Jim Harrison - Legends of the Fall

Tristan spent a taciturn month in Cornwall with the word reaching Ludlow he was safe after his escape. The first morning the captain had him working on the schooner at the most menial jobs, Tristan not knowing anything about ships but quick to learn of hawsers, knots and sails. The captain had a load of rebuilt generators bound for Nova Scotia, in March, to return with a load of salted beef to be picked up in Norfolk on the way back. He would drop Tristan in Boston to be with his grieving mother and he could make his way home from there. They set sail in March on their antique ship crewed by four old sailors and tight watches—able men were needed for England's war effort. Tristan hacked ice from the rails for a week before the weather turned only a shade warmer, but fair. He was dropped without ceremony in Boston after three weeks at sea. Tristan made his way to South Station and nursed a bottle of rum on the mile run to Dedham where Susannah fainted when he arrived at her father's door. She did not know that he had promised to meet the old captain three months later in Havana.

Tristan, Alfred, Isabel and Susannah sat in a darkened parlor in Louisberg Square; two sons, a mother, a betrothed lover who felt she had improperly invaded their grief. Tristan was stiff and abrupt and Alfred gray and somehow coarsened, and Isabel could not control herself. They readied themselves to attend a memorial service arranged by Samuel's Harvard College friends. Then Tristan announced he would marry Susannah in a few days and his mother denied him permission saying that it was improper to marry even before the funeral. Tristan was curt and manic telling her she might attend if she wished.

Tristan and Susannah married at her family's country place near Dedham and the occasion was hopelessly solemn. Only Susannah's two sisters understood how she could marry a man her parents disliked though they had long been friends of Isabel's.

One late April morning Ludlow went to meet the train in muddy clothes which betrayed his increasing eccentricity. He had been repairing the frost damage to the Cornish stone fence surrounding the ranch house. It was not that he had any sentimental dislike for barbed wire, only that he did not like to look at it. Isabel had requested the Presbyterian minister for the funeral the next day but Ludlow hadn't contacted the man, failing to understand what he had to do with Samuel.

Tristan and Susannah scarcely had left their compartment on the train trip which Isabel thought was indecent and which enlivened Alfred's secret jealousy. Tristan had in mind the making of a son to replace his brother and that was the sole purpose of his marriage, in essence a cruel impulse he knew, but could not help himself. When he embraced his father at the railroad heading he trembled but did not weep until he embraced One Stab.

Early the next morning, a brilliant spring morning with the fresh green pastels of budding aspens and new grass, they buried Samuel's heart up in the canyon near the spring. Isabel saw all their lives becoming history in units of days and nights so fatally private there was no one left for her to love. One Stab watched Decker fill the hole from up on the hillside. When everyone left he walked down the hill and looked at the stone but could not read the words.

SAMUEL DANT LUDLOW 1897-1915

WE WILL NOT SEE HIM BUT WE SHALL JOIN HIM

Tristan's midsummer dreams were full of water; the rolling cold Atlantic swept through his sleep in green unfurlings. If he awoke in the night he would slide his hand hopefully across Susannah's belly. In the two months of their marriage he had been a truly crazed lover though not for any biological reason, but the wound in his brain over Samuel. He idly considered prayer then laughed to himself thinking that God would likely give him a muskrat for a son. He was a week from his unannounced departure to Havana to meet his grandfather, a matter he knew to be unshakably perverse but he could not help himself. A hundred years before he would have been content to travel the land, the mountains and rivers seemingly without end, but now at twenty-one in 1915 there was little or none of that left, and his compulsion was to see beyond the seven millionth wave and further. And not that he didn't love where he was: in fact short of Canada north Montana was his sole option. And perhaps he loved his wife as much as a young man of his unique nature could. He doted on her, kept her to himself, and they talked for hours of mostly imaginary (on his part) plans for the future: to ranch and raise a family and blooded horses and, of course, cattle to support the venture. Susannah would sit near the corral under a parasol to protect her fair skin and watch Tristan and Decker break and train horses aided by the strange half-black Cree who stuck to most difficult mounts like a burr in a setter's hair.

Ludlow had been kept busy entertaining Susannah's father, Arthur, who had come west on a sporting expedition with a large trunk full of H. L. Leonard fly rods. It seemed odd to Ludlow that the man seemed openly to care more for Alfred than Tristan. Alfred's back had repaired itself, but he still needed a cane for his leg. After a few weeks fishing, though, the financier having enjoyed himself so thoroughly looked for something to buy in that curious tradition of the rich who in a state of general good feeling cast about for something to buy. He settled on a large adjoining ranch calling it a wedding present for his daughter and son-in-law though he retained a half share to insure what he referred to as "prudent business practices."

Ludlow became courtly again with his wife: their grief finally too large to be held privately. The rawest time had occurred one hot Sunday afternoon when they were having a picnic on the lawn and a girl in a cheap summer dress rode bareback up to the gate. Tristan immediately strode out and lifted her from the mount, recognizing her while the others watched puzzled but mildly bored: it was the honyocker's daughter from up near Cut Bank to whom Samuel had given his gold watch for safekeeping. She approached the table hugging her satchel to her breast. Tristan introduced her, brought her a plate of food and a glass of lemonade. He sat down beside her and balefully watched as she drew Samuel's watch from her satchel. She had heard of his death in the Helena newspaper and had made the three-day ride to return the watch, and if anyone cared to, they might read Samuel's letters to her. There were a hundred or so, one for each day of his service, and each in his meticulous script. Isabel began to read, then was overcome. Ludlow paced the lawn cursing while Alfred stared at the ground. Susannah took the girl off to give her a bath and a rest. In the middle of the afternoon she said she had to leave and asked that they send the letters to her when they were finished. She would accept nothing, not clothing, money or the gold watch though she asked for a photo of Samuel because he had neglected or was too shy to send one. Tristan rode silently with her a few miles wishing that she were pregnant and that would somehow bring back Samuel, but no, he died pure and virginal. And now she rode off with only a photo to console her. He wanted to strangle the world.

Tristan returned from the short ride in a mood so foul that he tried to break a young stallion that they had had no luck with. It was a tough beefy-looking animal that years later would be referred to as a quarter horse. He intended to breed it to three of his father's thoroughbred mares which Ludlow thought to be an interesting idea, but which Susannah's father, an aficionado of racehorses, thought outrageous. Tristan worked through the late afternoon until it occurred to the watchers at twilight that one of the beasts in the corral, whether the horse or Tristan, would likely end up dying in the match. Susannah's father quipped that the horse would serve a better purpose as dog meat, and Tristan stared at him and said he would name the horse in his honor Arthur Dog Meat at which he stomped off refusing to join them all later for supper and demanding an apology which he didn't get.