North

We live in the gloom of the hollow, wet and unhappy. Each day I ask to move, but the answer is always the same. Tomorrow. Tomorrow—the children ask if it passed by while we slept. I say no, it is slow to come, like the night is slow to end.

I want to haul that cabin north to where the land lies dry as wheat fields. But he tells me he needs the team, and besides, we’d be too far from water, making more work for him. He forgets: I haul the water, do most of the work.

One day, when he rides to town to sell the foal, I borrow the bachelor neighbors’ team, trade them three weeks wash in return. They load up the wash then and there. The kids and I wrestle that cabin onto runners and tow it north. Thing is, takes me a long time to find north. I keep lookin’ and lookin’. The kids too. The little one asks, is it where the sky falls like geese landing?

Finally I settle on a piece, plant that cabin on the top of a hill with views in every direction. For the first time in seasons I know the comings and goings of the moon. “New moon,” I whisper to the little one.

“When does it grow old?” she asks. That makes me chuckle all the night through. By morning I feel young; do the bachelors’ wash in two days. The kids haul the water from a stream running clear as air in a nearby draw. “Whoop-up Creek,” they bless it. Think that name describes our mood.

While the wash dries, I wait. He could follow us. I know. We left tracks wide as a house. Late in the day I tie the wash to the horses and let them go, knowing they’ll smell out the dank.

The man, he never comes. Easy enough to build a house on your own, haul water from a swamp, live off foal cash. Me and the kids, we see it all.

Northern Lights, Fall 1996 - Volume XII, Number 1