Wildfire

“Jesus, not another Mojave,” spat Dr. Hoffmeister.  He knew what that meant. Most rattlesnake bites ate away at your flesh, and were sure enough dangerous, but they had antivenin for those, and the sodbuster had only been bit yesterday.  Mojave rattlesnakes were neurotoxic; blindness, brain swelling and dementia were followed by death in many cases. Santa Fe would have been a more likely place to find them, but this was the second suspected case at Omaha General.  They didn’t have antivenin, and besides, Mojave bites were unpredictable.  One bite would give somebody a bad headache, and another, hemorrhaging.

John loved the way the deep orange sun came up over the dark flatland.  He felt like it arose just for him, making the whole world friendly.  It wasn’t easy, plowing every day and stringing up barbed wire.  It was friendly like a stern mentor, like the wind, sun, rain and even like the oncoming winter, which whispered “Get it done before you rest.”  It was a far cry from the print shop in Philadelphia.  He’d come out last spring in a wave of ‘Piece of Heaven’ deals that the fine state of Nebraska saw fit to boost the economy.  Bring out yourself and five thousand dollars and you get two acres and an option for ten more in two years if you could establish a productive ranch.  He was sick of the gritty city back east; the noise, and the strange distraction that settled in like a cough that wouldn’t go away.

He loved sunsets out here too.  His little parcel (he hoped it would be big enough to call a ranch someday, one heck of a stretch at two acres) lay southwest of a yellow mountain, and when the sun got real big at the end of a busy day, the big, broad bluff just glowed like gold.  Some said there was gold in the hill, but John didn’t believe it.  He didn’t believe in much of anything, but not believing out here was better than falling for the advertising, the money, and a couple of girls he figured saw him as an advertisement for money, too.  Out here you didn’t need to have faith in more than the dust that blew around at ten o’clock every morning, or the oats and millet that grew up all by themselves.  Owls and crows lived out their whole lives in the church of the wind and sky.  There wasn’t anything in between himself and life, nothing to buy, sell, or put on a billboard.

He was thinking about all of that one hot August day, in love with the fact that he hadn’t seen a woman since his trip to town last month, and hadn’t had a relationship in two years.  He felt like like he’d been disentangled, like the barbed wire he nailed up in straight lines onto osage posts.  Somehow, without any of the barriers between him and life, it was natural for her to arrive.

Nurse Trudy looked in on the poor farmer, his body racked with toxins.  He was out like a stone, but a hot one.  His eyelids and fingers twitched from time to time.  She was night shift, familiar with fevers and the body’s movements in bad dreams.  She knew he was having one.  He seemed to be reaching, and his leg moved too, almost like he was getting on a horse.  She checked his vitals, and as she turned to leave, she heard the empathic cry of a hoot owl outside the window.  The thing had been there last evening, too.  “Strange,” she thought, and closed the door gently.

He hadn’t even seen her coming.  He was leaning over  his tractor, taking a big stick out of the long red mudguard, when he felt a rush of wind behind him, rolling over his back.  A cool shadow crossed his neck and he heard a soft whinny.  He wheeled around and there she was.  Her hair was dark brown, her lips firm and determined.  Her eyes were big and round, and her skin was olive brown, not a typical cowgirl, but she made her tight jeans and black chaps look rodeo-professional.  “Seen a wolf?”, she asked, with a steady, waiting gaze like there was a lot more to that question.   “Er, uh, no,” he said, “did you lose one?”   He hoped she’d smile, and she did.  “Well, no, shot at one though.”  He looked over the snug and slender holster of her Remington on the side of a strong grey horse.  He wasn’t real big, as horses go, but he looked like he could carry a load or two people and still go fast.  His eyes were absolutely unconcerned with him. They were waiting only for her.  “Wildfire,” she said, patting his wiry neck.  “We’ll find them.”  She clicked her heels nimbly into his sides and pulled up on the reigns.  Wildfire rose up and snorted, turning around in one movement. She looked back down at John.  “Jenny,” she said, as she touched the brim of her hat.  John had just barely opened his mouth to reply and touch his own hat when she said “Hya!” in a crisp bark and they were off, clipping up over the scrub toward yellow mountain.  They were like one swift creature as they wound up and over and disappeared in a little cloud of dust.

