Freedom: A Short Story

Grandpa taught me to milk a cow. He made it look like a breeze.

“Come-on, girl, it’s time you sat yourself down on the milking stool.” He pointed to the little wooden three-legged stool near the cow’s udder. “Junie Lou won’t bite!”

Junie Lou, a gentle brown cow, turned to stare at me, as Grandpa carefully looped her halter around the rail, tying it into a simple knot. Unconcerned, she began munching on the fresh hay Grandpa had forked into the front of the barn stall. I breathed in the sweet smell of that hay mixed with the scent of manure, and smiled, happy to be at Grandpa and Grandma’s farm, the place I loved most in the world.

I plopped down and reached out for Junie Lou’s teats, grabbing them and squeezing, waiting for the milk to begin squirting into the metal pail, the way I’d seen Grandpa do it a million times. He chuckled as I squeezed, watching as not one drop splattered into the can.

“Grandpa, this cow’s dry!”

“Honey-pie, you move aside. I’ll show you the secret.” I slid off the stool and he squatted onto it. I watched as his thumb and first finger gently squeezed. He pressed down at the top of each teat to push out the milk, squeezing his fingers from the middle to his pinky. The milk magically spurted out in a steady stream, pinging onto the side of the pail. How did he do that? Grandpa grinned, turned and sprayed me in the face with the warm, sweet liquid.

“Ooh! Grandpa!” I laughed, as I wiped my wet cheek on a sleeve.

“Open your mouth next time, eh?”

“Okay, your turn!” Grandpa crouched behind me and held his old rough hands over mine, and helped me get the knack. After a while, he moved his hands away and I was proud to see the milk continue to stream into the bucket, all of my own doing. My hands grew tired before Junie Lou went dry, so lickety-split, Grandpa finished the job for me.

It was early April of 1961, the spring of my 9^th year.

* * *

Mama said living in Miles City, Montana sheltered us from much of the world’s turmoil. Still, whenever my 3^rd grade class practiced the twice monthly bomb drills, it left me afraid inside. When the alarm blared, we had to crawl under our student desks and hide there until the siren quit. The thought of a bomb dropping out of the sky and landing on our town sometimes kept me awake at night, but I didn’t tell anyone. Some might call me a sissy.

Miss Legrid told our class that we didn’t know what the Soviets had in mind for us, but since we were in a Cold War, it was important for us to be prepared. As the crow flies, Miles City was smack dab in the middle between Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls and Ellsworth in South Dakota, putting us in the path of any potential bombing raids. I didn’t understand exactly how the United States had gotten in another war and why it was called “cold.”  Besides, hiding under a desk didn’t seem like a smart way to avoid a bomb.

Our teacher taught us about the evils of communism. She told us some people in the United States had built bomb shelters in their basements. If I had to live in one, I would worry about having enough food and where I might go to the bathroom, especially number two.

One day around the middle of April, after we had finished supper, Daddy read to Mama and me from the Miles City Star evening paper. Our country had wanted to help an island called Cuba resist the “scourge of communism.”  When I asked Daddy to explain a “scourge,” he told me it meant the people under communist rule were often tormented and ill-treated.

I already knew from school that communism was a bad thing, so it came as no surprise that the newspaper reported the President had sent a bunch of rebel soldiers to Cuba to fight. They fought a battle in the Bay of Pigs and it had not turned out well. I felt sad when Daddy read that many of the men had died and secretly wondered what a bay of pigs might look like. I imagined the rebels swimming around a lot of dead pink pigs, floating belly-up in the blood-stained water.

I could forget about dead pigs, bombs and Soviets anytime we went to Grandpa’s farm. For me, the farm was an enchanted land with interesting animals and endless countryside, where adventure always waited. On the farm, I could pretend to be anything and go anywhere. There was no other place in the world like the farm.

During good weather, Mama and I always spent Sundays at the farm, while Daddy went golfing. Sunday was his only day off from work and Mama said we couldn’t hold it against him if he wanted to relax on the golf course. I would have liked him to come along, but I could see her point. Still, I knew I would never choose golfing over visiting the farm.

