes darting just as quickly, was in the far corner of his stall, crouched slightly. As Maggie watched, a slight tremble showed in the colt’s neck and shoulders.
Cringing—my most curious and intelligent horse is cringing like a mouse cornered by a cat.
She went into the stall and approached Dancer slowly, her hand extended. When she was in front of him, he moved forward a step and shoved his muzzle into her unzipped coat. She felt him tremble once again. Her practiced hands moved over Dancer, feeling the tension in his muscles, the slightly elevated rate of his heartbeat, the unusual jerkiness of his motions. She murmured to the colt for several minutes, stroking him, still examining him for any indication of sickness. When she backed away from Dancer he moved again to the far corner of his stall.
After Maggie had filled the grain bins and tossed fresh hay into the stalls, Dakota was the first to begin eating. His grunting and crunching apparently activated the appetites of the others, and soon all five were busy with their hay and grain. Maggie examined each of the horses as carefully as she had Dancer. She found no sign of illness or pain. Perplexed and worried, she ran from the barn to her house. She dialed Danny Pulver’s number, and when he answered she breathed a prayer of thanks. It took only moments for her to describe the symptoms of the animals.
“You’re the third caller this morning about the same thing, Maggie,” the vet said. “What’s going on is that the horses are simply reacting to the change in the weather. That wind yesterday afternoon and last night had every animal around here as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
“But the wind stopped hours ago. Why are they still reacting to it?”
“Because the barometric pressure has been all over the place and they feel the changes—and it scares them. Look, you know how some dogs get hinky long before thunderstorms, hiding under beds, panting, all that? The thing with the horses amounts to the same thing. Their instincts tell them something is wrong, but they don’t quite know what it is. I’ll bet Dusty and Dancer and the whole bunch of them came to the barn early yesterday, right?”
“Yeah—yeah they did. It was about midday.”
“See? Every horse for miles around was seeking out shelter yesterday. Instinct again, Maggie. I’d suggest you leave them in the barn today and tonight and then turn them out tomorrow morning, just like always. You don’t have a thing to worry about. There’s nothing wrong with the horses.”
Maggie’s voice was a bit tentative. “You’re... you’re sure?”
Danny chuckled. “As sure as I am that I’ll be real pleased to see you in a few hours at the Morrison’s place. OK?”
“OK, Danny. And thanks.”
If Danny had been standing there, Maggie would have hugged him. She decided to allow herself the luxury of another cup of coffee, and as she stood at the sink rinsing the pot, she glanced out the window at the rope she’d strung between the barn and the house the night before. She grinned; it looked like a foolishly low clothesline. As Maggie watched, a few fat snowflakes drifted downward lazily, as if they were ambling to the ground rather than actually falling. Soon, her coffee was perking.
Sarah had said noon, and folks in and around Coldwater didn’t play the “fashionably late” game. Maggie, after another visit to the horses, was on the road by twenty to twelve, her white box of cannoli in the passenger seat next to her. All of the horses had accepted the apples she’d given them, but they—particularly Dusty—had been needy, wanting more words and more stroking. Maggie topped off their water, tossed extra flakes of hay into their stalls, and left the barn, feeling much like an uncaring and negligent mother.
She turned on the radio as soon as she’d left her driveway. The tiny gospel station from Coldwater was a raucous buzz of static, and she punched in CLTR, the most powerful station.
“... hate to say
this, but it’s more’n a little possible, folks. We here at CLTR know lots of our listeners have places to go for the holiday—but I’m askin’ you personally—don’t do it. The people at the National Weather Bureau have upped their advisory to a warning. It looks like the reprieve from yestiddy has pulled kind of an ugly U-turn and is heading right back at us. ’Member ’89 when our cattle...” There were no more words.
Maggie turned up the volume, but the screeching, power-saw attack of static hit her like a slap, and she jabbed the off button. She turned into Sarah Morrison’s long, serpentine driveway and followed the gentle curves to the house. Ian’s silly compact was parked in front, Danny’s GMC right behind it. Sarah’s Rolls-Royce watched over the lesser vehicles from its garage, its shiplike prow pointing outward down the driveway.
Maggie nudged her truck behind Danny’s truck and turned off the engine. This might be very good. And I need these people.
She sat for a moment and then tugged upward on the door release. She watched, stunned, as the door slammed forward and crashed against the fender, and then hung twisted from its lower hinge.
The howl of the wind was horrendous—a tidal wave of sound that she felt as much as heard—and assaulted Maggie with battering-ram strength. Her entire body began trembling immediately, and her teeth clattered together with enough force to send shards of pain radiating through her face. It had been cold earlier, but the temperature in the cab of Maggie’s truck was now something completely different, unworldly, a frigidity that could snuff life as easily as water kills the flame of a candle.
Changes of Heart Page 10