Jim Harrison - The Ancient Minstrel

Jerry called to say that he was sending her mother’s ashes by Purolator courier adding that she should go ahead and distribute the ashes by the “lake” as he had an important business trip to make for several weeks in Key West. It took her breath away. The heel. He couldn’t be bothered. She felt a flash of anger that upset her stomach.

The next day the ashes arrived and along with them a check for fifty thousand dollars with “Tim’s education” written in the memo field. She guessed Jerry was buying off his conscience. She didn’t care. Did he have to fly to Key West to get laid? Surely someone closer to New York would make sense, or the summer place in Rhode Island where the entryway was cold marble. She would put the money in the bank where it would reproduce and Tim could go off in eighteen years in new clothes. What more could she want of life? She had no lover but certainly didn’t want one for the time being. But she had a farm, a few horses, about fifty cattle, three piglets, and of course the beloved chickens, also a tiny boy who seemed to like them too. The other day she stupidly ran to the house for the phone and left Hud to guard Tim. When she returned a hatchling was nestled in his diaper and he was smiling from ear to ear while Hud growled at it. Catherine had taught Hud to stay clear of the hatchlings though it enraged him when they pecked at his feet. With one hand Tim brushed the feathers with little coos.

Another piglet escaped, and she called Clara who caught it with difficulty, finally offering it more scratch which it ate out of her hand.

“Doesn’t make you want to eat pork, does it?”

“No!” Catherine laughed. It was best not to name a pig or cow who would end up as meat. The piglet squealed in anger when Clara put him back in the pen and plugged up the escape hole. He simply wanted to wander around freely.

The parents of a ten-year-old Mexican girl had died locally in a car accident and the township was looking for a foster parent who spoke Spanish to take care of her until relatives came from Mexico to retrieve her at the end of the summer, some months away. It was commonly known that Catherine was the only white person in the area who spoke Spanish and she had a decision to make. A recent cold snap had left snow on the ground and Catherine shivered on her way to meet the girl, Lola, and a social worker at the drugstore for a chocolate sundae. The girl held Tim and then quickly changed his diaper on the counter. Her deftness won Catherine’s heart. She spoke soft sibilant Spanish to Tim who enjoyed it. At dinnertime the social worker brought Lola out to the farm. Hud had taken off across the pasture that afternoon and not come back but she couldn’t look for him with the girl arriving. She was sure he’d be all right. Lola had a pathetically small amount of belongings. Her English was fair and full of American slang. She was amused by Catherine’s Spanish and called her “profesora.” Catherine put her into her old bedroom adjoining the new addition so she could hear Tim.

The next morning it felt as warm as a Chinook wind as she looked out at the distant Crazy Mountains, named for the woman who had gone fatally crazy there. Catherine remembered the Chinooks of her childhood fondly. Once it was only ten degrees in the early morning and by noon it was sixty. Kids at school loved them and ran around in shirtsleeves.

Lola looked after Tim, playing with him on the living room rug where he shrieked with laughter, while Catherine carried her mother’s ashes out behind the barn across the lingering snow. She sat on her egg rock holding the box of ashes inside of which was a lovely urn, no doubt Jerry’s idea. There was a thin lid of ice on the pond which was quickly melting. She cast the first handful of ashes out on the ice feeling with her fingers and seeing small bits of bone which was eerie. She was able to take off her coat in the warm wind. She continued to toss handfuls of ashes saying, “Goodbye, Mother.” How could her mother become ashes? She reminded herself of the ways of the earth.

When she finished and the ashes were sinking into the water she thought about how much her mother loved this place and all of their early little picnics. Now the two horses and a calf and a cow were watching her over the fence with curiosity. She would try to keep Tim off of horses for as long as possible. The area was full of the maimed and injured from horseback accidents. Other places boys wanted to be football and basketball stars but here they wanted to be heroes of rodeo, much more dangerous even than football.

Suddenly, with both her parents gone she felt like an orphan and missed her grandparents in London. When she had called her grandmother about her mother’s death Catherine kept sobbing and whispering, “It’s not fair.” Of course it wasn’t. It had been more than a decade since she had turned to her parents for anything. So many people she knew carried their parents around in emotional backpacks. Her own story was largely unknown to anyone but herself and Robert in prison whose sentence had recently been lengthened for beating up a guard. This was plainly the curse of the father. She herself felt no curse and had often thought that her early trip to England to see her grandparents had successfully detoxified her life. She would fly over this summer so they could see their great-grandson and she would also visit Tim’s family. They were getting very old and had just lost their only child. She planned to take Lola with her to help with the baby.

Thoughts of Robert reminded Catherine of another childhood experience that had started as a truly horrid summer evening. Her father had been drunk and raged about stock market losses which he blamed on the “Jews.” Catherine and her mother didn’t believe anything he said and ignored him so he fixed his anger on Robert. They had been eating at the picnic table in the backyard and her father had fallen down twice trying to chase Robert. Robert was much faster which further enraged him. He demanded Robert stop so he could beat him but Robert cut through the hedge and was headed downtown. After dark he came home and thought it was safe because peeking through the window he saw his father was asleep on the den couch. Robert came up to Catherine’s room and said that he was running away at dawn. She said she wanted to go along. She got up and made several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to take. Robert filled his Boy Scout canteen, packed a day pack with warm clothes, and rolled up his summer sleeping bag. After midnight Father awoke, went to Robert’s room, and beat him. Catherine’s mother tried to stop him and he pushed her to the floor. Robert’s lip was cut from a punch and there was blood. Catherine went into the room and screamed, “Daddy, stop that!” The scream was so penetrating that he stopped and walked out the door. That cinched their departure.

They left in the first scant light of dawn walking north to a big woods to conceal themselves if they were being followed. By midday they were lost despite Robert’s Scout compass. They were headed toward Martinsdale where Robert had a friend. Their feet hurt and they spread the sleeping bag and slept a couple of hours in the heat of the afternoon. They hogged their sandwiches but were still hungry. Robert judged that they were too high in the foothills of the Crazy Mountains. They continued to walk, refilling their canteen in a safe-looking creek. They both knew the danger of giardia from animal waste in the water. Late in the afternoon she was sure she recognized parts of the landscape. She mentioned this to Robert who became angry realizing that like many lost people they had walked in a big circle and they were now about two miles behind Grandpa’s farm. They had circled all the way back to the southeast.