Seeing Buffalo

by David Rogers

Table of Contents, parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

part 3

I surveyed the living room, the door to the kitchen and hallway, the cold fireplace. And breathed in the old-house smell. I had not been here for... how long? More than a decade, I supposed. Some sleepless night, I could do the math and figure it out.

Once, after the divorce, my mom had brought me to see my father on my birthday, one of those preadolescent — or barely adolescent — birthdays, when the prospect of cake and presents was still more exciting than any rite of passage, like driving a car or legally buying alcohol.

The visit did not go well. My parents sniped constantly at each other in the vicious, low-key, predatory way adults do when they are never going to like each other again but they are in the presence of children. For some bizarre reason, the adults seem to imagine children will not notice the animosity that flickers like lightning.

I noticed. How two people who so disliked — hated, to be honest — each other could ever have had a kid was another mystery for sleepless nights. I hadn’t talked to my mom for several months, either. I always had the feeling she blamed me for... something. Add it to the mysteries. After I left for college, phone calls became increasingly rare. I did not remember her ever telling me she loved me.

The living room looked orderly enough, pillows propped in the corners of the couch, a few books stacked neatly on the coffee table. Plenty of light from the large window that faced the yard. Whatever other flaws he had, my dad was not a slob. I walked through to the kitchen. The table was bare and clean except for napkins and salt and pepper grouped in the center. The sink was dry, the fridge empty and unplugged. Dad had not been gone long enough for dust to gather on anything.

A kerosene lamp, half-full, sat on the sink counter. I felt the chimney. Cold. The lamp had not recently been lit. If it had been, the smoky smell would have lingered. One small north-facing window in the kitchen provided enough light to navigate, but you would want artificial light to work there.

The electrical grid had never extended to the farm, perhaps because of the creek. Occasional floods would have necessitated some tricky engineering to run power lines. But there was a generator, which Aunt Will had assured me was fueled up and in good working order. I expected my dad to had shut it off when he left. Something else to look into this afternoon.

The weather was warm enough to survive without electric heat, but my phone and computer would not burn kerosene. I turned the faucet. A trickle, then nothing, also as expected. Aunt Will said the pump that brought water from the well was powered by the generator.

Overall, no sign of recent human presence, other than lack of dust. It occurred to me to wonder what Patty had been doing in the house that she would leave no trace. Maybe she just took a nap on the couch and straightened the pillows when she got up.

I opened cabinets. A few cans of chili beans, green peas and peaches. A jar of peanut butter and half a loaf of stale bread. Grocery shopping would be high on the to-do list, as well. With five thousand dollars in the bank, I did not need to eat moldy bread.

I went out the back door to another porch. Like the one in front, it ran the entire side of the house. The big barn and a couple of smaller sheds, one of which was supposed to house the generator, stood to the right, or east, of the main barn, with its fading red paint and small lean-to. Behind them, fields sloped toward the woods and creek. The big barn had a massive loft that had probably not been filled to capacity for decades.

The battered four-wheel drive farm truck, probably older than me, was parked in the shade of the barn. Aunt Will had said the keys should be in a drawer in the kitchen. A lean-to sheltered the ancient tractor and old-fashioned baler that produced bricks of hay small enough for a man to lift and stack.

I walked out of the shade from the porch and stood staring at the barn, remembering. A straight ladder nailed to the wall had led up to the hayloft. No nine-year-old could have resisted climbing it, despite admonitions to stay off it before he fell and broke some bones. Playing in the stacks of bales when I was a kid, finding ways between them where no adult would fit, I had felt like a cave explorer.

My eyes were drawn up to the big door of the barn loft, meant for tossing hay out to the the ground. It was near the peak, over the wide ground-floor doors and just under the second, less-steep stretch of roof. The loft door clattered a little in the slight breeze but stayed closed. It did not look as high as I remembered, but still I could not resist taking in the view from above. I crossed the yard.

One of the big barn doors had been left half-open, presumably so horses could come and go. I had not seen any of them. The hot, sun-fired smell of dried grass and decades of animal waste inhabited the barn like a living thing. The ladder was where I remembered, old two-by-fours worn smooth as glass or old pottery by countless hands and feet. I climbed up, moving easily from rung to rung, surprised by how familiar it felt, as if I had climbed the ladder last week.

At the top, I stepped off and made my way cautiously across the creaky floor. A few bales from the winter supply of hay remained near the door. The old boards squeaked but held solid. “Please, bend but don’t break,” I hoped aloud. The loft was dark, no windows and just a few slanting stripes of light through crevices in walls and around the door. I pushed the door, but it barely moved. I pushed harder.

With a screech, rusty hinges pivoted and the door swung open. I could have sworn I felt a hand against my back and heard a voice quietly say, Go, as the door opened. Another hand caught me and pulled me back. I caught myself, too, against the frame at the last nanosecond and avoided falling ten or twelve feet. I stared around the nearly empty loft and saw nothing but hay. Kid, you’re already hearing things, the voice said, this one in my head, I was certain. How’re you going to make it through a whole summer like this?

A beat of wings and a bird flew over my head and out into the open air. This, too, might have prompted a near-fall if not for my death grip on the door frame. There’s the hand that pushed you, the voice in my head said. The bird, or its mate, ran into your back. Hear that wind? That’s what said, “Go.” And that is that. Now pull yourself together. The voice in my head sounded very confident and reassuring, but I didn’t believe it. Not entirely.