After early services at the First Methodist Church and a quick stop at home to change clothes, we drove south on the narrow winding road out of town, past the cemetery and down “lover’s lane” to turn onto the highway. From there, we traveled another five miles south to the farm. My heart always skipped a beat when we came over the rise and there before me stood two houses and the old red barn.

Grandma and Grandpa lived in the tiny white house and my aunt, uncle and cousins, Bobby, Joey and Davey, lived in the bigger and newer white house.

One afternoon, my cousins and I tagged along with Grandpa as he walked up toward the highway. Grandpa needed to mend a short portion of the fence alongside the road.

After my cousins and I filled our jean pockets with interesting rocks, we wandered around looking for something else to do. I had an idea. “Let’s go for a hike across the road,” I suggested. “We can be pioneers. Is that all right, Grandpa?” I called over to him. I loved hiking up into the hills above the road.

“Yeah, but you kids stay in sight of the house, you hear?” Grandpa liked to keep an eye on us.

Standing on the edge of the road, we looked this way and that before trotting across the empty two-lane road. Few cars traveled this road between Miles City and Broadus.

On the other side, we skipped down a short stretch of dirt road and crossed the cattle guard between the barbed wire fence line. Once across, we officially became pioneers.

Along with our pocketful of rocks, Bobby and I both carried our pocket knives. Joey and Davey weren’t old enough to have theirs yet. We all found walking sticks to use on our journey.

Appointing myself leader, I yelled, “Westward ho!” We set off down the dirt road, which went for miles up into the hills, where cattle grazed and windmills spun, drawing water up from wells to fill the water tanks where Grandpa and Uncle’s thirsty Herefords could drink. Far off in the distance, I could see Signal Butte, with its tall radio signal towers and blinking lights. If I squinted, further away I could make out the tall, rounded peak with a mesa on either side that everyone called Angel Wings. Our wagon train wouldn’t journey that far today.

Instead, my cousins and I headed toward the small bluff above the road, where wind and time had carved a forest of sandstone toadstools, taller than me, that stood side-by-side atop the hill. I knew exactly where Bobby and I had used our pocket knives to carve our initials into the sandstone last summer. That’s when Grandpa had given me my treasured pocket knife, a three-blade one with a handle of pale-yellow bone. I hoped our initials hadn’t disappeared over the winter.

All around me, spring showed her face. Baby green weeds and leaves sprung out of the cracks in the ground. Wildflowers couldn’t be far behind. Silver sagebrush lined the pathway as we hiked up the rise.

“Rattle, clack. Rattle, clack. Rattle, clack.” What was that? I looked down and to my horror, only inches to the left of my cowboy boot, I saw several tiny pinkish-grey snakes slithering unhurriedly toward me. I bellowed, “Rattlesnakes!”

Walking sticks flew in all directions and we hightailed it back to the dirt road , screaming bloody murder. Grandpa came running  and met us at the cattle guard.

“What in tarnation? What are you kids hollering about?”

“Rattlesnakes, Grandpa! They were likely gonna strike!”

When we described how tiny and pink they were, he told us we’d done well to run fast, because snake venom from babies can be just as dangerous as from a full-grown rattler.

* * *

That spring the newspapers had been full of headlines about space. “Yuri Gagaran, first man in space! Russia wins the race!” The US of A struck back a couple of weeks later when Alan Shepard blasted into space aboard Freedom 7. Glued to the black and white pictures on the television screen, everyone had watched as the gigantic rocket lifted off, soon becoming a speck in the sky. Fifteen minutes later, the space capsule had come back down and dropped into the ocean where it had bobbed up and down until a helicopter plucked Mr. Shepard out of his Mercury spacecraft. I found it hard to imagine being cooped up in that little capsule, shooting out into space like that toward the moon.

Our new president, Mr. John F. Kennedy, spoke to our nation on television about this very thing. He told us that next, we would send a man to the moon. After that announcement, lots of the boys in my class had decided they wanted to be astronauts. I didn’t care about that. What I wanted was a horse of my own.

