one rotten hero and one long scarf

Saturday August 2nd, 2008

I’ll tell you straight off that Pilot is alright now. If you’ve been worrying anything like to the way I was worrying, well it would just be mean to ramble on and on before letting you in on that.

Truth is, most of the world just kept on like usual and it may be that I’m really the only one who was lost without four legs to follow. I fell asleep over my knitting that night and when I’d finished caring for the chickens and Wilbur in the morning, I picked up the needles again. The whole day passed like that, with Aunt Kitty bringin’ me food I didn’t eat and Ben trying to start a conversation. (It’s a sorry thing when Ben tries to start a conversation, and even on a good day I don’t know that I could have joined in on talking about the bugs that are causing his lettuce to wilt or the whine the truck’s been making.)

I set up on the front porch so I could holler every once in a while and keep my eye out. Every time I called Pilot’s name, Wilbur would come running, wagging her little tail, only to turn away woebegone when she realized Pilot was not coming.

Sometime in the afternoon I finished off my ball of yarn and Aunt Kitty tied on another for me. The day was about gone and Aunt Kitty was just calling me in for bed when I spotted movement on the road.

Here’s what I saw coming over the hill: just the silhouette of a man carryin’ a burden, and the sun a red glow at his back. I stood up, I did, and squinted my eyes. My knitting fell to the floor with a woosh and a click-clack. I raised a hand to shade my eyes, but it was no use. That sun was glued to that man’s back and all I could see of him was the orange line that traced his frame. But that burden– oh, the hope that filled me then!

I fairly flew off of the porch and met him before he’d reached the barn.

“Pilot!” I said, and I said it again. “Pilot!”

When I reached for him, Ezekiel backed up a step.

“He tousled with a cougar, I’d say,” he said.

It shames me to say this was the second time that boy saw me cry. I could not seem to stop myself, though I am sorry for it today. In my defense I’ll tell you that Wilbur did not conduct herself with any more decorum. She sent up wails the likes of which I’ve only read about and imagined, of funeral processions and villages overcome with the black plague.

“He’s alive, see.” Zeke went down on one knee. I knelt there beside him, and Pilot–sweet dog!–lifted his head and nuzzled into my hair.

It’s been near on to two weeks now, and Pilot is starting to seem himself again. I can’t hate that boy near as much as I’d like to, seeing as how he brought Pilot home to me. He said Pilot was just laying on the ground, whimpering, away up the hill, at least a couple miles from home. What Zeke was doing up there I do not know, nor do I much care.

Aunt Kitty says she’s not quite sure what a four-foot girl is going to do with a twelve-foot scarf, but she reckons if I wrap it three or four times around my neck, I may not trip over it too much.

and the winners are…

Monday August 4th, 2008

…Mary and Ellie! Expect an email from me soon, ladies, and happy sewing!

one quiet night and one phantom paddle

Saturday August 16th, 2008

So yesterday I got to wondering where is it all those frogs go when the creek’s all but dried up come mid-summer? Seems there’s as many tadpoles as hairs on my head in the springtime, and by April Aunt Kitty’s always saying she can’t hear herself think for all the racket they send up in the evenings. (What does a person thinking sound like anyhow?)

Me and Pilot and Wilbur got to talking about those frogs last night. I’ll admit I was doing most of the talking, but Pilot, he has his own way of making his opinions known. Goats, they aren’t none too smart, but Pilot and me, we just pretend Wilbur’s part of the talkin’ so as she doesn’t get to feeling left out.

See, we were laying in bed sweatin’–the window wide open, but not even a rumor of a breeze blowing through–and while I was trying to explain to the both of them that I loved them a whole lot, but it was just too darn hot to snuggle close, I got to thinkin’ how quiet it was out there. Pretty soon I figured seeing as how there wasn’t any sleeping happening anyway, we might as well work this out for ourselves while it was foremost in our thoughts.

We made it out the door quiet enough–well, except for Wilbur, who kept trying to curl her lips around a genuine dog whimper to let us know she was scared. Let me tell you, a goat wasn’t made to bark, and it certainly wasn’t made to whimper.

We were halfway down the hill and the moon lighting our way just fine when a rustling started up in the manzanita bushes beside us. I may have peed my pants just a little, but it was Wilbur who bolted back up the hill sending up a holler like to wake the dead. Sure enough, it wasn’t two minutes later Ben was on the back porch bellowing at us:

“Tevis! You had better be in your bed before I find my paddle!” Ben’s always saying stuff like that when he gets real mad. I don’t think he even has a paddle, but the idea of it sure is enough to get my hiney moving.

I was still puzzling over those frogs this morning and I reckon I’ll still be puzzling over them come next spring when they show up by the thousands. Now Aunt Kitty, she’d tell you there’s things on God’s earth we just aren’t meant to understand.

If I’m being real honest with you, I have to admit I get a real strong urge to spit in her eye when she says stuff like that.