John didn’t have any cows or other animals and so didn’t have any wolf trouble.  He heard them, sure as shootin’, every few weeks somewhere far off.  As happy as he’d been with his little place before she whirled by, he was just as unsettled now. But not in a bad way.  He was stirred up to a possibility of something right, something big, something natural and wild.  He knew he would have to find her.

He checked in town a couple of weeks later and sure enough the clerk at the general store knew of her.  He got some rough directions and one of those ‘fat chance buddy’ kind of looks.  Undaunted, he set out driving in his Ford Falcon down the long dusty fence-sided ‘road’ over yellow mountain.  He brought with him a big bag of oats for Wildfire, and while he was in town, he got Jenny a pretty shawl.  It was black and silver, and he figured it’d set her off on her pony.

Well she loved it, and she loved him.  They got along like the wheat and the wind. Even Wildfire, with Jenny’s permission, let him ride.  Wildfire wasn’t like any horse he’d ridden.  He seemed made of wind, he didn’t run as much as he flowed.  Jenny was like that too, wiry and strong, but easygoing with the world around her. She wanted to go places with him.  She took him to the edge of the bluffs, and they made love on her blanket in the warmth of the setting sun.  She could make a stick-to-your-ribs meal and an energetic trail mix both.

They never did move in together that first year because, well, they’d both been through it, they had their own steads and there was ranching and growing which didn’t always mix.  But they often talked anyway about the kind of house they’d like to have by the riverside, with a bigger stall for Wildfire, a field of oats, and a pasture for her cattle.

The enjoyed the summer immensely, what was left of it.  That winter was wicked, but they made good time of the few trips he could make up to her, or when she found clear passage over yellow mountain for her and Wildfire.  She put a thin wool Indian blanket she’d had since she was little on his strong back.  She said it was all he ever needed, no matter how cold he was.  She, on the other hand, had a tendency to get cold; she liked a big down comforter at night.  She gave off a lot of heat, but didn’t seem to keep much in.  He sure didn’t mind snuggling with her.

Winter passed and spring came early.  Crops and cattle grew strong and healthy.  Then it grew very, very dark.  She told him she’d been losing weight (he always thought she should eat more, but you can’t tell a woman that).  Now she’d been to the doctor and tests came back positive for breast cancer.  They wanted to take her right up to Omaha for treatment.  Wildfire didn’t look right as he came up to put her in the car.  He stamped and snorted and knocked against his door.  She walked over to pat him.  “It’s alright baby,” she said, stroking him.  “I’ll be back soon.”  She did come back with John  in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, he’d stayed on her ranch tending to her herd.  Strangely, Wildfire didn’t mind him around anymore. He got to know what the horse liked in terms of commands and movements.  Soon he was moving like the wind, too.

“Not good,”  said Dr. Hoffmeister, examining the stiffening young man.  “Intubate him and put him on a vent, stat.”  He turned to Trudy, who looked at him with that grim hopefulness only nurses have.

When Jenny returned she walked over and let Wildfire out.  He whinnied with delight and ran rings around her.  He nuzzled her for his bridle, but she didn’t have it.  “Not now, baby,”  she said.  “Maybe soon.”  But soon never came.  She weakened with the onset of fall.  She went back to Omaha General in October, but the evil sickness had spread.  She was tired of chemo and asked John to take her home.  He was beside himself.  He told her he would get the money to fly her to New York.  “The treatment is the same there,”  she said kindly.   “Then Mexico,”  he exclaimed.  “They have new treatments there.”  “John,” she whispered, and took his head in her weak hands, “I’m dying.  Go back and harvest your crops before the frost and come back, so you have something that will last.”

A tear flowed from John’s face.  He would stay with her forever, but forever had other plans.   He would be back in a week, he told her.  She was comfortable with medications and he would be done soon. 

On his third day home, there came a stiff breeze out of the west.  He’d gotten about a quarter of the harvest down, and it was getting colder.  He would hurry up the next day.  But that night was a killing frost, rare for mid-October.  The oats were frozen to the core and cracked on the stalks.  He had lost.  Quickly, he got in his Falcon and floored it, rocks flying off his back tires.