“Mama, I’ll take good care of a horse. Please? We could keep him in the garage! Please?” My pleas continued to be ignored. We lived on the edge of town and didn’t have a paddock or a barn. Several horses lived on Grandpa’s farm, though, including a brown and white Shetland named Trixie. Everyone considered her the “kid’s horse.”  Trixie’s two main personality traits were a bad attitude and a stubbornness like nobody’s business. Still, I’d rather ride a Shetland pony than not ride at all.

* * *

Scorching hot, Mama said it was too early in June to be this sweltering and that we could probably fry an egg on the sidewalk. After we parked Mama’s little mint green Ford Falcon, she went on into the house to find Grandma while I hightailed it to the barn, looking for Grandpa. I figured that was a sure-fire way to get first dibs on riding Trixie, before my cousins even thought of it.

Stepping up and over the doorway ledge into the silent darkness of the barn, I shivered as the instant coolness tickled my skin. “Grandpa? Are you in here?” I heard noises coming from the tack room and went to find him.

I came around the corner and he jumped a little. Had I scared him? Knitting together his brows, he sized me up, “Betty? Is that you?”

My eyes widened and my head jerked back. I stuttered, “Uh, no, Grandpa, it’s me! Betty is my mama!” Why would he ask me that?

It was as if his eyes suddenly cleared. “Oh, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking,” he laughed at his error. “How’s my best girl today?” He could say things like that since I happened to be his only granddaughter.

“Well, Grandpa, I’m itchin’ to ride today. Could we saddle up Trixie?”

“That old girl? Why, I suppose we could.”

While I watched, Grandpa finished up his repair on a stirrup. He set it aside, grabbed the halter off the peg and scooped up a handful of oats, offering some to me. We walked out into the blinding sunlight and over to the corral. “Come’ mere, girl…” We both held out some oats to encourage her.

She took her sweet time, but eventually the bribery worked and she wandered over to where we stood by the fence rail. Grandpa quickly slid the halter over her head. I thought she glared at him, but she also chowed down the oats we held in our hands. I liked the way her soft velvety lips felt as they brushed my palm.

By now my red and white checkered shirt had become damp with sweat, so I rolled my sleeves up. I was glad Mama had braided my long blonde hair into pigtails to keep it off my neck. I looked forward to being in the saddle and riding like the wind to cool off. Grandpa handed me the reins and together, we led Trixie over to the barn. He ducked back inside to get the saddle and blanket.

I tied the reins up on the corral fence before grabbing the green and red plaid horse blanket. Standing on the bottom fence rail, I threw the pad over Trixie’s back. Next, Grandpa helped me heft the saddle onto her. We flipped the left stirrup up out of the way before tightening and buckling the cinch. She immediately puffed up her stomach, one of her nasty tricks, causing the saddle to come loose and slip sideways when she exhaled. Grandpa chuckled, and muttered, “you crafty nag,” as he expertly re-tightened the cinch, firmly situating the saddle in place.

Grandpa then gave me the okay and I led her out of the corral and into the shade in front of the barn. Carefully, I put my left boot in the stirrup and swung my right over the saddle and into the other stirrup. Trixie whinnied and shuddered a little. Grandpa stood back to watch me. At that moment, I had an idea. If I joined the rodeo circuit and became a barrel racer, Mama would have to let me get a horse. I planned to bring this up with her later.

“Come on, you big bag of wind! Giddy-up!” I kicked her in the flanks with confidence. She held her ground. I kicked her again. She didn’t budge.

“Grandpa! She won’t go!” I’d never met a more stubborn being. He walked over and gave her a little slap on her rear and she moved forward a few steps and turned to look at Grandpa, as if to say, “Excuse me?”

After a few more attempts to get her moving, I decided on a new plan. “Oh, all right, you ornery beast, have it your way!” I put my leg back over the saddle and slid off. Grandpa stayed behind, while Trixie and I walked to the neighbor’s fence line, which put us as far away from the barn as possible. She moseyed along behind me, satisfied to move forward as long as I stayed off her back. I knew for a fact she’d not hesitate to gallop straight back to the barn.

