A knock at the door made me jump. I was standing in front of my living room windows watching the water trickle off the roof, down the drainpipe where it ran along the ground into the dugout. The dugout had already overflowed and the ice had not yet risen so the ground was still frozen. I was thinking about my latest story, trying to come up with a conflict between two characters, something to base the story around, the rest was... The knock came again louder; reluctantly, I left the window and my thoughts behind and opened the door.
"Hello." It was the neighbour from down the road. He had a rifle in his hand, which he propped up against the door jam. "Just wanted to check you were ok", he said. I looked at him questioningly. "We spotted a grizzly and two cubs walking up the road this way about a half hour ago, thought I would warn you in case you were going out for a walk or something."
The neighbours all thought my propensity for walking was crazy. The only time they ever walked anywhere was if their four wheelers ran out of gas and if they had forgotten to bring the jerry can with them. It wasn't done without a lot of cussing and hollering either.
"Well thanks for telling me," I said, wanting to get back to the window and my musings about my latest story. Noticing the shift in my glance, he said quickly, trying to gain back my attention,
"We have eggs again."
"Eggs."
"Yes, the hens are laying now the warmer weather is here."
"I'll come by later," and then pointedly, "when I've finished writing for the day."
"Two weeks ago, when we had that warm spell, I told Wendy the hens would start laying and I was right. Old Shelley was first. I've had that hen seven years. She never lets me down, always the first to lay in the spring and the last to quit in the fall", he said reminiscently.
I could see it was going to be difficult getting rid of him. He had taken his hat off, was leaning against the other side of the door jam, legs crossed, feet against the bottom of his rifle.
Luckily it's a rare windless day I think, looking through the doorway at a piece of sky arching over what I know to be a hay field still covered in patches of icy, crusty old snow. I knew there is no point in inviting him inside. He never accepts my invitations unless his wife is with him.
"I was just making some tea," I lie.
"Two sugars," he says, "no milk." I leave him contemplating his hat, put a teabag of English breakfast tea into a mug for him, Jasmine tea for myself. While the water boiled I went back to the doorway.
"How's calving?" I ask, knowing this question was good for probably at least an hour. I pulled the wooden chair, which sat opposite, closer. May as well be comfortable.
"Lost a set of twins."
"Oh no what happened?" It was his favourite topic. He had been raising cattle since the age of five, when his father gave him a bummer, a twin that the mother refused to feed. He raised it with a bottle, sold it at the 4H sale as a lead cow. By the time he was fifteen he had twenty-five cows of his own. He was driving tractors full time and bucking logs in the winter. At eighteen he married Wendy, raised seven kids, increased his herd to three hundred and fifty head. I learned all this the first time I met him.
On the road, soon after I had moved in, two years ago, I went for an exploratory walk. He was driving his tractor with a wagonload of hay.
"You must be the new lady down the road. My name's Hank." We shook hands as he told me his life story. Soon I was buying eggs off them, accepting gifts of fresh steak, hamburger and tomatoes from Wendy's greenhouse. In the winter he ploughed my driveway. I returned their friendship with copies of my books, which they loved, bottles of whisky at Christmas and invitations to dinner and for tea. I couldn't wish for better neigbours.
"Thank you kindly," he said draining his cup. "I'll be on my way, have to check those cows." He wagged his finger at me. "You be careful, don't go for a walk till we know those grizzlies have passed though."
I smiled. "Don't worry I'm not going anywhere today," I assured him.
After he had gone I stood for a while in the middle of the room trying to get myself back into the same frame of mind I'd been in before he came to call, but I had lost it. Whatever thought I was trying to create in my head was gone.
I went over to the window, stared at the water dripping out of the pipe but I wasn't the same person I had been an hour ago. Besides the sun was higher in the endless sky, brighter, hotter. This is a beautiful place, I thought. It was why I had come back here, bought this house at the end of the road, left my job and comfortable house in the city. The lure of the land called me.
I had promised Hank I wouldn't go for a walk. With all the heat it was going to be really muddy, I told myself. I opened the double glass doors, dragged a comfy chair onto the patio, got my laptop off my desk, opened to a new blank document and started writing, anything, start in the middle or at the end it doesn't matter, I wrote, recalling advice from one of my favourite writers. Keep you hand moving, be specific, lose control, and don't think ...
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