The old woman lived
at the end of a long desert road where the wind never stopped
blowing. During the summer, a hot dry southwesterly would whip up all
the dust and dead sagebrush and send it careening across the valley.
The winter brought the bitter harsh northern wind and driving snows
that would blanket the jagged landscape for weeks.
Sometimes she felt
as old as the wind, and the house would always remind her of this.
Whenever a large gust would surge, the baseboards would creak, the
wood siding would shudder, and the roof would maintain its foothold
with a series of quiet moans. The old woman would crack her knuckles
and go about her business. Or maybe she would sit on her back porch
where she let the wind have its fun. It would catch her long hair
turned an ashy silver gray and make it dance as she sat. She might
tap her feet to a silent tune. She might rock back and forth and
mutter quietly under her breath.
There were whispers
she heard on a wind that never stopped. What is she doing in
there? Why won't she let us in? Maybe she really is a witch. She
loved the idea of becoming a witch as she aged; she could see
herself as someone possessed of nefarious intent, engaging in satanic
sorcery, and performing in orgies for the Sabbath. Every once in a
while she actually believed that she did all these things.
What the old woman
did do was make maps. She took her time, meticulously drawing each
crease and fold of the ancient earth as she remembered crossing it.
And the old woman had an incredible memory. Her greatest joy came
from drawing and naming each glacial erratic that dotted the high
desert. She could relate to these giant boulders that came to rest
wherever the ice and sun eventually decided. At times she felt like
an erratic taking thousands of years to travel across a landscape
before finding a home. Of course she wasn't that old, but she would
have preferred if the townsfolk had called her something more akin to
those rocks. Call her erratic. Call her time and temperature bound.
Call her EARTH.
Her maps were
dotted with numbers. For each map she had at least five pages of
notes where each of these numbers was given meaning. One is where so
and so died of pneumonia. Fifteen is where so and so killed the great
bull elk and shared his bounty with another struggling family.
Twenty-two is where the great sunflower crop began with the careless
toss of a wandering traveler. Each map had its set of numbers and
each number corresponded to a different event. This was her history,
this was her past, and it was a past she wanted all of them to
remember. This is why they called her the names with such a tone as
to turn a dry face sour. They hated the past. They hated the dark,
they hated the dirt, and they hated the way she seemed to till it all
into the light.
So she moved out
here with the wind, the stunted trees, and the river running down the
hill from the house. Follow that river for a few miles and you
reached the town, you reached the people, and you reached the end of
history. People were quick to forget down there where the mill turned
every day. Down there where the men, women and children played with
time like it was a new toy. Down there where no one wanted to hear
how things had come to be. She could always hear their incessant
bickering echoing up the hills to linger on her property. She could
feel their discontent, their longing for something more that she
thankfully no longer felt. The insidious nature of their forward
thinking pushed them beyond a past the old woman desperately wanted
to cling to. The old woman was
content to have the past whip around her like the untamed wind.
But there were some
in town not content to just have whispers reach her. No, these people
were possessed by a single word, the most damaging name she could
possibly imagine. They usually came in groups of two or three to
ambush her as she sat on her porch enjoying the afternoon. These
people had the nerve to climb the steps of her porch. They would even
insist on going inside her house. The house she built of her own body
and spirit. To taint such a safe place with their insistent poking
about made her sick. She would retreat inside and explain that her
business was none of theirs. They would always shake their heads and
whisper the name they reserved only for her. They whispered mother.
The real terror
always came on the days when the wind would quiet, the dust would
settle, and the whispers would fall silent. She'd find herself with
little to do but muddle through the cacophony of memories that
bombarded her. They came in a flourish, ravaging her suddenly quiet
mind with thoughts of past years, past conversations, and past
people. It was on these days that the old mother might find herself
crying alone while mending an old kerchief, only to realize that
she'd been sowing the same kerchief for years and hadn't quite
finished.
How long have I
labored on this damn fool thing? She might ask herself while she
stared at the faded fabric like it was a dangerous animal. But she
had it wrong. The kerchief wasn't the animal, the animal was her
mind, her memory. She made maps to remember, but when was the last
time she sat and finished one? The old woman would leap to her feet
in complete disregard for her protesting back and run as fast as she
could to the tiny living room that looked out upon her front porch
and the desert hills beyond.
There she would
always find the truth scattered chaotically about her desk like a bad
dream remembered in the morning. Her notes would reveal an even
darker reality. Her numbers were assigned to random points throughout
the landscape like darts thrown at a board from long distance. Number
thirty-one is the rock where John Haverston killed... and that was
all she wrote. Number upon number of half finished thoughts and ill
conceived memories plagued those false landscapes upon the page.
Sweat might bead down her neck and drip between her sagging shoulder
blades. It would settle at the area just above her buttocks, an area
that once was smooth, curvaceous and appealing that now felt hard and
cracked like the desert floor after days of baking heat.
The old mother
would riffle through the maps, each one confirming the terror was
indeed her reality. She'd throw them to her floor and rush out the
front door to confront the stifling heat and her failing brain in one
fell swoop. Tears would pulse down her cheeks and drip onto her chest
to make little navy blue dots on a baby blue sundress. If she looked
down she might wonder how she came to wear that dress, how many days
had she worn it, and when was the last time she did the wash? The
tears would continue until her knees could bear it no longer and
would buckle. Then the names would come at her like bats from a cave.
STUPID, INCOMPETENT, or even worse DEMENTED.
There, before the
ancient house in the old desert, she would fall to her knees and pray
to God to give her mind back. Then, the wind would rise to toy with
her hair like so many times before. Her tears would dry and she would
stand. She'd smack her dirt covered hands on her dress and blow a
raspberry to have dirtied such a fine garment. Back inside she would
go, the house moaning and groaning like the bones of her body.
Inside, the old woman would find the mess of maps, carefully collect
them, and then toss them back on the desk where she might sit and
decide on the days new numbers. She would eat, she would bathe, and
then she would lie down to sleep as the wind rocked her house and her
soul into a broken slumber.
In the morning she
would wake and put on the blue sundress. She'd think about the people
in town, the ones that found names for her, and she'd shake her head
with great pity. How could those folk ever find a bone to pick with
her? All she wanted was to keep the past alive. The old woman might
find herself downstairs, working on her maps and if she had her way,
the wind might blow all damn day.