I climbed back up onto the saddle and turned her toward the barn. I didn’t even have to say “giddy-up.” Just as I had expected, she took off at a furious gallop, and we rode like lightning, screeching to a halt in front of the barn door. She immediately started to buck. “Stop! Stop it! You bag of bones!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, pulling on the reins and holding on for dear life.

Grandpa laughed so hard, he could barely grab the reins and bring her under control.

“Good for you, girl! You stayed in the saddle. You didn’t let her buck you off!”

I decided it a good thing Mama and Grandma hadn’t seen this happen, because they would have scolded Grandpa for risking my life on that bullheaded pony.

Grandpa took the reins and led us around the barnyard for a while. The heat started to get to all three of us, so we called it a day.

I helped Grandpa put the saddle away and we turned Trixie loose in the corral. Grandpa went back into the barn and I wandered off in search of Mama and Grandma. I found them in the hen house collecting eggs. When I opened the door of that stale-smelling coop, the sunlight burst inside, revealing millions of dust specks spinning in the air. I sneezed three times.

I’d heard tales of chickens that liked to peck a person’s hands if they even came close to their nest. Thankfully, Grandma had calm chickens that didn’t mind when I slid my hand underneath to scoop out an egg or two. I helped Mama and Grandma finish up, knowing Grandma would use some of these eggs to make her mouth-watering egg noodles for Sunday dinner today.

* * *

“Daddy, may we please buy lots of helicopter buzz bombs? Oh, and we can’t forget the parachutes!” I gave Daddy advice as we waited in line at one of the many fireworks stands on the edge of town. To my delight, Independence Day came on a Tuesday this year, which meant an extra day to spend at the farm.

I looked forward to this holiday all year. We always celebrated the 4th with fireworks and oodles of food. We would eat fried chicken and potato salad, plus birthday cake, because it was also Bobby’s birthday. After we were all stuffed, we would take turns playing croquet that Uncle would set up in the yard. The best part was being allowed to stay up late for the fireworks.

Bobby, a year older than me, had bright red hair that stuck up in places and lots of freckles. “You’re a firecracker!” I teased him. “That’s how you got your red hair!” That got his dander up and he growled, pretending to be mad, and chased me all over the yard. Luckily I ran fast, right into Grandpa’s arms.

Bobby got back at me later in the day.  He strung a whole slew of Black Cats together in a tin can and set it off. I jumped nearly 10 feet straight up into the air. I didn’t much like the ear-splitting rat-a-tat-tat when those firecrackers all let loose, one after the other. It scared me, sending me into Grandpa’s arms for a second time.

By late afternoon, we kids started to beg, “Please, can we set off the parachutes?” We needed daylight, so we could see where to chase the little paper chutes after the firecrackers exploded. Plus, we had Black Snakes to light! The ash spirals they made really did look like creepy black snakes.

As the afternoon wound down, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the thunderheads that threatened on the horizon skedaddled on east towards Baker. As soon as dusk settled, out came the sparklers. Using punks, my cousins and I took turns lighting each other’s dazzling sticks, and then ran around waving them, sparks flying as we wrote our names in the air, trailed by swirls of smoke.

It takes a long, long time for it to get dark on July 4. Dark in the country is different than dark in the town. Dark in the country is inky black, so the fireworks look amazing.

Uncle and Daddy took turns lighting the fuses, while the rest of us oohed and aahed. The buzz bombs spiraled and squealed into the sky and sometimes the duds buzzed sideways, sending us running every which way. The fountains burst with color, while the Roman candles whizzed and sprayed sparks high enough to cast a glow on all our eager faces.

“Grandma, where’d Grandpa go?” I noticed he had disappeared. He usually helped to light the fuses. Grandma told me the loud noises seemed to be upsetting him tonight, so he had gone inside the house.

I went to look for him. “Grandpa, are you in here?” He didn’t answer. “Grandpa?” I wandered a little further into the dark kitchen toward the living room. The old house creaked and groaned, making eerie noises and sending chills up my spine. Frightened, I ran back outside, pretending to be fine, but feeling sorry that Grandpa was missing all the pretty fireworks.

* * *

As the summer wore on, Mama and I began to make some mid-week trips to the farm. This suited me fine. I noticed Grandma and Mama began talking on the telephone a lot more, too. What had me worried was that they always talked about Grandpa and how he was “failing.”