Day five at Omaha General and the owl was back again.  The vent had kept his breathing from shutting down.  Who was this lost farmer?  They’d found him twenty miles from the nearest ranch or house, and lucky too that a ranger had been our looking for wolves that day.

John burst into the house, but Jenny was not in the living room, where she usually would be, curled up and reading.  The place was unusually silent.   He ran to the bedroom calling her name, “Jenny, Jenny!”  She was ashen, but breathing.  “My sweet love,” he cried.   She opened her eyes and squeezed his cold hand.  “You’re still a lot warmer than me,”  he said.  “That will change,” she replied in a whisper.  “John, you brought love to me in this wide open space.  I will be with you forever.  Take care of Wildfire, will you?”  John was streaming tears.   “Of course dear, of course. . “   “Or should I,”  she added, “ask Wildfire to take care of you?”   With that, she took her last breath and died.  John held her warm hand and cried.  He told her he loved her and wished her well on her journey through the spirit lands.   He knew what he had to do.  He carried her out to the barn, wrapped in the warm comforter.   “I’m sorry Wildfire.  There was nothing either of us could do.”  Wildfire looked at Jenny and at John.  He sniffed and nuzzled against her.  Then very slowly, he backed into a corner of the barn.  It was strange and John did not know how to react.   As he took Jenny back into the house, it started to snow.

Later that night, as he dreamed of his dear Jenny, Wildfire busted down his stall.  A blizzard blew up around the mountain, and Wildfire was gone.  John woke and ran calling his name, “Wildfire, Wildfire!”.    When the storm had cleared, he went looking for him but he also had a burial to attend to.  He was sure Wildfire had died.

Jenny left her house to him in the will, and he tended her cattle and kept the empty barn neat.  Except for Wildfire, he didn’t care for horses, so he never got another one.  Next spring, he planted under the moon.  But a late snow came and he lost many buds.   A hoot owl took up residence on his windowsill for six nights in a row.  In a dream he saw Jenny, coming for him on her grey horse.

The next day, he decided to clear his head by going on a long hike over yellow mountain.  He started before sunup and hiked most of the day.  It turned out hotter than usual for March.  Suddenly, he found himself in an old dry riverbed, and he could no longer see the mountain.  He got one of those tingles that go up your back and make your ears ring.  He turned and couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“Lay off!”, screamed Dr. Hoffmeister.  Trudy and the other nurses took away the pads.  “He’s gone,”  he said bitterly.  Trudy knew how much the doctor wanted the handsome farmer to live.  That was partly because he’d lost a nephew to snakebite in Florida.  Also, he and his first wife never had children of their own, and she’d refused to adopt.  Trudy didn’t have kids either, just two bad marriages.  She and Dr. Hoffmeister spent every Sunday down at the Indian reservation treating little kids.  She liked everything about him.  Sometimes she thought about talking with him about, well, she didn’t know what.  How do you ask a brilliant and powerful doctor for a drink?

It was Wildfire, thin but still strong.  It had to be, didn’t it?  He wasn’t sure, the sun was hot and he felt disoriented.   Was he grey?  He looked almost white in the brilliant light.  But it had to be.  He was still wearing the Indian blanket.  He reached out for his nose when he heard the rattle.  It was dead center between them.  He started to move back but Wildfire didn't see it and came toward him.  As the snake began to strike, Wildfire noticed and reared up.  The snake got the horse on the rear leg.  John instinctively ran to help and was bitten himself.  Wildfire stamped again and again, killing the rattler.  John struggled to get out his bandana to make a tourniquet for the horse, or for himself.  The last thing he saw was Wildfire, bending down to lick his wound.

Trudy left just before dawn to go home.  She’d lost a few this year, but this was different.  Though she’d not found out where he was from, he seemed important, part of some unfinished story with a pretty sunset and a wild horse in it.  She heard the owl again up by the window as she turned toward the car.  She almost tripped over the Indian blanket on the frozen grass by the Annex.  She saw prints in the snow.  Deer?  A horse?  She had no idea.  She picked up the blanket and said, in a voice soft as the falling snow, “I know a baby who just might need this.”