Writing Assignment #5 - Ann Johnson

The old man rested his mottled right hand on the top of the gray hedge post and gave it a little shake to assure it hadn’t rotted out or loosened up over the winter. He lifted the wire latch with his left hand, and pulled the gate toward him rather than push it against the tall weeds. Looking down at the fresh round ruts in the mud, he was careful to pull the gate firm against the post after he passed through, lest his Hereford cattle wander into the fresh feeding ground of the neighbors’ pasture. They were visible through the trees, their white faces watching him, the darker bodies fading into the shadows of the blackberry bushes and brushy young Eastern red cedar. Lifting his engineer’s cap and wiping his forehead with the cuff of his faded old chicory shirt, he placed it back on his head and leaned over to pick up his small dog, the curled tail all that wasn’t lost in the weeds. On his side of the fence, the grass had been cut and baled for hay. He might even get a second cutting, on toward Fall. Here, it was left to go to flower, maybe to be eaten by the one small horse and fifteen or so sheep the young family kept on their 20 acres. Pushing through the thigh-deep rye and cheat grass, cockleburrs collected on the turned up hem and knees of his faded and soft denim overalls. His worn leather work boots laced up well past his ankles, so at least he wouldn’t have to worry about picking burrs out of his wool socks. Turning east, away from the fence line, the dog licked the sweat off his neck as the old man moved past the trees and focused his eyes toward the big new house across the pasture. Halfway between the western fence that bordered his property and the house, he stopped to look at the large stump in the middle of the pasture. For years, he’d had to mow around this tree, careful of the branches and acorns thrown up by the blades of the brush hog behind his tractor. The tree had been cut about 3 feet above the ground. Not the cleanest cut, but he could see by the rounded grooves in the wood that his young neighbor had used a chainsaw with a blade much short than the tree was wide. He’d done well enough, considering. It’d been a tall tree, but fortunately not tall enough to reach the distance to the barn in case he’d dropped it the wrong way. Remnants of old gray Burr oak bark and sawdust were still visible, packed down into the dirt around the roots that still held their place against the ground. The soggy wood toward the middle of the concentric rings confirmed that it had been heart rot that killed the tree, leaving the empty space in the sky that had been filled since his father bought the land long before. Turning his head to the left, only barely tightening the sagging skin on his neck that reminded me of the fleshy red growth under the chin of a rooster, he stared intently in the direction of four or five other large oaks to the north end of the pasture. One of them had a hollow near the base, he’d found an old opossum skeleton in there one spring, but otherwise they all seemed to be standing tall and true, all but a few broken branches covered in the large lobed green leaves. The previous November a storm had coated everything in an inch of ice, weight that many trees gave up against and snapped, losing branches and changing the shape they’d held for years. In his slow ambling gate, the dog peaceful in his long arms, he continued on toward the house. I watched from behind the woodpile in the barn. I’d seen him roll his own cigarettes, the day we sheared the sheep, creasing the thin white paper and sprinkling it with brown leaves from a pouch he kept in his left breast pocket. His thick gravelly voice spoke of many years of hand rolling, combined with not speaking to people very often, not leaving the piece of earth defined by his own fences, and he wasn’t easy to understand. After he had climbed over the three-board fence and started moving across the freshly cut green grass of the lawn, I watched as he pulled a red handkerchief from his back pocket, wrapped it around his long thick nose, and blew hard. He was tucking the bright cloth back into his pocket and moving around the far side of the house as I raced across the gravel driveway and through the cool dark garage. He always went around back, sometimes startling the young woman by appearing unannounced at the sliding glass door that opened onto the back porch. Most neighbors who were familiar knocked on the garage door that was closest to where they walked up the driveway. More formal visitors always arrived in cars, driving over the long black snake-like hose that sounded a bell in the house, better than a burglar alarm or a doorbell. But not Mr. Muff. He came to the back door, and stood politely watching my mother through the glass as she dusted flour from her hands, not wanting to disturb her focus on the recipe book on the counter, hoping maybe something good would come out of the oven while he was visiting. It was his little dog Jasper who eventually barked, a deeper bark than one would expect from such a tiny, curly-tailed little Chihuahua, letting us know that he was tired of waiting in the sun and wanted to come in for a drink from the cool metal bowl full of water under the desk. I stepped behind the safety of the kitchen counter as my mother hurried over and opened the door to invite him in. Mr. Muff stepped into the house, ducking his head to lessen the impact of his long loose body entering the room. Everything about him was loose, his skin, his clothes, even his long lanky limbs that reminded me of an old worn out scare crow after the straw stuffing has blown out. Taking his usual seat at the head of the kitchen table, his bones had hardly settled into the chair before Jasper jumped up and settled onto his narrow thigh.