Oh dear, what could he be failing? It confused me, but I was too afraid to ask. I thought about failing on a school exam, and how scary that thought was. I overheard Grandma telling Mama that Grandpa took the tractor and drove it in circles around the barnyard until it ran out of gas. He wouldn’t listen to everyone telling him to stop. Were they talking about him failing to stop?

* * *

Mama and I drove into the barnyard as Uncle was setting up the irrigation pipes one Wednesday morning in early August. “Oh Mama, look! Uncle is going to irrigate!” I bounced up and down in my seat, hardly able to wait until Mama turned off the car engine. I watched as he laid out the 4-inch pipe to irrigate both the vegetable and flower gardens and all the grass. The biggest thrill happened after he turned the wheel, releasing the water to gush through the pipes and out the umpteen holes, spraying onto the lawn. We kids stripped down to our underpants and ran around in Uncle’s rainstorm, the cool, wet droplets softly sprinkling our skin. Running free filled me with such joy. “Catch me if you can!” I yelled at my cousins. I leaped over pipes like an antelope, before falling onto the wet, squishy grass, dissolving into giggles.

Just before noon, Mama told me it was time to head home. I begged to stay longer. Auntie said she could bring me later, so Mama agreed that I could stay the afternoon, bringing a wide grin to my face.

After lunch, Bobby and I decided to walk down below the big ditch to climb the tall haystack and afterwards gather some alfalfa from the field for the farm’s pet bunnies, Blackie and Thumper. We found Grandpa in the shop and Bobby asked him if it was okay to take the hedge clippers to cut the alfalfa and Grandpa said “uh huh” without really looking at us. Bobby stood on tiptoe to reach up and lift the clippers off the hook.

We crossed the bridge over to the lower field, set down the heavy clippers and climbed up the haystack. I made it to the top first. “I’m king of the stack!” I called down to my cousin as he hurried up to where I perched atop the bales. Before long, we both ended up covered in hay, as we scrambled up the stack before bouncing back down, squealing “Yippee ki yay” at the top of our lungs.

After, side by side in the alfalfa field, Bobby was snipping with the hedge clippers while I tore the green alfalfa stalks by hand.

“Oh! Ouch! Oh, my! Oh! Oweee,” Shocked, I howled in pain, hollering louder than I ever remember hollering before. Looking down, all I saw was blood. My blood. My left pointer finger dangled from my hand, bleeding like a stuck pig. My horrified cousin had clipped my finger instead of the alfalfa. We stared at each other.

“We need to get back right now!” I wailed all the way back to the house, positively terrified my finger might fall off completely.

Uncle and Auntie took one look at my finger and before you could say Jack Robinson, I sat in the backseat of their car speeding into town to the Holy Rosary Hospital, with my hand wrapped in a towel, my finger throbbing. I didn’t even faint, handling my injury like a true pioneer. Even the doctor, who used seven stitches to reattach my finger, told me how bravely I’d behaved.

Mama told me Grandpa got into a whole bucket-full of trouble with Grandma, Uncle, Auntie and herself. They asked what he had been thinking, letting us take those hedge clippers into the field alone. She said he had hung his head and apologized over and over. I was sad that he had gotten into trouble on our account.

While I recuperated, I didn’t have to help do dishes or anything else that might get my bandage wet. I even got to take sponge baths a couple of times. It also meant no swimming until the bandage came off, which made me sad.

I didn’t have much time to feel sorry for myself, though, before I heard the news from over in Germany. It was far worse than getting seven stitches and no swimming.

Those evil commies had decided to put up a long, barbed wire fence, followed by a concrete wall, to split the capital city of Berlin in two. They called it dividing the city, but what they were really dividing was families caught on either side. No longer free, the people on the East side could no longer cross over to the West unless they wanted to risk getting shot by the communist “scourge.” I couldn’t even imagine how awful it would be to lose part of my family this way. What was the world coming to, anyway?

* * *

My finger healed as the summer slipped away. Labor Day weekend brought the end of summer vacation, along with a heatwave. It thrilled me that Mama and I were spending the entire weekend at the farm.