The breeze sighed, a crow made its ratchety call somewhere overhead, and it seemed as if anything were possible. While my heart thumped frantically, I stared out over the fields and woods beyond. The house and barn sat on a little rise, so the terrain sloped downward in all directions from there. My current vantage point was the highest around. Except maybe a second floor window of the house. I wished I had a map, even the kind that turns up on first pages of fantasy novels. Or maybe, especially that kind, the one that lets you know where the dragon lives.

I knew the basic outline of the land and creek, but distance and size remained mysteries. I still didn’t see any horses, but at the tree line stood something that looked very much like a large black bull, sun reflecting brightly off the horns. The animal seemed to stare back at me a moment and then disappear into the woods. Aunt Will had said nothing about a bull.

I shook my head, rubbed my eyes and realized I was starving. My eyes — and brain, probably — were suffering effects of low blood sugar. Too much nostalgia on an empty stomach. If I’d been thinking clearly, I’d surely have been smart enough not to almost fall out of the loft. My bull was probably a deer, a buck with big antlers, tan coat darkened to almost-black in the shade of the woods, which were a long way off. Half a mile, or three-quarters? I had spent too much time in cities and suburbs to be good at judging distance in open spaces.

Tomorrow, or some day soon, I would see if I could start the truck and make rounds of the fields, maybe see where the horses wandered when they left the barn. For now, I guessed they were smart enough to find their way back to the barn if they needed to. A few clumps of hay were scattered below the loft door. Dad must have thrown some down before he departed. Meanwhile, the horses could probably find some spring grass to eat if they were hungry.

The afternoon sun was low in the west. I decided to go back to the house, open a can of beans and make a peanut butter sandwich — if the bread was edible — and see if my phone would get a signal. I should call my aunt and let her know I was here. Or maybe just watch old movies till I fell asleep. It had been a long, fairly strange day.

* * *

Next morning, a Saturday, I woke somewhat disoriented. It took a minute to remember where I was. My mind held vague memories of strange dreams, trying to sleep in a treehouse in the woods. The dream woods were populated by herds of deer, all with huge sets of antlers. Even the does had antlers. Don’t ask me why; it was a dream. The deer ran around and around the tree. One of the deer came up to the treehouse and asked me where I had put the roosters and why I didn’t mark the spot on the map. I didn’t know the answer to either question. I meant to ask how a deer could climb a tree, but before I did, she asked again where the roosters were. When I still did not answer, she said solemnly, speaking in a midwestern news broadcaster’s accent, “Research is being conducted,” and climbed back down.

I figured I’d better call Aunt Will this morning, lest she cajole the local sheriff into sending a deputy to see if I had fallen down the well. First, however, I needed coffee. The kitchen housed an ancient wood-burning stove, but I saw no wood or kindling and was unsure if it was even safe. Aunt Will had not mentioned the stove, and for all I knew the chimney could be stopped up with birds’ nests. Besides, the spring day would soon be too warm for fires. I put on pants, shoes and jacket and went to see if I could start the generator without electrocuting myself.

The generator shed was unlocked. It did not, in fact, appear to have a lock. Presumably, theft was not a concern at Horseshoe Farm. There was no window and, naturally, the electric light did not work until the generator was started. But in dim light from the open door, I perceived the general layout.

A steel bottle as tall as my head presumably contained some sort of pressurized gas, propane I guessed, to fuel the machine. The generator itself showed signs of many years of use, modifications and repairs. Hose clamps, solder and baling twine secured what I imagined were essential parts.

I pushed the red button under which was written, in faded magic marker, the barely legible word Start. The machine whirred to life and proceeded to purr along quietly. I closed the door and headed back to the house.

The horses appeared to have gathered near or in the barn during the night. Aunt Will had given me instructions about feeding them, as spring grass was still sparse in the fields. I detoured and walked cautiously towards the barn. Might as well investigate the horse-feed situation while I was here.

My aunt had assured me the horses were not aggressive or dangerous, but I still felt a certain need for caution around animals that were considerably larger and more powerful than myself. They seemed to feel the same way about the appearance of an unfamiliar biped. They whinnied and shied away as I approached.

Inside the barn, I found a five-gallon plastic bucket labeled Feed. It held a grainy, clumpy substance that smelled like molasses. One of my duties would be to buy more of this when the supply ran low. I poured some into the the wooden trough just outside the door, guessing at the amount and planning to check Aunt Will’s instructions regarding amounts.

The open-topped water tank was still half-full. Though why a tank was needed I was unsure. Couldn’t the horses drink from the creek, at least in warm weather? And there was a pond down the hill a way. Or had been when I was a kid.

No matter. Most of the hay that had been on the ground the day before was gone, so, with some trepidation, given the previous day’s experience, I climbed the ladder. This time, I threw down most of a bale of hay without almost falling out of the loft. Also without being dive-bombed by crows or hearing voices.

The horses, apparently having decided I was mostly harmless, barely noticed when I emerged from the barn. I did a quick count and went in search of coffee. My first full day as a farm hand seemed to be going well enough.

* * *

Proceed to part 4...

Copyright © 2021 by David Rogers