1
With frozen fingertips, I gave the trough one final blast of the hammer before the ice finally gave way to the liquid beneath. The white cows, who had been eyeing me with great impatience, moved forward greedily, trying to beat each other to the water. I jumped out of their way and meandered back through the corral, climbing over the fence to where Grandpa was waiting.
“Pop quiz, Lou,” Grandpa yelled. He drew closer to me, his tan winter coat wrapped snugly around his body and a large beanie on his head, expertly pitching chunks of hay into the manger.
“What?” I asked, shielding my face as the Wyoming wind blew Texas-sized snowflakes directly at me.
He went to say something again but was stopped by a big, hacking cough that overtook him. Finally, lifting his arms out in the wind, he asked, “What does it take to convince a granddaughter to move to Wyoming permanently? More wind or less wind?”
I laughed, squinting to see him through my wet and fogged glasses. “Definitely more wind. Maybe add in some crazy amounts of snow.”
He chuckled, stabbing his pitchfork into a hay bale, giving the corral one last sweeping glance. “That’s good enough, Lou. They’re not going to eat much in this storm. We’ll be back out early in the morning.”
“Awww, I was just starting to have some fun.” I grinned at Grandpa.
He elbowed me as we walked toward the house. “Don’t worry, fun starts again tomorrow at first light.” Another cough. Swirling snow. Howling wind. I concentrated on the warm, yellow window light up ahead, spilling out into the darkness and beckoning us closer.
“Man, I’m glad I didn’t go to the Bahamas for the week with my friends, like I was originally thinking. Bleh. What a nightmare that would have been.”
“A beach? During Wyoming’s winter season? You dodged a bullet there, girl.”
It was the first week of January. I had beat the impending storm by arriving yesterday for my week-long visit. Today had been my first day back on the job on my grandpa’s ranch, the ominous snow warnings all over the news beginning to prove truthful. The snow had been pelting down since early morning, sticking to the road, mangers, doorways, and freezing my nose hairs. It was nearly 7 pm now and the water troughs, supplying water to my grandpa’s prized Piedmontese cattle out back of the horse/cow motel, had frozen twice already. This unfortunate discovery had me chipping away at the ice with a hammer while looking like a stuffed raccoon in a parka, wild eyes and black hair spilling out from my beanie, while trying hard not to freeze my lily-white lady bits off.
And they were lily-white. It had been years since I had done any physical labor, much less used a pitchfork, unless you count Teacher Appreciation week at the local Cafe Fiesta in Billings, Montana, where their Mexican platters were half-off.
Grandpa elbowed me. “If we’re lucky, Grandma saved me the last piece of chocolate pie.”
“You? I’m the guest. And my body loves gluten. You shouldn’t even be eating it!” We eyed each other for a moment before we suddenly dashed forward, weighed down completely by heavy coats, boots, the weather, and drifting snow—pulling each other’s arms back before calling a truce, laughing.
We made our way up the front steps of the white, two-story farmhouse with a large porch sprawled across the front of the home. I had always loved this house since I was a little girl coming to visit every summer with my family. The smell of cinnamon and spices greeted us inside. We kicked off our boots and draped our wet clothing over the old wooden bench sitting in the entryway. A glow of familiarity washed over me as I repeated the action I had seen my grandpa do a hundred times before.
“Nice day for a picnic,” Grandma said, peeking out from the kitchen.
Even in the middle of the worst projected winter storm Wyoming had seen in years, my grandma was an oasis. She wore a bright coral shirt, white slacks, and bold red lipstick. Her white hair had been permed recently and her earrings and bracelets dangled off her body.
Where my grandpa was a classic, quiet, live-off-the-land introvert, my grandma was Carol Burnett. Loud, fun, and with a rollicking laugh you could hear for miles. It had been a love match between her and my grandpa from the first moment they met. But it hadn’t been without a few tears and grit, as my grandma called it, to take what can only be thought of as an extreme extrovert and move her to the isolated wild that was Wyoming. She had learned to be a great cook, more for survival than anything (the McDonalds in the neighborhood were slim). She had been the one to convince Grandpa to build a few small motel cabins in front of the house, which would bring her guests and people to talk to. The ranch was located in the northeastern corner of Wyoming, only a few miles off highway 90, so it quickly made a name for itself among ranchers as a valuable pit stop between South Dakota and western Wyoming. Mostly cowboys passing through the long stretch of Wyoming with a load of cattle or horses, but occasionally their wives would be with them. Thanks to her influence, the motel patrons had a corral for their stock and a piping hot breakfast included in their stay, and my grandma had people to talk to. She gave up a lot to live in Nowhere, Wyoming, but by the look of her, you’d never know it.
Five minutes later, my hands were washed and my bright red cheeks had died down to a flushed rose. I sat at the table along with both of them, eating the last few pieces of chocolate pie washed down by a tall glass of milk. My grandpa had been diagnosed with Celiac disease a year ago. Grandma had immediately cut out all gluten in the household, with my grandpa’s stubborn exception of the small amounts in his favorite pie crust a few times a year.
When I asked her why he was so stubborn about the pie crust when he had switched everything else over to gluten-free, she said, “He insisted he needed a cheat meal and it would be my chocolate pie.”
“Cause those pie crusts taste like crumbled up cardboard plastered together,” He interjected, stabbing another bite with his fork.
“Doesn’t it hurt your stomach?” I asked.
“Claims it doesn't,” Grandma said, giving me a wry smile.
“It doesn't hurt a bit for me. Doc says it just messes with my blood cells, but a little pie crust once or twice a year won’t kill me.”
“Or anytime we have a visitor,” Grandma retorted.
“Did the chores come back to you like you remember?” Grandpa asked me, clearly changing the subject while taking a second to cough into his napkin. “It’s been so long since you’ve been here.”
“Oh leave her alone, Bob. She’s a busy woman, teaching school. She’s not a kid anymore.”
“I’m just saying, don’t you teachers get all summer off?” Grandpa’s eyes twinkled toward me as he took a bite, a smudge of chocolate smearing onto his lower lip. Without skipping a beat, Grandma licked her finger and wiped it off of him.
He twitched away. “Quit yer slobbering on me, woman.”