Our car pulled to a stop near the fence in front of Uncle’s house on Friday afternoon. From the car window, I saw my cousins busy building roads. I loved playing with Tonka trucks and hopped out of the car to run join them.

The four of us scraped and moved dirt, dug holes, and built roads going all over the place in the long dirt roadway leading up to the house. After Auntie and Mama saw how hot and filthy we’d gotten playing in the dirt, they easily agreed to one last swim in the big ditch.

“Last one in is a rotten egg!” I tossed my big black inner tube into the brown, murky water and jumped off the wooden bridge after it. My cousins followed me with their inner tubes. Grandpa watched us from the bridge. The water temperature was at its warmest of the summer. We floated on inner tubes, splashing and kicking in the muddy water. Even though the ditch was close to eight-feet deep in places, I liked the shallow parts where I could touch bottom and feel the mud, all squishy and mushy, ooze up between my toes.

“Now that looks like fun!” Grandpa called to us. In a flash, he had jumped into the water, but he still had on all his clothes and cowboy boots. He became a leaky boat taking on water, on the verge of sinking.

“Grandpa, Grandpa, what are you doing?!” Scared he might drown, Bobby and I tried to grab his arms. Somehow he managed to latch on to Bobby’s inner tube and we paddled safely over to the bank. Crawling out was another matter, with the ditch bank so steep and slippery.

“Help, help!” we all called. Luckily, Uncle heard our cries from the shop and came running to the rescue. He shook his head twice, or maybe three times. I felt relieved he didn’t scold Grandpa.

Nothing feels as quiet as night time in the country. I heard the squeaking of the screen door as it shut and Auntie’s soft voice reporting that the boys were finally asleep. Grandma told her that Grandpa and I were also asleep. Only, I wasn’t.

Grandma, Uncle, Aunt, and Mama continued to speak in hushed tones out in the kitchen. I listened to their soft voices from my fold-out, rollaway bed in the parlor. I overheard enough to know they were talking about Grandpa and all the strange things he’d been doing lately.

I crawled out of bed, tiptoed across the cool linoleum, stood by the door and listened more closely. I was afraid. I heard Grandma’s shaky voice describing how she found him in the barn crying last week. And how, a couple of nights ago, a neighbor up the road found him out on the highway in his pajamas. I guess that’s why Mama and I had come to stay overnight a few nights. We could help Grandma keep track of him.

What could be wrong? Why would he do that? It wasn’t hard for me to hear the worry in their voices.

* * *

I’m 11 now, but I remember that spring and summer of 1961 like it was yesterday. One of the last things I remember was the afternoon Grandpa and I were alone in the front yard. Mama and Grandma worked in the kitchen packing up the Sunday dinner leftovers to send home with us. I wandered out of the kitchen and into the yard to wait. I looked up to find Grandpa staring silently at me from across the yard, a scowl on his face. He seemed so peculiar.  I don’t think he knew me anymore. I remember the last of the cicadas humming in the trees. I remember the weeping willow that he stood beneath, still full and green in the late September sunshine. I remember the heat of the day closing in on me as I cried for Grandpa, wondering what took him away from me.

That autumn the doctor sent Grandpa away to a place called Warm Springs. Grandma thought he might hurt her accidentally, and she was scared of him. Mama told me Grandpa had something called hard arteries, and we couldn’t keep him at the farm any longer. The doctor told us it was for the best. He said that Warm Springs was where all people like Grandpa were sent. I hoped and prayed he would get better and come back home to all of us. I missed him so.

He had been sent to the East Berlin of Montana. I cried and cried, but he never came home. He died. I never got to see him again. There was nowhere else for him to go. He lived the last two years of his life alone without his family. I sometimes wonder if he died alone too.

I imagine him laughing when the horse bucked. I remember him teaching me how to milk a cow. I try not to remember him staring at me from across the yard, looking fierce. I loved my Grandpa.

I wrote this all down to remember,  just in case my arteries get hard someday.

This short story was featured in the Sandstone: An Anthology to Support This House of Books, to support a local indie bookstore.