One Breath Away. Heather Gudenkauf
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get a story. I don’t think Stuart had this grand plan of using me to get his big scoop. But the opportunity presented itself and Stuart took it.
I finish unwinding the yellow tape, bright and almost cheerful against the whiteness of the snow, if not for the bold black words declaring Police Line Do Not Cross.
Will
That morning Will had slipped into his warmest coveralls, his seventy-year-old joints protesting loudly. He tightly laced his brown leather work boots, pulled on the black-and-yellow winter hat that Marlys knit for him years before and wiggled his thick, rough hands into his insulated pigskin gloves. He stepped outside and made his way past the steel bins filled with corn and soybeans and past the concrete silo. It was a still, quiet morning; the sun had risen as a cold, dull orb in the gray sky, emitting a weak light. He moved toward the feed lot and the heifer paddock slightly out of breath, his heart thrumming with the exertion. Once Marlys returned home, he knew she would try and get him to the doctor and he would refuse.
The Angus had approached him in anticipation, regarding him with their large, soft eyes. And when Will bent over to check the feed bunks he saw that the cattle had licked them clean. The girls were hungry. He found the same slick bunks in the steer pen and checked his watch. He was late again. He had sluggishly gone to the barn where he methodically mixed the cattle feed, a mixture of hay, corn, cornstalks and corn gluten. Good thing he had Daniel, the hired hand, who had already cleaned out the paddocks and spread fresh hay across the frozen ground.
Being irresponsible regarding the farm chores was so unlike him, but without Marlys here everything he did was a little bit off his routine, off-kilter.
It was nearing one o’clock now and Will was making his rounds, checking on all the cows preparing for birth. This he couldn’t put off; if he did, he could have some dead calves and cows on his hands.
The nightly phone calls, always at seven-thirty Iowa time, five-thirty Arizona time, were the worst. First P.J. would talk, chattering on about how much he liked the farm, the snow and sledding, his new school, until Will would gently coax the phone from his fingers and hand it to Augie, who stood by nervously chewing her fingernails.
“Hi, Mom,” Augie would say, her throat dense with tears and something else, regret, guilt maybe. Then there would be a series of yeses, noes, okays. No elaboration on her new life in Broken Branch, short, curt responses. Augie would hand the phone back to Will and rush from the farmhouse, inadequately dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and tennis shoes. Will wasn’t sure where she ran off to, but figured it was probably the old hayloft in the south barn. That’s always where her mother had hidden when she was upset.
Then it was Will’s turn to try and make conversation. “How are you?” he would ask. “Feeling better today?”
Fine, yes, Holly would answer thickly, as if her tongue was swollen or she was heavily medicated. Both were likely.
“P.J. really has taken to farm life. Who would’ve thought? He’s a big help. Asks a lot of questions.”
“Oh, well, good.”
“Augie is a real city girl. Reminds me a lot of you.” Will chuckled. No response. “They miss you, but I’m taking good care of them. No worries, now, you hear?”
“Okay.”
“You get better fast, Hol. Love you.”
“Bye.”
He wasn’t a particularly demonstrative man. Wasn’t the hugging kind. But when his children were under his roof there was not one night that went by where he didn’t tell them he loved them. He saw his share of fellow soldiers cut down in Vietnam when he served as a lieutenant. Boys who would have given anything to tell their wives, their kids, their folks, they loved them one more time. Every night Will would go to his children’s bedrooms and tell them one by one that he loved them. When they were little they would throw themselves into his arms, even Holly, pressing their scrubbed faces into his neck, inhaling the complicated, earthy smells of the farm that rose from his pores. When the boys were older they would casually toss back a Love you, too, Dad, and Will was satisfied. Those words said, he could sleep well that night. Holly, his youngest, was another story. When she was twelve something shifted. She no longer looked at him through the eyes of a little girl who adored her father, but would look at him askance, her eyes judgmental slits. Love you, Hol, he would say, coming to the doorway of her bedroom but not stepping over the threshold into her realm of bottles of nail polish and piles of clothes.
“Good night,” she would say without looking directly at him, snapping the pages of a fashion magazine in irritation.
“Love you, Holly,” he would repeat a little more loudly.
“Uh-huh,” she would answer absentmindedly, and a spark of anger would ignite low in his breastbone.
Eventually he didn’t even bother opening her bedroom door to say good-night. He would knock twice on her door. “Night, Holly. Love you,” he would call through the closed door and briskly walk away. He couldn’t bear seeing the disdain on her face, of not hearing the sweetness of those three little words in response. Now here he was, eighteen years later, saying I love you to a daughter who still couldn’t seem to find one reason to say it back.
After he finished feeding the cattle, he went to the big barn where he and Daniel had moved four expecting heifers earlier in the week. Over one hundred calves were due to be born by mid-May. Despite the shelter from the barn walls, the cold had still seeped in and Will worried that some of the new calves might perish in the bitter weather.
Will patted the sleek rump of the heifer. He would have to stay close and check on her throughout the day. He expected a calf by that evening. He looked up at the sound of a shout. Through the wide doorway, Daniel was waving and jogging toward him. Daniel Tucker was an equable, methodical man of around thirty, unmarried and thoroughly dedicated to the animals and the land. He was a great help to Will, had a calm, gentle way around the cattle, was dependable and a hard worker. In addition to helping Will out on his farm, Daniel was renting farmland from Will in order to raise crops, hoping to one day purchase his own slice of Iowa. As Daniel came closer, his normally placid face was creased in concern; Will realized something wasn’t quite right.
“The school,” Daniel said breathlessly, his cheeks red, his nose running from the biting cold. “Something is happening at the school,” he said again, swiping his arm across his nose.
“What happened?” Will felt his heartbeat gathering speed and guiltily he realized that his thoughts went immediately to P.J., Augie a beat later.
“Something about a man with a gun,” Daniel said, and pulled his stocking cap from his head. “My sister just called me, my niece and nephew go to the school—she’s frantic. Said there’s a big crowd of parents at the school trying to find out what’s going on.”
“My daughter-in-law teaches fourth grade at the school,” Will said, pulling his hat from his head. “I need to call my son. You want to go be with your sister?” Will asked, biting his lip.
“Thought you’d want to go check on P.J. and Augie,” Daniel answered, reaching into his coat pocket for a handkerchief and blowing wetly into it. “And Todd’s wife, of course.”
“I’d appreciate that, Dan,” Will answered gratefully. “Numbers 87 and 134 will give birth sometime today. Can you stay near?” Will asked, pointing toward a wide-shouldered black-baldie whose swollen flank and udders looked ready to burst.
“You betcha,” Daniel said, patting his boss on the shoulder. “If you hear anything, let me know.”
The two moved quickly but in silence back toward the house. The only sounds were the wind whistling between the outbuildings and the mild lowing of the cattle, now satiated and huddled together trying to keep warm.
“Who would do such a thing?” Daniel finally asked, stretching his stocking cap back over his ears.
Will shook his head in bewilderment. He knew