THE USUAL NOTE FROM LB: From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2010, Gwen the Beautiful and I were the proud and often exhausted owners of a beautiful Ozarks property we called Cloud Creek Ranch.
In many ways, the ranch was paradise. But it was a paradise with a price that started going up before we even knew it existed. Here’s another Monday musing about our adventure and the lessons we learned.
Oh, and if y’all detect any irony, please believe me when I say it comes straight from the universe and not your kindly Uncle Larry B.
by Larry Brody
Who should I run into the other day over at Paradise Feed but the Horse Lady? Standing proud but watchful as a couple of the boys loaded the trunk of her old car with bag after bag of chicken scratch.
“Burl Sr. brought me some chickens yesterday,” she said. “Couple dozen leghorns he says are good layers. Now I’ve got to feed the things!”
“Sounds like a neighborly thing to do,” I said.
The Horse Lady snorted like—well, pretty much like a horse. “I think there was less to it than that. He’s rebuilding his chicken house for turkeys. Said he got a contract with Tyson.”
Uncle Ernie came out to the loading dock, waiting his turn. “Yep, I heard Burl was out of the hobby chicken business and going all agricorp. Sign of the times, I s’pose.”
“Ain’t the times that bug me,” said the Horse Lady. She looked Uncle Ernie right in the eye. “It’s the people.”
One of the loaders slammed the Horse Lady’s trunk shut. It took two tries. “You’re good to go, ma’am,” he said. Adding, as everyone at Paradise Feed always adds, a smiling, “Thank you.”
“Mmfft,” the Horse Lady said, and without another word she got into the car and drove off.
“What’s wrong with her?” the loader said.
“Nothing’ that ain’t always wrong,” Uncle Ernie replied. “Woman’s never been the kindest, gentlest soul. Even when she was young she had a temper that would make a copperhead cry.”
“She’s been okay to me and Gwen,” I said.
“Uncle Ernie shrugged. “Everybody’s okay to Gwen the Beautiful. But the Horse Lady hasn’t had a civil word for me in…oh, six or seven years.”
I know how little it takes to pry a little history out of Uncle Ernie. So as soon as the loader went back inside for my three sacks of 12% horse grain I went right for it. “What happened?’ I said. ‘What’d you do?”
“Didn’t do nothing,” he said. “I was just the messenger, is all.”
He bent his knees just a bit, spread his legs, relaxing and settling in with the memory without having to sit down.
“It was the second week of deer season,” Uncle Ernie said. “Jimmy Blue and I were at the old Wal-Mart, getting us some camo clothes. Turned around and saw the Horse Lady giving me her wild mare’s eye.
“‘Going hunting, I see,’ she said, and I reckoned how that was right. ‘Don’t you come anywhere near my property now, you hear?’ she said.
“‘Why would I want to go all that way?’ I said. ‘Plenty of woods and deer everywhere.’
“‘Just make sure you don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything happening to that baby of mine.’
“‘And what baby would that be?’ I said, and she got this cloudy look on her face and told me about a fawn she’d been raising. How she took it in ‘cuz it had no mother. How it got too big to stay in the house anymore and she’d put it out.
“‘He stayed right around the creek for almost a year,’ the Horse Lady told me, ‘big and strong and still nuzzling up to me now and then. But he’s been gone for about ten days. Probably met up with some doe.’
“‘Ten days, huh?’ I said. Same as hunting season. Seems to me it’s too late for you to be worrying about me…’
“And, wham! she slapped my face so hard I thought my upper plate was gonna pop right out. Stomped off faster than I could blink.”
“Ah,” I said. “The messenger thing.”
“Exactly. The woman wanted to have some Walt Disney story going on for real, and I went and reminded her it weren’t anymore likely than rain falling out of the clear blue sky. Hates me for that, she does. Every bit as much as if I’d shot her deer.”
I’ve been thinking about what Uncle Ernie told me. A short conversation all those years ago. A woman telling her truth. A man telling his.
Both of these people have lived long, hard lives. Both of them know what this world is like. But one wanted to change it—in her mind if nowhere else—to reaffirm life.
And the other couldn’t do that. Didn’t see the need.
In my truth, both of them were right.
But that’s how I need to see it.
It’s how I reaffirm life.
